- Xark'ion -

He checked that all the systems were working before he would have the shuttle fly any higher. He knew how to fly the craft, but it was much too complicated a device for him to trust completely.

He felt Ava's eyes on him, and he enjoyed the sensation. Just being close to her made him feel different than ever before. Despite the obvious lunacy of putting oneself right in the middle of a pack if enemies with no weapon.

“Is that a rhetorical question?”Ava said. “No, I don't think that makes you evil. It just makes you better able to influence the evil party to change their ways.”

“More philosophical than rhetorical, perhaps,” Xark'ion mused as the shuttle shot up from the surface. “Being friends must mean that you support them.”

“You can support some things about a friend and disapprove of other things. Friendships can be complicated. Even between non-evil people.”

“Diplomacy is difficult,” Xark'ion sighed. “War appears so much easier to understand. Certainly for a simple warrior like me. Aliens attack us, we fight back and attack them until they withdraw and cease being a threat. Then other aliens attack. And so on. Are we good and the enemy evil? So it seems to us. What's that over there? A structure of some kind?”

He pointed to the screen, where there was a green point that seemed to be pulsating.

Ava looked out the window. “Not sure it's a building. Looks more like a huge fire.”

Xark'ion banked the shuttle and settled into a gentle dive. “It's the only major activity we've seen here. Is it perhaps something the diplomat wishes to investigate?”

She gave him a mysterious little smile. “I'd imagine a fire should be just the thing for a Fire Planet Warrior.”

- - -

There wasn't much left on the planet that could be burned, and as he set the shuttle down a small distance away from the blaze, its powerful searchlights showed the smoke as being extremely dark.

“That is not a clean fire,” he said with disgust. “That is not wood being burned. We should be wary of breathing in the fumes here.”

Ava leaned forward in her seat and studied the atmospheric readout. “I think you're right. There's all kinds of unpleasant chemicals in that smoke. I don't think it will kill us, though.”

Xark'ion got to his feet and took a moment to look at Ava from behind as she tightened some straps on her suit.

Her long hair had been gathered in an artful heap on top of her head so it would not be in the way. Her shape was mostly hidden by the seat, and the thick garment hid the rest. But her gentle, precise movements couldn't be hidden, and her fresh scent filled the cabin, sweet and clean. Her femininity was so obvious his mind was spinning, and the contrast between her rough utility suit and the silkiness of her hair and the smoothness of her skin took his breath away.

She had some of the air of the warrior in her, the focus on the task and the need to be prepared. She was so womanly it made him ache, and he had to do his best to suppress the physical reaction he had to being so close to her for so long.

She got up, turned around and froze. “What's wrong, Xark'ion?”

Her lips were so full he couldn't believe a creature like this could exist. Many had wondered about how King Vrax'ton and Captain Cori'ax and Chief Ravex'ton, some of the most revered warriors on Acerex, had been taken in by alien women. Xark'ion didn't wonder about that anymore.

“Nothing is wrong,” he said earnestly. “It's all perfect. I suppose that's my only complaint.”

She frowned at him, and he suddenly remembered that this was an enemy planet and they were here for a purpose. The shorter their stay, the safer she would be.

He looked outside.

“There are very many aliens outside,” he said and slapped his hand to his hip where the hilt of his sword would normally be. Now it only found the fabric of his pants. “And we are not in possession of weapons. I advise against the diplomat leaving the shuttle.”

Ava looked out the window. “I can't talk to them if I don't go out there. They have to see me.”

The fire illuminated the ground in a wide radius, and the mud seemed to be alive with movement. There had to be thousands of Solp here.

“It will be extremely dangerous. If I had my sword in my belt, it would be different. But not much.”

Ava tightened her boots and her alien suit. “It would. They would run as soon as they saw us, and we wouldn't be able to talk to them at all. You had no problem protecting me before. And the danger is less than you think. We'll do this my way, the friendly way. In fact, we'll do something that usually works.”

She rummaged through a box she'd brought along and held up an object that glittered in the light from the alien fire. It looked like a huge crystal or gemstone. “No scavenger alien could resist this. Could you please turn on the searchlight and aim it a little over their heads?”

Xark'ion turned the shuttle's powerful searchlight to full, then slapped the door release.

The hatch opened with a hiss of air. Thousands of eyes on stalks swivelled around.

“I accept that you are in command of this mission. This is against my counsel.”

The air from outside flowed into the shuttle, carrying with it the acrid smoke of a very dirty fire. 

Ava peered out. “You know, you're probably right. But I want to try. If they try to crowd me like before, we'll jump straight back into the shuttle and talk to them with the loudspeakers.”

All the Solp were turning towards the shuttle and raising their eyestalks in a synchronized movement that looked like a wave spreading across a lake. There had to be hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions.

Again Xark'ion reflexively reached for his sword, but his hand found only his own hip. “I recommend we do that now.”

