Behind the shroud

The world beneath them looked remarkably like Earth, at least as far as Dustin could tell during their flight through the atmosphere. Wide blue oceans shifted beneath them, giving way to port cities that glittered in the morning sun. Beyond the ports, fast moving maglev trains slid smoothly inland towards yet more urban areas.

Despite the view during the flight, their descent wasn’t aimed towards any of the urban sites - indeed, as they came down it seemed as if their course had been plotted to avoid them passing over any of the cities. Instead, Sola threaded a needle between infrastructure - close enough to see, but not so close that it’d be a risk if they crashed (or were shot down, Dustin’s brain added rather unhelpfully). Their escorts continued to fly in formation as they crossed ocean and plain before the grassland gave way to desert.

“Kinda looks like where we found Mallow,” Emely commented, the Feliax’s tails twitching as she tried to watch the main screen and the view ahead of them at the same time as keeping up her monitoring of her station in case they got any new communications from the aliens around them.

Dustin nodded thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing as their destination appeared on the horizon. “That looks suspiciously like an isolated military facility. Yril’k, keep the guns powered down but move security teams to the airlocks, just in case.”

The insectoid nodded, stepping back to her console and tapping a series of rapid-fire commands as the starship slowed, Sammie bringing them down carefully to land on a vast blast-pad. The escort craft slid smoothly upwards as Sola touched down, shifting to hover watchfully over the human vessel; to Dustin’s relief, the instant Sola’s engines disengaged the majority of their escorts began to similarly power down their weapons.

“Looks like we might get a friendly greeting after all. If they’re leaving it to just two ships with guns trained on us then hopefully they’re just being cautious rather than actively hostile,” he commented, before turning to Emely. “Any indication on what they expect us to do now?”

The fox girl frowned and tapped her console. “I think we’ve got a working translator now, sir, but they’re not responding when I try and hail them. I think our best bet is to wait and see what happens as we’re on the ground - maybe they’ll send out a welcome party or something?”

It was a little over ten minutes of waiting, Dustin trying to decide if just opening an airlock and leading a landing party was the right idea or not. In the end, the decision was taken for him - Emely’s console crackled to life once more, the incoming call routing through to the main speakers at a touch. “Attention unknown entity. A first-contact party will approach your vessel shortly. Please indicate an access point. Attention…” the message looped, seemingly pre-recorded.

“Well, that answers that,” Dustin said dryly, stretching and climbing out of his chair. “Let’s let them in via one of the cargo bays - Sola, can you prepare bay three to lower, that one’s still empty right?” At a chime from the AI, he turned to the senior staff. “Defia, Sammie, Emely, you have the bridge. Keep in close contact with us please Emely, ideally I’d have you there but I’m not putting you at risk right now. Meli, Yril’k, Bleu, with me. The rest of you, keep an eye on the security teams and let everyone know if anything looks amiss. I doubt they’d be acting friendly and then try and board us, but I don’t want to run any risks.”

Leading the party down to the cargo bay, Dustin glanced across at Yril’k. “We’re going for peaceful if possible. I don’t want to have to try and fight our way out now we’re on the planet, but if we have to then the priority is keeping our people alive while Sola retracts the bay. Removing hostiles or taking captives are secondary.”

The Vex’ess nodded, her blade arms carefully folded behind her. “I understand’k. I will act only on your’k order, captain.”

A moment later, the hum of Sola’s internal mechanisms began to rise as the cargo bay slid out from her hull and dropped gently towards the surface. Dustin took a second to check his communicator was set to translate and hoped that Emely’s attempts at figuring out the alien’s language would prove successful in actual dialog. Stepping forward slightly from the group, he took a deep breath as the bay came to a halt with a soft crunch on the sandy surface of the landing pad. “Alright, here we go…”

The doors slid open, the warning lights flashing as the pressure equalized. On the far side, the landing pad stretched out before them, hot and empty save for the ever present sand. Frowning, Dustin glanced around. “Well, we’re here… where’s the welcome party?”

Nothing moved on the pad beyond the heat rippling in the air… and then, close to the entrance to the bay the air rippled more rapidly as four figures appeared. No, they didn’t appear - their skin and clothes shifted colours; they’d always been there, just perfectly camouflaged against the background so completely that Dustin and the others hadn’t noticed them.

“Please remain stationary, outsiders.” The one Dustin assumed was the leader of the group of aliens spoke, stepping carefully into the ship. “We will observe first, then begin the questioning.”

Dustin waited as the locals approached, taking the chance to do a little observation of his own. They were clearly some kind of reptilian race, going by the lack of any hair or fur, although a narrow plume of feathers running from their brow to the back of their heads indicated a potential avian ancestry as well. At first, the training he’d had on spotting species characteristics had him thinking they were descendants of less predatory creatures with their eyes mounted wide on either side of a slightly tapered face. Then those eyes moved and he realized they had flexible protrusions around each orb, allowing them far greater sight range than would be normal for any non-predator.

As he pondered the surreality of a race of stealth-lizards having chameleon-like eyes, the leader finished their observation. Stepping back, she - at least, Dustin thought it was a she - nodded. “You are biological. You are mixed species. The logical conclusion then is that you are from a collective of sentient races not too dissimilar to our neighbors. Why have you come to our system, and how did you know to look for us?”

Dustin glanced at his companions. “Well…”

The explanation had taken longer than Dustin had expected, mostly because Tisss (for some reason, all the locals had sibilant sounding names, elongating the final ess into an art form that a human tongue struggled to match) had interrupted him with repeated questions. Sola had helpfully loaded the cargo bay with a table and chairs before Dustin and the others had arrived, so at least they had somewhere to sit while they talked.

Eventually, with the summary of why and how they’d arrived at this point complete, their host leaned back in her chair. “You ask us to believe you are seeking allies against not one but two enemies - and that you have previously accomplished this feat? It seems folly to join someone engaged in multiple conflicts. You also didn’t mention who exactly you are fighting in these wars. Still, I believe your description of how you found our world, and your body temperature didn’t change to indicate any lying…”

Trying not to think too hard about the fact the reptile opposite him had apparently been monitoring his body heat as a kind of lie detector, Dustin nodded carefully. “I understand your concerns. But, we’ve beaten both of our foes back already, using weaker fleets than we have now. We’re not looking for allies to save us from our hubris, more like new friends to help us rebuild once we’ve won.” Then, at a prod from Yril’k he grinned and added “though allies who’d help as well would always be welcomed.”