Promises Kept by Patrick S. Baker
This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions #13
The ground shook again as Hath’wai of Nest Kik!loo entered her task mother’s office. She bowed low, beak almost touching the floor.
“What now?” Fual’nee of Nest Lo!linna hissed, annoyed at the fledgling.
“This fledgling has called for rescue, my task mother,” Hath lay her beak upon the floor in the position of total submission. “To a Soolaar Unnion Search and Rescuue ship called Fuudoo.”
Fual leapt from her perch over her work table and landed gracefully next to the young O!tu!epi. The older female raised her foot, talons extended and rested the appendage on her subordinate’s neck.
“Why have you done this thing, my task daughter?” Fual said.
“My task mother,” Hath said. “Our closest ship is an eight-day away at best speed. We won’t survive that long. Fudo was passing through the system and is less than half a diurnal rotation away.”
“Soolaar Uunion,” Faul hissed as best she could in the human-beak called Basic. “That means Hoomaans. I hate Hoomaans.”
The flight leader lowered her claw back to the floor. Another, stronger, ground-quake shook the room as another asteroid struck the planet. This quake was so strong that Faul’s work perch fell over onto her work table, breaking the ceramic figurine of her favorite drake.
“Perhaps,” Faul hissed the O!tu!epi equivalent of a sigh. “Perhaps, what you did was for the best, my task daughter.”
#
Major Mike O’Brien, Solar Union Search and Rescue Unit, looked at the 3D map of the O!tu!epi outpost on Xi Boötis A Alpha-3, the near-Venus-sized moon of the super-Jovian planet Xi Boötis A Alpha.
“What the heck are they even doing there, Indira?” O’Brien asked Fudo’s commander.
“Archeological research,” Commander Indira Patel said in an accent straight from Oxford. “Seems dash-Three had a civilization at one point. The O!s’ historical services organized an archeological dig. That was before they knew about the asteroid swarm, of course.”
“De O!tu!epi might not be so happy to see us,” Master Sergeant Kondo Iburi, said.
“The war is long over, Master Sergeant” Commander Patel said. “Even birdies don’t hold grudges that long.”
“Sir, Ma’am,” Iburi stood to his full nearly two-meter height. “I fought in the war and it weren’t that long ago. You don’t have to be an O!tu!epi to have memories about it. With your permission, I’ll go brief and prep de team. Sir. Ma’am.”
“Right, Master Sergeant, carry on,” O’Brien said his eye widened a bit. That was the most he’d heard his senior NCO speak since he took command of the team.
“Michael,” Patel said. “What was that about? The O!s asked us for help.”
“Iburi was on the team that discovered the Nest Lo!linna Massacre,” O’Brian replied.
“He talked to you about it,” Patel said, surprised. Iburi had a reputation as a maun ke aadamee, a man of silence.
“No,” O’Brien said. “When I took over the team, I looked at his service record.”
“Is this going to be a problem?” Patel asked.
“Won’t be a problem for him,” O’Brien said. “I can’t speak for the O!tu!epi.”
#
Hath’wai of Nest Kik!loo had been confined to her private nest after launching the distress drone and getting the response from Fudo. But she wasn’t really in much trouble. However, her task mother couldn’t let her actions pass unpunished completely.
Now she perched on the edge of her sleeping platform, the high gravity, nearly 1.2 O!tu!epi-normal clawed at her, as she looked out at the other two areas of the research outpost. The archeological station sat on three mountain peaks. One had been leveled to make a small landing zone. One was domed as the main living area. The last peak was covered in ancient buildings which clung to the side of the escarpments like parasites on a tree. Two bridges had once connected the three summits, but when the asteroids started to fall and the ground to quake, the one to the shuttle pad had been the first thing to go, along with the historical services shuttle that could have taken them into orbit. The bridge to the ruins was still intact.
Hath nestled back on the conforming bed and wished she was back in her home-nest, with her clutch-mates, cheeping at her mother’s latest cob to feed her. But she wasn’t a nestling anymore and put those thoughts aside. Hath then wondered what it would be like to meet an actual hoomaan. She’d read the histories about the war and the terrible things the hoomaans had done. But she wasn’t sure what to believe. Since she’d also read how the hoomaans had punished their own warriors for breaking their rules and how they had talked and made peace. Lastly, most of the hoomaans she’d heard about were drakes or cobs. How could simple males really do anything but mate and feed the young and take care of the nest? With the O!tu!epi, the females did all the really important things. With that thought the young archeologist settled deeper into her bed and drifted into a fitful sleep.
#
The Traker-class rescue shuttle swooped and bounced through the turbulent atmosphere as it dropped down in VTOL-mode toward the flatten mountain top at the archeology camp. The Traker pilot hit the jets to slow the fall of the craft. A jolt ran through the crew compartment as the shuttle made a barely controlled landing.
