Date Point: 16y11m4d AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Julian
Work done, head hosed down, feet clean, hair toweled dry. Babies blissfully asleep, and a long and very welcome bout of fun with Al and Xiù, while Amanda and the boys went shopping for supplies. Then a pleasant evening walk to escort her home, and a quick, easy jog back to encourage his boys—he didn’t care what anyone had to say, Tristan and Ramsey were his now. They closed out the evening cuddled up with him while he was stretched lazily across the couch, watching what must have been Gaoian cartoons. Both had been so starved for any kind of real affection growing up, they were making up for lost time every chance they got.
Julian didn’t have words for how good that felt. It was…the best. He almost wished he could sink into that big soft couch and just stay there forever, watching cartoons with his boys and smashing them into giggling fits with great big bearhugs.
But he wasn’t watching the cartoons, actually. He was w atching Al and Xiù.
The thing that always warmed his heart was looking at them and seeing how much in love with each other they were, just as much as with him. It was all in the little gestures, the small generosities and, yes, the familiar comfortable bickering over nothing important. And the kisses. Lots of those, like little punctuation marks so common and unconscious that they probably didn’t even notice them tick by.
And of course they were gorgeous. Kind of a study in physical opposites really, but that just meant he got to appreciate them both for their own reasons. Xiù was sturdy. Tough. Just curvaceous enough to be hot as all hell, but with a genuine hardbody underneath. He wasn’t afraid to admit that was a big factor in their play, too; they both played rough as heck. She was paler of skin too, with long, glossy black hair that she somehow had super-mom powers with. It never got in the way, it never had baby puke in it, it never seemed tangled or dry or… bad hair days just weren’t a feature of Xiù’s life.
Julian had never once had a good hair day, but they both said it looked good on him so who was he to complain?
Al was tall enough to rest her elbow on Xiù’s head, a cocky gesture she sometimes pulled out when she was feeling dominant. Which was odd because all her toughness was in the mind. She was a creature of long graceful legs and narrow body, with a sharp diamond-shaped face that was better described as “striking” than pretty. Still…hot. She hid it under a baseball cap and shooting glasses when she was out and about, and they suited her. Like a Scandinavian shieldmaiden dressed up to take on the Terminator.
He loved the way they put up with him, too. Julian had discovered that he, uh…well. He liked to play. He liked to play pretty hard, apparently. The more he lived with them, the more he’d learned how lucky he was, how good they were for him. He hoped he was good for them.
He could just lie there and watch them forever.
It was Al’s turn to cook today, but there wasn’t a power in the galaxy that could keep Xiù out of the kitchen when she wanted to be there. She loved cooking, and days when it was somebody else’s job were just an opportunity to treat it as fun instead of a chore.
Of course, the problem was that Al just… wasn’t as good a cook as Xiù. And Xiù wanted to Help. And Al could get prickly about that, sometimes.
“Hey, hands off!”
“But the potatoes need to—”
“Babe, am I cooking this thing or are you cooking it?”
“You’re cooking it, but—”
“Right!” Al claimed the potatoes, then put them on to boil. “…Thanks.”
And that was the charm of it all. Julian loved Allison’s prickly side, but it rarely became full-blown jerkdom. Besides, if she ever took it a little too far, then Xiù was no pushover. So Julian watched them kiss, smiled to himself, and returned his attention to the cartoon, where the protagonists—a trio of intrepid Gaoian cubs—were blinking at each other in bemusement as their human mentor, a mad scientist of the old school right down to the wild Einstein hair and Doc Brown manic energy, scurried around the giant robot he was building.
Its inevitable smashy escape from the lab was kinda predictable, but the Gaoians managed to put their own comedy spin on things by having it run up to a semi truck and sniff it in what was, by Gaoian standards, a decidedly amorous way.
Julian couldn’t help but snort, which caught Tristan’s attention. “What’s so funny?”
“Just thinkin’ about how hard Xiù would slap me if I tried that…”
“Tried what?”
Julian just grinned.
“…Ohhh.” Ramsey frowned at the screen, tilted his head slightly on one side, then the penny dropped with a splintering crash. “….Oh!! Oh. Wow. Um… is that…?”
“That’s Gao for ‘ya. They aren’t so fussy about some things.”
“Why not?”
