Nick looked at his friends on the display, grateful to have a group of people he trusted. "Right. So. You know how when something new gets invented, industries get messed up? Lots of people lose their jobs, new jobs get made, and so on?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, that's going to happen here, on steroids."

"So, what do I do to make that less painful?"

"I don't think you can."

"Nick," Brian asked, "Did you find any books on how to do this? If there are thousands of species out there, this has to have happened a bunch of times before."

"Yeah," Maggie put in. "It's probably like one of those puzzle games where you have to do things in the right order. Like, maybe release one new discovery each week or month, give people time to think through some consequences. Like, do the stuff so that people don't have to work any more, and then do the stuff that takes away everybody's jobs."

"I do have some of those. Looks like...yes, she's done translating. Let me see if..." Nick worked his interface for a moment. "There. See if you can read the file I just sent."

There was a pause as his friends frowned at their screens for a few moments. Brian snorted. "Dude, how did you teach aliens about pdfs?"

"Cloned my phone. That's how she got started learning English."

"She?" Steve asked.

Nick hesitated. "The network on the ship. I had her convert files to that format."

"How cool is the ship's computer?" Brian asked. "Is it AI?"

"Ah, no—I have to warn people about AI. That's one of the things I've got to talk to like the White House and CIA and stuff about." He figured they were already listening. The instructions he'd followed probably made it hard for anybody else to listen in, but Nick was sure that the CIA had left a backdoor for themselves.

"One of them?"

"Yeah, Sana gave me a list. Basically if we make a true AI, the Collective of all the AIs in the galaxy get pissed and comes to take it away. Other stuff is common sense like, 'don't make a gravity prototype on your planet's surface, so you don't accidentally make a black hole that swallows the Earth.'"

There was a flicker, and Vanessa joined the call. "Oh, hey, hi, Ness."

"Nick!?"

"Yup."

"Where the hell were you!?" Vanessa erupted in fury, and Nick couldn't help but smile. Good old Ness.

"Ooafa, Arrurra, and points Galactic West."

"You—! What—? Where are you!?"

"In orbit, on a starship."

Abruptly, Geh!aoa's voice sounded from the speakers. "Nik!eh?"

"Hold on a sec, Ness. Yes, Captain?"

"I will greet your people soon. Do you want to look at the message first?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Uh, yes! Can you send me the text?"

"Yes."

"All right. I'll look it over in a minute. Thank you very much."

Nick saw the icon on his HUD and expanded it.

"Nick, what was that about?" Brian asked.

Nick blinked. "Oh, right, you don't have translations. Uh, the Captain just asked me to look over her hello speech. I wanted to double check it just in case something translated super badly. Guys, could you bring Ness up to speed while I do this? Should just take a minute."

"Don't hang up!" Maggie demanded.

"I won't, I won't." Nick turned his attention to the speech, though it was hard to focus when he finally could hear his friends' voices again. "Guys, you have no idea how great it is to hear your voices but I gotta put you on mute just for a minute. Oh, and guys, the CIA is probably listening, so no evil villain monologues while I'm gone." He muted his friends and looked again.

Greetings to the people of Earth.

I am Captain Geh!aoa, commanding the Ooafan starship New Hope. We come in peace. We are friends with the human Nik!eh Taw-sun of Earth. We brought him. We want friendship with the people of Earth, and maybe trade.

Aboard are also representatives of other races, other peoples. They also want peace, trade, and maybe to stay as ambassadors if that is good.

We will not land shuttles without permission. Our ship's doctor, Sana Vickall, says to be very careful to have no sickness on either side after contact. She wants a group of humans, to come aboard to test medicines. Some of the humans can be sick.

Nik!eh says that you do not have one world leader. We do not want to hurt anyone, but we will begin with English and the United States of America. We will speak to more of you when your languages are learned.

Nik!eh has many gifts of knowledge from other races. We want that you are happy he is home. He is a good human. We owe him very much.

We want to speak and do slowly so no one is scared or hurt. Thank you for waiting.

Nick blinked a few times, then started rapidly putting in corrections.

Petra, replace 'We brought him' with 'We have brought him home to you.'

Replace 'maybe' with 'possibly.'

Replace 'good' with 'acceptable.'

Replace 'says to be' with 'says that we will be.'

Replace 'wants' with 'would like.'

Replace 'humans' with 'human volunteers.'

Replace 'test medicines' with 'test medicines to prevent and cure sicknesses in humans.'

Replace 'hurt' with 'offend.'

Add 'because that is the language and country we are most familiar with.'

Replace 'are learned' with 'have been translated.'

Replace 'we want' with 'we hope.'

Scratch that. Replace sentence with 'We are happy to bring him home.'

Replace 'very much' with 'a great deal.'

Replace 'speak and do' with 'speak and act.'

Replace 'for waiting' with 'for your patience.'

Nick was uncomfortable with the praise but knew better than to edit it out. He sent it back to the Captain. With a sigh, he rubbed his forehead and unmuted his friends, rejoining the conversation.

"...so there are only like 6,000 aliens left?" Vanessa was asking.

"Ooafans, there are plenty of the other aliens, apparently," Brian put in.

"Hey, guys," Nick interjected.

"Nick! Do you really think the CIA is listening already?"

"They sent me the encryption I'm using, so nobody except us and the CIA can hear us," Nick explained.

"Next time, lead with that, dork," Steve grumbled.

"Sorry. After this, I gotta talk to the CIA anyway. I've got stuff for them."

"What? Why them?"

"Because they're the guys who protect us from external threats, and they have the gear and stuff."

"Send them the math first," Brian advised.

"Why?"

"So that if there's any alien math in your package that cracks codes, they probably want to warn their agents and stuff so that they don't get killed."

"Oh, yeah, good point." Nick nodded. "See, this is exactly why I wanted to talk to you guys before I just dumped everything into Wikipedia or something."

"Do not dump anything to Wikipedia," Steven ordered urgently.

Nick sighed. "I won't do it without talking it out with you guys first," he promised.

"Thank you."

< Nik!eh, please come to the bridge. I want them to see all of the races when I say the speech. >

"Oh, hey, the Captain wants me on the bridge for the speech photo op. You'll probably see it on the news in a little while. I'll call you guys back in, say, an hour? Maybe less?"

"We'll be here."

"Dude, do you seriously think we have anyplace more important to be than this conversation? Hell yeah, we'll be here."

"Thanks, guys. You are the best Apocalypse Team a guy could ask for."

"Go be a TV star. We'll be waiting," Ness told him.

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