Note: in this alien viewpoint version I will first use a proper description of what the alien sees or experiences, then replace it with an Earth-familiar term if the term is going to be used regularly. For instance, the alien will have a "work cycle", but once I have said that I will use the familiar term "day" subsequently to save you, the reader, a lot of internal translating. So, you will see, "in just two work cycles (days) they had some power restored, and in three days we could limp through space." Days will replace work cycles in the rest of the story.
Alstore (alien deity who will be called Buddha) skin those Bakers alive and boil them for me to eat!
They knew the Charleys had just upgraded their ship's ECM, and they were checking to find out if we knew it, or not. We didn't, so we didn't sense the Charley ship, and FFFT!!; one shot and we were toast. The good news was the Charleys really had no interest in us, we had just wandered too close. The bad news was we were heavily damaged and, no surprise, the Bakers came back to loot us.
The small surprise was they pulled out of looting early when another strange ship approached. That's why I'm here to tell this story at all.
Our first- and second-in-command were so embarrassed by the situation that they opted for "personal consultations with Buddha." -- they killed themselves -- when the Bakers boarded. I would have joined them, but I loathed our second-in-command, and the thought of going through a tea ceremony in heaven with him stayed my hand. So, I'm in charge of a ship that should be dead, but isn't.
The crew worked wonders. In just two work cycles (days) they got some power restored, and in three we could limp enough to get back to our interstellar space engine module. We had the power to leave the HX area. The question then became, limp to where?
This is not a friendly region of space for us Ables, so our choice narrowed quickly to the closest M-class star system (the Solar System) -- it was listed as being an uninhabited, solitary M-class star. Being a solitary, it should have enough planetary debris for us to fix our ship. We started out.
Oddly, we were not alone. The strange ship, I will call it a Delta (a Solar System ship), that had spooked off the Bakers followed us.
===============
The trip to the M-class star was very busy with repairing what we could. It was otherwise uneventful, except for our "shadow." We got curiouser about this ship, and finally repaired enough sensor equipment to determine that it was radioing ahead. So, this star system was no longer uninhabited! I ordered more time spent studying that ship.
The reports on it were reassuring. It was barely interstellar-class. Its propulsion and communications systems were so primitive that it was really touch-and-go if it would make it across interstellar space. Still, if it was radioing ahead, that meant a reception was being organized, and we really couldn't dress for the occasion. I had the crew arrange for our interstellar module to become a decoy when we had finished 99% of our deceleration. When that time came, we destroyed our shadow, and changed course so that we would come into the system from a somewhat different direction.
=============
Two months later, our decoy worked like a champ. We watched as twenty or so solar system-class warships converged on it, and blew it to pieces. These warships were as primitive as the shadow, and the decoy took out two with the two little "popguns" we put on it. Meanwhile we slid by undetected and docked at the inner planet (Mercury) -- Mercury would be a metal-rich planet, and metals were what we needed the most of.
Yeah, there were some primitives infesting this solar system. We knew nothing about their capabilities, and truth be known, I didn't want to find out anything about them until our ship was upgraded from about five percent effective to about thirty percent effective -- the highest we could hope for without some real repair yards to work with. But, Dr. Yogurt, our science officer, was of a different mind. "We are going to be in this system for six months doing repair work, and it will be nine months to a year before that "greeting committee" gets turned around and reaches this inner part of the solar system. We should explore."
He was right. If something big showed up, we were dead anyway. And once we established on the inner planet, we would no longer be sneaking. We should send the small boats to find out what we were dealing with in this system.
As we secured our part of the inner planet and began repairs, we studied the system. We hadn't seen much activity in the outer system on the way in. There were a handful of primitives on Mercury; we drove them off. The second planet (Venus) was inscrutable because of its thick, cloud-filled, CO2 atmosphere -- but it seemed to be some sort of hot, mini-gas-giant planet. The fourth planet (Mars) looked like a lightly, but fairly standardly inhabited world -- a barren surface with a network of habitations stretching from one "spring" of life to another. But the third planet (Earth) was distinctively different. This planet Earth was some kind of hotbed "jungle" planet where life was spread widely and thickly over much of the surface. Primordial planets such as this -- where much of the surface and atmospheric carbon is sucked up into the life cycle -- are rare.
