I met the infamous Ensign Peterson at a bar in star dock one day. I thought that he would be tired of talking about the “incident” but he was quite happy to give me a personal audience. I guess it was because it gave him a sort of celebrity status and maybe also because I was buying the drinks. I already knew the story as it was required reading at the academy as it was one of the examples of what can go wrong when you meet a new alien race. But of course I wanted to hear all the little details from Peterson myself.

Peterson’s ship was transporting the ambassador from planet xxxeDDes to a conference with several representatives from the surrounding star system. This was actually a first contact situation but very few aboard knew the details of the mission much less that an ambassador from a new world would be traveling onboard. Also unknown was the type of life form the ambassador was or even what he looked like.

Peterson downed the first two shots in an instant and then while covering the third shot with both hands he began. “I had just finished my shift and was heading for my quarters when I exited the lift to my deck. I had my nose in a magazine and wasn’t watching where I was going and just as I turned the corner to my quarters I stepped in something and slipped and fell into a large puddle of water. I was startled at first but figured it had to be a plumbing leak. We were having problems with some of the personnel quarters since the last refit and I just figured it was that. Because I was on deck watch that week and I knew that the auto clean wouldn’t be hitting this deck for hours yet I accessed a clean panel and used a vac to manually clean up the mess.”

“Didn’t you notice anything unusual?” I asked

“Naa” he said “It was late and I was tired and I just wanted to clean up the mess and get some sleep”

“When did you first notice something was wrong?” I asked

“Probably right away or as soon as I fell asleep” he answered as he seemed to relive the feeling “As soon as I was asleep I started to dream and it was like a thousand voices yelling at me. I kept waking up and falling back to sleep over and over again so I finally just got up out of bed”

“I was in the head when I looked into the mirror and saw the rash, it scared the crap out of me” he said and then downed his third shot.

I followed suit with my drink and then called to the bartender to bring us another round as Peterson continued.

“It freaked me out, I thought it was that virus that was going around back then, you know, the one where your skin would fall off?”

“Yea I remember that, pretty scary stuff” I said

“Well I wasn’t waiting for my skin to start loosening up so I hauled ass to sickbay”

The bartender brought our drinks and Peterson again covered his with both hands and continued.

“Some people still think I was at fault but I wasn’t!”

“You know the way the brass thinks” I agreed “They always need a fall guy”

“Well I’ll tell you” he said “I fell right into it all right” he quietly laughed.

He looked at me for a moment as if he was sizing me up and then continued.

“The doc took one look at me and hit the quarantine alert. He then grabbed me and just about threw me into a quarantine unit and sealed it” he paused and then said

“Let’s get a couple of beers to go with these shots”

I ordered two beers and as I turned back to Peterson he was leaning back in his chair staring up at the ceiling.

“Nothing at the academy can prepare you for something like that you know.” he said in an almost dreamy way.

“I imagine not” I replied

The bartender brought our beers and as he placed them on the table Peterson reached for his shot and dropped it into his beer. The shot glass displaced the beer in the mug and it overflowed the rim.

Peterson smiled a little as he continued

“As soon as the doc sealed me in the quarantine unit a ship wide alert was announced and I thought it was me they were alerting on but the doc said no. The alert was about a missing passenger and I couldn’t imagine who that was, but of course command never tells the crew what is going on anyway.”

Peterson leaned forward and without raising his mug sipped his beer and then without leaning back again looked up at me and continued.

“The dam pustules started right away, they were breaking out everywhere and itching like crazy at first. The doc had already run a complete workup on me and he was as puzzled as I was as he stared at me from the other side of the quarantine glass.”

“So there was no pain?” I asked

“No not at all” he said “In fact as you probably already read it started to get downright pleasant just a couple of minutes after the first pustules formed. I never felt anything like it before. I think the only thing I can compare it to, it was like a cross between an orgasm and taking a really good shit. But not a run of the mill orgasm or just one, it was like my body was on pleasure overload. It was scary at first and the doc said my endorphin levels were higher than he had ever seen before on anyone and it seemed to him that the pustules were the cause.”

Peterson leaned forward again and sipped his beer but this time he tilted the mug slightly without raising it from the table. Looking at me he continued

“How was I supposed to know? They never tell us anything”

“I’ve been there too” I agreed

“The doc was really concerned for me but at that point but all I could do was lie back on the bed and I’m embarrassed to say, just moan in pleasure.”