Julian shrugged. “I dunno. They do grow up fast, though. Maybe that’s why? In fact if you were a Gao, you’d already be an adult. For them, that’s fifteen…in Gaoian years. So about twelve for us.”
“Must be nice…” Tristan muttered.
Julian chuckled. “Let’s revisit that idea in a few years when you’re paying taxes…” he said, and glanced into the kitchen again, where Al had finally relented to allowing Xiù to slice the vegetables, and was bobbing and rocking around the place with a baby on each hip. She saw him watching, pulled a complicated eye-rolling face that Julian took as conveying fond tolerance for Xiù’s foibles, and smiled at him.
He smiled back, and a kind of vague hugging gesture and a lift of his eyebrows asked the question ‘want me to hold them?’
She nodded, brought them through, deposited them in his arms, and then arched an eyebrow at the… vigorous chase scene on the TV. The truck’s self-driving AI had decided she didn’t want the robot’s affections, and was doing her level best to escape while the robot pursued her in an unhurried way. It was like if Pepe le Pew was made of steel and weighed eighty thousand pounds.
The sudden crashing heroics of an Emberpelt-like superhero blasting laser beams out of his whiskers added just the right level of Gaoian kitsch to really take it over the top.
“…What’s this show called?” Allison asked.
“…Uh, I’m not sure. I don’t read Gaori very well and it’s all stylized…wait, is it over already?”
“Yeah. The supergaoian just put handcuffs on the robot. And the mad scientist is very sorry.” Allison shook her head bemusedly. “Hey, can you get Xiù out of my kitchen? She’s helping.”
“…Hmmmm…!”
“Preferably in a way that leaves the babies attended and you two ready for dinner in ten minutes,” Allison clarified.
“Aww! Spoilsport.”
The boys both rolled their eyes. They were used to him by now.
“Just order her out,” Julian said. “You know she’ll yes ma’am and quit if you actually mean it.”
“Yeah, I know…” Allison tickled Anna behind the ear, grinned at her, then went back to try and reclaim the chore she was supposed to be doing.
Sure enough, a few seconds later Xiù beat an apologetic retreat and left her to it. She slipped in behind the couch and draped herself over Julian’s shoulders like an oversized cat.
“Bǎobèiiii….” she half-complained, and nibbled on his ear.
Julian reached up behind his head and massaged her scalp. “Stop making Al feel useless, babe.”
“Ugh, do all adults act like little kids?” Tristan groaned, rolling his eyes. Ramsey giggled and leaned a bit harder into Julian’s flank.
“Just the smart ones,” Julian opined.
“No reason why growing up should stop you from having fun!” Xiù agreed. She pulled a huge happy face at Anna. “Is there?! No there isn’t! No!”
“You can have all kindsa fun that you miss out on as a kid… Chores do kinda suck though.”
“Riiight…” Tristan rolled his eyes.
“Like art!” Xiù chirped.
“Not what I was thinking of, but sure…” Julian chuckled, then flinched as she tickled his ribs.
“Hey, we like art!” Ramsey protested.
“You like art,” his brother corrected him.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with art! I mean, I modelled…”
Al’s voice cut through from the kitchen. “That’s just ‘cuz you like showing off your huge—”
“Ego!” Julian interrupted her, at the same time as Xiù finished the thought with “Muscles!”
Goddamnit. Sure, all three of those were true, but still…
Tristan giggled again, while Ramsey squirmed a little. He’d always been the more straight-laced of the twins. Where Tristan had a sarcastic, cocky streak that was very much like Allison’s, Ramsey was more… earnest. And a bit more squeamish.
“…Sure. Exactly what I was gonna say.” Al grinned at them and then returned to whatever she was doing with that spatula.
“Actually…” Ramsey tried, in a valiant attempt to end their flirting again, “…Did you hear about that Gaoian artist? The one who’s actually got tri… triwhatsit vision? Like, he can see red like we do?”
“Oh, Leemu? Yeah, Daar won’t stop talkin’ the fella up! Haven’t met him yet…”
“He’s putting on an exhibit of his work at Oriel!”
“Boring…” Tristan muttered.
Julian shrugged. “Nah, that sounds interesting to me, actually.”
“And me!” Xiù agreed. “I bet Ava’s going to cover it.”
