Date Point: 15y5m AV
Planet Akyawentuo, Ten’Gewek Protectorate, Near 3Kpc Arm
Chief Special Warfare Operator Daniel (Chimp) Hoeff
Hoeff had to admit he liked Vemik. The young gorilla guy had an enthusiastic fizz that never went away and a lust for life that Hoeff felt a kinship for. Size differences aside they were both the “little” guy in their social circles—though Vemik hugely outweighed Hoeff and was actually quite strong for a young man of the People—and both loved tweaking their betters. After all, what was the point of living if a man didn’t push boundaries?
And both of them were very good at getting themselves into trouble. Julian had the hardest job of the group ‘cuz he was gonna be Sky-Thinker’s minder for the week-long visit to Sharman. Partly that was ‘cuz he was prol’ly the best human friend Sky-Thinker had, but mostly it was because he could wrestle the hyperactive geek down to the ground if he got too excited. Hoeff would be escorting Yan. He may have been about as big as ‘Horse and could rip trees right out of the ground, but Yan was a pretty chill dude most of the time so showing him the sights and sounds would be a much easier job.
Even if Yan didn’t like his music.
Hoeff honestly didn’t even know the lyrics to the song he had on full blast right now. It wasn’t real Metal if you could make out the words. That was an idea that offended Yan’s sense of civilization.
[“It sounds like a Yshek getting ripped apart by a Brown One.”] He immediately made some kind of gesture, then scowled at Hoeff’s headphones.
Hoeff grinned. “That’s about the nicest thing you’ve said about it so far!”
[“That was not a compliment.”]
Hoeff grabbed his spit bottle and deposited a healthy dollop of filthy brown saliva and juice. “Sure,” he nodded as he screwed the lid back on. “But I’mma take it as one. The whole point is gettin’ in touch with the Beast.”
That prompted an odd look and a shiver down Yan’s long-ass tail. Was that their equivalent of a shrug? Maybe. [“Commune with beasts? But you don’t hunt.”]
“Not here, no. I ain’t anywhere near strong enough ‘cept with a rifle. But I ain’t talkin’ about animals, I mean the Beast. That badass monster inside ‘yer head, y’know?”
Yan regarded him again in that intense, studious way he did when he was thinking. [“…I think I understand. We call it the Fire. Every man has the Fire, but Given-Men are Taken by it.”]
Hoeff nodded, partly to agree but mostly because the really good bit with the drums and rhythm guitar goin’ balls-to-the-wall had kicked in. He’d come outta a lot of mosh pits bloody and deaf over the years, and the best bits were always like this.
Drums seemed to itch a man’s soul in just the right way and that went across species. Tigger—the Great Father these days, anyway—used to love anything with a strong beat. Yan eventually succumbed and put one of Hoeff’s earbuds in his own to listen.
[“…Maybe this part is okay.”]
Note to self: find some good drum corps recordings and see if Yan liked them.
They were waiting for the jump gate, of course. The sync time was still a good ten minutes away and they’d already got everything they’d need packed up and put on the pad.
“Wanna know the best bit? You hear the deep drum there goin’ BRRRRRRR real fast like that?”
“…Yes?”
“He’s doin’ that with his fuckin’ feet.”
“Maybe human feet not so dumb then!” Yan scooped up a big rock from the ground with his left foot, whipped his leg up and threw it right at Hoeff’s chest…with startling power and accuracy. Hoeff’s hands snatched up just in time to catch it.
Point made, but species honor was at stake now. “I can still outrun you any day, big guy.”
“Not over close ground!”
Hoeff chuckled and turned around to watch whatever the younger guys were up to.
Julian, optimistically, was trying to get some of his homework for Daniel done while enjoying the shade of a nearby tree. Vemik was doing homework of his own, in fact. They had given him a huge sketchbook with really thick paper, and a whole bunch of big pencils so he could doodle or play with what were suspiciously starting to look like letters. That suspicion was confirmed when Vemik started speaking words with a heavy exaggeration at the syllables, then furiously scribbling in his book after each attempt. He and Singer had been trading the book back and forth and it was almost full; they were going to stop by the art supply shop at some point and stock up.
It kinda seemed to be working. Hoeff had been expecting their favorite cavemonkey nerd to be geeking out fit to explode about now but if there was one thing Vemik loved more than something cool about to happen, it was something cool he was already doing.
…For uniquely Vemik definitions of “cool” anyway.
