Welcome to Secret's End, side-quel to my other fanfic, The Captain's Secret. You do not need to read the other fanfic to read this one. They are connected, but they are equally independent of each other.

If you have read the other one, there are a few secrets you'll spot right off the bat, and you'll find a few spots in here are a retread, but this is a very different story told from a different perspective and with a different sequence of events. Think of it as a chance to discover the characters and some of the secrets anew and learn some secrets and answers the other story did not include.

Additionally, I am pleased to say that, in keeping with the same thing that made the Captain's Secret possible, the final chapter of this has already been written.

Standing at the science station on the bridge of the USS Shenzhou, Saru found no comfort in the acoustic soundscape of life aboard a starship, but after five years in space, he was growing accustomed to it. As he scanned for anomalies in an otherwise unremarkable region of space, he could pick out each individual component of what he was hearing: the faint thrum of the engines and warp field, the soft murmurs of the officers around him as they communicated with non-bridge crew across the rest of the ship, the blips of acknowledgment as his crewmates tapped commands into their consoles, and the almost imperceptible hiss of atmosphere through the environmental filters. He could identify, too, the direction of each of these noises, so he could tell when a computer blip came from the ops console ahead to his right or the tactical station off to the left—even with his eyes closed.

To most, this would have seemed a remarkable feat, but to Saru, it was a constant reminder of the fact he was a Kelpien—a sapient prey species shaped by millions of years of evolution on a planet where every bush, tree, and rock contained lurking danger. The net result of this long history of anxiety was that Kelpiens were always in a state of high alert for danger.

It had also given them a reputation as cowards which Saru could not wholly deny. As peaceful and calm as the bridge was at the moment, the fact that this could change in the blink of an eye was creating within him an impulse to run somewhere more predictably safe. He fought this instinct by focusing on what was in front of him at the science station. In a universe where every moment held potential chaos, science was a steady constant and Saru's greatest comfort.

Presently, his display was showing him a map of the local region. It was largely unremarkable. A couple of subspace eddies, a few planetary points of interest, all of it well-mapped and in no need of investigation. The Shenzhou was an exploratory vessel that had been temporarily retasked to deal with a regional group of pirates at the behest of a local government, the Dartaran Council. Normally such a task would be considered well beneath the Shenzhou's prominence, but the Dartarans were in the process of considering Federation membership. Wiping out these pirates was seen as a positive step towards cementing the relationship and Starfleet wanted one of its most reliable on the job. That meant Saru's captain, Philippa Georgiou, whose presence commanded instant respect in this and many other regions of space. As soon as the Shenzhou figured out what well-mapped rock the pirates were hiding on, they would complete the mission and return to their regular exploratory duties.

For now, the patrol continued.

Saru sensed the danger before there seemed to be any evidence of it. The tiny, fleshy tendrils of threat ganglia along the back of his head tingled and emerged from beneath the flap normally concealing them. He brought his hand up towards the tendrils, wondering the cause and hoping no one had noticed.

"Commander, we're receiving a shortrange transmission," said the ensign on communications, Hasimova. "Dartaran in origin."

"Onscreen," was the command from the captain's chair. T'Vora, the Shenzhou's first officer, waited impassively as this order was not carried out.

"The signal's distorted," said Hasimova, too embarrassed to play the messy noise over the bridge comms. "I can't translate it yet."

Saru understood the ensign's embarrassment all too well. He felt similarly about the writhing mess of ganglia on the back of his head. "There is a subspace eddy between us and the signal's origin," he offered. "Compensating." The task calmed him and his ganglia withdrew from sight.

Signal cleaned, Hasimova was able to pull it up on the viewscreen. What they saw astonished them.

"—lalilalulhallilinnlalanalenilalalanelamelimanlaluni—"

It was alien, that much was clear. The question was what kind of alien. It had grayish blue fur and a pair of enormous, almost perfectly-round, lidless green eyes with six pupil slits arranged in a ring. The color and arrangement reminded Saru of an Earth fruit he had recently tried called a "kiwi." The rapid stream of syllables coming out of the creature's mouth was unlike anything Saru had ever heard before. He could see its tongue fluttering to produce the wet, lilting sequence of sounds. It was wearing some sort of white garment, the collar just visible on the screen.

T'Vora hit the comm command on her armrest. "Captain to bridge. We have encountered an unknown species." Her finger lifted from the comm. "Cross-reference against the known species database."

