The Alpha of the Brood-that-Builds
+<Interest> A human Alpha. The first we have seen.+
The Builder Alpha examined the perspective of the little insect-sized spy drone as it settled on the ceiling above the Deathworlder.
The human infantry had appeared from nowhere, storming out of a supposedly empty room on the station’s upper decks without warning. They might almost have materialised in that room fully-formed. Impossible, of course, but then again that kind of stealth was only marginally more credible, especially from a species so technologically behind the Hunters.
This particular specimen was clearly in command, having started by thrusting its arm out to indicate where its subordinates should go and what work they should do, and now poring over a diagram of that section of the station, directing the efforts of the other eleven.
The Alpha-of-Alphas was clearly intrigued also. It had a much more complete view of the battlefield than the Builder Alpha did, ensconced as it was in a kind of command throne that was designed to interface with its neural augmentations and greatly expand its ability to track and consider the situation. It had proven itself in battle against these humans, receiving only minor wounds at worst. Now it was proving itself as a commander and leader.
+<Correction> Not just an Alpha.+ it mused. +<Observation> Notice the markings on their armor. There are three different Deathworlder broods here. Each fulfills a different role. This is an Alpha-of-many-broods. It must be an individual of great importance.+
The Builder broadcast understanding and agreement. +<Fascination> Interesting that their broods function together through division of duty.+ it commented. +<Inspiration> And that displacement device! The possibilities!+
+<Satisfaction> Observing that device in action alone has been worth this trap.+ the Alpha-of-Alphas agreed. +<Thoughtfulness> And the specialised behaviour of their warriors can be translated to our own broods. This is valuable data.+
They watched the Deathworlders slaughter lesser Hunters by the dozen for some minutes. The violence was almost intimidating, even from a cloaked listening post far removed from the action. The lead team of three would enter a compartment, and every Hunter within that compartment would be dead almost too quickly to fathom, cut down by withering volleys of disciplined firepower.
There was an objective to it, though—they weren’t killing for the sake of killing. Instead, every time the humans surged forward, it was to claim another little knot of surviving Prey, plucking them from the Hunters’ grasp and securing the meat the opportunity to escape. Dozens had escaped already, most of them the important, high-value individuals whose deaths would have so demoralized the Prey across the galaxy. Each dignitary that escaped to whatever sanctuary the Deathworlders had established beyond their displacement array was a personal insult to the Alpha-of-Alpha’s plan.
Why they should do so was incomprehensible to the Alpha of the Brood-that-Builds. Why would superior lifeforms put themselves in harm’s way to rescue inferior ones that were not even the same brood or species?
It sensed that there was no answer to that conundrum within the remit of engineering.
For their part, the Hunters’ responses to human weaponry ju st didn’t seem to be giving them the edge that the Builder had hoped for. The guns were just too heavy, and needed to be held in too specific a way so as to avoid injury. If only they could capture a working example of the weapons the humans themselves were using…
As they watched, a family of spindly blue Prey were herded into the territory the humans had seized and vanished through the displacement device. Just behind them was the wounded Large Prey, actually being carried by two of the Deathworlders. The Builder revised its estimates as to human maximum muscle strength upwards by several percentage points.
+<Curiosity> Those two seem to prioritise the repair and evacuation of wounded Prey.+ it noted.
+<Contempt> Yes. While that is an obvious sign of weakness and wrong-thinking, it will also potentially undermine our intimidation of the prey.+ the Alpha-of-Alpha’s thoughts were tinged with anger at this damage to their propaganda victory.
+<Suggestion> I submit that we have gathered enough data. Those humans should be eradicated, their displacement device salvaged and we should capture that Alpha-of-Many-Broods.+ the Builder proposed.
It did not take the silence that greeted this idea for hesitation or contempt. The Alpha-of-Alphas had demonstrated its intelligence and cunning time and again. It was undoubtedly mulling the suggestion over, considering the merits and potential risks.
+<Resolve> Agreed.+ It sent, at last. +I will deploy the Strongest Brood.+
Regaari
Regaari’s luck ran out the instant he dropped into the diplomatic yacht’s hangar. Only the Whitecrest training that the Mothers would have so despised had they known of it kept him from dying the moment he dropped from the vent and onto the deck. He hadn’t seen the three Hunters feasting on a brother of Clan Farflight, but his pulse rifle snapped up and was firing the instant he saw them. Three solid hits pulped the one holding a bizarre long gun in a shock-absorbing assemblage, and he dived aside, throwing down a shieldstick to cover his retreat. Retaliatory pulse fire splashed against it.
