Today would be a big one....
Bruce, the Secretary General of the United Nations of Earth, has spent centuries trying to protect, develop and unite humanity.
When a distinctly non-human arrival seems to offer a way to do this, once and for all, he wi...
"Errr.... Bruce...." Whispered the Ambassador for Siberia in the Secretary General's left ear while he flicked absentmindedly through visions of the products available from the inflight shop.
"Hmmm?" He murmured as he sampled the Martian spice beer simulation. Nice. Like cinnamon but not. Funny how it tasted so different even if everything was descended from something that had been taken there from Earth at some point. Anyway...
"I think it could be important, Bruce, and I don't want to alarm anyone."
The simulation dispersed and the Secretary General looked up. The Siberian Ambassador never looked particularly ruffled by anything. He did now.
"What's up?"
"It's not there."
"Errr, what?"
"NUNS. We decelerated a while ago - they did it gradually - very gradually – and not to a total stop, that's why you can still feel a little bit of gravity. I think they tried to do it so we wouldn't notice. But I felt it. And so, I checked out what speed we'd been travelling at. NUNS should be clearly visible and actually really close by the porthole by my seat. It isn't. I don't know..."
He was cut short by an horrendous noise - like a klaxon with a kind of rolling bell-like sound under it and a staccato percussion like scattered gunfire. Everyone flinched. The percussion was insensitive. Just because nobody on Mars had ever heard gunfire didn't mean that it was excusable for them to forget the collective trauma of their guests. The lights flashed between their usual soft white and a very unsoft red. Every single light.
"That can't really be a good thing, can it?" Asked the Ambassador for Siberia, presumably rhetorically.
"Chief Earthling to the bridge" came the abrupt, brutally clipped Martian tones of the captain. "Repeat. Chief Earthling to the bridge. Your most extreme haste is greatly appreciated."
The Secretary General's eyes widened, and he sat, inexplicably frozen to the spot, thoughts running through his mind.
"How ever running works in microgravity," the Ambassador for Siberia hissed at him urgently "you probably need to learn to do it now."
The Secretary General nodded and propelled himself from his seat forwards and upwards, taking great care not to meet the eyes of any other ambassadors, nearly brained himself on a ladder that ran along the ceiling and scrambled along it to the bridge.
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He burst through the round hatch door into the bridge. Two mean looking Martians stared at him. They must have been 2.5 metres tall, and thin. All Martians were tall and thin, because of the lower gravity, but these two seemed taller, more angular, more menacing than most. He discounted that thought. Adrenaline hallucination - the red light was making him seek threats. He blinked heavily and reduced his adrenaline levels. Looked again. They still looked mean, but no more so than the Martian average.