"Yes, sir," said Saru, though like T'Vora, he already suspected this was a futile effort because the computer would have been able to translate the language if it belonged to a known species.

"—lemalunilalamelanalilianilililialemalal—"

"Where are we on translation?"

"Almost there," promised the ensign.

"—lalimilalilunilalamanilamili—me! Help me, please! Is there anyone there? Please, can anyone hear me? Help me! Hello, can someone please help me?" The universal translator rendered the voice as high-pitched in keeping with the alien's natural tone.

This was the sound that Captain Philippa Georgiou arrived to as she strode onto the bridge and T'Vora turned over the captain's chair.

"Status report."

"We're tracking a Dartaran transport broadcasting a distress signal," said T'Vora, moving to the tactical console and displacing an ensign back to observer status.

"Set a course to intercept and open a channel," ordered Georgiou, issuing commands as smoothly as if she had been there the whole time.

The alien continued its pleading unabated. "If there's someone out there, anyone, please, I need—" There was a beeping sound on the transmission as the Shenzhou hailed. The alien twisted its head in confusion. "Hello? Can you hear me? Is someone there? Hello? Hello?"

Georgiou's eyes were on Hasimova. The ensign sat with her hand to her ear pensively, shook her head, and sent the hail again. The alien began shifting, searching its console for the source of the beeps. Hasimova nodded her head sharply at Georgiou as the signal connected.

"Alien vessel, this is Captain Philipp—"

The alien's reaction was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. "I see you! You're human! Can you see me?"

If Georgiou was taken aback by the alien's interruption, she made no outward sign of it. "Yes, though I am unfamiliar with your species. This is the Federation starship Shenzhou, responding to your distress signal. What is the problem?"

"Feder... Federation. Nnnn..." Mention of the Federation seemed to dim the alien's enthusiasm. The alien tilted its head downward so the glassy surface of its eyes reflected the lights and displays of the navigational controls on its ship.

"Are you in need of assistance?" asked Georgiou.

"Nn," went the alien. "Yes, though..." Its hands came into view in front of its face, eight knobbly-knuckled fingers pressing together, four on each hand.

"We are prepared to help. Can you tell us your species?"

"I am a lului. My name is Lalana."

Georgiou sounded it out. "La-lu-na?"

The hesitation continued. "Nn. Lalana."

"Lalana"—it still sounded like laluna to Saru's ears when Georgiou said it—"we would be happy to help you if you tell us what is wrong."

Lalana's hands lowered to chin level. "I am attempting to escape."

"Captain," said T'Vora, "I'm detecting a second Dartaran vessel in pursuit of the first. An identical personal transport vessel."

"That is them! Please, please, don't let them take me back. I beg of you, help me!" The fingers on the viewscreen curled and began to rapidly knock together in some sort of agitation display.

"The pursuit vessel is broadcasting a message," reported Hasimova.

"Onscreen," said Georgiou. Lalana's image shifted to the left to make room for both signals.

Two Dartarans appeared, brown-skinned with orange streaks along their spiky jawlines. The smaller one said in a sharp, authoritarian tone: "Federation starship! We are in pursuit of stolen property. This is an internal Dartaran matter. No assistance is required. Repeat. Federation starship! We are..."

"Hail them. Dartaran vessel, this is the USS Shenzhou. The vessel you are pursuing is requesting our help. Identify yourselves."

The smaller Dartaran bristled visibly, her jaw spikes seeming to sharpen as the skin around them contracted. "No help is required. We are perfectly capable of handling this. The Federation holds no jurisdiction here."

"The pursuit vessel will engage its target in five-point-seven hours at present speeds," reported T'Vora. That seemed an excessively long timeframe. Saru noted the two ships were barely capable of warp two. He also noticed something else unusual, but he was not the one to speak the fact aloud, T'Vora did. "Captain, I am detecting no life signs aboard the lead vessel."

Lalana stared at them, her fingers still a mess of motion, the pupils in her eyes contracting and expanding. "You would not detect me, but if you will not help me, then will you kindly shoot me out of the sky? You have this ability, yes?"

The sounds of the starship came to the forefront again as the Dartarans and the crew of the Shenzhou fell silent and processed that request.

"That is not necessary," said Georgiou. "Dartaran vessel, am I to understand that you are in pursuit of a ship which was stolen from you?" The Dartarans shifted, exchanged a glance, but did not answer.