The latest generation, available only to Whitecrests, could admit pulse fire from the defenders’ side, and he used that feature to return fire, killing the last two even as their final pulse shot shattered his barrier. That had been too close.
He turned to the ship and froze cold, realising that the Hunters had already crippled it, recognising the fact that it was a possible escape craft. He had no way off the station.
No, there had to be an alternative, something he’d overlooked…
A crawling sense of paranoia made him look up.
The Alpha dropped from the ceiling like something obscene from one of Xiù’s movies, and smashed his gun out of his hands. Half as big again as its subordinates and much more heavily augmented, it kicked him and Regaari felt a rib jar painfully inside him as the blow flipped him through the air to slide on his back halfway across the hangar.
Winded and injured, he still fought to find his feet, scrambling at his belt for his backup pulse pistol. That too was slapped aside by the Alpha, which used its other hand to grab him by the scruff of his neck and lift him off the deck, feet kicking and dangling.
He wouldn’t have been Regaari if he hadn’t fought for every last second though. Down to just his claws, he raked the nightmare’s face, costing it two eyes and badly lacerating the flesh around a cluster of cybernetics that replaced three of the others.
It replied by biting off his left paw just above the wrist.
It was an almost dainty gesture, and Hunter teeth were so sharp that Regaari was almost able to see it happen without feeling it. One moment it was his paw, the next it was a meaty morsel, frothing blood in the creature’s mouth, crunching and splintering as the hunter bit through the bone to swallow what had once been a part of him.
It laughed. There was no epithet in Gaori to describe how much he hated it for that. The… beast gloated, savoring its kill. He snorted nasal mucus and spat it into the creature’s remaining eye, too proud to give it the satisfaction of fearing it. He hated it, hated everything it stood for, and his last thought was to hope fervently that it would choke on him.
Instead, its head twitched to look over his shoulder, and it dropped him, bringing up one of those large long guns.
Those guns were clearly heavy though. Too heavy to respond in time. Its head exploded, painting a grisly slurry of meaty matter and cybernetic parts all over the deck, and the most glorious sight in the galaxy double-timed across the hangar, gun snapping from corner to corner in case of any lingering threats.
By all the clans of Gao. An actual human. Built like a bunker and faceless in an armored vacuum suit layered in technology, but unmistakably a Deathworlder. Nothing else could conceivably have moved so easily while carrying so much.
“You’re late.” he chided, out of pure bravado.
“You’re alive.” the human replied, setting to work on the stump of his arm. Regaari reached across to retrieve his pulse pistol with his remaining hand and holstered it. He was keeping on top of the pain, barely, and having that little task to focus on while the human stopped his bleeding by injecting some kind of foam directly into the wound, which hardened and stopped the blood flow almost instantly, kept him from crying out from the agony and fainting.
“Come on compadre, you’re not getting out of here on that shuttle.” the human said. He slung his gun around his shoulder, tugged a smaller one from a belt holster, tucked an arm under Regaari and hoisted him firmly but gently off the floor. It was like being a cub again, riding on an adult’s shoulders.
The diplomatic quarters outside were exactly the kind of hell his imagination and sense of hearing had suggested as he’d crawled through the vents. There were bodies everywhere, many of them clearly cut down from behind as they tried to flee. Intermingled with them were Hunter corpses, however, clearly fallen where they had been feasting, many still with dripping shreds of flesh caught in their fangs.
Two more humans in those armored vacuum suits were firing stubby little black weapons at something through a doorway. Not missing a beat, his rescuer dropped his shoulders and surged past their firefight, shielding Regaari with his own body.
This brought them into view of another human, just in time for Regaari to watch him sidestep a charging Beta and punch it so hard in the side of its jaw that the head was all but torn off. The huge corpse crashed into the bulkhead and left a purplish blood stain.
“Whe–” Regaari began. He made it no further than that, because an explosion an order of magnitude larger than anything that had previously rocked them punished the deck. The lights died, and artificial gravity went with them for just a second before the damage control systems found an alternate power source for them. Emergency lighting, dark and blue, at least robbed the carnage of its more stomach-turning hues.
The humans clearly heard an order via some means he wasn’t party too, because all of them began to fall back under fire towards the recreational concourse. The one carrying him picked up his speed to the point where Regaari could feel a breeze in his fur.
