Oscar Ward
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“We have landed.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Zoe mutters as she stands. We follow Nurr through the interior of the ship. Veln meets us near the exit, his purple tech jacket fit snug over him.
“Successful landing!”
Nurr walks straight past his cheer, opening the spaceship’s rear airlock. Bright natural light pours into the ship. I squint past the glare. The cityscape stretches farther than I can see. Silver towers rise into the blue sky. They’re weirdly shaped. Some narrow at the bottom and widen as they climb, while others look a little like flipped over buckets.
There’s a surprising amount of greenery for a planet so technologically advanced, but maybe that’s just me assuming everyone has to destroy their environment in pursuit of better tech…
There are maybe twenty Gelderians waiting at the bottom of the ramp we’re on, most in tech jackets. A few aren’t wearing helmets. I can’t quite tell what they’re thinking… well, that’s a lie. There’s a severe-looking guy with a moustache. He’s taller than average but reedy, with beady brown eyes that narrow into slits when he sees me. The moment Zoe reaches the bottom of the hatch, two heavily armoured Gelderians step forth. One of them produces a pair of restraints.
Zoe stiffens but surrenders her raised wrists to them to fasten the restraints around her. I wait until he’s finished before I cut them apart with comically large scissors. A few indignant whispers follow, but no one says anything. Not even Mister Moustache, which surprises me. I half-expected him to blow his top.
…That’s on me for being judgemental.
“Are you refusing to comply?” the leftmost guard questions.
Zoe stares at me with this unreadable look.
That same guard steps up to me. “The prisoner is to remain restrained until her trial, alien.”
“...I guess it’s the right term, but it’s still weird.” I clear my throat. “Look, buddy. She came here willingly and, in fact, fought to save two of her own jailors from the Kresh. Which I’m sure you all know, considering we came here in a Kresh vessel.”
Moustache Man frowns. “Nonetheless, she was brought here under detainment. Her very existence breaks the First Decree.”
“She’s not going anywhere. I’ll personally make sure of it. But we’re not doing the whole chained-up prisoner thing.”
“You do not dictate Gelderian law.”
“No. But I’m here to make sure someone from my planet gets treated fairly under it.”
The guards don’t look particularly convinced.
“General Vasel, please. I shall vouch for them,” Nurr says with a shallow bow.
“You would stake your honour on it, then?” the moustached Gelderian says. He shakes his head.
“I would.”
“...No. This is a waste of time. I’ll squander no more of His Majesty’s time dawdling.”
Veln hurriedly raises a hand. “I vouch for them too, General!”
“...Son. How many times must I instruct you to speak only when spoken to?”
I blink. That’s certainly one of the reveals of all time.
Vasel turns to Zoe.
“As for you, prisoner. Come. Justice awaits.”
Zoe stands beside me before what I assume is most of Gelderia’s upper crust of society in the tiered gallery above us. We’re inside a grand building floating in the sky at the centre of the city. General Vasel’s here, alongside Nurr, Veln, and a few of the unarmoured faces we met at the landing pad. The rest are strangers to me, which isn’t that surprising on account of this being our first visit. There are about a dozen more important-looking people gathered. And raised above all of them is a shrivelled old man who hasn’t said much since the trial began.
Gelderia’s king, presumably. He’s not exactly wearing a crown, but all those shiny gemstones more than make up for it. Immediately after introductions are made, a Gelderian in the stands starts yelling with vitriol.
“She murdered Kelda!”
...Well, we’re off to a great start.
“She wears his jacket!” another Gelderian shouts. “What further proof do we require?”
“Actual… you know, proof would be nice,” I say, which earns me more than a few glares from above.
Zoe folds her arms. “I already told you what happened! His ship crashed, I went to help, and he put this thing on me before it exploded.”
“A convenient story.”
“—One we can verify,” Veln hastily cuts in. “Seeing whether she stole the jacket or it was freely given to her is easy enough now that the jacket is present.”
“...You’re telling me this thing has a black box?” I ask, fully ignoring the glares directed at me.
Yes, good first impressions are important, but a significant majority of these lot were baying for Zoe’s blood on the outset. That said, the king seems like a chill guy.
“Of course!”
Veln gets to work fiddling with Zoe’s tech jacket via some mechanical tool that sprouted from his index finger. A mess of alien data is projected above us via hologram, none of which means a damn thing to me. Fortunately, Veln translates.
“Kelda was critically injured when his vessel crashed. The tech jacket registered catastrophic failure aboard the vessel shortly afterwards.” He points towards another line from the timestamp. “And here. Kelda manually authorised a transfer protocol to Zoe Thompson.”
…But apparently, he’s not stopping at just exonerating her because he switches to yet another screen with entirely different readings. Only, it’s projected from the larger utility gauntlet he tried to scan my ring with.
“There is, however, a tangentially-related discovery. If you’ll allow me to explain, Your Majesty?”
The king chuckles with a frail hand to his chin. “Proceed, Veln.”
“Great! …Right. On account of the biological differences between us and her people, Thompson is significantly stronger than a Gelderian wearing the same armour. Strong enough to tear through a dozen Kresh warriors alone with ease, evident by the combat data recovered. I theorise it’s due to the subject’s baseline physicality. Zoe Thompson’s prowess has been multiplicatively heightened far beyond a Gelderian wearing the same kind of armour!”
