The gate to Thrass opened once more.

This time, it was according to schedule.

Thirty or so traders, all of them xenos. Most of them had the decency to hide their fur, or their feathers, or whatever excuse-for-scales they wore on their hides.

It should’ve been an ordinary drop.

The traders would pay their bribes, and the officers would look the other way while they sold their overpriced goods to homesick soldiers. Mostly, cyran-grown food and basic textiles and toiletries. Powders, pastes, clean socks.

Then, the traders would head to the local market, as they had a thousand times before. They would buy whatever goods were in demand back home - not that the Thrassian xenos made much of anything worthwhile, except the cultivated herbs and leaves. Lumber, if the traders brought drudges to haul it.

Then, the traders would wait in town, until the next gate out. That’s how it should’ve been.

But things had changed, in the last week.

The buildings closest to the gate, and on both sides of the main canal were boarded up. Sandbags lined the bottom floors, and some balconies had been reinforced several times over. There were active guards on every rooftop, and even a few cannon aimed - not out, towards the jungle - but at the gate itself.

No more did soldiers walk around in off-duty dress. They wore full uniform, helmets and all, while marching in groups of two, three, and six around the city.

What the hells did I walk in to? Eolh thought.

He was standing on the gate, amidst the other traders, doing his best to not stand out. He tried not to look nervous, as if he’d been here a dozen times before.

“It’s nothing,” Annoch had said back on Cyre, when she was sending him off, “It’ll be fine. The other traders won’t even notice you’re there. People come and go on these caravans all the time, they don’t care. Just pay your bribes, and everything will be fine.”

But she hadn’t said anything about the guards. So damn many of them.

They didn’t look happy, either. Most of them were scrawny, compared to the Centurions he had seen back on Gaiam. And their scales were darker, their faces stranger. Less humanoid. Huh.

To Eolh, it didn’t matter what they looked like. They’re all the same. They’re looking for an excuse to cause trouble.

Stick to the plan. Find Poire. And find out if Kirine is still alive.

And then?

The future was for later. Right now, Eolh had his eyes on a handful of heavily-armed officers, who were making their way across the flat, metal disc of the gate. They were coming to intercept the xeno traders.

The cyrans stared down at the traders, as if their presence was offensive enough. They asked everyone the same questions, and Eolh could tell they were just waiting for someone to step out of line:

“What are you doing here on Thrass et Yunum? Why are you here now? Do you know anyone on Thrass et Yunum?”

There was an old avian with dark feathers, a white stomach, and a red chest, and he seemed dead-set on pissing off the guards. Not smart.

“What do you think I’m doing here?” He said. “Same thing I’ve been doing since the Empire came to this damn planet. I’m making an honest living. Not that you’d know anything about that!”

The officers didn’t like his answer. One of them said, “Just answer the questions.” Another started going through the gear in his hand-drawn cart, pulling out lemons by the armful. The old passerine started squawking. Flapping his wings.

A rifle-butt to the stomach shut him up. Then, the officers dragged him away, leaving his cart and all of his belongings for the other cyrans to “confiscate.”

“Filthy featherfolk,” one of the officers muttered, while filling his pockets full of fruit and ill-gotten fabrics.

Annoch had coached Eolh on all the right answers. Keep it boring. Don’t embellish. They’re looking for out of place, and boring is always in the right place.

“What are you doing here on Thrass et Yunum?”

“Trader. Come to sell my supply.”

“What are you selling?”

“Nuts and nut powders,” Eolh held up his pack, which was full of cheap tin cans, “And a bit of thread and rope.”

They made him dump his pack out on the ground. They pushed around the goods. An officer opened one can, and tasted it.

“Not bad,” he said. “Who made this?”

“Don’t know,” he said. “Bought it off a trader.”

“Where are you from, bird?”

Eolh almost told them the truth, but he was afraid the truth was too interesting. “Undersides,” he said. “Sir,” he added, though it made him sick to his stomach. And when he realized they were only going to keep asking him questions, he held out a purse filled with imperial coins.

So they let him go with little more than a few insults and a few less tin cans.

