kopperhed

Somewhere far in another time and place, through the glint and gleam of an unfamiliar sun, dwells a strange yet familiar world not unlike our own. Silver fish dart through crystal blue surf and gulls cry over pale sandy beaches. Palm groves sway over thin, skinny islands and towering clouds float lazily across endless expanse of sea and sky. Where the familiarity ends is the pink mangrove jungles, pods of skerryback whales, and most of all, the complete absence of Man and his influence.

For this is the world of the Sundrenched Sea, where the Critterfolk call their home. This is a glimpse into their curious little lives, and a record of the greatest test of their resolve.

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Dawn.

In the soft ruddy light of a crisp early morning, a line of fifteen fighter aircraft stood idling on the edge of a dewy grass field. Beneath a red and violet sky, the machines seemed to wait along with the wispy clouds above for the advent of the sun. Around them, the air was already warm and humid, warning of the hot tropical afternoon to come. Behind, a line of tall, spindly palms swayed. Below, the grass whipped and shimmered, not only from the pervasive sea breeze, which, on these islands, was never far away, but also from the propeller wash of the fighter's engines. Fifteen radials roared together in a steady flat tune, eager to be let loose into the nascent day.

What held the machines back were the chocks at their wheels and their patient handlers who stood holding the reins. Handlers who also waited for their own form of release.

Arrayed around each aircraft, mindful and cautious of the thrumming props, were a diminutive and wondrous breed of ground crew. They stood prepared, alert and aware like any other peoples, yet their existence would astound any outsider from the realm of Man: for although they shared behavioral traits of the wise primate long removed through twists of space, all commonality was lost in appearance.

Those that stood here on this grassy field would be mistaken as domestic cats.

It surpassed uncanny. Despite standing on two legs, wearing miniature clothing, and manipulating their environment dexterously with their forelimbs, they were the spitting image of Felis catus. Their knees bent backwards in the feline-like way, and they went bare-pawed in the grass. Panther-esque faces and slinky arms displayed different kinds of fur in a myriad of ways: calico and tabby; blotched and striped; straight and curly; long and short. Most telling of all were their eyes, which were striking variations of gold, jade, and sapphire, cut vertically by slitted pupils.

Regardless of the similarities, their tasks spoke of a stark separation from a far distant house cat. Some stood holding onto chock ropes, others stood by with fire extinguishers. Some kept a weathered eye on engines running hot, and others stood holding wingtips. All of them remained calm in the face of roaring internal combustion, and all waited waiting expectant and silent for a pending call. Equally expectant and silent, but all the more tense, were those who sat in the cockpits.

Wearing flight caps made of ray leather and tempered glass flight goggles, fifteen grim felines sat in their fighters, cheek fur whipping around in the prop wash.

All around waited, and they all had their heads turned in the direction of a shack by the line of palms. There, three other cats made ready. One sat at a low table, adjusting a radio set. Another stood akimbo in the shack doorway. The last remained ramrod straight a little aways, paws at their side and holding something behind them.

More than just the gemstone eyes of those on the flight field were locked onto this one rigid feline. Behind him, the akimbo cat watched with all of the cold, weighty pressure his authority represented. Through him, all of the expectation, all of the sovereign decree, was focused. Greater still, was the complete, concentrated, and manifested will of an entire people.

If the bearer felt this pressure, he did not let it affect him. Smooth as silk was he when the radio unit crackled, the operator tensed, and with one paw on his headset, this operator turned to the commander to nod his head firmly.

“Commence operations,” the akimbo cat spoke in perfect, stone-solid language.

In two mere words, he had delivered the overwhelming forecast the entire entourage had been waiting for.

In a single fluid motion, the rigid cat raised what he had been holding behind him with one arm: a flag on a pole. It was a white flag, which popped in the morning breeze and combined draft of fifteen holding engines. Upon this flag was a solid red circle crossed in lines of black. It was a ball of blood red yarn with a single loose strand. A single tail that curved above it like a scarlet halo.

All of the sharp, predatory eyes on that field snapped to attention upon this banner. They watched it rise. It rose above the grass as a portent of a terrible calamity looming over the world. All breaths were held, sensing fate holding them in its grasp. In the next moment, in another deceptively simple swish by the bearer who bore it, it came crashing down towards the earth.

“ONWARD,” the bearer cried. “ONWARD, FOR THE EMPEROR.”

