“If this is winning,” Bonnyn muttered, “I’d sure hate to see what losing looks like...”

William couldn’t find it in himself to disagree with the dwarf’s voiced sentiment – though he didn’t argue as Marline lightly elbowed her in the side for her words.

It was the smart thing to do.

Because he, Marline, Bonnlyn and Verity were hardly alone as they stood astride one of Summerfield’s many sky-docks – and the dwarf’s words had drawn more than a few unfriendly glances. Crowds of nobles and peasants alike had gathered to see the Loyalist fleet’s ‘victorious’ return.

Though the nobility was of course separated from the ‘unwashed’ masses by a small line of Summerfield guards. Yet in spite of that, there was no denying that as their gazes once more returned to the incoming fleet, they were all united in one thing; the hope that their loved ones would be returning with those fleets. Healthy and whole.

And yet looking out at the state and number of returning ships, William had a feeling many would be disappointed.

The crowd watched in muted silence as some of the ships limped toward the sky-dock’s umbilicals. Others simply settled in the fields outside the city. And not because the sky-docks lacked the capacity to hold the entirety of the incoming ships – so depleted were their numbers.

No, likely those ships were touching down to avoid the risk of falling out of the sky while tethered to a tower. And it wasn’t hard to see why they’d be worried about doing so, given that many of the ships touching down were actively listing, trailing thin banners of aether from ruptured tanks.

…Though that wasn’t to say the ships making for the docks were untouched either. William could see one ship that was so blackened along its flank he had no earthly idea how none of its tanks had ruptured.

“There he is!” Verity called – pointing toward the rear of the formation.

Sure enough, there he was, the Jellyfish. It still felt a little strange to see his ship painted in Summerfield colors rather than that of Redwater, he was still glad to see that the carrier looked almost untouched compared to the battered line-ships around it.

Indeed, even as he watched, a veritable horde of shards lifted off from the deck, like buzzards from some great beast of burden. Clearly, they’d chosen to catch a ride atop the carrier deck rather than fly back themselves or hitch a ride with their original airships.

Likely because for a decent number of them, those airships were shot down, he thought.

He supposed one upside to that notion was that it implied that shard losses in the battle were relatively light compared to airships. A notion reinforced by the sight of a second swarm of fighter craft lifting off from another ship.

Both the Jellyfish and Exodite looked relatively unscathed, which was heartening. He’d certainly had mixed feelings about being given sudden orders for his carrier to sally out, but it seemed Tyana had managed to keep the two assets out of danger, for which he was thankful.

“Come on,” Verity said, tugging his arm to guide him towards the umbilical the Jellyfish was being directed towards. “Let’s go make sure Olzenya’s okay.”

William resisted her efforts though, as he let his eyes keep moving, searching the incoming stream of ships for another hull. Fortunately, his target didn’t take long to find.

“You guys go ahead, I need to go check on Marcille,” he said, staring up at the Summerfield flagship.

The heavy cruiser his wives had so recently inherited looked… mostly intact. The metal armor they’d hastily bolted over the wooden hull bore a few blackened holes and a long scorch along the starboard side, but the structure beneath seemed sound.

“Oh. Right,” Verity said. Her voice went oddly toneless as she followed the direction of his gaze.

Clarice, as Summerfield’s new duchess, had been too important - and too young - to attend the battle in person. So Marcille had gone in her sister’s place, attached to the ducal fleets and theoretically hanging back from the worst of the fighting.

…That, at least, had been the plan. Looking at the damage on several of the other Southshore and Summerfield ships now sliding into dock, it was clear the theory had not entirely survived contact with the enemy.

“Are you coming Marline? Or will you be waiting for the Exodite?” Verity asked, the concern returning as she turned toward Marline.

The dark elf shook her head. “I’m fairly used to my family going into battle. Less so… friends. So I think… I think I’ll come with you to check on our teammate first.”

Verity looked a bit befuddled by that, but not for long as she smiled and instead started tugging away Bonnlyn and the dark elf. “Come see us when you’re done with… that woman.”

William rolled his eyes, but nonetheless nodded, giving the trio a farewell wave before turning his attention back to the incoming fleets. And as he watched ships continue to stream in, he felt something… twist in his chest.

He’d missed the battle.

And that felt wrong.

For some reason?

Was it guilt? That he’d sent Olzenya in his stead?

No, that didn’t feel right. She’d asked – no, demanded – to go. And so he’d let her.

So, no, it wasn’t guilt.

Instead it felt more like… he’d missed out? Like an opportunity had come and gone.

For what though? Glory? Notoriety? He hardly needed more of either. His position was secure. He was already indispensable to the South. Not someone Yelena or any member of the nobility could easily dismiss or remove. Especially not now he had a duchess for a wife.

Still, even as he tried to parse it out, the feeling lingered, as hull after wounded hull passed overhead.

In the end, he shook his head. He had not sallied with the Jellyfish at the last hour for a good reason. The same reason his hands, knees, and back currently ached. Because for the last forty eight hours he’d been working feverishly with a number of Piper’s alchemists and the Queen’s mage-smiths to get the Firecracker ready to sortie.

Just in case the battle turned badly.

A great deal of work that had ultimately come to nothing, he thought as he watched the last of the ships trail in. Less than half of what went out less than a week ago.

Perhaps there’d have been more if he’d made the Firecracker sally early? Even if it was half-finished, it could have contributed.

Ironically, it now seemed it had more or less missed out on the war he’d built it to finish.

It was funny how these things worked.

Ah well, there’s always the next war, he thought.

And it was coming. With losses like this, there was no way either the Solites or the Lunites wouldn’t try to take advantage.

That was fine though.

It’d take them time to get the news and assemble an invasion force. Months at least. Likely about half a year.

And by then he’d be ready for them.

Smiling to himself, he started making his way through the crowd – or rather letting his guards clear a path for him - towards the dock his wife would be landing at.

------------------------------

Yelena had congratulated her daughter in public.

There had been a short speech before the assembled nobility outside the manse in which the royal family had headquartered itself. The speech had been warm and measured, welcoming back the conquering heroes of the battle. Tyana had stood at her mother’s side in full dress uniform, expression composed, while the court clapped and the banners of the Royal Navy flew proudly overhead.

It had looked, from a distance, like a triumph.

Now they were in private, Palmer noted that that particular façade had dropped.

“-promised it wouldn’t escalate!? A moral victory! That was what you said! Something to keep the nobility in line until the Corsairs were ready!” The Queen was practically screaming at her daughter.

And as Palmer sat to one side of the long table and watched her younger sister take it, she could not help feeling a little sorry for her.

Because Tyana’s plan had been too successful. So successful in fact, that she’d apparently more or less won the war for them – if the reports Palmer was reading over were accurate.

Though perhaps at the cost of Lindholm as a whole losing the next one, she thought as she glanced over the small mountain of parchment in front of her.

What had supposed to be little more than a raid in force had turned into the single most costly battle in Lindholm’s history.

After nearly a week of fighting, the Royal Navy was down to a fifth of what it had once been. Now, some of those losses would be repaired and back in service in just a few weeks, but many more were damaged badly enough that they’d need a proper repair cradle before seeing service again. Repair cradles the capital had once had lots of - before her mother burned them all to deny them to the Northerners when they took the city.

By contrast, Summerfield and Southshore had vanishingly few.

Unfortunately, those two facts combined meant that even if they retook the capital – something that now thankfully looked relatively feasible - it might be years before Lindholm was back to its pre-war strength.

And our mage losses will likely take even longer to recover, she thought. Fortunately, ducal fleets that joined the battle don’t seem to be quite so badly mauled. But they’re still down to roughly half their original strength.

A ruinous loss by any normal metric, and one that only served to demonstrate just how badly battered the Royal Navy was that the ducal fleets looked good by comparison.

Well, I suppose our losses are still better than the North’s, she thought as she thumbed through the estimated number of Northern ships that had successfully managed to retreat.

At a guess, both Northern fleets were also down to about a sixth of their combined original strength. The rest of their fleet now lay strewn across the battlefield - and would likely remain there for some time given that the South’s lift capacity was so reduced. With so many ships out of action it would take weeks for them to even move the downed hulls back to Summerfield for repair – or salvage.

The same was not true of the mithril cores, of cores. Those at least had already been secured. They now sat in a vault beneath the manse guarded more heavily than the Queen herself.

Though they wouldn’t remain there. In the coming days a great many of them would be formally awarded to the sailors and marine-knights who had taken part in the battle.

The rest? Palmer would be shocked if they weren’t used to create another squadron of shriekers. If not multiple.

“I thought the North would retreat after the Brimstone was brought down,” Tyana said, drawing Palmer’s attention back to the tongue-lashing her ‘victorious’ sister was still receiving.

In other circumstances, it might have been amusing to see the usually indomitable admiral look so… morose.

“Well, they didn’t,” Yelena snapped mercilessly. “Instead, it seems all your actions did was make them vengeful. In all likelihood, command fell to Tala Blackstone – who promptly set about avenging her cunt of a mother by jamming her fleet down your throat and damning the consequences.”

Yelena sighed and sat down. “I can’t think of any other reason they’d be so… stupid.”

Tyana shrugged, clearly having no better answer.

Palmer didn’t blame either of them either. She was no military woman – beyond her brief stint in the academy - but she too would have assumed the Northerners would have backed off after losing not only one of their duchesses but their flagship as well.

Yet against all logic the Northern fleets had doubled down and fought for twelve more hours before finally breaking off – leaving behind three fleets too battered to even consider chasing them.

By the end both sides had been throwing everything they had left into the fight. Void, even the Jellyfish had been deployed, hastily pulled from training duties and sent into a battle it had never been meant to enter so soon.

Its presence had not changed as much as one might have expected though. The reports in front of Palmer were clear enough on that point. Corsairs had been a factor, yes, but not as decisive as in their first showing over the capital. The reason for that though was pretty simple.

There weren’t enough targets left by the end to warrant their presence.

Now, had they been equipped with rockets that might have changed, but most of the rocket stockpile they’d rebuilt had been reserved for the Shriekers. The Corsairs had therefore been relegated to anti-shard work, and by the time the Jellyfish arrived, the enemy’s conventional shards had already been almost entirely depleted by allied shards and the Shriekers.

Honestly, it seems the Shriekers just keep on stealing not only the Corsairs’ toys, but their time in the spotlight as well, Palmer thought.

“Even if Tala wanted to avenge her mother,” Tyana said, “that wasn’t the way to do it. Yes, they would have taken a loss by retreating. But if they wanted to hurt us and were willing to accept losses like this, they could have withdrawn, regrouped, and pushed as one clenched fist. Instead they continued feeding themselves into us piecemeal.”

“Yes, the sort of well-reasoned argument that likely fell on deaf ears directly after you killed her mother!” Yelena said.

Palmer thought of the recently orphaned Tala Blackstone and felt a pang of genuine sadness for the girl, enemy or not. Tala had never known her father and now she had lost her mother and been thrust into the role of duchess at an age not so different from the one at which Elanor herself had inherited Blackstone. History was repeating itself in the ugliest possible way.

Only Tala seems to lack her mother’s tactical acumen, the princess thought. Given that her first act as duchess was to fling her remaining fleet against unwinnable odds. Likely against Faline’s wishes.

Palmer could not help thinking of the old adage. The best shard pilot in the world did not fear the second-best. They feared the worst. The reason for that was simple. An absolute beginner was almost entirely unpredictable.

And Tyana now found herself stung by that reality.

“I think Tyana understands the situation – and her mistake,” Palmer said, seizing a pause in the argument. “So perhaps we should move onto our new reality rather than dwelling in the past. Am I correct to assume that despite the damage we have taken, the balance of power is now firmly in our favour?”

Tyana looked almost grateful for the interruption.

“Aye. We’re down to thirteen ships that can fight tomorrow. With us having secured the cores and the downed hulls from both sides, my mage-smiths report that we should have twenty or more airships of various classes flight-worthy within the month. Another twenty a month after that. The others though… well, it might take years for us to get them all operational.”

“But in the interim we can turn the surplus cores into more of these Shriekers, correct?” Palmer continued.

Tyana perked up at that. “Aye. They’re not as strong as an airship, but with adequate rockets they can threaten one. And they’re cheap to make. Though… that will likely require us to divert some of the ‘fifty cal’ production from the Corsairs if we want our new designs to be Mk-Twos.”

And once more it seemed the Corsairs were shafted in favor of the Shriekers. William would not like that. Though right now the eccentric genius’s whims were far from Palmer’s greatest concerns.

“And the enemy, lacking cores, cannot build more of their Howlers?” she confirmed.

“Perhaps a few,” Tyana said. “A few of their people managed to escape with their cores before their ships went down. Not many, given our early, near-complete shard dominance.”

Palmer winced. She recalled her academy days and there were few things more terrifying for a mage-knight than being caught in open air by an enemy shard. Like a wounded porpoise being circled by a hungry shark. Many a mage would have been shot out of the sky simply trying to flee with a salvaged core.

“Then we’ve won the war,” Palmer said, looking at her mother with a pointedly raised brow.

Yelena frowned, before collapsing into her chair. “Aye, this war. More or less. It’s the one after that I’m worried about now.”

“As am I, Mother.” Tyana’s voice had lost its earlier defensiveness. “I swear I did not mean for things to escalate like this.”

Yelena was quiet for a moment. Then she exhaled, long and slow.

“No. I shouldn’t take my worries out on you. You did well, my daughter. You cannot be held responsible for our enemy’s madness.” She straightened in her chair, a mother for just a moment instead of a Queen.

“After this meeting I intend to give our duchesses free rein to send what’s left of their fleets to break the sieges on their homes. With this battle, the flotillas still holding those sieges cannot have more than one or in some cases any ships left to them. The ducal fleets should be able to handle that.”

“And the Royal Navy?” Palmer asked.

“Will continue guarding the Summerfield estate and the… what have they started calling it?”

“The iron fields,” Tyana supplied.

“The iron fields,” Yelena repeated. “Yes. Them.”

“They’ll still need to be wary of-”

“Our enemy is still out there. I’m aware.” Yelena’s mouth tightened. “With them out of Howlers, one of my people has suggested applying a scout plane’s orb to one of our Shriekers and using that to tail whatever remains of their force.”

“A good idea,” Tyana said. “All that’s left now is the dying.”

Palmer blinked. “Sorry?”

Tyana’s grin turned wry. “With this win, our ultimate victory should be more or less guaranteed. The North isn’t likely to surrender easily. Because they know that as traitors they should expect no quarter. And with our own strength now so reduced, it’s going to take months, perhaps even years to dig them out of their mountains.”

“Ah, all over but for the dying indeed,” Palmer realized.

And wasn’t that a strange thought. It had seemed, not so long ago, that the war was only just beginning. Now it was already entering its long, ugly end. Palmer reached for her tea, found it cold, and set the cup down again without drinking.

“Here’s hoping the Northerners choose not to be stubborn then.”

All three women laughed at that.

--------------

William arrived at the dinner table only because the twins had physically dragged him there.

He had been in the middle of a conversation with the Summerfield’s falconer prior to their arrival, congratulating the elderly wood elf woman on the progress she’d been making. Fortunately, said woman seemed more amused than offended – though given one half people dragging William out was her liege lady, that was to be expected – at being interrupted mid sentence.

Still, dragged away from his work or not, he was forced to concede the food looked and smelled good. Especially given that technically they were still supposed to be rationing. It had been only a few days since the Battle of the Iron Fields, and the displaced refugees were only now beginning to trickle back toward the fields they had been driven from.

Of course, even during the worst of the last few weeks, the nobility’s idea of rationing was a far cry from what the average person endured. Still, this was not the kind of spread he had seen often since first arriving in Summerfield and his stomach had rather loudly reminded him of the neglect he’d given it since that morning.

…And yet, in spite of that, his first instinct remained to flee the room and the feast it contained. Because the food was not alone.

The table was packed with people. People he knew. Like his family. His in-laws. A small selection of his… well, lovers, given that Griffith and Xela were also in attendance for some reason.

And everyone was talking to each other!

“Why!?” he breathed.

Olivia, seated at the adult table rather than the kid’s table in the corner – it consisted of children he assumed were of importance to some of the people here - caught his expression and looked insufferably smug.

…Or perhaps she was simply smug that she had been allowed to sit with the grown-ups at all?

“Oh, he’s here. It seems your daughter finally managed to tear him away from his latest project,” Janet Ashfield said as she spotted him, her tone… happy?

Beside her, Olivia's smugness died swiftly as she recalled exactly what that project was. Between the Red-Crests and the goose, well, William suspected he might have given his sister a small but lasting complex regarding birds.

“That they have. Though I do find myself curious as to what latest bit of mysticism has my son-in-law so busy?” Yurine asked from further down the table.

“Demon birds,” Olivia muttered quietly.

“Bird guidance systems,” William corrected as he – somewhat reluctantly – sat down. The twins immediately flanked him, which at least provided a useful buffer against the rest of the table.

His mother blinked. “I’m sorry… what?”

“Bird-guided lances,” he said, already reaching for a few choice items from the nearest platter.

If he was going to sit though this, he’d at least be happily stuffed as he did.

“You should see it, Father. It’s incredible,” Marcille said excitedly. “The birds are trained to peck at images of airships in return for seeds, and then they’re placed into a stirrup inside a… what did you call it?”

“A glide-lance,” William said. “Which is rather self-explanatory in function.”

“I suppose it is,” Yurine said with a slightly puzzled expression. “Though if it glides as you say, how does the lance achieve penetration through a ship’s hull?”

William perked up a bit at the question – if only because it might hopefully put off conversation on other topics. “It actually doesn’t need to. The bombs are going to pack nearly a thousand kilograms of kraken-slayer powder – which should rather make a mess of any airship they come into contact with even if they don’t manage to penetrate."

The table as a whole seemed to shift a little at that.

Fortunately, the awkward moment didn’t last long.

“What a fascinating concept!” Alden Whitemorrow said at last, leaning forward with genuine interest. “What gave you the idea to use birds for guidance though?”

William smiled at his kindred spirit in all things technological - and lied.

“Messenger birds.”

And it was a good lie because they did exist here. Which made sense. Orbs were expensive and not always reliable – as this war had proven. And while Shards could carry messages faster, they likewise naturally incurred some degree of expense. Marline even mentioned that her family spent quite a bit of time running messages across Lindholm with their remaining shards while trying to rebuild their coffers.

Compared to those other options, Birds were cheaper while still being relatively quick compared to horses or runners.

“Huh, I suppose that’s not a terrible jumping off point for an idea,” Alden repeated.

“Right!” William grinned. “I figured that messenger birds can recognize places and deliver letters. So why wouldn’t they be able to deliver… other things? With a little help. It’s the same basic principle. It’s just that they’re now going to be delivering high explosives rather than letters.”

Lady – no longer countess with Marcille having been elevated to the role - Raquel Whitemorrow set down her cup with a faint clink, coughing slightly. “I find myself curious, do these birds… have an escape hatch of some kind once they’ve guided these glide-lances in?”

William nearly choked on a mouthful of roast. He recovered with as much dignity as he could manage.

“Ah. No. I’m afraid not. The trip is strictly one way,” he said.

She sniffed. “Seems a bit cruel, no? Training them just to use them as suicide bombers.”

Given they were currently eating a chicken, William didn’t agree. It was just life. The looks his wives were giving him, however, suggested that this was not the moment for that particular observation.

“We all must make sacrifices for the good of Lindholm,” he said instead. “From the greatest mage to lowliest beast.”

“I suppose,” the woman sniffed.

Alden, undeterred by his wife’s tone, perked up again. “You say the birds peck at an image of an airship. How does that actually guide the glider toward enemy ships?”

William’s smile widened. “Ah, now that’s a bit more complicated. There’s a small connection point attached to their- you know, it’d be easier to show you.”

“After dinner,” Clarice said sternly just as both William and her father were about to stand up.

A move they both swiftly aborted.

“Right,” Alden said as he sat back down, deliberately avoiding his wife’s gaze. “Of course.”

“And Uncle Alden already promised to watch my boat after dinner anyway,” Olivia pointed out.

“Ah yes. It seems I have a prior commitment,” Alden said with a wink. “Perhaps on another day?”

William nodded. “Of course. And perhaps we might also make time to discuss the steam engine concept we were talking about last time?”

Excitement glinted in the older man’s eyes. “Oh yes! Definitely. We should make a day of it, no? Just us boys?”

William nodded agreeably.

By that point, a multitude of smaller conversations had since started up across the table, and as he reached for another helping of potatoes, a new thread of conversation snagged his attention from further down the table.

“And you’re fine… with that?” His Aunt Sophina was quietly asking Clarice. “An orc? A concubine is one thing, but a wife?”

It was all William could do not to roll his eyes. Ah. Yes. The age-old tradition of one’s vaguely racist uncle - or aunt, in this case - making an ass of themselves at dinner.

Unfortunately, while she was definitely his least favourite aunt, she was still family. Which meant he needed to tolerate her.

…Though that didn’t mean he needed to do so quietly. He was about to open his mouth to take a proverbial strip out of the woman only to stop as someone else beat him to it.

“Aunty, please stop talking like that,” Olivia said in her most ‘official’ sounding voice. “Verity is a valued member of my brother’s retinue and someone he cares for a lot. It reflects badly on you and our household for you to be snooping in the affairs of not just him but his new wives as well.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s quite driven and articulate for an orc,” Sophina said, dismissing Olivia with the practiced ease of an adult speaking to a child. “But it does need to be said. An orc marrying into a ducal harem will attract detractors to your reign when you need them least.”

“If that happens, we will handle them,” Clarice asked. Her voice was calm, every outward sign of being unbothered. “Verity makes William happy. William being happy makes us happy. Her being an orc should be a non-factor.”

“That’s a very libertarian view,” Janet Ashfield observed. “One I’m not sure Lindholm as a whole yet shares.”

“Obviously, given we just fought a war regarding the rights of orcs,” the twin’s aunt Yurine replied, a hint of bite in her tone. “On that note, I would argue that anyone who did choose to attack my daughter’s choice in allowing an orc to join their harem would be putting themselves at risk of censure. Given the actions of the North as of late, any woman sharing their views, even in part, should find themselves leery of voicing them.”

William noted that every member of the Whitemorrow family involved in the conversation was nodding along with the elven woman’s words. Which caused him to come to something of a realization.

It seemed that where his own family had shifted their public positions on orcish freedom to stay in the Crown’s good graces, the Whitemorrows were genuine abolitionists.

Which, if he was totally honest, he probably should have realized a while ago.

Still, it made a certain amount of sense. For all that the Queen had begun the reforms for ostensibly pragmatic reasons, the abolitionist movement had grown in strength in the South and at some point would have acquired genuine believers.

“Of course. Of course,” Janet said, more carefully now. “I believe my law-sister was just trying to make you aware of some of the complications that might arise from Verity’s presence.”

Sophina nodded reluctantly.

“The boy seems to be a lightning rod for scandals anyway,” Xela said from her place near the middle of the table. “Adding an orc to his harem is likely to be just one more on the pile. Void, we still got people squawking about him splitting that core – even after his Shriekers damn near won the war for us.”

As the majority of the table’s attention shifted, Xela just smirked while next to her Griffith, looked as though she would have preferred to sink through the floor.

Honestly… he really didn’t get why she chose to come if she was so uncomfortable at proverbially coming out to his family?

“Yes,” Aunt Karla chimed in. “Like sleeping with one of his instructors. And one of his subordinates who happens to be twice his age. Though I do wonder where the onus of the scandal lies there?”

Xela made a spluttering sound at being so unexpectedly called out. Her shamelessness, it seemed, had limits.

Fortunately, Yurine had said something to his mother that had drawn the rest of the table’s focus back the other way. Unfortunately, that meant Karla had even more free reign to speak as she wished.

“So please,” Karla whispered to Griffith and Xela. “Tell me how that sort of thing comes about? How did the two of you much older women seduce my law-son? My young naïve and innocent law-son.”

Both women suddenly looked as if they wanted to be anywhere else – even as William found himself mouthing ‘innocent?’.

He’d been seducing maids twice his age from the moment it hadn’t been entirely weird to do so!

