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“You stand in for Fast of Wing,” Tracker told him.  “His revenge rides on you.”

“I see,” Brooks replied.  “So if I were to somehow fail, Fast of Wing will never be happy.”

“Yes.  What is more, his father’s spirit, full of anger and rage at being killed before his time, will possess you during the hunt.  Should you fail, his spirit will never leave you.”  He shook his head, a way of warding off spirits.  “You do something that is impressive, but foolish.”

Besides hunting a giant, deadly predator, Brooks thought, amused.

“Before his time?” he asked.  The !A!amo had often spoken of everyone having a designated time to die.  It was a coping tool, and to hear something go against it was surprising.  “Isn’t any time we die our time?”

“Not when it is keko!un.  They are bad keotli, given form.  Thus they break the natural cycle.  Bad keotli.”  He shook his head again.

Brooks mulled over that.  Was it just an idea given to a mortal enemy, to make them seem more monstrous and justify horrors against them?  Or perhaps the keko!un were an invasive species, recently come here and upsetting the order that had existed before?  It would explain why the !Xomyi seemed so helpless against them . . .

Tracker waved his hands, a sort of shrug.  “And you have not even blooded a spear.  You do not even have a spear.”

“I might have time to try again to make one.”

“No.  There are other preparations.”  Tracker considered a moment.  Then, he reached into a pouch, and took out a spearhead.

It was large, Brooks noticed immediately.  And it was finely made; one of the best that he had seen.  The shape was perfect, the edges chipped just right to give a serrated cutting edge to all sides.

And rather than flint, it was a dark black glass, whose every surface reflected the light – obsidian.  He’d seen a few such obsidian pieces, but never this nice.

“Take this,” Tracker said.  “It is special to me.  I have never found the time to use it.”

Brooks took the spearhead carefully.  He had never known the !A!amo to value an item, nearly all things seemed to be something they could throw aside and simply find or make anew.  Aside from his scanner, which had quickly become a cherished item among the women, they rarely kept anything for more than a few months.

“This is special.  What is the story behind this?” he asked.

Tracker waved it away.  “A tale for another day.  Take it, my friend.  Strike hard.  Strike true.  The blade will bite deep, if you let it.”

Sitting at the edge of the clearing, Brooks had an excellent view of the sky as Bror set.

It was filled with color – reds, yellows, and oranges that were startlingly beautiful.  Near the lower parts of the horizon, some even skewed green, due to the way their glow traveled through the atmosphere.

Small lines of light streaked across the colors regularly, sometimes swarms of them.

But despite their beauty, both were portents of coming catastrophe.  They both originated from the same source; the moon Omen.

The glows were from dust, floating in space, heating up from the light of Bror.  The streaks were meteors, burning.

Soon, he knew, the meteors would be larger.  Large enough that they would not simply burn up, but would instead hit the land, causing massive craters, seismic activity, and fires.  In Ko’s denser atmosphere, with higher oxygen content, the fires would start even more easily, and would burn hotter and for longer.

By that point, escape would be difficult.  The amount of debris coming down and in orbit would make their planned course incredibly dangerous – and that was if they were lucky and nothing hit near enough that it wrecked their ship.

He knew that their escape shuttle had already been dropped in.  They would not be heading back to Outpost Alexa.  Soon, they’d be evacuating it, too.

He tried to put these thoughts out of his head.

The fire near his feet cracked and popped, protesting against the damp wood he’d used to start it.

Taking up the spear shaft that he’d prepared earlier, he experimentally fitted the obsidian spear head into it.

It was a good fit, more due to how expertly it had been made than his own skill at working the wood.

But it would not be enough to just stick it in.

He looked to the fire, where he had a small shard of a bowl sitting.  He smiled, remembering.  This was a piece of the one they’d given him as a joke, months ago.

He used it now to melt a piece of hardened sap.

Knows the World had shown him one day; which trees could be cut in just the right way to bleed them for their sticky sap.  It dried into hard pieces, but they would melt when heated over a fire.

Mixing in some fibers would give it strength, and then wrapping it with cordage made from the same fibers, woven into a strand, would hold the spear head onto the shaft.

Taking a stick, he smeared the sap onto the end of the obsidian spear head, nestling it into the crook of the shaft.

He smeared more around it, hoping he wasn’t going too heavily on it.

Y had told him a week ago that this sap had very impressive binding qualities, better than similar substances early humans had used.  The doctor had gotten Kai to take scans of it to send up to the Craton, for future materials research studies.

The blade seemed well-set, and he took the cordage that he’d been given by one of the women, and started wrapping it around the base of the blade.  The cords squeezed into the sap, becoming glued in just as much as the blade itself.

So much effort into all of this, he thought, as he finished wrapping the cord and tied it off.

Gathering the stone, gathering the sap, the pole, the grass for cordage.  Even the clay for the potsherd and the wood for his fire.

Then making the blade, a many-hour process, if not days.  Working the pole into a proper spear shaft and notching it.  The hours the women spent turning the fibers into cords.  Now, all of their labor created this weapon.

Just a stone spear, he thought.  It was beautiful in its way, but it reminded him how much effort went into everything he took for granted.  So much was done by machine, so many thousands or millions of hours of labor went into even the simplest device or tool he used . . .

A hint of movement caught his attention, and he looked over, seeing that Knows the World was nearby.

“Hello,” he said.

