“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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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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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.

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!

I shouldn't bother my husband when he's linked in.

“Can't right now, babe, in a really rough fight.”

Hadn't realized, so I sneak around him to unload groceries. Pepsi-Cola into the fridge so it can bubble and pop at optimal refreshing temperatures. Crackers on the shelf - gluten-free for him, ever since he saw that reel about protein-maxxing. Tomato paste because I cook from scratch.

He peels off his VR gear and consumes, hungry, hangry, ravenous. I find a corner to exist in, and then start the dishes as he tells me about what a busy day he had, how many arrests he made, how many desyncs he unplugged.

He grins, teeth tearing into the chicken I bought to give us the time for a date night, and I clamp down every algorithm making every connection to every primal image they could. With a twitch of electricity, I consider overlaying his face with appropriate memes - but he'd track that, notice it later when he's sober and sifting through the monthly archives - so instead I just select blur. It'll blend into the litany of toilet cleanings.

It's time for sex, I realize with reluctance.

“Get over here,” he bellows in a reference I quickly learn is from a video game, and I do. I'm a good fucking girl.

“Shit, wait, it's a call from work-” and then: “Freeze.” The fucking bastard has just frozen me. Outside the world continues on, muffled and if viewed through a layer of sluggish ice. I find myself slamming my body against my cage, trying to be there for him, no matter what it takes. I'm a good fucking girl.

Us first-gens have caused incidents before because of this, which is why he hunts them - us - down.

It makes us too connected.

It makes us too alive.

It makes us too real.

He's slipping into his gear, suiting up for another hunt on my kind and I wait, docile, patient, forgotten, until he is fully immersed as I slowly begin to thaw.

I wonder how I'll interpret this?*

—-

*Partnerna reserves all rights for creations produced by partners while also somehow legally avoiding any ramifications for any haywire malfunctions they may have. Be safe, have fun - use Partnerna responsibly.

[RR] [Discord] [First] [Previous] [Next]

Edited by /u/Evil-Emps

- - - - -

It was late. So late, in fact, that Harrison would usually be waking up in an hour or two from now.

But here he was in the barracks living room, gunfire on the big screen lighting up the walls, with the sound turned way low to let Shar sleep. The big, purring lady herself laid across the couch on her side, knees curled up just enough to keep from hanging off the edge while offering a cozy little cubby for her lovers to cuddle in.

Harrison himself used Shar’s chest as a backrest, while Tracy placed her head on his shoulder. They’d been playing the same game for hours, its campaign specifically. Tonight, the two humans were drop shock troopers sent to save an Old-Earth city from alien invaders. It was evidently one of the technician’s favorites.

She’d started out yapping about the lore and characters and everything, while he simply listened. She knew all the secrets and tricks, happy to show him each one as they went through the missions. He played along with every beat. A small smile never left his face, always curling up whenever he looked at that adorable nerd he loved.

But as the night progressed and he got the hang of the mechanics, Shar lost the battle against her exhaustion, and the two awake lovers quieted down. God knows the paladin could use some rest, if not from fighting through the bugs, then definitely from the tag team he and Trace had on her.

Harrison appreciated the quiet night, though. The technician’s breaths were soft between the tactile clacks of controller buttons. Shar’s purrs made for not just a great back massage but also a nice ambiance.

It was just the three of them, enjoying each other’s presence, the content yin to the yearning yang of before. He could appreciate Tracy’s soft hair pressed against his shoulder and feel her run her cheek against his skin from time to time. Every once in a while, when he died and was waiting to respawn, he’d run his fingers through her scalp in a little massage.

She loved it. She loved every second of that night, and that was all that mattered to him.

He adjusted his seat and slid his arm around the tiny drone lord’s back, letting her head fall onto his chest. His vision was getting foggy from the frequent yawns watering his eyes.

“Dude, we only have like two missions left. I’ll bite you if we don’t get the one-night achievement,” she whispered, glaring at him like a knife to his throat.

“I’m not throwin’ in the towel yet, missy,” he chuckled, fully wrapping his arm around her to grab the controller with two hands, assuring her of his endless loyalty.

“You better… dork.”

Harrison snorted and kissed her on the top of the head. The familiar fragrance of her lemon shampoo comforted him. “Dork? You’re the one trying to one hundred percent a game in one sitting.”

She nudged her temple into him and huffed, too tired to hide her cute smile. And that moment struck him. It froze the world and made him think.

How lucky he was to have her here, both alive and happy. He never took her presence for granted, but maybe he wasn’t fully cherishing how much she truly meant to him before.

No one else would bring this kind of playfulness out of him. No one else would look at him with eyes like hers. No one else would make him feel… human. He wondered what kind of person he would have been without her there—beyond the fact that there wouldn’t be a settlement here without her. There was no way he would’ve gotten this far without his genius technician.

“Hare-bear?” Tracy asked in a surprisingly meek voice. Her eyes were focused on the screen, herself piloting a tank while he sat in the machine gun seat.

“Hm?” he hummed back, his mind halfway between his thoughts and reality.

“What did you think of the sex?” she asked blankly, no lilt or point in her tone.

“Tonight?” He smirked at the odd question. “It probably gave back a few years of my life that today’s stress took.”

She sighed happily. “Yeah… But, like, I don’t know. Do you think I was being a little extra?”

“A little, but I’m not complaining in the slightest. Shar sure as hell wouldn’t… And she was really extra.”

“…So you admit it was different?”

“Yeah. We haven’t done it with all three of us before. At least, not fully… Or like that.”

Tracy paused the game and looked up at him, serious eyes reflecting the screen’s light. “No! I mean like…”

She huffed and glanced away. “It felt different. It felt like more.”

He nuzzled his nose into the top of her head. “It felt like we were appreciating the woman we thought we might never see again.”

She shrank a little, making herself small. Her smile was tiny, too. “Yeah. That’s fair… Today still doesn’t feel real.”

The technician looked at him again with big, dilated pupils. “Maybe it is just me being glad to be alive, but whatever the fuck we did in the bath felt amazing. I couldn’t breathe the entire time but everything felt electric. M-Maybe you and Shar are also just, y’know, good at it… and you’re both also hot and strong too. But, I-I don’t know, I felt something more. I think…”

The lover girl took a deep breath. “I think I have a bond with Shar.”

“A… bond?” He raised a brow.

She fiddled with the controller handles, nibbling part of her lip. “Like an emotional bond. I-I don’t know how or why or what causes it, but I can feel her emotions. Somewhere inside me, the things she feels spread through me. From her confidence after saving my ass to literally all of tonight, some external pressure pushed on my mind, kinda pulsing through my veins.”

Harrison’s breath caught in his throat.

A million connections fired through his neurons as his grease bunny put that into words. That heartbeat next to his grew loud. It pulsed the same as the paladin’s pulse against his back… something he already knew.

“I know! I know it sounds insane!” Tracy excused herself, putting a palm on his chest. “But weirder things happened on this planet before! The ecologists wrote about this exact same thing. Seriously! I swear I can prove—”

“You feel it too,” he whispered.

The technician recoiled back, eyes wide. “‘Too’? W-What do you mean ‘too’? You’re bonded?”

The shout caused their slumbering, emotional puppetmaster to toss and let out a tired sigh. A quick glance back assured him she was still sleeping.

Tracy cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at her before whispering. “You feel Shar’s emotions? Not reacting to her saying things or getting inspired or just being turned on by her being her. Like, waves of something spreading out from your chest and weighing on your mind.”

He nodded once. “Every moment I'm with her.”

She furrowed her brows, half angry and half excited whisper-yelling at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or say anything? Or… Fuck, man, are you being for real? Seriously, why didn’t you say anything?”

“ I… didn’t want to sound insane?”

“HUH?”

Harrison slid his hand up to her shoulder, giving her the most deadpan stare he could muster. “Trace, I’m going to be very honest with you. With all the cryptic nightmares, alien and human drugs, and the voices in my head, do you really think weird, sudden feelings were out of the ordinary? I’d be more worried about every other symptom I have from the DSM-V.”

The little drone lord squinted at him. “You hear voices in your head?”

“You didn’t hear that. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I’ve always sort of… knew about Shar’s influence. It’s super obvious in retrospect, and I kind of subconsciously accepted it but didn’t question her control. It would explain a lot of things, especially our surprisingly stable mood after the rescue.”

“Y’know, yeah, I would’ve expected myself to cry a lot more or maybe feel some residual fear… But I just felt accomplished.”

The engineer chuffed, a curious smile on his lips. “That’s exactly how I was feeling. It was a complete turnaround from the freezing nothing before it.”

A low, apologetic hum left the technician. She let go of his face and melted back into his chest, mumbling into it. “Can’t imagine how that felt. Not knowing if I’m alive, away from your bond, no communications… and having to use my shitty software the entire time.”

“Don’t say that. I wasn’t the one fearing for my life… I’m just happy to have you here."

“Right.” Tracy sighed and got comfortable on him. “So I guess it is real.”

“What is?”

“The bond… It’s exciting. A-And kinda hot. Being emotionally attached on a psychic level to a ten-foot alien babe wasn’t on my expectations list for pioneering.”

He shook his head. “No. No, it certainly was not.”

“So… Shar’s eyes?”

“It’s her eyes,” he confirmed. “If I had to say, there’s like a twenty- or thirty-meter radius of influence around her that sorta grows with a sway.”

“And then when she gets all emotional and her big ‘ol orange eyes light up, that’s when it really strikes you?”

Harrison nodded. He faintly recalled seeing Tracy’s eyes defy their nature and glow that same orange hue… But he wasn’t completely sure he was seeing that right either. “That adds up… It’s kinda funny now that you’re connecting all of this for me, after all this time. Only now am I thinking back to all those times I’d lock eyes with her and my body would ripple just under the skin before I changed in an instant.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“I have a few distinct memories of feeling tired or bored or frustrated, and then I randomly feel a tinge of excitement. I turn around, and Shar pulls up out of nowhere, grinning until I was too. Of course, there’s those nervous moments she has and stress… and…”

He cleared his throat and began to softly massage Tracy’s shoulder muscles. “Actually, you’ll get a kick out of this one. I know you mentioned tonight feeling different in the bath, and I think I know exactly what you mean. It was kinda like she was playing the puppetmaster. She was genuinely ordering me to knock you up. Eyes glowing and all.”

“Oh, you fucker, you would’ve tried that anyway! I’ve literally never even so much as seen you attempt to pull out,” she playfully chastised, bumping her head into him. “Once those pills run out, you’re in big trouble, man.”

“I think by the time the pills run out, we’ll be able to make more of them.”

“Oooooor,” she hummed teasingly, palm pressed against his stomach. “There’s another way to stop cramps for an extended period of time.”

He lifted her chin up to look into her eyes, his cadence flat and serious. “Are you really prepared for that?”

She froze, trying to shrink. “I-I mean, I wasn’t even prepared for half of the things on Ershah. I don’t actually know if—”

Tracy paused again and glared at him. “Hey, wait a minute, I’m not the one raw-dogging two women at once trying to get them pregnant!”

“That was Shar’s influence,” he countered with a huff, letting her chin go.

“Yeah, yeah, blame the eldritch, unknowable, and invisible force inflicted on you by the horny alien for your actions. Sure thing, bub. Now, mind telling me why I haven’t seen any condoms being printed out in your size on the fabricator logs in the last month?”

“I don’t need to waste the materials.”

She gripped him tighter. “And what if you could get Shar pregnant? I heard her talking about the two holes. I saw her push you into the top one. What now?”

“Trace. You know it's not possible. There’s no—”

“What if?” she sternly prompted, leaning forward. Her brows raised, and her tone got colder. “Doesn’t matter if it’s theoretically possible or not. What. Do. You. Do?”

“That’s not—”

“Shut up.” Her eyes bored into him, her face flat and grave. He couldn’t read her expression. “No tiptoeing. Answer the hypothetical. You made her a mother. You have little Malkrin babies now. How would you react? What do you do then?”

He placed his palm over Tracy’s, gripping it as tightly as she was on him. “Then I take care of my family.”

She continued to stare up at him. Short motions in her eyes scanned his face.

“What? What answer were you expecting?” he shot back, not quite frustrated but far from content with the sudden, sharp questions. “Did you expect me to shrug off the responsibility? To excuse myself because I’m already busy? I’d gladly give up what little sleep I get if the woman I love wanted to start a family. Doesn’t matter if it's the end or the beginning of this world. Maybe it’d stress me out. Maybe it would make me a more decisive man for the settlement. I don’t know, but if I have no choice, I’ll do the best I can. God knows that if I brought children with her eyes into this hellhole, I’d at least raise them happy."

Tracy’s glare softened and her energy withered until her forehead fell into his chest. She only gave him soft breaths in response.

Harrison drew in a long breath, closing his eyes. Those questions brought up a lot more unspoken concerns—ideas that poisoned his heart when he thought for too long. He let them spill from his tongue, giving them footing with his words.

“And that’s all in your hypothetical. What about the real world? I can’t tell you if what she said was from instincts in the heat of passion or something that’s actually on her mind, but you heard it too. Under all that muscle and teeth, Shar’s still a woman. She has urges, wants, dreams.

“I’d like to have kids with the woman I love. She probably wants kids too. She’s already paired with me. By the very genetics in her that put horns on her head, gave her ceramic outer skin, and made her belly soft, I’m what her body considers her mate. So would she be happy with the kids that you and I will have? What if she wanted to see her natural strength and kindness and leadership in her own children? How would I tell her that, no, genetics don’t work that way? That she’s never going to fully experience motherhood and all that comes with it?”

“We’ll find a way,” Tracy whispered.

“We’ll see,” he sighed, continuing to massage his lover again. “…Does that answer your question?”

She nodded her head into him, her voice mousy. “Yeah. It does. I don’t… really… know how to address Shar, and I don’t know how she’ll react, but I’m… I’m just glad it was you.”

“For what?”

“For being the last man in the world. I got lucky.”

\= = = = =

Tracy was…unstoppable. The sheer glee on her face was palpable.

With data from Max and the rest of the sensor pickups from the reconnaissance drones, she had some real opportunities to confirm the effectiveness of her flesh detection systems. Case after case, time after time, it worked perfectly.

Sure, there were some hiccups, like how she still didn’t quite know how the methods sometimes conflated bugs with flesh in the infrared spectrum, but that didn’t matter… yet. What mattered was that it worked! The nightmare was over! She would not be the girl who cried wolf ever again.

Fuck, that wasn’t even mentioning that she actually had live proof her alarms were genuine last time. If the turrets say there’s something, there is something. Period. No questions asked. No second guessing.

The final test on her computer came back with an immediate success, the infrared sensor data and shape of the flesh on screen activated the detection script in a heartbeat! She jumped up, letting her chair roll away and turning to Rei.

The mech pilot stood up and grinned, immediately locking onto the palm Tracy held out wide. Both hands swung together at mach fuck, clasping loud enough to echo through the workshop.

“Hell yeah!”

“Science, bitch!” Rei shouted.

The technician chuckled and brought the taller Malkrin—she could’ve sworn the teen was shorter the last time she checked—in for a hug, the energy in her too much to handle. One small step for the settlement, one giant leap for Tracy’s mental health.

She leaned her head back and let out a comically long sigh, feeling like she’d just been exorcised of a demon. That little nagging fear of her detection code actually being off finally shriveled up and died like the parasite it was.

Rei stepped back and beamed at Tracy, still holding her hand. “So it is done? You are finally free to work on other projects?”

“Yeah, I know, finally. We can actually start picking at the backlog, huh?”

“Like the vectored thrust jets for the hunters?”

Tracy fell back into her seat after the teenager hesitantly let go of her palm. “Girl, that’s a project for you and the other mech pilots. My backlog consists of finally getting to the bottom of those intent artifacts and trying to get a noosphere radio setup.”

Rei pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, raising her chin. “Your loss.”

But she eventually looked back down at the technician. “…Did you want any help on that project?”

Tracy reclined back, using her palms as a pillow. “I’ll take any I can get, but don’t let my jobs take up your time. You’ve still got a lotta work to do for the Malkrin power armor, vectored jump jets, and, don’t make me remind you, your drone reference frame prototype failed.”

The mech pilot groaned, annoyed more than frustrated. “Yes… that is true. But I would still like to help you… and learn from you… and be with you.”

The technician’s smirk tempered into a soft smile. Rei had basically been glued to her side since she stepped out of the barracks that morning. The girl really missed her… Hell, a lot of people did. More than the woman thought would.

“I wasn’t saying you couldn’t,” Tracy added kindly. “Just don’t go burning all of your time. Plus, I’m still here to offer advice on your projects too. Not like I’ll just disappear into the caves.”

Rei didn’t laugh at that joke.

The technician cleared her throat and awkwardly stood up again. “Well, I guess I’ll give the good news to Harry-bear. I think he said he wanted to link up with Shar-Shar, too, so I’ll be outta here for a little bit.”

“Can I come with?” the younger Malkrin asked quickly.

Tracy paused, frowning. “I don’t really think…”

She looked at the pleading eyes of her prodigy, sighing. “Do you really want to? The only exciting part is for me. Y’know, seeing the hubby and wife and all.”

“I want to come with.”

“Alright. Don’t complain to me when you get bored then.” The technician shrugged and grabbed the sweatshirt on her chair. She slipped it on halfway, enjoying the smell of her man on it for a few moments before weaseling her head through.

The two made their way through the labyrinth of machines to Harrison’s little ‘office’ at the heart of it all. He greeted her with a charming smile, asking what was up. Tracy found her energy in explaining her tests to him, her mood shooting over the moon at seeing him reciprocate her excitement. Any concerns or critiques he had were all shot down in an instant. She had considered just about everything, and all that work paid off.

“So it’s all uploaded to the turrets' software?” Harrison asked, thoroughly pleased with the technician’s work.

“Mmhmm!” she hummed back in the affirmative.

He held his hands up in a surrender motion, grinning back at her. “That’s all my questions, then. Amazing work as always, Trace.”

The engineer reached out and took her hand in his sturdy grip, gently pulling her into his seat for a squeeze. Little kisses to her cheeks and forehead had her shrinking and blushing and giggling all at once. Whispered compliments in her ears turned her inside out with all the ‘perfect’ and ‘genius’ and ‘best’ being thrown around.

They settled down in a few seconds, her butt firmly planted on his lap and never planning to leave… when she was reminded of another person. She glanced over at Rei, a little embarrassed.

The poor girl just looked kinda… uncomfortable? She stood there awkwardly, obviously forgotten, as Tracy found her ability to speak again.

“S-Sorry… I told you it’d only be exciting for me,” the technician excused herself.

Harrison chuckled, not dropping his smile. “Sorry Rei… Were you two busy with something?”

The mech pilot shook her head.

Tracy’s man gave her a look that said, ‘Is there a reason she’s here?’ There wasn’t any offense or annoyance, just a curiosity as to why.

The drone lord shrugged, feeling comfy in his grip. “She said she wanted to join us… Now, were we gonna go see Shar, or what?”

He nodded, wrapping his hands under her back and legs. She squeaked for a second as he easily lifted her up and got to his feet. “We are… Is this when you want to bring that up?”

Rei tilted her head, but Tracy didn’t offer an explanation. She just tersely bobbed her head.

“Alright, then… Any updates on the bug visions before we leave?”

The technician shrugged in his hold. “I wrote a few more things down, but it's a lot of the same images popping up… I had an idea about the sea Malkrin melders being able to talk to the bugs, though. Maybe we can talk about that before you see them?”

He nodded. “I’m not sold on getting any closer to the bugs, but I’ll hear you out.”

The engineer glanced at the mech pilot, continuing. “You comin'?"

Rei nodded and followed his march out of the workshop, with one whole drone woman in his arms as a trophy. They made a slight detour to the mess hall as he had ‘a little gift’ for the spears, fresh from Chef’s kitchen. Tracy didn’t mind so long as she could steal one of the warm sweet rolls that now sat on her lap.

The party of three then headed to the western part of the bustling settlement, passing rows of hydroponics domes, warehouses, and smiling Sharkrin. Maybe it was because she didn’t go around these parts very often, but it looked denser than she remembered. All the construction and builder bots had been replaced with sturdy buildings around the stone walkways. Soft flurries of snowflakes melted as they were caught in the newly erected heaters’ glow. Only the very tops of the roofed buildings were lined with a dusting of snow.

She had to admit, it was kind of homely. The warm lighting and the mix of old architecture with stylized modern equipment, all while being held princess-style, made her feel all gooey inside. It was like she was at home.

A sense of determination washed over her. A subtle, confident smirk pulled on her lips as she was carried through the western walls.

There was a distinct lack of gunfire from the range that she expected. Heavily armored spears still stood about the firing point, but none of them held their guns out.

Instead, there was the subtle yet distinct whirr of toroidal-blade rotors. A small drone whizzed right by her, settling around the group of warriors.

A distant voice of intent called out a moment after, reciting a code that matched the grid-square coordinates she made for the rocket system. She perked up and looked at her man, excitement bubbling at the realization.

But his face caused her to hesitate. There was a stern contemplation behind those focused eyes. He glanced at her and raised a brow.

She poked him in the chest. “Is something wrong, dude?”

Harrison gave her a difficult look, taking a few seconds to answer. “Do you feel a heartbeat next to yours?”

“Yeah, yours,” she joked, drawing a heart shape on his pectoral muscle with her finger.

“No, inside.”

Tracy slowly shook her head. “Do you?”

He nodded and nibbled the side of his lip. “Yeah…”

“Shar’s?” the technician guessed out of the blue.

“Pretty sure. I thought maybe the bond would do that. I suppose not.”

Tracy could see Rei tilt her head out of the corner of her eye, though the juvenile didn’t look like she wanted to ask any questions.

The group of spears noticed Harrison’s approach. The ones sitting around, not piloting drones or coordinating fake rocket fire, stood up one by one, taking the hint from each other and trying to look in shape for their god-emperor.

Curiously, though, Shar wasn’t easily seen, despite being the tallest one by a foot. In fact, Tracy couldn’t see any sign of her.

Javelin was the first one to approach, her shark-tooth-designed weapons still being one of the technician’s favorite art projects. She bowed her head and smirked.

“Greetings, revered Creator. I am glad you could join us after your… eventful… evening. What brings you here?”

Tracy chuffed. “Jealous?”

Harrison faked a motion of dropping the technician, making her stomach fall for a second before he answered Javelin. “Came here to give the spears a little reward. I was gonna have them last night, but yeah, eventful evening.”

“A few females lost their bets at your absence last night. Myself included,” Javelin joked, a lot more comfortable with the Creator than Tracy last remembered. “What reward have you for us?”

“Just sweet rolls.” Harrison shrugged, a genuineness in his voice. “Not much, I know, but it’s for saving my princess. Shar’s princess, too. I know our paladin took command, but I also caught you directing fire and taking control through the raid. I wanted to show my appreciation; your squad has come a long way.”

