The dull glow of the red star cast the ship bridge ablaze in warm light, like one was standing next to a roaring campfire. Despite that, Jack's eyes, shielded behind a tinted visor, hardly registered what felt like the hundredth star today lacking even a nascent asteroid belt, never mind a planet or anything actually interesting. To be honest, he hardly even cared if they had a fragment of a chance of being terraforming candidates or rare metal-rich at this point, the sheer overwhelming boredom of staring at nothing was starting to weigh on him. Why did the other two members of his crew have to dip on him when they last were in civilized space? Even better question, why did he decide to go back out solo rather than waiting for more hires?
	With a soft, overly pleasant ding, the console informed him that the jump drive had come back online, half a rough acknowledgement escaping Jack before realizing that he was, indeed, talking to the computer again.
	He surreptitiously glanced at the plotted route and noted, of things to his relief, that the next star on the list was a nice, comfy yellow one much like Earth's own. It'll be the last jump of the day, he insisted to himself, not unlike five stars ago, then he'd park himself in orbit, cast out his fuel scoop, and refuel the hydrogen tanks overnight while he slept. He lazily swung the bow around, pointing it towards the distant star and cranking the throttle on the warp drive to get him up to speed before initiating the jump with a button press.
	Five, the smart cockpit screen displayed, the only indicator of his speed against the black the slowly scrolling lines to the side.
	Four, the stars started to smear as the comfortable hum of the drive kicked up into the growl of a caged beast.
	Three, a pinpoint of impossible colour, perhaps a Stygian Blue, started to form in front of the ship.
	Two, the stars on all sides of him were less distant dots and more lines, all hard angles pointing towards one inevitable destination.
	On one, the path was open, a swirling gate into the impossible, shapes never beheld by any mortal eyes seeming to materialize among the drifting sea of colours just barely perceptible.
	With a final jolt, the ship was gone into jump-space. Jack's hand gently rested on the stick as he whirred by what was best described as ethereal formations, shaking like it was left on top of the universe's most massive washing machine. As tempting as it was to pull up the instrument data, he knew from experience that pretty much everything but internal ship diagnostics was displaying a null value.
	The oncoming star was more felt than seen, Jack could hear a sort of unearthly call as he moved past gravity wells, and it rattled his teeth as he got closer, closer yet. A solitary dot of a very ordinary yellow emerged from the sea, and then, with a muffled bomf, he popped back into standard space, the local star consuming most of his field of view.
	It was a feeling like stepping off of an infinitely fast conveyer belt and Jack fought some bile back down from sudden nausea as he dropped the nose by fifty-two degrees to not fly face-first into the star or otherwise cook on the corona.
	Without a thought, he charged up a sensor pulse, the muted Shepard Tone filling the cockpit with an undeniable sense of energy before it finally released, washing outwards over the ship like a clarion call, making "12 bodies detected" pop up on his console.
	With a sigh, he opened his local navigation tab, clicking on the first "unidentified body" and letting the raw data fill his screen.
	Asteroid belt. Jack went onto the next. Asteroid belt. Rocky dwarf planet of no value. Oh, hey, that next one looked a bit like a world with high metal content. Too close to be terraformable, but likely still worth a good chunk for data on. A small smile crossed his face. He'd have to examine that one more directly later. A- actually, what the hell was that one? He narrowed his eyes, glancing once more at the data that made no sense. Extremely minimal magnetic field, larger than Earth, habitable band, atmosphere detected? Granted, that didn't mean a breathable atmosphere or any life, but surely anything without a strong magnetosphere would be stripped of whatever it had in short order?
	He couldn't help but find himself leaning forward as he tried to unravel the mystery in front of him, but he merely couldn't from raw sensor data alone. Perhaps, were he to take a proper look with the zoom function...
	Jack swung the nose of the ship around again, this time to point at the anomaly before cranking the magnification factor up by enough for the image to fill the screen, and he was struck breathless. There it was, a very, very alive planet. It was predominantly blue, he could still almost picture the alien forests on the land that was visible up close, same with the massive ice caps up dotting both ends of the globe. He wondered what type of fish analogues swam through those massive seas, too. Sure, it was a bit less land heavy than Earth, but this was a find of a lifetime!
	Without any internal debate, he disabled the zoom and cranked up the warp drives, throwing himself forward through space to get that much closer to this world. Sleep could wait, he had a planet to map! Every minute of his short trip was torturous, how the hell did it not have a magnetic field and still manage to thrive? Perhaps his instrumentation was glitching out?