Leaving the gate, Eolh breathed a sigh of relief. Thank you, Annoch. She had done her part in getting him here, outbidding another merchant to buy him a spot on the caravan.

Now, the rest, was up to him.

He split up from the rest of the traders, trying to stay low as he turned into one of the alleys between the stone buildings. He dumped off his sack of tin cans, and kept walking.

Stone was an uncommon building material here, it seemed. The rest of the buildings - houses, inns, and even a machine stable - were made of bamboo walls bamboo or old-growth wooden planks that were turning black with rot, roofed with mud thatch or leaves or both.

The humidity clung to his feathers, making him want to shake off - but there was no moisture to get rid of. The locals didn’t seem to mind.

At first, he thought they were another kind of cyran. But their scales were so wildly different.

Instead of aquatic plates that layed over each other, the locals’ scales were bumpy, and locked together. Their color was mostly brown, or black, or some other muted color to blend into the foliage, and their heads were almost triangular in shape. Huge, green or yellow or red eyes, and mouths that were frozen in permanent grins, with black tongues that scented at the air.

Not to mention, every single one of them was dirt poor. Mostly, they ignored him. The locals were used to keeping their heads down, and they dipped their wide-brimmed bamboo hats low whenever he passed by. They kept their four-fingered claws tucked into the sleeves of their clothes, or used them to carry heavy bundles of grain and bags of tea leaves and one wheel-barrow whose fishy smell was so visceral, it made Eolh cough and wipe the tears out of his eyes.

Away from the gate, all the buildings were boarded up. He didn’t have to guess why. Even in the poorer parts of the city, cyran soldiers walked in squads down the roads. Hail to the conquerors. May they choke on their own success.

More than once, Eolh saw the soldiers go out of their way to pick fights with the locals. They would splash them, or pick at their gear. A woman was carrying what could’ve been a whole season’s worth of tea leaves in a fabric container on her head, and the soldiers were making a game of trying to get her to tip over, and spill her cargo.

Eolh watched, knowing he could do something about it. Take a rotten fish from that wheelbarrow, and throw it at them. When they turn around, duck back into an alley before they saw him.

Stick to the plan, he thought.

But the cyrans made it so hard.

There was an open storefront against the side of the mud-slick road. A kitchen with a long bar and tall stools and a tempting smell wafting out into the warm, wet air. One of the local xenos was selling bowls of soup. He ladled huge scoops of broth into bowls, and served them to anyone who walked up and paid him. The other locals ate quickly at the bar before giving back their bowls, and going on their way.

When Eolh approached, the cook stopped ladling. He looked at Eolh, and made a hissing bark at someone else inside.

Eolh held his hands up to show he wasn’t armed. At least, not with a gun. Eolh had left the old tech rifle behind because Annoch said, “Not the best idea, carrying a gun into a war camp.”

The cook relaxed a little. It was hard to tell. His tongue, a purplish-black color, flicked out between his jaws, and Eolh could see the serrated teeth there. Waiting for Eolh to say something.

How do I even start this?

Do they even speak our language?

“I’m looking for someone,” Eolh said.

The local blinked. First one eye, then the other.

“Uh,” Eolh shifted. “Human? Have you seen a human? About this tall?”

The local made some noise in the back of its throat, like a guttural trumpeting.

I have no idea what you’re saying.

Eolh didn’t know how long he stood there, miming out the descriptions of Poire, and even of Kirine. He tried to show robes, flowing down his body.

By the time the local finally seemed to understand he was looking for someone, it was too late. A band of cyran soldiers were coming up the street, laughing and leaning on each other as they stomped up the muddy stones.

The other locals in the street scattered and disappeared before them, because one of the soldiers had his rifle out, and was aiming and pretending to take shots at anyone who didn’t move quick enough. Each shot, he enunciated with a little bang, which made his compatriots laugh uproariously.

The cook shooed Eolh away, and started to close up his shop.

“Hey!” the soldier said, “You there! Don’t even think about it!”

He was pointing his rifle at the cook. “I’m hungry, and you’re making my dinner. And don’t skimp out on the meat this time, you gods-damned blackmouth!”

