Chapter 12: Vanguard

They arrived back at the flock’s domed dwelling, the two humans ducking under the low doorway as they stepped through into the carpeted living area. The planet’s star was getting low in the sky, its pale glow dimming as it dipped below the horizon.

“So where are me and Baker sleeping?” Jaeger asked, eyeing the bedroom warily. He didn’t know how he felt about sharing it with the whole flock, but they didn’t exactly have a fold-out couch, where else were they going to sleep?

“Is there a reason you can’t sleep with us?” Maza asked, “cultural maybe? We just assumed that it would be alright.”

“No, nothing like that,” Jaeger replied. “There’s an attitude in human culture that if a male and a female share a bed, it implies that they ... it’s silly anyway, we can sleep together.”

“As long as y’all don’t sleep in a pile like Borealans,” Baker added, “give us enough space and it’ll be peachy.”

“I see,” Maza said. “That will work. We’ll take one side of the room, and leave the other for the Earth’nay. There’s plenty of space to go around, and we’ll all wear night clothing to preserve our modesty.”

“Pajamas?” Jaeger suggested.

“Is that the correct term? Pajamas, then. We should eat first, however. Can we offer you anything?”

“Want more bug bars, Baker?” Jaeger asked. He laughed as his friend stuck out his tongue and pulled a disgusted face.

“No thanks, I’m good. We brought MREs.”

“We’ll just need some water,” Jaeger added.

“We will prepare food for ourselves then,” Maza said, directing her flock to the kitchen. “In Val’ba’ra’nay culture, it is customary for everyone to eat meals around the same table, it would be nice if you joined us.”

“Sure,” Jaeger said, “we have similar customs.”

“My family used to eat TV dinners on the couch,” Baker said with a sigh, “even at Thanksgiving.”

“Alright Baker, keep your unresolved family issues to yourself and let’s get some grub.”

They had set their laden rucksacks on the round table earlier in the day, and they rummaged inside for their MREs, withdrawing the Navy-blue colored packets. They leaned the rucksacks against the nearest wall to get them out of the way, the two humans perching on the small chairs and leaning down to reach the surface as they opened the packets.

Tacka returned with a jug of water, placing it on the table before scurrying away to the safety of the domed kitchen. She was still so timid around them.

“What did you get?” Baker asked, spreading the various packaged food items out and examining them.

“I got ... ravioli in tomato sauce, chicken pate and crackers, and ... oh sweet, I got some pop tarts. How about you?” Jaeger opened one of the transparent ziplock bags and fished for his plastic cutlery, setting them down on the table along with some napkins and the salt and pepper sachets.

“I got beans and pork, blackcurrant jam with some biscuits, and a chocolate chip muffin. Fuck, they gave me a raspberry flavored drink, what’s yours?”

“Orange.”

“Trade me?”

“Yeah, alright,” Jaeger said as he passed Baker the packet of flavored powder. There was also instant coffee, some gum and chewy candies, and a dried fruit bar. Pretty standard affair for MREs. It wasn’t exactly gourmet food, but there was no spice like hunger.

They placed the main courses inside the flameless heaters that they came with, then added water, steam quickly shooting from the packets as they did their work. They poured water into the packets of flavored powder, placing a straw inside them like giant juice boxes, the pair starting on the biscuits and crackers as they waited for their meals to cook. They had purification tablets, but if the Valbarans could drink the water, then they probably could too.

Within about fifteen minutes, the Valbarans returned from the kitchen, each of them carrying a large ceramic dish. They set them down towards the center of the table, pulling up chairs as they took seats around it. The dishes were varied, there was some kind of meat in a brown-colored sauce, an assorted bowl of grains and what might be root vegetables of some kind, along with other pastes and food items that Jaeger couldn’t begin to identify.

They were just in time for the flameless ration heaters to have finished their work, and so the group ate together, the aliens eating directly from the communal bowls with implements that resembled two-pronged forks and ladle-like spoons. They passed the dishes between them, so organized and in tune with one another’s needs that they scarcely had to ask. Every aspect of their life was shared, they even ate from the same plates. Jaeger tried to imagine a similar scenario occurring in his childhood home, his siblings sharing the meal equally between themselves with no fighting or complaining, which seemed like an impossibility.

