"Yes, that's good," he heard Fielding say over the radio. "Keep that up and see how they respond." Jaeger could hear people talking in the background, there was probably a whole committee of people advising the Captain.
He repeated the maneuver again, and then a new heat signature appeared on his scope. He watched as a vessel emerged from out of view behind the ship's long, cylindrical hull. It was some kind of dropship, there was no mistaking it. Its design was pointed and sleek just like the arrowhead fighters had been, but it was far larger, with a wider wingspan and a swollen chassis. It looked like a cross between a spaceplane and a UNN shuttle, clearly designed for atmospheric flight as much as for space travel. It was almost as if someone had welded stubby, swept wings and a streamlined nose to a trailer, reminding him of the space shuttles that had pioneered the era of human expansion into space.
This one had the LCD panels along its flanks, and when he flashed his floodlight at them, they responded with a flurry of colors. Alright, he was in business.
"Where am I leading this thing, Sir?"
"To the starboard hangar bay," Fielding replied, "we'll have a team ready to greet them."
"Roger that, Sir. Bringing them in..."
He turned about, keeping an eye on the unwieldy vessel as it followed behind him. It was painted in the same ocean camouflage colors as the fighters, the rounded nose and the flush underbelly charred by the flames of reentry. The canopy was placed far forward, near the nose, and he could just about make out shadows moving inside. It surprised him that they hadn't sent a lone fighter, it seemed that they wanted to send a team, if indeed this was a dropship and not some kind of flying bomb...
They neared the hangar, the force field that kept the atmosphere inside shimmering with a faint, blue light. Uh oh, the aliens didn't seem to have artificial gravity if the spinning torus was anything to go by. How would they react when they entered the hangar and found that it had gravity? Was there a way for him to signal that to them?
"Er ... Captain Fielding, Sir," he began. "I don't think these guys have gravity on their ship. Any idea how we might warn them about our gravity generator so they don't nose dive into the deck?"
"I'll have some engineers jump up and down on the deck as they land," he replied. Jaeger was about to laugh, but then he realized that it wasn't a joke, it really was all that they could do to signal the aliens.
"Roger that, proceeding..."
He extended his landing gear, making sure that the alien dropship could see it, and then he coasted slowly towards the translucent energy barrier. He passed through it, engaging the thrusters on the underside of his vessel as he gradually lowered it down to the deck. He felt the impact reverberate through the ship as he touched down, his engine powering off.
Jaeger struggled to pull off his helmet, disconnecting from the Beewolf's systems and opening the canopy. It rose painfully slowly, and when there was enough room, he leapt out onto the deck, his helmet clasped under his arm as he watched the alien dropship slowly approach.
Baker had already landed, he must have been ordered back to the Rorke. He was ecstatic, practically skipping as he made his way over to Jaeger's side. A space had been cleared in the usually busy hangar, they had moved the ships out of the way as much as they could. There were dozens of people watching, flight crews and engineers peering out from between the idle vessels, along with a few armored Marines just in case things went South. Jaeger had never seen the bay so quiet, he could have heard a pin drop.
The alien ship seemed hesitant, then the nose pushed through the force field, thrusters on the flat belly belching jets of fire as they compensated for the gravity. It was like watching a fridge trying to stay aloft. As a pilot, Jaeger got an immediate sense of how awkward this behemoth must have been to fly. It seemed relatively unsuited for VTOL, perhaps it was designed for gliding instead? A set of three, wheeled landing gear extended, the vessel swaying a little as they touched down, rolling for a second before hitting the breaks. It was inside, and now Jaeger could truly appreciate its size. It was big, at least fifteen, maybe twenty meters long and half as tall. The twin tail fins on the rear of its streamlined body must have been eight or nine meters from the deck to their tips. It was much larger than a UNN dropship, heavier too. Were these aliens giants? Or was this ship designed to carry a whole platoon of soldiers?
The light panels along the sides flashed in brilliant shades of orange and yellow, eliciting 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the crowd, even though nobody knew what they might be signaling. Jaeger saw a white uniform out of the corner of his eye, it seemed that Captain Fielding had come down from the bridge to observe the historic occasion personally, flanked on either side by two large Borealans wearing combat armor and full-faced visors. They weren't armed, but then again, a Borealan didn't need a rifle to be deadly.
There was a loud hiss as a large landing ramp at the rear of the vessel began to slowly descend on a pair of hydraulic cylinders, thick and heavy, possibly reinforced with armor plating. It reached the deck with a thud, facing towards the force field so that nobody could get a view inside the compartment. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife, even Baker had stopped bouncing up and down excitedly and was watching with bated breath.
Something came down the ramp.
The first thing that Jaeger noticed was the ocean camo, splotches of grey and blue that matched the patterning on their ships. The alien was wearing a form-fitting suit, lighter than the combat armor that he was used to seeing, rubbery and flexible. He could make out what looked like insulated cabling for the internal electronics running along the limbs. The creature was between four and five feet tall, the body plan basically humanoid, with two digitigrade legs that were long and powerfully built in proportion to its relatively small and short torso. It had two arms that were tipped with two-fingered hands and an opposable thumb, along with a long, thick tail that it held above the ground like it was being used for balance.
It turned its helmeted head as it walked down the ramp, looking right at him through an opaque visor. It seemed to have a snout that protruded from its face, but that might just be some kind of respirator, it was impossible to tell. It had what looked like a pair of dangling, flexible ponytails snaking out of the back of its helmet, long enough that they reached the small of its back. He thought that they might be connected to an oxygen tank at first, or whatever it was that these creatures breathed, but on closer inspection, they were hanging free.
A second followed it down the ramp, and then a third, then two more. In all, five of the bizarre aliens emerged from their vessel, staying close together and moving as a group. They walked strangely, with an odd, halting gait that reminded him of a chicken. It wasn't as pronounced, but they bobbed their heads slightly with every step, craning their necks to look around the hangar.
One of them tapped its boot on the ground as if testing the gravity, balanced on what looked like two toes, while another stared at the blackness of space behind them. It was perhaps alarmed by how insubstantial the force field seemed. The one at the head of the group was examining the humans, and Jaeger had to remind himself that this was also their first contact with aliens. Well, Coalition aliens at least. Hopefully, the Betelgeusians hadn't instilled in them a xenophobic fear or suspicion of outsiders.
The leader held up an arm, and Jaeger was mesmerized as a colorful pattern flashed along the limb. They had the same LCD panels mounted on their suits that he had seen on their ships, a flexible bank of what looked like tiny computer monitors running from the wrist to the elbow along the outside of the material. It lifted the dangling ponytails too, they seemed to be prehensile like tentacles, more technicolor patterns flashing along their length. It was like watching some kind of bioluminescent squid, and its fellows seemed to respond to it with their own, more muted patterns.
What could be the purpose of these flashing lights? Surely it wasn't their only means of communication? It wasn't entirely unheard of, Bug ships sometimes used patterned sails to communicate between their larger vessels, but it seemed unlikely for what was clearly a technological civilization.