313 Cultural exchange 2

Having distanced himself from the lamia, Dax proceeded with making first contact, wanting to at least do that before he was skinned alive by Lilly, Solaris and Alice. In response to Dax's rapid switch to an entirely business oriented mindset, the lamia started frowning but still went along with the change in topic.

"I am Ke, leader of this village."

Taking a short pause to offer a bow, Dax thanked the higher powers that the others couldn't understand the words which came out of her mouth next.

"Dax, my dear husband, I'm glad to formally greet you."

"... When did we get married exactly?"

In response to that outrageous statement, Dax remained entirely calm and collected, or so it at least appeared from the outside. In reality, Dax felt the rapid onset of a headache which he wanted more than anything to avoid.

"When you touched my hand. No one touches me unless I've accepted them as an equal worthy of marriage."

"But I'm just a mare soldier of the Galactic Empire, there's no way I could possibly make f-"

"You honestly expect me to believe that after you slew the hydra without even using a single one of your men?"

(Well, she's not an idiot, I really should have expected that…)

Needless to say, Dax didn't want to be locked down by a marriage with a woman he had just met, but alien culture and the threat of Ke's ridiculous strength meant that he couldn't just blindly shoot her down.)

"Hey, what are they talking about?"

While the sudden tension meant that something might be happening, Terra couldn't understand what Dax and the lamia were saying and therefore turned to Lux, but she wasn't of much use either.

"No clue, I can't access the data. What about you Phillipa?"

"I've got nothing either, let's just wait and see what's going to happen."

The way Lux and Phillipa saw it, Dax had the situation handled and if he didn't then their weapons were loaded with the safeties off, clearing this room shouldn't be that much of an issue.

"... Okay then, let's start by getting to know each other a bit more, You're not of this world are you Ke? Where did you come from?"

Instead of addressing the entire marriage situation, Dax decided to just sidestep the issue and continue with the first contact while discussing it like he still had the interest, something Ke clearly saw through but nevertheless played along with.

"We've been living here for a long time already, although we have no way of telling the time as days in this world are strangely long. As for how we ended up here, I have no idea, one day our village was just surrounded by these strange black trees."

"It appears you know something about this Dax."

Even though he didn't show it on his face, the fact that Dax rapidly processed what Ke said and internalized it revealed that to her that he knew more than he was saying.

"Yeah I do, I was sent to this world to investigate this anomaly after all. Although we don't know everything yet, it appears that multiple planes of existence are converging onto this one. As to why, and even who is responsible for this I have no idea yet, that's why we're here to… Lux."

"Yeah I know, moving to intercept."

Switching language and attitude radically mid sentence, Dax glanced behind him to his trusted subordinate who got up on her feet as she readied her rifle.

"We have guests on their way here, these are not the kind you want to kiss."

"... Excuse me?"

-

"Contact, range 952 metres, bearing 039."

"Yeah, I see them, feel free to engage."

Having set up a firing line outside the lamia village to a lot of curious lamia spectators, Dax gave the order to fire with a somewhat nonchalant look on his face. 

"Engaging."

Giving out a callout, Lux who had been tracking a target with her rifle for a while now squeezed the trigger and let a single spell enhanced round fly.

"Target down, engaging."

As Lux continued to let off shots in a disciplined manner, Dax's other subordinates also started opening fire with their rifles, their ripping straight through the vegetation ahead to strike some unseen target.

"I take it your people have come into contact with the Emergence before?"

"The Emergence?"

While his subordinates were busy culling their targets, Dax made conversation with Ke.

"Those mechanical constructs which want to consume your people, and really anything else for that matter."

"Ah, that. Yeah, we've been constantly under attack by those things ever since we arrived in this world, I even shot down a group of them going towards you a bit ago."

(Ah, figures they can't differentiate between the Emergence and our crafts… That explains a lot.)

"Yeah, about that… Those last crafts you shut down were mine."

"Wait, what?"

In response to Dax's off hand comment, Ke's eyes opened up wide as her ears started standing at attention, it seemed like Dax's comment had caught her off guard.

"They were really expensive too, state of the art, custom made craft like don't come cheap but I don't really mind, you couldn't know. I wonder how I could explain the loss of those to my superiors."

Really driving home that he was in trouble because of Ke's actions (Which he really wasn't) Dax made the lamia lose her well maintained facade as she started to panic. Meanwhile, Lux and the others had finished wiping out the Emergence forces which had attempted to sneak up on the lamia village and add them to their collective.