“What do you have?” Maza asked, craning her flexible neck to get a look at their dishes.

“This is ravioli in a vegetable sauce,” Jaeger explained, showing her his open container as steam rose from the plastic bag. “It comes from Italy, a region of Earth. It’s beef, meat from Earth livestock, sandwiched between two pieces of dough which are made from grain.”

“What’s that white powder that you put on it?” Xico asked.

“Salt, a seasoning that enhances the flavor. I’d offer you a taste, but I’m not sure if Valbarans can digest all of the components.”

“Yeah, it’s probably safer not to share it,” Baker added.

“You can probably eat this though,” Jaeger said as he brandished the small, plastic bag of gummy candies. “It’s mostly just animal gelatin and sugar. You guys have sugar, right? I remember seeing it in the analysis of the insect bar that you gave to Baker.”

“Yes, that should be edible for us,” Maza replied as she eyed the brightly colored sweets.

He broke open the packet and placed a gummy candy in front of each Valbaran.

“They’re chewy,” he explained as they examined them, Ayau sniffing the alien treat while Xico licked it experimentally. Baker laughed as they popped them into their mouths and began to chew on them. It was like giving a dog peanut butter, the aliens smacking and licking as the candies stuck to the roof of their mouth and between their teeth.

To his surprise, Tacka especially seemed to like the taste, eyeing the rest of the packet from across the table. Jaeger wanted to see if she would overcome her apparent wariness of him for another snack, holding the ziplock bag just out of reach of her little arms, accounting for the extra reach that her feather sheaths afforded her. He gestured for her to come to him, watching as the alien slowly slid off her chair and bobbed around the side of the table. Coza nudged Ayau, who was sitting beside her, the two smirking as Tacka inched closer to the human.

It was like feeding a wild raccoon, Jaeger holding out the packet so that she had to reach out to take it from him, the alien snatching it and scurrying back to her seat with her prize clutched protectively against her chest. She shared the spoils with her sisters, but they let her eat the majority of the gummy candies herself. It was the happiest and most relaxed that Jaeger had seen her so far, and he started on his pop tarts as he watched her chew intently.

There wasn’t a lot of room for conversation, the aliens seemed fixated on their meal. When they were finished, they cleared the table quickly. Jaeger asked if there was anywhere that he and Baker could dispose of their empty food packets, and Maza showed them into the kitchen where there was what looked like a tall, cylindrical garbage can. She opened the transparent lid and dropped the empty wrappers inside, Jaeger leaning over to see that the cylinder was full of what looked like rotary blades, almost like a jet engine. She closed the lid, hit a switch, and then the blades inside churned the garbage into fine dust like a giant blender. It then vacuumed the leavings away, apparently into the floor.

“It’s some kind of giant garbage disposal chute,” Baker marveled, looking at Jaeger with an excited expression on his face. “Let’s find more stuff to put in it!”

Jaeger was about to warn Baker that it wasn’t a toy and that he was an adult, but Maza passed him some kind of discarded plastic container, which he gleefully dropped into the chute. He hit the switch, watching as the spinning blades pulverized it, stopping just short of clapping his hands as the powder vanished down the chute.

“Where does it go?” Jaeger asked.

“To the waste processing plant,” Maza replied. “We dispose of all of our refuse this way, both organic and synthetic.”

No doubt the Valbarans used some kind of advanced recycling process in keeping with their staunch environmentalism.

“Are you ready to sleep?” Maza asked, Jaeger nodding in reply. “Good, we will change into our ‘pajamas’, please do the same.”

The flock moved off to the bedroom, closing the door behind them to protect their privacy. The two humans shared a glance, then shrugged, beginning to strip off their uniforms. They didn’t have pajamas, but a shirt and briefs should do the job just as well.

After a minute or two, the door opened, Maza leaning out to beckon to them. She was wearing another floaty garment made of gossamer fabric. It wasn’t unlike the tunics that she favored, but a little longer, kind of like a nightie. It wasn’t lingerie, it was a simple grey in color, and it wasn’t adorned with any lace or patterns, nor was it especially revealing. Jaeger and Baker made their way over to the bedroom, ducking through the low doorway. It was gloomy inside, there was just enough light to see by, tinted red so that it bathed everything in a crimson glow. The floor-spanning mattress was soft and spongy beneath their feet, and the hanging curtains gave it an almost Arabian vibe.

