It was becoming difficult to hear oneself thinking over the bleating of countless alarms and the thunderous sound of atmospheric entry. Their ship’s spaceframe shook and trembled as if feverish and the thousands of little lights that speckled the instrument clusters in the cockpit danced wildly in Riley’s vision. The crushing force of their rapid deceleration was certainly not helping his focus, either.
Their entry into the unknown planet’s atmosphere had been difficult, their hurried and unplanned exit from sub-space had brought them in at completely the wrong angle and in far too low an orbit. They had spent what remaining fuel they had to be able to correct just enough to avoid burning up. For a few of their fleet even that had not been enough, prior damage had left weak points that proved fatal under the stress of hitting an atmosphere and their ships had gradually disintegrated and tumbled wildly before the individual pieces burnt away to nothing, one by one.
“Report, please, lieutenant-commander Collins,” the admiral was barking. How he managed to sound so strong under the conditions was beyond Riley’s comprehension. The man was like a machine, sometimes, and coming from a cybernetically augmented engineer such as himself that was quite a compliment.
“Sorry, sir,” he replied, straining to draw air into his lungs, fighting against the invisible hand that crushed against his chest and every part of him. The air in the cockpit was hot and close, almost too thick to breath, like sitting in treacle. He blinked the black specks from the edges of his vision, flicking through the various menus on the screens in front of him and absorbing the information.
“Our entry was sub-optimal, sir, hull temperatures peaked at eighteen hundred K before we engaged ablative cooling. Deceleration is on target, we’re in a controlled dive at eighty klicks and ready to approach stable flight. Current descent at eleven hundred metres.”
Their descent was slowing now, the unrelenting force on his body beginning to lessen, and while it was still at many times normal gravity it began to feel as if he was as light as a feather. He took deep breaths, lifting his head slightly to peer out of the gap in the heat shield currently covering most of the front viewport. The white hot glow was starting to fade to orange, flickering flames tearing by faster than they had any right to be going. As he loosened the belts across his midsection he could feel the shirt peeling away from his back, soaked in sweat.
“The others?” the admiral asked, and Riley’s eyes scanned the detailed telemetry data from the other ships in their wing, his comprehension of the data hugely improved by the implants in his head and eyes.
“Alpha Seven, Fifteen, Sixteen and Twenty have burnt up, God rest their souls,” he reported sadly. He fondly remembered dancing with the pretty young engineer from Fifteen at a party a few weeks earlier, before they shipped out. Another spark, extinguished for good. He carefully pushed the thought away and turned his full attention back to the consoles, there would be time for grief later. “Alpha Five is intact but uncommunicative, sir, all other craft report minimal damage from entry and are, at present, under sufficient motive power to arrest descent. Alpha Eight and Twelve report imminent propulsion failure and request permission to descend for attempted landing. We’re seeing heavy interference on most bands.”
“Very good, the fleet is to remain in formation and maintain a steady descent, slowing to 100 metres by fifty klicks.”
Riley nodded, relaying the commands to the other vessels and his own crew. Behind him the admiral was speaking to one of the other four people in the small bridge. “Kagermann, where are we?”
The engineer pulled a face, he didn’t like Kagermann at all, she was rude and brash, and prone to sudden impulses, not qualities he thought were redeeming in a navigator. While he couldn’t see her face directly he could well imagine the snooty, aloof look on her face, and the slight sneer as she reworded the information on her screen, as if the admiral couldn’t have understood it himself.
“Admiral, our exit from subspace was discontinuous, frankly, we’re lucky to be here. Our vessel hasn’t fared so well, I’m afraid we’ve lost the transceiver grids, can’t fix our location. Atmospherics are good, though, Hell, this could almost be Earth, apart from a few trace elements. Mostly nitrogen and O2, that’s oxygen. Pressure agrees with my models. Gravity at point nine-four G, so pretty close to home. We’re gathering more data as we slow, although visuals are not showing much for now, looks like we came in on the night side.”
“Very good, keep me informed.”
Riley focused his attention on his own tasks, there was a lot to be done. They had sustained significant damage to their delicate communication arrays during the sudden jump into that peculiar space between spaces. Their deceleration had slowed now and the hull cooled sufficiently for the heat shields to grind back into their recesses, revealing the darkness of the alien world they had reluctantly crashed into and allowing him to thoroughly inspect the damage as heat-sensitive systems came back online.
Things could have been a lot worse, he knew, so far it didn’t look as though they had been pursued, their attackers seemingly unable to follow their risky last-second subspace jump, taken almost on faith that the locator grids would be able to fix a position against known disturbances quickly enough, before the drives were able to tear them out of the very substance that made up their universe. Fortunately, the computers had found a lock at the last nano-second and they had burst out into an unknown territory some immeasurable amount of time later. Unfortunately that was the last jump they would be making for some time, all the hardware that powered it was now offline.