While relations with the others had improved greatly since he had saved Touched by Fire, that had not been true of Knows the World.

The wise man had not been hostile; only distant.  Brooks often noticed him watching, and while he had tried to engage the elder in conversation many times, Knows the World had always left quickly.

Brooks knew that Knows the World would be key to convincing the tribe to come with him.  They trusted Brooks, yes, but if Knows the World took a different stance, then most of the !A!amo would not go.

It was almost as if Knows the World knew this, and was intentionally avoiding the conversation.

“I come to tell you of the blood hunt,” Knows the World said.  “You do not know our ways.”

“Thank you,” Brooks replied.

“We hunt in the night,” Knows the World began.  He paused, as if waiting for a response, and so Brooks ventured a question.

“Isn’t that more dangerous?  Shouldn’t we hunt in the daylight?”

“The keko!un like the light,” Knows the World said.  “They sleep less deeply in the light, and so we are more likely to encounter them on the way.”

“What of other dangers?” Brooks asked.

Knows the World folded his wings over himself to show an end to questioning.

“Prepare yourself,” he said.  “We leave once darkness falls.”

It would not be long, Brooks thought.  He thought they’d be going in the morning, but he could go sooner.

“Before you go,” he said, knowing that Knows the World had already signaled the end of the conversation, but was desperate to try.  “May we speak of something else?”

Knows the World looked surprised; Brooks’s behavior bordered on rude.

The wise man said nothing, but turned and walked away.

< Ep 12 part 56 | Ep 12 part 58 >

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“Okay, just one more minute,” Apollonia said.  “I’m almost done.”

The man merely made a strange noise that echoed through the tube down his throat.

He was Zef, one of their engineers who had been sent out to check a line.  Along the way, he’d fallen on some sort of huge, fat mushroom.  People said it had deflated like a whoopie-cushion, which amused her.

But the huge quantity of spores that had been mushed out of it were less amusing.

They were not colonizing the man, thankfully.  Human make-up just wasn’t an acceptable surface for Ko’s life to live in.  But the Zef had vomited from how gross it all was, and pulled off his mask, breathing in a huge lungful of spores.

It was his allergic reaction that had been the problem.  Even if the spores couldn’t root, human lungs did not like breathing in lots of tiny junk.  Not only was breathing extremely difficult, but he’d become paralyzed.

A medical drone had kept him alive, but his body was strongly rebelling against that notion, and so he was here.  And Apollonia was taking care of him, even as his body continued the other normal processes.

Dr. Zyzus had thought it would take about three days for him to regain the use of his limbs.  He was breathing via the artificial respiration system inserted into his lungs, but the medications were making him groggy and confused.

His rear end was . . . well, doing what that part of the body did.  It seemed excessive, and the system kept telling her whenever it was imminent, so she was able to keep him clean.  But it was a lot of work.

A gummy arm had, thankfully, been brought down, and could help her roll him.  It was not a fine manipulator, though, and while it could safely move people in even the worst of shape, it could not clean them.

She had never realized just how difficult to move an actually-helpless person was.  This man couldn’t control his body at all, and she did not think she could even do this while trying to prop him up on his side by herself.

She had a headset on, with a screen an inch from her face.  It was oddly distracting and tended to get knocked slightly askew, causing the overlay to look slightly fuzzy.  It would adjust after a second, but it was just kind of a pain.

The man breathed out, and a puff of the toxic spores came out through the tube.  Not one stuck to its sides.  She was glad not just that it was contained in the tube, but for her mask.  The last thing she wanted was to breathe in mushroom farts.

That was part of the process; machines smaller than a cell were laboriously cleaning out every tiny part of his lungs, removing the spores.  When enough were gathered, they’d be brought out through an exhalation.

In the meantime, an external machine was acting as his lungs, working the exact mix of oxygen in and carbon dioxide out that a person needed to live.

There.  She wiped him again and it came back clean.  Her eyepiece also pinged that her cleaning was sufficient.

“Okay, we’re rolling back onto your back,” she told the man.

Dark, he had to be so scared, she thought.  Being helpless.  And even though there could still be a crinkling of lines around his eyes, he looked very calm.  Maybe the meds?  He seemed almost peaceful – accepting.

Once he was rolled over, she stepped over to the wall.  There were two sets of rings in it, one that she stuck her arms in to put on the skin-sheathe gloves, and the other to remove them.  The coverings peeled off of her hand in one piece as she put them in, up to the elbow.  Then, sticking her hands into the slightly-translucent other side, she got a new, unsullied covering applied.

Couldn’t keep using the old one, which was contaminated, she told herself.  Infection control was now indelibly stamped into her brain.

Going back to the engineer, she made sure he at least looked comfortable, stuffed a foam wedge under one side to roll him slightly on his side, and stepped back.  Yep, her checklist in her visor was all green.

“Rest well,” she told him, removing her latest skin-sheathe gloves, and turning off the light as she left.

Looking to her schedule, she was directed to another room, where Hawa was currently resting.  She’d broken a toe, and it would take the night to repair it properly.  In the meantime, Apollonia had to keep going in and getting her what she needed so the woman didn’t get up on her own and set the healing back by hours . . .

After that, she’d take her break – an hour for some food and digestion, then back to work.

She could study in that time, she thought, while she ate.  She had more studying to do after this shift was over, but it couldn’t hurt to look over things even if one was also eating . . .