“When did command find out?” I asked

“Probably not until the dam pustules started popping I guess. That’s when the doc started to run exo-diagnostic filters instead of just disease filters. Once he did that the ship’s computer was able to scan the quarantine unit and then they knew”

“Did they tell you right away” I asked

“Hell no, they just let me sit there as the little bastards started popping out everywhere and I was about ready to stomp on them when the doc yelled at me to not touch them”

“What did they look like?” I asked

“Like snot, snot with little crawly legs and boy could they move. They started climbing on everything except me thankfully.”

“I don’t see any scars on you, did it take you a long time to heal?” I asked

“That was the amazing part, my skin was never really affected. According to the doc they didn’t really get under my skin but formed on top of my skin. Something about them being like a non-invasive parasite, they just used my body for energy but did no harm. As soon as the little buggers hatched the area they exited from just fell away from my body like skin after a bad sunburn”

“I read that there was some vocalization from them?” I asked

“Vocalization? If you want to call it that, it was more like screaming. They were all growing at an incredible rate and within what seemed like only minutes they were all the size of my fist” as he raised his fist to demonstrate

“At that time I had no clue what they were yelling about but it was several hundred of them giving me hell. I didn’t find out till much later that what they were yelling roughly translated as “mating outside species not allowed” and boy were they pissed”

“When did they finally tell you what happened?”

“Not till after they interrogated me for several hours and accusing me like I had planned the whole thing. Even the captain had at me, explaining to me that if I had just come to them in the first place this could have all been averted. It was like I should have known all about their secret mission to transport the ambassador and that this was a first contact mission. How was I supposed to know the ambassador was basically a bag of water and he was roaming my deck at night unattended?”

Peterson reached for his beer again but this time lifting it to his lips and as he sipped his beer the shot glass clinked against the glass mug as I recollected the official version of the event.

It seems that the xxxeDDes ambassador had wandered from his quarters and met up with Peterson in the hallway. The xxxeDDes are for lack of a better description are mostly just rolling bags of water. Peterson ran into the ambassador in the hallway and ruptured his membrane. What he slipped and fell into was the ambassador’s reproductive gel that was released when the membrane was ruptured. It seems that the xxxeDDes reproduce by puncturing each other’s membrane and then mixing together creating offspring.

In the meantime the command staff was going nuts looking for the ambassador. They had gone to his quarters and he wasn’t there and sensors couldn’t locate him anywhere on the ship. The captain had no choice and finally had to contact xxxeDDes and report his disappearance. That created an uproar and it looked like it would turn into a real disaster unless they could find the ambassador. They started a ship wide search with security personnel looking everywhere.

They of course finally located the ambassador in sickbay after the doctor started running the exo-diagnostic filters. In their reproductive process the xxxeDDes also duplicate themselves so all they had to do was allow Peterson’s rash to continue till the ambassador and several hundred of his offspring hatched.

Peterson finished off his beer and returned his mug to the table with clunk

“They have pictures you know” he said “Pictures of the little bastards in full bloom on my body as they hatched and dropped off one by one. Of course no one will ever see them because they were deemed too graphic for general publication and they were confiscated for the “betterment of inter-species relationships”. Relationships, huh, like they know all about that.”

“What happened to your career after?” I asked

“Not much, but of course there wasn’t going to be any promotions in my future, they made that much clear. But I think when they had a chance to think it over they figured it would be best if I wasn’t in the service anymore so I did get a full pension and an honorable. It wasn’t what I had planned, but it turned out alright in the end”

“I heard some strange rumors about the xxxeDDes that have been circulating; do you know anything about that?” I asked

“Oh hell yea I do” he responded quickly “After all the shit I got about the incident you would think the xxxeDDes had enough of human contact. But if there is coin to be made in this galaxy you better believe that the Pleasure Planets will have a handle on it. I’ve not been there yet myself but some buddies of mine have seen first hand what they are calling the “Peterson’s Pleasure Puddle” where you can inter-species re-enact my experience with the xxxeDDes for a price. Now don’t that beat all?”

Peterson’s eyes seemed wistful as he finished the last sentence of his story and I noticed that his finger was lightly tapping a small puddle of beer next to his mug on the table. I bought him a few more drinks and I thanked him for taking the time to tell me his tale and he in turn thanked me for the drinks. As we parted ways I noticed that his face seemed different and more relaxed than when we first met. It was his smile, it was pleasant but seemed somehow twisted, but I guess that’s how a man with one of the first documented “inter-species relationship” under his belt smiles.