6. First Contact
FIRST CONTACT
ELENA – THE GREEN REACH
The morning is rough. My back aches, my head throbs, and my mouth’s dry. We should’ve captured some rainwater, but by the time anyone thought of it, the storm had already run past us. The women are restless. Half didn’t sleep. The other half wished they hadn’t woken up.
The jungle never shuts up. It hisses, clicks, croaks, and breathes. The sound presses in from every direction, a reminder that this place eats the unprepared. I keep thinking the noise will be what breaks me.
But it’s the silence that does it.
One moment the air is thick with frog-throat grunts and insect chatter. The next, the world goes blank. Like something sucked the sound out.
Piper whispers, “Anyone else feel like we’re about to get murdered?”
Dana doesn’t look up. “Shut up, Piper.”
Her knuckles tighten on the piece of hull she chose as a makeshift weapon.
Her eyes flick to the trees again and again, watching for movement she can’t predict.
She's bracing for teeth, for claws, for the kind of danger New Terra taught us aliens embody.
My stomach twists. I grew up with those warnings too.
Sophia has gone soldier-still, tracking the tree line.
Quinn shades her eyes. “It’s not just me, right? Something’s moving out there?”
I press my palm to the dirt. The vibration rises through my bones. A pulse rolls through the air toward us.
“Company,” I say. The word sticks in my throat. This isn’t natural quiet.
Dana straightens. “Stay low. Heads down. If it’s sharp, hold it.”
Quinn glances at me. “What’s the protocol for first contact?”
“Play dead?” If whoever’s coming isn’t friendly, none of this will matter.
A sharp grin breaks through her tension. “That’s for bears, not aliens.”
“They could be alien bears,” Piper mutters.
Relief, fear, humor—everything tangles for a moment. None of us has ever seen a real bear.
Then the trees move.
At first, it’s a distortion, the air bending wrong. My body locks up, instincts screaming “run” while my legs forget how. Heat climbs my neck, sharp and involuntary, as if my body recognizes danger before my brain does.
Sophia hisses, “Left.”
I see it. A shape gliding between trunks, much taller than Dana, moving with an ease that belongs to something built for this place. Humanoid though. Bipedal, broad-shouldered, lethal. My breath catches so fast that I cough.
We have no chance. At least a dozen more follow the first, fanning out in perfect formation.
Their plated armor is veined with metallic filigree.
The colors ripple, going green to silver to gold to a deep black.
It’s beautiful and terrifying and flawless.
New Terra warned us that anything genetically altered warps into monstrosity, but these males look like the opposite.
They’re perfection. It makes me dread what the armor hides even more.
They drag static through the air, raising gooseflesh along my arms. Helmets cover everything above the cheekbones. The visors are a single sweep of amber that reflect the jungle back at us.
I swallow hard.
They move closer, closing the circle around us with the precision of trained soldiers. A breathing perimeter. One steps forward in a long stride. The others shift as he moves. He’s the one in charge.
I look at his feet. Enormous.
He lifts his hand, palm out. It’s the largest hand I’ve ever seen. It’s got five fingers, though.
He waits. The pause stretches until I have no choice but to drag my eyes up to his face.
A scar traces along one side of his jaw, pulling my attention to skin the color of burnished copper, matte where the light should catch it.
It's nothing like any human's I've ever seen.
But his mouth, the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the brutal symmetry of him, are all unnervingly, overwhelmingly male-beautiful.
The kind of face used in military propaganda.
Heat rises under my skin, quick and unwelcome.
On New Terra, admitting any attraction to an alien was unthinkable.
I hope none of the other women have seen me staring.
The other aliens hold formation, silent and steady. It’s eerie. Their motionless bodies feel alive in the stillness, like statues waiting for permission to move and kill everything. No one breaks formation. All of them are tall enough to tuck me under an arm with no more strain than lifting a pack.
And they share an engineered sameness. There are slight variations in the darkness of their hair, in the copper heat of their skin—but they have the same lethal silhouette. They look designed for this jungle.
Piper whispers, “Why do they all look like they bench press starships?”
Dana doesn’t look at her. “Quiet.”
I love Piper’s spirit, but it’s not the time for jokes.
“I am Rythar, Warlord of the Green Reach,” the leader says. He speaks our language. His accented voice carries through the clearing, deep and rich.
A small orb detaches from his armor and floats forward, blue against the green. It hums, and my ears pop.
