Date Point: 17y5m AV
Clan Firefang headquarters, The Great Isthmus, Gao
Tooko
Clan meant politics. And Tooko hated politics. Oh, he was definitely good at it, like he was good at most things—a Brother needed to know his strengths—but that didn’t mean he reveled in it. He’d much rather be out there, doing what he first learned to do on the runway just outside the headquarters.
Clan Firefang was among the youngest. That was the way of a Clan system built around specialization, and fighter pilots were a fairly recent vocation. Even the Longears were older, if one counted their early days laying undersea cable and telegraph wires.
Every Clan had its moment of recognition, too, and Firefang’s had come shortly after the development of fixed-wing flight. The military applications had been immediately apparent, and Gao had never exactly been a peaceful world, so there’d come a point where One-Fang and Firefang had… parted ways.
Vigorously.
Other Clans had stepped in before that vigorous parting grew too bloody, and Firefang had been unofficially acknowledged by the others. They did that, of course, because Straightshield and Stoneback had made it abundantly clear what their desired outcome had been…
Things had changed in recent history. There was a Great Father, now. The Conclave was once again active and feeling out the scope and extent of its power. A standing committee of the most powerful and influential Clans had become the Great Father’s private council, and were beginning to feel out their power, too.
And, of course, Daar himself had torn the throat out of the prior Champion. Halti had been buried in the cold ground, a disgrace before the Conclave, before the Great Father had even been recognized. Consecrated. Crowned.
And there was the big issue that pretty much all of Firefang’s politics revolved around nowadays. Because while Champions came and went, sure, usually they came and went in response to internal events. New talent rose to supplant the old incumbent, or else the wiley veteran kept the upstarts in check… either way, the Champion kept the Clan sharp.
Having their leader, representative and figurehead brutally slaughtered in a heartbeat by another Clan’s Champion was… well, over the course of Gao’s history, Clans had warred and been eradicated for less. But who could stand against Stoneback? Not even Straightshield could, if it ever came to that. It would take all the Clans, and most of the martial Clans were already allied with them.
Stoneback ruled with an iron paw, and always had. Maybe they’d let their fur grow soft over the millennia since that truth had come to be, but the reality of it was always there.
And what Champion would dare stand face-to-face against Daar? It wasn’t just what he could do to anyone so stupid, or how easily he could do it. It was that he perfectly willing to do so, without an instant of hesitation.
…And so on. Grievance and wounded pride were at war with simple practicality in the Clan’s heart, made all the worse by the fact that it hadn’t just been the Champion, or the Champion and the Grandfather for that matter.
Most of Firefang had been implanted. Cybernetic enhancement had been the norm among the Clan’s pilots, certainly Tooko would have gone for it if he’d been a year or so older… And every single one of the enhanced Brothers had been put down. The Clan was a shadow of its former self. Brought low by a relentlessly logical act of dispassionate violence. Practical brutality at its absolute deepest expression. Obviously necessary, and inflicted by a truly charismatic leader.
One whose side Tooko had firmly taken. And that was a polarizing thing, nowadays.
It never came to overt hostility, though. Nobody could afford that, not with the Great Father’s “pet pilot.” But Tooko knew good and well that those two words flew around a lot when he wasn’t in earshot. Usually, anyway. One or two less discrete fools knew just how sharp Tooko’s claws were.
And he did have some allies…
“Got our ship damaged, did you? You do know they work better in the air?”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t be bothered to care, what with the hundreds of fusionblade-wielding drones, the full might of the Hierarchy in orbit above me, and a gigaton-class warhead’s energies chasing me down.”
“Hmm. The Tooko I know would have got out of that without a scratch. You must be slipping!”
“And a good man lost an eye over this. I fail to see the humor.”
Father Mereek sighed, and ducked his head. “Humor’s your shield against the darkness, pup,” he said fondly, and they traded the nose-sniffs of old friends. Mereek had been Tooko’s first flight instructor. “But, you always were a serious one.”
