Brick, New Jersey, Earth
The name I was given at birth was not in fact Ravinder Singh.
You see…It often surprises me just how few Americans know that India is a nuclear power. We have our stockpiles of weapons, our enrichment program, our power plants…
Any nation which has a nuclear arsenal and is prepared for the possibility of nuclear war, inevitably needs to employ experts in the effects—both the immediate ones, and those that linger—of nuclear weaponry. That was me. I was, once, one of my home country’s foremost experts in just what the bomb does, to people and to places.
A curious vocation for a Buddhist, maybe, but I viewed my role as being that of peacekeeper, or maybe a guardian, keeping the doors of hell locked. Maybe if I could impress seriously enough just how terrible a thing these weapons are, make my nation’s leaders see that nothing good could ever come of their deployment, that awful force might be kept in check.
No matter. The point is, I am one of only a handful of people in the world who know in full the details of the Republic of India’s nuclear program. You can see why my abduction would have caused… alarm, among the Security and Intelligence Services, the military…
The fact that my eventual return to Earth landed me in the USA could only serve to compound that sense of alarm, hence my change of name and reclusiveness. You’ll forgive me if I don’t share my original identity—I doubt that India has forgotten me.
But you of course are not here for the story of why I am living in Brick, are you Mister Jenkins?
Three years and eight months AV
Cimbrean Colony, The Far Reaches
”…oh you should see her, she’s getting so BIG, and we were all so proud of her when she played Mary for the nativity last…”
Jennifer Delaney, mid-twenties space-babe, and feeling happy for the first time that she could remember to hear her mum’s logorrhea.
Tamzin Delaney had launched into her usual update on the lives of literally every person within a ten mile radius of their house almost without preamble, as if it was just another daily message on her daughter’s answerphone, rather than a prerecorded video letter to be sent into space after years of not even knowing if she was still alive or not.
It was… comforting, in its way. Normalcy among the weirdness. She hadn’t changed a bit.
Robert Delaney, on the other hand, had lost a huge amount of weight, and lost the last colour in his hair. He looked less amply jolly nowadays, and more… scholarly. It was quite a change, but Jen had to admit that the only other time she’d seen her old man look so good was in old pictures from the 80s.
He seemed content to sit quietly, left arm around his chatterbox wife’s shoulders, and just listen with a faint smile, but just as Tamzin was launching into the chapter about non-family members, he rolled his eyes and held up a tablet computer he’d been holding out of sight behind the couch. Written on it large enough for the camera to see were the words:
“What she’s trying to say is:”
He swiped down.
“I love you
and I miss you
and I pray every day that
you’re safe out there.”
He smiled, chin wobbling, and swiped down one last time.
We both do.
By the time Jen’s eyes were dry again, most of her mum’s monologue was over, and she wound down with a few anecdotes about the daughter of somebody who had babysit Jen twenty years previously and of whom she had no memory, before glancing anxiously at somebody outside of the camera’s field of view.
”…Is that okay?”
“I’m sure she’ll love it,” the operator assured her. Robert grinned at him from behind his wife’s back.
“Well…Be safe, darling. I…Come home soon.”
The video ended.
“Want to go home?” Old Jen asked.
“No.”
She had been doing that more and more, lately. Talking to herself, carrying on a conversation between “Old Jen”—the I.T. cubicle mouse whose sole experience with men had consisted of a few awkward and ill-advised office fumbles—and “New Jen”, the competent, confident, slightly cold and battle-scarred Space-Babe. It had helped her get through months of isolation during the long walk, but the habit was ingrained now.
Perhaps even more alarmingly, Old Jen seemed to have a voice of her own now: a shy, querulous voice that longed for safety, for warmth and comfort, to go back to her own bed and maybe a cat and a goldfish and shove her head under her pillow and FORGET.
If she hadn’t been a genuinely nice person, Jen suspected she would have hated herself. As it was, she accepted the voice of her own timidity for what it really was—Her past. And her past was a story of fear, weakness, lethargy…Everything that kept a person back, kept them in a cubicle, kept them too afraid to talk to boys. Everybody had that voice: at least she knew when hers was talking.
Still… sometimes it was alright to let Old Jen cry, so long as she wiped away the tears and kept putting one foot in front of another.
There was some shouting outside, which meant that Kirk had probably arrived. It was only his imminent arrival—along with the influx of colonists from Earth, including Jen’s replacement—that had persuaded her to finally watch the video from her parents and read the messages from her friends and more distant relatives. After today, there would be no further opportunities.
