"We're on the move," Avery whispered into his mic. "So far so good."
At the top of the stairs, a flagstone path cut east through a grove of flowering cherry and pear trees. The trees had been in bloom for weeks, and their blossoms had begun to fall onto the path's rough-cut stones. As the aliens lumbered along the pink-and-yellow petals clung to their broad bare feet, creating wider holes in an already patchy carpet. Unfortunately, the petals' scent of sweet decay did little to mask the aliens' musky smell. The powerful odor set Avery's nerves on edge, and he wondered what the ARGUS units would make of it.
Halfway to another staircase leading up to the greenhouse, the path widened to accommodate a ground-level, rectangular fountain. Its jets were on an automatic timer and had yet to activate. For now, the shallow water was still, and as Avery steered the party along the fountain's southern edge, he saw the second alien dropship—still swinging a wide loop above the trees—reflected in the clear, cold water. The dropship was moving more slowly now, and Avery had a hard time differentiating its motive whine from the river's churn.
Mounting the second staircase, Avery saw both platoons' bravo squads arranged in staggered lines before the greenhouse. Between them and the staircase—in the middle of the upper tier's lawn—was a wide oak table covered by a crisp white cloth and topped with a generous basket of fruit. Avery took a few steps toward the table then turned toward the aliens, palms raised in a halting pose. But the armored brutes had already come to a stop. All three were staring at the greenhouse's gabled entrance, where humanity's delegation had just emerged: Thune, Pedersen, Ponder, and al-Cygni with Staff Sergeant Byrne taking up the rear.
Pedersen wore his usual gray linen suit, while the Governor sported a yellow-on-white variation of the seersucker he'd worn for the solstice celebration. As usual, the Governor's bulk strained at his suit's seams, making him look more like the gentrified farmer he was than the powerful politician he hoped the aliens would perceive. But despite the fabric's pinch, Thune strode forward—chest puffed and shoulders back—at a pace that implied he was no more intimidated by the armored trio than a group of Harvest's parliamentarians.
The Captain and the Lt. Commander both wore dress uniforms and caps, he Marine Corps navy blue and she full-dress white. In an effort to help the aliens differentiate gender, alCygni had opted for a knee-length skirt. Like Avery, Byrne wore battle-dress fatigues and the same grim stare of altered expectations: These aren't the enemies we expected. The tall Irishman's blue eyes flicked back and forth beneath his duty cap's brim as he hastened to assess the aliens' arms and armor.
"Thank you, Staff Sergeant," Thune said. "I'll take it from here."
"Yes, sir." Avery turned on his heels and stepped to the front of the table, where he met Jilan. Byrne took the northwest corner, flanking Ponder. Pedersen stepped in between Thune and the table, a large COM tablet tucked under his arm.
"Welcome to Harvest!" Thune beamed. "I am its leader." He tapped his chest. "Thune."
The gold-armored alien huffed. But it made no indication if that was its species, rank, or name—or perhaps it simply wanted the Governor to get on with his unintelligible introduction.
Despite the language barrier, al-Cygni had thought it wise to at least attempt verbal communication, if only to get some of the aliens' speech on record for later analysis. Thune had insisted he do all the talking, and while the Lt. Commander hadn't disagreed, she had taken pains to clarify that brevity was key—that the worst thing Thune could do was frustrate the aliens by talking too much.
The Governor waited, giving the leader a chance to make some opening remarks of its own.
But it said nothing. Thune was about to launch into an extended introduction when alCygni coughed. Avery knew it had become as clear to Jilan as it was to him that the aliens weren't long on patience. While the gold-armored one had had the discipline to stay focused on Thune as he spoke, its fur had begun to bristle. And Avery couldn't be sure, but the shorter of the escorts seemed to have gotten a lot more pungent.
Thune shot al-Cygni an annoyed glance, but he motioned Pedersen forward. The Attorney General pulled the COM tablet from under his arm and held it out to the aliens. A moment later, an orchestral version of Harvest's anthem warbled from the tablet's speakers and a video presentation filled its screen. Avery had seen the presentation the night before; a variation on the official planetary introduction he'd viewed during his initial descent from the Tiara. Though this one lacked Mack's narration, it contained similarly bucolic footage: JOTUNs at work in the fields, gondolas loading produce into freight containers, families enjoying their meals—a montage of clips that gave a good overview of life on Harvest while avoiding any implication that there might be other worlds like it.
