Extraction

YFnyrdh tried to look guilty and grateful by turns. The officer looked her up and down critically. How degraded we may become in difficult circumstances – this survivor was almost feral.

“You do know this is a closed world – no contact?   You should not be here and neither should we. Get your kit together; I want to be off this planet before there’s an incident. The high Command is going to have some tough questions when we get you home.” She suddenly stopped talking and with a look of horror stared into the long grass, “What the hell is that ginger thing?”

YFnyrdh glanced across at Hank who was watching the proceedings with detached curiosity. “It’s one of the locals. It will get bored if we ignore it.” The cat moved towards them and a twitched marine fired his carbine.

“Kill that shooting!” screamed the officer. On the word ‘kill’ the entire squad opened up. Hair thin shafts of coherent light ionised the air and pinpricks of malachite green illuminated the feline’s fur – harmlessly.

“Frktnz! For Jddhrw’s sake stop firing!”

Hank sauntered nonchalantly over to the tender, sniffed at the hatchway and gave the fuselage a contemptuous pat with a forepaw. He strolled some distance away and sat with his back to them all. The ship rocked on its undercarriage, but did not topple.

“Get on board, now.” the officer snapped to YFnyrdh. “Detail… pick up the life-craft and get that on board too. We’re not leaving any evidence behind.” Then she shouted into a small device tucked under her left epaulette. “Stoke her up! I want out of here, this instant.”

There followed a short period of frantic activity. The hull of the life-craft was not too heavy for the squad of burly marines, it was after all mainly composed of LLmnm-M alloy, but it was awkward and unbalanced and for too long got stuck in the doorway.   Eventually the inevitable shouting subsided, YFnyrdh was bundled aboard the tender and the hatch clanged shut. It hummed a low hum then locked with a clunk. There had been a growing turbine wine, accompanied by a thin whistle throughout the retreat into the tender. The rotor blades deployed and began to rotate while the whining increased in volume and pitch until it was a squeal that pained both feline and Kwmbryn ears. The whistling, whatever its origin, persisted. The whirling blades gathered speed and, wobbling slightly, the craft rose into the air. As it cleaved through some wisps of high cirrus cloud there was a flash from the underside of the fuselage. The rotor assembly retracted and the tender accelerated towards the edge of space on a column of intense white light. Digby emerged from a dark tangle of overgrown flowerbed.

He and Hank watched the ship recede into the vivid blue sky until only a pinhead twinkle of its exhaust was visible. The whistle could still be heard faintly, dying away.

“Looks like they really did come from the stars.”

Space Marines Cometh

YFnyrdh was sitting by a small open fire near a rude lean-to of scavenged timber, rendered waterproof, to a point, by a thatch of dry grass leaves. It had taken her four days to locate the crashed life-craft and now, several months later, its energy cells were all but exhausted, though the emergency food packs were holding out. She was supervising an improvised cooking pot of rehydrated, simmering bllw strynng soup. Clean accessible water was at a premium; there was none to spare for washing so she had a dishevelled air, her hair was long and matted, her mole-skin coveralls were thread bare, stained and mud spattered, and she sported an increasingly inconvenient unkempt beard. Hank was curled asleep in the long grass near the edge of what she now thought of as ‘the lawn’. Both were aware of the other’s presence, but Hank was too well fed and arthritic to bother with hunting and YFnyrdh was more concerned with the whereabouts of Digby. They had had a number of close encounters since she returned to her landing site, but thus far she had evaded recapture.

The sound, when they first heard it, was obviously some form of helicopter. They were, by now, used to the noise of the twin rotor Chinooks that regularly transported the planet’s military above this area, so gave it little attention. However, this time the source of the engine noise did not pass by and it got much louder. They both looked up when it became apparent something was descending.

The craft, an Atmospheric-Operations General Purpose Tender, had a roughly cone shaped fuselage, elongated fore and aft, which hung beneath a single multi-bladed rotor, and shone silver-chrome. The Special Forces insignia and motto was prominent in red and black along the side of the hull as it landed close by YFnyrdh’s camp. The rotor ceased revolving as the engine was cut, and retracted, the blades folding upwards and inwards somewhat after the manner of the cirri on a barnacle. A hatch cracked open, expelling a hiss of vapour round the seal, hinging at the bottom to form a ramp that thumped to the ground in a decisive sort of way. There was stillness, pregnant with expectation, while the cavernous hatchway gaped darkly. Then cries of “…hut, hut, hut…” echoed from within and a group of space-marines, dressed in pristine white uniforms and hard hats, emerged at a trot. The shore party, armed with hangers and laser carbines formed a perimeter whilst the officer, distinguished by a conspicuous display of gold braid, approached with her small but viciously practical automatic projectile hand weapon unholstered.

