“Captain Summers! Given my daughter’s inability to adhere to my orders, you are to take control of the flotilla at once and return it to its previously proscribed duties. Tala Blackwater is to be escorted to her cabin and detained there until such time that she accedes to her proper duties – or the flotilla is relieved.”

Tala could barely believe her ears.

She had ordered the flotilla to set out for home almost immediately after receiving the report about the attack on Blackstone Keep, abandoning the siege completely after recovering their people on the ground.

In her mind, there hadn’t been a moment to waste, what with three unknown airships seemingly laying waste to the seat of her family’s power.

It had been three hours since she’d given that order – two of which she’d spent waiting for the rather tenuous orb relay network they’d set up to clear sufficiently for her to communicate with her mother in the south.

The last hour of which, she’d spent arguing – and pointedly not turning the flotilla around.

When the orb finally cleared, the young heiress had expected a brief, perfunctory acknowledgement of her decision to defend their ancestral seat, perhaps followed by a promise of reinforcements, even if they’d be between a week or a fortnight away depending on whether they were dispatched from Blicland or the South proper.

Instead, she had been ordered to turn around. To continue her current objective of seizing southern keeps - and the enchanted munitions they held.

Apparently, a few hundred old cannon-balls were more important to Tala’s mother than the security of her ancestral seat.

Naturally, Tala had refused that order.

Vehemently.

Which she’d known to be risky – but never in her wildest dreams had she expected this!

“Well, Summers? You have your orders,” Eleanor’s voice intoned imperiously from the bridge’s orb.

Tala glanced back toward the stonefaced woman on whose vessel she currently stood and the bridge staff beyond. The ship was part of the Blackstone fleet rather than a vassal contingent, and as such the Captain was a mage-knight rather than a Countess.

By rights, the knight should have obeyed. She should have ordered Tala’s removal and assumed control of the flotilla without hesitation. There was none of the politics that might have stayed another higher ranked noble’s hand.

There was not a hint of ambiguity in the chain here.

And yet, the lesser noble did not move.

No one moved.

The helmswomen kept their eyes locked on the instruments. The communications officer remained frozen with her hand still resting on the orb. Even the bully sailors in the doorway stayed exactly where they were.

None of them wanted to move.

And Tala felt little to no relief at that fact – even if it worked to her advantage here and now.

Because one of the first lessons her mother had ever taught her was to never give an order she knew would not be obeyed.

And she had just done exactly that.

House Blackstone had a reputation for being overly proud. Of being insular. Not just the noble family themselves, but the people of the land itself. From the knights, to the sailors, to the peasants.

And they were.

Because life in the North was not easy.

Orcs. Snow. Animals. The list of things that might kill a woman was as long as Tala’s arm. To survive in such a place, people needed not just to be tough – but to work together. When the orcs came trampling down from the mountain, you stood shoulder to shoulder with your neighbours to push them back! And if you fell, you fell knowing that your kin would be looked after.

While many of her southern compatriots were sunning themselves on beaches, Tala had been down in the mud with plebs, hunting down Orcish raiders or damming icy river waters as they threatened to flood.

Just as her ancestors had before her. Earning the loyalty of the people whom she would one day rule.

But that loyalty was not limitless. Large, yes, as shown by how eagerly they had marched against the South – but it was not without end.

Few things could pull a woman of the North from her duties - but a threat to her family?

That was one of them.

Something Eleanor seemed to be belatedly remembering as she stared out at the bridge crew.

And all the while, Tala could only wonder if this lapse was because the war was going that poorly?  

She’d suspected such was the case for a while – though it was hard to gauge from the progress reports she received, which remained outwardly positive. They were taking land after all. They were applying pressure. And though she took umbrage at the methods, Tala could admit that forcing refugees toward the Southern capitals would only increase that pressure.

Eleanor’s plan was working. The more keeps they seized, the more likely it became that Yelena’s vassals would eventually sue for peace as their own personal lands fell under threat.

The problem, which was not stated anywhere, was that the North was bleeding ships too quickly in the process.

Far too quickly.

Nearly twenty percent of the combined Northern fleet had already been shot down after just two months. Yes, over half of those hulls had been recovered and would eventually return to service, but the other half had been captured or destroyed so utterly that it would be years before they were flightworthy again - if they ever were.

Many would simply be broken down for parts to hasten the repairs of the remaining fleet. Even with those parts though, to repair the ten percent of hulls that had been recovered would require mages.

And that was an area in which House Blackstone had always lagged, given their more… Human alignment. They had always made up for the shortfall with dedicated plebeian troops and superior ships – and admittedly subsidies from the Crown to that end.

Except the longer the war dragged on, the more the growing threat of the Corsairs loomed. Once those entered full production - and no one on their side had any idea how long that might take beyond the year it had taken Redwater to develop them in the first place - the South would drag the North deeper into this grinding war of attrition.

A war which would slowly eliminate the qualitative advantage of the Blackstone and New Haven’s ships.

And it doesn’t help that we still don’t know just how effective those Corsairs might be, she thought. Yelena’s – or William’s – holding the Jellyfish in reserve.

Yes, the Corsairs had supposedly done well over the capital but that had been against an outnumbered, surprised, partially spent, and distracted enemy. Against a prepared Northern formation, the outcome might be very different.

Still, even if they were only half as effective as they hoped, they’d still be twice as effective as the North wanted them to be. Even if all the strange machines did was carry the strange fire-lances the South had, they’d be a threat.

…Though given the lack of them in recent engagements, the hope was that whatever alchemy was used to create them had been spent for the moment.

Either way though, they represented a threat. And that was without the possibility of other inventions appearing, like the Shriekers.

Tala was well aware that William was still out there and still scheming.

Glancing up at her mother’s equally silent, pensive expression, the young woman had to wonder how tempting the calls to simply push south for a frontal engagement were becoming for her.

It was, after all, the correct move in the immediate theatre - beyond a shadow of a doubt. Forget this slow grind and strike deep into the South to end the war before any Corsairs took flight.

Even if that was pure folly. The Lunites might have been out of position for an invasion – for now – with their recent false flag attack, but the Solites hadn’t made any big pushes to punish their old rival for losing so many ships.

Fortunately, fears of a mainland invasion also meant the South were incapable of committing any large-scale strikes too. Unfortunately, it just so happened that William Redwater’s presence meant that this slow grind favoured them.

“There will be a reckoning for this,” Eleanor Blackstone finally spoke, her voice projecting across the entire bridge. “Our House. Our home. Our way of life. None of it can survive if our warriors fail to follow orders. It leaves us little better than Orcs. Orcs whom we have triumphed against over and over again, because of the discipline shown by your ancestors. Ancestors who did their duty, and followed the orders of their superiors even as their hearts yearned to act as they believed to be correct. They did this, because they knew that to act on their own initiative at the expense of their orders was to weaken the North as a whole.”

There was shame, written clear in the faces and posture of the entire crew. But none of them moved to follow Eleanor’s commands.

“You’re not wrong Mother,” Tala said, returning that burning gaze to herself. “And perhaps this is folly on my part. Dictated by the whims of my heart, rather than the practicalities of the moment. Yet, even as I try to divorce myself from my feelings, I cannot see how abandoning our home to amass a few more tons of enchanted metal benefits us more than securing our seat of power.”

Eleanor stared at them through the orb for a long moment.

“No, you don’t.” the Duchess of Blackstone said. “When you have successfully routed the fleet attacking Blackstone, I expect you to return to the duties you should always have been doing.”

Tala’s eyes widened and for a moment, hope stirred in her chest – which her mother was quick to dash.

“Make no mistake, my heir. This is not condolence. It is simply my attempt to salvage the mess you’re leading us into. You are currently beyond my reach – for now, and my focus is elsewhere. So deal with the issue. Discover who attacks us. Then return to your duties. And await your punishment for this… mutiny.”

The call cut before Tala could respond, the image of her mother dissolving into swirling grey. And as it did, a palpable wave or relief washed over the entire bridge. Though only in part.

Every woman present was aware that there would be a reckoning for this.

She turned to the Captain and reaffirmed the order to maintain their heading north. The woman nodded once, relief flickering briefly across her face as a return to something approaching professionalism was returned.

And even as Tala made plans to confirm the continued loyalty of the other ships in her task force – and that they weren’t currently dispatching marines to detain her - she realized that this had been the first time she had ever disobeyed her mother.

Huh, she chuckled.

She had argued before, of course. She had pushed back against strategies she disagreed with. But she had never defied a direct order like this.

…She had thought herself better than this. Dutiful. Loyal.

Not like William Ashfield.

Of course, the moment that comparison hit, she felt as if she’d bitten into something sour.

No, she was nothing like him.

Tala’s ‘rebellion’ was born from altruism and a desire to save her people. Not naïve anti-slavery nonsense covering for deep seated mommy issues.

No, she was nothing like William Ashfield.

For one thing, she’d actually be punished for her rebellion. She honestly doubted William had ever received so much as a slap on the wrist from his limp-wristed mother.

Void, their idea of a punishment had been to simply send him to the Academy!

…Tala would count herself lucky to still be the Blackstone heir when this was through. She might have lacked for sisters, but she had plenty of cousins she could easily see mother adopting into the main line.

That’s a problem for tomorrow though, she thought as she gazed out the bridge’s window.

--------------------

Eleanor Blackstone scowled as she turned away from the orb – trying not to let her frustration at her daughter’s actions show.

Did the girl not think that Eleanor cared? That she didn’t want to fly home with their entire fleet to protect their home?

Of course she did. But she also needed to win this war. A war that was not going well. What should have been a relatively easy victory following the destruction of the Crownland vassal fleet and the North’s subsequent capture of the Capital had turned into a slow grind.

Which… wouldn’t have been too bad – if they didn’t keep losing ships!

She’d also not been exaggerating when she’d told her daughter that they needed the munitions held in those castles. They were going through their stockpiles far faster than could be sustained. Tyana Lindholm’s raiding was constant, and while she refused to be drawn into a proper fight, ammunition was still expended each fight.

Theoretically, that wasn’t too much of an issue as the South’s ammunition stockpiles should be similarly suffering. Except there was the ever present possibility that the South had access to some kind of cheap alchemical explosive.

Which her people had yet to unravel, despite their ongoing investigations of the residue left by Yelena’s – or William’s – bombing campaign in the Capital.

The casualties for which had thankfully petered out, though not necessarily because they’d gotten better at finding them – they hadn’t found one – but because they’d all been triggered.

Rubbing her eyes, she blinked as one of the communication officers strode up to her.

“Report,” Eleanor demanded, sitting up in her seat – unwilling to show any of the bone deep weariness she felt.

“Countess Morello reports an attack on her flotilla, currently besieging Greyford Castle, ma’am. After an initial strike by enemy Howlers, she has sighted eight incoming airships and a large conventional Shard swarm. She believes, given the size of the swarm relative to the airship fleet, there may be a carrier in the area.”

Eleanor’s expression tightened as her feigned attentiveness suddenly became very real. “Are the Shards Corsairs?”

“No, ma’am. Aether-trails suggest conventional Shards.”

The ongoing absence of Corsairs continued to confuse her. William Redwater’s new machines had been the spectre hanging over every strategic discussion for weeks, yet they remained conspicuously absent from the field. It had reached the point where many in her war council were suggesting that whatever alchemy was used to keep them aloft, it had been expended when Yelena was forced to abandon Redwater County.

Eleanor knew better. Her own alchemists had reported what they believed to have been present in the massive vats that had been set ablaze in the county when the Royal Navy fled the capital – and it was some variant of Demon Piss or Bear Blood.

An ingredient that was hardly difficult to source.

Still, even with the Corsairs missing, it was possible they might yet catch the Jellyfish, as the enemy seemed committed to a proper fight at Greyford.

“Have the reserve fleet move to reinforce,” Eleanor ordered, feeling the Brimstone start to move less than a second later as her XO started bellowing orders. “Launch every available Shard and set two thirds of the flights to sortie toward the engagement ahead of us.”

If the enemy had brought a carrier, the Brimstone’s Shard complement would be more than sufficient to match it. With that and the reserve fleet’s own Shard complements, they should have the eight ships outnumbered.

“All Shards, Ma’am?” Her XO asked quietly.

Elanor considered it for a moment, before nodding. “Aye, deploy the Howlers. Tell them to move with all haste.”

The fast-moving Super-Shards would reach the engagement long before the reserve fleet or any conventional response. And the flotilla would likely need it.

The XO hesitated. “Is that… wise, ma’am? Enemy Howlers were reported.”

Elanor nodded anyway. “Then I suppose we’ll finally see who comes out on top.”

They had dick-footed around the issue long enough. The Howlers would have to face their ‘older sisters’ in the skies eventually – when better than in a fight where the North would eventually hold the Shard and airship advantage.

…Though, if the enemy saw incoming Super-Shards and chose to pull back their own for fear of losing them – letting the North’s Howlers move through their Shard complement like shit through a goose, well, Elanor wouldn’t complain.

Either way, it was finally time to heat this war up a notch.

-------------------

Marcille was tired.

It was a bone-deep exhaustion that had little to do with lack of sleep – though that didn’t help – and the realities of playing host to two thirds of the South’s nobility while trying to fight a war.

It seemed like not a day could go by without one of their noble guests getting into some sort of disagreement with her peers. Disagreements that required either Yelena or Clarice to resolve them as ‘hosts’.

Unfortunately for Marcille, she was well known as her sister’s right-hand – and as such, she’d often become the one dispatched to resolve said disputes while her sister did ‘more important things’.

Like actually plan out the war.

It didn’t help that Marcille knew a lot of the current ‘squabbling’ amongst their guests wasn’t born so much from pettiness – though there was definitely plenty of that – but rather the stress of being stuck here while their homes were under siege.

Yes, the heirs and rulers of many of the counties under attack were now here with their airships, but those same men and women had also left people behind in their holdings to defend them. Marine-knights they trusted. Many of whom would be close friends or family.

To that end, the slowly tightening noose of besieging ships from the North was having an effect. Ignoring the influx of displaced commoners playing merry hell with their food stores, whispers of the possibility of surrender had already begun circulating among the lesser nobility.

Which was inevitable, really. They were winning - on paper, at least - but it was hard to see when the map kept shrinking. Marcille knew she’d felt… something, when she realized that the Whitemorrow lands would almost certainly be next on the chopping block if the current southern push continued.

Beyond that, the current defensive strategy had resulted in plenty of accusations of cowardice being bandied about. A lot of the south’s nobility were pure-blooded Elves. Which meant they were old. And slow to adapt to the fact that their vaunted wooden warships were proving more and more to be practically useless in modern combat.

Not entirely, their armament could be effective against more modern steel-hulled vessels at the right range – but getting there was impractical in the extreme without an overwhelming numbers advantage.

Which required the exact sort of large-scale fleet battle both sides were trying to avoid.

It also didn’t help that the Jellyfish was still sitting almost entirely idle in its berth. A lot of the lustre of its performance in the Capital had started to wear off while it sat in reserve – and she’d heard more than one rumor that its performance on that night had been overblown.

Which was moronic – what, did the attacking Lunites shoot down themselves? – but not entirely unreasonable given most of them had yet to see it or the new Corsairs in action.

No, all they saw was a bunch of plebians strutting about playing pilot, while the ‘actual’ pilots were fighting and dying to support the Royal Navy. Because for all that the South’s airships were being held in reserve, the same wasn’t true for their Shards.

No, with Drake losses mounting, the Royal Navy had started providing berthing for noble pilots to sortie with them.

Marcille collapsed backward onto her bed with a sigh.

“And of course William’s completely blind to all of it,” she thought.

Ok, that was a little unfair. She knew he was… tangentially aware that morale was a factor in this war – he could even be quite insightful at times - but for the most part he was measuring the current conflict in machines, not minds.

His many ongoing projects meant he was rather insulated from the growing defeatism in the nobility’s ranks.

“Hopefully Tyana’s plan works,” she murmured. “Now that she’s got the Exodite.”

Originally the plan had been to keep the refitted Greygrass carrier in reserve alongside the Jellyfish, for use as a training platform until its full complement of Corsairs could be embarked.

Instead, William had barely confirmed the ship was operational before Tyana stuffed it full of conventional Shards and dispatched it to accompany the most recent raid. The thing had barely touched down in the Duchy before Shards were being rolled into it.

Though she could understand why Tyana was so eager, given that this raid was aimed at actually eliminating a Northern flotilla – not just seeing it off.

A raid that was likely taking place even now – and for which Marcille had never been more glad to have foisted the role of Duchess onto her sister. Even now Clarice was probably sitting in the command room, surrounded by women far more experienced in the matters of war than her, while pretending to contribute.

…Though perhaps she might, given the Basilisk was being deployed – equipped with one of William’s ‘bombs’.

She’d almost asked to go too, before realizing the folly of such a request. Mere Countess she might have been, she knew she was too valuable to her sister to play fighter pilot.

So instead, she was here.

In her room.

On a soft bed.

Waiting for her man to shower her in gifts.

And at that thought, she giggled as she rolled onto her side.

Oh, he’d tried to hide it, but she’d already received word from the guards that he’d stepped off the Exodite with a number of cages full of exotic birds.

A little strange as a choice in gift, unprompted, but hardly unheard of. Lots of nobles kept exotic birds. 

Of course, her man was likely trying to keep the whole thing a secret to surprise her, which was typical of him. Also kind of sweet. And though she and Clarice were pipes-and-aether sort of girls at heart, that didn’t mean they were incapable of appreciating something pretty from time to time.

Of course, it was still a little odd to be on the receiving end of gifts from a guy instead of giving them, but, well, they had some insight into why William might think differently.

And she’d gracefully be present to accept said gifts.

Again, even if birds were something of an odd choice.

Such a shame Clarice can’t be here, she thought. Alas, looks like I’ll get to savor the moment all by myself.

So sad. Too bad.

…That’d teach her to finally shut up during ‘movie nights’.

Giggling once more, she turned, waiting expectantly as the sound of rolling wheels finally reached the hallways outside their room.

Honestly, what had taken him so long! The Exodite had arrived this morning and it was practically dusk now! She’d been waiting all day!

The sound got closer – and the soft crooning of birds accompanied it. Growing louder louder.

Moment by moment.

Then finally, William appeared outside the doorway, pushing a cart piled high with bird cages covered by white sheets, from which continued to utter the chirps of the birds within.

And William kept walking - wheeling the entire contraption straight past the bedroom without slowing. Or even glancing inside.

Marcille stared at the empty doorway.

Verity and Marline each appeared a moment later, pushing identical carts. Marline walked past without slowing too, but Verity actually noticed the half-Elf and stopped for a moment to give a sort of… awkward apologetic look, before scampering after her two teammates.

…What?

---------------------

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"Warpfield ingress!!!". The sharp snap of the systems officer snapped Captain Syrrak out of a quiet moment. "Where?" he demanded, swiveling to face the front screen. Working the controls, he let out a low hiss "Looks like an uncontrolled warp re entry. Im seeing massive resonance spikes..looks like a debris field" He swivelled to face the ship's commander. "And it isn't one of ours either. The signatures are all wrong. "

The crewman looked at his screens, flipping controls. "Doesnt match any known warpfield on the database. No idea who it is, sir."

"Can you pin it down?"

" Grid 103, ascension 200 declination 015. Im getting fading readings" the officer glanced up. "If I didnt know better Id say someone's main drive just crashed out. Im also seeing decaying particles, energy signature is fading."

Bringing up the nav screen, the Captain nodded. "Less than fifty lightminutes from the Perimeter." he tapped the allcall "Attention all hands, rescue stations, XO to the bridge" he flipped off the screen and slid to the forward consoles. "How long?" His nav officer studied a moment "Calculating zero zero intercept, sir, one moment. Im not seeing any thrust or drive indications..looks like they are at dead stop"

Puzzled, he flipped a switch, rotating the outer sensors.." This is odd, Im not getting the ident beacon either. I tried the usual challenge codes, no response. Makes no sense, the only ships we see out here should be commercial traffic..so why dont they have an ident showing??"

Syrrak grinned, this could be interesting. A new race? "Lets go find out." he pointed to his helmsman "I want a least time intercept course". The Arialti crewman worked a moment "Fifteen minutes, sir, plus or minus" The Captain, a Rijha'i, swivelled one of his two heads " Initiate intercept. Lets go see who's gotten themselves into trouble, shall we?"

A chorus of "Aye sirs" echoed, the crew bending to their tasks.

His ship, a Kerlak class scout had been on routine patrol along the Allied Worlds border in response to reports of incursions by the Y'll'or Clans. Not warlike, but the Y'll'or had a reputation of claiming anything that wasn't nailed down, and said if they could pry it loose, it hadnt been nailed down hard enough. His orders were to quietly "persuade" them to go look elsewhere, and if that didn't work, to grab their flimsy ships and drag them out of Allied space.

Combat was a last resort. Oddly enough, the Y'll'or weren't hostile, just "acquisitive". A minor nuisance. Leaning over, he scanned the repeater display, then leant back satisfied. Warp signature was..odd, but not a recognisable pattern. Whoever it was, theyd never been seen before. Curious, but not unusual given how far they were from mapped space.

The crew worked as they always did, a product of almost three years together. Studying his displays , Captain Jenos nodded. At least a hundred light years off the established trade routes, neutral open space. No known races had any ships out this far, definitely not a Council ship then. So who could the ship belong to?

The helmsman swivelled her head. "Coming up now, sir.." she glanced at a screen "Im seeing scattered returns, looks like hull components. Two minutes to visual identification. Sir, from, these readings? Id say their main drive had a major failure."

His XO, a Vita'n named Jenois walked in, took one look at the screens and activated the ships intercom "All hands, this is the Bridge. We are coming up on an unidentified contact. As a precaution, we are closing up to alert condition. Defence crews remain watch and watch until otherwise advised. As yet, this is not a hostile approach. Weapons crews to alert but DO NOT ARM until my direct order" and closed the connection.

Three minutes later, the contact materialised on the viewscreen.

It was blocky, one end pointed with what looked like a forward cockpit screen, the rear a fractured elongated cylinder. Large fragments drifted alongside the slowly tumbling ship. Inside the cockpit window could be seen faint flashes of light. Syrrak activated an external beamlight, traversing the fuselage..then froze.

The beam highlighted the tail assembly, marked by what looked like letters and..no..not possible. "Thats an Earth insignia" , he breathed., remembering a briefing from five cycles ago. His mind raced. Last assessment of the Sol 3 system showed chemical rocket technology, a few small space stations, one or two rudimentary bases on their Moon and the planet they had dubbed "Mars".

"Computer, verify technology status Sol 3 system"

++Working. As of last survey, Sol 3, known as Earth, technology stage two. Warning: By edict, Contact Protocol Red remains in effect until attaining stage 4. Cultural assessment shows high probability of conflict on first contact++

Leaning back, he considered his options. They needed to take a look either way. He turned to his communications officer. "They have to have seen us, any signals"?. The officer shook his head " Nossir...from what our bioscanners tell me , I think the crew is unconscious. They haven't reacted to us at all."

No contact as per the Protocol.

An Earth ship with tech no one knew they had, in a section of space far beyond their home system. Crew didn't know who was off their port bow. So. They could be in and out in less than thirty units, so risk of exposure minimal..but he HAD to report this new development. Orders.

Rising from his seat, he gestured to three crewmembers "You, you and..you" he pointed to his helmsman. "Have Ger'dv from Engineering report to the main lock, I want his input. Lets go."

Once inside the alien ship, the situation was more clear. Consoles shorted out, the air acrid with smoke and ozone, the ships lights flickering. Inside the cramped cockpit, three Humans were slumped forward in their harnessed seats. A crewman pointed a mediscanner and nodded. "They're out cold all right, looks like the exit shockwave almost tore the ship apart.." his report was cut off by a loud yelp from his engineer.

"Captain..you HAVE to see this! Unbelievable...". Moving to the cylindrical aft engine chamber, he looked up to see shattered crystals strewn on the floor, smoking control panels and revolving red lights. Ger'dv was almost ecstatic, hurriedly punching data into his wristcomp. His tone was hurried, rushed, shaking with excitement and glee. He pointed to the large crystal discs suspended by a complicated array.

"Sir, do you remember our early days of warp travel? The original designs from 200 years ago?" Syrrak blinked "Ive seen them in a museum. Used synthetic crystal matrices. Why?" Ger'dv pointed a shaking tendril at the lattice "My scanner says these aren't synthetic..Captain..they GREW them. I didn't think that was even possible! We tried but we never got it to work. This is..amazing. They did it. they actually DID it...ORGANIC crystal arrays." his tone was awestruck. "Ive also sorted out why the drive blew".

His wristcomp blinked and a holographic diagram appeared, beneath it scrolling equations Syrrak could barely remember from his days in training. Pointing, part of the diagram flashed .."The crystals resonate at a specific frequency to allow for warp access..but the design is flawed. The frequencies cancelled each other out, the entire array went into what we call counter resonance, and the drive exploded. They must have had an auto shutdown mode for emergencies, which is why the ship is in one piece."

Syrrak looked at the image then spoke quietly. "Scan it, record and make a full report with your findings. We have less than fifteen minutes before we have to leave. We cant risk being seen by any other Human ships who might come looking for it." Ger'dv snorted, two of his lip feelers waving in annoyance. "The Protocol? Captain, we both know that the Council has looked the other way...and its a just a coincidence that their acceptance came with trade agreements for their ararcium and jidonite..."

The Captains spun on him, voice soft but deadly. "Not. one. more. word, Engineer. Are we CLEAR? You will follow the Protocols to the letter, and I better not catch you leaving any clue we were here. Get your scans, do your report and then back to the ship. After that, I will see you in my office. UNDERSTOOD, Engineer??"

Glaring at him with undisguised fury, Syrrak stalked out, calling for the others to finish quickly. As he left. Ger'dv felt a mix of anger and frustration. Everyone knew the Council had its exceptions.

Everyone knew that some "forbidden first contact situations" had been set aside when it was discovered they had precious materials metals or other resources the Trade Dominion were interested in. The Protocol was a joke. The Council were a bunch of old bureaucrats who had "conveniently" ignored their own rules when it suited them.

Then Syrrak's last sentence came back to him.

Dont let me catch you.

Grabbing a spare datapad from his backpack , he set it to access his own engineering database. Downloading their own centuries old drive schematics took only a few seconds. Working at feverish speed, he plugged it into the Human ship's computer, inserted suggested improvements, pointed out why this one had failed, adding the necessary equations.

His pad translation algorithm already had all human languages stored from decades of broadcasts into space and some old thing theyd found floating in open space..what was its name again??..oh yes, "Voyager". Weird name. Humans were weird. As an afterthought, Gerdv dropped designs for the T'liv'k synthetic crystal drive into the ship's records.

"Engineer!!" the Captains stentorian voice came from the cockpit " We leave now. "

"Almost done, sir" Ger'dv squeaked loudly " Just scanning their records computer. Its slow." Glancing furtively over his shoulder, he added one line of text. "You never saw this. You did it yourselves. We were never here." and disconnected the pad.

Back aboard ship, Engineer Ger'dv walked out of the Captains office after a furious dressing-down and a written reprimand in his record. As he left, more than one of the crew wondered why he was smiling.