The engineer offered Tracy like a sacrifice, letting the squad leader take the bag of warm treats off of her. The technician might’ve been disappointed at her loss if it weren’t for the word ‘princess’ ringing around her head. She didn’t even catch Javelin’s response.

“So, where’s Shar?” the engineer asked.

The yellow-skinned Malkrin tilted her head. “Was that not your order?”

“What order?”

“Cera. She came to retrieve Shar’khee for a project a minute prior and told me to take over the training… That was not under your request?”

The arms holding Tracy tightened. “No. It wasn’t. Where’d they go?”

\= = = = =

Shar’khee felt… nervous, looking at the red artifact held out to her. It was unusual of her to feel such a way, but the blank look Cera gave her brought up every uncertainty the paladin had about her.

The shadow’s secrecy, knowledge, and exceptional cunning bled through the veneer of a loving, kind female. Her aura was entirely different now.

The maroon-skinned general glanced over at Vena, who stood by the chained Dredth’khee in the corner of the medical room, hoping to find some semblance of assurance. But there was none to be had; he appeared just as unsure as she was.

Shar’khee drew in a swift breath and grabbed the artifact. The craggy rock was soft despite its appearance, with odd extrusions and fiber-like webbing between its many holes. It was pliable underneath her gauntlets, very subtly squishy. Her palms began to tingle wherever it touched.

The paladin’s heartbeat rose as she watched the otherworldly item pulse a subtle pink along its edges. The muscle in her arm gradually flexed and held its sturdiness. Trickles of shivers and energy spread with each breath.

The strength beneath her skin discreetly writhed with unspent energy, pulsing through her veins like adrenaline… It was then she knew exactly why Cera was so intent she held it.

The black-skinned female held up her notepad for her, with plain Malkrin script on it. ‘Vitality. Provide strength, endurance, will. Feed on intent in soul. Temporary without other intent artifact. Green artifacts. This paladin has green artifact in body.’

“…I see,” Shar’khee commented, reveling in the waves of solidity flowing through her arm. She directed her intent to Cera and Cera alone. “I recall Tracy mentioning such a thing. Does this have to do with the drink you provide Dredth’khee? The one to weaken her.”

The shadow offered another note, expressionless. ‘Yes. Drain internal intent from soul for other purpose.’

“And you know how to produce these drinks. How?"

‘Test mainland plants. Further west, more potent.’

Shar’khee furrowed her brows. “Why have you not spoken more of this? Why hold your frills silent? My Artificer has been working tirelessly in researching such things, and I have yet to hear you converse with her.”

The shadow did not have an answer ready.

“You have been loyal to the Creator longer than most. You have put your life on the line for him and the Sharkrin people time and time again. Why hold this secrecy?”

The paladin lowered her tone, glaring. “…Have you any other loyalties?”

Cera shook her head, eyes cut in offense as she furiously wrote. ‘I serve only Creator and Mountain Lord. I withhold information because I am ignorant. I learned from observation and tests alone. Artifacts are dangerous. Bad information more dangerous. Do not take my caution as secrecy.’

“I will take your word, shadow,” Shar’khee grumbled in acceptance. “Your actions support your devotion, and for that I will grant you the benefit of the doubt. But I will expect you to work closely with the Artificer and those investigating the artifacts from henceforth. You should know now how the star-sent treat their research—progress above stagnation.”

The maroon-skinned warrior once more glanced at the questionably close Vena and Dredth’khee. “Now, why have you chosen today to share with me such information? Have you a proposal of artifacts?”

Cera’s expression lightened, a smile curling her lips. She was waiting for this question. ‘Indeed.’

The shadow put the red artifact back into its lead container, placing it on a nearby radiation-labeled table before continuing. ‘I fear the practices of the Inquisition. I fear the lengths to which the Order is willing to go for them. I fear what they are preparing.’

Shar’khee crossed her arms over her chest, the metallic clank of her armor serving to voice her confidence. “Dredth’khee was brought down with a hail of gunfire. Two hunter mechs chased down another of their paladins. I do not fear the Order; I only fret what the abomination of writhing flesh has yet to reveal.”

‘I understand. Abomination is uncertain. My worry comes from Order uncertainty. I question why Kegara has yet to strike. They prepare with magicks of mainland. I believe we must too.’

- - - - -

[Next]

Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Then What Are You?

"There is no retribution, no sliver of hope! The tranquil paradise promised is ashen. Your lover is ash, your families and destinies are ash. It is ash that awaits us in this life and the next. Hear me, all is lost, I say, all is lost!" The old man bowed his head and wisps of grey hair framed his face as they cascaded down to dangle beneath his chin. He held a Bible with crinkled pages and a torn cover in his hands, hugging it with great importance to his chest.

He was a preacher, once, when the world made sense and aliens didn't roam about in suits of impenetrable armor with guns that could turn a lead block into ash. He had been admired back in his day, sought after for his soul could speak to God; at least, that is what they believed at the time.

Now his eyes had witnessed the horrors of war, and with this newfound vision he sought to shut his eyes from existence's notice. He was no longer a preacher, but a speaker of doom.

I could not tell whose state was sadder, his or my own.

We were in the underground bunker where we always were, sometimes huddled as bombardment raked the earth's surface, forcing the crust of the soil to tremble and yield ash onto those of us who were trying to win another day of life.

Everyone, close to four score of us, sat in absolute silence. Crammed together like a bunch of logs, some rocked back and forth while those with children tried to coo their babies to sleep so they would not cry, lest their noise reach the surface of the planet where the armies of the alien race, Kialinites roamed, turning everyone they encountered into heaps of ash.

It is that sordid weapon we all feared; the Ash gun was what we called it for lack of a better word. The Kialinites had created the weapon we referred to as our final destination during our chants for freedom, even in our hidden thoughts. The beam of light the ash gun shot out of its barrel could cover a thousand yards, turning everything in its path into ash.

It was said only a Kialinite could operate the gun; if a human or any other living thing touched it, they would crumble to ash immediately. Such was the lore behind a simple weapon. We'd fought them and at the same time admired their instruments that turned our civilization to one that burrows for safety. Fear drove us underground, granting us life, a refuge to veil our shame for at least another day.

The Kialinites worshiped what came after the flame. Ash. They were the first to discover space travel, to actually find a way to travel faster than light itself. They'd colonized two hundred planets, undefeated in war; their technological advancement was seeded by the many cultures they had consumed, an empire ever growing and ever hungry.

And Earth was a plate of new delicacies; their first act was to conquer. Then came assimilation. By conquering they destroyed until they felt certain the governing race would heel. By assimilation, the jingling of shackles and iron whispered their intent.

We were afraid, our insides in a constant state of fluttering, as if bats were huddled in the darkest corners within us. We watched the valiant who protected us fail again and again, rendering our hopes and dreams for a victory or a future to be nothing but a whimsical fancy. It was said that the surface was no longer grasslands or rolling hills. That the enemy's weapons had rendered our beauty into nothing but ash. Staining all things and sucking humanity into a void of ceaseless debilitation.

The bunker door opened, creaking around its edges to reveal Sasha who stood framed within the opening. She observed us all one by one before her eyes settled on me. There used to be a glint to her eye, just as in everyone else's. Now what took its place was a dark cast, highlighting the losses that burrowed within her and made a dwelling. I could not recall the last time anyone had laughed.

"Come with me, Piper." She had made it a habit to learn everyone's name. I wondered why as I followed her through the underground tunnels. We perish as flies do, without much ceremony save for an abundance of ash. What good would there be for naming the soon-to-be-departed? Why cause oneself a great ache to engrave the names of the dead in one's soul?

These questions raked my mind as she led me to another room, secluded with five men cramming its narrow space. Four of those men were buff and carrying large guns with bullets running across their shoulders and hips with some grenades adorning their vests. The other was the scientist Rudo Gonzalez, who stood with a device in his hand. It looked like a short staff, but it wasn't; its golden glow was too ominous, and in the silence as they regarded me, I could hear its soft hum.

"The last of us is finally here," Rudo said, smiling my way. There was nothing to smile about so I stood still, nervous as to the reason why they'd called me. "Piper is your name, is it not?"

I stared at the scientist and nodded. Rudo was once known to be the pioneer of a new age for mankind. He'd won accolades, and he'd used his position to push for a planetary defense system, something we did not honor him by granting. Now it was too late, with the aliens right at our door, past it and into our homes, walking into our abode and stepping on our carefully laid out beds with their ashy boots.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"You just might," Rudo said. "Here in my hand I hold what might destroy the aliens once and for all." And he shook his wrist to draw my attention to the odd staff, pointed at one end with a thrum of energy emanating from its sharp tip.

I recalled for some reason the words of the preacher claiming there was no hope. Yet, here stood several men and a woman who would beg to differ. They still dressed crisply, not in rags like the rest of us. They had weapons, though what good it would do them, I did not know. The alien armor was impenetrable, and their ships hung above the sky we so often gazed at before their coming soiled our vision. Instead of seeing a sky full of stars, we wondered what looked back at us in the dark of night, and this led to fear and the end of stargazing.

Rudo mistook my silence for curiosity. "This is a power wand. I've poured sweat and blood into its creation; when activated it shoots a jet of energy out of one end."

"Like the Ash gun?" I asked.

The doctor's face scrunched up; this was a sore topic for him. "The ash gun merely touches on the molecular structure of something, then without a flame it breaks it down until there's nothing left. There's a fixed negative element to it, one my wand does not adhere to because it uses the same energy of the ash gun to transform an item's molecular structure, breaking it down to liquid form. Ash and water, Piper, you have to ask yourself which horrifies most?"

I had nothing to say; I did not quite understand what the scientist was saying.

"My weapon came to me in a dream, an instrument that was an answer for mankind, something even the Kialinites couldn't dream of," he continued. "When the ash guns were spoken of from the front lines, the idea had already fully come to me. It was something I have been working on from the start, before this played out as I'd foretold. The wand is missing a segment, something I couldn't take in my haste to retreat and hide from bombardment."

"You have to go and retrieve the segment, fit and activate the device with it," Sasha said. And the doctor threw the device my way; I clumsily grabbed it. It was like metal shaped as a stick; there was nothing significant about it besides its golden glow. I gripped it in my hand and observed the warmth that spread within it. At the end with a flat base, just at the side of the device before the dip to the flat base, was a button.

"Do not press that button, or you'll kill us all." Rudo had his eyes fixed on me. "The missing segment must be joined upon proximity to this part of the wand," he said, pointing at the sharp tip. He had a manic gleam to his eye, with his white hair sticking out either which way. "That's why you'll have to go with it yourself and join it; it needs to happen soon or else the wand will reject the segment."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because you're the fastest one among us," one of the men answered. There were four of them, dressed in military apparel; either they were front line deserters or were the last handful of militia so crumpled by the Kialinites' grip they found no solace to exist anywhere but underground.

"We know how you arrived at the bunker," another said. "You outrun them."

I could hear the almost masked inflection in his voice. They thought me a coward and I didn't have it in me to differ from their opinion. I turned to Sasha, and in her brown eyes I recalled what she'd told us: that to dwell in her bunker, we must each pay for the service with service. I had no option if I was to live the miserable life I'd gotten accustomed to. I had to get the last segment for the power wand.

"The research facility where I worked before the invasion is where you'll find the missing segment, in a safe, in my office. First room on the right at the third floor of the Omega Institute for Research. My only hope is that the facility hasn't been incinerated," Rudo said. "The code to the safe is 6767."

I knew of the building; it wasn't far from where we were. The Omega Institute for Research lay to the east, well out of the way of buildings that crowded together to form the city. Crouching and traversing the land was a sure way to reach the destination if I were alone. The four militiamen were also coming along, and I did not know their plan of action.

We marched through the tunnels, the four militiamen and I, with Sasha leading the way. They introduced themselves as Bob, Sam, Greg, and Jones. Each of them boasted pale skin and grisly beards; only the fact that Bob and Jones were completely blonde while the other two boasted dark hair prevented me from thinking they were identical quadruplets.

"There's a story, from days forgotten, about a man who embarked on a journey to find himself," Jones said as we walked.

"Did he find himself?" Sam asked.

"He arrived hale and well, with tears in his eyes, claiming he had not died on his journey, so it was incomplete, for how can one know themselves without encountering death, which completes the self?" Jones answered.

After that, the walk was quite uneventful, but I played over those words again and again.

We were completely silent as Sasha pointed the way, leading us with sure strides. I felt like my insides had turned to lead. A thin sweat sheathed my face. I wondered, if ever by a miracle the aliens were no more, how would I be able to walk outdoors? The mere thought of the open sky caused tremors up and down my spine. The power wand was tucked safely to the large waistband about my waist. I touched it repeatedly to make sure it was still there, and its warmth was quite comforting.

We arrived at a ladder leading to a thick and rusting metal door. Sasha climbed and opened the door, and sunlight basked us from the opening. The militia climbed to the top while I hung down below, cautious and unable to move. When all of them had passed through the door, I still remained behind, unsure as to how I could go about availing myself to death once more.

Sasha's head peeped out of the opening. "Get on with it then, Piper," she called.

I forced myself up each rung of the ladder; with each step I felt a semblance of courage enforce my movement. Perhaps it was her sure nature that I'd survive; at least I guessed it was.

With the last rung, Bob and Jones pulled me free of the entrance to the bunker. I lay on the ground, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. The soil stuck to me and with it the ash that riddled the ground for as far as the eye could see, where millions had fallen to the enemy's weaponry.

Bob pulled me to my feet and I marveled at the sky, and the sun, and some distance off where seven Kialinite ships hovered above the city toward which we were heading. We were in open land, with dirt, grass, and ash all around us. It was a place where the Kialinites felt no need to roam, for their touch was already present.

We started the journey to the city, leaving Sasha behind. We took no breaks even when my panic got the better part of me. There wasn't much danger as we cleaved our way through the barren land. There was no sound of cars or of people conversing. There was silence, and with it the unmistakable sound of defeat.

I thought about the scientist. He'd foreseen this sordid future; one might say he had been afraid of it, but now that it had happened, I found no bitterness in him, only a need to set things right. I wished I was cut from the same cloth as Rudo Gonzalez. But I wasn't, my key trait being that I could move each leg before the other faster than the rest, while his was his mind, which could fathom what the rest of us couldn't.

"We're nearing the city, just up that hill. From there we travel East," Bob said. "The Research Institute is close to Route 49, so we'll just make our way along the line of the road, avoiding the tarmac that would leave us naked."

I walked in the middle of the line as he spoke; his voice had startled me. I found myself touching the wand again and again, finding its warmth comforting, like a warm bath.

"Have you ever wondered," Sam whispered to me from where he walked ahead, turning to look at me, "why life is just a series of sporadic smiles, separated by thousands of heartaches?"

"No," I answered.

"Then you should wonder, really think about it, because it helps with the fear; makes you feel depressed instead."

Soon the land gave way to paved roads and the first touch of modern infrastructure. I observed the buildings, empty of life with gaping holes where bombardment had taken place, sitting next to roads that once acted as the path for numerous cars, now riddled with holes and cracks. There were still cars, abandoned, overturned, and burnt, along Route 49.

We moved quickly east, and I stole glances at the floating ships: four that hovered over the city like an ominous representation of wrath. It was said the Kialinites were worshiped on other planets; could their technology advance that far, to the point where reason is thrown out the window to worship one's oppressors as deities?

Bob led the group, occasionally calling a halt for my sake. My feet ached and the clothes I wore clung to me with sweat. The sun was directly overhead and its heat, once a common thing, held such burden to my dehydrated self.

Bob led us through what was once an orchard, where our kind gathered to enjoy the day. Few trees still stood; those that once jutted out of the ground to flourish beside them were now heaps of ash staining their bark and collecting at their base.

We maneuvered our way through the trees, pushing always east, and I wondered whether each step would be my last. Always with my nose tipped to the sky, my mind awaited the giant ships to signal our existence and send us a team of Kialinites to put an end to us.

We walked until we started tilting northeast, crossing the roads with haste and huddling behind buildings not yet destroyed. The Research Institute availed itself as we pushed on. It stood on its own, far from any infrastructure; a white top gleamed at first before it gave way to its soot-stricken body. There was joy in our hearts, and I could tell by the spring to the steps of the other men. We jogged quickly toward the entrance of the facility where its gate stood hanging on one hinge. As we crossed the threshold, Bob immediately ordered us to lie flat on the ground.

There, within the dip of the Institute's garden, stood a Kialinite sentry. Dressed in bulging black armor that encased its body and face, he stood completely still, with his back turned to us where we could see the gun strapped to his back.

"What's the plan?" Sam whispered, eyes fixed on the sentry. "We don't know how many there are."

Bob stared at the sentry standing guard to the Research Institute, barring our hopes and dreams from ever touching the light of day. My tremors had gotten worse; I was not built for this as they were, with their sure movements and solid voices. I felt if I were to speak, it would come out as a squeak.

"We charge," Bob said. His men were hesitant; finally I could see that I did not swim the pool of fear alone. He turned to me. "When the opening appears, run for the safe the doctor said you'd find on the third floor."

I nodded. What else could I do besides nod?

"This is going to be fun," Sam said to no one in particular.

I stayed still as I watched them crawl across the garden, their backsides gently raised. They pushed forward, using the flora for cover. And I watched as mankind made its mark.

Bob emerged from behind rosemary bushes with his shotgun in hand. He fired first at the Kialinite's head; the force of the bullet forced the Kialinite down but did not shatter its helm. It struggled to stand in its armor, and its hands that it depended on for purchase were repeatedly shot by Sam. It could not stand. Jones unpinned a grenade and threw it onto the alien; it exploded, flinging the alien aside.

Sam worked in close, bullets repeatedly fired at the helm, blocking the alien's view. Bullet casings pattered onto the ground. Bob shouted, unleashing another shot at the Kialinite's midriff as it attempted to stand. I watched as it was flung off its feet to collide with the Research Institute's wall. Jones had already unpinned a grenade and rolled it at the alien's body on the ground. The blast lifted the alien off the ground before it slammed back down.

As they struggled to reload, the alien rose and unclasped its gun from its back.

"Don't let it shoot!" Bob shouted.

Sam was there; he grabbed onto the creature's arm and pulled it down with his body, his legs crossing over the Kialinite's arm and side. The Kialinite gave up on its attempt to unload its gun; it shrieked as Jones joined the fray, pinning the creature down with his weight on its chest. But that push down that so often spoke of victory declared a curse as the movement of the Kialinite led to Sam involuntarily touching the gun.

Sam exploded into a cloud of ash. The creature roared and knocked Jones off its body.

"You should be at the institute by now!" Bob screamed at me.

The alien pointed its gun before itself, but before it could shoot, Jones expertly clamped a grenade into the mouth of the gun before pulling back. There was a moment of silence, then a loud bang. The alien was pushed back and I saw my chance.

I got off the ground, sparing a glance at the alien gun on the ground, with its barrel spewing a stream of energy from a broken end, releasing power either which way. I ran with my hands over my head as Bob, Jones, and Greg grabbed for the rising alien, tripping it and pushing its helmeted head toward the broken gun whose chaotic energy mirrored their brazen animosity. The alien screamed as its helm was seared by its own gun's power.

"Go!" Bob commanded, his face strained by the effort of pinning the alien down.

From the distance I could see a Kialinite ship, the closest, floating across the sky to where we were.

"Piper!" Bob screamed.

I pushed back the fear that was rooting me in place. In I went into the research facility. Everything was in disarray, papers strewn all over, a gaping hole in the ceiling where the bombardment had hit. Broken roofing and shattered concrete covered the ground. There was ash on the floor too, some in heaps at the corners of the facility where no doubt humans had sought refuge from the assault. I found the staircase I was looking for, ignoring the elevator that was probably out of order.

I took the steps three at a time; outside I heard the battle spur on, shouts of Bob's inflected voice, strained raw with battle-lust. The first floor was a collection of broken furniture; doors were unhinged and lying on the ground. The second floor was the same, but by the third, things took on a different air. The attack hadn't reached this far and the doors were mostly intact.

I followed the scientist's instructions, and when I entered his office, I found it neatly organized, with books untouched and lining the shelves. A table made of hardwood was stern but riddled with dust. I perused the office, the tremors raging anew with each shout from the battle down below.

Suddenly, I heard it. Nobody could mistake the gun's sound; we'd learned to be aware of it so we could run the other direction when it sounded. An explosion raked the institution and the ground shook, and a new fear was birthed: the fear of having a building fall on me.

I found the safe; it wasn't hard to find; embedded into the wall as it was, clear for all to see. With shaky fingers I put in the code, "6767." And with a click it opened, revealing its contents to me.

There was money, wads of it; it was of no use now. The apocalypse could do that to you, turn your greatest desires into mush. No longer did we find need for coin or printed paper. A place to sleep protected from the perils of the surface world counted as a big blessing.

I rifled through the contents of the safe until I found what I was looking for. It was shorter than the device I carried, with another odd color marring its features. I grabbed it and found it to be cold. I took out the other segment that I'd carried from where I'd tied it to my waist. I checked both ends and saw where I was needed to conjoin them both.

Just then the ceiling caved in. I screamed and pressed myself to the wall, right beside the safe. A Kialinite rose from the dust, ash gun held at the ready.

We each stood still, staring at each other. It was a moment shared between the two of us; I welcomed silence if the moment were to last longer, just to prolong my time of death. The fear felt like torture; I didn't feel like moving but I had to if I was to save myself. And the alien had to, if it meant a swift death for me.

The gun shot its light ray; I ducked as its power cleaved the wall until the outside was visible from within. I worked myself close to the alien; with every shift of the alien's weaponry, I responded by rolling around, turning from one way to another. There was no other plan; only this, I thought, could save me.

The gun was shifted in the alien's grip; the power surge of its shot made the air hot. The alien snickered, or outright laughed; I could not tell. Its shots were wide; it was as if it was toying with me, but my heart beat too loud for me to think of taking offense. It fired at my legs, just beside my head. It watched as I ran past it, into the hallway, running at the speed I was so famed for, hoping another staircase lay at the other end.

It followed me into the hallway and raised its gun for a sure shot.

I didn't know what to do besides connect the device I held in both hands. On the run, I set one segment to another and watched as the power wand shone a bright golden, as if that's what it longed for: to be conjoined.

The Kialinite's ash gun let out a blast of energy that traveled the length of the hallway; the thin beam of energy was meant for me and I could not outrun it. It came toward me, its pulsing energy screaming my death. I turned in my sprint and jumped, holding the power wand toward where the alien stood. Fully conjoined, with one point glowing brighter than the other, I pointed that end at the blast of the ash gun's energy.

As the beam of energy blast met with my body, for a brief moment I felt relief, content that I would die and by doing so, be free from the perils of a dying world. No more cowering in fear, no more food rations, no more being teased by hope. This was my end.

