He woke to heat. It was stifling, humid and pungent in the flight bay, and his chest was already heaving and panting cool-ish air across his tongue before he woke up.
Somebody was making simple music by tapping steadily on something, which made a hollow metal thump. Somebody else was syncopating it by tapping on two or three other things—crates, equipment, the shuttle hull. There was an actual instrument involved, the twangy one that Xiù had called a ‘guitar’. He didn’t know very much about human music, but he thought he recognised a genre called ‘blues’.
He sat up.
“Hey. Wondering when you’d wake up.”
Regaari stretched. WARHORSE was sat next to him against the wall. He was putting what looked like pictures back in his pack. “How long…?”
“Eight hours or so.”
Regaari sat up more. “I thought we were leaving Capitol?” he asked. “I was expecting to be in a Gaoian hospital by now. And why is it so hot in here?”
“We’re in low-emissions mode, containing our heat so the Hunters don’t see us.”
“Okay, but why?” Regaari demanded.
“They started dismantling the station. Guess we’re staying here to watch them do it, figure out why. Until then, we’re cargo.” WARHORSE shrugged. “Sorry man. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on your arm and we’ve got a field hospital set up in the other bay. You’re in good hands.”
Regaari ducked a nod. “I know. And, I’m grateful. Without you, the Clan of Females would never have known who Giymuy’s choice to replace her as the Mother-Supreme is.”
“Is that, like, appointing an heir, or just a recommendation?”
“A recommendation. But one that’s usually listened to, from what I gather. I was only a few days old when Giymuy was appointed.” Regaari shrugged. He’d learned early on that humans and Gaoians had that gesture in common.
“Gonna have to be a few days, man.” WARHORSE told him. “They’re stripping the whole station and…y’know, it’s a big station.”
Regaari chittered, a touch bitterly. “It’ll take them months to appoint a successor anyway, even with her recommendation.” he said. “I’m going to miss her though.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yes. She wasn’t just somebody I worked for. If she’d been younger…” he trailed off. “Though, Ayma might not have approved.”
“This the Ayma that fought so hard to have your human friend adopted into the clan?”
“That’s right. She’s also the mother of my most recent cub, and….She and I…” he made a little growling noise, the equivalent of a human clearing their throat. “It’s…complicated.”
“Man, I know how that feels.”
“I doubt it.” Regaari countered. “Monogamy is the norm in your culture. In ours, it would be something of a scandal.”
“You two are exclusive?”
“I’d like to be.” Regaari confessed. “I…haven’t told her as much. She and I went through a lot together, but I don’t know how she’d take it.”
WARHORSE made a loud, explosive sound that was probably a laugh. “Oh, MAN. I definitely know how that one feels!” he exclaimed, then calmed. “At least, the going through a lot together thing.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“Brother, I am the WRONG man for female advice.”
They sat in silence for a while, until Regaari noticed that WARHORSE—and some others of the NOVA HOUNDs—were giving him strange looks.
“What?”
“You’re panting.”
“Well…yes.” Regaari said. “That’s how we deal with heat. We pant, you sweat.” he gestured to the fact that everybody on deck was stripped down to the bare minimum they could get away with, and even that was dark wet and sticking to the skin.
“That’s amazing.”
“Why?”
“Just…ah, man, it just triggers some weird instincts I guess. Forget it. Maybe we should fill one of these crates with water for you…”
“Great Father Fyu, no.” Regaari protested. “Wet fur smells worse than you do.”
This caused WARHORSE’s expression to get even stranger. It was almost like a smile, but wide-eyed rather than narrow-eyed. Regaari had no idea what it meant.
“What?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Fine, keep your secrets.”
He endured the occasional smiling glance for a while longer, listening to the music while WARHORSE sighed and retrieved a few things—hard copy prints of some kind—from his bag and began to flip through them.
“What are those?”
“Uh…Ah fuck it, you’re not human. This is Ava.”
Regaari scrutinized the pictures. ‘Ava’ had plainly set up and taken the images herself, and they were obviously a mating display. It was the only way to explain the curious poses and the odd choice of clothing, both calculated to show off her body to best effect while still hiding away those parts of her anatomy that he knew humans were peculiarly squeamish about. The prints had a slightly worn, often-handled look around the edges.
