The Tomb World Ch5 (Patreon)

The Aliens

Watcher Fezzen was relieved when the unknown extrasolar visitors had listened to his warning, he was even more pleased with how quickly they responded. Without any hesitation one of the ships had turned on their active scanners and quickly learned how much trouble they were. The Watchers didn’t have many instruments that could pierce the protective around the Planet-City, but if they focused all their instruments on one spot they could get a fuzzy impression. But even with all their radio dishes focused on one spot they couldn’t ‘see’ anything until the biggest ship activated their scanners, then shortly after they saw the other smaller ones. Though just barely.

Tower Commander Foric then plotted a path for them to follow, taking great pains to draw the swarm into their traps, while also rousing the pilot core to assist the visitors. They had been worried that one of the ships might be picked off by the Swarm, but fortunately the tailing ship had apparently dealt with any Breachers that broke in. After that it was only a matter of guiding them to hanger seven.

As the trio of alien ships flew through the Planet-City’s atmosphere Fezzen felt a hand on his back. He turned to see his Uncle hanging by one arm from one of the ceiling hands grips. “Yes Tower Commander?” he asked.

His Uncle fixed his eyes on him “The Council wants me down in hanger seven, and you’re coming with me.”

“Why me?”

“Whether by fate or chance you were the Watcher who discovered the ships and sent out the signal. I not sure whether these aliens have the same sense of honor as we do, or if they even understand the concept. But either way its only right for you to be down there to meet them.”

“Is that why your going down as well?” Fezzen asked.

“Maybe. I think the council wants me down there so they can shout at me if things go wrong. And I don’t blame them. We have just invited highly advanced and unknown extraterrestrials to our home, they could be friendly or a threat worse than the Swarm.”

Fezzen considered his Uncle’s words and nodded. They had just unilaterally exposed themselves to the first aliens to ever visit Corvalis, this was a monumental decision that should have been handled by the council. He got out his chair and jumped up to the handrails on the ceiling and swung after his Uncle to the circular hatch that was the entrance to the inner tower climb.

Going down was always easier than going up, but also much more dangerous, one misplaced hand could result in a long tumble. But Fezzen had done this drop more than a hundred times already, and knew the way by heart. He could have done this while tipsy from Enva juice. His Uncle was silent as he descended and Fezzen understood that this wasn’t the moment to chat. But even in the silence Fezzen couldn’t help but feel incredibly giddy.

Aliens! Real Aliens!

They had received garbled primitive transmissions before, likely originating from nearby worlds just beginning to dabble with such things before being quickly snuffed out. And obviously the Planet-City had also been built by aliens, or ancient gods if you believed the crackpot Callers. But this was the first time anyone had ever met an Alien face to face.

Would they even have faces? Logic said a person has to have a face, but he couldn’t be sure if they would have a face he would recognize as a face. It could be a completely flat dome, or maybe a split opening like the Swarm had. Would they have legs and stand upright like ordinary people, or would they stand on all their appendages like a Goral? Would they even have a proper front and back, or would they just arms and eyes on all sides of their bodies so that you couldn’t tell which side was their front?

He was so excited that by the time they reached the bottom he was practically vibrating from it all. A floating plate and its driver was waiting for them as they reached the bottom, Uncle Feric moved slowly with dignity, while Fezzen bounded towards it in several jumps.

The plate driver gave his Uncle a wry look “What’s with the kid?”

Feric let out an amused chirp “Just excited to meet the aliens.” He said placidly.

The Driver blinked his eyes, one after another. “Did you say Aliens?”

Feric waved a tail boredly “Yes, they should be heading to hanger seven by now. I expect that’s where your taking us?”

“Uh, yes Commander. Real Aliens?” the driver asked stupefied.

“Well they could be fake, but I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.” Feric answered wryly.