“It’s next week!” Ramsey enthused. “Can we go?”
“Sure.” Julian promised. “I’ll make time. You gotta come too Tristan and be polite about it, okay? Ramsey comes to every one of your wrestling meets…besides. I doubt it’s all artsy-fartsy stuff. There’s probably some cool posters too, I bet!”
Xiù hummed softly as she poured herself onto the back of the couch to lie across Julian’s shoulders. She scritched behind his ear with one hand, while murmuring a quiet warning into the other ear. “Careful, there’s a chance you might be in that gallery, too…”
“…Oh. Well.” …Yeah. That was a thing now. “Uh. Oh well, I guess.”
“Oh please, I’m not gonna buy one of those.” Ramsey had an impish streak, when he wanted.
“Maybe they have sports car posters!”
“Maybe! I always thought those looked cool…wait.”
Julian’s phone pinged with a breaking news alert, so he grumbled a bit, dug the remote out from under his butt and flipped the TV over to the local news channel, to the boys’ half-hearted protests.
Xiù quieted that protest with a gentle gesture. Ava was in the ESNN studio, talking with the anchor. That always meant some kind of big extraterrestrial news.
Julian had a sudden realization. “Y’know, Adam hasn’t texted me all day…”
“Marty and Freya both made apologies on our moms group, too…”
Goddamnit. Julian pulled his boys close into a big protective hug. They seemed to sense something was wrong because neither of them protested any.
“–mobilized a few days ago for offworld activity, but until now there’s been no official word on where they were or what they were doing. Now, we’re waiting to go live via real-time wormhole to Washington where the Gaoian Ambassador to the AEC nations and Supreme Allied Commander General Greg Kolbeinn are about to make a statement.”
“Did I hear that right?” Allison ducked through from the kitchen. “Live from Earth?”
“Holy crap,” Tristan agreed. “Isn’t that really difficult?”
“And stupid expensive, yeah…Al, you might wanna put everything in the stayfridge for a second.”
Al nodded, and briskly transferred the pans into the stasis fridge. They’d come out just as hot as they went in, even if this broadcast went on for an hour. She parked herself on the couch, sideways across Julian’s lap, and watched with the rest of them as the ESNN studio went respectfully silent to hear what the general and the ambassador had to say.
There were three emblems at the back of the stage: The mon of the Gaoian Conclave of Champions, the seal of the US Department of Defence, and the AEC logo. While Ambassador Shano of Clan Goldpaw took to the stage wearing a protective biofilter forcefield harness, general Kolbeinn stepped up to the podium and knocked some papers on its surface to straighten them out.
He acknowledged the reporters in front of him with a nod, cleared his throat, and set the papers down. “Thank you for being here. I know there’s been some speculation going around about a deployment of our spaceborne assets and the Grand Army of the Gao, and today I’m going to clear up what that’s all about.”
He glanced down at the papers again, then nodded, abandoned them, and addressed the room with increased certainty. Clearly the general was a little uncomfortable in front of cameras. “A few weeks ago, a joint spaceborne reconaissance operation was launched into Hunter space to determine the disposition of their forces and planetary resources. This was a historic mission, in that it represents the first time in known history that scouts have successfully operated within Hunter territory. The mission was a success, and the brave men who went on it were able to report back a startling find.”
“They found an enslaved species,” he said. Xiù’s fingers tightened on Julian’s shoulder. “We’ve established a few facts about these people: they call themselves the E-skurel-ir and by their calendar the Hunters first found and occupied their home planet a little more than four hundred years ago. They have lived in unimaginable misery and cruelty ever since, and their home planet has been poisoned, stripped of its natural resources and utterly devastated by Hunter industry and tyranny.”
“Upon learning of this fact, the Great Father of the Gao decided to liberate them. Even now the Grand Army has established a firm beachhead on that planet and is prosecuting a full-scale planetary invasion, with the intent to deny the Hunters access to the planet, its resources, and its people. To that end he intends the complete eradication of every Hunter in the system. As the Great Father is sovereign in his own right and beholden to nobody, we of course must respect his decisions, and as allies, we are honor-bound to offer support.”
“Jesus…” Allison muttered.