Everything erupted then, all at once.

Everyone present jumped to their duties as one: chocks were yanked away, wing tips were released, and crews scuttled back. Ground chiefs signaled the go ahead to their deafened pilots, but the cats in their cockpits had already seen, and their controls were already in motion. Throttles were opened, fuel mixtures were set, and the hungry machines trundled forward.

With flaming exhausts and crescendoing engines, the aircraft moved onto the field one by one, bouncing along on their wheels across the grass as they headed towards the main strip.

Those ground crews who’s duties had been completed also ran forward to line themselves along the main airstrip ahead of the approaching fighters. As the first aircraft reached the departure point, they as one readied their paws at their sides in anticipation. After a halting pause, a rumble and a roar proclaimed the moment of truth as the first fighter gunned it and began its take off run. When it screamed past the line of crew and lifted off into the air, they all flung their paws into the air and hollered.

“NYANZAI!”
“GLORY TO THE EMPEROR!”
“GLORY TO NYAPPON!”

Over and over they swung their paws high and cried their proclamations to the sky as each fighter roared past them, anointing each warrior with the collected blessing of the Nyapponese race. The heaviest duty of all was upon those who must carry that message with them into mortal combat and hand it off through diplomacy known as battle. Each warrior is a messenger, and their scroll is death.

One of those messengers, currently lifting off in the third fighter of the arrangement, was a tangerine short hair by the name of Siber-et-(don’t know yet). Currently too preoccupied to notice the clamoring crew, the only emotion on his scowling face was pure concentration. Despite the momentous weight of responsibility he now carried with him, he was unfazed. All concerns had left him as he focused on the tasks at hand and the orders ahead.

While the grassy field slipped away beneath him, giving away at first to a blur of white beach then streaks of crystal blue surf, Siber began the trying tasks of the post-take off sequence. He had to crank up the gear on the left side of the cockpit to retract the landing gear, maintain the distance behind the aircraft ahead of him, and to keep the control stick steady and pulled back between his legs as they ascended. Sitting atop his parachute inside the snug cockpit, Siber’s short facial fur whipped around his goggles and helmet from the open canopy, which was left open during take off in case of a failed ditching into the sea.

On the outside, Siber was a shining example of the elite product produced through the Imperial Nyapponese Aero Claw: ascetically maintained, lustrous coat; sharp, attentive eyes that darted over the dials on his instrument panel; and a frosty cool demeanor unburdened by any concern outside thoughts for the mission. On the inside, all was replaced and dominated by the ingrained instinct of skill, instilled into him by strenuous training programs. Months of rote repetition and incessant practice prepared him for this exact moment.

It had been many years since Siber had graduated the Academy, but his past training came to him as easily as breathing.

At 6,000 haunchspans, Siber and the other fighters aloft leveled out, and here they began to circle the airfield to await the rest of the squadron. Dipping his right wing low in order to watch his brothers join them, Siber was afforded a brief moment to appreciate the grandeur of the world around him.

Nyapponese had never been meant to fly. Unlike the Falconi, the Great Weaver had not deemed to give the felines wings. What they did deem to give, however, was the intelligence, reason, and ability to figure out a way to do so. Fortunate were they to receive the Great Weaver’s grace in the form of a pathway to challenge the avian race’s dominion over the sky. With the advent of powered flight, those that had been bound to the earth could soar through the heavenly majesty and encroach upon the realm once claimed solely by the birdfolk.

In a rare moment of self-indulgence, Siber looked down and allowed himself to draw pleasure from the view. They were truly fortunate, he knew, to have received this blessing: no other sight was as beautiful in life than this.

[describe the Sundrenched Sea here. Morning, islands, sea from horizon to horizon. Skinny islands.]

pawspan= ½ “foot”, haunchspan= two “feet” or four pawspans

“We regret to inform you the request for additional funding has been disapproved.”

Whatever other information the automated voice had to give was drowned out by the sudden squeal of frustration and agony that rang out across the desolate, empty outpost. Echoing between rows of silent, sand-pitted solar collectors and passing low scattered shrubs, the baleful peal carried out far and wide. It passed over the surrounding sea of bone-white sand, parched dry by a noon-high, pale-cool star.

That heedless star was the only thing in that cloudless sky, a dusty-blue expanse that domed over an equally featureless land below.