The driver turned forwards “Well I’ll be damned.” He muttered as he tilted the palte forward and towards one of the inner tunnels.

~~~*~~~

The quadcopters that had led the trio of explorer ships into the Ecumenopolis escorted them to a central landing pad before pulling back to hover around. They kept their long barreled guns pointed at the Staff of Lore and her two sister ships, obviously nervous about leading three unidentified ships into their home. Daniels would be nervous if he was them.

“Well” Eliza began, breaking the palpable silence that had enveloped the bridge. “That was certainly unexpected.”

Daniels let out a snort “I’ll say, what the hell was that all about? Organic spacefaring lifeforms, capable of keeping up with our sublight speeds, and generating a grav-spike. Fuck, I’ll bet they’re somehow FTL capable.”

“Likely” Eliza agreed “But I’m more curious about our rescuers. Do you think they’re actually ancient Coreworlders?”

“What?”

“Well, this planet is of ancient Coreworlder origin. It stands to reason that its inhabitants are also ancient Coreworlders.”

Daniels frowned “It’s a possibility. But I don’t think so. If they were actually ancient Coreworlders then they should be much more advanced than us. No offense to our rescuers, but those quadcopters don’t look too advanced.”

Nelson cleared his throat “They are just floating there, no spinning blades, electro magnetic fluctuations, or ion trail. It’s like magic.”

“Or sufficiently advanced science” Eliza added.

Daniels felt his frown deepen. “Maybe, bring up the sensor feed again. From before we were attacked.” Nelson nodded and clicked a couple buttons. The image on the screen changed and they once again saw the sensor feed from before they received the message. “Right look here, at the barren world closer to the star. It’s been stripped just like the other, but look at the smaller contacts orbiting it. Those are obviously man made, or whatever they call themselves. and remember the ship we saw, the one that looked like the CHARIOT system. My bet is that whoever these people are they originated on that world there, then they came here just before their world was attacked.”

Eliza looked at the screen “Why would they come here?”

“Why did humans go to the Luna, or Mars? Why are we out in nowhere space? A spirit of adventure and a desire to learn. They’ve probably been staring at this marvel for centuries before they finally escaped their atmosphere, it only makes sense that they would send expeditions.”

Eliza and Nelson unconsciously nodded their heads, agreeing with Daniels theory.

“The real question is where those danm space sharks came from?” Daniels said.

Eliza turned towards him with a raised eyebrow “Space sharks?”

He shrugged “the name stuck in my mind the moment Nelson said it. Can’t think of them as anything else. You’re a xenobiologist, you ever heard of anything that could do half the things those space sharks could?”

She thought for a moment “Sort of. There are accounts that the Aunviry are capable of surviving in space for a time, but those are unverified. But I have never heard of anything capable of living permanently in space, or moving as fast as they did.”

Daniels nodded “And can you think of any environmental factors that could lead a species down this evolutionary path?”

“Not off the top of my head, but it’s a very big galaxy. What are you getting at?”

“There’s an old sci-fi trope of ‘space whales’, creatures that survive off of gas giants. There’s another about organic spaceships. I’m trying to figure out which one this is.”

“I don’t think sci-fi books are a very credible source, the word fiction is in the title.”

Daniels scowled “We’re in an FTL capable spaceship, landed on a planet wide city. Nelson had goat horns, and one of my fellow captains is a talking Bear. The people who wrote those books spent a lot of time thinking about all the crazy things an infinite galaxy could hold. Just getting a partial idea of what we’re working with is better than nothing.”

Eliza looked like she wanted to protest, but he had stumped her.

“Well” Nelson cut in, “if you want answers then I can think of one source.” He said while bringing up an external camera feed.

Hundreds of little figures were scuttling around the three ships, forming a loose ring around them. Daniels squinted as he tried to discern their shapes. “What are they?” he asked out loud.

“I don’t know Sir, some sort of cross between a monkey and a lizard.” Nelson said in befuddlement.

Eliza straightened up “We are not calling them Lizard-Monkeys.” She said firmly. Quickly dispelling the name already forming in Daniels mind.

“Then what do we call them?” he asked before he could think better of it.

“Why don’t you ask them yourself, they seem to be forming a welcoming party.”

~~~*~~~

Two of the alien ships were sleek black beauties, all gentle arcing curves and slight angles that split the light. Their lines were only broken by the three sturdy looking landing pads that came out of the hull from large hatches. Fezzen realized the reason he hadn’t seen them on his scanner was because these two ships were designed under the principles of radar reflection and signal absorption. The gentle slops and mat-black paint would have like an oil slick to his instrumentation. He had learned about machines like this during his history class, during the unification wars both sides had built powerful stealth bombers and nearly invisible submarines. He had thought the images of them were beautiful and inspiring.

The other spaceship in the middle was entirely different. It had a bulky curved shaped front with a long tube-like body. It had tons of equipment jutting out from it at odd angles, and was painted white with bold red lines.

Fezzen could tell from a glance that the two black ships were warships, while the third was something else. He recognized that the dishes and antenna were meant for picking up faint signals, which could imply a scout ship. But something about its design told him very clearly that the white ship wasn’t meant for warfare at all. Maybe a science ship? Seemed likely.

The aliens could have been on a scouting mission and came to check out Corvalis before being ambushed by the swarm. Meaning the other two were likely its escorts. His Uncle seemed to understand that the red ship was likely the lead ship and assembled his greeting party around it. As Commander Feric approached the ship hoards of ground men stormed up the ship in bullet proof armor and bolt throwers. Fezzan and Feric stood like rocks in the stream as the troopers rushed into position shouting and calling as they moved.

