Quest Abandoner

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

"Trouble with the locals. There's locals, by the way," Itxaro replied quickly, just barely concealing the contempt in her voice. She didn't care much for Feng. She'd settled on this long before meeting the doctor, making an easy judgment based on the short dossier provided to her by Tamerlane. She sympathized with veterans of imperialist nations, believing capitalist states exploited the poor and downtrodden to fulfill their greedy ambitions. Rich elites were less worthy of sympathy in her eyes, but she understood that people couldn't choose what conditions they were born into. A wealthy scion like Feng willingly joining the military, however, reeked of bourgeois adventurism to Itxaro, and she held him in disdain for this perceived crime.

Itxaro knew it was wrong to condemn so quickly. She didn't know life outside of the USASR, the societal pressures, the cultural differences. But it was easier to assume the wealthy were just public thieves picking the pockets of everyone who had a pocket, soldiers were unwitting pawns in a stupid game that chewed them up in pointless conquests, and a rich man serving in the military was seeking cheap thrills at the cost of human lives. Her mind could be changed, but not very easily.

"Vamos, let's go."

As Itxaro guided Feng through the Jotunheim's belly, the fear began rising in hers. Dread, panic, and excitement were all coursing through her, forming a terrible cocktail that she knew could make her lose control. She took a deep breath and swallowed to push it back down, which seemed to keep it in check. She felt like a flailing live wire coursing with electricity, and the rush both terrified and energized her. It was almost fun in a demented, exhilarating way, but the weight of the gun in her hand brought Itxaro back to reality. She shook her head violently as if to expel the fear and pressed on.

The shuttle bay airlock cycled and a group of armed crew rushed out, Itxaro and Feng among the surge. Itxaro abandoned the doctor and sought out Eva and Vigdis, who were constructing a makeshift barricade from loose cargo. Although the two women were smaller than her, their presence made Itxaro feel safe; probably something to do with their military experience, and Eva's hulking Javelin didn't hurt either.

"I brought the welcoming committee. Everyone but Fritjof," Itxaro said to the pair, gesturing to the new armed arrivals as she handed Vigdis a helmet, plate carrier, and spare magazines for her Jackal. Itxaro had years of practice masking her emotions, but worry was beginning to creep into her eyes. She quickly set to work, helping construct the makeshift barricade while wondering how to make it a defendable position. We can hurtle through space faster than the speed of light, and boxes are the best we could come up with. Fuck it. As Itxaro was struggling to push a heavy box, she looked up to see Zey stride out through the hull breach, looking cool and collected. Itxaro stopped mid-shove to watch her in shock before looking to the others.

"Ehhh, should we follow her?" Itxaro didn't love the idea of meeting angry natives outside the ship, but she was beginning to relish every interaction with the aliens and didn't want to miss out. Also, Itxaro didn't want their commander cut down by a legion of swordsmen. That would be bad.

Greetings fellow roleplayers

Welcome to the party!

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

Shirik seemed to understand Itxaro’s final song and dance, but she could never be too sure. As if to reinforce this, Shirik seemingly refused her offer for a helping hand, standing on his own, and then shook it as if he were meeting a business partner. Itxaro was shocked at how cool the charred hand was against her flesh, given his fiery appearance. She mused that Shirik, and others like him, must have an elaborate nervous system to the thermoregulate in this fashion; that, or something entirely different. Probably would have been smart to give him my prosthetic instead.

What followed was a frenzied whirlwind of movement and communication. Itxaro had dreams that felt like this moment. Frantically trying to pack, to prepare for something, but everything is moving too fast, and she can’t find what she needs or keep her thoughts in order. All the natives were moving outside, and the commander gave the call to arms. Vigdis called out for a plate carrier and a helmet, giving Itxaro some purpose. ”I’ve got you,” she shouted out, before heading back into the ship through the airlock.