In all directions beyond the small isolated station and it's yards of solar farms spread miles upon miles of nothing, empty swaths of sand for as far as the eye could see, only interrupted by the occasional clump of wispy grass or copse of scrawny, leafless red trees. Over this barren waste the miserable voice carried, only to eventually peter out and get lost in a pitiful whisper.

“If you wish to challenge this decision,” the synthetic voice continued as blissfully heedless as the star above, “please fill out and submit form number--”

Dual fists slamming down upon the sand-frosted console must have knocked loose its internal speakers, as the machine's sound abruptly quit beneath the application of force.

The bedraggled young woman who's fists they belonged to next used those shaking hands to pull on her bleached, unruly blonde hair and began to emit strangled, pained noises from her mouth. Those furious fingers with nails that had once been immaculately manicured scratched through her rats-nest hair, hair that at one point been fastidiously brushed, conditioned, and smooth.

At one point in the past, most things about this young woman had once been the idealistic pride and pinnacle of lush youth. Her skin had been meticulously moisturized to a healthy, rosy glow-- now it was aggressively baked to a patchy amber, cracked and flaky. Her frayed, tight-fitting cargo shorts and yellow-stained baby tee had once been pristine, starched and designer-approved. The torn and ragged cloth wrapped around the top of her head had once been an unblemished lab coat, having been in one piece, unsoiled by labor and merely ceremonial.

All of this, from the top of her ramshackle turban to the soles of her slipshod shoes, had once ben preened and pampered perfection. A creature of comfort, woefully unprepared for the scenario she had been unceremoniously, silently, and slyly delivered to.

Those once manicured nails that were now worn-down nubs ground into her scalp, and served to froth her frenzy. Looking back up with renewed vigor, she glared around with crystal blue eyes bloodshot from windblown silica. Various equipment was scattered around the courtyard that she'd been holed up in for the last three months, hard cases of lab equipment and a few poles of measuring gear were in her immediate reach. Grabbing a pole used for delicate distance data taking, she whipped back to the console.

With a blood-curtling shriek, she brought the pole down hard onto the dulled LED-display, shattering the screen with a crunch and sparking sputter. Lifting the rod again, she brought it down over and over, denting the console into a battered wreck before the pole finally splintered violently in her hands. Throwing the fragment with a grunt at the ruined screen, which rebounded and barely missed her head, she spun back to the rest of her equipment. Beginning with the closest pieces, she began to chuck them around her in random directions, dashing their contents against the surrounding walls of the station. In this she lost herself in the frenzy, all the while babbling incoherently through gritted teeth.

Around the carnage, the cool star shone on, and the quiet empty station went on standing.

Her theater was this silent automated outpost, her stage the dusty courtyard, and her theme was the lonesome wind that whispered through the desolate structure. There were no other travelers around to serve as an audience for her theatrics, no attendants at work, everything running on machine and algorithm. As evidenced by the tall drifts of sand that had accumulated within locked door alcoves, no other soul had been here for a long time.

The sounds of smashing echoed around the single-story outpost, until the last cracking bounced around and drifted away in the wind. Finally, the girl was left standing in a wheel of wrecked equipment, huffing and puffing away the tail end of her rage. With hands still clawed in the grip of emotion, she angrily batted away wisps of hair that had fallen in her face. That simple act of annoyance seemed to snap her out of her apoplexy, and she let her arms fall limply to her side. With chest still heaving from exertion, she slowly straightened. Her head swiveled on her sunburned neck to look about the courtyard in a new light of defeat.

What had been the equipment left for her was now scattered everywhere. Cases that had been her supples were now mostly empty. With sudden bitterness, she remembered earlier nights of excess and uncontrolled waste with her provisions as her empty stomach now protested her recent exertions. Eyes moving over the pitiful excuse of a cobbled shelter, she recalled how cocksure she had been the day of her arrival that someone would meet her here to sweep her away to luxury. In a swoon of despair, she wobbled, then let herself fall backwards. Unceremoniously plopping down onto her rump in the sand, she hugged her knees and began to mewl.

“No, you can't do this to me,” she wailed miserably from between cracked lips that had once relished in strawberry chapstick. “Not me, not like this. They can't do this...”

They. Those at the other end of that console, the other end of that transmission she'd sent. How long had it been again? Behind a response-transmission that had only come in today. A response-transmission that contained a message that might as well have been a death sentence.