"We should start with Earth. That one is the key to this system." said Dr. Yogurt. Who was I to disagree?
I would have put Dr. Yogurt in charge of exploring and sent him off on his own, but he has no commercial sense. And, if we had any hope of redeeming ourselves on this voyage, we had to come back with something valuable. On the other hand, my Chief Engineer knew exactly what had to be done to fix the ship and had the respect of the crew. I would just be in the way, during the repair phase of our stay, so I chose to lead the scouting party and let the Chief Engineer lead the repairing.
==================
As we got close to Earth, I became more and more impressed with its teeming life. It was downright thick with life!! And this thick life had made dozens and dozens of spectacular changes to the planetary surface. Much of the surface was covered with liquid water, but the temperatures and pressures were close enough to water's triple point that there were significant areas of water ice on the surface as well. How strange! Just as strange: even though water was the main constituent of the surface, water was not the main constituent of the atmosphere, nor was carbon dioxide. The two major atmospheric constituents were molecular nitrogen and -- very oddly -- molecular oxygen.
It appears the carbon taken up in the life cycle here is so massive that life here has leeched most of the CO2 out of the atmosphere and replaced it with oxygen. How strange!!
Doc Yogurt wanted to drop down in one of the thick green areas on the equator and wallow in this thick life mat. I overruled that: "Way, way too many unknowns!" I countered.
There were linearly organized areas on the surface, too. And, if there was going to be anything remotely like HX technology on this world, that's where it would be. Those rectilinear areas looked somewhat familiar on this very strange looking world. "We'll hit the rectilinear areas (cities), first." I said, and Doc agreed.
We started our exploration with what I call the Garrosh Gaza (Horsefly Tactic). The garrosh (horsefly) is an obnoxious biting insect on our world. Its main prey is the rosh (horse), an animal with a long, swishy tail, designed to swat said horseflies. When the horsefly first approaches its target horse, it comes in fast and buzzy -- it flies around making a lot of noise and moving in random directions. From this it determines which end of the horse is doing the swatting, and how likely the horse is to swat. If the horse is reasonably placid, or when it gets that way after several buzzing passes, the horsefly then comes in quietly, lands lightly, and takes its meal.
We have five scout ships, and those five ships have five drones each. We sent the drones over five of the biggest rectilinear areas and had them fly fast, random and "buzzy" -- easy for the primitives to see. The response was spectacular; the primitives lit up the sky with their defenses, and smoked it up a lot, too. But none of it was very effective. The drones came and went, came and went, and we learned a lot about how the primitives' defense systems worked. Things looked just fine. None of the defenses could hit our drones, and it looked as if the primitives didn't have any weaponry we couldn't counter. Then we left. We would let things settle down for a while before we snuck in.
On the night of the fourth day/night cycle, three of our scout ships slipped in to the centers of three of the largest rectilinear areas -- two stayed off-planet as ready reserve. One went to a rectilinear area that was in the center of a land mass and cradled by high mountains (Mexico City). Another went to one that was on a large bay by the largest ocean (Tokyo). My ship went into a rectilinear area that was on a small island in a large river that was next to a large island in a medium-size ocean (New York City). And yes, these cities we slipped into were sort of like HX interiors, which was comforting.
The surprising part was that all were very shallow -- virtually everything we saw on the surface was all there was to the area. It was as if these areas were made to be seen from space. "These are decoy areas." I thought, and for many days I had my crew and my ships still up in space look for the real cities.
After we landed and were establishing a security perimeter, we had a minor technical glitch. When we deployed our standard surveillance shield it interacted strongly with the atmosphere. The Ship Engineer on my drone explained it this way, "This atmosphere is such an oddball mix! Dense, cool, and full of water as a trace chemical. The shield is ionizing the water. It's creating a god-awful acoustic disturbance (rumbling), some visible light (lightning), and a lot of ozone."
"It is working?"
"Other than using up a lot of energy, and advertising to the world where we are, yes."
"Have we got the energy to spare?"
"We aren't flying or maneuvering, so yes."
"Then keep it up."
The scout ship being relatively secure, we went hunting.
The building on this world is very much dominated by the surface. Up and down are clearly the most important directions, and down doesn't go very deeply into the planet. It's as if the builders were afraid to dig, or were addicted to seeing the sky.