She just wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She wasn’t going back to Earth, that much was certain. And she couldn’t stay here, even if her bath was here. And there was the awful question of keeping her head down and avoiding being noticed by the Great Hunt. But…
…She’d figure it out.
Starship ‘Sanctuary,’ Cimbrean Local Space, the Far Reaches
“I swear I don’t know why you upgraded this thing to be so comfortable when we spend hardly any time inside it.”
“It wasn’t originally supposed to be just two of us, Julian.”
“Right… still can’t believe the other twenty-three went back to Earth.”
“Oh, they’ll be back. I was wrong about something, way back when.”
“You’ll have to tell me later Kirk. Hurry up and get us landed: Long-range sensors are picking up an ALV drive signature, looks big enough to be a… frigate, or maybe even a cruiser. We want to be inside the colony’s camouflage field before they get close enough to spot us.”
“Just the one? A ship that big shouldn’t be out this far…”
“Shouldn’t? Maybe. Is? Yes. Get us down there.”
“Aye aye.”
Cimbrean Colony, The Far Reaches
“Fookin’ ‘ell, they’re coming in pretty hard…”
The Sanctuary was hammering down at the core of a trail of plasma. Powell and all the rest ducked down against a sudden blast of air, and the whole colony shook as the ship extended its fields, pancaking the air below it into a hundred-meter tall cushion that shoved the fireball sideways, scything the top off some nearby trees.
“Jesus H. Tittyfuckin’ Christ!!” Legsy yelled, a sentiment echoed in assorted vulgarities from all across the camp.
Thrumming smugly, Sanctuary settled gently onto the landing field.
“The fook was that all about?” Powell demanded, as the ramp dropped and Kirk’s partner-in-crime, Julian, staggered out and sat down heavily.
“The camouflage field working?” he asked.
“Franklin! Camo the field!” Powell yelled at the SEAL whose job was to handle the colony’s forcefield.
“On it!”
The field shimmered, moving from optimal collection mode to a wide-effect digital camo that would, in theory, make the colony very difficult to see from orbit.
Julian stood up. “There’s a ship incoming,” he explained.
The trooper responsible for the colony’s sensor array—really just the feed from a number of stealthy micro-satellites in geosynchronous orbit—had already grabbed his gear before Powell could turn to shout him into action, and was busy checking it.
“Confirmed,” he called. “One warp signature, incoming at superluminal from outsystem…looks like they’re coming from Celzi space.”
Powell released a frustrated grunt. “Intel said the Alliance was stepping up anti-piracy ops in this sector. If it’s the fucking Russians…” he trailed off, not finishing the thought. If it was the Russians, then the whole Cimbrean operation might well be fucked. Moscow’s aligning itself with the Celzi had caused quite the political row back at home where most everybody favoured neutrality in the interstellar conflict. While the Alliance hadn’t been responsible for the Sol quarantine, their condemnation of the enclosure had smacked more of expedient propaganda than actual moral outrage.
“They’re slowing…sublight.” Baker added. “Active ping! We just got scanned.”
“Think they saw anything?”
“Field’s up, camo’s running…At that range, if our gear’s working as advertised, no they didn’t.”
“Good. If this is just a patrol, hopefully they’ll have a look and move on…”
Baker watched his screen for a good minute.
“They’re not,” He decided. “Looks like they’re pulling into low orbit, set to sweep directly over us in… ten mikes.”
”…shit. Okay, get the Skymaster ready.”
Jen glanced at the imposing device in the heart of the camp. The “Skymaster” was a repurposed M242 Bushmaster mounted on a complicated gyroscopic base and field emitter array that transformed it into an effective ground-to-orbit weapon. It had been one of the first things the platoon had set up after the forcefield had come online.
As she watched, it pivoted and swung skywards, aiming into the western sky.
“Nine mikes,” Baker warned. Powell nodded grimly. His face had that same cold, calculating look that Adrian had used to wear in moments of real danger.
“Prepare to active ping,” He ordered. “If we see any sign that they’re hostile, we shoot first and the questions can go fook themselves.”
Baker confirmed the order, then counted down: “Eight thirty.”
Jen cleared her throat. “You sure about this?” She asked.
“Sure as I’ll ever be. Baker? Active ping.”
The sensors specialist nodded, and tapped something on his equipment. He gritted his teeth at what he saw.
