Incursion Protocol

The chieftain’s daughter was not super nice. In fact, she was outright rude, especially since she was the one who had shot the arrow that gave me this pronounced limp. I sat in a smoky hut, one of many that made up a small circular village. As the geckos moved about their lives, they either darted away in fear or grabbed the nearest weapon whenever they saw me.

Luckily, the group I had followed managed to calm them down before leading me into the chieftain’s hut. The elder gecko sat in the center, staring at me through a cloud of acrid smoke, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. After a few minutes of silent scrutiny, she gibbered something in her harsh, guttural language. I shrugged helplessly.

“Wish I could understand you,” I muttered. “Really kicking myself for not choosing that fast-learner skill for languages.”

The chieftain called out to her daughter, the one wearing the coral headdress. I had pegged her as the culprit who had so kindly welcomed me to the island with a well-aimed arrow, being the only one of the group who had carried a bow. She said a few words to her daughter, who quickly disappeared from the hut. Even though I wasn’t a herpetologist, the family resemblance was obvious: both had the same rainbow pattern rippling across their sleek scales.

When the daughter returned, she handed a colorful shaft of coral to the chieftain, giving me a pointed look before leaving again. The chieftain beckoned me closer, then bent down and drew a symbol in the hard-packed sand. She looked up at me expectantly.

“Uh, nope,” I said, shaking my head at the alien symbol. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

She wiped the sand clean and drew another one.

“Nah, I don’t think- wait!” I moved around to her side so I could see the symbol right-side up. “I know that one! It’s a fragment of the Dulox language.” I tried to mimic the Dulox speech, but the sound that came out was more like a cat choking on a hairball than anything remotely comprehensible.

The chieftain nodded, let out a scratchy grunt, and tapped her throat. It seemed neither of us could mimic Dulox speech, but thanks to The System’s advanced learning, we could at least recognize and pick up parts of the language by being exposed to it. What followed was a few hours of impromptu language lessons. The chieftain would write a Dulox word in the sand, then repeat it in her own language, words like sand, sky, ocean. I nodded along, doing my best to repeat the words. Her language was much easier to replicate than the Dulox’s. The information seemed to flow both ways, as she began nodding in understanding when I translated something into English.

Pling!

You have gained a level in: Slipscale Language.

You have gained a level in: Slipscale Language.

Soon, we were able to hold a proper conversation. Level two wasn’t perfect, it was still a bit stilted, but most concepts flowed pretty easily.

“You’re an invader,” the chieftain said matter-of-factly. “We should kill you.”

I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. Up until now, our language lessons had been pretty cordial, but she sat back, all business now.

“I, uh... I’d rather you didn’t?”

“Your execution has been stayed,” she continued, “because we have uses for you. Namely, repelling the other invaders.”

“Wait, other invaders?” I leaned forward, surprised.

“Invaders not as... obviously marked as you.” She gestured with a clawed hand above my head. I fought the urge to glance up, realizing the System must label my ‘invader’ status for everyone to see. She went on, “I speak of the Dulox, who have invaded our home and polluted it with their sustenance, which chokes and leeches from the Slipscale people.”

I leaned back, disappointed, it wasn’t humans she was talking about, just the Dulox invading their planet. “The conveyor system?” I asked, getting back on track.

“No. I speak of the wretched Bloodreef. I am told you’ve already encountered it, as Faleun and her companions used it to remove the arrow from your leg.”

“The coral reef?” I asked, stunned. “I thought that was natural, it damn near covers the entire ocean!”

She nodded, her expression grim. “You are correct. The Dulox,” she spat the name, “have infested our planet with the deadly creature. It robs our people of the resources we depend on to live, killing our fish and destroying the coral that once thrived, the very same that sheltered the Slipscale, allowing us to ascend to where we are today. Now, it only survives in isolated bays, barely out of the Bloodreef’s reach.”

“But why me? I’m basically just an unarmed traveler. Hell, your own people almost killed me without even trying. Honestly, they got me good, if that arrow had nicked my femoral-"

She patted my leg near the wound. “You’re young and strong. You will recover from a small poke.”

I nodded, doing my best to keep the stinging tears from surfacing as I gritted against the pain. “Yep, nothing but a papercut,” I said, my voice only slightly shaky.

“You have a sky machine and tools to fight back against the Dulox.” She gestured toward my spacesuit. “Other Slipscale tribes have tried, but when they resist, the Dulox bring their machines and exterminate… or worse, take them, force them to harvest the Bloodreef.”

It all started to click. Like any military expansion, the biggest drain was resources and logistics, and the Dulox were no different. The Slipscale’s planet was basically a massive farm with a flashing sign that read: Ripe for the picking. The Dulox dropped in, planted their destructive food source, and turned a blind eye to the damage it caused to the local population and fauna. At least when humans did that kind of thing, they kept the destruction to faraway continents where most people wouldn’t have to see it…

“Alright, so say I do have some extra firepower to help out the Slipscale,” I said, leaning forward. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, there are miles and miles of that conveyor belt thing.”

“Do not worry about the conveyor. It is just a symptom of the sickness. Far off, past the horizon, their tower of light stands, sucking the lifeforce from the Slipscale. You take Faleun, remove the Dulox from our shores.”

“Just that easy, huh?”

“Go, invader,” she said, crossing her claws over her lap, clearly done with the conversation.

