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🕑 Added 2023-02-08 23:18:47 +0000 UTCI've written the final few words of my latest story, except for The End, because now I need to go back and tweak and rework what does and doesn't work, like the title: Battle of the Folium Nebula. Plus some family and friends want to proofread it too, and I am admirable of anyone including you guys to take the time to read a draft work, so here's the next.... 5003 words, picking up from the last one.
The examination didn’t go for very long, but the Balokarid doctors – at least he thought they were doctors – took their time in pouring over his data, the aliens retreating to their terminals to work. Although Lambert was keen to get moving, he didn’t mind spending more time with Mezul to try and iron out its ever-growing vocabulary.
What he found strange was that the doctors were picking up on his taught words as well, despite them having never met before now. Was Mezul uploading his English into some sort of program the whole ship had access to, or maybe they were psychic? It would certainly speed things up if both their species were working on breaking the language barrier, even if Lambert felt like he was woefully inept at it.
“I got a D in Latin,” he said, remembering his schooling years.
“What is Lateen?” Mezul asked, bringing him out of his thoughts.
“Ah, nothing. So how’re the tests?”
“Test done,” Mezul said. Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he watched as the trio of doctors moved over to one of their strange, blocky machines, standing there as if waiting for it to do something. Then after a delay, a panel opened up on the side, and a slip of what looked like paper furrowed out into a tray. Lambert craned his neck to get a better look, and saw the page was blank.
After a delay, something began to appear on the page. Like an image fading into focus, the silhouette of a human with its limbs filled in with red began to appear. One of the aliens fixed a lamp over the tray, casting the page into its heat, Lambert realising the process was speeding up. Did they not have printers to ink directly onto the paper?
The process took a few minutes, the whole thing reminding Lambert of the ancient cameras of old where dark rooms were used, before one of the aliens took the photo of his anatomy out from the tray, holding it up to the light to examine it.
A couple more images were printed out, one of an X-ray and one with just his muscles visible, Lambert getting a good look at his own bodyplan as the doctors discussed among themselves. They clicked and squeaked at each other, Mezul adding her own thoughts to the group as they pointed to different parts of his body. He wondered what they made of him.
Mezul’s eyes began to widen the more the aliens talked, Lambert feeling a bit out of the loop as they chirped and clicked their beaks, talking about him. Finally he decided to ask. “Hey Mezul, what are they talking about?”
The alien cocked its head at him, thought for a second, then took one of the X-rays and held it up so he could see. With its free hand the alien pointed at his crotch. “What’s this?” it asked.
“Uh.” He felt his cheeks warm as he looked at the printed outline of his junk. “That’s my… well, I’m male, right?”
“Male?” it asked, then turned to the doctors, the aliens huddling together like they were gossiping, stealing glances at the human every now and then, and pointing to his groin – both the real and printed one – several times. Soon they reached an understanding, Mezul turning back to him.
“Lambert male?”
“Yeah, Lambert male.”
The aliens looked him up and down in a way that came off as disbelieving, Mezul looking especially confused.
“What about you?” he asked. “You a male too?”
“Mezul male… no,” it replied, pointing once more at his genitals, then at its own waist. “Mezul male no. What is… male no?”
“That’d be female,” he replied.
“Mezul no… male,” the alien said, motioning to its own crotch. He guessed that meant Mezul wasn’t packing, so did that mean she was female?
“Are you guys girls?” he asked the doctors. “I mean, are youmales?”
“No males,” one of them replied, shaking its head. The other two repeated the same. “Lambert no male?”
“I’m pretty sure I am,” he said, the aliens cocking their heads at him. Why were they so surprised? Maybe males in Balokarid society weren’t very numerous? Maybe they didn’t even have males.
The doctors used Mezul to translate their thanks to Lambert, and the two turned to leave. The hatchway opened like an elevator door, revealing the huge drop in all directions beyond the examining room. He grabbed one of the handrails on the outside, turning to watch Mezul follow him out.
“So, you’re a female, Mezul?”
The alien nodded. “So. You are male?”
“You look like you don’t believe me,” he noted. “Why is that?”