The hatch opened as the ensign pilot announced: “Fourteenth floor, lingerie, nesting material and birdie seed.”
Major O’Brien chinned his private channel to the pilot.
“Ensign, the O!tu!epi are a proud and dignified species,” the SAR team leader said in a calm voice. “While our ancestors were learning to make beer and bronze axes, they had spaceflight and a united world government. Most of the educated ones speak Basic, any so-called ‘jokes’ like that will be understood and not appreciated. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” a very young-sounding, slightly choked voice replied.
As the rescue team exited the craft, each member touched the SAR emblem for luck. The crest was a stylized image of a space suited figure being hauling into a spaceship’s hatch by a rope. Under that was the Latin motto: “Et Aliis Vivere.” In Basic: “So Others Might Live.”
O’Brien exited the craft and joined his team.
“No radio contact,” Iburi reported. “De atmo is full of junk.”
“That’s why we couldn’t reach the base after the original distress drone launched,” O’Brien said. “All right let’s get to it, people.”
Ming and Bock lugged the Insta-Bridge box into place, even with only .82 Earth-Gs and Vishnu power-suits, the two Forcers still struggled with the weight. They put the container down at the edge of the cliff, Ming stood behind Bock and carefully took a bearing. Bock made some adjustments to the device through a comp-pad and then pushed the launch button. Four cables as thick as a human wrist with thin flexible sheets of linked carbon nano-tubes on three sides, shot out of the box and arced over the chasm. Four sharp, diamond-hard points buried themselves in the opposite side of the gap.
“Testing,” Bock announced and pushed another key on the pad.
The cables retracted taking up the slack and then pulled taut.
“Holding,” Bock said, reading a graphic. “Good to go, sir.”
“Lock it in,” O’Brian said.
Bock pushed another key and a jolt of electricity blasted along the cables, aligning the atoms in the carbon nano-tubes, giving them the tensile strength of monocrystalline silicon, making the bridge nearly indestructible. Sadly, human science had no way to reverse the process, which meant the Insta-Bridge was a one-shot construction.
“Done,” Bock announced.
“Awright, watu wanga,” Iburi announced as he headed across bridge. “De O!tu!epi are waiting on us. Let’s move!”
Ito and Lahti charged after the NCO and O’Brian brought up the rear. Ming and Bock stayed behind.
Iburi waited on the other side for the rest of the SAR team to reach him.
“Ito, you lead,” O’Brien said as he looked at the door into the O!tu!epi dome.
Emi Ito was from the high gravity planet of Meiji. She was small for a human female, but her skeletal-muscular structure was extremely dense, making her stronger than the average human male, despite her petite frame.
“Roger, bosu,” Ito responded She bounded to the door which slid open at her touch.
The average O!tu!epi was about 1.4 meters tall. The corridors in the habitat reflected that fact. With the size of the team members and the Vishnu-suits it would have been a very tight squeeze for any of the males to fit in. Ito could get through, if she crouched some.
Once in the structure, Ito started the recorded message. To her unaccustomed ears it sounded like feeding time at the aviary. What the message said in High-Beak O!tu!epi was: “Solar Union SAR is here to rescue you, come to me and I’ll take you to safety. Follow this message to safety.” And then repeated.
Solar Union SAR policy was that no team member was ever out of sight of at least one other team member, so O’Brien followed Ito into the habitat, crouching low and duck-walking.
Solar Union procurement officers recognized that SAR teams needed strength and sensor enhancement, as well as access to multiple tools, just as combat marines did. But SARs team also needed to sometimes enter confined areas without destroying them. Thus the Vishnu-suit Mark II was built as a compromise between size and strength. None of this helped the team commander as he slowly waddled after Ito.
While O’Brien and Ito went into the dome. Iburi and Lahti did a circuit of the plateau. On the side closest to the ruins, both men spotted two O!tu!epi waving and hooting frantically. Near the two O!s were the empty supports of a vanished bridge.
Iburi flipped on his public-address system and in-suit translator.
“We are Solar Union Search and Rescue,” the NCO said evenly. “We are coming for you. Stay calm and still. We will help you.”
Neither human could tell how much of the message reached the two bird-like aliens through the distance and the roaring winds, but the O!tu!epi settled down.
“I don’t like all dis wind,” Iburi remarked. “Here is what we will do.”
He quickly sketched a plan and Lahti merely nodded in agreement.
The big NCO moved close to the edge of plateau took careful aim and fired his two shoulder launched rocket systems. The two rear-facing Lyle-rockets, trailing carbon nano-fiber cables buried themselves deeply in the ground about a meter behind him. The two forward firing Lyles, also dragging cables, flew straight, despite the wind, and planted themselves deep into the rock face of the opposite cliff. Lahti placed himself slightly rearward of where Iburi had fired and also fired his Lyles. Now four of the super-strong cables formed a rectangle reaching across the 112 meters of space over the gale-swept chasm.