The flock was bunched up to the left side of the room, scattered in a fairly random pattern, resting their heads on tube-shaped pillows. They were close together, but not exactly in a pile, reminding Jaeger of a slumber party. They wore similar clothes to Maza, the only variation being the color.

The humans moved over to the right, lying down gingerly and stacking various cushions and pillows to support their heads as they struggled to get comfortable. It wasn’t the worst place that they Jaeger had slept, it could be quite pleasant once he got used to it.

There was plenty of space, and so the concerns of being forced to sleep in a dogpile with the aliens were soon forgotten, the humans drifting off to sleep without too much difficulty after their long and exciting day.

Jaeger was snapped out of a dream by a beeping alarm, struggling to his feet and stumbling on the squashy mattress as he made his way to the door, fumbling with the little handle.

“I’m up, I’m up,” he heard Baker mumble groggily. “What’s ... what’s going on?”

The aliens too were stirring, blinking their eyes and flexing their feathers as they looked about the bedroom. Coza scowled at him, apparently not thrilled about being woken up. Jaeger succeeded in making it into the living room, retrieving his phone from the pocket of his uniform, which was draped over the table. Baker’s was ringing too, it must be a communication from fleet command. He swiped on the screen and held the device to his ear, shielding his eyes against the early morning light that was pouring in through the round windows.

“Lieutenant Jaeger reporting.”

“Lieutenant Jaeger, this is fleetcom. You are to report to the Yilgarn spaceport for briefing immediately.”

“Yes Ma’am, has something happened?”

“Colonel Roberts will brief you on the details.”

“Yes Ma’am, I’ll relay the message to Baker, we’re on our way.” He ended the call, turning to shout to his friend. “Get your ass out of bed Baker, we have to get to the spaceport ASAP. Something’s going down.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he complained as he stumbled out of the bedroom and checked his phone. Maza followed behind him, some of her companions poking their heads out of the doorway.

“Jaeger? What’s happening?”

“We just received orders to go to the spaceport for briefing,” he explained, “can you get us there?”

“Of course,” she replied, “give us a few minutes to get dressed first.”

There was another alarm sound, high-pitched and trilling, this one coming from one of the Valbaran tablet computers. Maza hurried over to it and picked it up, holding it up to her face as she spoke into it in her native language. After a moment she turned to Jaeger, a concerned flutter of purple spreading through her headdress.

“We’ve been ordered to the spaceport too. It must be something serious.”

“Alright, let’s get our gear,” Jaeger said as he began to pull on his uniform.

When they emerged from the patch of woodland beside the airfield, they noticed that there were several Valbaran landers lined up on the runway, their engines idling. A pair of Valbaran guards dressed in green camouflage and wielding laser rifles directed them towards the hangar where the UNN vessels were parked. When they entered through the massive doors, they saw that several Valbaran flocks, and what looked like all of the UNN combat personnel who had been deployed to Yilgarn were standing around in loose groups. Colonel Roberts was at the front of the pack, as sharply dressed as ever, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as he waited for everyone to arrive. It seemed that Jaeger and Baker were the last, and so he called for everyone’s attention, the crowd turning to face him as the newcomers joined their ranks.

“Two hours ago, an unidentified object entered Valbara’s atmosphere,” Roberts began. “It appeared to be under some measure of intelligent control, as it approached the planet at a velocity and angle that was conducive to surviving reentry. Judging by its trajectory, it slingshotted around the sun and used the inner gas giant to decelerate. The likely point of origin is the very edge of the solar system, inside the Oort cloud. It’s undoubtedly of Bug origin.”

A concerned murmur passed through the crowd. Everyone had known that a Bug invasion was imminent, but they had hoped to have more time to prepare. Xico and Tacka shared a worried glance, while Coza crossed her arms, her brow furrowing.

