There I was, at about two kilometres, pretending to be a Xenoptera, so the locals wouldn't shoot at me.
The survey ship had dropped out of whatever we're calling FTL this week, dropped my pod and gone off to do it's thing.
Me? I was all snugly bundled up, watching my shows and taking long naps until I hit atmosphere. Then things got briefly interesting because it was purely ballistic (and call me a jumped-up ape), but I hate it when the status is basically "Hi, we are very on fire, please remain calm".
Skimmed a mountain range – Very pretty – and then the back opened up and I got sucked out with a cheery 'Buh Bai!' from the drop pod.
Drogue stabilised my attitude, wings deployed, and I spent way too long vaguely heading down for unauthorised lithobraking, before I got a thermal and started to climb.
Then everything was peachy keen: ha ha, nothing to see here, just a big ass xenoptera, see? Wings, downward-facing camera, transmitter spike, totally normal. Definitely not an Alien UFO glider painted up as a sky dragon.
I have the weirdest craving for pretzels.
Anyway, it was all cool until the real Xenoptera showed up.
Xenoptera, you understand, just means 'Alien with Wings'.
This particular bunch is now classified as magniamicus alatiterribiles xeni.
"Oh shit!' I thought, but what I said into the mission recorder was "Oh, shit!".
These things are huge, and they have flesh-rending claws and talons and… imagine a giant fanged pelican with eagle feet and velociraptor claws sticking out of the joint of their wing.
And a couple had just cruised up and were examining me. I didn't know if they hunted other xenoptera, but it was a little bit tense.
After a while, they continued to not eat my face, but they were sort of chirping at me.
The first one made a sequence of chirps, and the others would pick it up. Then another would do a different sequence… And they kept staring at me. Big brown eyes. Like a cow. A flying carnivorous cow that snacks on light aircraft.
Obscurely, I thought about whales.
I tried broadcasting the uh… the… OK you know when someone uses an instrument to hit the pitch of spoken language? I tried that. I just said my name. Like really simple. Bah-BAH-bwee.
And they all chirped it back, and the next thing I knew, they were all tucked into a cosy V behind me.
They must have spotted me hopping from one thermal to another and figured I knew something they didn't.
So I spent the rest of the mission hopping from rising air column to rising air column, with a couple of excursions to terrorise the local wildlife. They came back up to follow after they were done feeding.
After a while, they even stopped trying to feed me strips of… I dunno. Xeno-Antelope? I only deal with stuff that's flying around.
And yeah, I did some nice overflights of the settlements the locals were using – They're up to RADAR and aircraft, hence pretending to be a xenoptera, though having my own flock certainly helped.
I was kind of sad to say goodbye to "my" flock, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't fit in the drop pod, and also, we don't breathe the same atmosphere.
I don't know how smart they are - They definitely chatter a lot. Maybe there's a story about a strange xenoptera that showed up, always knew where to fly and find food, then suddenly landed, crawled back into an egg and flew away without wings.
I recorded everything, and I was starting to get a handle on the vibe of their chatter before I left.
I even learned a few magniamicus alatiterribiles xeni calls: They make a flock by calling their name, and if you repeat their names back, then add yours, you're in.
Just a bunch of wingy bois. All part of the flock. Me and my flying homies. Naganwa and the gang.
There's one call for "I see edible animals" and one for "Ahrg fuck, that's scary, run away", which is synonymous with the local aircraft, and also "Hey! HEY! eat somethin' we're worried!".
Also, to my embarrassment, and the hilarity of the survey team, one for "Hey sexy, noticed you have really big wings, how you doin'?"
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