	After whatever felt like an eternity, he was there! The orb was even more impressive up close, the numerous clouds drifting lazily across the surface like sea-foam on top of swell trapped in slow motion. Indeed, he could see a storm wafting slowly across the surface of one of the oceans, all too reminiscent of the view when he last left home.
	A single click was it all it took, and his helmet swapped from unobstructed to showing the point of view for the probe launcher, carefully lining it up before launching the first shot.
	The first went screaming into the distance, hitting the atmosphere and feeding data back into his system. Atmospheric composition, magnetic field readings, precise mapping, and more all meshed together into one, highlighting a vast swathe of the globe as mapped before it ultimately burned up during entry.
	The next probe, aimed with some estimation, caught another large chunk of land and sea behind the planet.
	Next probe, let's snag the north pole. Next, equator, left relative to him, knowing how intense the storms are could be helpful.
	Next, might as well grab the south pole now too.
	It was only a handful needed from there to get complete coverage of the world, and he popped out of the interface with a happy smile on his face as he started going over the data. His expression ultimately morphed into a frown as he began to take a closer look at the data. The atmosphere looked very breathable, much like Earth's other than slightly more oxygen; gravity looked good, too, nothing that would likely make the place uninhabitable. Other than the complete lack of a magnetosphere, yet again.
	So, it wasn't just faulty instrumentation, then. Jack stared at the readings. Each and every one of his probes had reported the same thing. A suspicious glance was cast through the cockpit out at the planet. What, exactly, was this rock hiding? There was definitely something filling the same role, as a glance at feeds over time revealed that each detected a massive drop in radiation towards the outer edges of the atmosphere, decreasing the closer you got to the surface. What could possibly be causing that?
	There was only one way to go about it; he had to head down to the surface. Sure, all his training said that he should head back immediately to report this world and get the bounty on it and everything else he had found so far, but it would tear him up inside to not get to find out the answer. Who knows how long it'll be before the government sends somebody out this far to thoroughly survey this place? Besides, he's technically an independent contractor paid to bring back the data, not any rules against him taking just a mild, day or so detour.
	Not as if he was leaving the ship anyhow, he told himself as Jack picked out a beautiful looking, green spot to land, he would merely take a quick detour, send some drones to collect some data, then leave. Whatever's keeping the atmosphere in probably isn't too hard to figure out.
	Jack entered at roughly a forty-degree angle, shielding stopping the ship from heating up too terribly much as the field glowed an ominous red instead, the air screaming as he tore through it. Retro-thrusters fired to control his speed as he approached the lower cloud layer, slowing him down as he levelled out. Easy enough, Jack thought, swapping over to viewing the ground through a camera underneath then, quickly using it to pick out an empty spot to land. Conveniently, there was a flat rock shelf there for him, a flat plane of stone that stood out from what he saw now was more like a jungle than a forest, providing just enough room for him to park his ship. It was, once more, a simple matter to swing over the top of it, go neutral on the throttle, and use just enough manoeuvring thruster power to drop them to the ground slowly.
	As he turned the engines off, he couldn't help but find himself awed at how much everything here looked eerily like Earth. Sure, the plants were larger, but that big, sweeping float looked like tropical trees back home, albeit with some waxier leaves. That wasn't the only familiar thing, either, a lot of the plants looked like close but not entirely accurate replicas, like the fern-ish looking plants that swept wide, but were just a few shades too dark, or the patches of grass that looked almost serrated at first glance. It was like walking into someone's vision of home drawn entirely from memory after two short visits.
	Jack got up from his chair, cracking his back to shake off the stiffness, before going back to the vehicle and drone bay. Perhaps it was just him, but the air felt positively electric. On this way over, he did his best to shake that case of the jitters, but no matter what, he couldn't help but feel even more and more off centre, for the lack of a better term. Was he really that nervous about being down here? Jack was sure he was entirely safe in his ship; obviously, there was nothing to be worried about. Making a snap decision, he decided to send out the sampling drone first to take a sample of the rock shelf; the low altitude aerial recon could wait until after. His trance-like preparation continued as he marched back up to the bridge, but he still couldn't shake that uneasy feeling. If anything, it only grew despite it being a good few minutes later.