'We regret to inform you...'

Her own regret and despair welled inside her, and her scrunched face fell forward to bump into her knees as she began to cry.

Around her, the soft murmuring wind that passed through the station melded with her weeping to form a mournful, fluting harmony. In this way she sat, consoling herself with tears, deflection, and the lullaby of the desert breeze, as the star made its way across the endless sky.

It wasn't long, however, before new sounds came into the empty, whispering station: the windchime clink of thin metal and the gentle grunt of some large animal. At first, still sitting in the sand with her head against her knees and wracked with sobs, the young woman abruptly jerked her head up in a look of pointed distaste, despite the soggy eyes.

Around the bend of the structure ambled into view a pack of what at first seemed like a mobile, slow-moving rock slide. Spherical, bubbly looking things jostled and bumbled into the courtyard at the pace of an old man with a cane. They were not rocks at all, in fact they would be offended to be called so. To the unfamiliar, the creatures were a kind of three-foot tall blend between Earth pill bugs and rock lobsters, with smooth, iridescent lapis lazuli shells, an array of bristling anntenae, and inquistive eye stalks. Perhaps oddest of all were their humble qualities of civilization: some of them hobbled with short staffs and others carried curious little pouches. Despite their crustacean-like nature, they stood upright and brought with them a plethora of tackle and accoutrements. There were five of them, but behind lumbered a massive creature, comparable to them in appearance but approaching the size of an old Earth sedan. The clatter of metal came from all the eclectic bits and bobs tied with hempen rope about its carapace, like a thrifty bazaar on a great scuttling beast.

To any other human fresh out of the Sol system, this sight may have been awe-inspiring, perhaps even unsettling. For the young woman, however, it was nothing of the sort. Upon seeing the arrival of the chitinous cadre, she had the opposite reaction: all sign of woe or despair evaporated as she aggressively jumped to her feet. Though her heavily-freckled cheeks remained tear-stained with sodden trails down the thick coat of dust on her face, her eyes opened wide in anger and her mouth curled in a grimace.

“No!” She yelled as she pointed at them. “I keep telling you, no! Get away from me!”

Despite her seemingly sudden and unprovoked attempt at intimidation, the creatures perked up when they saw her, then immediately hurried towards her in their waddling gait.

“Goddamn it I said no, NO!” She stamped her feet ineffectually in the sand and waved her arms in a shooing motion. “For the thousandth time I don't want to buy your trash. Scram!”

They either did not hear her, did not understand, nor care, as the spherical desert lobsters crowded around her and jabbered on in a curious burbling. Collectively they shoved various things up at her in their little claws, things that appeared to be small bundles of cloth, clay earthenware, and fist-sized jugs. If the girl was disturbed by their appearance or thrifty assault, she didn't show it. Rather, she had the air of a long-time suffering: all that exuded from her was wrath and annoyance.

“Stop it, damn it!” She batted their proffered items away, which they simply reoffered up to her on the rebound. “I don't want your dirty old stuff! I want OUT of this hell hole, don't you understand?! Shit! Go away, stop!”

Like a pestered adventure seeker breaking from a swarm of biting flies, she finally broke and tried to run away from them around the courtyard, but the hopalongs followed her in a bumbling ragtag jumble of antennae and glinting shells. As she bellowed in frustration and the critters burbled in pursuit, lost in their noise was a distant rumble of thunder from far away. It was a sudden but singular rumble, odd as it was in that cloudless, dusty-blue sky. Without the slightest hint of rain, the sound rolled on, scattering to the far barren horizon.

Far above, a dark point appeared in the blue, and began to enlarge. Soon, the point grew into an indistinct shape, then an angular form. A few miles out from the station, the form coalesced into an approaching starship. It was a crude looking vessel, a long boxy hexagon, of patchwork quality and glaring replacements. As it drew closer, the thrumming of its repulsor drive knocked unevenly and one of the emitter vanes that protruded out its bottom stuttered in blue light. By the time it nosed up over the outpost, hovered briefly and began its descent, the girl had finally ran from the structure into the bare desert. Behind her not too far behind was the hallabalooing crustaceans waving their wares.

“Just leave me alone!” The girl was crying exasperatedly at the top of her lungs, the ad-hoc turban whipping off her head in a seemingly out-of-nowhere wind squall. “For the love of God I WANT, TO, BE, LEFT, ALONE.” She had been yelling before the strong gust pummeled her with sand, the especially gritty gust slapping into her face and sending her into coughing fits.