“Fortunately, the Great Father’s military acumen is well-respected and rightly so. Upon review of the developing situation, the President has decided under the War Powers Acts to offer our aid, and will be addressing Congress as soon as is reasonable to discuss further action. The other Aliied nations are also making their own preparations, but I can confirm that AEC assets, including elements of the Spaceborne Operations Regiment and some of our ships, are already active in support of the mission in accordance with the Extrasolar Defence Treaty. Our intent, with the advice and consent of Congress, is to secure the liberation of the E-skurel-ir. We do this not only because it is a moral imperative to act, but because this will strike against one of our great enemies, against whom Congress has already declared a state of war. That completes my statement. Now, myself and the Great Father’s Ambassador, his excellency Father Shano, will take your questions. We are necessarily limited in what we can speak about—yes?”
Julian became aware that Xiù’s fingernails were biting into his shoulder. He put his hand up and squeezed hers, and after a second her death-grip on him loosened. She turned her hand over and gripped his instead. He didn’t need to ask what the problem was: she was the only person he knew who’d actually shoved her arm down a Hunter’s throat, whereas Julian and Allison had both been fortunate enough to never encounter Hunters. She hated the fucking things…
“Come sit down, babe.” That seemed to be exactly what she needed. He swallowed her up in a full-body hug and the boys leaned against either side of him while they watched the news.
The ESNN stream cut back to the studio—presumably because staying live to Washington to follow the questions would have been way too expensive and difficult—and Julian turned the volume down. He decided to add the comforter to the equation and wrapped them all up into a loose burrito of warmth.
Al scooped up the babies and sat down on the couch’s arm. “Not a lot of detail.”
“No,” Julian agreed. “That Goldpaw fella probably can’t say much either. I bet I know what that does mean, though.”
“Oh?”
“Means I’m gonna get re-deployed back to Akyawentuo here pretty soon…yup.” A shadow flit along the living room window, and Hoeff let himself in without knocking. He looked like he’d been interrupted in the middle of a workout and had his all-business expressionless demeanor plastered on.
“Ambassador Rockefeller wants to talk with you, big guy.”
“Right now, or does he have time for dinner first?” Allison asked.
“I’m in my running shorts and dripping sweat, so…”
Julian sighed. “…Right.”
He did insist on taking the time to hug everyone and assure them he would be fine. That done, he gathered up his bug-out bag, threw it over shoulder, and thumped back out into the evening.
The jog over to the embassy wasn’t too bad. “Things moving that quick?”
“Yeah,” Hoeff huffed. “Get you safe on monkey planet.”
They arrived a few minutes later. Hoeff did need to catch his breath a bit, being a short guy, but the ambassador met them at the door and there was apparently no time for pleasantries.
“Mister Hoeff, Clan Whitecrest have made a request. They’d like to consult Professor Hurt about the first contact situation.”
Hoeff understood immediately, even if he was panting. “So…I’m…gonna be his…bodyguard?”
Rockefeller gave him a sympathetic look. “If Julian permits it, yes. We’d normally arrange for additional protection but we don’t have time. This is a pressing request and in any case, Hurt already trusts you. That should make it…easier…to manage his protection.”
Hoeff smirked at that and shot Julian a look. “Well, think you’re gonna be safe for a bit, big guy?”
Julian sighed, and injected a little humor. “Not from Yan’s armpit, but there’s nothing anyone can do to save me from that. If anyone can keep Hurt safe in a warzone, it’s you.” He turned back to the ambassador. “Yeah, I’m okay with it. What’s my role in all this?”
“Ferd Given-Man and his men are part of the JETS team that first scouted the planet and found the natives. They’re still active and carrying out missions. Having talked with the archeologists, and with the professor…my staff thinks the Ten’Gewek have a keener interest in this than we think. Your job is going to be to feel them out on that.”
“Talk with Yan. Got it.”
Rockefeller nodded. “You have a very simplifying way of doing things.”
“Yan’s the kind of clever man who likes to keep things simple. He doesn’t like saying ten words when one will do.”
“Well, then. I’ve requested an urgent change in jump traffic. The Array folks tell me they’ll be able to send you in two hours. I suggest you use that time well!” Rockefeller shook their hands. “Good luck, gentlemen.”