Itxaro’s heart was pounding in her throat as the airlock cycled. She grabbed the carbine left there and hustled towards the armory, fumbling with the straps of her own plate carrier before tossing one for Vigdis over her shoulder. The armory was crammed with crew all arming themselves; Itxaro couldn’t believe how many aboard the Jo were ex-military, as if Tamerlane had anticipated something like the. She looked down at her Kevlar vest and winced. It would stop an arrow, sword, or lance, but only if it hit her chest. Right now, Nellara’s suit of chitin armor seems much more appealing. Itxaro had some experience in full plate herself, and certainly felt much safer in it than this fabric and ceramic vest. She managed to snag a bandolier of shotgun shells and a helmet for Vidgis, along with another plate carrier, before her arms were full and she headed out.

Itxaro hurried up the ship’s stairs, crammed with civilians worried at the sight of her lugging around so much ordinance. She tried to give them a reassuring smile, but only managed something more akin to a rictus grin. Itxaro wheeled around the corner and into the medbay; the sterile room had emptied out some, but Itxaro had a sickening feeling that it wouldn’t stay like that for long. She spotted the doctor and wordlessly tossed him a vest. “Commander’s orders, you’re needed downstairs. Know how to use this?” She spoke quickly, gesturing to the carbine cradled in her arm. Itxaro hoped he’d been keeping tabs on the first contact downstairs, or she’d have a lot of work to do filling him in. Mierda, I need a smoke.

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

Itxaro felt like a child, sitting cross-legged as she watched in awe as Shirik's fluid motions called forth more flames from the air. There was something about the manner in which it moved that suggested this was not just elaborate smoke and mirrors; each motion seemed practiced, intentional. She still could not discern the nature of his abilities, try as she might, but unlike the commander, she was satisfied to leave it be until their shared language expanded beyond a dozen words.

Mages.

Despite a herculean effort on Shirik's part with such a limited vocabulary, Itxaro was unable to fully grasp the foreign word's true meaning. "Commander, they call people who can perform these... These abilities, mages." She'd wanted to use the word miracles, but had stopped herself short. Still, that was exactly what Shirik's image had described. "There's more than what we've seen here."

Healing wounds. Manipulating fire and lightning. Telekinesis. Even translating? All, as Shirik's firey pictograms suggested, without the aid of technology. Just the mage and their bodies, moving like water. Itxaro still doubted this, assuming Shirik was just as wary of humans as they were of the Kanth-Aremek natives. Hiding technology, like they were. Though these natives seemed to be less advanced, with their plate armor and steel swords, Itxaro knew this meant nothing. Not every society would advance in the same ways humanity did; the natives may lag behind in some fields, while leaping far ahead in others.

Maybe they found a new field.

Shirk had taken Itxaro's message to heart, literally offering the flame in its hand to her. She gingerly reached her arm towards his, feeling her fingertips grow cool as they edged toward the fire. Itxaro closed her eyes for just a moment. She felt something, not heat, but power pulsing out from inside her, like waves rolling into shore. The feeling crept up from her chest and out to her extended arm. Itxaro's mind could see the fire in her own palm, controlling it with a twist of her wrist. She opened her eyes and focused them on her outstretched hand. It bore no frigid flame like Shirik's. Well, it was worth a shot.

Still, Shirik wanted to teach her, or at least that's what she assumed; the Iriad had a great poker face to human eyes. Itxaro pulled back her arm, feeling slightly foolish, and listened to Shirik. This skill, and she was starting to believe it was skill rather than tech, could indeed be taught. But not for free.

"They want to know about the guns," Itxaro said flatly to whatever human ears were still listening. It'd been foolish to hide the concept from them after all, but had seemed like a good idea at the time; introducing firearms to a society that might not have even discovered gunpowder was a quick way to throw the entire continent into chaos and war. Still, they might not have a choice.

Itxaro had been so focused on Shirik that she'd hardly noticed the situation collapsing around her. The first hint was a trio of native birds that flew in through the hull breach; this behavior alone was odd enough to merit further observation, and when they began speaking what Itxaro recognized as the local language, she frantically whipped her head around to the other humans, as if to confirm they were seeing the same.

A horn sounded in the distance.

Either the horn indicated reinforcements, or some new group. Itxaro was suddenly trying to recall if she'd remembered to load her revolver. She turned to Vigdis, who had also been working on the translation front judging from the stick figures the engineer had drawn. Her ears were just sharp enough to catch Nellara's explanation: Not friends, humans stay. Bad news.