Also in their favour was the outlook onto the planet they had ended up crashing into, from what they could see so far it was extremely hospitable, all things considered. If they could find somewhere to land soon then they would have a fine chance at turning the whole sorry situation around again and be back on their merry way, or at the very least able to get an emergency call out to the rest of the space-fleet. Of course, it would have been nice if they had been able to emerge from subspace into a slightly higher orbit so that they would have had some time to study the planet from orbit before attempting a landing, but he knew better than to leave his blessings uncounted.
“Sir,” came a crackling voice in one ear, a transmission from one of the remaining other seventeen craft in his fleet to his admiral. “Captain Jameson reporting. Our surface scanners are picking up unexpected readings. The chemical composition of the atmosphere suggests abundant carbon-based life, which is exciting in itself, but more interesting is the background noise, on more thorough analysis it’s underpinned by some sort of structure, faint but distinguishable. It’s likely this planet is colonised. We should proceed with caution…”
“… they might already be here,” Williams finished for her, his voice much clearer in Riley’s earpiece. “Understood, Jameson. Get Two and Three to link sensors, we need to be sure.”
Riley’s palms tingled, this was a worrying development. He had already pulled the sensor logs from the other ship and was watching with interest the data streams as another two linked their sensor arrays, coming close to doubling their effective resolution.
He squeezed his eyes shut, paying attention to the processors in his implants, letting the data wash through his mind like a warm shower, soft and gentle. It was soothing and in sensory isolation he was able to see patterns and links that the human mind would normally miss. A part of him worried about what was coming, if it was colonised by someone then there were only three possibilities, humans, some unknown aliens, or the frightening insect-like Thala, currently mankind’s fiercest nemesis, and the primary reason for their current predicament.
He was almost certain it wasn’t humans, they would have picked up decipherable communications from the moment they touched the top of the mesosphere if there had been any human colonies nearby. If it was the Thala, then they didn’t stand a chance, they were out of fuel, out of luck, their ships were badly damaged, and their morale was at rock bottom. They would not survive another encounter, that much was certain.
The third option seemed even more remote, in the two hundred years since mankind took to the stars they had found only three other intelligent races amongst the thousands of planets they had visited. Two of those seemed happy enough on their own worlds and content in a way mankind could never be, and the third had attacked near enough the moment first contact was made. Hope was certainly in short supply.
Their ship shuddered once more as they traversed some unseen boundary, turbulence rocking them hard enough to remind them they were not out of the danger zone quite yet. As they descended lower and lower into the atmosphere they began to fly rather than fall, and their vertical velocity was slowly transferred into horizontal.
“Sir,” the co-pilot piped up, a young lad barely out of flight school. There was a definite hint of hope in his voice. “We’re picking up unknown transmissions in the millimetre band. It’s definitely not us or the Thala, that’s for sure.”
Riley’s ears perked and he opened his wide eyes, micromechanical irises whirring eagerly as he turned to look at the lad, briefly catching the admiral’s eye. “Is it decipherable?”
“Working on it, Mr Collins, but… I don’t think so. There’s not enough data to go on, it’s pretty hard to even detect it over the background noise.”
Admiral Williams turned back to his own screens, brow furrowed, and Riley realised he was looking a fair bit older than he used to. He had been something of a fixture in Riley’s life since he first met the man at an event during his school, over fifteen years ago. It was Williams who had encouraged him to sign up to the cybernetics programme and had even sponsored him through his subsequent degrees. When his ship had needed a science officer Riley had pretty much strolled into the job and simply sat down, as if the chair had been his all along.
He felt a sudden pang of sadness for the stoic admiral, while Riley felt a little responsible for the wellbeing of some of the junior techs who had joined their fleet he suddenly realised the weight that must rest on Williams’ shoulders, the needs and safety of the six hundred or so crew members in his fleet. Of those, little more than half were left alive with them at the moment. No wonder he looked tired.
“Light!” cried out the co-pilot suddenly, pointing through the darkness. Riley’s head snapped around and he peered out into the darkness, the mechanical augmentation in his eyes switching immediately to wideband analysis and sweeping the spectrum for whatever was out there. The ship’s outboard cameras did the same, tracking his movements and further enhancing their perception.
“Looks like fire,” he announced calmly. “Bearing zero-six-fiver.”
Kagermann responded, “got it.”
“Should we investigate, sir?” Riley asked, turning to look at his old friend. Could it really be a new race?
The admiral seemed to hesitate, his eyes distant before he finally nodded. “Yes, set our course, Kagermann. Riley, relay to the others. If our fleet is in as bad a condition as I think it is, we’re going to need all the help we can get. Let’s pray they’re friendly.”
Their ships sped forwards, some of the others in their formation struggling to maintain their positions accurately and weaving around the sky on failing engines. They had to land soon or someone was going to fall out of the sky, Riley was sure. He turned his attention to the ground as it flew by, they were low enough for the powerful arclights under the belly of the ships to begin to illuminate the terrain. Everything appeared to be forests as far as he could see, interrupted by the occasional body of water or small river, but mostly undulating plains covered in trees.