[“What’re you doin, buddy?”] Julian had a Moleskine book of his own and had apparently decided on a break. Yan noticed Hoeff’s eavesdropping and sidled up to Not Listen himself.
[“Sky-Thinking. I thought, maybe I should make a memory-scratch for each sound? But some tribes don’t have all the same sounds. We have to learn them if they live far away. Singer likes to scratch differently. Hers are all…um…words? Thoughts? Also, her scratches are all loops and round shapes, hard to do. Lines are easier.”] He waggled his pencil between two thick fingers.
[“I can see the good in either. We have many ways of writing. They’re not better, just different.”]
Yan grunted. “Friend-lie,” he said quietly. It was a harsher accusation in English than in Peoplespeak—a ‘friend-lie’ was just how the People called being diplomatic.
“No,” Julian overheard and defended himself, “I meant it. You never got into the weird parts of English writing. It stops making sense really fast.”
Hoeff scoffed. “Yeah, but bro. Chinese.”
“Yeah, and people who speak mutually unintelligible languages can all write understandable Chinese characters, man. Cantonese and Mandarin are completely different.”
Hoeff chuckled. “…Yeah, okay. Guess you’d know more about the Chinese tongue than me,” he joked, and waggled his eyebrows.
Julian wasn’t impressed. “Careful bud. I’m just makin’ an observation.”
“…Alright, yeah. That was rude of me.” Hoeff had a talent for foot-in-mouth sometimes. “I’m sorry.”
Julian shrugged. “No worries.” He absent-mindedly reached into his leather hip pouch, grabbed what looked like a hard candy of some kind, and returned his attention to his book.
Vemik, of course, could not allow a New Thing to escape his attention. “What is that?” His tongue flicked out to taste the air around Julian’s face.
“It’s a peppermint!” Julian rolled it around in his mouth and held it between his front teeth. “An yoo can’ haff any!”
Vemik tilted his head, thought for a moment…and shot his half-meter long prehensile tongue out and ripped the mint right from between Julian’s teeth.
Julian fell to the ground and almost choked himself out coughing. Vemik, meanwhile, had retreated as high as he could, bit down on the mint…and had regrets.
It took a few minutes before Hoeff could easily breathe again, and that was only because continuing to laugh was straight-up painful. His gut hurt like he’d been doing crunches all morning and in that time, Yan had told everybody, Vemik had washed the hateful burning out of wherever the fuck was hurting, and Julian had sat up and couldn’t stop chugging water…
“Well, Etsicitty. Guess you get to be the first guy who Frenched a cavemonkey.” Hoeff wasn’t even trying to keep a straight face. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell ‘yer girls.”
Julian wearily nodded and looked at Vemik, who seemed appropriately contrite and all that…whenever he wasn’t sneezing pathetically. A Ten’Gewek sneeze was more like a weird hissing hiccup sound through the roof of the mouth with a squeak on the end.
“…Sorry.”
“Good. And that’s important, Vemik. Do not eat things unless you know if they’re safe!”
“Safe for Human not always safe for People,” Yan agreed. Beer had taught him a valuable life-long lesson, there.
“Okay.”
Hoeff’s watch alarm went off. “Two minutes,” he said, glancing at it. “Get on the pad and don’t get off it again.”
“Everything has to be inside the yellow lines or it will be cut sharper than any knife,” Julian elaborated.
The four of them ambled up onto the metal gridwork of the shuttle frame. Neither Julian nor the gorilla-bros liked walking on the high-traction ridged panels with their bare feet all that much, but they liked the idea of losing toes even less. Hoeff wore his boots; fuck that Tarzan bullshit. Climbing trees was one thing, sure. Barefoot was just better for that. But humans invented shoes for a reason and Hoeff’s feet were too pretty to scuff up on jagged rocks and shit.
Besides: the panels weren’t there to be comfortable, they were there to provide some safety margin so the field wouldn’t literally slice the bottom of their feet off. And even still they weren’t heavy-duty enough for the job; the metal gridplate groaned painfully as Julian then Vemik stepped on, and practically squealed when Yan sauntered on-board the USS Magic Box.
Everyone settled in and waited the spare minute before go-time. Hoeff’s watch beeped at final countdown. He glanced at it, counted off a few seconds in his head, Five Mississippi, four Mississippi, three…
[“…What will this feel like?”] Yan had curled his tail around his waist and sat on his haunches to be extra-super sure his wild crest was below the line.
Thump.
“…Like that.”