Ava wrapped the crystal in a cloth. “We'll try the direct approach first. I'll try to impress them. You hide like before, and only come to my aid if they're trying something clearly dangerous. What kind of a place do you think this is?”

He took it all in. There were ruins everywhere, and the fire was in the middle of it. There were also a couple of shapes that he recognized here and there.

“I can see some spacecraft. I'd imagine they don't work anymore. This, I'd wager, was a spaceport. Conceivably the fire is a beacon of some kind.”

“You said they sometimes used weapons that they'd found. Do you think they still have shuttles that work?”

“It is imaginable.”

“Well, let's see if we can find someone who'll show us the king.”

Ava jumped down onto the mud.

Xark'ion stared out at the mass of Solp. They were very quiet, and the only sound that could be heard was the soft idling of the shuttle's engines and the crackle and hiss of the huge fire in the distance. He could feel the heat of it on his skin.

Ava used the translator to say something, and his own Earth-made device interpreted the infernal, stone-grinding noises into his ear.

“I am Ava,” she said. “I seek the king of the Solp. I want to show him respect and present him with a precious gift.”

Still the Solp were quiet, just staring with six small, irregular black eyes each.

“I know he's in the citadel,” she continued. “And I need someone to take me there.”

Now a million eyestalks were swivelling, as if all the Solp were looking at each other in disbelief. Still they made no sound.

Xark'ion looked at the huge number of enemies. This was an important place for them. The fire alone was a sign good enough. They might want to defend it, they might react very badly to aliens landing here. His tactical mind fretted and seethed at the immense risk Ava was taking. If just one or two of the Solp attacked her with those long, dirty teeth, they might get to her before he could. His teeth ground together in frustration, and his hands balled up into tight fists. The insanity of this!

“Who will take me to the king of the Solp?” Ava continued. “The king will reward him greatly.”

Now there were sounds coming from the mass of Solp, a rising cacophony of grinding noises that rose in pitch.

Xark'ion couldn't take it anymore. He quietly jumped out of the shuttle and stood three feet behind Ava, ready to grab any alien that would come much closer. They were moving now, stretching their heads and sniffing into the air with their large nostrils.

He had fought the Solp before, and there had always been many of them. But this was different. This was as close to a homeworld as they had. And Xark'ion was here with an unarmed female. With Ava.

He'd fought much worse aliens than these, but even in hard battles he'd never been this tense. He kept spinning his head around, checking for dangers. He itched to take her under one arm and toss her into the shuttle, then take off and get away from the dirty little scavengers.

Now the Solp were no longer quiet. First there was a whisper, like rustling leaves. Then it grew in volume, slowly, but surely.

Ava stood in front of him and was clearly not aware that he was so close to her. One part of him was inexplicably proud – she didn't cower in front of a million enemies. Her back was straight and her posture relaxed.

The grinding noise grew louder. Xark'ion had never heard a worse sound. Millions of coarse, long and brown Solp teeth were grinding together as the aliens talked among themselves and could likely not believe what they were seeing. He thought he could hear anger in it, too. Fury, even.

They were not moving yet, but Xark'ion tensed even more, again slapping his hand uselessly against his hip in search of his sword. Something was about to happen. These aliens were not happy. He wanted to clamp his hands over his ears.

Then Ava held her hand up over her head, right into the blindingly white beam from the shuttle's powerful searchlights.

The terrible alien noise stopped as if cut off with a knife.

“This is the gift I will bring to the king of the Solp,” Ava said into the deep silence. “Who will help me give it to him?”

Even from behind, the huge crystal in her hand glowed like a star and turned the focused searchlight from the shuttle into a myriad of bright little rays that illuminated the scene in front of them like a laser show in all colors of the rainbow. It transformed the landscape and almost made it beautiful. It would have stunned anyone. 

It certainly stunned the Solp. They appeared frozen, staring stiffly at the crystal in Ava's hand. It made her look like a magical being, an otherworldly apparition demanding the attention and worship of the scavenger aliens. And it did look as if she was getting it.

Xark'ion couldn't hold back a tight smile. Even from behind, in her shapeless utility suit, she looked like a creature from the old legends. This idea might be insane, but it certainly had some spectacle to it.

For several heartbeats the only thing that could be heard was the crackle from the huge fire and the idling of the shuttle's engines.

Then there was a small grinding noise from the closest part of the Solp crowd.

“I am the king of the Solp,” the translator said into Xark'ion's ear.

He frowned and stared into the crowd of filthy aliens. One of them was slowly moving towards the front. He couldn't see any difference between that one and the others. A ripple of agitation spread through the brown mass of scavengers.

“Ah,” Ava said. “Then I wish to present-”

“No,” said another alien. “I am the king of the Solp.” There was another movement, a little further away.

Then all hell broke loose.