Itxaro quickly set to work on the data pad for a final time, punching out a crude hologram. A human outline with a bow, firing arrow after arrow at another figure, who fell after being turned into a pin cushion. "Bow," Itxaro said quickly, pointing to the weapon before the hologram changed. Now, the human held a rifle, and soundlessly fired the weapon at a man in the distance. Smoke emitted from the rifle as an enlarged bullet slowly flew through the air, and the man crumpled after it passed clean through him. "Gun." If any humans objected to this, she'd tell them to fix the warp drive themselves. If Darnell says anything, I might just give Shirik and Nellara a live-fire demonstration. Better their new friends know what the crew's armaments could do if push came to shove.

The hologram ended and Itxaro jammed the data pad into her pocket. She stood up sharply, a motion that shot a spike of fire through her injured leg as she let out a small yelp. Stupid. Itxaro turned back to Shirik after gently rubbing the flesh around the wound. "Itxaro teach gun later. Shirik teach... mage? Teach fire? Later." It wasn't what she wanted to say, but it was all their meager lexicon would allow. She pointed outside to where the commotion was and gave a shrug as if to say, "What the fuck is happening?"

Itxaro crossed the few feet that separated the two and cautiously held her hand out to help the Iriad to its feet. "Just don't burn my hand off, alright Shirik?" Itxaro said with a ghost of a smile, knowing the Iriad had no way of understanding, but saying it nonetheless.

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

Traveller's Phrase Book

Note: Question marks indicate the word may not be fully understood. Italicized words known only in non-human languages. User beware, translations are not fully accurate.

Nouns

Species names
Jotunheim
Friends
Foes
Sphere
Weapon
Bow
Gun
Earth?
Home?
Fire?
Mages?
Kanth-Aremek

Verbs

Travel
Repair
Teach
Stay
Go
Speak

Adjectives

Broken

Misc.

Nodding yes/no
Shrugging to indicate questions
After
Not

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

Itxaro suppressed an urge to scream at Darnell, the Tamerlane parasite who'd latched onto the Jotunheim, and smothered some choice words for the commander as well. If she'd been among comrades, the engineer would have spun around in a heartbeat and given Darnell both barrels without a second thought, but she wasn't even sure all of the Jo's crew were on the same team. Hell, this thing seems like my best friend in the room, Itxaro thought, glancing at Shirik. Instead she played it cool, having learned long ago to mask her feelings around foreigners.

"They won't be able to find Earth from that," she stiffly reassured the two. Of course they wouldn't, she thought bitterly, that fucking lightshow was the equivalent of a fucking Treasure Island X-marks-the-spot map. I couldn't tell them how to find Earth even if I wanted to.

It didn't take an expert to see that some of the natives were shocked by her little lecture. Itxaro doubted they'd received intergalactic visitors before and likely didn't have the technology to do so themselves, let alone even consider it a possibility. She determined Earth was in no danger here, but the same couldn't be said for the Jotunheim's crew.

"Commander, I'm worried about that one," Itxaro said as she nodded to the soldier Kerchak. Nellara had told the humans that Kerchak was going to leave, perhaps to find someone who could translate for them in a city called Lenkik, judging from Kareet's map. Go. Stay. Speak. After Three new Kanth-Aremek words to weave into her growing lexicon. However, there was no telling Nellara's true intentions. Perhaps Kerchak would return with a legion of warriors like Kerchak and just kill them all. Itxaro thought it would be smart to send one human along with them who could warn them with a comms notification at the very least. Better to lose one than lose them all, she thought but Zey was in charge and Itxaro wasn't. The commander asked about the metal spheres, and Itxaro racked her brain for ways to communicate this. She noticed Kareet seemed confused. Maybe my little lecture wasn't as clear as I thought, Itxaro considered, before setting to work on her data pad.

Dr. Ibarra set the tech down on the floor and let the hologram begin again. First, came an image of a spear, the most simple of arms. "Weapon," Itxaro said confidently. A sword and bow then appeared next to the spear, conveniently omitting any human firearms in the display. "Weapon," she continued, pointing to each item. All the weapons faded, save for the sword, which grew in size. The broadsword suddenly splintered into several pieces. "Broken," Itxaro said. The sword was placed on an anvil, and a hammer appeared that smashed into the broken fragments several times. The anvil and hammer disappeared, sword now in one piece. "Repair," Itxaro finished with her second lecture as the holograms faded. "Jotunheim broken. Humans repair Jotunheim. Humans go home after," she said, weaving in the local language wherever possible.