Over the comm. Williams was still giving orders, calm and collected, his voice as steady as a marble pillar. “Take us in carefully, maintain five hundred metres altitude, weapon systems online, everybody to their stations.”
He felt the craft bank underneath them as they adjusted their heading, the subtle change in engine note felt rather than heard. “Alpha Three, take point,” Williams ordered, and watched on display as the least damaged of their craft accelerated past them, leading the limping fleet forwards.
“My God, it’s a town!” Riley gasped as the first craft hurtled across the sky, powerful lights scouring the ground and illuminating the unmistakable shape of buildings. Anything further he had to say was cut off as a loud warning echoed around the bridge moments before a shock rocked the warship.
“Evasive manoeuvres!” Williams cried immediately, broadcasting to all vessels. The lighting reactions of his pilot forced them back into their seats no sooner than the words left his lips and they careened back up into the night sky, sensors scanning the ground rapidly to ascertain the threat. On the monitors he watched more projectiles leave the surface, tracking their ships with alarming accuracy.
“Sir, Eight is unable to ascend, their drive is failing. They must land.”
“Shit,” Williams swore, calm façade beginning to show some cracks. “Take us down, covering fire only. We are not going to lose anyone else tonight.”
“Alpha Eight to Alpha One,” came a panicked voice over the comm., broadcasting to the whole ship. “We have engaged hostiles. Repeat, we have visual on hostiles.”
The admiral leant forward eagerly, straining to see out into the night. “Keep talking, Eight.”
“I don’t recognise them, I think they’re… they’re flying, with… wings…”
Without warning two bright blue flashes flared to life in the darkness and were propelled straight towards the struggling craft, a crackling spiderweb of lighting arcing over its hull as the orbs collided. The communication link hissed static into Williams’ ear and he urged his own ship forwards. Riley analysed the radio emissions from the blast, it had been some sort of electrical attack, clearly. Number eight lurched around the sky violently, its stabilisation computers confused and urgently attempting to recalibrate and save the craft despite its rapidly failing propulsion systems.
Riley’s own ship, Alpha One, was in range at last, and their weapons systems indicated target lock with a bleep before firing a volley, the staccato thudding of the chainguns vibrating somewhere under his seat as its pilots brought them about in a tight curve between their fellow soldiers and the unseen force, guns blazing and engines screaming in protest. All around more rockets spiralled their way up from the ground, lighting the sky with a sickly white, blinding flashes washing out their vision and disorientating the weapon tracking.
“Are they… fireworks?” the young officer asked incredulously after a few seconds, his mouth hanging open. Sure enough another rocket burst against their hull, and brightly coloured sparkles danced across the viewports. Williams stared for a second before shaking his head.
“Damage?”
“None at all,” a report came back immediately. “Were they warning shots?”
Williams growled, a furious sound in the back of this throat. “Unknown. Return fire. Alpha Three and Four, strafe the settlement, hollowpoint rounds. Shields at full power, be prepared to evade if necessary. Fire at will.”
Two ships streaked back down towards the town, secondary guns spinning up and releasing a stream of bullets back down into the darkness, forming faint curtains of light that strobed chaotically in the gloom. No more rockets came, and Williams brought his ship and the stricken Alpha Eight into a hover above a wide open space, flanked by many bushy trees. As they descended to the ground a few tiny shapes scattered in the downdraft from their thrusters, running into the cover of nearby buildings and woods.
The four vessels still in good shape remained in a circling pattern high above the town as the remaining craft landed heavily in the mud, armoured legs extending from beneath only to sink several feet into the sodden ground. No sooner had the bulk settled then the rear of each ship hinged open and teams of marines dropped into the quagmire, forming defensive rings around each ship and setting up powerful floodlights to point out into the darkness.
Riley turned to watch Williams unbuckling himself and leaping toward the hatch at the back. He grabbed his assault rifle and shrugged his way into his battle armour without skipping a beat, the product of many years’ drilling and practising. Riley was not quite as quick, it was rare he had to suit up, or even hold a weapon. He kept it to a minimum, that training which was mandated by the space corps for his continued employment. It wasn’t that he was particularly opposed to the idea, they were at war, after all, and the enemy wasn’t going to be going easy on them, but rather that he just never had the time. There was always something else to be doing, a research paper that was arguably more important than one more grunt with a gun, and not a particularly accurate grunt at that.
The ship was largely deserted by the time Riley had got his armour buckled across his chest and his sidearm strapped to his hip, outside the sound of battle could already be heard. There were rapid but controlled bursts of gunfire, bright flashes like a fierce storm and the harrowing sound of people, and other things, in pain.