“Well, you took some finding.”

Dan to the Rescue

When Daniel came in to see what all the meowing was about he found the three of them standing motionless, each apparently waiting for one of the others to do something.

“What the hell have you brought in this time Digby?” He peered down at the tiny creature with its long pointed face, black boot-button eyes, grey velvety coat and short, whip-like tail.

“That’s not a mouse, what on earth is it?”

Wasting no time, Daniel collected his rodent rescue kit from the under-stairs cupboard. The diminutive vole, or whatever it was, looked up as he dropped a beer glass over it and slipped a piece of card underneath. As he inverted the assemblage the little animal fell into the bottom of the glass, squeaking angrily. Daniel carried it carefully outside whilst Digby and Hank searched all the nooks and corners of their dining room for their now missing lunch. Daniel walked some way down the lane and stopped at an overgrown patch of waste ground. He tipped out the ungrateful animal. It paused and glared at him for a moment, then scuttled into the undergrowth. It did not seem to appreciate having been rescued at no slight inconvenience to its saviour. Daniel’s tea would be tepid by the time he got back.

“Off you go, little feller. This should give you a head start. And be a bit more careful in future.”

Are Clangers Edible?

Digby had a plan – he would wait. The thing would get hungry, or bored, or homesick, or just forget why it was hiding, and then it would come out. His plan had not included being shouted at.

He sat up, stunned. Then quickly went into the lounge and woke Hank, who was sleeping on the sofa.

“I think you’d better come and see this.” They padded, together into the dining room. “I found it outside. It’s just called to me, in Cat.”

Hank tilted his head to one side and studied the creature. “Did it say anything useful?”

“It said,  ‘Hey you,’ and then, ‘Take me to your leader.’ Do I have a leader?”

“Shouldn’t think so. What’s a leader?”

“Should I poke it?”

“No.” Hank pushed his nose towards the alien. “Let’s humour it. What are you and where are you from, little creature?”

Well, so far so good. There were two of the terrifying predators now, but she had not been eaten. The second alien was even bigger though less stocky and a darker orange. It did not look any less dangerous. YFnyrdh’s throat was dry and she was trembling slightly – imperceptibly, she hoped.

“I am YFnyrdh of the Kwmbry and I come from up there…”

The two cats looked up.

“Did it just say it fell off the ceiling?” asked Hank.

“It’s making it up.” replied Digby, “I brought it in from next door’s garden.”

“No…” YFnyrdh indicated towards a large transparent rectangle in one of the walls, “…out there. I come from the stars.”

“Now it says it fell through one of the shiny holes in the big black roof. Has it got concussion?”

Digby had dropped onto his elbows and was beginning to wiggle his bottom. Before he could pounce Hank stopped him. “Give it a bit longer, this is fun.”

“I am a space wrecked traveller, sole survivor from a doomed Galaxy Class ore carrier. I am unable to return to my home world without your assistance.” YFnyrdh assumed the posture of a supplicant. Then, indicating her surroundings with a wide sweeping gesture of her arms, she continued, “Your species has obviously achieved wondrous technological advances, are you capable of interstellar flight?”

“What is a technological?” asked Hank.

“What is advances?” asked Digby.

“You are too modest, this vast hall with its amazing artefacts, the many buildings beyond, only a great civilisation could construct such marvels or take all this for granted.”

“This…” explained Hank, “…is Home.   You don’t construct Home, it just is; it’s more to do with philosophy than physics.”

“And we are ginger moggies from the planet Hereandnow,” added Digby, “and we eat small creatures; even annoyingly deluded, gobby ones that think they are aliens.”

Not going quite so well now, then. Oh, Sqwrll! If this had been an episode of Star Quest she’d just shoot her way out of this mess and steal herself one of their space ships. Only they didn’t seem to have any space ships and Leading Spacepeople were hardly going to be let loose near guns. The crews on VLBCs were notoriously quirky. It was a long time between ports and you had to be a bit mad to be out there in the first place.

“We may have got off on the wrong foot here. Please, let me try to explain. I have inadvertently become trapped on your planet, which, pleasant as it may seem to you, is far from my home. I am considering the possibility that you are not the dominant species here and I wonder if you could put me in touch with…” The voice of the translator distorted. There was a pause, then it said, “Battery low!” in all known languages and went silent. YFnyrdh carried on for a while in Kwmbrysh, but it was pointless.