The presentation went on for some time. But A very knew this wasn't really for the aliens' benefit. At some point, Mack—who was monitoring all the surveillance gear via a powerful relay hidden in the greenhouse—began manipulating the presentation to test the aliens' reactions. Did the sight of the JOTUNs intimidate them? And if so, how did that manifest in body language? Avery had worked with enough ONI officers to know how focused they were on gathering good intelligence, and he was sure Jilan had given the AI a long list of questions.
But as Avery watched the second dropship make another pass around the gardens, disappearing briefly behind the northern trees before it surged back into view, he wondered how long al-Cygni was going to let the experiment run. After the aliens had shifted inside their armor for the better part of five minutes, she nonchalantly primped the tight bun that secured her black hair high on her neck: a subtle signal to Mack, watching through his cameras, to kill the feed. A moment later, Harvest's looping anthem faded, bringing the presentation to a close.
Pedersen tucked the COM tablet back under his arm.
The gold-armored alien growled at its shorter escort, who pulled a small, square sheet of metal from its belt. The leader took the sheet and handed it to Thune. Smiling politely, the Governor studied the offering. A moment later, he beamed at his Attorney General.
"Look at this, Rol. See the picture? Just like we did to the freighter!"
"I think it's a piece of the freighter."
"But see what they've etched?"
Pedersen craned his neck toward the sheet. "They want to trade."
"Exactly!"
"Governor," Jilan said. "If I may."
Thune stepped back to the table and handed the sheet to Jilan. Avery glanced over her shoulder to take a look as well.
It was indeed a piece of the freighter's titanium hull—a perfect square, neatly cut. The picture was dominated by two figures, both carved more realistically than Mack's had been.
One was clearly the gold-armored alien; it carried a hammer across its back and wore a helmet with the same V-shaped crest. The human looked male, but it could have been anyone. To Avery's surprise, the man was offering up what looked to be a large melon with a variegated rind. Thune must have made the same connection because he rummaged deep inside the basket and extracted a large and fragrant cantaloupe. Smiling even wider than before, he walked the fruit to the gold-armored alien and presented it with a bow.
"Please, take it," the Governor said. "We can give you plenty more."
The alien palmed the cantaloupe and gave it a cautious sniff.
As Thune began expounding upon the virtues of interspecies commerce, Jilan flipped the sheet over. Avery saw her bare neck stiffen. "Governor, they don't want food."
"Don't be so sure, Commander. I think this one's about to take a bite."
"No." Jilan kept an even tone. "Look."
And Avery did. On the other side of the sheet was a magnified view of the melon, which he now realized was a map of Harvest, centered on Utgard. What Avery had thought were textures in the rind were actually surface details: maglev lines, roads, and outlines of major settlements.
The aliens had made a complete survey and added some sort of notation as well.
Ornate symbols were scattered all over the planet. Each symbol was identical, and each consisted of two concentric circles filigreed with interlocking curves. Avery had no idea what the symbols stood for, but that was beside the point. Jilan gave voice to his own realization: "They're looking for something specific. Something they think belongs to them." Thune stared at the sheet, doing his best to maintain a diplomatic smile as Jilan flipped it back and forth.
"Governor," she said in a whisper. "They want us to give them the entire planet."
At that moment, the gold-armored alien barked and extended the melon to Pedersen.
"No, no." The Attorney General raised a hand and took a step back. "Keep it."
The alien cocked its head and barked again. Now Avery was certain that the musky scent wafting from the shorter escort had become more powerful. Avery wrinkled his nose as it filled with the smell of vinegar and tar. He fought back the urge to draw the M6 pistol holstered at his hip. At that moment, a short burst from an MA5 echoed up from the garden's lowest tier.
Whether this was a nervous misfire or the beginning of a firefight, Avery didn't know. But in the brief silence that followed, he heard a throaty alien howl echo from the trees along the river.
After that, things happened very quickly.
