As I got within about 10 km from the Americans, I switched my manacomm to frequency 555. "American units, this is Captain Lyka Hrett from the Varran Airborne Combat Forces. I am here with Sergeant Bej Adlend to escort you to the air base you will be operating from."

"Captain Hrett, this is Commander Matthew Lewis of the United States Navy. I am pleased to meet you. Thank you for the escort, we would probably get lost without you."

"United States Navy? I may be mistaken, but that sounds like the ship based branch of the military?"

"Indeed it is. The United States Navy operates its own Air Force independent of the actual United States Air Force."

"Interesting," I internally debated over my next move, then my curiosity won, "Sergeant Adlend and I are flying Model 13 multiple purpose aircraft, may I ask what you are using?"

"We have 6 F/A-18F Super Hornet multirole aircraft and a single C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft for carrying fuel and other supplies."

"That sounds smart. That way, there are no problems with our things being incompatible with yours."

"That's the idea."

I switched to the private manacomm frequency with Bej, "They say they have aircraft, not trained flying beasts, and I don't really see the point in lying when we're going to be flying side by side shortly."

"Yeah, I noticed that too. I hope that they're not working for Iridia. They're the only ones apart from us that have aircraft."

"Yeah, that thought came to me, too. I say we wait and see."

"There's not much we could reasonably do apart from that."

As the Americans grew closer, we turned to merge our groups together. We drew closer, until we were only a dozen meters apart. I took the opportunity to observe the American aircraft.

I could easily determine the main features of Varran aircraft in the American ones. Main wings, rear wings, tails, cockpits, those were easy to identify. There were 7 of them in total, just as the commander had said. 6 were about a normal size, just a bit larger than my aircraft. Their wings were placed farther to the rear than mine, and angled sharply back. The last aircraft, however, was massive, almost twice the size in every dimension, powered by 4 big propellers, mounted with 2 on each wing.

Curiously, none of the other aircraft, the "Super Hornets", had visible propellers. I glanced at my instruments, and realized that we were all traveling at 600 km/h, with none of the American aircraft seeming to strain at all. Even Bej's and my high performance aircraft were showing some signs of effort, the runes on our engines glowing slightly.

"I do apologize for the intrusion, Commander Lewis, but may I ask how your aircraft are propelled? I can see that your large, 'Hercules' I believe you called it, has 4 large propellers, but your 'Super Hornets' don't seem to have any."

There was a pause. "It's complicated. You can think of it as we have our propellers inside our aircraft, and they spin really fast to make up for their size."

"That is an intriguing idea."

"It is a lot more complicated, and there are some things that allow our engines to be more powerful and efficient than what would be normal. I don't know much about them other than the results, which are very good."

"I completely understand. I'm not completely sure how our engines work either."

"I must say, it's surprising how similar our world's are.

"Our worlds? Does that mean that you are from a different world?"

"Yeah, I thought that you already knew."

I looked over at Bej, thinking about this information. "There's been rumors of course, but I was never officially told anything."

"Well yes, we are from another world. Apparently, the Varran Crown created a portal out in the sea in order to escape from Sarroc. However, the other side of the portal led to right off the coast of the United States. After contact with the Varran expedition, and a lot of politics, we offered military aid in exchange for certain crude oil rich lands in the south."

"Why is the oil such a big deal? You make it sound like some sort of liquid gold." I knew you could burn oil, but that is about it.

"Basically our entire civilization runs on refined forms of oil. Oil is very valuable, and there are quite a lot of people saying that we are taking advantage of your lack of knowledge. Also, there's lots of people saying that there are other reasons."

"Hmm. I can't really think of how an oil based civilization works, but then again you might have trouble understanding the basis for our systems."

"Probably."

We took the long way to Ratern Air Base, with Bej and I pointing out important places to the Americans.

"An off to our left," I said, "you can see Ratern City, the second largest city in Varra. Over 200,000 people live in the city proper, with half that again living close nearby. It is overlooked by Tarith Castle, which is the castle that you can see. It is a little outdated in design, but it makes up for it with ultra modern mounted weapons emplacements."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"And that on the other side of the castle is Ratern Air Base?"

"Yeah. That is where we will be staying. It has enough hangars for your aircraft, and living spaces have already been set up. If they are not to your liking, changes can be made."

"We're not that picky. We were just on a ship for a few months so anything better than that is great."

I chuckled, "and here we were wondering if we should be providing quarters suitable for the King himself. I guess it'll be plenty good then."

We approached the air base, and started circling, landing one at a time. Bej went first to demonstrate the procedure, then the Americans landed one at a time, and finally I landed. I let my aircraft roll to a stop in my designated hangar, and let the engine wind down. Once it had stopped, I opened the canopy and pulled off my helmet, letting myself enjoy the cool air on my fur for a moment. I then did my postflight procedures, making sure the aircraft was fully off and nothing was wrong. I then exited the hangar and walked over towards the Americans. Bej was already deep in conversation with one of them, talking quite animatedly about something.

One of the Americans saw me, and then did a double take and his eyes widened in shock. It was a reaction I was quite familiar with, being a woman with a masculine sounding voice, so I just nodded a greeting and continued on. Everyone always heard my voice on the manacomm first, then wanted my body to match it. He held out a hand to stop me, and I prepared myself to have to answer annoying questions that everyone always asked after they reacted like he had.