“And you were never serious enough.” Tooko retorted. He was glad to see the old joker, though. He just wasn’t in any mood at all for joking.
Fortunately, Mereek knew him well. He duck-nodded affably and they ambled down the long corridor beside the airfield, where the huge floor-to-ceiling windows let them watch new pilots learn the basics of how to gain a plane safely off the ground… and back down onto it, too. The other wall was dominated by various trophies, art pieces, accolades and other Clan keepsakes. Pride of place went to a piece of Hunter broodship, a flat, shredded armor plate mounted up there as a reminder of a particularly fine kill.
“How is your friend?” Mereek asked.
“I’ll give the Humans this, their cosmetic surgeons are pretty incredible. By the time he woke up, he had a face again. He never saw how bad it really was.”
“That must have helped.”
“Well… Maybe.” Tooko paused to consider an antique photo of the team of enterprising young males who’d first got a flying machine off the ground, hundreds of years ago. “It’s out of my hands, really. I worry for him, but worrying for him won’t achieve anything, so…”
“True enough.”
“…So why was I called back?”
“You didn’t hear? The Champion actually defended his position.”
Tooko flicked his ear. “Really? I thought Goruu was…well, he wasn’t exactly a high-degree brawler, yijao?”
“So did the challenger. Tyimu sure got a nasty surprise!” Mereek chittered.
“Well, that’s… interesting, I suppose, but what does it have to do with me?”
“Now that Goruu actually has some of the old authority, not just being thrust into the role because he was the first one the Great Father laid eyes on, he’s decided the time has come to actually put some of it to work.” Mereek indicated the airfield. “He wants to increase recruitment and expand our mandate.”
“And he wants me to be the pretty face of the recruiting campaign,” Tooko guessed.
“He’s on your side, it seems. Then again, both of you were personally picked by the Great Father, so I suppose that makes sense…”
Tooko bristled at that. “The Great Father picked me because I’m good. I’m one of the best damn pilots we’ve got, and that was true before the War, too.”
“And now the Champion’s proved he’s good too. Tyimu was no mewling cub.”
“Was?”
“Well, still isn’t. But he’s not as handsome any more!” Mereek chittered again.
“Still. The Champion and I aren’t cut from the same die,” Tooko sniffed, still feeling a little insulted.
“Careful, cub. That ego of yours is flaring up again.”
“Why should I say yes? I have things to do! I have ships to fly and missions to complete!”
“Because it’ll be good for the Clan,” Mereek replied, suddenly much more serious. “And the Clan put you where you are, Tooko. The Clan found, cultivated and enabled your talents. The Clan is the reason you have those ships to fly and those missions to complete, and now the Clan needs your help so that more talent can be cultivated, so more ships can be flown and more missions completed. You owe the Clan your duty, young Brother. You do not get to decide what that duty entails. It would be better if you voluntarily agreed…”
“…Because the alternative is the Champion claws my tail off.” Tooko sighed. A competent Champion who could legitimately back up his authority with violence really was a different proposition. “Fine, fine. I suppose I’m probably grounded until Wilde recovers anyway… what do I need to do?”
Mereek chittered again, his good humor returning now that he’d finished being firm.
“Oh,” he said. “You’re going to love this…”
Date Point: 17y5m AV
The Clawhold, liberated planet, former Hunter space
Ginn, aide to Grandfather Vark
There was a duty that came with totally destabilizing people’s lives, no matter how awful the stability had been. Even if that duty turned bloody, the Gao had a responsibility to bring a new kind of order to E-Skurel-Ir life.
And the problem with order—if it was a problem—was that ultimately it always came down to violence. Order was what people adopted when the alternative was death. Work together, or be destroyed.
For the Gao, throughout most of their history, loyal cooperation had been how Clans and their clanless peasantry survived in the face of other Clans. The Gao had united in the face of other Gao, basically. Civil war (of a low intensity) was their norm.