“Actphthph--” she sputtered and held her arms in front of her face, her hair and clothes roiling about her, before she finally tripped and stumbled face-first into the dunes. “Fuck! Where did all this wind come from--” she had tried to holler as she lifed her head up, but froze in shock.

Not quite 25 yards ahead of her, the starship was slowly settling down onto the desert wastes, great gusts of sand blowing away from its emitter vanes. Before her eyes, the whirlwind cleared away material from the ground, exposing supports and grindwork embedded there, and metal cylinders and machinery rose to connect into the ship through jets of vapor. As the whine of the repulsor drive wound down and the weight of the ship pressed down on its landing gear into the sand, it finally settled into a quiet peace. Her prolonged isolation from the galaxy outside made the average freighter of 75 yards in length seem larger than it really was.

Still lying prone in the drift, gawking slack-jawed at the ship, the girl completely forgot about her pursuers until four crabby faces with quivering mandibles appeared to shove things under her nose.

“Stop it! Get-- cut it out!” She swiped at their things ineffectually. “Fucking shit! Beat it!”

Preoccupied with the pestering pill-crabs again, it took her a moment to notice when further vents hissed in the lower hull of the vessel and a ramp lowered out the side. No sooner had the bottom of the ramp pressed into the dust did she leap up, bowling over the spherical critters and running over to her perceived salvation.

“Oh thank GOD,” the sound of her relief was palpable, “Hey, hey! Can you get me out of this shithole--”

Before she could finish her sentence, her voice cut as her eyes widened and she skidded to a halt in the sand. Down the ramp came unshod feet with four digits each, connected to short, stout legs. Attached to these, in a set of rough brown leather knee-length trousers and vest, was a broad torso supporting two pairs of arms: a child-small mid pair and a more 'traditional' upper pair, heavily muscled and long. Multiple limbs was a place to start, perhaps, but the most startling of all was what awaited her sight set on top of wide shoulders: a square jaw, wide and stuck proud like an antique Earth steam shovel. Peering out over blunt, stone-like tusks were deep set yellow eyes, underneath equally rocky brows. As it reached the bottom of the ramp, in a simian-like gait that saw it favor its upper arms occasionally for balance, it revealed a row of quills descending down its back. Where familiarity would assume hair should be, it appeared these quills took their place, with a crown of them atop the head and racing along the spine. As if to accentuate the stony tusks about its jaw, all of this was punctuated by an earthy, slate-grey skin color.

The strange stranger paused when their bare feet first padded into the sand, and they returned the girl's stare. Those deep yellow eyes revealed sharp black pupils, and they blinked disinterestedly.

Perhaps meeting another person of such a different world would spur some people to be stunned, shocked, impressed, or at a lack of words. Perhaps most would, but this young woman was not.

“Damn!” She pointed as she shouted, “you're fuckin' ugly!”

An awkward silence fell on the scene, even the crabfolk pausing to glance between the two taller beings. The askance bob of their eyestalks suggested they could pick up on the faux pas. Yet, the tension passed easy as the breeze when the stranger simply blinked again, snorted gruffly through wide nostrils, then proceeded without comment towards the station.

The human was less observant. “Hey, I'm Agatha. Agatha Carol,” she said matter-of-factly, placing a proud hand on her chest despite the yellow-stained fabric. “You've probably heard of me, or at least my family. Senator Aitor Carol? Yeah. That guy. Give me a lift and I'll--”

Without any sign to register they heard (or cared), the alien walked on past her.

The four crabfolk beside her watched on, glanced up in unison at the girl one more time, then waddled on and began babbling their excited greetings at the newcomer instead.

Left standing dumb, watching the crabfolk leave, she realized she was alone and quite disregarded. “Hey, wait a minute! Wait!” She yelled and ran to catch up.

The odd little band was found again in the courtyard, where the quilled alien was closely followed by the little ones, who crowded about their waist and offered up their trinkets. These the newcomer freely accepted from them, exchanging with them items from their own vest and trouser pockets. Eagerly taking them in their little claws, the crabfolk chittered estatically.