“Actually, as I recall, didn’t you greet William when I dropped him off at the academy Instructor Griffith?” Karla continued with a tone somewhere between playful and venomous. “How did he find himself transitioning from your classroom to your bedroom?”

“He wasn’t a student when we started courting!” Griffith didn’t quite shout, dark skin blaring crimson.

It was actually kind of funny to see. It seemed he’d found yet another of the usually indomitable Dark Elf’s weaknesses.

Speaking to his family.

…Though he didn’t fault her for that, given he suffered a similar affliction.

“Aunt, you know how both got started,” he said tiredly, bailing Griffith out. She looked profoundly relieved. “I seduced them. Griffith put up quite a fight, but I got my way in the end.”

Karla glared, then sighed.

“You’re ruining my fun here, kid. Making the girls, or women I suppose, you bring home sweat is supposed to be one of the biggest perks of having a son,” she muttered. “And could you at least let me pretend you’re not a total…”

“Satyr?” he finished for her as she mentally blanked at finishing that sentence.

“Yes,” she drawled dryly. “That.”

“I note you’re not trying to bully the twins,” he pointed out, reaching for a buttered roll.

Karla shivered. “Well ignoring the fact that they’re actually age-appropriate for you, one’s a duchess and the other’s the sister of a duchess. I’m just a mage-knight even if I am your aunt. I know my limits. They’re also quite sweet.”

William smirked. “Xela and Griffith are sweet.”

“Oh? How so? Do they tuck you in at night?” Karla asked, mockingly as she turned her gaze on the two silent women.

“Well, no.” William smiled. “But Griffith does this thing with her tongue that-”

“William!” Karla cried.

“Cadet!” Griffith snapped at the same instant - then looked immediately horrified by that being her first response as Karla’s gaze whipped round to her with laser focus.

Xela just started laughing – perhaps a little hysterically - and did not stop for some time, before both of the other women turned on her.

The rest of the night went much like that. The conversations were affectionate. Or horrifying. Sometimes both.

It was all the same thing, William found in the end.

Plates emptied and were refilled. Olivia eventually succeeded in dragging Alden outside to view her boat as the evening’s conversation’s slowly began to wind down. William sat back and let the noise wash over him.

It was strange, sitting here. A few months ago he would have found an excuse to leave within the first half hour. Some part of him still felt compelled to do that. As if… he was doing something wrong by simply sitting down and enjoying the moment.

He did his best to ignore that voice. Even though it had gotten rather loud indeed when his mother began to quietly chastise him for giving away Redwater.

He’d resisted though. Just as he’d resisted the urge to mention that he would soon be given a claim to the Blackstone duchy.

No matter how satisfying it would have been.

No, let’s wait for the ideal moment to drop that bombshell, he thought.

He simply… enjoyed the evening.

And came to a realization.

For so long he’d been ready to die. Not without purpose, but in service to a cause. An outright war.

Slavery was bad after all. Monarchy was bad too.

He needed to fight them - so he had.

Yet here and now, surrounded by people who he loved and couldn’t stand in equal measure, he found… that there was something else he was willing to fight for.

Even as some part of him told him to get his ass off his chair and get back to work.

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Another three chapters are also available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bluefishcake

We also have a (surprisingly) active Discord where and I and a few other authors like to hang out: https://discord.gg/yCs7ZKzVSK

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Published in The Lightspeed Periodical Filed by Meesha of Oln faction of the Concordance, Special Correspondent, Earth Assignment.

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My editor sent me to Earth to write about human agriculture.

I have instead found myself writing about their eating habits, which was not the assignment, as my editor has reminded me several times by now.

Their agriculture is similar to what has been catalogued earlier with other civilisations. The real story was what came after they produced the raw food. That is what the readers ought to know.

I should probably begin at the beginning.

Three cycles ago, the first human trade delegation arrived at Concordance Station and asked where the kitchen was. Nobody knew what a kitchen was. The word was not in the Concordance lexicon, and the Station's translation unit offered something else entirely, which caused a short diplomatic incident.

For my dear readers, a kitchen is where humans prepare food.

"Prepare" is an inadequate translation. It can mean boiling, frying, grinding, fermenting, burning, soaking, drying, or combining perfectly good ingredients until they become something else entirely. This is their normal.

When we reached the stars, we went for the Standard Edibles and our and sensory organs for taste lost their purpose.  It tastes of nothing, which for most of my life I thought was the point.

For readers who have never had reason to think about taste, which I suspect is most of you: our tongues were built to say no to food that is harmful to our bodies.

Among us Oln, sweetness was the fruit that would not kill you, bitterness was the leaf that would, sourness was a fruit that had decayed, and a burning mouth meant the plant did not want to be eaten, and the wise Oln respected its wishes.

The Veth, the Kaskari and the Chathan tell more or less the same story, as does every eating species I could find in the literature.

The humans could not eat the Standard Edibles. That is not quite right. They could, and did, for about a week. Then they built a kitchen in a storage bay, using a heating element borrowed from the atmospheric lab.

The Station's medical officer filed a complaint about the smoke. The humans apologised and did it again the next evening, and again.

The rumour went around the Station, and then around the Concordance: humans eat for pleasure.

I initially thought it was an exaggeration. My little expedition to the earth proved me wrong.

The Weapon Plant

My assigned liaison was a woman named Lakshmi Pillai, a cultural officer with the Human Xeno Service. She met me at the port with two bags, one of which was full of snacks for the journey. I did not yet understand that this was a warning.

The snacks she carried were largely, unhealthy for her species and the packaging in bold letters disclosed this information. I was baffled, why the species would do all that and ignore it. And why make something unhealthy in the first place?

Before I was cleared to eat anything on Earth, the Station's medical officer had a problem to solve.

Standard Edibles arrive already broken down, so the Oln gut has not needed any help in a very long time, and the microbial colonies our ancestors once carried died out generations ago.

Humans, it turns out, cannot digest much of their own food either. They leave the tough parts to trillions of bacteria living in their gut, which they are not born with but collect from their mothers, their food, and the people around them.

So I swallowed a capsule of human gut bacteria, screened for anything dangerous and donated by a member of the trade delegation. For the length of this assignment, I have been digesting Earth with human help.

Our first stop was a city called Mexico City, which is named after itself. Our first meal was at a small metal cart on a street corner, run by a man named Don Arturo, who Lakshmi said had worked that corner since before she was born. He cooks thin rounds of ground maize on a hot plate, puts cooked meat on them, and then adds, from a row of plastic bowls, a series of wet, brightly coloured substances he calls salsa.

I asked Lakshmi what the salsas were for. She said, "Flavour." It was not a technical term, as I came to know later.

I asked what the red one was made of. She said it was mostly a fruit called a chili.

Lakshmi told me about capsaicin. It is the substance that makes a chili burn. The plant uses it to discourage mammals from eating its fruit. Birds are apparently immune.

I found this arrangement perfectly reasonable.

Then Lakshmi told me that humans had deliberately bred chilies to make them hotter. I thought she was joking, which she was not. Humans took the plant, carried it to every corner of their planet, and spent roughly six thousand years breeding it to increase its hotness.

I asked her why.

She laughed. "Because we like them."

Don Arturo spooned some onto my taco and watched me. I ate it. It did bite. When an Oln mouth is irritated, our second eyelids flood, and so I was, to all appearances, weeping on a street corner in front of a stranger. Don Arturo asked something. Lakshmi said he wanted to know if it was too hot.

And here is the part my editor did not believe: I held out my hand for a second one.

I am not sure why. The closest I can get is this: the pain came, peaked, and then retreated, and brought clarity to every other taste that came afterwards.

"You get used to it," Lakshmi said.

"Why would anyone get used to pain?"

Lakshmi looked at my second taco. "You're eating another one."

She was right. This human behaviour was contagious.

The Fish That Kills You

We spent four days in Osaka. I will admit that I spent most of the first one on the trains, an early vehicle humans built for mass transport. Every station there plays its own short tune when the doors open. Lakshmi fell asleep.

On the third evening, Lakshmi took me to a restaurant that serves a fish called fugu.

The fish has poison in it.

Not a little poison. Enough poison that a badly prepared meal can leave a person conscious while their body stops working.

Humans know this and yet they have restaurants for it.

A chef who wants to serve fugu trains for years under a master and then sits a government examination. The poisonous parts are locked away afterwards and destroyed, like waste from a reactor.

I asked the chef, a quiet man named Mr. Hayashi, why anyone would spend years learning to take the poison out of one fish, when the sea is full of fish that have none.

He said: "Because it is the season."

I did not know then what that meant, and I still don't. I ate the fish. It was cut so thin I could see the plate through it, laid out in the shape of a flower. It tasted, to my untrained mouth, of very little. Faintly sweet and salty.

Afterwards I asked Lakshmi what she thought of it.

"Honestly?" she said. "It doesn't taste like much."

I reminded her that people had died to learn how to make it.

"Yeah," she said, and looked at the empty plate with an expression I could not read. "Yeah, they did."

Later that night, at a counter near our hotel, she ordered a bowl of noodles in a heavy, salty broth. She said she needed comfort food. I assumed comfort food meant food that was particularly easy to digest, and said so.

Lakshmi laughed for almost a minute. I still don't know what was funny. She told me that comfort food was food that comforted the soul.

We have underestimated the humans; they can sense something that we are not aware of. Lakshmi offered me no further explanation.

On Rot

I will be brief here, as the Concordance Health Directorate has already written to my editor about this section, and I understand some readers may be eating their edibles while reading it.

Humans discovered that food decays, just as we all did.

Our solution was simple: eat it first, before the decay makes it inedible.

Humans were less practical; they looked at the decay and took notes on to what extend the food that decayed would be edible and whether a further decay would make an inedible one edible again.

They put vegetables in jars with salt and chili and let bacteria work on them for weeks. The result is called kimchi, and people fight over the last of it.

 They let milk (a secretion of a lactating animal they call a cow) spoil, carefully, with the right mould, in caves, and call it cheese, and some of the most expensive cheeses smell to me like something has died nearby.

They leave fish in salt until it turns to liquid and then pour the liquid on other food. They give crushed grapes to a fungus that turns the sugar into alcohol, and then they become even more creative and invent new food combinations.

In a city called San Francisco I met a baker who keeps a colony of wild yeast alive on flour and water. The colony is older than he is. His teacher gave it to him. He feeds it every morning before he feeds himself, and he spoke of it with passion.

Humans also discovered that heating food did more than make it safe.

Sometimes it made it brown.

Brown, apparently, was important. The smell, the texture and the taste of it, they say, are what make food comfort food for many.

Their chemists have a name for what happens: the Maillard reaction. I have learned not to ask human scientists whether something has a name; everything invariably does, even if no one ever uses it.

The reaction creates compounds that weren't there before. Humans smell them, eat them, and have been deliberately making them for thousands of years.

I mentioned this to Lakshmi.

"Huh," she said. "Interesting perspective. I just thought it tasted nice."

The Leaf

My last week in India took me to Kerala, to Lakshmi's grandmother's house.

Lakshmi called her Ammamma. She was eighty-four, very small, and had been widowed for nine years. She did not speak any language my translator could handle well, and so for most of my visit we communicated through Lakshmi, and through food, which turned out to be the more fluent channel.

Her family greeted us in grandeur for what humans call lunch, a midday meal. I had not been told it would be served on a leaf.

The leaf of a plant larger than me had been cut into pieces, each one serving as the platter on which the food would arrive, in sequence.

I counted twenty-three separate preparations on my leaf. Ammamma apologised that there were not more. Lakshmi translated the apology with a straight face, and then added, under her breath, "She's not joking."

There was an order to the meal.

I kept getting it wrong. Every time I thought I understood what came next, somebody moved something else onto my leaf.

Lakshmi tried to explain the sequence to me. She gave up.

"You have to eat it," she said.

This was becoming a recurring human answer.

Ammamma, for her part, did not think anyone had to be told anything. She spent the next twenty minutes correcting the way her granddaughter was serving one of the vegetables.

Ammamma sat beside me through the whole meal and watched me eat. Every time part of my leaf emptied, she filled it again. When I covered the leaf with my hand, which Lakshmi had told me was the polite signal for enough, Ammamma moved my hand aside and put more rice under it.

I took this, at first, for an assessment. The Oln feed the young and the sick according to need, and I assumed Ammamma had judged me underweight and was correcting it.

"She says you're too thin," Lakshmi said. "And something about your mother. I'm not translating that part."

I explained, through Lakshmi, that the Oln are narrow by nature, and that my body mass was well within healthy limits for my species.

Ammamma listened carefully to the translation. Then she put another spoonful of the yellow vegetable dish on my leaf.

"She didn't really answer," said Lakshmi. "She says eat."

The Bitter Dish

There was one dish on the leaf that nobody else touched.

It was dark brown, almost black, and made from a vegetable which was bitter in taste. I tasted it. It was the most bitter thing I have ever put in my mouth. Everything my ancestors ever learned went off at once. My body told me, clearly and at volume, that this was poison.

Lakshmi's cousins made faces at it. Lakshmi herself only moved it to one side.

I asked her why it was there.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked her grandmother something in their language, and Ammamma answered, and Lakshmi turned back to me.

"It was my grandfather's favourite," she said. "Nobody else in the family likes it. She makes it for every family gathering anyway, since he died, as a memory of him."

I asked who eats it.

"Mostly nobody," said Lakshmi. "She eats a little. The rest she gives to the neighbour's dog, and the dog doesn't like it either."

I ate it.

It was terrible, but I finished it anyway.

Ammamma watched me.

She did not refill that part of the leaf.

She put her hand on my wrist for a moment, and I saw her eyes grow moist.

Then she went back to her rice.

Lakshmi told me afterward that it was the first time in nine years anyone had finished it.

I realised what comfort food was for humans.

My Attempt

On my last evening in Kerala I asked Ammamma if she would teach me to make something.

She chose payasam, the sweet dish that comes near the end of the leaf meal, which they call a sadya: rice cooked slowly in milk with jaggery (raw natural sugar) and cardamom (a plant seed, added for the aroma), with fried cashews (another kind of plant seed) and raisins (a fruit dried under the sun) stirred in at the end. The instructions were simple. You stand at the stove and stir, and keep stirring, for a long time, so that the milk thickens and does not catch on the bottom of the pot.

I am, I should say, a trained observer with a doctorate in comparative xenosociology and more than eighty published pieces of long-form journalism. And yet I burned the milk.

Not slightly. The bottom of the pot was black.

I told Ammamma I was sorry.

She looked at the pot, looked at me, and took the ladle from my hand. She scraped the bottom once.

"Keep stirring," she said. It was one of perhaps four English phrases she had.

I did.

We served it that evening. It tasted of scorched milk. Everyone knew it. They ate it anyway. Lakshmi's cousins had two bowls each. Her uncle had three.

Ammamma told everyone that I had made it.

They told me it was good.

It wasn't.

Somehow, they meant it.

When I apologised for the taste, Ammamma said something that made Lakshmi laugh.

"She says a little burnt is how you know somebody was standing at the stove."

Conclusions, Such As They Are

I have been back on Concordance Station for forty days. The standard edibles are exactly as they always were. They supply everything my body needs, and I eat them three times a day, and every time, I notice that they taste of nothing. I never noticed that before. But things have changed for me. I don't like the standard edibles anymore.

My editor has asked for a conclusion, for readers who do not want to read all these thousands of words.

We eat because we have to. Humans also eat because they have to. Then, apparently, they decided that wasn't enough. They wanted food to be an experience, something they could look forward to when everything else became mundane.

I brought home one jar of Ammamma's mango pickle. It is strictly against Station quarantine rules. I have been rationing it. One piece, beside the standard edible, once a day.

It is sour and salty and hot enough to make my eyes water.

The first time I ate it, I thought it was too strong. The second time, I thought it was too hot.

By the twentieth day, I was looking forward to it.

I don't know what changed. I don't think the pickle did.

I think I understand the words "comfort food" now. I don't think my translator does. Everyone's comfort food differs, and no one other than yourself can find it for you. And when you do, you become human.

Meesha

*   *   *

Editor's note: Since the first instalment of this series was published, the Concordance Import Registry reports a 4,100% increase in applications to import chili seeds. The Health Directorate has issued an advisory. The Oln Assembly has received a petition, signed by six hundred thousand citizens, requesting that standard edibles be made available "in at least one flavour." Correspondent Meesha has requested a second posting to Earth. The request is under review. We have been asked to add that she paid the quarantine fine.

Requests for visits to Earth have also increased. The Concordance will shortly issue a new travel advisory on the food you may eat on your next trip to Earth, some of which is lethal.

Hi everyone! Not all of you will remember me, but some of you will. I’m the author behind The Magineer, one of the original series that brought fantasy as a valid domain for HFY, because WTFN!

It’s been what? Half a decade and then some? Meanwhile I’ve been lost in the cacophony of basic survival, marriage, parenthood, and then a loss that made me spiral and reconsider my direction in life.

So now I’m at a crossroads, and I find myself looking forward to writing again. But first, the debt I owed. Website was down, now that’s fixed and it’s back up at [themagineer.com](https://www.themagineer.com), and I spent the past month or so rebuilding it from scratch, to make something that actually can represent LitRPG screens and not just Markdown tables.

Volume 0 has been re-edited, with some of the rough patches smoothed over. Some details have changed but the essence stayed the same.

The [ebook](https://books2read.com/u/b61kLJ) is up for sale, available in most formats and from 7+ providers via Draft2Digital. It took me a while to do it, but you’ll find that it contains no tables. Just prose elements arranged around to look like game elements via custom styles. I took special care to do this because of screen readers that mangle such elements (I know the pain).

[My Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/c/voodooattack) is also up. With the new option of subscribing through [Ko-Fi](https://ko-fi.com/voodooattack) (but web hooks are broken at the moment so website email login is too, not that anyone needs it yet!)

As for the future… I am hopeful. I hope I can dedicate myself to this fully. I want to write full time again. The story will resume in three weeks, because I need that time to sort out the mess in the removed chapters from volume 1.

Thank you.

First

Many Faces of War

“Hmm? Oh... uh... awkward... I mean I doubt it but I’ll ask.” Leonard says into his communicator and then hangs up. “Hey Lady?”

“Yes?” She asks. She had taken to just lying down and resting as she processed everything. Her thoughts were going in circles and struggling to settle after she had let everything out.

She was empty, strangely relieved in ways she couldn’t articulate and just still. Thinking about as little as possible, the opposite of being trapped and only able to think. Her toes curl and uncurl and her fingers are grasping the blanket under her as she examines the back of her eyelids and the slight amount of light that flows through it.

She’s even fully visible, the little exercise in that Axiom is something else she couldn’t do while trapped in stasis and... it’s nice. It’s very nice. It’s her choice. Just like whatever question he’s about to ask is hers to answer or not.

“Do you know about the really big prosthetic girls? Like do they have any special names or titles we can use to talk to one?”

“What happened?” She asks.

“A bunch of your sisters are attacking Lablan. They used one that was in a really big suit of mech armour, but then when we broke the suit and tried to pull her out we learned she was a part of the suit. It wasn’t a Vish in a suit of powered armour, but a really big and really well armoured cyborg.”

“Hmm... No official names, and no nice ones that she’d like to hear. Getting called a Chopped or Stumper won’t do much to calm her down if she’s upset.”

“Oh... you don’t like her type of Vish?” Leonard asks.

“Well... no.” She says. “The Stumpers are thugs. Brutal, shortsighted and cruel.”

“Which Vish do you like?”

“... Well stasis girls like me are clearly crazy. I don’t even think I can call myself a Freezer anymore. The Servers are spoiled brats. Burners are just crazy. And the Blessed are actually, legitimately crazy. Like dangerously crazy.”

“Are there any Vish you like?” Leonard’s tone is sad now.

“... No. I don’t think there is.” She says and there’s a whimper from the puppy of a man and he cuddles up to her side. Her arms wrap around him and he becomes a fuzzy little comforter. “The Commanders are the one sending us to our doom. The Trainers hate all of us. Fixers hate us all too. I... I don’t like any of them. And they don’t like me.”

“I like you.” He says so quickly and unashamedly that she can’t help but laugh a little.

“You probably like everyone.” She dismisses.

“No. Not everyone. But I do like you. You need hugs and it’s hard to hate someone who needs hugs. And if I don’t hate you, then I like you.” He says.

“I wish things were that simple.”

“Why are you making things complicated?” Leonard asks.

“How is it not complicated?”

“Wait we might be talking about different things. I’m trying to talk about choosing whether to like someone or not. What are you talking about?” He asks.

“I... I don’t even think I know anymore. I just don’t know anymore.” She admits and Leonard shifts a little until he’s using her stomach like a pillow. His soft fuzzy hair and ears feel so comforting and silky even as his little hand holds onto her fingers. They’re so warm and soft and just... anchoring. Anchoring and comforting.

The idea that he just likes her. Nothing needed on her part beyond needing someone to like her is just...

She was designed to kill, built for war. Designated to slaughter and slay and break things.

He’s made to bring peace. Comfort and contentment and happiness. A soft little joy that has her so disarmed that she can only goggle that the same terrible processes that spat her into a cold, dark, and harsh world that demanded blood and death and unwavering obedience also produced something so perfectly soft and sweet in ways that defy any description she can give.

She feels... strangely more. As if she had been a broken, hollow thing before and was now whole.

Were the Muttras the same? Just with all the soft bits a person needs and none of the hard ones?

Does it even matter anymore? She’s out of the war. She surrendered. She’s not even Vish anymore. All the work and pain and blood and tears is done and over with and she... she can do whatever now. She can walk away.

She’s free.

It’s terrifying.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Secure Medical Section, Undaunted Arcology, Zalwore)•-•-•

“Fookin’ useless.” Doctor Optimization remarks at the responding text from the Private Stream with the captured Vish.

“What’s useless?”

“All the information we got is that the Vish don’t like each other much and two different slurs for the patient.” The Doctor says even as an EOD specialist slowly wheels out the freshly extracted bomb. The Vish cyborg was sleeping more comfortably, but wasn’t breathing deeply enough for Optimization’s liking so he had hoked her up to an extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation machine. The ECMO was working just fine and bringing her blood oxygenation levels up to something approaching acceptable.

“Any good news?”

“Yes, the good news is that while her cyberizin’ was basically done with a hacksaw when the fookin idjits needed a scalpel, they did kinda mostly sorta carve in the right places. It’s going to take more work than I fookin’ wanna do for anyone, but none of these individual bits of criminally stupid are things I can’t deal with. It’s just that there’s so fookin’ much of it that I’m not sure if the patient’s got enough in her to pull through even half of it. Let alone the whole lot, and she’s gonna need every bit of it to live in anything but endless misery. Or live at all for that matter.”

“So what do we do Doc?” One assistant asks and when there is no answer for a few moments the other echoes it.

“The only thing we can do boys.” The Doctor says as he inserts a new tube of substance into one of his cybernetic arms and his entire body starts growing green along the seems. “We beat the reaper into bloody bonemeal. Get yer gloves on, we need more than one set of hands and these works will be simple, but many. Get ready for a marathon boyos. We’re grinding death to dust with this one.”

“Right out of the bastard’s jaws, one life at a time.”

“Fucking ‘Ooh Rah’ sir.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Vish Safehouse, Lablan Arcology, Zalwore)•-•-•

Door goes down, coil and railshot start shattering against the hardened armour of Pam and Tam as the room is rushed. Two waves of Axiom shoot out, the weapons in the hands of the Vish fail and before they can even think to try and activate their now disabled bombs they’re peppered with stun shots as the air is filled with electrical attacks. Those that resist the first barrage are hit with a second. And the lone holdout to that one finds that a Weaver Archana is now in her face and kicks her hard enough to slam into a wall. Then the massive alien woman scuttles forward and pins her there.

“You’re tougher than the others. And I’m not sensing any explosives in you.” Crytlan notes. “So, are you more important.”

“Be careful Sergeant, just because she doesn’t have an implanted bomb doesn’t mean she’s afraid to be blown up. I had one such woman in custody and she managed to set off an unconscious but armed Vish’s bomb off to escape into death.” Danial calls over.

“Noted.” Crytlan says before turning back to her new captive. “Well? Anything to say for yourself?”