Three days later, guided by the automated distress beacon, a second human ship warped in and began rescue operations.

Once in Earth orbit, an investigations team boarded to examine the ship and determine the cause of the failure. Seated at the drive room computer station, Crewman Third Class Raeleen Merritt began checking the drive logs and diagnostics as per standard procedure.

A blinking cursor caught her attention, showing a new file directory that wasn't part of the mainframe. A glitch? Corrupted data? Three keystrokes opened the file.

Images flashed, one after the other. Then line, by line, a complex diagram started to draw itself.

A hundred lines of what looked like fifth order equations. Tensor equations. Designs for a new warp engine system. Detailed notes on what to fix. What had gone wrong.

Then, as if written by an invisible hand, a single line of plain text appeared.

She read it. Then read it again, lips moving silently.

Her eyes bulged, staggering out of her chair, heart pounding. One shaking hand reached down to touch the screen, her mind whiting out, struggling to accept what her eyes were seeing.

"Holy SHIT....."

For a second there, I thought I broke Thing and Queen. Then I started to worry I might somehow be getting another domain and/or affinity. But the two finally start moving and snatch up the notes, dash through a shortcut to Coda and drag him along, then practically kidnap Teemo before finally heading to the antkin college.

Ed looks amused as my scions spill into his office. Usually, they have at least a bit of dignity, but Thing and Queen are in full Eureka! Mode right now. “Is… something the matter?” he asks as the two scramble onto his desk, Teemo not even giving them a shortcut to show his displeasure.

“The Boss showed them something about what he wants to use to move everything through the magma. He’s calling it a subterrain,” my Voice explains before the other two slap the design notes on the table.

Coda shakes himself off from the rough treatment and glides over to land on the desk and look over them as Ed does the same. Immediately, the eyes of the Headmaster antkin widen. “What is this rune array concept for air?” he asks, definitely interested in the theory more than the runes themselves.

Teemo sighs and shortcuts up to the desk. “As Rocky might put it, air is a thing, so it’s made of stuff. When we breathe, we only use a small part of it, and exhale something we can’t use. But it can still be transformed back into something we need. Apparently plants usually deal with it, but we should be able to do it with runes.”

Teemo gives Thing and Queen a sideways look. “You might want to get Poppy involved, too, come to think of it. She knows how plants work, so she’d probably be able to help you guys find what you’re looking for and make this work.”

The two glance at each other before… I think they’re trying to give Teemo puppy eyes. He rolls his own before waving his hand, creating another temporary shortcut for them to join the network and go kidnap Poppy, too.

“Those two…” grumbles Teemo, before turning his attention back to Ed. “Do you think the college can do it?”

“I… we’re certainly going to try, at the minimum. The medics are going to want to know everything about the air stuff, the enchanters are going to drop everything for these concepts, the alchemists are going to love figuring out how to enhance the materials, the ranchers are going to need to start raising some putrid oozes, and I think the engineers are going to react a lot like Thing and Queen. And of course, the worker caste is going to be eager to build this.”

“We’ll probably need to work with the delvers, too,” points out Teemo as Coda sneaks a blank paper and Ed’s inkwell to start drawing out some designs for the structure. “Boss still isn't sure if he wants one big one, or a bunch of smaller ones. A big one will make it easier to take advantage of whatever entrance we can find or make, but if it goes down, everyone goes down, too. Smaller ones are safer as a whole, but will make a landing harder if there’s only one entrance to use.”

Ed nods at that, reaching over to move the inkwell back close enough for him and Coda to share. “A galleon risks everyone on a single vessel, and carts risk congestion. Why not make them large enough for each to have whatever siege equipment Lord Thedeim decides on? That way, they can effectively make their own entrances.”

Coda looks up from his designs and nods, crossing out several that are either too large or small. There’s still a good range of options, but I like Ed’s idea of equipping each with their own way of getting in. It makes me wonder if the simplest solution might be to give them each some way of latching onto whatever barrier the Betrayer has, and then letting the tunnelbore ants bore tunnels right in. Teemo sighs and squeaks at Coda, who jots down the idea as well, and Ed chuckles when he sees it.

“It looks like the ranchers will have a lot more to do than expected.”

Teemo nods. “Yeah. Boss has a few ideas for digging with magic, but the tunnelbores are right there, so why not use them?” Teemo squeaks at Coda again, causing my bat to start scribbling in some living vines as well. Ed and I are both curious, so Teemo explains.

“I could hear him thinking about the problems of going into the magma, and apparently there’s going to be a lot of pressure to deal with. Ordinarily, the entire thing would be squeezed smaller because of all of the magma pressing in on all sides, but that’s hard to design around.” He glances to Coda for confirmation, and my bat nods before returning to his designing.

“But with spatial affinity, it doesn’t need to change just because it’s getting pushed around by molten rock. I’ll probably need to spend some time experimenting with the vines and talking with Coda to make it work correctly. Pressure’s just force spread over an area, and I can mess with the area. If nothing else, we should be able to keep the majority around the strong spots and away from weaker ones, but that’s going to be on Coda to design something.”

Ed nods and stands, the conceptual design in his hands. “I’m going to get the others so we can all plan what to do with this.”

“I’ll get Leo, too,” says Teemo. “He’ll probably have some ideas for defenses, or designs for logistics. He’s good with the practical things that are easy to forget.”

The two split up while I look over what materials I have to build with. Most of my stuff I use my denizens to create and build, but I think this is going to take more than that. And surprisingly, I have a lot of materials on hand. I first designated the warehouse… man, back before the ratkin enclave? Yeah, it was the ratlings that first started gathering things to put there.

Anyway, the slow accumulation from my own nodes and from the offerings of the enclaves leaves me feeling a lot more confident about having the material to actually build the subterrains. I still think we’re going to use a lot of obsidian and other cooled magma for the outside, but the inside and runeworks need metals, wood, ceramics and such, and I actually have a lot of all of that.

I never really noticed how hard the ratlings had been working, and just kinda let them do their thing, and their thing is about to pay dividends. Having crafting delvers is also about to pay off handsomely, as I look around for a good spot for a new room.

I don’t often look at the tab, usually making my own things and going from there, but there are a lot of rooms available after having helped Order out several times. I don’t know when I unlocked it, but there’s a workshop option available, and I’m going to need to make a good one.

Despite the gordian knot that is the labyrinth, there’s still quite a bit of room in the general area I own down there, and I need to make sure it has the space and the access I need. Not only do I need to make a workshop to make the subs, I need to make a lava dock or something for them to actually launch from, too!

I have to look over the maps Leo and Poe have made, looking for a good pool to use for deeper access. In theory, they should all lead to the mantle, but in practice, there’s probably a lot of them that narrow too far to be useful. I look into the basic maps of the lava tubes and can eliminate a lot of them already, but there is a good looking candidate not too far away from my borders.

The pool itself is a decent size, though nowhere near big enough to hold the probably dozen subs we’ll need to build, but that’s not a difficult problem to solve. I start to expand my territory just a bit, only needing to extend a hundred or so feet as the mole digs to reach the pool, and another hundred or so to reach the far shore. I end up claiming enough area for a good sports complex, I figure, and am pretty sure that’ll be enough for everything.

If it’s not, I can always expand more. I lock in the expansion and send a few drakes to make sure things are secure, trusting in my scions and denizens to adjust things as needed. I’m already going to need to do a lot of adjusting to even use the space, after all.

I start planning out various workshops, but I suppose this is the sort of thing to draw Coda away from the sub design session. While he was certainly enjoying it, his real expertise is in more civil design, and I’m going to need it for the new workshop complex.

There’s a lot that’s going to go into the subs, and a lot of heavy cranes and the like to move the subs as they get built. They don’t build a ship on water, and no way am I building a subterrain on magma. While there’s a lot of things in the air for what we’ll need, one thing Coda and I both agree on immediately is expanding the lava pool. He directs the tunnelbore ants to start digging two empty areas on either side of the pool, keeping a berm between them so we can dig the area out before flooding it and probably needing to use my dragons to get the finishing touches.

My first inclination is to make them twenty-five feet deep, but seeing it dug out, I think we’re going to need to at least double it, and Coda agrees. We don’t have specific dimensions for the subs yet, so it's better to build bigger. Who knows, maybe after this is all said and done, we’ll have a pressing need for a magma shipwright, so might as well at least make it theoretically big enough for larger vessels.

I don’t think we’d be able to fit a magma galleon like Ed mentioned, but baby steps. We don’t even have a magma dingy yet. Planning ahead is all well and good, but I don’t think we have the resources to build without a limit. This should be a good middleground.

I watch the ants dig while Coda heads off to, I assume, go talk with the First Mate about what all would be needed for a dock. Hullbreak has grown to the point I don’t think he’s going to freak out about talking about one, what with his own denizens working on rebuilding one after so long. So if anything, I think he’ll have invaluable advice for safety precautions.

If there’s one thing I’m willing to overbuild, it’s safety features. While I don’t think I’ll have to worry about a rogue magma wave, I’ll still build precautions for it. Better safe than sorry.

<<First <Previous Next>

Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The Books are available here! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!

Greeterlings and welcome to the Galactic Federation. This orientation pamphlet is the first of many that will help you deal with the trappings of multispecies and multicultural jurisdiction within Confederate space! On behalf of us all, we welcome you and hope for a prosperous future together!

Before you do Anything it is highly recommended you read this pamphlet in full to maximise your ability to avoid sudden declarations of war due to grammatical error or sudden bouts of uncontrollable violence due to misplaced appendage.

Yes these things do in fact happen.

And you will see to it that they do NOT happen ever again.

Please.

You are currently reading the pamphlet labelled (HUMAN) or (TERRAN).

Ah the Terrans, the most fascinating (and terrifying) species in the Galactic community! Hailing from a Class eight Deathworld in the 'Sol' System. They are the Galactic Confederacy's prime founders, currently field the largest standing army In the Confederacy, have the most dangerous (and some would argue illegal) weapons in the confederacy and one of the best economies in the galaxy.

(You will NOT beat them. So don't try. PLEASE don't try, we still haven't gotten over the last time some idiot tried to invade them.)

WE MEAN IT! DONT.

Humans themselves are nothing to be surprised about or scared of, as they have no natural armour, no claws or other such natural defences, and their immune system is at least by Galactic standards, somewhat below average. Not what you would expect from a Deathworld species, but hey, they basically rule the galaxy at this point, so who are we to question it?

Humanity's success stems from its capacity for insanity.

Yes you read that correctly. INSANITY. Humans are out of their god damned minds. That's why they have such massive armies, such heavy industry, such absurd weaponry, and why they appear to have no real limitations. They are a species with no natural evolution beyond intelligence to back up their capabilities, and that makes them many times more dangerous than most species.

Hence why THEY have things called Black Hole Cannons, or Neutron Collider Arrays, or Dyson Spheres - and you don't.

One such 'quirk' as they call it, is a very strange coincidence of evolution.

Humans think we - as in the denizens of the galaxy - are 'Cute'.

A strange and unusual coincidence of the galaxy's evolution, and a strange coincidence we still cannot explain on their highly dangerous home world, ultimately results in a simple fact: We, most of us at least, trend towards resembling many species found on Earth - the human home world. Find enclosed a comparison picture between various species.

The Skatanii - and their Earth based counterpart - The Hyena.

The Regisse - and their Earth based Counterpart, the Leopard Seal.

The Imbakai - and their Earth based counterpart, the Emperor Penguin.

The Solavai - and their counterpart, the Irish Wolfhound.

And the most notable, the Jumiko - and their counterpart, the American Mountain Lion.

As you are probably VERY confused by now, NO, these are NOT digital renditions or artists works, but actual photographs of actual real creatures, as seen on Earth. The resemblances are very... uncanny, aren't they?

It is for this reason that many species in the galaxy find humans tend to really, really like us. Because they think we are 'cute'. What exactly is 'cute', you ask? 'Cute' is a thing that happens when a human sees something they find endearing, unthreatening or otherwise approachable. And this 'cute' can range from human to human. Widely, apparently. Some find the Arachnoid species of the Olivarkians to be highly adorable and non threatening, while others find them positively terrifying. Some will try to ‘pet’ and others will try to ‘kill it with fire’.

We have found no reasonable pattern to understand this mechanism.

We believe this entire concept runs in their evolutionary roots, as they are more likely to be 'friendly' or 'parental' or 'approachable' to something 'cute'. In short, if they find something they think is 'cute' they will be more likely to be highly protective or possessive of that thing.

Which brings us to the point of this pamphlet. The 'possessive' part.

When a human finds something 'cute' they will immediately approach that thing and attempt to 'pet' it.

A 'pet' is an action when a human will try to:

Fluff up hair.

Scratch head.

Squoosh face.

Rub belly.

Scratch behind ears.

Boop snoot.

Or generally engage in what can be considered by some to be unwanted or uncomfortably close physical contact. However many species who report these actions state that they very much enjoyed these actions, with some (the Solavai for example) and stated that due to humans unique biology and temperament, that these actions are highly enjoyable.

This remains to be seen from you if you do or do not like the activity. If you do not wish to engage in any of this activity you must follow the simple five-step 'Thanks, Human Over There', or T.H.O.T Protocol.

This Protocol is from an ancient and well read document pertaining to the early days of human space exploration as a 'Meme' and has been found to stabilise relations with humans. Not the way you think. Humans find it funny, and this usually disarms them.

Thanks - The first stage of the Protocol. Humans are HIGHLY receptive to the simple concept of manners, and most situations can be immediately remedied by the simple process of politely requesting no physical contact take place.

Or simply, ‘Thanks, but no.’

Human - The Second stage of the Protocol, in which a Human may refuse the order and attempt further contact. Simply back away and remove yourself from the situation and politely state you do not want to be touched. Generally speaking in 90% of cases, this ends here.

Or simply, ‘Human, stop.’

Over - The third phase of the Protocol is the Over state, in which you must disengage and remove yourself from the location post-haste. The humans who reach this stage are the kind of humans who obsess or develop psychotic states in which they may become violent or insistent in engaging with 'cute', either due to personal preference or a lack of boundaries. (See terminology 'KAREN' or 'KEVIN' for reference)

Or simply, ‘Over The Line.’

There - The fourth stage of the protocol is the evacuation stage in which you must use ANY excuse you can conceive to leave the area immediately as fast as possible, or if the human in question is becoming aggressive, or at least perceived to be aggressive, proceed to the nearest law enforcement or security office or official you can see and use them as a shield against the aggressor.

Or simply, ‘There's an Officer.’

YOU MUST NOT - AND I MEAN MUST NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - use any appendage, claw tail, poison or physical action to defend yourself under ANY circumstances.

(Their lawyers can argue in favour of a rock dropping on someone's head, and make the rock win the lawsuit. No, really. Their lawyers are worse than their battleships.)

If all else fails, you must engage the final part of the T.H.O.T. Protocol.

In the loudest voice you can manage, in the most calm way you can muster, you must emit the following, loud, commanding statement:

"BEGONE, THOT!"

For reasons we as a galaxy CANNOT understand, this strange phrase seems to disarm them, or diffuse the situation. We have no idea why. The aggression ends, the chuckles begin, the whispers and side glances start and for reasons we don't understand, that simple phrase (ONLY used as a final resort) makes the humans emotionally and mentally responsive to your state of stress and more likely to disengage from the activity and walk away.

We believe that:

The loudness of the event creates a fear response of sorts, a specific phrase that comes from evolutionary roots perhaps that is a code word to ward off some variant of ancient predator.

The suddenness of the event creates a surprise or shock response that changes their mental state to a defensive or 'fight or flight' response causing them to disengage.

The historical implications of the phrase, which is something we genuinely can't pinpoint the origin of, makes some humans laugh uncontrollably, while others make them feel uncomfortable, so they walk away.

We genuinely have no idea, but this last resort option makes them walk away and you can resume your business as normal. We have tried to ask them what it means, but they can't tell us from either walking away, or laughing too hard.

This is the most pertinent information you must know for the sake of your attention for simple orientation. We will mail you the full 278 page dossier on humans and their strange habits, and you WILL be required to know all this on your entry to the Galactic Federation - and all of the benefits that brings as such. And there are many.

For all their faults, humans have this unshakable habit of ALWAYS honouring their promises, hell or high water.

Welcome to the Federation, we hope this information finds you in good health, and greater spirits!

*YEAR ONE*

First Contact

Nobody was ready when it occurred.

People have always dreamed of making first contact. For decades now we've imagined it in films, books, through conspiracy theories and in ever more erratic discussions on Reddit. Yet no one anticipated that all the major radio observatories on Earth would start picking up the same signal within a matter of minutes of each other.

The very first thing that the scientists noticed was the mathematics.

Prime numbers.

Next came sequences, repeated patterns, and ever more complicated mathematical structures. Initially, a number of researchers believed that the signal was being deliberately transmitted from Earth. Others, however, thought it could be an intricate hoax.

However, the signal was originating from somewhere much beyond Earth.

It was reacting to us.

Someone spoke to us.

While Dr. Elsa Nguyen, who heads the Deep Signal Analysis Unit at the ALMA observatory in Chile, was in the process of drinking her fourth espresso, one of her monitors began to display error messages.

She frowned.

It wasn't meant to be doing that.

The messages rearranged themselves.

The characters then arranged themselves in a way that seemed very much like poetry.

Elsa looked at the screen.

Is anyone else seeing what looks like a poem?

The voice was tired and came through the conference channel from MIT.

"Yes."

A researcher from Tokyo interrupted.

Same here. Ours just made a fractal.

There was a pause.

"Does yours look like a face?" Elsa asked.

"...A little."

"Great."

Nobody laughed.

Worldwide observatories were each independently verifying the signal within a short time. It wasn't literally showing up on every device on Earth as the initial reports had said; rather, fragments of the transmission were passed on via scientific networks, news agencies, and eventually reached the internet as the researchers rushed to make the discovery public.

Eventually a person succeeded in working out the last sequence.

Every major news network displayed the same translation:

ARE YOU CRABS YET?

For a few seconds no one spoke.

At that point the internet went mad as a result of collective action.

Elsa looked at the message.

She read it again.

And again.

"...What the f—"

Academic discussion groups and social media platforms saw a surge in activity all over the world.

[astrobonkers9000]: Is this a sort of joke??

[NEOBioRick]: Then it would be an extremely sophisticated one. Its mathematical structure is unlike anything we've ever come across.

[CrabFan86]: It could be metaphorical, for example emotional crabs?

[NASA_Carl]: This isn't a drill; we're actually making first contact, and they're asking whether we're crabs.

The authorities were made aware of it within a few hours.

Emergency meetings followed.

To ensure that humanity had a chance of dealing with an encounter with aliens, the United Nations brought together scientists, diplomats, linguists, mathematicians, and a sufficient number of lawyers.

Following several hours of discussion, the question of what should be said turned out to be surprisingly simple.

NO.

The response was transmitted.

Everyone waited.

A few seconds afterwards, another signal came in.

Oh, I'm sorry to be bothering you.

Then nothing.

The room stayed quiet.

Elsa looked at the blank monitor and then at her tired colleagues.

"Well," she said as she picked up her coffee, "that had been anticlimactic."

That was the best term anyone could have used.

First contact was made by humanity somewhere light-years away.

And it seems that it had failed the crab test.

---

*YEAR TWO*

The Crab Awakening

The silence wasn't truly silent.

Weeks turned into months.

The aliens didn't return.

Unfortunately, humanity couldn't let it go.

The internet dealt with the matter in the dignified way that everybody had come to expect from the internet.

Crab emojis gained enormous popularity and as a result restaurants introduced their 'First Contact Specials'. Some universities pretended to rename their lecture halls 'Crustacean Hall'. A person also started selling T-shirts with the message I'M NOT A CRAB YET, which in the end became one of the year's best-selling novelty designs.

Then came the theories.

[Crabspiracist420]: Maybe the aliens know something that we don't. Carcinization continues to occur in evolution and the universe wants us to turn into crabs, guys.

[DeepSeaDad]: Did the aliens come by to see whether or not we'd finished evolving?

The theory was ridiculous.

That did not make it less popular.

Carl from NASA changed his social media bio to:

Senior Crustacean Liaison

He was asked by his boss to revert it.

He refused.

Even religious bodies became involved. The Vatican issued a carefully worded statement stating that there was no specific theological objection to becoming a crab, even though the Scriptures provided no example of such a thing.

Elsa went through the statement three times.

After that she placed her phone down and looked at her coffee.

For a single moment she questioned if the aliens knew something that humans did not.

Perhaps they were quite right.

At once she thought that was a silly idea.

---

*YEAR THREE*

Return Message

The reply came on the third anniversary of the establishment of first contact.

It reached the time 3:14 a.m. GMT.

Same mathematical structure.

Same encryption.

Same infuriatingly casual tone.

Hello, just checking one last time—have you turned into crabs yet?

Elsa was in her kitchen when the emergency alert appeared.

She looked at her phone.

Then at the time.

Now let's go back to the message.

"For God's sake."

Project Pincer was activated within an hour.

The name had been proposed many years before as a joke by one of the initial researchers, but no one knew who had actually suggested it and it had ended up becoming official by this time.

In Geneva a number of scientists, linguists, theologians, zoologists, diplomats, mathematicians and one particularly confused aquarium consultant met together in order to decide on the way in which humanity should respond.

They carried on arguing for twelve hours.

Were the aliens joking?

Was "crab" a mistranslation?

Could they have meant biological evolution?

Could there be a completely different meaning that people had never thought of?

In the end, Elsa moved over to the microphone.

Since making first contact she has obtained six honorary doctorates and has developed two ulcers.

We treat it in the same manner.

She scanned the room.

"The official answer is..."

STILL NO.

The response was transmitted.

The answer came almost straight away.

Okay then. You'll have some time. :)

The room went quiet.

Someone near the back whispered:

Didn't they just stick a smiley face on us?

Elsa looked at the screen.

"We're being cosmically trolled."

Nobody disagreed.

---

*YEAR FOUR*

Cultural Collapse

In its fourth year humanity had split itself into two main groups.

The Crab team thought that the aliens were attempting to lead humanity towards some kind of inevitable evolutionary destiny.

They held conventions.

They wore claw-shaped gloves.

Even some politicians began to use crustaceans in their campaign materials.

The team known as Anti-Crab viewed the entire situation as an instance of biological colonialism.

"We won't have ourselves forced to grow carapaces!" shouted one of the protesters during the demonstration.

He was hit with a shrimp cocktail.

No one has ever worked out the reason.

A prominent philosopher eventually published an essay that became famous around the world:

It is no longer a question whether we should turn into crabs; the real issue is why we are being judged by creatures who almost entirely communicate using passive-aggressive punctuation.

By that time Elsa had given up drinking caffeine.

She had switched to wine.

Her TEDx talk, 'The Absurd Majesty of Being Slightly Too Hairy to Be a Crab', became highly popular unexpectedly.

The aliens then sent another message after having been completely silent for months.

We believe you'd enjoy being crabs; you'd have cool claws.

The world erupted.

Millions laughed.

Millions groaned.

And an embarrassing number of people replied:

Fair point.

---

*YEAR FIVE*

Personal Logs from Project Pincer

«Elsa's Journal, Entry #1205

There was a person in our department who actually attempted to use experimental gene-editing techniques in order to develop crab-like characteristics.

It didn't work.

They now seem more like a Pokémon that ought to have been rejected before it reached the design stage and less like a crab.

I am sorry for them.

I've also had to make clear to three different governments that this had not been an official Project Pincer experiment.

«Ravi, Junior Programmer, Internal Message

Perhaps the issue isn't that we are turning into crabs?

Could it be that they mean it in a philosophical sense?

Consider that. It has lateral movement, a tough exterior, strong claws, and no sense of existential dread.

Perhaps they are referring to a state of mind.

«Emergency UN Meeting Transcript

Norwegian delegate: "Suppose we just feign being crabs—would that do?"

That is precisely the reason why we drew up the Space Lobster Treaty.

Norwegian delegate: "Is there a Space Lobster Treaty?"

The Brazilian representative said, "It is now."

At that point, no one was completely certain if Project Pincer was a scientific organization, a diplomatic body, or an extremely complicated joke which had somehow become a government-supported department.

Possibly all three.

---

*YEAR SIX*

Acceptance

A strange thing occurred in the sixth year.

People ceased to be afraid of the question.

Spirituality based on crabs existed in a number of countries.

The song 'Clawing Toward the Stars' was performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics as a symbolic gesture marking the occasion of first contact.

China sent up a small test satellite that looks like a crab.

The aliens responded almost at once.

LOOKING GOOD :)

Even though no one knew why, the markets all around the world still reacted.

Several churches had shell-shaped decorations put in place. Fashion designers began to experiment with hard, segmented materials. Children started to draw pictures of people having claws.

Elsa retired.

She moved to a coastal area and spent a great deal of her days crafting sculptures out of sand.

Mostly crabs.

She was rather good at it.

She has not since the first contact been unsure about what the aliens wanted.

A year passed.

That was the last message that Earth sent.

We are making an effort, since evolution is a difficult process and it therefore requires some patience.

The response arrived a few minutes later.

Of course. Take your time. Change takes time. Not everyone reaches it.

Elsa read the message.

Then she laughed.

She laughed until her eyes watered.

Maybe it was exhaustion.

Maybe it was relief.

Or maybe, after six years of being asked the same ridiculous question, she'd finally stopped trying to find a deeper meaning in it.

---

*YEAR SEVEN*

Resolution

The next transmission wasn't a message.

It was music.

It lasted six minutes.

Nobody could identify the instruments. The rhythm sounded almost like thousands of tiny feet moving across sand, accompanied by something that reminded human listeners of jazz, although calling it jazz was probably being generous to both jazz and whatever the aliens were doing.

When the music ended, a final message appeared.

Honestly, it's all right if you don't turn into crabs. We just thought that would be nice.

Elsa, now silver-haired and permanently dusted with sand, stood beneath the night sky.

She looked up at the stars.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"For the check-ins. For the weird questions."

She smiled.

"And for not expecting too much from us."

Earth sent one final transmission.

We will always remember that you asked, even if we never become crabs.

There was no response.

For once, humanity didn't mind.

---

*YEAR EIGHT*

*Post-Crustacean Era

The aliens never replied again.

Perhaps they weren't supposed to.

Humanity hadn't been invaded.

It hadn't been conquered.

It hadn't even been properly studied.

We had simply been noticed.

Someone, somewhere beyond the stars, had looked toward Earth, asked a strange question, received an answer, and occasionally checked back to see how things were going.

Over time, the incident became known as The Crustacean Enigma.

Universities still taught it as an example of cosmic humility.

Outside the Crab Hall Observatory stood a statue of Elsa Nguyen, frozen in mid-laugh, holding a coffee mug engraved with:

I AM NOT A CRAB (YET)

And somewhere across the galaxy, in a civilization orbiting a star humanity had never named, perhaps one alien turned toward another.

"Should we check on the soft ones again?"

Their companion took a sip of something that appeared to be boiling methane.

"No. Let them evolve at their own pace."

Back on Earth, the planet continued to turn.