Around them, where the fifth shelled alien dozed with the beast of burden, the girl's ruined campsite was plain for all to see. As she ran into the enclosed space in pursuit0, the one self-proclaimed as Agatha saw the newcomer pause in the midst of their gift exchange to look over the wanton destruction. It paused to turn one judgemental yellow eye at her over a grey shoulder, then turned back in an attempt to wade through the crustacean-tide.

“What?” She caught the look. “What was that for?” Her tone was prickly but quickly changed to a saccharine one. “I mean-- hi there! So nice to meet you, what's your name?”

Waist deep in bubbling crabs bumping at their elbows, the newcomer opened a panel on the station wall, throwing some breakers and pressing some switches they found inside. After a whirr and humming began from unseen machinery through the structure and beneath them, the stranger turned around to regard the girl and began to growl strange, alien sounds.

The girl jumped when she heard them, rough and gutteral as they were. They sounded like the sharp rush of loose stones down a hillside or the crunch of gravel under a boot. After a spike of alarm and discomfort, Agatha figured the thing was trying to converse.

“What? I don't know what you're saying. Can't you speak English?” She demanded with fists on her hips.

The newcomer paused mid-sentence, steam-shovel jaw almost seeming to drop in disbelief, before they recovered and settled into weary patience. They regarded the human silently for a moment or two, before lifting their jutting chin up and to the left in order to expose their neck. There, they pointed to a spot that seemed glaringly out of place upon their grey skin: a thin silvery disk like a lone fish scale.

Agatha blinked dumbly. “I don't get it. Does this mean you don't know how?”

Further gravelly barking made her jump again as the alien threw annoyed words and gestures in her direction. It used their left-side hands to indicate the wreckage strewn about her, and with a right hand withdrew an item from a vest pocket. It looked like a small crystal case, and it held it up for her to see.

She recognized it now: Among her kind it was known to contain something called 'Babbledots,' or what was the silver chip the alien displayed on its neck. Wonderous technology that allowed all beings to understand each other, regardless of species or upbringing. Out here in the galaxy, it was required accessory. The corporation supplied her one before she was dumped out here, as was all humans that traveled beyond the Sol System. Hers was here, somewhere, scattered with the rest of her kit.

“Yeah, right. Look, can't you just talk for me instead?”

The stranger gave her a last scathing look with sharp yellow eyes down its rostrum before turning back to the crabfolk. They spoke some more to them in their gravelly way, then began to leave the station.

Agatha had maintained her hands-on-hips pose until she realized the group was leaving. “Okay okay! I get it! I'll try to find it!” She hastily declared before running to rummage through the scattered stuff, eventually pulling her case out of a ripped duffle bag. Applying the curious, self-adhering scale to her neck, she tried her luck again. “Okay, there, happy now? Can you give me a lift?”

Patiently, the stranger had stopped to wait. Once the Babbledot was on the girl's neck and she asked her next question, they tilted their jaw in a maliciously lopsided bearing of teeth, then spoke perfect English.

“Nope. I might be 'ugly,' but I'll be sitting pretty and comfortable in my ship while I leave your mangy-ass behind.”

The transition had been instantaneous. No longer was the voice a slip down a rocky slope or a crunch of stone underfoot. It had become, to her ears, a gravelly but perfectly understandable masculine intellect, as if spoken by a typical denizen of Earth.

Experiencing the seemingly miraculous and incomprehensibly seamless transition of the Babbledot's translation for the first time had historically sent a wide array of reactions throughout the galactic populace. Some are struck with rapturous awe, ferverent zealotry, or maniacal glee. Others with fear, denial, or irrational reprisal. For this one human girl, she placed more importance on the content and meaning of the words.

Staring dumbfounded for only a moment, it quickly passed and her face flushed and bent in insult. "H-how DARE you!" She sputtered. "You... you-- thing. Don't you know who I am? Who my father is? I can have you absoluely ruined!"

The newcomer proved they could smirk despite the cumbersome-looking jaw. He looked her up and down derisively then snorted in contempt. “I doubt that. Going by this disaster of a camp and your... dishevel," he waved a dismissive grey hand at her, "clearly the ruined one is you."

With that, he once again turned and left the station.

Agatha's own jaw dropped open and her eyes bulged. She began attempting to make words but all that came out was a jumble of "wh-, how-, wha-, whe-, I'll-."

Between them, the crabfolk had watched in silence. As the stranger left, they quietly turned to regard the human one last time before gathering up their pack beast and hurried to catch up to the departing alien.