Yan barely heard him. He was blinking dumbstruck at the jump receiving room in HMS Sharman which was basically just a big concrete warehouse space with some cargo doors at one end, a pair of human-sized double doors at the other end, some safety equipment along one wall and the locker full of emergency recall orders on the other.
The sterile white LED lighting was probably nasty stuff to a Ten’Gewek’s jungle-adjusted eyes.
Vemik discovered the low gravity instantly. Julian snatched him out of the air on the second bounce and chuckled fondly, “Not now buddy. We gotta do Given-Men things first.”
“Okay.” Vemik immediately wriggled free of Julian’s grasp, scrambled onto his back and wrapped himself completely around Julian with arms around chest, legs and tail around waist. It was amazing how young and free-spirited Vemik still was after everything that had happened.
Julian bore it all with a quiet grunt and a chuckle, like he wasn’t wrangling a hyperactive spacegorilla who beat iron all day and hunted big-ass critters with a spear. Better him than Hoeff; he wasn’t into being crushed flat by a shorter dude nearly thrice his own weight.
Both of the Ten’Gewek were still completely innocent of the real world, too. Yan flinched when the disembodied voice of a jump technician addressed them. “Jump transfer complete, please disembark for decontamination and scan. Welcome to HMS Sharman, Planet Cimbrean.”
Governor-General Sandy was awaiting them, along with Ambassador Rockefeller and all the rest of the dog-and-pony show. Hoeff almost managed not to sigh, but he was glad as all hell to see Coombes and Walsh standing to one side. Walsh had come on ahead the day before to make preparations, and Coombes was looking damn good like his cushy desk job was agreeing with him.
Yan rumbled under his breath and pointed with his chin towards Governor Sandy. “He is Given-Man, yes?”
“…Sorta. Close enough.”
That seemed to be good enough for Yan. He straightened up to his full height and walked carefully towards the assembled entourage.
Sir Jeremy stepped forward as well and met him halfway. “On behalf of His Majesty the King, I would like to welcome you to our home.” He extended his hand, which Yan considered with a tilt of his head and a twitch of his tail. He reached out and completely wrapped his paw around Sandy’s own…and didn’t cause an incident.
“I am… pleased and grateful to be here,” he said in English of a far better quality than he usually bothered with. Yan must have been listening to Daniel much closer than he let on. He then stepped back, stood as impressively as he could, and thumped his chest loudly with his open left hand. “Yan Given-Man, Chief of the Lodge.”
“Sir Jeremy Sandy, Governor-General of His Majesty’s Colony of Folctha,” Sandy replied. He half-turned to one of his hangers-on, who stepped forward and handed him a small black box. “I understand in your culture we should exchange knives.”
Hoeff took one look at the blade as the box opened and whistled under his breath. And like a goddamned boot, drew the attention of the fucking Governor.
Sandy pulled about the worst trick in the book and looked faintly amused. “I trust you approve, Chief?”
“…Yessir.”
The bastard smiled, and meant it, too. Hoeff was already imagining the Motivation that was gonna result in and consigned himself to his fate.
Yan meanwhile accepted the knife for inspection. “…I have never seen Steel like this,” he said. That was a goddamn understatement, the thing was a work of art. It musta cost thousands and like a month of a master bladesmith’s time. It was sized for him, too; the damn thing was almost a short sword and everything about it screamed both form and function in perfect harmony.
Yan’s knife was in its own way no less impressive. It was a traditional flint-knapped design he had spent nearly all of his free time carefully making, refining it down to polished perfection. The stone was almost translucent and there wasn’t a single visible blemish. He had made it sized against Julian’s hands, which made the whole thing even more impressive. There were three colors of wood in the handle!
“Jooyun tell me, your tribe does Givings when they meet. So, this is for you. Is not steel, but a good knife is an important Giving.”
“Good stone takes expert craftsmanship,” Sir Jeremy replied. “This is a fine Giving indeed, and we thank you. In turn, this knife is yours. May it mean Friendship for our peoples.”
Yan nodded seriously. For a Given-Man, that was tantamount to a treaty. Sir Jeremy moved introductions along to Ambassador Rockafeller, which Hoeff sorta tuned out. He was more interested in what happened when Julian finally put Vemik down with probably whispered threats if he didn’t behave.
He did, for the most part. It was obvious that Vemik was itching to inspect literally everything, right down to the carpets, the lighting, the fire extinguisher in the corner. He’d probably have torn open the network cabinets to get a better look at the flashing lights if left to his own devices.