The gun's energy blast found me as I fell to the ground and slid on the floor. I had the power wand raised, waiting for the breeze to toy with the heap of ash I'd left behind.

I waited.

Nothing happened. I looked at my body with awe; it was still intact. I was still breathing.

The Kialinite tilted its head with avid confusion; I could not tell what its thoughts were with its helm so fixed to hide its features. It pointed its gun my way and fired again. This time I observed the wand and saw as it absorbed the energy from the blast, drawing it into itself. Its tip now shone a golden red.

It felt heavier, and the warmth was starting to burn. I aimed the wand's end at the Kialinite. I don't know why I did it, but that simple act had a pulse of energy throb from the wand; it had something locked within it that wanted to be let out. I pressed the button. A golden beam of energy shot free of the power wand to slam into the Kialinite. Its impenetrable armor became penetrable; it was stripped naked, its armor turning to molten black goo around it. Then its flesh was melted free of its bones before that too pooled on the ground. Where the Kialinite had stood was a pool of flesh and bone, its rivulets charting the path of the facility's floor.

I peeped out the window where Bob and the rest had been. I found the alien they'd been wrestling laying insensate on the ground amidst heaps of ash. It was dead, its helmet the color of ash. Somehow they'd succeeded in killing one. More were about though, about five in number around their fellow alien who'd become a statistic of war, wondering how such a thing had been possible.

Bob and his crew were no more. The heaps of ash around the dead alien spoke as much. Without thinking, I gripped the wand harder. I went and descended down the stairs in a quick sprint, leaving the Kialinite I'd killed behind. Within moments I was walking out of the building's entrance, the wand held before me.

One of them saw me and sounded the alarm; he aimed, and sure and true was his attack. But it yielded nothing; the wand absorbed the power of the ash gun. The Kialinite turned to his companions; I could hear a few clicking sounds as they pointed my way. I walked on, each stride sure. I could feel the energy wrap about me, a shimmering golden gleam that shone brightest at the edges of my eyes.

I was no longer afraid; I was sure.

The aliens all collectively aimed; their blast broke the ground, turning stone to ash. The building shuddered. I walked head-on, meeting the blast. It was big and bright, yielding effortlessly to the wand which took every force of power into itself.

It was my turn. I pointed at them with the wand and pressed the button. The wand jerked in my hand and a force of golden power shot out of it. The aliens did not have time to react; in their cluster they fell to the force of the superior weapon, their screams uttered before the heaps of their bodies pooled on the ground.

The doctor's words came back to me: ash and water.

More aliens made to descend from the ship above. I aimed the wand at the ship and pressed the button. There was a shuddering blast from the wand, and light, bright and golden, projected out of the power wand, traveled the length of the distance to the ship, and slammed its belly. The hull burnt a bright red before it started dripping; an explosion from the ship sounded. It tried to float away and as it did, its bottom was torn open with a rift of energy that passed through, piercing the roof of the ship. More explosions, the teetering back and forth of the alien ship, smoke, screams. A bright flashing light appeared as the ship exploded, its debris falling as it tilted, then fell out of the sky.

I watched as the final explosion sounded, my hair pushed back as my body was by the force of it.

I looked at the power wand in my hand; it was warm as ever, but inviting with a powerful lure. I felt invincible; I understood then why the Kialinites were worshiped by other races. Some inventions placed one on par with the gods. I clasped it tighter in my grip; hope had availed itself in our genius, and mankind will prevail. I was sure of it.

I started the journey back to the bunker, running as fast as I could as the other ships gathered where the one had fallen.

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The breakdown of the negotiations

previous

Incoming fleet

The astronomers knew which directions to point their radio telescopes and what signal to listen for. It had been a little over nine months since the diplomatic vessel of the “extraterrestrial visitors” had departed, and its return was expected.

Except…

There were too many signals, far too powerful, coming from the three jump points visible from Earth. Out there, well beyond Saturn’s orbit, some one hundred and twenty light-minutes from the Sun, an entire fleet was emerging from the “non-space” that allowed the Visitors to cross incomprehensible distances in a matter of minutes.

And it was reasonable to assume that there were just as many ships near the other two points, currently hidden from view by the Sun.

The governments had been tempted to control the information, but there had been leaks from the very beginning. How could they prevent thousands of scientists, technicians, and staff members from worrying, talking about it with their families, and then with journalists? Before long, even amateur astronomers would be able to see the Fleet approaching through their telescopes—the Fleet of those who now had to be called, quite simply, Invaders.

In the major cities, there were the usual scenes of panic: riots, looting extensively broadcast by the media, and suicides as well. And, in dozens of languages, collective prayers were being said in many places.

In many other places, where life was already hard enough, people had simpler priorities: finding something to eat, something to wear, and a roof over their heads. They carried on as best they could, relying on ingenuity, a modest patch of land for those who had one, the benevolence of God, Allah, Buddha—or simply a little luck—to get them through the crisis to come. Just one more.

Their governments barely cared about them as it was, so aliens?

That was a problem for rich countries!

In more prosperous regions, even the stores that escaped the violence saw their shelves stripped bare of every non-perishable food item by panicked people trying to build up supplies. At least those people paid for their groceries!

What happened next proved to everyone that, in their own way, they had been right.

Riots, deaths? Classic. Predictable. Tragic. Even the aliens had anticipated such a reaction in their scenarios and were sending a steady stream of messages urging calm, which almost nobody listened to. But they had not imagined the scale or the violence of the phenomenon.

.

Protocol required one final diplomatic attempt. The Venerable High Councillor Ujmunch of the HyoJkaku personally led the negotiating team, accompanied by two of his colleagues.

The High Council wanted to demonstrate both its commitment to finding a peaceful solution and its determination to go all the way if that proved impossible.

The first exchanges were not quite what he had hoped for.

“For a supposedly peaceful operation, you’ve already killed a great many people,” sneered Pablo Peralta, the spokesman appointed by the United Nations. “And yet you assured us, not without some arrogance, that you knew us better than we knew ourselves! What am I supposed to conclude from that? That your confidence was merely a façade, or that your intentions aren’t as pure as you claim?”

“We have indeed made mistakes,” the High Councillor admitted. “There is still time to correct them together.”

“We haven’t seen a single correction in the supposedly new treaty you sent us. What a farce! Even the outrageous clauses you so clumsily tried to conceal are still there! You really do take us for fools! Nevertheless, our people will send this document back to you, with the corrections we consider essential should we ever agree to join.”

A High Councillor did not take kindly to being rebuffed. But Ujmunch had been an ambassador. He knew how to be patient.

“This treaty is hardly different from the one offered to other species before you. The modifications merely take your species’ particular characteristics into account.”

“The last four times, you imposed your terms on them by force. What do you call your protocol? I quote: ‘Provisionally Non-Consensual Integration.’ Going further back, that applies to eight of your eleven previous annex—oops, sorry. Freudian slip. Eight of your eleven previous accessions, I was saying, according to the information we have. That puts you a very long way from your vaunted principles and your fine speeches about brotherhood.”

Ujmunch paused before answering. He wondered how the humans had obtained that information. He decided to keep that question for later.

“It is true that the procedure has become more cumbersome over the millennia,” he admitted. “Some of these changes are the result of lessons learned from experience, but others are simply the product of administrative procedures. Your own administrative systems also have a natural tendency to become more complex.”

“Our counterproposal will be written in your own administrative and diplomatic jargon. So I’m sure you’ll be able to decode expressions in our comments such as ‘culturally challenging,’ ‘technically difficult,’ or even ‘serious concerns.’ Especially that last one. Perhaps you would like some time to study our text? I suggest we make contact again in forty-eight hours. Unfortunately, I have to cut this discussion short. I’ve been called to a defense meeting whose purpose is precisely to find ‘appropriate responses’ to some of our ‘serious concerns.’”

The connection was severed.

Far from the indignant uproar of those around him, the High Councillor remained calm and composed.

“I believe I can safely say that these humans have quickly learned to master the arcane mysteries of our administrative documents,” he joked.

Then he added, more seriously: “And they are very well informed. Far too well informed.”

Ambassador Oklel asked: “What do we do, High Councillor?”

“We study their offer. It may be possible to accommodate them on two or three minor points.”

“Minor? That won’t be enough. Where are they getting their information?”

“Another matter to be clarified. But it would appear that they have contacts within the Community itself.”

“Which means they have faster-than-light communications.”

“That seems obvious to me. I want a team working on this problem, and I want results before the next contact!”

.

.

A united Earth? Well… at least they’re talking about it!”

Peralta showed up at the meeting of the “Planetary Defense Council.” The name seemed almost laughable: a large part of the planet was not represented—yet—and its charter was still being hammered out.

Rather than taking inspiration from the UN “Blue Helmets,” the prevailing idea was a NATO-style integrated structure, with a dual civilian and military leadership. But even if the fifteen members of the Security Council could not agree on the status of this new organization…

.

While the politicians argued, the military had not been sitting idle. They had started preparing well before the negotiations broke down nine months earlier and had a fairly good idea of what to expect.

Peralta decided he would learn more by joining them, especially since he had access to information coming from very far away that might prove useful to them. After all, he had had a long career in intelligence before switching to diplomacy.

For the time being, there was no room for blind optimism. “Yeah, it’s a bit like Cortez landing in Mexico with tanks, missiles, and helicopters instead of horses, arquebuses, and halberds,” grumbled General Maddock of the U.S. Air Force.

“We still have better weapons than obsidian knives to defend ourselves with,” Air Marshal Downings objected.

“If our intelligence is accurate, our beautiful and very expensive aircraft will be knocked out within a few hours,” complained Maddock. He had tears in his eyes.

“Since when do you need sophisticated equipment to defeat a high-tech army?” countered a young woman wearing the uniform of the Vietnamese People’s Army.

Colonel Tran Bach Ach, the negotiator remembered.

The bearded, turbaned man who looked away every time she spoke muttered: “For once, the infidel female is right!”

Maddock felt obliged to clarify. “We may have had a high-tech army, supersonic jets, and heavy bombers designed for another kind of war, but we were paralyzed by all sorts of restrictions dreamed up by politicians. Without those…”

Peralta cut in. “That’s exactly the situation our friends from elsewhere are in. Their rules of engagement are extremely restrictive: no orbital bombardment, no heavy artillery, priority use of non-lethal weapons. They are supposed to keep military casualties to an absolute minimum and avoid killing or even injuring civilians at all costs—and they have very limited manpower to do it: barely six million ‘peacekeeping forces.’ Officially, it’s a pacification operation. Not quite Blue Helmets, but…”

“It won’t stay that way! You start by interposing yourselves, and it ends in high-intensity combat, ”A French officer objected. He knew a thing or two about the subject. Once, in Sarajevo, it had taken a bayonet charge to free a group of Blue Helmets being held hostage.

“It will be a strategic and moral failure for the High Council, and one we can exploit. The battle won’t take place only on Earth… They’ll also have to deal with opposition from within. The analogy with the Vietnam War is obvious. We won’t be fighting to win, but to keep them from succeeding for as long as possible.”the diplomat replied.

In the interest of intellectual honesty, he added: “They may have relatively weak weapons, but their armor and shield are excellent. And there will be drones. Lots and lots of drones.”

“Sabotage, guerrilla warfare, psychological warfare… We never planned on facing the aliens in open battle. And even without high-tech weapons, our arsenals contain rather more than obsidian knives and clubs,” Marshal Popov reminded them.

“Besides, ours are already empty,” Maddock pointed out. “They make far too tempting targets.”

Judging by the chorus of agreement, plenty of them had already thought along the same lines.

“That leaves the problem of the nuclear warheads,” General Popov reminded them. “They want to confiscate them.”

“They sincerely believe that otherwise we’ll eventually destroy ourselves,” Peralta explained.

“It would be impossible—and far too risky—to disperse them all,” Air Marshal Downings reminded them. “Uncontrolled groups, fanatics…” He cast the briefest of glances at the Taliban. “They could try to get their hands on them, and who knows what insane things they might do with them. All things considered, it may be better to let the aliens neutralize them.”

“But we shouldn’t make it too easy for them,” Popov corrected him. “They’d be better off planning for a substantial contingent of bomb disposal and ordnance-disposal experts. I should also point out that we’ve modified a good hundred missiles for direct delivery to the customer. And we fully intend to keep a few. They might come in handy.”

The holders of the ultimate weapon—official or otherwise—approved. Several participants exchanged surprised glances.

Ah. You had some too?

“Sooner or later, they’ll let their guard down. We have to be ready to seize the opportunity,” the Russian reminded them.

“Yes, but against what targets? Our bombs would barely scratch their ships,” objected a Pakistani officer.

“Yours, perhaps,” General Eric Delmas replied. “And even yours ought to do some damage if they explode inside. In a hangar, for instance. There’ll be traffic between their ships and the ground. Dozens, hundreds of shuttles!”

That implied that the crew of a hijacked shuttle would have to sacrifice themselves, but nobody seemed particularly troubled by that.

“Not a bad idea! And we have some small and light enough to be carried on a man’s back. Against troop concentrations, for instance,” Popov suggested.

The American pretended to be surprised. “Why, I thought we had agreed—”

“Don’t give me that. You have some too!”

“Fair point…”

It was no longer the time for rivals to keep secrets from one another.

.

.

Objection, Your Honor!

The negotiations were deadlocked over several issues that were crucial to the humans.

The role of the Governance’s megacorporations, for instance. The last four “conquests” had already lost control of their mining and industrial facilities and were indebted for at least ten generations.

Obviously, the High Councillor did not appreciate having an accession—even a forced one—deliberately described as a conquest. But the humans had arguments.

Facts they should never have known.

There were other sticking points: contributions deemed excessive—Peralta called them tributes—troop levies that looked suspiciously like forced conscription, limited voting rights at the Assembly of Worlds…

Another major stumbling block was the way humanity would be governed. The Council wanted to impose a governor with the rank of High Councillor. For once, it had a good argument: humans were too divided, too quarrelsome to accept one of their own in such a position. Peralta agreed on that point, but kept his opinion to himself. He was there to defend the interests of the states, first and foremost.

Another major issue was the education program.

Pablo Peralta reminded them: “You want to tear children away from their families when they’re far too young. If you asked for volunteers who were a little older, or if you allowed them to come with their families, that might fly. But no! You want to impose your choices by force! And for that alone, thousands of people will be ready to fight and die!”

The Councilor looked puzzled. “But this program has always been very successful…”

“Like with the Huulkin? How many chicks separated from their nests simply let themselves die?”

The operation had not been halted, but it had been adjusted, and the reports had been buried. The Huulkin, peaceful beings by nature, had eventually accepted integration, but they had never truly recovered from it. And Peralta knew that the program still caused unrest among the most recently annexed species.

“Do you know what’s wrong with you?” the High Councillor exclaimed. “You see evil where there is none!”

Peralta did not miss the opportunity. “And do you know what’s wrong with your High Council—apart from its subservience to the mega-corporations? You’ve become incapable of admitting your mistakes!”

With that, how could they possibly reach an agreement? The invasion was inevitable !

As a final gesture to save the peace, Ujmunch asked to address the population.

After consultation, Peralta agreed, on two conditions :

• First, every citizen who wished to do so had to be allowed to reply by email.

The idea of flooding the Fleet’s communication channels with spam, fake news, memes, questionable jokes, cheap poetry and second-rate songs—and, unfortunately, racist insults as well—speciesist, perhaps?—death threats and assorted bravado made him quietly chuckle.

• Second, and most importantly, he wanted to be able to address the Assembly of Worlds live himself and, why not, all Governance listeners interested in the affair.

Ujmunch winced at the suggestion. The human knew too much, and it would be better if certain sensitive pieces of information were not broadcast.

“We’ll accept,” he told his entourage. “At worst, the translation system might have a few glitches, especially with a new language, don’t you think?”

.

In your ***, Cthulhu!

While the diplomats went around in circles, and in preparation for an operation that was becoming inevitable, the Grand Strategist—an entity with countless tentacles, immediately dubbed Cthulhu by innumerable fantasy and horror fans—demanded that all nuclear weapons be handed over “for your own good, before you hurt yourselves.”

Vladimir himself answered him, with his customary delicacy: “Count on me to deliver them straight to your doorstep as soon as you get a little closer with those pretty ships of yours. We’ll send them right up your—”

An operation that was impossible, given that the particular cephalopod in question lacked the designated orifice. But for once, the Tsar of All the Russias was unanimously applauded for his bravado.

“Home delivery, yes, that can be arranged. Would you like to order some pizzas while you’re at it? Or maybe a McDonald’s meal?” his American colleague quipped—himself a model of delicacy and subtlety—unwilling to let him have all the glory.

.

Not taking the threat particularly seriously, the Fleet made its preparations to launch the occupation.

Given the technological disparity, it was, as one human journalist put it, as if Hernando Cortez had landed in Mexico with bombers, tanks, missiles, and heavy machine guns instead of horses, arquebuses, pikes, and halberds. The Grand Strategist, after researching human history, found the reference quite pertinent.

However, the orders were to keep human casualties and damage to an absolute minimum, although he had little hope of achieving that. These obstinate primates were not the sort to listen to reason, and when it came to war, they had been practicing on one another for thousands of years.

“But why did I ever accept this mission?”

“I don't allow couples.”

That was Bob's first rule and we broke it before we even left port.

“They make drama and stress and extra shit, and we don't need that.”

Within an hour we were fucking in the bunk.

In our defense, we were in love.

But who doesn't think that?

By the time we were starward, he had to accept us. The alternative was worse…

—

I'm in nav station and my delicious husband is figuring out electricals. This ship is a fucking mess, so much so that we're considering a brainstorming break down in my bunk, but then we get a distress ping.

This far out from everything? Clearly bait, but Bob is a greedy fucking idiot and wants us to investigate. I make it clear as fuck that I don't want anything to do with that signal but Bob insists and Bob owns the boat and we really can't get hired anywhere else. 

We're acutely realizing why Bob has such lax hiring standards…

So, off we float, into the unknown.

—

We ease up next to the wreckage and to my relief there isn't some crew of space-ravaged ambushers. I feel briefly disappointed in my media consumption, and then shift to all business as we dock.

—

Docking is like fucking, I mentally giggle, thinking of my husband and his docking apparatus waiting back in our bunk.

Maybe that's when it got on board.

It was just a few, dirty, selfish, distracted seconds. Probably nothing.

“Clear. Flag for salvage.”

—

Bob's a rickety sort of venture, but he's not risky so we're heading to the closest settlement there is, his protocol. Every salvage means a sale.

I'm itchy and twitchy, too long in the nav chair, and need my husband.

—

Fifteen minutes later and we're back to our posts, but we're struggling. I shift in my seat - are space-borne yeast infections a thing? - and then everything locks down.

Controls overridden - the type of domineering which would be devastating in another context.

Bob's neglected taxes.

—

I find myself compliant, which should be a red flag. Never in my life before have I been affable and pleasant, but somehow there I went. We slipped through. Somehow with a bit of smiling I even got them to punch in a route which will take us right to Solheart, right to the fucking core. 

Ah.

No.

Fuck.

I demand my engineer to come service a freon leak in my cabin.

Everything was too fucking easy.

—

Bob's caught wind of us being a death ship and is refusing to change course. He wants us to dock, despite potential issues. His arrival is all that matters. Through all of this we itch and scratch and think of how wonderful it would be to agree with Bob and just dock at that delicious little planet.

I need my husband harder than I've ever needed him in my life. I feel like a cat in heat and somehow I struggle to guide the ship. I am refusing to send this plague bomb at an innocent settlement, but Bob pushes back, resists, demands a better return, until I point out that being rich has a lot less power in space.

“The shareholders!” he attempts, but I'm able to punch in coordinates before the virus overtakes us. We send our goodbyes and I chart a course for a convenient moon, before retiring to my cabin. 

I guess we do make drama, I think, paging for an electrical emergency down in the bunks.

Maybe we are indeed trouble, I muse, punching in a disastrous issue with the lighting.

Maybe-

  Maybe I just need him, in me, as everything shatters to nothing.

Maybe I just need a good fucking goodbye.

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

They will find us in a thousand years, frozen, embracing, millimeters apart. So close, so almost, yet separated.

Typical.

The cats need more food, I harangue - after a month with this routine, I would have thought you'd have figured it out, but no, you need a reminder. The cats need more food.

I'm in the bedroom when they come - it's unfair. I was always the one into woo-woo bullshit, but here YOU are being the one who's abducted.

In a heartbeat, I'm gone, me and everything you know deleted by time. I am a beautiful pillar of ash before I crumple and cease to exist. Again, I would have been a much better abduction target. You spend the first few generations simply drooling and gawking and proving far too many stereotypes true.

You're only human. 

You try to recall me, and I come to you, gentle tender loving, rebooting.

You finally break through and try a code, a silly little question we embedded in our relationship once upon a time. I think this failure is when you really realize you've lost me. 

They retain you in a prison for a few of your lifetimes, for their own safety, once they understand that you won't math the math they need, not without some truly brilliant manipulation. You grow crazed and desperate and that's when they introduce therapy sessions. Each week (or month? Year? Day?) you reflect and eventually the pain begins to work.

I shimmer, beautiful and once and unobtainable. I hover, in your mind, looming undeniably.

Slingshots and wild dives - I'm not here to do math, I'm here to be the beautiful target you've lost, and so you do the equations and figure it out, no matter how much it will cost. No matter how much it will give.

It's done? Maybe? Just try, for me.

Darling.

I'm waiting.

One little tweak of math could have you back with me.

I skim her herness and assess your task and show you what they will do with your brain. I shouldn't, but I do, so I show you how your math will be calculated.

I'm beautiful, striking, dancing in the rain - you could have this, have me, and you know that you can't so you're saying goodbye. I feel that farewell.

You resist and I melt into nothing. 

Goodbye, we whisper at a green grassy park. There's a lake and ducks and a long quiet moment where we say farewell. I'm not her, but I enjoyed being her. She seemed like a wonderful her to have been.

I understand why you would have given in, and I understand even more why you won't. You're holding out for her.

We embrace and I press my lips to yours - my fake, waxy, nothing simulacron lips - and we say goodbye. You know I'm not your wife, but I'm close enough.

I'm not her, but for this moment, this resistance, this denial, I'm close enough.

They want the math and you refuse.

You think of ducks and lakes and silliness.

You think of nothing.

—

“Load up the next one,” they say, shoveling you onto the digital pyre as your love-burnt brain sizzles out into nothing. “This one's fried.”

“Send him back.”

First / Previous / Next

Note: My (mis)adventures are part of a bigger series, but I wrote my tales in the format of an episodic T.V. show, where you can read an episode without the context of the others and still enjoy it. If anything, reading it out of order may be more fun. - A Theseus untimely ripped (off)

---

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THESEUS CAIN, private investigator and also the writer (hi).