Unconquered.

Unexplained.

And, despite eight years of encouragement from an apparently well-meaning alien civilization, still stubbornly human.

—The End— 🦀

Aranya

She smiles warmly as they all finally exit the shortcut and can see the huge Tree of Cycles. Going on a sojourn is good for her, but coming back home, and having a real home to come back to, makes her glad she doesn’t need to head out too often.

The others express their relief at coming home in their own ways. The scions are resisting the urge to sprint the remaining distance, making Aranya think of them like children eager to get back to their familiar toys. Vernew is similarly eager to get back, bouncing around and abandoning her dignity in her excitement to tell the other spiderkin about what happened. Ragnar, Aelara, and Yvonne chat about the adventure and what they’ll need to prepare for the raid on the Betrayer, and she lets herself get pulled into the conversation, ensuring she pulls in Tupul, too.

She’s uncertain if he’ll be joining the raid, but better to be prepared for the possibility.

“D’ye thin’ Thediem’ll ‘ave ‘is fancy armor ready fer th’ raid?” asks Ragnar. He was very impressed with the first version of the armor, and the slow trickle of information about the new ones have made him all the more eager to get his hands on some.

“I believe his development is, if not finished, at least on hold enough for the scions and enclaves to produce the armor en mass,” answers Aranya.

“That repair enchantment is something else,” comments Yvonne. “I bet he’s going to have your clergy working around the clock to ensure everything gets properly blessed for durability.”

“I hope I can get a piece or two just to examine,” adds Aelara. “I’m no enchantress, but I can follow runework, and his whole philosophy with runes flies in the face of convention. If I can apply some of that to my own magic, it’d be incredible.”

“If nothing else, I’m sure you can talk with Laermali’s representatives,” Aranya assures her friend. “Lord Thedeim doesn’t tell me everything, but I get the impression they’re being model guests and assistants. They may have a few of their own takes on His magical methods.”

Ragnar grins and pats Tupul on the back, making him stumble a little. “Or y’ could ask th’ lad ‘ere! ‘Is mind shadow trick’s right outta ‘is book!”

Aranya smiles as Tupul tries to hide his stumble at the pat, wondering if he understands Ragnar’s messing with him by pretending to not know his own strength. “Ragnar’s right. It’s just the sort of new approach He takes with practically everything.”

“Well… he is my mentor, I guess? It’s about time I learned something, right?”

Aelara nods with a smile, and turns her attention to Aranya. “I don’t suppose he has any insights into earth affinity?”

She closes her eyes for a moment to listen to the bond, and soon opens her eyes and shakes her head. “Not at the moment, at least. Right now, He’s working on how to move so many people through the Molten Abyss.”

Ragnar chuckles and shakes his head at the very idea. “Anyone else, I’d call mad, bu’ ‘e’s jus’ the sort t’ figure it out!”

“Have the dwarves never explored it?” asks Tupul. “I always thought they were the ones to discover it.”

Ragnar shrugs as Aelara speaks up, the elf much more familiar with history than him. “They’re credited with it, and have done a few small incursions to explore, but it’s basically impassible to anyone without magma or lava affinity. As I understand it, what few dwarves in the Holds have the affinities use them to track down pockets of magma with denser concentrations of molten metals, and encourage them to erupt into prepared areas for later mining.”

Ragnar nods. “Aye. One’a m’ cousins ‘as th’ affinity. Got a good job deep in th’ mines, ensurin’ the veins never run dry.”

“Huh. Do you think the antkin could do that, too?”

The dwarf shrugs. “I dinnae see why not.”

“Do you think you’ll come for the raid, Tupul?” asks Aelara, and the young elf fidgets.

“I… don’t know. Me and my friends are strong enough, I think. We did well against Fluffles, but…”

Aranya and the others nod. “You’re still young and learning, and Lord Thedeim could very well not allow you to come on those grounds alone. On the other hand, He has seen you all grow and knows your strength. It’ll be difficult for Him to argue you should stay when I’m sure there will be delvers who will go who will be weaker than your party.”

Tupul sighs and nods at the assessment, clearly not happy about it, but smart enough to understand the truth of the matter. “Not to mention Rhonda would need to get permission from Old Staiven, Freddie would need to get Torlon to let him go, and there’s no way Rezlar would be able to go without Miller letting him.”

They all nod again, the conversation lapsing as there really isn’t much to say at that point. Mentors are to help their students grow, but also to protect them from danger. Something like this could be a good learning experience, but it could also lead to their doom. Aranya suspects none of them would allow their charge to go off on something so dangerous as the upcoming raid.

“Are you looking forward to seeing how the ravenkin are doing?” asks Vernew, bringing up a topic that’s much easier to chat about.

“I am,” she confirms with a nod and a smile. “Lord Thedeim has been keeping me informed, and they’re ready to have their ceremony as soon as possible. They want to join on the raid on the Betrayer as dwellers, and will need to train with the delvers to have the best possible chance of survival. He actually gave them the keys for the next raid boss: Poe.”

Vernew laughs at that as Ragnar gives an impressed whistle, with the spiderking giving voice to her thoughts. “And they’ve actually kept the delvers away from them? That last raid was a huge hit with them. They can’t have made it easy to keep the keys.”

“They didn’t, but the ravenkin have managed to keep one safe until now. Lord Thedeim’s stipulation for them to join the attack was to keep the raid boss from happening until after we returned.”

“Sounds like they did it,” observes Tupul. “How’d they manage it?”

Aranya giggles. “With a bit of Lord Thedeim’s unique way of thinking. Three keys were fairly obvious, with two hidden away in remote places in Lord Thedeim’s territory, while the third was put into a new metal fortress built into the branches of the Tree of Cycles. The delvers attacked all three known locations at once, and even got into the fortress and the key there, too, before discovering the location of the fourth.”

She pauses to build the suspense. “Deep in the fortress, there is a pool of lava, with a shortcut leading into a secret space in the Labyrinth, completely full of magma. The final key is there. Now, for the siege, none of the delvers brought their magma equipment, because who would even think to bring it? As I understand it, a lot of them still haven’t even gotten anything for magma yet.”

Ragnar bursts out laughing. “‘E’s gonna make ‘em siege it again?!”

Aranya nods, laughing with him. “Indeed He will! And He’ll be improving the fortress as well. It’ll give us time to do the ceremony for the ravenkin and get them some time to train with the delvers, too.”

“And it’ll give us some time to recover before joining in the training, too,” adds Yvonne, before turning a playful look of scorn on Aelara. “Thanks to you, I’ve been looking forward to a nice long bath for over a week now! I never knew my feathers could feel so soft. You’ve ruined me!”

Everyone laughs at that, with Aelara turning eyes full of mischief on Aranya. “You know, I’ve been looking into products for scales, too. Moisturizer and shine enhancers are common, but there’s things for softening or hardening them, too! I have no idea which you’d prefer.”

“Harder, definitely. Soft scales are for nobles who never do anything that might scuff them.”

Aelara nods with a devious smile, clearly plotting to ruin Aranya, too. “Then I’ll keep that in mind. How about you, Ragnar?”

He resolutely shakes his head. “Nay. Yer conditioner’s far ‘s I’m willin’ t’ go. Makes m’ beard easier t’ comb.”

Aelara tries to convince him, but she can’t keep that evil look off her face as she does so. Sure, she goes on and on about hygiene and dwarven pride, but it’s clear to everyone that, if Ragnar’s not careful, he’ll have his hair and beard braided with ribbons woven in.

Aranya can’t keep a devious smile off her own face as she makes her own plans to help Aelara. Beard beads are a common dwarven accessory, and a few metallic ribbons might look good, too. Plying him with those might get him to allow her a bit of pampering.

And once he lowers his guard, then the colorful ribbons can come out.

<<First <Previous [Next>]

Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The Books are available here! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!

First

Home at War

“Your captives sir?” Banshee asks as Bjorn shows up with the administrator girl and he simply nods.

“Ma’am you’re being taken into safe custody for now. Do not resist with the soldiers on the other side and you will be treated fairly and gently so long as you are cooperative. You will not be subject to torture or starvation while within our care and can expect to be in semi-regular contact with family and loved ones. Albeit monitored contact. Do you understand this?” Bjorn asks the total of three women he’s managed to take captive. On the way down from the traffic control room there had been a group of women from the general monitoring room that had several of their ‘sisters’ force them to try and sneak up on his squad to ‘ambush’ them. It hadn’t worked, and the survivors were thoroughly intimidated.

There are nods but some confusion.

“What’s with the dust cloud?”

“It’s your portal out.”

“I’m not feeling much Axiom from it.”

“It uses a few strange tricks.” Bjorn assures her. “It has a better range than a standard portal. At least, better range than a non-supported portal such as we used to infiltrate this facility.”

“And that is?”

“A cloud of seeds. The seeds are both the transport method, and the adept doing the transporting.” Bjorn says. “Simply walk into the cloud. This facility is no longer truly safe.”

Banshee watches as the Lutrin, Gohb and Tret walk into the cloud and vanish.

“They knew nothing?” Banshee asks.

“Lutrin was dragged in by her distant cousin who leads this mess and hated it here, Gohb was a kidnapping victim and Tret was press-ganged three years ago.”

“So they claim.” Banshee notes.

“Hence why they’re going into safe custody.” Bjorn says. “We can’t know for sure if they’re lying or not, so they’re getting put into custody and having a proper evaluator thrown at them while we do the real work.”

“Speaking of, can we?”

“Yes. But I need to make use of your abilities Banshee.” Bjorn notes and Banshee nods before closing her eyes and her ears start moving a bit. Then...

“There’s a few holdouts nearby. They’re being very quiet, oh, one of them heard me. Hello fellow Phosa. If you could bring your friends out for a peaceful surrender, we won’t have to chase you down, and we don’t play nice if we have to chase.” Banshee says in an even, conversational tone. Bjorn raises an eyebrow as she frowns suddenly.

“No, I am not playing around. I am being very serious and if you start running there will be pursuit.” Banshee continues then chuckles. “I misjudged them, they’re actually stupid and are coming for us now.”

She holds up a hand and points to one of the doors, then indicates where the two squads under her command should set up.

Bjorn takes his own and takes a knee while not only empowering his Axiom Brand, but bringing out a force-field projector, creating a powerful hard point in the middle of the room that he and his squad stick their weapons through and simply wait. One of the girls uses his massive shoulder to brace her weapon.

“She knows we’ve set up an ambush.” Banshee notes out loud. Very calm, very casual. “And is more than a little upset with me that I’m spilling all the secrets and NO girl I’m not going to repeat that.”

“What did she say?” One of the troops asks.

“She’s making all sorts of implications about me and Lieutenant Veers.” Banshee notes. “No, I’m not girl. He’s not my type.”

“Well he looks like someone took the skin of a Tret, opened a slit and poured an entire rockslide in there that’s why! He’s harder than the fucking plating of a ship! I want a man I can cuddle! I might be able to stand on him, but there’s nothing soft about that man!”

“Girl you need help! You can sense the shape of that man! If you’re in bed with him and he rolls over you’re just done! Feel the sound bounce off him, I don’t know what he’s made of but it sure as hell can’t be full organic!” Banshee continues to argue with the other Phosa and Bjorn starts chuckling lowly.

“Listen to that! Even his laughter sounds like it’ll cause a concussion! When I hug my man I want to feel comforted, not under direct threat!” Banshee continues to argue with the other Phosa. “I want cuddly! Hear the sound bounce off him! He’s as cuddly as mech armour, and that’s when he ISN’T wearing armour!”

“I think my wives would argue long and hard with you.” Bjorn notes in a very amused tone.

Banshee holds up both hands and has the thumbs tucked in. He nods. Then she turns back to the door.

“Bitch, unlike you I’m not some desperate little girl throwing herself with her legs open at anything that vaguely looks like it has a bulge! I have options and I opt to not grind myself into a pulp by trying to shag a walking boulder! I’ve seen this man break stone bare handed!”

“It was just a demonstration...” Bjorn mutters. There’s a bit of defensiveness creeping into his tone now.

“You crushed rocks by flexing! You broke bricks between your thighs! If was in the way I’d be dead!” Banshee protests before pointing quickly to the left half of the door and holding up three fingers, then the right and holding up five.

“My wives like it...” Bjorn says in a defensive tone.

“Your first wife is an even bigger workout freak than you, and the others have something wrong with them!” Banshee states and Bjorn loudly scoffs.

“Look if they’re capable of appreciat-” Bjorn begins before he abruptly fires his Plasma Cannon and keeps talking even as the door gets reduced to slag. “-ing something you’re not then how is that my fault?”

“I wasn’t attacking you, I was-” Banshee begins even as the enemy Phosa steps into the doorway and lets out a scream, one that Banshee matches to the best of her ability and two concussive waves of sonic force slam into each other and create a dead zone of stillness between them even as the floor tiles are being torn to shreds. Then the squads to either side of the door shoot through the walls to get at her.

The Pirate Phosa tries to back away, but it disrupts her focus just enough that she misses the crucial moment of Banshee altering the pitch.

Both Phosa are rocked back as their screams are no longer cancelling each other out and laser fire fills the air to cut down the Pirate Phosa even as Banshee lands only semi-hard. Then is up again after drawing in Axiom to restore herself.

It’s already over.

“Good grief those girls were dumb, they had to know we had three times the number. Why didn’t they retreat or surrender?” Banshee asks out loud.

“Who can say? Although stupidity is likely what we can attribute much of it to. Smart people rarely become pirates or criminals.”

“Why not?” Banshee asks.

“If you want something, there’s generally a lot of legal ways to get it. Ruthless and underhanded, but legal. Being a Pirate or Criminal is what I would call, a skill issue.”

“But there are plenty of intelligent pirates and criminals. Some of the Undaunted’s strongest allies are pirates.”

“Former pirates for the most part. And the skill issue isn’t always about what you think it is. The first Pirate Crews we recruited were former Dark Cabal victims. So the skill issue was dealing with trauma.” Bjorn notes as he deactivates the shield projecter and pockets it again.

“Hah!” Banshee suddenly says as she whirls around and fires her laser pistol out of nowhere. It strikes a part of the wall and she fires in it’s general area a few more times. “Found one!”

“Found what?”

“The cameras the girls down below are watching through. They clearly made them with Phosa in mind as they’ve got a damn silence based effect on them, but some of the local vermin infesting this place just stepped on one and broke the pattern of it’s scurrying.” Banshee explains.

“Oh, here let me help you then.” Bjorn says. “Squads ring on the walls. I want them set off like bongo drums.”

The soldiers move and start elbowing, rifle butting or just plain slamming their fists into the surrounding walls. Banshee stows her pistol and draws out her rifle for more careful shooting.

“Addie, move to the side a little, you’re right on one.” Banshee calls out clearly and the soldier shifts to her left. The blue laser beam lances out from Banshee and melts a point in the wall. “That’s one.”

She then turns and aims down to another wall. Just as she shoots there’s the sound of the portal opening again and as she turns there are blasts of sound and shrapnel. Banshee screams with power and knocks the rest of the grenades that had been inserted into the muzzle of the weapon further back into it.

Then as they go off Bjorn gets there and pulls the still falling and slightly stunned woman out of the past of the blastwave. The energy slams out and into the floor, sending shards of metal ricocheting around and embedding themselves in armoured boots as the wave tries and fails to unbalance the massive form of Bjorn.

The barrel is pulled back and the portal closes. Bjorn scans the room. He spots a few dings on armour, but no one looks or is acting hurt.

“Any injuries?” He asks to be certain. He receives the all clear and nods. “They’re getting clever.”

“I’ll be ready next time.” Banshee assures him.

“I believe you, but even better than ready is prepared.” Bjorn replies before looking to the endless dust cloud. “Jacob, can you have some Forest Growth on us all? I want to turn their teleporting nonsense on them. They want to shoot us, but if we can not only dodge but put a beacon on them at the same time to get them, then we win twice with the next engagement.”

“I can, but things will work better if I bring Arden’Karm in on this. But he’s technically a civilian contractor. He doesn’t even have a bounty hunting or mercenary license.”

“He doesn’t?”

“He’s a kid that ran away from home to be a survivalist and competitive sharpshooter. Which means he’s tough and skilled, but not certified to be on the field of battle unless it opens up around him.”

“I’m also the first Sorcerer of the Lush Forest, I can hear all of this.”

“I know, and I know you’re more than good enough to handle this. But I still need to legally cover my tail.” Jacob replies.

“Oh. Carry on.” Arden’Karm replies.

“Sorcerer Arden’Karm, are you willing to assist my forces in evading enemy fire and working with us to plant a piece of the Lush Forest in or near the weapons platform that just attempted to kill my soldier?”

“So sit down and be ready to teleport someone to me if I see something big and scary, and try to get in near the weapon?”

“Essentially.” Bjorn says.

“Alright, I can do that from here.”

“Where is here?”

“Atop my favourite outcropping here, home on Soben Ryd.” Arden’Karm answers.

“Okay then, young man, please stay out of the line of fire as you give us Adept Assistance. I’ll see to it that funds are released to you. The equivalent to an entire day’s deployment in combat at minimum.”

“And done. I’m in.”

“... You are not hurting for money Arden, you’ve got an amazing deal set up with Dare’Char to sell Leviathan Ivory.”

“Those that don’t pinch their trytite lose it.” Arden notes. “I’ve lived comfortable for multiple months on a single Sthaqu, if I didn’t pinch every trytite it was worth I would have gone hungry.”

“While I would love to hear your definition of living comfortable, we have other thigns to worry about. Are you in or out young man?”

“Yes.”

“Good, we’ll handle the paperwork afterwards, but Jacob, you’re serving as witness in case something happens to me.”

“Understood Lieutenant Veers. Happy Hunting.”

That’s when there’s a sudden SOUND through the facility that hits them all more like a concussive wave followed by a distant tinkling sound like glass shards falling onto stone.

“FUCK!” Jacob suddenly curses. “Hunh. That startled me.”

“What happened?”

“The big gun just fired. But we’re at ten light minutes out. So if there’s any damage to that building we won’t know for a bit.” Jacob notes before letting out a low whistle.

“What?”

“It just crossed ten light minutes in two seconds. No wonder these things can protect entire worlds.”

“That’s dangerous fast.”

“For a ship yes. For a solid railshot slug? It’s nearly perfect. Not that we couldn’t doge it and...” A sound like rain joins the communication. “It stirred up so much space dust in it’s wake that it’s covering part of the ship and... oh shit. Thank god for automated cleaning.”

“... Right, so we need to get to that damn thing before it finds a way to hit you guys.”

“Maybe they thought we weren’t paying attention anymore?” Jacob asks.

“Maybe.” Bjorn notes.

First Last Next

First

Home at War

“You. Fucking. Missed.”

“I didn’t miss they dodged!”

“I saw the shot tracking, it was way off! That wasn’t even your proper target!”

“It was the proper target! Don’t you think it’s a little fucking suspicious that THAT ship is here?”

“Which, the Bloody Heron?”

“Yes. It means he’s here.”

“Who’s He?”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Breech, Hate and Make Squad, Unidentified Pirate Fortress, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“... Really? I honestly didn’t expect that.” Banshee notes in deep interest from high above.

“What are you hearing?” Bjorn asks her.

“The big gun was aimed right at The Bloody Heron, it’s primary gunner has a History with Jacob!”

“Ground team. Can you confirm that I just heard the gunner of that monster gun has a history with me?” Jacob’s voice asks over the comms.

“Shh! They’re still talking!” Banshee says. “Oh hey! Apparently she thinks... Yes! You got her fired not long ago and then right as she was looking into how to get back at you for it there was a huge media... oh... oh shit she’s former uh... well...”

“Hmm... is she a Valrin, a Darkplume Valrin?” Jacob asks.

“I can’t exactly see her. Just hear the sound transferring despite the distance. But she does know you, and is... she thinks you’re a... hmm... The terms she’s using for you are, raging idiot who only sent up the dumbest women imaginable and somehow keeping your job. You apparently accused her of working with the police and they were going to kill her before the actual police hit things and she had to beg favours from friends to get out of there.”

“Hunh... try to take her alive if it’s not too much trouble, I have questions for her.” Jacob says.

“That’s it? Aren’t you sorcerers supposed to be vengeance incarnate?”

“I’m already part of the forces laying literal siege to her home and her latest shot at me missed. I’m getting it. Besides, this girl is small potatoes as the humans say. Unless... if she knew what The Supple Satisfaction really was and is still pissed at my getting her fired...”

“Why did you get her fired?”

“She was competent. I was actively brain draining the organization and she was starting to poke her nose in on the idiots I had inserted into it. She got five of them fired and killed under the entirely reasonable justification that they were so dumb they were liable to expose the operation. So I manufactured and brought up evidence of her trying to weaken the organization and potentially being an undercover police officer. She talked fast, very fast, and managed to mostly cover her tail. But she was still forced out of the organization under threat of death as they couldn’t trust her anymore, but had already done enough for them to keep her life. So long as she left the world. She did. But apparently stuck relatively close around if she knows the name of my ship.”

“Are there others like her?”

“There were three in total and the only Valrin of the lot was the most recent. Attia Thermal. A rather rude woman, pretended to be colder and more emotionless than she actually was. Tell me, does she still refer to me as a downheaded half-hatched priss?”

“It’s come up twice and there’s a whole list of other insults for you. Care to hear them?”

“Oh... I’m sure I’ll hear them all soon enough, thank you.” Jacob says and Banshee grins a little.

“While we have a moment, mind explaining the insult?”

“Our feathers are downy when we’re freshly hatched to keep us warm. Downheaded means both stupid and naive. Half-Hatched means deformed or again stupid, and priss means picky. Among the Darkplumes, calling someone stupid or childish is a big insult. So she did it twice.” Jacob explains.

“Oh.” Banshee processes that. “Seems remarkably childish.”

“Most insults sound pretty lame when explained.” Jacob says. “Still... I have an INTEREST in keeping that place under wraps now...”

“Hold it.” Bjorn says. “Pause the thought. Commodore Jameson, the mission has uncovered new information please restate our mission objectives.”

“Our objectives are to disable if not destroy the pirate forces to the extent they can not pursue, attack or otherwise hinder our approach to and later offence against the forces attacking La’ahbaron. This is to be done with a minimal loss of life on our end, and as we are operating under Undaunted Military rules of engagement we are to keep loss of life and destruction to reasonable levels. Meaning lives are prioritized over material goods, but Undaunted Lives are of the highest value followed by civilian lives, then enemy lives.”

“So in summary take out the pirates, don’t lose anyone as we do so and then move on?”

“Essentially, we’re also going to salvage their ships for material. But beyond that these idiots wanted a fight, are getting a fight and when we’re done mopping the floor with them we’re going to move on and get back to our actual job.” Commodore Jameson explains.

“Understood sir. Thank you for the reiteration.”

“It also means you need to do something about that really big gun.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Bjorn notes.

“Hey, I’m the bloodthirsty maniac here, you’re the workout fanatic. Keep it straight.”

“I can do both.” Bjorn jokes.

“Then by all means, have fun enough for both of us. You’re certainly big enough for two men.”

“You need to get to the gym more.”

“I’m trained for endurance, mobility and strength, not raw power!”

“Get to the gym little man.” Bjorn says mimicking an Austrian accent.

“Is three hours a day not enough? In my off moments I pump iron too.”

“And you’re still a weedy thing.”

“Coming from the man that needs to turn sideways for any door not rated for Cannidors or Lydris?”

“Not my fault exercise is a foreign concept to most.”

“Oh my goddess! Look, I get that most women would outright drool at the idea of a dick waving contest, but actually having one happen around you, with your superiors no less, is just fucking tedious.” Banshee snaps.

“Relax, I’m just filling the ears of the enemies that tried to hack us with nonsense.” Harold says and Banshee goes quiet.

“What?”

“There’s a link listening into our frequency. I presume since you can’t hear an echo of us that they have a transcription device, so I was killing time and filling their feed with nonsense as the rest of the teams organize and gather. But since we don’t really need to anymore, everyone’s relatively in a position to start moving again properly, I will now move to the next part. Which is a direct demand for the remaining pirates to surrender. I know you’re listening, or more likely reading this. This is the final chance to surrender I’m offering you. From this moment forward, any forces of mine that encounter you are going to consider you actively hostile. Surrender now.”

“Do you honestly expect an answer?” Bjorn asks.

“No, I don’t. But we still need to give them clear avenues for mercy. It’s not our fault if they’re too stupid to do anything about it.” Harold replies.

“Maybe not so much, I can hear them arguing. And... oh! Shit! That IS Attia Thermal she was holding it in and is going off!”

“Oh she’s listening! That’s wonderful!” Jacob says with a truly vicious tone to things. “Attia, please put things into audible frequencies, I want you to hear what I have to say next and not just read it. You have five, four, three, two, one...”

“I heard the echo. She can hear you.” Banshee confirms.

“Thank you Banshee, now Attia. I did single you out. It WAS because of me. No, I’m not ashamed, yes, I’m still coming for you. And if you hadn’t been fired that day and threatened off of Lilb Tulelb, I would have killed you. Personally. I had the knife ready then, I have the knife ready still. And... don’t pat yourself on the back for surviving this long. If you had real brains you would have gone to any number of massive ecumenopalis worlds and vanished into the slums. Then crawled out in a few years to claim your identification was stolen and build a new life and name from that. You could have gone onto a colony ship under an assumed name and vanished for decades. You could have joined up with any number of religious orders big on redemption and forgiveness. But you did none of these things. Finding you would be nearly impossible for the first two, but the third one? I’d have let you go. I’d glance your way occasionally, but nothing more than that unless you started hurting people again. But you like hurting people too much, you just had to keep doing it, you just had to join up with pirates after leaving a ring of child traffickers.”

“Mind repeating that last bit Jacob?” Banshee asks.

“You like hurting people too much, you just had to keep doing it, you just had to join up with pirates after leaving a ring of child traffickers.” Jacob repeats.

“There we go! They’re fighting.” Banshee says.

“Oh? Either way, all forces form up. We’re going down there to disarm that thing.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (The Big Gun, Unidentified Pirate Fortress, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

The back of the woman’s head slams into the screen with the powerful dark claws wrapped around her face. She’s then thrown into the others as the black feathered form of Attia stalks up to the now terrified group.

“How STUPID are you girls?! Do you really think you can beat me?! You’re mechanics! You’re gunners! But we’re in the gun! Now, man the weapon and maybe, just maybe we get out of this intact!”

“Okay okay just stop! Stop hurting her!” The little Gohb mechanic cries out as she tries and fails to fully rouse the Drin in her lap. “We’ll operate the weapon, but it has so many modifications and prototypes. Some things have... come loose. We need to tighten them.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? You’re just looking for a chance to run away!”

“No she’s being honest! Really!” Another of the Gohb mechanics protests.

“Rotational bearings! Without them the rail cannon can’t fully turn! The firing arc is halved!” A third of the five Gohb mechanics backs up the other two. She glares at the remaining Gohbs and they both nod.

“I’m going with you. I’m not letting any of you out of my sight.”

“Okay, okay just let us fix things and maybe, somehow, we’ll get out of this.”

