Chapter 2: Ghosts

Despite how tired Jules was, he found it almost impossible to sleep. The Marines had no issue using rocks as pillows, but even the bunks on the carrier had kept Jules awake at night. The armor actually helped a little bit, the interior was padded, and so it eliminated the problem of sharp rocks and roots prodding him in the back. It only covered his torso, however, which meant that his butt was exposed to the rough ground.

He tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable, grunting in annoyance as an errant stick jabbed him through his clothes. He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the canopy above him, the twinkling stars just visible between the breaks in the leaves. Everything was still illuminated by the glow of the lantern, the three Marines spaced out between the roots nearby, one of them snoring intermittently.

Yuta was still on watch, she didn’t seem to have tired at all. After what she had told him about the forest ghosts sending the Rask packing, he wasn’t sure that she would even let one of the Marines relieve her from her post, perhaps not trusting the humans to keep them safe.

Back home, when he had trouble sleeping, he would turn on his bedside lamp and read a book for a while. He couldn’t do that here, and so he decided to play with his helmet some more instead, flipping down the visor and switching through the view modes. He was amused to see that the heat vision mode could detect small animals in the branches above him, what looked like birds, and maybe what passed for squirrels on Borealis. He couldn’t make out any detail, just colored splotches, but he watched them run up and down the branches, leaping between the trees every so often.

There was so much activity here, but it was all just out of view, the local creatures were just as wary of the humans as the humans were of them. He propped his head up against the trunk of the tree lazily, yawning as he scanned the surrounding jungle.

Something near the top of one of the trees directly across from him caught his eye. The tree that they were sat under was a large one, and it created a kind of small clearing beneath its canopy. At the edge of the clearing, and perhaps halfway up one of the trunks, was an orange blob. It wasn’t one of the smaller animals, it was much larger, bigger than a man if he had to guess.

His heart skipped a beat, his blood running cold, and he switched to a different filter in an attempt to get a better look at it. The whitewashed heat vision mode showed the same vague shape, it was lighter than the dark background behind it, but he couldn’t make anything out when he switched to night vision mode. How deep into the foliage was it?

He zoomed in on the thing slowly so as not to lose track of it, switching modes again as he focused his eyes on the spot. There was definitely something there, something that Yuta had not seen.

“Yuta,” he hissed, keeping as quiet as he could while still raising his voice enough to get her attention. She turned a single ear in his direction, her tail flicking back and forth in annoyance.

“What is it? Do not distract me.”

“I see something,” he whispered. “It’s up in the trees.”

“Where?” she asked skeptically.

“Up in the trees to your right, up off the ground.”

She slowly turned her head in that direction, her ears pointing forwards as she scrutinized the jungle. Jules waited for her to raise the alarm with bated breath, but she merely gave him a dismissive glance as she looked back over her shoulder at him.

“I see nothing. Your eyes are playing tricks on you, get some sleep.”

“I’m looking at it right now,” he insisted, pointing to the red blob. As soon as gestured at it, the thing moved, retreating deeper into the canopy. Yuta snapped her head back around, standing and shouldering her rifle as it rustled the leaves and made the branches creak. Whatever it was, it was fast, heavy, and smart enough to recognize that it had been discovered.

“What is it, some kind of animal?” Jules whispered.

“Quiet!” she snapped, her rifle pointed at the trees. “Wake the others.”

He crawled over to Edwards as she had instructed, the Marine sleeping soundly nearby, and shook him. The Marine jerked awake and sat up straight, clearly alarmed, Jules lurching backwards in surprise.

“What’s up?” the Marine asked groggily.

“Something is in the trees,” Jules whispered.

Edwards reached for his gun, which was propped up against a nearby root, closing his visor and hitting buttons on the side of his helmet. He stood and gave Velez a kick with his boot, who then roused Simmons in turn, the three Marines soon joining Yuta as they stood back to back and aimed their weapons at the canopy.

“Sitrep,” Simmons ordered.

“Movement in the trees,” Yuta replied.

“I saw it with the heat vision,” Jules added, “it was hiding in the branches.”

“Any idea what it might be, Yuta?” Simmons asked. “You’re our expert on Borealan jungles, give me something I can use.”

