Cath

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

It quickly became clear to Zey that she needed some time alone to process the morning’s events once the meeting kicked off. The crew’s stressed and often overlapping voices prompted a harsh ringing in her ears that made it difficult to concentrate. She nodded distractedly, pinching her top lip with two fingers till she tasted blood.

“Alright, thank you everyone for your suggestions.” She said when she could bear it no longer.

“I’m going to my cabin now to…plan our next move. Carry on.”

Zey barely made it twenty paces out of the conference room before Vigdis ambushed her to say sorry.

“Thank you, Jonsdottir. You did well. Now hop to it - the ship isn’t going to repair itself.”

With that, the Captain half jogged, half staggered up the stairs to her cabin. Her vision was whiting out, she felt sick.

Wodan opened the door for her on arrival and she crashed through onto the floor of her quarters.

“Leave me alone now. Go!” Zey barked. The cabin door closed and locked.

She lay there, shaking and hyperventilating on her hands and knees.

“No, no, no, no, NO! Please…” She hissed through gritted teeth. The ringing was getting louder. She spat a gob of phlegm onto the deck in front of her. For some reason, her mother and father heave into her mind’s eye, and told her to pray. They practised Islam to this day as far as she knew, though Zey had long since renounced her belief in gods.

Laying in a pose of supplication, she started murmuring in Arabic. She didn’t knew where it came from, apart from that it was deep inside her.

“I seek…refuge in You from the evil of what I have done. I acknowledge the…favors that You have bestowed upon me, and I confess my sins. Pardon me, for none but You…has the power to pardon.”

All those people out there, depending on her. She had no idea how to save them.

After a minute, ten minutes, an hour, who knows, Zey crawled across her cabin to the sideboard, opened the lowest drawer and pulled out a bottle of navy rum. Collapsing on her side, Zey shakily opened the bottle and poured some in her mouth (and all over the floor). She swallowed, and immediately regretted it. Without moving, a half pint of bile shot out of her mouth and mixed with the rum on the floor.

She passed out where she lay, into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Morning turned to afternoon, and then evening. When Zey awoke she felt dehydrated, but the ringing had gone. She felt more alert, too.

Getting to her feet, she drank deeply from a bottle of water on her nightstand. Then she checked her watch. Must have been out for at least ten Earth hours. Zey stripped off, put her dirty clothes in laundry then took a quick shower. She thought about the events of the morning, and realised what happened after was hazy. She asked Wodan to summarise the meeting afterwards, nodding at the points made as water ran down her face.

Zey dried off, cleaned her teeth then changed into her uniform. Finally, she carefully cleaned up the mess she’d made earlier. Picking up her communicator from the floor, she pinged her XO.

“Hey, Mallory, I’ve been thinking about what you said in the meeting. Can we set up a reception area on the other side of the ship; use the telescopic ramp? That way we can use the shuttle bay to house the civilians if the engineers can repressurise it. Speaking of which - have we done a full audit of our passengers yet? Seen how they’re holding up? If not, get on that - we need to know their skills so we can put them to work. Everyone has to pull their weights now.”

“Got a flock of birds approaching. They’re carrying a box.” Ezra came in over all-crew comms.

“They’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?” Zey responded, breaking her ten hour silence.

“I said one of the birds turned into another bird earlier, but you all didn’t seem ready for that information. Well, they’re doing it again. The birds just turned into all kinds of other things. They’re going over to the first group.”

Zey sighed. It was just one impossible thing after another. She resumed her 1 on 1 comms with her XO.

“Mallory, you wanna go see what’s going on? I need to run some things by Wodan.”

Truth be told, she actually still felt too weak to go outside again just yet. Mallory was perfectly capable of taking the lead for now.

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

“You joking with me, miss? I’ll whoop ya ass.” Zhao replied to Vigdis over comms, making her way to the shuttle bay.

Feng peered out past the boxes.

“No amount of biofoam is going to treat being gored in two by a centaur. I may as well go back inside.” He was joking, but the edge in his voice was evident.

