The situation quickly deteriorated, and Itxaro was caught helplessly in the middle.

A gravelly voice with an Israeli accent sounded off over her comms. "Two tangos are external." All the blood drained from Itxaro's face as she realized what was happening. [i]Her[/i] idea, her [i]stupid fucking idea[/i] to post guards around the ship, an idea borne of past trauma and paranoia, was now going to kick off the first human-alien conflict. She could only hope that Tamerlane mercenary would shoot her eyes out so she wouldn't have to see it. 

Itxaro froze as she heard an electric thrumming that sounded like systems firing up behind her, accompanied by a metallic clicking. The natives all grew more on edge, and Nellara's metal spheres reappeared. Normally, Itxaro would have squealed with delight at her name pronounced by an alien tongue, but right now she couldn't fully appreciate the novel experience. The engineer slowly turned around to see Eva's javelin coming to life, and the spidery drones skittering around the shuttle bay's interior. [i]Oh, that fucking kid.[/i] Eva wasn't to blame, Itxaro knew that, but she sure had chosen a bad time to reunite with the crew after being practically MIA for the past three days. 

More chatter and movement from outside. Nellara was concerned, and in just three words Itxaro instantly knew what was happening. The Jo's crew had unwittingly surrounded their new guests, and as far as she knew, the natives thought it was a trap. Itxaro didn't know what else to do, so she slowly holstered her revolver into her overalls and held her hands up halfway, palms open to indicate she was unarmed. Of course, this gesture implied that the metal objects all the crew carried were in fact weapons to the natives, but Itxaro was sure they'd determined this for themselves already. But what could she say? What could she point to, indicating her peaceful intentions?

One of the natives started this game of charades first with a flurry of gestures. [i]Head. Brain? Thoughts? Mouth. Speech? Us. Travel.[/i] He wanted them all to go somewhere, but where to? And what did the first gestures mean? Itxaro might have been able to figure it out, but not when she could be decapitated by a sword-wielding bird at any second. 

The commander managed to calm the humans, no easy task in Itxharo's experience, but it was the charred tree-thing who had the final say. Itxaro felt a chill sweep through the room as the creature pounded the floor even through her thick sweater and chemically treated overalls. Her breathing slowed, and she felt the panic ebb. [i]That wasn't natural.[/i] The thing immediately had the room's attention (or at least Itxaro's), and it chose to sit on the grated metal floor, joined by Kareet. The woody native reminded Itxaro of Cuba's elder statesmen, those who had sparked revolutions throughout South America and led the USASR in those first rough decades. Those legendary figures were seemingly ancient, yes, but commanded absolute respect despite their advanced years. [i]Experience counts for a lot[/i]. Itxaro had a feeling this creature was old, with more experience than she could imagine, and she would be smart to listen to what it had to say. Itxaro mirrored the natives, sitting across from them with some distance, and listened.

As it turned out, the creature, named Shirik didn't have much to say. It identified the names of its comrades in a low, scratching tone, as well as what she assumed was their culture or species. Then it chose to conjure flames rather than waste time speaking. Itxaro was enraptured, eyes glowing from the brilliant fire as she took in the shapes Shirik made. She expected heat to wash over her face, but there was nothing of the sort. She didn't think much about how the creature made the flames; that could come later. For now, she needed to listen. [i]Mountains. The Jotunheim crashing.[/i] Shirik understood they had crashed here. Then came the next barrage of images. [i]Jotunheim again. Circle, dots, larger dot. Space? Arrow from Jotunheim to the planet. [/i] They understood that humans came from outside of this world. Then came rough sketches of Shirik's companions and himself within the circle, all on the same world. [i]Kanth-Aremek.[/i]

Itxaro nodded to indicate her understanding. Perhaps nodding didn't communicate the same thing in their cultures. Perhaps it meant, "Prepare to die, dog," on Kanth-Aremek, but the gesture was too instinctive to prevent. Kareet produced a map of some kind, but Itxaro had already set to work of her own, eager to engage in this pictorial exchange with Shirik. She pulled a beat-up data pad, USASR tech, from her deep pockets, set it on the floor, and began to typing away. It didn't take her long to produce the final product; she had extensive experience with the program as a teaching tool at the Universidad de la Habana. A hologram suddenly emitted from the data pad's projector showing a simple, 19th-century house with a human family in front of it. The colors were muted and the resolution low, but everything was still identifiable. "Home," Itxaro indicated as the lights in the windows went out, and the house faded into nothing. 

In its place rose Earth, the moon orbiting around it, and a distant sun, all floating above the data pad. "Earth," she said, pointing to the planet. "Home," she added, with an unexpected twinge of sadness. Following Shirik's example, faces appeared within the planet, those of the Jotunheim's crew in the shuttle bay, but only human faces. [i]Just us. Well, the Yenge too, but we won't get into that yet.[/i] Then came a small figure from the planet's surface. "Jotunheim," Itxaro said as the planet shrunk in size and the ship grew. Multiple planets passed by the Jotunheim at increasing speed to indicate how far they were from home. "Travel," Itxaro explained, borrowing Kolvar's pantomime of a person walking with two fingers. Suddenly, an explosion on the ship. "Broken," Itxaro said, pointing to the pixelated flames licking off the ship. This word was a stretch, but worth a shot; they couldn't just communicate in nouns. The Jotunheim came to a nondescript planet. "Kanth-Aremek," she tested her pronunciation of the alien planet's name as the Jotunheim burned through the ship's atmosphere. The light show came to an end. "Jotunheim broken. Humans travel home," Itxaro finished, a smile flickering across her face that was quickly suppressed. She had just communicated with aliens. Whether or not it was anything intelligible to them remained to be seen. [i]Maybe I should have consulted with the commander first. Ah well.[/i]

"Did I miss anything?" Itxaro asked her crew members, but kept her attention on Shirik's smoldering eyes, searching for comprehension in the flames.