The next lecture came as per the commander's request. First, Itxaro used the data pad to capture Shirik and Nellara's likeness for the program; the images would come out flat in the hologram without a full scan, but it would serve her purpose. Nellara's compressed image appeared, but it wasn't recognizable as her. Itxaro had rendered it a simple outline, a stand-in for all Tekeri; that, and she didn't want to break any cultural faux pas by presenting Nellara with her doppelganger. Several spheres rotated around the outline, electricity sporadically jumping from one to the other. "Sphere," Itxaro pointed to one of them. "Sphere weapon? Speak," Itxaro asked in the tone of a question, accompanied by shrug and an open-handed gesture to them, hoping it was enough to convey their confusion. Next, Nellara's image was replaced with a human, and the spheres continued to rotate around them. A large X was drawn through the entire scene to indicate humans did not have this technology.

“And now for my next trick…” Itxaro muttered; she was least confident in this one, but orders were orders. The images disappeared, replaced with an outline of Shirik's head. Holographic flames lept around him. "Fire," Itxaro said. The flames took the various shapes Shirik had created. A human appeared in Shirik’s place, another giant X through the images. Humans don’t know this technology. Or magic, as Darnell so thoughtfully put it.

Next, came Shirik’s outline and a Tekeri’s, both acting out the mysterious skills they possessed in front of a group of seated holographic humans. Then, the humans stood up and joined the Tekeri and Iriad, drawing fiery symbols in the air and spinning metal spheres of their own. “Teach,” Itxaro said with a sweeping gesture to the scene before them. Tell us how you do this. “Teach humans fire. Teach humans sphere. Shirik, Nellara, teach, speak,” she finished, gesturing to them. Your turn now. She didn't necessarily want a lesson, just an explanation. At least, that's what the commander seemed to want.

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

The situation quickly deteriorated, and Itxaro was caught helplessly in the middle.

A gravelly voice with an Israeli accent sounded off over her comms. "Two tangos are external." All the blood drained from Itxaro's face as she realized what was happening. Her idea, her stupid fucking idea to post guards around the ship, an idea borne of past trauma and paranoia, was now going to kick off the first human-alien conflict. She could only hope that Tamerlane mercenary would shoot her eyes out so she wouldn't have to see it.

Itxaro froze as she heard an electric thrumming that sounded like systems firing up behind her, accompanied by a metallic clicking. The natives all grew more on edge, and Nellara's metal spheres reappeared. Normally, Itxaro would have squealed with delight at her name pronounced by an alien tongue, but right now she couldn't fully appreciate the novel experience. The engineer slowly turned around to see Eva's javelin coming to life, and the spidery drones skittering around the shuttle bay's interior. Oh, that fucking kid. Eva wasn't to blame, Itxaro knew that, but she sure had chosen a bad time to reunite with the crew after being practically MIA for the past three days.

More chatter and movement from outside. Nellara was concerned, and in just three words Itxaro instantly knew what was happening. The Jo's crew had unwittingly surrounded their new guests, and as far as she knew, the natives thought it was a trap. Itxaro didn't know what else to do, so she slowly holstered her revolver into her overalls and held her hands up halfway, palms open to indicate she was unarmed. Of course, this gesture implied that the metal objects all the crew carried were in fact weapons to the natives, but Itxaro was sure they'd determined this for themselves already. But what could she say? What could she point to, indicating her peaceful intentions?

One of the natives started this game of charades first with a flurry of gestures. Head. Brain? Thoughts? Mouth. Speech? Us. Travel. He wanted them all to go somewhere, but where to? And what did the first gestures mean? Itxaro might have been able to figure it out, but not when she could be decapitated by a sword-wielding bird at any second.