I stood and bowed awkwardly as I was dismissed. I’d never been in the presence of Slipscale royalty before, okay? She turned her head slightly, and I could’ve sworn she raised the gecko equivalent of an eyebrow at me.

Faleun met me outside the hut. I’d describe her as bristly, despite the lack of anything actually spiky about her appearance. She grunted and motioned for me to follow her toward where my ship had landed.

“Whoa, hold on a second,” I said, limping to catch up. “Where are we going?”

“To your sky machine,” she said, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world and I was an unscaled idiot who needed it spelled out for me.

“We can’t just-” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “We can’t just fly my ship to wherever their light tower is and take it down. My ship barely has armaments, we’d be destroyed before we got close.”

“So we go get more armaments.”

“That... well, that’s actually a good idea,” I conceded, “but it’s still not enough. Even if I had five times the firepower of one of their ships, they’d just concentrate their fire and turn us into more scrap for the Bloodreef to suck up. We have to be smarter about this. Figure out what the tower of light is, my guess is some kind of space elevator, and come up with a plan to take it out, preferably without killing ourselves in the process.”

Faleun stood still for a moment, then turned and resumed marching in the direction she had been heading earlier.

“Wait, now where are you going?” I called after her.

“Good plan, let’s do that,” she said without turning around.

“That wasn’t the plan! It was a ‘we need to come up with a plan’ plan!” I yelled toward her departing back.

“Okay.” She grunted, not slowing in the slightest.

The village wasn’t just a collection of huts, it was an ecosystem, as alive as the Slipscales themselves. The huts were a blend of coral, driftwood, and woven plant fibers, their conical roofs spiraling upward like the shells of sea creatures. The ground wasn’t solid earth but a mix of packed sand and crushed shells that crunched lightly under my boots as I limped along.

The whole place smelled of saltwater and seaweed, with an odd metallic tang that I couldn’t quite place; probably the same acrid scent I had noticed in the chieftain’s hut, with smoke wafting up from small fires burning in stone pits dotted around the village. Instead of clear, straight paths, the Slipscales had carved gentle, winding trails through the sand, paths worn down by generations of padding feet.

I followed Faleun as she led me toward the outskirts, where the huts thinned out, giving way to stretches of open sand that led to the vast, endless sea. As we walked, I caught sight of a Slipscale hammering away at what looked suspiciously like a weapon. He struck down with precision, using a crude hammer, just a chunk of obsidian-like rock tied to a stick, shaping the coral into a brutal edge.

“So, you’re the chieftain’s daughter, huh?” I asked, trying to break the silence as I limped along behind her.

She shot me a sideways glance. “Yes.”

“Do you always greet strangers with arrows, or was that just for me?” I tried to keep it light, though my leg still throbbed with every step.

She shrugged. “You were flying. Strangers flying are enemies.”

“Fair enough,” I muttered. I couldn’t argue with her logic, even if the execution was a little extreme.

A gust of wind blew through the village, kicking up sand. Faleun’s hand instinctively tightened around her spear, her eyes scanning the horizon. I tensed up too, though I had no weapon on me, something I planned to fix as soon as I could. And not with just another hammer. The tension was palpable, and I realized life on this planet, even far from the Dulox’s megastructure, was far from idyllic.

“They come sometimes,” Faleun said, almost reading my thoughts. “The Dulox. Sometimes to check on the reef, sometimes to replenish the Slipscale who do their mining. When they come, we hide. Fighting doesn’t usually work out well in our favor”

The idea of these people, so deeply connected to their land and sea, having to cower in fear whenever the Dulox came to check on their cruel coral farms, sent a chill through me. She relaxed, slightly, which was probably pushing the limit as far as Faleun ever relaxed. We pressed on, she didn’t look back or slow to accommodate my limping form.

As we rounded a bend, a bay came into view, its waters shimmering with a soft, ethereal glow. Coral spiraled up from the depths, untouched by the Bloodreef’s creeping red tendrils. Slipscale swam gracefully through the water, tending to the coral with care, their lithe forms darting between the vibrant structures, cleaning and maintaining the reef like devoted gardeners.

“What’s that?” I asked, nodding toward the shimmering scene.

“The Sacred Reef,” Faleun said quietly. “One of the few places left untainted. For now.”

I watched as one of the Slipscale surfaced, cradling a piece of coral in its arms as if it were a precious artifact. Others worked in the shallows, planting new growths, their movements deliberate and careful. There was a reverence in the air, the way they moved and tended to the reef, like they were protecting the last pure piece of their world.

Faleun’s voice held a hint of tension. “It is all we have left.”

I didn’t need to ask more. The bay stood as a quiet testament to everything the Slipscale had lost, and everything they were still fighting to preserve.

Faleun didn’t slow as we left the bay behind, her pace steady and her gaze fixed ahead. The Sacred Reef glimmered behind in the distance, but I could tell she was already thinking beyond it, to the fight that lay ahead.

The village soon faded from view, and we found ourselves back on the familiar stretch of sand leading toward my ship. The wind kicked up again, swirling the salt and seaweed scent around us, but neither of us spoke. There wasn’t much more to say.

As the ship came into view, a strange mix of relief and anticipation settled over me. I glanced at Faleun, her expression set and determined. “You’re sure about this?” I asked, breaking the silence, still wrapping my head around the idea of taking a primitive alien aboard my spaceship.

“Slipscale do not turn their backs to the raging current,” she replied without hesitation.

I didn’t press further. We walked in silence toward the ship, even though we had reached our destination, we both knew there was a long way to go.