Cath

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Ezra carried on waving until Vigdis went inside, then gave her a finger of his own - the middle one. After that, he put his hand back on the gun’s foregrip and watched the aliens closely. He’d had standoffs like this before with all sorts of Humans - Mexican federal police, Kazakh freedom fighters etc, but never bird-soldiers before. It made him smirk under his mask. Were they afraid, or were they just naturally skittish?

---

“Hey, easy on the details! They need to back the fuck up tell us what’s going on here before we just roll out the welcome wagon.” Darnell snapped at Itxaro as Vigdis re-entered.

“Shut up man, I know how a gun works.” Darnell kissed his teeth at Vigdis as she started pushing the end of his shotgun. His South London dialect was more pronounced now he’d had a few drinks. The dawning realisation that they were stuck God-knows-where had really hit home last night. He was just a fixer, not an explorer. He shouldn’t have to deal with all this alien shit.

“The aliens just confirmed what we already know - we’re stuck somewhere off all the charts. Now she’s giving them all invitations to follow us back to Earth, completely disregarding the fact these things have some advanced tech or, or fucking MAGIC. Whatever it is, it's dangerous is all I'm saying.” Darnell pointed to Dr Ibarra while speaking.

“Now it looks like they want us to go somewhere with them to do God knows what.” Darnell continued.

“No one is going anywhere.” Zey said firmly, arms crossed. The aliens had shown a willingness to communicate and be peaceful, but she still wasn’t clear what they were capable of or exactly what they wanted. It seemed this ‘Kerchak’ was instrumental somehow.

“Mr Darnell is right - we can’t risk them finding their way to Earth. Nobody is to give usable reference points for our home until we know more about them, is that clear? Now, how do we ask them about these metal spheres and the fire show?"

She looked around. "Mallory, Eva, how long on those trinkets?”

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Zey had to check her chem-gland to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. Vigdis looked unhurt and mobile, praise be. But standing near her in the shuttle bay were five birds, some kind of elk-thing and…well, what the HELL was that thing in the leather robes? A burning tree from the crash? Why was there fire in the air when they were supposed to have fire suppression points in the ceiling? Zey had serious questions, and struggled to take her eyes off their new guests while Vigdis relayed what had happened to her so far.

Tyreese Darnell blurted out the first thing that came into his head.

“They’re aliens…not terrorists but fucking aliens!”

The large suited man shifted his grip on the unfamiliar shotgun as a tidy-looking bird came closer; he shakily half raised it before Zey put a hand on the barrel and pushed it back down.

The bird alien pointed at Vigdis and said the engineer’s name in a voice that struck Zey as similar to that of a parrot’s mimicry. Clearer though. The clothed bird then pointed to itself.

“Kareet.”

Zey was shocked, and hesitated for a moment or two. Then she cleared her throat, gulped and pointed to herself.

“Zeynap.”

She then put a hand on Darnell’s arm.

“Tyreese.”

Finally, she pointed at her XO.

“Mallory.”

In the heat of the moment, it struck Zey that she may have never used Mallory’s first name before. And now she’d just introduced him as Mallory to a new race of beings.

It seemed the engineers were making progress in setting up a basis for communication, so the Captain studied how these aliens were reacting. She noticed that not only was this burning tree apparently making notes with fire in the air, the most imposing bird also appeared to be remotely controlling a bunch of metal spheres with remarkable dexterity.

Mallory asked Vigdis about the roof. As the engineer was making her way over, Zey edged closer to her XO and surreptitiously placed a hand blocking visibility of her mouth while talking to Mallory.

“They have weapons, but where is the tech controlling all this weird shit? In their bodies? We need to get this burning tree out of the shuttle bay too, it's going to set something ablaze.”

Zey was listening in on the damage report with her eyes on their guests, formulating her next move when Eva and her suit woke up. Spider drones dialled in too, towards them from the back of the bay.. The reaction from the locals was understandably concerned, with everybody starting to move and some sort of electrical field appearing.

“Eva get your bots in line, you’re spooking the locals!” Zey raised her voice over her shoulder, palms out in a placating gesture again.