“Lambert ghosha?”
“Yeah, I’m ghosha.”
“Lambert ghosha, Lambert male. No.”
“No? Are you saying males can’t be pilots?”
“All pilot – all ghosha – all female.”
“All your pilots are females? Why?”
Mezul’s feathers on her headdress flattened, the ones just above her eyes folding down and back so it looked like her brow was furrowing. She was trying to find the right words. “Male fly no. Female fly yes.”
“But why do females fly, and males don’t?”
“Female… know,” she said, and when she saw he didn’t understand, she held up her arms as if she were about to give him a hug. When her arms raised above her shoulders, the thin sheaths that contained the wings on her forearms exposed themselves, their span big enough to encompass an engine block. The gears in Lambert’s head clicked.
“Do only females have wings?” he asked. “Is that how?”
“Wings yes. Female wings yes, male wings no.”
So every Balokarid who had wings was a female? He supposed that would make their women more intuitive with aviation compared to men. Could Mezul literally fly then? He looked her up and down, guessing her weight. She and every other Balokarid seemed just too big for that to be possible, she must weigh at least a ton.
As they continued on through the nexus, using the handrails to guide them along, Mezul tapped him on the shoulder. She was holding up one of his X-rays, pointing at his neck and chest. “Lambert question. What is…”
She struggled for the right words, soon opting to just point. Looking closely, he saw she was tapping at a grey mass built above his left lung, the grey metal contrasting with the red blood and sinew.
“That’s one of my implants,” he said, Mezul waiting for him to elaborate. “that one you’re pointing at helps my lungs bump oxygen more efficiently. Breathing, basically.” He exaggerated drawing in a lungful of air. “It’s made of metal. Like your Sala’ci or these walls.” He wrapped on the deck nearby.
“Not skin?”
“Nope, just metal and wires.”
“Humans Einstein!” the alien squawked, impressed beyond doubt.
“Yep. Humans Einstein.”
“Implant… Lambert needs?”
“Humans don’t need them, but they help us adapt to harsh environments, like space,” he said. Implants had been restricted to just military personnel during the pioneering age of cybernetics, but years ago the privilege had been extended to civilians.
“What’s this?” She pointed at another implant, the blend of machinary easy to pick out against the red of his internal flesh.
“That’s iron plating wrapped over my heart. I can stand a lot more G’s than someone without one.”
“Geez?”
He began to explain basic force, but it wasn’t long before his words were just as confusing as Mezul’s expressions. She could imitate pretty well, but discussing gravity was beyond the basic dialect they’d established. She could gleam his intent, however, deciding to move on and ask about another implant she’d spotted.
“That’s my translator,” he said, the machine in his lower neck about the size of a tennis ball. “You remember that word don’t you?”
“Switching up my language,” Mezul replied, in an accent that was both hers and his.
“That’s right. Translators speed up the process by imprinting a dictionary into your brain. I don’t know the specifics, but it basically shoves a language into your head, and then lets you sort out the rest.”
“Speeds up translate?” Mezul asked, looking closely at the photograph as if that would help her gleam its intent. “Implant… Mezul?”
“You want one?” he asked, the alien nodding. The idea had crossed his mind, but it wouldn’t be as easy as installing a software update. She would have to undergo surgery and get a part of her brain opened up to interface, assuming the device was even compatible with her alien brain.
Lambert remembered learning French a long time ago through the same means, but he still had to actually learn – the translator was a quick and dirty accelerant, and not without its risks. Mezul did have a good grasp on English so far, however…
“Would you even be willing to have a human do surgery on you?” he asked. “Don’t get me wrong Mezul, but having aliens open you up is like, something out of a nightmare for most people.”
“Lambert implant have?”
“No, not on me. We don’t even have the right equipment on the corvette. The Gallipoli has a medical bay, but even then… Mezul, let me try and explain to you how it would all go down.”
He did his best to teach her the right words in order to explain the process, floating along as they talked. He mimed taking a pair of forceps to his head and neck, tearing at the X-ray parchment to demonstrate cutting skin. He even pretended to start bleeding profusely from the neck with a little sound effect. As much as he wanted to communicate properly with this alien, he didn’t want to force it into anything that could possibly hurt her.
