Birds of Prey - Hetero Edition

Maza filled a wooden bowl and poured it over his shoulders. The water was cool, but it was a pleasant reprieve from the heat and humidity. The rest of the flock were lounging nearby, washing themselves and relaxing in the shimmering pool. The golden rays of the rising sun were just peeking over the horizon, and Jaeger still felt a sense of satisfaction from the night before, not to mention a certain soreness from his overindulgence. Baker was still sleeping off his hangover it seemed, he hadn't moved from the living room carpet yet.

Jaeger felt as if they had all awoken in a new state, as if their relationship had morphed into something new overnight. Now, he felt completely comfortable around the aliens, and he no longer felt that disconnect between Maza and her flock. They were one and the same, inseparable. He finally understood their relationship, and what it meant to belong. In a way, he too had become part of their family. It was a good feeling, romance and friendship blending in a way that they seldom did in human culture.

He watched as Xico and Tacka helped Ayau wash her feathers, combing them with their fingers and rubbing in some kind of shampoo or soap, the foam quickly dispersing and vanishing into the water. It was probably some kind of eco-friendly, non-toxic substance, knowing the Valbarans. This bathing ritual reminded him of a troop of monkeys grooming one another, it was as much for social bonding as it was for actual bathing.

Maza's fingers found their way into his hair, and she massaged some kind of creamy soap into his scalp as he sighed contentedly and slid lower into the water.

"That feels good," he mumbled.

"This stuff is good for feathers, so it's probably good for fur too," she said as she rubbed it in.

"Hair," he corrected.

"If you say so, but it feels like fur to me," she chuckled. "It feels good to get clean, we got a little...messy last night."

"How do you feel about all that?" he asked, hoping that she still felt the same way about him after waking up. They had drunk and smoked a lot prior to their encounter, and he was a little worried that one or more of them might have regretted it after they had sobered up. Coza especially seemed to have completely switched personalities while under the influence.

"Look around you," she said, gesturing to her flock. "What do you see?"

Ayau was warbling happily, her feathers flashing in relaxed green as Tacka rubbed soap into the down on her back, while Xico had opened one of the sheaths on her head and was carefully washing the layers of colorful plumes. Coza was floating peacefully on her back in the water nearby, the system of air sacks that the aliens used to breathe seemed to make them extremely buoyant.

"Everyone looks...happy," he replied, and Maza nodded with a smile on her face.

"Let's just say that we reached a consensus."

Reassured, he lay back and closed his eyes, taking in the ever-present birdsong from the treetops. Before long, however, the peace was shattered by the sound of Baker's voice.

"Jaeger! Jaeger!" he shouted as he stumbled through the undergrowth. "Where the hell are you guys?"

"Over here!" Jaeger called back to him. After a moment, he appeared at the edge of the water

"Fucking trees," he complained as he struggled between two of the fat trunks. The aliens scowled at him as they covered themselves up with the feathers on their forearms, like burlesque performers about to do a fan dance. Jaeger hadn't even considered that Baker might be intruding on their privacy, he was so used to the casual nudity that was a fact of life on the Rorke. Baker wasn't interested in ogling the flock, however. Nor did he seem at all surprised or concerned by the sight of Jaeger lounging naked in a lake with the aliens. He had his phone in his hand, and he looked shaken.

"Two fucking hive ships just jumped into orbit," he said, "we've been called back to the Rorke. We have to get to the spaceport, right now."

"What?" Jaeger asked, rising out of the water.

"Right now Jaeger, get your gear!"

"Alright, I'm coming, I'm coming."

"It's finally happening," Coza whispered, her feathers flashing in fear. Maza called everyone over, and they huddled in the lake, Jaeger already making his way back across the grass towards the dwelling. He rubbed himself down with a towel and pulled on his uniform, throwing a few items into his rucksack as he prepared to leave. The flock seemed to have made up their minds, piling into the living room shortly after him and donning their camouflaged space suits. Maza pulled her communicator out of her pocket as it began to sound an alarm, tapping at the screen for a moment.

"We're coming too," she said, "we'll take one of the landers and follow you up into orbit."

"Got it," Jaeger replied as he slung his pack over his shoulder. "Are you guys ready for this? It's going to be a fucking madhouse up there."

"We've been training for this our whole lives," Coza replied sternly. "Let them come."

