It took several minutes before any of the birds seemed to respond; Serenity wasn’t certain if that was because of how far away they were or because they were thinking. Regardless of the reason, Serenity kept the signal floating in the air. It was a continual drain on his mana, especially since he kept it rotating so all of the birds could see it, but he wanted it to be very obvious who sent the signal.

Compared to his mana pool, it wasn’t that bad, anyway. Using SpaceTime meant that he wasn’t having to fight gravity. The main costs, now that it was running, were from the rotation (minor) and his Plasma affinity spreading to affect the nearby air (major). Watching it, he was fairly confident he could improve the mana efficiency by adding Liminality to control the spread.

He’d definitely have to try that some time when he wasn’t watching a bluish-white bird fly towards him.

Once it was clear the bird was definitely headed towards the ship and was well below the altitude where it could see the spell, Serenity let it go. He’d used up several hundred Mana on that; it wasn’t a particularly significant problem for him even with the Mana loss he was seeing for being on a low-Tier planet, but it would have been quite significant for a Tier One spellcaster.

Come to think of it, a Tier One spellcaster probably couldn’t have cast the spell as cheaply as he had. It wasn’t perfectly optimized, but he knew he wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere close to that efficiency when he was new to spellcasting.

Serenity knew he was only comparing himself to a Tier One spellcaster as a distraction, and once the frostbird was finally low enough he didn’t need the distraction anymore. He could simply watch the bird wing in for a landing.

He found himself watching how it held itself and how it moved its wings, body, and tail. He had no idea how something so large could land so accurately; then again, it was probably using some sort of magic to help itself. Serenity refocused and started watching its mana as well; it was beautiful and the manaflows moved in time with its wing-strokes. Serenity could see how it moved the air around it as it tilted its feathers slightly to take advantage of the conditions it created.

He wanted to learn to fly like that.

It would probably be a long time before he could.

The blue-and-white bird landed cleanly in the middle of the circle denoting the helipad. Serenity took a good look at it, now that it was close enough. It had deep blue under-feathers (down?) that were covered by whitish, almost translucent feathers. They seemed more white near the middle and more translucent at the edges; Serenity wondered if they were actually white at all or if they simply appeared white because of the way they were shaped.

There was a slight haze in the air around the bird; it reminded Serenity of the haze when he opened the freezer. It was very weak, probably because it was already very cold and the humidity was therefore low. Still, that told Serenity it was definitely a frostbird.

There was no saddle or rider on the firstbird, for which Serenity was grateful. He knew that some civilizations “tamed” them, using them as transportation, usually for nobles. It was little more than slavery, but slavery wasn’t unknown. It was more common when a species looked different; he’d heard of birdlike species with humanoid “tamed creatures”, as well.

“Greetings?” Serenity stepped towards the frostbird, only now realizing how large it was. Its head was slightly higher than his, and it stood in the posture of a bird, with much of its length more or less parallel to the ground. Its wingspan had to be easily twice Serenity’s height.

It probably still weighed less than he did.

“Good, you speak Bridge. That will make this much easier.” The frostbird had an accent that made Serenity think of some of the Blackstone students he’d met, the ones that were nobles because of their ability rather than their birth. “I am Wings Arching over New Seas; what shall I call you?”

Wings Arching over New Seas had the feeling of a Name.

“I’m Serenity.” Serenity glanced back at the others; no one had followed him out to greet the bird. Mr. Williams was bundled in a long camouflage coat; someone must have taken pity on his shivering.

Serenity turned back to the bird. He needed to be clear about his role, first of all. “I’m here mostly as a facilitator and translator; I can’t make binding commitments.”

The bird tilted its head to the side and, unlike a human, its head went all the way to the side, at least ninety degrees off the vertical. “No? A Named high tier person who does not smell like a local, as translator only? There must be a story in this.”

Serenity tried to refuse, but somehow he found himself telling the story of finding the Traa. He wasn’t sure how he ended up there, but at least it wasn’t a problematic story.

In exchange, Wings Arching traded him the story of how his flight ended up coming to Earth. It was a multi-hour story of heroism, betrayal, and hope but in essence it was simple. There were too many frostbirds for the slowly-shrinking territory they controlled, so most of each year’s young adults had to leave. The story was really about who stayed and who left, along with how they obtained the portal seed.

During the tale, Wings Arching somehow worked in both what they needed, a space to call their own in lands that were cold year round, and what they wanted to offer, two frostbirds at a time working as flying mounts.

Serenity had no idea if the offer would be accepted, but he agreed to pass it along.