He had to admit, even across the species barrier, he could see the appeal. When you came down to the mechanics of it, there were only so many ways to be bipedal, and only so many ways to birth live young through a plantigrade biped’s pelvis. The four mammary glands on a Gaoian female were at the waist and small, as opposed to a human’s high and large pair, and the bald skin was totally unattractive, but the curve of flank and hip was almost identical, aside from being more pronounced in humans due to the larger muscles, shorter torso and longer legs.
“Not that I’m an expert.” he declared “but if I had the mouth for it, I think a wolf-whistle would be in order.”
WARHORSE laughed at that, then sighed as he looked at the pictures again. “I hope she gives me a second shot.” he said, wistfully.
“A second shot? She turned you down?”
“We…went through a lot together. Then we went through a lot without each other, and I was dumb enough to think that she’d just…”
Whatever word he was searching for went un-found. There was a general looking-up and then standing-up as STAINLESS stepped onto the flight deck, rather more professionally turned-out than his men in a full body uniform of some kind, rather than the sleeveless, short-legged things the rest of the NOVA HOUNDs were wearing. He was even managing the impressive feat of managing to look comfortable in the heat.
“Fall in.” he ordered, quietly. Everyone gathered around him in a rough half-circle, the NOVA HOUNDs themselves at the front, and all of their technicians, attendants and support staff forming a second row behind them.
“First things first. TITAN’s going to be fine. Was a nasty injury, but he’s had surgery and a Crue-D shot, so he should be up and about in a day or two. Major Jackson suffered a fractured fibula and some nasty lacerations, but her early prognosis suggests a full recovery and return to duty in due course.”
There was murmured relief, which fell silent again as STAINLESS raised a hand.
“We, uh-” he began, then cleared his throat. “We’ve had the unhappy privilege of watching three legendary men burn brightly today.”
Heads lowered. Regaari watched BASEBALL put his arm around WARHORSE’s enormous shoulders and pull him close.
“All of our lights will go out in time.” STAINLESS continued. That mobile, malleable, expressive human face was alive with muscles wrestling under the surface, fighting to maintain dignity. “All of our journeys reach their end. What counts at the end of it all is how that journey was spent, and I for one will consider myself blessed that, for a while, I was able to journey alongside these epic three, and call them my comrades, my friends…and my brothers.”
He swallowed, lowered his head for a second, then raised it again and Regaari admired the strength that he managed to force into his voice.
“Let these mementoes enter the history of this new regiment, and mark the start of a tradition. We will never leave a man behind. Whether he comes back with his shield, upon it, or in keepsake only, he comes back. We all make it home, one way or another.”
As nods of agreement created a gentle susurrus around the bay, he produced three small, battered items from his pocket.
“Staff sergeant Brady Stevenson. THOR.” He laid the little patch of cloth that WARHORSE had salvaged from the crushed armor on the table.
“Sergeant First Class Leo Price. STERLING.” A metal tag on a chain.
“Master Sergeant James Jones.” Another swatch of cloth. “…Legsy.”
By now, all the seven men standing directly in front of him had their arms interlinked across one another’s shoulders or around each others’ waists. Around the bay, deathworlders were standing at attention, some fighting back their emotions, others displaying them openly.
STAINLESS took a deep breath. “It’s still early days for the SOR. We’ve been blooded today, and despite our losses, we acquitted ourselves superbly under the most difficult circumstances, in keeping with the finest traditions of our parent units.” He declared. “I expect that we will go on to great things in due course, which is why I’m going to conclude with what I hope will be the regimental motto, so listen closely. Remember this.” heads raised and gave him their full attention.
”…’What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel: In apprehension, how like a god!’”
He set his jaw and saluted fiercely. Every one of the humans present copied him. “When gods fall, we will remember them.”
Twenty humans spoke as one. “We will remember them.“
Two torturous days passed, punctuated by a steady rhythm. First, a siren would sound, marking the moment when their orbit carried them below the horizon from the Swarm’s perspective, and the ship would wake up, flinging out its forcefields and radiating all of its accumulated heat towards the sun in a concentrated beam with breathtaking efficiency.
Regaari could actually FEEL the temperature drop, until he was comfortable again and the humans were sighing with relief even as their breath condensed on newly chilled air. Chores would be done, the water would be recycled and people would take comfort showers and use the latrines, making best use of every moment that the ship could operate normally before its orbit carried it back into line of sight with the Hunters and they were forced to endure another three hours of mounting heat and humidity as best they could.