	Perhaps something was up with where he landed? It made no sense, nothing on the ship detected anything wrong when he set down, but he couldn't shake the feeling... the pilot would double-check the sensors when he got back up, but first- a crack like the wrath of Thor and his legs turned to jelly underneath him. Pain blossomed as his helmet smacked against a wall as he went down, arms just as useless as he tried and failed to catch himself. His vision went black momentarily before he found his strength again, arms and legs wailing at him as he propped himself up against an adjacent wall. What the fuck was that? A quiet groan escaped him as he slowly fought past the pain and stood up. He had to get to the cockpit. There was no plant life here for a reason. He stumbled through the corridor, an arm against the guide rail for support as he pushed on. Step by step, Jack went, his vision swimming with each step. Indeed, even as he reached the cockpit, he had to look almost straight down to avoid throwing up; Jump-space had done worse to his body while he was starting out, though.
	Jack eased himself into the pilot's chair with a harsh hiss, quickly pulling up the diagnostics and- no, no, no! The Jump-Space Drive was offline, shields were down, and the thrusters underneath were not responding! He repeatedly cursed to himself, he'd have to head outside to take a look, see if he could rejigger something to get him the hell out of here. Indeed, amidst all his cursing and frantic switching between the screens, he barely caught a loud, solid thunk emanate from the front of the ship. He jerked up to investigate, eyes locking on something that he could hardly believe.
	The alien facing away from him was big, perhaps twice his height, if it were to stand entirely upright, but it was hunched over, relatively squat as it examined one of the panels on the ship's nose from its landing place. The first detail his eyes caught was the large wings silently fidgeting, folded, but obviously great membranous sails on which to navigate the skies. The hell was that thing? The next detail that Jack registered were the two powerful looking, digitigrade hind legs coated in a thin, soft-looking dark brown fur, complete with razor-sharp claws with which to tear apart flesh, much like- wait a second. Was that some cloth towards the top of its legs? It was then that it stood up to its full height and turned around, freezing him to the spot. It was sapient.
	Although the alien looked like a she, with what he assumed were massive flight muscles under her clothing giving her a feminine appearance, perhaps Jack would just refer to it as she for now until he found out how to accurately tell their sexes apart. He glanced over what he could best describe as a short, dark coloured leather dress covering her form, although with what looked to be bronze medallions of presumably ceremonial purposes hanging off it as irregular spots. Her head looked uncomfortably like Earthen life, almost like the snout of a fox or a fruit-eating bat, although the large ears poking out from between dark black hair were definitely more the latter than the former. He noticed a glint of light on polished metal, the alien had a spear in one of her hands! A warrior, perhaps? No, Jack figured that she was wearing too little armour for that. Maybe she was a hunter? Still, her whole form had an air of subtle menace to her, he could tell that there was a lot of muscle beneath her fur, and how she moved... he had seen that when he met some special ops lads while he was running military cargo. As the alien's large, intelligent eyes darted around, it was damned clear that she was appraising the situation with a trained, tactical eye. What was she?
	She took a step towards him, and he futilely tried to lean back in his chair, although his logical mind told him that there was no way that she could see it through the glass. A step closer yet. Another. A snarl appeared on the face of the alien, her sharp fangs revealed, as she stood before the cockpit, crouching down once more to examine the glass, making the size difference between them even more apparent.
	Jack couldn't exit the ship to do repairs while she was there, obviously. She could tear him apart in a moment, even without a spear, and he didn't pack any weaponry to even think of defending himself with. Who knows how long it would be until the alien left, either? Plus, she's obviously a member of some form of society, although a primitive one. There would be more coming around sooner or later to investigate her find, and who knows if they would ever leave him alone then? "Perhaps I could..." he mumbled, trailing off as his thoughts went back to the drone he had loaded up to head out. His only option was to make peaceful contact.
	First, he swapped back over to the feed the underside camera, doing a quick pivot to make sure the bay was clear, but he caught sight of the legs of at least two more aliens off to the side off the ship. That complicates things, but he could work with it.
	He took a deep breath, sent the launch command, and remained still as his vision was overtaken by the view from the camera. There was a whirring as the bay opened up, a pair of magnetic arms lowered it down before ultimately releasing, hardened wheels bouncing slightly on the hard stone before getting a grip. A hooting call came from outside his relative field of view; his arrival had evidently not gone unnoticed. Probably for the best that he didn't sneak up on them, in any case. He slowly spun around to face where he had seen the other two before, and not only were the latter two aliens present, but there was also the one he had first seen. The first one was by far more massive, the other two with her were only nine feet tall, and, more tellingly, there clothing completely lacked any of the bronze medallions Jack had noticed earlier. Perhaps they were either adolescents or her servants? In any case, it was clear who was in charge here, who to appeal to.