The taller escort ripped its pistol from its belt before Avery could draw or Byrne could slip his battle rifle off his shoulder. The bladed weapon boomed, and a bright spike of metal like lit magnesium sizzled into Pedersen's chest. The Attorney General dropped the melon and his COM-tablet and fell to his knees, jaw opening and closing like a suffocating fish. He had been closest to the gold-armored leader—the unlucky victim of proximity.
The Staff Sergeants fired back at the escorts closest to their positions—Byrne at the taller, Avery at the shorter. But their bullets had no effect on the aliens' armor. In fact, they never even touched it. Each round was deflected by invisible energy shields that followed the contours of the armor and shimmered with every impact.
"Get down!" Avery yelled to Thune, as the shorter escort tossed the leader its hammer. Then he tackled Jilan, driving her roughly to the ground.
In an instant, the silver-haired giant had the cudgel above its head, ready for a cross-body strike. Thune would have gotten his head knocked clean off his shoulders if Captain Ponder hadn't pushed him out of the way and taken the blow himself. The hammer hit the Captain in his prosthetic left arm and sent him twisting through the air. He landed north of Byrne and slid a good twenty meters on the dew-slick grass.
Now the shorter escort had its bladed pistol out. As the creature took aim at Avery, he hugged Jilan tight—shielded her smaller body with his own. He had a moment to second-guess Ponder's pronouncement that they had trained the recruits well—that they were ready for the split-second, life-or-death decisions combat demanded—when he heard the high-pitched triple- crack of Jenkins' BR55. The shorter escort howled in surprise as a burst pinged off its helmet, snapping its large head back. Then all Avery could hear was the snap of bullets overhead as the twenty-four bravo recruits opened fire, full automatic.
Peppered with multiple shots, the shorter escort took a shaky step backward. It jerked left and right as if fighting off an invisible swarm of bees. Then its energy shields collapsed with a flash and a loud pop, and its armor began venting cyan smoke and sparks as dozens more MA5 rounds slammed into its unprotected plates.
Now it was the aliens' turn to protect their own. The leader lunged toward its shorter escort, turning its back toward the greenhouse. Its golden armor must have had stronger shields, because even the bravo squads' concentrated fire failed to take them down. The taller escort loosed a thunderous roar and raked the recruits from north to south, covering the leader as it helped its wounded comrade limp down the stairs to the second tier. Avery wasn't sure how many of the recruits along the greenhouse had been hit—whether their screams were from fresh wounds or an excess of adrenaline.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Byrne shouted. The recruits had been firing directly over his and the others' heads. Some of their shots had come a little too close.
"You alright?" Avery asked, pushing up from Jilan on his fists.
"Go," she said. "I'm fine." But she looked a little frightened. Like the day in the hospital, it was another temporary break in her unflappable facade. This time all Avery did was nod.
"One alpha: fall back!" Avery shouted, rising to his feet.
"Get away from that dropship!" Avery could hear the pulse of an energy weapon and knew the first dropship's turret had activated even before he turned south and saw bright blue streaks of plasma rake the lowest tier's lawn—covering fire for the armored aliens' retreat.
"Where the hell are you going?" Byrne shouted as Avery sprinted past.
"River!"
"I'm coming with you!"
"Negative! Draw that turret's fire while I flank!"
"Bravo! Move up!" Byrne shouted. "Healy! Get your ass out here!"
Avery saw the Corpsman rush from the greenhouse behind the charging recruits and hustle toward Ponder, med kits in hand. The Captain waved Healy off—directed him to Pedersen's motionless form. Then Avery charged into the tree line.
"Stisen! Report!" he shouted into his mic.
"Taking fire, Staff Sergeant!" Static distorted the 2/A squad leader's voice. "There! Over there!" he yelled to one of his men.
"Hang tight!" Avery leapt down a rocky embankment to the gardens' middle tier. "I'm on my way!"
Avery ran as fast as he could, hurdling rocks and slaloming between cherry and pear trees.
Breathing hard, he broke through the last of the blossom-heavy branches, and pulled up short, thrusting his hips backward and windmilling his arms. If he'd been going any faster he would have fallen into the river. Here at the edge of the gardens, the Mimir had carved deep into the Bifrost, creating a series of descending pools. These wide limestone cauldrons were filled with white water that grew more turbulent the closer it came to the top of the falls.