"Quiet," Baker said, hushing them as he moved to one of the round windows and crouched to look out at the sky. After a second, Jaeger heard it too, the sound of sonic booms. "Something just entered the atmosphere."

There were a series of tremors, the ground shaking beneath their feet, soon chased by what sounded like far-off explosions.

"Are they shelling?" Jaeger asked, alarmed.

Baker made for the door, opening it and peering up into the air, Jaeger following behind him. He looked up at the blue sky, cloudless save for a few white wisps.

"Look, another salvo," Baker said as he pointed upwards. Jaeger saw them too, a swarm of objects trailing smoke as the flames of reentry licked at them. They were far off, but he could make out their shape, vaguely like a teardrop. They almost looked like giant seeds. As they reached the appropriate altitude, they popped membranous chutes, slowing them enough that the impact wouldn't kill the occupants. They came down hard, shaking the earth and kicking up clouds of debris as they landed in the city.

"No, that's not artillery. Those are fucking drop pods," Baker continued, "they must have gotten them past the orbital defenses."

"Fuck," Jaeger hissed. The stakes had just been raised, those drop pods would soon disgorge an army of Betelgeusian Drones, and maybe some Warriors too. Good job the mag-lev line could get them to the spaceport in a matter of minutes. "Come on, there's no time to waste, they just brought the fight to us."

"Wait," Coza said, the two humans looking back at her as she walked over to the curved wall. She hit some kind of pressure plate with her fist, and then a hidden panel slid back, exposing what looked like a gun rack. It was stocked with blocky Valbaran laser weapons. Coza looked as determined as Jaeger had ever seen her, selecting a rifle from the rack and tossing it to Tacka, who checked the battery on it with practiced speed and precision.

The other aliens geared up, holstering pistols on the belts of their jumpsuits and shouldering rifles. Maza tossed a pistol to Jaeger, and then one to Baker, there were only enough rifles for the five flockmates. Jaeger examined the weapon, it looked like a flashlight with a pistol grip. It was tiny, but fortunately, Valbaran fingers were proportionally thicker than those of humans. He could just about get his index finger through the trigger without accidentally pulling it.

"Squeeze the trigger for a quick pulse," Maza explained, "hold it for a concentrated beam. These aren't like your railguns, you have to hold the beam on the target for maximum damage. There's a safety on the left side, there, you got it."

The aliens closed their opaque helmets, taking on the appearance that they had when Jaeger had first seen them descend from their lander back on the Rorke. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. He watched as Coza slipped what appeared to be brass knuckles over her hands, the two rings that went over her fingers adorned with dull points that almost looked like the window spikes that you'd use to break a car windshield.

"What are those for?" Baker asked.

"Traditionally, Valbarans fight with bladed weapons," she explained. "But they can't cut through a Bug's shell. These babies will crack a Drone's carapace like a Gue'tra egg. I've been ready for this."

"I can see that," Baker added. "Alright, let's get to the mag-lev train."

***

They arrived at the escalator that led up to the track, the party rushing up the steps and onto the platform, Tacka tapping at the touch panel that would call the train. Jaeger watched the skies warily, shielding his eyes against the sunrise. The drop pods were coming down all over the city, plumes of smoke rising from the impact sites. The large defense towers that were spaced around the circumference of the city were firing their massive laser batteries at the incoming objects. It made the sky look like a rave, lines of glittering, green light impaling some of the pods and making them burst into flames or sending them wildly off-course. It wasn't enough, however. They couldn't shoot them all down.

He couldn't make out anything in space, the battle must not have reached low orbit yet. He was used to hearing the crack of XMRs, but if there was a firefight happening deeper inside Yilgarn, the noise from the lasers and plasma weapons wasn't reaching them out in the suburbs.

"Damn it, the track is damaged," Tacka announced with a flash of angry red colors from the LCD panels on her suit. "We'll have to proceed on foot, at least until we can find another station that lies beyond the broken rail."

"A pod must have come down somewhere along the track," Baker said, cursing under his breath. "We can't do any good down here, we have to get to our Beewolfs, the real fight is happening in orbit."

"Then we'll have to hoof it," Jaeger confirmed. "It's only a few miles, we've run further than that in P.T, but how will the Valbarans keep up?"

The flock exchanged glances, then huddled again, the humans waiting as they formulated a new plan.

