[b]Vajra Mountains, Unorganized Interior Territories[/b]

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3NcmSWmtZY]((Suggested listening))[/url]

Contrails of clean, white vapor rolled off the edges of a gunship's fuselage as it burst forth from a cottony cloudbank, leaving quivering beads of moisture rolling off the hull in the wind. A few hundred meters beneath the tri-jet dropship was a landscape characterized by what might arguably be the most exotic and striking terrain any human had ever seen: the Vajra Mountains. Jagged arches formed massive bridges over deep, mist-veiled chasms beside colossal hoodoos of chalky white rock marbled with swirls of pinks and oranges reached toward the clouds. All but the sheerest of rock faces of this jagged landscape were absolutely carpeted in a dense mat of thick jungle foliage. Surrounded by this chaotic mix of rock formation were massive plateaus from which disgorged thousands of gallons of water from cliffside waterfalls. To call this collection of rock formations a mountain range was grossly inaccurate - human vocabulary was unprepared to describe what this kind of terrain was, as nothing similar to it existed on their homeworld. Technically, the Vajras were a vast expanse of karst-like terrain; if the Cloud Forests of New Guinea, the Badlands of the Dakotas, and the Mountains of South China could have somehow been combined, the result might have been something with a cursory similarity to the Vajra Mountains.

Out of the windows and beyond the open loading bay of the gunship, every passenger aboard the aircraft stood in awe - enrapt by the sheer alien-ness of the landscape rolling past underneath them. Every passenger, that is, but Sofija Sobral. She instead scrunched herself into the seat and stared across the fuselage with a nauseated grimace across her face. Her discomfort attracted the attention of a monstrous man with a fluttering mane of blonde dreadlocks decked in anti-ballistic leather armor - the protection detail, no doubt. He slung the beast of a gun in his arms over his shoulder and down his back as he stepped over to the xenobiologist.

"Yo, lady... you gonna be aroight?" He asked, giving away a distinct Afrikaner dialect.

A pale-faced Sofija trembled silently in her restraints and gave a swift nod. It was apparent that the armed guard did little to soothe her nerves, and so the Soufrikan giant left her with a shrug. With the giant firearm cradled in both arms - some sort of automatic grenade launcher - the guard scanned the horizon and the mountains below for any sign of trouble. The very fact that the guard's presence was required for this routine flight was a reminder that the so-called Safe Zone could be quite deadly, particularly here in the remote south-central interior. Large swathes of the Brahma's inhabited region remained as undeveloped and wild as any wilderness outside the Zone's borders, especially when unfavorable terrain impeded human colonization as was the case here. Some surface highways had been installed to connect Nai Kolkatta with nearby states such as Ephyra and Prachapadri along corridors where the jungles had been tamed and the terrain smoothed by earthmoving equipment. Flight, however, was the only way to reach isolated Kangchai on the southernmost fringe of the Safe Zone. And even here, high above the jungle, one was not entirely safe; the Mayura still ruled these skies.

Erko too stood near the cusp of the rear bay - a respectful distance behind Stanzo and the guard. Wind coursing through the fuselage ruffled and mussed the peachfuzz coat of fine, downy fur that covered his body. Seeing the mountains from this height was the most amazing thing he had ever witnessed. Down below him, in that untamed maze of jungle and stone, there were Tkrai who had never experienced first contact with the humans - perhaps they knew absolutely nothing of these men from the stars. He imagined at least some of them must now be gazing up to the skies in ignorance at the silver creature rumbling through the skies above their heads as Erko looked down upon them. His own kind so far beneath him seemed so primitive and backwards to him from this height. He imagined this was how the humans thought of him: even the most erudite and reformed of the Batmen were barely distinguishable from the stone-cutting savages in the jungle below in the eyes of a human.

Stanzo shoved Erko aside as he stepped back from the edge of the rear bay, supporting his suspicions about humanity's view of the Batmen. "Watch where you're standing." Stanzo huffed. "You could've bumped me off the edge if we'd hit turbulence. Be more careful."