Quickly and efficiently Iburi replaced Lahti’s shoulder rocket launchers with sets of wheels and gears, then ran the two upper cables through the mechanism and locked it shut. The NCO then attached similar gear to Lahti’s boots.
Holding the control in his right hand, the junior sergeant started to move smoothly along the cables toward the O!tu!epi. The wind buffeted and rocked the human as he crossed, but Lahti had felt worse rocking while parachute freefalling, plus he’d never know a SAR cable to break. Still, he sped up.
Approaching the pair of O!s, Lahti turned on his PA system and translator.
“Junior Sergeant Lathi of USCG Search and Rescue, I am here to save you. Stay where you are and follow my instructions.”
The human halted within arm’s reach of the bird-like aliens, who moved as far away from the armored figure as possible. The two O!tu!epi were covered in light brown feathers with deep blue and blood-red stripes on their heads.
“I will pass you two safety harnesses,” Lahti said. “Secure yourselves in them and I will take you back across.”
The larger of the two O!tu!epi started to hoot and screech.
“No tree climbing monster. Go away. You will not take us.”
“I will rescue you. I will not harm you,” the stoic Finn said.
“No. Go away!”
This exchange went on for a few moments as another ground-quake shook the escarpment.
“Tyhma pelkurimainen lintu,” Lahti said aloud, not realizing the translator knew Finnish.
“Coward, I am no coward, and I am not stupid,” the bigger O!tu!epi squawked. “I am Slilna!Ilno of Nest Mossi! You will not insult Nest Mossi that way.”
Slilna reached and took the two collections of buckle and straps Lahti held out. She helped her smaller companion into the safety harness and then secured herself in the other. Lahti reached out and took the smaller O!tu!epi first and quickly attached the harness under his left arm, he then did the same with Slilna!Ilno, attaching her under his right arm.
As Lahti backed across the chasm another ground quake hit and the four cables shook and flexed. The SAR NCO stopped moving, waiting until the situation stabilized. As he waited, Lahti couldn’t help but notice the two Birdies stared straight ahead the whole time, often blinking hard and clinging to him tightly. As he arrived back on the other side, Iburi quickly unhooked the O!tu!epi and helped them settle their feet on the ground.
#
“Slilna!Ilno,” Lahti said as he and Iburi escorted the two rescued beings to the Insta-bridge. “I did not mean to offer you insult before. I was frustrated.”
“Junior Sergeant Lahti,” Slilna said. “It is I who should apologize. I have never met a hoomaan before and many of our legends deal with monstrous tree climbers. And with the late war. . .” she then threw her head back in an O!tu!epi shrug.
“I couldn’t help but notice you do not seem to like heights?” Lahti said, changing the subject.
“That is true,” Slilna responded. “O!tu!epi are not comfortable with heights, but we tolerate them when we must.”
“But you are like birds?”
Slilna gave a loud hoot, which Lahti realized was a laugh.
“We are like what you call birds. We are descended from the apex hunters of our home planet, just as humans are. But we were and are ground living carnivores that hunted in flocks. We only went into the trees to build nests and lay our eggs. One of my teacher-scholars studied Earth pre-history and told me we once resembled what you called ‘terror birds’.”
With that the foursome arrived at the Insta-bridge and the two O!tu!epi quickly crossed to the waiting shuttle.
#
In the dome, Ito and O’Brien entered a large central area filled with O!tu!epi. O’Brien stood up and the bird-like beings blanched away.
“I am Junior Sergeant Emi Ito of the Solar Union. Come with me. Come along, we have a shuttle ready to take you into orbit, to our ship which will take you home,” Ito said to the assembly. Another quake shook the dome and the collected O!tu!epi squawked in alarm.
“I am Hath’wai of Nest Kik!loo, junior task daughter of this expedition,” a beautiful specimen, plumed in golden brown, except her head which had bright gold and green stripes running from her black eyes back along her head, said as she stepped forward.
“My sisters and I will not go without our task mother and flight leader, Fual’nee of Nest Lo!linna.”
“Where is Fual’nee of Nest Lo!linna? I’ll talk with her,” O’Brien said.
Hath’wai, both excited and frightened by the huge armored figure of the hoomaans, quickly guided the giant tree climbers to a small room just off the large central area. Another quake struck. The seismic disturbances were coming more frequently and growing stronger as more asteroids pelted the moon.
O’Brien ducked low to enter the room, but still his armored shoulders tore through the thin walls. Perched behind a table was an O!tu!epi with golden colored feathers and red and black stripes on her head.
“Flight leader,” O’Brien said as he squatted down, putting his head on the same level as the O!’s. Then he opened his face plate, showing his eyes. His lower face was covered with a breathing mask. “Your task daughters will not leave without you.”