He didn’t know if mezul understood him or not, but the alien seemed content on going through with it all the more. Perhaps Balokarid’s were comfortable with shoving machines into their bodies, and Lambert was just being cautious for her? He couldn’t be sure.
It seemed they’d arrived at their intended destination, Mezul stopping before a hatch identical to all the others, save for a red discolouring ringing the hatch like a rope of neon, signalling this portal as important. The door revolved open, Lambert following his alien companion inside.
The room inside was shaped like a large cone, about twenty meters across and twice as long. The walls gradually flared out as the walls stretched away, ending in a conclave wall of glass that capped the far end. The pink and purple hues of the nebula lit up the dozens of metal machinations that ringed the walls of the room, the angular machines casting shadows on the silver deck. The machines looked like desks, set up in slanted rings that corkscrewed along the walls in an exotic pattern.
By the way a Balokarid sat behind each desk, Lambert guessed they were stations of some kind. Judging by how many readouts were being fed through to this one deck and the amount of aliens, he surmised that this was the bridge.
Mezul motioned for him to follow, floating up and to the left hand side. There wasn’t much room to walk around, so Lambert opted to float behind, flying over many confused faces as the seated Balokarid’s turned their beaks up to watch him. These ones were wearing red markings on their chests, depicting their ranks like how humans would wear badges. The sounds of clicking keys and chittering voices was a comforting piece of background noise, like he’d just stepped into an internet café.
One larger station stood out from the rest, this one flat and wide and larger than the rest of the stations. It was up on the ceiling in relation to the door, Lambert’s perception all muddled as he righted himself. Shaliyya was floating by the station, her winged arms folded over her stomach as she watched the human approach. She talked with Mezul for a few minutes, Lambert picking up a few words he was familiar with. Mezul was teaching Shaliyya English, he realised – just how fast did she expect her superior to learn?
“Lambert,” Shaliyya began, the human glancing at her. “Mezul speak… human Hub-clan?”
He was amazed by how much she understood in so little time, but he could be impressed later, right now he had to get through to these aliens. “Yes, my clan is the Hub, yours is Kaalesh, right?
“Kaaleshi clan, all.” The alien spread her arms wide, gesturing around her. That must be the plural for their clan.
“Okay. Kaaleshi, uh, in danger,” he said, trying to use as few words as possible. “Hub in danger. The UEC is still out there – those Raptors had to have come from somewhere, a fleet or capital ship maybe.”
It all seemed to go over Shaliyya’s head, but Mezul stepped in to translate, the two aliens coming to some understanding. “Yoo-ee-see clan where?” Shaliyya asked.
“I don’t know, but they have to have known something happened to their attack group by now. I can see we’re still right by the attack,” he said, pointing over her shoulder at the large window, the expended fuel from where a ship had been destroyed still visible against the backdrop of the nebula. “You need to get this fleet out of here, they’ll be looking for you. Kaaleshi must leave.”
“Kaaleshi leave… no.” The Balokarid shook its head, and when he asked why it said: “Bunduuk home… no.”
They couldn’t return home for some reason, but Lambert wasn’t sure how to ask. “We can help you,” he said, the aliens perking up. “I came from a fleet, you know what a fleet is? Mezul?”
“Fleet ships four,” she explained.
“Right, my fleet isn’t too far away, relatively. Do you have a map of the nebula I can take a look at?”
The aliens tilted their heads at him. “A map,” he said again. “A scan of the nebula. How did you guys navigate here?”
The aliens stared at him, blank looks on their faces. Growing frustrated, he pointed at the canopy again. “Where is Kaaleshi? Where?”
“Kaaleshi here,” Mezul said, as if that was all that needed to be said.
“And where is here?”
The aliens huddled together to discuss, and then Shaliyya spoke up. Before long, another alien approached, this one holding a large slip of what looked like parchment. It reached down and spread the material across the desk, smoothing out the corners as Lambert got a look at it. There were markings scribbled onto the top face, black strips of what looked like ink wreathing between grey smudges that covered most of the surface of the paper. There were straight lines connecting some of the black dots to each other. Shaliyya brought down a claw on one dot just off from the centre.