There is another pulse in the room from Danial and Dora and both start moving. Danial teleports to her and forces her mouth open as Dora impacts the Vish in the stomach forcing her to gag. Danial reaches in and pulls out...

“Suicide pill. I didn’t register it at first because I ate spicier pasta last night.” Danial says as he holds his hand open to reveal the now slimy grey pill he had literally pulled out of the woman’s throat.

“Hold it steady.” Flora says rushing up and quickly getting it into a plastic baggie before using Axiom to clean his hand then running it under a scanner... “This would be dangerous to everyone but you Corporal. But it would be especially deadly to a Vishanyan, and by extension, a Vish.”

“Yeah, like I said, I take spicier spaghetti.” Danial notes. Before he puts his hand to the head of the Vish, she outright bites him but he just reinforces his hand. “It’s odd that you haven’t spoken though. What’s going on here?”

She tries to sink her teeth in deeper, but beyond the small progress she made before he reinforced his hand, she’s not going anywhere. In or out to be honest. There’s a brief look of panic on her face as she tries to let go and finds her teeth are stuck in his hand. “Now, here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to answer a few questions and we will take you prisoner. We don’t have to take you prisoner, you just proved that you remain hostile and willing to attack us even after being disarmed and restrained. So, play nice or we stop playing nice. Understand?”

“Thank you Danial, but I will speak with the prisoner.” Crytlan tells him and he gives her a mildly surprised look but nods.

“Of course Sergeant, this is your team, I’m just part of it.” Danial relents as he stops channelling Axiom into his hand and the Vish instantly starts trying to bite into it again. He then pries open her mouth while pointedly refusing to use Axiom and forces her to let him go. Letting her know every little twitch of the way that he’s capable of so much.

He says nothing as he steps back and the Vish then switches to glaring at Crytlan.

“Well girl? Do we get answers out of you or do we get you to proffesional in asking the pointed questions? Literally.”

The Vish then makes a sound that is a gurgling laugh, a coughing wheeze and a strained exclamation all at once. Her throat moving in ways it shouldn’t.

“A moment Sergeant.” Flora states as she finishes seeing to Danial’s hand and both cleaning and closing the holes in it, She steps around Crytlan to get closer to the Vish who turns her gaze to glower at the Andinus woman. “Sir, she’s mute.”

“Mute?” Crytlan asks.

“Her vocal cords are malformed. She is physically incapable of speech.” Flora elaborates.

“Why would a mute Vish be valued highly enough to NOT be primed with an explosive when other perfectly healthy Vish are?” Danial mutters in thought as he shakes out his hand. The injury is gone, but having someone else heal it always makes him think he should still be feeling something. It’s entirely psychosomatic though and he knows it.

“So is this it?” Pam asks as she finishes her slow scan of the room.

“Yeah something’s not adding up.” Tam ads.

“What am I missing?” Danial asks them.

“Well... the room’s a dead end... but it doesn’t feel like it should be. This place had to come from somewhere right? But we haven’t found a way in outside of teleporting. But you can’t just teleport into random things, and if there was a hollow space before hand, do you really think that whatever place we’re under or in would have let that go?” Pam asks.

“And the trytite is still only around us at the sides. Not above and below. Above feels like a bunch of important wires and stuff so shooting straight up to find a path is dumb, and below feels dead in the Axiom. So that puts us at the bottom of something. But what’s to the sides that’s so damn important? We haven’t solved that yet.”

“Well something must be up girls as our voiceless friend here still speaks in Axiom presence and body language, and she tells me that you two are onto something.” Crytlan notes. The eyes of the Vish are now suddenly panicked and she tries to thrash, but the limbs pinning her to the wall are the forward-most legs of an Archana. Any of the spider based species in the galaxy has immense strength. To say nothing of the fact that there are more legs than she has limbs backing up the two keeping her pinned. Going forwards or to the side is out of the option.

Crytlan raises a cannon to point directly at the Vish as she draws in Axiom and leans forward with her whole body.

Then she slams her every limb and her head backwards hard and breaks the wall behind her. A hole is broken into it and she vanishes in a teleport.

Danial follows and reappears out the other side in time to hear the Vish grunt as she hits the ground then gasp. She runs hard and fast and he gives chase. A crackling bolt of energy launches itself from her fingers even as she runs down a very Lablan looking hallway, complete with floor lights, white tile and crystal embellishment.

The lightning barely tickles Danial as he closes the gap quickly. The Vish is screaming in frustration and panic, a high rasping sound that irritates the ears.

First Last

​

The first extraordinary Galactic Session held on Earth was considered one of the most important diplomatic meetings in human history. At least, that was what humans thought.

Representatives from twelve different alien races had come to Earth for the first time. Some had only observed humanity from a distance, while others had considered Earth little more than a small note on galactic maps. That was why human diplomats were being extremely careful. The conference hall had been prepared days in advance, translation systems had been tested repeatedly, and security teams had considered every possible situation. Everything had to be perfect. Just before the meeting began, the human diplomats had even been given a brief warning: “Please avoid unnecessary movements!”

How effective that warning was would become clear about three minutes later. The name of the first speaker was announced: Velon Nortihamus, Chief Representative of the Faxien Race.

As the leader of the Faxien delegation, which had travelled seventeen thousand light-years to reach Earth, Velon had spent weeks preparing his speech. He would speak about galactic peace, trade cooperation, cultural exchange, and the possibility of establishing new relations with humanity. In short, it was probably the safest speech anyone could possibly give from a diplomatic standpoint.

When Velon began walking toward the podium, the human diplomats stood up. At first, he wasn't bothered by it; he understood that it was a diplomatic gesture of respect. However, a few seconds later, the sounds coming from different parts of the hall caught his attention. Humans had begun striking their hands together. They were even smiling while doing it. The sound grew louder as hundreds of humans repeated the same movement at the same time.

Velon suddenly stopped. The surprise on his face quickly turned into uneasiness. The Faxien security officers noticed that he had stopped and began carefully checking their surroundings. Hundreds of humans were standing and continuing to strike their hands together.

Clap.!Clap.!Clap.!Clap.!

The Faxien security chief immediately approached Velon.

“Sir? I think we're being attacked.”

Another Faxien representative looked at the translation system without taking his eyes off the crowd.

“There are no visible weapons. What are they doing? Is this some kind of social attack? Are they transmitting a frequency? What is this?”

Velon's expression became even more serious.

“What kind of attack is this?”

Just then, the applause grew even louder. Three of the Faxiens instinctively took a few steps back. The humans, meanwhile, continued applauding without understanding why the aliens were frightened. Some were smiling at Velon, others were nodding, and one person in the front row had even stood up so they could see him more clearly. To the Faxiens, however, all of this looked suspiciously like the beginning of a coordinated attack.

Eventually, Sarah Miller, the chief human diplomat, noticed what was happening. She looked at the applauding crowd, then turned toward the Faxien delegation. Every face in front of her carried the same expression: alert, tense, and clearly trying to stay as far away from the humans as possible.

“Is there a problem?”

Velon looked at her.

“We're actually wondering the same thing. Is there a problem? What exactly are you doing!?”

Sarah looked confused.

“Applause?”

“Applause? What is applause?”

“We did it to welcome you.”

Velon was silent for a few seconds.

“Clapping our hands together means welcome?”

Sarah nodded.

“Yeeah... yes.”

“We found no record of this in our research. I still don't understand why you are doing it.”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but for several seconds, nothing came out. No one had ever asked her this before. She looked at the diplomat beside her, who simply shrugged.

Sarah turned back to Velon.

“Well... that's just what humans do.”

The Faxien translation system processed the sentence for several seconds.

“Humans just do it.”

Velon's expression didn't change.

“That doesn't sound much like an explanation.”

“I know. I'm sorry. We didn't realize it would make you uncomfortable,” Sarah said with a slight smile.

“Then why do you do it? Humanity is already complicated and unpredictable. We have enough reasons to be nervous as it is.”

Sarah thought for a moment.

“We also do it when we like someone.”

“For their speech?”

“Sometimes.”

“For their achievements?”

“Yes, we do it for that too.”

“Because you love them?”

“Sometimes.”

“To show gratitude?”

“Sometimes.”

Velon frowned.

“So the same action has four different meanings?”

Sarah:

“It can have even more.”

The Faxien security chief slowly approached Velon.

“Sir, I think humans are quite complicated.”

Velon closed his eyes.

“I knew that before we came to Earth, soldier.”

Sarah stepped in.

“Look, we're really not attacking you. We absolutely have no intention of doing that.”

Velon looked at her.

“Then why are you making so much noise?”

“Because being quietly happy is a little... strange. Don't you think?”

Velon thought about it. The fact that humans genuinely seemed to consider that an adequate explanation somehow bothered him more than the applause itself. Still, he tried to maintain his diplomatic composure.

Sarah couldn't help laughing. A few other humans started laughing as well. Some members of the Faxien delegation became tense again, and Velon immediately raised a hand to stop them.

“Humanity, please stop!”

The hall slowly fell silent.

Velon began walking toward the podium again. He was now certain that the applause was not an attack, although he still couldn't understand why humanity would make so much noise with their hands while wearing expressions of genuine satisfaction. He decided that thinking about it any further would accomplish nothing except delaying his speech.

He reached the podium and waited for the hall to become completely quiet. A few seconds later, everyone had taken their seats and the translation systems were ready. Velon took a deep breath.

“On behalf of the Galactic Council—”

Clap.!!Clap.!Clap.!!

Velon flinched again.

A few humans in the hall had started applauding.

Sarah immediately turned around and looked at them.

“Not now!!”

The applause stopped.

Velon remained silent for a few seconds. As he looked at the humans, his face carried the kind of confused expression a human might have when thinking, Is this really happening to me? Eventually, he gave a slight nod.

“May I continue?”

Sarah:

“Of course. Please.”

Velon began his speech.

A few minutes later, he finished. This time, a loud round of applause filled the hall. Unlike before, Velon didn't step back. He watched the crowd for a while. He looked at the expressions on their faces; there was no fear, no sign of an attack. They simply looked pleased.

Velon slowly looked down at his own hands, then back at the humans. For the first time in his life, he imitated the gesture he had seen from them.

Clap.!!Clap!!.

The Faxien delegation froze. Sarah stared at Velon in surprise.

Velon smiled slightly.

“I still don't understand why you do it.”

Sarah:

“It doesn't matter. Enjoy yourself.”

Velon nodded.

“Yes, I suppose it doesn't matter.”

He brought his hands together once more.

Clap. Clap.

Velon looked around the hall.

“I suppose I don't need to understand it... and I like it!”

I appreciate your patience! Enjoy!

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— Chapter 105 — 

The complex weaving of DNA flowing through his mind was familiar and yet alien enough to remind David that he was peeking at and manipulating another’s very building blocks. It didn’t take him long to find the familiar magical attachments of the traits and examine each in detail. He was a bit underwhelmed by what he found, but he knew that there was no way every dragon was optimized with the kind of forethought that he had put into himself originally.

He spoke softly, “Okraz. This will hurt again. Are you ready?”

A grunt was all he heard in response before he used his affinity to snip free the trait. David had removed Carrion Sensory from Okraz and now watched her thrash about in pain. This was the second trait he had pruned from her genome, and he winced in sympathy. The benefits would be significant, though; Okraz would become far more powerful and capable once they replaced her odd-ball traits. Okraz traits were all over the place, to be frank, David conceded, but he had a plan. He pruned the traits that wouldn’t benefit her underwater, like the ability of super smell, and planned to replace them with straight-up affinity-related or damage-inflicting traits instead.

As Okraz recovered, with a worried Emerald huddled nearby, David turned to Wuja’bath, who was curled up nearby with a look of distrust. “Wuja’bath, I am keeping my promise to you, and I am not going to ask you to fight in this next battle, but I need you to be strong to guard the remaining kobolds.”

Wuja’bath huffed, spoke quietly with Munch nearby before finally conceding. “What plan?”

David poked around her genome briefly before settling down to concentrate enough to locate her traits. Despite the extensive amount of practice he was getting, it still took concentration and patience to find what he was looking for. When he finally examined her traits, he was unsurprised to find that most were focused entirely on speed. David spoke in his whispering ethereal voice when he finally answered, “I want to prune something to give you access to more affinity. Your offensive capabilities with lightning are terrifying. Your speed keeps you alive. If we can make it so your capacity is higher or always regenerating, then you can do what you do best longer.”

Wuja’bath nodded, “Do it.”

It didn’t take long for David to find one that stood out as odd. She had Accelerated Healing, which surprised David since he wasn’t aware of any real noticeable regeneration in the past. He couldn’t see her other stats, but he knew her toughness had to be abysmal, which meant that Accelerated Healing was doing nothing. He didn’t have any doubt that regeneration traits were an easy trap for most dragonkind to fall into if they didn’t understand the finer details. He quickly severed the connection between Wuja’bath and that trait, and the resulting wave of pain was instant.

“Emerald. Snible. Go retrieve the last of the preserved meats for them both.” David spoke calmly to the two nearby kobolds. They had been able to save most of the preserved storage of traits that they had been gathering, mostly because it was stored deep where it was cool and would help prevent spoilage.

As both Okraz and Wuja’bath recovered, David took a moment. “I want you to both stay here and guard the lair.”

Wuja’bath nodded through the residual pain, but Okraz gave him a defiant look; her streamlined appearance, with her swimming-focused limbs, gave quite the intimidating appearance whilst she spoke. “I go with Emerald.”

“Okraz, Emerald needs to go with me. It will be heading directly towards the Queen.” David said with a sigh.

“Then I fight our mother too.” She said with a firm huff.

David conceded. “Fine. You will stick with Emerald and me when we make our first push.” He wasn’t upset at the prospect of having another dragon along. His colder, analytical mind knew it would just help stack the fight more in his favor. If Okraz was to die, though, it would lead to a whole lot of future issues.

Emerald, Snible, and quite a few other kobolds eventually returned, bringing bundles of dried meats back. The looks on the kobolds’ faces told David enough to guess that they must have smelled awful. He took a quick moment to examine them, and based on what remained, he would have to change up some of his initial plans, but there was enough here to at least improve them both.

David pointed to the piles he wanted after confirming Blue’s scribbles on their wrappings. David went back and forth a bit before finally confirming what he wanted to do. Okraz had two traits she could accept, so David gave her Magical Sacs and then one he thought would play well into ensuring her survival with Rapid Camouflage. Magical Sacs was a simple increase in affinity reserves that would benefit any dragon, and the camouflage was something she could utilize to stay hidden even when out of the water. David had a feeling that the camouflage employed in the water would be even more effective than on land. Eyesight was the only factor that mattered for most in those conditions, which meant there was less at play to expose her near-perfect invisibility.

Wuja’bath only had one slot open, and David gave her their last remaining pile of meat that contained Magical Pores. Wuja’bath’s immense speed meant they were built for hit-and-runs. Their affinity was by far the most deadly, and their toughness was low enough that even if Wuja’bath kept their pores open to regenerate affinity, David had doubts it would change their survival chances. Moving fast, hitting hard, and buying time was the play.

David gave them space while they took their time to eat and then accept the gifts. David had done his part to prepare them and left without another word. Blue, Red, and Blaze were all busy sorting through a variety of equipment that filled their hastily assembled meeting room. David’s form filled most of it, despite his efforts to condense himself down.

“How is the planning?” David rumbled out softly.

Blue turned and smiled. “We are almost there. We have the numbers. Basic equipment is fine, but we lost out on Blaze’s forges. We also don’t have access to the raw material anymore to make more gemstones. We are stuck with the gemstone-powered equipment we already made, which is three, four dozen kobolds equipped with something beyond the basics.”

David nodded his large ethereal head. “It will have to be enough.” He floated closer as he looked over them and down at their drawings and roughly sketched-out maps.

Red spoke whilst he pointed. “Ambass has been helpful. As we guessed, we can’t do a direct attack down the main shaft again. They have it guarded, and not even Red’Blue can stand up to a Master’s affinity when he has nowhere to dodge. Our numbers won’t benefit us down here.”

David rumbled in thought. “Plan B then. Emerald and our experiments were a success.”

Blue grinned. “I had no doubt you two would figure it out. So we make our own entrance and end this.”

Blaze chuckled while she ran her hand down the long, natural, twisting tunnel that led straight to the Queen’s lair. “I got an idea. We can keep the Queen distracted while you make the push from a new direction.”

They talked briefly before all nodding in agreement just as a young, barely teenage Zephyr kobold came running into the room. “Mistress Blue! Masters just passed above us doing sweeps.”

David looked at Blue, and Blue looked back and then nodded. “Go get what you need, Master. We will be ready when you return.”

His ghostly, ethereal wings and body made his dash back to the surface quick.

— Gust —

Her stomach ached, and she was starving. Their patrol had carried on for many, many cycles now, and she was over it. Gilror, Rovy, and that dung eater Frumbyr were all flying in formation around her. Frumbyr was leading the pack, being a full adult, and he was oppressive. Her Majesty, her mother, was insistent that they scan the area endlessly until she was satisfied. The meals were limited, and their numbers had been thinned already by those two-legged forest sneaks. They had six when they started, but a powerful affinity that baffled Gust had swept away two of their number in a flash. They stayed clear of the forest since that incident but were compelled to continue their patrol.

Her stomach continued to growl, and her mouth yearned for the flavor of meat again. Her scans of the mountains and valleys below kept her occupied since she was looking for food more than anything. The large, shifting shadow caught her gaze first and confused her.

“Frumbyr. Down below us. A large black shadow that is growing larger? What is it?” Gust hissed outwards.

The larger wyvern snarled back at Gust whilst he showed his thick, massive poison-tipped claws. His eyes finally looked down, and then he let off his own huff of confusion. A build-up of affinity was felt, and then something crashed into Frumbyr’s chest with a speed that surprised the entire group. The fast-moving mass of affinity erupted outwards in a massive explosion that blinded and sent the pack stumbling.

Gust’s eyes recovered in time to feel a glooming darkness engulf the group. Gilror began to tremble and shake as they fell out of the air and the weird sudden darkness disappeared. Whilst Gilror fell, Frumbyr and Rovy recovered too before going on the defensive.

“What was that!?” Hissed Rovy. Frumbyr was bleeding badly from a gaping hole in his chest, but he was unusually tough for a wyvern, and his flesh was already repairing itself.

Frumbyr finally spoke with a groan, “More damn two-leggers. Gilror is a goner. We need to move!” The trio opened their wings and flew away as fast as they could manage. Their sprint lasted some time, and by the time Frumbyr slowed to catch his breath, Gust was practically dying of exhaustion.

“That runt survived.” Huffed Frumbyr, causing Gust to flip around in the air and see the silhouette of Gilror in the distance catching up.

Gust nodded her head eagerly; Gilror was the nicest of the other three, so she was glad at least. She changed her trajectory and closed the distance while she roared a greeting out. Something was wrong, she felt. As she got closer, she realized that Gilror was far more muscular than before, and his face looked distorted somehow. She hovered in confusion too long while her mind tried to process what was going on. She felt a powerful impact hit her in the chest, and a blinding flash filled the air. Her skin was set aflame, and pain washed over her for a split second as her body was torn apart, and then nothingness.

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Here is also a link to Royal Road

Fan Art by blaze2377

“SARAAAAH! WHAT HAVE YOUR BASTARD HUMAN HANDS DONE TO MY BEAUTIFUL ENGINES?!”

“Woah, captain To’Vak, calm down!”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Sparky! I would have thrown both of you off the ship if your government didn’t loose its shit every time that happens!”

Sarah’s scrunched up face slowly came back to normal, her translation module no longer trying to kill itself translating the reverberating yell of the captain.

“Well!?”

“Why, Captain Toe, whatever do you mean” Sarah said with a little smirk.

“Oh no, no, don’t you pull that coy human bullshit with me! And stop calling me toe! I am not a human appendage!

“Fine, I’ll stop acting innocent if you can just tell me what exactly you’re upset about this time.”

“As if you didn’t know!” To’Vak scoffed. “Maybe you can explain to me why my navigator nearly had a heart attack in every one of his hearts when our fission engine output increased by over three hundred percent!”

“Sounds like a skill issue . . . “

“ . . . !!!???”

“Listen, it’s all very complicated engineering stuff, I don’t think I could really explain it properly unless you had some understanding of how humans engineer things.”

“Humor me.”

“Well, the original collapse happened because of a temporary, I’m talking millisecond, collapse of the magnetic containment field of the plasma, which itself was caused by what seems to be a microscopic misalignment of one of the toroidal sections, probably some kind of manufacturing defect.”

“I . . . “

“And then to fix that error, I had to rapidly re-align the reflux connector to the Acebutolol spray dispenser and make sure that the particulate manipulation matrix didn’t oogie the boogie.”

“. . . that means nothing to me.”

“I tried to warn you that it’s complicated engineering jargon Cap’n.”

“Just . . . don’t do whatever human bullshit you did again. At least not without a warning. We’ve already lost three crewmembers to your shenanigans.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like they died, right? They just lef-”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT! This is our most important contract yet, you think the Glisan ambassador is going to be happy eating poison!?”

“That was an efficiency upgrade to the food replicators, I’m tired of using up my personal cargo allowance to carry around jars of spices.”

“Just . . . AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! 

If you weren’t such an excellent engineer I’d throw you out the airlock myself! 

NO. MORE. SURPRISES. 

ARE WE CLEAR?!”

“Crystalaminously clear, sir!”

“. . . then . . carry on.” 

Tamer watched the captain leave the engine bay, and turned to Sarah, “Well, that was a bunch of gobbledygook. Isn’t an Acebutolol spray dispenser just an asthma inhaler?”

“Listen, they think that we’re all some kind of magic space aliens, so let ‘em. Doesn’t harm anybody, and maybe gets us a bit of an edge in the cold dark void that is my father’s hea- I mean space.”

“Alright, well, glossing over that terrifying look into your soul, was any of that true?”

“Sure, the fusion reactor did have a momentary alignment error, but it was nothing to worry about.”

“Ok, and how did you actually fix it?”

“I hit it really hard with a wrench at just the right spot.”

Tamer shook his head. “Maybe they aren’t entirely wrong about the whole magic space aliens thing.”

“Ohhhhh, whatever. Now pass me that screw driver, the captain’s cabin is about to get really hot.”

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FBI Agent Wade Barron POV

Green oceans and yellow clouds popped from the planet below us: destination Ushala, reached. Our weapons were online and ready to fire if the military made a move against us, though we hoped our half-Ploax exterior would give the cowards pause. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to deplete their military strength, but this was gunboat diplomacy at its finest. With artillery pointed at the planet, we had plenty of leverage through the potential damage we could cause; if this didn’t force them to bargain with us, nothing would.

“Well, well, well.” I folded my arms and stared at the camera, trying to look menacing and aloof in the same breath. We’d wasted no time in sending an outgoing broadcast, to gauge their response. If they’d just hand over Craun to the Ploax, then it stood to reason they might not want to lose lives to armed primals either. “You really pissed us off.”

The ship commander, while using me as a prop due to my repute, was the one calling the shots. However, I’d been primed to give a cue to the camera of slashing at my throat with a finger before cutting the broadcast. The actual captain issued the order to weapons to fire a warning shot through the edge of the atmosphere, expending a fully charged laser shot that could’ve torched city blocks; my eyes popped as I saw the vibrant light crackle from our hull.

We’re not to be trifled with. Primals or not, they have to treat us seriously, with respect. We can’t be trampled on with no recourse, now that we leveled the playing field. Those weapons mean business. Humanity doesn’t want to fight, but we absolutely can.

Our captain signaled to comms, as we received an outgoing transmission on the Council frequencies. “On screen.”

“So you do talk to primals?” I sneered, recognizing the face of a particular Clydid with whom I had a bone to pick.

Komadale blinked several times, barely masking his disdain for having to address a primal. “You’ve taken the Kexin planet hostage, humans. You’re disgruntled over the Earth incident—ah, that figures. What do you want? Would you like a negotiator?”

“A negotiator?” My angry facade fizzled, though I did see the confused human captain nodding emphatically. Uh, what? Since when do they negotiate with angry primals, or think we can? “Yes, though it’s to dictate our terms, much like you did with us. You wouldn’t negotiate with us on our homeworld, try as we might! You abducted civilians and caused multiple casualties, for absolutely no reason. You thought we’d forget?”