“Ugly tree climber,” Fual’nee said. “I will not go with you. Your kind killed my nest’s fledglings, killed our unarmed cobs and drakes, and burned our home-nests. I will not give you the honor of saying you saved my life. However, I will let my task daughters go if they wish. I will lift their obligation to this place, this work and to me. They will have no shame in going with you. No others are Nest Lo!linna.”
O’Brien nodded and backed carefully out of the room, trying to not destroy any more of the doorway than he already had. Fual’nee followed him.
“My task daughters,” the task mother said. “You are freed from all obligation to this task and to me. Your only remaining duty is to survive and return home. Let the hoomaans have the honor of saving this task nest, the Good Maker knows they need all the honor they may collect.”
Fual’nee turned and reentered her room.
Hath’wai stood next to O’Brien.
“Come my task sisters, you heard the mother. Follow the hoomaans, give them this honor.”
“Follow Junior Sergeant Ito,” O’Brien said and pointed to the smaller human.
The O!tu!epi formed a mass behind Ito as she lead them down the corridor. O’Brien stayed behind with Hath’wai and together they searched every room to make sure no one was unintentionally left behind. When they encounter a lock portal, O’Brien merely wrenched the doors off the frame to gain entry. Hath’wai was very impressed with the brute strength of the hoomaans, but still felt they were ugly beyond sound.
#
“Is that all of them, boss?” Iburi asked the team leader as they rallied at the bridge and the humans shepherded the O!tu!epi across to the shuttle.
“No,” O’Brien said. “Their task mother, Fual’nee of Nest Lo!linna, absolutely refused to come. Said she wouldn’t give us the honor of saving her.”
“Did you speak to her?” Iburi asked.
“Of course. But you know policy.”
Iburi did know Solar Union SAR policy. Free will was paramount. If Faul!nee chose not to come, the rescue team would respect her decision.
“With your permission, sir,” Iburi said. “I’ll have words with her.”
“Yes,” the team leader said. “Go ahead. Take Ito with you. But we don’t have long. In fifteen we are wheels up.”
Iburi and Ito bounded back to the habitat. Instead of trying to fit through the entryway. Iburi simply strode forward, shredding the structure as he went. Ito followed in his wake. Moving like Juggernaut, Iburi crashed into Fual’nee’s room.
“Hoomaan,” Fual’nee screeched. “Cannot an old mother get some peace before going to meet the Good Maker?”
“Fual’nee of Nest Lo!linna,” Iburi said, lifting his face plate and lowering his breathing mask. “I am Master Sergeant Kondo Iburi, of the Solar Union. I was a junior sergeant on the team that discovered the Nest Lo!linna Massacre. Foster and his people knew your home nests were full of non-combatants. By the laws of humanity, he was to leave them alone. But he and his men broke the law. The cobs and drakes tried to hide the eggs and nestlings. The old mothers, even unarmed, fought to save their offspring. Foster and his troops killed almost all of them and burned the nests.”
The big NCO took a breath. He pulled out a comp-pad, found a file and played it.
“I found Juul!ni, grandmother of Nest Lo!linna,” Iburo went on while the file ran.
The image on the pad showed an old O!tu!epi, dark red blood ran from her beak.
“Come on grandmother,” the younger Iburi’s voice said on the helmet cam footage said. “We have called for help. Do not die.”
“You, ugly tree climber,” the O!tu!epi grandmother said, the translation coming through loudly. “Your kind did this. Destroyer take you.”
“Grandmother, I swear by our God,” Iburi said on the file, “who you call se Great Maker, I will see dat Foster and his people will pay for dis crime. I will do all I can to see dat more of your nest do not die.”
The big NCO lifted the air mask to his face and took a breath and went on, narrating the video playing on his pad.
“My team and I hunted Foster and his troops. Some surrendered and accepted punishment.” Scenes of human soldiers throwing up their hands in surrender.
“Some fought to de death.” Confused images of running through tall green grass and the sound of human weapons.
“I captured Foster myself,” a scene of Iburi dragging an unconscious Foster by his armor toward the point of view.
“I guarded him during his trial, and I and my team-mates were his firing squad.”
A final scene came on Iburi’s com-pad. It showed Foster staring at his executioners, dressed in the traditional red of a condemned prisoner. Then the deafening sound of a volley of ancient gunpowder weapons and the human war criminal slumping forward in his chair, dead.
Another breath and now tears streaked obsidian cheeks.
“Come with me to safety, not for my honor, but so a promise to your Nest-grandmother will be kept.”
Fual’nee stood tall and smoothed her plumage with her three fingered hands.
“I will go with you, Master Sergeant Kondo Iburi,” the O!tu!epi said. “Not to give you honor, but as you say so the promise to my grandmother will be kept.”
The ground shook again and all three beings bolted from the habitat toward the safety of the Solar Union shuttle.