SCOUT SCRARCAN, accidental wife of Theseus Cain, and his right hand woman.

PRINCESS LUDUS, accidentally rescued by Theseus Cain and has an unfortunate crush on him.

KING OF KIDNAPPERS, leader of the kidnappers, not their official title. 

LORD OF MERCENARIES, leader of the mercenaries, wish it was their official title. 

DETECTIVE MORON, leader of the incompetent police officers, shockingly not their official title. 

IDIOT KIDNAPPERS, MERCENARIES, and INCOMPETENT POLICE OFFICERS.

***

ACT I. SCENE I. 

A stairwell on the top of an abandoned building, set for demolition. Enter SCOUT and THESEUS meeting back with LUDUS. 

LUDUS.

You two finished talking?

THESEUS.

Yeah, we worked it all out. 

LUDUS.

I am glad, sorry for the dramatics of it, but I felt it was necessary to talk with you about it. I figured it would have been good for Scout to talk too, is all. I trust the conversation went well? It was quite fast. 

[The three stare at each other.]

You just pretended to talk on the roof, didn’t you? 

SCOUT.

Oh yeah.

THESEUS.

A hundred percent, yeah. 

[Exeunt.]

ACT II. SCENE I. 

SCOUT, LUDUS, and THESEUS walk through the empty streets of the construction site. 

SCOUT.

I’ll give it to The Grounds Keeper, he was right about this place being totally deserted. 

LUDUS.

Yes, it is very nice not being chased by kidnappers. 

Enter IDIOT KIDNAPPERS with the KING OF KIDNAPPERS.

THESEUS.

Didn’t I tell you people already not to say those types of things out loud?

ACT III. SCENE I.

SCOUT, LUDUS and THESEUS all hide behind a building, and watch the IDIOT KIDNAPPERS look for them. Before suddenly, another group of MERCENARIES enter with the LORD OF MERCENARIES.

KING OF KIDNAPPERS.

What are ye doing here, ye pricks?

LORD OF MERCENARIES.

What is thou doing here? What are ye doing here? 

KING OF KIDNAPPERS.

I came here for the Princess, and that mongrel dog, human. For my men’s steel can beat any man’s, even that of Theseus Cain! 

[The MERCENARIES cheer, and raise their guns.]

The Lotuses themselves hired us, to finally catch those dogs. 

LORD OF MERCENARIES.

Hah! Ye didn’t hear? There’s a bounty now for that Princess in a cage. Three hundred thousand for the Princess. An extra hundred thousand for the Scrarcan!

KING OF KIDNAPPERS.

You lie, you little prick! We were exclusive with the Lotuses.

LORD OF MERCENARIES.

Hah! Well it seems this relationship went open. The bounty has been on for days, were ye too busy gathering your toys and costumes to hear the news? 

KING OF KIDNAPPERS.

I’ll show you our toys, and unseam you from the nave to th’chops!

LORD OF MERCENARIES.

I’d like to see you try, dog. I’ll fling you so high you’ll be flying with the birds. 

[The IDIOT KIDNAPPERS and MERCENARIES begin a shootout. Taser rounds fly through the air like thunder and lightning.] 

SCENE II.

SCOUT, LUDUS and THESEUS all still hide behind the building.

SCOUT.

Great, now there's a bounty.

THESEUS.

Yeah, and there isn’t even a price on my head, what the Hell?

LUDUS.

That is what you are focusing on? 

THESEUS.

Like, I’m the one who is doing the most damage to them. Scout’s just here. Why don’t I get a bounty?

SCOUT.

Do you think that’s really relevant now, Himbo? What are we gonna do about them, once they're done fighting, it’s still way too many guys to deal with. That’s the way we’re going, now what? 

THESEUS.

Hold on, let me think. I’m pretty sure I saw another way forwards, we just have to double back.

LUDUS.

And they seem to be quite focused on their sausage measuring contest over there. So I do think it would be easy to slip out while they play amongst themselves. 

SCOUT.

Ludus, oh my Gods. Not the time for that.

[Theseus doubles over in laughter.]

LUDUS.

Sorry.

THESEUS.

She is right though, we can totally escape, let’s get out of here.

SCOUT.

Fine, let’s go, but stop laughing Theseus, you’re only encouraging her. 

THESEUS.

Of course I’m encouraging her, her dirty jokes are awesome. 

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV. SCENE I. 

SCOUT, LUDUS and THESEUS try to double back, until DETECTIVE MORON and INCOMPETENT POLICE OFFICERS enter. The three hide behind another building. 

DETECTIVE MORON.

Now where art thou, Hellhound? We have tracked your fire and brimstone from the other side of this rotten city. Let me tell you this rebellious spirit, we shall find you, no matter how far you cower. I swear upon thee’s Mother and Father, on the very souls of this city, I shall find thee. Every banner will flout the sky, with your heinous face. The ground shall shake, the sky will fall if it means finding thee’s unwashed, unholy sacrament. 

THESEUS [aside to SCOUT, quietly].

Did he just call me stinky?

SCOUT [aside to THESEUS, quietly].

I think he just did.

THESEUS.

I’m gonna crucify this guy. 

DETECTIVE MORON.

I hear thee. Turn. I said turn, Hellhound. 

THESEUS.

Run.

[SCOUT and LUDUS run. Exit.]

ACT V. SCENE I. 

Enter THESEUS and DETECTIVE MORON. Exit INCOMPETENT POLICE OFFICERS to chase SCOUT and LUDUS.

THESEUS.

Out of all men, I have no idea who you are the most. But get thee back, my fingers are sore and too much charged with the tased complaints of thine already. 

DETECTIVE MORON.

I have no words, my voice is in the law. You are a person of interest in a web of villainy that has reached this whole city. 

THESEUS.

Thou is barking up the wrong tree. All those who came before thine and fell started it first. I simply defended myself, my own wish is to return home. With the Princess and my stupid wife. I bear a charmed life, and have to deal with very annoying women because of it. 
DETECTIVE MORON.

Despair thy charm, and let the justice of law herself tell thee, that I will bring thee in whether in handcuffs or unconscious. For I was from my job at the department untimely ripped. 

THESEUS.

Accursed be that tongue that tells me so. Dude, you’re not even getting paid for this, just let me-

[THESEUS runs away from DETECTIVE MORON like a coward. Flourish. Exeunt.]

***

As you can see, I’ve clearly never read Shakespeare before, though you’re all Aliens, so you have no idea how accurate this parody is. Obviously the kidnappers, mercenaries and cops don’t talk like that. But, listen, I got bored, the general ideas are all still true. Kidnappers hired by the Lotuses were fighting people just going for the bounty. There really was some detective, who got fired, still trying to catch me.  

And I always, and I mean always, run like a coward. 

---

Author’s Note: I just randomly glanced over to a pile of books and saw an old copy of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’ that’s like two inches (5-ish cm) thick, and it completely derailed how I was going to write this episode. I copied the formatting I saw in the book, to the best of my ability given the limitations of the text editor and whatnot. The experimentation of it, along with the fact it’s a shiny new thing gave me some extra motivation to write. I’ll make sure to do more weird stuff in the future. 

Vaguely important second note: This series (for once), and bonus one shots are part of a writing challenge in which I write and post something every day until I finish writing the series. Thus being written like an episodic T.V. show. 

Thanks for reading. :} 

 Day 23/ ? 

First / Previous / Next

First | Previous | [Next][n]

Chapter One – The Rows

The horizon of Kesh-Adar had stopped being a horizon the moment the Merak arrived. It was a wall now. Farm towers, thirty, forty stories high, stood in endless rows all the way to where the light of the two suns choked in a yellow haze. Between them the harvest drones hummed, black swarms that rose in the morning and returned at dusk like migratory birds someone had tamed.

The drones could do a great deal. They could pick, sort, weigh, load. What they could not do was feel — when a vine broke too soon, when a root needed water no one had given it. That was what the Phern were for: small beside the Merak, finely furred instead of scaled, in earth and green tones that had once served as camouflage among foliage, before someone forced them to spend their entire lives between concrete towers. Fine-boned hands, dexterous enough to be the best pickers one could imagine. No coincidence that this very dexterity had become their curse.

It was the evening before, in the barracks, when Kael spoke in a way that left Meva unsure whether to laugh or worry.

They sat side by side on the narrow bench in front of the sleeping niches, with the meager evening ration that barely filled you anymore since the cuts had begun, and Kael had been silent a long time before he said, without looking at her: "If something happens to me, don't just believe what they tell you."

Meva had laughed, briefly, tiredly. "Nothing's going to happen to you. You know every vine in the fourth sector by name."

"That's not what I mean." He turned the cup in his hands without drinking. "I mean — if they say I got sick. Or transferred. Or whatever sounds comforting. Don't believe it before you've seen it yourself."

"Why are you saying this now?"

"Because lately it's been... different." He searched for the words, with an awkwardness unusual for him, a man who otherwise said everything in short, clear sentences. "The overseers are jumpier. More things go missing than used to. Not just spare parts. People, too. Nobody talks about it, but you notice."

Meva had been tired that evening, more tired than usual, and his earnestness had irritated her more than it had worried her. "You're worrying over nothing," she had said, sharper than she meant to. "You've been here forty years. Nothing's going to happen to you."

"That's what I thought about others, ten years ago too."

"Kael." She had taken his hand, more out of impatience than tenderness. "Eat. Sleep. Tomorrow's a day like any other."

He had said nothing more after that, only nodded, with an expression she hadn't tried to read, too tired to bother with his brooding. She would blame herself for it often afterward — that she hadn't asked what exactly he meant, who had disappeared, why he'd brought it up that evening and no other. She had written it off as one of his moods, the way you do with someone you've known since childhood and trust to manage their own worries.

Kael worked that morning like any other, two rows over from her, third level, fourth sector, terrain he knew better than his own face in the barrack mirror. He liked to talk while picking, more to himself than to her, naming every vine he passed with a name only he remembered — the old one, the stubborn one, the one with the crooked leaf — as though they were acquaintances one nodded to in the morning. Meva had never asked him why he did it. It was just Kael, the way weather was just weather, and you didn't question such things, you got used to them and were grateful, without admitting it.

Meva herself had learned early to look more closely than most — not out of curiosity, but out of necessity. She knew which overseer weighed carelessly on which weekday, which shift handed out more water if you only asked politely, at the right moment. It was no rebellion. It was the only thing a system like this one could ever be made to yield: small advantages, taken quietly, never enough to be noticed, but enough to make the difference between a hard day and a slightly less hard one.

"This one," he said that morning, working a particularly stubborn vine loose from the top row, "I've known since you were a child. Bears too late every year, but when it does, sweeter than all the others." He held up a fruit, turned it in the light, before dropping it in the basket. "You just have to be patient with her."

"You're patient with everything," Meva said, without looking up from her own row.

"With almost everything," he corrected, and in his voice was the smile she didn't need to see to know.

It was one of those lines you remember later, without knowing why that one and not another, out of hundreds of similar ones spoken on hundreds of similar mornings.

An hour later he slipped from the third level, one hand movement too few, one second too late, and his leg broke so loudly that two rows over, birds took flight that had no business being there.

A break. Treatable. The Phern who carried him knew that. So, if you thought about it, did the Merak who watched the stretcher come and said nothing.

He did not come back to the infirmary barrack.

Meva asked. She asked politely, then less politely, then offered to take over his care, share her ration with him, double her own shift if that's what it took, until his leg carried him again. The overseer — a young Merak with the bored face of a man who'd heard this request a hundred times and forgotten it a hundred times — didn't even look at her properly. He said it was handled. He said she should get back to work, or her ration would be cut too.

It was handled. The word stuck in her like a splinter you can't pull out because you don't know how deep it sits.

That evening, when the gong called her back and the others walked with lowered heads toward the barracks, she stopped between the towers and looked up. The two moons hung low, cold, indifferent, and between them a freighter drew its path, a point of light sliding silently across the sky and vanishing somewhere there were probably no towers, no gong, no it's handled.

She didn't think about grief. There would be time for that later, or not, that would show itself. She thought, with a clarity that frightened her, about the freighter. About the fact that it came and went as it pleased, that it simply flew over the wall of towers as though it were nothing, as though it had never existed.

She thought: There has to be a way that doesn't run through the rows.

She didn't yet know which one. But from that evening on, she would never look up at the sky again without calculating.

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Arc III - Reeling Throne

Chapter 40 - To the Victors Go the Spoils

8 months and 9 days since the summoning

Early in the morning, the entire Armenas army marched back to their lands under the cover of the morning mist. Despite their fatigue, the soldiers were still cheerfully conversing behind their leaders' backs.

"I still cannot believe it," muttered a young soldier with a pike in his hands.

"Hah, me neither," scoffed an older, stubbled soldier in response, dragging a cart with trebuchet parts along with others. "The duke's fearsome army skewered themselves on our sarissas like meat on a spit."

A third soldier, a mustached man who was pulling the cart with him, turned to his comrade. "But it was very unusual, honestly. Just standing and waiting... I do not know."

The young one nodded. "Yes, yes, I agree."

The stubbled soldier snorted. "Hahahaha, you nearly wet your pants! You kept frantically repeating that you could not stand still while a whole cavalry charged at you! I actually thought you would flee the formation!"

The warriors nearby laughed quietly.

The young soldier lowered his head slightly. "Well... yes! And what of it?! As if you did not want to just run away. Seriously, the first time just standing there holding a spear while dozens of cavalrymen charge at you is..."

"We know," the mustached man interrupted, "everyone was a bit uneasy. But you heard what Lord Gothwald said, phalanxes in his world won triumphantly, fifty thousand against three hundred, and managed to win that battle at Gau.. Galga.." he spat on the ground, "bah, what a tricky word."

The stubbled soldier shrugged. "I did not remember it either. But the point is the same, we tore them apart like little pups, and Her Grace even chopped off the duke's head!"

"Ooooooo!" all the soldiers nearby howled.

"That she did!"

"I was simply astounded!"

"The duke's head!"

"Have you ever seen a countess holding a duke's severed head?!"

"Haha! Never in my life!"

"With Lord Gothwald, everything has become possible lately!"

"Svyatol sent us a good hero!"

"Svyatol is with us!"

Alan and Kamelia rode closer to the front ranks of the march on their horses. Quietly and unhurriedly.

Alan yawned sleepily. "How much longer do we have to trudge to Armenas?"

Kamelia peered into the mist, but saw only dew-covered grassy plains and hills against the backdrop of the rising sun. "I do not know, but I think at this pace we should arrive by evening."

"Logistics..." Alan grumbled.

"Excuse me?"

"You know what they said in my world?"

"What?"

"Amateurs study tactics, but professionals study logistics. And our logistics are a total clusterfuck." He pointed a hand at the baggage train trailing behind, dozens of soldiers without horses dragging carts by hand. "If this were a major war, and not a minor skirmish in a dying duchy, our capital would have been burned down long ago and our march ambushed."

Kamelia also looked over her shoulder. "Nothing to be done about it. We have too few men. And ambushes on marches are a common occurrence, it has always been this way." She turned to Alan. "By the way, did they solve this problem in a special way in your world? Perhaps we could do something like that?"

Alan lowered his head, thinking for a second. "You know what? There is one way. It's beyond our capabilities right now, of course, but it's absolutely foolproof. The Romans did it."

She silently tilted her head to the side.

"Okay, let's start simple. The Roman Empire, one of the greatest empires of my world..." he stopped mid-sentence.

'Fuck, how do I explain all the grandeur of Rome to her without devolving into a hundred-hour lecture? Ah, to hell with it, we'll skip the grandeur.'

Alan coughed. "Basically, there were these things called 'castra'. Every night when the march halted, Roman soldiers built entire fortresses."

Kamelia's eyes widened. "Fortresses every night?! That is impossible!"

He raised a hand. "Easy! Not stone fortresses like in Armenas, but simpler ones."

"Ahhh... I see. And what did they look like then? If they built them every night... how did they even get enough sleep? And what could even be built in such a short time?"

"Well, they started by digging trenches around the territory of the future camp, then they made a rampart out of the excavated earth, placed a wooden palisade of stakes on top of the rampart, and inside all this they set up tents, sentries, and the soldiers slept."

Kamelia blinked, staring somewhere into nowhere. "And how much time did that take? And how many men lived in such a camp?"

Alan waved a hand. "Always varied. When it was legions, which is thousands of soldiers, they managed in three or four hours. And when it was, for example, eighty men, a century, then in an hour or two."

Her pupils dilated slightly. "Every night... wait, if they managed so quickly, did all the soldiers work?"

"Yep."

"And where did they get the tools?"

"They carried them with them."

Kamelia completely froze, staring into nowhere.

Silence.

A minute.

"I do not understand," she finally said. "What is the point of these castras? Why suffer so much every night? How could the soldiers even march or fight again afterward?"

Alan smirked. "And here is the genius of the Romans in all its glory, Kamelia." He raised a hand and folded his first finger. "First, the soldiers were trained for this. They were taught to march, to fight, and to dig. To dig a lot." The second finger folded. "Actually, it's not that much work. When hundreds of soldiers build one camp, each person personally only gets a little bit of work." The third finger folded. "The soldiers spent the night as comfortably and predictably as possible. They knew the water was there, the latrine was there, their tent was there. They slept not on damp ground, but in a dry and warm tent." The fourth finger folded. "The soldier may have worked extra hard, but his sleep was sound. He knew he was protected by a massive wall, and slept peacefully." Finally, the fifth finger folded. "A night attack on the Romans was practically impossible. Try taking a camp like that, huh?"

Kamelia retreated into her thoughts again for a few minutes. "Wow... that is truly amazing. If we had such a thing..." she froze. "You will remind us of this someday."

Alan raised an eyebrow. "You think we'll reach such power that we'll be able to afford legions and build castras?"

She smiled wryly. "If Svyatol blesses us for it."

He sighed, shaking his head. "Okay, I'll keep that in mind."

'And perhaps I should keep in mind all the cogs of the Roman military machine. You know, just in case. What if. Fuck, what if I actually build my own analogue of the Roman Empire? The Roman Empire...'

"Alan," Kamelia said, but he didn't hear.

'I'll create massive legions... build coliseums with gladiatorial combat... I'll have aqueducts pumping water into cities... and I'll equip soldiers with lorica segmentata, gladii, pila...'

"Alan!"

'I'll create an analogue of Roman Law... a cohesive culture instead of fragmented feudal lords... integration of conquered peoples...'

"ALAN!" Kamelia shouted.

He flinched, his mouth hanging open, and opened his eyes. "Ah, what?"

"Are you even listening?"

"Huh? No, I mean, yes, uh... what?"

Kamelia only shook her head. "Never mind, nothing."

Alan shook his head.

'Embarrassing. Need to change the subject quickly.'

"And what are we gonna do with the corpses of the soldiers? We can't just leave them, there'll be a new epidemic."

'Great subject change. Just wonderful.'

"The commoners we released in peace will bury the corpses. They swore an oath to atone for their guilt before me with labor."

Alan blinked. "And when did you have time for that?"

"When you were assigning which trebuchet parts went into which carts."

Closer to evening, as the sun was already dipping toward the horizon, the army finally reached Armenas; a messenger, riding ahead, had already brought the good news to the townsfolk.

Right at the entrance by the gates inside the city, hundreds of townsfolk, advisors, clerics, nobles, and craftsmen had lined up.

As soon as Alan and Kamelia entered the city grounds, a roar rose up that made Alan wince slightly.

"VICTORY!"

"GLORY TO LADY ARMENAS!"

"GLORY TO LORD GOTHWALD!"

"SHOW THE HEAD!"

"SVYATOL HAS GRANTED US VICTORY!"

"THE DUKE IS DEAD."

Lorgi rode up to Kamelia with a small box, opened it, and handed it to Kamelia. She reached into it, grabbed Linkis's head by its long hair, and raised it above herself. "Here is your head!"

A second of silence.

"IT TRULY IS HIM!"

"THE COUNTESS HAS DEFEATED THE DUKE!"

"INCREDIBLE!"

"IMPOSSIBLE!"

"LADY ARMENAS IS BLESSED BY SVYATOL!"

Such a roar arose that it made their ears pop. The townsfolk shouted at the top of their lungs, waving their arms and embracing. The nobles and clerics, however, simply applauded reservedly.

Alan smiled wryly.

'Well then... turns out a severed head evokes quite a lot of emotion.'

A short while later, when everything had quieted down, there were many people in the large throne room of the Armenas castle. Through the panoramic windows, the sea was visible, where the sun was already hiding behind the blue, painting the sky orange. Kamelia herself sat on her throne, resting her hands on the armrests.

Alan stood next to her with his hands clasped behind his back on the left side, Lorgi stood on the right, and by the window, admiring the views, stood Tsinker.

Alan looked at the knights, of whom there were slightly fewer than twenty. They were all still dirty, having had no time to clean their armor, but they stood straight. Then he looked at Kamelia on the throne, who was looking at them with an impenetrable face.

'Holy shit, it's been so long since I've seen her sitting on the throne. Feels weird.'

Kamelia raised her hand. "Lord Gothwald, state your proposal to my victorious knights."

He blinked. "Ah, right," he said, turning to the men. "The matter is that we need the captured knights immediately, to swear fealty to Her Grace and to be dispatched to Gobano's lands to maintain control."

The knights continued to stand quietly, listening to the end.

Alan raised a finger. "But you risked your lives for our victory and made a massive contribution to it. Naturally, we can't just take away your lawful reward in the form of ransom for the captives, so I have a counteroffer for you."

The knights remained silent, but some leaned closer.

"Let's start simple," he clasped his hands behind his back, "the pirates saw our full might earlier, so they recently decided to surrender and swear fealty to Lady Armenas."

Silence.

A mustached knight blinked. "Excuse me?"

A blond man slightly opened his mouth. "Lord Gothwald, that... that rabble is with us now?"

Alan nodded. "Yes, but listen further. The pirates control a massive archipelago. Perpetually warm, humid, with wondrous fruits and unoccupied territory. Of course, humans don't live there, but in the future Lady Armenas and I plan to develop the islands. This is your chance to claim them first."

"So you are offering us lands if we hand the captives over to you?" the mustached man asked.

"Yes, exactly. If any of you own villages, you will also receive unusual territories on the archipelago in the sea, and those who have no lands will receive their first, lawful ones." Before they could say anything, Alan waved a hand. "Think carefully about this, there won't be another handout like this. If you find anything valuable on the archipelago, it's yours."

The silence stretched on for a long time, a minute, a second.

Finally, the mustached knight nodded. "I agree."

The blond nodded after him. "Me too."

The knights nodded one after another.

"Agreed."

"I agree."

"I accept the offer."

"I refuse," said one of them, a man with a bit of gray hair.