His earpiece sat awkwardly in his ear and he tried to adjust it as he stepped out into the centre of what felt like a warzone. All around officers were shouting orders and there were engineers running back and forth with crates and machinery, well disciplined and efficient even in an unfamiliar environment.
It did not take long before he met their attackers face to face. Projectiles ricocheted off the metalwork of their spaceships and rapidly moving shapes flitted overhead, dropping what turned out to be heavy rocks and other debris. The marines fired into the dark, and shapes fell with splashes into the puddles.
“What they hell are these things?” someone shouted over the roar of pulse rifles. Something about the size of a person fell nearby, splashing filthy water in their faces, and Riley winced, jumping to one side just in time. He moved to approach it, curiosity overcoming the gurgling fear in his gut at last, but before he could reach the creature a sudden burst of multihued light knocked him backwards with a sound like a drop of water on a hotplate. The soldiers nearby turned their rifles to the new foe, firing blindly. The bullets bounced back at them, and one unlucky man took one between the eyes. He fell backwards with a vacant stare. Riley tore his gaze away, bile rising in his throat.
He focused on his goal and crawled forwards, keeping low. The creature that had fallen out of the sky was still alive, he could see the rise and fall of its chest, and as he got closer he could see it was about the size of a small man, four slender legs and a large, round head with surprisingly large eyes. It gasped feebly, watching every move he made with clear terror across its expressive face. Most peculiar of all were the wings, splayed out in the mud, unmistakable even in the shifting light.
He was startled by his earpiece crackling loudly and he hit it with the side of his palm, cursing the poor design. Why they couldn’t have integrated the thing with the rest of the electronics in his body he would never understand. “… repeat, all units cease fire and switch to non-lethal force immediately. Incapacitate only,” came the admiral’s voice, loud and clear at last.
The gunfire took a moment to die out, replaced by the crackle of phasers and the thud of stun grenades. In the relative quiet he could hear the strange alien chatter around them, screams and calls echoing in the air. He surveyed the battle from above via a series of drones some of his technicians had launched during the battle and was pleased to see the switch to phasers had worked in their favour, the mysterious shields that had popped up all over the battlefield were not impervious to charged plasma, it would seem, and were dissolving rapidly as if made of smoke and blown by the wind. No doubt the admiral had seen the effect the enemy shields had, some sort of kinetic reflector.
As much as Riley wanted to crawl closer to the fallen alien and investigate it more thoroughly he could see that it was a bad idea, he would be far away from the protection of the marines and instead wriggled backwards on his belly, returning to the safety of the line. It watched him forlornly, the whole way.
Their teams formed into tactical units and they proceeded to secure the immediate area with relative ease, widening their foothold in a foreign land until the entire field was clear of conscious opponents. The creatures didn’t seem to have much in the way of organisation or tactical finesse as far as Riley could see, they just flew around somewhat randomly, sometimes charging on foot. There were a few who seemed to possess some form of projectile weapons, electrical based as far as the ship’s sensors could detect, although Riley didn’t really have the facilities to do any thorough analysis at that time. At any rate it was a kind of energy weapon they had never encountered before, and they lacked many defences to deal with it. Several calls went out over the network for medical assistance as marines fell prey to the blasts.
Riley worked his way back through the fighting to the centre of the area where the dead and unconscious natives were being sorted, those still alive were carried or herded into an annex formed by three ships and assorted containers, guarded by many soldiers. He surveyed them properly for the first time, illuminated brightly by floodlamps and unable to move far. A few were waking, and when one would try to make a run for it the marines on guard fired warning shots at the ground near their feet, their implication crystal clear.
“Fascinating, isn’t it, Riley?” the admiral said, appearing behind him quietly. Riley started and turned, taken by surprise.
“Very, quite remarkable,” he replied.
“Never seen nuffin’ like dis, admiral, sir,” said one of the grunts within earshot, spitting into the mud. “Th’ fuck are dey? Horses or summ’t?”
“Language, private,” Williams admonished. “You are witnessing the first contact with a new alien race. I’d rather their first words not be your vulgarities.”
“No shit,” the soldier breathed, grinning widely.
Williams studied them closer, taking a few steps towards the group, numbering about twenty in total. Riley hung back, a little unnerved by the things. They were oddly coloured, bright and innocuous against the pitted, cracked hulls of the ships.
Those awake shuffled back away from the admiral, trying to pull their unconscious fellows back with them. He fixed them with a level glare and slung his rifle over his shoulder. A couple of the quadrupedal creatures seemed to relax at the gesture and Riley cocked his head slightly, observing silently. There was intelligence behind the huge eyes.
A team of scientists from one of the academies were busy around the edges of the group, taking photos and pointing scanners, chattering busily among themselves. Williams watched warily as one of them crept forwards, aiming for an outlier in the alien group with an improvised noose in one hand. One of the aliens leapt forward, standing beside the injured creature and bared its teeth threateningly. It shouted something in its own language, and while the words were unintelligible the intention was clear.