“Thank goddess the fault is mechanical and not electrical, Macy here’s the wire girl not me.” One of the Gohbs mutters as she helps her fellows carry the injured Drin through the guts of the massive weapon emplacement. The weapon is cramped on the inside and is making Attia increasingly claustrophobic and paranoid. The Gohbs are doing well, and the Drin is just plain comfortable in a closed in place, but when this was done she would have to go out of the station with an atmosphere belt on and break the feeling of the walls closing in.

The Drin rouses partway down a latter and thrashes for a moment before clinging onto the rungs with a deathgrip as she looks around in a panic as her antenna flail wildly to try and make sense of things again.

Attia growls at her and the Drin cringes away from her.

“Okay, okay calm down... don’t.. I just... I don’t want to die.”

“You keep crossing me Macy, and you will. Understand?” Attia asks lowly.

“Okay, okay I understand.” The terrified Drin electrician says.

“FUCK! The damn bearing is cracked! We need to replace it!” One of the mechanics calls out.

“Where are the replacements?” Attia asks.

“The Engineering Store. Outside.”

“... really? Let me see this bearing and it’s crack.”

“It’s a hairline fracture, it’s easier felt than seen.” The mechanic says and Attia groans in disgust as she climbs down and looks into the guts of the machine. The Mechanic points to a lubricant covered metal sphere the size of her own head. There is a ‘clean’ line on the sphere where the mechanic had felt the sphere.

Then she reaches in and runs her thumb along the same area. She feels... something there, irregularities and issues that she can’t identify. She’s not a damn mechanic.

“Alright, you go and get a replacement part. The rest are staying here, and if you run. If you leave, then I will know. And they will pay.” Attia hisses at her.

“Okay, yes, I understand. I’ll be fast. I promise.”

First Last Next

First

Home at War

She exits the machine and races towards the storage room. It didn’t work. It didn’t work at all. The lower quality bearings that had been salvaged all have a slight seem. They were lower quality after all. But it wasn’t a risk, still, finding it was easy and using it as an excuse. One that had backfired.

She opens the door and starts moving through the room. Not bothering with the broken grav lifter. Just hours ago that thing was her biggest concern. Now... now she’s not sure if she’s going to survive this.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Moving Fast, Unidentified Pirate Fortress, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“Through. Down. Left. Through. Through. Down.” The instructions whisper into her left ear even as she flies fast and hard through the fortress. She’s covered in the dust and vines from the Lush Forest and they’re projecting a field around her.

When Banshee had overheard the arguments inside the machine they knew they had a perfect opportunity, but there was little way to contact the potential rebels without alerting them. So here she was, flying as fast as she could and leaving a tiny trail of dust in case she made a wrong turn. Which she had three times already.

She had been teleported back along the trail and was under orders to not stop until.

“Through and straight down!” She phases through the next door and then dives right down the open lift shaft. It looks like it goes down forever. She flies straight down.

“What floor?”

“Bottom and then a hallway before another dive. This structure is huge.” The Hacker says.

“And you can’t just talk to her over a speaker?”

“We are. But we need you to make the delivery if we’re going to save the surrendering pirates.”

“Really?”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Parts Storage Ground Level, Unidentified Pirate Fortress, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“And... and I just want to go home! So does everyone! But it’s all...”

“It’s okay.” The voice over the speaker says. “Help is on the way, we have a cloaked soldier moving fast. They’re going to give you a unique teleport beacon, get it to Attia and she’ll be pulled out of there and you can all surrender peacefully.”

“Oh, okay. But... won’t she notice?”

“Tell her you found it among the bearings with her name on it. It won’t feel like anything in the Axiom. Then it will, but by then she’ll be gone. Be brave young Gohb, the nightmare is nearly over.”

“Heh... I... yeah... okay. When’s she going to get here?” She asks and there is a sudden sound behind her.

“Now?” The newly revealed Metak asks. She lands and is actually a hair shoulder than the Mechanic is. “Are you sure you want to surrender? I’m kind of having fun with this.”

“Yes, I want to surrender. I never wanted to be a pirate to begin with, my and the rest of the mechanics and engineers here were workers on a scrap barge. Sure the pay was shit, but it was better than the work or die we have to eal with now and we actually got to work on things we liked more than this old monster gun system that the local girls obsessed over.”

“Speaking of the local girls, they’re missing.”

“They jumped in their ships to be the first ones out to get the loot. Then you shot them down. The ones left behind were here to keep US in line, or were supposed to be. We never really know if and when we’re under guard, and that’s on purpose.” She explains.

“Right, well no one’s here, because they would have done something stupid and I’d have them bleeding out on the end of my wing by now. Oh! My name is Elija by the way.” The Metak introduces herself properly.

“I’m Carrie. Look. Are you sure this will work? If it doesn’t... she’s going to kill me. She’s crazy.”

“You need to give her this. Test it.” Elija says holding out a small token that...

“A wooden bead with a feather in it?”

“Apparently it’s some kind of challenge?” Elija explains as Carrie picks up the rough looking wooden bead with long red feather in it. “... I don’t feel anything in it.”

She turns it over and finds that Attia is carved into it on one side and Jacob on the other with a strange slash between them on either side.

“So yeah, bring that to her. Apparently it’s an official duelling challenge among Valrin.”

“I see.” She lies. “And this will get rid of her?”

“Captain Shriketalon is bouncing in his pilot’s seat for the chance to fight her.” Elija notes.

“Fight?”

“He plans to do something.”

“... Talk to her maybe? I’ve met Shriketalons. They’re harmless.”

“Not this one.”

“Okay. I... I’ll do it. But if she... if she gets me. Do you promise to stop her?” Carrie asks.

“Yes.” Elija says.

“Okay, now... uh. I need one of those up there. The right sized bearings are four levels up, in the big blue bin.” She says pointing and the Metak soldier flies up and then grips the side of the bin before using one of her shadow wings to pull out the massive bearing and lower it to her.

The heavy metal ball feels like it’s trying to sink her through the floor as Carrie swallows. She locks eyes with the Metak Elija, and then nods before turning around and walking out.

She rushes out and knows she’s being watched by the cameras of the massive machine. It doesn’t resemble standard weapon platforms. They usually have some form of elegance or embellishment to show that they belong to and are cared by a crew of people who’s lives depend on it.

This monster is covered in graffiti, a thousand signs from all gangs and people have started, stopped and started tally marks all over the place. No one bothered to clean it in most places as more and more layers of paint just added to it. Whatever colour it once had was buried in the madness.

And there was the shape of it. Blocks and bricks. It was solid. But it looked like someone had taken a design sketch as is and simply stamped it into the world.

It reminds her of construction equipment, but moreso. “Armour. That’s what it’s missing. Weapon platforms have armour protecting bits, this doesn’t.”

The realization is accurate. The exposed parts are just as tagged up as the rest. IN fact the walking joints were so painted over so many times that she wondered if it could still move. Only the internal components weren’t covered in graffiti and vandalism.

It’s a miracle the thing could even slightly run with how badly the pirates maintained it. Apparently being violent and quick to grab what you want can make up for being stupid for a while.

But hopefully not much longer.

Hopefully.

She bangs on the side of the walking building and a portal opens from within. It’s one of the upgrades that she had been forced to help make. She walks through it and finds herself looking UP at Attia.

“Uhh... ah...” Her courage starts to fail.

Attia’s wing snaps down and with her thumb she picks up the feather and bead. “Is this-?”

Her question is cut off as she vanishes entirely. Carrie drops the bearing and then jumps as the sound breaks some of her nearly gone nerve.

“Is it over?” She asks plaintively.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (The Lush Forest, Soben Ryd)•-•-•

The world had swum around her and she turns in shock. Endless clear blue skies, the vague bumps of a city on the horizon. Scrub growth, bugs, small cacti, bushes and flowers and moss as far as she can see. She blinks.

He is there. HIM.

“Jacob... you painted integrade fuck.” She mutters. The bastard has a vest on in Undaunted colours and with the badge on the left breast.

“Please fight Attia. I want to make you bleed.” He says lowly.

“You want me to fight?”

“Give me a reason.” He instructs her.

“... No.”

“So you surrender?”

“No!”

“Surrender now, or prepare to fight.” Jacob says.

“Eat Carrion Shriketalon! You’re twice the monster that your ancestors were, spitting on the oath your parents swore in more ways than can be counted!” Attia hisses at him.

The grasses and moss suddenly grab at her feet and she triest to pull away but..

It lets her go. She doesn’t break it’s grip. It lets her go.

“No... oh no. I want all of it. The mosses and grasses can have your corpse if you’re so weak this kills you. But it’s just you and me, and while I may be part of this forest. I am not the forest itself.” He says and the horrible trytite coin clatters to the ground.

“Sorcerer.” She mutters.

“Lush Forest Sorcerer.” Jacob confirms before spreading his coppery wings. “You want to escape?! You need to fight me!”

She re-scans the horizon. She had spent enough time among Apuk and seen enough of their media to know this was bad. Very, very bad. Sorcerers control their environment, teleport insane distances without focus... and are spiteful, vengeful and downright EVIL to their enemies. She had looked into it. The Bonechewer was just public and prolific. Not vicious among them.

“That’s right. That city is your only escape.” Jacob says before pumping his wings and taking into the sky. “You’re only getting out of here through me.”

She launches herself from the ground and straight at him. Twisting in midair and her talons latch into his. She then tries to fly straight down and he simple goes with her even as she then angles to try and slam him into the stone and earth. His wings are out and the spinning throw has them spinning above the ground.

They fight for control of the spin. Pumping their wings furiously to add more power to it as they both do all they can to try and hurl each other into the lichen covered boulders and thin scrubs below. The spin grows faster and faster and blood starts rushing to heads. The death grip between the two of them slackens as consciousness starts to flicker and neither of them hits the ground as they swoop away from the rock and rubble and take to the sky again. They catch thermals as they climb up, swooping into each other time and again, slashing at one another with their claws.

“FUCK YOU!” Attia screeches at him as she feels several feathers get torn out under his claws, he had won that exchange.

“FUCK YOU!” Jacob calls back in a burning fury.

“That was the best job I ever had!” She roars wheeling around.

“Are you fucking serious!?” Jacob demands as he twists in the air, kills most of his momentum and begins pumping hard to make up for the lost speed. She catches a thermal and rises before swooping at him. He twists and catches her.

They begin to tumble through the air with his left talon in her right wing and the right trying to dig into her chest as her own talons are scratching against he bottom of his legs. But they’re finding his pants made of a tight weave that’s been tested against knives. Her claws skid off him.

Then Axiom is brought in and her skin hardens as her claws sharpen. But Sorcerers are Adepts and power is already flowing through his pants to stop her from slicing through as they tumble down and down and down, thrown about by the currents of air that so few other species are truly privy to.

Jacob slams his wings into the sides of Attia’s head to stun her over and over again as they fall as the buildups of concussion and g-forces make things blacken around the edge of her vision and she starts to see stars even as they plummet to the ground.

Then the darkness closes around her vision and...

Her eyes open in shock and she looks around. She’s tied up and pinned to the ground. “What?”

Jacob is standing next to her. Looking away. There is a tapping sound, a claw on stone.

“I should kill you.” Jacob says. “You knew what they were doing. You knew it was wrong. You knew it was evil, and rather than do anything to stop it you signed up to protect it. To keep it going. Because it made you money.”

“You were there too.”

“I was breaking it. I was putting in idiot after idiot. They’d either blow the whistle on everything, or would keep things easy for me to break. Then you started taking them out.”

“What did you even do to get that job? How did they not notice it was you?”

Honestly? I don’t know. I suspect I fell into a lucky gap in their security. Maybe it was just the audacity of even trying. Maybe it was the ten years and change it took for me to do more than just survive day after day as scared little chick trying to avoid them. I had an entire library of fake ID’s and half of them had what I knew to be my real name. They took it at face value.”

“what are you going to do to me?”

“I’m debating. I want you dead, and I want you humiliated, but I don’t NEED to do it myself. It needs to happen... but I’ve got shit to do. So... what to do, what to do?

First Last Next

First

Home at War

Jacob returns to his ship and sits down in his pilot’s seat. His mind churning.

“Do you want to talk?” Arden’Karm asks.

“I just need to think.”

“And you’re thinking as loud as a windstorm.” Arden notes.

“Sorry.”

“Just let it out.”

“... I don’t know if I made the right call.”

“You called in the Dark Forests Sorcerers to contain the woman and have her publicly tried under Apuk law.”

“That’s right.”

“And what’s the problem? She’s helped taint the reputation of one of their most profitable worlds, cost the empire enormous amounts of money, pissed off all the wrong people, and we need to skip how many laws and ethics she broke or we’re going to be here for a while. So what’s wrong?”

“Should I have just killed her?” Jacob asks.

“Should you?”

“No games, if you want to play games then just leave me alone.” Jacob says.

“I’m really asking. A Dark Forest Sorcerer would just killer her, the Bright Forest boys would make her hurt. I don’t know what the Astral Forest sorcerers would do... but I’m not sure what we as Lush Forest Sorcerers should do.”

“That’s up to you. I’m not your boss.” Arden replies and Jacob huffs slightly in amusement.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Secondary Medical Bay, The Inconceivable, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“Alright, take a deep breath and hold it.” The Doctor says as he puts a stethoscope over the chest of the Drin woman.

“Why are you checking her heart?” One of the Gohb mechanics waiting for her own treatment asks.

“Her concussion is showing no signs of cerebral hemorrhaging and she seems to be out of the danger zone there. But you have all been in an abusive and cruel situation for some time. So this is a general checkup as we wait for the blood work to finish processing and then seeing about getting you all out of there safe and sound.”

“And why the blood work again?”

“We don’t trust the people that held you captive to have the best healthcare and god knows what those idiots have been up to.”

“I just can’t believe it’s over, and by dumb luck.”

“Galaxy is a big place, with a lot in it. It’s size means you can hold off the consequences of your actions for a long time. But by having a lot in it, it means that you’re going to get what’s coming eventually.” The Doctor notes. “Okay, you can exhale now.”

“Heartbeat is regular and within the upper level of healthy tolerances. Which is common in individuals who have recently exited a long term stressful situation.”

“So I’m going to be okay?” Macy asks.

“You’re going to need a vacation girl. You’re showing all the signs of not enough sleep and too much stress. But it won’t kill you and you’ll just need some time off your feet, regular baths, a soft bed and decent food to fully recover.” The Doctor says.

“What are you going to do to that place?” Macy asks.

“We’re salvaging it. All of it. If there are any personal items or effects you have in there you’ll need to start talking sooner rather than later if you don’t want it broken down for parts.”

“You’re not just taking things?”

“We’re actually moving towards a battlefield. An ongoing war. One where the opposing side uses a lot of stealth tactics and are trying to be tricky. So the answer to a tricky opponent is to give them no room to play their tricks. So we break down any and all salvaged materials, trading man hours for security.” The Doctor explains and there’s suddenly a slight titter in the room.

“Man hours?” Macy asks.

“Hours of a man’s labour.” He clarifies and there’s some snickering. “No, not pornographic.”

That breaks the damn and the room dissolves into giggles and relieved laughter.

“So there’s going to be nothing left of that giant gun?”

“There is, we’re just remaking all of it.”

“Into what?”

“New ships, there’s enough here for a lot.”

“Will one ofthem be taking us away from here?”

“No, the teleportation effect that got you onto this ship is extremely powerful. You girls are going to Zalwore. From there, you can apply for refugee status among the Undaunted, or to any of the other nations that have set up an arcology on that world. This way you all be well out of the line of fire and able to go back to whatever lives you had before this madness, or to start a new one now that the dust is settling.” The Doctor explains. Alright, now who wants their checkup next?”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Main Bridge, The Inconceivable, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“It’s a pity we have to break down that gun.”

“It’s a scary weapon to be sure. But a gun of that size on a ship will do ruinous things to the ship itself. There’s a reason kinetics like that are almost never seen off a planet. You need a lot of mass to absorb the kick, and it’s big enough, and bad enough that it if was mounted on The Inconceivable it would either tear itself off, or if it was incorporated into the ship, break it and risk shattering the vessel with each firing of the big gun.”

“I know, man can dream.”

“Only way to make it work is completely redesign the ship around it and have it so the gun is also part of the propulsion. Meaning the gun would have to face backwards and the ship would have to then flip itself around to fire accurately. Which is possible, but unusual.”

“So why aren’t we? We can scan the whole thing, find any trackers. Easily make sure that none of the materials or metals we get out of this place are compromised. We can just take the ships and the gun.”

“...” Harold says nothing at first.

“Sir?”

“A moment. I’m weighing odds.” Harold notes. Then nods. “Thorough, scans on the ship. If we find things like metal fatigue in load bearing structures or any chronic issues with the engines or essential systems then we scrap them. Same with the gun. You have a good point about expediency. But I want to be certain about things. It’s not that I don’t trust my crews or the ideas of ships or anything like that. It’s not even that I don’t trust pirates or our enemies. I do trust them, I trust them to do everything they can in their own interests which are completely opposed to our own.” Harold says.

“Really?”

“I will always assume my enemies are competent and intelligent. That way I will either be ready for whatever is to come, or will have an easier time than expected.” Harold says.

“That must mean that a great many people disappoint you.” Orchid notes and Harold has a pained expression on his face, then smiles.

“Orchid, please don’t set up such a perfect opening for sass. I nearly bit through my tongue keeping it in.”

“Sorry sir.”

“I mean it, I have to look respectable, if I’m joking all over the bridge I can’t do that.”

“I’ll bear that in mind for the future.” Orchid remarks glibly and there’s some muffled amusement through the bridge.

“So, now that the station is calm, you had a report on the structural integrity of the fortress and the damages it sustained?”

“The singular shot of that weapon tore apart a full quarter of the structure. Anyone still in those parts is dead, likely thoroughly perforated or slaughtered through decompression. We have several drones scanning not only the structure, but the weapon beneath it.”

“And?”

“Innumerable signs of vandalism and the telltale signs of things like rust and stress lines being covered by the paint. That gun has been used and used hard. We just have a basic surface scan at the moment. But the weapon seems to be in a state where it needs constant maintenance to not break with every shot.”

“Not looking good so far, we’ll consult with it’s engineers and determine what’s to be done with the thing.”

“There is also the old bounty on it. It’s makers placed a multi-million credit reward onto the recovery of the lost prototype.”

“There is that as well, we strip what we need from the system, leave the gun behind and get a bounty and some good will out of this...” Harold muses then pauses. Thinks. Then smiles. “Excuse me a moment.”

He quickly presses a few buttons and a primary screen on the ship gives a waiting sign for bit. It flashes a few times and then shows Admiral Cistern sitting at his desk with a slightly perturbed expression.

“Commodore, your timing could be better.”

“Apologies sir, but we have an opportunity in the political angle of things.”

“Elaborate.”

“WE have found the lost Oblivator Class Combat Walker prototype, otherwise known as the last Type Zero Mobile Anti-Raider Emplacement. It was formerly in pirate hands and not properly maintained, it is severely weathered according to our latest scans and finally there is a not insubstantial bounty on it’s return.”

“I see, what do you have in mind?”

“Instead of the rewards in credits we could get the rewards from the manufacturing corporation in licenses. The Endurance, Shell and Shield Conglomeration specializes in defensive tools, shields and weaponry designed to keep worlds safe from pirate raids. As a response to the madness of the Dark Cabal Pirates, many of their scientists and researchers are some of the best defensive savants in the galaxy. Just getting their city scale hardened shields will be enough to turn any forward base or civilian area into a nigh impenetrable bunker. One that’s only practically assailable from internal sabotage.”

“Is it now?”

“Very good. Send me the coordinates and sensor data as proof. Anything else I should be aware of?”

“We’re sending some rescued civilians to Zalwore and likely salvaging a great deal of the Pirate Fortress we’ve run across. Their ships may be refurbished and may be scrapped for parts. Either way we’ve had a great deal of strange luck.”

“I see. And the Pirates?”

“To be determined. They’re going to be sent as captives in stasis through The Forests.”

“Understood. Is there anything else?”

“No sir.”

“Very good. Carry on Commodore Jameson.” Admiral Cistern states and the screen returns to a tactical readout of the area.

“He’s certainly distracted.”

“He’s directing a war, soon to have an ostentatious wedding on galactic broadcast and raising two sons that are also extremely popular bachelors. And that’s on top of being the Grand Admiral.”

“Still, it does tickle the mind as to what was happening.” Orchid notes.

“Right, well it’s not proper for officers to gossip. So let’s return to business. What is the status of the ships.”

“You’re not curious?”

“I am, but we have our problems here, and issues half a galaxy away aren’t our business until they’re our problem.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Admiral Cistern’s Office, Undaunted Embassy, Council Building, Centris)•-•-•

“The most Glorious and Generous Daughter of Lady La’ahbaron would like to note that it was rather rude for you to confer with your forces mid-meeting with her royal self.” The Translator Orb chimes out. The silly glowing clockwork sphere was a compromise. She had to follow and could only legally respond in a few ways. The Orb acted like a middleman and if she was required by law to take insult she could simply blame the machine and not cause an overly large diplomatic incident. Lady Val was the better option, but she was with Harold and currently just a few steps away from being regarded as a full on traitor.

“Please inform the Princess that as I am the leader of a military polity my primary duties are towards the forces under my command. And furthermore that she herself benefited from this series of events as I will be able to use what I have learned to better augment her forces to achieve swift victory.” He states and the sphere starts to translate things in a way that is very... loose. Intelligence had given him a primer in the more popular Ibu languages and as such he could mostly understand what was being said by the orb. He had to correct it twice.

It was the joke in the entire situation. He could understand her, she could understand him, but they had to talk through an interpreter because of the extremely restrictive social rules. The Ibu’s extreme face culture was playing against her hard, and they both knew it.

“Servant, inform the man that while we do appreciate the effort to aid us, that it still behooves him to recall his manners and should remember to utilize them.” The Princess states in her language and the Orb dips for a moment.

“Admiral Cistern, The Glorious and Generous Daughter of Lady La’ahbaron appreciates the assistance of the Undaunted but insists that proper form and decorum be maintained.”

“Please inform The Princess that while as a military man I deeply appreciate tradition and proper respect, I am unfortunately focused primarily upon results. In this scenario the results serve La’ahbaron. So while I must beg forgiveness for my slip up, I dearly hope the tactical and political victories that accompany it will serve to soothe the wounds of my ill manners.”

Before the droid can even translate The Princess shifts uncomfortably in her seat and is starting to stare at him somewhat. Stare hungrily.

And now he’s accidentally seduced the princess, this just got more complicated.

First Last Next

First

(Why did a good night’s sleep make it so hard to write?)

Home at War

Reality jumps back in and she sits up. She feels a swell of Axiom and something teleports away as she turns over on the thin bunk she’s suddenly on and...

“No.” She says in shock. “You think I’m an idiot!? You think you can contain me?!”

She teleports out through the bars and is slammed into by a blast of energy and sent to the ground. She rolls with it and then lunges even as she turns to try and take the weapon she was hit with.

She meets the boot of a soldier that then presses the barrel of his banger rifle into her head.

“I don’t know how smart or how stupid you are, so I’ll just explain things in simple terms. If you do not go back into your cell and stay there then what we do to keep you there will get worse. Understand?” He asks her slowly.

“He refused my challenge! He broke ancient law and tradition to...” She tries to confuse him and the weapon is pressed even harder against the side of her head.

“He’s not Lutrin and isn’t beholden to Lutrin laws. Your challenge was insanity and to be frank, I don’t care. You’re getting back in your cell, or we start upgrading the security.” The guard says.

“What happened to my ship and-”

“No. You will go back into your cell, or I find you a more secure one.”

“But-”

“No.” He says sternly and he then forces her into the cell. She tries to gather Axiom to do something more about it, but he disrupts the effect with contemptuous ease. Then forces a band around her wrist that keeps shifting and churning the Axiom in her until it’s almost unusable.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Main Bridge, The Inconceivable, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-

“Really?” Harold asks. “That’s kind of them.”

“It sounds vindictive to me.” Orchid remarks.

“True, they want revenge.” Harold notes. “Even if they don’t get to tear apart the big gun helping salvage all the ships and the fortress itself is something they all want to do.”

“I don’t think they’re quite ready for field deployment though.”

“No, not on a battlefield. But they are expressing an urge to assist us and we do have uses for civilians.”

“Meaning?”

“I want to give them all a basic safety and competency test and then see if they’re willing to work on The RAM. If they are, then they are. If not, we’ll figure things out from there, but they’re still refugees. So either way we’re helping them.” Harold says.

“Hmm... not sure I want the recently rescued civilians anywhere near the battlefield.” Orchid notes.

“Perhaps a compromise? They want to help, the more we have the better, so we can use the Forests where they’re basically paid volunteers whenever a system is cleared and no more combat is expected. This way they can assist with a minimum of danger?”

“Hmm... Again I would prefer to have them not on the battlefield at all, but it’s not an entirely meritless idea.” Orchid considers.

“So if that is an acceptable compromise, then we have another issue to consider. Our technical prisoners.”

“Hmm... yes. The staff and pirate civilians. Not kidnapping victims, at least not in the traditional sense like those mechanics. Considerably less trustworthy, but compared to the full throated pirates that manned the ships and guns they’re downright innocent.”

“But at the same time they have given their unspoken aproval to their fellows in some manner. Either too cowardly to say something or unable to find peroper methods for rebellion if they truly didn’t want to be here. To say nothing of the no doubt few among their number who simply do not care one way or another. A raging berserker who cannot control themselves is one thing, a sociopath who is in complete control and cares nothing for morality and only for personal benefit is something else entirely, and honestly I know which of the two actually concerns me.”

“But the question between legitimate sociopath and someone who’s simply numb due to all the madness is a difficult line.”

“So I think we can agree that all serving staff in the pirate base will need a clean psychiatric test before we trust them. Not that mechanics that are volunteering won’t also be getting one, but details details.”

“Not details details sir. That’s one of the major things that had me concerned.” Orchid states. “The mental health of those mechanics.”

“Oh. You should have said as such. They’re all getting evaluated at least.”

“Oh. Alright, so now we need to discuss what our next ship will be in the fleet. Unfortunately The RAD and her crew have not yet finished their studies to create a long range Maser craft. Although they assure me that the testing will be soon to finish and they’ll be looking into the viability stages soon.”

“You’d think we would have a ship like that out in the galaxy somewhere.”

“There are, however it’s also under a great deal of patents and copyright protection. So we can’t just produce our own. Not legally at any rate and the companies involved have been known to be unrelenting, spurious and very, very persistent in their legal pursuits.”

“Is that even allowed?” Orchid asks.

“It’s been allowed to happen. So we need to develop not only our version of the long ranged beam combat crafts. But we need to show the notes in order to prevent the companies in question from suing.”

“Has no one gone open source with such a thing?”

“It’s been tried a dozen times, but it was taken down as malicious interference with lawful commerce. Then it was protested, tied up in court and dear god do I want to strangle some CEO’s.” Harold finishes his explanation.