Lalana answered for them. "The ship is not the property they wish the return of. The property is me."

"He lies," said the female Dartaran. "We are his caretakers, captain, and wish only to bring him home safe. This is a... private issue."

There were two conflicting stories at play and no clear evidence of fault. Georgiou opted for a middle road approach. "This is not something which can be easily resolved over communications. We will therefore rendezvous with you and you may sort this out aboard the Shenzhou. We will, of course, contact the Dartaran Council to advise us and make sure your laws are followed."

It was such a reasonable proposal the Dartarans were having a hard time throwing up objections to it. They glanced at each other again, not sure how to avoid this course of action.

On the left side of the viewscreen, Lalana's fingers pressed tightly together again. "I have no wish to trade one set of captors for another. I would sooner die free upon a starship of my own command than to subject myself to any Federation machinations. I will not have conditions placed upon me when I am already free among the stars as I have longed to be. I have survived the hunt, I have survived the holding, and I choose this death." That stated, Lalana's head drew back and slammed down face first against the ship's console with such force it sounded like two rocks striking together. Then the lului repeated the motion with a thwack that sounded like something breaking.

The sight disturbed everyone, even the Dartarans. "Stop!" said the larger Dartaran, his eyes refocusing in alarm. "Come home, we can—" The female Dartaran put a clawed hand on the male's arm and squeezed, hard.

Lalana did stop, for a moment. "Why would I go home with you? You do not even know my gender. I am not a male!"

It was a definitive nail into the coffin of the Dartarans' narrative. Georgiou said coolly, "We wish only to discern the truth of this matter. Once we have done so, then we will determine the best course of action for everyone, yourself included."

The female Dartaran abruptly cut their side of the feed, ostensibly to confer privately with her companion. That left Lalana onscreen and afforded Georgiou a moment to speak in equal privacy.

"Have you been held against your will?"

Lalana tapped her fingers together. "Not lailen."

"The translator didn't get that," reported Hasimova. "Can you clarify lailen?"

"Two and two is lailen."

Hasimova's brow knit. If lailen meant four, the computer would have registered the word as such, but something was causing the translation matrix to balk. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't translate that."

"It is unimportant," said Georgiou. "We will help you if help is warranted. This I promise."

When the Dartarans resumed communications, they were resigned to their fate and accepted the rendezvous coordinates without further objection. Lalana was similarly amenable with the caveat that she did not possess the skills necessary to carry out the navigational request. "I do not know what 'coordinates' are and while I was able to make the ship start, I do not know how to make it stop."

The simplest solution was for someone to beam over to the transport and take control of the vessel. Commander Jones, one of the chief engineers, accepted the task. They matched warp speed to the Dartaran shuttle and initiated a transport.

Jones's assessment of the situation was immediate and unexpected. There was a problem.

"Captain, the control panel was damaged and the warp drive is stuck in a power cycle loop. I can't disengage it."

"I suppose I should not have hit the table with my face," said Lalana, clicking her tongue in a manner that had to indicate alarm at her predicament.

Jones ignored the commentary. "The drive will go critical in eight minutes."

"Beam them out," ordered Georgiou.

"I can't lock on to the alien, captain," was the reply from Garcia, the operations officer.

Georgiou mentally reviewed the Starfleet core breach checklist. "Can you jettison the core?"

"Negative, it's an integrated system."

There were no escape pods on the shuttlecraft. There were two emergency spacesuits. Jones held one up and looked at Lalana. "Let's try and get this on you."

"Six minutes to core overload," reported Garcia.

The spacesuit effort was not going very well. Jones gave it his best shot but once the puffy white garment Lalana was wearing came off, it became clear to everyone watching that Lalana's alienness extended well past her giant eyes and furry blue head. She was not humanoid. A long tail drifted behind her, thin for most of its length and terminating in a broad spoon shape. "Perhaps we should break my legs," she suggested.

"A containment crate!"

Everyone turned to look at Saru. The attention was enough to draw out his threat ganglia again; the sensation of so many eyes upon him was deeply unsettling. He sputtered a moment and pushed through the distress.

"A reinforced biological containment crate would withstand the vacuum of space and provide life support long enough to tractor it aboard. We have several in cargo bay three. We need only beam one over."