He sidled up to the store, banging his fist on the bar. Almost shaking the whole bamboo-and-wood building.

“Ask him if he’s got anything to drink,” another soldier said loudly, his words already slurred.

“DRINK!” the first soldier shouted, hammering his fist again. “Get us DRINKS, damn you!”

Eolh gave an apologetic look at the cook, before slinking away. The plan. No sense in getting seen, if he didn’t have to.

Cyrans.

Kirine may be different - and Eolh still wasn’t sure about that - but he was only one cyran in an entire empire. You can’t just undo a thousand years of hatred. Everywhere he went, they were all the same.

Poire might not understand it, yet. They worshipped him. Of course, he couldn’t see them for what they were.

It would be easier to find Poire and Kirine, if there weren’t so many cyrans in the city.

Annoch had told him there was a war camp nearby, but even the city was brimming with soldiers. Everywhere he went, there were more of them, walking around with their guns leaning against their shoulders, their uniforms stained with mud and sweat. Carrying bags of sand or dirt, digging emplacements. Eolh could even see them on the sturdier roofs, and it looked like they were setting up fortifications.

They’re getting ready for something.

Eolh didn’t know what, but it didn’t look good. Some of them looked nervous, like new gang members about to go on their first job. Like they were expecting to shoot. Or get shot.

Eolh found a quieter part of the town. Collapsed roofs and bamboo huts that were slowly sinking into the mud. Some of the houses had been burned, recently by the smell of it. The locals here were the poorest he had seen - many of them were missing limbs. Walking around on crutches, or laying in the streets. One had flies crawling all over it.

He climbed on top of one of the few houses that was still standing, drawing a few stares from the locals, but nobody called him out. Nobody wanted to make a scene. Up here, he had a clean view of the city. And could almost make out the camp of tents beyond.

He flicked on his goggles and the whole city lit up with warm, yellow outlines. There were cyrans everywhere. If he were to guess, he was looking at tens of thousands of soldiers, all sitting inside the city, or waiting in the camp beyond.

Gaiam, at its peak occupation, held maybe a few thousand soldiers, to the millions of avians.

So what the hells is going on here?

...and how am I supposed to find them in all this?

A cluster of three buildings caught his eye. New, built within the last few years. All the other bamboo buildings had been shoved away from these.

Each one was three stories tall, and nothing more than long blocks of rooms. There were people in the rooms. No, one person in each room. A prison.

Maybe…

A sound caught his ear. Hissing. Distressed.

It wasn’t quite a scream.

A local, male or female he couldn’t tell, was curled up against a building, alone. Trying to back into a corner. Two cyrans were pressing in close to the local, and the local was making that sound. Crying?

“Come here!” one of the soldiers said. “Come here or I’ll shoot!”

Nobody was helping. Not even the other locals. They were scared of the cyrans, shying away into their huts and hovels. Disappearing out of the street.

And then, without warning, the cyran swung the butt of his gun, smacking the local in the head. The local collapsed with a wet thump. At first, Eolh thought it was dead. Then, its hands moved, weakly. Trying to surrender.

“Oh no,” the soldier lifted his gun again. A smile on his lips. “It’s too late for that.”

Then, Eolh did something he shouldn’t have.

He didn’t stick to the plan.

Why?

There was no good reason. He told himself that he was the only one who could do it. He told himself that it would be easy. In, and out.

Eolh was behind the two soldiers before either of them saw him. His hand - Laykis’s hand - clamped on the back of one’s neck. And crunched. The soldier dropped, still holding his gun.

The other soldier turned around - and was about to say something - when Eolh rammed his knife into the soldier’s stomach.

This cyran made a gasp, sucking in his breath as his hands clamped around Eolh’s knife hand. When he fell, he almost pulled Eolh down with him.

The local looked up at Eolh. Dazed. Uncertain.

“Go,” Eolh cocked his head. “Run.”

But the local only lifted its hand. And pointed.

There were soldiers at both ends of the alley. Their guns aimed at Eolh. And in the blind moment of panic, all that came to his mind was one, quiet word:

Shit.