< Ep 12 part 54 | Ep 12 part 56 >

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Day 62

Ten Days until Evacuation

Kai set her rifle against her knee, pointing it up into the air.  It wasn’t the best way to have it pointed, but an accidental discharge was supremely unlikely even if something went wrong.  There was just no other direction to safely have it resting, unless she wanted the barrel on the ground.

The !Xomyi around her did not seem to understand when she told them to be careful of walking in front of it, so she could not lay it across her lap.

A few times she’d even found them trying to peer down the barrel.

The women chattered amongst themselves as they gathered.  They took turns using the scanner Brooks had given them, and they had figured out on their own how to work it and even scan new items for it to locate.

Only once had they accidentally gotten into a sub-menu and couldn’t find their way back out.  They’d brought it to her, asking if they’d upset it, and Kai had shown them how to get back to the main screen.  Remotely, then, she’d disabled all other screens except the scan screen; they’d not have problems getting stuck in menus again.

When would they understand it was technology?  She had tried telling them that it was just a tool, like a spear or a needle or a scraper.  But they didn’t seem to understand it.

Or maybe, she thought, they thought those things had spirits, too?

Sometimes when a tool had broken, she had heard them mutter something about the ‘keotli being gone’.

“Does it ever get tired?” one of the younger women asked her about the machine.

The atomic battery in it would last at least 75 years before starting to get too low to run the device.  She couldn’t think of how to tell her that.

“Not for a very long time,” she told the !Xomyi instead.

Her name was Soon Mother, and she was very pregnant.

Their information on !Xomyi did not include how long gestational periods were, but Kai had a feeling that soon there would be a new member of the tribe.

Soon Mother rested often, but still labored.  Kai had asked if she would get time off, but the puzzled looks the !Xomyi had given her had made her realize how ridiculous a question that was.  There was no ‘time off’ when you lived at a subsistence level.

Though, she noted, the other women were working harder to cover for her.

The beginnings of society, she thought.  Wasn’t it often said that when people started caring for each other was when it started?

She also saw in the !A!amo the beginnings of sex discrimination.  They had far more defined sex-roles than in the Sapient Union, with only women seeming to gather, and only men hunting.

Their biology seemed at least somewhat comparable to humans in terms of the physical differences between the sexes – somewhat noticeable but not massive.  The women tended to be smaller, the men had more muscle.

For humanity, those differences had long since stopped being very relevant; muscle augments leveled the playing field, if one wanted or needed them.  Technology, and the society itself, had allowed for the ending of essentially all sexual crimes.  Such events, in a developed system, were nearly unheard-of.

While she had yet to see the level of sexual categorization and exploitation that had existed in human history among the !A!amo, seeing the stark roles was still a strange experience.

The women seemed to be taking a break, with the eldest woman, Old Mother, sitting down with the scanner.  Two other women, Fisher and Rock Finder, sat down with her, talking softly.

Berry Eater, who her system told her was married to the man Honey Finder, approached her.

She did not ask to sit, her large eyes just flicking to the ground, then back to Kai.  That was normally how they asked for such an audience.

Kai gestured with a flat hand, telling her that it was fine.

Berry Eater nestled onto the ground, looking up at her curiously.

“Are you married?” Berry Eater asked her without preamble.

But that was just how they were.  Kai smiled.  “No, never been.”

A ripple of surprise went through the group.  “You and Gift Giver are not . . . ?”

“No, we’re just . . .”  She considered how to explain this.  “We’re from the same clan.”  The fact that they still had the physical differences of their ancestors from Earth probably wouldn’t mean anything to the !Xomyi, she reasoned, so it was not that strange to say.  They seemed to have color and morphological variations that they made little note of.

Two of the children ran up to their mother, the youngest, named Flower, clambering onto her lap.

She absently took from a pocket some pale balls of a mashed root that had been dried.  The children both began to eat, and she began to eat one as well.

Kai knew she’d be offered some she could not accept, so she took her own piece of a similar-looking ration from a pouch and started to eat.

A sound from out in the forest caught her attention, and she looked past Berry Eater.  Old Mother was also looking out, but dismissed the sound after a moment.

The drones told Kai that a large, placid herbivore had been walking nearby, but they had herded it away without issue.

Predators often followed in the wake of herbivores, so she set the drones to a heightened sensory state, just in case.

Berry Eater shooed away her children.

“I hope that someday you can find a good man,” she told Kai, her voice kind.  “And you can have many children.”

Kai wasn’t sure how she felt about her words, but she smiled, and decided to take them in the positive sense they had been meant.

“Thank you,” she replied.

< Ep 12 part 53 | Ep 12 part 55 >

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This deep under the water, the pressure was immense.  Far more so on this planet than on Earth, Kell thought.

The darkness, too, was total.  No light existed down here, making eyes entirely useless.

It took more effort to move, but that was all.  An inconvenience.  He did not need eyes to find his way.

Down here, in Ko’s depths, for weeks, and then a month, he had searched.  He’d found the mundane, deep-adapted life he had expected.

But nothing strange.

Nothing like him.

He’d checked crevices and places that existed on this world that would draw beings like himself.  Places of convergence, where pressures combined to crack reality itself, and let slip the barest hint of the true depths.

Yet they were empty.

For all of his time, he’d had an innate desire to know.  As soon as he had formed his first coherent thought, realized that to think meant he was not simply inanimate matter made to move, but life . . . he had wondered if there were others like him out in the universe.