"Do it," said Georgiou. The crew hastened to comply in the remaining four minutes. Garcia contacted the cargo bay officer on duty and looped him in. Georgiou issued a quick set of commands to confirm their course of action for all: beam over a crate, put Lalana in the crate, jettison the crate from the shuttlecraft and tractor it. "That was an excellent idea, Mr. Saru."

"Thank you, captain," said Saru. There was something vaguely dazed in his tone. As important as coordinating Lalana's rescue was, he was preoccupied by something she had said before smashing her head against the console.

Georgiou rose from the captain's chair and moved towards the turbolift. Saru straightened slightly, mouth open as if he wanted to speak. Georgiou paused mid-stride and asked, "Something on your mind, Mr. Saru?"

"Captain, may I—may I—"

Georgiou's head twisted slightly in an indication she did not appreciate the stammer in a moment where time was of the essence.

"—meet our guest with you?"

"Come," Georgiou invited. Saru followed her into the turbolift with hands clasped in front of him. The doors slid shut and the turbolift began its path downward towards the shuttlebay.

"Captain, if I may draw your attention to something that was said during the transmission, Lalana made reference to a hunt."

"I heard the same."

"It is my impression she may have been hunted as my people once were."

Georgiou did not reply; that was equally obvious to her.

"It may be of benefit for our guest to have a non-human present when meeting us."

"It may," agreed Georgiou.

"Firsthand experience with an unknown alien species would additionally assist me in receiving first contact certification."

"Mr. Saru, you are already in the turbolift, you do not need to justify your presence further."

The turbolift doors opened. Georgiou strode out and Saru followed a moment later, realizing he had gotten bogged down in semantics in a moment when action was preferred. He mentally bemoaned his mistake. Semantics were part of how he processed things and it was an easy pattern to fall back into when he was feeling stressed, as he was right now.

They arrived as the cargo crate slipped through the containment field over the mouth of the shuttlebay. Jones was with it, tethered to the crate's lid. He rolled off and stood up as the crate touched the ground, prioritizing opening the container over removing his own spacesuit. Lalana's head and eyes popped up into view. She gripped the lip of the crate with four-fingered hands and twisted around, taking in the view.

"Captain, the shuttlecraft has exploded," T'Vora reported over the comms. Georgiou responded with thanks and approached the crate with Saru as Jones removed his suit helmet.

"It is very grey. Is it always this grey?" Lalana asked Jones.

"Yeah," said Jones.

"Nnh," was Lalana's response. She hopped out of the crate, revealing long, thin legs with an extra set of joints beyond the arrangement possessed by Kelpiens and humans. Viewed in full, her body had a configuration not unlike a gerboa. She used her tail as a counterbalance to the mass of her torso and spun her hands in front of her in a motion like a fruit fly.

Saru balked slightly at her unclothed state. He stared as Georgiou provided a standard greeting followed by a very specific circumstantial stipulation. "As we have not encountered your species before, we must place you under a medical quarantine, for your safety as well as ours."

"Place me below what?" responded Lalana.

"Containment in a medical facility," clarified Saru. "Until we are certain our species pose no risk to one another."

Lalana touched her tail to the floor for support and leaned stiffly back on her haunches. "Imprisonment," she said.

"No," said Georgiou. "It is standard procedure when meeting a new species. You will be free to go after you have been examined. Commander Jones, you will go as well."

"Yes, captain."

There was an open secret in the air. The crux of the issue was not exposure to new alien life, it was that said new alien life had not undergone transporter biofilter protocols. There was no reason for Jones to be quarantined—he could have undergone those protocols himself now that he was aboard—except to provide Lalana some form of accompaniment as reassurance of their benevolence.

Security officers arrived. Georgiou signaled them to provide escort. "Come, tell us how you came to encounter the Dartarans."

"Certainly. Four cycles ago, the Hla-pu came to Luluan in their ships and attempted to build structures on our planet..."

What followed was a detailed accounting of an alien invasion by a violent species intent on subjugating Lalana's homeplanet for unknown reasons. Georgiou and Saru listened intently as Lalana explained how the invaders had engaged in various methods of genocide against her people, including burning the forests her species lived in and unleashing biological agents into the air.

By the time they arrived in the medical bay, Saru had ascertained that the lului were not a prey species in the same sense as Kelpiens. Lalana's description made clear her people were not content to be victims of invasion. "Every time they came back, we fought them again, careful not to kill them but to destroy the implements of their colonization efforts and reduce their structures back to the component elements. Finally, the cycle concluded, the Hla-pu went away and were not seen again. We thought the issue to be resolved, but then the hunters came."