"We'll take the scooters," Maza added as she gestured to the rack beside the station, slinging her rifle across her back. "It looks like the pods are mostly coming down in the city, if we go around, then we can probably avoid the worst of the fighting."

Coza looked surly, she obviously wanted a piece of the Bugs, but she had likely been overruled.

"Alright," Jaeger conceded. "You know the terrain better than we do, so lead on."

***

They raced down the winding footpaths, weaving between the hills and patches of woodland on their scooters. Jaeger felt ridiculous, but it was indeed a faster option than walking, and he was gradually getting the hang of the two-wheeled vehicle as he steered it along.

There were no pedestrians in sight, no Valbarans were coming out of their domed houses to gawk at the sky in fear and disbelief. It was deserted, a ghost town.

"Where is everybody?" Jaeger asked, raising his voice over the rushing wind. The scooters didn't go very fast, no more than fifteen miles per hour, but was enough to make it harder to hear one another.

"They're hiding in their shelters," Xico explained.

"Shelters?"

"We've been preparing for this day for twenty rotations," she continued, "every building in Yilgarn has an underground shelter to protect the occupants."

"You realize that Bugs burrow," Baker added, "those shelters won't keep them safe forever."

"No, but it will protect them from being killed by bombardment during the initial invasion. It's our job to make sure that the invasion never progresses beyond that stage."

The rolling hills and the carefully placed trees might have been aesthetically pleasing, but they were breaking up Jaeger's line of sight now, he couldn't see more than a couple of hundred feet in any direction. There could be a whole platoon of Drones right around the corner, and they wouldn't know it until they ran straight into them.

"Heads up!" Baker yelled, and Jaeger looked to the sky. There was a pod heading straight for them, trailing black smoke as its armored hull cooled. He couldn't tell exactly where it was going to land, but it had to be nearby. The teardrop-shaped mass of metal and chitin released its chute, lurching as the membranous flaps caught the wind and began to slow its descent. It vanished behind the trees a short distance away, the ground trembling as it kicked up a cloud of dirt and debris.

"Get down!" Jaeger shouted, leaping from his scooter and lying prone on the grass as he covered his head. Baker and the flock did likewise, and shortly afterwards, a shower of soil and small rocks rained down on them.

"It landed nearby," Ayau said, "we must formulate a new plan!"

"No time for that," Jaeger replied, "follow me."

He led them over the hill, his laser pistol in hand as he peeked over the rise, keeping out of view. The pod was much larger up close, it was about the size of a semi-trailer. Just like all of the Bug biotech, it appeared to be made from a combination of organic and synthetic armor. The flesh that held it all together was uneven and rough, like someone had sculpted it from off-green putty and then had left it to harden. It had cratered deep into the ground, the trees around it were snapped, and there was fresh earth everywhere. The armored hull of the pod was still hot enough that he could feel it on his face, even from a distance.

As he watched, hatches on the sides popped open, as if the pod was ejecting sections of its carapace. The pieces of armor landed heavily nearby, digging furrows in the turf. From the holes poured Betelgeusian Drones, like insects burrowing out of an open wound, their shiny shells catching the light in iridescent hues that Jaeger might have described as beautiful under different circumstances.

They stood about five feet tall if one included the pronged horns that sprouted from their heads, insectoid in appearance, with two legs and four jointed arms that held shields and weapons. They had two large, compound eyes that seemed to glow a subtle green, the mandibles that served as their mouths clacking and chattering as they dropped to the grass. Jaeger knew enough about them to know that those were helmets that they were wearing, and that much of their jewel-like shell was actually synthetic body armor designed to complement and reinforce their natural defenses.

No two were the same. They came in a rainbow of colors, reds and oranges, shades of blue and green. Their ornate horns too were subtly different from one individual to another, perhaps serving as a way to tell them apart. Despite all of their chittering and clicking, the Bugs didn't speak, they communicated only through pheromones and chemical signatures. They even wrote in smells, by smearing the pheromones on objects and surfaces.

Jaeger watched as a dozen of them emerged from the pod, the insects checking their weapons. They wielded plasma pistols sculpted from some kind of orange resin, as well as handheld energy shields that could be ignited to create a barrier of magnetically-contained plasma. More sinister were the ceremonial daggers sheathed in recesses on their thighs, which they would bring out in close quarters and use to shred the opposition with all the mercy of a praying mantis eating an aphid.

