'Captain, I am detecting a ship.' The officer at the sensor station looked surprised. They've been travelling for a long time already and didn't expect to meet anyone that far away from any known planet. 'Can you identify it?' The captain asked. 'No, captain,' came the reply. 'There is nothing similar in our data banks.' 'Do we have a visual?' 'Yes, sir.' The officer answered and promptly turned the main viewer on. All the people on the bridge looked curiously at a strangely designed, alien ship. It was black, even though what they were looking at was in fact a computer projection of the real world. It had a roughly oval shape with no pronounced warp nacelles. The blue glow of its engines was barely visible at the narrow end of the ship. They could also see no windows. 'How big is it?' The answer was quite a surprise. 'Sir, it's only about five metres long.' 'It's either a shuttle or life pod,' suggested the tactical officer. 'Can you confirm any life forms aboard, lieutenant?' The man bent over his console and touched some icons. 'Affirmative,' he said after a while. 'One life form, very weak. M class environment, slightly smaller gravity compared to ours,' he added, ahead of his commanding officers. 'Should we investigate?' That came from the first officer, a young woman who always seemed full of eagerness and curiosity. The captain smiled at her. 'Open a channel.' 'Channel open, sir.' 'We are from the United Federation of Planets, on a peaceful mission of exploration. We mean you no harm. Will you please identify yourself?' The captain signalled end of message and added: 'Repeat it for a while so that he has time to decipher our language. 'Aye, sir,' the communications officer said and got to work. The captain sat down in his chair and waited patiently. The ship on the main viewer remained silently on its course. After what seemed an eternity for the people on the bridge, the comm station beeped to signal an incoming message. 'On screen,' the captain said quickly. 'It's audio only,' replied the officer and immediately channelled the message through the ship's speakers. The words, translated by the computer, were simple. 'You... will... never... get me!' 'Captain!' The tactical officer exclaimed. 'I'm detecting a warp core breach on that ship!' 'Transport the pilot! Hurry!' The captain shouted and watched his people move frantically over their consoles to rescue the alien. In no time, the screen brightened with the light of the explosion. The destructed vessel was too small to pose any danger to the Federation ship, yet the view was spectacular. 'I'm sorry, captain,' said the operations officer softly. 'I was unable to penetrate his shields. He's gone.' The crew remained silent for a long while. Over the course of the next few days, the above scenario was repeated regularly. They met quite a few identical small vessels that came on an intercepting course, repeated a similar message when hailed and then apparently self destructed. No attempts proved useful to communicate with the aliens, detect their homeworld or rescue them on their seemingly suicidal missions. The senior officers were gathered in the conference room, trying to come up with a solution to the problem. The tactical officer reported. 'We have been working on the aliens' shield configuration. Their ships have almost no weapons but possess extremely strong, regenerative shields, captain. We can attempt to destroy them but in that case we will also destroy the vessel itself. There is no way around that, I'm afraid. If we cut through the shields with the phaser beam, we either inflict no damage at all or destroy the ship altogether.' 'Will we have time to recover the pilot?' 'Unknown, sir. The whole operation would have to be extremely well timed. And even so, there is no telling if we succeed. We might possibly have only a fraction of second to work within. 'We have to give it a try,' said the first officer. 'Otherwise we'll end up witnessing endless suicides on our way. We have to find a way to communicate with these aliens, to find out why they are doing this!' 'But it is possible that we'll destroy yet another one without achieving our goal, commander,' answered the more cool minded tactical officer.' 'We have no other option, lieutenant,' the captain made up his mind. 'Prepare the detailed outline of the procedure and make it ready by tomorrow 8.00 hours. Dismissed.' They didn't have to wait long to put their plan into action. The next morning there was another small ship on the sensors. It came closer and then the Federation ship unleashed a carefully measured phaser beam. It cut through the alien vessel's shields and in a matter of seconds destroyed the small ship. This time, however, they were lucky and sickbay reported receiving the rescued alien. 'May I speak to him?' Asked the captain somewhat impatiently as soon as he learned of the operation success. 'I...,' the doctor hesitated. 'I think not right now, captain. I had to give him a sedative and he's unconscious. I suppose you should come down here, nevertheless.' 