	The bat-esque aliens all stood at the ready, spears pointed in the drone's rough direction, which was not exactly the best start. He slowly moved the wheels forward, the electric engines rolling the device over the stone. He stopped perhaps thirty feet from the giant bat-like aliens, who had yet to move from their posts, silently observing.
	Now, how to get across that he meant no harm? They'd probably recognize a picture of the local stars. That didn't seem like that bad of an idea; even if they don't get any useful data, they'll hopefully get that he's not hostile from his willingness to share information. He loaded up data from one of the cameras pointing towards the rear just before entering the atmosphere to get a picture of a chunk of stars they'd likely recognize. A section of four stars formed a near-perfect square that would probably be pretty identifiable, they and their surroundings would do.
	He brought out the sampling laser, and, with the quiet hum of the emitter heating up, he went to work. Really, it was a simple matter to get the arm to print the earlier, cropped image into the stone, he just had to do some file conversion messing, since he didn't trust his arm to remain steady enough to duplicate it accurately with how his hand was shaking. Finished, he backed up, not entirely back under the ship, but next to it.
	They hesitated, although that was likely to be expected, but the leader ultimately barked something to the rest after a few tense moments and stepped forward, spear dropping to a loose grip at her side. It only took her a few long steps to reach where he had inscribed the stone, concentration furrowing her brow in a very human-like expression as she bent over to look at it.
	Had he made a mistake? What if they considered this rock sacred? He could see a superstitious human back in the early days seeing whatever the hell happened to him as some sort of divine act. The possibility of being under siege formed a knot in his gut. Sure, bronze wouldn't have any chance in hell of penetrating the plating of his ship, but what if they were smart enough to start cramming stuff in the engines or prying at hatches to get at softer parts? Never mind that if they kept the ship under guard, he would eventually run out of food, although that point was likely months off.
	What he swore was realization flashed across her face as she slowly stood back up to her full height. Glancing over her shoulder, she gave a quick half-shouted command to her companions, who uneasily dropped their spears to a resting position. Jack gave a sigh of relief, although that was not to last long as she took another step towards the drone and asked it what sounded like a question, although he couldn't even begin to guess the meaning.
	Shit. The thing had no speakers, how the hell was he going to get across that he didn't speak her language? He hissed and turned the drone likely to the left then slightly to the right repeatedly in an approximation of shaking one's head no, although there was no way to tell for sure that she even understood that gesture. Wait, this thing had a horn, didn't it? He half-remembered disabling it since he kept on triggering it by accident and scaring the piss out of himself.
	Scrolling frantically in the options menu, he turned the option back on and gave a short, twenty-five percent volume beep. Pausing mid-step, the alien tilted her head, and Jack gave her a slightly longer beep.
	She pounded her chest. "Vash'Tali," she stated, voice surprisingly smooth yet still firm. A single word. Perhaps a name or title? He never thought he would be the first to make contact with aliens, especially planet-bound ones, so he never did get any training in the heavily theoretical field of xeno-linguistics. There was only so much he could do from in here, the lack of the speaker brought progress to a dead halt. As much as he dreaded it, perhaps it was time for him to meet the neighbours more directly? They seem... friendly enough, he supposed, after he showed non-hostility they calmed right down.
	Jack rapidly realized that he didn't have a choice and, well, they were going to see him eventually. Might as well make it not a surprise, so they didn't pull him off the "drone's" ship when they saw him working on it like a thief. He beeped twice in succession at the alien before he turned around and drove back, heading towards the tail of the ship near the rear hatch, just a bit in front of the engines. With a sigh, he put the drone into park before turning off the screen. Getting back up from his seat, it seemed like his strength had returned from whatever had just happened.
	He walked determined to the back hatch, although he had to fight down creeping fear the whole way. What if they turned hostile when they saw him? Fuck, he hoped that wasn't the case. Still, he had no choice. Soon enough, he stepped into the airlock and, after making sure his suit was sealed tight and peeking through the small porthole to make sure one of them wasn't standing where the ladder would fall, he cycled the air and dropped the ladder. Last chance to back out, he realized, taking a deep, calming breath to steady himself before opening it up. He heard at least one of them down there shift as his foot reached the first rung, but he dared not glance over his shoulder towards where they were lest Jack fall and ruin everything.