There were Hunters on the concourse, but unlike any that Regaari had ever heard of. Gone were the usual cruel cybernetics. In fact, gone were whole limbs, and in place of the “natural” sickly white of Hunter flesh was a horrible wet meaty redness which bulged and pulled in grotesque ways as they moved. Whatever these Hunters had done to themselves had granted them the strength to move confidently and swiftly even layered in thick armor plates and while carrying large weapons.
They were huge, as big if not bigger than the Alpha that had nearly killed him, and moving with a sturdy, graceful precision that was more like a human’s motion, and these ones seemed to be handling their guns just fine, pouring a hail of firepower into the water feature that three more human soldiers were using for cover.
His rescuer’s gun hand came up and the pistol’s sharp crack was a very different noise to the heavy, explosive, industrial thunder being made by the Hunter weaponry. Unlike them, his aim was sharp and precise. One of the abominations choked and collapsed as the rounds ripped into exposed gaps at the sides and flanks, but two of its friends turned to face the new threat, with bullets sparking off shields and armour plates as they returned fire, squinting against the glare from the bright light mounted below the pistol’s barrel.
Regaari was jolted badly when his carrier then jinked into cover, and he was let go of. Even if the human was trying to be gentle, being carried by a Deathworlder was clearly a dangerous experience.
He kept his head down. There was more gunfire, shouting, the deck plating shook.
“They’re coming up the left!”
“They’re fucking suicidal…BASEBALL, REBAR, get up on the right there!”
The deck plating dented under their weight as the pinned three dashed from where they’d been hiding and made it into cover beside him. “Good shooting, Hoss.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“I took a hit, didn’t penetrate. Those guns of theirs hit hard though.”
“Watch the ones coming down the middle…fuck! NERVEJAM!”
“Oh no you don’t!”
Regaari felt like an icicle was pounded into his brain as a grenade went off nearby.
“Man down!”
“Get him back here! Suppressing fire!”
A storm of shooting. Heavy footfalls, more shouting, and something large was dragged into cover alongside him, one of the humans convulsing and twitching in his armour.
“They’re still coming!”
“Throwing grenade…FRAG OUT!”
An explosion that left his ears ringing in protest. Station damage alarms started wailing nearby, adding to the chorus of violence.
“How is he?”
“He needs to be jumped to triage right now, sir.”
There was a deadly, horrible pause. “Fookin’….can we make the array?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
”…THOR, demolish it. We’re EA jumping.”
“Major. He’s dead, sir.”
”…Aye. Grab the ETs and fall back, that way. Legsy, HIGHLAND! Cover the retreat.”
Regaari was hoisted up with Deathworlder strength and carried. There were three others with him: a Corti and two Kwmbwrw, who seemed to be equally as petrified by their rescuers as by the Hunters.
He could see over his carrier’s shoulder as they ran. The one in charge paused long enough to tap some commands out on the computer he carried, and the dead soldier’s armor started smoking, then burst into flames.
The one carrying him muttered something. His helmet decided that the sotto voce delivery was not intended for translation, but Regaari understood just enough English to understand him.
”…Goodbye, STERLING.”
“Get in this bag, quickly now.”
The Corti was clearly one of the political delegation, and not accustomed to taking orders gracefully. “What exactly is an ‘EA Jump’ and why am I being stuffed into a bag for it?” he demanded.
The human commander clearly had no patience for Corti games. “It means Exo-bloody-Atmospheric. We are going to jump out of this station and land on that planet, so put on the fookin’ bag!” he snapped. Behind his pressure helmet, his eyes promised trouble the likes of which no alien could comprehend if he was not obeyed.
The Corti squeaked and practically dove into the bag. Regaari had already been mostly into his, but he balked upon hearing this. “Jump?”
The human whose chest the bag was strapped to nodded, and pushed him down gently but firmly, helping him curl up inside it. “Yep.” he said.
“Is that safe?”
“Hell no. Beats being eaten by Hunters though.” He tugged the bag over Regaari’s head and sealed it. It instantly pressurised, filling with sweet atmosphere that was a welcome relief from the meat-tasting foulness he’d been breathing.
There was a little transparent window for him to see out of, and through it he saw two of the humans each stick a large brick of something to the outside station wall.
There was muffled speech, then shouting as the humans who had stayed behind retreated into the room, still shooting. They slammed and sealed the door—an instant later, a titanic detonation shook the room.