'I'm on my way,' the captain said intrigued. 'You have the bridge, commander.' 'Where is our patient?' The captain asked as soon as the door to the sickbay swooshed open. He started looking around, not waiting for the doctor to guide him. On one of the biobeds he saw a small, dark figure of the alien, covered with sheets. 'Is that him?' He asked, already moving towards the biobed. 'Yes, sir,' replied the doctor. 'He's all right from what I can tell and should recover within the next twenty minutes. When he was beamed down here, though, he was completely incoherent. I don't suppose he could understand me, but he was definitely in the state of panic.' The captain was only partially listening to his medical officer. He was staring at the figure on the biobed. There was something strangely familiar about this alien. Finally, he moved closer just in time to see the alien regaining consciousness. The small, dark eyes opened and focused on the captain. He heard the silent words: 'Hunters... you will... never... get me... alive.' The scanner over the biobed beeped suddenly as the alien closed his eyes again. The doctor rushed for his equipment ushering the captain away. He lifted the sheets that were covering the tiny body and began the struggle to save the alien. The captain gasped in total surprise. The alien on the biobed was a twenty centimetres black cockroach. Captain's log - supplemental We have finally managed to catch one of these strange, suicidal creatures. The doctor gave him a sedative and prevented him from committing suicide. At last we were able to communicate with the alien. He told us his name was Kahrast... 'So, Kahrast, can you start with telling me why you came by the tens sneaking around us?' The captain tried his softest voice. The alien looked confused. He was still in the sickbay, now full of security officers. He had learned that he would not be allowed to die and probably saw no other choice for himself but to comply with what he was asked to do. 'We were searching for food,' he said as if that was obvious. The captain looked at him surprised. 'Are you hungry?' 'No, of course I am not!' 'Then why?' Kahrast was trying to be patient as if he was talking to a child, explaining the most basic things. 'Because that's what we do. That's part of our culture. We go out and seek food in the vicinity of other races.' 'Then why did you try to commit suicide?' 'To do what?' Kahrast apparently wasn't familiar with the concept. 'To take your own life,' the captain explained. 'Because you saw me!' 'So?' The captain raised his eyebrow. 'I didn't want you to kill me,' came the reply. Now the captain looked confused. 'What made you think we would try to kill you?' Kahrast looked offended. He felt that strange man was playing with him, making jokes. He didn't like it. 'Because you have weapons?' He tried. The captain thought for a while before answering. 'Yes, but that's a standard procedure for us,' he finally said. 'We never use our weapons except for self defence. The expression on Kahrast's insectoid face was clearly one of shock and disgust. 'I must have misunderstood you. Perhaps this universal translator of yours is not working properly. Are you telling me that you use WEAPONS,' he pronounced the word with absolute abhorrence, 'the device designed to attack others, to defend yourselves?' The captain simply nodded. 'Would you care to explain it to me, please?' 'Well, basically we use it only as the last resort. We never shoot first. If attacked, we try to find a peaceful solution for as long as possible. Only when everything else fails, we use it. And even so, we strive more to disable the enemy rather than kill them.' The captain signalled to one of the security guards to approach and when the man came closer, he motioned him to show his phaser. Kahrast jumped on his bed in panic, trying to get as far away from the dreaded thing as he could. 'Relax,' the captain tried to calm him down. 'I'm not going to hurt you...' 'Take... it... away...' Kahras managed to whisper. The officer withdrew. 'I just wanted to show you this wasn't set to kill. If I was forced to use it, it would just stun you. Render you unconscious for a few hours. We wouldn't have killed you even if you attacked us.' 'So why did you come here with these powerful weapons in the first place?' asked Kahrast incredulously, still far from calm but at least free from instant panic. The captain sighed. It was his turn to explain the obvious. 'We are explorers. We go out and seek out new lives and new civilisations.' 'Why?' 'Because that's what we do. That's part of our culture. We sent you messages saying we meant no harm but you never listened.' Kahras remained silent. Something in his black eyes told the captain he didn't really believe him. Suddenly, the captain realised something. 'Kahrast,' he asked slowly. 'If we had came to you unarmed, would you have talked to us?' Kahrast looked at the man with interest. Perhaps these people were worth something, after all. 'I guess so,' he said. His features lightened softly, as if the insect was smiling. 'I guess we would.'
