Planetfall - Part I

In a Starbucks restaurant/cafe, a white and brown rabbit-like creature quietly read some magazines in the far corner. It was a Town & Country magazine, though, he wouldn't know that. "If this is a book, why are there so many pictures?"

After a short while, the creature left his table, looking for someone to answer his questions. Having never been to this side of the Verse, he had no idea where he was. Finding a seemingly-not-hostile human female by the window, who appeared to be studying, he thought she'd be good to ask and square him away.

"Excuse me", he began. "Uh, what planet is this? I'm new here."

In response, the lady rolled her eyes and sighed. As if seeing non-human beings was normal for her. Maybe it was. "Dude. Seriously? This is Earth. New York City if you're into detail and shit." Her tone was apathetic and reeked of "you're bothering me".

"Earth? New York City?" He played with the words for a bit, as if tasting a new flavour of wine. "Earth." The young lady rolled her eyes and returned to her business. Moments later, the rabbit-thing returned to his corner and whipped out some kind of cellular-looking device.

Recondo Rabbit to Quinn Sera-Manpour wrote:

Where are you? I'm in a 'New York City'.

Quinn Sera-Manpour to Recondo Rabbit wrote:

Quite interesting. I'm in a place called France. It appears that I'm fitting in comfortably with the natives of this part of the world! Do try to get here after you've collected sufficient information on New York. Communications to continue soon. Make sure you find the others as well.

Recondo Rabbit to Quinn Sera-Manpour wrote:

Oh. The others have made planetfall already? I thought Syber and Colt were staying in the colony with Lucia.

Quinn Sera-Manpour to Recondo Rabbit wrote:

I believe Lucia made contact because the colony was making her anxious. Syber and Colt stayed behind, but Orin went with her as a bodyguard, if I recall correctly. The others of our squad and everyone else are wayside on Motus Mundus. Take care until later. Try to stop by if time permits!

"France? Hmm." Recondo didn't waste any time in returning to the female from earlier and bugging her once again. "Uh, hi." This time, he gave a slight tug to her sweater. The resulting look indicated her growing irritation with the rabbit.

"Uh, what is France and which way is it? I can get there in my travel capsule." The girl started blankly at him for a moment, before returning to her laptop. It appeared she was ignoring him, but she was, in fact, using Google to show him a map. Once she found her map, she showed Recondo the screen. He looked at it strangely, as if he wouldn't know what to do with it. Grabbing his uPAL, he handed it to her.

"Like, what the fuck is this, dude? Your phone? Looks . . . new. Did Apple make it?" The girl began to eye it suspiciously in Recondo's tiny hand.

"What's an Apple?" Was Recondo's reply. Which earned him another sigh and subsequent eyeroll.

"Forget it." She said apathetically. It had a USB-like appendage on the side. Recondo has a brain blast and jammed it into what appeared to be a matching slot on the laptop. "Hey! What the fuck man?"

The uPAL beeped some, then stopped whatever it was doing. Recondo then removed it and eyed the device. "uPAL updated. New location added: France." It looks like the uPAL added 'France' to its library. The blue text hologram screen of information was presented shortly thereafter.

Datalog: France wrote:

A unitary sovereign state in western Europe with a population of 66,616,416. It was founded in August 843 as the Kingdom of France, then the French Republic in 1792. It is a NATO nation and is the third largest military-industrial nation on Earth. Current location relevant to current position is 3,602 miles. Motion to advise? [Y/N]

Needless to say, this was all Greek to Recondo. "Europe? Nato? Miles?" The girl he bothered was now interested in his uPAL. Very interested in his uPAL. "Hey, rabbit-thing. Where do I like, get one of those?"

"What? Oh, you mean this? Well . . ." He trailed off. You see, Time and Space Agency protocols do allow for interaction with natives and even participation in their worlds, but under no circumstances is TSA technology to be shared. Recondo had more uPALs, but the uPAL was a very capable device and not some vanity machine that was to be used to gossip on Facebook or hashtag selfies. Maybe I can disable everything but the communication abilities, he thought. This would make the uPAL -- should he give it to her -- a badass smartphone and nothing more.

"Okay", he said after a few minutes. "Wait a while." He began to tinker with the machine until it was rendered useless by TSA standards. "Since you helped me with information. I have more of these but can you not tell anyone? I'm breaking the rules."

"Rules?" Still apathetic, but there was slight appreciation in the girl's voice this time. "Thanks!" She damn-near snatched it out of his hands and began to immediately get to work, learning how to use it. She could easily ask Recondo, but she was in her own little world now. Recondo smiled, said goodbye and left the cafe. "Maybe she needed it more than me. I have more uPALs anyway." The little alien rabbit was now headed to France. But there was only one problem...