---

The pristine Tekeri was right, these Sky People evidently didn’t speak S’toric. They spoke faster, with some hissing. They said something close to Silbermine’s own name, and his people, but that was about all he could understand. That could be a problem right now, though not insurmountable. Many refugees from the North spoke in tongues; he’d heard of the work the Inquisitor’s Guild was doing to learn from them.

The imposing Glen took the proffered metal object as delicately as his armour allowed. He stood his ground when Nellara approached him, though his knights sidled closer still. He was confident that he had enough soldiers ready to slay his opponent to stay this Tekeri’s hand.

Silbermine’s gauntleted fist dwarfed the elongated item. He opened fingers back out to gaze down at it while the Castigator’s puffery washed over him. He was enamoured. The craftsglenship was exquisite, especially the faint engraving of a wallbreaker Glen on the side.

“What is this thing?” He asked them, holding the pen up at the same time Nellara spoke some strange language back to the Sky People.

---

“Are you trying to get us both killed?” Zey hissed, keeping her eyes on the aliens.

"Enemies. Take Jotunheim. Take 'guns'. Not friends." The bird Nellara said.

“Don’t worry birdy, nobody is taking anything except these pens.” She said, motioning for calm.

At the same time, the elk-thing wobbled its new pen at them between two fingers.

“Give me a pen.” Zey said, grabbing one from Ibarra without tearing her eyes away from the aliens in front of her.

Holding it clearly out in front, she pulled the cap off and stuck it on the other end. She then held up her left palm and looking at it, began drawing a classic peace symbol. The ink didn’t come out on her sweaty hand.

“Oh fuck off.”

Zey wiped her palm on Ibarra’s shoulder and tried again. The ink came out and the symbol was complete.

---

Silbermine took an involuntary step back and looked at the identical thing they’d given to him. By the gods, what sorcery was this? A quill could never produce runes with such ease. What did it mean?

The Glen noble clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, producing a loud clock sound. Instantly, a servant clopped up. Among all the array of supplies on his back, the youngling carried a small locked chest. Silbermine fished around in the folds of his cheek, and spat out a small key into their hand. The servant used it to unlock the box and open it up. It was full of treasure of all descriptions. Silbermine took another step back to inspect the contents - all the soldiers inched a bit closer.

The Glen pulled out a small gold alloy currency band, closed the box and locked it, then stowed the key back in his mouth. He lightly threw it to the Sky People - he would have handed it over but Nellara was firmly in his way.

“My thanks to you, Sky People. I look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship. We will continue this conversation soon.” He said loudly, then addressed the Castigator.

“I’ve seen all I need to see for now. We will set up camp for the day and rest. My Glen are tired, like your soldiers too.” With that, Silbermine turned and headed back to his entourage, stopping in front of his knights. He spoke very quietly but urgently to them.

“Sir Gwarulch, make haste back to Keraknúr. Find me a Thought mage from the northern passage and bring them here. Sir Wainmoth, take my seal. Raise as many fighting Glen, engineers and labourers as you can, bring them here with supplies for moving the temple.”

Both knights saluted with fists against their chests.

“Yes m’lord.” They immediately peeled off and went to inform their respective retainers to stay put.

That left only Sir Sweven.

“Sir Sweven, let us traverse the hill to find a defensible spot for camp today.”

“My Lord, the Ascendency could be doing the same. If we strike now, we could take the Sky People back to Keraknúr.”

Silbermine thought on it for a second.

“No, that would leave their temple unguarded. The key to our victory at the Running could be inside. We need to communicate with them and show them the sense of allying with Mythadia.”

“Shall I go to Torant and inform the King, then?”

“No, I need you here. At any rate, his spies will do that for us eventually.”

---

Zey let Ibarra catch the thrown object, and watched as the Glen retired, turning its back on them.

“Let's get out of here - I think that’s enough diplomacy for this morning.” She murmured to the woman next to her, before talking into her comms unit.