“Ah, shit, their grav-spike’s up.” he reported.
Powell spun and addressed the two men manning the Skymaster. “Gun team! Five rounds, ASX!”
“Five ASX, ready…lock!”
“Fire!”
The Skymaster thumped. Jen felt it in her chest as the weapon opened a force-field walled tube of vacuum in front of it, into which it fired a round which accelerated away on a warp pulse in a line of exotic blue radiation. The warp field would collapse scant millimeters from the target’s hull, delivering the round long before the Celzi cruiser could even register that it was under attack. In theory, if the cruiser’s shields were still down while its warp field dissipated, the rounds would strike its hull unimpeded, smashing through the fragile ceramic armour tiles and delivering shaped explosive charges directly to the superstructure.
If its shields were up…in theory the gun could overwhelm them with sustained fire, but during that time the cruiser might lower its spike and flee, blowing Cimbrean’s cover.
Baker’s report soothed that particular worry. “Target well hit and de-orbiting, but they’re still intact. Communications could still be up.”
Powell set his jaw. “Five more, fire for effect.”
“Five more…Fire!”
The gun slammed into life again, and Jen felt her heart jump in her chest as five more rounds in as many seconds vanished skywards, pulsing upwards in a streak of blue light.
Powell keyed his radio. “Kirk, get ready to hit orbit an’ fook off, if this all goes to shit we need it reported back to Earth. Jen, you’d best go with him.”
”…Right. Take care of this place, Powell.” Jen said, while Old Jen whimpered objections at her about not abandoning everyone.
“You didn’t even name this place!” Powell objected.
“Folctha,” Jen called as she ran. “It’s called Folctha!”
She jogged behind the slender alien as he cantered across the lawn and scrambled up the Sanctuary’s ramp. Julian had sprinted ahead and was already powering up the ship’s kinetics as the door closed.
“We good to go?” He asked.
Kirk shook his head, a slow gesture on his long-necked kind. “Not yet. That ship will see us if we take off right now, and its gravity spike is still up, they’ll get a good look at us if we run now. We need to wait until it’s below the horizon.”
“And then?”
“And then we go with plan B I suppose.”
“I hope that’s not the plan B I’m used to…” Old Jen muttered, sotto voce. Louder, she asked “What’s plan B?”
“We deploy the system defense field we stole from the Confederacy,” Julian told her.
“An expedient solution, but also a politically awkward one,” Kirk expanded. “It would damage Earth’s reputation and bargaining position. I was instructed that the survival of the colony is more valuable, but…”
“But the fewer pawns we sacrifice the better,” Julian finished.
Jen blinked. “Somebody stole one of those things for us?”
“Julian did,” Kirk said, a revelation which caused her to re-examine Julian. After his stammering embarrassment at finding her in the bath, she’d pegged him as another Darragh and largely ignored him.
Stupid of me she realised, examining him with New Jen’s eye for danger. That earnest, cautious expression had done a good job of hiding the fact that he was fit, strong, and scarred, and clearly a survivor. It was only the slightly pathetic reaction he had to being in the presence of her—of a woman, she realised—that had made her dismiss him. Had he been standing with more confidence, she would have had no trouble imagining him stealing hardware like that.
At least it was a lesson learned harmlessly.
“What’s going on out there, anyway?” She asked, changing the subject.
Brick, New Jersey, Earth
Did you know, the Corti never dabbled in nuclear fission on anything more than an experimental basis? Three deaths and an event that came alarmingly close to being their own version of Pripyat later, and they abandoned the program and never spoke of it again. I found that interesting. Of course, that was before their eugenics program, and after their intellect had expanded and their compassion had shrivelled, they were well past the point of need to meddle with such comparatively crude science.
The Corti who abducted me—do you meditate? You should. I was taken while meditating and did not even notice until I opened my eyes again.
Their names were Hvek and Twanri. A mated couple, and as close as the Corti ever come to being head-over-heels in love. Nice enough people, if one overlooked their condescending habit of constantly attempting to impress upon the “lesser species” just how intellectually superior they were. I was not impressed—they had deliberately stolen me to tap me for expertise that they themselves lacked, after all.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Corti schoolchildren would regard the class on radioisotope decay as mundane and boring. But there’s a gulf of difference between academic understanding of what causes nuclear fission to happen, and direct experience and knowledge of what the effects are when it happens uncontrolled. For that, they turned to the human race.