Never had it become a religious conflict, though. The Gao were too pragmatic for that. Their passions were for brotherhood and courting females. Intense ideology was almost an alien concept. Ginn sure as balls hadn’t ever found a cause like that. He’d found… purpose? A way to be worthy and to shoulder his own burden? Utility? Whatever it was he’d found in the Grand Army, it hadn’t been what the humans called a crusade.
The E-Skurel-Ir, though? Their whole world was a crusade. Every fiber of their skinny, stringy bodies was devoted to the pursuit of Higher Purpose. They wanted the world to be orderly and sensible, and a lot of them had gladly plunged themselves into senseless chaos rather than abandon that vision.
Blood was running in the tunnels. So it fell to the Gao to try and stem the bleeding.
It wasn’t happening unopposed. After centuries of cowering under Hunter rule, the E-Skurel-Ir were fighting again, with the mad, frantic clumsiness of a pacifist in a melee. They were passionate but undisciplined, and weakened by lifetimes of malnutrition. Probably that affected their cognitive development, too. Their tactics weren’t exactly clever.
But they knew the tunnels intimately, and they weren’t above deploying the dirtiest traps and tricks. Whole subterranean cities were effectively off-limits to the Gao: it would have been like sending their units straight into an industrial grinder.
Besides, the Grand Army’s goal wasn’t to clear them out and kill them all. It was to get them to calm down. It was to end the burning ceremonies, where books and heretics alike met a fiery, cruel end. Getting them to calm down basically meant breaking their will to fight, and so to that end, there were two goals.
Firstly, take control of the Libraries. That was proving tricky, but Daar had prioritized that at all costs and if that included gassing them out and literally excavating their way down, then so be it.
Secondly, neutralize the ringleaders. Capture preferred, conversion ideal, killing… when necessary. The latter was more of a Stoneback and Whitecrest operation, and they weren’t pulling any punches. The ‘Backs went in with as much fierce visage as they could manage: vicious skulls painted on their masks, polished, exposed claws…
The Whitecrests preferred to act as invisible terror. They preferred to strike them in their safe spaces, when everyone should be asleep…
And only after they’d slunk away, would the Stonebacks hammer their way in. It didn’t matter that they lived through the raid; the Gao were being careful, there. Mostly, they just went up to an internment camp on Gao, where they got to experience clean air and rations and crushing boredom…
And then the Grand Army would get involved. Their job was to clean out everything else and occupy the territory. They were learning to seismically map the tunnels, search for air currents, build redoubts…
It was gonna be years, if the zealots fought to the very last.
Not that the zealots were a big part of the population. Most of the E-Skurel-Ir were still living the same life they always had, mortally afraid of the powerful aliens who ruled the surface, trying to make sense of a universe that routinely treated them like a chew-toy. When it came to the conflict between the staunch Penitents and Ukusevi’s faction—known to themselves as the Saved, and to the Penitents as the Fooled—most E-Skurel-Ir just kept their heads down.
The Penitents though… they embraced suffering. Their uniform was rags, or outright nudity, their battle cry the rattling cough of damaged lungs, scarred from breathing unfiltered surface air. They believed in the deliverance of a Punishment embraced, and the promised reward for the life that came after. They cared almost nothing for themselves, unless they were well and truly pushed.
But, like all cults, the leaders weren’t so fervent as the followers. And even where they were, much of that fervor died out in the internment camps. Clean air and bland food tamped most any high spirits. Some of them were even growing downright calm, and the tricky business of rehabilitation was beginning to rear its head.
Vark was obviously in agreement, as he read through the staff report.
“Shoulda figgered the locals’d give us more trouble’n the Hunters,” he grumbled.
He was hosting Champion Thurrsto, who’d come along to personally oversee and participate in some of the trickier infiltrations. Thanks to him, there were a few prophets in custody who might otherwise have had to be put down more… emphatically. Ginn had got a hint of how the Whitecrests worked just from watching them head out on a mission, and was quite convinced that he found them even scarier than the Stonebacks, now. At least you’d see the Stonebacks coming.
