Rule of the Gricka

Thank you for the comments. Changing the note here, hopefully not to spoil things… This is set in the JVerse. If you don’t know what a gricka is, it should be clear after reading this, or at least the Catechism link at the end. (And no, I can’t figure out what I’ve done wrong to get some text to be randomly huge.)

T’lkt’trkk was worried.
Julia, their ship’s Human, had always been reliable, never a problem. Yet today she hadn’t shown up for her work shift and nobody had seen her since dinner the night before.

That’s why T’lkt’trkk was currently making her way to Julia’s quarters – the next logical place to search.

T’lkt’trkk arrived outside the door & activated the signal asking for admittance.

“Come in!” sounded through the door.

T’lkt’trkk opened the door & cautiously stuck her head inside, to be sure the gravity was tolerable. Feeling that it was, she stepped in & looked at Julia, who was lying on her bed with her gricka atop her.

“Why are you not at work?” T’lkt’trkk asked.

Julia replied, “I’m being held down by my [gricka].”

Baffled, T’lkt’trkk tried to make sense of this. “I thought the gricka was lighter than you. In fact, I’ve seen you pick it up and carry it with no apparent effort. How is it you are being held down?”

“It’s the rule: when a [gricka] is lying on you, you’re not allowed to move, nor to do anything to disturb the [gricka]. He has to decide to get up on his own.”

T’lkt’trkk was still baffled, but at least reassured that the Human was physically unharmed. “When will you be able to get to work?”

“Unknown. But I promise to work my full shift once Herman decides to move,” Julia responded.

T’lkt’trkk returned to engineering, wondering yet again if Humans ever made sense.

Writer:

MKEgal

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Rising Titans – Chapter 43

9 Years, 6 Months, 28 Days After Eridani Landing Bellona “Ready?” asked Alpha from where he sat on top of the Captain’s chair. “I’m good!” said Red from where he sat at the controls for the ship. It hadn’t taken much to convince him to pilot the vessel. James glanced down at his own console

The Deathworlders – Chapter 51: Anticlimax Part 1

Date Point: 16y AV Yukon–Koyukuk, Alaska, USA, Earth Zane Reid The cold didn’t hurt anymore. At first, it had been like forcing his way through a wall made of knives that cut through his clothes. Zane’s every breath had blinded him as it billowed and steamed in the air, and when he’d experimentally licked his

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Trigger Part 5

Date Point: 16y AV Camp Tebbutt Biodrone Internment Facility, Yukon–Koyukuk, Alaska, USA, Earth Hugh Johnson Snow. Of course, snow in January in Alaska was hardly surprising, and this one threatened to be heavy. At first, Hugh had thought it was probably just an seasonable dusting that’d add a couple of inches to the foot or

I had made my way through the tournament, but most of my matches had been won by the skin of my teeth, and I had only the advantage of being evolved from a pursuit predator to thank for it. Our great endurance had been the one boon that had kept me going, and I was

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Trigger Part 4

Date Point: 15y 10m 1w AV HMS Violent, Rvzrk System, Domain Space The ground battle churned on for days. That was the problem with Hunters. There was no surrender involved, it was a kill-or-be-killed fight where smashing their will to engage in war simply didn’t achieve enough. Any Hunter left alive would just keep murdering

Good Training – The Champions – Doom and Gloom Part 4

He awoke to a pleasant smell. “…Eggs?” Hoeff detangled himself from Natalie and the sheets and stumbled towards the kitchen. Daar was busy in front of the comparatively little stove and fridge, humming some terrible Gaoian tune to himself. Seriously, their music was like Chinese opera with extra pain. Some Humans liked it, though…but “atonal”

Rising Titans – Chapter 42

9 Years, 6 Months, 15 Days After Eridani Landing The [Singer] The explosion hit and [Vann] watched at the lights on the main hologram and different panels flashed a blinding white light, before dying and plunging the entire bridge of the [Singer] into darkness. “What were we supposed to do?” asked someone near the weapons

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Trigger Part 3

Date Point: 15y 10m 1d AV The White House, Washington DC, USA, Earth President Arthur Sartori “A vacation? Now?” Sartori nodded. “As soon as possible, anyway. I know you never really take a vacation in this job, but if I don’t go and let my hair down sometime soon I might forget how.” It had

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Trigger Part 2

Date Point: 15y 10m 1d AV Wi Kao commune memorial, Planet Gao Xiù Chang “So, uh…is there anything special we gotta know?” “I’ve had enough of ceremony,” Xiù said, fidgeting with her fingernails for the twentieth time. She was procrastinating, and she knew it. She didn’t want to get out of the car at all.