Well. So the cozy home life was over for now. Julian had known it wouldn’t last forever, these weren’t the kind of times where a guy like him could just stay at home and be a dad. But on the bright side, he enjoyed his time on Akyawentuo. There was always something interesting to help Vemik tinker with, a conversation to be had with the Singer, a humiliating wrestling match followed by a conversation to be had with Yan…
Or just the chance to get out in the forest and hunt. Be part of nature again for a while. So all things considered, he wasn’t exactly facing a hardship here.
Funny. When he was at home with Xiù, Al and the kids, he missed the forest. When he was in the forest, he missed being at home with Al, Xiù and the kids. One day, he hoped, he’d get to take the family with him to Akyawentuo, and then have the best of both worlds.
But for now…
Duty called.
Date Point: 16y11m5d AV
HMS Caledonia, Mordor System, Hunter Space
Colour Sergeant Robert “Highland” Murray
“HIGHLAND, slap him for me, wouldya?”
Murray chuckled, reached out, and gave Blaczynski’s helmet a firm clout. He hadn’t been listening to what was going on, but he knew with religious certainty that STARFALL deserved it. He and FORREST always deserved whatever they got.
“Thanks bro!” Burgess grinned at him, then went back to grimacing at the shock of cold water his techs gave him to help squeeze him into his suit. That was a new technique, chilling the suit before putting it on, to buy a little extra time before the inner lining expanded and compressed in response to the operator’s body temperature.
Deacon was looking bloody serious today. She was in charge of the suits after all, and they were about to be put through a serious trial. Nobody had ever gone EVA within sixty million kilometers of a star before. Whether or not they all got the worst sunburn ever was resting on the poor lass’ shoulders a bit.
She was up to it, though. They were in safe hands, with Deacon and her techs.
Safe, but remorseless.
“I still fuckin’ hate that ye’re started wi’ the cold water now,” he grumbled, hissing as the liquid salty slush was pumped into his undersuit. It was like having an icicle run firmly across his skin, all over his body at once.
“Aww. Big strong lads afraid of a bit of chill?” She teased, reading something off her arcane tools as she drove the long probe into his life support pack to check its inner chemistry was all in order. “And don’t you do the ice bath thing after workouts sometimes anyway?”
“I don’t fuckin’ like it then, either…” Murray grumbled, bouncing on his toes to try and keep his muscles warm. One small and slightly irrational point of pride was that, despite everything, he wasn’t quite Lad enough to shake the decking doing something like that. He was the ‘smallest’ one among the fighting Lads: squint and look at him sideways, and he’d maybe almost pass for normal human size. Even FORREST was passing him by these days, that fat American fuck.
Still bigger’n ABBOTT and STAINLESS, though. Gotta keep those officers in line.
“Man, I am sure am glad I don’t gotta put up with that.” That was Kodiak, a giant bear of a Gaoian who was just now stepping into his own Suit. Murray watched with some jealousy as the Suit self-zippered all its layers together right up his spine. Apparently, there was some pretty sophisticated nanotechnology involved, so the entire suit—or at least the air seal layer—was effectively one giant molecule encasing its wearer.
“No cold water? No nothing?”
“Naw. The Suit don’t squeeze down until I tell it to.”
“I feel like that’s the kindae tech that allies would share wi’ their mates…” Murray told him fervently.
“You get talkative when you’re cold, doen’t you?” Kodiak chittered. His real name was Gurrum—with a growl over the syllables, and therefore almost impossible for most non-Gaoians to pronounce—and it was kind of an open secret among the Lads that he was eyeing up challenging Fiin to take over as Stoneback’s Champion. So far he was holding off, probably because a good champion had to be a good judge of when the time was right, and for now it wasn’t.
Murray knew when he was being given a good-natured no-sell, so he returned his attention to the chuckling Blaczynski, who was already suited up and comfortably warm again. “So what’d you say this time?” he asked.
“Just tellin’ ‘Base he oughta be glad of the ice bath. Might actually shrink his nuts down to size.”
Murray snorted, and slapped him upside the head again.
“Aye, don’t be jealous, laddy. An’ don’t provoke the other big fuckers.”
“I’m not jealous! I like bein’ able to walk straight!”
He was totally jealous, even though by any normal standards the lad was practically a bull. On this team, though…Murray just gave his old friend a knowing look, then shivered as the water reached his own groin. Right next to the femoral artery, he could feel the chill seep into his bones. “…Sure could use some of that insulation myself… Christ…”
“I woulda thought you’d be used to this. Aren’t you from the frozen bonnie northlands, where the freezing wind goes up your kilt?”