Having an impending meeting with the Great Father, the two had come together to compare notes and make sure they were appropriately well-informed and coordinated.
“The Hunters had the option of retreating,” the Champion pointed out. “The E-Skurel-Ir are stuck here. They can’t leave even if they wanted to. They’re cornered, with no way out, and that always means fighting harder.”
“Dumbasses shouldn’t be fightin’ at all,” Vark opined, irritably, but he accepted the Champion’s point with a duck-nod and a shrug. “It’s such a fuckin’ waste o’ potential.”
Thurrsto duck-nodded sadly. “Yes it is. But our initial xenopsychological profiles on them seem to be bearing fruit. Those we’re holding in confinement seem to respond very well to high nutrition and predictable structure. Their health is improving dramatically, as is their behavior.”
“What ‘bout the Saved who went offworld?”
“Only a few have been to their new world so far, but those that have…” Thurrsto seemed suddenly quite uncomfortable. “Well. I won’t glaze it over. They’re having some sort of intense religious experience over the whole thing. Which to me seems like the same problem, just in the opposite direction. Champion Gyotin is quite worried.”
“Yeah, he tol’ me about it. Said the term is ‘cargo cult.’” Vark sniffed expressively. “…Y’ever notice how wherever there’s a term for somethin’ really ball-bitin’ weird, it’s always a Human expression?”
Ginn felt he had an insight, there. “They’ve had millennia to be Deathworlder weird without the Hierarchy in their heads.”
Thurrsto flicked his ear in amusement. “I like him! You aren’t afraid to speak your mind, are you?”
“I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly if I was a meek little cub, sir,” Ginn flicked a mischievous look at Vark.
That earned a harrumph from Vark, and a full-blown chitter from the Champion.
“Careful, Vark. I may try to poach him.”
“An’ I might hafta have ‘yer nuts on a plate if you try,” Vark replied, amiably. “But that’s okay. I picked ‘em ‘cuz he don’t give two watery shits ‘bout protocol, don’t’cha?”
Vark had his fangs exposed, which was…a clear message. But his tail was wagging, too.
“I’d like to think I know when protocol matters and when it hinders,” Ginn retorted.
“Ha! Well, anyhoo.” Vark stood and made toward the door. “I think we’re all in agreement over what we’re gonna say. Ginn, go make arrangements please, me an’ Thurrsto are goin’ to see the Great Father. And you, Thurrsto…” Vark turned to the hulking Whitecrest, “Lookin’ ‘ta poach my best talent, eh? Well now, I find myself curious jus’ what a HEAT-grade Whitecrest operator can really do…wanna spar? We’ve got a few minutes, I think…”
Ginn suppressed an internal sigh. High-degrees were relentlessly competitive, even across breeds. He instead duck-nodded and took his leave to make arrangements, while the two enjoyed their rough play together.
Though he had to admit, sparring was a fantastic way to burn stress away…
Anyway. Best to put his mind off of religious zealots and powerful Clan Champions.
“The jump is in twenty minutes, Grandfather.”
”More’n enough time ‘ta put ‘em in his place…g’on, Ginn. We’ll follow in a few minutes.”
“Yes sir.” They both had their ears up and the start of pant-grins on their face…well, if they were happy, Ginn wasn’t going to complain. He left them to it.
He was pretty excited about the jump, actually. He’d be going back to Gao for the first time since arriving here! Gao, with its clean cold air and clear waters and—whisper it—some females who might just find him a lot more interesting now that he had a respectable job…
Even if that last part didn’t pan out, the rest was still enticing enough. It wasn’t a vacation, but it certainly beat staying on this polluted war-clawed rock.
He could do with a moment’s peace.
Date Point: 17y5m AV
Dodge City, Kansas, USA, Earth
Austin Beaufort
Austin couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but lately he was feeling motivated. Well, more motivated than usual, anyway, and he was the kinda dude to get up at four in the morning for his pre-work jog, so…
It was a bunch of little things. He put in a bit more effort to keep the shop clean. Did a little more pre-planting agronomy research than he’d ever done before. Maybe they’d try out some promising new hybrids he’d heard about down at the bar! The stuff they’d been planting since forever on their rotation was pretty damn good, but still; it’d be nice to cut down on inputs.
