Cultural Exchange

“I don’t like it.” Calson murmured, leaning up against a stack of crates. A couple of other marines grunted their approval in their secluded corner of the hangar bay. That was how it had been the past week aboard this alien carrier, the Shadow of Intent. The large saurian creatures and humans may have shared the space, but few seemed happy about it.
“What a bunch of bullshit, wanting us to play nice with hinge-heads—”
Among the roaring Warthogs and the hum of the alien carrier’s anti-gravity propulsion drive, Lance Corporal Davien Calson’s voice thankfully didn’t carry far within the busy hangar bay. And neither did the crack of a gloved hand upside the ODST’s head. 
“Ow!” The trooper spun, fists up, looking for a fight. What he found was a glowering Staff Sergeant Scott Edwards, towering over him by a full head. Nostrils flaring and lips twisted in a snarl. The other marines had the good sense to flush and pretend to get back to work. Calson, however, was all indignation. “The hell, Sarge?!”
“You better stow that kind of talk, son. The Sangheili hear you, and you’ll get a lot worse than that.” 
“Sangheili…?” Calson prodded the back of his head where the Staff Sergeant had struck him with a finger and winced. “That’s a new one, Sarge. Since when did you get so cozy with the Alpha-Bravo’s?”
The trooper wasn’t wrong. The word felt strange and wrong on Scott’s tongue. It was a word from a language made for an all too different mouth and jaw structure. For a people who saw themselves as proud, honorable warriors, and not genocidal invaders. To the humans they had been fighting for decades, they had been “Elites”. Or as the Staff Sergeant and his men preferred; split-lips, hinge-heads or “Alpha-Bravo’s”. Short for “alien bastard.”
“Since they bailed our asses out back on Earth and gave us the chance to hit the Covenant right where it hurts.”
At that, Calson snorted.
“Cut the crap, Sarge. Does command really expect us to just let bygones be bygones? Tell that to the billions dead!”
“What command expects is for you to do your damn job,” He jabbed a finger into Calson’s chest. Hard. Truth was, Scott didn’t like this anymore than the lance corporal did. But he’d be damned if any of his men were at the center of a diplomatic incident. Scott was about to order the trooper to piss off and at least try and make himself useful, but before he could, a strange raspy voice stopped him in his tracks:
“Excuse… me…”
It was an Elite—a Sangheili in plain blue armor, worn by the lower ranked members of its species. Somehow, despite its lack of lips and four jaws where a man had one, the alien had managed to eke out a couple of sounds that were startling close to English. Over one shoulder, it hefted a large yellow object that Scott recognized as a fuel rod gun. 
Scott saw Calson’s fingers brush at his hip, grasping for a sidearm that wasn’t there. Damn him, didn’t he realize that he could get them all killed if he went and pissed off the damn aliens? But the Sangheili wasn’t looking at Calson. Instead, it was looking back over its shoulder at two people that were approaching. A large man with a shaved head, and a smaller blonde woman. Both wore the black and blue armor of an ODST.
“Here… good…?” It spoke again, pointing at the top of a crate that sat at chest level.
The man was Jerome Brandt, and the woman Allison Lloyd. The rest of Scott’s fireteam. Brandt responded in a language he didn’t recognize, and the Sangheili nodded. With seemingly little effort, the alien swung the fuel rod gun off its shoulder and deposited it on the crate’s lid. And with that, the alien tilted its head towards Brandt, grunted, and left the humans to their own devices.
“What the hell was that?” It was Calson who spoke first, but Scott couldn’t help but share the sentiment. “You guys making friends with the split-lips now?”
“W-Well, you see…” Brandt began, nervously.
“Brandt’s been learning the language,” Lloyd finished. “So, I figured he could help me sweet talk the Elites into handing over all this,”
She had her rucksack in her arms before she spilled its contents onto another crate. A dozen plasma grenades tumbled out, along with half as many plasma pistols. Scott caught a rogue grenade that had rolled off the crate before it hit the floor.
“And how did you two manage that, I wonder?” He said in a tone that reminded himself of how his own father would speak to him when he’d done something wrong. Which was worse, he wondered? Calson insulting the Sangheili practically to one’s face, or these two illegally obtaining alien weaponry?
“We made a trade, is all. Honest!” Brandt said. The man stood head and shoulders above even Scott, but that didn’t stop him retreating into himself whenever the Staff Sergeant’s tone took a turn for the worse. “The Sergeant Major said we ought to participate in a cultural exchange!”
“A trade?” Calson asked, incredulously. “What could we possibly have that any split-lip would want? 
That question only seemed to make Brandt sweat more. And naturally, made Calson all the more curious.
“C’mon! What did you promise?"
Brandt began to stammer, struggling to find the same words that Lloyd evidently had no issue with saying on his behalf:
“Your sniper rifle.”
Despite his small stature, it was surprisingly hard to keep Calson restrained as Lloyd and Brandt retrieved his beloved SRS99. A small part of Scott felt bad for him, however much of a pain in the ass he was. But fact was, reneging on a deal with the Sangheili just wasn't in the cards. As the hand-off was completed, the trooper went limp in Scott’s arms, and he could have sworn he heard the man whimper:
“Not my Olivia...”
Category:The Weekly
Category:Short stories