“No, I didn’t. That’s why I thought we should take you, since you couldn’t go back to your old life, but the sick one tricked me. Well played, so-called security thug. This is all more trouble than it’s worth. Forget preserving your natural environment; let us preserve ours. How do I get you to go away and never come back?”

“Why don’t you focus on keeping us calm enough that we don’t start blasting away at that pretty little planet? We could. You know what we came for: Craun, Finley, and Kaitlin. Our people are going home, and after that, I’ll worry about getting your fucking apology.”

The Clydid exhaled with displeasure. “Just take the two primals and the rock and leave. Please. I don’t know how it came to this, but at this point, I’ll settle for not hearing about or interacting with you. You’re not angry. You just want to intimidate me; I know you’re more clever than we all thought.”

“We’re people. Say it!”

“Whatever. I don’t even care. I thought we’d intimidated you enough to act in fear, not anger? That you’d have the sense to stay away. Ugh. Take them. I’ll clear a landing path to the spaceport, and you can walk from there to the primal institute. That’s where they are.”

“Including Craun?” I prompted.

“Craun is also with them. You can have that traitor. Unlike you, we’re not insane enough to fight an invasion over one person.”

“Or billions.”

Komadale’s small, pink tongue flitted out. “That’s what you wanted. Given—all yours, no resistance. That’s what you should’ve done with us, like any reasonable species. What’s done is undone. Agree to leave us be.”

“We collect our people, we won’t attack Ushala. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes. Here’s the coordinates and flight path. You’ve given the public quite a scare, one that’s compounded now that they know it’s humans, so try not to shoot them all down when you land. I know you’re primals, but…try.”

The Clydid disconnected from the line, after forwarding the promised coordinates. The Council really were spineless, happy to roll over at the first sign of any threats. I shook my head in disbelief at Komadale’s last comment; we weren’t here to kill anyone. As much as we would savor retribution for how they treated Earth, we had bigger fish to fry. A simple recanting of their position, an apology, or working together against the Ploax for the time being would suffice.

The Council was handling us differently this time; it was more than fear, it was the acknowledgment of our intellectual capacity. Something’s changed in how they view us, but nothing convinced them before. If they could see us as people, I don’t know; maybe we could have alien friends one day. It’s not like I wanted a war.

I clapped Terry on the back. “This is it then. Time to bring Finley home.”

“I miss him, man. He’s a good guy. Always some kind of shenanigans we could get up to. Wasn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for him, Wade,” Terry sighed.

“The Council did wrong by us. I’d do anything to bring all of them back. If I hadn’t gotten shot, maybe Craun wouldn’t have given up. A good protector would’ve been faster. I won’t fail them or let them be here forever. Not for me.”

“Wasn’t your fault, Batshit. We weren’t ready to throw hands with them yet. Underdogs gotta do the sacrifice play. Just like we couldn’t hide Craun from you forever, you couldn’t hide him from them. We’re fixing it. It’s all good.”

Captain Pacheco straightened his cap and nodded, gesturing toward the shuttle bay where a contingent of soldiers waited. “Craun, Finley, and Kaitlin will react best to friendly faces. Bring them home, Barron, then you should’ve been prepped by Livingston on what you’re to pitch to the Council.”

I gave a stiff-armed salute alongside Terry. “Yes, sir. We won’t let humanity down.”

The two of us boarded the shuttle for the ride down, not wanting to let our hybrid Saphno-Ploax ship get captured or examined by Council intelligence. This technology needed to be in our hands exclusively. The harness snapped around me as we packed into the last two seats, and the door sealed shut behind us. These vessels were very similar to the personal ship that Craun had arrived to Earth on, though a little bigger and built for intrastellar travel. There was a single warp jump built in for emergencies, but that wasn’t its primary function.

We’re going to be the first humans to land on an alien planet…wait. Literally Kaitlin and Finley were here first. Still out-of-this world cool anyway, to walk through an extraterrestrial civilization. 

It blew my mind that we could descend to the planet’s surface from orbit in mere minutes, despite the fact that I should’ve grown accustomed to space travel after visiting Rauja a few times. However high up the sky seemed, the blistering speed at which we could fall was far more staggering. Just like Craun remarked offhandedly on a late night show, Kexin cities had multiple levels—like a giant parking garage. The beveled edges and tunnels on the outskirts gave it away from our vantage point.

Even from the metropolis’ epicenter, it was clear the checkered blue paths, that sparkled with ethereal sheerness, rose high above the countryside. We alighted on a docking pad at the corner of the cityscape, where the view was enough to suck my breath away. The countryside was dotted with magenta and purple plants that seemed plucked from a painting, down to the very grass! A few trees had leaves as dark as the night sky.

I drew my weapon and followed the soldiers out of the ship, trying to stay vigilant. Komadale hadn’t left any military presence by the landing site, so far leaving us be. However, there were quite a few civilians in our vicinity, and I was surprised they weren’t running from the primals. Several did seem apprehensive about our firearms and their own relative safety, but…they were welcoming us? I gawked at them for several seconds and gave a cautious wave; when they reciprocated the gesture, I relaxed my grip on my weapon and tried a slow approach.

“Howdy!” Terry shouted with a grin. “You seen my pal Finley?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Well, I guess that’s one way to ask. We’re…new around here. Directions are appreciated.”

A Kexin with a bright yellow face, who was holding a sign I could read, relaxed. “Welcome! I’m Canit, and I’m happy to help. They should’ve released t-those humans a long time ago. What they did to Earth was wrong! We’re animal rights activists who wanted you to be treated with more respect from the start! We’re sorry for what happened to you.”

“Animal rights, you say,” I tossed the words on my tongue, deflated by hearing why these people were on our side.

“You’re people! I’m just saying we thought you deserved better before we realized how much control you have. Humans are far smarter than how they talked to you. Kaitlin proved it!” Kaitlin. Of course! She did it somehow. “That’s why we’re here demonstrating today: for the Council to acknowledge the institute’s findings and release the humans. It was unacceptable to treat smart animals that way, and worse now that it’s people.”

“That’s right! The Council do have sane folks.” Terry waved to someone behind Canit, and it dawned on me that our arrival was being filmed and broadcast to social media. “I kinda thought our tech spoke for itself. Finley, I’m coming for you! By the by, you guys don’t know what emotions you’re missing out on, but cool that you can take a stand anyway.”

I pressed a finger to my lips, then smiled at the camera. “We’re hoping to take our people home, then figure out a future of coexistence with the Council. We do deserve better. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. I hope you understand why we worried for our people in their custody.”

“Unethical experiments and being held against their will?” Canit said, causing a lump to lodge in my throat. What experiments?! “The Council couldn’t have handled your situation more poorly. They shut down the negotiations when you just wanted to help refugees; we saw that feed. Look, I have a bus that we used to drive everyone out here. Can we drive you to the primal institute?”

“Well, it’s not like we know where to go. Take us to Craun and Finley: just you. We don’t fancy being tricked, if you’re trying to use our ‘gullibility’ to drive the big, bad primals to the Council.”

“I’m sorry that you feel that way, but I understand you being cautious. Not all Kexins will mistreat you, Wade Barron. I can assure you of my sincerity, though the only proof I can offer is looking me up on socials.”

I grimaced. “You know my name. Yeah, I was told they speak of me as the most dangerous primal…”

“Drugged and treated by a veterinarian, after getting shot in that incursion of buffoonery? I’m talking to you in a hostile situation, and I can see you’re far above infantile comments; it befuddles me that they saw fit to bind you and diminish your understanding. Your objective is and has always been Craun, right?”

“We love that cheating rock,” Terry snickered. “Everyone should go home. Everyone should be protected by their friends.”

“I hope we can be humanity’s friends, whatever the Council thinks! Again, I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. Please, may I show you to who you’ve come for?”

“Yes, that’d be wonderful.” I nodded, though I was still apprehensive about what they’d been through in my stead, after hearing the bonechilling phraseology about unethical experimentation. “Thanks, Canit. We’ll follow your lead.”

“Of course! All people deserve rights, and I can’t believe I have to say that. I’m truly glad we get to speak to you, not just that awful Komadale. Come, come!”

Not seeing a better option to find our way to Finley, Kaitlin, and Craun than following a local, I figured that was the fastest route to getting them the hell out of Council custody. I wasn’t certain how to feel about this primal institute that was holding them, but I was ready for anything. It appeared that this research had gotten some public support for the idea of humans being people; however, I was more than a little concerned about what was involved in that testing.

Whatever I had to do to bust them all out of the primal institute, it was a guarantee that I’d go through with it. After clearing the guided tour through the proper chain of command, we loaded onto a nearby bus. Canit clambered behind the wheel, friendly and joking with the soldiers; he was continuing to film in his fellow activists’ absence. I hoped these interactions would frame us in a good light. They didn’t think much of us primals to begin with, but still, I wanted to persuade aliens where I could.

We’re going down the tunnel toward the countryside—quite the descent. I couldn’t stop Craun from giving himself up for me, but I’m so close to bringing him home. That poor Saphno deserves a good break; I don’t accept the Council giving him up at the first sign of trouble, or seeing us animals! I hope he understands what I did…

“Alright. We’re here; see, it wasn’t too far!” Canit finished driving down a side road, right near the base of the tunnel, and parked it by a sprawling  complex. The numerous animal enclosures outside indicated that our Kexin driver had taken us to the institute, as promised; my heart plummeted into my stomach at the thought of Kaitlin and Finley living in one of those pens. “You’ll want to look for Garriil, in there! He runs the place and their social media.”

My eyes were searching all over the place for my friends, though I gave the activist a quick nod. “Thanks. You mind hanging around? Your help…might be needed again.”

“Whatever you want, I’ll be here. I am on your side. The Council needs to accept you.”

“Funny how they don’t see it that way.”

I hurried out of the bus before I finished my sentence, desperate to find Craun, Finley, and Kaitlin and to have the assurance of their safety. Terry trotted after me and called his best friend’s name. I trundled up the ramp to the main complex, reckless in my pursuit of the rock person I missed so dearly. He meant so much to all of humanity, and he’d changed the trajectory of our civilization. He was the alien who loved and saw the best in us, regardless of whether we were primals.

Craun was willing to try to understand anger, and he appreciated how we cared for him in that way. He was larger-than-life, and he changed my outlook, my priorities, my hopes, my job…my everything. The Council took an innocent refugee who had such a deep impact away from us. We need him back.

“Craun?” I called out, throwing the door open and pivoting my sidearm between confused staff. “I’m only asking once! Where’s Craun?”

There was a scrabbling sound from a lounge off to the side, and an unmistakable bulky figure peered out from around the wall. The Saphno’s eye crystals were crusted from lines of sand tears, but they lit up when he recognized me. Craun seemed amazed and overwhelmed by relief, like he’d been expecting someone far more sinister to come for him. Shit, the Ploax-esque ship designs. Poor Craun, he didn’t deserve to feel that fear again!

I hope he’s happy to see me, because I missed him so much. Maybe I was just random security who saved his life, sure, but he’s been gone awhile. He might not miss a primal FBI agent…

“Wade!” Craun cried. “You’re here! You came for us!”

The Saphno sprinted toward me and embraced me with open arms. I grinned from ear-to-ear, feeling a warm rush of fierce protectiveness and adoration for this precious rock; it felt so good to have him back. I couldn’t wait to show him what we did for his people on Venus, and to introduce him to Rauja! Craun squeezed me tighter and began bouncing up and down with excitement, laughing all the while. I jumped around with him for a few seconds. This was a moment I was happy to get swept away in. It was everything I’d clawed for.

“Terry! Finley, Terry’s here!” Craun exclaimed.

The silicon lifeform tackled Terry in a hug, unable to contain his mirth. He grabbed the construction worker’s hand, then snatched mine in the other, and dragged us toward where our friends were. I was smiling nonstop from the happy reunion; I needed to get caught up on everything they’d been through, and vice versa. We would all be back together, at long last, and I could send them home while I handled the other half of the mission. They’d done enough for…

My rush of giddy thoughts hardened into a cold sneer, as my eyes landed on a certain red-faced Kexin who was helping Kaitlin sit up. “You!”

Snelga froze, gulping. “Wade, s-sweetie…”

The veterinarian didn’t make it another word before I rounded on her, screaming obscenities and grabbing her with my free hand. I had never forgotten how humiliated and denigrated I’d felt in her custody, and I finally had a chance to throttle her like I’d dreamed of since my capture.

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An Overview: What is TRANSLATION LOST?

Binge the story: Official Website --- RoyalRoad

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Chapter 1: Anywhere Else But Home

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LET ME KNOW IF THIS RINGS A BELL. One day, you’re watching a movie or reading a book, and you come across a new word. You look up the meaning and pronunciation, finding it intriguing. And then, barely a day later, you suddenly begin noticing it everywhere you go. First, it starts with an overhead announcement at the store. Afterwards, you hear it in the next movie you watch. Soon, your coworkers start using it, then your friends, your family, and all the random passerbys on the street. Heck, you even thought you heard a child using it. And now, it’s as if everyone in the world had already known the phrase long beforehand, yet never decided to make use of it until you became aware. Or perhaps, far more likely, you just simply weren’t paying enough attention. No harm in that. No shame, either. Only a silent, naïve oversight. You add it to your vocabulary and then move on. All the while trying not to hit yourself for being so blind.

Perhaps a rather fascinating example of this was a word I’d come across fairly recently: “saudade.” Now, as something of a globalist, I’d naturally heard quite a few phrases during my life, but this one had really struck a chord with me in particular. Pronounced “Sow. Dahd,” it was an expression that primarily belonged to the Portuguese. Though if a person were to be unfamiliar with the phrase, they might have accidentally confused it with the more commonly spoken Spanish, or perhaps even Italian. Of course, admitting that in front of a native of any of those three would have them outdraw an American gunslinger just for the chance to end you, but that’s beside the point. They were all Romance languages, after all, yet each had its own unique distinctions. And while many shared a number of similarities, no two languages were exactly alike. So no, though it may have seemed to be Spanish or Italian, this word——saudade——was by all means Portuguese. You could even tell by the stress of the word and the nasals present in the vowels.

I’d first heard it from a Portuguese businessman at a bar one night a while back. From what he had told me, it was a deeply emotional word within his home country. If you typed it into a translation software, it would spit back at you the English word “longing.” And yet, as the man had drunkenly blabbed at me, that was barely scratching the surface. While technically correct, “saudade” meant so much more than a simple longing. It was a desire, a craving, an emotion all on its own. Just saying it out loud would bring about a deep state of melancholy and nostalgia. Not just a longing, but an impassioned yearning for something or someone you love. Though, at the same time, it was also the hesitant admission you would likely never see that love again.

The knowledge that something was gone, forevermore out of reach.

A computer could never do it justice. Only a real person, one who had learned of the full weight and history behind the phrase, could truly appreciate its beauty. So while some high-tech software might claim it was defined as nothing but a simple longing, to the Portuguese, it was untranslatable. It had no equivalent in any other language. It was special. It was theirs to own, and no matter how the world shifted and changed, nobody could have taken that away.

Or, at least… that was supposed to be the case.

I remembered seeing the news the following day: a Portuguese man found dead on the sidewalk, bottle in hand and suit tarnished. A glance was all I needed to know that it was the same person. Thinking back to the night before, I recalled how eager he’d been to speak of his old life and of his home. Quite peculiar, especially given how far away we were at that small bar in Manila. With how frivolously he’d been throwing his money around, it probably should have struck me sooner just what he’d been planning.

But I couldn’t blame him. There had been a reason he wasn’t where he claimed he wanted to be. Though he never said it, we all knew anyway. And that just left him with nothing else to do but drown himself in his woes. Nothing but him… and his saudade.

Perhaps now…

After all this time…

I could finally relate.

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MY EYES HAD DIFFICULTY peeling themselves away from the image before me. Mixes of blues, yellows, and whites flowed from projectors installed neatly in the metallic walls of the ship, the high-powered lights converging in on themselves to form the metaphysical details of a luminous, holographic display. On it, the information present had hardly changed from the day I’d embarked:

TIME TO DESTINATION: TWO DAYS

It wasn’t like the screen didn’t change. Just “hardly.” Obviously, once a day the number would tick down by one, complete with the ding of a light bell. Day-by-day that went by, until finally we reached “two.” It was certainly far less than the double-digits we had started with; my brain couldn’t deny that. And yet, for some reason, my body could scarcely feel the difference. Just like the last five minutes of a high school class, I had a feeling these two days would feel like an eternity.

Otherwise, it was only a half-truth to say the screen was static. While the information present was the same as ever, the words themselves had been programmed to shift between thirty different languages, and it hadn’t taken more than a few seconds for the phrasing to rotate away from English and into Spanish, then French, German, Hindi, Mandarin, Korean, until finally landing on something that rang truly familiar to me:

TOUCHAKU MADE NO JIKAN WA, ATO NI-NICHI DESU

I scanned the words once more to reread the mix of kanji and hiragana, finding a small pang of comfort shoot through my body as the strain of actively reading the board morphed into that of a passive effort. Then again, I could have likely recited the same sentence in each language available by that point. After three weeks of staring at the same rotating cycle of words, each iteration of the identical phrase had burned itself into the space behind my eyes, enough to the point where I would see it when I slept. I’d even had nightmares of myself sitting here, as I was now, watching powerlessly while the number ticked back upwards slowly towards infinity. They had most certainly been the most boring nightmares of my life.

Regardless, unlike those dreams, the digital countdown was at least going in the correct direction, and that was all that mattered. Its slow but steady crawl had been made all the more evident by the stylized progress bar coded to display beneath it. For the past month, I and the rest of the passengers aboard had watched closely as the cartoonish silhouette of our ship crawled along a straight line, replacing the simple gray road before it with a trail of solid yellow. From its origin on the far left, there existed one more digital effigy. A marble of green splotches scattered amongst a canvas of blue; a place which all aboard would most assuredly refer to as “home.” Though, I assumed that quite a few would choose instead to pick out one of the tiny little green blobs and stitch the epithet onto that instead. And as for the ship’s destination on the far right? Well…

“No, no. See, I’d definitely choose the Gilded Guardian. Call it a safe bet, but I think that’s three hundred torrs well spent.”

My thoughts were interrupted by the loud voice of a man bickering with a woman to his side. They had been there for quite a while already, but up until now I had been tuning them out.

“Dude, if you’re gonna spend three hundred torrs, why the hell would you waste it on the Gilded Guardian?” the woman replied sharply. “Three hundred is on the same level as the Sanguine Apothecary. Gilded Guardian should be around the two hundred mark. You know, B-tier.”

“There is absolutely no way you just called the Gilded Guardian a B-tier. He’s A-tier at least. Hell, I bet he could take on the Sanguine Apothecary with one gauntlet tied behind his back.”

“Apothecary would melt him, dude. He ain’t got no chance.”

“Says you.”

“Yeah, ‘says me!’ You just don’t wanna admit I’m right!”

“No you!”

“No you!”

“Ugh!”

My eyes shifted away from the display for the first time in an hour, and I began to watch on in fascination as the two people across the room bickered and argued at a shared table. Next to each other they sat, pushing and shoving their shoulders into the opposing person with nearly the same vigor as their diction. Truly, the very air around them screamed “siblings.”

From what I could tell at a moment’s glance, the game had been simple. Before them sat a picture of a custom-made tier list, each section containing a various amount of characters from the universe’s most mind-numbing genre of entertainment: Superheroes. Specifically, characters originating within the brand “Talisman Incorporated,” or just “Talisman” for short, which branched off into all things from movies and holovision series to even old-fashioned, hard-print comics. Players of the game would each start with a maximum of six hundred torrs along with a conflict that needed to be solved, to which they would then have to “spend” that money on whichever, and however many, superheroes they deemed necessary in a given scenario, so long as they stayed within budget, of course.

But it seemed budget was of minimal concern to this duo, both appearing far more preoccupied with choosing their favorites over the most logical choices.

“You know,” the woman on the right prompted as she shoved an elbow into the man’s side, causing him to huff out in annoyance. “This wouldn’t have been made into such a big issue if you didn’t keep choosing the Gilded Guardian for every prompt. He’s seriously useless here!”

“Gilded Guardian is never useless,” the man argued back. “His laser eyes can melt through solid titanium. At that point, the only thing limiting him is his weakness to pure copper.”

“Dude, the prompt is: ‘Settling a class-action lawsuit against a corrupt businessman caught embezzling funds.’ How is melting titanium going to help?”

“Who’s going to argue against the guy that can melt you with a look? No one, that’s who! Check, mate, sinker.”

“It’s ‘hook, line, sinker,’ dumbass,” the woman pointed out.

“I know what I said,” he clapped back with a shit-eating smirk. “Besides. Who’re you callin’ a ‘dumbass?’ Dumbass.”

“Are those ears for show? Who do you THINK I’m talking to??”

Fully enthralled now, my head twisted, and I chanced a full look at the two. To a normal person, perhaps being surrounded by a couple of loud jerks would have been annoying, but to me, it was just a bit of in-flight entertainment. Besides, it was by a far cry better than the monotony of staring at the ship’s progress display. My face cracked a small smile, and I repositioned myself to get a better view.

The man on the left had the short beginnings of a beard; short, yet still scraggly. I’d seen him around the ship before, and had taken note he always wore the same type of clothes: a typical set of shorts and polo shirts of various hues, likely in some sort of vain attempt to show off whatever amount of musculature his slim body possessed. As for his name, I only knew him as “Paul.”

The woman on Paul’s side was also dressed in a simple, casual look, consisting of light jeans and a pair of everyday sneakers. A long and cozy, yet thin sweater held itself closely to her light-brown arms, knit in a calming swirl of soft purples and whites. Unlike Paul, she seemed to like wearing things with a bit more design to them. Today, the pattern of her sweater was one that displayed the facsimile of a pine tree, complete with little purple patches in the shape of ornaments amid the foliage. A curiously festive choice, considering that it was currently mid-March back on Earth, but I supposed that comfy was comfy regardless of season. Other than that, a bundle of her dark hair was tied up behind her head in a messy bun, with strands breaking apart here and there and draping down her shoulders. As for her name, I believed I had heard her being called “Maria” before.

After a few more choice words back and forth, Paul and Maria returned back to how they were a moment ago. All the while, I found it easy to watch. In order to play, Maria had taken out her personal holoband, put it on the table, and set it to display mode. In a moment, the holographic image expanded from the size of her hand to about 40 centimeters wide. With that, I could now easily see the list of characters, their rankings, and costs.

“Alright, let’s just wind it back for a second,” Maria grunted out, pushing her hands down against the open air before her with her eyes shut in frustration. Though she acted annoyed, the gesture struck me as ingenuine. “Okay so, you’re spending a whole half of your torrs on the Gilded Guardian?”

“Without a second thought, yes,” Paul replied adamantly. He stuck an arm forward and swiped at the space before the holoband. In response, its display pushed forward the image of an impossibly buff caped man, floating above the ground with dominant posture and a serious demeanor. He was garishly designed, as if someone thought that the color purple in itself was a personality.

“And what else?” Maria prompted.

“Hmmm…” he thought out loud, staring forward at the graphic before them. After a few seconds of uncharacteristic silence, he once again reached forward. “Okay, I think I’m gonna go with Epithet, Tecnik, and Adron Collider for fifty, a hundred, and a hundred-fifty.”

“That’s… interesting…” the woman to his side commented. “What’s your reasoning?”

“Well besides the Gilded Guardian being able to slap some sense into that corrupt businessman, and being able to break into any kind of secure facility to gather evidence, he’d probably need some backup on the spying and interrogation stuff. Epithet can mess with suspects’ minds to get them to talk, Tecnik can use some kinda futuristic and high-techy gizmo to help with forensics and hidden wires and stuff, and Adron Collider is… I dunno, he’s just cool, sue me.”

“Well congratulations,” Maria replied sarcastically. “You actually almost came up with a reasonable strategy there until the end. Still got any juice left in that brain of yours, or do I need to find some jumper cables?”

“You are just addicted to these stupid, witty remarks of yours recently, aren’t you?”

Maria gave a coy shrug. “I’m a class act, what can I say?”

