7054 word update

(See title) Continues on from last post...

He took the controls from Mezul, and navigated to the recording feed. All external sensors were permanently on record for debriefing purposes, and after a minute he navigated to the timeline of the space battle.

He fast-forwarded to the first moments they spotted the alien ship, Lambert hearing his and Carl’s voices in the background. Mezul’s face lit up as it gestured to the alien ship that had lurked within the asteroid fields from earlier, then at itself. “Mezul,” it said, nodding vigorously and pointing. “Mezul!”

“That was you we were following?” he asked. “Maybe you do recognise me. Heh, never thought I might have something in common with an alien.”

“Lambert,” Mezul said, the man quirking an eyebrow at it. It was staring at him again, its big eyes dilating the longer they looked at each other. For some reason he felt a little self-conscious, like the alien was sizing him up or something.

“If you’re a pilot, then maybe you’ll like what some of this stuff does.” Lambert knelt down and tapped at the terminal on the left. A few pairs of feeds opened up on the screens, showing the surrounding hangar from several different angles from the ship, the man showing Mezul how to manipulate each camera, the alien cooing as it swiveled the starboard camera around with the keypad.

The feed moved until they saw Carl outside the ship, his boots turned off so he could float up to the top point-defence cannon. He had opened up one of the belt-feeders on the side of the giant turret, an ammo box he’d gotten from the cargo bay floating beside him as he removed the spent canister. Carl had collected quite the audience, the human surrounded by at least ten aliens ogling at him from a short distance away around him.

“From here I can get a good look at pretty much everything around the ship,” he said, pressing the zooming feature. Carl turned towards the camera right as the lenses dialed up to maximum, the whole screen filling up with Carl’s wide, blue eye. Mezul was clearly amused, clapping its hands together as it gestured to let it try. It manipulated the camera about like it had been using human tech its whole life, zooming in on its alien counterparts as they worked on the other ships.

Lambert noticed that while Mezul’s spacesuit was a dull grey in colour, the ones who worked the machines wore suits in the shades of greens. Perhaps the colours indicated what type of role the alien served? Shaliyya was the only alien to wear red on its suit – maybe that meant officer,and grey meant combatant, green for engineers. If only there was some way to ask.

There was something almost endearing about how the alien wondered at the cockpit devices. Lambert never really had the time nor the friends to demonstrate his profession, and seeing someone explore and map out every little part of his ship, and doubling up as a fellow pilot as well, brought a sense of companionship that was refreshing.

A thought occurred that he was using the Hub’s first chance at alien contact to make a friend. His mother would be proud.

“Sir,” Alice began, its voice coming through the speaker on his collar. “I’ve been running some light scans on our hosts since we’ve landed, but perhaps it would be best if we documented these ‘Balokarid’s’ in more detail.”

“What do you have in mind?” he asked, grinning when Mezul darted its head about in search of the other speaker. “We’re not doing any dissecting if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Not at all, I am surprised you think so little of me.”

“I’m not. So what’s your plan?”

“Lead your partner to the medical bay, and use the scanner there. Perhaps a map of their biology could shed some light on things, as well as provide a template for our report once we get back to the fleet.”

“Still need to find a way to do that,” Lambert said. “Come on, Mezul, follow.”

The alien floated up behind him, keeping close as he exited the cockpit, his boots clunking against the floor as he walked.

“Are you planning on bringing these aliens to the rendezvous point?” Alice asked.

“We cant just let them get picked off by the UEC,” Lambert replied. “Who knows how many Confederate ships are out here? When the Hub went independent, we promised we’d be different from the Confederacy and the core worlds. The way I see it, it’s our duty to help these people.”

“They may have valuable intelligence on UEC movements in the nebula as well,” Alice noted.

They walked (and floated) down to one of the doorways they hadn’t explored, the two entering a whitewashed space about the size of a bathroom. Basic medical equipment lay scattered about, secured to the deck by harnesses, a single examining table in the middle of the room.

Mezul must have recognised the room as being medical in nature, floating over to the table and peering at all the alien equipment. Lambert didn’t even need to ask it to sit down, the alien curling its big digitigrade legs up against the edge of the table.

After a bit of looking, Lambert produced a device that looked very similar to a glowstick with a metal grip. The blue rod was packed with sensor equipment, Lambert flicking the tool on with a push of a button.

“Alright Mezul,” he said, getting the alien’s attention. “I’m going to scan you now. With this thingy.”