"Hi, I'm Commander Lewis, but you can call me Matt if you'd like. I'm pleased to meet you."

"Captain Hrett, but you can just call me Lyka." I shook his hand.

"My men are just unpacking our equipment right now. I must say, you surprised me. I've never seen an anthropomorphic fox in real life before."

I was quite a bit confused, "a what?"

He started fidgeting a bit, "I'm sorry, I'm not sure of the proper terminology for, ah, one of your kind. I referred to you as an anthropomorphic fox as that is the best description I could come up with. I apologize if it caused offense."

"No, no offense. I simply have never actually heard anyone use the word "anthropomorphic" before. I can assume its meaning based on its roots and the context, but I've never encountered it before."

Matt looked quite relieved, "and the proper term is?"

"Oh, werefox. Do you not have werefolk on your world?"

He shook his head, "nope, it's just plain humans on our earth. Nothing else is inarguably sentient, but there are a few species like elephants and monkeys that you can make arguments about being close."

"That is very weird. Here, we have humans, elves, werefolk, orcs and about a dozen other species I've never met. If you would like a human representative rather than me, that can be arranged." I didn't really want to have to give up working with the Americans, but I would if they would prefer a familiar species. The fate of Varra was more important than my preferences.

Matt took a step back and held up his hands. "Oh no, I don't have any problem with you." I internally sighed in relief as he continued, "I won't lie, some people might, but not any of us here."

"There's speciesist people in Varra too, but there's not that many of them."

We continued over towards the rest of the Americans, who were moving large crates from the cargo aircraft to their designated storage section. There were several large piles already, neatly sorted by some system.

"I'm surprised you didn't comment on my voice," I said.

"I did notice, but I did not wish to cause any offense." He said cautiously.

"My voice is left over from a past time. I am a woman, but I'm kinda used to my current voice."

"Gotcha. I didn't want to accidentally refer to you by the wrong pronouns. She/her it is."

I glanced at him, "thank you for understanding. Many people don't, and try to argue one way or the other."

We reached the first American aircraft, and I stopped for a better look. Now that I was closer and could look from all around, I could see the places where the air was supposed to go into the internal propellers. There seemed to be two different places for air to exit also, so assumed that there were two sets of propellers. This would provide redundancy, I surmised, in case one failed. Strangely enough, the air exits were hot, I could feel the heat from a meter away.

"Don't touch those, they're still hot." Matt came up behind me.

"Yeah, I can feel that." I turned to him, "Why though?"

"The way our engines work is very complicated, but it involves burning things in the engine. Thus, the exhaust is quite hot. In fact, it can get hot enough to melt lead or tin"

"I didn't see any smoke from your aircraft in flight," I pondered.

"We don't need to burn much," he responded, "furthermore, we burn a very refined form of crude oil which produces little smoke."

I nodded, and continued my examination of the aircraft. There were multiple protrusions below the wing, which I assumed to be extended hardpoints, like we used for larger bombs. I didn't notice any other weapons, however, and remarked on this.

"I don't see any weapons, where are they?"

"Well, we only have one built in weapon, a 20 millimeter M61 Vulcan rotary gun." He indicated a small forward-facing hole near the cockpit, "most of the gun is mounted inside the fuselage, so you can't really see it."

I examined the hole, not much bigger than my thumb, and nodded. I didn't understand most of the weapon description, but I assumed it to be a similar weapon to the thaumguns mounted on my aircraft, throwing small projectiles above the speed of sound.

I gave the aircraft one last glance over, noting the writing on the tail, and started towards where the rest of the US personnel had assembled, with Bej standing awkwardly to the side.

"Alright everyone," Matt said, "here's the plan. We'll get settled in today, and tomorrow will be the demonstration," he shifted to look at me, "if that's okay with you."

I nodded. "That seems good. Bej and I are not doing anything apart from working with you, so you can set the schedule."

"Great. Then let's have the demonstration at noon, with some information exchange beforehand. Now, Captain, if you will excuse us, we need to get organized with our quarters." He gestured towards the building with "USA" written on the front in large letters.

I nodded and left them to sort it out, but almost as soon as I left the hangers I was stopped by someone.

"Hello, Captain, how are you doing today?" Asked General Reach, "I trust that the Americans are doing OK?"

I saluted, "I'm doing good today sir. The Americans are currently settling into their quarters."

"At ease. Now, I would like to hear your thoughts on them. In here," he opened the doors to a set of offices, and led me to a desk. He sat down, pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, and looked at me expectantly.

"The Americans seem to be quite organized," I started, but was immediately cut off by the General.

"No, I mean about their combat potential. What have you learned?"

"I have not learned much, as the demonstrations and main information exchange will occur tomorrow. I have learned that their aircraft are powered by combustion at least in part, and that they have internal propellers. They have a maximum speed of at least 600 km/h. They only have one main weapon, which seems to be similar to a thaumgun. Each fighter is flown by two people."

The General continued writing for a moment, then looked back up at me. "Range? Endurance?"

I shook my head, "I have not been able to figure that out. Once we met them off of Ela Point, we traveled approximately 60 km over the course of 10 minutes, including detours to point out landmarks."

"Interesting. I will expect a report tomorrow on their performance in the demonstrations, as well as any other information they give."

"Yes, sir." I turned and walked out of the room.