Once again the lonely silence returned and the wind could be heard in the courtyard, whistling around the eaves and empty doorways. After a few abortive attempts, Agatha found her voice. "Hey. Hey!" She finally managed to spit out. "I'm not finished with you! Where do you think you are going? Get back here!"

No one heeded her. It dawned on her then that the state had returned to the beginning, that she was alone inside the desolate, windblown courtyard. Just as she wanted it, so soon before. Now, however, within a maelstom of fury she had turned that isolation into a grim reminder. The wreckage that had been her camp was strewn about, having an appearance of finality and utter end. Empty crates, exhausted supply, parched existence, and shattered hope.

A trickle of sweat ran rown her dusty forehead and stung into her eye.

"Wait!" She nearly shrieked. "Wait, don't leave me here!"

In near broken panic and terror, suddenly and irrationally as if her immediate life depended on it, she ran after the aliens. Following them out into the bright mid-day starlight, half bedazzled and with a sob on her lips, she jerked her head around frantically. The party she had been looking for was only a few yards away, who were currently walking in the opposite direction of the starship into the bare, empty desert.

Agatha was dazzled, dehydrated, and dazed. "Wait!" She cried again hoarsely, before stumbling after them. When she had caught up she nearly pleaded. "You can't leave me. Please don't leave me alone again, please!"

"I'm not doing anything for you," the quilled alien said over his shoulder as he continued trudging over the sand.

Tripping and falling to her knees in the white dunes, the girl's eyes went wide and gaunt as she stared at his back. "Wh-what will I do? I have nothing left. They barely gave me anything, and now it's all gone. You can't do this to me, I'll--" Her throat caught as she tried to swallow with a dry throat. "I'll die."

"You can do whatever you want," he called back. "You can return to your sty or go where I'm going, I don't care."

There she knelt on all fours for a moment, dumbstruck, before she put two-and-two together and immediately seized onto the hope like a drowning man. Scrambling to her feet, her face twisted in relief.