We all edge back.
The one on the leader's right speaks, and I realize he's using a translator device. The leader wasn't. “I am Executive Officer Drenz. Remain calm. You are being processed.”
Piper murmurs, “Processed? Not ominous at all.”
Dana elbows her and gestures to the humming orb. “They’re scraping our identity chips.”
Ex O Drenz holds a datapad at an angle where I can read it.
My number. My name. Homeworld. All of it lifted straight from the chip under my skin and fed into the Xytheos system.
On New Terra, they told us the chips were for our protection.
Watching him scroll through my data feels like being catalogued instead.
The alien warriors draw the circle tighter, as though obeying silent orders. Some carry wands threaded with light. One sweeps his over Quinn's arm. The beam glows through her skin, tracing bone and bruising.
“Vitals: acceptable. Hydration: substandard. Contusions: healing.”
He nods once, then moves on without shifting his focus.
They work their way down the line, logging each of us. When the wand passes Tessa’s ribs, it flashes. The medic touches a control on his wrist. A pale strip detaches from a device, and he shapes the membrane with sure hands. He presses it to her side, forming it into place without brushing her.
Tessa gasps, then releases a long breath as the pain slips from her face.
“Treatment complete. Rest.”
Dr. Patel narrows her eyes. “That’s not like any medicine I’ve seen. What is that?”
“Bioactive membrane,” the leader’s right-hand warrior says through his translator. “It will adapt to your tissue.”
Then it’s my turn.
The wand drifts over my skin, cool and strangely intimate for a medical scan. The Warlord’s attention stays fixed on me. With the visor covering his eyes, I can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, but I feel his focus as clearly as the wand’s pass. The wand flashes.
“Minor fracture, left humerus. Laceration, four centimeters.”
I hadn’t even felt it. With all the adrenaline, with everything to worry about, I forgot Dr. Patel's admonition—if I'm not whole and able, I can't help anyone else.
The medic steps closer and pulls out a larger patch. I jerk my arm away on instinct, every warning I’ve ever learned about aliens rushing up at once.
“Elevated adrenaline,” the wand announces.
“Wonder why,” I mutter, easing back another half-step.
The medic glances toward the Warlord and tilts his head a fraction. A silent request.
I’m caught in their silent, coordinated motion. Rythar steps in, hands closing around my shoulder and injured arm just as the medic's wand touches me again. There’s no pain.
“No,” he says. The word isn’t loud, but it leaves no room for argument. I’m not going anywhere while he’s watching.
The cool, medicated patch seals itself around my arm and soothes the ache. Rythar lets go the moment the patch holds.
I draw back. “Don’t touch me,” I say harshly.
He inclines his head once in acknowledgment.
They finish the sweep. We are catalogued, patched, sorted.
The clearing smells of metal, rain, and the sharp scent their tech leaves in the air.
The tech is generations past anything New Terra had.
It's also curiously uniform. The same design language on the wands, the patches, the armor, like nothing here has been redesigned in centuries.
“Can you stop that frequency thing or whatever your armor is doing before our teeth rattle out of our heads?” I ask.
Rythar circles back toward me. “No. Sound is shield. Keeps safe. You leader?”
He doesn’t speak our language well, but we understand him. The women’s eyes are on me.
I shake my head.
“She is the leader,” Ex O Drenz says through his translator device.
I sigh. “Fine. What do you want?”
Rythar frowns, motions to Ex O Drenz, who answers. "You are assets. Critical to genetic restoration. Preservation of your cohort is paramount.”
I laugh, and it comes out bitter. “So we’re just breeder stock.”
The leader's jaw tightens. “Crude language.”
I wasn't expecting that. Threats, yes. A vocabulary correction, no. "And your intent isn't?"
He steps closer. The others hold their line. The armor, up close, looks less like metal and more like skin. It flexes over coppery muscle.
Rythar’s focus on me never breaks. “No. We follow law. You will as well.”
I don’t like what he means.
He sees my reaction, motions again to Ex O Drenz.
“Under custody, you will be protected,” the Ex O says. “Fed. Sheltered. No harm will come unless you attempt escape or violence. This is the law of the Astra Conventum.”
“And if we do attempt it?” I ask.
The Ex O’s tone doesn’t change. “Then Warlord Rythar will subdue you. This is the law of Xytheos.”
I catch a glance from Sophia, just out of the corner of my eye, and her words come back to me.