The alien peered at the scanner, its feathery headdress rolling until the plumes flattened. Did that mean nervousness, perhaps? Like how the fur of a cat would fold back when it was threatened?

“It’s nothing invasive,” he said, trying to sound assuring. “Look.”

He demonstrated by waving the scanner over his arm, his suit painted blue by its flickering glow as the tool thrummed loudly. If their suit was anything like his own, the alien wouldn’t need to disrobe.

Seeing how harmless it appeared, the alien nodded, the gesture allowing Lambert to step up to it. Slowly he began to run the sensor beam across the alien’s body, Mezul holding out its limbs to help once it understood what he was doing.

When the front was done, he moved round the table, the alien watching him over its shoulder as he ran the scanner across its back. He noted a subtle curvature below the hind-sheathes that housed what must have been its feathery tail, two orbs flaring out from behind its flared hips, before curving back towards its large thighs. This alien had a rump that would put any model to shame.

“Lambert,” Mezul said, its eyes locked on his as if to say keep scanning.

“Right,” he said, his eyes shifting from its bottom as he continued mapping out the suit contours. After a few minutes he stood back, flicking the scanner off.

“All done,” he said, the alien clicking its beak as it watched him. “How’d I do?”

“I’m building a rendering of Mezul’s biology as we speak,” Alice said. “it shouldn’t take long. Interesting…”

“What is?”

“The scanner had to penetrate ten layers of material to get access to the flesh beneath. The alien is still rather large, but its spacesuit is adding a lot more mass to its makeup.”

“Our suits were like that when humans first set off into the Milky Way,” Lambert said. “you think they’ve just become a space-faring species?”

“It is a possibility,” Alice replied. “this conclusion also aligns with your earlier observations of their ship designs, yet contrasts with their shielding capabilities.”

“You’re a strange bunch, Mezul,” he said to the alien. “Wish I was a linguist so I could teach you English.”

A few minutes later, and Alice directed him to a screen mounted on the wall, Lambert and Mezul watching as a three-dimensional, wireframe image of Mezul rotated on the monitor.

As the AI had said, Mezul wasn’t as stocky as its suit suggested, but was still a large being, standing on a pair of digitigrade legs that were bare of feathers from the shins down, making it almost look like it was wearing feathery shorts. From there, the feet split into three long toes tipped with claws, covered in what appeared to be scales.

Its thighs and waist were much wider than its torso, the feathers pinching into a narrow midriff that gave off a distinct impression of an hourglass figure. The legs had to be powerful to support such a large frame, Lambert guessed. When the render rotated to the side, the chest had a pronounced bust that extended out of the biceps, the torso as wide around as a beer keg.

“This make-up is analogous with some of the avian species we’re familiar with,” Alice began. “You see the holes running along the bones in its arms?”

“Yeah,” he said, peering at the hundreds of little cavities in the forearms. Alice highlighted the spine and the humerus, where similar divots could be seen. “So they’ve got hollow bones?”

“Only in the upper body, however. As you can see, Mezul here has a set of wings on the backs of their arms. They do not appear to be nearly large enough to allow it to fly, so they may just be there for aesthetic purposes. I suspect they may provide a more practical function, though without properly examining it this is just a best guess.”

“But some of the other aliens out there don’t have wings at all,” Lambert said. “How come the ones like Mezul do?”

“Wings,” Mezul said, following along. It was paying attention, even if it couldn’t speak their language. “Wings Mezul, wings Shaliyya.”

“Yeah, Shaliyya had them too.” Lambert scratched his hair as he gestured at the alien rendering. “Can you tell me anything about how it’s speaking so well?”

“It is not necessarily speaking as it is mimicking your speech, sir. This alien does not appear to have a larynx like humans do, but another organ with a similar build as a syrinx, located closer to the spine. When Carl compared these creatures to parrots, he was quite accurate.”

“Hopefully not too accurate,” Lambert said. “How can we actually talk to these people if they’re just copycats? We’re not diplomats, we’re certainly not linguists.” He sighed. “I feel like we’re not going to get anywhere anytime soon.”

“Do not forget this is a space-faring species, Lambert. They are as capable of learning as… as you are with primes, for example.”

“Let’s hope so,” he huffed.

“Lambert,” Mezul said, floating out of the chair and motioning at him. “Come on.”

“You want to go somewhere?” he asked, as if it would just answer him. It floated out to the corridor, this time holding his hand as it went down to the cargo bay, Lambert walking behind on his magnetic boots as it dragged him with.