“I ... I didn’t see it, but it sounded heavy.”

“It looked big,” Jules said, “bigger than a person.”

“I’m not picking anything up on the thermals,” Velez said, swinging his XMR about as he searched the treetops. “If there was anything here, it’s gone now.”

“Maybe local fauna?” Edwards suggested. “Even Yuta isn’t familiar with the local ecosystem. Might have just been some curious critter checking us out.”

“No, it only ran when I pointed at it,” Jules added. “It wasn’t a dumb animal.”

“I don’t like it,” Simmons muttered, “it’s too much of a coincidence. The Araxie sent us coordinates that led us to the middle of nowhere, and now they’re taking the opportunity to spy on us. Mister Lambert, as our resident diplomat, is this kind of behavior at all normal?”

“Normal is a relative term,” Jules replied. “If what Miss Yuta told me about the Araxie is accurate, then their interactions with outsiders thus far have been profoundly negative. If they invited us or not, they may be very suspicious of our motives.”

“How did they contact the UNN at all?” Simmons asked. “If they’re so xenophobic, then how did they get access to a transmitter, and how did they patch into the UNN comms system? It’s not like they sent us a carrier pigeon, right? Yuta, is there no trade between the Araxie and other territories at all? No contact?”

“That I know of, no,” the Ranger confirmed.

“Fine. We’ll wait until the morning, and then if no Araxie show up, we’ll put a call through to command and ask for some new instructions. Lord knows I have better things to do than play these stupid games.”

Simmons lowered his weapon, and everyone else followed suit, Jules watching from his hiding spot between the roots as they left their tight formation. Simmons had brought up a good point, how had the Araxie contacted the UNN? He wasn’t sure if the Borealans had invented radio by the time they made contact with humanity, and if the technology had been confined to Elysia and their trading partners. There was so much that they didn’t know about this planet, it was a source of endless frustration. Could this territory be hiding a secret society of super-advanced Borealans? It didn’t seem likely, there was no evidence of that from the air, no glittering radio antennas or skyscrapers protruding from the canopy.

“Yuta, you’re relieved,” Simmons commanded. The Ranger’s ears drooped, perhaps she felt that she had failed in her task of keeping her charges safe. “Get some sleep, Velez and I will take over until morning. That goes for you too, Mister Lambert. Let us worry about the ghosts for a while.”

Jules returned to his place at the foot of the tree, lying down and struggling to get comfortable, Yuta curling up behind an adjacent root. She seemed to be sulking, and he thought it best to leave her be. He didn’t think that she would be sleeping much tonight, and nor would he. Edwards, on the other hand, was already snoring. As Jules closed his eyes, he wondered how the Marine could switch off like that.

Images of the formless blob of heat flashed in his mind, invisible even to Yuta’s superhuman vision, silent save for when it had made its speedy escape. It must have been an Araxie, the specters that the Ranger had described to him, but what were they doing? Why hadn’t they made contact yet? Only time would tell.

Jules’ troubled sleep was interrupted by someone shaking him awake, and he opened his itchy eyes to see that Yuta was standing over him like a mother cat protecting her kitten. As he rose to a sitting position, he saw that the three Marines had taken up defensive positions, using the protruding roots for cover as they aimed their weapons at the jungle beyond. They looked like they were dug into foxholes, the barrels of their rifles resting on the uneven wood as they tried to keep a low profile.

Jules flipped down his visor and turned on the thermal imaging view mode, and after a moment, the dark trees that surrounded them came to life. It almost looked like the forest was on fire, there were dozens of heat signatures surrounding the clearing, whatever was creating them silent and unmoving. They were just watching...

Fear gripped him, Yuta gesturing for him to stay down and out of the line of fire, Jules all too happy to oblige.

“Contacts all around us,” Velez said, “I count at least twenty.”

“They’ve taken no hostile actions yet,” Edwards added, “what do we do?”

“Keep your weapons ready,” Simmons said, “don’t fire unless I give the order.”

They were speaking out loud for Yuta’s benefit, but Jules could also hear them inside his helmet, they must all be linked up to some kind of local radio channel.