“Package delivered, seems the situation is cooling off a little. We’re heading back now - let's give the aliens some space.”

---

Zey called a staff meeting as soon as they got back inside. Ezra and the droids were still outside, monitoring the aliens who chose to stick around. Wodan watched the now vacated shuttle bay and its hastily erected wall of boxes, all while taking minutes for the meeting.

The Captain sat at the head of the cramped conference room table. She was slouched back in her chair, stroking her chin in thought. Eventually, when everyone had demilitarised and assembled, she spoke.

“So…it seems that not only are we cut off from Earth, we are not alone in this new world. Would anyone like to give me their take on what happened this morning? What do we do next?” Her tone was a kind of forced calm, a tool used to rationalise a completely bewildering situation. They could have been at an AA meeting if the whole place didn't smell like burned wiring.

Once everyone had said their piece, Zey convened the meeting without giving specific orders and quietly retired to her cabin to think.

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

“Hell nah. I’m not getting impaled on a spear. You go.” Darnell offered as an additional reply when Dr Ibarra looked at him. He was at the completed wall, peering out with his shotgun in hand. He sounded more sober now.

“They’re probably figuring out how many soldiers they’ll need to take us out. We’re so fucked.”

Zhao responded to Vigdis over comms almost immediately from the top deck. She sounded quite glad to hear her voice but tried not to show it.

“In the bay? No chance. Inside the ship? Errr, say five minutes except compartments with fractures. What is happening outside? Windows give shitty view. People are scared.”

---

"Was that a threat that I heard, Silbermine?" she asked, looking at the Glen noble with a clearly hostile stare. Silbermine's arrogance and his constant threats were finally taking a toll on Nellara's patience.

"Do not let your arrogance blind you. Take a look around you. Not only you have invaded Ascendancy territory, and directly challenged a Castigator's authority, but you are threatening to steal and 'claim' the fortress of sentient beings. Your words and actions are more fitting of a pillager than a noble knight. Please, conduct yourself as someone fitting of your status." Nellara said as she looked at him.

The large Glen’s eyes narrowed. He growled softly and took one step forward as she continued to insult him. His voice went quieter as his eyes bored into Nellara’s while replying.

“I am no knight, nor pillaging knave. I am Gesith Silbermine, LORD of Keraknúr, Margrave-Warden of the northern passage and protector of Sudenúr since the tragic passing of Lord Brunnenstar. I have the King of Mythadia’s ear, and can lead an army of thousands to protect these Sky People in days if you endanger them. You will know if i’m threatening you, you crook-beaked fucking churl.”

That bit about having the ear of the King wasn’t strictly true. He had always favoured Silbermine’s father over him - once he had died, Gesith was forced to fight for his political life. That was why the Sky People were so important to him, prophecy aside - having them as champions in the Running would shower House Silbermine in glory and treasure. This Castigator would likely know very little about that though.

"I hope you haven't forgotten who exactly I am... Silbermine. You speak with a Castigator. I have enough authority to mobilize an entire army too if I so deem necessary. If I told the Order of Magisters what happened here today... What you and your knights tried to do today, retaliation against your house, maybe even your nation would be certain..." She said, threatening Silbermine back.

---

Outside in the crisp morning air, Zey had a better view of proceedings.

Most of the aliens they’d encountered before had gathered on the thin lip that the Jotunheim had caught on that prevented it from rolling back down the hill. Some of them were watching her curiously. The others looked out at twenty plus elk-things, and two of the bird-things they’d met earlier lower down the hill. The scary looking one and the studious one. She could hear the distant sound of braying and squawking, which she presumed was them communicating.

Zey really wanted to rub her tired eyes and itch her nose, but kept the mask on and tried to think of a plan. What would her diplomat mother do?

“Ok, I do want the pens. Someone chuck me the pens.” Zey called, turning back to their hastily erected barricade. After a little while, Itxaro threw her a box of fifty and clambered down herself. Zey smiled gratefully and nodded, for the pens and the company. She patted Dr Ibarra’s arm.