They moved back out into the open space of the hangar, Lambert tasting the metallic scent of the air on his tongue as Mezul used the handholds spread throughout the bay to move down to the main deck, then across to the left. After a short walk they were stood before the dial with the ship Mezul had flown in on.

The twin prongs of metal that terminated above the main canopy shadowed an open ramp jutting out from the ship’s belly, Lambert looking up to admire the alien design of the ship. It was bigger than the corvette, not counting the pair of fixed wings that extended its bulbous width. Orange lights drew thick lines all across the hull, like someone had taken a giant orange stencil and scribbled all over it. If a giant stingray had grown blocky pustules over its flesh, this was probably what it would look like.

Behind the ramp the twin barreled, laser cannon was facing towards the hangar bay doors, Lambert walking around one of the landing struts to get a better look at it. The housing that attached the great weapon to the ship reminded him a lot of tank turret mounts, the exposed wiring wrapping around the base of the barrels drawing his eye.

Each barrel was about eight meters long, perfectly smooth save for the capping muzzle and the flared midsection. He wanted to reach out and touch it, but hesitated, remembering those brilliant beams of light they’d fired on those Raptors. The amount of heat they must have produced would be insane, and he wondered on what methods they used to cool the barrels down for continuous fire.

He felt a presence nearby, turning around and blinking when he saw Mezul right behind him. Perhaps he’d done a disservice to humanity by taking an immediate interest in weaponry, but he couldn’t help himself.

“You got some impressive firepower, Mezul,” he said, his hands on his hips as he remembered those Raptors being disintegrated.

“Sala’ci,” Mezul said, waving its arms at the gun.

“That’s what you call it? We call them lasers.”

Mezul cocked its head at him, its eyes narrowing as if it was thinking. “Human Lambert corvette,” it said. “Balokarid Mezul Sala’ci.”

“Oh, is that what your ship is called?” he asked. “Sala’ci?”

“You got it,” Mezul said, nodding. “Come on.”

It led him over to the ramp, the human following Mezul inside. There did not appear to be any kind of cargo bay or airlock on the Sala’ci, instead the walls slanted in towards a hatch, which Mezul opened by sliding a part of the panel back. The angle for walking got too awkward as Lambert reached the hatch, the man turning off his boots with a click as he floated after the alien.

“Taking a tour of Mezul’s ship,” Lambert said into his suit. “Be right back.”

“Can I come?” Carl asked.

“Stay with the ship,” Lambert replied, Carl grumbling over the radio.

“Fine. Someonehas to make sure these guys don’t go snoopin’ through our stuff.”

“They’re not interested in your sticker collection, Carl.”

“They’re stamps!”

Through the hatch, a wide shaft opened up before him, the irregular surface of the metal walls providing many handholds for Mezul to move itself deeper into the ship. From here Lambert could see many other shafts trailing off from this one, spreading like veins through to other parts of the Sala’ci.

The first thing he noted was the smell. Gone was the metallic scent of recycled air, replaced instead by a strange earthy musk. It wasn’t exactly pungent, but the presence of burning leaf was enough to give Lambert pause.

Mezul led him down the passage on the left, the alien’s shoulders just brushing the sides of the passage, another hatch terminating at the far end. Inside was a space about the same size as the cockpit, filled with what appeared to be terminals judging by the screens of alien text shimmering over the glossy surfaces. There was another alien present in the room, sat before a wide-screen TV’s worth of scrolling information, and other strange equipment he simply couldn’t make sense of, the electrical equipment bathing the space in a sunset-orange glow.

Its chair was oversized to Lambert, more like a lounge than a seat, but appeared to be a comfortable size for the big alien. Like Mezul, it wore a grey spacesuit that made it appear a bit bulkier than it really was, the wing sheaths sprouting from its forearms making it look like it had a pair of glaives at the ready as it fiddled with modules and buttons.

The alien and Mezul shared a few unintelligible words, and then the new alien lifted its helmet off, exposing its exotic plumage the colour of wine that shimmered as it caught the light. The feathers on these Balokarid’s were so dynamic from one another – was it a natural feature, or something artificial, like paint?

The new alien turned its yellow eyes on him, staring at him down the length of its long beak. He caught glimpses of its little, numerous teeth as it opened its mouth.

“Ru-shav,” it said, touching its chest with a hand. Lambert guessed that was its name, copying its gesture and tapping his chest piece.