"I have regrets."
A few helmeted heads rose around the troop bay of the Alliance dropship, but most of the soldiers ignored the bored-sounding statement. One of them that rose belonged to Specialized Assault 4th Class Pavel, who smiled behind his helmet's visor and shook his head. The other one, however, belonged to SA/4 Meera, and hers tore upwards in a baleful glare.
"Seriously?"
The scathing incredulity was directed at the original speaker, but if the man had heard, he pretended not to. He merely rubbed an armored chin with a gloved hand and did his best contemplative headtilt. "When I think about it, what would the Alliance really have done if I turned down the offer? Eat m--"
"I will do it for them and claim your Squad Leader role," Meera growled.
The man was indeed this team's Designated Squad Leader. The patch was emblazoned on the left breast of his chest plate next to his servant title: DSL/SA/4 Dean. He had the full capacity to submit her name for full corrective action under Alliance armed jurisdiction, but he raised his two open gloves disarmingly instead. "Alright, alright! Geez, tough crowd."
" 'Tough crowd' my ass. You pull the same lousy shit every drop."
"It's lighthearted commentary on the grim situation of a soldier. Morality and life, yadda yadda something."
"It's annoying is what it is, and I'm sick and tired of it."
Pavel laughed as the two bickered. Dean really had made the same lighthearted commentary every time, and it drove Meera up the troop bay wall. Despite the nature of the subject, the possibility that Dean wasn't really joking, and the oftentimes bloody carnage that awaited them, Pavel had come to enjoy the relatable moment of comparative peace. The individual next to him, however, did not.
"I'm sick and tired of both of you," a strange, deep voice groaned. "If anyone here has regrets, it's me."
They all turned to regard the speaker, who wore a suit of armor slightly larger overall than theirs and who gripped their seat harness tightly with thick, gauntleted paws. From out of a wide visor peered a feline-esque face covered in a downy, lavender fur. The face appeared to be quite nauseous.
"Aw, you love us," Dean crooned sweetly.
"I love you like a bout of rha'gre."
Group laughter helped break the tension further, though Pavel suspected the dry wit of the Cwaidian held a percentage of honesty. While comparing the humans to a particularly virulent skin condition that plagued his kind was (probably) in jest, his regrets were most likely not. Being the only formalized human squad in the Alliance military servitude meant when Dean's group needed reinforcements, they had to pull from non-human stock. After Montgomery bought the farm back on Dandees IV, the Cwaidian was forced into the human-shaped hole. He had been complaining about it ever since.
"We'll get you to lighten up one of these days, Ahrah. You'll see."
"Says the human who begins every mission making the same regret joke."
"I'm tired of all of you, and I've only known you for a cycle-hour," the pilot interrupted over the intercom. "Get ready for insertion, ETA five cycle-minutes."
With that single message, the entire demeanor of the troop bay changed. All present looked to Dean, who seamlessly transitioned from jest to deadly serious. "You heard the lady," the DSL's voice had gone flat and firm. "We have our orders, and we'll get them done. Simple as, isn't that right?"
"Ooh-rah," the team responded as one, anything except smooth professionalism now gone. Even the Cwaidian's motion sickness seemed to have disappeared, and he took part in the human custom that he had long adopted himself into.
Muscle memory flowed through them, as drilled procedure filled the troop bay with the sounds of chafing metal and snapping brackets. Armored assault troops disengaged rifles from slots by their seats, checked charge reserves, and yanked arming handles. Outside, the final approach of the dropship was felt as the forces on the bay increased from fast landing maneuvers. The squad had braced themselves when they felt the vessel tilt nose-up, and their harnesses then disengaged with a quick whip. A lit red light above the rear hatch changed to green, a single buzzing alarm went off, then the hatch fell outwards into the startling daylight. Visors polarized, photosensitive sensors in armor adapted camoflauge colors, and then the group rolled down the hatch in a running crouch.
Hustling out into the whirling dust of the dropship's steady repulsor drives, the outer members of the squad knelt to the sides and trained their rifles around the clearing while inner members ran towards the edge of the closest dense vegetation. With no apparent opposition met and nothing on their passive sensors, the whole team moved into the thick foliage and the dropship lifted off to scoot low back over the trees.
What could be considered 'trees' here were of a curious feather duster quality, with thin wispy vertical blades as their high arbors, and were of a toasted shade of yellow. In fact, most things on this planet were of a similar shade ranging from dandelion to ochre. This had been reflected in the squad's photo-adaptive armor, which had changed themselves to an appropriate camoflauge color. Warily crouched within the once-again quiet feathery shade of the alien forest, Dean was first to speak over their helmet intercom system.
"Short wave talk only from here on out," he commanded in hushed tones. "Pavel and Meera, you're on point. Ahrah in back. Let's move."
After another half-cycle-hour of moving as silently as possible through the yellow forest, they were kneeling a few yards from another clearing in the golden canopy. From their position, they could see the first few structures of their target beyond. So far, they had seen or heard no signs of life except for the gentle twittering of unseen native wildlife far up in the trees.
Despite the encryption on their short wave, Dean was taking no chances. With finger cues, he directed teammates in directions around the campground. 'Around the perimeter. Stay low. Silent. No engagement unless engaged. You three, roll left. You two, roll right. If targets, hold fire. Coordinate later with pings. Move out!'
They had begun to move accordingly to plan when everything abruptly changed. No sooner had they reached near the very end of the treeline and began to fan out then did Dean break his own order by speaking over the short wave. "Change of plans. Stay where you are. Instead, give me some guesses at what I'm looking at here."
Pavel cocked his helmet when he heard the sudden change, but understood what Dean meant as soon as he was able to see into the compound himself.
The clearing where the dropship had delivered them was absent of trees but was vibrant all the same: short yellow grasses, orange mosses, a few things that looked like rosey toad stools, and unique tan soil. One expected the clearing where the compound was cut out of the forest to be as equally vibrant, or at least something akin to the biome.
It distinctly was not.
The compound was a large, clear cut area with about five, squat prefabricated buildings, obviously brought in by ship-drop. What made the place so strange was that it was devoid of color: everything was an absolute, eye-jarring grey. Everything. From an unnatural line just beyond the inner perimeter of the place, the inside of the zone looked like it had been drained of color, from the buildings, few empty vehicles, and the very ground it all stood on. From their range, not a single point of color could be seen to exist.
Pavel blinked his eyes repeatedly, as if trying to clear a disruption in his own vision. He resisted the urge to raise his visor, and checked his system status: all of his equipment, biological or otherwise, was working as intended.
"What the absolute fuck?" Meera summed up her thoughts over the intercom.