Over the aeons, vast and silent, he’d gazed up, and come to understand the universe through senses more acute and wide-ranging than even humanity with its myriad devices.

They’d come to understand the nature of the stars, that there were other worlds.

But was there anything else on them like themselves?  Once-slaves to terrible masters, who had gained freedom.

Now, here on the first true world he’d visited, he had received an answer.

It was just not the one he had hoped for.

He was, it seemed, truly alone.

< Ep 12 part 52 | Ep 12 part 54 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

The heat of the day was starting to lessen with the fading of the light.

It was welcome, and Urle lowered his heat threshold.  He’d been worried about over-working his cooling units during the worst of it; the last thing he needed was a messy and difficult shut-down of his electronics.

The weeks of labor and limited maintenance were telling on him; everything still worked, but there was dust getting into parts of his system.  Nowhere deep, nowhere dangerous.  But it just wasn’t working quite as well as it did when everything had been clean . . .

Now that the shadows were growing, at least, he could set his internals back down to a lower temperature.  It was more efficient that way.

Stopping to wipe sweat from his still-flesh brow, he saw that a knot of Hessa were heading back in.  One waved to him, and he waved back.

He was well-accepted now, he thought.  They appreciated his help in the fields, and it was a good way to show them that he shared in their efforts.

Further out in the fields a handful of other loiterers were poking around near the edge of the fields of grass.  Sometimes they did that, hoping to take a lizard or find some edible fungoid things.  There was a strange connection between this seed crop they harvested and some edible fungi that tapped into their collective root systems.

It was fascinating, he thought.  The seedgrass that they’d been harvesting was not actually discrete plants.  He’d realized recently, while studying them, that they were one giant organism.

Their fruit were not even actually seeds, he’d found out.  They were simply some kind of edible growth, possibly even waste products to the plants.  He suspected that the plants grew them to attract the mole bugs that broke up the soil and damaged the roots of the fungus trees that tried to lock down the soil with dense mycelium.  The mole bugs did not harm the seedgrass, but would seemed to only eat the fruits.  It was a symbiotic relationship that was altering this part of the world; surely one day the trees would be gone, as they seemed to have no real defense against the mole bugs.

The Hessa seemed extremely tolerant of the bugs for this reason, clearly understanding their role.  At least, they were in the fields, but they would kill any that tried to come into the village and eat their crop stores.

It was not just the mole bugs that were helping the crops, though.  At times, the farmers would find areas of seedgrass with no stalks growing and dig down, cutting out chunks of the mycelium.

They often took out large nodes, whose function he did not understand.  But they would transplant pieces of root from seed-stalk areas.

They told him that this would cause that area to start growing seeds in future years.

He could only liken it to grafting, where a fruit-yielding branch might be attached to a healthy trunk of even another kind of tree.

Besides that, the Hessa did very little husbandry of the plants.  They had learned to manipulate a thing that naturally occurred . . .  but not yet did they grow them from scratch.

He tested his bag.  It was much larger than the ones the Hessa used, they’d made it for him, laughing all the while at its size.  He could carry as much as ten of them, they said.  He wasn’t certain that was accurate, but he could carry a lot, and it seemed to impress them.

Hefting the sack onto his back, he turned and started trudging back towards the village.

What luck, he thought ruefully.  They harvested for only a few weeks twice a year, and he’d come here during the most back-breaking period.

He really began to appreciate just how much technological progress had freed humanity from such drudgery-

A piercing scream broke his train of thought.

He did not realize he had turned, or that he’d begun running towards it for a few milliseconds.

His body had reacted automatically; not instinct, but his machine parts operating on pre-programmed reactions.

His conscious mind tried to take in what was occurring before him.

The group near the forest were screaming.  Two were running his way, while a third lay on the ground, the source of the screaming.

On her back, its claws digging into the bag she’d slung behind her, was a small creature.

It was like a small dinosaur with six limbs, black feathers covering most of its body.  It was thin and lithe, but its claws were large – and deadly.

There was more than one.  His system highlighted six, with perhaps one more still in the undergrowth.

He was moving quickly, flying by the two terrified Hessa who were still running away.

He let out a loud warning call; a klaxon, at a high volume, that he hoped would scare them.

The predators flinched, their gaze just lifting to notice him as he arrived.

Sliding to a stop, his leg lashed out, taking the one on the woman’s back in its sternum, snapping its body back and flinging it up and into the forest.

It would be dead from a crushed chest, he calculated.

As fast as he was, wild predators like this had lightning reflexes, too, and two of them reared, leaping at him in one smooth movement.  Their two sets of higher limbs reached out to grasped him, while their more heavily-clawed back-limbs ready to tear.

He twisted, one of the creatures sailing past him.  It flailed its arms, trying to grab him, but it could only rake at the clothing over his shoulders.

The other one he could not dodge, and his automated reactions kicked in again.

His hand snapped out, grabbing the creature by its long neck before it could reach him.

Its head snapped forward at the unexpected and sudden stop, and its limbs flailed, trying to kick up at his arm to slash him, but metal and carbon nano-tubes were more than proof against natural claws.

Holding the thing by the neck for a moment, he flung it aside, hard.  It hit a tree, but started to stir immediately.

There were more, though, and despite his actions they were not yet ready to back down.

