Page 37 of Tooth and Nail

“Get going,” she said without answering his question. She reached into the drawer and pulled out two small boxes, holding them out. They were the com units they used to communicate with albats. He took them and handed one to his partner.

“We’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as we make contact, Chief,” Eoghan said. He turned and walked out the door with Ari at his side. They jogged to the elevator and shot down to the garage level, taking the keys from Rick Tooley as soon as they spotted the Charger in front of the tunnel door. “Thanks, Rick.”

“Thanks, Sapphire,” Rick said.

“Sapphire—” came the echo from the other side of the car. He looked up as Dick waved at them.

Wordy came walking up with two backpacks. “Albats,huh?”

“That’s what we’re told,” Eoghan said, accepting his backpack from their weapons specialist and watching Ari do the same. “Thanks, Wordy.”

He tossed his backpack into the backseat, and Ari slid into the passenger’s seat. After snapping their belts into place, he pushed the button on the dash. The double doors immediately began opening.

“Thanks, everyone,” he said to the team before rolling up the window and pointing to the com in Ari’s hand. “That’s going to be the only way to understand Ralphie, provided he’s still alive and in control of his colony.”

Ari popped open the cover. “They look like regular earwigs.”

He started the car and drove out of the tunnel. “There’s a translation app on my phone. I’ll put it on yours when we get back to the office but meanwhile, we should pair it with mine.” He read off his login and password and using peripheral vision, watched Ari access his account. “Okay, now, scroll to alien, then species, and finally, type in albat that’s A-L-B-A-T.” The way Ari followed what he said without question was sexier than he wanted to admit. He wished they weren’t out on assignment, so that he could actually take a few minutes to think about that.

“So, this translates what they say into our language? How cool is that?” Ari marveled.

Eoghan was amazed by how effortlessly his partner seemed to adapt to his role in what had to be a very strange world to him.

“In the case of albats, their language is similar to a series of squeaky high-pitched chirps. The first one is called a pipistrellus pulse which is a form of echolocation. They actually sound almost like morning bird calls. Then, there’s another, longer feeding buzz which starts as similar short chirps but gets closer and closer together until it sounds like birdsong. Those are albats homing in on their prey. Think of the way Earth bats communicate through basically something akin to sonar.”

“What do they eat and please, if you’re about to say people, I quit,” Ari said.

Eoghan turned to look at the smirk on his face and smiled. “No…smart guy. They eat fruit. They’re very close to our earthly fruit bats which come in a variety of sizes and…well, varieties.”

“So, they eat fruit, chirp like birds, anything else I need to know?”

“I know I said they chirp like birds but the sounds they make are closer to other bats. Albats sound so close to Chiroptera, it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. You wouldn’t know the difference unless you were an expert in the field. In fact, we were first made aware of the albat population here on Earth because a Chiropterologist wrote up the discovery of a new species in a journal. You will be able to differentiate them from birds and other bats after listening to them for a while,” Eoghan said.

“A bat expert wrote up their discovery in a journal? You must be joking,” Ari said, sounding astonished.

Eoghan nodded. “I swear. Most of the time, when they’re not hopping from crisis to crisis, our rapid response team is combing over journals and books and articles just to hone in on possible alien sightings. It’s how we were first made aware of Sasquatch. In 1958 an account of a sighting in a logging camp in northern California had been written up in the Humbolt Times.”

“No shit? Bigfoot’s real too?”

Eoghan watched Ari set down his coffee cup and rub both hands over his face. “My life is so fucking weird. No one would believe me.”

“It’s a damned good thing this department of the U.S. Marshals Service has top secret security clearance, isn’t it?” Eoghan asked.

Ari looked up and snorted. “Yeah,” he said with a chuckle in his voice.

“I promise this’ll get easier, Ari.” Eoghan reached over and laid a hand on his knee. When Ari looked up, meeting his eyes with an intensity that matched his own, he felt his face flush. When he covered his hand with his own before he got a chance to slip it free, he felt a rush of pleasure go through him. Ari held on for a few seconds, curling his fingers around Eoghan’s before letting go. Reluctantly, he slipped his hand free.

“Are they blind like Earth bats?” Ari asked, seeming to shake off the shared moment as he changed the subject. “Earth bats sounds so weird to say.”

“Yes, they’re blind. And, if it makes it easier, call them by their scientific order the way I do, Chiroptera. And, by the way, if you stop to think about everything you knew yesterday and will know by the end of your first week in this place, you’ll go crazy. Don’t worry, as far as the language thing...you’ll get used to it.”

“Got it. So, why is the I.S.R. even involved here? It’s not like we’re the police force for the alien population here on Earth, right? Are we only marshals here or what’s our role?”

“That’s a good question. There is no actual police force the way you’re thinking. We’re the closest thing to it…well, the Agency makes up the rules, we follow them. We don’t police anyone. We perform marshal duties like every other U.S. Marshals Service office. The I.S.R. has offices in major cities around the country, but not nearly as many as our civilian counterparts. As for Ralphie, his colony came to Earth when his own planet was overrun with a much larger species of albat. We haven’t run into any of them yet and I’m glad of that. They sound scary. The way Ralphie describes them, they could be the alien equivalent of flying foxes.”

“Oh, I know what those are!” Ari said, sitting forward. “They look almost like dogs with bat wings and yeah, they’rebig and scary looking. I saw a program on National Geographic where two scientists were standing almost five-and-a-half-feet apart, holding one between them to show their wingspan. It freaked me out.”

“That’s right,” Eoghan said. “And as to our role in that, the moment we realized that Ralphie’s colony wasn’t a new species of bat but instead an albat colony, we made contact and he asked for protection for his people.”

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