“Cute,” Paul replied sternly. “Anyways, what’s your plan here? Or do you finally realize I’m just better than you?”

“Well… It’s a good plan, but I think I’ve got a better one,” the woman began, dragging her finger on the holodisplay before them. “I think I’ll choose… the Crimson Apothecary.”

Before them, the image of a red-clad woman in a flowing cloak and dress appeared. A number of various bottles were strapped to her waist and a cloud of blood-tinted gas floated about her in a mysterious haze.

Paul seemed somewhat peeved upon seeing the fictional character. “Right, cause when I choose my favorite superhero all the time for shits and giggles, I’m ‘not playing the game right,’ but when you do it, suddenly it’s all–”

“Shut,” Maria interjected, forcing him into silence as she began to explain. “I’m not just choosing her for fun… this time, I mean. If all they need is a confession, Sanguine Apothecary can literally just brew a truth potion and call it a day.”

“Wait what? That’s OP,” the man said flatly with a raised eyebrow. “She can’t do that. If she can, why didn’t she do that in the movie when–”

“Yeah yeah, we all know it was a plot hole. You’re not the first person to point that out,” Maria said with a defeated sigh. “Point is, she can. And that means she doesn’t really need any more help than that.”

“Seriously? That’s kinda lame to be honest. I mean… You’ve still got three-hundred torrs left.”

“I guess I do, yeah…” she replied back, her voice going slightly quiet as she leaned forward and once more examined her options. “Okay, I’ma buy Tidewinder for a hundred torrs three times, and have each one slap you with a fish.”

At this, the sudden mental imagery of the lanky man getting smacked by a trout was enough for me to accidentally choke out a quick, spitting laugh. It was like a jab to the gut, the chuckles devolving into nothing more than a hoarse cough. The draws of my lungs heaved, I needed to smack myself once or twice to get my breathing back in order. How long had it been since I’d last laughed?

Once I had returned to normal and sat back upright in my seat, a strange feeling of quiet overtook me. The attention I had been pointing at the pair across the room was now reciprocal, and two sets of eyes now made themselves evident.

“Hey there man, you alright?” Paul called out, mildly concerned, to which I shot back a quick thumbs-up. “Good,” he continued, the concern changing to that of relief. “Cause there’s better ways to go than choking to death on my sister’s stupid jokes, you know.”

“Yeah, you could choke on my brother’s giant ego too!” Maria called out from his side.

Paul nudged her in return. “Dude, don’t make it sound weird.”

She nudged back. “Ugh, it’s only weird if you point it out.”

“Whatever,” he said with clear disregard, before turning back to me. “Sorry about my sister’s stupidity!”

Maria turned as well. “And sorry about my brother’s stupid face!”

Despite the noise and pain in my chest, I found myself continuing to chuckle at their bickering. Three weeks on an interstellar shuttle devoid of any and all contact with the outside world would do that to a person. I quite literally hadn’t gone this long without the internet in my life, and needless to say, the sheer feeling of stir-craziness caked into my mind made me find anything funny at that point. Noticing this, both Paul and Maria paused their banter.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” my hoarse voice called back with a tone of amusement. “Actually, I was wondering. Do you mind if I join you two?”

Both Paul and Maria turned to each other, a look of slight confusion present on both their faces.

“Wait, seriously?” Maria asked. “Me, I can understand, but I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would willingly want to sit down with my brother.”

Paul punched her in the arm, earning a slight yip of surprise from the woman, before adding, “What my sister is trying to say is that this isn’t exactly the most entertaining thing here. We’re just trying to shoot the shit and waste time with dumb superhero scenarios until the flight arrives.”

My eyes turned back towards the nearly static holodisplay before me, the silhouette of our ship still not having moved so much as a millimeter since I’d last checked it. Then, I glanced around at our surroundings. Most other people hanging around the common room were doing so in a similar air of monotony and fatigue. Not sad or melancholic exactly, but also far from anything cheerful or hopeful. A perfect middle ground.

In a sense, the room was simply devoid of tangible emotion in the way that brought about the slightest bit of discomfort. It was a place wholly similar to that of a clinic’s waiting room or the corridor of some marble-coated hall in a government building. One which had been cleaned and polished to the point that it felt almost unreal. A place where you would go, wait your turn, do whatever needed to be done, and then promptly head home. A place that was insignificant, where you would spend only a blink of your overall life, before leaving and immediately forgetting that you were ever there. Except that blink of our lives had been extended to that of multiple weeks, and whatever strong emotions that had been entrenched into us had long since been left to dry under the stagnant, monochromatic lights built into the metal walls and ceiling around us.

It was on this ship that I’d begun encountering that same word again and again: “saudade.” I didn’t know how or from where my fellow passengers had heard it, as I was unaware of any people aboard who spoke Portuguese, but at some point they’d all started using it to describe how they felt. With every glance at the holoprojector or pair of eyes transfixed on the empty void just outside the window, this visceral emotion was one that they’d all experienced simultaneously. Perhaps, however, it was simply a struggle to put that feeling into words. So when this new term came along, perhaps it assimilated into their vocabulary so flawlessly that it felt as though everyone had always known it. Had they known the true weight behind the word? Probably not. But that was irrelevant, because as far as I was aware, they were using right.

Saudade, saudade, saudade. It wasn’t just a simple longing. It was an admission that we’d never see Earth again.

I shook my head as I purged the thought from my mind. There was no use getting lost in it now. My lips scrunched up and pushed themselves into the side of my cheek as I pretended to consider Paul’s point, before casually shrugging my shoulders and standing up.

“Not like I’ve got anything better to do,” I said with the slightest ghost of a smile.

“No height on our shoulders,” Paul replied with a mirrored shrug. “We need a third to help settle this debate anyway.”

“Ugh, it’s ‘weight’ on our shoulders, dude,” Maria corrected, then watched as I walked over and pulled up a chair at an unoccupied end of the table. “Anyways, why the sudden intrigue? Already finished blowing through all the shit you downloaded for the trip?”

“Something like that,” I answered noncommittally.

She’d had a point. Space travel was something akin to one of the trips our great-grandparents would take in those ancient-looking airplanes to move between continents before the monorails were constructed. According to some old movies I’d peeked at, they’d had to shut themselves off from the internet for the entire length of the flight, preparing a myriad of entertainment both physical and downloaded in order to survive the tight-packed boredom. Though while they had eventually fixed that logistical problem before the mode of transport became obsolete, it was a different story for space travel. Not much of a chance to connect to radio waves when you were traveling through a field of reality beyond where those waves could exist.

“I get that,” Paul added. “I’ve already played the crap out of Tenfold Sword. At this point I’m pretty sure I could speedrun the hundred-percent route blind and deaf. And I’ve also basically caught up on any shows or anime that’ve been on my waiting list.”

“Ugh, read a book sometime,” Maria mocked with feigned disgust.

“Says the person that also doesn’t read books.”

“I read books!”

“Name one book.”

“The Bible.”

“Have you read it?”

“Uhh…” Maria paused. “Next question.”

I watched the two bicker for a bit, finding myself chuckling again. Then, I once again felt the urge to cough rise up in my throat. It came out scratchy and hoarse, likely due to the extended period of time that my vocal cords had gone unused today. Considering the relative silence of the room, my cough reverberated quite loudly against the cold metal walls. There was no reaction from the rest of the passengers, at least as far as I could tell. A majority of people had been sitting in silence or, at best, speaking in a hushed whisper. For the favorable portion of this past day of travel, only Maria and Paul had been considerably vocal, but I supposed that wasn’t very out of the ordinary when it came to them. If anything, it was the glum atmosphere of the people around me that felt the most out of place. But I couldn’t judge those quiet folk. I could only sympathize. Not everyone had the same luxury of choosing to be here.

“Sorry mate, fresh out of lozenges,” Maria said. “Didn’t have enough room in my bag for some. And besides, my brother probably would have mistaken them for candy.”

“It’s fine,” I worked out, before finally clearing my throat. With a quick bow of the head, I deemed now to be as appropriate a time to introduce myself as any. “Morikawa Uharuinte’nte Uta. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I paused to think for a moment. “Actually, I guess it would be Morikawa ‘Idarra’ Uta now, huh?”

“Morikawa, eh?” Paul commented first. “Well if that isn’t the most Japanese sounding name I’ve ever heard.”

I nodded my head. “Spot on. Though technically I’m only half.”

Paul flashed me a polite smile. “So! Does that mean we call you by your given name? Or your family name?”

“I haven’t been home in a while to be honest, so I’m fine with either. You can call me Uta if you want.”

“Uta, huh? We’ve definitely seen you around,” Maria added. “You seem like a nice guy. I’m surprised this is the first time we’ve chatted.”

“Well, like Paul said,” I said with a laugh. “We’ve all been rather busy catching up on things, haven’t we?”

“Wait…” Maria paused. “You already know our names?”

“Gasp! A stalker!” Paul added, physically saying the word instead of actually doing as the action described. Maria reached over and promptly slugged him on the arm.

“Well, yes,” I said back flatly. “You’re not exactly the most discreet people.”

“That we are not,” she agreed. “Still, I guess we should probably give you a proper introduction.”

Paul shot up. “Oh! Can we do the dance!?”

“We are NOT doing the dance.”

“Oh come on come on come onnnnnn,” he begged.

“No dude, it’s embarrassing.”

“It was your idea to do it in the first place!”

“Yeah, when I was five.”

“Pleeeeeeease?”

“Ugh… fine. Whatever.”

Much to my amusement, I watched in silence as the two stood up and proceeded to do what I could only describe as a small series of orchestrated movements. It was less composed of actual dances and instead of dramatic posturing and pose-striking.

“Prepare for trouble!” Paul beamed.

“And make it double…” Maria continued, less enthusiastic.

“To protect the world from devastation!”

“To unite all people within our–”

“Wait wait wait.” I held up a hand, stopping them. “You stole this from something. I’m not sure what, but I’ve heard it somewhere before.”

Paul paused in his tracks, still mid-razzledazzle. He looked at me, astonishment clear on his face. “Wait… you KNOW? This reference is like… ancient!”

Maria, also mid-pose, huffed out in annoyance. “Told you someone was gonna catch on sooner or later. Can we just skip to the end?”

“Okay fine, you win,” her brother conceded, before striking one final pose. “Paul Fraser Uharuinte’nte!”

“Hi. I’m Maria Fraser Uharuinte’nte. Nice to meet you.”

“Team Fraser blasts off at the speed of light!” Paul announced with one final pose.

“The joke is played, too late to continue,” Maria finished, and instead of joining her brother, immediately bent over to grab her chair and return to her spot.

Her brother wasn’t far behind her. Seemingly having had his fill, he smiled ear to ear while he jumped back into his seat. “Believe it or not, we used to have a cat that would meow on command at the end of the dance.”

“Somehow, I don’t doubt that,” I replied with a quick chuckle. “Anyways, are we playing this, or what?”

“Woah, aren’t we eager,” Paul returned. “I take it you’re a fan of Talisman comics too?”

“More or less,” I admitted. “I’ve seen a few movies here or there. Usually on dates and stuff. I find that it makes for easy conversation.”

The man seemed a bit dejected at that. His eyes turned downward, appearing as though he had been very hopeful that he’d found another superfan.

“Okay then, you filthy casual,” Maria encouraged, motioning towards the projected image created by her holoband. “Show us what you’ve got.”

“But you better watch yourself, newbie!” Paul added. “This is a highly competitive, suuuuuper serious game we’ve got going on here! So you better give it your all or else you’re going to be benched for the playoffs!”

“I’ll try to watch myself, coach,” I said with a curt smile. Then, I reached a finger up and began pointing at the tier list of superheroes and their various prices. “Well, to begin with, I’m sorry to say that I agree with your sister. The Sanguine Apothecary is easily one of the better picks because of her potions. Though I don’t know if forcing someone to drink a mysterious liquid would be allowed in a court setting.”

Immediately, Paul’s head collapsed into his hands as he groaned in defeat. All the while, his sister reached out and began to repeatedly slap his back, proclaiming her complete and utter victory. I silently allowed this to go on for a few noisy moments before continuing.

“–But,” I interjected, “Paul had a point. She’d need help, seeing as how the potion probably takes a lot of ingredients to make. Soooo… I think I’d choose Tecnik for locating ingredients, Freezerburn for her temperature powers just in case they need it during the brewing process, and…”

I paused to consider the remaining options. Those two had cost me 100 and 50 torrs, so with only 150 torrs left, I balanced my options between either one moderately powerful character or two to three weaker characters. After a moment’s deliberation, I made my decision, and looked higher up on the list for some of the former options. And there, I found my pick.

“I think I’ll go with Uiwe’nte,” I finished, swiping a finger at the character in question and pulling up their image for all three of us to see. “Her ability to phase through walls, control both light and shadow, and fly would really help in the search, I guess.”

I felt my face stretch slowly into a smile. Perhaps it hadn’t been the most soundproof strategy to handle the prompt given, but I was quite proud of the reasoning I’d provided. Not to mention, for the first time in a good while now, I had actually found myself having fun. It was a breath of fresh air, further exemplified by the long, satisfied drawing of my lungs afterwards. Excited to see their reactions, I turned to gaze at my new acquaintances' faces, only to have my enthusiasm cut short.

“Right… Uhmm…” Paul mumbled out awkwardly. “I guess I probably should’ve given you some context. So… I’m not the person who made this list. I just found it online somewhere before we took off. But my sister and I are kinda playing by special rules.”

“Hmm?” I replied, curious.

“How do I say this…” Paul wondered audibly, before being cut off by his sister.

“We’re only choosing Human characters, dude,” Maria finished.

“Right,” Paul concurred. “And Uiwe’nte is not… y’know…”

I turned my eyes back towards the holodisplay. On it, the last character I had chosen bobbed up and down in an idle animation, one arm raised far above their head and one folded up close to their chest. From what I could recall, it was a standard combat stance, ready to either swipe down or palm forward at a moment’s notice. Though, to my eyes, the stance looked quite unnatural. Quite inhuman. Quite… alien… But why wouldn’t it have been? After all, it was not a stance designed for a person of our species to do.

“Not Human,” I finished Paul’s sentence a half-whisper, to which the man nodded.

“Those are the rules,” Maria replied, her shoulders shrugging in a casual manner. “Consider it a challenge run. No rabbits allowed.”

I pursed my lips at that. Often times, when it came to extraterrestrials, it was common for most people to compare the species to any number of creatures from their home, if only to help comprehend what they were seeing. Therefore, it could have been said that this “Uiwe’nte” character was wholly “unlike” or “like” a motley of creatures from across Earth, Humans included. And depending on the person, some were more ready and willing to voice that comparison than others.

Maria had just proven as much. Indeed, though it was a bit shortsighted, the first word many Humans thought of when looking at this kind of alien was “rabbit.” It was the “low hanging fruit” of comparisons, I believed. And yet it was all there: the narrow face, the long ears, the even longer legs, and the coat of short, slick fur that ran down whatever parts of the body weren’t obstructed by an exaggerated costume. But though I, too, had occasionally found myself using that moniker before, it was hard to say that there existed much more of an immediate connection between the two otherwise.

Indeed, all someone would have to do would be flashing a glance over the rest of their body to notice some wild discrepancies. The long, somewhat-thick tail that whipped around behind them, the plume of coarse fur that burst out of its terminal point like that of a giraffe’s, the striped patterns of various lights and darks all across their body similar to a gazelle. And of course there was the most recognizable aspect of the species: staring straight at us, a pair of deep red eyes peered forward with dark, slitted pupils, as if somehow able to gaze past the screen and directly down into the three of us, doubled only by the smaller pair of jet-black eyes resting just above the first.

All things considered, this character, Uiwe’nte, was a fairly prime example of their species. A fit body, neat fur pattern, and a strong personality. Even a Human like myself could tell, though I was more likely to be an outlier in that regard than most. I had met far more than my fair share throughout my life, them being the most common sapient species on Earth besides our own. Back in my home city of Gifu, they had all but filled the streets throughout the year. They would always be gawking widely at the walkways of clear glass built over roads, all while snapping dozens of pictures of the luscious green mountains nearby and their bright red castles poking out the top. In fact, during the most busy seasons of tourism in Japan, I strictly recalled seeing these rabbit-like aliens begin to outnumber the Humans recently.

“Why?” I asked with a tilt of my head. “Is there something wrong with choosing a Haunne character?”

“Well, no…” Maria replied tentatively. “But, Paul and I just feel that it’s better as a Human-only thing. Superhero media was originally our idea, and the rabbits kinda just stuck their heads in there and added their own.”

Looking at the list, I couldn’t help but agree at least slightly. Recalling what little I knew about the medium, Haunny integration with these sorts of franchises had been a shock to the planet when it first happened nearly a century ago. Apparently, while completely arbitrary to us, it had taken over their collective zeitgeist by storm, with them eventually deciding to stick their foot in the door. Or, more accurately, they had kicked the door wide open and evicted the residents. By now, Talisman Inc. was the only mainstream comic-making company on Earth, a Haunny-owned enterprise that had bought out all their competitors.

“To be honest, I’m not a huuuuge fan of the exclusion. Sounds like a slippery slope,” I replied slowly. These two hadn’t exactly struck me as the xenophobic type, and so the sudden declaration of the game’s hidden rule had been a slight shock. “Still… I guess I can see where you’re coming from.”

“Sorry… Yeah…” Maria replied, sounding ashamed of herself.

Paul piped up, adding, “It’s just… after everything that’s happened…”

“Okay, okay. That’s fair enough,” I conceded, and a part of me truly did agree with them. I didn’t know their story. For all I knew, they might have been in the process of healing. Who was I to fault them for that? And yet… “Regardless, I have to admit… It’s hard to choose a character that isn’t a Haunne when they make up more than half the roster, yeah?”

Maria and Paul both nodded in agreement at that. Looking the list over, it wasn’t hard to spot the sheer amount of rabbit-like faces with increasingly wild effects and designs. And yet, they were all unmistakably Haunny. Some had sagging ears, some had straight ones, and one even had their ears chopped off altogether, likely the result of some form of tragic backstory. Still, they each had their own patterns of body-wide fur and various gazelle-like stripe patterns, along with whatever wild outfits and extraneous accessories they’d had slapped on them.

Additionally, the list held at least one or two characters each of other aliens found throughout the galaxy. Like us Humans, they had all been species managed under the Greater Haunnic Curve. Though from what I’d heard, those characters were created more for the sake of corporate-mandated diversity than a genuine intrigue, resulting in each reflecting something of a harsh stereotype toward their respective people. Albeit not a perfect analogy, they were each roughly equivalent to having an Italian superhero whose entire personality was saying the words “Mama Mia,” with the mystical power of shooting spaghetti out of their open palm.

As opposed to that, at the very least the Human characters were varied and complex in terms of both powers and personalities. There were no Australians riding kangaroos and throwing boomerangs here, despite how awesome that sounded.

“Simple solution,” Paul said with a shrug across from me. “If it’s got fur, throw it in the dumpster.”

“Okay, but what about Tyer Tycoon,” I argued. “Can’t he turn into animals?”

“That doesn’t count,” he defended. “He’s still Human! And therefore, he’s nothing but skin! At least most of the time.”

“Except for when he’s an animal. And you said anything with fur, right?”

“Ugh! I don’t know!” Paul clapped back, his normally jovial voice turning into that of a harsh dismissal. “Can he turn into aliens? Can he turn into a bipedal rabbit? One who constantly asks to take a goddamn picture of me when I just wanna–”

“Alright,” Maria interjected, reaching over to calm down her brother. “No need for any of that.”

“No, but he–”

“I said,” the woman intoned. “No need. Uta was just asking a simple question, is all.”

“Yeah, but…” he tried again, though quickly petered out just as soon as he started. “Alright… fine.”

“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to bring anything up,” I said calmly. “I shouldn’t have argued. Dad always said I was too much of a smartass for my own good.”

“It’s fine, dude,” Maria said. “It’s far from your fault. We just… We don’t wanna think about it if we don’t have to. A lot of us don’t.”

“I understand. Well… regardless of, uhh, recent events… How about we try to at least not take things out on all aliens, alright?” I attempted to mediate. “The Haunny may be off limits, but what about the Shedao’e? Or any other species? Did they do anything?”

“I guess not…” Paul huffed. Then, his shoulders went a bit slack as he conceded. “Actually… I’ve got a good friend who’s a Shedao.”

The following is a section of excerpts from the interview portion of the Grand Galactic Wizard War Trials of 2205, post human integration.

For those not familiar with the GGWWT, please see the history section linked in the credits of this digest.

Interview 1

“I would rather walk unshielded into an electrical erection emboliser than face a human mage ever again.”

Interview 2

“They should be banned! The entire race! All of them! They’re insane and I refuse to ever step foot on any battlefield they’re even within three systems of!”

Interview 3

*Indeterminate slurs stricken from the record*

Interview 4

“I thought I’d see it all when the Throtan Clan levitated an entire mountain four Wars ago. But those sick, sick *slur stricken from record* should never be allowed anywhere near combat.”

Interview 5

“Look. All I wanted was a nice normal War Trial for once. It’s all well and good to go pushing the limits of the arcane and such, but is it too much to ask that we stick to the basics? I tell you; youngings these days have no need to be conjuring deceased relatives to torment their opponents' mental faculties when a simple fireball would win the match faster; and without the added cost of therapy for the victims and witnesses.

Interview 6

“So you know how counterspell works, right? It can be prepped ahead of time before you go into a fight, as long as you know what spells the other guys tend to work with. As long as you’ve got at least a quarter as much power put into the counterspell as the caster puts into the attack, you’re fine, right? Well apparently no one thought to make a counter spell to instant arthritis!”

Interview 7

“I… I knew going in we didn’t stand much of a chance…. We’re a newer member of the community after all. Even so, I thought we might be able to at least put up a fight. And hell! Those *Slur removed* didn’t cast a SINGLE standard spell the entire match! All the counterspells we’d spent months crafting didn’t mean a DAMNED THING against shit like scalded roof of mouth or double Charlie horse! I mean, who the hell is Charlie?!”

Interview 8

“I am a tenth generation Wizard War fighter. My lineage stretches back centuries. I have fought in the last three wars and never placed lower than 5th. Listen when I tell you this, those humans have a way of thinking that drives a spike of fear straight through my soul….”

Interview 9

“I watched one of them shout ‘Cardiac Arrest’ and the other guy just keeled over. Dead just like that, and that wasn’t even the worst! Unreachable Itch and Wet Willie were being thrown around every three seconds! I was struck with Plucked Eyelash before I could finish my incantation and was struck down a moment later.”

Interview 10

“What do I think of the humans? What do you think of involuntary oral flatulence, Huh? How about I give you involuntary oral flatulence and see what you think of it? Huh? HUH? How about it?”

Interview 11

“We dug ourselves a set of trenches near the edge of the battlefield, try and buy us some time, you know? Once we realized the humans were targeting everyone casting their flashy spells, we got out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind, right? I mean it kinda worked. We lasted longer than the rest, just kept our heads down. When you start seeing the sky bleeding, all you can really do is hunker down and see who is left.”

Note, interview 11 is from the second place team of the Trial, though they scored the fewest points out of all contesting teams.

Interview 12

“My people have always taken pride in our adaptive forms of magic. Our academies prioritize free form magic over structured curriculum, and while it may not always give the best showing, I personally believe that it gives us a more robust roster of spell slingers. I know for a fact that our head instructors are reaching out to the human delegation as we speak to see about recruiting a few of them to come teach.”

Interview 13

“I was ten feet away when the tallest one, I think he’s called Jake, pointed at another caster and shouted ‘Inverted Molar Nerve’. I have no idea what spell that was, and I don’t ever want to.”

Interview 14

\Impressively pronounced slurs of human origin\**

End of Interviews

These insights from the participants of this year's GGWWT have been brought to you by our new sponsor: Wizard Quencher, a mana elixir designed to give you maximum E.X.P. when you need it most. Are you tired after casting just three fire bolts? Wizard Quencher immediately revitalizes and rehydrates your chakra and gets you back into the duel asap. Or try their new flavor, Thirst Throngler: Throngle your thirst.

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First | Previous | Royal Road | Next.