He let out the klaxon call again, as they began to spread out around him, and they flinched.

That was when he saw that some of them were not surrounding him – they were moving past him.

After the other two Hessa, who were still running towards the village.

They wouldn’t reach it in time.

These animals, if they were bold enough, would catch them.  The villagers would then likely come back out with spears, and drive them away.

What drove these animals on?  His system worked at hyper-speed, calculating them, and the situation.

The feathers covered the creature’s bodies, hiding details.  But their feathers were unexpectedly dull.  It was not uncommon for animals with feathers to have bold coloration, and a good shine.  It would usually be taken as a sign of good health, even on Ko.

They were also much smaller than the !Xomyi, a third the weight of a grown man.

These were not normal predators, he thought.  These were creatures in desperation.

And there was an obvious culprit; the moon’s falling debris, though not yet threatening total destruction, was already changing the world.  The Hessa had commented how things had been changing.

So these animals were starving, desperate.

They would not stop just at scary noises.

A fraction of a moment had passed; the predators chasing the villagers had taken barely a step, and the Hessa they chased had not even lifted a foot in that time.

His hand dove for his side, where his sidearm was holstered.

Another animal leaped at him, and he swatted it aside with one hand, turning in the same motion, and aiming his sidearm with the other.

He fired twice.

Both predators chasing the running Hessa dropped.

The crack of the pistol firing went across the ground, and he saw the !Xomyi stumble, looking back in terror.

The animals near him flinched at the sound, so much louder and harsher than his earlier warning klaxons.

But they did not run.

He turned and fired at one more.

When the third one dropped, the rest of the predators finally scattered in fear, rushing back into the bush.

In the distance, the !Xomyi were on the ground, still frozen in place, gazing upon him with fear.

He holstered his gun, cursing in his head.  The !Xomyi hearing was much more acute than that of a human, and in ranges that the sound of his weapon would hit hard.  He couldn’t blame them for being terrified.

He crouched down to the Hessa on the ground.  She was not moving.

“Come on,” he muttered, feeling her neck.  Where was the blood?  The predator had been cutting into her bag, not her . . .

He felt no heartbeat.

“No, no, no . . .”

He rolled the woman over.  No, not a woman, but a girl.  She was barely an adult, soon to be married.  Her name was Fyyna.

He scanned her, looking for injuries.

There.  In her neck, the bones were broken.

It had not been the claws, he realized.  But simply the impact of the predator.  She’d been knocked down, and her own thrashing . . .

She was dead.

< Ep 12 part 51 | Ep 12 part 53 >

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Admiral Brax listened to them with a sober seriousness that was nearly unnerving.

Four hours ago, they had withdrawn from the area of the moon Omen, pulling back to the diplomatic carrier.

After consulting with Ambassador-General Abashidze, they used the Craton‘s zerodrive to open a faster-than-light data channel to the nearest star base.

It was a stretch, nearly four light years distant, but they had a tenuous connection.

And they had given their report.

“When you told me that an Annihilator appeared, I . . . found it difficult to believe,” Brax said.  “But your data is clear.”

“None of us want to believe it,” the Ambassador-General replied.  “I have seen it as well, in our sensors.”

“It is still holding position near Omen?” Brax asked.

“Yes, Admiral,” Jaya said.

Brax frowned, looking down in thought.  “I would like to tell you that I will have reinforcements out there soon, but I cannot do that.  Assistance is a week away at best.”

“If the Aeena wish for a fight,” Jaya said.  “I will do all I can.  But the real problem is that we can either fight or carry the Ambassador-General’s ship out.  We cannot do both.”

“And doing either abandons all those teams on the surface,” Brax replied.  “It’s a difficult situation.  If you are fired upon, you do have permission to respond.  I won’t sit here safe and tell you otherwise.  But I suggest you act as if you hold a position of strength.”

“They must have been waiting just out of the system themselves,” Jaya said.  “I suspect that message that came from the facility on Omen was meant for an FTL repeater, and then they jumped in.  They could have a fleet out there.  We would not know until the light of them reached us.”

“I do not expect the Aeena know the disposition of our forces.  They can’t know what you have waiting just out of sight,” Brax said.  “However, I do wish your input; if need be, we could abandon this operation, withdraw all teams from the surface, and leave Ko.”

Jaya glanced to Abashidze.  The ambassador’s face was stricken.

They had discussed this idea – frankly – while they’d been warming up the Craton‘s zerodrive for this call.

“We will stay,” Abashidze said.  “I will make the call, with all repercussions if it proves to be the wrong one.”

Jaya hoped that Brax would not try to argue the point.  After their talk, she and Abashidze had been in unanimous agreement on this.

“Very well,” Brax said.  “I admit that I am glad.  I did not want to have to abandon the !Xomyi people.  I frankly do not believe that the Aeena will attack you – if they would have been so inclined, they would have done it immediately when they arrived.  Now the word is out, and to do so would bring another war.  One which I do not think they want.”  She paused.  “You have told me the basic facts, but what have your teams learned from everything you’ve discovered?  The Aeena clearly are the ones behind the mysterious constructions on the surface.  But for what end?”

“Commander Cutter has been modeling the effects of the station,” Jaya said.  “His report . . .” 

Jaya found herself hesitating.

What the Bicet had discovered was, perhaps, the most disturbing part of all of this.

“He believes that the pattern on the map observed by RT-1 in the structure they explored indicates that a system of similar stations that would be capable of braking the moon in its orbit.”