The commander managed to calm the humans, no easy task in Itxharo's experience, but it was the charred tree-thing who had the final say. Itxaro felt a chill sweep through the room as the creature pounded the floor even through her thick sweater and chemically treated overalls. Her breathing slowed, and she felt the panic ebb. That wasn't natural. The thing immediately had the room's attention (or at least Itxaro's), and it chose to sit on the grated metal floor, joined by Kareet. The woody native reminded Itxaro of Cuba's elder statesmen, those who had sparked revolutions throughout South America and led the USASR in those first rough decades. Those legendary figures were seemingly ancient, yes, but commanded absolute respect despite their advanced years. Experience counts for a lot. Itxaro had a feeling this creature was old, with more experience than she could imagine, and she would be smart to listen to what it had to say. Itxaro mirrored the natives, sitting across from them with some distance, and listened.

As it turned out, the creature, named Shirik didn't have much to say. It identified the names of its comrades in a low, scratching tone, as well as what she assumed was their culture or species. Then it chose to conjure flames rather than waste time speaking. Itxaro was enraptured, eyes glowing from the brilliant fire as she took in the shapes Shirik made. She expected heat to wash over her face, but there was nothing of the sort. She didn't think much about how the creature made the flames; that could come later. For now, she needed to listen. Mountains. The Jotunheim crashing. Shirik understood they had crashed here. Then came the next barrage of images. Jotunheim again. Circle, dots, larger dot. Space? Arrow from Jotunheim to the planet. They understood that humans came from outside of this world. Then came rough sketches of Shirik's companions and himself within the circle, all on the same world. Kanth-Aremek.

Itxaro nodded to indicate her understanding. Perhaps nodding didn't communicate the same thing in their cultures. Perhaps it meant, "Prepare to die, dog," on Kanth-Aremek, but the gesture was too instinctive to prevent. Kareet produced a map of some kind, but Itxaro had already set to work of her own, eager to engage in this pictorial exchange with Shirik. She pulled a beat-up data pad, USASR tech, from her deep pockets, set it on the floor, and began to typing away. It didn't take her long to produce the final product; she had extensive experience with the program as a teaching tool at the Universidad de la Habana. A hologram suddenly emitted from the data pad's projector showing a simple, 19th-century house with a human family in front of it. The colors were muted and the resolution low, but everything was still identifiable. "Home," Itxaro indicated as the lights in the windows went out, and the house faded into nothing.

In its place rose Earth, the moon orbiting around it, and a distant sun, all floating above the data pad. "Earth," she said, pointing to the planet. "Home," she added, with an unexpected twinge of sadness. Following Shirik's example, faces appeared within the planet, those of the Jotunheim's crew in the shuttle bay, but only human faces. Just us. Well, the Yenge too, but we won't get into that yet. Then came a small figure from the planet's surface. "Jotunheim," Itxaro said as the planet shrunk in size and the ship grew. Multiple planets passed by the Jotunheim at increasing speed to indicate how far they were from home. "Travel," Itxaro explained, borrowing Kolvar's pantomime of a person walking with two fingers. Suddenly, an explosion on the ship. "Broken," Itxaro said, pointing to the pixelated flames licking off the ship. This word was a stretch, but worth a shot; they couldn't just communicate in nouns. The Jotunheim came to a nondescript planet. "Kanth-Aremek," she tested her pronunciation of the alien planet's name as the Jotunheim burned through the ship's atmosphere. The light show came to an end. "Jotunheim broken. Humans travel home," Itxaro finished, a smile flickering across her face that was quickly suppressed. She had just communicated with aliens. Whether or not it was anything intelligible to them remained to be seen. Maybe I should have consulted with the commander first. Ah well.

"Did I miss anything?" Itxaro asked her crew members, but kept her attention on Shirik's smoldering eyes, searching for comprehension in the flames.

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

Itxaro was still reeling when the commander appeared in the airlock with the others. She snapped back to the airlock window, now laser-focused on the scene playing out in the shuttle bay. The creatures looked like something out of a medieval artist's fever dream, a mix of human and animal physiology. The dominant caste was a massive, upright bird, easily a foot or more taller than her, but they varied widely in appearance as much as birds on Earth. A second species could only be described as a centaur with the head of a stag, wearing leather armor; Itxaro briefly imagined herself riding the centaur-elk into battle in full plate armor, thrusting a spear into her foes, but figured the creature wouldn't appreciate being ridden like a horse. The third took a moment to even recognize as a living being at all; it had a roughly humanoid figure, but resembled a smoldering tree more than anything. Perhaps it was some form of protection, she reasoned, but how could she even begin to speculate?