“What do we do, Yuta?” Simmons continued. “Any advice? You’re our Borealan expert here, is this some kind of challenge?”

“They are Araxie,” she hissed, keeping her long rifle pointed at the trees as she exposed her sharp teeth in a snarl. “It is as the Rask described, they came at night, silent and undetectable. I do not know their customs. In my people’s culture, challenges are made face to face, we do not skulk in the darkness.”

“Lower your guns,” Jules said, the Ranger looking back at him with a confused expression as he lay on the ground behind her.

“Mister Lambert?” Simmons asked, waiting for him to clarify.

“I’m willing to bet that the last outsiders these guys met were pointing guns at them too. They brought us here for a reason, they’ve been watching us, evaluating us. If we’re going to prove that our intentions aren’t hostile, we can’t do it looking down the barrel of a rifle.”

“That’s a pretty major assumption,” Velez said, “how can you be sure that they won’t just attack us as soon as our guard is down?”

“I’m not sure, but what I do know is that we need to be diplomatic here, we need to show them that we aren’t a threat.”

As afraid as he was, this was his area of expertise, and he rose to his feet unsteadily as his heavy armor weighed him down. He tried to move forward, walking past Yuta, but he felt her massive hand impact his chest plate as she held him back. It was enormous, the size of a dinner plate, her sharp claws scratching the black material with an audible squeak. She looked to Simmons, and he nodded his helmeted head at her, the Ranger withdrawing her arm and letting Jules continue.

“We really doing this, Sarge?” Velez asked. He sounded nervous, not happy about setting down his weapon in the face of what to the Marines must seem like an impending attack. It must go against his every instinct as a soldier.

“Do as he says,” Simmons replied, “we can’t shoot our way out of here in any case. We’re here to make contact with the Araxie, not to kill them all.”

The Marines lowered their weapons as Jules took a few more tentative steps forward, leaving the safety of the roots and standing in the open amongst the bed of ferns. He felt exposed, vulnerable, but perhaps that was exactly how the aliens wanted him. He flipped up his visor to show them his face, the heat signatures giving way to pitch darkness, the only light coming from the camping lantern. He couldn’t make out a damned thing, there was no sign of anything, no movement at all save for the natural waving of the leaves in the breeze. He extended his hands to show that he was unarmed, waiting for some kind of reaction.

Just when he was starting to think that he had made a colossal miscalculation and that his head was about to be blown off his shoulders, the leaves in the tree directly ahead of him began to rustle. It was hard to see in the darkness, illuminated only by the yellow glow of the lantern, but something was descending from branch to branch. It was stealthy, the wood creaking as it put what must be considerable weight on the limbs of the tree, what looked to Jules like a living bush dropping to the ground quietly. The mass of leaves and fronds stood up, rising to around eight feet, consistent with the height of a Borealan.

As it stepped closer and more light was cast on it, he saw that it had a humanoid figure. The leaves and other assorted plant matter seemed to be sewn into some kind of cloak that was draped about its head and shoulders, obscuring its features, a kind of camouflage that made it very hard to spot in the dense jungle. From beneath the mesh, two green eyes reflected the glow, like a pair of mirrors as they stared back at him. It flowed like water, graceful, so light on its feet despite its imposing stature that he could scarcely hear a twig snap or a fern rustle as it moved.

The closer it came, the more he had to turn his head up to look it in the eye, until it was towering over him so close that he could have reached out and touched it. As afraid as he was, he was determined not to be intimidated. This whole scenario might have been deliberately engineered to put the newcomers on the wrong foot, to scare them, and to influence the proceeding negotiations. Perhaps the aliens thought that they could throw him off with this theater, but he was a seasoned politician, not one to shy away from confrontation. The fire in his belly gave him the courage to speak up, the Marines and the Ranger watching from the safety of the roots as his voice rang out confidently through the silent forest.

“You are the Araxie delegation that was sent to meet us, I presume? My name is Jules Lambert, I’m here on behalf of the Coalition Security Council.” The alien cocked its head at him, the leaves on its camouflaged cloak rustling. Did it even understand English? He continued regardless, the creature watching him curiously. “If you would be so kind as to lead my companions and I to your base of operations, we can begin the inspection.”