“Keep away.”
The scientist hesitated, looking back at her superior questioningly. The orange creature before her sure looked angry, its stance was steady but tense, the strong muscles in its hindlegs corded and ready to act. Unlike the slender thing that nearly fell on Riley this one was thickset and powerful, also notable for not possessing wings like most.
The scientist’s leader gestured impatiently at the ring of armed marines, as if to say “what could happen?” and made flapping movements with his arms, urging her forward. Riley watched Williams frown as the girl resumed her slow, crab-like walk, feeling intensely sorry. He knew the admiral had minimal patience or liking for most of the science crew, especially for the top brass of that particular division, but to his chagrin he had precious little authority over them when in the air, and even less planetside. Riley was always a little uncomfortably aware that his high ranking position in the guild was probably one of the reasons Williams had insisted he join his crew, he had some sway over the other science and engineering teams, and it gave the admiral a pet of sorts.
The scientist crept ever closer, making soft cooing noises as if talking to a baby. Riley chewed his lip nervously, it seemed obvious what was about to happen, and when it did Riley had to admit that he was impressed, she (as he decided it was) hopped her hindquarters up in the air and turned on her forelegs to deliver a fearsome kick so quickly that the marines had not reacted until the poor scientist had come to rest some ten paces away, now with many broken bones.
There was shouting and commotion on both sides, aliens rushing at the humans and marines shouting at them and one another, their weapons raised. A few shots went off, one or two live, despite the admiral’s orders to use non-lethal force only. At least one of the aliens went down heavily, and the rest seemed suddenly subdued, trotting wearily back to the centre of the ground as the humans shouted and gestured wildly.
Riley jumped again as the admiral took him by the elbow, leading him firmly away. “What have you observed?”
“There’s at least two separate races here,” Riley replied. Williams nodded, and Riley realised he knew this already. “Maybe three.” Another nod.
“The horned ones. They’re in charge, and they have the weapons. Do you think the horn is some sort of implant?”
Riley was impressed by Williams’ observations, even in the midst of a fight he was alert and thinking. “Unlikely, so far I see no evidence of technology at all. Look at the buildings, they’re like something from a fairy tale, all wood and plaster. No, I think it must be a natural defence of some sort. Fascinating, I look forward to analysing them in detail. To think, John, we’ve stumbled upon a fourth sentient race!”
“And we immediately started slaughtering them,” Williams continued, looking away into the distance where the battle was continuing on the fringes, sporadic attacks coming from the trees.
Riley hesitated, suddenly aware of how it would look. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair, they did attack us first.”
“With fireworks and rocks,” Williams spat angrily. “Look at them, they look like children, cute faces, thick fur, fluffy tails. The sum of their attack thus far has been party tricks and throwing themselves blindly upon our spears in the hope they might trip us up.”
Riley chewed his lip, looking round at the huddle of aliens being menaced by the marines. One of the advantages of his implants was a significant improvement in memory and he vividly recalled the panicked expression in the fallen alien’s expressive eyes, terror and confusion and pain as it lay dying in the mud.
“We should try and communicate,” Riley urged. “This is a unique opportunity to make contact with a new species. Think of the things we could learn!”
“That is not part of our directive, and you well know it. Any intelligence we gain while during our time here is welcome, but we cannot compromise our mission. Others will come, once we return with news, they can learn.”
Riley opened his mouth to object, but the stern, unwavering gaze of his admiral told him the subject was not for debate, and he settled with a meek “yes sir”.
“There’s one more,” Williams continued quietly, turning his gaze back to Riley’s. “A fourth type, I’m sure I saw it. Dark coat, with wings and a horn. The only one I could see. It’s a leader caste, or something, I’m sure of it. They were protecting it, and it was keeping to the shadows, trying to direct this shambles of a militia.”
“You mean to find it?” Riley prompted, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, I’m assembling a team straight away, I know which way it went. Will you come? It will be dangerous, I know you are not a soldier, my friend, and I will think no less of you if you wish to remain here and take charge of matters more suited to your profession.”
Riley grinned, he always had the feeling Williams knew exactly what his reply was going to be, regardless of the question. “Of course I’ll come, I’d welcome the chance to see more of this place.”
“Don’t get too involved,” Williams warned gently. “This isn’t our mission. We just need them to leave us alone for long enough to make repairs, then we’re out of here.”
They set out from the rear of their encampment a short while later, passing through the darkest areas and keeping to the shadows, a team of twelve in full night camouflage and moving silently. Behind them they could heard the sound of hammering and construction as tents and temporary structures were erected. From time to time came the whine of a plasma rifle or the shout of an alien but they left it behind quickly.