“Lambert,” he said, the alien seemingly amused by his gesture, coming close and drinking in his features, this one a lot more curious than the others as it lifted his arms up to get a good look at him.

“You guys don’t care much for personal space, do you?” he asked, looking to Mezul as Ruvaara tapped at his shoulderpad, taking a great interest in his arms and face.

Whether Mezul understood him or not, he could not tell, but Mezul said something that caused Ruvaara to step back, the new alien chittering as it examined him.

Mezul waved to get his attention, pausing for a moment to think. It gestured at itself and said: “Mezul ghosha, Lambert ghosha, Ruvaara kasim.”

“Kasim?” he asked, Ruvaara’s eyes going wide as if Lambert was a master of language. “What’s that mean?”

The new alien returned to its seat, Lambert noticing a hole had been cut out of the backrest. He wondered what it was for, then got his answer as Ru-shav slid their tail-sheathes through the gap so it could actually sit down. The sheathes weren’t segmented, just stiff metal that probably wasn’t too comfortable for the wearer if the tail underneath was flexible.

The alien pair gestured for him to come close, Lambert using the back of Ruvaara’s seat to steady his floating body as he watched a part of the screen come to life, Ruvaara manipulating a couple of buttons. After a little flicker of static, a feed displayed, one from just above the barrels of the laser cannon outside. What looked like a crosshair sat in the center of the screen, alien numbers that might have displayed the range written just beside the reticle.

Ruvaara dragged a claw over to another device imbedded in the terminal, manipulating a thing that looked a little like a trackball. When the trackball moved, so did the feed, the laser cannons swiveling side to side, the crosshair displacing against the hangar doors to compensate for the change in distance.

“You aim those things manually?” Lambert asked, looking at the aliens in disbelief. “That’s like shooting a goldfish in a pond, only the pond is fifty kilometers away!”

The alien’s must have detected the awe in his tone, Ruvaara indicating Lambert should try and use the trackball. Lambert grumbled as the little marble ball slipped against the tips of his fingers, unable to keep the crosshairs still on any one point without fiddling with it for a few moments.

Ruvaara laughed at his frustration, taking the trackball and easing the cannons back into place, its fingers surprisingly dexterous as they manipulated the controls with ease.

“Hey, Carl,” Lambert voxed through the radio. “these guys aim their guns by eye, with a crosshair and a mouse-thing too.”

“Like Call of Duty?” Carl asked. “How the heck do they aim at something that’s way out there? And compensate for the travel time?”

“They have exceptional eyesight,” Alice interrupted, the machine always present. “I’ve been taking a look at Mezul’s biology. Its eyes are a lot larger than a human’s, packed with at least twice as many photoreceptor cells. The fovea centralis, of which it possesses two, are nearly three times as dense with cone cells compared to humans, resulting in much greater resolution.”

“Fove-what now?” Carl asked, lost already.

“With so many retinal receptors, coupled with their long beaks, they can see many times further than a human can. There’s a strong chance they could also use secondary lenses to help bring distant objects into greater focus, much like birds from Earth do.”

“But we’re talking about spaceships here,” Lambert said. “That’s some super telescopic vision you’re talking about.”

“Perhaps they have other devices at their disposal they use during combat, we don’t know. Plus, their lasers do not appear to have much travel-time, compared to conventional bullets at least.”

“Lambert?” Mezul asked, bringing the human back into the present. The three aliens were quietly watching him speak into his radio the whole time.

Hold on, three? Lambert turned his gaze to the third alien, this one having already taken off its helmet to expose a headdress the colour of a setting sun, the iridescent tips of its feathers shimmering with each subtle movement the alien made.

“Balyn,” it said, its beak clicking as it introduced itself. It copied Lambert’s name perfectly when the human told it.

“You’ve got wings too, Balyn,” Lambert noted, more to himself. The ones without wings were very few in number around here – were they a sub-species, perhaps?

“Wings,” Ruvaara said, picking up the keyword. “You’ve got wings, Balyn. We’re talking about spaceships here!”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Lambert replied, looking between the three aliens as he planted his hands on his hips. “So. Is it just you three on this ship?”

The aliens cocked their collective heads at him, Lambert scratching his chin as he tried to think of a better way to explain. “Three,” he said, holding up three fingers. “You guys know numbers. Three.”

“Saying the same word over and over won’t really help explain its context,” Alice advised. It was like an angel on his shoulder, pointing out his mistakes.

Frustrated, Lambert turned to Mezul. “Where’s that thing you gave me earlier? The thing that beeped?”

