Chapter 1

Within an hour of the portal's appearance, hundreds of millions of people on the globe were already aware of its existence. That evening, billions of people knew that alien life had been discovered at their doorstep. During the day, every citizen within a 2 kilometer radius around the portal in both the Netherlands and Germany had been evacuated, and a perimeter had been set up. Captain Kevin Hofman of the 11th Air Assault Brigade however, was just arriving there. As part of both the Dutch and the German military, it was his unit that was send to keep watch on the portal and prevent possible aggressive alien life from entering the European Union.

"Did you see anything threatening on the other side of the portal before I arrived?" he asked the senior police officer on the Dutch side of the portal. As he looked around, he saw that both the German and the Dutch police force had surrounded their respective sides of the portal. He was thankful that due to the intense cooperation between the two militaries, he would be able to defend the whole portal without running into any political issues.

"With the exception of a few rabbits, I did not see anything sir" the policemen answered. "One child went to the other side of the portal when it just opened, he is quarantined with his father in the farm over there" He said while pointing at a rather large farm that was almost directly beneath the enormous structure. "He was checked by a few medics earlier, luckily there did not seem to be anything wrong with him".

Kevin was amazed that the world on the other side seemed perfectly habitable. Even more so, the animals and plants there seemed to be identical to those on earth. However, he remained cautious, and was not planning on sending anyone to the other world until a drone had checked the immediate area and the composition of the atmosphere. He looked to the portal again, amazed by the perfect black metal it seemed to be made of. Even more amazing was the fact that the backside of the portal was a perfect mirror which had already given multiple birds a literal headache.

After thanking the police officer, he went back to his company in order to oversee the drone's launch. In addition to cameras, the drone was equipped with a device that measured the composition of the atmosphere. Meteorologists suspected that the content and pressure of the atmosphere on the other side was very similar to Earth's as there were no hurricane-level winds blowing either way. Additionally, the policemen were all in perfect health, even when exposed to the gentle breeze from the other world.

"Sir, the drone is ready for launch" said one of his subordinates just after he arrived "All cameras and the new measurement device are working perfectly".

"Launch as soon as possible" Kevin answered while he sat back to watch the footage of the drone. He was happy to be one of the first people to see images from another world, and had never expected something like this to occur when signing up for the military years ago.

A minute later, the drone was launched and went through the portal. Said machine was going to move in increasingly large circles around the portal to make sure it missed nothing. From the first images, it was immediately clear that the portal had appeared on a plateau with a river valley on the eastern side. Soon after, a large sea was spotted on the western side of the portal, no more than 20 kilometers from the bridge between worlds. Up until then, no large animals had been spotted at all in the grassland and small forests on the other side. However, a few minutes later, the biggest shock came.

"Are those houses?" Kevin heard one of his subordinates say when the drone was flying above the coast.

He immediately looked closely at the screen and exclaimed "Holy shit, you are right, let the drone zoom in immediately!".

Kevin was perplexed. this was the first proof of intelligent life anywhere outside earth and he was the first to see it! When the drone zoomed in, he was even more baffled as the alien lifeforms within what appeared to be a village looked to be indistinguishable from humans.

The aliens in question seemed to be looking up, with some of them pointing towards the drone. "Looking at the quality of the houses and what passed for roads in the village. Those people have probably never seen a machine before, much less a flying one!" Kevin said as he realized the low level of technology the natives seemed to possess. "We should probably send an envoy soon to stop them from freaking out". The village seemed to be stuck in the mediaeval era and seemed to live off fishing, as could be seen from the wooden fishing boats next to the town.

"Look over there!" one of his subordinates exclaimed, pointing at what appeared to be the ruins of a small stone keep.

"That was probably the holdfast of a Lord" Kevin answered "But he appears to have left the area years ago". He wondered whether there was still some feudal societal structure in place in the alien world. It could very well be that their society had regressed back to individual villages who didn't have much contact with each other at all.

After hovering above the town for a few minutes, the drone continued onwards with its outward spiral. They found a few more villages, but they all appeared to be smaller or equal in size to the first village. Small individual farms were also spotted around the region, mostly close to other villages or next to larger rivers. However, no other large structures were spotted within 200 kilometers of the portal. It was perplexing for Kevin that an area comparable in size to the Netherlands had a population less than a small city. He knew that the politicians would be salivating over seeing so much unclaimed land and untapped recourses. As the fuel was getting low, he ordered the drone to be returned.

