The Last Outpost

Not Alone

Deep space. The humans weren’t ready for it. But they went there anyway.

The year was 2368. By this point, humans had settled six other worlds – all suitable, Earth-like second homes for the human race. Uninhabited. Full of crystal clear sparkling oceans. Lush rain forests and abundant plants and exotic fruits and vegetables native to those worlds. Little critters and wild animals of all sorts and types – including strange species beyond anything humans had ever imagined.

Humanity was bravely conquering the stars.

But humanity wasn’t alone out there…

Soon, humans began encountering other intelligent, space-faring species among the stars.

Some races seemed friendly enough. Or at the very least, they minded their own business and more or less kept to themselves. Others… not so much.

Some aliens continually raided humanity’s new settled worlds. Stealing the raw resources and materials the colonists had mined, refined, and manufactured there. Sometimes stealing their livestock, food stuffs, and even – horribly – unsuspecting men, women, and children. For God only knew what purpose. Those unfortunate souls were never seen again.

George Thompson, age 28, wanted to be nowhere near any of those worlds. He was born on Terra Prime. One of the first new worlds to be colonized. It was a beautiful planet. And highly developed now. A great place to live, by anyone’s standards. Except… there were rumors that the Telexxians, a technologically-superior race humanity had encountered while out in deep space exploring the stars, were beginning to take a creepy interest in humans now. Up until this point, they more or less ignored the skinny hairless primates from Earth. Humans were too technologically inferior and physically weak to be of any interest or use to them.

But a human ambassador, while visiting the Telexxian homeworld, learned their politicians were currently debating on classifying the human species as “livestock” – arguing that humanity was too technologically primitive and intellectually inferior to be given the same interspecies rights that the Telexxians and other more advanced races enjoyed.

Humans, it seemed, were being targeted as potential lab rats, to be used as living test subjects, for various Telexxian experiments in their never-ending quest for scientific advancement.

Some humans would be kept as breeders, to ensure cheap livestock for generations. A few, perhaps, as pets or slaves for physical labor. But most, primarily, would end up in a Telexxian lab, tested and experimented upon, transformed, mutated, dissected, cross-bred, harvested for medicines, or even consumed as a new Telexxian delicacy.

The only thing preventing that now was interplanetary law, which guaranteed each species certain rights and freedoms. But the Telexxians were a powerful political influence in this sector of space. And if they legally declared humans to be no more than talking livestock – it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the sector sided in agreement.

So far, that had yet to happen. Some Telexxians argued moral, ethical, and philosophical issues. Were humans in fact sentient? Did they possess a divine soul? Should they be viewed as equals – if, perhaps, immature ones? Or were they, as others in high positions declared, nothing more than a transworld infestation that had no right to be among the stars?

The Telexxian Empire had not yet officially come to a decision. But George wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

As impressive and powerful as human weaponry and defensive technologies had progressed – they were still nowhere near a match for what the Telexxians would bring.

Morals and ethics aside, there was no debate on that. Humans were, without question, several hundred – if not thousands – of years behind the Telexxians in science and technology.

If the Telexxians came after the human colonies, there’d be little anyone could do about it.

Humans would be harvested. En masse. Captured, experimented on, transformed, bred, and worse – all for the sake of the Telexxian Empire. All of humanity would be called to war to defend its colonies. A futile war. A hopeless war.

So when George heard of a job opportunity on a distant, remote outpost – something far away from any human colony, and even more importantly, far away from Telexxian territory – he immediately signed up and took the first transport ship off-world.

He would’ve preferred to stay on Terra Prime, of course. It was a nice world. Better than Earth, in some ways. Or so he was told. He’d never actually been to Earth. He had friends, family, a good job, and his whole life ahead of him.

But he was scared. He feared the worst. He just knew it was only a matter of time before the Telexxians started taking humans – and any people they didn’t take would be left behind for a one-sided and hopeless war. Maybe if George had a girlfriend or wife, a family of his own, then he’d have a stronger reason to stay and fight.

But he didn’t. So that just made it all the easier to jump planet and take this distant job at a small remote outpost, far from all the danger. Once things settled down, or if the Telexxians legally declared humanity a protected sentient species rather than livestock – he could always come back once his employment contract was up.

He was running from his fears and he knew it. He didn’t really want this new job at the mining outpost. It was a grungy, dirty, hard labor kind of place. They dug up and processed ore, sifting for various metals and elements useful in a variety of common applies and starship components. He’d be a technician, so he wouldn’t have to get his hands too dirty, but still – this job was far from glamorous or exciting.

But it was safe. Safe and far away.

Far from all the danger.

Or so he thought.