	His boots caught on the rock, and Jack slowly pivoted around to face the aliens, and they were yet more intimidating in person. The leader stood far in front of the two of them, just out from underneath the ship for head clearance reasons, appraising eyes locked on Jack, with the two others holding back perhaps twenty feet. Still, they took no aggressive stances, he just had to establish that he was controlling the drone to them. Now, how to do that with aliens that had no concept of robotics or wireless communication? An idea came to him in a flash. He held up both arms, making sure to display his hands were empty before pointing directly at his wrist computer. He clicked a few buttons, and a live display hologram of the drone's feed came up. The lead alien slightly jolted, eyes focused on what must have been a tiny feed to the enormous creature. He made a big show of pressing the button bound to rotate left, spinning the drone around in place. He released it, then right rotation. Left, then right. Left, then right.
	Comprehension dawned on the giant's face, and she once again thumped a single fist to her chest, saying, "Vash'tali." Her voice had an odd resonance in person like you could feel it reverberate through your flesh and bone. Still, was it a name, a title, both? He assumed that it wasn't their species name or the name of their civilization since she didn't appear to be referring to her whole group with it.
	"Jack Fair," he returned, although his one-handed chest thump was much more muted. She nodded at that, which he returned. "Vastali?" he asked, gesturing in her general direction.
	"Vash'tali," she corrected.
	"Vashtali," he said, although he wasn't quite sure as to his pronunciation.
	"Vash'tali," she responded again, putting a bit of extra emphasis on the middle sound.
	"Vash'tali," he returned, to which she gave a nod of what he hoped was satisfaction, although he could still hear that his intonation as off. Close enough for her is close enough for him, he supposed.
	"JackFair?" the alien tried, although it was far better than his first attempt.
	"Jack Fair," he said, making sure to speak clearly a tad more clearly and slowly to make it clear they weren't one word.
	"Jack Fair," she said, putting his efforts at her name to shame. Fuck, if he wasn't looking at her, he'd assume she was an English speaker with a strange accent. Bats back home have excellent hearing, right? It wouldn't be out of line to guess that she likely did also, with those ears of hers. It might make sense that her species has a vocal range to match. Frankly, it was a miracle that she shared enough of one with him to communicate.
	He gave her a nod, which squeezed a small grin out of her, followed by a burst in her language that he had zero way of even thinking about understanding. All he gave in return was a shrug, which she mirrored.
	Shit, where to go to next? She stood there patiently, finally placing her spear on the ground, obviously expecting him to do something next. Perhaps she was waiting for him to give her the name for something? Species would likely be a good starting point if anything.
	The pilot stepped away from the drone, placing himself under the open sky, before turning off the feed on his wrist in case the trio saw that as his weapon. Smooth, slow breaths, keep calm. Jack did not draw any closer to her, though, his heart was pounding in his chest hard enough without that extra terror. He hit his chest again, "Jack Fair," followed by drawing a circle in the air around his body, "Human." This time it seemed to take her a moment to parse what he was trying to say, and her jaw silently worked as she mouthed along with his words.
	"Human," she said with unerring accuracy the first try, gesturing in a circle around him, causing Jack to nod in return. "Vash'tali," she started a moment later, thumping her chest once more, then circling herself, and her other companions standing off behind her, before stating, "Cresrauw." It took him a few tries to get it right, but he managed it sooner rather than later. On and on the dance went, the two of them exchanging words for simple objects or concepts like rock, tree, go, or help. She picked up his words much faster than he caught hers, mind you, and some trades weren't entirely equal, granted. She purred at one point and called it "Valur," but when he hummed back, she insisted it was something else, and needless to say, she didn't have a word for anything like "spaceship" or "drone." At least he knew he landed a "Wyet," although she had no luck explaining to him what the hell that meant.
	"Vash'tali go place many Cresrauw, Jack Fair go or stay spaceship?" she said in English, still keeping her distance. However, grammar was definitely not something that she mastered as uncomfortably quickly as individual words, although it was still incredibly impressive given that they'd been trading words and concepts for little more than an hour and a half now.
