The crowded train jerked to a stop, snapping Aaresh awake from her half-asleep state. This was her stop, the stop she had been getting off for the past four months since she started university. She shuffled to the train car’s doors, weaving through the large crowd of people of various species like a flock of tropical birds, a long-necked Cevanti, an isectoid six-legged Zark, a winged Rezon, and of course, Hesukar like her: reptillian, flat-faced, with six cone-shaped crests encircling their faces. They were mostly fellow students going to their housing after classes. The housing districts were purposely close to the stations for easy transportation.

As Asresh walked out onto the station and then out onto the main thoroughfare, she thought about her plan: get off of Providence, go join a research mission off in some far away system, make a major discovery by translating some ancient alien language, and live the rest of her life on a ship going from discovery to discovery. But that would have to wait five whole years. She looked up at the dome that offered a view of space. Though Providence was a vast city in the stars, orbiting the capital, Aaresh felt like she belonged up there. She sighed and walked through the housing district, which comprised blocks of tall plasteel buildings with hundreds of families that surrounded her at every step.

“One day,” she muttered to herself. “One day.”

She arrived at her building and stepped into her lobby. The entrance was large, with bathrooms and seating on one side and amenities on the other. The pool where she learned to swim was on this floor, how she wished to have learned on real soil. When she got to the front desk AI attendant, an orange and black humanoid robot without a face, chirped, “Welcome home, Miss K’larken.” 

Aaaresh used to think it was the coolest thing when she was a hatchling and would spend hours asking it questions, but today she ignored it and went to the elevator. As she ascended, she looked out at the seemingly endless expanse of plasteel buildings that reached to the ceiling. It was a view she’d seen almost every day of her life.

The elevator stopped on the seventy-third floor, her floor. She strode into her apartment, which was large and took up half their floor, the other half belonging to a human family. She noticed no one was home, her parents still working, and her grandparents likely at the senior citizens center, though stars know where her brother is. She headed straight to her room, putting her synthetic fiber bag on her bed when she arrived. She then rifled through it and pulled out her universal translator. It was a small metallic device, made to be inserted into the ear like earbuds. It was developed far off in the Republic of Tetromunda twenty years ago after the discovery of some ancient technology by a team of archaeologists uncovering a site on a forest world. She got her first when she entered school; they were a boon to schooling, as not every species can speak every language.

She put it on her metal desk, which was parallel to her bed. She got her screw driver and began to tinker with it. While she never was fascinated with machines as much as she was with language, she nevertheless found taking apart machines an enjoyable hobby, one she picked up young. She fiddled with the mechanisms that affected the input of sound, intending to simply see what the insides looked like. Once done, she put it back together and put it on.
“Brothers and Sisters of our brave order!” the translator yelled unexpectedly, “By the time dusk falls planet-side, the city’s capital hall of this foul city shall no longer stand. It shall fall beneath our might; our brethren have planted the charges, and when the civil servants start to leave, the hall shall fall.”

Aaresh, stunned, put down the translator. It was probably just an audiobook or movie audio that somehow got caught in the translator, she thought, trying to rationalize what she just heard. That isn’t—it can’t be.

But later that day, her grandfather burst into her room and announced, “By the stars, Aaresh the Capital was bombed. Though I hear no one is dead!”

2

Aaaresh had gone to the university’s library the day after. She could barely sleep with everything going through her head.

“What was that?” she had muttered to herself almost all day. The library was massive, containing some old books but primarily housing rows of computers with vast archives of files from every topic under the stars. On a digital board by the entrance, she noticed a missing notice for a human scientist, a Dr. Edward Campbel, who apparently helped design Providence. She found it odd but thought of it no further. 

She took her seat on one and then began to type anything she could think of. Universal translator, Universal translator bugs, Universal translator history, anything that could get her any closer to finding out what that was. After an hour, she was a lost soul in a labyrinth, looking everywhere but finding only dead ends. She put her head in her hands, accepting defeat until a voice spoke behind her.

“Excuse me, young miss.” It said. “Are you looking for something?” Aaresh looked up to see a Revlio, a reptilian species with two large crest-like horns and odd fleshy whiskers that swayed slightly. He was short, his scales were a dull orange with parts of white scattered on his skin; he looked older and experienced. 

“I was just looking for information about my Universal translator.” She answered, “But there’s nothing that answers my question.”

“Oh,” The Revlio replied. “Perhaps I may be of assistance. I’m not exactly a linguist or engineer, but I’ve seen much.”

“Well.” She paused, “Can you keep a secret?”

The Revlio smiled, “So long as you haven’t murdered anyone, yes.”

That made Aaresh grin, and she then told her everything about the prophetic transmission.

“Oh, it seems the Higher has ways of bringing people on the same path together,” He said, strangely lightly given the circumstances.

“What are you saying?” Aaresh asked, confused.