He mimed twisting the radio/cellphone device that he used to demonstrate prime numbers, Mezul thankfully more receptive to his gestures as it produced the device from its belt. He took it, and beeped the device three times, pointing to each alien in turn. “Three,” he said. “Mezul, Ru-shav, Balyn. Three of you man the Sala’ci.”

Mezul shook its head, then held up five fingers, having to use both hands to do so. He hoped that meant five crew, but he couldn’t see anyone else. Maybe they were off doing something else.

“Sala’ci five,” Mezul said. “Corvette, two.”

“Yes, two. Our corvette has two crew.

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Alice asked, its tone suggesting it was pretending to pout. Lambert ignored it.

“Human Lambert… Einstein,” Mezul said. “Two crew. Balokarid fivecrew. Three.” It didn’t seem to know what else to add, but Lambert thought he could tell what it wanted to say. They had three less crew than them, but could fly just as well.

“Yeah, some of our ships can be used by just oneperson, too.”

They nodded along, at the very least appearing to understand. “Lambert,” Ruvaara said, catching his attention. “Corvette. Ruvaara, corvette.”

“You want to check out the corvette?” he asked, the one called Balyn nodding along in agreement. “Sure, okay.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mezul said, mimicking Carl’s speech to a fault.

Speaking of, Lambert hoped his fellow human wouldn’t mind a few extra tourists on their ship.

4

“Put that down!” Carl said. “How did ya’ll even open my locker, it’s locked.”

Balyn hung its head when Carl snatched the book out of its hands, Lambert grinning as it really seemed to be pulling off an alien version of puppy-eyes. After overcoming their initial wariness of the corvette, the aliens were keen on putting their claws on anything they could find, Mezul’s crew and even a few new aliens sticking their beaks into anything that wasn’t bolted down, which soon became a mess when they figured out how to work basic locks and even keypads.

“What was your password?” Lambert asked, watching from the doorway of the gunner station. “One two three four?”

“Doesn’t matter what it was,” Carl said. “these guys are snoopin’ where they shouldn’t be snoopin’.”

“At least they know what no means,” Lambert said. The Balokarid’s vocabularies were expanding with each passing minute, Carl doing most of the heavy lifting as he scolded the curious aliens when they took a specific interest in his section of the ship. Call him crazy, but Lambert suspected they were picking up on the subtle social cues he and Carl gave off to help overcome the language barrier.

“Not as much as they should,” Carl replied. “How’d they even guess my code?”

“Numbers and math are a universal language,” Alice said over the intercom. “as I have stated previously. They need only see you enter the code once, and they can reciprocate it perfectly. Fascinating creatures…”

Lambert watched as Ruvaara tried to squeeze itself into Carl’s chair, chittering in agitation at the clearly underproportioned furniture. He felt someone tap on his shoulder, the man turning around to look. Unlike the others, Mezul was sticking by his side rather than exploring, raising its shoulders and arms in a shrug that had become its way of asking him a question.

“Hey Mezul, what is it?”

“Human from…” Mezul began, struggling to find the words. “Human from Humanar?”

“You want to know where I’m from?” he asked, the alien angling its beak so that both of its unblinking eyes faced him. “I’m from… well, humans are from Earth.”

“Earth,” it repeated. “Earth what?”

“What’s Earth, you mean?”

“What’s Earth?”

“Earth is a planet. I could show you a picture or something, hang on.”

He fumbled through his pocket for his phone, tapping into the on-board systems to bring up some images. He showed it the screen.

“Here, check it out,” he said, swiping at the screen as Mezul bent its head forwards to look. The first photo was of Earth from afar, its blue oceans and green landmasses sticking out against the blackness of space. “That’s Earth, and this one here’s a forest.”

Mezul was amazed, its beak right up against the screen as its eyes tracked the images. There was one of a coastal city, and a panorama of a lake with a sandy hillside on the far bank.

“Earth… all?” Mezul asked, blinking at him.

“All of these pics are from Earth, yeah. What about you, Mezul? Where are you from?”

The alien paused, eyes flicking around as it tried to think of a response. “Mezul... Mezul Dur’shala.”

“Oh, you’re from Dur’shala?” he asked, Mezul nodding in affirmative. “What’s it like?”

The alien didn’t appear to have photos, its eyes widening as it came up with an idea. It rubbed at its exposed forearm with a talon, a thick layer of the dust Lambert had seen earlier coming with it. The alien rubbed the stuff between its fingers, making sure Lambert was watching closely.