“Let's go. Eva, can you get out here too and guard the entrance? I want them to see we have a big stick while we’re softly talking.

Zey then set off, carefully navigating her way down the hill while holding the box of pens.

“Negative - we can’t risk flying yet.” She replied to Mallory while trying not to fall down the rocky slope.

“I’m heading down there; if shells are all we’ve got then you’d best pray they buy the distraction. If this goes sideways and that doesn’t work, I’m probably dead and you’re in charge. Put the shell as close as possible to my location without bringing the whole hillside down.”

---

Silbermine took a minute while Nellara continued pontificating to calm himself again. Suddenly, movement behind the two Tekeri before him caught his eye. At first he thought it was a couple of Iriad approaching him, but their bark was too smooth. They wore strange garments that Silbermine had never seen before. They must be the Sky People!

He pointed to them, a smug excitement filling his voice. “Nonsense! See how they come now to talk to us.”

---

The walk out into No Man’s Land took an eternity. Zey tried to figure out what to say, then realised these elk-things, Glen she seemed to remember them being called, wouldn’t understand her. She hoped their actions spoke as loud as words, and that gift giving was universal in this world too.

Then the Tekeri Nellara turned and said enemies, plus something else. Stay?

“Nope. Too invested to stay.” Zey chuckled nervously, continuing to step forward.

These ‘Glen’ were massive up close. They dwarfed Zey and Itxaro in pretty much every dimension. Their leader, the one in intricate armour, was fidgeting and emanating a mixture of honks and whines at Nellara.

---

“The Sky People are perfectly safe with me and my men. The real danger is a landslide destroying their temple altogether! I merely want to discuss something with them!” Silbermine scoffed, gesturing up the hill with his head. As if to prove his point, the Glen studied these approaching Sky People, put his forehands together with fingers aimed at them in a traditional Mythadian greeting. He took one step forward, as did his knights so their lord wasn’t too close to the visibly agitated Castigator.

“Greetings, my friends! Welcome to Sudenúr. I am Gesith Silbermine, and I come to offer you assistance, in exchange for wisdom.”

---

Zey flinched when the Glen moved forward, gulping hard. Every impulse in her body was screaming at her to run. Her right hand crept up her body towards her pistol holster.

“Give these three a pen, nice and slow now. We come in peace.” She whispered to Itxaro, then smiled nervously at the aliens.

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

The upper deck of the Jotunheim was abuzz with panicked movement as Itxaro rolled through. The civilian passengers weren’t clear on what was happening, just that they’d been woken up and told to shelter in place. Some of them may have been some kind of use in a firefight, but the crew hadn’t informed them of the nature of the problem yet, and neither had an audit of their skills been undertaken.

Dr Feng was part way through calmly evacuating all non-critical patients from the med bay when Itxaro threw a vest at him. He caught it, deftly flopping it over his head and on. Feng looked at his assistants and told them to take over, then stepped toward Dr Ibarra and took the proffered carbine with one med-gloved hand. He fastened the plate carrier tightly around his body with the other.

“Broadly speaking - what’s happening?”

Sara the medical assistant hurriedly clipped a white pack with a red cross on it to the back of Feng’s vest. The good doctor then waved her away and motioned for Itxaro to lead him out.

---

Silbermine watched two large birds lift off from the crashed temple and flap into the sky towards the mountains as the Castigator addressed him again. That is at least one mage out of the picture. His large antlered head eventually returned to look at her, but he didn’t respond. This one evidently needed taking down a notch or two.

He listened carefully to J’eon too, before snorting contemptuously at the other Glen and tapping one hoof on the stoney ground.

“You’re a Smith, aren’t you? I can hear the hammerscale in your voice! Speak you to a Lord this way? I should have you flayed for your insolence! Come here and tell me of this temple’s properties and I may yet reconsider. There could even be gold in it for you!”