In hindsight, not taking WARHORSE up on that bath idea had been wise. He would have been shivering and at risk of hypothermia at the cold end of the cycle.
They spent the time watching movies, huddled around a tiny tablet computer in a way that must surely have made the heat worse, but at least it was entertainment. He wound up sitting on WARHORSE’s shoulders again so as to have a good view.
Regaari had watched a number of movies with Xiù, and had mostly enjoyed them, though he had wondered what in Gao’s name she got out of ‘horror’ movies. She’d mostly watched them from behind her hands, squirming and occasionally shrieking while the poor traumatized Gaoians had been even worse affected. Humans could be dark in their storytelling it seemed.
He’d not watched a movie like this one, though. It almost had a Gaoian in it: too short, oddly proportioned, with digitigrade feet and strange facial proportions and markings that suggested a chromosomal disorder, and clearly built on Deathworlder anatomy, making him stockier and far stronger than any real Gaoian, but still…
“Why would you wanna save the galaxy?”
“Because I’m one of the idiots who LIVES in it!”
It was ridiculous, but also a huge amount of fun, and certainly distracted from the relentless heat.
He was required to check with the hospital set up in the bay on the opposite side of the ship every few hours, and was surprised when they removed his dressings—the stump underneath had healed perfectly, unbelievably fast, though who had snuck him a dose of Cruezzir, when and how were a mystery. When he got back to Gao, he’d be ready to receive a prosthetic the moment he landed.
Finally, orders were given, objects cleared away, loose equipment battened down and everyone settled down ready for the jump, which passed with a barely-perceptible jolt in his stomach.
At once, the cooling cycle started, and this time, the temperature stayed down.
The long wait was over.
Major Owen Powell
HMS Sharman had a few design quirks that had been intended to keep it inside the footprint occupied by the original camp, and one of these was its narrow hallways and corridors. The narrowest of which, Powell was certain, was the one outside his office.
Throw in that SOR men were universally large, and that made getting past one another a challenge sometimes, which was why he paused at the intersection on seeing Arés coming towards him. The younger man picked up the pace to squeeze past him at the corner.
“Shouldn’t you be seeing Ava, Sergeant?” Powell asked. “She’ll be worried about you.”
“We were just…organising the wake, sir.” Adam explained.
Powell nodded. “Good. And I’ll be bloody well upset if you lot don’t drink every drop of alcohol on this planet, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Powell exhaled through his nose, aware that he was going to miss having an NCO with whom he could get away with sharing a joke.
But then again, that hadn’t been the nature of his relationship with Legsy to begin with, either.
“Goodnight, sir.” Adam said, and turned to go.
“Arés…”
The young man turned to face him again. “Sir?”
”…Legsy and I were in the habit of sharing a post-mission drink. You’d be…very welcome to join me in keeping that tradition alive.”
Adam blinked at him, then nodded, swallowing. “I’d like that.” he managed.
“Come on.”
Powell unlocked his office and led the way in, visiting the top of his filing cabinet and retrieving a bottle of Glenfiddich and two cut crystal glasses.
“One for us, and one each for anybody who didn’t come back.” he explained, pouring just enough for there definitely to be whisky in each glass, but not enough that four of them would actually get either of them intoxicated.
They chimed glasses, and knocked them back. He was slightly impressed that Adam had no worse reaction to it than clearing his throat and a slightly pinched expression for a second, considering it was probably his first taste of whisky.
Powell poured the second pair of drinks. “I’m recommending Price for the Victoria Cross and Legsy for the George Cross.” he said. “And as far as I’m concerned, Jackson and Semenza deserve the Medal of Honor, they saved the bloody lot of us…but they’ll probably settle for less. There’ll be a few other decorations getting handed out too…” He paused, and shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes. Not sure I care about medals right now.”
They drank again. Adam had the look of a man who wanted to ask questions but was restraining himself.
“You’ve got permission to speak freely right now, lad.” Powell told him. “Make use of it, I don’t grant it often.”
“Just…a question sir.”
“Go on then.”
”…How are you holding up?”
“Christ, remind me not to let you ask freely too often, you get right down to business, don’t you?”