Fezzen was so full of excitement and anticipation that he wanted to move or bounce, but Feric’s stoic attitude kept both of Fezzen’s feet planted to the ground. He just stood there implacably as their people were about to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The Swarm didn’t count since the drones were mindless without orders from the Hive, and they were still unsure whether the Hive actually thought or if it was acting on instinct.

There was a hiss off air from the white one, and a hatch ten tails above them opened and dropped down a ladder. The noise drew Fezzen’s eyes to the hatch for the first time and he began to get a creeping feeling. Soon a figure cast in shadow emerged, its top part seemed to turn as if scanning the hanger bay. Then it turned and crouched down to the ladder before climbing down. It stood much like Fezzen or Feric, upright on two legs. But it only had two arms, and no tail whatsoever.

It descended to the ground and turned to face the gathered forces, giving Fezzan and everyone else a good look at their alien. It had dark brown skin that was a little lighter around its face. The top of its head was a darker shade than the rest of it, and had a fuzzy quality, kind of like the fine feathers on birds when they were young, but curlier. It two forward facing eyes on the top half of its flatish looking face, they were a very dark brown with a darker circular center that must have been a pupil. A small bump came out of its face were normal nose might have been, and its mouth was entirely the wrong shape.

It turned its head from side to side and stepped forward, which caused everyone present to step back. Because above everything else about this alien, it was TALL!

Nearly three times the height of ordinary people, and on top of that it wore a suit of full metal scale armor.  Even in the height of the Feudal wars only a few warriors managed to support a chain mail armor on their bodies, mostly they had worn hardened leather and cloth.

It seemed to understand their caution and fear, because the next thing it did was make itself shorter. Knees about halfway down its  long legs bent forward and dropped the aliens height by a quarter, any further would require it to sit fully. It looked around, and pulled back its lips to show its teeth, the crowd flinched and bolt throwers shot up to hopefully dissuade the gigantic alien. Immediately a five fingered hand shot up to cover its mouth, while another came up in what looked like a ‘hold’ motion.

It waited to see if anyone shot it, before slowly letting its hand down. It produced a shiny object at its side and set on the ground, it pressed a button and the device projected a flat holographic image. The image was hard tomake out at first but soon Fezzen recognized it as the first message he had sent out to warn them of the swarm. It looked around again, moved its hand away from its mouth and uttered a deep sound that would forever mark the first words spoken between their two peoples “Hoo”

It could have been a simple grunt, or the most complex word in their language for all anyone knew since they didn’t speak the alien’s language. but despite the language barrier Fezzen had an idea of what it meant.

He stepped past his uncle, but a restraining arm held him back. Fezzen turned to his Uncle “Its alright, I think it wants to know who sent the message.”

“And if it wants to hurt you?” his uncle shot back.

Fezzen glanced to the big alien that towered over everyone “I don’t think so Uncle. I think its friendly, that thing with its teeth might have been a miscommunication.”

His uncle’s tail twitched from side to side in anxiety “I trust you.”

Fezzan nodded and stepped back towards the giant alien. As Fezzen approached the alien tried to shrink down further to appear less threatening. Fezzen scampered up before it and stood on both legs and put a three fingered hand other his heart “Fezzen” he said as clearly as he could.

One of the dark fuzzy things above an eye rose up, it took one of its fingers and pointed at Fezzen. “Fehz-in”it said, slightly butchering his name.

Fezzen chirped in agreement, and the alien tilted its head and all the muscles on its face moved slightly. Fezzen was astounded by how much the look of its face changed in less than a second. Then it bobbed its head up and down in a very exaggerated way. It put its hand to its chest “Danyalz”

Fezzen pointed with one finger “Dan-yalzz” he knew the moment he said it that he didn’t get the word right.

The alien’s lips pulled back and it made a deep breathy sound, Fezzen would have thought it was angry if something in its deeply expressive face didn’t signify mirth.

Dan-yalzz pointed to the projection again, and Fezzen chirped in confirmation. Dan-yalzz then extended his hand, the inner lighter colored part facing upwards. It waited until Fezzen hesitantly put his hand in the massive aliens hand, the fingers engulfed his whole hand but didn’t squeeze too tightly.

Dan-yalzz looked deep into Fezzen’s eyes, piercing through any language or species barrier, and said “Thaynk yoo.”

Fezzen trilled lowly in sorrow. The Alien, Dan’yalzz, was expressing his gratitude, but it didn’t know that Fezzen had doomed them to a different sort of fate. He looked the alien in the eyes and said “Welcome Dan-yalzz, to this world that is our tomb.”