	He was hesitant, to say the least. Who's to say that the rest of Vash'tali's kind would be as friendly as she was? Then again, denying a request like that could easily be a dire insult among their people. Fuck, he could still end up with a war party on his doorstep if he played it wrong, couldn't he? He couldn't just hide inside the ship and hoped they lost interest; either, they knew that he would be in there and could simply wait him out.
	"Place many Cresrauw, how far?" he questioned. Granted, with her spear being made of bronze, he didn't have the highest expectations as to what 'many' Cresrauw constituted.
	Clicking her tongue and taking a moment to think before responding, Vash'tali said, "Get to before sundown, very close."
	Now, how long were the days here again? From what it looked like in orbit, the planet was spinning pretty fast, although not as fast as Earth, maybe twenty-seven hours, were he to guess? It wasn't as if they were close enough to the poles to get massively extended days, either. "Jack Fair go place many Cresrauw, but need to be back to spaceship soon to make better," Jack slowly said mostly in their tongue, stumbling over his pronunciation in places. However, he had to replace one or two words that either didn't have a Cresrauw counterpart or that he didn't know with English, but he hoped that his meaning still carried across.
	A look of realization flashed across her eyes, one that he really, really didn't like as she gave him an apologetic glance.
	"Cresrauw come to Wyet on wings. Will be longer to go back walking," she said, pausing to eye him up and down, "Vash'tali strong, can carry Jack Fair." Oh, no, no, no. There was no way in hell that he was letting a giant bat carry him over a fucking jungle back to her tribe, but... actually, there might be a way he can swing the flight. The aerial recon drone should be able to hold his weight, and he dumps the extra sensor package and uses the standardized clips to hook to his suit instead, yeah, that could work.
	"Jack Fair can find a way to fly with Vash'Tali," he said, and although Vash'tali nodded in response, he could see the disbelief on her face. However, as he turned to prepare, Jack suddenly realized, after all this time, his visor was still tinted. "Vash'tali not see Jack Fair face, now see face," he said, making the alien tilt her head to the right in what he had learned was confusion. It was just a quick pop into the settings menu on his wrist as he adjusted the smart tint down, finally revealing his face beneath the reinforced glass.
	It was then that the bat decided to close the distance. Vash'tali didn't run, she didn't jog, but her long stride closed the gap between the two of them in moments. Were his legs working, he would have run, yet he found himself frozen dead in place. Soon enough, he was absolutely towered over by the alien, entirely too close for his liking as she stared down at him from a scant few feet away, meeting eye to eye for the first time, but she seemed happy, for some reason happy. Relief that he was flesh and blood rather than some spirit in a suit? He could think of nothing else, nothing else that wasn't sinister, at least, but she wasn't effortlessly overpowering him so Jack could probably count those theories out.
	Instead, Jack fought the urge to lean back as she crouched down to see him face to face, taking a wide squat, so her grinning muzzle was only perhaps three feet away from him. "Jack Fair face not Jack Fair face, this Jack Fair face?" she questioned, to which he enthusiastically nodded.
	"Yes, Jack Fair face! Other face," the pilot stumbled at that, trying to form an explanation with his limited vocabulary, "Not face. Sorry, forgot not face on, no mean bad," the pilot said, carefully avoiding having to explain the realities of space travel to someone who likely didn't even have the concept of space. Still, she was taking the idea of a strange, alien creature strangely well. Perhaps they believe that curious peoples are in every land they haven't explored, much like humans back in the day?
	"If real Jack Fair face, show real Vash'tali face!" she exclaimed, bringing both of her hands up, and sending a momentary spike of panic through Jack. Did he stumble across some bizarre aspect of their alien anatomy, and he was about to see the familiar facade ripped away in favour of a tangle of worms and teeth? He stared in rapt attention as she wiped downwards, revealing... precisely the same face but with a small grin on it. A high, repetitive keening noise came from her a moment later in what he assumed was her species' version of a laugh, and despite himself, he couldn't help but find himself join in with a low chuckle. Despite all the gravitas of a first contact, despite all the raw terror, the sheer ridiculousness of an alien he had just met pulling a face gag on him was just too much to handle. He didn't even have the vocabulary to compliment her, and trying to explain the word joke to her on such a limited word set would be maddening.
	Soon enough, though, she straightened herself out and stood back up to full height, although a half-grin still was on her face, an aura of smug self-satisfaction surrounding her. "Vash'tali go now, Jack, go now, need time?"