Brax’s eyes widened.  “Are you saying that the Aeena have caused Omen to fall towards Ko?”

Jaya nodded, swallowing.  “We believe it is the most likely scenario.  By braking the moon, it would fall into a lower orbit . . . and towards Ko.  Given a few years of firing the zerodrives, it would be possible to destabilize the orbit completely and . . . put the moon into the position it is at today, where it would begin to break up.”

Despite having heard this analysis already, Ambassador Abashidze sat down.  “I still cannot even countenance this idea.  The Aeena are . . . xenophobic and genocidal, but to do this . . .”

After a moment, Brax nodded to Jaya.  “Please go on with your report.”

Jaya replied with a nod and continued.  “In their final firing, the zerodrive stations folded themselves into zerospace.  I suspect this is also why they had the mercenaries on the planet, they must have been involved and could have revealed this scheme later on.  They were never meant to leave the world alive.  By putting the AI in the commander’s helmet and continually dangling greater rewards and bonuses in front of them, it could keep them unaware until it was too late to even call for help.  Once Omen crashed, all remaining evidence would be destroyed.”

Brax spoke.  “But the one base on Omen failed to put itself into zerospace.  It simply shut down with a partial meltdown.”

Jaya nodded.  “When my team found it, it was reactivated.  I suppose it had connections to a hidden transmitter, which called out to the Annihilator, telling them of the problem so that they could come in and fix it.”

“When they appeared,” Brax said slowly.  “They likely did not know you had people on the surface.  Perhaps not even that the Craton was lurking nearby.  They must have hoped to strike and destroy the remaining facility before we could find it.  If they had succeeded, we would have had an alarming event, one worth complaining about diplomatically, but never have known that they were the cause of Ko’s destruction.”

Jaya felt almost as sick as Abashidze looked, but she kept it in, stuffed it down, focusing on the facts, and her duty.

“All this just to exterminate a people who are still hunter-gatherers?” Abashidze said, her face pale.  “Why?”

Brax sighed.  “We all ask ourselves the same question – how could they?  But the Aeena deem all other intelligent life a threat and insult to them.  Now, or in the future.  If the !Xomyi had been left alone, we don’t know where they might be in ten thousand years.  They might have become space-faring and be colonizing worlds and systems the Aeena considered theirs by right.”

“If,” Jaya said.

“But I still do not know why this much secrecy,” Abashidze said.  “That one Annihilator could have destroyed all life on this planet, yes?  Why so much effort to hide their work?  It must have taken years and huge amounts of resources.”

Jaya knew the answer, but she looked to Brax, knowing the admiral had already understood all of this, and could say it better than she could.

“Because,” Brax said, “if their plan had worked, they would have had plausible deniability.  The light from such a moment will forever be traveling – and someday someone will see it.  I doubt anyone would have cared or noticed the small convoys traveling to a moon and made the connection that they had caused it to fall.  But if they had seen an Aeena warship exterminate a helpless species, they would know forever that they are an enemy.”

“Why the moon, though?  I do wonder that,” Jaya admitted.  “An asteroid a fraction the size would have worked.”

“An asteroid we could deflect.  As you said – we cannot stop Omen now.  At least, that is what I suspect,” Brax said.  “Or it may be part of their supposed obsession with moons.  We may never know for sure.”

She shook her head.  “The Aeena started their war with the Union with the sterilization of a Coral-populated system.  They did not know that the Corals were part of the Sapient Union, or even that the Union existed.  Since the war, they have learned a lesson, just not the one we were hoping for.  We hoped they would see that they lived in a populated universe and would act accordingly, not attempt such a barbaric action again.  But they only learned to take a new tact.”  Her expression turned even more grim.  “They will continue, I think.  They believe their result inevitable, no matter how many millenia it takes.”

Jaya felt her stomach heave, realizing that in some sense today they had beaten the Aeena’s plan.  All of their efforts to hide the fact that they were attempting to genocide the entirety of the !Xomyi people had been in vain.

Not that it helped the !Xomyi or Ko.  The world, and any life they could not pull off it, was going to die.

Brax saw the look on her face.  “Yes, Acting-Captain Yaepanaya.  I know what you are thinking.  But know that you did well today.  Your teams helped uncover a great crime, an act for which five of them gave their lives, the all of their hearts and bodies.  Today we won – and we will be sure to tell everyone else about what has happened here.”

The Admiral sighed again.  “But even victory here is not something that we can feel good about.”

< Ep 12 part 49 | Ep 12 part 51 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

“The Aeena vessel is still not responding to our hails,” Shomari Eboh said softly.

The bridge was deathly quiet, everything in combat mode.

But what a combat it would be, Jaya thought.  The Craton was at every disadvantage; they were still extricating themselves from the moon’s trail, a predictable path.  They had to meet up with and recover their shuttles, which would leave them vulnerable.  And on top of that, the diplomatic carrier was present and completely defenseless.

They were at optimal range for the enemy particle cannons, a weapon against which they had little defense except being at extreme close range or extreme far range.

“Coilgun shots!” Smith called.  “They’ve struck the moon!”

“Are the shuttles out?” Jaya demanded.

“Still looking . . .” Smith replied.  “We’ve got them!  They appear to be intact, moving away from the moon on expected evacuation course.”