“It was a very small object, and as such, it barely registered on our instruments. It might have been dismissed as innocuous space debris, had it not landed just a few miles outside of Yilgarn’s walls. Two dozen more of these objects soon followed, which confirmed our fears, each of them landing in close proximity to a Valbaran population center. Our experts believe that these might be some kind of long-range probes and that the Bugs are testing our defenses. Due to their small size, they can’t be investigated from orbit, and so we’re going to be organizing you into several groups in order to travel to the impact sites and determine the exact nature of these objects. Because UNN personnel have more experience in dealing with Betelgeusians than their Valbaran counterparts, we’ll be sending a couple of humans with each team. Your orders are to locate the objects, document what you find, and recover them if possible. If you deem recovery to be too dangerous or otherwise impractical, you are to destroy them.”

He pulled out a tablet computer and began to list off names, the humans joining groups of Valbarans who then collected their equipment and weapons, finally making their way over to one of the idling landers.

Jaeger’s name came up, followed by Baker’s, and they were assigned to a flock of Valbarans wearing the green and purple camouflage that denoted them as military. It made Jaeger wonder how the chain of command worked. Was the whole flock of equal rank, and were their subordinates expected to take orders from all of them at once?

Maza’s flock joined them too. Apparently, the higher-ups didn’t see any point in separating them. They were clad in their usual form-fitting jumpsuits, blue and grey instead of green and purple. The UNN personnel began to pass out XMRs, along with the black body armor that was commonly worn by Marines. The aliens took the rifles, but they had their own variety of armor. Jaeger was shocked to see that the Valbaran soldiers were already proficient enough with the railguns to be trusted with them in the field, no doubt another product of their accelerated learning. They were a little larger than was convenient in the hands of the aliens, but they were strong for their size, and they had no trouble lifting them. Maza and her flock were given the blocky laser rifles of Valbaran design, they had been with Jaeger and Baker since they had landed on the planet, and so they hadn’t had time to practice with the UNN tech.

“Are we expecting to get into a firefight?” Baker asked, pulling on a black chest piece over his uniform and fiddling with the straps.

“You never know with Bugs,” Jaeger replied, affixing his helmet and switching on his HUD. It fizzled to life inside his visor, displaying a green overlay, and he began to tune the radio to local frequencies. “They say it’s a probe, but for all we know, it might start spontaneously spitting acid or lobbing plasma grenades.”

He checked his weapon, syncing the scope with his helmet and making sure that the battery was charged.

“Alright, here are our orders,” one of the green-clad Valbarans began. “Our team is charged with investigating the object that fell outside Yilgarn. It’s a short distance beyond the East wall. We will leave through the East gate and make our way towards the target on foot, where we will establish if the object poses an immediate threat, and then respond accordingly.”

“The East wall?” Maza asked, concern creeping into her voice. “That’s Teth’rak territory.”

“We’re aware of that,” the soldier replied, “which is why we’ll be treading carefully. We’ll have a spotter in the lookout tower keeping watch for the Teth’rak.”

“Can’t we just take one of the dropships and land directly at the target site?” Baker suggested.

“No, the Teth’rak will attack it,” Maza replied.

“What? It would attack a dropship?” he scoffed. “They’re designed to withstand reentry and AA fire, there’s no way an animal could bring one down.”

“It doesn’t matter if she can bring it down or not, what matters is that she will try. A Teth’rak will attack anything that enters its territory. She would spot a big, loud spaceship from miles away and she would see it as an invading enemy. If she attacks the dropship, then we would be compelled to defend ourselves, which we need to avoid at all costs. The Teth’rak sustaining any injuries is unacceptable.”

“So we can’t fire on that giant thing if it attacks us?” Baker asked.

“Absolutely not,” Maza replied, “under no circumstances are you to fire on the Teth’rak.”

“Even if it’s about to eat me?”

“Even then,” she said with a red flurry of feathers. “We are intruding on her territory, we must be respectful.”

“I guess it’s like shooting a white rhino or something,” Jaeger suggested with a shrug. “I’m not sure an XMR could bring that thing down anyway, not unless you hit the brain or the heart. You’d probably just piss it off even more.”

“That’s why we have this,” one of the Valbaran soldiers said, brandishing a weapon that looked very much like a forty-millimeter grenade launcher.