"The hunters were the Dartarans?" asked Georgiou.

"Oh, no, not until much later did the Dartarans arrive. The merchants came alone at first, to assess the value of the venture, and once they determined it was solvent, they began to bring their clients."

Saru realized Lalana was not giving them a direct explanation of her presence with the Dartarans so much as an accounting of her planet's history in significantly more detail than was usefully applicable.

The comms beeped. The Dartarans were aboard. Georgiou ordered T'Vora to escort their other guests to the conference room while the Shenzhou's chief medical officer, Dr. Channick, instructed Lalana to move onto one of the medbay slabs and enacted a containment field until she could determine what threat, if any, Lalana posed.

Lalana reacted to the field by beginning to knock her knuckles together rapidly.

"Please, continue," said Georgiou.

"Nn." Lalana's twelve pupils constricted to slits. The level of detail in her account dropped to almost nothing. "There were many hunters in the three cycles following and then the Dartarans came and captured me and Lalaran and took us to their home."

"Another of your species?" Georgiou guessed.

"Yes. But he died shortly after arrival. He was not suited to captivity. I remained until I was able to take their ship and make my way to the stars. Then you found me."

Georgiou considered the totality of the story. "Lalana, can you tell us where your world is located?"

"In relation to what? I do not even know where I am now."

Georgiou left Saru to make what he could of their guest and proceeded to the conference room. T'Vora met her in the hallway outside and they entered together as a minor show of solidarity and strength.

The Dartarans were seated on the far side of the table facing the door in a defensive position, their backs to the stars outside the window. The female Dartaran, Margeh, rose as they entered. Her husband, T'rond'n, remained seated in a manner that felt vaguely subservient, his hands stuffed into the billowy cloth of his long-sleeved robe.

"Captain Georgiou," began Margeh, leaning forward with her hands on the table.

Georgiou was calmly accusatory as she and T'Vora sat down across the table. "You lied to me," she said. "You identified yourselves as caretakers."

"We are," said T'rond'n.

"Keeping a sentient species hostage? Perhaps the word means something different in your language."

Margeh's claws tightened, her nails scraping faintly on the conference table's matte surface. "Captain, until today, we did not even know he—she could speak!"

As incredible as that assertion was, there was no indication from either that this was anything short of the truth and Lalana's capacity to refute the claim reduced their incentive to lie significantly. "Then tell me, how did you come to meet Lalana?"

The picture Margeh and T'rond'n painted was much clearer than Lalana's.

They were hunters. They made no effort to hide this fact. It was a hobby they shared and enjoyed primarily in the privacy of their own estate, which they kept stocked with the most challenging game they could find. "We do not typically kill our prey," explained Margeh. "We simply enjoy the art of tracking and disabling them."

Their hobby had drawn them into contact with other hunters, including an Eska who had been on an expedition with a group of Gentonians to hunt "the most elusive prey in the known universe." A species that could camouflage itself into its surroundings, had no heat signature, and did not show up on standard scanners. "A challenge like no other," their Eska friend promised.

It was an opportunity Margeh and T'rond'n could not pass up. "If we had known they were sentient, we would never have gone!" Margeh assured. She remained standing as she recounted these events, pacing and occasionally gripping the table, chairs, and T'rond'n with her pinprick-sharp claws.

"It was our understanding they were mere animals," said T'rond'n. "The lului has been... has been in our house for years, captain. We intended it no harm."

"In that time, it never spoke," said Margeh. Then she repeated, again, what she felt to be the crucial detail of their involvement: "We do not kill our prey."

There was the matter of the other dead lului, Lalaran. "That one also did not speak?" queried T'Vora.

"It died shortly after we brought it home," explained Margeh. She finally sat down. "There was... The man in charge of the expedition, Eggal or something similar, insisted on changing the other lului's tongue so it would cease making incessant noise. He said it was standard procedure."

"Changing?"

"Cutting it, as you would a malspat's tail," said T'rond'n. Though neither Georgiou nor T'Vora knew that a malspat was a spike-tailed creature often kept as a Dartaran pet once its tail spike was removed, both understood the implication.