We aren’t the only known species to have detonated these weapons, nor to have dabbled in nuclear fission with the safeties off. But we are by far the most intelligent of those races which did so. That’s probably why they spent so much time repeating their obvious mental advantages—insecurity.
They chose two of us—myself, and Mikhael, a Ukrainian gentleman who offered guided tours of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. And chose, it must be said, perfectly. You could not have asked for a better pair to give you a complete analysis on both the academic and practical consequences of the aftermath of a nuclear event. Which of course gave us something of a hint as to what we were there to do…
Adams had a secondary role besides manning the forcefield, namely communications, and he called out as something on his own gear beeped.
“They’re hailing.” he reported.
Powell frowned. “Can they escape now?”
Baker shook his head. “No way, that ship’s coming down hard.”
“Fook it. May as well hear the bastards’ last will and fookin’ testaments. Open the line.”
The voice that came through was clearly Australian and desperate.
“Attention arseholes! Please stop fucking shooting at us, we are NOT Alliance. I repeat, we are just a pack of poor fucking bastards in honest need of some god damned help.”
There was a long, embarrassed pause among the soldiers. Then, Powell leaned forward, took hold of the microphone, and replied:
“Attention ship—Ceasing fire. You are to proceed as follows: Crouch down, tuck your head between your legs, and kiss your arses goodbye. Sorry.”
There was no response from the radio. The silence on the ground was, eventually, broken by Legsy. “Fucking helpful advice that, sir,” he commented. Several of the men released the laughs they’d been holding back.
“Shut the fook up and get the lads ready to abandon base if we have to.” Powell ordered. “Actually, fook that. Where’s it coming down?”
Baker scratched his head “She’s aiming for…that big lake to the east.”
The captain glanced at the sensors screen, then grabbed his field binoculars and turned to face westwards, raising them to his face.
Other heads turned to follow his aim. Some few seconds later, a cloud formation withered and died in the face of incredible heat as the Alliance cruiser wallowed through it.
The ship was coming in at a shallow angle from low in the western sky, wreathed in smoke and fire as its shields struggled to stay up and ward off the hammering force of atmosphere. As they watched, a flicker and failure robbed the ship of what might have been an engine or something, which peeled off and corkscrewed away toward the south.
“No way is that thing surviving the hit.” somebody opined.
“We’ll check it out anyway, there’s at least one human on board, so we need to ID the body if nowt else.” Powell replied. “Legsy, get the mules and one of the trucks started up, send half the lads out there.”
“Which truck, sir?”
“I don’t fookin’ care! The one with the broken mirror!”
He keyed his radio. “Oi, Kirk. Hold off on escaping for now. Looks like we’ve got a couple of hours to check and see if owt survived the crash, you may as well unload the colonists.”
There was a pause, and then the alien’s simulated voice replied with a single professional word: “Understood.”
Seconds later, the Sanctuary emitted a dull thud that must have been its end of the Jump Array accepting an arrival. It was only the first of the ten that would deliver the first colonists and their equipment and effects to Cimbrean.
Ten minutes later, Powell was riding shotgun in one of the Mules as it bounced and skidded across fertile flood plains. The stream that ran through the palace grounds at Folctha met up with a larger river, which in turn flowed out to the inland sea, from which a column of white smoke provided a clear marker as to the final resting place of the downed cruiser.
The mules were half pickup truck, half quad bike, and quite capable of getting themselves out of damn near anything the terrain might snare them with or, in the worst case, being physically hauled out by some strong men. Their supply of the diesel the little vehicles ran on was limited, but the development plan included finding a local plant species to refine into a biofuel. Besides, if anybody had survived the splashdown, the platoon needed to have men on the shore waiting to collect sooner rather than later, and the only way to get down there fast enough was by vehicle.
They pulled themselves to a loam-spraying halt as the sky flashed brilliantly from the direction of the sea. Every man in the mules and the truck flung themselves overboard and hit the dirt, half expecting a lethal shockwave to rampage up the valley and toss the vehicles flying, the product of some kind of nuclear meltdown or similar cataclysm. What instead arrived, after too many tense heartbeats, was a great echoing thunder of detonation that went on too long and was too gentle at that range to have been anything so apocalyptic.
“The fuck just happened?” One of the SEALs asked, being the first to break the silence.
“Maybe it blew up?” Opined a Canadian SOR trooper.