“Sorry, sir, I-”
“No, no. Fair question…” He appreciated it, in fact. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and drank his third glass while he thought. Adam copied him. “I’m not…I try not to be a weak man, but ordering a friend to his death…” Powell put his glass down and reached for the bottle one last time. “It beats you up.”
“I’d be…kinda worried if it didn’t, sir.”
Powell poured again and nodded. “True. And it’d be a lonely fookin’ job if I didn’t get on with my men, you know? It just…it needs to be understood that the mission comes first. When it’s one man versus every man…I can’t, I won’t be fookin’ sentimental about it. I have to send the right man for the job…whoever that might be.”
“I didn’t get that when I signed up.” Adam confessed.
“Well, what about now you know what it’s like?”
“Sir…speaking candidly?”
Powell handed him his glass. “I thought we bloody were.”
“Well then…if I was the right man for the job…I guess I wouldn’t just expect you to send me, I’d want you to.”
Powell nodded, staring at his glass for a moment. “Aye. And I reckon Legsy would have said the same.”
They toasted and drank for the fourth and final time.
“Go on, Sergeant. You’ve better things to be doing and prettier people to be doing them with than commiserating with your commanding officer.” He said as he set his glass down. “I’m…coping.”
“Yes sir. Good night.”
“Good night, sergeant.”
“You’re approaching a commune of females and cubs, male. Who comes?”
Regaari knew not to underestimate the females who took guard duty outside the communes at night. Ceremonial though their role was, they took it seriously, and would be expert shots with those pulse rifles. Not that they ever DID shoot anybody, but it paid to respect that fact.
He halted in the light.
“Officer Regaari, of Clan Whitecrest.” he announced. “Formerly of the executive staff of Mother-Supreme Giymuy.”
“Regaari?” one of the guards stepped forward to get a better look at him. “Wā sāi! it IS you! We thought you were dead!”
He waved his left arm to show off his new cybernetic paw. “I very nearly was.” he said.
“You know him, Sister Myun?” The other guard asked.
“He is who he says he is.” Myun assured her. “I’ll escort him.”
“Who are you here to see, male?” the second guard interrogated him, clearly not satisfied with Myun’s reassurance. To judge from Myun’s resigned and impatient body language, this was nothing unusual.
Maybe he should court the young female after all…If nothing else, Myun would benefit from knowing she had allies.
“I’m here to inform the late Mother-Supreme’s chosen successor of her nomination.” He announced, picking the one of the three truthful answers he could have given on the grounds that it was probably the least controversial.
“Hrrmm. You may enter.” The guard finally stopped glaring at him, though she didn’t unwind exactly.
Myun just flicked her ears irritably and walked alongside him through the commune’s doors.
“Did she choose Ayma?” she asked.
“Yulna.” Regaari revealed.
Ayma’s voice made them both freeze on the spot. “That makes sense.”
She had been cuddling and rocking a tiny newborn in the moonlight, almost invisibly still, and chittered a little at the way both Myun and Regaari flinched. “Yulna’s a good choice. She won’t be afraid to speak her mind.”
“I will…leave you two alone, shall I?” Myun stepped away a little, out of earshot.
Ayma made an amused face. “That poor little Sister has watched too many human romance movies.” she declared.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, she’s convinced you and I are ‘an item’, or something.” Ayma growled a little, wryly. “You’ve seen those human movies, you how know they react. They get jealous over mating partners. That’s not us, is it?”
“Well…” Regaari’ paused, then nodded, burying his disappointment. “…No. You’re right. It’s not.”
She stood and gave him a friendly nose-rub, as of old and close friends. “I like you too much, Regaari. I’d hate to fall out with you over mating contracts.”
That, at least, was a dose of welcome, soothing cold water to balm his burned self-esteem. “You do?”
“Oh yes.” Ayma glanced up and down the commune concourse and then leaned in conspiratorially. “If I had to choose just one…wait, what happened to your paw?!”
She’d tried to take it intimately, and had found herself holding smooth carbon fiber instead of fur.
He grimaced at it. “It’s…a long story. I’ll tell you what happened over breakfast, if you’ll do me a favour.”
“Name it.”
“It’s about Sister Myun…”
Starship ‘Negotiable Curiosity’, Deep Space
“I think we’ve found one of them.”
“One of them? I thought we were looking for a single escape pod?”