	"One moment!" he said in English, taking the excuse to take a few steps back from the massive alien and head back under his ship. She tilted her head curiously, and he belatedly realized that he hadn't taught her moment yet, following up with a "Little time!" which she nodded an affirmative to.
	Crawling back up the ship's ladder, he headed back in and cycled the air. The atmospheric analysis read like the air wouldn't kill him, and historically the risk of infection between creatures from different worlds was effectively zero, but he preferred not to risk it. Jack grabbed a few bags of nutrient slurry designed for zero-G consumption, a few bags of water packaged similarly, and a small bag to carry it all in. Not as if he needed a spare change of clothes, nor any sanitary supplies.
	Next, he went to the bay, loaded the aerial recon drone up for deployment after taking off all the optional bits and bobs, and sent a command to deploy it as he headed back out through the rear airlock.
	Down below, he saw all three of the aliens staring at the unmanned vehicle hovering a few inches off the ground. Jack almost swore they were unaware of his presence, was it not for an ear on each swivelled towards his direction.
	"Vash'tali like?" Jack asked as he commanded it to float a few feet higher and stooped below to strap himself in.
	"Vash'tali not know what," she said, and it was amazing how the sound of raw confusion carried through species barriers. By then, Jack had already gotten his chest tied up and was just finishing up on his legs before testing the strapping to make sure he was tight and not about to fall free mid-flight.
	"Vash'tali go, then Jack Fair go," he said as he slowly backed out from underneath the spaceship and fired thrusters, which he very much pointedly made sure to not have any of his bits tied by, to lift himself up into the air, higher than the ship and treetops by a body length.
	Finally, Vash'tali addressed her two companions with a series of short, quick barks in her language that was too fast for him to follow before the three of them took to the air, Jack following shortly behind as they climbed. Come to think of it, wasn't it kind of weird that she introduced herself, but the two of them lurked around back and never came forward? Perhaps it was some cultural thing? He could say for sure that if he had a family and ran into a random alien in a field one day, he wouldn't be rushing his kids over to meet them, if they are, indeed, her children.
	That sounded a bit stern to him for somebody talking to their kids, though, if they were as friendly and jokey seeming as Vash'tali was. Jack knew he couldn't assume anything given he was dealing with aliens, but he still had the feeling that the real answer was something different. Apprentice hunters, maybe? He glanced ahead at their forms, examining them in more detail. It'd explain the discrepancy, at the very least. Not sure if it'd solve the sheer size difference, though, unless they were really young members of their kind. Indeed, their flight muscles appeared to be less developed, and their hips weren't as wide even for their size, so they'd have to be younger unless they were the opposite gender and took on a subservient role in society? That made a fair bit of sense too.
	It was over these questions, and many others, that Jack puzzled over as they flew, keeping a respectable distance back from the others as he had a feeling that they didn't want any thruster powered hair removal.
	The flight went on for some while, it wasn't as if it was boring, though, the entire time that Jack wasn't steering the drone or adjusting the speed, he was looking at the forest below, trying to catch sight of what was living in the jungle murk. What better way to beat down the jitters than burying them?
	It was sometime later that the pilot realized that he had drastically underestimated then, a metallic flash from ahead catching his eye and dropping his jaw.
	The first thing he saw poking from the towering canopy was the apex of some stepped pyramid with a capstone of what seemed to be pure gold. A religious temple? A government building? Both? Even below the capstone, the well-crafted stone building was adorned similarly, gold, polished bronze, and brass statues, metal banding, inset carvings, and more.
	Jack's internal estimation of how advanced their society was rose by several leaps and bounds in one stroke. This implied mining, smelting, advanced smelting and alloying techniques, roads to move the stone from wherever it came from, and more yet! Perhaps the land was just iron-poor?
	Slowly, more and more of the impressive pyramid was revealed, yet no sign of any buildings surrounding it. Did they all just live and work in the temple? They are bats, after all, perhaps it extended underground into a cave system.
	A few moments more and the tips of several buildings poked up at long last into vision, and it was then he realized that their city wasn't built on flat ground, no, the city was built in a valley, that's why it was so hard to see from a distance!