"Forgive me, it will not happen again." Erko squeaked. Stanzo ignored the Tkrai and continued over to the interior of the fuselage, plopping himself down into the seat alongside Sofija's.

"Looking a little green in the gills, ma'am." Said Stanzo with a concerned smile. "I wish you would've said something about being dropship-sick before we left. Travel by air is a big part of the job."

"I'm not sick." Sofija corrected. "It's just anxiety..."

"Anxiety? You afraid some critter is going to nab us out of the sky? C'mon now, Eyck here's got our back." Stanzo nodded over to the armor-clad guard, scanning across the horizon. Sofija shook her head solemnly.

"I had a bad experience on my last flight."

"A bad experience?" Stanzo teased. "Just because you had some shitty pilot once doesn't mean every dropship ride is a near-dea-..."

"Orpheus."

"I see..." Stanzo acknowledged somberly, recalling stories of the failed defense and evacuation of that planet in the wake of the Listener attack. "Well, this will be nothing like that. We'll get to Kangchai safe and sound. It'll all be alright.

A commotion outside the aircraft drew the attention of every passenger onboard. A thousand wingbeats stirred the air around the gunship as a flock of small airborne creatures pressed in, drawn to the howl of the jets. Stanzo and the other Foundation workers looked to the armed guard at the rear of the craft for reassurance who seemed totally unfazed by the great flock of flying aliens.

"Mantas." Eyck declared, pointing to one of the half-meter wide creatures with the barrel of his firearm. They had great, yellow-blue wings that beat in much the same way as a butterfly's - though they seemed to bear more resemblance to the rays of earth for which they were apparently named. A mass of tentacles for feeding were pursed up into a rigid beak during flight extended forward from their head. "They just loike the sound of the engines. Totally 'armless."

No sooner than he had relieved the passengers, the air quavered with a long, bellowing screech. Deep and grating - it immediately drained the color from the faces of everyone on board. Erko's ears twitched and vibrated in pain - a sign that the sound was much louder on frequencies inaudible to humans. The Mantas sensed it as well; their smooth, undulating flock immediately scattered into a thousand directions.

The guard's position stiffened as he leveled the grenade launcher into the sky - flipping the safeties off and activating the holosight in three swift, fluid motions. His body language confirmed what the passengers feared.

"Hunting call!" Eyck howled. "Poilot, get us some altitude! We need'a put some distance between us and the flock!"

[b]Beyond the Safe Zone, Three Months Prior[/b]

"We should have cut their heads free from their filthy necks the moment their kind stepped upon this world!" A Tkrai chattered in his native tongue, throwing a clenched fist above the glowing coals of the fire. Numerous other batmen shouted out in furious solidarity - their clenched fists cast flickering shadows against the walls of the cavern.

"That is your feeling? Why do you say it only now that they have taken [i]your[/i] people? I have said precisely this for the past one hundred [i]alok[/i]." A withered Tkrai, whose scrunched face was decorated with a knotted beard, snarled in reort. "You, Maato, had no quarrel with the humans until now. You traded your friendship for their guns, which you in turn pointed against us Junker. See now how the humans treat their friends."

"Toonak has the right of it! Let the humans butcher the Maato like the traitors they are!"

"Such nerve for a Lohtak to call anyone a traitor!" Another angry voice screeched out from across the fire. "We Shamari still remember the treachery your clan meted out against ours!"

The discussion rapidly devolved from that point on. A dozen shouting matches in four Tkrai languages reverberated against the damp rock of the cavern. Vines from the surface reached down from a dim shaft of bluish sunlight above the dwindling council fire. Batmen clambered along the vines and hung down with bouncing energy over the fire, observing the ten-way argument their chieftains had descended into and occasionally chiming in with their own demeaning chirps.