Even from her cursory observations, Itxaro knew these natives were sentient. The intricate armor one wore was the first giveaway, but she could tell just from the way they carried themselves that these interlopers were probably just as intelligent as the entire crew of the Jo. Compared to the Yenge’s cephalopod-like anatomy, they almost seemed human. A thousand questions ran through her head, and she found herself totally entranced. What was their history like? How did a world develop differently with multiple sentient species? Had they achieved world socialism yet? That would give the neo-Posadists back home a fit.

Her eyes grew even wider as several metallic orbs seemed to float about the shuttle bay. The objects sparked like a plasma globe and moved with purpose, manipulated by one of the bird-like entities without any physical touch. She watched in a trance as the blackened tree-thing conjured flames from nothing, creating symbols that hung suspended far longer than ephemeral sparks could. They're trying to communicate.

Once the communication barrier between mankind and Yenge had been broken, it was almost a disappointment; yes, the Yenge held the secret to faster-than-light travel, but humanity had already been on the brink of that discovery. Another 100 years and Itxaro was convinced they would have been colonizing the stars, Yenge or not. Outside of that, the Yenge were a letdown. No galaxy-spanning civilization come to dazzle them with new technologies or uplift them to an interstellar government, but instead a decimated people seeking asylum. These natives, on the other hand, might hold even more mysteries than the Yenge. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. A trite old saying, but to Itxaro it felt appropriate.

Itxaro was brought back to the present when the carbine was thrust back into her hands. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Itxaro muttered, as if she hadn't been the one who took it from the armory for a last stand against interstellar mercenaries. She clumsily removed the magazine and stowed the rifle against the airlock wall, favoring the revolver, though she didn't intend to use it on their guests. Still, as the airlock hissed open, she held the gun loosely in her hand. Insurance in case the Tamerlane men decided to try something. She made sure to follow the commander's example and keep Darnell in front of her.

Of course, Dr. Ibarra immediately broke rank when she spotted Vigdis working on what seemed like mathematics with one of the aliens. "Playing nice with the locals Vigdis? Who's your friend?" She asked as she strode over, eager to investigate. The engineer seemed a little frazzled, but the aliens hadn't done her any harm; if anything, they seemed just as interested in the humans as she was in them. As if on cue, the one nearest to Vigdis spoke, much to Itxaro's delight, and said both Vigdis' name and what she assumed was its own. The voice reminded her of corvids from Earth who mimicked human speech, but only in the broadest sense. "Kah-reet. Kareet," she repeated as she pointed to the creature, both to indicate her understanding and test out the alien language on her own tongue. She pointed to herself and said, "Itxaro," deciding to save titles and surnames for later.

Dr. Ibarra felt like she was meeting a celebrity. She wanted to reach out and shake the alien's hand, but decided against it, instead turning her attention to the figured Vigdis and her figures scrawled out on a piece of aluminum. "Hmm, I would have started with Spanish and worked from there, but I get where you're going," she joked. In truth, it was a solid foundation to work from. First contact with the Yenge had been purely mathematical, a transfer of data back and forth until a common language had been established almost from scratch. Itxaro wasn't sure if they had that kind of time or resources though. Instead, she opted for the old-fashioned way that cultures throughout mankind's history had used when encountering each other. Pointing. Itxaro pointed at each human in the shuttle bay and said, "Human. Human. Human. Human. Human." She finally reached herself and put a finger to her chest, hoping the message would get across. "Human."

Itxarto felt a growing desperation to communicate with the natives. There was so much to learn, so much to share. Her head was reeling with the possibilities, the Jo's busted FTL drive the last thing on her mind now. She wondered what resources they had on the ship that could be used to teach the aliens one of Earth's many languages. Did they even have a physical dictionary on board the Jo? Probably not. Perhaps the ship-bound AI could be used to translate, as much as she hated to use the dreaded technology. If it came down to it, she was perfectly content to sit here the rest of her life, pointing at things in the alien's presence.