“Dur’shala,” it said, motioning at the dust. It then took his phone and swiped to the panorama, pointing at the sandy banks on the far side of the image.

“So your planet is sandy?” he asked. “Or mostly desert? Must be if it’s getting caught in your feathers so much.”

“All, Dur’shala,” Mezul said, pointing at its companions.

“You’re all from there, okay. So why are you here, and not there?”

“All… Dur’shala… human,” Mezul said. “Put that down.”

When it saw Lambert wasn’t understanding, it huffed like it was annoyed, looking around for a moment before continuing. “Human, these guys are snoopin’ where they shouldn’t be snoopin’. Why are you here?”

Lambert shrugged apologetically. “You guys invited us aboard, remember?”

The alien chirped in a way that came off as frustrated, seeing that whatever it was saying wasn’t making sense, its feathers flattening against its long skull.

The alien broke the silence by clicking its beak to get his attention. “Lambert cockpit come.”

“You wanna go to the cockpit? Sure.”

It followed him up the main corridor, the two returning to the pilot’s chair. It was already claustrophobic with all the equipment crammed around the chair, and it was worse with Mezul taking up what little space there was. “Picture,” Mezul said, motioning at the monitors.

“Which one?” he asked, the alien giving him a blank look. He decided to just flick through the recordings of the past couple hours, Mezul nodding its head as if it was saying keep going. When the recording came to the point where Mezul’s ships were under fire, it gestured for him to stop.

It pointed one of its claws at the Raptors, the image flickering as the nebula’s energies continued to interfere, even inside the alien ship. “Human,” it said, then pointed to Lambert. “human.”

“Oh no, we’re different from them,” Lambert explained. “Those are the bad guys.”

“Bad guys,” Mezul repeated. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

Lambert tried not to recoil too much, feeling he was so close to having a full-blown conversation with this thing. “Those were humans, yes, but they weren’t with us. Obviously. They were with the UEC.

“Human yoo-ees-see? Planet?”

“No its more of a… I don’t know, a clan. They’ve got several planets under their thumb and a lot of territory.”

“Territory,” Mezul said. “Human Lambert yoo-ees-see?”

He shook his head. “No. Well I was, but… let’s just say no. My, uh, clan is the Hub.”

“Hub,” Mezul repeated. “What Hub-clan?”

“It’s a group of humans fighting the UEC. There’s a lot of politics, but in short, we’re not on good terms. Haven’t been for years.”

“Where Hub-clan?” Mezul asked, its striking gaze falling on him. “Human Lambert… Mezul Hub-clan.”

“You want to go there? Me too, but my corvette’s low of fuel, and I have to report back to the Gallipoli first, tell them all about you guys.”

Mezul’s eyes shifted from left to right, the human realising he’d thrown too many new words at it. “Let’s try this.” He switched the screen back to the skirmish, pausing the video when the camera was resting on the alien group of ships. “We’re on this one, right?” he said, pointing at one of the alien carriers. “What are they called? What’s this whole fleet called?”

“Balokarid,” Mezul said.

“Yeah, I know, but what are these ships called? What’s your fleet called?”

Mezul squinted in thought, blinking once as it processed his question. “What fleet?”

“Look, one, two, three ships. That’s a fleet.” He pointed at them to drive home the point. “All ships. What are they called?”

“All ships called… Kaalesh. Kaalesh clan.”

That was a new word, maybe he was getting through to it. “Okay, Kaalesh clan. So who’s the leader of your clan?”

“Kaalesh all.”

“No, I mean,” he sighed, growing frustrated. “Who’s the… the ghosha? Who’s the pilot of this fleet?”

“Kaalesh ghosha?” Mezul asked, Lambert nodding in reply. “Ghosha… no. Shaliyya Kith. Kith, ghosha, Balokarid… I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

So Shaliyya was like a pilot, or at least had more say in the fleet’s movements like he’d suspected? It was good enough for Lambert, the man waving for Mezul to join him as he left the cockpit. “Take me to Shaliyya, then.”

Once more they made their way through the hanger airlock, the sound of whirring engines and mechanical equipment filling the space as they went, the doors welcoming the pair as they stepped through into the pressurised corridor beyond. The ceiling was maybe three times as tall as Lambert was, enough to accommodate two or three Balokarid’s floating side by side, a lot less cramped than human ships were by far.

