Romulus

My heavy boots echo down the hall, the human soldier next to me trembling. He glances at my sword, which is easily as tall as he is. He wanted me to surrender it. I told him to fuck off.

Fuck off — These humans have such strange sayings, but I like this one. It’s short and to the point. Direct. Powerful. It perfectly encapsulates how I feel about the humans: Fuck off.

The top of my head nearly scrapes against the low ceiling. This human space station wasn’t built for Elban warriors, that’s for damn sure.

“Are we nearly there yet?”

“Y-yes,” the soldier trembles. “Through here.”

A man with a chest full of pins and a bushy mustache obscuring half his face awaits me. He’s sitting behind a glass desk, every muscle in his body wound up tightly.

Nero told me all about his man.

Five-star general George Bowers. One of the human leaders.

Behind him, through a large transparent window, I can see the human planet. Earth. A blue-green globe, one our small crew of Elbans might have to call home. The portal to the Idriana system is closed, and we are here to stay… for better or for worse.

General Bowers doesn’t speak until the soldier who guided me here has left.

“You,” he bristles. “I told you to stay away!”

The last time I encountered the general, I disabled all of his multi-billion dollar weaponry with a flick of my wrist. He obviously hasn’t forgotten.

Without saying a word I remove the sword from my back and place it on the table, which groans under its weight. The general’s eyes grow wide as he takes in the sheer size of it. I sit down across from him, the chair way too small for my large frame.

Bowers shudders with rage, his cheeks turning red.

“What do you want?!”

A good question. What do I want?

To smash his face in. To take control of this pitiful station. To show the pathetic earthlings what a true warrior looks like.

Nero Octavius forbade me from doing all of those things. He says we have to live ‘in harmony’. Find ‘common ground’.

How we are supposed to do that I do not know. We Elbans are nothing like the humans. We are strong, dominant, powerful… they are small and weak.

Yet, I must follow Nero’s orders.

I have sworn loyalty to House Octavius. Even though Magnus Bruttius destroyed our home, killed our paterfamilias Gaius Octavius, gave me a massive scar that runs diagonally across my face and effectively exiled us from our home planet… House Octavius lives as long as Nero does.

I will follow his commands to the letter.

Though, I will never understand his fondness for the humans. He has even taken on a human mate, Victoria Snow! Nero says she’s his fatum, brought to him by the wings of fate.

Fatums are things of legends.

Then again, I saw Nero shift into a beast in front of my very eyes, horns and fangs and all… perhaps the legends are true.

I smirk at the general as I try to remember Nero’s instructions.

“We come in peace.”

“Hah,” Bowers says. “If that’s so, why do you carry that sword with you everywhere?”

“Protection,” I say as I run my fingers down the blade.

“You attacked us without provocation, why should I trust you?! I don’t even know where you’re from!”

“I’ve told you this before. We come from the planet Elba, which is in the Idriana system.”

“Bullshit.”

“Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it is not true. And you did provoke me, for you held Nero Octavius captive. I was rescuing him. You would have done the same for one of your people. Now we have returned, and we are here to stay. I am here to broker a peace.”

“Peace?” the general scoffs. “We will never have peace!”

I rise from my seat and lift up my sword.

“Is that a declaration of war?”

“Now hold on,” he stammers. “Hold on. I didn’t mean…”

Give me a reason, little man. Just one reason. I will follow Nero’s orders to the letter, but the moment you give me a reason to end your miserable life I will take it.

The human leaders runs his fingers through his moustache, beads of sweat dripping down the side of his cheeks.

“If what you say is true…” he starts.

“It is.”

“Then you are an alien.”

“Correct.”

He leans back and takes a deep breath. It seems the reality of the situation is finally sinking into that small head of his. “We can’t have the public knowing that… there would be chaos!”

“Why?” I say. “Did you really think you were alone in the universe or something? That humanity was the pinnacle of evolution?”

I can barely suppress a condescending chuckle. These humans are more arrogant than I thought.

“Do you have any idea how big the universe is? The chance that you were the only sentient beings is so abysmally low I can’t believe anyone would ever have seriously considered it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s neither here nor there.” The human male twiddles with his fingers. “We have to control the flow of information. I have to make some calls, but I can offer you a truce, if you promise to play by our rules.”

“And what are those?” I growl.

“You stay on your ship, for now, until we figure out a way to deal with the whole aliens-are-real-and-they’re-here situation. Oh, and you allow a researcher on board.”

“A human on my ship? Never.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you. You’re asking the US military to harbor aliens. You know how many conspiracy theories I’m proving true just by talking to you? If this gets out, it could be very bad news for us. If we’re lying about aliens, what else aren’t we telling? No. Trust me, you want us to keep this quiet and under wraps. If the world finds out, you’ll have scientists from every nation trying to dissect you. You don’t want that. I can keep that from happening… but you’ll need to help us out as well.”

The last thing I want is a human scientist on our warship, trying to steal our weapons and technology. Having Victoria Snow around is more than enough human for one ship.

Yet, if this is all he’s asking… I can keep one scientist busy enough that he won’t learn a damn thing.

“Fine,” I growl. “One human. No more.”