Welcome to Tlazolteotl

The stolen raider, known to the Oghmans as Howling Bastard and to its current occupants as “please don’t explode yet,” came down in what technically counted as a controlled landing in the same way falling down a flight of stairs counts as a controlled descent.

The ground here was marginally less awful, a high plateau skirting the edge of a stepped-pyramid city whose stone terraces gleamed with moisture and, very clearly, recent blood.

"Good news," Caitlin muttered, unbuckling herself from the seat she’d just survived in. "We didn’t land in the sludge."

Maltz groaned from the deck, where he had decided to stay indefinitely "That is a very low bar for ‘good news.’"

Quinn was already scanning the atmosphere. "Thin oxygen levels. We may need to adjust respiration protocols at lower altitudes."

"Oh, wonderful," Caitlin sighed. "I love a planet that actively makes breathing optional."

Scarred-Snout, peering through the yellow haze, gave a slow, approving growl. "The people here are warriors."

"The people here," Caitlin replied, "are lunatics. And we’re about to be their favourite kind of lunatics - the kind that fell from the sky and look suspiciously like a good sacrifice."

Morwen, who had been watching the city’s outskirts through her rifle scope, gave a grunt. "Locals incoming."

There was a moment of silence as everyone processed that statement.

"Oh," Maltz said flatly. "Good."

A procession of warriors and priests in ceremonial armour was making its way towards the ship. Brightly dyed feathers. Gilded chest plates. Weapons that looked like they came from the Slow and Extremely Painful Death aisle.

"Options?" Caitlin asked, already calculating how fast they could run and whether their death would be instant or involve chanting.

"Negotiate," Quinn suggested.

"Fight," Scarred-Snout said.

"Panic?" Maltz added helpfully.

"No," Caitlin muttered, running a hand through her short red hair. "We are going to bluff. We are going to lie so hard that reality itself refuses to argue with us."

Morwen grinned. "Now that, I can do."

The crew of the Morrigan had been eyed with suspicion before

They had been stared at by corrupt customs officials, glared at by bounty hunters, and given the side-eye by more than one person who had correctly guessed that they were probably about to steal or break something.

But they had never, not once, been looked at with the same sheer, naked horror as they were now, standing beside their smoking, barely-functional, sacrilegious nightmare of a ship, while the locals of Tlazolteotl slowly, cautiously, approached.

The priests and warriors stared at the ship with expressions ranging from open terror to the kind of religious panic usually reserved for discovering that the afterlife was just a waiting room with bad music.

One of them, an older man in a headdress that looked entirely too heavy to be practical, made an intricate series of gestures, as if trying to ward off whatever cosmic horror had just landed in his backyard.

Another, less patient, raised his ornate obsidian-edged weapon and shouted something in the local tongue. “Tlachichīlī, īpan ōmotlāli!"

Quinn, who had produced a translator unit from one of his numerous pockets, frowned. "So… the closest interpretation of that would be: ‘Burn it before it hatches!’"

A long, pained silence followed.

"Well," Caitlin said, crossing her arms and watching as the priests argued amongst themselves. "That’s not ideal."

"To be fair," Morwen offered, "if this thing fell out of the sky near my town, I’d want to burn it too."

Maltz rubbed his temples. "Okay. So. They either think we’re demons, or they think the ship is about to explode into something worse than demons."

"You know what?" Caitlin said, with forced cheerfulness. "I think we can work with this."

An older priest stepped forward, pointing at them with a staff that doubled as a bludgeon. He screamed something in Nahuatl, which was instantly translated by Quinn’s translator.

"YOU BRING DEATH FROM THE SKY!"

This was, Caitlin considered, a fairly accurate statement, but one which could do with some creative reinterpretation.

"Not death!" she declared, raising her hands in what she hoped was a non-threatening manner. "We bring… knowledge!"

Maltz mouthed the word ‘knowledge?’ at her in utter disbelief, but Caitlin forged ahead, because if there was one thing she knew, it was that a lie delivered confidently enough had a fifty-fifty chance of working.

"This is no beast! This is… a messenger!" She gestured dramatically at the still-smoking Howling Bastard. "A holy chariot, come to carry forth the will of the gods!"

There was an uncomfortable silence as the Tlazolteotl priests took in this absolute pile of nonsense.

Scarred-Snout, who had very little patience for all this talking, rumbled, "I can kill them if it helps."

"Absolutely not," Caitlin snapped under her breath, before turning back to the priests with her best ‘definitely not a liar’ face. "Just try to look divine."

The high priest considered them, then looked back at the ship, which chose that exact moment to release a final, wheezing jet of steam from a ruptured pipe.

A few of the younger warriors took a step back.

Morwen, sensing an opportunity, leaned in slightly, lowered her voice to a tone rich with theatrical menace. "You have heard the prophecies, have you not?"

The priest frowned deeply. "What prophecies?"

Morwen gestured vaguely. "The prophecies. The ones about the sky and the omens. You know the ones."  

The priest looked more confused. "We have a lot of prophecies."

"Exactly!" Morwen said, in the manner of someone who was selling the universe’s most profitable lie. "And surely, this fits one of them."

The priests began muttering amongst themselves, occasionally glancing warily at the ship, which was now making a noise like a haunted trombone being slowly digested.

Maltz, who was still following the conversation with sheer morbid fascination, whispered, "I cannot believe this is working."

"Shut up," Caitlin hissed out of the side of her mouth.

The high priest took a deep breath, then turned back to them, brow furrowed in deep religious distress.

"You must come with us to the temple," he said at last. "The High Warden must be consulted."

Caitlin, who had no desire whatsoever to meet the leader of this hellhole, forced a smile.

"Oh. that would be delightful."

Maltz sighed deeply. "We are going to be sacrificed, aren’t we?"

"Probably," Caitlin muttered. "But until then, we’re still alive. Let’s just see where this goes."

And so, with a great deal of caution, the Morrigan crew followed the priests, leaving their cursed, broken, deeply offensive ship behind, as the locals whispered and cast nervous glances back at it, as though at any moment, it might sprout wings and start demanding tribute.