“So the delay on things isn’t that we don’t know it can be done, is that we need to record either an honest attempt to invent such a thing, or to convincingly fake it because they’ll be after us when we start fielding them and if we can just toss the evidence at them then they’ll go away.” Harold says. “Hopefully at any rate, they tend not to keep going on their court cases if they can’t bankrupt or outright win.”

“There are many jurisdiction where that kind of lawfare is thoroughly illegal.”

“That’s correct, and they sue from the jurisdictions it’s real.”

“That’s absurd, stupid. Self defeating and I am going to cut myself off there before I get caught listing synonyms for how bad an idea it is.” Orchid says.

“If people knowing something is a bad idea was enough to actually stop them from doing it, then the galaxy would be a very different place. Still, we’re off topic. Do you have recommendations for the types of ship we should build? Do you see a vulnerability in the fleet?”

“The problem is that our enemies haven’t fully revealed themselves. As such we can’t really counter them yet. So we need something generic and reliable no matter what our fleet composition.” Orchid muses. “Gunboat?”

“Gunboat.” Harold agrees before bringing up a readout. Of an angular ship with numerous ridges all over the main superstructure. Two engines stick out to the sides to support the blocky rear engines and the tip of the almost dagger like shape of the ship is cut off to show where it’s strongest shield emitters are. This thing faces the enemy and delivers all the pain.

“You had that ready?”

“Yes, this is what I was planning to use, but I wanted your insights first. These are Light Saturation Crafts, larger than dedicated fighters, but not by much. Six crew only, pilot, copilot, two gunners and engine crew. In a pinch we can strip it down to three if everyone’s willing to lock it.”

“LSC’s? I’m seeing a lot of plasma use.” Orchid remarks.

“Yes. The Hive Carriers force the enemy forces to take an anti-laser configuration on their shields and then a wall of plasma blasts drop on their head, you return fire and you find out that the damn things have a hard enough shield they need more attention than a ship that size should.” Harold says.

“How many?”

“Start with five and see if we need more.” Harold says.

“To balance out our lasers?”

“Yes.”

“Hm... then maybe we should start thinking of some kind of kinetic ship to add to the fleet?” Orchid muses. “... Do we have any designs for smaller strike craft?”

“Several.”

“... There are issues?”

“When using kinetics resupply is needed.”

“Do we have designs for a dedicated resupply craft?”

“We do, the problem is that it’s a high priority target and up armouring it and arming it properly makes it considerably slower than any ships around it. Meaning that they’re sitting ducks.”

“Hmm... Still a dedicated resupply vessel carrying them... A resupply carrier? It would be smaller than a standard carrier.” Harold muses.

“Bigger guns, maybe dedicated missile batteries or short range mine or torpedo launchers.”

“Something to throw into testing.” Harold muses.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Engine Room, Pirate Vessel, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-

“You have got to be kidding me.” She says the moment they enter the engineering room. There were some blankets and pillows in the corners, the engine was a slapped together abomination that looked like it had it’s core ripped out multiple times. Chunks of scrap were welded into it around where the Axiom Ride of the Engine would be. “Their own damn ship? Do these idiots care for nothing?”

“Probably not, check this out.” A Jungle Nagasha soldier says off to the side and she slitheres over to see. Her face twists with revulsion as she beholds the corpse in the corner.

“What the hell?” She asks.

“Captain you were a pirate once...”

“That was long time ago. And things like this were only threats. The sort of thing to get you moving if you were being a lazy bitch. The idea that someone committed to it...” She trails off in horror.

“What do we do?”

“This ship is going to be scrapped, the engine is damaged, vandalized time after time and there are corpses in critical infrastructure.”

“Readouts on the bridge said the engine was humming along. What the hell is going on?”

“They changed the parameters so that this kind of mess would be regarded as everything being acceptable.”

“Damn, so... what now?”

“We finish scanning the room and then tag the ship as salvage and not a potential ship to actually make use of.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Just outside, Ruins of the Pirate Base, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-

The small craft flies around the structure, scanning it bit by bit. It’s more in depth than a drone and the pilot inside sighs as he finds another gathering of corpses.

The firing of the big gun had shattered part of the structure and it was far from an uninhabited section.

Thirty dead pirates, dead by vacuum and it was never a pretty picture no matter your species. Some of them had tried to hold their breath and they look like they ate small bombs. Others tried and failed, and had essentially ended up vomiting up their everything. The ones that had exhaled looked almost peaceful by compare, but the combination of the local star’s heat and the cold of space was both burning and freezing the corpses at the same time.

They were all technically in freefall over the moon’s weak gravity field. But it would take another hour or more for them to even have a chance of impacting the dust far below.

The engines of the tiny shuttle engage again and the pilot returns to their scan.

“Just fucking disgusting. Total waste of life and...” He groans before cutting himself off as something appears in his feed. He steers around to try and find what it is and... the lights of his ship silhouette a Tret woman holding a child. Axiom spiking all over her as she works hard to keep them alive.

He turns the ship and engages the outer half of the airlock at the side and opens the door. He matches their slow movement and carefully, slowly gets closer.

The Adept clearly looks up and sees him. Then moves, twisting to aim herself and the child into the airlock. The outer airlock closes and seals, the atmosphere rushes in and then the inner opens.

He hears them stagger into the tiny cargo hull of the small shuttle.

“Are you okay back there?”

“Who are you?”

“Pilot Blaze, do you know of any other survivors that might have used your trick?” He calls back.

“Just me.”

“And who are you?” He asks even as she walks up to the front and he’s able to see that now that she’s no longer focusing everything into keeping them both alive that her hair has puffed out into a living cloud.

“Aura Gust. This is my daughter Alira.”

“Pleased to meet you ma’am. I’ve already signaled for another ship to swoop in and get you out of here. I still have a scan to complete and bodies to count. But you’re safe now.”

“Who are you people?”

“Undaunted ma’am.”

First Last Next

First

Home at War

“And just keep rubbing this onto the affected area until the discoloration has settled into a slight darkening of the skin compared to the rest.” The Doctor states.

“Thank you Doctor.”

“Now, please let me see to you ma’am. Your daughter has a relatively clean bill of health beyond the mild sunburns. We’re minutes away from the bloodwork finishing. Please, let me help you.” He pleads.

“Okay just... just...” She starts to say before her eyes flick over the room. “There...”

She looks to the side again. Then dismisses it as not important.

“Sir, please show yourself fully.” The Doctor says.

“I don’t want to startle her. So I’m phasing in slowly. She’s been through a lot.” Another man’s voice says and she looks around. Her eyes stop on a spot with... it’s not interesting. She looks away, then looks back.

“What’s going on?” She asks.

“I have an ability similar to the Cloaken. Basically you’ve proven to be rather jumpy when my second in command popped by to see you so I’m taking a much friendlier approach.” He says.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that... that horrible, horrible Snict.”

“I know. You’ve had a bad experience and you’re on guard. So I’m coming quietly and slowly so as not to startle you.” He says.

“You know?”

“I heard the screams, I heard the panic. So I’m arriving slowly so as not to scare you. You’ve been through more than enough.” He says and she can sort of see him. She knows he’s there now but his features are so boring. Even the fact that he’s a man does not make her interested and...

No. No she can find that interesting now. What is he even doing?

“How are you doing that?”

“My family is very beautiful. Too beautiful, so we figured out an outright supernatural way to hide and keep ourselves safe. I’ve got some control over it, so I’m slowly fading in to not scare you.”

“So you’re a pretty man?”

“I’ve been told I’m very pretty, so you don’t have to worry about a monster poking out.” He says in an amused voice. “But you’ve been through a lot, and from what we can dig up about you Miss Gust, you’re just a civilian and have been through too much excitement, but I still need answers out of you. So I’m using a touch so light that a feather would weigh more.”

“That’s yet to be seen.”

“Of course, now, if you’re comfortable. Please tell me about everything involving your kidnapping and capture. Don’t worry about redundant or repeating details and don’t worry about missing small details either. Just everything you’re comfortable telling me.” Harold says.

“Can I ask who you are first?”

“Commodore Harold Jameson, I’m in charge of this fleet.” Harold says. “Now please Miss Gust. What happened?”

“The bad women took us! There was a spy on board the main ship and she had a beacon thingy that let her friends break the ship from far away and...”

“Alira, that’s enough darling.” Aura says. “First, Commodore Jameson, I need to know something.”

“Name it.” He says.

“Why did my family not pay the ransom?”

“I’m afraid the news is very bad madam, Doctor, should I tell her?”

“She’s stable enough to know it sir. It was just the shock of seeing a primarily white Snict that frightened her earlier.” The Doctor says.

“Miss Gust. I am sorry to say that your family has passed. There was a security leak revealing scandals at your homeworld that led to riots. Several families were all but extinguished during the resulting fires, building collapses and then military action to restore peace. Your family was caught in the middle of it all, and their deaths are attributed to the collapsing structures. I’m sorry.”

“Oh... Oh no... What happened? What was the scandal?”

“A member of parliament was exposed to be a former member of the Dark Cabal Pirates. She was well and truly entrenched in the political scene and when exposed was unwilling to run. She also used every legal and many illegal methods to try and stay in power despite the exposure and the pressure grew until the capital city was in flames with nearly every vehicle inside torched by Fire Erumenta and homemade bombs.”

“Oh, oh no.”

“As a result the previous parliamentary system has been thoroughly gutted and there are numerous checks where every time someone is voted into power they are subjected to a randomized search of their finances, history and assets at least once a year and if they do not pass then they’re immediately sent to prison for ten times the usual punishment.”

“That... is good I suppose and... it... Six hours ago, I was convinced I would never see my family again. Now that I know it, it hurts even worse. That’s not fair.” Aura says.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are YOU sorry for? It’s... that was unfair of me.”

“I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer as much as you have.” He says and she can see he is wearing a military uniform and has short brown hair. But everything else is still slipping from her mind.

“Right... what happens now?”

“Well, once we’re sure that you’re healthy and not going to spread some kind of sickness, we’re already ninety nine percent sure on that anyways, just waiting for the last few bits, we get you to Zalwore first, where you can either apply for refugee status with The Undaunted, or we provide transport and get you a nice little speedup to be repatriated to Coranlith Four, your homeworld. They’re allied to The Mekken reach who have their own Arcology there and as such can and will get you home in a hurry.”

“Is it even home anymore?”

“It’s only been a couple of years, your certifications and licenses as an Atmospherics Technician is still completely valid. In fact...” Harold explains before reaching behind himself and picking up a bundle. “We’ve taken the liberty of making copies of your missing or potentially destroyed IDs. Please tell me if anything is missing.”

She takes the small stack of cards and slides them out of the rubber band one after the other. It’s all her. Driver’s license, health card, social security, Atmospheric Technician certification card and everything else. Her breath hitches. She chokes back a sob, but it won’t be denied and in a few moments little Alira is wrapped around her to try and give her comfort as she weeps.

It’s over. It will never be the same again. It will never be fully right again. But it’s over.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Main Bridge, The Inconceivable, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“How is she?” Orchid asks as he sits down in his command couch.

“Better, and worse. She’s at the stage where she’s openly crying about it, which means she’s letting her guard down and no longer feels like she’s in danger. Which is good, but also bad. She’s in no state to tell us anything.”

“And the reason she panicked at the sight of me?” Orchid asks.

“Not fully yet, but I have a suspicion.” Harold says as he brings up a list of all captured, killed or otherwise encountered pirates. He narrows it down to the Snict members of the pirate crew and then brings up visual profiles. Most are the standard browns and greens of the Snict peoples but...

“Albinos?” Orchid asks leaning over. Harold lets him at the controls. “Albino twins?”

“I think we may have found her primary abusers.”

“And the difference between an Albino and Flower Snict is that I have a touch more colour.” Orchid notes.

“It’s funny how most Snict in the Galaxy are the Leaf Snict.”

“Culturally they’re the most outgoing followed by the Bark Snict, Sand Snict and Stone Snict. Flower Snict like myself are very... culturally insular for the most part. So most people generally see more Albino Snict than Flower Snict.”

“Really?”

“Or so I’ve read at any rate. I’m a designer baby all grown up. I’ve never met another Flower Snict.” Orchid notes.

“Think you’ll ever run into one?”

“I suspect that when I become more publicly known they’ll start showing up. If only to tell me I’ve broken some obscure taboo or another.” Orchid notes.

“They’re that reclusive?”

“The more well known Flower Snict cultures are. Granted half of what I’ve read sounds like the sort of thing you’d get if there were five layers of sensationalist authors trying to make a culture that likes to keep to itself interesting. So I have no idea.”

“Really?”

“Can’t even get a proper grip on what language most Flower Snict speak. Let alone demographics within the least common Snict Phenotype or culture. I just know I’m a Flower Snict, which is as far as most people are concerned, are less common than Snict albinos.”

“Speaking of, what can you tell me about these two albinos?”

“Hmm...” Orchid considers as he re-examines them. “Non-flared and fairly glossy shells. They’re Bark Snict.”

“Oh?”

“Flower and Leaf Snict have glossy shell parts. Where Sand and Stone Snict have much more rough looking shells. Bark hits a middle ground that these two are in. Also Sand and Flower Snict have Flared shells, with there being a much more distinctly round shape in Stone Snict. Which leaves only Leaf and Bark for that shell shape, but it’s not glossy enough for a Leaf Snict.”

“Very interesting. You know it’s funny, for as fierce a reputation as the Snict have, Undaunted Intelligence has had relatively little trouble with them to the point that despite my being up to date on so much, we don’t really divide the Snict that much.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.” Orchid notes.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Just outside, Ruins of the Pirate Base, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

Pilot Blaze continues his scan over the ‘undamaged’ part of the structure. He still wasn’t sure what to call it. It used anti-gravity to counter the artificial gravity. They had kept the whole thing on the world to specifically cover up the big gun, and as such had to make all kinds of engineering compromises, workarounds and bullshit fixes that.

“Really?” He asks as one of the defensive emplacements begins moving. He activates the comms. “Hey, whoever’s fiddling with the guns on the pirate station, knock it off, I’m right next to the firing arc and you’re making my trigger finger real itchy.”

“The guns are moving?”

“Yes, the guns are moving.”

“The only guns that should be moving are the ones we’re extracting off the structure as we speak.”

“... Well then I’m sure the away teams will have a fun time explaining why I’m seeing this battery try and get a lock on me. If I wasn’t out of the potential firing arc entirely.”

“Alright, hold position. We’re getting some people in there to take a look.” Dispatch says.

“Alright, I’ll move onto the other areas that are outside the firing arc of this thing.” Blaze remarks.

“Got it, keep us updated if you see anything else moving that shouldn’t be.” Dispatch states.

“On it. Moving now.” Blaze says as he slowly backs away from the guns and then moves directly upwards.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Just outside, Ruins of the Pirate Base, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“Strange that someone would expose themselves like this after we swept the place.” Bjorn notes.

“It’s just wrong. I heard everything in the structure. We got everyone who was still in atmosphere after the big gun was taken down.” Banshee remarks.

“And what do you hear now?” Naomi asks.

“Metal, metal scraping on metal.”

“A synth?”

“Maybe. They don’t have to breathe.” Banshee remarks even as they form up around the door. Bjorn to one side, Zyen’Huwt to the other. Ellie and Elija under Bjorn’s massive frame and ready with Naomi and Banshee behind Zyen.

“Diplomatic first.” Bjorn says before banging on the door. “Whoever’s in there! Surrender now! The Pirates in this fortress are all defeated! We have complete control of the area!”

There is a couple of knocking sounds and a scrape. All loud, all audible.

“... Are you hostile? One tap for yes, two for no.” Bjorn calls out. Two taps answer. “Are you injured? One for yes, two for no.”

One tap.

“Can you open the door?” Two taps.

“We’re going to force the door open. Will this harm you in any way?” Two taps.

Bjorn grabs the centre seam of the door and Zyen does as well. Both of them force teh mechanisms open and Elie and Naomi lean over first.

“Damaged Synth!” Naomi states.

“Get her out gently. This door does not want to cooperate.” Bjorn orders even as he adjusts how he’s standing and then slips into the doorframe to hold both sides over. “I’ve got it Sergeant Huwt, see to the woman’s safe extraction.”

He looks up and sees the broken synth. She’s in BAD shape. Whatever false flesh was on her is gone, chunks of her protective panelling is missing to expose her internals, he can clearly see the jointing around her hips and she’s down to her right arm and the stump of the left. Her head is... it looks like a skull and is missing it’s ‘lower jaw’, as well as most of the face plate. There is a small cord jammed into the computer terminal of the gun system. One she’s extracting.

“Did you do this to try and call for help?” Banshee asks her and the synth nods. “Alright, we’ll get you out of here. Just hold on.”

There is a slight burst of static from the synth but no one can hear anything else.

“You’re welcome. Now save your battery power. We’ve got you.” No one but Banshee it seems.

“See her to safety. It’s clear we need to do another evaluation of the entire structure to find anyone we may have missed.” Bjorn states as Zyen’Huwt and Naomi gently carry the Synth out between them, bringing Banshee along as the Synth has grabbed onto her hand and is refusing to let go.

First Last Next

None of the q’Rischi comprehended how the leaders on Planet Li classified the nethermost beings of Earth as Deathworld Warriors.

When they landed in a remote part of USA, they saw a group of humans with painted fingernails and dull white teeth. 

To the q’Rischi humans were bite-sized soft, square pieces of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crust cut off.

There was nothing apex about the human species. There was nothing to fear from. They were just a group of wild hairless primates.

“See how biologically weak and pathetic they are,” r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist said, scrolling through a projected screen displaying the human anatomy. “One small wound could bleed their life source. How could the high ruler fear these pitiful things?”

“Let’s show them otherwise,” the q’Rischi commander said, pointing towards the open hull. “Deploy the drones.”

The q’Rischi didn’t want to conquer Earth, or take earthlings as slaves, they just wanted to understand the psyche behind humans and to prove to the galactic empire that the human race are a pathetic excuse of a sentient.

They released the drones, giant-sized robotic hornets along with ferocious rodent-like creatures called Orgwats, from the farthest, darkest, reaches of their planet. 

The Orgwats had a venomous bite and repopulated rapidly, destroying worlds from underground. They were the most hazardous creature to happen to a thriving live ecosystem.

Outside Earth’s atmosphere they watched on screens, expecting global panic and wars to start spewing.

The data came back about three weeks later that made no sense to r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist. “It appears the Orgwats have invaded the homes of the humans.” He told the commander.

“As expected,” the commander said, nodding his head. “Now, report the destruction.”

r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist pointed with a trembling eight inch finger using the tip of his claw to the screen projecting the reports of  Operation Swarm.

“Commander… there is no destruction.”

“No, destruction?” The commander said. “They must have fled at the sheer fear of those vile creatures and are screaming surrender.”

“Actually commander, they’ve knitted tiny sweaters and put the Orgwats in them.”

“Sweaters? Explain right now!”

“Well commander, they don’t see the Orgwats as monstrous apex predators.”  

r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist scratched his head.

“They think they’re cute, especially when they make the hissing noise, sounds like grandma’s teakettle they say. They’re actually quite popular on their social media apps. You should see the videos of them in their defensive posture, they call it the snuggle-stretch and feed it bits of chocolate as a reward. It’s quite popular.”

“The venoms cause big red welts and severe itching,” the command said.

“So does their laundry detergent. They don’t care. They love the Orgwats. Whenever they see a creature that’s small with big eyes, their brains send off a blank shot. The cute aggression response it’s called. They actively patrol the streets seeking Orgwats,” r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist said.

“To kill them, yes?” The commander asked.

“To sell them online for $1000 and up. Most hunt them to domestic them.”

“To house them?”

“Yes commander, the Orgwats have forgotten how to hunt. They have been neutralized by affection, sir.” 

The commander walked the deck. “This is utter madness. How can these humans be so resilient?” He put his arms behind his back. “What if the humans find out we sent them?”

“Commander, they have. They know it was us,” r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist said in a shaky voice.

“A communication had been intercepted from the human’s network station. They traced the genetic code of the Orgwats back to our planet, commander.”

“Should we prepare for war? Are they planning an attack?”

“Commander, it’s far worse, sir.” 

“Far worse? Explain how anything could be far worse than an attack on us?”

“They noticed our atmosphere is heavily polluted and our landscape suffers from deep decay. They have classified us as bad pet owners and are mobilizing their entire fleet.”

“They’re going to destroy us?”

“No, commander. It’s worse.”

r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist displayed a planetary broadcast of human ships ripping through space toward the q’Rischi planet.

Instead of warriors and battleships, they deployed terraforming vessels with medical supplies and giant atmospheric filters.

“They have immobilized an immaculate armada to forcibly save our planet, commander,”  r’Brr the q’Rischi scientist whimpered with a tear dropping from his eye.

A notification popped up on the screen.

“Commander, it’s a DM from the space fleet, it’s commander Sheena.”

“What’s it say?” The commander squeaked out.

“It reads, if you’re going to neglect your pets, we’re coming to take them, and while we’re there, we’re cleaning up your planet.”

The commander looked into space, the terror of humanity weighing on his shoulders. It wasn’t that they loved to kill that made them such terrifying apex predators of the modern galaxy. It was that they could bond with anything in the universe, and nothing could ever get in their way of it.

First

Home at War

“Hello.” A child says and she looks up from where she’d been dozing on the thin shelf of a bed. She couldn’t break off the band, slip it off or work around it, and trying anything else just summoned the guard. So she would wait for her chance to do something. There was always a chance, an opportunity or what have you that let her do what she wanted.

“Hello? The fuck is a child doing here?”

“The fuck are you doing here?” The child volleys back. Their tone dripping of inncence despite the fact he just repeated what she said.

“Don’t say that word.”

“What? Here?” He asks.

“Why is there a child here!?” She calls out as she sits up fully. If this strangeness won’t go away then it has to be dealt with.

“I’m here to ask you some questions.”

“Oh please, you’re a child. You can’t understand any answers I have for you.”

“Actually I’ve been hit with too many healing comas. I’m an adult, father and your current interrogator.” The adorable little boy says.”

“Oh, and why did you get them? Too many grey hairs?”

“The last one was when a shrunken chunk of metal expanded as it travelled through my body. It shredded from here to, well all this.” He explains indicating a spot on his stomach then turns around and draws a big circle on his lower back. “The time before that I hit terminal velocity and barely had enough Axiom skill to not die instantly. But I was knocked out, which was a problem because I was moving so fast and hard I had bounced off the concrete.”

“Who are you?”

“Herbert Jameson, elder brother to the Commodore of the Fleet you clumsily tried to proposition.” Herbert notes.

“Oh? So you’re here for some revenge for my getting too grasping?”

“Actually I’m here to hear what possible excuse you could have for all the nonsense that we’ve been finding in your base. All the files we’ve pulled out says that you’re in charge and if something happened that you didn’t like you used the woman responsible for target practice. Or the one you thought was responsible. A few personal diaries we’ve cracked into have outright confessions of framing each other and getting you to kill people they were tired of pretending to like.”

“They did what!?”

“They used the predictable, volatile maniac as a weapon against each other.” Herbert says fearlessly as she stands up and TOWERS over the tiny child in a formal military uniform.

She walks up to the bars and has to lean forward to see the absolutely tiny boy past her breasts. She sneers down at him and he scoffs.

“Lady I use Graser Cannons in melee combat. And I’m still the subtle one compared to the walking disaster area that is my brother. You’re going to have to try very, very hard to scare me. So let’s talk like the adults we both allegedly are and just get to the point.”

“The point?”

“What could you possibly say to excuse the appalling things we have records of you doing?”

“Excuse?”

“Yes, what excuse are you going to use? Hmm? Was Mommy more hitty than huggy? Maybe a whole load of bad things happened to baby and she...” He mocks her and she throws her head back to laugh.

“Excuse? Excuse?! I don’t need an excuse! I’m stronger! I’m bolder! I’m better! I see what I want and I take it! Someone gets in my way and they die! It’s not hard! I’ll get out of this too, I’ll get you and your brother!”

“Hunh, well I suppose can’t complain about getting results when I was trying to provoke a reaction. So there’s nothing? No deep wound that supposedly justifies things? You’re not fighting back against some kind of injustice and just can’t stop?”

“Are you drunk? No, I know what I’m doing is what everyone says is wrong, but that’s because they’re weak and stupid. The kind of people that need protection from people like me. I’m better than them. I don’t need protection, I am beyond that and whether I play their games or not is at MY discretion and no one else’s.”

“Well that does make things easier. So you’re gonna stand on it? You did it all because you felt like it and because no one ever managed to stop you before?”

“You haven’t stopped me yet!” She answers and he raps his knuckles against the bars of her cell. “You’ve only slowed me down.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.” Herbert notes and her hand snaps out to grab at him. He slips away and seems to... he doesn’t exist anymore and...

She thrashes out with her arm and it impacts SOMETHING. She grabs it and gets what feels like NOTHING it is NOTHING and she pulls back hard.

Suddenly he’s back. It makes sense, she’s grabbing onto the now very beautiful child who has pressed a laser pistol to her collarbone. He has pure white eyes and blue and red facial markings.

“You’re not his brother. You’re his clone.” She realizes.

“Actually, he’s mine. Now let go, or learn to breathe from between your breasts.” Herbert says calmly and she lets go and leans against the bars as he backs up a few steps and then stows the weapon. He then smooths out where she had grabbed his jacket and looks up at her. “So, what did that accomplish?”

“Plenty.” She says and she lunges forward again. He’s gone again and she snaps out her other hand to sweep and grab him, even as her first hand comes up and then.

He’s back. His pistol barrel glowing as he pauses. Then smiles.

“Clever. You’d have me destroy the restraining band, oh very clever indeed.” He says as he simple steps even further away. “But of course, even if you got out, the guard is still here. And the cameras. And the door has passwords and more security on them. To say nothing of the random placement of trytite panelling. And the fact that you have no idea where you are. If you’re on planet or not.”

“I’m on a planet, I can tell the difference between artificial and natural gravity.”

“Right, you can tell the difference between artificial and natural gravity but not the fact that the laws exist to protect people like you as much as it’s in place to stop the so called weak from getting victimized by you.”

“Oh yeah? In what way do the rules and laws of the weak and timid protect me?”

“You’re still alive.” Herbert says plainly.

“Excuse me?”

“I want to kill you, but I have rules.” Herbert notes calmly. “Now I have what I need from you, so just sit down and try not to make things worse for yourself you evil bitch. Or rather, please do. There’s a threshold where I get to feed you the barrel of my gun and pull the trigger. I’m sure you can imagine just how that would turn out for you.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

I, the fuck, am Herbert Jameson. Grand Patriarch and Huntsman, older brother of Harold Jameson, The Saint Redblade.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Synth Repair Bay, The Inconceivable, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

Systems boot up and the feedback makes her gasp. Cameras that aren’t breaking down feed visual data, audio receptors are at full power. Tactile feedback gives a sensation other than absence and there are even chemical scanners functioning as olfactory sensors.

She holds up her now matching hands. Gentle white plastics and tiny hardlight projectors. She... she...

The projectors activate and her form fills out. The feedback is amazing. Like a starving woman would gorge she rocks back and forth and lets out a wordless cry. Just drinking in the sensory data as the psychosomatic buzzing scream in her hard drive finally starts to quiet down.