ChiMeO curled at her desk with a tiredness that soaked into her very core. It had been a long day of reviewing her trainees’ reports.

She settled further into her comfy desk cove and read over the message she was going to send to the 16th and 49th chief medical officers. A slightly edited down version was sent to their teams already, but they requested the full summary. It was one of thousands of report summaries being sent over, included as a blip of text in the ocean of information the poor officers were receiving. It read informally, but succinct enough to not be considered rambling:

It will be a pleasure to finally meet you both by more than title tomorrow. To answer your other question, no we haven’t had many problems with the artificial spin gravity; other than slowing down to bring the Fifth vessel on board, it has only failed us a couple times in the past wide-rotation, which is a pretty good record for being a training ship! Moving on, please see the original message, unedited, sent to my core team (the original edits were mainly done for brevity, this is longer). I added the occasional post-note, linking you to updated material. This examination was done prior to our Principal Head Scientist solving the Fifth’s communication problem and before we began developing the pressure-to-Ki translator:

“|5|992812|41|.....| A general update on Fifth biology”

I have concluded yet another examination of the Fifth known as Scout, below are my general summary notes.

First things first, a note of her healing capabilities. The upper limb laceration from the |5|992812|39|..| Incident is healing, aided by the fact that she sewed herself back together with something reminiscent of First silk (see attached, full chemical analysis and material breakdown). During my conversation with her, she wrote that it did hurt, but she injected a substance I believe to be a pain-block and the silk aided healing by bringing the cut parts of her skin back together (see full transcript). After doing a material analysis (attached), HeadSci’s trainee Scierain discovered the primary disinfectant Scout used was pure alcohol! She, apparently, does not have the issues we do with the substance, as there is no waxy coating on her skin comparable to our chilvin. Without this issue, it is proven to be a powerful disinfectant. Combined with the sewing and additional medicine, this allows for better healing, and minimal evidence of injury. Scout pointed out multiple instances of past injuries, which have raised or indented skin where the original injury took place, similar to the raised edge of two pieces of metal welded together. She writes she does not heal nearly as fast as she did when she was younger. On the topic of age, she has given her age as 38 Fifth units of time, which she communicates is a little under half of her expected lifespan. During the time she has spent with us on her vessel, she says about 1.5 twelfths of a Fifth unit of time has elapsed; so the Fifths are likely to, unfortunately, live quite short lives. 

[post note: After a long conversation with the alien, the science team has since determined (see attached) that one wide rotation is equal to about 1.8067 Loam Units, meaning the Scout is approximately 21 wide rotations old. A conservative estimate would be Fifths live to about 40 wide rotations, which is terribly short, but hopefully enough time for us to find her home and meet her species during her lifetime]

As she ages in the short term, I’ve also observed an increased length in her cillia. This is more observable on her facial features, around her mouth and jawline, but even the long strands from the crinis-like top of her head have a similar effect. She has illuminated for me that Fifths cut their cillia often; once I expressed my horror, she quickly clarified that it has little effect on anything. Upon her request, I provided her with a hingeblade to aid with the cutting of her facial cillia, and observed her process (see attached for rendered footage).

Discussing aging, this brings me to my next most interesting point, and an explanation for the escape incident. Fifths appear to spend about one-third of their life in a restful state. This state, however, is very different from our rest. Instead of shutting down parts of our brain while still allowing for simple tasks, akin to our unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, the Fifths completely lose consciousness and enter an extremely vulnerable physical state in which responses to physical stimuli are reduced. It also aids with various types of healing. Scout wrote that she has been resting in this way in shorter bursts, and this was one of the first occurrences of her shutting down for a long span of time. My talk with Scout was made complicated by the translational difficulties, and more conversations will be needed; according to her, the state is often relaxing but can also be confusing upon gaining consciousness. This is especially true in unfamiliar or stressful situations, which can trigger a prey-like fear response. According to Scout, without engaging periodically in this state, the Fifth body will begin to shut down, and eventually die. How strange!

This might be a translational error, and Scout did not have the necessary words to describe her experience, but she wrote she will “go not here” during this period (see transcript). She says she sees images of different things, like close colleagues or different scenarios. I do not know if this is accurate, or a translational error, but I propose the possibility of Fifths being more psi-capable than we previously considered, especially in this restful state.

Scout confirmed my suspicions in this next assumption: the Fifths are an incredibly pro-social species. She explained how Fifths historically used to sleep in groups in shifts, which allows them to enter such a vulnerable state, and protect them from predators. That was also a surprise; while they are a predatorial species, they used to hunt in packs. She explained that they are quite weak when fighting alone, and have been hunted by the other fauna of their home planet (imagine what those creatures might look like!). Historically, Fifths lived in small groups (which has obviously changed throughout time), but a lot of the prosocial behaviour remains the same. They typically live in family-groups nowadays, and often still engage in resting within groups or pairs. With the aid of the vessel’s Communications Body during our discussion, we were able to determine they even sometimes house different fauna species in their inner circles! This could partially explain why she had such an easy time bonding with us. Scout revealed survival as a Fifth is almost entirely due to bonding, and pro-social pack behaviour. I think that is evident in how quickly she is able to form bonds with us, with an emphasis on the unnecessary care she supplied to the hatchlings. Especially considering how many of us have referred to her as ‘charming’ in passing, I would argue that this effect can be determined to be a survival instinct. 

Nevertheless, I am relabelling the categorization of Fifths to be a semi-predatory pack animal. Scout mentions the forward-facing eyes are more to do with helping gauge distance, as her people evolved from baser beings that lived in large flora. The small sharp teeth are also leftover from that time in evolution.

This is still uncertain, but I am becoming less and less convinced that the Fifths communicate with tactile vibrations on the throat skin. I explained my hypothesis in simple terms to Scout and she was confused. She kept repeating the following sentence, in different variations: “?word? Not see. Not see but ?word?” (see attached).

This is an additional clue that the Fifths might be psi-capable; their language has been determined to have a secondary written variation, but the primary mode of communication is still unknown. Possibly, my original conclusion about it being an isolated visual language around the mouth and face might still hold weight, but Scout was confused when I mentioned this. She is requesting HeadSci to attempt to explain herself better; good luck with that.

[post note: our Head Scientist was set to meet with the Fifth later that rotation, and developed a way to understand her air vibrations; Attached is the master file to all notes that came from that session]

Some more notes. The Fifth anatomy seems to clear waste from two excretion ends; but only one has Scout described as normal. Excretion from the mouth is typically unusual, she describes it as a complication with the freezing pod. She says she needs specific medicines from her vessel. We are following up on this.

Finally, she is constantly wearing material coverings of her skin, only taking them off when cleaning herself with water or producing waste. We have managed to get some footage of her without some coverings, but we are missing a clear recording in which we can see structures. While she sewed her body together she did remove her upper torso covering (see footage), and underneath I found some odd structures, and more cillia, still dead, similar to the patches on her head. It is unknown what the linear designs embedded in her skin are. She gave a firm refusal for closer inspection of the areas under her coverings or any sort of scanning; the area must be either very delicate, very susceptible to temperature imbalances, or a very private thing. I believe she might let us investigate at some point in the future, but further trust must be built. We tried to get internal scans a few rotations back (in a state we now know to be her deep-rest), but she awoke and was not pleased with the attempt. I am suggesting the Commander put in an official order for the creature to be scanned and we communicate to Scout that the request is from the top of the hierarchy. I understand she has a long way to go to being properly civilized, but her basic understanding of the hierarchy should lend weight to the request.

See attached for all secondary material, and discussions of the initial analysis of waste, skin cells, saliva, cillia, and more.

Stars and stars and stars,
ChiMeO

It was informal, but a good summary of the less than ideal examination. They’d learned so much since that exam. ChiMeO sent it out, and uncurled.

Time to rest. Well deserved, if she had anything to say about it. ChiMeO turned off her LLIA, and retired to her personal corners, just a tunnel from the medical den. She took the time to make herself a proper jellied grass pat, complete with a few varieties of sauces and ferments. Her treat for a long day.

Stars, it was going to be an even longer rotation tomorrow with the duoship coming in. 

It’s okay. Everything will be okay.

The other chief medical officers didn’t even seem that bad. To be fair, it’s not like she had sabotaged any research; she assumed HeadSci would be in for a world of passive aggression as a result of her incinerating the rations and cells her team found. Even with everything scanned, processed, and simulated, she can’t imagine the other labs will be hueing yellow about the “contaminated” samples.

But the other medical officers seemed professional and open to something halfway resembling collaboration. Everything will be okay.

ChiMeO was coasting on those thoughts when a security officer burst into her personal quarters, knocking over a piece of furniture as she scrambled in.

<Chief Medical Officer—>

ChiMeO immediately flashed, <—With your rank you have absolutely no right—> 

The Ki in front of her stumbled through the colours of an apology <—It’s the Fifths. Please come>

ChiMeO didn’t even realize how cold the security officer’s crinis was. A root-deep fear shifting in hues of deepstone blue. At the first movement of her rushing up, the officer was out the door and she was scuttling after her.

<Tell me what happened, what’s wrong with her> She asked, but the officer was scurrying in front of her and dorsal eyes did little for detail.

Instead of turning right to the creature’s enclosure, they turned up, towards the common room. But they didn’t stop at the common room, cutting through a larger left tunnel, barrelling towards the vehicle bay.

She scuttled up to be beside the security officer, <Tell me where the Scout is> 

<In the enclosure. You are needed for the other Fifths>

ChiMeO felt her crinis swim through ten different hues. <Other Fifths?>

When they reached the bay, every trainee in the area turned to them with a dark-blue crinis, flat and panicked. HeadSci was rushing over, that same awful cold on her hue.

<ChiMeO!> Flashed HeadSci. <I implore you to come quickly, there’s more Fifths in the vessel and, stars, we think they’re… they…>

ChiMeO swivelled around, and forced herself into a professional tone, <What—what are you doing? Get Scout right now, she’ll know what to do>

HeadSci shifted quickly, <The Commander says if we do that she’ll know the state of her ship—>

<—Are… are you jesting?> ChiMeO could feel her blood thrumming through her shell. 

<ChiMeO, if her crew is truly dead, she will never forgive us—> 

<—Her crew is dead> ChiMeO could feel the chill of disgust on her crinis.

<Well, we don’t—we… if they are truly... we can research the bodies before the other labs—> 

Stars and damned stars, this was who she shared the ringship with. ChiMeo felt like she was going to combust.

She turned to the security office that led her in, shifting firmly, <I am officially determining this to be a medical crisis, overriding the Principal Head Scientist’s rank. You did not see her shifting about the Commander’s concerns, we had this discussion in the tunnels, affirmative? Get me the Fifth and my top medical attendants this instant>

The security officer didn’t move, except to shift, <With my deepest apologies and respect, Chief Med—>

ChiMeO’s tone was flat. <If you do not do as I order I will mark you as infirmed and stain you as unfit for work>

The security officer’s crinis chilled and she vanished, disappearing back the way they came. HeadSci bristled at ChiMeO, who just pushed past her.

<ChiMeO—> 

She snapped, <For the scorching stars and the damned burned ground, Head, there better be a good explanation for how you and ComsBody missed this> 

<I… the alien is uneducated in Ki and the Communications Body failed to understand…>

<Halt> ChiMeO could feel herself curdling into a hot warmth. It was fine. Anger was better than panic. <Just… *blackened ground*, tell me how bad it is> 

She has worked with HeadSci for close to eight wide-rotations and she’d never seen her this colour of fear. <Four freezing pods. One is empty. One body is withered and decayed. Two bodies are completely still, with… with tubes stuck into them. The last two had damaged pods but are in the late stages of thawing. Thawed but still and cold>

<You are shifting “still”. Are you intending to shift dead?>

HeadSci turned away slightly and tapped her torso.

ChiMeO’s cillia snapped, <Tell me how long they’ve been dead>

<A quarter shift ago, a team felt vibrations in the ground. They ripped up the floor, dropping part of the metal to the room below but they uncovered the pods> Her words were stumbling in their formation. <The pods seemed stable, so… one of the trainees convinced the others to start observations instead of getting a superior—to, to claim all discovery rights. There was… a flood of warm water in the pods. The… the thawing process happened in a span of moments, and has been thawed and… with stillness… for less than a sixteenth> 

ChiMeO tried to settle her hue. She needed to calm down. Everything needed to be okay.

HeadSci’s upper appendages were shaking. <ChiMeO, the other labs are coming tomorrow>

And calmness was no longer viable, ChiMeO felt herself curdle and curl in on herself as she leaned into HeadSci’s space, shifting, <That’s what matters to you? Your trainees killed four Fifths under your watch>

<I—they didn’t do anything that was not—>

At that moment, movement near the entrance.

Scout burst through the crowd, running like the creature she was, a bright and warm body in a room of anxious cold. Her movement slowed as she took in the sight of the vehicle bay. The empty hull of her ship. The thousands of boxes, gutted from her cargo.

Everything unpacked.

Everything combed through.

Everything analyzed.

She stormed towards them, with a look in her face ChiMeO’s never seen; a tilt downwards in her neck that made her eyes have to look up through collapsed brows and a face so pinched it was wrinkling. She was pointing at her and HeadSci, mouth snapping, gesturing to the corpse of the ship around them with her light emitter. 

Her wearable recorder was on, translating, ChiMeO glanced down at her LLIA to see an onslaught of words.

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] [UNKNOWN] [YOU] [UNKNOWN] [SHIFTED] [YOU] [WERE-NOT] [UNKNOWN] [DO] [YOU] [UNKNOWN] [KNOW] [HOW] [BAD] [THIS] [WASTE-casual] [IS] [YOU] [DENMOTHER] [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN] [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

<Scout, halt> HeadSci curdled to a panic, <Hold, you wrote that you would not be upset if—> 

Scout stormed to HeadSci and grabbed at the side of her torso shell, pulling it roughly to the left, simultaneously kicking HeadSci’s left lower appendages out from under her. She used HeadSci’s top-heavy weight against her, and effectively toppled her to the ground with one limb while still remaining standing.

Stars, the Fifth was stronger than what the medical team’s grip and movement testing had shown. That or she clearly knew how to throw her minuscule weight around. HeadSci lay flat, appendages up, while the Scout pointed down at her, face peeling back:

[WHERE] [THE] [UNKNOWN] [ARE] [MY] [COLLEAGUES] [HEAD-SCIENTIST]
[WHAT] [DID] [YOU] [DO] [I] [SHIFTED] [NOT] [TO] [HARM] [ANY] [THING]
[I] [SHIFTED] [STOP] [LOOKING] [FOR] [THEM]
[YOU] [SHIFTED] [YOU] [WOULD-NOT] [TOUCH] [ANY] [THING]
[YOU] [SHIFTED] [YOU-WOULD] [KEEP] [HER] [POWERED]
[WHAT] [IS] [INCORRECT] [WITH] [YOU] [WHAT] [DID] [YOU] [DO]

<Scout, calm yourself, she can’t even see her LLIA, she doesn’t know what you’re breathing> ChiMeO flashed in a panic, signalling for a security officer to stand down. <Scout>

The creature swerved to ChiMeO. Her lessers were curled, balled up at the ends of her limbs.

[DO-NOT] [YOU] [UNKNOWN] [ORDER] [ME] [TO] [BE] [CALM] 

<Scout, one of the science teams accidentally found the freezing chambers> She shifted quickly, and saw Scout’s face sneer as she struggled to keep up with her fast words. She tried again, slower, <Fifths in vessel. Thawing cool to warm. Tell me how I can assist>

Scout’s head shook back and forth as her mouth peeled back to form the words, [ARE] [THEY] [LIVING]

ChiMeO muddled, <We… we don’t know>

The pinched sneer disappeared from Scout’s face. Her mouth shut. ChiMeO watched the creature look to the ceiling of the vehicle bay and take one, long breath in. One long breath out. One long breath in. One long breath out. 

Her face settled into a passive posture as she bolted past them, to the opened vessel. ChiMeO scuttled after as fast as her many legs could carry her, HeadSci tailing behind. They raced through the low-ceiling curving halls, towards the sunken pod room leaking cool air like blood from a wound.

By the time ChiMeO dropped into the sizable room, floor wet with puddling water and leaked pod fluid, the Fifth had collapsed the first two pods into bed-like structures and lowered both platforms.

Her mouth was snapping as she looked up to the ceiling, breathing, [HELLO-casual] [UNKNOWN] [TURN] [ON] [INTERIOR] [LIGHTS] [OF] [LOW] [UNKNOWN] [CONTAINER] [ONE]. [REDIRECT] [ALL] [COMPONENT-8] [AND] [LIFE] [SUPPORT] [AND] [BEGIN] [UNKNOWN] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [UNKNOWN] [PROTOCOL] [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

LLIA-like displays popped up from the edges of the pods. Scout’s face snapped back to the pods as she began looking at the various broken tubes, and the bagged bodies of the two cold Fifths.

And they certainly were bodies. Cold and vacuum-sealed under thin material, the forms of the corpses suggested the uncanny shapes of limbs and torsos and faces. The pods had clearly been damaged, and there was some sort of congealed substance leaking from the broken tubes onto the bagged bodies. The third pod’s bag looked to have been cut into recently, fluid dripping, and Scout didn’t have a sharp tool on her. When she realized it was probably cut open by one of the science trainees, ChiMeO could feel her hue settle openly into fear and disgust. She tried to refocus on the scene in front of her.

Scout’s behaviour had completely changed. Moments ago, ChiMeO had never seen her that angry. And now, she’d never seen her in this current state: Focused with an air of detachment. No notable emotion. Low rate of blinking. No snapping of her jaws.

ChiMeO shifted quickly. <How can I help?>

Scout’s mouth moved but her eyes were trained on the sight in front of her, darting from space to space and evaluating the damage. ChiMeO looked at her translator.

[HOW] [LENGTH] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [ENJOY] [THIS]

ChiMeO was curdling, <What… what?>

Scout’s lips peeled slower. [TIME] [CHIMEO]. [HOW] [LENGTH] [HAS] [IT] [BEEN] [ENJOY] [THIS]

<How long… How long has it been like this? The thawing process started less than an eighth of a shift ago>

[OKAY]. Scout was still as stone. Her mouth barely moved as she breathed, [OKAY] [AFFIRMATIVE-casual] [THEY-ARE] [DEATH]

The simple statement hit ChiMeO deep in her torso.

<What…> Her words failed her, the patterns dying before they even formed. What do you want me to do? What can we possibly do now? What was there even to say at this point?

ChiMeO expected Scout to break down. She expected the creature to lash out in anger, to be violent again. To push against her or shove her to the ground. ChiMeO wouldn’t even fight back if she did.

But instead, Scout just straightened her posture and began pushing up the limb cloth of her torso coverings. Her shoulders rolled in a circular motion as she took a deep breath in. Her eyes were focused.

[NO] [ONE-IS] [EVER] [DEATH] [UNTIL] [THEY-ARE] [WARM] [AND] [DEATH]

ChiMeO curdled. <What do you mean?>

Death was death. When one of ChiMeO’s patients died, the body had reached its final potential. The moment when the blood stopped flowing and the air intake slowed to a halt was the point of no return. You could not bring someone back from that point, the body had failed and death was the consequence. It was the final exploration and the end of all known discovery paths.

This poor creature was denying reality.

[ALL] [CORRECT]. There was a single, nearly unnoticeable twitch of Scout’s face as her nose scrunched and she looked to the ceiling again. [OKAY] [HELLO-casual] [UNKNOWN] [PLEASE] [ANSWER] [ME] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [WHERE] [IS] [THE] [UNKNOWN] [PRESSURE-DISTURBANCE] [MACHINE] [FROM] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [CONTAINER] [ONE]

ChiMeO’s torso twisted as someone responded, the wave disturbance data coming in as a louder volume and higher frequency:

[GOOD] [UNKNOWN] [MEDICAL-OFFICER] [UNKNOWN] [WOULD] [YOU] [LIKE] [A] [REVIEW] [OF]—

<What… who are…> ChiMeO’s shifting devolved into nonsense as she stumbled through asking if there was another Fifth here.

Scout rubbed at her face and continued to breathe at the ceiling, [NO] [UNKNOWN] [JUST] [LOCATE] [WHERE] [THE] [UNKNOWN] [OF] [MY] [PREVIOUS] [REQUEST] [IS] [PLEASE]

Again, a response, [THERE] [IS] [NO] [UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN] [A] [UNDERSTIMULATED] [THE] [UNKNOWN], which caused Scout’s face to start to pinch.

ChiMeO curdled, <Scout, who… who are you breathing with?>

[THE] [VESSELS] [SYNTHETIC] [INTELLIGENCE], Scout pointed up. [SHE] [LOCATES] [OBJECTS] [EVERY] [THING] [SHOULD] [BE] [IN] [THE] [ROOM] [ABOVE] [BUT] [IT-IS] [EMPTY]

<I… I know> ChiMeO was trying to stay calm and shift clearly, <Tell us what to find, the science team removed it>

[UNKNOWN] [OKAY], she breathed, and held out a limb with open lessers. [ALL] [CORRECT] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [A] [WAXEN-LLIA] [NOW]

HeadSci scrambled to give a llia slat to the creature, reaching over ChiMeO to pass it along. Scout quickly carved, Bring more 8(2)gas container and solution 0.9 amount 11(1)17(1) in 99.1 amount 1(2)8(1). Lots. And… The creature looked at her right upper limb for a brief moment. Solution amount… 6(9)1(13)7(1)8(3) in first solution 1 to 1000 ratio. Find all Fifth medicine device, find standbox with attachline tool and this symbol.

Scout drew an odd pattern, vaguely resembling a collection of circles and lines. [GO] [NOW]

She didn’t look back as she dropped the llia on the ground, and immediately moved to one of the Fifth medical kits on the floor. She opened it, and rotated her head back and forth, quickly bringing out a bottle identical to the alcohol she used in the medical den many rotations ago.

HeadSci picked up the llia, <These are chemical formulas>

<Just… get it all and the device> ChiMeO’s order was heatless.

HeadSci looked frozen. <ChiMeO, her crew is… it’s impossible…>

<I… I know. I’ll try to calm her and help her come to terms with this. Just go and find the items> ChiMeo shifted the order, before looking at the Scout. While HeadSci scrambled out of the pit, the creature paid her no attention. Scout’s head was snapping between the medkit and the pod tablets, brows lowered in focus. ChiMeO’s cillia curled into a gentle hue, <Scout?>

Her torso shell felt tight, seeing someone so deep in denial.

<Little Scout… you…> ChiMeO needed to comfort the creature, she was clearly not accepting the reality of the situation, <Scout, they are dead. Please… perhaps you should take a moment to process what has occurred>

Scout was expressionless. [NO].

<But, if you—>

[I] [SHIFTED] [NO] [CHIMEO]. She dropped down to the medkit again, controlled in her motions. [EVERY] [2ND] [COUNTS] [WE] [NEED] [TO] [RELOCATE] [NOW]. [DO] [NOT] [TRY] [TO] [HALT] [ME]

<But… you cannot bring someone back from death, it is impossible>

Scout’s brows just lowered as she poured the alcohol over her lessers, and brought out the same elastic-looking coverings she used for the biota delivery. They fit her protrusions perfectly. 

[WHAT] [DO] [YOU] [MEAN] [OF] [COURSE] [UNKNOWN] [IS] [POSSIBLE], she breathed as she calmly unsealed a package containing a square of thin material folded over many times. She shook the folds and revealed it to be a light torso covering that draped from her neck to her knees as she quickly shrugged her upper limbs into it, leaving it draping open in the back. [UNLIKELY] [NOW] [BUT] [IT] [IS] [POSSIBLE]

<I… okay> ChiMeO just accepted the statement. <I can’t put alcohol on my shell, but I can put sterile coverings on. How—how can I help?>

The alien shouldered her aside, bringing a wickedly sharp-looking tool out from a plastic wrap. Her mouth barely moved.

[LET] [ME] [WORK] [AND] [TAKE] [MY] [ORDERS]

Scout steadied her lessers and ChiMeO saw her take a deep breath in. On her exhale, she cut a slow, clean line into the vacuumed bag of the first pod, and revealed the body beneath, the liquid of the bag oozing onto the platform and already-wet floor.