Mezul gripped the handholds built into the sides of the passage to move her along, Lambert clunking along after it on his heavy boots. There were panels every he looked, probably designed so that the aliens could access the ship systems from as many places as possible. The passage split off in multiple directions after a quick walk, more narrow passes curving higher and deeper into the alien carrier. It was a stark change from the classical right angles of human architecture.

Mezul took the pass on the right, Lambert following after. Every now and then they’d see Balokarid’s floating the other way, huge crates and other bulky equipment in their hands as they ferried themselves to other parts of the ship. They gawked behind their closed helmets at the human, some stopping to chat with Mezul, probably about why he was wondering about with just it for company.

Some of the Balokarid’s had big packs strapped to their flanks, secured to their spacesuits by thick belts secured round their waists. Each pack was as tall as he was, and easily heavy enough to give even the strongest humans pause, but the alien birds showed no signs of fatigue in the microgravity. Lambert paused when he noticed a piece of metal sticking out of one of the flaps of a passing alien’s pack.

“Is that a…” He got a better look when the alien floated by. The piece of alloy was coated in jet-black paint, with half of a serial number etched into the lower part of the alloy.

“Mezul,” he asked, the alien nodding at him. “Was that guy carrying part of a Raptor?”

The alien looked from him to the other alien, its beak clicking as it processed the question. “Human ship corvette.”

“I guessed as much.” It wasn’t unusual that they’d be salvaging parts – raw material would be hard to come by out here, but what were they using it for? Did they repair their ships with human parts?

He decided to report it to Alice. Although he’d rather give the machine the cold shoulder, at the least it could help shed some light on things. “Alice, just learned something about our hosts.”

“What have you found, sir?”

“Just past by a couple of alien salvagers. They were carrying bits of the UEC ships. Birds work fast.”

“Intriguing. They wouldn’t go through the trouble of salvaging if they couldn’t use it, that must mean they know how to manipulate C-loysto at least a basic degree.”

Colossus alloys, or ‘C-loys’ for short, was the most advanced material in the Milky Way, and prior to its discovery, didn’t exist on the periodic table. It was universally flexible in its applications, analogous to steel in its usefulness. Ship hulls, weapon designs, infrastructure support – one couldn’t walk ten feet in a human world without seeing traces of it.

Humanity had discovered the alloy way back in 2250, where a giant machine had been found buried deep beneath the sands of Mars. The machine was the size of a skyscraper and just as thick around as one, one of the miners giving it the creative name Colossus, which had stuck since. It was almost exclusively built from the synthetic alloy, and it took the greatest mining equipment days to pry apart. After humans had taken to the stars, it was soon discovered that the machine had similar, sister-constructs spread throughout the Milky Way, seemingly in random places – planets, moons, even floating between the stars.

A new, modern Gold Rush to find these huge constructs and reap their resources began shortly after, and there were a few people who made a mint selling coordinates to the highest bidder after finding an unplundered wreckage.

No one knew where the Colossi – the machine wrecks – came from, let alone who or what created them, but they boosted mankind’s journey to the stars, and the mystery soon died out, the wrecks becoming the norm. Perhaps these Balokarid’s found a wreck on one of their planets too – that would help explain their primitive designs mixing with the advanced technology.

“Scans show this very hangar is at least sixty percent made from C-loys,” Alice remarked. “Their ships almost eighty percent. What Colossus variant do you think they found?”

“Could be anything,” he replied, not in the mood for small-talk with a machine. “Are our new friends giving Carl any trouble?”

“He’s got them contained to his compartment. May I ask what you’re doing out there by yourself?”

“Mezul’s taking me to Shaliyya. I’m hoping they’re like the equivalent of a Captain or something.”

“Don’t do anything to jeopardize humanity’s image, our superiors will find out everything we did here.”

“You’d be an expert on jeopardizing humanity’s image,” Lambert shot back. He waited for the machine to try and talk back, but it seemed to have decided to hold its peace than risk him reprimanding it.

Lambert was brought back to the present when Mezul waved to get his attention, the man switching off his radio. “Who Alice?” it asked.

“Who’s Alice?” he corrected.

“Who’s Alice?”

“It’s… part, of our crew,” he replied reluctantly. “You know what crew means, right?”

“Human crew… two.”

“Technically it’s three with Alice, but I’m not sure how to translate what it is to you.”

“Translate,” Mezul repeated, its voice a little like his own, mixed with an unplaceable accent. “What… What’s translate?”

“You’re doing it right now. Switching up my language so I can understand you. You know, ghosha means pilot, Sala’ci means ship.”