Riley knew most of the team by name, having worked with most of the marines closest to the admiral before. Deeba Patel was a solid woman, far stronger than he was, but she had been a good drinking partner and a very brief romance some years back when they had both been lonely. He didn’t get to see as much of her as he would like these days, their different roles in the war machine kept them apart for much of their time, so it was difficult to resist taking the opportunity to whisper quietly to one another.
“Do you think they’ll let the admiral name this species?” she asked, jogging along close to him.
He shrugged and gave her a grin. “Maybe, technically our co-pilot saw them first…”
“Williams has no imagination, we’ll end up with a really boring name like ‘tiny-horsians’ or something,” she said with a playful smile. She knew his attachment to the admiral and enjoyed winding him up with petty criticisms.
“Ponies,” whispered another marine to her side. Deeba stared. “Small horses are called ponies.”
“Well, even that’s a little more imaginative than our original mortal enemy. Do you know where the name Thala originated?” Deeba shook her head. “They were discovered by an Egyptian professor, he got the honour of naming them, right before they attacked us. If you want a lack of imagination then you’ve got it right there, they were the third race we discovered, so he called them ‘Three’.”
“Three?”
“’Thala’, with some extra diacritics and mangled a bit, means ‘three’.”
Deeba huffed through her nose and pushed his shoulder as if she suspected he was lying to her.
“Hush, you two,” Williams hissed at them, turning his glare on the two. Riley felt deeply ashamed and avoided his eyes intently, a heat rising in his cheeks as if he were at school and caught throwing paper darts. Deeba just grinned and stuck her tongue out at him, pushing him again until he scowled at her.
“Eyes at three o’clock,” someone hissed in the darkness and Riley turned his head, focusing his eyes in thermal mode. A small glowing shape was approaching them purposefully and he switched back into the visible spectrum just as a piercing foreign call came from off to one side. The young creature, now cemented in his mind as an alien pony, turned its head at the sound and looked back at the frozen troupe of humans once more. Suddenly a full grown adult bounded into view before them and swept her young up and onto her back. She turned to follow its curious gaze, spotting the humans immediately.
“Safeties off, maximum stun!” called Williams abruptly as the mother screamed something and galloped off at a fierce pace, her little one hanging on and unmistakably laughing. Suddenly they were being battered from all sides by wings, the cries and shouts of their alien attackers surrounding them, disorientating and a little scary. Plasma rifles hissed and a few fell from the skies, twitching uncontrollably on the ground, unable to coordinate themselves.
“With me,” bellowed Williams, sprinting out of cover with his team hot on his heels, charged plasma bolts illuminating the darkened buildings. Riley risked a glance ahead, seeing where the admiral was heading – a large tree which inexplicably had windows and doors in its thick trunk. As they drew closer he realised that ‘large’ didn’t really describe it properly, ‘absolutely enormous’ was far more accurate.
The admiral charged straight at the door, barging at it with his shoulder. Unlike in the movies, it didn’t give way, and Williams bounced off it with a pained grunt, falling to the floor and groaning. Riley swiftly switched his rifle into burst mode and let rip a volley at the door, shredding the wood around the two sturdy, ornamental hinges. A huge marine by the name of Wilkins took the initiative and shoulder charged it again while the rest of the team held off the increasing number of attackers they had attracted.
This time the door gave way easily and Wilkins thundered through into the interior, quickly followed by the others and Williams bringing up the rear, favouring his good arm. Fortunately the doorway formed something of a choke point and slowed their pursuers long enough for them to take stock of their new situation.
The inside of the tree was remarkably homely, and thick bound books lined nearly every available wall. An ornate staircase curved against the far wall, and the lavender pony that Williams had been following was standing at the top of it, mouth agape and shaking in barely contained shock.
From above them came a cry as a couple of flying ponies dropped from the rafters, diving straight at them. In such a confined place there was little time to react and before many of them could get their weapons aimed they were being wrestled to the ground by the brightly coloured creatures. Riley struggled with a frail light yellow creature who had basically sat upon him and was making little effort to actually restrain him as he wriggled underneath her. He pushed her off him roughly and she fell to one side where she remained, cowering under a wing.
Wasting no time he leapt towards Williams, grabbing the strangely colourful tail of the pony that had her legs wrapped around him and pulled hard, trying desperately to give the admiral some space. The pony screeched indignantly and turned to bat at Riley with her wings, knocking him backwards and sending stars flashing before his eyes. It was enough time for the admiral, however, and he threw off the white pony that was beating at his head, casting her a few paces away before leaping athletically for the staircase and swinging himself up as two more aliens collided head on where he had been a moment ago.
Riley held his arms up in front of his face as another charged at him, head down and intent on knocking him a few days back. The shock of the impact nearly dislocated his shoulders and he stifled a cry. On his back and against a wall he had nowhere to go, and through the gaps in his fingers he saw his assailant above him, hooves raised high and about to crash down on his head.
In the nick of time he ducked to one side, and wooden boards splintered up around him. Frantically he groped about for his weapon, he would only get one chance and he was going to make use of it.