Soon after, a thing that the noble had only heard tales about spoke. An Iriad wreathed in flames. This surely meant something, yet he could not figure out what. His beady, intelligent eyes studied them through the slit in his ornate helmet. The painting wasn’t a Glen? He looked again.

“Hmmmmm.”

After a moment, he unclipped the immaculate visage from the front of his helmet, revealing his scarred and craggy face to these people for the first time. It was a face that had seen many battles and knew its way around a stand off.

“I know not how these Sky People look. Only that Glen lose their antlers at winter’s end, and I command a squadron of wall breakers with rams attached their chests.”

At that point, the Castigator requested a parley. Silbermine nodded.

The Castigator began approaching their position. The Glen behind Silbermine remained motionless, apart from their standards flapping in the wind. The fog behind them was creeping up the hillside toward them, threatening to re-engulf the soldiers.
Silbermine trotted forward, followed at a distance of about ten metres by his three knights (the Glen-at-arms and servants remained still).

Nellara and Silbermine stopped about five metres from each other.

“I pray you bring the Sky People out here so we may talk like civilised folk. I have no quarrel with them - I swear it. There is no need for anyone to die here.”

---

“Droid 2, do not move or make any noise until I say. Confirm command.” Ezra quietly urged, viewing the robot through his scope. It stood clutching a long, thin shard of metal about thirty feet from the lead elk-thing.

“Command confirmed.” came the whispered response in his earpiece.

Ezra had opted not to move when this new party arrived, instead crouching down and trying to blend with the charred shrubbery around him. There had been a variety of unintelligible shoutings between these two alien groups. He’d seen some birds fly off, and now one of the alien warriors had embarked down from the ridge the Jotunheim sat on and clanked through the scree towards the elk-things.

“Captain, what is the plan here? This looks like a conversation we should be included in.”

---

With all the aliens now out of the shuttle bay, Zey moved closer to the hole in the hull which was serving as the entranceway. Mr Darnell shouldered his shotgun and came closer as well, helping Vigdis and Eva move boxes into a defensive wall.

Peering outside, Zey got a glimpse of the backs of the aliens they were just communicating with, and further down the hill…

Ranks of heavily armoured quadrupeds. Great. It was looking like the fever dream mediaeval reenactment out there.

“Mallory, what is our armament’s status? Do you have a bead on those horse-things outside?”

Ezra chimed in via comms, and it may have been the drugs talking, but he was making some good points. It was clear to Zey now that this world they had landed in was unstable, with multiple competing interests. As newcomers in a strange land, they needed to present strength and courage as well as collaboration. Otherwise, they could be perceived as commodities to be sold to the highest bidder for exploitation. That is what happened all through Human history - they had to assume some parallels could apply here.

Zey gulped down her bone-dry throat, and looked around at her crew/passengers. She needed to be brave for them now - if they stood any chance of surviving.

Taking one long breath out, she clambered onto the box that Vigdis had just slotted in front of her and jumped down onto the scorched earth beneath the Jotunheim. The rising sun shone brightly through her mask, and for a moment she was blinded by its light. She raised one hand to shield her eyes, and gradually she could see again.

“Ezra, I’m external.” She murmured into her comms unit.

“Captain, what the fuck are you doing?!” Darnell shouted after her.

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

This situation just kept weirder and shittier for the Humans.

Ezra confirmed Wodan’s warning to Zey a moment later.

“We have two dozen foot mobiles approaching on the port side. They’re not here for a tea party - I see heavy armour.”

She swore under her breath, then addressed Itxaro, Vigdis and (to a lesser extent) Darnell.

“Guys, stop shaking hands with everyone for a sec. Nellara said whoever blew that horn wasn’t a friend, right? So are they not friends with these aliens, not friends with us, or both? I need to know which faction, if any, we can trust, because we’ve got twenty more soldiers on the way. We’re running out of peaceful options here.”

Zey then hurriedly turned to her XO. She spoke quickly and relatively quietly, poking his arm with each point she made.