“That’d put paid to any survivors then.” Powell said. “Better hope not, we’ve still got a human to bag and tag. Mount up, let’s get down there.”
Waves were still lapping the sands and pebbles when they halted on the beach, and not a moment too soon: a trio of what looked like cargo transports of some kind were hovering across the water, propelled by rowing of all things.
A dishevelled hulk of a man, all muscles, wild hair, wilder eyes and unkempt beard splashed into the surf and waded ashore. He raised his hands in response to the guns that immediately aimed at him, but smiled.
“G’day,” he said.
Folctha colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Powell’s decision to order Kirk to remain had paid off, allowing the first civilian contractors and colonists to traverse the jump array from Earth, Already a team of determined-looking men were setting off into the forest with electric chainsaws, bent on constructing a log cabin to serve as a bunkhouse, as a rather more solid and permanent alternative to the tents of the military camp.
Somehow, they had even managed to squeeze a tiny backhoe into the miniscule space available inside Sanctuary’s end of the array, which was busily going to work laying the foundations for the bunkhouse and projects that would follow.
Jen wondered where whichever government or governments were responsible for this whole plan had found civilians with the right skills who could be trusted with the secret and were willing to take the risk. There must have been months of planning behind this venture, at a bare minimum.
“Miss Jennifer Delaney, I presume?” the voice had an accent that was pure southern England, reminding her vaguely of red tunics, flags and old stone buildings. It belonged to a slim, earnest-looking man in his late middle age who extended a hand as they met.
“Just Jen.” she asserted herself. Formality could go wrestle a Vulza. She shook his hand though, prompted by Old Jen into remembering that preferring to be informal didn’t mean needing to be rude.
“Jen it is.” the newcomer agreed, amicably. “I’m Sir Jeremy Sandy CH, your replacement as governor here.”
“Oh thank goodness…That’s a weight off my shoulders.” Jen admitted. “I’ve not done much governoring, I’m afraid I’m not cut out for desk work.”
“No indeed, you look like you’d find it bloody stifling.” Sir Jeremy readily agreed. Jen found that she liked the man, despite the pomp and poshness in his accent. Even if he was just very good indeed at reading people and saying what they wanted to hear, it was still nice to be charmed after months or, hell, years with no company but Adrian, herself, aliens, and a platoon of terrifyingly intense special forces.
“I can’t help but notice you’re about as English as the Queen.” she said. “Is Cimbrean a British colony now, or…?”
“The King, nowadays.” Sir Jeremy revealed. “But yes, it is. There was a lot of legal wrangling and courtroom drama involved, but ultimately Britain successfully argued that because the colony’s founder and first governor is a British national, as is its first military commander…” he waved a hand, dismissively indicating what had surely been an extended and heated debate within the halls of power. “Of course, that argument was much easier to make considering the confidential nature of the project. The absolute requirement of secrecy around Cimbrean’s development stopped it from ballooning into the political row of the century.”
“That makes sense.” Jen considered.
“Well, it probably won’t remain British for so very long. The Chinese, Argentinians and Russians are all making uncomfortable noises about expansion and Imperialism. Who knows? It could become the fifth member of the Union, or an overseas territory, but I think it more likely that Cimbrean will—quietly, respectfully and by common consent—go independent once on her feet, and become a Commonwealth member.”
“Assuming she survives.” Jen pointed out. “If the Great Hunt finds this place…”
“We have a contingency prepared.” Sir Jeremy assured her. “In fact, you’ll be pausing during your departure to deploy it.”
“Oh?”
“Kirk will explain. Let’s just say that the need for absolute secrecy is going to be resolved soon. Among other things, a leak is inevitable, so we need to go public with the project sooner rather than later.”
“So it can have a positive spin put on it?”
“As you say.” Sir Jeremy smiled. He looked around drawing a deep and contented breath. “Gosh… clean air.”
“Clean, yes, but it’s also a bit thin next to what you’re used to. Don’t exert yourself too hard at first or you’ll feel sick and shaky.”
“Yes, I remember the briefing. Still… It’s refreshing. I’ve spent months in offices in London and Toronto ahead of this assignment, finally being here is wonderful.”
You’ll enjoy the night sky.” Jen told him. “There’s no light pollution here, so you can see EVERYTHING.”
“I bought a telescope among my personal effects.” Sir Jeremy admitted. “I’ve always been something of an amateur astronomer. The chance to survey new stars and constellations was part of what convinced me to take this commission.”