“And what’s that?” Baker asked.

The soldier plucked a metallic ball from her belt, showing it to him.

“Pheromone grenades. If there’s one thing that the Teth’rak hates more than anything else, it’s the scent of urine from other females of its species. The launcher will fire the grenade a good distance away from the user, where it will start to mimic the smell of Teth’rak scent marking. The attacking animal should then divert its attention away from us in order to defend its claim ... probably.”

“So all we have to save us from the giant dinosaur is stink bombs? Got it,” Baker complained.

The giant wall began to split open, Jaeger watching as the two doors parted to reveal the countryside beyond. It was like a fortress. If the wall was two hundred feet tall, then the doors must have been fifty feet at least, opening wide enough that you could have driven five or six trucks through the opening side by side. He wouldn’t have even known that the gate was here, it was seamless, sliding into the wall to either side of it much like the gravity plate in the floor of the lookout tower had.

“Stay close,” one of the soldiers said, “roll up your sleeves and don’t make use of your color panels. The light might attract the Teth’rak if it comes into visual range.” She raised her arm, extending the plumes in a deep shade of red. “For the benefit of the Earth’nay, red means stop.”

The Valbarans rolled up their sleeves as instructed, flexing their sheaths like a human might roll his shoulders or stretch his arms. Jaeger was as excited as he was apprehensive. For the duration of his stay in Yilgarn so far, he had been confined within its walls, the only nature around him carefully sculpted and tended by the Valbarans. Now they were about to venture out into the wilderness, intentionally left to grow wild by the planet’s inhabitants.

The soldier waved them forward, and they began to march, their pace scarcely a brisk walk by human standards so as not to exhaust them too quickly. The first thing that Jaeger noticed was the heat and humidity, it was even more apparent on the outside. Were the city walls able to influence the climate within in some way?

Before them was a plain of blue-green grass, the ankle-length blades waving gently in the wind, making it look almost like an ocean. The fields and rolling hills extended far into the distance, punctuated here and there by large pockets of forest and patches of scrub like islands. The terrain wasn’t entirely flat, but it was flat enough that Jaeger could see straight to the horizon. Water was ever present, the lakes and rivers reflecting the light of the sun with a silver glow. Beyond the atmospheric haze, blue mountains rose into the azure sky, wisps of cloud smeared across it like the strokes of a paintbrush. It was an alien Serengeti, like the Valbarans had dropped their city into the middle of a savanna.

He looked back over his shoulder as they walked forwards, the white wall rising into the air behind him, almost devoid of any detail. The gate was already closing, locking them beyond the safety of the city. What Jaeger wouldn’t have given for an APC right about now, but even the most rudimentary vehicle would draw the monster, according to the Valbarans. They had to rely on being small and quiet, no doubt the same way that the aliens had survived their prehistory. They had to be sneaky and fast to escape anything that was bigger than they were.

“I’m already regretting putting this armor on,” Baker muttered as he walked beside him. “Whose bright idea was it to make these plates black? I feel like I’m going to melt out here.”

Jaeger too was beginning to sweat profusely. The system’s star was beating down on them, baking the ceramic plates that they were wearing, he couldn’t wait to get to the cover of the trees ahead. They were the same variety that he had seen inside the city, thick, fat trunks with leaves like palm fronds. As they neared the shade, he noticed that there were many other varieties of plants here too, growing wild and untended by the careful hands of the Valbarans.

There was a thick blanket of ferns, their colorful leaves a blend of greens and pinks, along with what looked like miniature trees with trunks that reminded him of pine cones. Splashes of red and yellow from flowering plants broke up the uniformity, and in an instant, they transitioned from open plains to what felt like a tropical jungle. It was even more humid inside, as if the plants were trapping the moisture in the air, the canopy above them blocking the sunlight and preventing the water from evaporating. The trees were so densely packed that Jaeger could no longer see beyond them after walking only twenty feet or so, it was like being teleported to a different planet entirely.

“Uh ... do we need to watch out for snakes or anything like that?” Baker asked, the ferns rustling as he trudged through them.