“Hold the pens, Mallory. Fuck knows if this new group is friendly or even affiliated with our current guests.”

She pointed to the door with her free hand.

I want everyone awake and ready if they aren’t already. I also want everyone who knows how to handle a weapon tooled up and tactical, outside that airlock door in four minutes. Tell Feng to free up the med bay and get down here, just in case.”

She considered her other options for a moment.

“Is the nose gun operational? Check with Wodan. If it is, I want it pointed at them or over their heads. Got it? Let's go!” She lightly slapped Mallory’s arm as if to spur him on before turning again.

“Eva! What is the status of your mech? Can we have you looking big and mean and mobile in the next ninety seconds? If so, let's do that NOW please. Otherwise go grab a weapon from the armoury.”

Finally, Zey put the communicator back to her lips.

“Ezra, are you able to fall back inside?”

“Not without pushing past all your friends. Droid 2 is stuck close to the new group, hiding.”

Zey swore again.

“Ok, hold tight but be ready to retreat back inside. What are they all doing now?”

“Erm…”

---

All eyes of the Glen immediately fixated on J’eon as he shouted back from the edge of the outcropping on which the Jotunheim rested. Excited mutterings rippled around the group; many of the soldiers looked to Silbermine who had edged forward a bit more but didn’t speak. The Scripts of Venurwreth told of gifts falling from the heavens, not people.

“Who is this Glen?”

“The Sky People?”

“Have they come to help us?”

Sir Sweven turned to Silbermine as well.

“My lord, could these Sky People have the wisdom we seek?”

Silbermine held out a hand for silence as a Tekeri in dark armour with gold gilt emerged from the temple.

For a few moments after Nellara’s address, the only sound that could be heard was the faint rustling of leaves in the wind.

Then Silbermine disgorged a huge, braying laugh from inside his helmet. Laughter spread quickly across his retinue, continuing for ten heartbeats before dying away. The portly noble clopped forward, until he was level with Sir Sweven.

“The Ascendancy claims the mountains.” He boomed, before turning to his retinue with arms outstretched at either side.

“Does this look like a mountain to you?!”

“NO M’LORD!” They all shouted in unison.

Silbermine turned back to the Castigator.

“We have hills like this in Mythadia - intend ye claim those too?!”

The Glen laughed again. Silbermine pointed over Nellara’s head at the Tamerlane logo emblazoned on the Jo’s hull.

“This temple belongs to the Glen of this March, Sudenúr - just look at the painting on its wall.”

He then gestured behind to the trail of destruction leading up the hill, and the outcropping under the Jo.

“It is damaged after its fall from the heavens. The rock it sits on is not stable. I will have the best engineers from Keraknúr secure it for transport to safer ground. I would speak with the Sky People also.”

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

I have updated the story synopsis for 14th March 2023!

On the morning of its maiden voyage in 2296, an exploration vessel called the Jotunheim is attacked at Stavanger spaceport. Its experimental faster-than-light drive is accidentally triggered during the escape, transporting the ship to another dimension. The Jotunheim subsequently crash landed on an uncharted planet called Kanth-Amerek (K-A). Various native citizens of Kanth-Amerek witnessed the crash and came to investigate. After making contact with these locals, the Jotunheim's learned of multiple civilisations on the continent, with technology roughly equivalent to Earth in thr 1500s. However, there was one key difference - some of these natives appeared to have magical abilities, resulting in great societal advancement across some areas.

Understanding the great technological prowess of these 'Sky People', the different parties of natives have begun to splinter.

We are still open to new characters - if you are interested then please feel free to join our discord to discuss ideas:

discord.gg/EbgxhX56

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

The marshes of Sudenúr often made travel off the few main roads slow and tiring for Glen. It was part of the reason this March had been so difficult to control over the years. Several of his knights had urged Silbermine to use caution. It was much safer to take the long way round past Ertiseda; they could not protect their lord if they were shoulder deep in muck. Silbermine took no mind and ordered them through the swamps - he HAD to see this fallen empyrean body for himself. He felt a divine connection had been forged in that fiery moment when it roared over their heads and did not smite them.