“Kaaleshi here,” she said. It was a map! Lambert gripped the edges of the desk, leaning down to examine the markings as his legs floated behind him. He could see it now, the smudges were the gas clouds, the lines where the fleet had travelled, perhaps. It didn’t look like any scan of the nebula Lambert had seen, human ships preferred renders in three dimensions.
He knew where the rendezvous point was, but without a computer or his ship systems handy, pinpointing it on an alien map would be pretty difficult. They might not even be on the same orientation – this map could be upside down for all he knew.
Maybe Alice could help, he thought. It felt like the longer this mission went on, the more he had to count on it for help. The alternative would be messing around with this map and guessing. He would have to swallow his pride for both his and the Balokarid’s sake. The UEC would turn up looking for their dead sooner or later.
“Alice, sending you a photo,” he said. “See if you can make any sense of it, we’re the dot near the middle.”
He pulled out his phone, snapping a picture of the map and uploading it to the corvette wirelessly, the aliens watching him with their heads cocked. After a short delay the machine replied.
“This map has a lot of discrepancies compared to our own databanks. Would you like to know how inaccurate these markings are? Sixty three percent. Of course, a nebula of this size is difficult to sketch down.”
“Can you make heads or tails of it?”
“Although crude, I can make my own corrections and form a comprehensive rehaul that we can use. What is your intention, sir?”
“I’m getting these birds out of here. Where exactly is the rendezvous point?”
The robot told him, and he pointed at the physical map, drawing the attention of the aliens as he tapped it. “Here, this is where we need to go Shaliyya.”
“Kaaleshi join… with Lambert?” Mezul asked. “All?”
“Yes, all. And the sooner the better. Our fleets will stand a better chance together if the UEC show up.”
“Hub-clan fight yoo-ee-see-clan?” Shaliyya asked.
“Yeah, we do. And we’re technically winning with our kill count.”
The aliens looked impressed, Mezul in particular, chatting in their own tongue before Shaliyya spoke again. “Kaalesh go. Hub-clan, Kaalesh-clan… sooner the better.”
Shaliyya turned away, her voice attracting the attention of everyone else on the bridge. It wasn’t long before the view of the nebula began to shift, the massive carrier ship adjusting course to set a new heading, one of the other big alien ships panning across the view before the ship aimed towards the Galactic south.
Lambert watched as the world of purple slowly shifted as the carrier engaged its engines, feeling a wave of relief wash over him. Finally, they were going to get moving, though he felt a little apprehensive about how his fellow Hub companions would react when a bunch of alien ships turned up to the rendezvous.
Mezul bumped into his side, her long neck angled down to appraise him, her headdress fluttering like there was an invisible gale washing over her. The way he had to look up at her made him feel strange inside, but he couldn’t place why.
“Lambert, not as male...”
“No, I am. Pretty sure anyway.” He chuckled.
“Lambert not as male like,” she continued. “Human female like you?”
“No, they’re shorter, generally smaller, and they’ve got long hair, most of them anyway.”
“Human… strange.” The alien clicked her beak. “Male can’t fly, human can’t fly. Lambert pilot, Lambert fly. Lambert… strange good.”
“Ha, thank you?” He grinned. “You’re pretty strange goodyourself, Mezul.”
The alien returned his smile, the feathers on her headdress standing tall.
6
After leaving the bridge, Lambert’s stomach lurched as he looked down the way they had come, his mind sure that he was about to tumble off a tremendous height. The bridge was up on the very highest level of the tall, wide nexus, with dozens of levels running all the way down to the ‘floor’, where the way back to the hangar was. The other doorways were spread randomly throughout the narrowed walls, no two alike in terms of spacing. The aliens who designed this ship didn’t care much for symmetry or order.
“Mind if I check out a bit of your ship?” Lambert asked, holding onto a handrail as Mezul followed him out.
His companion braced herself against the doorway, shrugging at him as if she didn’t really care what he did, even though that was her version of saying she didn’t understand him.