The engineer is right about the shield being obnoxious. It's sprouting lightning bolts on it's surface and shedding waves of ugly, brownish ozone gas. The inhabitants don't seem to be fairing too well, either. We see lots of things in the corridors (corridors in buildings, tunnels, and streets on the surface) that appear to be disorderly. Some of those things appear to be soft and squishy (bodies). They come in various sizes (from mouse-size to man-size). And some... have a fascinating covering! This covering is most interesting. I've seen nothing like it, and neither has Doc Yogurt. The covering is soft and stringy, and feels very pleasing to the touch. (it is hair) It seems to come in many varieties. We take samples. Thus far, this is the only thing we have found of much interest.
==================
After a week of searching, we have found only the barest smatterings of HX technology. As far as finding any worthwhile HX technology, this world is a total bust. We have found lots of hair, and that is a really neat exotic. We can sell hair when we get home, so we are devising ways to harvest that.
Some of the crew, to relieve the boredom, have taken up hunting the locals. Most are not much fun, they just run away when we move in their direction, but a small number keep coming and sneaking close to look at us. They make good sport for hunting.
Doc Yogurt still wants to visit one of the lush areas. We compromise, and he goes to visit a barren surface area on the opposite side of the world (Stewart Island, New Zealand). I have him go there because the primitives have found a way to hurt us. It turns out that they have figured out how to make projectile weapons (guns) work effectively in this odd, surface-oriented environment of theirs. If we wander on the surface for long, they will shoot at us and do damage. Our weapons far outmatch theirs in normal corridor environments, but on the surface they can stand off and take long shots with those guns of theirs, and rip off limbs when they get a hit. It's annoying.
=======
One month after our arrival, a fleet of five interstellar ships arrives and takes up orbit about this planet's Moon. They are being followed by another five ships which will arrive in another month. We scan the moon, it is fortified.
The crew argue in favor of a preemptive strike. So far, their space ships have proved no problem for us, but their ground forces are more difficult. Those projectile weapons of theirs are well developed for this environment, and their acuity in the visible light range is astounding. We have been chased off a couple places we wanted to explore on the surface by impressive displays of projectile firepower.
I think a while, then agree with the crew. We will pull up stakes on Earth and head for the Moon. We will kick butt there, then come back to exploring Earth with no fleet hovering over us.
We do just that. We destroy the five ships, in a sneak attack, and the three "city ships" head back to their cities. The two reserve ships orbit the Moon and survey their launching facilities. As we approached for battle, I was impressed with how much equipment I saw on the Moon. It's likely the primitives could launch at their own cities from the Moon. If they try, these ships will handle it.
The second fleet of five ships arrives, but it is very cautious. It holds out at the L-5 point, rather than the Moon. It doesn't bother us; we don't bother it.
===========
Doc reports he has found a small village to wander in. He didn't hunt the locals for a few days, and they learned not to hunt him. Now he can wander in their village without having them run away. He found, in addition, that they were offering him wondrous animals that were covered with thick, curly hair from head to tail (sheep). He finds they understand a primitive barter system -- not too surprising considering they can craft interstellar space ships.
=======
It is four months since our arrival, and the repairs on our ship on Mercury are nearly complete. It's good. We have seen what we need to see here, and we nearly lost one crew member a couple weeks back. His suit got trashed when he stumbled into an Earthling trap and then got hit with an impressive volley of projectiles. He's going to be a while in the regen tanks.
It's time to go, but we have one final project: filling the holds with sheep hair. We send the drones out searching for more. We spend days looking but find there is little in the cities. Then we stumble on to large concentrations on the outskirts of two mid-size cities (Sydney and Melbourne). The sheep are in the wild areas? So it seems! Once we figure that out, the holds fill rapidly, and we are now ready to leave.
The scout ships return to Mercury. The big Solar System defense fleet is headed back, but it's still two months away. Some of the crew want to go back through that fleet to teach it a lesson, but I veto the idea. This is just a backwater world, and we have more important things to do. There's still an HX hulk nearby that needs our loving attention, and any time we spend dealing with primitives is time not spent dealing with HX. We beeline for the HX and bypass the incoming fleet without incident.