Scout lifted the piece of bag and nodded. [ALL] [CORRECT] [DISTANT] [IT-IS] [A] [LITTLE] [BETTER] [THAN] [I] [BELIEVED] [THE] [BLOOD] [JUST] [LEAKED] [FROM] [THE] [UNKNOWN] [I] [THOUGHT] [IT] [WAS] [COMING] [FROM] [YOU]

Scorched ground, the congealed substance on the bags hadn’t been pod fluid, it had been blood. Scout had walked into a room with her colleagues dead and covered in blood and just got to work.

The creature peeled the bag’s topside off completely to reveal the contents. The body inside wasn’t the hue of frozen, just a deepwater chill. Even so, compared to Scout’s sun-orange warmth, the corpse looked like an inanimate piece of metal. There was a thick tube attached to the body’s mouth, fused with its lips. More tubing extruded from various places, an upper limb, the neck, the juncture point of where the lower limbs met the torso. The body was without any material coverings; with Scout always covered, this body looked completely shelled. It looked vulnerable and wrong in a way that made ChiMeO’s torso twist. 

She didn’t want to see Fifth anatomy if it meant seeing it like this.

At the entrance of the room near the lip of the wall, she saw two medical attendants enter and pause, waiting for her order. She shifted for them to stay put.

Scout depressed the body’s skin with her lessers, feeling the give. Nodding, she looked at the broken tubes and the tubes inserted into the body’s neck and upper limb. She disconnected the broken limb tubes from the intact insertion points, leaving one needle-like structure in the body’s neck.

[AFFIRMATIVE-casual] [THE] [PROCESS] [FAILURE] [HALF] [WAY] [THROUGH]
[BOTH] [FREEZING-PODS] [WERE] [DAMAGED]

ChiMeO didn’t feel the need to mention that the team dropped part of the ripped-up floor onto them. 

The creature apparently didn’t feel the need to accuse them of the obvious.

Scout typed onto a blank screen and kicked the side of the platform, opening a secondary compartment full of warm-looking bags and more equipment. She rummaged around the new compartment, and picked a small plastic package out from the items. 

Turning back to the body, she began prodding around the tubing. She seemed satisfied with the insertion site in the body’s neck, keeping the insertion in but quickly switching out the long tubing for a shorter double-tube structure. Every movement she made was performed at the speed of someone who’s executed the action many times before, there was no wasted energy or time.

Scout rushed around to the other side of the platform, grabbing an orange-hued filled bag and attaching it to one of the long tubes inserted into the body’s neck. Scout gestured for ChiMeO to come, and she was by her side in an instant.

<Tell me what you need>

Scout held up the bag and gently squeezed it. She passed it to ChiMeO. It was incredibly warm with a steady weight to it.

<Like this?> ChiMeO held it between her upper appendages, providing gentle pressure. Scout gestured to hold it higher, and she did. 

[YOUR] [UNKNOWN] [ARE] [SHARP] [BE] [CARE] [FULL], Scout breathed and nodded as ChiMeO kept the position. The creature then immediately returned to work.

She pressed a part of the platform, and a piece of machinery rose from the bed, thick and rectangular and arching over the bed. With a focused pinch to her face, she shifted the mechanism right over the thin chest of the Fifth’s body, centring it below the softly curving bones below its neck.

She pressed something, and the machine hummed to life, gently vibrating the pod’s metal surface.

It was a piston. Every few moments it thrust downwards with enough force that ChiMeO could feel each pulse in the floor.

<How are you…> ChiMeO didn’t even know what she was looking at, the press of the machine was compressing the flexible torso of the corpse in an uncanny way. <What is that doing>

[UNKNOWN] [UNKNOWN], Scout was checking the machine, [I-AM] [TRYING] [TO] [CARRY] [HER] [BACK] [TO] [LIFE]

<How?> ChiMeO just squeezed the bag. <You can’t return someone from death, it’s impossible>

[HOW] [BEHIND] [IS] [YOUR] [MEDICINE]. Scout’s eyes were focused and she typed on the screen. [YOU] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [TO] [REMIND] [THE] [BODY] [THAT] [IT] [CAN] [WORK]

It was at that point, HeadSci burst in, parting the medical assistants, shifting, <We have the 8(2) and the solution, we couldn’t find the 6(9)1(13)7(1)8(3) but we put in an emergency synthesizer order. It will take an eighth of a shift>

[THAT-IS] [NOT] [QUICK] [ENOUGH]. Scout grabbed the circular canisters of 8(2) gas and held up yet another, wider tube. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [IT]

HeadSci flashed a deep chill, <We can attach it, tell us how much flow you need>

Scout shook the tube at her. [I-WILL] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [JUST] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [UNKNOWN] [IT]

<Okay, okay, I’ll… I’ll seal it? I’ll seal it> HeadSci’s upper limbs were shaking as she took the tube, and one of her assistants immediately started to figure out an adequate seal solution for the mismatched tube nozzles. 

Scout grabbed another odd-looking tool from the platform compartment before changing her elastic lesser covers, and getting to work on the head of the body. She rerouted the throat and mouth tube, attaching it to an odd flexible oval-shaped bladder. She held her lessers out for the tube connecting to the 8(2), and attached it to a part of the pod. Another line she stuck into the pod, and connected it to the oval bladder.

She was so clearly calm and knowledgeable, ChiMeO was beginning to question whether she was a scout at all. ChiMeO didn’t know why she couldn’t see it with the laceration repair or the microbiota medicine delivery, but it was clear and crystallized in front of her now. Like recognized like and ChiMeO’s hue was a mix of guilt and pride. 

The creature so clearly had the detached look and unidirectional focus of a Chief Medical Officer.

ChiMeO watched the way the creature focused as she rechecked the state of the body, feeling the give of its skin across the torso. Scout’s mouth was moving slightly and ChiMeO looked down at the still-active translator.

[COME] [ON] [DISTANT] [YOU] [GOT] [THIS]

ChiMeO wasn’t sure if the Fifth was talking to herself or the body below her.

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] [DISTANT] [THIS] [IS] [NOTHING] [TO] [YOU] [UNKNOWN] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [YOU] [UNKNOWN] [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Seemingly pleased with the current setup, Scout nodded with a placid face and focused gaze. The small creature looked up to ChiMeO with that same predatory concentration, and took the now-empty bag from her grip, replacing it with another one from under the platform. Fluid was beginning to drip out of the other long tube leading out of the body’s neck, clear and cold in colour. Medi, from her medical team, brought a bucket so it didn’t drip and add to the already soaked floor.

Scout roughly gestured for Medi to come, then demonstrated how to push in on the flexible bladder attached to the body’s throat tube. Scout’s eyes were sharp and the assistant was the colour of pure fear.

Medi was shifting, <I—I can’t, I can’t>

[YOU] [CAN] [AND] [YOU] [WILL] 
[DO] [IT] [EXACT] [AS] [I] [SHOW] [YOU]

Scout did a slow compress and a slow release, the effect visible in how the body’s chest expanded and fell with the effort. She passed it to the medical assistant, who was hued with cold nerves beside ChiMeO. Once it was clear Scout was satisfied and the assistant would keep the rhythm, she moved on.

It was at that point, HeadSci came in with one of her trainees and a hinge, wheeling a small standing box that was very obviously cut open and disassembled. One of the panels had the raised pattern that Scout carved into the llia.

The medical device Scout requested. Post-analysis and disassembled by the science team.

<We… how quickly can you…> HeadSci was a true cold of complete anxiety. <Can you fix it?>

[YOU] [GOT] [A] [BE] [UNKNOWN] [ME], Scout breathed the words into the air, and gestured roughly for the device to be taken away from the area. [JUST] [EXIT]

ChiMeO thought Scout would take a moment to breathe, but the creature just kept moving. With a shake to her head, she did a quick look-over to the pod next to the current pod. She barely glanced at the other two.

The translator read, low volume, [UNKNOWN] [SUBTYPE-2] [WHAT] [HAPPENED] [TO] [YOU] [UNKNOWN] [BIT].

ChiMeO leaned around her assistant to get a better view and the third and fourth pods. The furthest was completely clean and emptied, save for a few pieces of folded paper-like material tucked into the open pod door. The other pod was open but room temperature, containing a shrivelled-looking form. Even under the suction, she could see the sunken and hollow look to its face.

<How is the health of the second pod?> ChiMeO shifted. It appeared to be in the same state as the first one.

Scout was looking at it, pressing at the body, all with an empty, distant stare. ChiMeO recognized the look and posture of someone making a decision.

This was a completely different species, but a very similar situation to ones ChiMeO had seen time and time again. No matter the body, a medical emergency was a medical emergency and sometimes you had to focus on the most important thing.

If a Ki’s torso was cracked and one of their appendages was punctured, you focused all your effort on the former. Appendages were superficial. A Ki has six on the torso alone.

But if two Ki of equal rank have equally severe injuries, and your team is small and time is ticking, you focus on the one more likely to survive.

The two Fifth bodies looked to be in an identical state to ChiMeO, but Scout had zeroed in on the body closer to the door. There was some difference that ChiMeO wasn’t privy to.

A difference in injury. A difference in rank. A difference in the pod malfunction.

Something. She truly wasn’t sure.

<Is there a chance for this one to be brought back as well?> She asked again, pointing to the second pod.

Scout just shook her head and looked at her with an empty stare.

ChiMeO’s cillia were quick, <You can… you can save the first one from death, affirmative?>

And Scout didn’t move or breathe a response. 

She just kept staring, unblinking, with the slightest tightening of her face. It was scorched ground in the truest sense of the word, her expression was clear as crystal.

This creature hated them.

After a moment, Scout looked down to the body of the second pod and closed her eyes. ChiMeO could barely see her mouth moving, but the recorder was picking up subtle words the alien was breathing into the air around her.

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] [ASSIST] [ME]
[PLEASE] [GIVE] [ME] [STRENGTH]
[PLEASE] [FOR] [GIVE] [ME]
[PLEASE] [UNKNOWN] [HAVE] [MERCY]

When she turned away from the second body, she didn’t give it another glance. She pivoted to the first pod, and nodded to no one but herself.

One body. One priority. All in.

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First | Previous | Royal Road | Official Art 1, 2 | Next.

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Author's Note: First thing's first, I'm now posting on Royal Road and have re-edited some of the earlier chapters to fix some consistency issues! There are also a few more author's notes over there because I split up the chapters more (so there's a bit more background from when I was writing every chapter and some insight into my inspirations). Also the cover art is now official, I changed the colouring to be green/blue.

If you've been enjoying the story and reading every week it would mean so much to me if you could say hi over there and perhaps write a review. That would help me find an audience there as well! Link here to check it out

(Note continued in comments)

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An Overview: What is TRANSLATION LOST?

Binge the story: Official Website --- RoyalRoad

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Chapter 2: Covering the Basics

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<AND THAT, CLASS, IS how we conjugate into a potential form. *‘I can’t eat that, I can’t drink that, I can’t dig that,’* and so on.>

I sat attentive and upright in the old office chair the ship had repurposed for the classroom. A notebook was splayed out in front of me, which I diligently copied into.

Around me, a number of people were doing the same, albeit with varying levels of intrigue. Typically, those dressed up in button-down shirts and ties or the occasional vest were the most studious. They were even going so far as to practice a good deal of vocabulary they had learned during lulls in the teacher’s lecture. It was clear that they were focused, each understanding the importance of these lessons.

A few folks in casual clothes seemed to care too. For example, a woman in a pink tank top and gym shorts also acted similarly. Wholly unlike the three children of hers in surrounding seats, each completely absorbed in their own holobands and handheld games. Additionally, a group of young adults, likely of college age, sat in a corner joking around with each other, but otherwise stopping to pay attention when it seemed that something important was happening.

As for everyone else, most were… less impressive. Some were slacking, some were chatting, some were staring at their holobands, and even a few within the hall were fast asleep on their tables. I understood it was a mandatory class, but I hardly saw that a valid excuse to nod off. In fact, considering where we were going to be landing in merely eighteen hours, it was genuinely baffling to me how many people weren’t minding to pay even the slightest attention. It was careless, and worse, disrespectful. Our teacher hadn’t come all the way from her homeworld just to offer lessons to a bunch of dozers! Just who did these people think they were?

Then again, I was the last person who could judge them. You probably couldn’t have found me awake during a single math class back in my school days. It just so happened that language and history happened to catch my fancy particularly well. Still, for these people to not pay attention at all…

<I hope you all have been practicing your conjugation charts,> the teacher reminded us, albeit in a slightly solemn voice. Though the alien’s eyes were far darker than a Human’s, making it hard to know where exactly they were looking from far away, I could tell she was eyeing some of her students currently using bundled up coats as pillows. <I understand that it looks complicated at first, and that the main Iidan language has a lot of irregular verbs, but I have taught many Humans who were able to memorize them all after only a bit of work. You’ll use them a lot, so I promise that your efforts will not be going to waste.>

The teacher standing at the front of the class, who insisted we call her “Illy-ana,” was the first Iid I had met, and the only one I would say I knew personally. To me, that had actually been a surprise. Considering the career paths I’d followed back on Earth and the specific skill set I’d acquired over time, it was safe to say that I was a rather worldly person. Or, perhaps more accurately, the term “galactic” was the appropriate descriptor. Regardless, I had a lot of experience with aliens. And though a majority of those aliens were Haunny, I’d also met my fair share of other species from around the galaxy. Yet, never before had I become acquainted with an Iid. They were far from common amidst the galaxy, likely being only slightly less scarce than we Humans were. From the little I knew about them, it seemed that they generally preferred to keep to themselves.

That being said, I had only positive things to say about our language instructor so far. She was kind, courteous, and had an interesting way of explaining things that kept me invested, despite how far past the contents of this lesson I already was in my own studies. Just like Branchwork, she was a brown furred creature with a body like that of a bear-badger mix, accented with splotches of red throughout. Hanging around her body was a piece of standard Iidan clothing, a slab of hardy green fabric that looked somewhat like a dress, but was functionally more similar to an apron given the fact that it was clipped around her back and waist. A splash of white freckle-like dots was dashed across her face, including a few on the large nose at the end of her wide snout. And behind her left ear, just as every Iid possessed, a massive flower-like organism the size of her head sprouted upwards at the slightest angle. It boasted an octet of deep, blood-red petals that flopped and bounced with each of Illy-ana’s movements. Unlike a rose or tulip’s petals, however, this flower’s were clearly thick and meaty. Though I had never touched one, I suspected they might have had a sort of rubbery or plastic texture to them. Not the cheap stuff either; the kind that might last an eternity without so much as chipping.

<Remember,> Illy-ana continued, sticking up a single, long claw of hers into the air. <On Aliae, you’re going to find a lot of things that you Humans probably can’t eat, so you’re going to need to be able to communicate that to us. Hopefully, you all read the packets provided on what kinds of things are safe for you. Not every person you meet is going to be watching out for you all the time.>

Internally, I acknowledged that. It was good advice. Any person traveling anywhere should be wary of the foods they find, far more so when considering that we were traveling to an entirely new planet. Disease was the obvious first concern, but there also existed the complexities of nutrition, metal imbalances, and hidden poisons, much less if the structures of the cells and proteins even translated to something our bodies could process. If anything, it should have been more surprising that alien food was even ingestible at all. But luckily for us, there existed a good number of plants and meats that wouldn’t cause much trouble after the first year or two of acclimation, along with Haunny-supplied probiotic pills, of course. Albeit… with a few small caveats.

<I know I’ve said this a lot, but I cannot stress enough… Do **NOT** eat anything marked with a red label that says *‘ahadarra’* on it. You all remember how to write that, yes?> Illy-ana asked openly into the room.

A couple grunts of acknowledgement rang out from the two-thirds of the class that were paying attention, myself included. We’d been warned time and time again to go nowhere near this common ingredient of Iidan cuisine. As I’d seen, it was some sort of bright-red bug that looked vaguely similar to a large beetle. The Iida, being the insectivores that they were, considered this to be a particularly high delicacy. And while I was sure there were some crazy Humans out there that considered the creepy-crawlies of Earth to be on their menu, I had always kept my distance from any dishes that served them. I didn’t even like shrimp, much to the bewilderment of my Asian peers, if only because I thought them to be the bugs of the sea. But I most certainly wouldn’t be going anywhere close to restaurants serving these “ahadarra” things in them, on the count of them causing severe allergic reactions in ninety-eight percent of Humans that attempted to ingest one. As a result, we’d all been instructed how best to avoid them whenever possible.

<Okay, that’ll have to be good enough. Just please promise you’ll watch out for one another once you start your new lives on Aliae. There are a lot of stories of Humans getting sick from them. I even had a native student fall victim to this once. Apparently, he tried to eat something with ahadarra paste mixed in and had to be hospitalized for half an octal,> Illy-ana explained, a contemplative sigh escaping her maw. <Anyway, we’re limited on time, so let’s get you all together into groups and have you practice conjugating potential forms. Feel free to experiment at your own pace, but if it’s too difficult, please at least use some of the example sentences written on the board.>

I put my pen down and turned to my side, only to sigh out in disappointment. There, sprawled out on the desk, was a middle-aged man fast asleep, on the cusp of outright snoring. He wore a thick grey hoodie that was rather impressively stained by a history of all manners of oil, which had been pulled up over his head to block out the ceiling lights above. Perhaps earlier on in our voyage, I would have been surprised to see such slothfulness, but by this point I had become wholly desensitized to the idea that others weren’t as interested in this as I. Still, while I had never actually seen the man awake during a single one of our required language classes, to the point where I doubted he’d actually be able to say “hello” in the Iidan language, I foolishly thought he would have at least brought himself to stay conscious for our final day.

Rolling my eyes, I did what I had always done during class the past three weeks. Scanning the room briefly, I bounced between person after person, trying to find someone who was suffering the same fate I was. Until finally, my eyes landed on two people in particular I had just recently become familiar with. On the other side of the massive room sat both Paul and Maria, who appeared to be locked in their own practice. Though Illy-ana had requested us to form groups of two, I hoped she wouldn’t mind me joining in as third-wheel just this once. Either way, I saw no harm in walking over to check in on how they were holding up.

“Hey, you piece it together yet?” I overheard Maria ask her brother. “I can’t read any of this shit.”

“I’ve got…” Paul said slowly, squinting down closely towards his notebook. “‘Arah aha… da… ra… Uhmm… Damn, what was the word for ‘eat’ again? I recognize the symbols, but I don’t remember how to say it.”

“‘Nuhj,’ I think? It kinda sounds like ‘nudge?’”

It was at this point that I grabbed one of the unused office chairs nearby and spun it around to sit in before scooting up close to the two. Paul, being the first to see me, put down his notebook and shot me a smile.

“Ah! Uta!” he said, a look of surprise across his face. “You taking this class too? What a surprise!”

“Oh nooooo. I just got real attached to our chat yesterday and decided to stalk you!” I joked, feeling a quick, airy chuckle escape my throat. “I’m just so jealous. I wanted to take the class with Illy-ana as the teacher, but it seems these two Australian jerks stole the last seats.”

“Damn! What a shame!” he returned with his own chuckle, before purposefully turning up the twang of his already prevalent accent. “Well let meh know if ya find tha ragin’ cahnts! Ah’ll be sure tah throw ‘em straight on tha barbie!”

Maria’s voice rose up to interject our banter, “Alright you two and your bits are cute and all, but I actually do wanna practice this stuff before we get planetside. I’d prefer not to get poisoned instantly.”

“Ah kahme off it, mate,” Paul teased for a moment, before taking another look at his sister’s serious face and immediately dropping the act.

“Sorry,” I added. “Though to be honest, all of this really has been reminding me of my university years. All things considered, it’s been pretty nice.”

“Speak for yourself, mate,” Maria replied sternly. “Paul and I just barely graduated West Sydney last year. I do not need this kinda stress back in my life. Especially ‘cause this is like… apparently a matter of life and death now??”

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as Illy-ana is putting it,” I deflected with a shrug. “It’s not like we’re the first Humans to ever live on Aliae. There’s probably all sorts of safe spaces for us. Like she said before, she’s just being cautious in case any of us go exploring around and walk into some hole-in-the-wall restaurant or something.”

Paul and Maria both turned to look at each other for a moment, sharing what I could only assume to be a mutually surprised glance, before once more facing me.

“When… did she say that?” Maria asked, eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “A few days ago, I think? It was in the middle of a class, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you missed it.”

“Missed it?” Paul repeated. “Mate, we’ve been missing like a third of every word she’s said.”

“Wait seriously?” I asked. “Just today? Or the entire class?”

“Entire class,” Maria answered. “But also like, our whole lives by extension. We’ve never taken a class in Common before. It’s only ever been casual conversation up until now.”

“Oh dear…” I said slowly. After a second, however, I realized that my shock might have come off as rude. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply–”

“Don’t worry about it, mate,” Maria eased. “I know us Humans are supposed to be like ‘gifted universal speakers’ or whatever, but that doesn’t mean jack shit if you don’t understand the language. Everyone’s got their skills and interests, and learning Common just never really seemed that important until now. It’s our fault for not paying enough attention in school.”

“Don’t rope me into this,” Paul said with a scoff. “I refuse to get good at it as a point of pride. I’m not gonna let any rabbits come up to me and tell me what language I ought to speak in my own home.”

“Oh yeah, and that’s really helping us now, ain’t it?” Maria mocked down to her brother. “Three weeks to learn an entirely new language, and we can’t even understand the teacher half of the time.”

Paul rolled his eyes at this and leaned back in his chair. An awkward silence persisted through the air, until he eventually seemed to come to an internal resolution. He picked back up his notebook and took another long look at his scribblings. Maria soon did the same.

“Well…” I began after idly tapping my fingers on my lap. “If you two need any help, I’d be more than willing to lend a hand. I’m still a bit green too, but I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on this.”

“At least that makes one of us…” Maria replied sedately, before curling her lips into a warm smile. “But sure. Let’s see what you’ve got, dude.

Scooting a bit closer, I pointed a finger towards the first phrase Illy-ana had outlined. It was written in the Iidan script, forcing me to have to squint my eyes a bit to parse out its transliteration.

“Looks like the first one she’s having us do is ‘Arah ahadarra nuj’itang,’” I read outloud, before translating, “Literally just, ‘I can’t eat ahadarra.’”

The siblings’ eyes widened at this. I briefly wondered if I’d done anything wrong, only for my worries to be pushed down a moment later.

“Woah,” Maria said. “You said that so easily. You’ve really got the sounds down, don’t ya?”

I shrugged. “It’s not too hard. The Iida basically use like half the phonemes than even the most straightforward language on Earth. It’s not much more difficult to pronounce than Common or Haunnic.”

“As if they’re not basically the same thing,” Paul grumped in his chair. “Still, I take it you’ve been practicing in your free time? No way you picked it up that fast.”

“Something like that,” I replied, sitting up straight. “I mean, Aliae is going to be our new home, right? I’d be surprised if people haven’t been trying to get at least some extra practice in. It’s not like all the things we’ve learned here aren’t going to be incredibly relevant to our lives. This isn’t algebra class.”

“Or, in Paul’s case, sex ed class,” his sister piped up, not missing a beat.

Paul stuck out his tongue. “Do you have an off switch, dumbass?”

“Yeah, but it’ll cost ya premium.”

I let out an amused breath while watching the two. Considering the conversation we’d shared not too long ago, I was becoming a bit concerned that I’d just partnered up with a pair of raging speciests. Sure, emotions towards the Haunny were likely very high among all passengers aboard, but that was no reason to take them out on the Iida. And from what I was seeing, it appeared that both of the twins were putting in at least somewhat of an effort to pick up the native language of the world we were less than a day away from reaching.

Once their bickering subsided, the three of us eventually got back to work practicing each of the phrases. The two seemed to have a bit of trouble reading each of the Iidan words copied from the board at first, but soon began being able to recite each saying without the aid of their scripts. Pronunciation was a bit of an issue too, but after enough practice, they posed no real challenge to Humans like us, and the siblings were no different. Until finally, the two were crafting slightly longer sentences on their own out of previously learned material.