“I’ll show myself around,” Lambert said, beginning his own tour by picking a hatchway at random, floating over to it with Mezul in tow. His first stop was adjacent and one level down from the bridge, the sounds of many chittering voices reaching Lambert’s ears when the doors slid open.
The space within was wide enough to fit a corvette inside of twice over, two thick pairs of support columns that stretched from the silver floor to the curved ceiling filling the space. They were covered in chairs and tables bolted onto their thick surfaces, hundreds of them jutting out to accommodate the dozens upon dozens of aliens packed into the room.
The aliens closest to the hatchway turned their beaks, cutting their conversations to stare at the human. The closest group was a trio of winged females sitting sideways in relation to him, Lambert floating over and greeting them with a wave.
“How’s it going ladies?” he asked, grabbing a seat to steady himself. The one closest to him reached out to touch him, hesitating as it turned to Mezul to say something. Maybe she was asking her if she could pet him?
“I’d prefer if we keep our hands to our… never mind.” The alien brushed her claws through his hair, tickling his scalp as her friends leaned in to examine him. It wasn’t long before he was being petted from all sides, Mezul chuckling as he grumbled under his breath.
“What are you girls eating?” he asked, waving them off as he peered at their table. They’d been holding tiny silver things that looked like lunchboxes in their hands, the sound of cooked meat reaching his nose when one was offered to him. What at least appeared to be food sat within the recess, little flip locks securing smaller parts of the lunchbox to hold presumably more food.
There was some sort of assembly line trailing up the side of the column nearby, the thin tracks racing up and down the entire length. There were hundreds of the small boxes fasted against the slow-moving line, secured by magnets maybe, Lambert watching one of the Balokarid’s pluck one from the line. It produced some kind of meat slab from within, its sharp teeth showing as it began to chew on it.
“Food place,” Mezul explained, taking a meat chunk for herself and demonstrating how to eat food. The space could accommodate hundreds of aliens, packed in tightly as they were, but he assumed there had to have been several other identical rooms spread throughout the large ship.
One of the females waved a piece of meat at him, Lambert raising a hand as he shook his head. “No thanks, I don’t know if that’s even save for me to eat.”
Mezul translated, the curious alien instead turning to touch his suit again. It eventually figured out how to work one of his pockets, not in the least bit it reached in and pulled out his music player.
“Hey!” he said, snatching the device away. His finger brushed the play button, and music started blaring through the alien mess hall. So far Lambert had gone fairly unnoticed, but now nearly all alien beaks snapped in his direction, closing in on the source of the music like vultures around a corpse, Lambert quickly surrounded by the curious birds. They chirped along with the sound, their heads bobbing and throats warbling as they began to whistle in time with the beat.
“You guys like Collins too, huh?” Lambert asked, laughing as the Balokarid’s mimicked the tune down to the drum snares. He watched as Mezul craned her long neck down, peering at the little play and pause symbols on the tiny screen.
Eventually the aliens grew disinterested, Lambert switching the music off and heading back out to the nexus, Mezul by his side. She seemed fascinated by his music player, repeating the tune while tapping its chest with a claw.
“You got a nice voice Mezul,” Lambert said. “You like music?”
“Music,” she said, whistling like she was cat-calling someone. He handed the alien his player, Mezul turning it over in her hands. He was surprised to see such a large creature handle the device like it was made of glass, keeping her claws from scratching at the little screen. She quickly figured out how to scroll through his playlist, the Balokarid skipping through the songs until it found one that she liked.
“That one’s a classic,” he said. “Carl thinks they’re too old, but they’re not bad, huh?”
Mezul played with the music while they floated down the nexus, attracting the attention of many passing Balokarid’s. Lambert picked another hatchway at random, floating through the opening doors with only curiosity as his guide.
This space was just as populated as the mess hall, hundreds of aliens filling the microgravity with their large bodies as they travelled up and down a tall room sectioned off into maybe half a dozen vertical slots, each as wide as a house and running across the back wall. The sound of doors sliding open was constant, the aliens disappearing by the dozen behind the square portals built into the vertical sections.