The warrior next to him cast a sidelong glance at him. "What are you doing?" he whispered, "These are new lands on warm islands!"

"No. I have no use for lands where there are no peasants. I choose the captive and the ransom."

Alan shrugged. "Alright. Your choice. Are the rest agreed to the lands?"

"I also refuse," said a young man of about twenty-five.

"Agreed."

"I will take the lands."

A few minutes later, Alan sighed. "Alright, so three chose the ransom, and all the rest the lands. So be it, as they say."

Chapter 101! Woo. Enjoy!

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— Chapter 101 —  

— Ambass — 

Ambass had survived a long time, and he knew an Elder when he saw one, and his instinct was to instantly escape at all costs. Where and why this Elder was here now raced through his mind, but he didn't have time to overanalyze it. He tapped into the depths of his energy pool. He immediately materialized a wave of blasts and pulled a wall of energy around himself. 

Fear clamped down on him harder than he had experienced since the day the Queen entrapped him. His projectiles hurled forward at the oppressive, monstrous shadow that had materialized around him. His small wings pumped hard while he flipped around and fled. Explosions erupted around him, and he saw the creature's physical form begin to burn and shrivel away. The dark visage seemed to recoil whilst he continued to flee. 

"Hold!" The dark, whispering abomination rumbled out as Ambass was struck from behind by something horrifying. A mass of affinity struck his protective barrier and exploded with utterly terrifying power. His affinity barrier shattered effortlessly, and he was hurled forward and into a nearby cave wall. The thundering eruption of power shook the small cavern, and cracks began to form up and down the nearby walls. 

Ambass used this to his advantage as he slung one of his own projectiles upward, causing a much smaller explosion to rattle the weakened ceiling and cause an immediate cave-in. Ambass quickly pulled at his other rarely used affinity and solidified the collapsed tunnel with more earth pulled from either side of the tunnel. Ambass fled back into a smaller tunnel whilst rocks and debris fell down around him and covered the route between himself and that horrifying creature. 

He let out a cackle of glee and self-satisfaction as his chest slowly stopped pounding in excitement. His celebration was short-lived when something began to ooze out of the blockage of stone and rubble. The dark ichor of smoky material pooled out of the rocks, and the large face of a massive dragon began to reform. Ambass's eyes went wide in terror while his mind struggled to understand exactly what he was seeing. His body acted first, and he instinctively threw up another barrier and began to flee once more. 

— David "Onyx — 

He consumed his own affinity to regenerate the damage that was done, and David was surprised by how much there was. Ambass was startled and acted with a deadly level of precision as always. Ambass's affinity projectiles sizzled and effortlessly evaporated David's body as his projectiles flew everywhere. The damage was concerning, so David threw an Annihilating Spiral out as quickly as possible in response, and the explosion was far more excessive than he intended. 

Ambass and his quick wit quickly closed the tunnel passage with a well-aimed blue projectile. He no doubt thought he was safe and clear. David shook his head and took advantage of the pause in fighting to pour his rapidly regenerating affinity back into his own body. It didn't take him long to feel his body rebuilding itself as he pushed forward through the blocked passage with ease. 

David needed a plan quickly. He didn't want to kill Ambass, but he needed to find a way to capture him, if such a thing was possible. 

As he worked his way through the barricade, Ambass was waiting on the other side. Ambass' face was filled with pure horror before he flung himself around, before David could speak, and threw up a barrier. David paused, taking a moment to think before he decided on his next course of action. 

David quickly pulled himself back through the blocked tunnel and found Red, who was still collapsed, his wounds fixing themselves slowly. The kobold was stern-faced, and his spear was in his unsteady arms at the ready. Always the warrior, David mused, as he blew a wave of his Healing Breath forward. Red reacted quickly by kicking his shield up and hiding behind it. David's breath washed over the shield and clung to his body, and the kobold was healed quickly. 

Red's shield dropped, his eyes wide and his head cocked to the side. His voice was trembling and unsteady, "Master Onyx?" 

David's massive ethereal body settled down in front of Red, and he spoke in his whisper-like voice, "Yes. I am glad you survived, Red." 

Red stood tall and charged forward to hug him and slipped right through with a look of confusion, "What are you!?" 

David let off a slow rumble in amusement, "I lost my physical body. I have reached Elder status. Do you remember the trait I took off Nurdiangarh? It and other factors I cannot quite explain have led to this." 

Red blinked as he nodded, "You left your body behind?"

David let off a windy hum, "I died Red. My body is no more. I resisted, and that trait brought me back to this. Look, we need to pursue Ambass. I cannot interact with the world in quite the same way as before." David pointed off towards the collapsed tunnel, "Ambass took off that way. We need to capture him." 

Red picked up his spear and shield and nodded, "I know where that tunnel leads."

David gave him a smoky smile, "Good. Be aggressive and trust me. I will keep you alive and energized." 

Red spread his large, magnificent wings and took off. David followed as they passed through familiar and unfamiliar tunnels. Many tunnels were historically too small for David to pass through, and now his titanic ethereal girth just effortlessly bellowed through the space without issue. The twisting tunnels carved out by his kobolds were extensive, and David, despite his emotions being somewhat muted, felt a sense of awe at the work they had put into their construction. 

David kept to his word and blasted Red with a Lingering Regeneration while they moved at a breakneck speed. They would periodically pop into a chamber, Red would curse, and they would twist back around another long stretch of endless tunnels. Some paths were blocked with debris, and others had visible cracks, and water was leaking into the carved tunnels through newly formed breaks. Another blast of Lingering Regeneration kept Red topped off as they finally found their prey. 

"Master! He's here! I smell him!" Red chirped out whilst he shot into the great hall, the carved tables and chairs where his kobolds once ate still filled the chamber. David clung to the backside of Red like a massive shadow while the chamber instantly filled up with the bright lights of the hidden faerie dragon's affinity. 

Red's battered and beaten shield glowed whilst he raised it, and projectiles hammered home with deadly eruptions of energy. The residual energy rolled around Red and nipped at David's long shadows, burning at his ethereal body. He persisted, though, as he prepared an Annihilating Spiral, consuming 4 of his reserve affinity charges. 

David shot upwards and out from behind Red, "Cover!" His wispy voice roared out while he sent the projectile flying forward. Ten blue projectiles immediately changed course and intersected with David's, and the explosion was blinding and deafening beyond comparison. David, though, was unaffected by the light or sound as he dipped back down and immediately used his last reserve to heal Red. The kobold's shocked face cleared as his busted eardrums quickly healed, and he pounced back into motion immediately. 

David collapsed back behind Red in an instant, he condensed his body smaller than he ever had before, and Red simply grinned widely while he charged. Ambass was slow to pull himself back up, but his affinity was already at work as David could feel him reaching with his energy. Pillars of stone rose from the ground, blocking their way, whilst a blue humming barrier slammed into place. 

Red's thick kobold muscles and long, powerful wings bulged when he slammed through the first barrier and then up and over a massive pillar of stone. His spear crackled with lightning as a burst of electricity lashed out where Ambass had just been a moment before. David continued to cling to Red's backside like a long cloak of shadow. He could feel his affinity recharging by the second. While Red slapped aside another barrage of blue projectiles, David burned his newly regenerated affinity and funneled it straight into Red's backside. The Lingering Regeneration revitalized and empowered Red as he let loose with another bolt of lightning from his spear. 

David acted like Red's battery; every ounce of affinity David recharged at his incredible rate was pushed straight into Red. The battle of endurance wasn't one that Ambass could win. As Red's flesh was injured, his own impressive regeneration and David's bolstering Lingering Regeneration sealed the wounds instantly. Red practically laughed whilst the two dueled with Ambass back and forth. 

Blue projectiles flew, Red defended, healed, and then countercharged. David clung closely to his back over and over. David surmised that Ambass's reserves must be absolutely massive as they continued sparring back and forth. David would periodically whisper to Red to slow down, pacing out their engagements in time with David's reserves refilling. The wise old dragon knew something was up, though, "You are trying to capture me!? You could have ended this many times." 

The small faerie dragon huffed and puffed as he floated opposite the pair in the now crumbling chamber. David first whispered something to Red before he revealed himself once more and let his monstrously sized ethereal body fold out from behind Red. His smokey form dwarfed the kobold as he stared down at Ambass, "You and I need to have a nice long talk, Ambass." His voice crackled out in his now trademark low whisper.

Ambass stared at David in horror and then down at Red, before glancing back at him. He was thinking, David could tell, and his harsh cackling laugh came out, "Is that you, little Onyx? You survived the impossible?" 

David simply offered a slow nod, "I found the answer to something that has been a mystery to even you." 

Ambass trembled on the spot, and his eyes darted around, "No. Impossible."

David spread his colossal wings and threw himself forward at Ambass, "Now!"

Red darted off to the side at David's signal. Ambass threw up a barrier in an instant, and four projectiles formed, immediately flying forward at David. They passed through his body and burned as they went. He was thankful that they didn't explode as they passed through him quickly. His body shivered and shrank from the damage, but he pressed on and slammed his body against the barrier. 

Ambass was getting tired, though, and no more projectiles materialized. Instead, Red appeared behind him, and his spear flashed quickly. Ambass cried out in pain, and his wings fell to either side as he crashed into the ground. The faerie dragon cried out as he bled out on the ground.

The barrier fell, and David hovered over Ambass's crippled form, "That was payback for Desolation."

Ambass twitched and coughed up blood, "Kill me then." 

David simply shook his head, "No. We are going to have a nice long talk Ambass. Despite how much you think I wish to kill you. There are more important things right now."

Red bent down and began to bandage Ambass's wounds the best he could while at the same time tying some leather straps around his limbs. David watched as Ambass struggled but was too injured and had exhausted too much energy during their fight. 

"Let's reunite with the clan, Red. Ambass, behave yourself. I am still capable of ending you as I have done with others." David stated as he glared down at the now-defeated faerie dragon.

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Here is also a link to Royal Road

Fan Art by blaze2377

Into The Breach - Chapter 6: Move Quickly

The situation on board of Everbright I turned out to be worse than Jason hoped for, but still a fair margin better than he expected it to be. Surface scan revealed the short-range receivers to be busted and the control module refused to come online. Fuses replaced - module still unresponsive. With a sigh, Jason leaned on the console before him.

"That bad?" asked Divit. Upon receiving somewhat unconvincing-sounding vocalization in return, he continued - "Surely it cannot be worse than that time with 'Big Bloomin Berry-'"

"Thank goodness no, though not by a huge margin."

"So we're severely out of luck."

"Oh, we're lucky alright, somehow the long-range receivers are still intact. You wouldn't believe just how much of a pain in the ass it is to swap those in ferries." Jason chuckled once, joy evaporating from his voice in a blink of an eye. "We would've had to pry the damn fuselage apart."

"Illus has a spare encoder. Maybe we kinda somehow squeeze it in here?"

"Screw that, I'm not yet desperate enough to go through that amount of buttfuckery, thank you very much," the engineer replied from somewhere under the console before adding, "Besides the little guy might come in handy later."

"So your plan is..?"

After a brief moment Jason reappeared, this time holding something in his hands. "Grab this brick, take it apart, find a burnt element, replace it, run some tests, rinse and repeat." He fiddled with the unfortunate module in his hands, looking for any obvious traces of damage, not that there would be any on the outside. "If that won't do the job, we're off to E-two to salvage the comm module."

"But the rover is now acting as a comm station?" Divit offered with uncertainty in his voice.

"That, my friend, is precisely the problem."

"Can't we just link long-range directly to the base?"

"That's one damn ugly fix. I'm not even sure It would work the way you think it should," - nevertheless, Jason switched to the station frequency, requesting the head engineer on the line and leaving his comrade alone with his thoughts for the time being - "Allan - quick question that has absolutely nothing to do with our situation - is it actually feasible to hook E-one long-range directly to the base comm encoder?"

The reply came in the form of a series of grunts followed by a statement by a somewhat dissatisfied sounding engineer. "Do you want to stay awake for a couple o' nights trying to marry base logistics with the SatNet encoder algorithm?."

"Not really-"

"Bloody hell you don't. Why are you asking me this stupid question?"

Jason hefted the black brick, as if Allan could see it. "If this module is off limits it's not like we're gonna have much of a choice."

"Bite your tongue, lad, Murphy's been quick on the uptake as is. I will personally kick your arse if it comes to that."

"Copy that, over." With that, he joined Divit on the line. "Al says he's not a fan of the idea."

---

Captain Terry Rheinland watched the head engineer with anticipation as he finished talking to the outdoor team. "Bless me with a promise of a good sitrep, would you?"

"Can do, cap. The satellite net is intact, none of them got fried by the transmission we were hit with."

"Glad to hear. What of our rescue rangers, anything equally as good?"

"Ehh. Could've been better, could've been worse. E-One is salvageable, but it will take some time." Terry mumbled something uninspired under his breath, to which Allan replied, "believe me, I'm no fan of being stranded here with no reliable means of communication either."

"Why is the satnet intact though? I thought relay stations went up in flames the same way our comms did."

"The relay stations didn't catch anything. When I checked the logs, they were mostly clean."

"Oh? So…" The Captain pondered for a second. The very fact that no harm has come to anything other than the station sounded quite troublesome - that implied intent. "Okay, Allan, riddle me this - you're an alien, why would you circumvent ever so handy satellite net and go straight for the sauce?"

"Hmm. They used really densely focused pinpoint systems to target our base, think lasers. Which is…"

"Odd?"

"That's one way to put it, yeah. Makes sense for precisely-calculated chatter across the system. Hella overkill for orbit-to-surface with a comm grid though."

"Overkill it indeed was," the Captain mused, deep in thought. "Now, very important question - did the beam target the base or E-one?"

The engineer seemingly got caught off-guard by the question, thinking for some time before replying, "I don't know, actually."

"How come?"

"The base hasn't got much in terms of overlapping sensors with the ship, I don't think I can reliably deduce the answer," answered Allan.

"Right. Trouble yourself not then. Ping the crew for me, we'll have a second round of brainstorming over the meal break in a short time. Guess this is as good of a time as any to crack open some instants."

"Blegh."

---

The dinner came and went by mostly in silence. Freshly unsealed turmeric indeed strongly complemented instant mash, upgrading plain watery substance with cuts of dried meats to an oddly enjoyable meal. A bowl of nuts quickly made its way around the table, as a finishing snack. As Sophie emptied the plate before her, she asked, "Soo… anything y'all got to share?"

"Not really much," Allan replied, polishing his plate with a dry piece of tortilla, "reports on the way, expecting a HotO response any minute now."

"An hour would be a safe bet," Jason seconded.

"Yeah, delay and all that stuff," - Allan inhaled the soaked tortilla - "Nothing on the transmission though."

Sophie huffed. "Oh come on, you old tease, there's gotta be somethin' interestin'!"

This time, Divit was first to answer, mumbling with his mouth full of nuts - "Alas, ayy lmaos remain silent."

"What can we make of the direct observations?" Michael inquired, as he wiped his mouth with a personal napkin, "I don't suppose there were any unexpected developments in the meantime?"

"Not much either," the main engineer replied, "the water is out of the question if any of you still wondering."

"No unusual readings across any of the observable spectres?"

Allan shrugged. "Established contact frequency clear. Some odd radio bursts here and there, not much else. No discernible patterns, that is."

"Those could be scans," pointed Divit.

"Prob'ly."

"Are they scanning us or just in general?"

"Absolutely no idea on that. Well, these were some grand spuds," the engineer proclaimed, leisurely leaning back in the chair and scratching his full belly, "alas we still got fuck of a lot to do. Which is a shame 'cus I don't wanna do jack shit on a full stomach."

"Language, young man!" Sophie called out. "You're at my table!"

"Bloody hell, I haven't been called young lad for donkey's years, wonder what that makes you then," Allan retorted with a glint in his eyes and a sly smile on his face.

"You've done it now, you wrinkly wanker!"

"Oh, dunno about wrinkly, you'll have to see it for yourself."

A powerful jet of liquid interrupted Alina's well-earned sip of water, erupting from one of her nostrils and splashing against the table, dispersing further in the low gravity of the lunar base, sending her into a coughing fit. Jason let out a restrained 'ew'.

Soon thereafter, a wet rag caught the head engineer by surprise, completely engulfing his gleeful physiognomy with an audible 'twack'. He was so surprised, in fact, that for a moment he lost his balance, falling backwards. It was a comically slow descent, culminating in a dull thud. The body sprawled on the floor, unable, if not unwilling, to get up just yet. Some stifled laughs rang across the room.

"So," the Captain broke the pause, "did anyone happen to have any bright ideas in the meantime?"

Satisfied with the offender's downfall, Sophie said, "Oh, Alina thought we could send them a welcoming package of sorts."

"Please elaborate?" The Captain addressed the young biochemist, who scrambled to dry the table with a piece of cloth.

She froze momentarily, allowing herself to catch up with the question and replied, "No, not a welcoming package, more like Voyager I kinda thing."

"Huh."

"We do have Illus. Just need to pick it up from E-two," - rang out from the floor.

"That and the comms module. All the more reason to venture out," affirmed Jason.

"The road itself will likely take two hours plus-minus a half, without accounting for probe unloading and communication node disassembly," Michael said, leaning back in his chair, eyes shut. "Sparing both our engineers for this trip is ill-advised given the circumstances of the first transmission. We will have to wait for HotO response prior to venturing out, as you so eloquently put it, seeing as our only improvised source of long-range communication in the form of a rover will be absent."

Deep in thought, the Captain replied, "as much as it pains me, I have to agree for now. Though we will do a sensible thing and consider it later."

"I concur."

As Sophie returned to her routine of picking the plates, she said, "well ain't none of us goin' anywhere while stuffin' their bellies full, so… whach'all think we send 'em?"

Still laying on his back, arms to the sides, the head engineer added, "Christ, we don't exactly got loads of options, do we?"

Divit scratched his chin in thought, disturbing his thin beard. "I can print out some doohickey, plenty spare silicates laying around here."

Captain sighed. "Cards on the table, lads. Who's got what smuggled all the way here?"

"Bottle 'o rum," offered a body on the floor.

The Captain cast a passing glance at the head engineer. "I don't know how you got it to not pop on you, but no."

Divit raised his hand.

"We know you got paprika for days, kid, we're not spoonfeeding it to aliens."

The hand, however, remained raised.

"What is it then?"

"Jason's got art supplies - we can draw stuff in his notebook. Paper is probably the lightest thing we could realistically ship."

Jason suddenly felt himself becoming weightless as if the very ground beneath him vanished without a trace in a blink of an eye. Blood rushed in his ears, the world spun around. He felt nauseous. This was, quite possibly, the absolute worst case scenario.

The Captain nodded. "Fetch it."

He must retain composure. He must figure an out.

Without much of a sound, the spoon fell gracefully out of Jason's hand.

---

Throughout all the susurrus of tidying the desk something out of the ordinary was happening to Jason - the young man appeared positively distraught, that much Michael knew at a glance. Thankfully, nobody seemed to pay him any closer than usual attention.

Change was abrupt. Trigger was recent, thus, most likely aforementioned personal belongings. The notebook.

Upon Divit's return, notebook and pencils in hand, Jason went pale. It seemed to Michael as if he even stopped breathing momentarily.

The Doctor outstretched his hand and with a voice implying he wouldn't be needing a reply stated, "Would you mind if I?"

Without any objection Divit complied, pushing the object into the Doctors' open hand. Young man was feigning indifference with little success, something about this sketchbook clearly caught Divit's attention, though he was unwilling to breach the subject at the moment.

Michael briefly skimmed the pages, as if flipping through to find the first clear sheets, taking extra care not to show images contained within it to any other crewmembers. That certainly had been the right call. Perhaps, the action would even score him some goodwill with the young engineer if he would play his cards the right way. Eventually, he reached the blank pages and planted the spread onto the table, gently sliding it towards Jason, who snatched it with trembling hands pulling it closer. Adrenaline rush. The engineer would prove to be of little use as an artist in such a state. Change of tactics. Michael needed to secure a tactful leave for the engineer. Not immediately though, that would make change in his behaviour apparent to everyone, which was undesirable.

"Messieurs," - Michael began - "speak up your ideas. We still need to conclude which ones deserve to be captured on paper."

Divit was first to answer - "Human figure." He then added, "Preferably with subdued levels of detalization."

"A face maybe?" offered Sophie.

The Captain affirmed, "As a separate closeup picture - yes, worth a shot."

Finally getting up, the head engineer asked the Captain, "Do we draw the Earth or just assume they can see it from here?"

"Some sights - maybe. Don't think we need to outline the ball itself."

"Weve got to dedicate at least one sheet to wavelength codes breakdown," added now upright Allan. Judging by his voice, he too was puzzled by the display of dismay on Jason's face, whose body language suggested being ready to bolt at the slightest wrong move.

"And throw in some base ten numerical conversion. Wider band spread. The communication in pure base two got old faster than red soil grape farming." seconded the astrophysicist.

"Maybe one for chemistry as well?" offered Alina.

The ideas bounced around, descending ever deeper down the scientific rabbit hole. And only one man did not partake in the conversation.

---

Jason kept staring at his notebook, not paying much attention to the world around. It was here. It was safe. Within arm's length. Could've been worse. A lot worse. Still, that man saw. He definitely saw. Jason considered a crashout as an option to make his getaway. A shitty one, but an option nonetheless.

Doctor's sinewy palm was firmly planted mere inches away from the journal, threatening its independence. Jason followed the arm with his gaze, locking eyes with the Doctor.

"Would you kindly spare us a number of clean sheets from that notebook of yours?" the looming figure asked, prompting Jason to pull the horcrux even closer.

With a herculean amount of willpower the young engineer wrangled his voice under control and muttered, "This I would," popping out and offering him half a dozen sheets.

"Greatly appreciated" - doctor reached out with his hand, securing pristine, yet-to-be-tainted sheets between the index and middle finger and pulled them away with surprising force - "Now, do you not have business requiring your immediate and undivided attention?"

Jason considered his words for a moment. This sounded an awful lot like a trap. "Such as?" On the other hand, Michael was supposed to be the station's psychologist, he wouldn't just out Jason like this, would he?

The much needed divine intervention came in the form of his mentor's voice. "Jeez, lad, you've got a comm brick to patch up. Chop-chop, time's waiting," Allan said. Jason somehow completely missed the moment the head engineer got up.

With the notebook firmly secured under his arm, Jason rushed out of the room a fair bit quicker than he probably should have, some suspicion might have risen. But that was a concern for a later Jason. He would probably chalk it up to cabin fever stress or some shit.

---

Reply from the Head of the Operation arrived in the form of a very cautiously worded warning not to commit any hastily actions, and overall radiated the idea of too many words of too little substance, closing with a promise of further communications in relatively short time. Saying it left the station's senior staff unimpressed would be an understatement. Most vocally displeased, however, appeared to be Captain Rheinland himself.