The Bugs popped their shields, flaring brightly as the plasma that the wrist-mounted devices projected took an oval shape, then they began to move inwards towards the city.

"They must have been knocked off course by something," Baker muttered. "Let them pass us by."

"There are hundreds of homes between them and the city," Maza hissed as she grabbed his wrist to get his attention. "We can't let them go!"

"I count thirteen Bugs," Baker whispered, "and there are only seven of us."

"But we have the element of surprise," Coza added. Baker looked to Jaeger, who nodded in agreement.

"Alright," Jaeger said, "but I'm making the plan this time. Form a firing line on the hill, we have some elevation on them, let's just hope that these laser guns do their job."

"Oh, they'll do their job," Xico said. "These things will cook a Bug inside its shell."

"Steamed lobster," Baker chuckled. "Shame we didn't bring any butter with us."

"More like microwaved lobster," she replied, "whatever a lobster is."

"On my count," Jaeger ordered as he raised his pistol. "Three, two, one..."

They scrambled up the grassy hill in unison, the humans taking aim with their pistols and the Valbarans lying prone with their blocky rifles. Besides for an electrical whir, the weapons were completely silent, and as Jaeger pulled the trigger of his handgun, he noted that there was no recoil either. He was used to firing a projectile of some sort, but these weapons fired a nigh-invisible beam of light that had to be held on the target to inflict maximum damage.

Immediately, the Bugs that the flock were aiming at lurched as the beams hit them, wisps of smoke pouring from the impact points like they were action figures being melted under the lens of a magnifying glass. Three dropped to the floor before the rest were even aware that they were being attacked, twitching and screeching as the heat cooked them from the inside out. The rest turned, scurrying to take cover behind nearby trees and holding up their shields to protect themselves. The Valbarans shot through the barriers of shifting plasma, and while the shields couldn't stop the beam outright, they did refract the light enough that it seemed to make the lasers ineffectual.

Two more Bugs dropped with smoking holes in their carapaces, and then the insects began to return fire. Bolts of green plasma flew at the hill, bursting into flames where they impacted the grass and searing the tree trunks, the party scattering.

The Valbarans were remarkably coordinated, they must have trained for this extensively, they had a plan for every scenario. The LCD panels on their suits were flashing signals, coordinating as two of them began to flank while the other three laid down suppressing fire. They pulsed their weapons, igniting bark, and burning exposed body parts.

Jaeger and Baker went left, sliding down the hill and moving towards the wreck of the drop pod. Jaeger managed to get a hit on one of the drones, these laser weapons were pinpoint accurate, the Bug screeching and lowering its shield as it clawed at one of its compound eyes. He must have blinded it. Both he and Baker seized the opportunity to roast it, the creature seizing as they melted its organs through its armor. Aiming might be easy, but holding the weapon on a precise point while the target was moving was actually very difficult.

Now the numbers had been evened out, and the Bugs quickly found themselves surrounded. One popped out of cover to fire at the hill with its plasma pistol, narrowly missing one of the prone Valbarans, and she returned fire with her laser rifle. The Bug's head slagged and caved in on itself as she kept the beam trained on it, a shimmering green line from Jaeger's vantage point. It wasn't killed outright, the aliens were notorious for surviving headshots, as their brains extended into their torsos. The Drone crumpled to the ground as it cooked, its limbs waving, crippled by the laser. She kept the beam focused on it until it lay still, the smell of burning meat reaching Jaeger's nose.

Wishing that he had a good old XMR, he took refuge behind the pod. Black smoke still billowed from it, and the metal panels on its hull glowed a dull orange from the heat of reentry. He popped in and out of cover, as did Baker, the humans harassing the Bugs as best they could.

Two more went down, then a third, leaving only three of them left by Baker's count. Coza suddenly broke ranks, slinging her rifle across her back. She closed the distance like a speeding cheetah, skidding to a halt in the midst of the invaders before they had even had time to turn their weapons on her. It was like watching video footage being played back at double speed, Coza tearing into the nearest Bug with practiced precision, harrying it with a flurry of blows to its chest and face. The brass knuckles that she wore worked exactly as described, the drone's tough, ruby-red shell cracking and fracturing where her punches landed. It was like something out of a martial arts movie, the Bug stumbling backwards as she advanced on it, fragments of shell falling to the ground as the cracking sound took on a distinctly wetter quality.