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

Itxaro had been playing detective.

Well, warp detective anyways. She was scrambling around the ship like mad, interviewing key crew, running diagnostics on ship systems, and begrudgingly consulting the ship's AI to piece together what exactly had gone wrong with the Jo when they left Norwegian airspace. Her task was made even more difficult by constant power fluctuations and her unfamiliarity with the drive. It boiled down to this: alien and human tech don't play well with eachother.

The doctor was now discussing her findings with wounded lead engineer Zhao Jiayin, the two women lounging at the Jo's docking rampway as they waited for the foreign sun to rise and their shifts to begin. They'd tried smoking in the open air of the new planet but quickly discovered their cigarettes ignited into flames, rather than gently smoldered. "I've been looking for reasons to quit anyways," Itxaro said as she flicked the burning butt to the dirt, where it reduced to cinders and blew away in the ashen soil.

The conversation, carried out in Mandarin, had wandered from the Jo's warp drive to home, perhaps inspired by the Earth-like landscape that stretched before them. In truth, there wasn't much like the untouched marshland on Earth now; most of it had been stripped for resources or polluted beyond repair. Almost all "natural" spaces back home were in fact manmade ecosystems, attempts to repair the damage done by decades of abuse. It was fitting that mankind's first step on a habitable alien world resulted in several hundred acres going up in flames. Judging from her calculations, Itharo determined that the planet had gotten off easy, too. Exiting warp in atmosphere meant a good chance there would be super-relativistic displacement of volumes of space, which could have a catastrophic, atomic-scale impact on any matter that got in the shield's way. Either the warp bubble had degraded slowly enough, or the Yenge's drive had some sort of fail-safe to prevent them from destroying every planet they exited warp next to. They'd been lucky.

The pair of engineers discussed the planet's similarities to their home countries; Zhao pointed out the wetlands that were reminiscent of the Zoigê Marsh, while Ibarra spotted trees in the mountains not unlike the Caribbean pine. Their ecological study was cut short when Itxaro caught sight of a smoldering mass floating through the sky. At first, she assumed it was some burning detritus floating in the breeze, but the shape moved slowly, and with too much purpose. A drone. Itxaro and Zhao exchanged a look of pure disbelief before they scrambled into the metal hull of the Jo.

As if on cue, Commander Kadıoğlu's voice came through their comms systems. Itxaro didn't need to be told twice. Somehow, whoever had attacked the ship in Norway had followed them, and were here to finish the job. None of it made sense, but with adrenaline filling her system, Itxaro didn't have much use for sense. She dashed for the armory and briefly eyed the racks of heavy weaponry before grabbing a wheel gun and cramming some spare speedloaders into her overall pockets. Revolvers were easy to use, and the large caliber meant you probably wouldn't need to hit your target twice. Plus, it made you feel cool.

"Oh, why not?"

She also picked up a light carbine and two spare magazines, feeling like some supersoldier loaded up for a last stand. If she thought hard enough, she could just recall the single firearms lesson she'd received in school where they loaded and shot an ancient, wood-furnished gun. The sleek rifle in her hands now was a far cry from that derelict AK though. She jammed a magazine inside and hoped for the best, ready enough to confront whatever danger was outside.

A new voice hissed over her comms. "Shuttle bay, shuttle bay!" the woman whispered. Vigdis.

Itxaro dashed from the armory and around the corner, almost running into a large man already peering into the shuttle bay. She recognized him as Jack Mallory, the ship's X.O. "Jesus, Mallory, am I happy to see you," Itxaro said, immediately shoving the carbine into his hands. She remembered from his dossier that he had served in the military, so he was much better off with it than her. Why the hell did I grab that in the first place? Stupid!

"What's the plan Mallory? Are they in the shuttle bay? Is Vigdis OK? We gonna plug these fuckers? Can you believe these pendejos followed us all this way?" She fired off a flurry of questions, running a hand through her white hair as she drew the revolver from her overalls. Her body was pressed against the bulkhead, not peering through the airlock for fear of getting shot in the face. She knew Vigdis was in the shuttle bay, but she couldn't hear any guns going off. Itxaro ventured a peak through the window and slammed back against the bulkhead as if shots had whizzed by.

"Oh."