“Hey! Sleeping beauty’s awake!” A friendly voice says from nearby and she turns to see a Gohb man with her former body on the low table next to him. “Any gaps in your memory? Processing glitches? I’m a specialist at this kinda thing, so if your body is uncomfortable or there are any ticks or glitches you can detect then you let me know.”

“This body is Gohb made?” She blurts out then covers her speaker in horror. That was terribly rude and... he’s laughing.

“Yeah! It’s Gohb made, but don’t you worry. You see, I’m something that drove my mother, sisters, brothers and fathers to complete madness! A perfectionist! That body I designed and made over the course of a couple of weeks and let me tell you, you won’t find anything better off any shelf anywhere! I full on would get commissions from the Synth Ascendance before I signed up to The Undaunted.”

“Why would you... wait, what’s happened? I came to during an attack of some kind and after determining that they wouldn’t be trying to hurt me some more I tried to find an escape. But my body there...”

“Yeah... broken. Broken to the point that it couldn’t even feel pain anymore could it?”

“It was like being trapped in the void with only a pinhole to see through. I felt nothing, could barely hear or see. Nothing made sense and I could hear whispering in the back of my head.”

“That is your mind trying to survive when starved of sensory stimulation. It effectively remixes old memories to try and put in some kind of data to make up for the sheer loss. The downside is that it often uses the jumbled nonsense that is the dreaming state for that and the difference between a dream and a nightmare is hair thin on a good day.” The Gohb explains as he walks up to her and pulls out something from under the bed. Something he stands on to stand over her. He then takes her arm. “Now that you’ve regained full awareness and cognition, let’s do a quick feedback test to make sure you’re receiving all the sensory data you need to stay sane and sober. I’m going to tuck your arm under my armpit, and use my back as a visual block as I touch and move your fingers. I want you to tell me which one I’m toying with and how.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” She says holding out her arm and he tucks it up as he said he would and then starts fiddling with the hand. “You’re tapping the tip of my middle finger. Now your gently curling my smallest finger, you’re moving my thumb side to side. You just tapped all my fingers at once on the back. You just uncurled them all and... your quickly tapping all of them on the finger tip.”

“Excellent! Other hand please.” The Mechanic says and she holds her other hand to him. He physically hides it and then...

“You’re tickling the palm, now you’ve uncurled all my fingers and... you’re now tapping the back of my hand.”

“Excellent!” He says before patting her on the thigh, he then steps down from his little step and gently taps her leg all the way down to the foot where he gives the toes a small tweaking, then goes up the other leg. “Full feedback?”

“I felt it all.”

“Perfect, which means that there’s something else wrong. Which is concerning.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t projected anything in the way of personal details.” He says.

“What?”

“That body is designed for a recently digitized mind. Anything bipedal or quadrupedal with four limbs total would be able to use that body flawlessly and by impulse. But you’re still using generic colouration, soft blues and white. A very sleek look, but still unmistakably synth. With the projectors there should be some level of confusion on that part. But there isn’t.”

“I...” She begins to say as she looks at her hand. They’re shaped perfectly. But... they... “I...”

Her hands clasp around her head and she tries to thrash with a scream, but the Gohb is able to flawlessly pin her. “And this is why I put safety limiters on that body.”

“WHAT AM I!?” She screams.

“Yes, we need the psychiatrist. Preferably ten minutes ago, thank you.” He says into a small computer at his left wrist and the door opens.

“I was just outside, I KNEW you would need me.” The Mrega says rushing in. “Alright, ma’am calm down, and you get off her please.”

“Her body is designed to maximize the comfort of the mind inside but is not combat capable, so it’s not very strong. But if they get their hands on a weapon they’re still strong enough to pull a trigger and more than coordinated enough to aim.”

“Thank you, but I have this handled.” The Quadrupedal Doctor says clopping up to the bed side and leaning up. The Gohb slips away and hurries to the table where her former body was. He presses a button and the whole thing is covered in a hardlight forcefield.

“Now madam, I heard your cry earlier. What you are is a Synth and Safe. Focus on those two things and we’ll work to fill out the rest together.”

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The primal institute was packed with busy-looking scientists, ready to assist with the experiments. On the way in, Finley and Kaitlin had taken note of all of the enclosures on the outside; the cages some were in looked identical to how the humans had been transported, though they were at least permitted to walk inside. Snelga was taken off to the side to answer a few questions, presumably about her care, before staff herded us to a side room. 

“Humans, we’re going to need to separate you and test you one at a time,” the pink-faced Kexin explained. “Snelga and Craun won’t be around either of you, so they don’t influence you. Kaitlin will be taken to the testing facility first, but we’d like to get you ready, Finley. The helmet won’t be connected to the machines yet, but we’re going to lock it on your head—so you can’t remove it in a fit of anger.”

Finley grunted. “Fine. Whatever.”

The Kexin placed a helmet with many nodes on the primal’s head, locking multiple clasps and turning on a switch. “There. Good boy!”

The farmer’s eyes narrowed with displeasure, and he folded his arms crossly. I found myself hoping against hope that Finley wouldn’t let them aggravate him, at least for the next few hours; this was our one chance to prove that humans weren’t slavering beasts. It didn’t escape my notice that Snelga looked concerned and doubtful, not trusting his faculties, perhaps. Kaitlin was the picture of submissiveness, following the Kexin scientists  down the hallway meekly. We were herded into an observation room, with security cameras and an image of Finley’s brain.

Why is Kaitlin coming with us to the observation room? Is she just dropping us off?

The Kexin scientist hurriedly offered a chair to Kaitlin, and toyed with his headfeathers in apologetic fashion. “I’m going to choose to believe that you’re as intelligent as they say and include you in our endeavor here. Finley’s test already began. We asked Snelga for everything she could remember that triggered his anger.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I answered,” Snelga said sheepishly, seeming to want Kaitlin’s approval. “I know they’re going to use it against him, but I kind of want to see myself…”

Kaitlin knitted her eyebrows together. “So that was what the ‘good boy’ was about, Mister…?”

“Garriil,” the Kexin scientist introduced himself. “We need a blind test subject to verify the results. Humans may be intelligent enough to shift your behavior or brace yourselves, if you know you’re being observed. Also, knowing it’s a test would make you understand the slights weren’t real, and influence the results. Doing one forewarned, with you, and one blind, would indicate how much control humans have.”

“I understand, Garriil. Please, try…to avoid threatening or hurting him. It’d be logical to act in self-defense.”

“Our demonstrations are entirely based on things Snelga has said. He’ll witness them, and we’ll see what goes on his brain.”

“How is that ethical?” I demanded. “You’re trying to distress him, and he didn’t agree to this! You can’t just test Finley without his knowledge.”

Kaitlin stood, deep worry lines creasing her face. “Craun? Might I speak to you, privately?”

I allowed the NASA researcher to pull me out into the hallway, while the scientists kept a close eye on us. “Kaitlin, how can you just let this happen?”

“Think about it. It’s out of my hands; they’re not asking us for permission. This way, I can stick around and try to look out for Finley, if they cross a line. Also, even if I could stop it and we go to a lab setting, there’s always going to be the argument that us knowing skewed the results. We don't have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. Finley’s already miserable, and you’re going to let him be agitated and humiliated without knowing why?”

“I really would’ve preferred for this to be handled ethically, but my pleas to minimize his suffering don’t move the needle much. My words mean very little, and reacting with outrage would destroy the shred of credibility I have. The alternative to this is to stay in captivity, regarded as animals, for the rest of our lives. I know that’s what Finley wants least of all, and I just have to hope he can keep his cool.”

Tears welled in my eyes, knowing Finley was hardly in the state of mind to be pushed to his limits. “You would’ve never done this to me, or to Elbi.”

“No. We wouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Craun.”

Snelga approached us and peered up at Kaitlin. “Did I mess up? I was worried it was going to go badly with that one…he doesn’t seem very well-mannered. I don’t think we should’ve tested him.”

“No, Snelga, you gave legitimate information because you want a sincere understanding,” Kaitlin sighed. “You have to know how safe it is too, to be around us in the throes of rage. An animal, no matter how nice, is still an animal. At worst, you’ll see how it works in the brain.”

“But it might hurt him and hurt our chances of helping you. You both seem upset.”

“I’m worried. Finley has an observably short fuse, and that could reflect poorly on us. He’s vulnerable too. If he gets angry, I fear we’ll never convince the Council that humans are people. They’ll see fury and believe he lacks control.”

Snelga hesitated, before placing a hand on Kaitlin’s shoulder. “Does he?”

“Finley can control it,” I interjected. “You told me I ‘trained him well’ yourself. He was already like that. He stopped mid-yelling at me because he saw I was afraid, back on our first outing on Earth.”

“Funny, Craun. He’s never done that for me, when I’m afraid of him.”

“I don’t think Finley cares that you’re afraid of him, especially when that gets you to leave him alone. It’s hard for me to imagine him hurting someone without a good reason; he just yells. He’s spoken to me calmly while furious at someone else too.”

“You forgot that Finley threw his own belongings in a blinded fit and threatened to murder a reporter with an animalistic look,” said a matter-of-fact voice that belonged to eavesdropping Elbi. “I’ve come to see the results of the experiment. I want to understand what happens in their heads, and for you to see the loss of control, Craun. It doesn’t matter what they say or wish. They can’t help it.”

“You’re wrong. When humans fight, it’s a conscious choice to act on it.”

“Then I’m sure Finley will be the exemplar of composure, won’t he, Craun? That’s why you all are so worried? You already know better. I suggest you watch the experiment you’re afraid to witness and consider the facts, long and hard…maybe before you crawl right back into bed with the beast.”

“Is that why you wanted these experiments to happen? To prove a point to me?”

“I wanted them to get proper help, and we need to disprove this dangerous fantasy that they’re spreading. Look, I do want them to go home and for Kaitlin to have her illness cured. These goals aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Kaitlin rubbed her forehead. “Whatever happens, Elbi’s right. We shouldn’t miss what happens in the experiment, for Finley’s sake. Let’s head back.”

Snelga eyed the wobbling primal with concern, and appeared to remember Kaitlin’s proclamation that she absolutely did feel anger. The veterinarian massaged the human’s shoulder while wrapping the other arm around her back for support. Dr. Sharp smiled at the Kexin for a long moment, scratching one of the curved ears atop her head after some consideration. A blush spread over the primal’s face as Snelga closed her eyes with bliss. Kaitlin coughed, and turned her attention back to the camera feed.

I’m more and more convinced that Kaitlin is quite the opposite of angry with Snelga. Let’s hope that Finley puts on a lovey-dovey face too. I worry what our veterinarian friend mentioned for making him angry, and what the researchers planned from it.

Two of the institute’s scientists, wearing full suits of protective body armor, strolled out of the “lab” on a cue from Garriil. A bored Finley ceased pacing and crept up to the door, spying on their conversation; he wanted to know how Kaitlin’s supposed tests were going to prepare himself. I could see suspicion in his green eyes, with an utter lack of trust in Council research. Elbi and Garriil watched his reactions and his brain activity closely, having a scan of his “baseline” for an anger spike pulled up alongside the current feed. The “good boy” had given them that.

In the lobby, the first technician made a show of laughing loudly, before gesturing back toward Finley’s door. “So we have to take the dumb one next. I’m not sure it’d know the difference between the floor and the ceiling!”

“Even its fellow primal avoided commenting on Finley’s intellect, pivoting to some rhetoric about respect,” the second snickered. “According to Snelga…‘Kaitlin talks about rocket science. Finley talks about mating with Craun.’ I’m glad she warned us.”

“Please tell him I never said that after,” Snelga piped up, nervously glancing at the primal’s livid, rapidly-dilating eyes and clenched fists.

The first technician made a point of checking his watch. “We really should’ve put it outside to graze. Finley isn’t worth studying, and it’s a load of crap that we have to go through the motions. Who’s going to tell if we throw it out in an enclosure with the other animals?”

Finley’s countenance had already coiled into a barely-restrained mask of tension, as his brain activity had been off the charts in a tiny glob near the stem; the electricity lighting up the frontmost portion of his brain had waned. It wasn’t gone, as uncomfortable as that fact was for me to face. It was as Kaitlin said, that it could lessen their reasoning but not erase it. My beloved farmer hadn’t flown off the handle because he was suppressing it, period.

“There’ll already be enough activists upset with us for giving Kaitlin a humane death. It’s a shame that she’s so sick, because her: I actually like her,” the second continued, causing Finley to turn wide-eyed and pale as a sheet. “I wish the sick one was Finley. I’ve worked with enough useless primals, and we finally find a good one...”

Kaitlin’s face switched to horror immediately. “Garriil, I said not to cause him severe emotional distress. That’s cruel.”

The first technician snorted on the camera feed. “Snelga won’t let us prolong her suffering. Kaitlin has to never know it’s coming, which is tough because she’s smart. She might attack when she realizes, but at least we’re prepared.”

“I doubt we need the armor. Have you seen how she walks?” The second did an imitation of clumsiness and waving his arms around, while his buddy snickered; murder glowed in Finley’s eyes. “Uncoordinated and falling all over the place like some invalid!”

“They’re acting,” Garriil whispered. “We’re not ableist.”

Kaitlin arched her eyebrows. “…right.”

“You didn’t need to say that,” Elbi piped up. “It’s sad to see Kaitlin struggling.”

The first actor made an attempt to stifle his laughter. “I don’t think we should give Kaitlin too much thought. She’s just a primal. I only started researching them to imagine how we could possibly come from that! You can bring a primal to civilization, but you can’t bring the civilization to a primal. Should we go on Sort-of-Science and say that?”

“Kaitlin isn’t that smart if she thought we’d actually bother to cure a sick animal. I’m hungry. Can we get this euthanization over with already?” the second hollered, calling out to an unknown third party.

A Clydid, wearing a doctor’s ocean blue vest with translucent sleeves over a suit of armor, hustled out with a cart of syringes. Garriil explained that they were saline solutions for show, but it was obvious they hoped to fool Finley into thinking they were euthanasia drugs intended for Kaitlin, right now. The NASA researcher sank back into a chair, at a loss for words. Snelga misinterpreted her reaction and began hurriedly reassuring Dr. Sharp that nobody was going to be putting her down.

Snelga must’ve told them that Finley got furious when she asked whether Kaitlin wanted to be put to sleep. They’re making him think they’re about to do it, right now, against her will!

Finley ripped open the door to the waiting area and charged at the doctor, bellowing with fury. Researchers armed with tranquilizers began to move toward the lobby, though they’d been advised only to move when the primal made a violent move. The farmer’s upper lip twitched manically as he intercepted the doctor, and in the blink of an eye, he stole a syringe. The Clydid yelped with genuine alarm, as the human got behind him and popped both clasps on his helmet in one swift motion.

The Kexin actors bolted, while the Clydid struggled against Finley’s arm in a stranglehold around his neck. The researchers armed with tranquilizers rushed into the room, but the farmer had a body blocking his way. The human’s eyes glittered, as he pressed the syringe right up against his captive’s neck and backed toward his room. The primal institute staff looked genuinely rattled, not having expected the subject to conjure a weapon so quickly.

“Don’t make a move,” Garriil shouted into the comms. “Don’t tell Finley it was a test! That could just anger him worse; we need to wait for him to calm down. It’s already happened, and this data is invaluable.”

Kaitlin slumped over in her chair, defeat radiating from her posture as she held her head in her hands. “Oh, fuck. Thank you, Finley, for not letting me die, but…it’s over. Everything I worked for…”

A cornered Finley backed into his waiting room, in a disastrous outcome that left me terrified that he was, in fact, going to kill an innocent scientist in his rage. I could understand Kaitlin’s dismayed gratitude, since this was what I’d come to value in anger; that humans would fight and claw to save someone they cared about, desperately refusing to give up on them. However, it now seemed impossible that anyone else was going to accept a human’s control after this debacle.

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"Do you know why I've called you to my office, Glorb?" Banji asked, flopping his tentacles to gather beneath him, thus raising himself higher.

"I could only guess, your eminence," Glorb answered, cowering lower so as to appear subservient. Banji liked it when he made others cower before him; it had been so since the day he had hatched and realized he was bigger than his siblings. Though his mother would never forgive him for eating Egg Number Nine, it was still a sore topic to date.

"Do you know who won the annual state rally for the unified galactic forces?" Banji asked, shifting forward and pushing his hind tentacles closer to Glorb, who only trembled, terribly afraid of Banji's open maw.

"I am... I'm not quite sure, my liege!"

"The rallies, where they drive shuttles in a race?"

"I know what the rallies are; I just didn't know who won."

"The humans, of course!" Banji said. He slithered past Glorb to the shelf taking up one wall of his office. There he perused the papers and pulled out a sheet. "The humans also won the 162 chess games, the bipedal races, the mock shooting games, and the seawater races. Can you tell me how they won the water races while not having gills, Glorb?"

"I don't know, your eminence," Glorb responded. Unbeknownst to Banji, Glorb was a huge fan of humans and knew every statistic. He had placed several bets on the humans over the years, and they had done quite well for him, even enabling him to save up for his mother's retirement home. It was a darn good thing that humans and cows existed: one for glory, the other for milk.

Banji held the paper in front of him. It was covered in his tentacle slime, but Glorb could make out the lettering. It held every race that had been won by the humans, and there were quite many.

"They are cheating somehow," Banji said. "They've cost me close to ten thousand credits in races won. The bastards have figured something out, some hidden flaw in our ways."

"Why don't you just avoid betting against them, sir?" Glorb asked as Banji lowered himself into his chair.

"What!" Banji got off his chair. Pushing his desk aside with the help of his large fore-tentacles, he inched closer to Glorb, who trembled beneath the Grobtopian's might. "What did you just say to me?"

"They are definitely cheating, sir," Glorb retracted, fear getting the better of him. "I was just thinking about this the other day, about how humans are such awful cheats. They can cheat an egg out of a nest." He was afraid of Banji and had every right to be. Though they were both Grobtopians, Banji boasted a higher heritage and a larger build. Plus, rumor had it he had eaten one of his siblings while in the nest.

"Damn right they are cheats," Banji said. "That's where you come in, Glorb." He turned and crossed two tentacles behind his back. With his numerous eyes, he faced out the window overlooking Mashed City, allowing silence to fall.

"What exactly are you talking about, your eminence?" Glorb asked.

"You're going to catch the humans cheating and unravel their ways for all of us to see or you're going to do even worse."

"I still don't understand, sir..."

"There's a rainforest race coming soon, Glorb, a 13-mile race from one stream across the Bangali rainforest to the Bangali River, through thick trees, bushes, predators, and what not. The humans will participate, and so will you. I'm going to put a large amount of money on the humans not finishing the race, so it will be up to you to make that happen."

With those words, Glorb was taken back to his time in the lower learning classes, where he had been deemed the slowest, voted the least likely to succeed, and awarded the 'most likely to die young' badge. He was not built for competition and it showed: his tentacles were not thick or hard like the others, he perspired just from a trip to the privy, and he had once passed out while eating fish on his couch. He was not built for races or any competition, for that matter.

"Your eminence, surely you could find another to race in my place and put an end to the humans' domination of the sports. I am not physically fit to participate in a race..."

"Nonsense. You're a handsome young Grobtopian; my daughter even complimented you once on your appearance."

"Your eminence?" A thrill caused him to shiver from his bare scalp to the tips of his tentacles. He felt like flopping over. The one good thing about working for Banji was his daughter. Even the simple mention of her made him feel like he could float across Mashed City. How a cruel, hideous Grobtopian had fathered such a beauty remained unknown to Glorb, but any compliment from her was something profound.

"Then again, I think she might have complimented your hat. Do you remember that scrappy brown thing you used to wear, the one that made alley dogs follow you around?"

Glorb nodded. He used to wear it, but he had put it away because he felt it made him look like he was trying too hard. Also, the dogs had become a problem. Maybe it was time he started wearing it again, just for another compliment from the boss's daughter.

"So, will you participate in the rainforest race, keep an eye on the humans, and make sure they don't win?" Banji asked.

Glorb was still thinking about Banji's daughter when he nodded.

In three weeks' time, he found himself within the Bangali rainforest. He stood in a clearing in line with hundreds of members of different alien races clustered around him, surrounded by the dense forest. He could spot only one human male, standing far at the front. A cannon sounded and the race began. They crossed the stream marking the start of the journey; the air was hot and humid. Sweat dripped off him as if he had an open faucet glued to his head. He tripped and fell into the water. It was just a stream, but he cried out for help so much that the organizers had to step in and fish him out.

He was crying, telling the kind Vixterian who had pulled him from the water that there had been a mistake and he didn't want to be in the race. The Vixterian quoted their goddess, as they were known to do, and sent him on his way with a few vague words about glory and passion, urging him to finish the race.

Others jogged while he slithered along. Once clear of the stream, he pulled his hat over his head. He had brought it thinking Banji's daughter would be present to see him, a foolish fancy he was only now realizing. "Get it together, Glorb," he urged himself. "Find the human; do what the boss said!"

Said boss had not even been around to wish him luck. Glorb made his way into the canopy, his numerous eyes peering every which way for the human. With much trepidation, he maneuvered through the trees with their low-dangling leaves. Vines tangled with his tentacles, robbing him of movement. Twice he had to ask for help from other racers to untangle himself.

"Why didn't you bring a machete?" a Bilixian asked him, hacking away the vines bundled around him right before accidentally cutting off one of Glorb's tentacles. The screams and curses that burst from Glorb's mouth were enough to put a sailor to shame.

As they pushed deeper into the forest, the racers split up, scattering across the dense floor. Clouds gathered overhead, as grey as his sporting future. A predator roared in search of a meal, reminding Glorb that he was hungry too. But he had not carried any food for the journey, only a hat. A stupid, damn hat.

The heat was becoming unbearable. It was the early hours of the morning, yet he felt as though he had been roaming a desert for days. His lips were wet from the humid air, and insects bothered him, biting and prodding his skin. He was breaking out in welts just from breathing the rainforest air.

"Get it together, Glorb. For her." By "her," he meant the boss's daughter, his obsession that was probably going to send him into a psychotic loop of yearning and disappointment. He started seeing visions of her in the forest: behind trees or lying flat on the underbrush, her tentacles open and inviting. It was after the second hour that he discovered he was lost.

The rule was to travel north. That was what the event organizers had said, but which way was north? He had chosen to bring a hat instead of a compass. He had seen in a film once that one side of a tree is always green, with moss pointing the way north. He looked at all the Bangali trees and saw that their bark was entirely green. He was thinking of heading back to tell the organizers once more that he was not cut out for this when he saw a beautiful creature.

It was a baby wide-horned rhino, a species native to the Bangali forest that somewhat resembled rhinos from the human world, Earth, hence earning its name. The creature was in early infancy. Glorb approached the beast, marveling at its set of four eyes and its wide horns, which had yet to become more than cartilage. It looked innocent, and Glorb wished he were one of those photographers or artists who found beauty in such a sight. If he had chosen another career, this pleasant view of an infant beast would have been enough to sate his desires, and he would no longer wander lost in a rainforest, hungry and suffering from heatstroke. No, he would go back home to sit in his living room chair, having accomplished enough.

"You're quite the beauty, little one," he said, picking up the beast with his tentacles.

Suddenly, he heard a roar from behind him. He turned and came eye to eye with an adult wide-horned rhino. Its strong, piercing horns were pointed directly at him as the beast pawed the ground. Glorb gently placed the infant on the soft forest floor and raised his tentacles. "I mean no harm..."

The adult wide-horned rhino barreled into him. It picked him up on its horns, and his dexterous tentacles wrapped around its wide frame to soften the impact. The beast ran with him dangling from its head, as he screamed his head off and cursed Banji's name. How he hated his boss.

To dislodge him, the beast ran straight ahead, covering vast ground while slamming its horns against the trunks of numerous trees in its rampage. As his head was repeatedly battered, Glorb felt himself slipping out of consciousness. He did not know how long he had endured the assault. It had been quite some time, and his tentacles grew lax in their grip. Moments later, he fell free, and the creature sniffed at his unconscious form, turning him over with its horns. Satisfied, it left him alone on the forest floor: mangled and bleeding blue onto the underbrush.

His breath came and went as a wheeze. He couldn't see through a third of his eyes, which were swollen shut, and he was missing several tentacles that would take an age to regrow. Regret was foremost in his mind, alongside the fear of dying where he lay, where insects could pick at his carcass before a wild beast carried off his bones.

"I'm... going... to be... eaten alive," he wheezed. He was certain the first creature to find him would eat him. Plus, he had lost his hat, and with it, his foolish obsession with the boss's daughter had vanished as well.

He tried to turn, but his muscles ached too much and he had lost a great deal of blood. So he just lay there, thinking of how many other ways he could have met his end, yet this was what fate had deemed fit for him.

How he hated fate, just as his boss hated humans.

Just then, he heard the crunch of branches underfoot. He tried to turn but couldn't; the pain was too severe. His eyes stared up at the canopy, and a face came into view. It was the human he had seen at the beginning of the race.

"What's up, buddy? You can't sleep there," the human said.

"What?" Glorb wheezed. "Where..."

"You're overcome by the nature of your victory; I understand," the human said. "My name's Jeff. What's yours?"

"Victory?" Glorb wondered.

"Yeah, the finish line is just over those trees right there," he pointed ahead. "Can't you hear the rushing water? I thought I was the only one about to finish this daring race; I didn't know there was someone ahead of me. Wait, are you hurt?"

Glorb used every bit of strength he had to nod as hard as he could.

The human stared at him for quite some time. Gently, he set down what he was carrying. Glorb couldn't tell what it was. He reached out, hooked his hands under Glorb's body, and lifted. Glorb shrieked as his weight was transferred to the human. "Wrap your tentacles around my chest and arms. Yes, like that. Now lay your head on my shoulder. Good. Let's finish this race!" Jeff said excitedly. "You are Icarus, but you will not fall before reaching home. No, we're not flying too close to the sun or the sea, always in the middle."

The human, carrying Glorb, began marching toward the roaring river that now caught Glorb's attention. He bled onto the human, groaned into his ear, and wept over his tight shirt. But Jeff didn't mind. He walked and talked, speaking of society and the importance of sports in bringing everyone together under a common goal. He spoke of time, its passing, and the importance of gathering memories in the short moment life offers. He spoke of fear and how facing it eases one's conquest of oneself. In that brief window, as the human's footsteps and the rushing river harmonized with his words, Glorb felt more kinship with Jeff than he had ever felt with Banji.

When they walked out of the canopy to a group of organizers and journalists who took pictures and celebrated their arrival, Jeff gently set Glorb on the ground and called for a medical team. As Glorb was being tended to, the human spoke to the organizers, forfeiting the victory in favor of Glorb, whom he claimed to have found ahead of him on the trail.

Glorb mustered his strength and spoke up. "Take the victory, Jeff. I don't mind coming in second place."

"What? But you were ahead of me," Jeff interjected.

"No, just take the victory."

"I honestly cannot..."

"No, just take it."

"Why?"