Day 1. I’ve made it on board the human trading vessel! They didn’t detect my presence, and I’ve managed to smuggle myself into their engineering bay, and disguised myself within a cluster of cables! My small, serpentine body makes me indistinguishable from a thin, grayish cable, and the Humans won’t notice my existence until it

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Trigger Part 1

Date Point: 15y 10m AV Camp Tebbutt Biodrone Internment Facility, Yukon–Koyukuk, Alaska, USA, Earth Hugh Johnson Camp Tebbutt wasn’t actually a bad place to live, if you didn’t count the fact that it was essentially a prison for innocent victims. Hugh understood why he was there, and why he couldn’t leave… but after eleven years,

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Homefront Part 9

Date Point: 15y10m Ceres, Asteroid Belt, Sol Sam Jordan Sam honestly hadn’t felt this… alive in his life. He was dancing on a knife-edge, riding on the thrill and danger of discovery. Every time he outwitted the investigation, every time he slipped through a door while it was closing, it was… He’d never imagined a

Good Training – The Champions – Doom and Gloom Part 3

Firth Regaari chittered, “It is difficult to imagine you ‘humbled,’ Righteous.” “Heh,” Firth chuckled. “You do know most of my attitude is straight fuckin’ bullshit, right? Adam and John know why.” Regaari looked over at John, who shrugged massively. “He’s a scary dude. Being ridiculous kinda takes the edge off, y’know?” Regaari duck-nodded. He was

Rising Titans – Chapter 41

9 Years, 6 Months, 13 Days After Eridani Landing Jikse Moving down the hallway Diana paused at the double doors, carefully she moved forwards into it’s threshold and they slid open. A woman in an orange smock looked up from her Comm for a moment, and then going back to look at it did a

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Homefront Part 8

“Laid Bare—Warriors in their own words” Issue #4: Julian Etsicitty Author and photographer: Ava Magdalena Ríos On our last call before the shoot, my next subject left me with this bit of advice: “You get used to the gravity pretty fast, actually. Or, at least I did. Well, no. We did, and the other fellas

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Homefront Part 7

“Laid Bare—Warriors in their own words” Issue #3: Sachi Patel Author and photographer: Ava Magdalena Ríos “I think if they’d really treated me like “one of the boys,” I’d be dead now. They all are. But one of the last things they did was make sure I was safe.” Reactor Technician Sachi Patel is very

The Good Samaritan

I felt a white-hot pain in my back as I was stabbed. Once, twice and then three times. I fell to the ground clutching my new openings, and for a moment I couldn’t grasp what had just happened. I had walked through an alley as a shortcut back home, and then suddenly someone had grabbed

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Homefront Part 6

Date Point: 15y9m3w AV Mrwrki Station, Erebor System, Unexplored Space Darcy “Does it seem… different to you lately?” “What?” “The Entity. It’s actin’ different, dude, I swear it is.” Darcy sighed and set aside her work as Lewis sat down. She was sitting drinking a Moroccan Mint tea in the station’s rec lounge, with its

Rising Titans – Chapter 40

9 Years, 6 Months, 13 Days After Eridani Landing Jikse Popping the restraints off of her legs Diana swung herself off of the table, the two class A’s still in their isolation suits were pounding at the door of the room the three of them were in. “It’s out! Open the door!” shouted the man

The Deathworlders – Chapter 50: Counterattack – Homefront Part 5

“Laid Bare—Warriors in their own words” Issue #2: Derek Coombes Author and photographer: Ava Magdalena Ríos “The funny thing was, it didn’t really hurt. Like, I knew I’d been shot, but the pain only came later, when I was safe. In the moment I just knew if I stayed where I was, I was dead.

Good Training – The Champions – Doom and Gloom Part 2

Master Sergeant Christian (Righteous) Firth The end of the movie came and the ladies were fast asleep and prolly too tired to head home with any comfort. The other bros were asleep, too, and Firth was tangled up with them pretty good. Oh well, both ‘Base and ‘Horse were heavy-ass sleepers and only danger or

Hell. It’s a completely Human concept. The concept of a realm of eternal torture, to which you are sent depending on the whims of one deity or another, is something only found in Human fiction. And it’s not an isolated occurrence. Almost every human culture since the dawn of humanity itself has had it in

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