Page 13 of Blightfall

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Suki said. She spoke English with a sort of chirpy accent, which, insensitive as it might be, was factually adorable. “And in celebration of our forthcoming venture to reach out to some of your people, it is my pleasure to bring you a delicacy from your ancestral roots. Your ancestors reserved this food for the most solemn of occasions.” Suki folded her hands reverently. “Consuming it together is a ritual of unity and camaraderie. They called it”—she paused for dramatic effect—“pizza.”

We had a food called pizza on Detritus. It was basically an algae pancake, and it definitely never looked like that. Blightfall was a human colony, much like ours; I wondered if their pizza looked like this, or if they were also reduced to making it out of algae.

One of the kitsen chefs used a tiny remote control to levitate the platters holding the pizzas so they hovered over to the largest table.

“What is that?” Alanik asked, pointing to the white ooze atop the pizza.

“That is goat cheese,” Suki said. “It’s a traditional human food, adopted by my people during the occupation. But as your kind do not ingest milk, we have made you an alternative.”

She indicated another floating platter. This pizza had a green glaze drizzled over the red sauce, and I wondered what it was made out of. Most UrDail foods were fruits and vegetables and weren’t harmful to the rest of us.

Alanik, still eyeing the cheese with distaste, murmured, “Thank you for your consideration.”

“Can I try a piece of yours?” I asked Alanik. She considered me with a frosty stare. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked…but I did want to know what it tasted like.

“Of course,” she said. “I will…decline to try yours, though I hope you enjoy it.”

She didn’t sound incredibly hopeful.

Gilaf shrugged beside her. “I’d try a piece of the cheese.”

Alanik looked at him like that was the most disgusting thing she’d ever heard.

“What?” he said. “I’ll try anything once.”

“Is there anything special we should do before we eat?” Arturo asked Suki.

“It was a ritual of ancient humans to speak words of gratitude before consuming a meal together,” Suki said. “Allow me to say that I never expected to know such honorable and welcoming humans, and I am grateful for the opportunity to learn of your contemporary culture and get to know you as friends.”

That was a nice way to say that she had expected us to conquer her people, like our ancestors had done with basically every species they encountered in the galaxy.

One of the kitsen rode a tiny bicycle with sawblade wheels over the pizza, cutting it into slices—small ones for the kitsen, and larger ones for us—and we all crowded around the table, dishing it onto our plates. Dasha and Katri served algae strips and mushrooms for the slugs, and we settled around the large round table with the slugs munching in the middle. Suki joined us, her disk hovering at Arturo’s shoulder with her tiny plate of pizza in front of her.

“By the North Star,” Nedd said with his mouth full. “This is delicious.”

He was right. The cheese was squishier than it looked, but the tangy red sauce complemented it nicely. It sure tasted better than anything made out of algae, which was the easiest thing to grow in the caverns beneath Detritus. Even the UrDail pizza was good—the green sauce tasted nutty with a little tang to it, different than anything I’d ever had, but in a good way.

“How’s the cheese, Gilaf?” I asked.

Gilaf had a slice of cheese pizza partway in his mouth, and he chewed thoughtfully. “Not bad,” he said in English. He had a heavy accent, and didn’t know very many words. He and Alanik both spoke fluent Mandarin, but I only knew a few words of that from back home, not enough to communicate. I’d grown up speaking Yeongian primarily, but unfortunately no one else in the flight spoke it.

A tall figure in a white uniform stepped into the room, and we all turned. The admiral—Jorgen Weight, our former flightleader—with Boomslug perched on his shoulder.

Stars, I hadn’t realized the admiral would be here. I used to fly under his command, so I shouldn’t be intimidated by him, but let’s be honest, I had been intimidated by him even then. We all stood, and Arturo, as commander of our mission, saluted.

Jorgen surveyed us for a moment. “At ease,” he said.

We all took our seats again. There was something strange about the admiral’s expression, like he was trying not to laugh, and his voice was stuffy and strangely pitched, like a woman with a bad cold.

“Um, sir,” Arturo said. “We weren’t expecting you. You…feeling okay?”

“Feeling okay!” the slug on his shoulder said, though its voice was also pitched wrong. Boomslugs had the deepest voices of all the taynix, but this one was midrange.

“Great!” Jorgen said, more chipper than I’d ever heard him, and his voice now sounded like a woman whose cold was starting to improve.

“All right,” Arturo said. “What’s going on?”

Jorgen giggled, his voice as high-pitched as it was disconcerting. Arturo and Nedd both stood again, facing Jorgen as if he might be an enemy wearing a holographic disguise, but scud, we didn’t even have an enemy anymore, did we? Jorgen held up his hands in surrender, still laughing.