Ezra carried on waving until Vigdis went inside, then gave her a finger of his own - the middle one. After that, he put his hand back on the gun’s foregrip and watched the aliens closely. He’d had standoffs like this before with all sorts of Humans - Mexican federal police, Kazakh freedom fighters etc, but never bird-soldiers before. It made him smirk under his mask. Were they afraid, or were they just naturally skittish?
[hr]

“Hey, easy on the details! They need to back the fuck up tell us what’s going on here before we just roll out the welcome wagon.” Darnell snapped at Itxaro as Vigdis re-entered.

“Shut up man, I know how a gun works.” Darnell kissed his teeth at Vigdis as she started pushing the end of his shotgun. His South London dialect was more pronounced now he’d had a few drinks. The dawning realisation that they were stuck God-knows-where had really hit home last night. He was just a fixer, not an explorer. He shouldn’t have to deal with all this alien shit.

“The aliens just confirmed what we already know - we’re stuck somewhere off all the charts. Now she’s giving them all invitations to follow us back to Earth, completely disregarding the fact these things have some advanced tech or, or fucking MAGIC. Whatever it is, it's dangerous is all I'm saying.” Darnell pointed to Dr Ibarra while speaking.

“Now it looks like they want us to go somewhere with them to do God knows what.” Darnell continued.

“No one is going anywhere.” Zey said firmly, arms crossed. The aliens had shown a willingness to communicate and be peaceful, but she still wasn’t clear what they were capable of or exactly what they wanted. It seemed this ‘Kerchak’ was instrumental somehow.

“Mr Darnell is right - we can’t risk them finding their way to Earth. Nobody is to give usable reference points for our home until we know more about them, is that clear? Now, how do we ask them about these metal spheres and the fire show?" 

She looked around. "Mallory, Eva, how long on those trinkets?”