“I have a clean shot, I can blow this one’s head off!” Darnell urged.

“What is your status?” Ezra asked in her ear.

“Do NOT fire! Everybody remain calm - I’d rather not piss these things off.” Zey ordered, making a patting gesture towards the ground with her hands.

Just when Zey thought the tension couldn’t get higher, more bird soldiers appeared and this ‘Nellara’ became visibly more agitated. Zey's right hand crept up to rest on the pistol in her plate carrier’s holster, with her left still held out. The thing pointed its own feathery wing/arm outside, some others formed up while one bird started gesturing something quite different. The large elk creature and a few of the solders exited the shuttle bay. Suddenly Zey realised - Ezra.

Vigdis realised too, and charged towards the aliens.

“Vigdis, wait!” Zey called, but it was too late, she was among them and then outside.

“Oh fuck’s sake.” She groaned, exasperated. The sound of Eva’s suit opening filled the shuttle bay, and then the slap of feet on the deckplate behind her. Zey turned so she could see both her XO and her EVA specialist.

“Mallory, Eva, are there any trinkets in here we could give them as a peace offering? Nothing critical or offensive. Find something, now please.”

Zey looked back at the aliens and pointed to Eva.

“See? Human!”

---

“What is happening? You are in my shot.” Ezra asked calmly, staring at Vigdis through his scope as she gestured out.

“Ezra, i think the locals have spotted you or the droids, they’re getting aggravated. Stand down and show yourself or people are going to die.” Zey talked urgently into her radio.

“We cannot just surrender!”

“We’re not surrendering, we’re communicating! Now stand down and show yourself, that is a direct order.”

There was a pregnant pause over the airwaves.

“Understood.” Ezra crackled, finally.

Outside, the soldier crawled out from under the shrubbery he had set up in and walked a few paces forward, rifle cradled across his chest. He would be up the hill to the left of anyone looking into the shuttle bay entrance. He knew he looked like the bogeyman for humans, in his black armour and tactical mask. But who knows how these aliens would perceive him.

“Droids, step out from cover, holster your weapons and wave.” Ezra ordered, slowly wiggling the fingers on one raised hand. The robots obeyed instantly, both down in the furrow made by the spaceship as it rolled, and up and to the right.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

A roiling fog had rolled across the marshy plains south of Lake Núr overnight. The first pale rays of dawn crept over the horizon and danced across the Jotunheim’s battered hull. Ezra turned off his night vision and surveyed the crash site again as first contact went ahead.

The Jotunheim was in an awkward, difficult to defend position, perched on the side of this hill. The firestorm immediately following the crash had burned away everything within fifty yards of the ship, leaving a charred circle. Ezra was no expert, but it seemed odd to him that the fires didn’t extend further out considering the oxygen-rich atmosphere. There were still a fair amount of trees and bushes surrounding the crash, even if some were still charred and smoking. This meant line of sight was choppy - no easy way to cover all approaches without more people. Ezra understood the Captain’s resistance to committing either her crew or frightened passengers to an external role right now. In fact this suited him - it meant he was indispensable while he figured out his next move.

The mercenary eventually opted to position himself up the hill from the ship, towards the cockpit end. There was a cluster of bushes that he could lie under which provided him a good vantage point to look out over the crash site and the marshes beyond. The other two androids controlled by Wodan (but accessible by any authorised personnel) completed a triangle around the ship. One was above and towards the engine end, with an OK view of the crest of their hill. The other droid blended in with the tangle of metal and broken trees that littered the Jotunheim’s path.

As the alien creatures arrived and investigated the ship, Ezra and his droids remained hidden. Their rifles were trained on the groups at all times. Once these initial guests filtered through to the shuttle bay on the marsh-side of the ship, they carefully tightened the triangle around them. Ezra changed position slightly to give him LOS on the jagged gash towards the fore corner of the shuttle bay. Peering through his scope, he saw multiple creatures in metal plate armour standing guard at the entrance.

“I have eyes on the shuttle bay opening. Two tangos are external.” Ezra sounded off over comms for the crew to hear. They looked like birds in armour through his scope.

“What is your status?”

Hello everyone!!

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