“Establish contact with them,” Jaya said.  “And keep trying to get through to that Aeena ship!”

The Annihilator was still lazily cruising, nearly 5,000 kilometers out from the moon and planet.

Its particle cannons were still warmed up, but the ship was not aiming towards them.

With even longer barrels than coilguns, the Annihilator had to be built around its terrifying primary weapons.  They ran the length of the vessel, all of that length a particle accelerator.

A single shot would reach them in less than a second at this distance.

The particle stream would punch excited electrons through the target.  It wouldn’t just cause physical damage, but overload and destroy computers near the course of travel . . . and each contact with an object would create a burst of deadly radiation that would poison thousands of people.  And the Annihilator had six such cannons.

“Captain,” Shomari Eboh said.  “We have . . . received a response from the Aeena ship,” he said, his voice incredulous.

“Put it on,” she said.

An image appeared on the screen, hovering just over the Aeena ship.

Jaya had not expected an Aeena to be on-screen.  The reclusive species did not show themselves, even if one must be in command of the Annihilator.  Instead, it was a Fesha.

Some said the beings looked like creatures from old Earth mythology.  Jaya did not see it in their crystalline bodies that were translucent to the human visual range.

The being was wearing a fine robe that seemed more fitting for some ancient kingdom than a warship.  But it was finer than any petty emperor of the ancient world had ever possessed, every inch of it a work of art, inlaid with symbols that she knew told the story of this individual, and a highly creative history of his people, glorifying their position as Honored Slaves of the Aeena.

“You have been seeking an audience,” the Fesha said.

Jaya’s heart was pounding.  Ships of the Union and Aeena had not interacted in decades; all correspondence and diplomacy was by messages.  What she was doing now, attempting to speak to the captain of their ship, was not something she should be doing; it was far above her pay grade.  Yet she had to; not out of anger, but to at least figure out what they hell they wanted.

Her hand moved in a command sign language, out of the view the Fesha had of her.
Contact the Ambassador-General.
Shomari Eboh signed back; they have not replied.

It seemed that the Entente was running silent on the other side of the planet.  It made sense; signaling the Craton would betray their presence, and they were unarmed.  That meant Ambassador-General Abashidze couldn’t even know they’d actually made contact.

“I seek to speak to your master,” she said.

The Fesha did not blink or even move in response to her words.

Which, she recalled from her classes, was their way.  They simply would not respond to, or even acknowledge things that they would not comply with.

“Why do you bother me?” the Fesha said, his voice disdainful.  “I am degraded by your presence.  On top of this, you dare to bore me.”

“You fired upon the moon,” Jaya began.

“Oh?  This upsets you?” the Fesha asked.  “This is neutral space.  We are free to test our weapons upon any uninhabited body we choose.  You have no standing to complain.”

He waved, dismissively.

Jaya bit back her anger.  It was the point of such behavior, of course.  Interrupting was another habit of Fesha representatives for the Aeena.

“I had people down on the moon,” she said, forcing herself to stay calm.  “You . . . put their lives in danger.”

The Fesha was slow in replying, looking disinterested.  “If only we had known,” he replied calmly.

“I was attempting to tell you this,” Jaya said.  “But you refused my hails until it was too late.”

“How sad,” the Fesha replied.

“We will be filing a diplomatic complaint,” she said.  “To prevent further . . . misunderstandings, I request that your vessel leave the orbit of Ko.”

“Why?” the Fesha asked.  “You are free to leave.”

“I have business here,” Jaya said.

“As may we,” the Fesha replied.

“Then perhaps we should set some boundaries,” Jaya replied dryly.  “To prevent any future ‘misunderstandings’.”

The Fesha smiled.  Then the call ended.

Silence reigned on the bridge for long moments.  Jaya was not sure what she could do except continue to recover the shuttles, and once they had, to pull back.

“Captain,” Smith said.  “The Annihilator is putting its weapons on standby.”

A tension lessened in her chest, one she hadn’t even realized was there.

Looking to the Aeena vessel, she saw that its weapons were all now powered down.  But it was also rotating, so that they faced towards the Craton.

“How long until the shuttles are recovered?” Jaya asked.

“Twenty minutes,” Commander Zhu answered.

“As soon as they are recovered,” Jaya said.  “Pull us back, out of range of their weapons.  But keep them in sight if you can.”

< Ep 12 part 48 | Ep 12 part 50 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

“Captain, we’re detecting krahteon emissions from the asteroid,” Aminia Smith said.  “That’s . . . not good.”

Jaya leaned forward, looking towards Cutter.  “Could the zerodrive down there have activated?”

“Seems impossible,” Cutter said thoughtfully.  “But krahteon emissions would account for lost contact with teams.”

“Move us so we have a line of sight on their location,” Jaya said.  “Use direct communications methods!”

“Aye!” Ji-min Bin called.

It was a testament to the discipline of the command staff that they obeyed her order.  Line of sight for the teams would put them into the trail of the moon; where the most debris was.

It was not a position they could hold long, but there would be places of safety within it.  But such safety was relative, and their frontal shield was going to take a beating.

The ship shuddered.

“Two-meter asteroid,” someone called.  “PDCs got it just a dozen meters from the nose, pelted us with debris.”

“Keep up the defensive fire, but be mindful of the teams,” Jaya cautioned.

“Captain,” Shomari Eboh called.  “A coded transmission just came from the moon.”

“The teams?”