“What’s a snake?” Maza asked as she walked beside him. Inside the forest, the purple and green camouflage worked remarkably well, and even the various shades of green and beige that colored the alien’s scales helped them to blend into the background. What was it that they had said about the Teth’rak, that it could see prey at a distance of about six miles? It must have eyes like a hawk, and maybe other predators that inhabited these regions did too. Even Maza and her flock were harder to spot with their ocean camo.

“It’s like a long, poisonous reptile with no legs,” Baker said as he lifted his foot over a protruding root.

“Venomous,” Jaeger corrected. “Venomous animals kill you with a bite or a sting, and poisonous animals kill you if you eat them.”

“I’m not sure,” Maza replied, the brush high enough that only her head and shoulders were peeking out. “We have some venomous reptiles and insects, but I don’t know how an Earth’nay might react to the toxins.”

“Well this day just keeps getting better,” Baker grumbled.

The Valbarans all seemed to have spread out to cover more ground, Jaeger could scarcely see most of them. Only the occasional flutter of color from their crests gave them away, the aliens communicating silently using their feathers. He had expected it to be very revealing, and yet the plants around them were colorful enough that it didn’t jump out like he had expected. For every flurry of yellow, there was a patch of yellow flowers to mask it. For every shade of pink and purple, there was a cycad with leaves in the same hues, blues and greens were of course abundant.

There was bird song everywhere, loud enough to be annoying, and for the first time, Jaeger was able to get a glimpse of one of the creatures. Something feathery flitted between the branches of a nearby tree, colorful like a tropical parrot, its little head twitching as it eyed the intruders from its perch.

A bird this was not, it looked more like an extinct missing link between birds and reptiles. It was shaped like a lizard with a long, flexible tail and dinosaur-like legs, its wings tipped with grasping claws and its snout missing a beak. It opened its mouth to reveal rows of tiny, needle-like teeth as it puffed up the plumes around its neck, chirping a song at them before fluttering away to another branch.

“Watch out for those,” Coza said as she gestured to the bird-lizard, “it might swoop down at you if it’s nesting nearby.”

“I’m surprised you can even see anything at all in here,” Baker said, “it’s just a mess of color to me. I feel like I can’t see five feet in front of my face.”

“Oh?” she asked, cocking her head. “Perhaps Earth’nay eyes aren’t suited to this environment.” It seemed more like a jab than an observation, Jaeger watching the camouflaged Valbaran slink away into the ferns like a ghost, her blocky rifle at the ready.

They continued on, Jaeger keeping one eye on the treetops. There were so many different kinds of plants that it became hard to keep track, and everything was so tightly packed together, like someone had taken five different botanical gardens and had thrown them into a blender. It was beautiful and confusing.

The lead Valbaran stopped abruptly, raising an arm and flashing its feathers in a shade of red. Everyone halted, Baker and Jaeger taking a knee amidst the pink ferns and shouldering their weapons. They had flipped up their full-faced visors because of the heat, and now Jaeger closed his, the integrated computer scanning his field of view for movement and heat signatures. He spotted something moving between two thick trunks a short distance ahead of them, scoping in on it.

Two large eyes peered back at him, and he recognized it as one of the brown-feathered ostrich-lizards that they had seen from the observation tower on the wall.

“It’s just a Gue’tra,” he heard someone say, “keep moving.”

The alien creature was skittish, abandoning the blue moss that it had been scraping off the trunk of a tree and fluttering its white-tipped wings as it fled away into the undergrowth. After a while, they arrived at the far side of the patch of forest, the Valbarans lurking at the edge of the plain as they peered out from between the trees. It seemed to be safe, and so they left the shade, emerging onto the savanna again. The change in heat and humidity was stark, another shock to the system. Jaeger couldn’t decide whether he wanted to make use of the automatic darkening feature on his visor to protect his eyes from the sun’s glare, or if he would rather feel the breeze on his face. The breeze eventually won out, and he flipped his visor up again, doing his best to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes.

More movement drew his attention, and he looked up to see a flock of birds, different from those that he had seen in the patch of forest. These were smaller and lighter, more traditionally bird-like, swarming through the air in an ever-changing pattern like a shoal of fish swimming through the water. They were far off, so he couldn’t make out very much detail.