At that point, Wings Arching bobbed his head, thanked Serenity for the story trade, and took off without another word.

Serenity watched the frostbird recede into the distance before heading back to the enclosed area for a long talk with Mr. Williams.

He wasn’t needed here, at least not anymore. What they needed was a negotiator with a clear idea of what they wanted and the power to negotiate, plus a translator. A cultural specialist of some sort would probably also be a good idea; from what Wings Arching said, Serenity knew the frostbirds had a culture based on telling tales and memory rather than written laws, but he didn’t know what that meant in practical terms.

He’d dealt with cultures who had an oral tradition more than once as both Vengeance and the Final Reaper, but he’d never tried to make a long-term deal between civilizations with one.

It took hours to convince Mr. Williams that Serenity and his team were done and needed to move on. He kept trying to get Serenity to agree to stay “just a little longer, in case there are problems.”

They didn’t need Serenity, and having him stay as a security blanket wouldn’t help anything. Serenity eventually turned on the news and waited for a segment discussing the worldwide problems the invasions were causing before using it to make the point that he had better places to be.

Even after that, it was still three days before Serenity had a new destination. Getting the approvals to travel in order to help close portals was, if anything, harder than actually closing the portals.

Even so, the pace of portal closing started to pick up over the next few weeks.

Serenity hopped from hot spot to hot spot, trying to pick out the ones where he was actually needed. Most of the time, that meant fighting like against the humans in London, but occasionally it was something else. Serenity appreciated the ones that could be handled peacefully. Sometimes there simply was no solution; in a few cases, the invaders were willing to talk but the only resolution they would accept was the submission of the natives.

That didn’t get them very far when Serenity was involved.

There was a nuclear explosion in North Korea about a week after Serenity left the Orkney Islands. It was unannounced, but the radiation was detected shortly after the number of portals closed increased and it was centered directly on the location of an invasion portal. The general assumption Serenity heard was that the nuclear device exploded on the wrong side of the portal, but at least it successfully closed it.

Serenity didn’t remember anything about a nuclear explosion in North Korea from the first time around. He didn’t know what he’d done to change things, but it was clear something changed.

About one in five of the portals that were found once they finally had enough information to get close enough to use a portal detector were abandoned; Serenity could only assume they were from groups that had abandoned their portal when they arrived. The rockfin portal wasn’t counted in that number, but Serenity often thought it should be.

After the whirlwind trip in the UK, he started having enough offers that there was no longer down time between his trips. Rissa was even able to get most of them to pay him for his time. Janice arranged for accounting and legal help; Serenity emphatically did not want to think about what it would take to properly account for the money, much less prove he wasn’t acting illegally as a mercenary. All of his contracts went through legal review before he signed them, but after a few hiccups early on they didn’t take very long.

It certainly wasn’t long when compared to how long government contracts usually take.

Serenity traveled throughout Europe for three weeks before flying back home. He had pending agreements from many places he hadn’t yet made it to waiting on him. He wasn’t surprised that none were in Russia or China, but he was surprised to see that Australia wasn’t on the list.

When he asked about it, Serenity was told that there had only been three invasion portals in Australia - one on the east coast, one on the west coast, and one near the center. They never actually found the western one; it closed on its own shortly before Serenity flew to London. They only knew it was there because of the information from the rockfin portal.

The eastern one turned out to be a very polite group of treefolk, plant-people who resembled bushes when they were young and trees when they were older. They were highly interested in trade, and seemed to be quite cutthroat about it; the government of Australia was having a hard time reaching a deal with them. Still, there was no need for outside intervention.

The invasion portal near the center of the continent was a bit of a mystery. Like so many others, it was abandoned.

Serenity’s trip home was dominated by studying everything his father had sent him about his next task: commanding the Sterath at the fight that was still expected near the Denver portal. It had taken far longer than expected to ready themselves for the fight, and the last thing Serenity had expected was the actual reason why it had taken so long.

President Stewart had repeatedly refused to authorize it.

Even after he narrowly lost on Election Day, he continued to refuse to admit that the invasions were real.

There was a note from Lex Rothmer at the end of the information.

Son,

I finally got the President’s signature by agreeing that I would resign “the moment the attack starts and it is obvious there are no aliens”. He insisted on television crews showing the battle in real time to show “the truth to the American people”.

You’re our last reserve, but with the troops we have and the Sterath, I don’t expect to need you. I still want you there, just in case. I’m putting you with the television crews; please try to keep them alive. They shouldn’t be there.

Lex