So they had hiked in single file through languid pools and over fetid mounds, camping for two nights at some of the run-down family compounds that dotted the March. Sudenúr was relatively flat in the middle, so by the second day even the Glen’s relatively wide-angle eyesight could pick up a smouldering wreck on the foothills in the distance. Silbermine spurred them on, faster and faster until they got stuck in quickmud. Through a titanic team effort they got free, though another load bearer was lost and never found.

There were some accusatory glances around the campfire that night, so Silbermine judged they needed a reminder of the gravity of their quest.

“Brothers, these are hard times. Failed crops, pestilence, teeming hordes of demons in the dark at night. But let us not forget…Venurwreth’s Scripts tell of gifts falling from the heavens unto worthy Glenfolk on the cusp of greatness. The Running is nigh, and the time of House Silbermine has come again!”

Gesith continued on, speaking with the ardent conviction of a true believer. By the end, he was practically shouting into the crisp night air as embers from the fire floated up into the air. His knights and servants rose to their hooves and bayed wildly, eventually galloping in an instinctive circle around the camp with Silbermine, chanting the songs of their forefathers.

Fueled by the herd-fervour that Glen leaders had been putting to good use since the S’tor invaded, Silbermine’s group packed up camp before dawn to cross the final stretch to the crash. The load bearers washed the knights before securing their plate armour. Standards were attached to polearms that most of the knights held upright as they marched. They then fitted Silbermine with ornate barding that sported the red, white and yellow designs of his House. To top it off, they opened up his father’s helmet and carefully secured it around his head.

A dense fog had rolled in off lake Núr overnight, so Silbermine had his force mage lead the way. Using both hands to gesture, they forced the fog back to create a narrow channel. The swirling, roiling fog disturbance was clearly visible from the air, but that mattered not to Silbermine.

He galloped in the middle of his retinue with his eyes fixed forward, searching the soupy mix for any sign of the thing that had fallen from the sky. It seemed that over time, the heavy impact of their hooves on the ground merged into one continuous drum beat. The muscly legs of the Glen clattered in slow motion as the nobleman pondered what they might find.

As the first light of dawn probed through the fog, Silbermine felt the ground firm up. They were exiting the marshes and approaching the foothills on the border with the Ascendancy. He urged them on a final time, and the Glen formed up around him. Three knights and nine Glen-at-arms around their leader, plus ten warrior servants bringing up the rear.

Suddenly, the fog lessened. There it was.

Before them was a long and rocky incline, studded with violent divots where some vast bulk had scraped and rolled up it. Big shards of metal stood like small trees leading up to his prize - the fallen star. An enormous hulk with stubby wings sticking out from three corners. On the side, what looked like a Glen with a bow and arrow was painted in light blue. Some ancient lettering was scrawled written underneath. The Scripts were true!

Smoke still rose into the air around his gift; Silbermine’s keen nose picked up an acrid stench he couldn’t place. Something else too…

“Tekeri, my lord, and Glen.” one of the knights muttered as they approached.

Silbermine ground his tombstone teeth together. Someone had beaten them to it. “Sound the horn.” Silbermine ordered.

The Glen liked horns. Some old houses had created a range of unique sounds for their group that served different purposes. The House horn was meant to serve as an announcement of their presence.

The knight unclipped one of three horns from his harness and blew strenuously into it. Their group cantered forwards, climbing up the hill towards the ship. Silbermine’s eyes weren’t great, but eventually she made out a host of figures on the ridge in front of the star.

They stopped about a hundred metres away and spread out now they were on more solid ground. All of them were tense and ready to bolt if any on the ridge appeared to nock an arrow. The most senior of the knights present, Falgar Sweven, trotted forward a bit further and boomed in a stentorian voice:

“Greetings! We have come to claim this fallen star under the banner of House Silbermine. May we have safe passage?”

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?”