The sudden sound of gunfire seemed to stop time, plaster and fragments of wood rained down on them. All eyes, human and alien alike, turned to the source of the sound. Riley felt a grin spreading. The admiral was standing at the top of the staircase, one thick arm hooked around the leader-pony’s neck, the other with the hot muzzle of the weapon pushed against the side of her head.
“Stop,” he shouted clearly. “Stop.”
The room watched him for a moment, unmoving, and it was almost possible to see the gears turning in the natives’ heads as they looked at one another hopelessly. Reluctantly the ponies released their human captives, shuffling off to the sides of the rooms. A couple of them bowed down, pressing the underside of the muzzles to the floor in a clearly submissive gesture. The rest reluctantly followed suit, all eyes on their leader atop the ledge.
Riley stood carefully and shook off the dust, sneering at the giant red pony that had almost ended him. He studied Williams’ hostage, she did indeed stand out from the rest of them with both attributes, and once again he found himself admiring the admiral’s attention to detail. The plan had worked.
Although it seemed unnecessary and cruel at first Riley had quickly seen the wisdom in parading the captured aliens through the town, as soon as others caught sight of the spectacle they became docile almost immediately, although it was still obvious they were highly agitated and in a state of some stress.
The strange looking group marched swiftly back to the landing site, “ground zero” as the admiral had started calling it, and their captives were locked in a large metal storage crate, big enough for them to move around in comfortably. Some of the engineers had cut small portholes from the side of the container to allow the ponies to breath, and more importantly to allow the agitated crowd that had formed a ring around the site to see that they were, in fact, unharmed.
Through some elaborate games of charades Riley and a few of the other academics had attempted to get across the idea that they would not be harmed, so long as good behaviour was adhered to. Trying to convey anything complicated took a lot of time and effort, and the lack of cultural understanding did not help, either. Simple things such as facial expressions indicating happy or sad weren’t even universal, the ponies certainly appeared to have similar expressions but they had no guarantee they actually meant the same things in their culture.
At any rate, over the course of the next twenty-four hours the ring of observers thinned a little, and after some shouted conversations between the prisoners and the crowd they seemed to calm down significantly, to the point where Williams allowed a few of the more influential looking fellows in the rabble to approach the prison so they may talk in more natural tones.
Of course, always nearby were the science teams, recording and analysing everything possible. Their language was every bit as complex as the variant of English spoken by the space-faring human race, and with such a limited set of conversations they were struggling to make much progress. The ponies seemed wholly uninterested in joining in the project, and attempts to engage with any of the non-captives were frustratingly difficult.
Riley had allowed himself a few hours’ sleep to recover from the worst of the exhaustion borne of the previous thirty hours, before returning to the library with a team of guards and a couple of his closest science friends. Together they had set about scanning a selection of the tens of thousands of the books in the library, sitting through the painstaking process of turning a page, taking a snapshot, turning the next page, ad infinitum, until Riley felt sure the skin on his fingers was going to wear away.
Back at the ships the formidable computing power that usually ran the subspace modules had been bent to the task of pattern analysis, sifting through the vast collection of images and attempting to match recurring patterns. The alien alphabet was utterly unlike the Latin one with which they were most familiar, and progress was slow on that front as well.
Riley returned to camp many hours later, eyes streaming from his work and his head pounding. The implants that allowed him such astounding mental acuity didn’t come entirely without drawbacks, some days it felt as though the machinery was trying to dig its way back out, the migraines could be crippling. It was a common and badly understood problem with the devices, but it was a tradeoff that many were willing to take.
As he trudged through the crumbling streets he looked up at the starry sky once more, their models of the system had determined that the length of a day was over one hundred hours, and a slow dawn was only about five more away, the sky in the east could already be seen to be brightening very slightly, a milky pink glow tickling the horizon. At least that would lift spirits, he hoped. The seemingly endless night had not done much good for peoples’ tempers, nor for his sleeping patterns.
Back at their compound a second prison had appeared, built from a slightly smaller shipping container this time. It had a lot more holes cut in it, as if the builder had forgotten it was a smaller box yet still made as many cuts as the larger one. Inside were two ponies, one with an alarmingly pink coat and the other a light green unicorn. The former was apparently asleep calmly while the other sat up like a large dog, face pressed up against a hole and watching everything around her with a slightly unnerving intensity. From time to time some sound would attract her attention and she would rush around to another hole to poke her snout of that one instead.
As he approached she spoke excitedly, gesturing wildly with her green forelegs. He watched quizzically for a bit, one eyebrow raised.
“That one keeps trying to snoop around, sir,” a nearby guard said, by way of explanation. “And the pink one’s just as bad. If it hadn’t finally gone to sleep I was about ready to find a tranq. rifle. Would not be quiet.”
“She,” Riley corrected.
“Sir?”