“Well, we’ve got a couple of hours yet before the expedition gets back from investigating that crashed cruiser, so welcome to Folctha. I’ll give you the guided tour before we go.”
“Delighted!” Sir Jeremy exclaimed, and took her arm. It was an avuncular, unconsciously friendly gesture and Jen quite forgot to stiffen at the unexpected contact. “Folctha?” he asked.
Jen smiled. “There’s a story behind that…” she began.
The enormous human wasn’t quite aiming his weapon at Saunders, but then again Gyotin doubted that he needed to. The squad of humans on the beach were quite plainly the most dangerous thing he had ever laid eyes on, each one of them comfortably wearing a harness of thick armour plating covered in an drab blend of greens and soil tones that his eyes almost wanted to skip off and treat as part of the background, and a gun that the Gaoian doubted he would even be able to lift. All bar the big one with the biggest gun were intimidatingly anonymous, their faces covered in black masks, and with lenses of a brilliant orange over their eyes.
He flopped onto the beach, growling at the pain in what was almost certainly a fractured bone high in his chest, and was surprised when one of the humans lowered his weapon and dashed over to him, unslinging from his back a bag of what were clearly medical supplies.
It immediately became apparent that the human had no translator implant or technology on his person, but even in the curious cadences of an alien language, his tone of voice was reassuring and cheerfully optimistic as he drew a slim white cylinder from his pocket.
Gyotin was in too much pain to really be too worried about a language barrier anyway, and just gratefully rested his head on the sand, awaiting his treatment
It came as a large disappointment when, muttering quietly to himself, he human scribbled a rune or letter of some kind on a piece of paper with the marker, and pinned it to Gyotin’s overalls before leaving and checking on a .Kwmbwrw crewman same ways down the beach.
Gyotin was about to raise his voice in protest and demand to know whether the human felt that some curious ritual involving paper was going to mend a broken bone, when the man simply touched the Kwmbwrw on one shivering flank reassuringly, before checking on the next crewman without leaving a note or rune. This one received more attention, and an injection from a small, presumably disposable, needle of some substance or another. It seemed to work, as the fallen crew member’s pained noises rapidly subsided , to be replaced by an apparently gentle slumber.
Triage, Gyotin realised, as the medic dashed from crewman to crewman, assessing the injuries. Mostly he just repeated the action of labelling his patients, but here and there he administered an injection of some drug or another.
The unconscious human—Markovitz—was loaded onto a small ground vehicle which roared away in a spray of kicked-up sand. The mostly-sane one—Kaminski?—was likewise loaded onto a vehicle, but this one was also occupied by a human who had the body language of the one in charge. They were just close enough for Gyotin’s translator to decide it could hear the “Rush-in”’s half of the conversation: the other didn’t appear to have a translator of his own.
“Kaminski, Roman. Captain, Spetsnaz.”
The other human spoke. The language was a staccato one, short clipped consonants separated by long, broad vowel sounds, punctuated halfway through by what was unmistakably a “fucking”. Gyotin still hadn’t quite figured why humans referred to the act of copulation completely out of context so frequently, but he had come to recognise the word by sound.
“I understand. Our missions are at cross purposes: I had no idea the West had forces offworld.”
“<Gibberish?>” There was a questioning note at the end of that sentence.
“Of course. I surrender, captain.”
The two deathworlders gripped each other’s hands firmly, and the captain nodded, looking relieved. “<Babble. Nonsense?>“
“Thank you.” Kaminski glanced around, and then leaned closer to the other human and spoke confidentially, too quietly for Gyotin to overhear.
The captain frowned, then turned to the enormous human with the giant gun. “Leg-zee! <Jabber! Gobbledygook.>
The big one nodded sharply, and then marched forward, stuck the vast weapon into the small of Adrian’s back, and ordered something. “<Yammer> fucking <prattle>.”
“Sure, mate. Whatever.” Saunders agreed, and started walking, placing his hands gently atop his head. Gyotin wasn’t sure if the easy relaxed swagger in his movements was a symptom of bravado or honest insanity.
He stopped paying attention when the human medic returned and extended a hand. Gyotin took it with his good hand and was hauled—gently and respectfully but with the inexorable force of a human’s incredible strength—to his feet, offering words which, while Gyotin couldn’t understand them, promised medical attention and a future which didn’t include imminent death.
<+maybe they AREN’T all completely crazy…+>