General Vasel stands to interrupt his son’s gleeful discovery. “The First Decree has already been violated. Regardless of innocence, we cannot allow an extraterrestrial stronger than our greatest warrior to leave Gelderia with our technology unmolested.”
“...H-Huh?”
Next to me, Zoe makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat.
“What?” I whisper.
“They’re going to molest me?!”
I stifle my laughter, because as funny as that was, I’m not sure I like where this avenue of conversation is headed.
“Then kill them both,” someone else says, their voice thick with fear. “Lest they betray us to the Kresh!”
“Enough,” the king raises his voice firmly and the gallery falls into instant silence.
…Didn’t think he had it in him, to be honest. I’m used to spineless authority figures, I guess.
“As our greatest warrior, Kelda knew the First Decree. Yet when faced with his own death, he chose to break it so that another might live. And you all would dishonour that sacrifice by ending the life he chose to save? Zoe Thompson did not murder Kelda, that much is obvious, nor did she rob the tech jacket off his corpse. Whatever consequences arise from Kelda’s decision are not hers to bear.”
Zoe sways on her feet. “Oh, thank god…”
“That being said, I would speak with you Terrans, if you would oblige me. The both of you,” he adds, as his milky eyes fix themselves on Zoe and then me.
“Uh… y-yeah, sure. Of course Your… Highness?”
He chuckles at her stammering. “The proper term is Your Majesty, but ‘Your Highness’ is nonetheless a flattering moniker.”
We’re led out of the chamber shortly afterwards. Nurr and Veln stay behind with the others while Zoe and I follow the king through a side entrance and down a short hallway. His age shows a lot more once he’s walking. He’s slow, leaning heavily on a cane, though neither of us is dumb enough to hurry him along. Eventually, we’re brought into a much smaller room overlooking the city.
A young Gelderian woman rises from her seat when we enter. She’s around our age, with light green skin and large amber eyes. A bright blue hood covers most of her hair, framed by two tall, silver fins that jut up on either side of her head. Odds are that she’s sporting the standard Gelderian hairstyle though.
“Allow me to introduce my daughter,” the king says. “Princess Lin.”
“Greetings! I’ve never met aliens before. This is a rather strange experience, but you don’t look all too different to us.”
She smiles, giving us a polite bow before walking up to us. She’s shorter than Zoe, who herself is about average height for a woman. We take our seats, waiting for the king to speak.
“None, save the children of Gelderia, shall wield the tech jacket. That is the First Decree you heard so much of earlier. You see, our race evolved to the point where our bodies are essentially useless. Aided by our technology we lived in bliss for a time, never having to lift a finger… and so our bodies shrivelled and shrank. Perhaps, once, our race was not inferior to yours, given our similar appearances.”
That’s… a funny notion. Especially considering how fragile humans are. But I guess the Gelderians are doubly so—but not vulnerable, that’s for sure.
“However,” the king sits forward, “the decree’s true purpose is to prevent the creation of a potential enemy as powerful as Zoe Thompson. Alas… these are dire times. We are at war, and would have much use for one as powerful as you. Of course, your guardian has my word that we will not harm you upon refusal.”
She frowns. “...But what happens if I do?”
“After transferring ownership of the jacket to a Gelderian child, you will be free to return to your homeworld,” Princess Lin says, giggling when Zoe deflates. “Did you think we would execute you?”
“Can you blame her?” Her father chuckles. “Did not see the sentiment inside the judgement hall, Lin? Quite a few of our statesmen wanted her head out of fear, upon discovery that a tech jacket could be wielded by a non-Gelderian.”
Lin frowns. “...I still remember a time when our people were kind. War has hardened our hearts, father.”
“It is a necessity, my daughter. That being said, what is your decision, Zoe Thompson? Will you be our champion?”
She sits a little straight at his address. “...If you’ll have me, then yes. But I’ve got a question. …Why can I understand what you’re saying? What I hear and what you’re saying are completely different.”
“Oh!” Lin’s face brightens with a quick clap of her hands. “That’s because all jackets are linked to a shared database. From the moment you bonded to it, your jacket studied your language and incorporated it into our automatic translation feature. What I’m more curious about is how your guardian knows our language.”
I grin and lift my ringed hand. “Comes with a universal translator. To my ears, you all speak my language.”
“...I did not know Terra was so technologically advanced,” the king murmurs curiously.
“Oh, it’s not. I got my hands on this bad boy through circumstances some would call impossible. I—”
“Oh!”
Zoe turns to me in panic.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just answered for both of us, right? Shit! I’m sorry. I just—he asked, and then said yes without thinking.”
“...You realise it’s my job to help people, yeah?” I point out. “I’d have said yes even if you told them that you’d hand in the tech jacket away. Besides, the Kresh don’t seem so tough.”
“So you’re in?”
I nod.
“...Good. Two champions is more of a boon than I could ask for. I am sure Veln would love to study your capabilities. As for you, Zoe Thompson, you will be receiving Gelderia’s storied warrior training. Powerful you may be, you are still a novice to our ways. Take the day to settle in. Perhaps partake in our cuisine, or see the sights. Hereafter, your time on this planet will be rigorous if you are to win us this war.”