First Contact

YFnyrdh came round as she was dropped onto the cushioned floor of a vast chamber and began cautiously to evaluate her situation. From the compromised state of her shredded environment suit she deduced that the alien atmosphere must be breathable. She was obviously breathing it. The air smelled acrid and she felt slightly light headed but her breathing was steady and nothing ached any more than she would expect after her recent rough treatment. She rolled onto her back and looked up. The creature standing over her was terrifying. Superficially the beast resembled the Clrntz*n back home, only built on a totally different scale. It was six times her height, maybe more, a hundred times her bulk, with golden eyes and a covering of fur, striped in shades of sandy orange. Its belly fur was white and it was displaying a lethal armoury of claws and teeth. Fnyrdh sprang to her feet and ran. She was unusually light on her feet in this strange world, and fast, but so was the beast. She zigzagged to avoid the slashing claws and, as she fled, spotted a long, low recess, not too far off to her left. She threw herself at it and rolled beneath the overhang, scrabbling quickly to the back. An extended paw searched the refuge, but she managed to evade it by ducking behind a mysterious sphere some two-thirds her height. Scimitar claws latched onto the sphere and dragged it out. It made a bell-like tinkling sound. Her antagonist tossed the ball around for a while, lost interest and withdrew.

There was no way of telling if the automated distress signaller back on the Sunburst had got off a message before the ship broke up or if the beacon on the life-craft had been working at all and, either way, little likelihood that a signal would be intercepted in the near future. She was well off the regular trading routes and as spots went, this was a tight one. Tentatively YFnyrdh surveyed the topography beyond her refuge. The chamber covered an area greater than a synchbwll pitch and was twice the height of a glyb tower; these creatures were indisputably aggressive, but they must have advanced technology and presumably a developed culture. What had she been told in the lecture on first contact? She unlocked the helmet from the collar of her environment suit and laid it to one side, then took a universal translator from the hip pouch of her suit, clipped it round her throat and switched it on. Pulling out the receiver she plugged it into one ear, it crackled and emitted a high-pitched whistle. She unstrapped it, banged it hard against the back wall of the shelter and tried again. When she spoke into it, it seemed to be translating into something. While she had been preparing, the creature had returned and was lying some distance from the cave mouth with one eye closed.

YFnyrdh reflected on the state of her suit and removed it; she had better look as smart as possible for the occasion. Then she moved warily into the open, ready to take cover again at the slightest movement on the part of the orange alien. She drew a deep breath and shouted.

The Life-Craft

As the two craft hurtled ever nearer to the blue planet YFnyrdh could make out the thin pale rim along its horizon that indicated an atmosphere. The surface was almost entirely covered in a liquid and there were clouds of vapour that built up over what she took to be landmasses. The navigation computers on both craft calculated the correct safe entry angle and velocity and the first life–craft made precise adjustments to its attitude. Her companions’ small vessel was some ten minutes ahead. It entered the outer layers of the planet’s atmosphere, glowed briefly and exploded. YFnyrdh urgently flicked her life-craft systems to manual. The computer resisted. YFnyrdh insisted. Everyone in the crew had undergone extensive simulated disaster training, she had narrowly failed hers and been scheduled for reassessment. Never the less she made tiny adjustments to her craft’s trajectory, too much and she would bounce off the atmosphere into the chill darkness, offered a fervent prayer to her Pod Deity despite having ignored it since childhood, recalculated and made a few more adjustments, and then gave up; she was only guessing anyway.

The life-pod slowed and juddered dramatically as it entered the atmosphere and her safety harness dug painfully into her shoulders. Fire streaked past the observation ports and the temperature within her cramped cockpit began to rise. YFnyrdh could do nothing more, she was a hapless observer at her own extinction. The deceleration and violent shuddering continued for an eternity. She smelled the acrid scent of burned wiring, the interior lighting had died, but the fire outside was gone. She was ripping her way through a thick blanked of cloud. Eventually, with its passenger curled into a whimpering ball of pure terror, the life-craft did not so much land as crash. It bounced once and skidded, scoring a linear, dirty brown scar across a plain of tall, broad-leaved grassland. It pitched over a low, bare hillock and came to rest amidst the roots and trunks of a crowded cluster of flowering trees. YFnyrdh tried to breath again, panicked, recovered and pulled the release catch on the outer hatch. There was a hiss, but it did not move. Two desperate kicks and the hatch cover flew away. YFnyrdh leapt down and was standing on the surface of an alien world.

She walked some distance along the track gouged out by her careering life-craft. The sky seemed friendlier from down here. Patches of blue sky peeped through the clouds, a light breeze rustled the nodding trees, there was calm and peace. So she was more than a little shocked when something unseen cuffed her off her feet and into the long grass. As she lay, dazed, vicious ivory sabre teeth pierced the collar of her environment suit and crushed the survival pack on her back. She was lifted, dangling into the air and the monstrous creature that held her in its mouth set off at a dash.   YFnyrdh passed out.