Codename Alpha

Chapter 23

The air in the shuttle was cold, which made me and my drenched fur shiver, but given the situation that didn't matter much. The fact that I was fully prepared to jump from the rafters onto an alien to bite their throat out five minutes ago seemed ridiculous in retrospect.

"What were you guys doing in orbit?" Marine asked, as we cleared the cloud layer and entered the upper atmosphere.

"Well, we saw lights on the night side of the planet, and Commander Ibrahimov wanted us to find out if there was intelligent alien life on this planet. I'm sure you know the answer to that question. We didn't dare try and land after your shuttle failed to return," the sabretooth said. "By the way, it's good to see you again, Lieutenant Kovalev."

The sky outside of the shuttle was still dark, but it was nonetheless beautiful thanks to the stars, and the lights of other cities on this planet. The feeling of weightlessness over the past few minutes had been building up, and I was starting to feel somewhat nauseous.

"You too, Lieutenant Adela. What exactly were you studying?" Max asked.

"Mainly, we've just been listening to radio communications and looking at their satellites. It's all a bit overwhelming, and... we've passed the stratopause. We've been mapping the planet to the best of our ability from orbit as well," Adela said. "I need to ask, how did you know we were in orbit?"

"Intuition," Marine simply said. "I figured that you guys would see the night lights and then come to this planet to find out more. I think we were pretty lucky that Jack managed to contact you in time, though."

"Yeah, and what have you lot been up to?" the striped hyena asked, excitedly. "We don't even know what the aliens look like. You really do look like you've been through hell. Smell like it, too. No offense, though." They unbuckled themselves from their seat, and floated over to the other bench in front of us. I got a good look at their nametag, reading Yura.

"I wanna hear this too," the jackal said. They unbuckled themselves as well, and pulled themselves along the floor to be practically laying down below me, floating slightly in the zero-gravity environment. "Like, why was there a second transponder? The hell was up with that?" I took note of their nametag - Lubos. I could tell by their scent that they were a male.

"We were using it as a diversion. Well, let me start from the beginning," Max began, but he was interrupted by Adela.

"Hold up, Kovalev, I want to hear this too. Give me one second to set autopilot..." after a few seconds, there came two beeps. "Alright." They unbuckled, and then practically launched themself across the cabin, doing an odd flip to land on the bulkhead on their forepaws. "I already know this is going to be interesting."

Taking advantage of the zero-g, I slipped my emergency pack and simply let it float on it's own, alongside the stab vest. I leaned back and relaxed to the best of my ability. It was hard, given the lack of gravity, but I would take this shuttlecraft over anywhere on the planet, as it stood. Max and Marine seemed to be pretty okay with it, Max even moreso, as he seemed to be enjoying it, unbuckling himself and coming to float above me.

"In all likelihood, we'll be doing a full debrief once back to the ship, so if you want the gritty details you can just wait for that. In short, we were shot down by jets, rode in a cargo container to... somewhere, almost got run over while running for some hills, stole a truck, stole some license plates, almost got arrested by the police, met some aliens, ate a baked potato, and then contacted you. If you've got questions, ask away."

Immediately, Adela, Yura, and Lubos began talking over each other.

"Okay, not all at once. Uh... we'll go... diagonal, I guess?" Max said. "That's you first, Adela."

The nausea was thankfully starting to fade, but I absolutely wasn't going to unbuckle myself yet. Seeing Max practically standing on the ceiling upside-down did not help, either.