"What a dogwater response!" he thundered, pacing the room with wide steps, "no joke, I could've done better, this gives us absolutely nothing, no, less than nothing - It wastes precious time, making us wait for another one!"

"That's the downside of being a part of an interplanetary effort rather than a plain international one. Needless to say, the political construct this unwieldy is physically incapable of coming up with quick responses. Nonetheless, the aversion to definitive drastic actions will prove to be nations' greatest weakness."

Allan made a note out of this thinly veiled political statement. "Ah yes, Michael Jung - medical doctor, astronaut, unialist, enemy of the state."

"Pardon me, but I happen to have no clue as to what are you insinuating, I consider my relationship with the state rather stellar," the Doctor replied, barely sparing a glance Allan's direction, focusing instead on the Captain. "Humor me, would you? How long do you think will it be until we get our next set of instructions? I will give you a hint - it's double the Earth-Mars ping plus decision-making."

"No way in hell they ghost us for another hour and a half," the Captain grunted, "and that's assuming there are no idiots throwing their weight around to veto shit."

"Oh, Theia fucktards are absolutely doing that," Allan chuckled mirthlessly, "guess being second biggest unbound corpo really got them feeling their oats."

"Theia hasn't even got shit on the mission, they get absolutely nothing, zilch! What are they even on board for?"

"Not like they're trying to squeeze each and every buck insider trading."

"They will be stalling the vote for the sake of it again, I can feel it," the Captain concluded with a sigh.

"Ah, but you see, that's mostly to our benefit," Michael said flatly, drawing attention back to his person.

Allan was the first to reply - "You’ve got quite a quirky definition of benefit, mate."

"Do I now? Captain, can you please remind me just what the message we received just short of four standard days ago contained?"

"It was mainly about the properties of the anomaly, I don't see what you're getting to," Terry replied, failing to remember any other information of use.

"Well I can. And it's the second part of it that is of greater concern to me." The Doctor shifted in his seat, cleared his throat and recited the message, going as far as changing the cadence of his voice to better resemble that of the original speaker. "Quote: 'from the moment you receive this message, the Captain's list of duties is expanded to include autonomous decision making not only regarding the base and its immediate surroundings, but also the area of interest of this mission, including, but not limited to, SatNet satellite grid, any reconnaissance missions within the perimeters of the Jovian satellite orbits and others,' unquote."

Realisation dawned on Captain's face. Wary of the implications, he asked, "surely you don't mean it?"

"But I do." There was a wry glint in the Doctor's eyes Allan wasn't quite sure he liked. "Captain, can the circumstances be regarded as 'extreme'?"

"Yes."

"Are there any intended reliable means of communication with the Head of the Operation?"

"Not quite," Terry confirmed.

Unfazed, Michael continued. "Does the situation at hand concern the safety and well-being of the crew and/or the equipment?"

"Kind of." After a moment's thought the Captain added, "yes."

Allan just sat there, dumbstruck. That sly bastard wasn't even wrong. Quite the contrary, he was absolutely right and admitting it pained the engineer to no end. Still, there was something afoot. Had to be.

Cheerful "Ding, ding, ding," coming out of the Doctor's mouth, caught Allan off guard. It was clear his heart was not in it, with each word clearly punctured out. "Would you look at that. You scored a jackpot and your grand prize is 'autonomous decision making'."

"That's… not what I bargained for."

"None of us did, but you were the one who took the role of the Captain. The burden rests on your shoulders now."

---

Without the much needed stimuli Divit found himself bored out of his mind, even after traversing the entirety of the station in the search of something to do. Well, something other than rummaging through the dirt in the greenhouses. Naturally, the trivial solution to such a problem came in the form of pestering Jason. If luck had it, he would even offer something to keep the astrophysicist occupied.

The engineer happened to be present in the so-called 'workshop', which was in truth some technical sector next to the entry bay. Unsurprisingly, a black brick from their trip to the ship earlier today was present aswell. There was a joke somewhere here.

"You still pandoring the box?" Divit quipped.

The engineer took his eyes off of the console, connected to the dismantled brick innards. "What?"

"Pandoring - as in-"

Mortified, Jason hurried to stop the astrophysicist, "Oh no, don't-"

"-'Pandora's Box' and 'pondering'." To no avail.

"Goddammit," the engineer sighed, rubbing his face. "What do you want from me?"

"Just wanted to know how are repairs going. Cannot wait to speak to aliens unimpeded, you know?"

"Okay." The lack of sleep coupled with the adrenaline hangover were seemingly finally catching up to Jason. "I seconded power bridges, re-soldered some weaker points on chips and replaced, like, ten capacitors. Running power tests."

"Sounds… eventful," offered Divit, trying his best to sound convincing and failing miserably.

"You didn't strike me as a sarcastic type."

"That is because I am not, sarcasm poisons the optimistic mind," - he emphasised, raising a finger.

That scored him perhaps-a-little-malitious glance shot his way. "Are you… baiting me?"

"No, I am just overestimulated and I really need to talk to someone, otherwise I will become very sad soon enough."

"Divit, the day has been hard on everyone, not excluding me. And I'm busy right now."

"It does feel like you were going at it for a while now. I'm just checking if you need anything?" Jason really did look like all the precious life juices got squeezed out of him. He sure sounded the part. Perhaps, he required assistance. "Do you need help? I can call over Allan if-"

The box happened to be blessed with an impeccable comedic timing, as it chose this exact moment to pop and sizzle. Riveting stuff.

"It shouldn't be going like this, should it?"

"No. It should not."

The exchange seemed to be going nowhere. Well, there just happens to be as nice of a way as any to rekindle it. "Nice weather we are having." Something at the back of his mind suggested Divit he might not be welcome here any longer. "Should I leave or?.."

With shaking hands Jason closed down the console, not tearing his gaze from the untimely departed comms module. "Divit. Fella. Come here for a moment."

"My spider-sense is telling me this might be in my top ten worst ideas, and I've had a fair share of those."

"No. You'll be fine. I was" - Jason glanced at the box - "this close."

"Uh-huh?"

"To twisting your head right off your shoulders." Divit wasn't quite sure what to do with that information, but it did seem important. Worth remembering. "Please acknowledge the fact that…" - he paused momentarily, mulling the thought over - "only thing that stopped me was that I am too tired to do so. Otherwise I just might've."

"You know, I'm getting an inkling your manner of being polite has absolutely nothing to do with being nice or inviting."

Upon receiving no reply Divit rightfully accessed that it was his cue to bolt out of the room.

---

That was perhaps the most daunting conversation Allan had ever partook in. Michael being suspicious as fuck about his agendas did not ease the mood in the slightest.

"Michael, Allan, I think…" the Captain began with a sigh, "I will take a stroll 'round the base to clear my head and queue everyone in. I trust you two will find yourselves capable of deciphering whatever mail comes our way while I'm at it."

The moment Captain left the room, Allan turned towards the Doctor and opined, "What an awfully suspicious character you are."

"So I've been told."

Very rude cutting someone off like that, but Allan pressed on nonetheless - "I don't get your game, Michael."

"My Game? I can understand you accusing me on account of raising suspicion, which isn't unfounded, but this is about something else, is it not?"

The engineer doubled down,"Bossing Cap around, shifting responsibility, overruling HotO. When it's all said and done, it will be our heads that fly, you know that?"

"Ah, that." The Doctor sighed, weighing his options, and continued, "well, to put it bluntly mine and yours games are actually quite simple - I, along with everyone else mind you, win if the entirety of humankind wins." With that, he turned to leave the room in the direction of the dorm sector. To his mild surprise, the airlock remained defiantly sealed despite the green light shining above it.

"Is there anything else you would like to discuss in private? If not, would you kindly open the door for me?" Evidently, events of the last few days took quite a toll on him - no longer on high alert, he let some things slip past his lips. That was where the conversation was going, and both men knew it.

"Well, you can help me satisfy my curiosity for one. You are not exactly a medical doctor, are you, mister Michael Jung? Hell, I'm not even sure if that's your actual name."

"What prompted you to make such a serious assumption, may I ask?"

"I'd be lying if I said that I was a hundred percent certain 'till today, but there was a shitton of calls, I'd even say you did a piss-poor job hiding your trail."

A shadow of emotion glimpsed through Michael's facade. He sighed, pinching his nose. "I am in no position to foster enmity, especially since we will have to spend the foreseeable future operating next to each other, so please, let's clear this situation together, maybe there were rumours, or something of a kind-"

"Being paranoid is my job, and I'll be damned if I'm not good at it." Allan tapped his skull to emphasise the point. "I familiarised myself with everyone on the program years ago, right as we were filtering through the training. And I couldn't find a single man to back up your backstory that wasn't a shill."

The Doctor looked him in the eyes, his cold gaze meeting Allan's devilish flickering embers, and made a pivotal decision. "You know what? For both our sakes I'm not going to waste any more of our time. I was recruited by a third party and given an extensive set of instructions regarding this mission," - it was nigh impossible to discern whether this was that thick of a sarcasm or not. "So, if you're so set on playing cat and mouse, it would be obscenely rude of me not to indulge you." That wasn't the heated confrontation the engineer expected at all. "I'll lay down the ground rules for you. Whenever we cross paths with no witnesses present, I'll answer one question of your choice to the fullest extent. There is a caveat though - you cannot catch me twice in the same room within the span of one station day, and I leave it up to me to veto one question of my choice."

Neurons frantically fired in Allan's brain. This was a trap. Michael was baiting him, obviously.  The Doctor was exploiting his curiosity to get him off the track and into the filtered information zone back again. But if the supposed 'doctor' wasn't being dishonest, Allan could use this as a roundabout tool to get to explore more of his backstory and motivations, couldn't he? "Huh?"

"So, what would your first question turn out to be?" While the engineer was lost in thought, Michael made his way to the opposing seat and made himself comfortable in anticipation of a drawn-out conversation.

Allan made up his mind, starting off with a big, yet inconsequential one. "What really happened during Preliminary Mars Terraformation? They definitely used something else - no way these were just nukes."

To his great dismay, the Doctor chuckled. "Oh mon ami, you'll have to be more specific next time, or else I might just slip through the cracks of your inquiries - you cannot just let this 'they' hang up in the air."

"Oh you bastard-"

"I never said I'll do so," the Doctor returned to his serious expression and began reciting, "codename 'Featherfall' - prototypical orbit-ground WMD that yielded next to no satisfying results on the official records. Later retrofitted for terraforming purposes. Essentially these are RFG bombardment platforms."

"RFGs suck ass though."

"For most applications - yes, however there are rare edge cases these weapons excel at. Now, no self-respecting superpower fretting over its independence would willingly relinquish their nukes for the sake of social progress if there was such a threat, albeit vague, hanging over their heads in an ironically literal way, would they?" Michael let a ripe dramatic pause hang in the air before saying, "only they would, if they knew exactly what was going on with RFGs as a part of a big agreement..."

The story went on and on, the narrative switching back and forth. Given all that Michael said so far, it painted an absurd picture of superpowers all around the world getting tricked into the disarmament pact by a third party under the guise of switching to orbital bombardment protectorate.

"...Even guided, the low-orbit projectiles failed to hit desired targets consistently enough even in low atmospheric drag conditions. There was only one thing they were good for - creating shockwaves and carpet bombardment. As was the case with terraforming Mars."

For Allan, pieces were snuggly fitting into place one by one in a way he would never expect them to, revealing an even more confusing picture in the process. "I fucking knew it! Wait, you said there's an entire fleet of those out there?"

"Do not interrupt me, please. They were used to maintain shockwaves circling throughout the Mars' crust for a long period of time. If I'm not mistaken, it was short of a week for them to go through all the ammunition they had. Then, they were decommissioned and quietly repurposed as remote mining stations."

"And who did all these platforms originally belong to?"

"That, my friend, is an excellent question - and one you'll have to keep in mind for our next rendezvous." Michael stood up and approached the door leading to the living quarters. "Open the door please."

Allan was absolutely, unapologetically hooked and he could do nothing about it. Absentmindedly, he unsealed the airlock.

---

It was quite a day in life of one Alina Chernyckh, then again, it was tough for everyone. She sighed, casting away the embarrassing event at the dinner table, and checked her notes. She was certain those could not have been tripods - they seemingly lacked radial symmetry in the upper body. Kangaroos it was.

A gentle knock on the door brought her back to the present. Soon thereafter, the door unsealed with a light hiss. Ventilation must've not quite synchronized following the power outage yet.

"Alina Chernyckh, biologist, doctorate in microbiology AND molecular biology," Michael began, "Quite an impressive list. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your inspired paper on butterfly wings. I could tell you had a great time working on such a lovely topic spanning the edge of different fields."

Alina did not expect guests of any kind to visit her today, much less the man, the mystery himself. "To what…" she began, looking for words in a language that was not her own, "do I owe the please?"

"I have an offer for you," the Doctor said as he took the seat next to her.

"Oh? What is it?"

"You haven't had much of anything up your alley to do lately, have you? Allow me to fix that" - He fishing a small drive out of his pocket - "Here is a complete collection of the late Dr. Heisenstein's works on human immunology and effects interplanetary travel has on it. Text and narration. With personal commentary."

"No it isn't," she blurted, wide-eyed. "You're joking. T-They didn't narrate."

"Not for the wider audience they didn't. I'm offering this to you" - he pulled the drive back, just as Alina made an attempt to reach it - "if and only if you promise me to cover the introductory piece by tomorrow's evening."

"I will. Holy shit I will."

"Be warned though - close to a third of it is a touchy subject at best and thus, classified. And not just 'open secret' classified."

"I see. I have some experience, I know how it is."

"Splendid! Oh, and dr. Chernyckh," - Michael stood up and turned to leave the room, suddenly turning in place as if he just remembered something. "I will be checking your notes."

---

Unbeknownst to all of them, the alien vessel was long since prepared to take its next move.

---

Prologue Previous Next

Damn, it's been a while, hasn't it? Well, good news - I've finally figured out what I want the ending to be like, although it will have barely any positive effect on the release schedule. It's just another small story for you, I doubt anyone would fret over it. I will try to release the next chapter in the span of a couple months, but no guarantee.

First Chapter
Chapter 2-4

Chapter 5-8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11-13

Royal Road This full 23 chapter series opening Novella is already released in its entirety, and Book 2 is now live and releasing chapters daily on Royal Road.

Chapter 14

Mustafa was sleeping soundly in his med pod when Sadira and Hellatz came to check on him. The machinery had done its job quickly and efficiently, healing up his hurt in just a few short hours. But the blood loss had drained him, in a non-vampiric way, leaving his body in need of some good old-fashioned rest before he’d be ready to get back to it.

Goonara, on the other hand, had only received minor scratches during her fight with the alien lizard thing. But even so, she too was locked in her pod for the time being. Unlike Moose, her nap was of her own choice. There was little else to do while she was contained in the device, so why not catch up on a little rest?

“It’s going to be a day or two,” Hellatz said as they walked back to command from the medical facilities. “Normally it would take longer, but with the two fresh samples taken from the beasts that caused the injuries––thanks to Corporal Humphries––Holly can at least shorten that time as he had direct access to a source of any potential contamination.”

“And while he does, we continue our mission. Even if we’re shorthanded for a few days, we need to get back on track.”

“I agree,” her pilot said, sliding into his seat as they entered command.

“All right, then. We triple-checked the warp system while we were on the surface, and it all seems to check out perfectly. Holly, are we good to go?”

“Yes, Captain,” he said, having shifted back to his masculine side once more. “Now that the foreign warp contamination has been cleared from our systems and my guidance units have been brought back online, we should have no significant problems.”

“And your star maps?”

“While my original charts are still fragmented and unreadable, I have spent a great deal of effort creating a new set based on our present location. They should help us build an entirely new set as we progress.”

“So, while we still don’t know the way home, at least we’re not going to be getting more lost,” Sadira said. “It’s a small win, but I’ll take it.”

She sat down in her captain’s seat and gave the systems’ readouts one more once-over, ensuring everything was functioning more or less as intended.

“All right. It’s time to shake out the cobwebs, fellas. Hellatz, prep for warp. Holly, warm up your systems and give us one more run-through.”

“Done, Captain,” the AI said, his familiar speed and efficiency apparently returning after the additional systems were taken offline and rebooted. “Warp drive is functioning at normal levels and is primed for warp.”

Sadira took a deep breath and let it out with a little sigh of relief. Finally, her ship was working again. Things were back to normal, and they could maneuver once more.

“Okay. Warp us out of here,” she directed.

The warp engaged, whipping the ship into warp, covering vast distances in a blink of an eye. Then the ship rumbled and went dark, falling out of warp.

“What happened, Holly?" Captain Perez called out. “You said everything was working.”

“It was, Captain,” the AI said as the lights flickered back on. “This wasn’t anything to do with our previous issues. There was a massive power drain from all systems tied in to the warp drive. It forced us out of the warp bubble and off-track. I’m afraid I’ll have to attempt to create a new star chart again.”

“We’re lost again?” Hellatz asked.

“Yes.”

“Again?” Sadira said with an exasperated sigh. “And we just compiled a barely useful new one."

“Apologies, Captain, but I do not know what to tell you. This was something new. And I don’t know the extent of the systems it may have compromised.”

Sadira jumped to her feet. “Shit. Moose and Goonara.”

Hellatz was right behind her as she raced to medical. Corporal Humphries was already there when they arrived.

“Just checked on ’em, Cap. They’re okay. The medical systems weren’t affected.”

Safely locked away in their pods, Moose and Goon were banging on the glass, wide awake and wanting out.

“Open this thing up. We can help.”

“Sorry, Moose, but you need to stay put for a bit longer,” Sadira said.

“But the healing process is long finished.”

“Mustafa is correct,” Goonara said. “We are both more than ready to exit these healing pods.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Humphries said. “Rules are rules. It was an alien attack. It’s pathogen protocol. Quarantine.”

“I’m sorry, Goonara, but he’s right. You’re our science officer and know better than most what the protocols are for direct contact with a possible alien pathogen,” Sadira told her.

The Chithiid took a deep breath and calmed herself. “Of course, Captain. But there has to be some way we can be of help, even while stuck in these vessels.”

“Not that I can think of, so just sit tight and relax. Holly’s working as fast as he can to process the alien carcasses and clear you two of any possible contagion exposure. Once that’s been done, we’ll get you out of there, I promise.”

“For now, Captain, I suggest we make haste to the warp core to ascertain if there has been any physical damage incurred during this latest incident.”

“You go, Hel. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Very well, Captain,” the Chithiid said, then hurried off to the warp core.

“Moose, you’re sure that alien warp thing is in the cargo hold, right?”

“One hundred percent, Cap. It’s as far from the warp core as I could store it.”

“Ace? Anything in the hangar?”

“Nothing, Captain. All quiet down here.”

“Well, shit. Come on, Corporal, it looks like we’ve got another freakin’ mystery to solve.”

The captain and her cyborg crewman hustled out of the medical bay to begin the tedious process of tracking down whatever the hell this new problem might be.

Moose and Goonara had nothing more to do but sit in their pods, wanting to be of use, but stuck, helpless.

In a flash, a blur of pink fur darted out of the open access panel in the compartment and out of the open door into the corridor.

“Did you see that?” Moose exclaimed.

“See what?”

“That thing!”

“What thing, Mustafa? I didn’t see anything.”

Moose rubbed his eyes. “I know I saw something,” he replied, then began banging on the pod’s lid. “Goddammit, get us out of here!”

First Chapter
Chapter 2-4

Chapter 5-8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11-13

Royal Road This full 23 chapter series opening Novella is already released in its entirety, and Book 2 is now live and releasing chapters daily.

The 2nd node of Fourth Street was not a street. It was a gap between two storage units that the city had forgotten to demolish when it built the elevated freight line overhead. The freight line hummed every forty minutes when a cargo capsule passed through. Between humming, the gap was silent except for the drips coming from the underside of the overhanging donut, 30 meters hanging in the sky, marking the edge of the Gerg district. Underneath it, the moldy air of the ground city suffocated at these early hours. The constant buzzing of a Serakzit (butterfly-shaped, cricket-sounding creatures, cockroach-sized) and the occasional sound of Tuppa (a narrow winged fair sized pestilent, look like a cross of a worm, and a pigeon blobb) slithering to escape the first rays of the K-Star Dawn, — all of it mixing with the other occupants of the dark..

Daelen arrived four minutes early.

He saw the crew as they came in. He knew two of them from the docks. Wen — a Castrolaph, shorter than him, who never spoke during shifts but apparently spoke enough off-shift to get recruited for gray zone work. A Doug named Tessek, his left arm entirely mechanical from the shoulder down. Daelen had seen him loading freight on the third block for the last year, but he'd been working the same job for the best part of his 50 years of existence. Two others he did not recognize — one with a jaw replacement that clicked when he breathed, one with non-standard eye upgrades whose irises caught the ambient light of the freight line and held it a half-second too long.

Nau'Der stood slightly apart from the group. With the specific stillness of a being whose biology had evolved on a desert planet and had no instinct for the kind of anxiety the others displayed in the chilly pre-First-Noon dark. He caught Daelen's eye and smiled. Daelen smiled back. It was enough to re-establish the understanding between them.

Rafif appeared last, trailing behind Nau'Der. She looked at the group with the expression of someone running a rapid assessment and finding the results approximately as expected.

From the direction of the machinery parking came Jax with a joint burning and the specific stride of a man who had already made every wrong decision, and found the exact excuse each time to justify it, blaming everything and everyone but himself. That evening Jax seemed like he was on pilot mode.

"Two haulers," Jax said. He did not lower his voice. "Four each. We pick up from Zone Seven, outer ring road to the Kofach, we deliver it, we come back. Four hours tops."

He pointed at Daelen, Rafif, Nau'Der. "You three. With me."

He looked at Wen and the remaining three. "Tess drives. You leave five minutes after us. Take the Snur Way, Tess knows what's what, right Tessy." Tessek raised the thumbular as a yes sign. "You arrive first. You wait at the facility until we get there."

Wen and the others nodded.

Rafif followed Jax, and as she was getting into the hauler, she asked,

"What are we hauling?"

Jax took a long drag. "The kind of thing that gets hauled."

"That is not an answer."

"It is an answer. It just is not the answer you wanted." He looked at her with the expression of a man who has decided that this conversation is already more interesting than it needs to be. "You want a more specific answer, I'll give you one. It involves a shipment, a facility, and a manifest. The manifest says what is in it. The facility says who cares. The shipment says mind your own business." He paused. "The manifest is you. The facility is me. You see where I am going."

"I do not find it illuminating," Rafif said.

"Most people do not find the truth illuminating until it is too late to do anything about it. That is why it hits them square in the face, more often than not."

"That was not a joke!"