“In ... spec ... tion?” the alien hissed. Its voice was low and raspy, not unlike Yuta’s.

“Yes, I’ve been sent to carry out an inspection in order to determine if your territory meets the requirements for becoming a member of the Coalition. Our presence here was requested by the Araxie. I’m assuming that you’re a representative of the people who transmitted the coordinates of the meeting place? We’ll be needing accommodation for the duration of our stay, of course, and it’s customary to appoint a liaison that can act as an intermediary while we perform our duties.”

The creature seemed taken aback, and Jules couldn’t help but feel that he had gained the upper hand over the situation. The initial fear and tension had been diffused, and now the alien was just standing there looking rather foolish and unprepared.

“I ... take you back to village,” the alien said. He noted that its voice was low, almost like it was whispering. “Patriarch of Araxie request you, we take. Come.”

The rest of the Araxie began to descend from the trees all around the clearing, each one of them dressed in similar garb. They flooded down from the canopy with the same silent grace, sliding down the gnarled trunks and using their claws for purchase. It looked as if an army of shrubs were launching an attack. Jules looked around, trying to conceal his alarm. There had been even more of them hidden in the trees than he had first assumed. The aliens were so quiet, stealthy. If the Marines or the Ranger had mistakenly fired on them...

Simmons led the others out from between the raised roots, the Marines slinging their rucksacks over their shoulders, Edwards pausing to collect their lantern. Rather than folding it up and stowing it in his pack, he held it by the handle and used it to light their way in the darkness, perhaps not fully trusting the motives of these Araxie. Jules could sympathize, their ways were certainly strange, but not so strange as to be out of place or unexpected on this alien planet.

The stranger led them through the jungle, his comrades boxing them in on all sides. Jules wasn’t quite sure whether they were being escorted or guarded. The aliens seemed to blend into the scenery if he lost track of them for even a moment, the camouflaged specters vanishing into the background like characters in a magic eye puzzle. No wonder the Rask had described them as ghosts, they were nigh invisible when they wanted to be. If it hadn’t been for the thermal cameras on the helmets, the party would never have figured out that they were being observed until the Araxie had chosen to reveal themselves.

In a way, it was a form of diplomacy. Observe and study, wait for the most opportune moment to make contact for maximum impact. Awe, intimidate, take the lead in the negotiations. Thanks to the helmets, now Jules was in control. The aliens had been exposed before they were ready to play their hand, and it had thrown a spanner in the works.

The Araxie dodged and weaved through the jungle, their feet scarcely seeming to touch the ground. This was their domain, and it was hard for him to keep up. Yuta was similarly accustomed to traversing these environments, and the Marines fared a little better, but they had to stop after a while to let Jules catch his breath. He leaned against a tree and took a long draw from one of the canteens, Simmons foisting more sugary sports drinks on him, along with more of the strange honey. Jules wasn’t a fitness buff, but it was probably full of sugars and electrolytes, things that would keep him hydrated and energized.

As he drank from the bottle of unnaturally blue liquid, he took the opportunity to examine the Araxie more closely. The one who had first descended from the trees was nearby, lurking just beyond the glow that was cast by the lantern like a vampire afraid of the sunlight. It was definitely a Borealan. He could make out a furry, black tail protruding from the cloak, and beneath the leafy hem were a pair of paw-like feet. They were clawed, identical to those of Yuta save for the darker coloration of its coat.

“They’re like ghillie suits,” Velez volunteered, startling Jules as he leaned in to whisper from behind.

“Ghillie suits?” Jules replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve before fastening the cap.

“Yeah, they’re camouflaged suits used by snipers and scouts, designed to make you blend into the environment. They’re covered in strips of cloth or replica foliage, breaks up your silhouette, makes you look like you’re just part of the scenery. Can’t hide them from the thermal sensors on the helmets though,” he said as he tapped his visor with a gloved finger. “I wonder what kind of weapons they use, I don’t see any rifles...”