Fortunately, the diplomatic necessities didn’t take long, and Hoeff returned to the here-and-now when Sandy raised his voice a little for the benefit of all the hangers-on.
“We do not intend to keep you bogged down here with formalities, Yan Given-Man and Vemik Sky-Thinker. So, having made your fine acquaintances, if you have no objections I shall take my leave and get out of your way.”
Yan trilled at the implied meaning. “Is smart Given-Man! Gov-er-nor. …Governor?”
“Well said! We shall speak again soon, Yan Given-Man.”
As the party broke up, Walsh ambled over to join them. He grinned and imitated Hoeff’s low whistle with an expression of pure trollish delight.
“Coombes is gonna work you over for that, little guy!”
“No he won’t,” Hoeff retorted. “He’ll just order you an’ Playboy here to go all Hanz and Franz on me some more.”
Julian rolled his eyes slightly at his hated callsign, but folded his big arms and said nothing. Coombes had worked his way through the crowd and nodded agreeably as he entered the microdrama himself. “Sounds good, thanks for the advice Chimp. See to your Motivation tomorrow morning. Me too, I’ve been behind a desk for too long.”
Honestly that sounded like he got off with a friendly warning which Hoeff wasn’t gonna complain about. That was for later, though: time to move the show along.
“Anyway. We got shit to do and I for one am fuckin’ dying to sleep on a real mattress for a change. I take it we’ll all be living at Julian’s McMansion—”
“Hey!”
“—Perfectly reasonable home. We get started right away, and first thing’s gonna be gravity.”
That had caught Vemik’s interest. Not that it was hard to attract it in the first place, but still. [“What will we doing?”]
“Vemik, my friend…we’re gonna play a game I think you’re gonna love. It’s called… Gravball.”
Date Point 15y5m AV
Gravball arena, HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Technical Sergeant Scott (Starfall) Blaczynski
“Okay. Okay, big question time: Who the fuck do I put my money on in this match?”
It had been an obvious question when Yan and Warhorse had squared against each other on opposite sides of the starting lines. Yan’s tail twitched to and fro like a cat’s, while Adam’s huge muscles tensed and quivered like a draft horse ready and eager to pull. They stared each other down for a long while. Adam gave a feral grin, Yan snarled and bared his fangs, and when the whistle blew, the two slammed into each other with a smack so loud it could practically be felt.
Grappling was more or less all the two did throughout all the Gravball games, which effectively nullified them as players. Firth and ‘Base took over as goalkeepers since they were the only people besides the two combatants who were strong enough to move the goal in the first place.
All that had been five games ago. They were still wrestling over three hours after that first starting whistle, with no obvious winner. That had, of course, prompted a vigorous betting pool.
“Dude…” drawled Walsh, “I’d say they’re about fuckin’ tied. They’re both too heavy and strong to properly measure and they can move just stupid fast…they’re, like, the ultimate space-Bros. On the one hand, there’s Adam. He’s bigger, stronger, faster, and he’s got way more stamina. Also he’s the most determined dude I’ve ever met and he knows how to fuckin’ fight…”
Walsh paused for a moment when Adam, as if to drive home the point, broke loose and tossed Yan about twenty goddamned feet straight up under the area’s crushing gravity. Undaunted, Yan flipped himself over mid-fall and slammed into ‘Horse like a fuckin’ meteor. They wrestled on, oblivious to everyone but themselves.
Walsh eyed the two warily. “…But on the other hand, Yan’s a goddamned slab of iron, only bro I’ve ever seen who’s just as fuckin’ hard an’ ripped as ‘Horse. He’s tough as shit, too. Fuckin’ nothin’ hurts ‘em, man! Plus, he’s a goddamned monkey. He’s more nimble than ‘Horse, he’s got those long-ass arms, rock-crushing hands for feet and a fuckin’ prehensile tail he could kill a man with…”
“So…who am I betting on?”
Powell had descended from the lofty heights of command to personally take the field for this one. He took one look at the two—they were still wrestling in the sand—and made a single, solemn pronouncement.
“All bets are off. I’ll referee, I’m not fookin’ puttin’ myself in the middle o’ that lot.”
“You know what? I’m happy with that.”
Honestly, it was a good goddamned day to be alive! They got to play six games of Gravball, one suited and the rest “skins” so the big monkey dudes could play along. They were fucking naturals at it too, once they got used to the variable gravity. That Vemik guy in particular was a tough little bruiser. He gleefully tackled his way through scrums, took to microgravity like a fish in water, and had a keen eye for the tactics and movement of the game. He didn’t need any real coaching and he could shoot all over the arena. Passing wasn’t his thing but he could catch and run the ball like only Murray or a Whitecrest could, and he could do magic things with that tail of his—!