“Translate human Balokar.”

“That’s right… I think. So how long until we get to Shaliyya?”

“You wanna go to the cockpit?” it chirped. “Come.”

At the next junction, Mezul floated through the passage leading directly up, the passage curving out of sight like some sort of underground volcanic tunnel, orange bands of light on either side providing a soft illumination. Lambert deactivate his boots with a click, and floated up after the alien.

They soon came across a closed hatchway, the doors sliding open to reveal a huge expanse of empty space. The floor and ceiling were sitting flush against the top and bottom of the passage, but the sides were flaring out hundreds of meters to the left and right, the space between them just tall enough to fit a Balokarid through. It was like Lambert had just entered the thinnest, most wide room of all time, the far side of the chamber hundreds of meters ahead.

Lambert couldn’t help but gawk. A few hundred other Balokarid’s were floating around, disappearing from one passage to the other, the tight space choked with alien bodies as they carried out their duties. Handholds and gripping poles connected the floor and ceiling like scaffolding, every surface bristling with support rails to help the aliens navigate the microgravity. For some reason they all had their feet and bellies facing him, giving off the illusion that Lambert was staring up from the ground.

Mezul reoriented itself until it too was pointing its legs at him, appearing from this angle like it were lying down in mid-air, craning its neck to peer over at him. “Lambert,” it said, spinning a finger to demonstrate that he should turn.

When he did, Lambert’s perception started messing with his head, forward becoming up as the floor and ceiling became the sides of a giant, squashed space that towered far above him.

His brain grasping to make sense of the sudden shift in orientation, he and Mezul glided through the space to some unseen destination. In basic flight training each recruit had to drill out their usual grounded perspective, to realise direction in space wasn’t the same as in an atmosphere, but very few got used to it permanently, and Lambert wasn’t one of the lucky ones, his instincts sure he wasn’t the right way up anymore.

He saw more Balokarid’s carrying those big packs full of wreckage, both human and alien scrap from the prior fight. He wondered where they were taking them, perhaps there was some sort of manufacturing deck in one of these many hatchways?

They travelled for a few minutes higher, the walls pocked with dozens, if not hundreds of hatches, this part of the ship a kind of nexus for the Balokarid’s. Around halfway up, Mezul stopped in front of one of the portals. Lambert expected Shaliyya to be on their version of a bridge, so wouldn’t they be going to the very top?

As he followed the alien in he realised it was no bridge, but a room similar to the initial holding area back near the hangar. There were three Balokarid’s inside, each one wearing jumpsuits that bordered between white and silver. Like Mezul, they had wings on the back of their arms, concealed beneath large sheathes made from some sort of fabric, their flat, long profile making them appear a little like the wings of a bat.

Their clawed hands were bare, as were their heads – their yellow eyes tracking him as he moved into the room. Each one was carrying some sort of device, holding them up to the lights as they fiddled with modules and settings. They looked like they’d been waiting for them.

“Is Shaliyya in here?” he asked, looking to Mezul for an answer. The alien shook its head no. “Then… what are we doing here?”

The new aliens closed in on him, one of them holding up some sort of flashlight as it ran the torch over his arm and chest, chittering in its odd language. Another alien gave his shoulder a squeeze as if to test his flight suit’s integrity, the third pointing some kind of laser at his hands and chest.

His eyes wide in alarm, he began to push the aliens away. “H-Hey, what are you guys doing?”

The Balokarid’s scattered away, squawking to one another and fixing their intense eyes on him. Was that confusion he could see on their faces?

His companion reached over and laid a clawed hand on his arm, giving him a comforting squeeze as it blinked at him. “Lambert,” Mezul began. “Kaalesh clan. I’m going to scan you now. With this thingy.”

The aliens held up their devices, Lambert getting the picture. So they wanted to scan him? Run some tests? He asked it why they weren’t going to Shaliyya.

“Shaliyya, scan,” it said. “Scan, Shaliyya.” It squeezed his arm in a way that was supposed to come off as reassuring.

He guessed it wanted to repay the favour, after he’d scanned it back on his corvette, and then they would go find Shaliyya. He was still a little pensive all the same – he was taking a lot of liberties introducing these aliens to human biology, some might say he was rushing into things. Screw it, he trusted that Mezul didn’t mean him any harm.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ve got an ideal male body anyway.”

The aliens didn’t understand him, but Mezul translated his willingness for him, and soon they began their tests.