“Claymore?” the commander asked.
“Yep. There’s more coming, but they’re being careful now.”
“Right. Last seal check, blow it on my go.”
The humans scrambled to check each other’s suits, and all loudly declared them satisfactory, then the one carrying him turned away and hunkered down and…
Losing his hand turned out to be only the second most violent thing that happened to Regaari that day. The first was any station-dweller’s nightmare—the total catastrophic failure of an outside wall, and the resulting depressurisation that flung them and everything else in the room out into space. Crushing G-forces caused him to black out for a second.
“Hey. Hey, you still with me in there?”
The voice was coming from a small hand-held device attached by a coiled wire to the same panel on the inside of his bag that was providing Regaari’s breathable air. Tinny and quiet as it was, it still seemed loud inside the bag, which was basically silent apart from the faint sounds of the air being exchanged and of Regaari’s own body.
He grabbed it and tentatively pressed the button on the side. “Yes. I’m still with you.”
“Good news, man. We’re alive and reentering just fine.”
Regaari had to produce a bitter chirp at that one. “Oh, yes. Everything is absolutely perfect.” he commented.
“Better than being eaten. What’s your name, compadre?”
“Regaari. Officer Regaari, of Clan Whitecrest.”
“Cool. Call me WARHORSE.”
Regaari pushed his nose up to the window of his bag, which was now a taut cylinder. He could just make out the human’s arms on either side of him and beyond that, only Capitol Station and tumbling, burning lights. ‘WARHORSE’ sounded more like a codename to him than the human’s real name, but he wasn’t going to argue. Goodness knew, he’d gone by plenty of assumed identities in his duties.
“So. Atmospheric reentry without a spacecraft.” he said. “I assume this suit of yours is equipped for it?”
“Technically, everything about this suit is so classified I can’t tell you shit about it, man. But, y’know, you’ll figure out if it is or isn’t by the way we do or don’t burn up.” WARHORSE told him.
“How comforting.”
“Hah!”
They fell in silence for a while. There was a pale blue glow just building up past the limb of WARHORSE’s limbs when Regaari finally spoke. “I’m curious. Why?”
“Why…what, man?”
“The Dominion’s treated you–” he spoke in English as best as a Gaoian mouth could ”-like shit. You lost a presumably elite soldier today…”
“One of the very fuckin’ best.” WARHORSE agreed. There was an emotional edge to his voice, but Regaari couldn’t interpret what that edge might be. Not that it was difficult to guess.
“Not to…belittle his sacrifice.” he said, carefully. “But why?”
“Hey, I don’t know the why of it, man.” WARHORSE replied. “But my whole thing is saving lives. That’s, like, my job, my purpose in life. So, I’m just doing what I do, you know?”
“You lost a man.” Regaari repeated.
“Yeah. And I’m going to miss him like crazy, he was one of my brothers, man. But we SAVED like…what, fifty? Sixty?”
“That many?”
“Something like.”
“Still, risking twelve elite human soldiers to save fifty or sixty ungrateful politicians…”
“A life is a life, man. Doesn’t matter if it’s human, Gaoian, Kwmbwrw, or that little grey fuck on BASEBALL’s chest.”
There was a flicker of orange light. “Re-entry plasma?”
“Yeah. Forcefield should handle it just fine. Sit back and enjoy the fireworks.”
“Ah, fireworks.” Regaari nodded. “I had a human friend once. She showed me video footage of fireworks. I always thought it would be fun to see them.”
“Human friend?”
“Shoo.”
The translator spat out WARHORSE’s response in the form of the Gaori word for “footwear” with a questioning uptick.
“Her real name has this awkward sound at the start. Like shhh but more…buzzing.”
”…Wait, not Jew? You had a Jewish friend?”
“I don’t know what that is. Her name was a longer and…flatter sound. She said she was Chinese-Canadian?”
“Aah, right. Gotcha. Yah, most other humans struggle with Chinese names too.”
The plasma outside was now a steady orange torrent. The bag’s window was clearly photosensitive because it had darkened to welder’s-mask black in order to protect his eyes from the contrail’s incandescence.
Then the shaking started.
“Is it…meant to do this?”
“You got me, compadre. This is the first time I’ve done this.”
“Not even in training?”
“Too dangerous for training. Hold on!”
Regaari curled up, resisted the urge to let his claws out, and shut his eyes, wishing against all rationality that he could be a cub again as he and WARHORSE became a fireball together, and fell.