There was a sigh from the ship’s owner and commander. “Yes, Hzzkvk, we’re looking for a single escape pod, but the ship launched two.”
Hzzkvk blinked at his Corti employer. “But…Bedu, if the ship launched two, why are we only after one?”
Bedu repeated his weary sigh. “Because the client is paying us five million Directorate Currency Units for the escape pod with one of your ‘cousins’ on it, and NOT for the other one.”
“But why-?”
Mwrmwrwk interrupted him, saving Bedu’s headache from progressing any further. “Client says, client pays, we do. No more questions.” she snapped. Bedu nodded subtly at his Kwmbwrw pilot, thanking her.
“But-”
“Hzzkvk!” Bedu snapped, then mellowed his tone. “I tell you this as a colleague of three years: the subject of your species’ remarkable intelligence is the focus of frequent discussion among the Corti, and may I say that you yourself are a type specimen for the exact qualities that we find so fascinating. Nevertheless there is a time for not asking questions, and this is one such, hmm?”
Hzzkvk was practically glowing with pride. “Why…thank you Bedu!” he said.
“Indeed. Please be so kind as to man the scoop field should we need to bring them aboard?”
“Of course!”
Once the gangly blue shape of their junior crewman had left the bridge, Mwrmwrwk shot her employer a questioning glance.
“What?” Bedu asked her.
“I’ve never known you tell a direct lie before.” she said, quietly.
“Nor did I this time.” Bedu replied amiably.
“So…Vzk’tk intelligence really IS a subject of frequent discussion among the Corti?”
Bedu granted himself the luxury of satisfaction at his own cleverness. The Kwmbwrw was by no means an idiot herself, and that meant that if he’d snuck his veiled insult past her, then Hzzkvk would never notice it.
“Indeed.” he told her. “We often find ourselves wondering how a species so terminally dim ever managed to invent the wheel.”
Mwrmwrk took a second to process that, then made a kind of fluttering, purring noise in her chest—her species’ equivalent of laughter. “I see…And, we’re coming up on the liferaft.”
“Does the transponder code match?” Bedu demanded, examining the little puck-shaped craft on his screen.
“Please.” She clucked, annoyed. “That was the first thing I checked.”
“Very good. Run the disruption and scan their contents.”
“Won’t they notice?”
“If they are who we want, it will not matter, and if they are not…well, they will never find out what happened. Please, run the scan.”
Mwrmwrk raised a hand to acknowledge the order, then followed it. A second later, data poured onto Bedu’s command screen.
“Three deathworlders, alas.” he noted. “All quite badly injured, too. Fine, stop the scan. We had better pick up that other ALV wake.”
“Are you sure they won’t have noticed?” Mwrmwrk asked, already changing course. Behind them, the escape pod blinked away as the slight change in their vector translated to a separation of light seconds in a heartbeat.
“At most, they may have felt a sensation of time…having done something strange.” Bedu conceded. “I doubt they will pay it a second thought.”
Demeter Road, Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Adam Arés
The little wooden ‘Eden’ sign that Sara had once given them rattled when Ava opened the door. She paused on seeing him and then threw herself straight into a hug with such force that, despite the disparity between her mass and his strength, Adam had to take a step back to absorb her.
“Oh my god, Adam!” she couldn’t even fit her arms all the way around him. She’d been right: things had changed. “Are you okay? People are saying Legsy didn’t come back…?!”
“Yeah.” Adam nodded “He, uh…”
Ava made a sad, almost childish little sound of loss. “Are you…alright?”
“I wouldn’t have come back if not for him.” Adam told her. “Or Leo, either. They…None of us would.”
She retreated into the apartment and sat down on the couch. “Goddammit.”
Adam shut the door as he entered and sat next to her. “Yeah…”
There was a melancholy silence for a little while, which Adam finally broke. “Legsy…gave me some advice, before we headed out. This may not be the best time to follow up on it, but…”
”…What?”
“He…helped me figure out what you are to me.”
Ava blinked at him, then turned to face him, giving him her attention.
Adam took her hand. “You’re…this amazing, gorgeous, talented woman that I’d like to get to know better.” he said.
Ava paused, but then a smile broke through on her face like the dawn rising. “Yeah?”
Adam nodded.
Ava looked at him for a long, contemplative moment and then sighed, and he could see the tension and misery flow out of her as she wiped away a tear.
”…It’s a date.” she said.