"We did not cut the—it—her tongue because she did not make noise like the other one. We thought she was abnormal, deficient. She was very easy to catch. It seemed kinder to remove her from her native environment than leave her there. She could not even properly camouflage herself. Another hunter would have taken her easily."

Georgiou considered the Dartarans. Between their story and Lalana's lay something that felt like the truth. Neither side contradicted the other, but their combined inability and unwillingness to communicate the two sides of the narrative had led them both to a collective point of misunderstanding. Georgiou folded her hands on the conference table. She had only one question to ask in light of this information.

"Would you help us contact these people who arranged your hunting trip?"

"Of course, captain. We will help you in any way we can."

Things were not going so smoothly in the medical bay. "I don't know what to do," Channick admitted, tugging on her ear with annoyance. "Literally none of these scans are working."

"Optical and sonar only," said Lalana. Her pupils were still heavily constricted and she was hunched on top of the medical slab with her tail circled around the base of her body, creating the impression she was a single, solid jellybean shape. Jones stood off to the side, entirely disinterested in the proceedings and dismayed at being stuck in sickbay for the sole purpose of good optics. He wasn't even supposed to be on this shift, except Georgiou's regular first-shift chief engineer, Commander Dahan, was on leave.

"Perhaps I can adjust the electromagnetic scanners to compensate," suggested Saru.

"I will not register. My electromagnetic radiation field is indistinguishable from the background noise of the universe."

"How can that be?" asked Saru.

Lalana said nothing.

"Is there something bothering you?"

"It is very bright."

The medbay was one of the best-lit areas of the ship. "Computer, lights to eighty percent," said Channick, and the light dimmed.

"Not those lights, the wall," said Lalana.

Saru pressed his hands together thoughtfully, connecting her words to an earlier observation. "Do you mean the biological containment field?"

"The wall of particles? Yes."

"You can see that?" asked Channick.

"You cannot?" They could, but only when it was being turned on, off, or actively containing something. All other times, it was transparent to Saru and the humans in the room.

"I can't turn it off," lamented Channick. "There might be parasites, or toxins... I'm sorry, I don't know anything about your species. Can you tell me what sort of diseases or illnesses you're prone to?"

"No."

Hasimova had come down from the bridge and was fiddling with the translation matrix on one of the medbay monitors. She changed a few settings. "Diseases and illnesses," she repeated, setting the translator to render the words in Dartaran.

"No," said Lalana again.

"Help me out here," said Channick. "I can't scan you. I can't turn the iso field off until I confirm you're safe."

"I will attempt to adjust the isolation field to a more comfortable frequency," suggested Saru, largely as an aside for his own benefit because no one else was paying him any attention. He located an open workstation and began to contemplate the medical isolation field mechanics and how they might be affecting lului eyes.

"I am not safe," said Lalana.

Channick found something to be optimistic about in the statement, damning as it sounded. Her face lit up. "Great! Can you tell me how?"

"I have been captured by the Federation."

"Not 'safe' as in 'endangered,'" Hasimova clarified, identifying the issue and adjusting translation to compensate. "'Safe' as in 'not dangerous.'"

After a brief discussion about the nuances of the language being used, Lalana revised her answer to, "I am not dangerous."

"Maybe not you directly, but there might be microorganisms on you... I guess we'll spot-test some decon protocols." Whatever danger Lalana might pose, Channick was equally determined not to harm the lului by subjecting her to any medical procedures that might be incompatible with her biology.

"I am microorganism-lulu." The translator rendered the voice with no discernible change in tone, but it felt like Lalana was growing aggravated and sullen as a result of her ordeal.

Saru changed one of the sub-settings in the isolation field. Lalana sat up and began spinning her hands, her pupils dilating back to their previous width.

"Thank you! That is much better, individual whose name I do not know!"

The idea that this encounter was going to be the impetus for earning first contact certification suddenly seemed an entirely remote possibility to Saru. He had been in Lalana's company for over twenty minutes and failed to introduce himself. "I am Lieutenant Junior Grade Saru."

"Then I am pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Junior Grade Saru. And what are your people called?"

"I am a Kelpien."

"I have never met a Kelpien before. Your people must not be very good hunters." Her tongue clicked.

Saru registered the clicks as another agitation response, likely a result of Lalana recalling her experience being hunted. Lului might not be prey in an evolutionary sense, but in a broader sense, they had this condition in common with Kelpiens. Saru's shoulders softened in sympathy. "I think you will find our species have many things common."