Let them think we're weak.
But I don’t know how far they’re going to take this. They say they’ll protect us—but who will protect us from them? No human has a chance fighting their way through these Xytheans.
Rythar watches the reaction flicker through me. His hand twitches as though he means to reach for me. And what would stop him?
Dana snaps. She draws a shard of hull, points it at Rythar’s chest. “Back off.”
I’m horrified, grateful, and scared for her.
The Ex O moves fast. In a smooth movement, he twists the metal from her grip without touching her and tosses it away.
Rythar doesn’t waver. “Small warrior,” he says. He raises one finger to her, as though she is someone he must be patient with. “No weapons for women.”
Dana bares her teeth. “I’ll kill you if you touch any of us.”
I edge nearer to Dana, a second away from stepping between her and whatever punishment is coming.
But Rythar only tilts his head. “You are brave,” he says to Dana. There’s no mockery or anger in his tone.
The warriors finish tending the wounded and provide each of us with a soft blanket.
Rythar addresses us. “We walk now.”
Tessa clutches Reema’s hand. “What if we say no?”
His visor turns toward her, then to the Ex O.
The Ex O explains. “We are your escorts to the Concord Stone. There, you will participate in the Claiming Ceremony. You will accompany us. If you do not walk, we will carry you.” He pauses, receives another look from Rythar.
“I must educate you in some of our ways. Touching an unclaimed female who awaits the Claiming Ceremony is forbidden except in cases of need. And even then it is unwise. It can stir feelings we must suppress, sometimes with much difficulty.”
The warriors close ranks. My heart knocks a hard rhythm against my ribs, out of sync with itself.
The frequency coming off their armor—whatever shield it’s generating—does more than keep animals back.
It pushes through the air in steady waves, brushing over my skin until every nerve stands alert.
The pieces click. This is what we felt earlier.
The static. The pressure in my head. I narrow my eyes at Rythar and the Ex O.
“You were nearby, watching us from the jungle,” I say accusingly. “Why did you wait so long to show yourselves?”
Rythar ignores my question and moves past me. My balance slips for a second as I edge away from him, my knees dipping before I can correct. His hand finds my arm again, steadying me with the same controlled grip as before.
“Careful,” he says.
I wrench my arm free. “Ex O said that you’re not supposed to touch me,” I hiss.
Rythar inclines his head. “Except if need,” he says.
I keep walking.
Quinn mutters, “A claiming ceremony sounds bad.”
Piper exhales. “Could be worse. Could be space bears.”
I let my steps slow, let them pass me by.
Rythar glances back. His visor finds me immediately.
The others keep moving, but he slows his pace until he falls in beside me.
Something shifts in him as he nears me. It’s subtle, and I feel it more than I see it.
His shoulders settle, a quiet change that sends a strange awareness sliding across my skin.
I don’t know what it means. I only know it means something.
Rythar says my name quietly. “Elena.”
He shouldn’t know my name. He must have seen it in my file, listed alongside metrics and viability markers.
Human genetics. Fertile. Adaptable. All the reasons someone might justify valuing me, even if I weren’t an engineer and a trauma nurse.
But the way he says "Elena" doesn't sound like cold data.
It sounds like he's been waiting to say it.
Like he wants me to say his name in return.
His gaze holds mine behind the visor. “You are different.”
His grasp of my language is limited, but his inflection is loaded with interest.
I lift my chin. “Different how?”
A small tension pulls at his jaw. For a breath, he looks at me like he’s fighting something inside himself.
Some traitorous part of me is relieved he isn’t repulsive. Then ashamed that the thought even crossed my mind. Aliens were never the mission.
He reacts to the unspoken change. His shoulders brace. His visor angles as if he’s tracking the change in me. The armor across his upper chest adjusts with a small, involuntary movement. It’s barely visible, but enough to tell me he felt it.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t look at me like that.”
His head tilts, curious in a way that’s too close to instinct. “Like what?”
“Like you can choose me.”
Everything in him goes intense—focused the way soldiers get when their next action matters.
“No choose,” Rythar says.
I sharpen my pace, boots biting into the packed ground like I can outrun the echo of his voice if I move hard enough.
I pass one of the other women, then another.
If I stray too far, a low pressure in the air, like hands at my back, urges me back into line.
I ignore it and push faster. Beside me, his stride matches mine with infuriating ease.
No choose.
The words settle around my throat like a collar. I walk faster.