“This habitat was built using blueprints reverse-engineered from debris found in a system near the borders between our two nations,” The Revlio answered. Aaresh had heard of the Revlien’s home of Axpent, whose capital was covered in ruins of a civilization long gone. “I have reasonable suspicion that the debris was from an ancient Revlien space base. My life’s work has been uncovering that Revliens were once a major galactic player, and our homeworld has always been our own. If that transmission happens to be in Revlien, or a language similar to it, I will be vindicated.”

“Maybe when I  tinkered with my translator, it somehow became able to pick up and translate the Revlien,” Aareesh responded, beaming with excitement. “But do you have any idea how to track the signal?”

“I have a friend, more of a colleague actually, but nonetheless, he is a skilled engineer. I have been working with him, and if anyone can track this lead, it’s him.” The Revlien realized something and sat stunned before laughing, “Oh, goodness, I haven’t told you my name! I am Dr. Qotl Phectla, but you can just call me Phectla.”

“Aaresh, Aaresh K’larken.”

Phectla led her to the deeper, lower parts of Providence she had only heard of. While the habitat was largely safe, there was still crime of other kinds. Smuggling of all kinds was rampant in some of the poorer areas by the space ports, and this was where he took her. She weaved through the tide of people on the crowded streets, port workers returning home, and others starting their shift, following Phectla. She heard the noise of a thousand different voices caught up in their own world. He stopped at a small plasteel building and entered, entering a passcode on the door’s lock. Pectla soon followed him into the abode. It was cluttered, covered in machine parts and pieces of metal in various piles with no rhyme or reason as to the way they were arranged. Two doors in the back seemed to lead to a backroom, the entire place smelled oily.

“He uses this as his workshop,” Phectla explained. “Sakir! I have a lead on our search.”

A tall, lanky figure lurched out of a room in the back. It was a Cevant, a dark-furred species with long necks and limbs, and a pair of large wings that could only be used to glide. “Your search, Phectla, I am merely aiding you for a fee.” His glare turned to Aaresh and all but hissed,  “Who is that and why are they here?”

“She has the lead,” explained Phectla. “Now, go on, introduce yourself.”

“I am Aaaresh K’larken. I’m a linguistics Student at the University of Providence.”

“Well, I am Sakir Derom, proud graduate of the University of Sarude and the greatest engineering mind to come out there in two hundred years,” Sakir boasted.

“Why are you,” she paused, trying to find a way to say it and not sound rude, “here and not in Sarude?”

“Because they are scared of my genius!” he exclaimed. “I did something they didn’t like. Those fools thought I was reckless and unfit to practice my trade, even though my methods could have advanced every field of science decades past what they are today.”

“What did you do?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Perhaps we are getting off topic,” Phectla said, but Sakir was already marching to the backroom with Aaresh not far behind. He followed the two into the room, which was even more of a scrap heap than the main room, with parts of machinery piled in the corners. Near a table with a large computer terminal on it, on the right side of the room, was the main attraction, a floating robot with metal tendrils, an ellipsoid body, no head, and nine lights on its center. Parts of the body seemed to have been made of cobbled-together scrap metal; the name TALLIS was written on its side.

“What is it?” asked Aaresh.

“My genius,” Sakir boasted. “Have you heard of Xenir Prime? It’s a planet in the Xenir system surrounded by space controlled by the Sarude Republic. On it are machines like these. Studies from stations far above the planet showed they were calculating something. I was always fascinated by them, so when I graduated, I snuck onto the planet using a private starcraft, cloaked using a genius device of my own design, and stole it unplugging from its machine hive mind. But when I showed it to my colleagues, they said that I never should have stolen it and that I should destroy it. I said no and that they didn’t know what they were refusing, but those fools didn’t listen and then discredited me.”

“I’m sorry—” she started before she was interrupted by a sudden noise in her loud ear. A broadcast.

“Brothers and Sisters of our brave order!” the Broadcaster yelled triumphantly. “We have scored a great victory, while the governor yet lives, the people are shaken. Soon, the very fountains of this cursed place shall rock when in thirty days’ time we shall finally thrust this wretched city down onto Baalesh.”

“What was that?” Sakir inquired, while he didn’t hear the broadcast, Aaresh’s sudden silence shook him slightly.

“I just heard another broadcast,” Aaresh said, turning to Phectla.

“What broadcast?” Sakir asked intently.

Phectla explained everything about the broadcast, their possible connections to the Revilens, and their sinister intent.

“Give that to me,” Sakir demanded. “Your translator, let me see it. I have an idea to track that broadcast. My genius shall save Providence.” Aaresh complied and placed it in his hand. She then watched him insert a cord into the translator’s port and then plug it into the computer. He navigated his way to the files of the translator and looked at the files of saved conversations. 

“Here,” he said, looking at an audio file, “is one from a year ago.” He played it.

“Brothers and Sisters of our brave order!” the Broadcaster yelled. “Our mission to end this palace of fools continues as our mission to stop transit has been successful. The masses will be unable to commute to work, their productivity shall plummet.”