Jules glanced over at the nearest alien, its green eyes reflecting the light as they peered back at him, making them seem to glow in the gloom. The ghillie suits, as Velez had called them, were certainly intricate. There were pieces of dyed fabric woven into the mesh to give the appearance of leaves, and there were even some real pieces of foliage that looked like they had been sourced from the local environment.

Simmons slid in from the side, taking a seat beside the pair as he glanced between them conspiratorially, taking his sports drink back from Jules and stowing it in his pack.

“Where are they leading us, Velez?” he whispered. “Do you still have a connection to the GPS satellites?”

“Affirmative, Sarge. They’re leading us pretty far from the original coordinates, and they’re swerving all over the place, I’ve been keeping track. If I had to guess, I’d say that they’re trying to make us lose our bearings, but I don’t think they know that we have global positioning.”

“Either they don’t want us to be able to find our way back, or they’re really anal about keeping the location of their village a secret,” Simmons mused. “We can call a dropship down right on top of us if we need to, but they don’t have to know that right now. Let’s keep our lips sealed for the time being, don’t give them any unsolicited information about our tech or our capabilities, we’ve already seen how our thermal optics caught them off-guard. We might need to get out of here in a hurry, so having them think we’re lost and helpless works to our advantage. You too, Mister Lambert. Don’t show them so much as a tablet computer or a watch if you can avoid it.”

“Understood,” Jules said with a nod. As uncertain as their situation was, things were starting to become rather exciting. “There’s something else that’s bothering me, Sergeant Simmons,” he continued. “These Borealans speak English, or at least some of them do, albeit in a somewhat limited capacity. How did they learn the language while being completely isolated from outside influences?”

“There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense here,” Simmons muttered under his breath. “Perhaps when we reach our destination, we’ll finally get some answers. In any case, keep up the good work Mister Lambert, that was a good call you made back there.”

Jules nodded, pride welling in his chest. Simmons moved over to where Edwards and Yuta were sitting, the three talking in hushed voices as he relayed the plan. So, all Jules had to do now was play dumb? That should be easy enough, he didn’t know half of the technological capabilities of the equipment that the Marines used himself, and so there was little danger of him blowing their cover.

After a few more minutes, Simmons ordered them to move out, and the ghillie suited Araxie led them off into the darkness of the jungle once more.

They trudged through the dense undergrowth for what felt like hours, Jules’ joints aching as though he had been carrying around a rucksack full of bricks. All he wanted to do was get under a stream of cool water and wash off the layer of sweat that clung to him, but he doubted very much that the Araxie had any shower cubicles on hand.

Suddenly, the lead Araxie stopped them, its cloak rustling as it extended an arm and gestured for them to halt. Its limb was covered in black fur, and even the pads on its clawed fingers were jet black, in contrast to Yuta’s pink.

“From here, you must walk in my footprints,” it warned. “The same steps.”

The Marines exchanged glances, then tightened their formation, following in a line behind the alien as it led them forwards. Yuta was at the rear, just behind Jules, he could feel her eyes on his back. She had been watching him like a hawk the whole way, like she didn’t want to be more than a few feet away from him lest he need her to pull him out of some proverbial fire.

The Araxie took a winding path over what looked like relatively clear terrain, there were fewer trees here, and there was a carpet of dense ferns covering the ground. Jules’ first instinct would have been to walk straight across, but he didn’t take the ominous warning lightly, tracing Edwards’ footsteps as the Marine marched ahead of him. To their left and right, the other Araxie were taking similarly circuitous routes, seemingly committed to memory.

“Feels like I’m walking across a minefield,” Edwards muttered, glancing back over his shoulder at Jules. “My guess is traps, we must be getting close to their HQ. These guys really don’t like uninvited guests...”

Jules glanced about the meadow warily, trying to spot anything that might give away a tripwire or a pitfall. What kind of traps would the Araxie make?

“There,” Yuta hissed, pointing with a clawed finger. “The soil has been disturbed.”

He followed her finger and looked to where she was pointing, but it took him a minute to spot what she was referring to. There did indeed seem to be some misplaced soil, a few of the black specks clinging to the tops of the fronds of the ferns were it didn’t belong. She had eyes like a damned eagle, he would never have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out, certainly not without the light from the lantern. The Araxie had dug a pit somewhere nearby, perhaps they had filled it with sharpened sticks to impale the unwary, or maybe they would simply rely on gravity to do the job. Considering the higher gravity on Borealis and the sheer weight of the Borealans, a fall like that could do them some serious damage, regardless of how dense their bones were.