Julian wasn’t bad either! He mostly stuck with Walsh while he learned the game and discovered he was best put to use zooming around and up the walls, rocketing himself through the microgravity deadspace and bouncing off his team’s Defenders to pass the ball forward. He had a hell of a sense of motion too and could throw the ball better than almost anybody on the team, much to their chagrin. He generally stayed out of the scrum, though; he may have been Walsh-sized lately but he wasn’t exactly suit conditioned, and that meant he wasn’t hard enough to take their hits. He’d be flattened by the veterans if he tried to brawl it out on the sand below.
The real show was Yan and ‘Horse, though. For the most part all the two had done was wrestle and effectively cancel each other out of the game. Watching those two repeatedly slam into each other was like seeing the Unstoppable Force crash against the Immovable Object.
Still, occasionally one of the two would break free and display some game-related athleticism, and Yan had shone just as brightly as Vemik. He played much more like Daar, though; he used his size and power to simply plow everyone out of the way. Someday, a Given-Man was gonna wear the MASS like he was fucking born to it.
Meanwhile, ‘Horse finally had a bro he could play with that he wasn’t in danger of accidentally breaking and that meant the goal was almost never available for scoring. It was exhausting for everyone…except for Hulk and The Juggernaut, apparently, who finally managed to break free of each other in the final game, warred over the goal for a long while…then there was a horrible tortured screeching metal sound as the two of them managed to tear the damn thing in half.
Yan, of course, promptly claimed victory on the grounds that he was left holding the bigger half like it was a fuckin’ wishbone. Adam happily objected and launched himself at Yan with all the strength his hulking legs could manage. He knocked them both completely across the fucking arena and into the far wall with a smack so loud just hearing it was physically painful, and the pair of them promptly vanished in a cloud of kicked-up sand. Back to wrestling, apparently.
Powell paused play on account of all the sand and concrete dust filling the zero-grav volume in the middle of the arena. It was a hazard to eyes and breathing when it hung in the air like that, so he just turned the gravity up. Way up. ‘Horse and Yan didn’t seem to notice and settled into another long stalemate of a match, while everyone else caught their breath and watched.
It looked like neither man could possibly have been happier.
“See, this is the humblin’ part,” grumbled Righteous after watching for a few minutes. “You always suspect ‘Horse is holdin’ back when he toys with ‘ya, y’know? But every now an’ then you get to see what he can really do and ‘ya ain’t suspectin’ no more.”
Everyone nodded silently. They grappled, threw, slammed and chased each other with the kind of comic-book strength that only a HEAT member would truly appreciate. The match continued long enough for everyone to get drinks and towel down, and by the time they were about ready to move on for the day, the two somehow decided at that moment they were done and flopped onto the sand, both gulping breath like fish out of water.
Powell left them gasping for a few seconds then shrugged and blew his whistle. “Match ends in a draw!” he announced. “An’ somehow you lot have gone and broke my goal yet a-bloody-gain.”
Yan trilled in the dirt, scrubbed his sweaty back into the sand like he was taking a dust bath, then rolled forward until he was sitting up. “Was GOOD!” he announced, and aimed his grinning fangs ‘Horse’s way. “Will do again someday. Maybe you win next time!”
That got ‘Horse up off his ass. “Maybe I—? ¡Mira qué cabrón!”
…And just like that, they were wrestling again.
Powell and Firth shared one of those spooky looks that officers and their NCOICs often did. “Right. Let’s leave the two mutants to it,” Firth decided. “Vemik and Julian have appointments, the rest of us have a trauma class with ‘Base.” He tossed the arena control to Hoeff. “Don’t let ‘em knock the building down.”
Hoeff glanced at the two combatants and looked genuinely nonplussed. “…How would I stop them?”
“I dunno, figure it out. I got shit to do.”
“…Yes, Master Sergeant.”
Firth gave him a friendly smile. “Sorry to dump that on ‘ya, Chief, but we can’t miss our schedule. We’re already running behind…” and with that little hint, everyone piled out of the room and booked it back to the classroom.
Still, it was a good day! A quick run through the showers, they said goodbye to Julian and Vemik—they were going to the art supply store apparently—and then a couple hours of boring refresher on combat first aid. ‘Base was a good teacher, but still.
They didn’t see either of the wrestlers until the next day.