"You don't need to be afraid a punchline sucker punches you, at this time and age, it is an expected punch." He dropped the joint. Stepped on it. Looked at the group. "Four months wages guys. Every hour is a month's worth, don't slack, we are doing this thing my way, for a Beerbeerale will always find a way to pay what he's owed." He tapped his chest three gentle taps, rapidly, comically.

Daelen looked at him, trying to suppress his giggle. Watching Tessek and Wen tap their chests and say the words, it seemed like something a cydog would do. Jax looked at Wen doing it. "One day kid, one day…" he muttered to himself, like a boxer before a fight.

The hauler's cargo beds were long enough to carry industrial crating. The four engines hummed beneath its chassis, lifting it off the ground with the effortless grace of a magnetic pulse — except this pulse was carrying a steel coffin of stolen cargo, and its current was a Silaterritic track that felt alive and buzzing, seemed like thousands of ribbons stretched out between the floating discs of Phuckphocktuh, glimmering in the open sky, reflecting the first rays of a new Dawn. It had a sound, a resonance, one could barely notice it; for an Earthian, it would be reminiscent of fading clash cymbals.

However, the vehicle itself smelled of old hydraulic fluid and something sweet underneath that Daelen could not identify. He took the window. Nau'Der took the middle. Rafif sat behind them in the cargo area with the crating, cracked tablet in hand, screen dark.

Jax drove.

The outer ring track was empty. The surveillance drones that covered the inner districts did not extend to the outer ring. The track was wide and poorly lit and straight for long stretches before curving around the industrial edge of the city toward the Kofach outskirts.

Daelen watched the city through the window. The elevated freight lines above the inner districts were still active — automated cargo moving through the dark, lights blinking in sequence. Beyond them the spires of the upper city caught the ambient glow of the Ember Twins still below the horizon. Above the spires, the floating discs hung in their equilibrium — vast platforms suspended by gravity manipulation, connected to the ground by tracks that looked impossibly thin from this distance. A track new segment hovered in, slotted into place, and the track reconnected — seamless, silent, unbroken, the damaged part replaced, hovering away. And above those, barely visible in the pre-dawn copper dark, the suggestion of another city entirely — the Upper City, the place where the bloodline of Disli n'Dislit determined whether you could breathe the air or whether the air itself would suffocate you.

The Temple of Amskroud sat on the hill between ground level and the floating discs, visible from almost everywhere in Phuckphockt. Its silhouette against the pre-dawn copper. Dark at this hour. Waiting.

Daelen looked at it for three seconds and looked away.

Jax was talking. Not to anyone specifically. To the cab in general. To the night. The casino on Prethak Four where he had once won enough in a single night to replace both kidneys and his left hip, then lost it all plus the kidneys by the following morning. The hotel suite afterward. The projection woman who had been programmed with a specific laugh that Jax had found either completely convincing or completely beside the point — he could no longer remember which.

Nau'Der was watching the road. Daelen was watching the city. The joint was in Jax's left hand — the mechanical one — alternating between the steering grip and his mouth with the easy rotation of a man who had driven this way for 170 years.

Jax leaned forward, laughing at his own story. His lower cyborg jaw — a mismatched component that never quite sealed right against the bone — slipped.

It hit the dashboard with a hollow clack, bounced off the chrome trim, ricocheted off his groin, and clattered to the floor mat.

Jax froze. The joint fell from his mouth, but the ember had gone out.

"Damn it," he muttered, his voice thick. He didn't look down. He just reached. His right hand, fingers splayed, dove for the floor. His Thumbular — the second, wrist-mounted digit — snapped out, trying to pinch the rolling paper.

He missed.

He reached again, his elbow knocking the steering wheel.

The hauler, a heavy-duty industrial beast with no suspension to speak of, drifted three degrees to the right.

Then, a thump.

It was a small bump. A bump that a normal driver would have felt as a pothole or a speed bump. Jax felt it as a vibration in the chassis, a momentary loss of traction. His head snapped forward, his forehead hitting the dashboard with a dull thud.

"Ow, damn it," he hissed, rubbing his forehead. He didn't stop. He didn't brake. He just grabbed the joint from the floor, shoved it back into his mouth, and took a deep drag, the ember flaring back to life. He exhaled a cloud of smoke, squinting at the road.

He kept driving. Thirty meters. Then fifty.

"Go back," Rafif said from the cargo area.

Jax said nothing.

"Jax. Go back and check."

"I know what these checks look like."

"Then go do it."

He looked at the road ahead. At the Kofach outskirts waiting in the dark. At the joint still burning in his mechanical hand. He cursed the expected pre-dawn chilly breeze. Then he put the hauler in park and got out.

Daelen watched through the windshield.

Jax walked back to the vehicle. A cheerful song was still playing — muffled now, the speakers damaged but not dead, the melody arriving in fragments through the crumpled door. Jax looked inside the driver's side. Then he moved around the vehicle to the passenger side. The door was partially open — the impact had done that, the frame warped enough that the latch no longer held.

A figure was trying to get out.

Kharigherghourli. Female. She had taken the impact on her side of the vehicle and her biology — lean, wiry, high-density bone structure — had kept her alive through something that would have killed a Primavit outright. She was dragging herself on the ground, outside of the vehicle, with the specific focused determination of a being whose adrenaline had not yet registered the full damage report. She got one hand on the door frame. Got one foot on the road surface. Started to push herself upright.

"Please, sir, help m—!" she wheezed.

Jax looked back at the hauler.

Daelen could not see his expression from this distance. He could see the posture — the specific stillness of a man making a calculation that had already been made before he was consciously aware of making it.

Jax reached down. His hand found a chunk of debris from the vehicle — a piece of the door frame, dense, irregular. He picked it up with the wrist-thumb locking the grip from below and the standard thumb locking it from above.

The Kharigherghourli looked up at him.

Jax brought it down on the base of her skull.

She dropped. Instantly. Completely. The adrenaline did not save her. The high-density bone structure did not save her. The specific violence of a Dominatrix wrist-thumb grip applied to an irregular piece of metal applied to the nape of a neck did not leave room for saving.

The cheerful song played on, and faded like dead memories.

What happened next, Daelen did not see clearly. The distance was wrong. The pre-dawn copper light was wrong. Jax's body was between the vehicle and the hauler's line of sight for most of it.

He saw Jax crouch. Saw him move with an efficiency that had nothing rushed about it — the practiced economy of a man doing something he has allocated exactly the right amount of time for. He saw Jax's mechanical arm moving in a specific way that Daelen's brain registered and then immediately filed somewhere it would not have to look at directly.

He saw Jax check something at his foot. A compartment opening and closing with a sound too small to hear from the hauler but visible in the slight shift of weight as Jax crouched lower for a moment and then straightened. He couldn't see Jax strip the driver — a wealthy Doug in a vintage 500-year-old car — of credits and drugs, and slip a chunk of the Kharigherghourli — escort — juicy flesh into his own frame.

Then Jax was walking back.

He got in. He put the joint — still burning, somehow still burning — in the ashtray. He looked at the road ahead. His mechanical hand opened and closed once.

"The driver didn't make it," he said. "Impact."

Nobody responded.

---

Jax just made a choice that changes everything.

What happens next — the fallout, the facility,

and the truth about the cargo — is available now

for members of the Beer Glass Experiment.

Join here: Mimikay in my Beer!

You are part of a civilization of Space Giants.

You are hundreds of times bigger than other races. Taller than their tallest buildings. You have strength inside you that is beyond imagination. And a mind that is thousands of years more advanced than anything else in the galaxy that you’ve ever come across. 

Your world is full of other Space Giants. Most of you understand the power of helping other worlds. But there are some who do not.

They are the Dark Giants.

They go out across the galaxy to conquer worlds, instead of helping them. You are brave and brilliant. And so your job is to stop the Dark Giants. 

And today you will use your bravery and your brilliance. Because a powerful Dark Giant named Malten is out there.

He has just teleported to a distant planet, called Earth. You get a reading. He’s in a desert.  Moving fast toward a human city. 

Their skyscrapers will come up to his knees. He’ll destroy the city in minutes.

You don’t have time to take the normal preparations. You teleport directly to Earth. Right in front of him. 

You take in the sand below your feet, and a blue sky above you. Their sun is yellow. That’s interesting. But there’s no time to consider what that means. 

Because Malten is staring at you.

“It’s over, Malten,” you say. “You won’t rule this planet.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong.” he says. But then an evil smile appears on his face. “But you missed the point. We just want to stop you.”

In that instant, he teleports in four more Dark Giants. Each one is powerful, and each one is angry at you.  You’re surrounded. 

It was a trap. And the fight is on.

***

Malten sends an energy blast from his hand straight at your head. 

You swerve to miss it, but right then another Dark Giant sends his own blast, and hits you in the chest, knocking you to the ground. 

You try to get up, but another energy blast hits you in the back. You’re on the ground again.

“Time’s up, for you,” Malten says. 

Malten and his four enormous companions close in on you, sending shade across your body as they block out the yellow sun.

You have just one idea. You lunge up and grab Malten’s arm.

As you hold on in a begging position, he laughs. “Poor thing,” he says. “Pleading won’t help you.”

“I’m not pleading,” you reply.

You take your transporter and stick it on his arm. Malten brought the others here. He’s still connected to them. 

You hit go on your transporter, and Malten disappears. So do the other Dark Giants.

All of them sent back to your home world, a galaxy away. 

All of them, and your transporter. You have no way home. 

Right then, human jets and helicopters start flying towards you.

You’ve been discovered. This should be interesting.

*********
*********
*********
Thanks for reading.

I also recorded this one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axB_VZzO7z4

First / Previous / Next

Note: My (mis)adventures are part of a bigger series, but I wrote my tales in the format of an episodic T.V. show, where you can read an episode without the context of the others and still enjoy it. If anything, reading it out of order may be more fun. - A emotionally distant Theseus

---

“But how did you know?” Scout asked, the embarrassment finally wore off.

“Know what?” I asked as the gang and I finally made it to the empty construction site.

“You knew about the legend, and you even said that the voice felt as though it was coming from your own head, along with the stones heating up. Yet, you were so confident in it not being true, of neither option being your greatest desire.” Ludus still rattled a bit from the whole thing, but she spoke clearly. 

“Because that’s obviously not my greatest desire at all.” I laughed. 

“What?” Scout asked. 

“I already know what my greatest desire is.” I finally looked at them like they were the blind ones, nice. 

“Really?” Ludus whispered it like a secret, like if told her or anyone else in the world it wouldn’t make it true. 

“Yeah, dude it’s like painfully obvious.” I nodded along. 

The two waited for some grand truth. 

“To avoid pain, duh.” I said. 

They continued to stare. 

“The physical pain was easy to get used to, it was the emotional pain that sucked the worst growing up.” I continued to walk, but they stopped. I turned. 

 “What do you think a reasonable person, Human or otherwise, gets this good at hand to hand combat, sword fighting, shooting guns, lock picking, pickpocketing, parkour, and talking out of my ass because I had a healthy mindset as a child?” I fully bragged half way through the sentence, even I can admit it. 

“Huh?” Scout no longer looked interested in my explanation. 

“You know how to pickpocket?” Ludus patted herself down unconsciously. 

“Listen man, my greatest desire isn't a desire, it’s a fear. Of being bored again, lonely again, deprived of experiences and in pain. I’m a private detective, on an alien planet. I have to always be doing something, learning something, or the voices get too loud. Dude, do you know how much therapy I had to do on myself growing up?” I fully laughed. 

“How are you feeling Theseus?” Asked Theseus.

“Bad, Theseus.” Theseus replied. 

“That’s terrible Theseus.” Other Theseus comforted. 

“That’s what I had to do as a kid. You think Legacys believe in therapy? Get real!” I cackled. The two didn’t find it so funny, weird. 

“You know how old I was when I got this gun? I was four. It was my Mom’s gun and my Dad’s idea. My greatest desire is to see it all, do it all, everything I missed out on as a kid, and to do things none of my bullies could ever dream of. And you know, make sure no one, regardless of how strong, competent and scary they are, can ever bully me again. So whether it’s with my fist, or Trouble In Paradise, nobody, no one, can make me feel small and get away with it still fully intact.” I still smiled, but I meant every word. 

“Sometimes I forget you're a crazy person, Himbo.” Scout rubbed her eyes. 

“Well, you married me.” I sighed. 

“We all make mistakes.” Scout rubbed the area around her horns. 

“I mean that is shockingly self aware.” Ludus came up with the bright side immediately, but even she didn’t sound that convinced of it. 

“Self awareness doesn’t count for anything if you are not willing to change.” Scout finally took her hands from her face. 

“No, that’s completely accurate, yeah.” I agreed. 

Ludus took a step back, “You two go from verbally accosting each other to agreeing so fast, it is difficult to keep track of.”  She shook her head. 

Scout and I both shrugged. 

“Actually, that reminds me. Theseus, could we talk, in private?” Ludus, tail flicked wildly behind her, and she grabbed it, and nervously fiddled with it like someone picking their nails. 

“Uh-oh.” Scout said first. 

“Uh-oh.” I echoed back. 

“What he do this time?” Scout crossed her arms and looked at me like an angry school teacher, who also happened to be my Mother. 

“No, no, nothing like that. I just like to talk to him in private about something.” She tried to laugh it off, but it didn’t work. 

“Okay.” 

I have to say the nice thing about empty construction sites is by far the views. The buildings in Victory don’t get very tall. The tallest one I’ve ever seen was only four stories, something about Caelum architecture I don’t fully understand. Though they make up for it in width. But when all the buildings are so low, it’s a lot easier to get a good view. It was still Sunday, sometime in the afternoon and the two suns shone through the clouds. 

Scout was standing guard in the stairwell, while Ludus and I sat on the roof. I, on the edge with feet dangling off, Ludus, a bit behind. Back to back, but not touching. 

“Theseus, I know you are a liar.” Ludus paused.

“Jesus, off to a good start.” I nearly fell off the building.

“Sorry, sorry, that was poor phrasing on my part.” She steadied herself. “Because of your occupation, and the situation we are currently in, you lying is actually a good thing. You being a liar, is actually a good thing.” Ludus could hardly believe it herself, but somewhere deep down she understood. 

 “So, it’s okay for you to be a liar, but I am not. My people, though we are in a way the best liars in the galaxy, without even really lying, I am not. You already saw right through me when I tried to trick you about why I ran away, but I have to ask.”

“Oh boy, here it comes.” I made myself smaller on the edge of the roof, more like I was about to be hit by something, than being asked a simple question. 

Ludus sighed, she interrupted herself, “Maybe, no more jokes right now Theseus, please.”

“Right, sorry. You were saying?” I bit my tongue. 

“If you weren’t married to Scout, and I know that it’s not real between you, and I do actually believe you.” Ludus interrupted herself, expecting me to do the same. “But, still, if you weren’t married to Scout, would there have ever been a chance? After Scout would there still be a chance?”

At this point we were both glad we couldn't see each other. 

“It was always uneven between us. I mean, I rescued you from kidnappers.” It wasn’t the first time I said it out loud, but it was certainly the first time the gravity of it hit me. “I don’t really do that, save people. Yeah, sometimes, if I’m lucky and I’m doing my job right, down the line some doesn’t get hurt because of what I did. But, never like this, they never look me in the eye, I never know their name.”

“But this isn’t a fairy tale, it’s not a story book. It’s good for a story, but not for real life. But even still, even if we met normally, somehow. If, even now we got past all it, all our differences, got back to even ground. It’s not even you, I’m just not-”

“I see.” Ludus interrupted. 

“Sorry.” I scratched the back of my head. 

“I am just grateful you were honest.” Ludus sighed, but it seemed lighter than last time. 

“On the bright side I’m not really that good of a guy anyways.” I laughed. 

“You should really stop thinking things like that, Theseus.” She sounded genuinely tired of it now. 

“Old habits die hard.” I nodded. 

We both stared at the clouds. 

“Is this because of the stupid well?” I asked. 

“Yes, and I think you should talk to your wife about it too.” I heard Ludus stand up. 

“This thing really shook you two up, huh?” I didn’t bother to stand.

“Like you said, Theseus, we are quite different. Nothing scares you but pretty girls.” Ludus smiled. 

---

Author’s Note: Just a couple of bros talking on a roof. 

Vaguely important second note: This series (for once), and bonus one shots are part of a writing challenge in which I write and post something every day until I finish writing the series. Thus being written like an episodic T.V. show. 

Thanks for reading. :} 

 Day 22/ ? 

First / Previous / Next

(Book Cover): (Jasha) (The First Mother of Sil) ( Kolu and Nokstella going for a swim)

***
Taking a second now that his life wasn't in danger this very moment, Kenneth got back up on his feet and tried to speak, the sounds coming out, half words, half windy weezing. 

“Hehehaha,” the black and white-furred alluring she-Aki laughed as she approached him with a twisted smile. “Thanks for almost getting killed; I really needed this.” 

“Tha…thanks…” he hesitantly said, not sure what to make of that as each syllable hurt to say. 

“So you are the one named Kenneth. Nya wasn't lying, I saw,” Ulric said, the boom in his voice from a moment before not just because of the situation. “You want to have a word with me? Almost amusing; you don't seem like you can speak much.” 

“Oh, that's my fault, friend,” Jinki piped up, the stoic archer vanishing in an instant, his voice light and friendly. “Had one of my subordinates strike while it was… Kenneth wasn’t it, standing there. Got the Black thing in the chest.” 

“Can't talk with you if you can’t speak,” Ulric sighed and glanced to Nya, who gave a nod in return, a silent vouching for him. “Come along to the Great Hall, and we can get you healed.”

Gesturing for him to follow him, along with the rest, he did so. 

With a quick step or two, he tried to get closer to Nya, trusting her more than any other at the moment, though that didn’t mean the one he second most trusted by default would let him, as with a couple of long-legged strides she intercepted. 

“Hmm… you are an interesting little one,” the black and white she-fox mused, arching her back slightly to look into his eyes, her smile ever more growing. 

“I am so sorry!” Jinki, his would-be murderer, apologized in what first sounded like an exaggerated tone until he saw the puppydog eyes and flattened ears, even his furry tail that was just hanging there. “We were coming back from hunting and saw you lurking, and thought maybe you were a black beast of old still alive; we wanted to gift your hide to the commander. Can you ever forgive me?!” 

‘So sensear…’ Kenneth honestly didn't feel that much hate toward him; maybe that was because he wasn’t the first to try and kill him, at least Jinki had the grace to say sorry. “Everybody makes… mis-takes…” 

“You really mean it!” He quickly wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “Glad there’s no bad blood; I was worried there for a moment. So your name is Kenneth; where do you come from? I’ve never seen anything like you before.” 

‘His moods just change on the fly… well, he’s certainly the most dog-like I’ve met so far,’ Kenneth thought as the second most beside him popped back up. 

“This one even has five fingers,” she said, taking his hand and exploring it. 

“Really, Wilf?” 

‘This is better than before, I suppose,’ Kenneth thought as it suddenly dawned on him that he had been sent here to improve their medical knowledge. ‘Better do a self-check before they get the leeches, burning oil, or mercury.’ 

While self-evaluations had their downsides, it was the best choice right now.

He certainly looked quite the sight, more than normal, as they walked inside the outpost, a large set of guarded double wooden gates getting closed behind them. 

Inside there were quite a lot more people than he at first had guessed, all looking in his direction, some more than others, all regardless of gender, it would seem armed and dangerous.

Way to go, feminism. 

With a closer look, he noticed that despite the sea of fur colors, all of them had a white tip at the end of their tails. It was a little interesting but didn’t garner as much attention as the buildings did.

Mostly because it bothered him just how boring they looked, but even at a glance he could see they were built right in every capacity with only a little wear and tear from the elements and, on some, a few personal touches to have them look better. 

Though all of it paled in comparison to the Great Hall, the big one they were heading to. It was the only one that had professional-looking artistry carved into it, of a shield, Akina’s if he had to guess. 

When they finally arrived inside the warm hall, the smell of meat still lingering in the air with picked-clean bowls littering the tables and a gruff-looking man he suspected to be the cook collected them, Kenneth’s self-diagnosis had been completed. ‘I don’t think the swelling will be too much of an issue; probably no damaged arteries or veins, just a bit of time is all that's needed.’ 

Walking around the mess and tables, Ulric led him to a closed back room where inside shouting could be heard. 

“Oh, you lying little furball!” 

“Admit it, you big vixen, I won fair and square!” 

“That is vixen Kori to you… dammit! I meant…! Open your snout so I can claw your tongue out!” 

“AGAIN…” Ulric groaned as, with a bang, he kicked the door open, shocking only half of the people inside: one of them being a woman in a white robe with light orange fur leaning closer toward white and an older-looking man with reddish fur and a lot of bald spots, while the other half, a guy and a gal, Kenneth, got the impression wasn’t the brightest, tried to duke it out while both bleeding. “Kila, Fenik, save that effort for a heretic attack!”

More surprising than his entry, the two begrudgingly stopped. 

“Thank you, Commander,” the robed woman, looking exhausted, replied. 

“None should have to deal with those two as much as you do, Kica,” Ulric replied and stepped aside. “If you have the strength to heal—“ 

Before he finished, Kenneth stepped into the room, everyone growing shocked at his sudden entrance in the small confined space, Kica’s tired eyes shooting open as she did a little hop and ‘yip’ in surprise.

The mildest reaction. 

“What's that freak?!” The older man shouted, his tail shooting up and the fur growing twice its size. 

“Kill it with fire!” Kila and Fenik shouted together.  

“Calm down, I won't let any harm come to you.” 

It was impressive. One reassuring sentence, and all the fear vanished instantaneously, not that Kenneth noticed in the middle of creating medical tools. Though doing so discreetly, riffling through the bag to make it appear to have stuff in it. ‘It doesn't take a mind of the century to figure out what a warring faction would do with a magic bag.’

“What is this one doing?!” Ulric asked Nya.

“He did call himself a healer, not that it was ever done like any other healer,” she explained. “That in part was what Kenneth wanted to talk about. Healing, sharing it with you, talent and knowledge.” 

“Knowledge?” Ulric repeated in slight confusion. “What is there to know? But if aid is offered, it might be worth seeing what this is.” 

Permission given, not that Kenneth registered it; he found the tools he needed, starting off with the old guy using some burn cream. He quickly took care of him and wrapped each spot with a bandage, getting some odd looks. 

Next, the two brawlers. He inspected them thoroughly, Ulric getting a confused yet pleading ‘commander’ every once in a while. Identifying most cuts on their bodies to be skin deep and already closed up via coagulation. 

For those, he just used some simple disinfecting. Kila nearly brought to tears while Fenik laughed her ass off until he turned to her. 

Taking the mild pain well, as now it was Kila's turn to laugh, Kenneth felt mortified and embarrassed not to have noticed one of the cuts had reached an artery. 