In the meantime, night had begun on Earth while the sun on the alien world had yet to set. This created the wonderful effect of seeing a light blue sky within the portal, while darkness prevailed on the Earthen side. While the drone was busy surveilling the area, more companies had arrived to defend the portal from possible invaders. However, in Kevin's honest opinion, there probably would not be much defending to do, considering the emptiness of the other world and low technology level of the alien civilization.

On the German side, Kevin could even spot a few tanks from the 1st Panzer division, which would be utter overkill against the alien man that would likely have weaponry no more advanced than swords and crossbows. However, they should remain cautious, as there could very well be a more advanced civilizations in that world that had never bothered colonizing the area. Additionally, gunpowder was already invented in the early middle ages on Earth, meaning that the aliens could theoretically produce cannons and muskets. Additionally, dinosaurs or similar creatures could exist on the alien world and would be way more threatening than a few medieval swordsman.

While thinking about the alien civilization, Kevin saw his commander Robin Slagter walking up to him. After greetings were exchanged he was asked about his observations of the other world.

"Commander, I assume you have heard about the human like aliens on the other side." Kevin answered, "Their technology seems to be a thousand years out of date and we have yet to find evidence of a civilization bigger than individual villages at present. However, there seems to have been a feudal system in the past".

"What about the other non-civilized aliens, Captain Hofman, do any of them seem like threats?"

"We have yet to see an animal on the other side that does not exist in our world. However we have not focused on the plants, so there may still be some new species there"

"Hmm, so it seems that there is no immediate threat coming from the other side. From the atmospherical data, I already saw that we are very lucky that the atmosphere there has a similar composition to ours."

His commander thought for a moment before coming to a decision. "Let the drone make another round before the sun goes down on the other side. If tomorrow morning, after the sun rises on the other side, nothing has changed, then we can send in a team to scout the nearby area. We should also bring in a few geologists, meteorologists, biologists and maybe an astronomer to research the land. I will have to ask permission from probably both governments for this, but I'm sure they will happily agree as long as nothing threatening is within a hundred kilometer radius".

"Are there any plans for contact with the natives already?" Kevin asked, knowing that Commander Slagter had probably already informed the government about them.

"Both Germany and the Netherlands have already agreed to send in a small team of diplomats tomorrow evening, assuming that the other side remains clear of danger. They are still bickering with the other EU member states about the specifics though. As there seems to be only a group of small villages in the neighborhood, the party will probably not be too big. They are also bringing aid packages with at least food and clothing, which seem to be sorely needed looking at the health and rags of some of those villagers from the images".

Kevin nodded at this, he knew it wouldn't take long for the other EU nations to start involving themselves with this. He just hoped that Russia, China and America would not try to intervene.

One day later, Kevin found himself in front of the portal again. However, this time, he would finally go beyond the portal and see the other world. His unit, alongside a German unit were going to protect the meteorologists and builders who would be setting up a few portable weather stations on the other side of the portal. Additionally, a few recon units would be exploring the immediate surroundings with some land surveyors. They would also be surveying the nearby bay to see whether it was possible to create a harbor, along with a possible naval base.

"Good luck, Captain Hofman!" His commander said as a goodbye before moving back to the command tent. A few minutes ago, the German reckon unit was the first one to move through the portal to scout for any possible dangers the drones might have missed, although Kevin didn't expect there to be any on the flat grassy plateau before him.

Soon it was time for his unit to go through the portal. They were traveling using off-road vehicles which were more than able to drive through the grass and transport the materials and men to the predetermined positions for the simple weather stations. Before he gave the order to move he heard the meteorologists talking

"I am surprised the breeze from the other side is so weak" Said one of the scientists.

"Yeah, I know, we are extremely lucky here. One of my friends calculated that if there was a difference in pressure of even 20 percent, there would be constant hurricane-force winds blowing here for the next century!"

Kevin shuddered, he thought about all the ways the earth could have been doomed if the portal was connected to almost any other planet in the universe. Horrific visions of a burning earth, a frozen earth and people slowly suffocating while all the air was sucked into the vacuum of space crossed his mind before he dismissed them.

Focusing his mind on the upcoming task, he ordered his group to cross into the alien world. A few seconds later, for the first time in his life, Kevin was on another planet.

AN:

It was surprising for me to find out that 2 out of the 3 Dutch brigades are incorporated in the German army. Note that Kevin Hofman is an OC I created and that I didn't use the real commander of the 11th air mobile brigade in order to comply with rule #4 of the site. For the rest of this story, I will replace any real people in significant positions (like presidents and such) with general characters.

EDIT 1 (19-11-2020): I edited the chapter to comply with rule #4 of the FFN site

EDIT 2 (23-08-2021): I improved the dialog and general flow of the chapter a bit.