The Balokarid’s here were dressed differently than Lambert had seen so far. Gone was their colour coded jumpsuits, their suits featureless and grey, their heads exposed as the aliens watched the human explore. They didn’t try to stop him, even as he picked a random door and opened it up like he’d seen the aliens do.
He floated through the threshold, a strange sight making the man blink. Built into the walls of the confined space were rectangular sections a couple feet deep, the edges curved rather than meeting at a point. There were dozens of them, each containing identical accommodations: fluffy cushioning padding, a belt that loped around the middle, along with a kind of cloth that looked as thick as a quilt and larger than any king size sheet Lambert had seen.
Almost all of the sections were occupied, the aliens using the strap to seal themselves against the soft padding, their beaks resting on their sides as they dozed beneath their sheets. A few who had been dozing peered down at Lambert, their lazy eyes blinking groggily as he intruded their sleep, their large frames just barely able to squeeze into the bunks.
“This is your sleeping quarters?” Lambert asked, not really expecting an answer but turning to Mezul anyway. “You guys are packed in here like sardines!”
There had to be around fifty aliens in this section alone, and if the several other adjoining rooms were identical, there were hundreds of Balokarid’s in just this small part of the ship alone. Human warships had to save on space too, especially when it came to infantry units where whole squads bunked together, but there were threeof these alien carriers, and they were as large as transport freighters. The Balokarid’s use of space was lacking to say the least.
Mezul tapped him on the shoulder, getting his attention as she waved for him to follow. She seemed to want to show him something, heading out from the bunk area and towards a different portal, rather than back into the nexus.
The corridor beyond was quick float through, similar in design to the airlock with a portal on either end. Like playing the radio on a long car trip, Mezul used the music player to fill the silence as they crossed into the next part of the tour. When he tried to take it back, Mezul politely kept it out of his reach, her tall stature making it easier for her to keep her new prize.
The hatch irised open, a strange, familiar scent hitting Lambert like a wall as they floated into the new space. Packed against all six faces of the cube-shaped room were shelving units stacked with crates, some taller than others and creating strange towers that seemed to hang off the walls and ceiling.
He watched as a Balokarid pried open a crate and begin fishing through its contents. No, they weren’t crates, but lockers, the man spying an alien flightsuit along with other alien equipment hanging via hooks inside. The alien was putting something inside each locker, some kind of pouch it was careful not to puncture with its sharp claws.
“What’s he got in those bags, Mezul?” he asked, his alien companion watching him point at the alien.
“Fentula,” the alien explained.
“Looks like everyone’s getting a bag,” he noted. The Balokarid placing the bags floated over to a pair of other aliens present, who were tending to some kind of apparatus near one of the other exits. One of them was raising the lid of some kind of cauldron, using a bowl to scoop out whatever concoction broiled inside. What looked like heated panels cupped the base of the pot, a strange sizzling sound audible even from this distance.
The alien passed the bowl off to her companion, taking up a spoon to swirl the Fentula, if that was what was inside. Its companion emptied the contents of the bowl to a bag it produced from below the device, pulling the neck taught with a simple string and adding it to a pile of other prepared satchels. The deliverer took up an armful and continued its rounds, making sure to go round to each locker and stock them up.
Lambert wrinkled his nose at the earthy smell. Mezul’s ship had smelled like this, rich and pungent. He looked back the way they’d come. Was this the first stop right after the aliens woke up, where they collected their suits and tools and Fentula? Now that he thought about it, it wasn’t just the sleeping quarters that were tightly packed, all the rooms so far barely had any space between them – as if the Balokarid’s were starved for every inch of space.
When they were done, the three Balokarid’s took their strange contraption, pushing it through the microgravity towards one of the hatches. In the few seconds the door opened, Lambert could make out a near-identical storage area beyond.
“Wish I could ask you what all this is for,” Lambert said, his alien companion chewing on the quills above her wrist like she was itchy. “I’m done sightseeing, let’s head back to the hangar.”
“Hangar come this way,” Mezul said, Lambert following her as she floated off.
