Sequence by Adam Moon Page B

captain hung his head and said, “I only tell you this so that you don’t overreact when you find out.” The captain paused, still unsure how to phrase what he was trying to say. Finally, when the tension in the room was at saturation level, he continued: “My species is cousin to the Grays. We used to be the same species until we broke away from them. So when we land and you see a bunch of creatures that look remarkably similar to Grays, don’t go on a killing spree of revenge. We are not the same.”
    Samda paused, unsure if the captain was tricking her with his story. “Why did you split with them?”
    “It had a lot to do with this experiment, but it had more to do with the last failed experiment. They wanted to put the experiment to bed, but we knew that we had only seen the tip of the iceberg. We were encouraged by our results the last time around. When the other Grays suggested we should destroy our results and forget about ever conducting the tests again, we had no choice but to act. Nearly a thousand of us acted against our own people. We rebelled. We retrieved our false god and we went on the run. We were of the belief that you do not kill a god, even if it doesn’t live up to your expectations. As it turns out, she wouldn’t have been so easily dispatched anyway. But we didn’t know that at the time.”
    The first m ate interjected: “Our new god led us to this planet, and before we knew it, she had enslaved us. We thought she might be appreciative, but that’s because we were idealists and naïve. She immediately put us to work on an experiment far more ambitious than the one that had created her. Instead of collecting an apex specimen from each habitable planet within our galaxy, we were to collect one from each planet in the entire universe. A few of us insisted that she was a lunatic and that her ideas were impossible. Those people were put to death in front of the rest of us.”
    The captain bowed his head as he remembered.
    The first mate continued, “Then she set out to show us how it could be done. And it turned out she was right, because here we are, with all that she asked for. We will now be able to achieve our lofty goals with a little help from her tough love and guidance.”
    Samda said, “If she’s as cruel and reckless as I imagine, how can you be sure these results won’t yield something even more dastardly?”
    The captain said, “This new experiment will bring the desired results. We underestimated the breadth of what was necessary when we created her. We failed back then. She’ll pale in comparison to our new creation. It will be ideal and wholly different from what she became.”
    Number Four added, “Some of us think she just wants us to make her a mate.”
    The rest of the crew ignored the offhand comment.
    Something about the story was bothering Chris. He asked, “If you split away from the Grays, then why were you so eager to get their DNA? Couldn’t you just use your own?”
    “We will use our own,” replied the captain. “But while we’ve been trapped in stasis so that we could pilot this ship in these mechs, they’ve propagated the species, and therefore they’ve evolved ever so slightly. We haven’t. Our pseudo-god needed skilled workers for as long as was required. She couldn’t afford to let us die before we accomplished the mission.”
    “How long has she kept you guys in stasis?” Chris imagined it had to be a long time in order for their cousins to out-evolve them.
    “She has kept us for a longer amount than a mind is capable of coping with ,” the captain said sadly, giving weight to each word.
    The first m ate shook his head. “Let’s just hope we can trust her. She’s already cost us our very race and pitted us against our brothers for her own gain. I hope it is all worth it.”
    The captain said softly, “We went against our people on our own. She had no part in that. That is on us. All of this is our fault. I just hope it bears the fruit we