	Almost every building had some sort of metal adornment, be it inset detailing, statues, or even pure metal surfaces in a few places, although few bore any kind of solid golden panelling despite its apparent abundance. Jack barely caught the shapes of a few of the Cresrauw flitting between buildings by wing, and he suddenly realized that, with that as an option, their cities were likely designed drastically different than any historical human town to capitalize on that fact. The highly visible rooftop decorations were possibly a form of identification easily visible from the air! More and more buildings were revealed, as he started to realize that he had still only seen the tallest of the buildings from the low angle. They stretched on and on in each direction, a vast city of unquestionable wealth and might. Were he to guess, he would estimate that it was perhaps... forty thousand inhabitants? That seemed right to him, although he had no idea how many of them typically lived in a building, he was going off modern human standards alone. Even then, it was by far more of them than he ever expected to see in one place!
	Turning his head, Jack saw a river flowing from the north through the downtown and, further from there, clearings of what seemed to be farmland to support the vast city. Soon, a series of high stone barriers became evident, the jungle cut back from them making for an excellent way to give defenders good lines of sight, if needed. Vash'tali finally altered course, then, directing the flight down towards a section cut back some twenty feet extra in front of a great wooden gate, the four of them finally coming to rest with the eyes of some incredibly bewildered Cresrauw on the top of the walls resting on them, one promptly leaving for parts unknown after their group's arrival. Perhaps they were a messenger?
	Jack hoped that that one didn't leave to rile up a mob or anything, though, given his small stature, the aliens were unlikely to find him intimidating enough to form a proper lynch mob; iit wasn't as if he would be able to take too many of them if the size differences were reversed regardless, due to his complete lack of combat training.
	As Jack unstrapped, Vash'tali walked over to him, gesturing towards the gate. "Vash'tali go talk, Kreshka and Bretuk stay, Vash'tali come back soon," she explained, ending with a slight nod. With a sigh, Jack returned the nod. The idea of being left without the only alien he had established any rapport within the presence of so many others was not high up on his list of favourite things. Still, he supposed that it made sense that she had to run into the city to talk to someone in charge rather than just flying in with a mysterious outsider.
	A few minutes later, another tall Cresrauw landed on the wall, wings folding on... hmm, this one didn't have the large flight muscles Vash'Tali or the other two had. Did they glide in? Come to think of it, it was pretty weird that the other ones on the wall were as small as his companions, wasn't it? Who would put youth on guard duty with no direct oversight, did their size difference mean something else?
The big one hissed something to one of the guards, pointing at Jack, prompting half a stumbled response before cuffing the smaller Cresrauw over the back of the head, both Kreshka and Bretuk tensing up. Oh, well, that wasn't good at-
	The pilot hardly had time to flinch as the alien surged off the wall in a dive, pulling up hard at the last moment with a mighty flap and using the momentum to close the distance in moments. Spears were raised in a cross to bar the alien's path as claws dug into the dirt to stop the warrior mere moments in front of the wall.
	The behemoth hissed in response, unlatching a rounded, heavy bronze mace from a pelt and shouted something loudly enough at Jack to almost make his ears ring, something that he couldn't understand, but something that made the two he was with pull their spears in a wall all the tighter.
	One of them, he didn't know which, said something in a low, appeasing tone, trying to defuse the situation. Still, Jack had little faith in the ability of either of his companions to stop the brute from smashing them aside and crushing his skull in, were he so inclined. Jack found himself taking a pace back, which only emboldened his aggressor to take a much longer step forward, bodily pushing against the crossed spears.
	"Jack Fair, uh," the pilot stumbled over his words, "Come to talk!" He struggled to think of anything, anything that his impromptu language lessons had taught him earlier that would be useful to ask to not be killed, "Vash'tali-" The alien cut him off with a sharp hiss then. It was then Vash'tali herself showed up. Jack just caught a glimpse of her flying over the wall, but then things stopped making sense. The way she moved and accelerated into a blur at the drop of a hat with nary an extra flap of her wings didn't make sense. Nor did the way Vash'tali took a hard ninety-degree turn at that unnatural speeds when she was next to the other Cresrauw to bowl him over. And it most certainly didn't make sense when she raised her fist to strike the smaller, pinned brute and something flashed bright white, electric crackling as she drove her first into his skull driving a shiver up Jack's spine.
	Just like that, it was over, and she was slowly standing back up, flashing to him what the pilot thought was a reassuring smile as her opponent limply twitched on the ground at her feet. What the hell just happened, and what had he gotten himself into?opponent limply twitched on the ground at her feet. What the hell just happened, and what had he gotten himself into?