Maybe he’d buy that no-till air drill this year, too. They’d already moved from dragging a chisel plow through every field every year to a much cheaper vertical tillage program, so it wasn’t that much of a change, really…well, weeds might be a problem. He’d really need to sit down and do the math on what no-till might mean for his herbicide bills…
He wasn’t eating so much junk food–and honestly, probably a good idea since his abs had definitely been getting a bit softer. Better to actually be a dad before he gave in to the dad bod!
And better to be a hot dad!
There were just… lots of little ways he suddenly wanted to go harder on everything. Eating right, sleeping right, not half-assing a job, managing his time better… He didn’t know what exactly had kicked him in the ass. Maybe it was the realization that he was getting married to a woman that, honestly, he probably didn’t deserve. Maybe he’d just felt an itch. Who knew?
He’d decided that he’d keep it up, though. Yeah. Definitely keep it up, even if he started to feel fat and happy again. Maybe that’s all a guy needed to do. Don’t let the slump get you down, don’t fall into the routine too hard.
…Maybe he should go fool around with Lauren. She was off work, after all…
Well. Okay. After he talked with the dealer. It was definitely time to take the plunge into full precision ag, no-till or not. Maybe strip till instead? He could do that if he went all in, after all. His checkbook was gonna be hurtin’ but…well, things were coming up on depreciation, and all his equipment still had good resale value…
Gotta spend money to earn money, after all. And he wanted to have the farm in good working order for Lauren.
He hummed merrily to himself as he worked.
Six
Six had encountered the concept of banging his head against a wall before, both as a gesture of frustration and as a metaphor for futility. Though the act itself was meaningless to a digital sophont, right now, both versions were applicable.
No matter how much he pushed, no matter what he tried, Austin just seemed to grow more inspired to be a better farmer! His ambitions really didn’t extend beyond what he was already doing, and Six was having no success whatsoever in inspiring him to think beyond that little box.
It was… simultaneously wretched and yet honestly marvellous at the same time. And so very, aggravatingly, relentlessly human! Six had learned more than he ever wanted to know about tillage. Just…apparently the simple act of digging in the dirt was several sciences all on its own, and Austin spent endless time agonizing over just how much he should dig, or if he should dig at all, or how he should dig…worrying about soil structure, inoculants for his peas…
Madness! He had the body and mind to conquer a whole star system if he wanted to! Austin Beaufort could have effortlessly become the emperor of some distant simpering planet full of lesser beings, but Six had spent long enough now prompting him to pursue his innermost, darkest passions to know that Austin’s innermost darkest passion was… farming.
Farming. Digging a hole in the ground, planting a seed, and adding water.
Farming!
Well, that and when his fiance called him “Daddy” in bed, but that seemed even less useful. Humans really spent far too much time indulging in bizarre, aggressive intromission.
He’d had to disconnect his sensory inputs to keep some semblance of awareness and sanity.
So. Six was stuck. The ship was safe at least, in that it was now parked securely in the depths of the Pacific ocean, thousands of kilometers from the nearest landmass. Indeed, the only thing of note in the area was the point humans had identified as being the furthest from land it was possible to get on their oversized, bloated, high-gravity deathtrap of a cradle world. Six could recall it any time he liked, but… why? Every time he did so he risked discovery. He could swap hosts, but he had no guarantee that the next one wouldn’t be fiercely committed to something even more banal.
At least Austin had resources. He might be the most aggravatingly unambitious host that Six had ever stepped into, but… well, ultimately it was to Six’s benefit if he became an agricultural powerhouse. Wealth and influence were wealth and influence.
Think upon it as a challenge. An opportunity to learn new and subtler forms of influence, and an opportunity to grow rich while remaining hidden.
Six’s moment would come, eventually. He had all the time in the world.