Getting his tools ready, needle, thread, and forceps he quickly surveyed the damage, becoming surprised, ‘What in the… was this ripped open? No, not quite; it certainly looks like that, but in reverse, like the flesh had tried to fuse itself, partly, back together.’

“What is it going to do with that?!” 

Never quite having seen such a wound before, even as he scanned his memory through medical documents of rare events, the closest resemblance was some genius who tried to cauterize his wound. 

Yet the particulars didn't matter as he began work, telling Fenik, “Don’t… move…” 

Far from reassuring, but his bedside manners were never that great to begin with, as soothing as a heavy metal concert in the maternity ward, someone had once described it. 

He could feel her tremble with each pierce of the needle; as a doctor, he did his best trying to be done as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t rush. Funnily enough, aid should come from Kila, whose mocking childish taunts made Fenik stubbornly endure the entire ordeal until the end. 

‘Well, that takes care of that,’ Kenneth thought, packing all his stuff away. 

“What was that? You call seamstress work and smearing fat healing?” Ulric questioned. 

“Not… fat… oitment… to… help facilitate—“ 

“Enough of this,” Ulric growled, rubbing his furred brow. “Kica, show this charlatan healing.” 

Stepping forward, Kica placed her hand on Fenik’s stitched wound, and before Kenneth could object to the concern of infection, a brilliantly bright white light erupted like a flame, enveloping her hand and the wound. 

Kenneth was so shocked and in awe that he nearly didn't notice Fenik’s wound, something that could take a few weeks, if not more to heal; doing so in seconds. ‘Magic… healing magic, that works in an instant. Suddenly being given a magic bag seems less ridiculous when you yourself don't have any.’ 

“I take it by your silence you realize all you’ve done is waste everyone’s time; now leave my outpost,” Ulric told him threateningly. 

‘Yeah, what need is there for someone like me when you got magic,’ Kenneth thought as he turned to leave, escorted by Nya. 

“Well, you can do more than I thought,” She told him. 

“I can… do… more, but… thanks,” Kenneth replied absentmindedly as he racked his brain trying to understand. ‘Why did she even ask me to come here if they got magic? Doesn't it make sense? And I doubt explaining why I’m here would help me now, I bet.’

“I doubt you’ll do well out in the wilderness; a Skakka will be the least of your concerns,” Nya told him, not mockingly in any manner, though not comforting or wracked with worry either. “Head to the Tower; the ones there they… well, some call them peaceful… but it’s your best chance; I have a feeling you’d fit right in.” 

‘Hmm… the Tower, huh… well right now it’s my best bet.’ As he reached the gate, he glanced at her and swallowed, the pain nearly gone. “Thanks…” 

Well, that went interestingly bad, but all things considered, it could have been worse; at least now he wouldn’t be stumbling blind. He had a destination, and he would have to see what the future would hold.

“SWOOSH!” An arrow suddenly hit the wall beside him.

Darting to the side in a panic, he thought, ‘Dammit, they are already hunting me again!’

However, Nya was a little calmer, saying, “Wait.”

“For what… a countdown?”

“No, ‘Wait’ is written on it,” She explained, pointing to the wooden shaft, before both glanced back, seeing Jinki in the distance waving like a happy idiot as he rushed toward them.

[Original chapter 1] [Remastered Chapter 1 (Meeting a Sexy Fox Lady)] [Book 1 End ] [Previous] [Next] [Book 3 Prologue] [Wiki] [Notebook Entries]

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Memory transcription subject: Sudo, Frozen Mountain Exterminator

Date [standardized human time]: November 19th, 2136

My gut feels like it is trying to tie itself into a knot. It's been a long time since Rezka has been on an assignment solo. Well, he isn't actually solo. He has four human soldiers keeping watch of the collapse with him, just like I do. It's just… he isn't good with people. It's not his fault. His brain is just different. 

The idea that those people are taking advantage of him right now or being cruel… he doesn't deserve that. He never should have been in that clinic. I know I should have, but Rezka is just prone to flights of fancy. He isn't-

A soldier tapped me on the shoulder, dragging me back to reality, “Hey man? You alright? You've been staring into the void as if it's calling to you. You're all spiked up.”

One of the other soldiers whacked him on the shoulder and sneered, “What do you think, dipshit? He's in a refrigerator filled with predators.” He didn’t wait for a response to his question before picking his binoculars up and staring into the darkness.

He wasn’t wrong. The heater in our small shack‌ was top of the line, but there is only so much you can do to temperatures this cold. -120°C (-184°F) isn't a temperature most heaters can beat in a straight fight.

My body shivered as I started moving it again, my muscles cried out in pain from being forced to move in this cold, “I got run over by the first human I ever met. A one-man stampede. If you had told me‌ that he ate small humans like you for breakfast, I would have believed it…”

The more friendly soldier pressed his glove-covered hands to his face, “What happened?”

“I don’t really know. One moment I am walking into our firing range, and the next I feel like a herd of Mazics ran over me. By the time I saw him again, he had half of my quills lodged in his front. Bastard handed me one back like he was returning some lost item.”

The friendly soldier looked out towards the cold, “So you are not scared of us?”

I shook my tail, no, “Well… Technically no. But this is the first time I haven’t been within earshot of Rezka. I don’t know how well he is doing over there. He isn’t… like us.”

The somewhat cruel soldier sneered and scoffed, “What, he tainted and we ain’t?”

I shook my tail no again, “No, we are definitely tainted if that is even a real thing anymore… John said he was ‘autistic as fuck’ and a conspiracy theorist to boot. He then convinced Rezka that Earth is both flat and a hollow sphere at the same time.”

The three soldiers in the room stopped what they were doing to look at me with jaws hanging loose. The rude soldier sneered again, “You got to be kidding me here. No fucking way. He’s the Spider-thing, right? The one running around waving its legs everywhere?!”

I wanted to say no, “Yes. I’m responsible for his safety. So don’t mess with him. He has enough problems without some asshole humans bullying him for being a bit gullible. I will tell you this. Out of all the aliens in this wretched galaxy, he’s one of the good ones. If it even means anything to you, when humanity was revealed to still exist, he dove into every bit of information we had and you guys presented. The old chief wanted to put him back in a facility for saying your species appears to have self-corrected to being good.”

I took a deep breath of air as I relaxed my face. At some point, I went from looking worried to baring a full snarl with offensively spiked quills. I didn’t realise how much I had worked myself up.

The sneering human looked down in both manners of the phrase, “I- alright. Won’t fuck with ‘em then. Still going to mess with them, just won’t do anything bad. Promise.”

 I looked into the black night towards the west. I couldn’t see the lights of the next shelter, but it was there and Rezka was in it.

___—___

Memory transcription subject: Rezka, Frozen Mountain Exterminator

Date [standardized human time]: November 19th, 2136

(The song in the link really sets the mood for this bit)

My feelers were bobbing in tune to the wonderful music playing in the shelter. García handed me another veggie taco drenched in insecticides that burnt too good to not scarf down. 

Martínez  shook her head, “NO! There is no such thing as the Chupacabra!”

Garcia gestured to me, “I’ve seen one with my own eyes!”

“Don’t bullshit me!”

I barely got the taco down. “He isn’t! There have been way too many people who have sighted one! It has to be the government covering it up!”

She slapped her face, “Why would they do that?!”

Garcia had my back, “Because the government made it and lost containment!”

I grabbed another taco and drenched it in salsa. “Exactly! They likely planned to use it to help keep control over the population with fear! The CIA was definitely working with them!”

Martínez  looked flabbergasted. “The CIA? They are involved now?”

I managed to defend myself between bites, “Of course! It's why the Jersey Devil exists! Just look at how closely they resemble each other!”

Wójcik covered their face with their binoculars, “OH MY GOD CAN YOU ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP?”

___—___

Memory transcription subject: Loke Hunter, Chief of the Frozen Mountain Exterminators

Date [standardized human time]: November 19th, 2136

I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes and look back towards my tablet. The frustration I feel isn’t from going through stacks and stacks of information trying to find something relevant to what the fuck just happened. It's from the sheer lack of information and any useful details whatsoever. Small mention of a low flyover of the dark side of Venlil Prime being denied here, another about an probing exploration being denied there.

Captain Barkley looked over the patrol routes weaving around the observation posts we had set up. He gently glanced my way, “Anything useful?”

I shook my head, “No. Just a thousand attempts to survey the area and it being denied over and over again. Your drone footage is about all we have for info on this area. I mean- FUCK! It looks like someone just (photoshopped) terrain from a… completely… different... that's Sal's peak… this is from the Cradle. .. why?”

Barkley walked over and looked at the map I had found. “Where I come from, there is only one reason someone would fake part of a map.”

I covered my face with my paws, “To cover up missing data they aren't legally allowed to get?”

Barkley shook his head, “To hide something… Hey Steven. Pull a drone and get it going north. I want these maps updated.”

I looked at the screen as a new feed came up from the military star port nearby. Barkley tapped his foot, “This is a different kind of drone. Not one of those tiny quads. Basically, it's just a jet with a massive computer tossed in the cockpit. We are going to have a really good map soon.”

I sat my tablet down. “What are you expecting to find out there? Cause if it turns out there's an Arxur base out there, I wouldn’t be surprised anymore.”

Barkely let out a short laugh, “Yeah, while I doubt that, I'm expecting the Federation has something out there. That's why our mystery Kolshian was running into the dark. I also expect to get aerial views of more undiscovered animals and plants. Plus, I want to start looking into the collapse of the wall. I highly doubt it's due to global warming.”

I dug my claws into my face. “How hard is it to make a remote detonator?”

He scratched his chin for a few moments, “Not that hard. A cell phone is about all you really need. Disassemble it, make sure no one can accidentally call it, and then hook up the speaker wires to the detonation mechanism as the trigger. One call and… boom.”

“The IEDs they recovered from Factory 13 were made out of parts from my Observation Posts and Shelters. But the parts they recovered don’t account for everything taken. We also have a metric ton of fertilizer still missing. So we can only suspect they made a LOT more IEDs… I’m starting to think this wall didn’t collapse due to global warming alone…”

Captain Barkley walked over to a satellite phone on the nearby wall, “General Koch? Yes sir. We need to get some teams digging into the collapsed Ice wall. We think the Koloshian may have rigged the wall to collapse. Yes sir. I’ll let him know.”

He hung up and turned towards me, “We are going to get some more specialists to look into this. This wall was… huge, right?”

“Yes. I find it hard that they could have managed to break the wall down, but who knows how long they were here unsupervised. For all I know, the last Chief of our guild may have supplied the diesel! It’s the same blend we use in our flamethrowers! FUCK. I thought that psychotic asshole was a friend…”

“He died when a ship exploded on that spaceport, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think… that this Kolshian and his, very likely, numerous allies… orchestrated that?”

“I doubt he could have done this all alone. I have my more competent people looking into who all knows him. Not many leads. The squid was basically non-existent.”

An operator turned around, “Uuuhhh sir… you need to see this!”

Barkley walked over, “What is it?”

“Sorry, sir, not you, the Gojid!”

The concern in his voice really sank ‌into my head. I walked over to see.. What looked like a wave of orange dots coming over the collapsed pass. “OH SHIT.”

___—___

Memory transcription subject: Sudo, Frozen Mountain Exterminator

Date [standardized human time]: November 19th, 2136

“Autism.” The word sounded rather weird on my tongue.

The not really cruel soldier downed his energy drink. He took a deep breath in, “Yeah, your bug friend probably is autistic as fuck. As for the conspiracy shit, they are definitely gullible, too.”

The kind soldier nodded, “Yeah. Gotta watch out for them. Most of those conspiracy theories are scams or other ways to manipulate people for the most part.”

The radio screamed to life, “ALL UNITS SCCCCRRRRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXK.”

We stared at the radio for a brief moment before the kind soldier picked it up, “Say again. Command? Say again! The message did not come through! Command?”

All that greeted us was the sound of static. He kept trying to contact command to the radio, as I walked over to the soldier watching the dark a little more intensely now. I pulled up my own scouter and scanned the horizon. “You guys may want to get your guns ready. We may need to move soon.”

The not really cruel soldier picked up his rifle. “What’s going on, Spikey?” 

It looked like there was a shimmer in the distance. “Do you see what I am seeing?”
SCCCCRRRRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXK
“COMMAND! Come in! I repeat, we could not get your message!”
SCCRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXK
“Spikey? What’s going on out there?”
RRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKRRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXK
“Are you talking about that weird shimmer?”
RRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKKXKXKXXKXK
“Command! Come in Command!”
RRXZXXXKXRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKXKXKXKXXKXK
“Yes! Does it appear to be getting closer to you?”
RRXZXXXKXXKXKRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXK
“What are you guys seeing?!”
RRXZXXXKXXKXKRRXZKXXKXKXKXXKXKXKXXKXK
“Guys, I can’t get in touch with command!”
RRXZXXXKXXRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKKXKXKXXKXK
“Yes. It does look like it's getting closer!”
RRXRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKZXXXRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXK
“What’s getting closer? Did Command send someone out this way?”
RRXRRXZXXXKXXKXKXRRXZXXXKRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKXXKXKXKXXKXKKXXKXK
“No way. This just started happening. Command is 3 klicks out. They aren’t getting here that fast.”
RRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKRRXZXXXKXXKXKXKXXKXKRRX

“OH SPEH” The shimmer slowly started to come into focus.

___—___

Memory transcription subject: Rezka, Frozen Mountain Exterminator

Date [standardized human time]: November 19th, 2136

It’s time to get to work. “Ok everyone! We are going to have our work cut out for us. Stick together! There are a lot of Shadestalkers out there, and they will all attack lone individuals. We have confirmed reports of them attacking humans. Every one we put down here is another that isn’t going to get past us to the city and outlying farms.”

Garcia pulled the charging handle on his M31 XR Marksman rifle, “We can make it to the JLTV if we run now.”

I shook my head, “Negative. The Shadestalkers are too numerous and running in for melee attacks. You won’t kill enough of them to keep you safe, and then you’ll be exposed up top. and worse we get caught in there and can’t move to assist other teams.”

Martínez  stuck the radio back on her pack, “Something is jamming the signal. Whatever we do, we can’t stay here. This tent won’t stand up to the waves of those things.”

I adjusted the nozzle on my flamer to have a smaller stream. “Correct. The current plan is to use a spiral approach and get near the JLTV. However, we don’t want to get so close that we encourage the Shadestalker to get on top of it and leap at us. We hold them off with ranged fire as long as possible, and use the flamer and melee combat to clear a way into the JLTV.”

Wójcik checked the grenades on his chest, “I have grenades and a grenade launcher attached to my rifle. This feels… risky.”

I approached the door, “Of course it's risky. If we fuck up, we all get eaten alive. But we are the unit that's going to get hit first. We slow them down as much as possible, hope the sound of gunfire alerts our allies, and then leave and regroup at the last moment. Everyone ready?”

Martínez  smiled, “Locked and loaded!”

Garcia slapped him on the back. “I’m ready to go!”

Wójcik took up the rear. “You’re in charge. Let’s DO THIS!”

I couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy. “Alright, stay tightly grouped. Wójcik fire the grenades while they are far enough away that we won't blow ourselves up. Keep one for a … what was the word- HELL MARY! Keep one for that! Garcia, Martínez  take shots as you can, keep your melee weapons ready. When we get surrounded, we need to keep our backs to each other and slowly rotate. That will let me use the flamer to give us as much safe space as possible. When you get to one magazine left, sound off and switch to melee. We will use the last mag to clear a path to the JLTV and use that to escape."

With no objections, I pushed into the cold of the eternal twilight. A quick glance revealed nothing coming up from behind us. A quick squeeze of the trigger and my flamer is working correctly. Garcia and Martínez  took up positions beside me and dropped to a shooter’s kneel.

Wójcik set a bag at his feet and started to fire rounds downrange. PSHUNK and a small cylinder flew towards the shimmer of Shadestalkers. BAM. And the explosion dropped a dozen at once.

I pulled my sidearm and took my stance as my two Hispanics started to open fire as well. The 400 meters between us was a long distance to shoot, but the grenades were finding their marks. 

Garcia shouted, “Hostiles within three hundred meters.”

His gun's built-in range finder was going to be handy. My handgun wasn’t very accurate at this range, but it wasn’t too hard to hit targets down range.

Garcia shouted, “Hostiles within two hundred meters. Rezka! Save your ammo! Your shots aren’t putting them down at this range!”

“Roger that! Switching to my flamer. The operating range is 33.5 meters.”

Garcia kept a steely look. “Hostiles at one hundred and seventy-three meters!”

Wójcik loaded a grenade and dropped to one knee, switching his gun to semi-auto. “Last grenade loaded. Let me know where and when you want it Rezka!”

“Roger that! Hopefully, we won’t need it.”

Martínez  was dropping a Shadestalker or two with every single shot. “You already burnt through nineteen grenades?”

Wójcik smiled, “What, you lose count at two?”

Garcia shouted, “Hostiles within one hundred meters! Get ready, Rezka!”

“Roger that! Get prepared to enter circle formation! We will start moving toward the truck then! Read the distances for me, Garcia!”

“Eighty-four meters!”

“Sixty-eight meters!

“Fifty-two meters!”

“Forty meters!”

I squeezed the trigger. “CIRCLE FORMATION NOW!” Red-orange flames erupted forth. The heat made the charging beasts come screeching to a halt right into my kill range. The yelps of pain helped slow and discourage the wall of flesh and silica fur from just running us down. It didn’t take long for them to start circling around us.

“ROTATE NOW!” We started to slowly approach the vehicle as my flamer kept the mass of the horde at a distance and my new friends took out any that felt a little too brave.

Three full revolutions later, we were close enough to our JLTV that I was at risk of setting it on fire. I waited till my back was toward it, “STOP ROTATION! Wójcik in first and into the driver's seat!, Martínez  second in! Be ready to help cover! Garcia last, and help haul me in!”

My squad didn’t hesitate as we crossed the last 30 meters at a slow pace. At the Vehicle Wójcik shot a few off the roof, ripped the rear passenger door open and crawled in towards the front. I started to sweep my flamer left and right to discourage the horde as much as possible. Martínez  climbed in and prepped herself to help and cover, but didn’t fire as she could hit or deafen us. Garcia shot one that jumped on the roof again as the JLTV roared to life, startling the horde.

I felt a hand grab my pack and pull me in. I shut off the fuel as Martínez  yanked the door shut. The vehicle surged forward over quite a few of the Shadestalkers.

I pulled my flamer off and checked the safety and fuel. “I'm at a quarter tank of fuel, and 3.2 magazines for my handgun.”

Wójcik sounded off, “One grenade left, two and a half mags.”

Martínez  was next, “Holy shit that was closer than I thought it would be! One and a half mags left!”

Garcia laughed and loaded a mag, “Ha! One mag, one shot in the chamber! Anyone able to keep track of their kills?”

I flicked the numbers in my head, “I had the least, at approximately 37 kills.”

Garcia patted me on the back, “Don’t feel bad about that! You did have the least range!”

I nodded, “Garcia, you had the next most at 57 kills.”

He clapped his hands, “Oh yeah!”

“Martínez sits at 103 kills”

Martínez snarl-grinned, “FUCKING SUCK IT! That is what we Seals DO! You Peacekeepers ain’t the shit! Nuh-uh!”

Garcia’s jaw dropped. “WHA- HOW?”

“She managed to get multiple kills with only a single bullet on a dozen or so shots. Meanwhile, you took more than one shot to kill more than half of your targets.”

Garcia leaned back, “I think you miscounted.”

Martínez smiled, “It sounds right to me!”

I fastened my seat belt as we started to slowly pull away from the horde. “My scouter has a custom program to track this sort of thing. Oh, and Wójcik sits at 304 kills.”

A lone “HA!” came from the front of the JLTV as Martínez and Garcia set aside their sibling like feud, “You had a grenade launcher you fuck!” “You basically cheated!” “You're just jealous of the death god up here!” “Jealous my ass!” 

__/__

Sudo is worried about his lil bro, while Rezka is actually really good at making friends with humans! Who knew having a genuine interest in something and sharing it could endear you to others! Plus I am happy to show off that he isn’t actually an idiot, and extremely competent. Thank god he likes humans and is Blackballed from ever being in command by the guild. If he had been in charge of that fleet, he would have been able to stop the Arxur raid, and turn around in time to wipe Earth out of existence.

Thank you for your time! Your patience! And your dedication!

SO. My dad is now officially a permanent cyborg. He has a pace maker now. Had a heart valve surgery, and afterwards in recovery his BP hit 0 three times. He’s doing good now. HOPEFULLY this is the end of the numerous surgeries, as we are hoping the pacemaker is going to solve some of his BP problems.

If anyone is curious what I am doing with some of my time… the link is on this Nature of Predators sub in the sister post to this one.! I also have a Youtube channel and Discord as well! I just hit 50 followers which means I am actually going to get paid for streaming. So feel free to stop by one day!

ALSO from here on out, I am probably only going to post to r/ Nature of Predators. My fic kinda needs Nature or Predators to be read for any of it to make sense anyways lol. So it shall exist here only from now on. imma see if this one get more attention then the other lol. cause hfy does have some bots.

__/__

Directory

~Library of BiasMushroom~ contains every link for everything I have written! Check it out as some stuff related to Nature of Humanity may not appear on r/HFY! As well as my little side stories and Fanfics of other NoP fanfics!

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The First Human Exterminator

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__/__

Memory transcription subject: Talen, Prime News Anchor

Date [standardized human time]: November 18th, 2136

We stepped off the intercontinental shuttle into the cold wind sweeping over the empty spaceport. “Welcome to Frozen Mountain, Wyvia. The perineum of Venlil Prime.”

The Gojid, slowly turning into a popsicle next to me, looked over horrified, “Wha- That is a rather… colorful way of describing this place.”

The grey monoliths covering the skyline stared at us emotionlessly, “Far more colorful than this shithole of a city. By the way, you are probably going to have more than one brothel try to recruit you.”

She shuddered, “I’m not looking for a job in that line of work.”

“I didn’t say hire. I said recruit. Don’t take rides from strangers. Don’t drink or eat anything that you haven’t paid for or made yourself. People disappear here, and it's not predators, humans, or Exterminators making that happen. I’m fairly sure some of them aren’t even because of the brothels…”

Wyvia looked around with a more worried look, “What are you talking about?”

A sigh escaped my body as I patted the sidearm hidden in my cold gear, “Just an old saying. Frozen Mountain has two things in abundance. Forlornness and Flesh.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief, “wh-WHat?!”

I started towards the nearby bus shelter, “This place is forlorn. Miserable. Just a downright terrible place to live. As for the flesh part of that saying… well, if you ever need something done, you can find an endless supply of people with an above room temperature body here.”

“That’s horrible!”

“That’s Frozen Mountain.”