“No,” Eboh said.  “It is not using Union codes.  It was a tight-beam transmission, and wasn’t even pointed towards us.”

“Show the path,” Jaya said.  It appeared on screen.

It was headed out of the system.  But where?  There was no one else out there to hear.  Even if someone was listening from out of the system, light could only travel so fast.  It would take hours to leave the solar system.

“Can you break its code?” she asked.

“Working,” Eboh said.  “It is extremely complex.”

Perhaps it was originally meant to speak to someone far closer, she thought.

It took them precious minutes to get into position where they could see the teams.  The Craton took several more hits, none serious, but each one alarming.

“We’re going to need a new nose shield after this,” Ji-min Bin muttered.

“Quiet,” Jaya said calmly.  “Display countdown until we achieve line of sight.”

The countdown appeared on screen; only seven seconds left.

As soon as they got into position, Eboh had the line open.  “Teams One and Two, this is Craton.  Evacuate the site immediately!”

“We can’t stay here more than two minutes,” Ji-min Bin said.  “A big piece is heading towards us.”

Jaya could see pieces coming from the moon’s surface.  And highlighted was the position of the team.

“Maximum zoom,” she ordered.

The image appeared, and she could make out the shuttles of their teams.

“We’re getting an IR message,” Eboh said.  “It’s Commander Pirra.”

“Put it on.”

“Captain!” Pirra’s voice came through.  “The station zerodrive is activated, we’re pulling out right now.”

“What’s your situation?” Jaya demanded.

“Team One is preparing for liftoff, but the ground is shaking down here.  Team Two has a landing strut stuck in a crack, and they’re trying to get it free.”

Alerts suddenly sounded across the bridge.

“Something big is coming out of zerospace!” Aminia called.  “It’s – oh, dark.”

They all stared, as the object in question appeared.

The vessel was eleven kilometers in length.  It was a warship, one of a type that had not been seen by the Union for thirty-six years.

“Annihilator-type Aeena Battlecruiser has fully exited zerospace,” Aminia Smith said, her voice soft, in shock.  “Armed with twenty coilguns and . . .  at least six particle cannons.  We’re . . . we’re no match for that thing.  Not any day of the week.”

“What is it doing?” Jaya demanded.  “Is it warming up its weapons?”

“Uh . . .”  Aminia’s hands were shaking.

“Cutter, tell me what it’s doing,” Jaya demanded, whirling.

“It is warming all weapons,” Cutter said, even his voice just a soft hiss.  “And we are within range.”

“Commander Pirra, an Aeena Annihilator has just appeared,” Shomari Eboh’s voice came.  “You are ordered to take off immediately.”

“What?” Pirra called back.  An Aeena Annihilator, one of the most heavily-armed warships of known space, had just appeared above their heads?

How in the depths had that happened?

“Team Two still has a landing pad stuck.  I was about to send some of my team over to help get it free,” she called back.

“Belay that.  You are to take off now,” Eboh said.  “Captain’s orders.”

Pirra felt a surge of fury.  The Captain could not order her to abandon her people!

Except she could, she told herself.

But it wasn’t right, she argued.

She didn’t have all the information.  She didn’t even know if her people could get over to Team Two fast enough.

“Belay order to go out,” Pirra told Kiseleva.  The woman, two others with her, paused.  “Get back in your seats.  We’re lifting off.”

“Why?” Kisleva asked.

“I’m saying so,” Pirra snapped.  “Sit, now!”

She switched to Team Two’s line.  “We can’t send over help, Team Two.”

“That’s okay,” Devilleneuve called back.  “I’ve got two people out right now with shaped charges, they should cut the rock and then we’ll be free.”

It was a risky move, Pirra thought.  They had to have laser cutters, but those would take longer.

She felt her ship shudder, the engines roaring to life.  Thrown back in her seat, she turned her feed to the outside view of the other shuttle.

Small figures could be seen around it.  They moved back, then there was a flash.

“Ship’s free!” Devilleneuve called out.  “Getting team back in . . .”

There was another flash, though, and he cut off.

“Devilleneuve?” she called out.

“We’re okay!” his voice came back.  “Something happened . . . small explosion.  My people outside are down.”

There was a pause.  “They’re alive.  We’re heading out to get them.”

Another signal came through.

“Commander, this is Captain Yaepanaya.  The Annihilator is charging weapons, and they are aimed upon your location.  Get all you can out immediately..”

Pirra felt her heart as a hum in her chest.

“Devilleneuve,” she said.  “Belay that.  Lift your team off now.  Our location is being targeted by enemy vessels.”

There was no answer.

“Devilleneuve, this is not an option,” Pirra said.  “You’ll lose everyone if you stay.”

The line clicked twice.  It was not a voice confirmation, but it was acceptance, she thought.

Then she saw the second shuttle lift off.

A voice message came; it was from an individual still on the surface.

One of the two that she had just ordered to be left behind, she realized.

“We heard, everyone,” the woman’s voice said.  Pirra did not know who it was immediately.  “Get yourselves out of here.  Give ’em hell, and long live the Union!”

“Something big just fired!” Kiseleva yelled.

Pirra’s external view was just a flash, no true image resolving; even these cameras could not capture coilgun rounds, they simply moved too quickly.

The damage to the surface below was total; a full coilgun volley that left, down below, only a glowing crater.

< Ep 12 part 47 | Ep 12 part 49 >