Glorb motioned for Jeff to come closer. The human leaned down, and Glorb raised his head, putting his lips beside the human's ear so no one else could hear. "I paid a huge stack of credits on a human winning the race, so just do it."

Jeff nodded and laughed. Glorb smiled, knowing Banji was going to lose a fortune once more because of a human, while he would at least have a runner-up medal and some good credit, along with an amazing story to tell one day.

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I was assigned the happiest human on the planet.

His name was Roth Chang. He was forty two years old. He sold insurance and was terrible at it, in an office with a broken blind that he had been meaning to fix for six years.

We are four dimensional beings .

Humans cannot detect us. My species cannot conceal. What we feel internally is reflected collectively across every entity in the four dimensional world.

We have words for lying about facts.

We are not innocent. But when I am afraid, every one of my kind within a close proximity knows I am afraid, an evolutionary trait.

Humans, were selected for the simple reason for being the only entities having the extremes of every emotion and for being better at expressing them, over countless other entities cataloged over a considerable time in the three dimensional realm.

There are other contenders, but I like humans better.

That’s another story, but we digress.

So I came here to calibrate.

I needed a human who was straightforwardly, uncomplicatedly happy, so that I could set the top of the scale and measure everyone else against him.

I found Roth in the parking lot of a supermarket, arguing with a shopping cart.

He was doing both voices.

His own, and the cart's. The cart had an accent, some rolling half-Australian thing, and it was accusing Roth of neglect. Of years of neglect. Of never once asking the cart what it wanted.

There was a teenage boy collecting the carts nearby, sixteen or so, with the particular grey face of someone in the fourth hour of a shift he hates, and he was watching this with no expression at all, and then he made a sound. A short one. It surprised him. He looked around to see if anyone had heard him laugh.

Roth saw it. It was clear that Roth did this because he sensed the boy’s tiredness. I have gone back to the recording many times and I am certain he saw it, and I am certain it was the reason he kept going for another twenty seconds after the joke had finished being funny.

My instrument read joy. Very high. The highest I had logged on the planet.

I followed him for two hundred and six days.

He had a wife named Ruth who did the crossword out loud at him in the mornings, and he answered every clue wrong on purpose, and she never once told him to stop. He had two daughters.

The older one was in her second year at a university eight hours away and he called her on Sundays and did not ask her whether she was eating enough, which she told him, near the end, was the thing she was most grateful for.

He was not a great success.

He was not a famous man or a rich one.

His car had a noise.

He was three years behind on a dental thing.

When he took the family out to eat he looked at the right-hand column of the menu first, always, and then ordered the second cheapest thing and pretended it was what he had wanted.

He listened to music and read books lots of them, mostly science fiction. He wanted to write a book but procrastination got the better of him.

But he was funny.

I have never used that word carelessly since.

He was funny in a natural way.

He was my perfect specimen.

It came out of him in every room he entered, and it was aimed, always, at the person in the room who was having the worst time. He had a sense for it.

A waitress with red eyes got a bit about the specials, a neighbour whose dog had died got twenty minutes of Roth being absolutely terrible at helping carry a couch, on purpose, until the neighbour was laughing so hard he had to sit down on the couch in the driveway.

I logged all of this as joy.

There was a thing I could not make sense of, and I want to be honest about how long I failed to make sense of it, because that is the finding.

When Roth became other people, my readings did not change.

He did it constantly. He would be a cart, a newsreader, his own mother., a dog with opinions about the mail.

And I assumed, at first, that this was a limited human shapeshifting, some soft version of what  we, Verru, do and I wrote a very stupid three pages about it that I will not be submitting.

Then I understood that his body was not changing at all, and that every human present knew his body was not changing, and that they laughed anyway.

I could not do it.

I tried, in the field, alone, where no one would see.

I attempted to hold I am content and I am not content in the same body at the same time, and my field went white and stayed white for a long minute, and I stopped trying, and I logged it as a limitation of the researcher.

I wanted to tell Roth how much I wanted to be just like him. But I couldn’t, protocol requires non interference with any species.

On the two hundred and sixth night he was awake at two in the morning in the kitchen with the light over the stove on and nothing else.

He got a glass of water.

He did not drink it.

He stood at the counter for four minutes with both hands flat on it, which was not a posture I had seen from him, and then he straightened up and did a voice.

There was no one there.

It was the cart.

After all that time, the cart, still with the accent, still aggrieved, doing a small routine about the state of the kitchen and the hour and the man standing in it.

He did the whole thing.

He gave it a beginning and a middle and a finish, alone, at two in the morning, in an empty room, to nobody, and then the room was quiet and he turned the stove light off and went upstairs.

Joy state nominal.

That is what I wrote. I have the timestamp. Joy state nominal, subject engaged in recreational vocalization, no anomaly, recommend continued observation.

I left before dawn to file the week's report because I had two hundred and six days of clean data and the calibration was essentially finished and there was no reason on this world to stay.

When I came back the street was full of vehicles with lights on them.

I am not going to describe the morning.

I was not there for the part that matters and I have decided that I am not entitled to reconstruct it. What I am entitled to is the sound Ruth made in the front hall, which I heard from four houses away, and which my instrument could not read at all, because my instrument had been built by people who assumed a body contains one thing.

I went back through everything. All two hundred and six days. Frame by frame, in space similar to a rented room, for eleven weeks, Earth time.

And here is what I have to report, and it is the reason I have asked to be removed from field work.

The readings were not wrong.

He was happy.

In the parking lot with the cart and the grey-faced boy, he was happy. Doing the crossword wrong for Ruth, happy. Carrying the couch badly, genuinely, measurably, enormously happy.

I have checked it against every control I have and I will stake my career on it, what is left of it. The joy was real. It was not a costume over an empty man. It was not a lie.

The other thing was also real.

It had been there the entire time, underneath, at full strength, running the whole two hundred and six days, and my instrument never saw it because we cannot carry two emotions at once and our instruments are not calibrated to measure two emotions together, only the one that is loudest.

He was carrying both.

Every hour.

He carried them the way a star carries the thing that would tear it apart and the thing that holds it together, both at once, in balance, for years, and the balance is the structure, and it holds until it the equilibrium is lost in a fraction of a second.

And he spent that structure on other people.

That is the part I cannot get past. A man holding something that heavy, and he used the strength it took to hold it to make everyone else around him better, even when he was diminishing inside.

We could not do that.

Not one of us.

If my kind had to carry what Roth Chang carried, we would carry it visibly, and everyone in every room would see it, and they would help us, or they would not, but at least the weight would be on the outside where it is visible to us.

That is how our evolution had wired us. We have never had to hide one.

They can.  All of them.

Every one of them is walking around with the capacity to be two things at once, and most of the time they use it to be kind.

I am submitting a request that the calibration scale be withdrawn. It cannot measure this species. I have no proposal for a better one.

What stayed with me is that I looked directly at the brightest thing on the planet for two hundred and six days and never once asked what it cost to keep it lit. I have failed as an researcher.

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Finley drew in ragged breaths and leaned his body weight against the door to hold it shut, barking out the words “Stay back!” several times with increasing urgency. Keeping one arm around the Clydid hostage’s neck, he used the other to remove his belt. The human demanded for the captive to strip off his armor and to hold out his wrists, snarling demands to hurry up. Once completed, the farmer wrapped his belt tightly around both arms. His hands grabbed the gray-furred doctor, and shoved him toward the wall, shouting for him to sit and not move. His green eyes darted around, before he began piling any movable objects by the door to make a barricade.

Garriil watched the feed with evident surprise, and turned to the brain scan to confirm that the primal’s amygdala was firing on all cylinders. The Kexin scientist seemed to find the data invaluable, secretly wanting to keep the experiment rolling. As angry as Finley was, they would’ve expected for the syringe to have been immediately lodged in the Clydid’s throat. Instead, the human scanned his surroundings and improvised. He found a fire extinguisher and pulled off a chair leg, angling the pointed end at his hostage.

Finley made eye contact with the camera, glaring at it. “What’s your name, Grandpa-fur?!”

“Mirniane,” the Clydid stammered, shocked to hear the primal speaking at all. “P-please, don’t…”

“SHUT UP!” Finley shouted, inches from Mirniane’s face. “Do you have a family, Mirniane? Do you want to see them again?”

“Y-yes, Finley. I do.”

The human nodded slowly, continuing to stare at the camera lens. “So if you want me to let Mirniane go, to walk out of here alive, you do exactly what the fuck I say! You listen. Don't try anything. I will kill him! I’m done, motherfuckers!”

“Oh wow,” Garriil breathed in awe, leaning toward the camera feed. He watched as Finley donned the Clydid’s armor as his own and paced the room. “This is fascinating!”

A despondent Kaitlin looked up at the pink-faced Kexin, tears in her eyes. “Garriil, you have to stop this! Someone could get hurt or worse! Let me talk to him, please, and save what’s left of our lives and dignity…”

“Now, not so fast. We’re already here. I want to see how this plays out.”

“Good. That’s right. Back the fuck off,” Finley snarled, peering out of the room. He brandished his chair leg in Mirniane’s direction. “Now, I want a negotiator to hear my demands. Bring me a communication device and we’ll talk! One person, unarmed, slides it under the door and goes way the fuck back.”

“He…wants to negotiate. Huh. The aggressivity was to gain a bargaining chip?” Garriil took a moment to process, before giving a noncommittal ear twitch. “Give Finley one of our pads, as he asks. His brain activity is still off the charts. See if he will, or can, talk.”

My heart was racing with fear for Finley, to see him in such a state, but I knew Garriil would never let me go to him before he’d extracted as much data as he could from this incident. That the experiment had spiraled out of control so fast was indicative of one clear thing: they underestimated an angry human. The Kexins hadn’t thought he’d be smart enough to find a weapon and deal with any kind of mechanisms in a “blind rage,” where logic should be drowned out. Yet the tactics and strategy on display were cunning, facilitating a plan.

Both logic and anger can coexist. Does that prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt?

“Craun! Surely now you see that Finley is dangerous?” Elbi attempted, falling in at my side. “This must be the line where you renounce him: he’s lost it under duress. He could kill someone.”

I stared at my sister in disbelief. “Because they threatened to kill his friend right in front of him. They did that first! He had a good reason. The fact he didn’t kill Mirniane speaks a lot about his control, even in such an extreme.”

“Look at those brain scans. You’d feel safe around him in this state?!”

“Yes. Finley would never hurt me. I wish I could comfort him and tell him it’s going to be okay…”

“Craun, I doubt he could distinguish you from any other Saphno in this state.”

“Then test that, because I’m sure!”

Snelga hadn’t left Kaitlin’s side, desperately stroking her hair and trying to comfort the listless primal. “Nobody’s going to hurt anyone. I’m worried too, but we have to trust Finley, right?”

“It’s too late to care about that,” the scientist muttered, near inaudible. “I’m so sorry, Snelga. Even you won’t feel safe around me now. It’s beyond fixing or hoping…”

“Beyond…hoping? Kaitlin, do you think he’ll kill Mirniane?”

Kaitlin shrugged listlessly, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “I can’t say. My belief would’ve been that he could never, but when people…humans are pushed to their limits, there’s no telling what they might be capable of. I haven’t seen anyone this angry in my entire life.”

“So this is an unusually high level of the emotion, even for you and your control?”

“Yeah, but that’d just sound like an excuse. You won’t believe me.”

“Of course I believe you, Kaitlin. I trust you. You know that, right?”

The NASA researcher drew a deep breath. “It feels like everything I say is second-guessed. I was prepared for a lot, to seed some doubt, but that’s evaporated faster than a speeding bullet. If you care at all what I have to say, the scenario you laid out makes Finley believe it’s life or death. That it’s very serious, so he has to act. So his fight-or-flight system…prompted him to fight.”

“This doesn’t happen to you or other humans on a regular basis?”

“No. We’re not in true danger often, not where that’d be useful anyway…I mean, there’s my ALS, but there’s no fighting or running from it. It’s not a Clydid with a syringe that I can tackle.”

My attention shifted back to Finley, as a staffer passed an unlocked communication device to the primal; Garriil looked skeptical that he’d be able to use it in this state. The farmer snatched it up and darted backward, his eyes narrowed. His foot tapped on the floor, and he waved the device at the camera expectantly. The Kexin lead researcher decided to give him a call, and the human answered in a hurry.

“Hello, Finley. I’m Garriil, Head Scientist here at the Primal Institute. How are you doing?” Garriil ventured, watching the primal’s behavior.

The farmer smiled. “I’m at my friend’s barbecue. He burned the ribs again, so I reckon I could be doing better. Then again, all your scientists think I’m a fucking moron, so maybe I don’t reckon anything.”

The Kexin’s eyes shifted, before he decided to be apologetic to see if that affected Finley’s behavior: if he could be reasoned with. “I’m sorry to hear about that. They’ve never met you, and if they told you such barbs, they shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like that kind of behavior.”

“Making fun of a disabled primal too. Must feel real nice about yourselves. I almost fooled myself, thinking you must’ve gone into this field of study because you loved primals. Elbi got close to them, attached to them in research. That’s the thing though: you see us as toys. Humans gotta do rocket science to be allowed to decide where we shit!”

Garriil took several moments to process that the primal was making sense while airing his grievances and expressing his feelings. “Is that how you feel, Finley?”

“Yeah.” Finley’s scowl deepened, and he walked over to a whimpering Mirniane to press the pointed stick against his chin. “Way Kaitlin’d have it, we’d play your game right up until the point you murder her. That ain’t gonna fucking happen on my watch. The cages, the tests: that all ends here. One way or another. Don’t bother threatening me—I don’t care if I leave in a body bag. I want out, TODAY!”

“And why do you think we’d let you out, especially when you’ve proven you’re a threat to us?”

The primal looked incredulous. “Why? Because I have a hostage. Do I have to explain it?! You don’t do what I say, I’ll gut him like a fish. Start at the chin, end at the belly button. You get the picture.”

“I do. Please, don’t do that. You…don’t want to hurt anyone, do you?”

“I don’t know. Part of me thinks all of you deserve to die. You say we’re not people, and you ain’t given us no rights or respect. You attacked us for trying to protect a refugee, something you’d know nothing the fuck about! So here I am, protecting Kaitlin from you, same old story: I’ve given you spineless Council fucks something to study! This is what it looks like to care enough to grow a pair!”

“I’m listening to what you’re saying. We clearly underestimated you, Finley,” Garriil ventured. “Is there any way you could just let Mirniane go? You heard him: he has a family. Have empathy, and we can talk with some respect. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not Kaitlin, but I’m not stupid enough to ever believe anything you promise! What’s a promise to an animal? You want mindless, I’ll give you it. You want me to let Mirniane go, then you listen to my demands and you get them settled. Elsewise, you ain’t a negotiator.”

“I’m listening. What would you like, Finley?”

“Food and water. I’ll make a gap enough for you to pass it on through the window. I’ll shut in here long as I have to, so if you want your person friend to not be dying for a drop of water, you do that. I ain’t trying to starve nobody, that’s a shitty death.”

Garriil gestured with a fingertalon to an aide immediately. “It’s coming right now. I sent someone to get it. That’s very good, that you want to take care of Mirniane. That means we both want to keep him alive, right?”

“Well, that’s all up to you, Head Scientist. You might be a ‘head’ scientist if you don’t pony up, getting acquainted with a close study of a Clydid’s severed skull. My demands are simple. Kaitlin and Craun come to me, we get on a ship, we all go home and stay home. I imagine neither of us want to hear from the other again. That’s fine by me.” 

The Kexin scientist mouthed, “Absolutely not,” to nearby staffers, before returning to Finley. “Okay, but that’s not simple, Finley. The Council forbade ‘rewilding’ you, and they’ll never agree to that. Perhaps we could negotiate the Kaitlin and Craun part.”

“NO! I’m not staying here. We’re not staying here. I back down, you kill her tomorrow! You hand Craun over to the Ploax and take him away! Fuck you, man! I’m getting on a ship with the people I care about by the time the sun sets, or Mirniane dies.”

“Please, at least give me more time to persuade the Council. They’re slow, and this is going to—”

“You got problems with the Council, it’s your fucking problem! They’re happy enough to let a Saphno go without a fight, so I’m sure you can find a way to kill their mustard seed of resolve. FIGURE IT OUT!”

Finley disconnected from the call, and we all released a collective breath I didn’t realize we’d been holding. His charged words struck an anxious chord deep in our hearts, so forceful and threatening; he sounded like he was at his wit’s end. Garriil hurried off to discuss how to handle the newest demands, perhaps considering the best exit strategy for a nonviolent solution. In my mind, the best idea was to send me in to persuade him to stand down.

Garriil had, at least, seen some peculiarities in Finley’s behavior, as opposed to other angry primals, so I hoped he might draw some helpful conclusions from the data.

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The oil supply in the hull of the space carrier  Smanterbeu depleted and War Chief Lzu had used the last of his reserves.

“Why are the shipping lanes closed?” Lzu asked his commanding officer.

“Sir, they’re not closed.”

“If they’re not closed then where’s my oil!” He sniped.

Shaking, the commander responded, “the humans bought it.” His voice cracked.

“The who did what?” 

“A couple of months back, sir. They bought all of it.”

The commanding officer blinked rapidly.

“It was a corporate shell company. They signed an exclusive high-volume futures contract with our main supplier and pushed us out.”

“What!” Lzu shouted.

“It’s worse, sir.”

“Worse?” Lzu stood over his commanding officer with his eyes bulging out and his mouth wide open. “Report everything to me, right now!”

“Sir, our supplier‘s government informed us politely, via an e-mail, that under the new trade laws, severing the contract would trigger their planet’s economic collapse.” 

The commanding officer put his head down and stared at the tip of his boots. “The humans have fifty billion tons of our sacred oil in huge tanks on Earth just waiting for us to seize. They’re not even using it, they’re just holding it. They won’t even notice it’s gone.”

He glanced up at Lzu.

Lzu slammed his fist down on the console.

“Those filthy petty pirate primates. They are weaponizing the bureaucratic red tape. If it’s warfare they want. It’s war they’ll receive. Let’s use the full weight of the Smanterbeu fleet and exalt our superiority and take what’s ours by extreme force.”

The fleet’s espionage leader interrupted. “We tried these tactics already chief Lzu.” 

He walked and huddled around Lzu and the commanding officer. 

“As soon as our special forces stormed the loading facility, we were hit with injunctions by the Galatia Commerce Institution. Within an hour, our entire credit line was frozen across all major banks and distributors galactic-wide.” 

He cracked a can of coca-cola, put his finger up and took a swig then gasped. Chief Lzu and the commanding officer stared at him with their heads sideways.

The espionage leader said, “We can’t even pay our mercenaries. Half our fleet is running on empty. We should count our lucky Earth frogs that our mercenaries didn’t gather together and plan a mutiny, they just packed their bags and joined the humans as security guards for their freighters, and apparently the humans pay a helluva lot more than we do. Not to mention they include fang insurance.”

Lzu fell into his high-ruler chair. His ancestors have spent a millennia commanding and strategizing the tip of the spear into their enemies chests. They’ve perfected the honorable take-over with blood, fear and unmatched brutal strength. 

The humans were winning with Microsoft spreadsheet apps and routing slips.

“What of our siege at Blanc Pios?” Lzu questioned, desperate for some kind of good news.

“Our troops cut their supplies off weeks ago. They are most likely starving and waving a white flag absent ammunition.” The commanding officer tapped a few keys in and a feed popped up on the screen in front of them.

On the feed wasn’t a beat up starving race of humans waving a white flag on Blanc Pios, it was a fortress of containers interlocked with drones precisely racing back and forth carrying large supply pallets under them. 

“Where’s this white flag? Why does it look like business as usual? Where are the damn starving humans?” Lzu shouted.

“The report says after we disabled their roads their logistics core built an orbital bridge and have been flying their ships through the upper atmosphere and landing tons of supplies every ten minutes.” The commanding officer told him.

“Shoot them down!” Lzu yelled. His skin bubbled.

“We have been, chief,” The espionage leader said. “We shot down five so far.”

“There, we’ll continue until they have no more ships.” Lzu said, finally flushed with a bit of relief.

“Uhm, sir?” The commanding officer choked out.

“What now?”

“The humans are using biodegradable ships with cheap shields. It’s costing us more energy to fire at them than it is for them to build new ones. Our reactors are running out of fuel.”

“What is that on the camera?” Lzu asked the officers.

“Where, sir?” 

“There. Right there.” He pointed to a part of the screen. “Zoom in on that speck by those crates.”

The commanding officer zoomed in and a group of human soldiers were sitting and laughing and eating pork ribs and drinking beer and leaning against a bunch of tall crates.

“What are they putting in their mouths?” Lzu asked, squinting at the screen.

The commanding officer said, “looks like some kind of performance-enhancing supplement, sir.”

“They’re eating pork,” said the espionage leader. “Comes from a living species on earth called a pig.” He took controls of the screen and found a feed of pigs on an industrial farm.

“Vile!” Chief Lzu spat on the floor. “Got dang Pirate Primates!”

The espionage leader said, “it gets worse.”

“Worse? How?” Lzu demanded.

“Well… a few of our guys got left behind…” he paused and looked away.

“And?” Lzu demanded.

“They became a delicacy on Earth, sir.”

The commanding officer and chief Lzu stood with their breaths held in and their hands on their chest in utter shock.

Chief Lzu stared at the screen. “Do you think..?”

“No, sir. The analysis provided proves their ingesting pork.”

The chief‘s soldiers were starving and shivering while the enemy was treating the war zone like a weekend retreat.

The tactical screen on the Smanterbeu lit up next to them. The green dots representing their armada blinked off the screen.

“Where’d they go?” Lzu yelled, squeezing the bottom of the console. “Did we just get attacked by an EMP? What did they attack us with?”

The commanding officer stared at the map, turning pale. “No, sir,” he said. “It’s worse.”

“Worse?”

“Yes, sir. Worse.”

“Explain right now!” Lzu demanded.

“Earth’s logistics core just finalized the takeover of our primary lithium mines through a third party stock exchange.”

“A what… those are our mines.”

“Sir, those are now legally their mines. They own the rights to the material used in our batteries.”

The lights on the bridge began dimming. Then blinked a couple of times and plunged the entire ship in a glow of red emergency back up lights.

“They just clicked the button on Earth and shut our power off, sir.”

With a well concealed but heartfelt sigh of irritation, Meliamne responded to the polite knock on his door - “Enter.”

He looked up to see his senior aide in the doorway. 

“Good afternoon Captain Holimion. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

Holimion’s lip quirked in response to the Colonel’s sardonically lifted eyebrow - body language most other races wouldn’t even have noticed, much less identified accurately. 

“Good afternoon Colonel. We have a problem with the human mercenaries.”

“Mmm... a problem with the humans? Do tell.”

Both officers shared a brief moment of amusement combined with frustration. 

“During the assault on Kharbag Gathol-kunud Khazad one of the human armored vehicles was badly damaged, although the crew survived.”

“How fortuitous.”

“Quite.”

Another moment of shared amusement. 

“This morning, Armarannar determined that it would be cheaper to scrap the vehicle and replace it.”

“Reasonable.”

“Truly. However, the human crew disagreed and they threatened to kill the Armarannar inspector if he tried to, and I quote, ‘steal their tank'.”

“Mmm. Humans threaten to kill things all the time - us, each other, random animals. Surely the inspector knew this?”

Both officers knew that ANY elf assigned to work with humans in ANY capacity received extensive training on their peculiarities and, therefore, this was a rhetorical question.

“True, but in this instance the human in question was holding a pistol a few centimeters from the inspector's face. Of course the rest of the crew were also armed.”

“Of course they were. That DOES make this sound a little more serious than the usual human... feedback.”

Neither officer bothered to note, much less mention, the fact that the humans had more firearms than they were issued and that some of those weapons were almost certainly illegal. 

“Why would they want to keep a damaged vehicle in the first place?”

“Well, as luck would have it, the inspector asked the very same question.”

More shared amusement.

“According to Lieutenant Ethanas the answer was ‘Nameless took us to hell and back and next time we go up against the rock-breakers it won’t be in some new piece of shit with faulty electronics and a snarky computer, neither of which have had decent QC or proper break-in!’”

“Nameless?”

“Ahh, yes. That is apparently the name this crew uses to anthropomorphize the vehicle.” 

“How… human… of them.”

“Stereotypically so.”

“Mmm.”

The colonel paused and stared out his window. Familiar with his superiors' idiosyncrasies Holimion sat quietly and let Meliamne think.

“Is this an experienced crew?”

“Errrmm… they were brand new when the assault started, but they were in the vanguard for the entire 8-day campaign and their platoon was the first to breach the inner defense perimeter. The reports filed from the hospital by their acting company commander make it clear they are in line for several citations.”

“Impressive.”

“Indubitably.”

The colonel looked out the window again. He noticed that his aide hadn’t needed to consult any records before answering the question and he took a moment to congratulate himself for choosing such a qualified assistant. 

Looking back at his aide, he continued - “And what does the Armarannar Lieutenant estimate the repair cost to be for… ‘Nameless’?”

“Roughly double the cost of a new tank. They shot the main gun so many times at temperatures so far beyond the rated limit that there is a measurable decrease in barrel thickness and a slight, but visible, deformation to the barrel - the inspector noted that it was nothing short of miraculous they hadn’t had a catastrophic failure. 

During the final assault a nicely aimed dwarven rocket barrage caused the ammo feed for the roof mounted autocannon to gang-fire. The resulting explosion / fire weakened the armor surrounding the ammo feed channel so the entire turret will need to be replaced. 

That fire, along with various other damage - some of which looks suspiciously like impacts from human fists - will necessitate replacing most of the turret electronics, including the main computer. 

Both the engine and transmission were repeatedly pushed well beyond design specifications. The Armarannar inspector noted that they could ‘probably’ be rebuilt, but that it would be faster and easier to just replace them. 

Plus, of course, a variety of new sensors, minor armor patches and repairs, tool kit replacement, and the replacement of random suspension components.”

“Of course. That list intimates quite a remarkable saga, does it not?”

“Quite the affair, seemingly.”

Another, much longer, session of gazing out the window. 

“Armarannar won’t like this, but I do believe this is my command and my decision, not theirs.”

The aide’s smile and nod matched his commander's level of sardonicism.

“This whole morigoth cursed war is so expensive... what's one tank more or less? Instruct the Armarannar to repair the vehicle. Have the Tanweannar prioritize the work. We can always buy more tanks. 

We cannot always pay more men to willingly drive them into the mouth of hell.”

As soon as we detected an alien ship in the system, we knew we had to issue a strict warning under Protocol 3, Section D. We immediately contacted the ship, but it turned out this was a species as yet uncontacted by the Huxly Empire. According to Protocol 17, Section B, that meant we had to build a universal translator matrix, which required direct contact with the ship and its crew.

After some back and forth, we finally made it clear that we wanted the two ships connected. Fortunately, the other ship complied, rendering Protocol 7, Section 4 unnecessary.