Deacon grabbed Murray’s arm before he could slap Blaczynski a third time.
“The more you wriggle around,” she cautioned him, “the longer this takes.”
“Right, aye… Don’t mind me…”
“I got you,” Kodiak rumbled, and a paw the size of a dinner plate bounced off the back of Blaczynski’s helmet.
“Ow!!”
“Cheers.”
Deacon snort-laughed, let go of Murray, and a minute later his armor was being sealed around him, tepid water was being pumped in to flush out the arctic stuff, and the ordeal was passing.
“Might just be because I’m a real man, mate. I see you aren’t complaining…”
All the Gaoians flicked their ears simultaneously, and Kodiak was as ever just…mildly amused. “Oh gods not this again. Y’all Humans sure think awfully highly of ‘yerselves…”
“They really do…” Regaari agreed.
“Yeah, well, the ladies seem to like me when I go out clubbing! Might be ‘cuz I’m not pretending to be a draft horse in my pants…Actually,” Blaczynski turned his big manic grin toward Adam. “How the fuck did you ever pull as hard as you did, ‘Horse? Didn’t you manage to smash every willing woman in Folctha like three times over before Marty tamed you? It’s not like they didn’t know what they were getting into…”
“Size matters, bro! You just gotta know what you’re doing!” Adam bounced his huge slab of a chest, and the anime characters fighting across his big e-tattoo reacted as if they’d just been knocked down by an earthquake. Neat little bit of tech, if a bit tacky…
“Can it, Lads.” Powell called from the other end of the room. “You’re all pretty and too big to handle. Now, shall we get suited before the Great Father shows up?”
“Naw, too late.” Daar prowled in with a notable lack of deck-shaking bounciness; his humor was still there, but he was in a much more serious mode of leadership. “Briefing time.”
Everyone who could, gathered round. The rest, being stuck having their suits bolted on, their fur slicked down or their EVA packs tested, perked up and listened from where they were standing.
“Our naval friends have identified a superweapon being built in orbit around the star,” Daar explained. One of his assistants scurried round, handing out printed reading material with all the details. “Looks to be a giant forcefield array. The concern is, it can pack enough energy into one coherent beam that the system defence field won’t be able to block enough in time. It’s not yet online, but as far as we can tell it’s structurally complete, so it won’t be long. We need to capture and destroy it before that can happen. Plan is to board, penetrate to the core, drop nukes, learn what we can, an’ pull out. Thing is, the mission ain’t actually that simple.”
The Great Father looked to Powell. “Colonel?”
“The array orbits this system’s star at only fifty million kilometers or so. That’s about the orbit of Mercury. Temperature in the open is as high as four hundred degrees Celsius, and stellar radiation is as high as nine thousand Watts per square meter. Staff Sergeant Deacon assures me that our suits are rated to handle such an environment. Sergeant? Any specific advice?”
“We’re adding BoPET sheets to your outersuits to protect you,” Deacon said, lifting her voice over the sound of Tisdale bolting on the last of MOHO’s armor plates. “Your suits are rated to handle the radiation, but only for a little while. Shielding you from the high-energy stuff, refrigerating you and dumping the heat spends energy from your onboard pack, so spend as little time as possible in direct sunlight. You need to get in the shade of that structure ASAP. Be aware, your visors are going to be in maximum glare reduction mode while you’re outside, so transitioning into the structure is likely to leave you effectively blind for a couple of seconds while the visor adjusts. You’ll want to rely on your helmet’s sensors.”
Adam, being cleverer than he looked, raised his blunt hand and asked a question. “Won’t BoPET make us shine like fuckin’ stars?”
“Your suit could have the albedo of charcoal, you’d still be lit up like Christmas with that much light bouncing off you. We figured protecting your equipment and maximizing your safe exposure time was the higher priority.”
“What about the ‘Crests fancy-tail active camo?” Kodiak was also much too clever for his size. “Or am I just wishin’ an’ this is too much ‘fer it to handle?”
“Definitely wishing,” said Shim.
“So…no element of surprise, then. Smash and grab as fast as we fuckin’ can.”