"Uh, where did I park my travel capsule?"

It was a rare day off for Michael Carver, rarer still that he was in New York.  An oddity, considering that was technically the city out of which he was currently based.  Nobus kept him busy, and as much as he enjoyed the work (or the long lulls of being on-call in case of an emergency), having some time to himself was never to be wasted.

He walked the bustling city streets, and occasionally glanced at his Nobus-issued smart device, on which was displayed a map of the city and a few points of interest.  Model kit shops mostly, at least for the moment.  He'd assembled his last back at the base a few days ago, and had been looking forward to picking up a few new ones once he actually had some free time.

He moved through the crowd easily enough; he was a New Yorker by birth, and had spent much of his life in the city, although he had to admit it was a little different these days then when he grew up.  More then just the usual humans were on the streets these days, and all seemed to be blended together surprisingly well.  He'd seen a lot in his time; hell, it had been only a few months since the last big stir of trouble with all those demons and weirdos trying for that orphanage.  They'd been pretty lucky with that one, and the city had already all but forgotten it.

He wore normal-person clothes today, another oddity for him.  Black cargo pants, although he still insisted on blousing his pants.  Black Magnum brand combat boots.  Damn things were near as comfortable as a pair of good sneakers.  A dark grey button-down shirt, tucked in proper-like.  He looked damn well presentable, although he hadn't shaved that morning.  Hell, it was his day off.  He could let it go this once.

Easily getting his bearings, he gave the handheld device one last glance to confirm the map, then tucked it away and pulled a pack of nicotine gum from his pocket.  He wasn't allowed to smoke on the streets, but he wasn't about to go find an alley to lounge around in to have a smoke.  It was while he was tossing the piece of terrible gum in his mouth that he found himself presented with an unusual sight that had him grinning in open amusement.  At least for a moment before he caught himself and stopped gawking like some idiot tourist.

A man sized rabbit-man.  Just as he thought he'd seen just about everything the world had to offer.  He'd nearly bumped into the creature, whom had emerged from a cafe and seemed to be looking for something.  Directions, likely.  It was easy to get turned around in a city like New York sometimes.  "You late for somethin', bud?"  A little joke; doubted the guy would get the off-hand reference of course, but it still made him chuckle in quiet amusement.

Recondo took steps to the east, then changed his mind and took a few steps west. He didn't notice Michael, because he was a plain old Human in NYC. Though he's an experienced traveller, he can't remember ever encountering Humans. Or maybe he did, but they didn't call themselves that. Whatever the case, he was on Earth now, and he needed to find his pod before he went to find his colleagues. Noticing enough to step out of Michael's way, he then bumped into someone else who seemed to be in a hurry. Perhaps they needed to get somewhere in a New York Minute. Badum tish! Yeah? No.

"Ay! Watch where you're goin', ears!"

"Ears?" Recondo looked around as if he didn't know what "ears" meant. The man clearly referred to his rather large and prominent ears. "Who's ears?" Recondo wasn't, in fact, man sized, but more the size of a small child. He could easily be crushed by some of the bigger, massive-sized races, and bumped into by the more normal-sized ones. Like Humans. Like he was a few seconds ago.

The rabbit noticed someone asking him a question. He soon registered a man standing in front of him, seemingly amused because he chuckled. "Uh . . . yes. My pod. I need to find a 'France'. Do you know what a 'France' is?"

The Nobus agent would likely think he was being taken for a ride. Who arrives on Earth without knowing how to navigate? Perhaps Recondo was new. Though, Michael wouldn't know that. Now, would he?

He frowned down at the curious little rabbit creature, then glanced around looking for a liaison officer or guide of some sort.  Clearly this little bugger hadn't finished his indoc and culture examine and all that other maddeningly boring paperwork and schooling.  Or maybe he just hadn't been any good at it?

He waved for he and Recondo to step to the side of the sidewalk, so they didn't draw any more angry glares or insults, while he tried to figure out what to do about the rabbit-man.  "Okay...well first, and no offense meant.   You're of legal adult age in your culture right?  This day and age, can never be too sure right?  There are people here that don't reach legal adulthood for two hundred freakin' years."


Once they were out of the way of all the foot traffic, Michael dug out his smart-device and knelt down at Recondo's level, squatting and leaning back against the front of the cafe the rabbit-man had just left.  That done, he pulled up a map program.  "We're here-abouts.  New York city, right?  France is over here.  Across the Atlantic Ocean.  About 3,600 kilometers.  Ball park, about four hours flight time these days, commercial.  Maybe $800 one way."