The Squid Guys are the Good Guys
"General Muller. Sir? Please. Sir?" Specialist Gunther said in a shaky voice from outside the Captain's tent.
"Yes, what?"
"Somebody. I mean. Some. Thing. Sorry. I mean. Some ... body. Is here to, see you."
"What do you mean some....." The former Captain turned from where he had been putting on his boots while sitting on a large wooden box and totally froze. For the first time since he'd been given his emergency field promotion to take command of what had been the Pacific Northwest of the United States he didn't know what to say or even what to think.
The things standing behind Gunther had to have come from an old science fiction show made by somebody who, as a child, had been frightened by the animals in an aquarium. The only term that Muller could come up with was that they were related to the Humboldt squid only without the fins on top. They were standing on four thick tentacles and had four thinner ones about halfway up their bodies. The closest squid thing had two of its tentacles by its sides, while two of its other 'arms' ended in three fingerlike protrusions, one of those was holding a 'handful' of objects on thin cords, the other held a small oblong object. The five foot tall aliens didn't appear to be armed with any obvious weapons.
The closest one had one large multi-lensed eye that focused on him, it offered him one of the discs and Muller took it.
"General Muller," it said without speaking.
It couldn't speak, for one main reason being that it didn't have a mouth that he saw. What it did have was a small flat pendant around what might best be described as its neck that spoke for it without any flashing lights or other indication that the object was working. It dawned on him that the disc was some sort of communicator that allowed him to understand the creature.
"I'm Muller," the captain said when he found his voice again.
"As you can see, I am not from your world," it said.
"Yeah, OK."