He lurched suddenly as something lifted him off the ground. When he got his bearings, he saw a pair of fuzzy arms cradling him like an oversized baby, and he looked up to see Yuta’s face peering down at him.

“W-what are you doing?” he stammered. He struggled, but she was inhumanly strong, keeping a tight grip on him. After a moment, he felt her pointed claws press into him through his clothes, and he tensed up. It was a clear warning to stop his fidgeting.

“It is dangerous,” she replied tersely, “and you are clumsy.”

“I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own,” he protested, but she ignored his complaints.

“I was ordered by my Patriarch to keep the humans safe. You are the most vulnerable and the least experienced human. If you should stumble and fall into a trap, I would be disgraced before my Alpha and my Alpha’s Alpha. I would lose standing.”

Edwards stifled a laugh as he looked back over his shoulder at the pair, then he turned his attention back to the path, careful not to deviate from the trail. It was no use arguing with the Ranger, and so Jules swallowed his pride, taking advantage of his newfound elevation to observe the movements of the nearby Araxie. They were coordinated, moving as a cohesive group despite how spread out some of them were. It was hard to see much beyond the limits of the light cast by the lantern, the long shadows dancing as it waved back and forth in Edwards’ hand, but he could make them out a lot more easily when he switched his helmet to infrared.

The Araxie at the head of their group came to a stop before a wall of tangled vines and creepers. It looked like the growth had spread between the trunks of two large trees, and the undergrowth here was even denser than usual, to the point that it appeared quite impassable. The wall extended all the way into the canopy, and it didn’t look like there was a way around. The jungle to either side of this natural barrier was too dense for even a small human to squeeze past.

As Jules watched, the lead alien reached out with one of its furred hands, parting the vines like a curtain. Jules caught a scant glimpse of what lay beyond before the creature vanished inside, and the vines fell back into place behind it, melding into the background as though it had never been there at all. He used his helmet to peer through the darkness at the rest of the Araxie, seeing that they too were vanishing into their own respective curtains of vines that were spaced out around the forest. It played tricks on the eye, one second they were there, and then they weren’t. Even knowing that these secret entrances were here, they were so well camouflaged, and they blended so expertly with the scenery that Jules doubted whether he would be able to locate them a second time. In combination with the traps, stumbling across this location would be practically impossible.

Yuta set her ward down on the ground, moving to the front of the small procession of humans.

“Stay behind me,” she said, reaching out to pull back the curtain. It took some effort, Jules could see that the weight of it surprised her, which indicated that it was probably woven from real vines and plants rather than being some kind of elaborate facade. She poked her head through, looked around for a moment, then gestured for the humans to enter as she held it open for them.

They emerged into an open space that was perhaps the size of a football field, but more rounded in shape, the night sky visible above them in places where the canopy was thinnest. The thick trunks of the ancient trees that encircled the clearing looked as large and as strong as the buttresses of any fortress, curtains of vines, and other smaller plants bridging the gaps between them where they weren’t so densely packed so as to be impassable. The jungle enclosed them on all sides, like a natural wall that kept the clearing out of view and protected from the outside world.

The interior wasn’t completely clear of trees, however. It was like the difference between the unchecked growth of a wild forest, and a carefully tended orchard. The stout trunks were spaced out in a way that seemed artificial, likely planted and tended by the Araxie.

That wasn’t all. Built around the bases of the gigantic trees were clusters of buildings, nestled between their roots. At first glance, they almost reminded Jules of beaver dams or maybe bird nests, but this was yet another facade. They were far more sophisticated than they first appeared, dome-shaped, with rounded roofs that were strewn with leaves and other concealing plant matter sourced from the forest that served to disguise their true nature. They were built from sturdy wood, squat, but clearly very structurally sound. There were no windows, only a solitary door on each dwelling. The structures appeared to be about the right size to accommodate several people of Borealan stature.