Aaresh looked at the file creation date and said, “I remember that day. That was the day the trains were stopped due to tampering. We couldn’t get to the rest of Providence unless by boarded a shuttle at a space port. Well, now we know they’ve been at it for a while, but how does this help us find them?”

“The files will have a location of where the conversation was held, this is usually the location where the speaker was, and not the listener,” Sakir explained, before grinning and looking towards Tallis. “And he will lead us right to it.” Sakir transferred the files to Tallis, and they were off.

3

They followed the robot through the thoroughfares and alleys. It floated off the ground, its tendrils flowing in the air like a steel squid. They got looks from the inhabitants of Lower Providence, three people of different species chasing after a floating robot was something that most thought would only be seen in some sort of old Sci-fi film from the 20th century. The trio passed rows of small metal houses, apartments, and shops, only making slight talk to pass the time.

“What was it like to grow up on a natural world?” Aaresh inquired as they turned a corner, plasteel shops surrounding them on two sides. “What was Sarude like?”

“Well, there was dirt, clouds, oceans. There was nothing really remarkable about it.” Sakir replied, confused and feeling like he couldn’t really answer her. “Why?”

“I’ve spent all but three days of my life on  Providence, and I feel like I’m born for everywhere but here. I’ve always wanted to see the stars and breathe real air, but I’m stuck between the two.”

“Well, you’re young. You’ll have the rest of your life to do, whatever a linguist does in space.”

“I’m going to join an archaeological expedition one day, and I hope to find and decipher an alien language. Then I’ll be famous and retire to live on a world with endless trees and oceans.”

“Well, remember to enjoy you’re home. You never know when you’ll leave for the last time,” He looked at Phectla. “Just not as much as him, he’s wasted so much of my time babbling about his dear homeworld Axpent.” Aaresh looked up, into the deep black ink that was the stars above Privodence, on the other side of the see-through habitat ceiling. She had seen this sight her whole life, but only now did she think she might miss it one day.

The Robot continued its hunt, hoving through the streets of Lower Providence like a beast on the hunt, the number of people they saw on the streets shrank by the mile, most were at work at this hour. They reached an area of apartments, while Aaresh’s were tall and reached toward the sky, these were small, wide, and colorless, with several packed in close. Tallis suddenly stopped at an apartment and turned toward the steps to the higher floors. The trio followed it winding through the stairs up the floors until they reached apartment 506. 

“Before we go in, do you have any way of defending ourselves?” asked Phectla, “They do not seem like the amiable sort.”

“I made some modifications to Tallis,” Sakir simply said, deciding to open the door. Tallis floated in, and what they noticed about the poorly lit room was in the center. It was about the size of a table with four legs, but made of a strange pale metal with glowing energy veins running straight lines across it. It was plugged into the wall, a terminal, and what seemed to be a wire going outside through a window. A screen was glowing on the flat surface, and a large microphone was set up on the left side of the room.

“By all that is Higher!” exclaimed Phectla, grinning like a madman, he sprinted toward it, his flesh whiskers flaing as he ran. “This matches the designs of some devices found in ruins on Axpent! This proves that there is some connection between the designs found decades ago and Axpent!”

Aaresh looked at the walls, black, unusual, she thought, then she saw the poster on the wall: A large red sky and humans with fists raised high, on it were the words, Anti-Alien Order of Humanity. This was certainly the place. Sakir was just about to look through the terminal when suddenly a man came out of what Aaresh assumed was the bathroom. He had greying brown hair and skin so pale it looked like he’d never felt the warmth of the sun. 

“Aliens!” He yelped before stepping backward. “What are you doing in my home? Who do you work for? Who sent you?” 

Aaresh recognized the face, “You’re Dr. Campbell! I saw a notice with your face on it, saying you were missing.”

“How did you find Alien scum?” He asked, finally taking his how outnumbered he was.

“We tracked your messages,” Aaresh answered. “You were broadcasting them, and my translator picked up the frequency when I messed with it. Why did you do all that? From what I read, you helped build Providence. Why destroy it?”

“That was only for funds, if I knew this place would be the result, I would have never agreed to it. This is a place of galactic unity, a place where the alien can mingle with those other than their kind and even with superior humanity. This is a place where the aliens can grow stronger together, the unification of the enemy.”

“I don’t view humans as the enemy,” Aaresh replied. She noticed Sakir whispering to Tallis.

“Why would I trust the word of an Alien who broke into my home? It won’t matter,” He pulled out a device. “With only a press of a button, I will set into motion the end of Providence—” His sentence was cut off by the zap coming from Tallis, stunning him. He hit the ground with a thud.

“Sakir, you should contact the authorities,” Aaresh said. “Also, nice going.”

“I should take this,” Phectla said, looking at the broadcasting device. “I wonder if I could convince the authorities to let me keep it?”

“I hope this proves you right,” replied Aaresh. The authorities soon came and searched the Dr’s terminal, seeing his messages. They took him away to be held for trial. Now that Aaresh had saved her home, she appreciated it a lot more. Maybe she thought, I shouldn’t be in such a rush to leave.