“They’re both female.” The guard glanced back at the makeshift cells, unconvinced. “Rounder muzzles, smaller build, longer tails, smaller hooves. Pay more attention, private.”
After checking on the computer teams to see where they were getting with their research Riley returned to his bunk, barely able to keep his eyes open much longer. After a couple of hours’ restless slumber he was rudely awoken by the sound of gunfire outside the tiny windows in the prefab barracks.
Outside the sun had risen a couple of degrees above the horizon, its weak rays beginning to warm the skin. Riley ducked behind a stack of containers, fiddling with his sidearm and trying to reconnect to the local site net to find out what was going on. In the skies many ponies were flying in something resembling a loose formation, splitting into groups to dive while the others dropped objects on the soldiers running around below to draw their attention.
It was a somewhat hopeless attack, and Riley was dismayed that they hadn’t learnt from the previous night. The sense and feeling he had got from the town was one of peace and simplicity, despite all the destruction and smouldering ruins. They genuinely didn’t seem like an aggressive race, their total lack of military sophistication certainly backed that theory up. He struggled to understand why they were attacking again.
Without warning a bright flash of light burst above their heads, accompanied by a crack of sound that Riley would have put down to the shockwave from a supersonic aircraft, had he not known that all their ships were thoroughly grounded for at least a few more Earth days while repairs were carried out. Above them the shockwave spread rapidly outwards, a ring of mist condensing at its boundary and refracting the early morning sunlight into a vast circular rainbow.
As it passed overhead Riley put a hand to his temple, massaging the pressure he felt there. His cybernetics crackled in distress, sending a barrage of meaningless impulses around his synapses. Dizzy and sick he stumbled away, trying to find cover. The other few augmented humans on the field were looking equally dazed, unable to think or move in a straight line.
His vision clouded and the edges of objects twinkled and flickered in his vision like the precursor to a severe migraine. He struggled on towards the barracks, his external interface was in his flight case, perhaps he could temporarily disable the implants before they did some permanent damage. He was dimly aware that the gunfire had stopped, and some of the lights that had burnt so brightly during the endless night were just restriking after their power supplies had finally reset. From the edges of their compound the sound of charging hooves could be heard, and he saw a few men engaging in hand-to-hoof combat.
“Riley!” called a familiar voice, and he fell to his knees, barely able to see at all. Strong arms were under his shoulders, holding him up.
“Deeba,” he moaned. “What’s happening?”
“EMP, bastards have more tricks than we thought. Pulse rifles are all fubar, sentry guns are out too. Admiral’s furious, he’s arming the batteries on Alpha One.”
Riley bowed his head, feeling his pulse throbbing in his head. Each heartbeat sent little black smudges creeping in from the edges of his vision, even with his eyes closed. It did, at least, feel like the worst of it was passing. A pulse powerful enough to knock out the generators would certainly cause the millions of little processors in his head to restart as well, it would take them a minute or so to resynchronise.
The comms. net came back online with a crackle of static from Deeba’s radio. “Incoming, dead above,” came an urgent call. Riley looked upwards, seeing the blue pony whose multihued tail he had pulled in the giant treehouse bearing down at them at significant speed. He could see the beginnings of a shockwave forming in a cone around the front of her and he shook his head in disbelief, it didn’t seem possible.
Fortunately it seemed that Williams had managed to restart the tactical computers onboard their ship and the ground shook with the force of the main gun as it tracked and fired on multiple targets. Each shot left his ears ringing and he covered his head with his arms, cowering as Deeba held him.
Up in the sky it was having the desired effect, the blue pony squawked as she was knocked out of the sky, one wing shattered and flapping in the wind as she plummeted to the ground. The rest of the airborne menace scattered, several more falling to the fearsome weaponry mounted on the front of their warship.
On the ground the humans were gaining the upper hand even without active weaponry. All of the marines were trained in close quarter combat and numbers were slightly on their side, not to mention tactics and discipline. A scant few minutes after it had started the assault was over, repelled with minor casualties, and the big gun fell silent. Riley’s implants finally calmed down and he felt strong enough to stand up unaided. The lingering headache would last for days, he knew.
Out on the field their leader had somehow escaped from her prison and was crouched over the fallen pony on the field, an ethereal, otherworldly glow around the horn on her head. Riley watched with interest, more evidence of their peculiar technology. He gently shook off Deeba’s arm and moved closer, curious. As he came closer he could see the extent of the damage, a round had pierced a wing, leaving a ragged, bleeding hole. Worse, however, was the gaping wound in her hind leg, just above the knee.
A team of men was running towards the two, intent on breaking them up and re-securing their valuable hostage. The purple pony didn’t seem to be paying them any attention however, and Riley realised she was crying, tears streaking the fur on her face as she cradled her dying friend. Clearly in a state of panic she was also doing nothing to actually help, and without warning some part of Riley’s brain made a rash decision without the consent of the rest of it.