“That’s the shape of it,” Powell agreed. “This is another one of those short-notice ops where everything’s bein’ done according to our training. No specific instructions, and we sure as fook don’t have any worthwhile intel, so just keep your eyes open, your wits about you and your arsehole puckered.”
“Y’all know I don’t like deployin’ ‘ya ‘less I gotta. ‘Specially when it’s so short notice.” Daar gave them all a steely look. “But you all—we—are the fuckin’ best of the very fuckin’ bestest. Ain’t nobody else could even dream o’ doin’ shit like this, yijao?”
There were serious nods and duck-nods all around the bay. The banter was over, playtime was over. Everyone was listening closely.
“Space and entry are gonna be limited. We’re keeping the rest o’ the operators on hot standby in case anythin’ goes wrong, ‘cuz this mission cannot fail. We don’t have time to evacuate everyone an’ everything that are vulnerable. Colonel Powell an’ Champions Fiin and Thurrsto are in command of our standby forces. This group…well, I don’t need to tell y’all what you already know. You’re the bestest, most seasoned operators we have. ‘Cuz like I said…”
Daar held up his paw. “See this? We figger the shield can react mebbe within a nanosecond, an’ that ain’t even enough time ‘fer a beam o’ light ‘ta cross the width o’ my paw. But even then, this thing could mebbe throw so gods-damned much energy down range, it’d be enough to flash-vaporize even th’ Destroyin’ Fury inside her shields. So we absolutely cannot fail this mission.”
Powell nodded, though he looked rather less grim than usual, anticipating the mission to come. “Time to play big damned heroes again, Lads. As the Great Father said, I’ll be commanding standby forces, Captain Costello will be with the assault team. Between the suit thing and other factors we won’t have the element of surprise on this one, so hit ‘em hard and eyes peeled for every dirty trick in the book.”
There were nods all around, though they were grim. There were few environments in space deadlier than a space station whose owner was alerted of a pending attack and had time to prepare. This one was going to be fierce. Murray was suddenly glad of his suit. It might be a pain to get into and out of, but it had kept him alive through some shit in the past. It’d do so again.
“That is why it’s us,” the Great Father rumbled. “I want people with the bestest chance o’ comin’ back alive on this mission.”
“Let’s make sure we all do,” Powell agreed. “Finish your preparations, see the chaplain if you need to. We go in twenty.”
And that was that. Everyone moved with a renewed sense of purpose, the chatter dropped off to just business. Murray was glad of it. He’d always done his best preparation in the peace of his own mind.
He took a deep breath, prepared himself, and went to work.
Journal of Keeper Ukusevi, Librarian of the Old-Bent-Leg Archives 9th hour of the 206th day of the 417th year of Punishment.
”Helplessness is like a heavy blanket: It smothers at the same time as it comforts.”
It has been five days since the coming of the Gao, and Garr-avf’s words will not grant me any peace by leaving my head. I hear them when I sit and compose my thoughts. I hear them when I try to comfort the faithful, and when I recite the Long Chant. I put them to the page now in the hopes that perhaps my pen can do what thought alone could not, and make sense of them.
How can helplessness be comfortable? What does that mean?
My late teacher, Iskoritr, taught me to work backwards in these situations. “Begin at the end,” he would say, “If an answer to the big question eludes you, ask smaller questions. You may find that even small questions are very large on the inside.”
What is comfort?
That is a small question. What is the definition of a common word? And yet, as Iskoritr foresaw, I find that it is much bigger on the inside. The light of the bigger question shines in from outside, illuminating whole new warrens of meaning that I had not considered before. What is comfort?
When I am comfortable I do not wish to rise from my bed. When I am comfortable, I have no need to move myself so as to alleviate an itch or ache or numbness. Comfort, in that sense, is inertia. An unwillingness to change anything about one’s condition because the alternative seems worse.
I am sitting comfortably. Why should I change my posture and risk an aching back?
I am comfortably warm in my bed. Why would I wish to rise and be cold?
The Answer: Because I must. Sooner or later, the Almighty delivers to me some task or obligation that cannot be resolved from my comfortable chair, or my warm bed. But there is the paradox at the core of Garr-avf’s words. To be comfortable is to be inert until compelled to act… but to be helpless is to be unable to act.
…Isn’t it?