The argument was becoming increasingly aggressive. One of the chieftans around the fire had even taken a heavy stone into his slender fingers and raised it menacingly, threatening to crush it against one of his rivals' skulls. Shouts had devolved into unintelligible screeches of hostility - their diaphragms quavered with uncontrollable fury. This council was seconds away from turning into a bloodbath.

Exactly as planned.

 "Look at yourselves!" A deep, warm voice commanded at last from the shadows of the clammy grotto. Batmen were known to possess squeaky, high-pitched voices - to hear a creature that could speak so sonorously, with such command - the squabble came to an abrupt, silent halt. Was this creature the one that had arranged this council to begin with? "Look at yourselves and you will see the root of all our evils."

"Show yourself unto us!" Chief Toonak commanded the enigmatic speaker in the darkness, breaking the silence. "It is you who bid us to meet for this council? Make yourself seen!" All eyes directed themselves to the darkness beneath a dripping overhang, every ear turned to hear slow footsteps smacking against the soggy cavern floor.

Into the firelight came a positively ancient Tkrai. The fuzzy down that covered his lanky body was silvery white; numerous cuts and scars on the edges of his great ears bespoke a long and troubled life. Even so, he walked with a slow and regal dignity. Unlike Toonak, he needed no walking stick - he seemed to be in remarkable health despite his extremely advanced age.

"Who are you?" The Maato chieftan demanded.

"I am he that brought us together this day." The ancient Tkrai affirmed. "I have lived for a great many [i]alok[/i], more than can be remembered. I recall the state of [i]Amuk-Tlih[/i] before the first man came from the stars and set foot upon it. And as you have - I have seen this world blighted as they arrive in ever greater numbers."

"Then you are in agreement?" Asked the Maato leader. "You have brought us here that we might come together to destroy the humans?"

"Impossible!" A chief from across the fire blurted. "If every Tkrai on [i]Amuk-Tlih[/i] answered a warpath against the humans, we would be destroyed before we came to the line of their Safe Zone! To oppose the humans is a deathwish!"'

"You are both right... You are both wrong." Declared the elder Tkrai as he approached the fire ring; the chieftans parted away from him a respectful distance as he did.

"Every clan and tribe on this world could not hope to accomplish anything against the humans of the Safe Zone."

"How are we to oppose them? They must be stopped!"

The silver-haired Tkrai nodded. "The humans can not be fought as many clans. Since they have arrived on this world, humans and the tribes have fought, and the tribes have always lost. The humans know to pit your tribes and clans against one another. They have practiced this on their own world - making their enemies do the fighting for them. It is a clever way to fight. If we are to win, Tkrai must not fight as clans. Tkrai must fight as one."

Ears pricked upright as the gathering pressed in to hear what the silver-haired one said.

"You must not have any loyalty to any chieftain." He continued. "A single chieftan may be swayed to the humans to fight on their behalf - leading an entire people astray. Tkrai must not be loyal to their people or their cheiftan. Their only loyalty must be to [i]Amuk-Tlih[/i], as such, there can be no cooperation with humans."

"That will still not work!" A dissenter crowed. "We have spears and knives! Humans have railguns and gunships! How can we possibly make war against them?"

The ancient Tkrai nodded thoughtfully. "Tkrai do not know this: humans are as divided as you. The humans have their own clans and their own feuds. Just as they have turned your clans against one another, we too can make their disagreements work for us."

"On the other side of [i]Amuk-Tlih[/i], there is a settlement of humans - they call it 'Kartago'. There they cultivate a great hatred the humans of the Safe Zone, as the humans of the Safe Zone hate them."

"You aim to foster a feud of trangression between the Safe Zone and the men of Kartago?" Chief Toonak deduced.

"There is a word among the humans for this tactic that they have practiced for thousands of [i]alok[/i]." The Silver-Haired elder affirmed, nodding in confirmation.

"We shall use their own 'False Flag' against them."