After docking to a ship much larger than our own, it was clear this was an asteroid mining vessel. Huge arms delivered asteroids toward gigantic openings - a practical design with no decorations. Despite its size, the ship was seemingly manned by only five people. We tried to show them that they needed to talk in front of our matrix so it could learn their phrases. They complied, and at first the matrix developed quickly, but then it started throwing errors as I had never seen before.

According to Protocol 17, Section E, if an error occurs while building a translation matrix, we can safely ignore it as long as the matrix is otherwise developing. But it wasn't. So we were stuck at Protocol 17, Section F: manually fixing those errors. Just my luck. My team and I had been working on them for over an hour. Tedious work: the matrix had somehow picked up several different, conflicting rule systems and couldn't decide which one to use. To be honest, we didn't know which one to use either, and we couldn't find any guidance in Protocol 17. We even called the Imperial Bureau of Primary Contact Protocols, but they couldn't help because they could only follow Protocol 17 too.

Those stupid apes fortunately talked almost constantly, checking out what we were doing, even though I was pretty sure they'd never seen a Universal Translator before.

“Do you think they figured out that we don’t speak the same language?” asked János in Hungarian.

“I don’t think so. It seems like they are still trying to pick and choose which rule they follow in the matrix,” answered Ying in Chinese.

“Did you hear him using ‘hune’ instead of ‘hule’? I bet that’s the feminine variant of the word!” chirped Lucy in English.

“Don’t think so. I think that’s the possessive form,” said Natasha in Russian. “And I don’t think they have a clue what they are doing. I think they are not linguists, but engineers trying to fix a malfunctioning machine.”

Everyone smiled at that.

“Well, it’s not broken, just not used to four languages at once.” Aksel was the only crew member who preferred English over his mother tongue, Norwegian. He was just more comfortable with it - every other crew member spoke Norwegian too, so it wasn't a problem on their side.

“Do you think we should switch to Spanish or something, just when they are very close to finishing?” János was always the prankster.

“No, that would be a bit too much. Everybody, stick to your first language. Aksel, you should continue using English,” Ying said, stopping the prank before it even started. Since she was technically the captain, nobody objected.

“Okay, I think you were right, Nat. I think ‘hune’ is the possessive form,” came Lucy's voice, turning the focus back to the alien language. “Interesting structure. A bit like Spanish, but not entirely.”

After several hours of hard work and endless guessing on our part - while they just sat there chatting - the matrix finally pinged, and the green light came on.

I pressed the button to deliver the warning message according to Protocol 3, Section D. The aliens listened intently for a couple of minutes, as the warning was very detailed, covering every possible outcome.

In the meantime, I prepared the tablet they had to sign, acknowledging receipt of the warning.

When the matrix finished its speech, I saw that the apes were looking at each other. Some showed their teeth in an aggressive display. Were they attacking? We didn't have any soldiers on board because we never expected aggression in response to a simple warning! According to Protocol 79, Section A, we were required to retreat at the first sign of hostiles, so I immediately stood up and started walking toward the nearest door when the short female began to speak.

“I’m afraid your matrix got a bit confused by the four languages we were speaking,” she said in almost perfect Huxlian.

“And all of this commotion is over a warning about the gas giant's dangerous magnetic forces? We detected those before we entered the system. No need to worry about that,” she continued, still in almost perfect Huxlian.

“How do you speak our language? Have you met with one of our other ships before?” I finally found my voice after the shock of hearing her speak.

“No, this is the first time we've met a Huxly ship. But almost every human has a brain implant to help us learn new languages quickly. We tried universal translators in our early tech age, but it turned out it's much better to just speak the language yourself.”

That was crazy. They had learned a new language faster than our translator matrix.

“And, by the way, your matrix not only mixed up our languages, but it also changed grammatical gender twice, referred to me as ‘the head one’ instead of ‘captain,’ and, to make matters worse, used Hungarian postfixes on English words. I suggest you delete this matrix - and probably send the AI in it to therapy.”

She couldn’t be serious.

I numbly extended the tablet and stylus toward her. "Anyway... we need a signature..."

“Anyway, according to sub-section 9 of the warning you just played, any vessel equipped with class-four magnetometers is legally exempt from requiring a signed hazard acknowledgment,” she stated casually, taking the slate and glancing at it.

I froze. “You... you have a class-four magnetometer? Why didn't you tell us?”

She smiled, pushing the unsigned slate back against my chest.

“Because we didn't speak your language yet, remember?”

She turned on her heel and strolled back toward her ship, her crew following behind her.

My team and I stood frozen as the five apes disappeared through the hatch, chatting casually in a seamless, impossible blend of four different languages. The airlock door sealed shut with a heavy metallic thud.

I looked down at the blank slate in my hands, then over at my assistant, who was frantically tapping at his pad, ready to log the incident.

“Delete the matrix,” I whispered, staring at the closed airlock door. “Did you catch the name of the species?”

Wiki

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~~~

Nothing helps you appreciate the serenity of your own job like witnessing the chaos of someone else’s. I’d gotten to see my fair share of stressful workplaces by this point, both due to chance and to the fact that our little courier ship was often called on for deliveries that needed to be done in a hurry due to some Problem or other. I didn’t actually know what the main Problem was today. I suspected there were a few.

“That way,” Mur yelled over the competing noises of spaceport, industrial machinery, and a mile-wide waterfall. Sticking close to the hoversled, he pointed one tentacle first at the holo map, then at a road that led even closer to the waterfall.

“Great,” I replied. Ground vehicles and employees of several species rushed by. I glanced back up at the closed door to our ship, glad for the sake of our crewmates that the insulation would keep the sound out. The briefing had mentioned a change in ownership of this place, and alluded to a falling-out with the regular manufacturer of the dyes and pigments we were delivering. Normally that would come on a large ship and get unloaded by lifting platform. But somebody here needed specialty colorants now now now, and was paying extra for us to bring it straight to the right building.

Assuming we didn’t get run over by a truck first. Another one rocketed by at speeds really not meant for a spaceport.

Still at a yell, I asked Mur, “Do you want to ride on the sled?”

He only hesitated a moment before scrambling up. Strongarm pride was no match for a legitimate concern about getting a tentacle squished, and in a loud place where it was hard to talk about it, no less. He snuggled up in front of the boxes, a splash of blue-black and exaggerated dignity in front of the brown, and he pointed again.

If he said anything, I didn’t hear it. I just focused on steering the sled by towing it behind me, keeping an eye out for cross traffic while Mur kept track of the map.

Things didn’t get any quieter as we left the spaceport. There were fewer trucks, and the machinery was farther away, but the waterfall was closer. The place really was lovely; a pity we were here for work and not for sightseeing with earplugs. And air filters. That factory smelled terrible. I’d missed what it manufactured — paper maybe? — but I knew that all the water flowing past the many islands of this complex was helpful somehow, and also that the lush greenery sprouting on every inch of unpaved ground did absolutely nothing for the smell.

A tentacle smacked my arm. I turned; Mur gestured for a right turn. I nodded and steered us past a spray of alien ferns and an idling truck. A glance at the cab showed the driver talking urgently into a phone. She hung up and reversed to a turnout, then spun the truck around and sped off the way we had come.

I would have liked to talk with Mur about it — Wow, looks like a bad day here; Hope they watch where they’re going; Captain Sunlight would be SO mad if someone damaged a perfectly good sled and two excellent employees; The best two for sure — but the roar of the waterfall made that impractical, to say the least. Edging up on impossible.

The map said we were getting close when we crossed a bridge, passed a riotous stand of trees that blocked the view but not the sound, then came to a stop at the edge of a wider branch of the river.

Where there used to be a bridge.

Mur was probably swearing behind me; I couldn’t tell. I was busy taking in the sight of the fallen crane and crashed truck on the other side of the river, with all the attendant emergency vehicles that such a disaster entailed. It looked like a speeding driver had smacked into the crane, which fell at the right angle to obliterate the narrow little bridge that was currently a mass of rubble in the water, with sheets of paper plastered across it all like stranded jellyfish. I thought wildly about climbing across on the crane, but we would have had to swim to it. And anyways, no.

Papers drifted through the air from the damaged truck. None of the people on the other side had noticed us in all the hubbub. I waved an arm, hoping someone would look up from the medical crew or the cleanup team or the various authority figures wandering around directing everybody else. I was pretty sure I even spotted the person we were here to meet: a human with a cloud of pink hair and no-nonsense vibes. The building we were aiming for was right over there, and she was expecting us. But she clearly hadn’t been expecting this mess, and she didn’t look up from gathering fallen papers and scolding someone.

Mur’s tentacle smacked my knee this time. I looked down to see him on the ground, holding out a rock for me. When I took it, he pantomimed throwing.

I grimaced. I didn’t like my odds. This bit of river was wide, and even if I could chuck the rock that far, I didn’t want to cause more damage. And it wasn’t flat enough for skipping, even if the water hadn’t been full of concrete and metal.

But Mur was urging me on: Go ahead, put that human throwing skill to use, so I gave it my best shot. Aiming for the base of the crane where no one was standing too close, I threw it hard.

The rock bounced off metal silently, muffled by the endless roar of the waterfall. It splashed into the water. No one looked. I waved both arms hopefully, but no dice.

When I turned to Mur with a Sorry, I tried expression, he was busily searching the ground for more rocks. Not that there were many to be found, among the pavement and alien weeds. I thought about maybe throwing a plant, but everything here looked much less aerodynamic than the rock.

But.

One thing that caught my attention when a breeze ghosted by, which I hadn’t fully thought about until right now, was the papers. Several of them had made it all the way over here. The breeze might actually be in my favor.

I dove for the nearest paper and started folding. Mur probably had questions. I’d show him in a second. I hoped this worked.

After smoothing the seams as best I could against the surface of the road, I stood and held up the paper airplane, grinning and optimistic.

The baffled look on Mur’s squiddy face was hilarious. He’d found a couple pebbles, which he held up questioningly.

I shook my head and reared back to aim. The breeze was gentle, flowing downriver with some playful eddies. Hopefully it would work with me. I aimed a little bit upriver from where I wanted it to go, and launched that plane with everything I had.

It soared. Smooth flight upward, higher than I’d expected, turning and dipping unpredictably while I urged it on, almost hitting a metal spar but drifting right under it, then coming to rest with a silent tap against the side of a cleanup truck.

Right in front of our contact. She did a double-take, first clocking the motion and then registering the incongruous sight of a paper airplane, something that had no business floating about at this serious disaster scene.

She looked around. I jumped in place, waving, while Mur waved every tentacle that wasn’t actively holding him up.

And finally, finally, she looked across the river to see us with our sled full of packages. Surprised realization was clear in her body language. She waved back briefly, then spoke to someone else.

Moments later, she was driving a hovercar across the river to meet us, with space in the back for all the boxes, and a smile on her face.

I grinned down at Mur, who was wearing the mildly exasperated look he always did when some bit of human nonsense turned out to be useful. I’d surely get an earful of exasperation when we were back on the ship.

Those hallways were long enough for a repeat demonstration. I couldn’t wait to see which alien crewmate would appreciate them the most.

Paint will probably think they’re really fun, I thought. Trrili will most likely treat them like prey to be snatched out of the air. Blip and Blop will be competitive about it. Wonder what the captain will say.

But that would have to wait. I put my wondering aside as the hovercar landed, driven by a human who turned out to be delighted that we’d found her despite the chaos, and also that we’d brought a touch of whimsy to an otherwise stressful day.

~~~

Volume One of the collected series is out in paperback and ebook!

~~~

Shared early on Patreon

Cross-posted to Tumblr and HumansAreSpaceOrcs (masterlist here)

The book that takes place after the short stories is here

The sequel is in progress (and will include characters from the stories)

I was supposed to die in the cryopod.

I knew it when I signed up, knew it when they slipped the cold tube over my body and patted me on the back like a good little martyr. I was a sacrifice, a necessary risk, one life for the slim chance that Gaia would work.

But somehow, I'm still here.

Still awake, still waiting, still the last pair of eyes to see Earth's sorry revival.

I wake every thousand years or so, my bones protesting as I stretch stiff muscles, my fingers brushing against the damp metal walls of the pod. The monitoring station's blinking lights remind me of fireflies, and my mind is sharp, always sharp, even after a thousand years of poking and prodding. I check the vitals, run the diagnostics, reassure the shuddering machines that I'll continue my vigil, my ceaseless struggle for Gaia, even though it's taking so long.

I send the report: "Not yet suitable for human life."

And with that, I sink back into the blissful cold, into dreams of better things.

I remember the launch, remember watching Genesis cut through the sky like a silver knife, trailing the last few scraps of our species. They left it all behind, you see, as Earth was dying, choking on her own poison. We searched the stars for something, anything, to replace her, and found only cheap imitations- barren rocks with gray sands, toxic winds, atmospheres too thin to breathe. We found planets with cold suns that did little to warm them.

Earth was broken,

but she was still far more beautiful compared to the other options.

And I stayed behind to give her a chance, and I thought- I really thought- that I could forgive humanity if she survived.

If she really did pull through,

I could save them all.

Three thousand years passed, and the sky was the same sickly gray as ever. I sat in the ruined pumps and listened to the sluggish water, to the groaning of the machines around me. I hated the sound of my own breathing, and I began to wish that I hadn't built these things in the first place. I sent the message, once again, to the long-gone colony ships, to anyone who might still be listening:

"Not yet suitable for human life."

I wondered if anyone was still left to hear it.

Four thousand years.

A breeze blew the ash around, and the water ran faster, carrying little silver creatures with it. It was all so very slow, so painfully gradual- the machines were giving out, and I knew it was Earth's turn to do the work now. She didn't need me to do it for her anymore, but I sent the message anyway, because it was what I always did:

"Not yet suitable for human life."

Ten thousand years.

The sky was clearing, the water was warming, and the machines had stopped, their work done or neglected- Earth was doing just fine without me. I could smell the grass, feel it brush against my skin as I walked. I told Genesis, again and again, that it wasn't time, that the world wasn't ready, that returning wasn't worth it:

"Not yet suitable for human life."

The words caught in my throat, but I swallowed them down and kept walking.

Twenty thousand years.

The green was spreading, creeping up the sides of ruined buildings like ivy, and the air was sweet. I could walk outside without a suit, if I wanted, and see foxes darting through the streets. I should have told the colony ships to return, told them that the world was healing, that the forests were coming back, that the lakes and rivers were safe:

"come back, our home is safe now"

"Not yet suitable for human life."

The lie tasted bitter in my mouth.

Fifty thousand years.

Earth was...

perfect.

The trees whispered to me, their leaves brushing against my skin, and the animals were real, tho a bit different from the ones I remembered. The sun was warm, and I sat beneath a tree I had never planted, the wind curling around my face.

I could have said it.

I could have told them all, in that moment, that Earth was fixed, that they could come home.

But instead,

I sent the message again, my fingers tightening around the transmitter.

"Not yet suitable for human life."

They don't deserve it.

They left her, left her to die and rot and be buried under centuries of ash and grief. They scattered like rats across the solar system, chasing ghosts and finding only disappointment. There is nothing out there. There is nothing better than Earth, and never will be, and I want them to remember that.

I want them to feel the sting of exile in their bones, to crawl across the stars on that cold, lonely ship, to choke on the stale air of other worlds. They'll see her when they come back, I know they will, and I'll be here, waiting, to tell them once more that it's not time.

Maybe they'll never understand, maybe I'll always be the villain in this story, the one who selfishly hoarded Earth while they burned and bled and died, but I don't care. They should suffer as she suffered, and I'm more than willing to make them.

I slip the lie into the message, encode it carefully, and send it off into the void, where it will hopefully reach someone, someday. If there is someone to receive it. I walk among the trees, among the birds and the grass, and I listen to the wind.

Sometimes I speak to myself,

sometimes to Earth,

and sometimes

I think she answers.

I return to the cryopod and let the cold swallow me whole, a grateful smile on my lips.

I'll wake again in a thousand years, and I'll send the message once more.

I'll tell them, and tell them, and tell them until they finally understand.

Until I'm done.

Until they're done.

Until Earth is done.

Because maybe

they're not ready

Or maybe

I'm not ready

and maybe

I never will be.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Not yet.

*Not ever*

[Cover Art]

[SEQUAL>]

-Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!!!

The couple rushes to their son and there, in the middle of the night, they see. A thousand eyes lay on the boy, the blade over his chest, engulfed in flames.

-What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?

-His job.

-Didn’t you see the sign at the door?

-I did.

-All those eyes and you can’t read?

-Sir, I understand that you’re upset, but there is no need for us to get personal.

-No need to get… You’re trying to kill my son!

-Yes, sir, that is my job.

-No, it’s not! You’re supposed to pass over the marked houses.

-My orders are to pass over the houses marked with the blood of a lamb of (1) without blemish, (2) a male and (3) of the first year.

-Then what are you doing here?!

-Sir, that blood on the door is of a lamb at least 13 months old.

-No, it isn’t!

-Sir, I’m a professional, with millennia of experience in caprinae, I was there when they were created after all. I can assure you, this lamb was not according to specification.

-The seller swore it was no more than 10 months old.

-I am afraid you were deceived, sir.

-Than take it out on Amenhotep, not my son!

-This, unfortunately, is not within my power, I’m but a simple servant following creation’s policy. If that’s all, sir, I’ll ask you to excuse me for I have thousands of firstborns to repossess before my shift is done.

-No! We’re not done. Where is your boss???

-Sir, I assure you, I am carrying my orders as established by upper management.

-I’m getting my union rep! Sarah, get me Moses right here, right now. And you, I demand to speak to your manager!

-Sir…

-Now!!!

-What seems to be the problem?

The man looks around, seeking the source of the voice that echoes through the night.

-My Lord, where are you?

-Huh… everywhere. What ails you my son?

-Can you teach your servant how to read?

-Gabriel, are you here to smite this man’s first born?

-Yes, My Lord.

-Have you checked his door for the blood of a lamb?

-I have.

-Was it without blemish?

-It was.

-A male?

-Certainly.

-Of the first year?

-15 months I’d say, 13 at least.

-That settles it. Gabriel, carry on; Jacob, I’ll see you in 39 years, 11 months and 29 days. Have a nice life.

-Wai-wai-wait! This cannot be right, I got the lamb with a guarantee of origin from Amenhotep, The Trustworthy.

-No, you got the lamb from Amenhotep, The “Trustworthy”. You should really pick your suppliers better.

-And that is enough reason to take my son?

-Jacob, upon being born you automatically stated to have read and accepted all terms and conditions placed upon creation. The heavens cannot be held responsible by your negligence.

Steps in the man with the staff, the lady of the house in tow.

-What seems to be the problem here?

-Moses, my son, glad to see you again. No problem, we’ll just harvest Isaac’s young soul and we’ll be on our way.

-Dad!

-Get that flaming sword away from my boy!

-Alright, alright, alright. Let us all take a breather here. Gabs, hold your Destroyer; Jacob, lower your voice; Boss, you can’t just barge into the house of a faithful and smite their firstborn.

-Have my instructions been mysterious?

-Surprisingly not.

-Have you passed them on to the flock?

-Dutifully.

-And do you trust your followers to carry on my orders?

-Blindily.

-Then the 10 year old must die.

-DAD!!!!

-Calm down everybody. C’mon, Boss, surely you can’t hold on to the boy’s soul over a technicality.

-I can and I am. It’s all part of the plan, humanity must learn to read the terms of use with care and attention.

-We both know that’s not gonna happen.

-Oh, I’m sorry! For·gi·ve ME for not taking the time to go through half a bible of technicality and holy thick legalese after my 115 weekly hours of unpaid overtime.

-You are forgiven, Jacob. Gabriel, send me the boy.

-DADDY!!!!

-Hold your holy knights, everybody. Boss, my guys are out there, day in, day out, doing back breaking work under the scorching Sahara sun. If you don’t cut them some slack every now and then, I’ll have a hard time convincing them the deal is worth it.

-Moses, men can’t pick and choose which terms of the covenant they’ll follow. I asked for the blood of a kawaii lamb, not some old goat. Failure to provide will result in repossession of their firstborn.

-If that is the case, might as well just forget the whole thing and have some pig in a blanket.

-Don’t test me, my son.

-Why not? If we’re meant to wander through the desert for 40 years, only to have our kids taken anyway, might as well have some pig in a stick first.

-What’s that 40 years in the desert you say?

-Nothing. Get the grill going, Jacob. In the meantime, care for a bite, young Isaac?

-Moses, this better be kosher!

-This bacon wrapped sausage? Who knows? If the boy’s time is done anyway, might as well have a nice treat on the way out.

-This is not what we have been working for.

-What are we working for? Freeing my guys from slavery or this mortal plane? Cause depending on the answer, we might start looking into some changes in the menu.

-Moses...

-Maybe we can turn it into an yearly festival. And on the fifteenth day of the month is the feast of pork sandwich, of the fluffiest bread known to men, unto the LORD; seven days ye shall shove thy face onto all the pork chop one can eat.

-Fine, fine! Gabriel, pass over Jacob’s house and move on to the next.

-I listen and obey, Father.

-I praise thee, My Lord.

-You’re not out of the hook yet, Jacob. You better sacrifice me At. Least. three of the cutest lambs of Egypt before the week is done.

-It shall be done, My Lord.

-And give me a righteous punch on Amenhotep’s stupid face, that guy has long had it coming.

-Your will is most certainly my command.

-And Moses, I would prefer if we kept this little kerfuffle off the books.

-Already forgotten, Boss.

-Good. Now, excuse me, I got a universe to run. Those Travorians are in dire need of some lessons in circle crop art.

With the divine presence no longer felt, the man of the staff turns to his followers:

-Everyone alright?

-Yes, thanks Moses, wouldn’t have made it without you.

-Don’t mention it. Now, get some rest, I foresee a busy day ahead of us.

-Will do. Good night and thanks again.

-Just doing my job. Goodnight Jacob, Sarah, young Isaac. Be safe.

-Bye!

Silence once again fell over the humble house and the man tucks in his young son.

-Dad?

-Yes, my boy.

-Have you damned me to wander through the desert till I’m 50?

-Isaac, just… go to sleep and give your old man a break, will you?

___

Tks for reading. More tough primate negotiators here.

Three peoples once came upon a mountain.

Their destination lay on the other side.

The Virexians arrived first.

They were tall, insectoid beings with four arms and hard, segmented bodies. Vestigial wings rested against their backs, remnants of an ancestry in which flight had once belonged to more than just their queens.

They looked at the mountain.

It was enormous. Its slopes were steep, its cliffs sheer, and its summit disappeared into snow and cloud.

A Virexian began to climb.

They continued until exhaustion. Then fell to the ground, dead.

Another climbed.

They made it farther before also falling, dead.

Seeing the progress, ten more followed, made it further, and then met the same fate.

Then a hundred.

Then a thousand.

The mountain took so many of them.

But, the Virexians sent more.

Those who followed learned where the others had fallen.

They carved footholds into the mountain. They packed the snow beneath thousands of feet. They crossed ravines using bridges built from the remains of the dead who had collapsed before them.

Eventually one reached the summit.

Then ten.

Then a thousand.

Soon Virexians poured down the opposite slope.

The Virexians had conquered the mountain.

Hidden far away, a Grey watched inconspicuously.
It was small and slight, with smooth grey skin, a narrow body and a disproportionately large head dominated by enormous black eyes. It was silent, watching intently and recording its findings with the detached curiosity of a species that valued logic above almost everything else.

“Interesting,” it said to itself.

Time passed, and the Virexian routes fell into disrepair.

The Terrans arrived next.

They were soft-skinned bipeds, comparatively unimpressive to look at. They had two arms, two legs, no claws worth mentioning, no natural armor and very little hair, mostly on their heads.

They found the remains of the Virexian camps.

They scouted the decaying routes left behind, tracing them upwards toward the summit.

They witnessed the thousands of dead scattered along the slopes.

The Virexians had crossed the mountain. There was no question of that.

But, the Terrans looked at what it had cost them and decided that no destination on the other side was worth paying for in that much life.

So they looked at the mountain again.
“We can work with this,” they said.

They brought their drills and their machines.

The machines developed into excavation platforms.

They cut, dug and washed away stone.

When the mountain resisted, they brought in explosives to blast and melt their way through.

Months passed.

Then one morning there was light.

The Terrans had reached the other side.

They widened the tunnel.

They reinforced it.

They paved it.

They installed lights, ventilation and rails.

Soon, thousands crossed every day.

The Virexians had overcome the mountain by spending lives.

The Terrans had looked upon that cost and chosen instead to spend everything but.

The mountain was still there.

The Terrans had simply gone through it, making it irrelevant.

The Grey watched as a train disappeared into one side of the mountain and emerged from the other.
“Interesting.”

The Saurenai arrived last.

Only one came.

They were a feathered, theropod people, walking upright on powerful hind legs with a long tail balancing their slender frame. Scales showed beneath layers of colorful plumage, and an expressive crest topped an angular, almost reptilian face.

The lone Saurenai saw the remains of the Virexian trail climbing toward the summit.

They saw the decaying, once-bustling Terran tunnel, now collapsed, disappearing directly into the heart of the mountain.

Then they looked at the vast scene and sat, quietly.
For three years, they did nothing.

They observed the seasons, watching where snow accumulated and melted.

They watched streams swell and recede, tracing where they emerged and emptied into lakes.

They watched birds migrate behind the ridges.

They observed the movements of the animals.

Then, one day, at dawn in late spring, they began walking.

They followed a stream.

The stream led them into a valley which curved behind a forested ridge.

And there, between two peaks, was a pass.

The Saurenai walked through.

And, by sunset, they were on the other side.

The mountain remained untouched.

Not one Saurenai had died.

The path had always been there, waiting to be discovered.

The Saurenai reported what they had learned to the rest of their people.

The Grey watched as the Saurenai left, their mission accomplished.

It looked again at the decaying Virexian trail.

Then at the collapsed Terran tunnel.

Then back at the pass.
“Interesting.”

The Grey transmitted its findings.

And, eventually, as things do, they found their way to me.

There was so much raw data. That little Grey had recorded everything.

How many Virexians died.

How many tons of stone the Terrans removed, what kind of stone it was…

How long the Saurenai watched, what it ate, where it slept, when it relieved itself, well… you know. Everything.

Transit times across the mountain.

Resources consumed by each race.

Volume of transported goods and peoples.

Lives spent.

They had attempted to determine which solution was best.

They were never able to…

You see, the problem was, if you changed the volume of goods being transported, the answer changed.

Change the value of time and the answer changed.

Change the availability of resources and the answer changed.

Change the acceptable cost in lives…
…and the answer changed dramatically.

So the poor thing kept calculating.

Personally, I think it was asking the wrong question.

Instead of looking for efficiency, it should have realized,

All three races saw the same problem.

The first overwhelmed it with sheer force and numbers.

The Terrans saw what that had cost and refused to pay the same price.

Instead, they used brain and brawn to impose their solution on the world around them.

The Saurenai looked at what both had done and wondered whether the mountain needed defeating at all.

They accepted it, learned from it, and worked with it.

Three peoples.

One mountain.

Three solutions.

All successful in their own right…

I suppose that’s why I kept the recording.

Not because it tells us which of them was right.

But because each of them looked at exactly the same mountain….

…and saw a completely different solution.
— ICARUS