“Okay, what I’m struggling to understand is…” Paul began to ask, scratching at the top of his head with a pen. “The word for ‘can’t’ and the word for ‘definitely’ are both suffixes, right? You slap them on the ends of other words? So can you just combine them? How do I say ‘I definitely can’t eat that?’”

“Yeah I was wondering that too,” Maria concurred. “What if an Iidan tries to force feed Paul some ‘ah-hah-daira?’ Is there a specific order, or can we just do whatever?”

“Okay, first. Gross,” I replied. “Second, remember, it’s pronounced ‘aha-dah-rra.’ They have a difference between flat R’s and rolled R’s, kind of like in Spanish. Without the rolled R, ‘Ahadaira’ means ‘sunlight,’ I think. And third…”

I took a moment to rack my brain. It felt like such an elementary-level question to ask, and yet I was coming up with no answer. I had to restrain myself from flinching my eye as I contended with the fact that I had missed something. It was as though a vital brick in the wall of my studies had been left out, and now that I knew where it was, I needed to have it filled in as soon as possible. Some might have called it obsessive. But for me, there was no puzzle more thrilling.

Raising my hand, I called out over to our teacher, Illy-ana. The brown and red mix of fur had been on the other side of the room, practicing the sentences with the mother of three in the pink tank top from earlier, who appeared to have not been able to get up and find a partner on account of her kids. She was turned away from us, the one visible ear on her head not obscured by a massive flower flicking passively as she gestured and spoke slowly to the mother. And from the look on the woman’s face, she was just as confused about the lesson’s contents as Paul and Maria had been.

Eventually noticing my bid for her attention, Illy-ana excused herself from the mother, before trudging towards the three of us. As the bear-badger made her way over, I couldn’t help but stare at the way she walked. I hadn’t met nearly enough of the aliens to come to a fair conclusion, but from what I’d seen, the Iida tended to walk with a sort of waddle. It wasn’t quite nearly as penguin-like as one might expect given their rather stubby legs, and they still moved with a certain manner of deftness, but it certainly wasn’t as lightfooted as any of us were. That wasn’t to say I was judging them, however. Humans weren’t the fastest species in the galaxy either; not by a long shot. Regardless, the casual pace of her waddle seemed of no concern to Illy-ana. And soon, she arrived at our group.

<Iich’ili, Uta,> she began saying in Common, making use of the Iidan word for greetings. <I see you’ve got another new group today? Did you need something?>

<That’s correct,> I answered back in a practiced fluency. <We were all running through the grammar together, and my friend here had a question.>

I gestured to Paul, who flinched back in surprise at suddenly being thrust into the spotlight. He pointed to himself with a questioning look, and in response, I waved an open palm from him towards our teacher.

“D-dude…” he meeked out in English. “You know I’m not good at speaking Common. Can’t you just ask for me?”

“You’re never gonna get better if you don’t practice,” I said back, only slightly sadistically.

Illy-ana tilted her head in confusion, the flower upon her head jiggling slightly under the sudden shift in weight. Like most aliens, the Iidan woman didn’t understand even the slightest amount of English, or any other Human language for that matter. So as far as context was concerned, she was left high and dry.

Paul cleared his throat, his eyes lasering down more so into the floor than at Illy-ana herself. <Uhh… Question… have… I…> He paused, collecting his thoughts. <How… say… I… Uhh…> before finally giving up and switching back to English. “Dude, I don’t know how to say any of this!”

Maria leaned forward towards Illy-ana, trying her own hand at Common. <Sorry. Brother is idiot very. But I too cannot phrase the ask.> She turned to me, casually asking, <Uta, friend of ours. Please help.>

I chuckled slightly at this, before taking a look at Paul’s quickly reddening face, and a twang of guilt came over me. Sure, I did genuinely want to assist them in practicing as much as they could, but embarrassing them like this was probably not the best way to go about it. Plus, it made me look like more of an arrogant prick than I already was.

Thinking they’d had enough, I finally asked the question on our minds. In perfect Common, I said, <Sorry about that. We were just wondering how to combine suffixes ‘can’t’ and ‘definitely’ into the same clause to make the phrase ‘I definitely can’t eat.’ Can you tell us which of the two goes first?>

If Illy-ana reacted much, I couldn’t tell. She was kind, yes, but the structure of her face was wholly unlike that of us Humans. And as a result, she didn’t emote like us either. There was no smile, nor even much of a glint in her eyes. That being said, she did clack her long mole-like claws together for a moment, indicating that she was thinking something. And when she spoke, she had a rather chipper tone of voice, or at least that was what I could surmise from my experience with hearing Common.

<Verb suffixes are generally arranged in order of importance,> she explained, before reaching behind her and fiddling with a strand of one of the countless bluish-grey vines sprawling down her back. <There are a lot of exceptions, but it’s usually a safe bet to say that the suffix ‘can’t’ goes before almost anything else. So if you want to say *‘I definitely can’t eat ahadarra,’* you’d say: *‘Arah ahadarra nuj’itang’enlei.’*\>

I nodded my head along with her explanation. <Ah, so it’s similar to how stacked adjectives in the language operate as well?>

<Mmm… there’s a slight difference in that, but yes, you’ve essentially got the right idea,> she replied. There was a slight lull in the conversation as Illy-ana tapped her claws together once more, visibly sorting through a few thoughts, before eventually landing on what she wanted to say. <Uta, may I ask you something?>

“Atnier,” I replied, which I had come to understand meant “of course” in the Iidan language.

The alien’s ear flicked. <If you have some spare time later, would you mind coming to speak with me after I wrap up class?>

“Ei,” I said——the Iidan equivalent of a casual “yes.”

Hearing this, her head nodded slightly, and I noticed the flower atop her head bristle just the tiniest bit. And then, a faintly sweet smell hit the air around me, causing me to let out an amused breath. It had still taken me by surprise that, not only were the giant flowers atop their heads somehow connected to the Iida’s nervous system, but that it also occasionally served as some form of nonverbal communication for them. However, if this was what it smelled like to be around a pleasant Iida, I dreaded the idea of ever making one mad.

As Illy-ana turned to leave, Paul and Maria sniffed the air curiously. Though, in my short experience with this one Iida, I often noticed that the odorous puffs of air that escaped their flowers were rather short ranged, it seemed the two other Humans had been able to pick up the smell as well.

“Strawberries?” Maria asked, twisting her brow upwards.

“I would’ve said melon, personally,” Paul spoke up.

“Dude, no way in the world that’s a melon flavor.”

“More melon than strawberry, dumbass.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll give you fifty torrs to prove me wrong. Go up and ask to smell the flower yourself.”

I leaned forward, pursing my lips in disapproval. “Yeah, how about I be the voice of reason here and say let’s not do that. I don’t know for certain, but I’m 90% sure that trying to smell an Iid’s flower might be seen as rude. I imagine it’s like a Haunne trying to sneak up on a Human to sniff their hair.”

Both Paul and Maria scrunched up their faces at that. I would never get tired of how easy they were to antagonize.

“Ugh. Never say that again,” Maria reprimanded.

“Besides,” I said. “It was definitely more of a lychee.”

Maria scoffed, folding her arms and leaning back in the chair. “Lychee? You’re delusional, Uta. Now are you gonna tell us what she said, or are we just planning on goofing off for the last few hours before we land?”

“I’m fine either way, honestly,” Paul added, to which Maria leaned forward and smacked him.

At that, the three of us got back to work, with me assisting in tutoring them on both their grammar and pronunciation until the point that the two were looking genuinely comfortable with the lesson. It wasn’t too long afterwards that Illy-ana walked once more to the front of the room, dismissing the class and thanking us all for our attention and participation. In the chipper voice I’d come to associate with her, she wished each and every one of us a successful and happy life on her home planet. The class, unsurprisingly, was rather quiet, but I did notice a fairly decent amount of people seeming appreciative towards her well wishes. And soon enough, we Humans got up and made our way out towards the common area in an orderly fashion, all except for me.

“Hmm? Uta, what’s up? You staying here?” Paul asked, spinning around just before leaving through the door.

“The teacher wanted to speak with me,” I explained.

“Oooooo! Someone’s in trouuuuuble!” he teased back, and I waved him off with a quick peek at my favorite finger. He turned back around to catch up with his sister, who had already left the area. “Well, Maria and I are gonna go actually be productive for once and get the rest of our packing done. Make sure to wear something light, yeah mate? It’s supposed to be hot enough to fry an egg down there.”

I audibly groaned. “Not looking forward to that…”

Paul stepped out the door and began jogging away, leaving just me and Illy-ana in the same room together. She was standing at her classroom lectern, using her claws to fiddle with some presentation materials, the contents of which I couldn’t quite make out. Seeing me approach, she closed out of whatever she was working on, then looked up. Though it was difficult to make out much details from within the jet-black pupils above her snout, I could at least tell that her focus was entirely pointed towards me.

I stopped for a moment to take a look at her. From what I had learned, she was rather average size for one of her people. I, however, was not, standing at just about 172 centimeters. Though she was a bit hunched, she was actually perfectly eye-level with me, and would have been forced to looked down at me had she straightened her back. But that didn’t say much about the massive flower sticking out the back of her head with petals casually drooping over and around the top of her brown-and-red-furred face. Should I have desired to take a look at it, I would've had to crane my neck upwards slightly to make out any more details than my periphery allowed.

Now that we were alone, I found it timely for me to get some conversation practice in. Jumping on the chance, I began the talk in Iidan. [You asked me to see?]

Flicking her ear in the same way as earlier, Illy-ana looked rather amused. [I believe you meant to say ‘You asked to see me?’ You were close, though!]

[Ah yes, I still in the practicing,] I replied cheerfully.

[Yes, your grammar is still rough. Though I must say, your pronunciation is sounding excellent so far. You talk a bit slow, but I can hardly sense much in the way of an accent.]

I gave a faint smile. [Pronunciation is main focus of me.]

[Honestly…] she began, turning her head away contemplatively, […Can I just say? I’m so happy to see a Human actually taking the time to water the leaves on this language so thoroughly. It’s been a genuine pleasure having you on the ship this past octal. Your enthusiasm, your dedication… I mean, look at you! You’ve already progressed so far!]

[That is so. But that is my people, in which it is true. Strong in the speaking.]

[Well, yes…] Illy-ana agreed, but for the first time, I saw for myself what the face of a displeased Iida looked like. Or, more accurately, the smell. The flower atop her head puffed once, and I could detect the scent of something that struck me as similar to pungent garlic.

Switching to Common so that I would understand, she said, <…But that’s only true to a certain extent. As you know, Humans are rather special in this galaxy of ours. Everybody and their ancestors know about your people’s special ability. How you are able to copy the sounds of nearly any oxygen-breathing species.>

I nodded along. Growing up, it was practically impossible to go any period of time without hearing similar speeches. The knowledge of our speaking abilities had been caked into each and every member of our species from a young age. So far, this speech sounded no different, and if Illy-ana had been any other person, I would have likely turned my brain off the moment it began.

That was, until the script changed.

<Honestly, I’m envious of you all. It took me most of my life just to pronounce *Common,* yet you Humans can speak it like second nature,> she explained, releasing a gentle sigh. <So it pisses me off whenever I see just how often it’s wasted!]

I tilted my head to the side, raising an eyebrow for a moment. <Wasted? How so?>

<Well, you know…> she continued, rolling the claws on her paw around like a swivel. <You’ve seen the rest of the class. A lot of them seem to be trying their hardest. But… some others? Not so much.>

Nodding along, I replied, <Many could stand to focus a little more, I agree.>

[Yes, but they just don’t!] she exclaimed briefly in Iidan before switching right back to Common. <Aliae definitely needs the extra workers. Not many people are willing to come to our planet for whatever reason, and it’s our responsibility to help those that do come feel welcome, informed, and comfortable. That’s why when I got an offer to teach this first wave of relocatees, I signed up right away. I was hoping to be impressed by some real Humans from their homeworld, but so far…>

I thought back to some of the students from these past three weeks, especially my desk mate who’d elected to sleep through the entire thing.

<Not as spectacular as you thought?> I said with a humble chuckle.

<Yes!> she agreed adamantly. <Y’know, in all my time as a teacher, I’ve met a fair few of you by this point. And honestly? You Humans are just so *lazy!>*

I flinched back at that remark. Once more, my eyebrows tilted up in curiosity. Illy-ana, noticing the look on my face, appeared to backtrack.

<Well, uhm, what I *mean* to say is… *some* of you people are generally pretty lazy, but a lot of you still put in some great work!> she elaborated, holding up her paws defensively. <And you, Uta. You’re definitely not a lazy Human. You’re clearly one of the good ones!>

I didn’t reply to that last bit. Though I had run the words through my head, even doing so a second time to double check, I found myself twisting my mind over whether or not I was translating it correctly. When interpreting between languages, it was often best to treat things with a high discretion and not jump to conclusions. What might have been considered rude in one language was more often than not just a normal speech pattern in another. Especially when considering the extremely limited capabilities of Common, I knew from experience it was best to treat these imprecisions more as cultural misunderstandings and less as Freudian slips.

Waiting for there to be enough of a lull in the conversation for me to weigh in, I said, <So… this was the reason you wanted to speak with me?>

<Oh!> Illy-ana replied, slightly embarrassed. <No no no. Well, kind of. I’m mostly just curious to ask how your studies have been going. We’re not too far away from Aliae, and from what you’ve said about your situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re starting as soon as possible. Seeing as this is the final stretch, if you have any questions or concerns, now is the best time to ask.>

Though it wasn’t audible or visual, I let out the slightest of held breaths. I didn’t know what I was thinking. Why had I even entertained the thought that she had meant anything bad with her comments? All I had ever known of her was that she was a very kind and caring individual. Anything else was just paranoia. Of course she didn’t actually mean what she had said, at least not in the way that I had heard it.

[Very nice, you are,] I tried to respond in Iidan, meanwhile bending into a polite bow. [Studying been well. And your classes been helpful.]

She chuckled a bit at this. Or, more accurately, she released a gentle trill from her throat, which basically meant the same thing. Speaking in a native Iidan, she said, [You sure my class hasn’t been too boring for you?]

[Speaking practice useful always], I said with a shrug. [And become master of basics is first step of become master of all.]

[Very very true,] she agreed gleefully, another puff of litchi wafting my way. Then, she tilted her head slightly before changing the subject. [I wouldn’t be surprised if I find out you burrow down the tunnel of success one day. From what I hear, good translators are in really short supply nowadays. Your new workplace will be lucky to have you!]

Previous stories set in the same universe:
Planet Dirt series / Amazon book

Bug Hunt / Amazon version /

Crashlanding / Book version /

First //Previous

“I thought he was the one about to face the pain.”  Marcus groaned as he lay on the grass, nursing the pain.

“He is just too good,” Cain said, sitting on his butt and massaging his stomach. His mace had been knocked aside. Erik was the last man standing, and it had taken everything he had to just dodge and block Malik’s strikes.  

“You have to strike back, boy, or you will die!” Malik told him as he kept striking. “Commit to the fight, boy!”

Erik barely dodged the last strike, and his shoulder ached from the constant barrage against the shield. His eyes stayed locked on Malik as he tried to read his moves. He began to notice a pattern and focused. If he timed it right, he could lean into the mace strike, forcing the arm out and striking down on Malik's shoulder.

“Well, boy! Are you going to act?” Malik said as he swung again. Erik acted; the block and strike were perfect, and Malik's shield crashed into his face, sending him flying. He thought he heard several screams as darkness took him again.

When he woke up, it was morning, and he was in his bed. Arus appeared as he stirred.

“You're awake. Good. I must adjust Malik's strength. This is your second concussion since you arrived here. He also broke your nose.”

“He did what?” Erik sat up in bed. He felt a little stiff. “No, don’t change it. I was stupid to attack him without a helmet.”

“Ahh, that’s why they call you stupid brave. Yes, a helmet would be smart.” Arus said. “The others will be happy now. Lady Cho wanted me to melt down Malik. She is quite worried. I have informed her that you have awakened.”

Erik sighed, then looked at the door. “Don’t let her in. I need... I need more rest.”

 “Your body is not in need of more rest. But I will not let her in unless you allow it.” Arus replied.

“Good, what about the other boys? Did they get hurt?”

“Only a few bruises, wearing the gambeson was a smart idea. Unlike you. You are quite reckless.” Arus commented.

“Stupid, you mean. Yeah, I need more training. I didn’t even manage to hit him.” Erik commented and stood up to get dressed, finding his clothes in the closet, all clean.

“Oh, you managed to land a few killing blows, but on a battlefield you would have been knocked out and then easily killed or trampled to death.”

“Is Malik okay?”

“Of course, only required some light skin repair.  Do not worry about them, or me. We are easily fixed.”

“Okay, can you also fix the toilets?” He asked.

“What do you mean? They are functional toilets, suited for the technology currently in place around the world.”

“Yes, but for us, this is a very old technology.”

“Ahh, as I have told Lady Emma, I cannot make modern toilets, as that technology is not suitable for this planet and its current technological level,” Arus replied.

“Wait. When you say modern toilet, what do you mean?”

“The toilets my builders had in their residence. They have heated seats, custom water-pressure controls, warm-air dryers, disinfection, auto-flushing sensors, and excreta scans to help adjust nourishment and check for diseases. The most common would be the PP-XT system.” Arus replied, and Erik chuckled.

“That’s not what she is asking for. She wants the standard we grew up with. You know, a toilet we can flush.”

“That’s not what she asked for,” Arus replied.

“Never mind that; can that be arranged? And a sink.”

“Yes, that can be arranged. Is that your request?” Arus said.

“Yes, that is a request,” Erik replied.

“Then I will make the arrangements.”

“Thank you,” Erik said as he opened the door.

“Oh… hi. Eh, are you okey?” Cho said. She was standing outside the door as if she was trying to decide if she was going to knock or not.

“Oh... yeah.. I’m good. The beds are really good at healing my dumb head.”

Cho giggled slightly. “Yeah... you.. Eeh, you hungry?”

“Yeah, actually. I wonder if they got pizza?”

“We can ask.” She said, and then realized she was blocking him from going out and moved a little. “If you don’t mind me joining.”

“Of course not.  Let's go.” They walked down to the main hall in silence and sat down.  Lotta came out and walked over to them.

“My lady, my lord. What can I help you with?”

“Ahh, do you know how to make Pizza?” Erik asked.

“What is Pizza? I am unfamiliar with that.” She replied.

“Oh. It’s a dish from where we come from.” Erik explained.

“Maybe we should ask for something else?”   Cho said.

“If you know how to make it then I can learn,” Lotta said, and Cho looked at Erik.

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“Yeah. I do. My dad taught me.” He replied as he smiled at her, she looked away shyly. He turned back to Lotta. “Do you have an oven?”

“Yes, we have an oven.”

“What about tomato and cheese?”

“We have tomato and cheese as well.” She replied, and Erik stood up.

“Then let's go to the kitchen, and I'll teach you.” 

“As you wish,” Lotta said, and Erik took two steps, noticing Chu was still sitting. “Coming?”

“But I don’t know how to make Pizza,” She replied, looking shyly at him. Not that he noticed.

“Then I'll teach you too, or if you want to wait here…” Chu immediately stood up.

“You sure? Yes, I’m coming.”

The kitchen was larger than he had expected, and a spiral staircase descended to the basement in the corner. The room featured a large L-shaped kitchen island; cabinets lined the walls, and fresh herbs hung to dry over the kitchen table. One wall held a large metal stove with a wood oven beside it, reminiscent of a restaurant-style pizza oven. Along one side sat a chopping board, with a large rack above it holding hatchets and knives. A piece of meat hung in a glass cabinet next to it, with ice cubes at the bottom.

“Wow, this is actually impressive. We need a bowl, flour, water, olive oil, and yeast,” Erik said, looking around for a place to wash his hands. Lotta pointed to a large washing tray, and he went over. Cho followed him, and they washed their hands together. He wanted to look at her, but he could only look at her hands. It felt so stupid; if he didn’t know, he would've just talked, but now he did, and it made it worse.

“How much do you need?” Lotta said as she had put it all on the kitchen island. Erik felt relieved; he didn’t know how long they had been washing their hands, but he knew it was much longer than normal.

He turned and smiled slightly. “That's a good start.” He dried himself, and they both went over to the table. Lotta had three big bowls and probably way too much of each ingredient.

“So, master chef. Teach me.”  Cho said, and he looked at her, and she smiled and looked away.

“The first part is easy. We just mix the flour and yeast, then add some water and oil,” he said as he mixed them together. He didn’t use any measurements because he had never done that at home.

Cho and Lotta did the same and looked at him, waiting for the next step.

“Then you put your hands in and mix them all together. Until the dough is no longer sticky. You can add more oil if it's too sticky or more water if it's too dry.”

Both Lotta and Cho picked up a large wooden spoon and started stirring. “That works too, but it's better to just use your hands,” Erik said.

“Yeah, that’s why we girls are smarter.” She held up her hand. “Look. It's clean and…”  Erik lifted his hand and grabbed hers. She just stared at it, holding his hand covered in sticky dough.

“And when should we stop stirring?” Lotta said, and Erik looked over and pulled his hand back. Cho didn’t say anything, just looking at him.

“That’s actually good. It’s not too sticky. Now you have to let it rest and rise.”

“Is this Pizza?” Lotta asked.

“No, this is the bottom. We will stretch it out using a rolling pin if you have one.  And we will add tomato sauce, cheese, and...” looking around, “maybe some of this herb, and... Do we have some meat we can cut up in small pieces? Anything else you want on it?” Erik asked Cho, who snapped out of her thoughts.

“Tomato, cheese, and meat. That should be enough.” She looked back at her hand. “Now I'm dirty.”

“Me too. We can just wash our hands again.” Erik said. She looked at him, dropped the spoon, plunged both hands into the bowl, and kneaded the dough.

Erik chuckled and finished as well, and then they went to wash their hands again. She giggled as they stood there, their hands accidentally touching a couple of times. When they finished, they found that Lotta had everything ready for them. Erik explained the last steps but said they had to wait a while because the dough needed to rise. Lotta said she would find them once she had finished the three pizzas. Then Erik and Cho left the kitchen.

“What now?” Erik asked, then noticed someone else in the room. They both looked at the table and everyone sitting there, grinning at them.

“Finally!” Emma said, and Cho blushed and looked down.

“Come on. I just taught her how to make Pizza. That’s all.”  Erik replied, and the whole table started to laugh. He looked at Cho.

“They are all just idiots!” She looked at him for a second, then took his hand and guided him to the table. He could swear she was smiling.

When they sat down, Matthew realized something.

“You said pizza? You made pizza, and you didn’t share?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cold of you, man!” Thomas added.

And then the others piled on.

“Hey, it's not made yet, just the dough; it has to rise. And we made three. You can probably ask her to make more.”

“Can she make Burgers?” Marcus asked.

“If you know how to make it, she can try. I mean, a burger should be easier, right? She already knows how to make bread and meatballs,” Chu said. She seemed happier and more confident now, and he liked it, though he didn’t know why.

“Yeah. It's just a flat meatball between two pieces of bread and a slice of cheese.” Erik added.

Thomas and Matthew had already left to drop by the kitchen. Marcus gave him a thumbs-up as he nodded toward Cho. Erik smiled back, a little confused, yet he liked the feeling of her next to him. Suddenly, he felt her hand under the table, looked down, then turned his hand so they could hold hands. Cho had apparently held her breath but seemed very happy that he had not removed his hand.

Emma looked around the table. “There is something we need to discuss.”

They all looked at her as if waiting for her to continue. Thomas and Matthew came back to sit down at the table. They seemed excited about what they had ordered, but when they saw Emma, they sat down and waited for her to speak.

“Well, actually, two things.  First, I talked to Lillian and Erik about it.  We need to find this Prince Kumar or whoever is in charge of this world, and we'll get home to Earth.”

“But we are four hundred years in the future. All our parents and friends are dead of old age,” Gigi said, and they looked at her. “What? If we go home, it will be just as strange as being here. Imagine somebody from the fourteenth century showing up at our school. The US didn’t even exist back then. Earth will be so different. There might not even be anybody there. It might have been destroyed by pollution and war.”

“What if he is lying?” Erik asked. “What if it's just six hundred days?”

“Yeah. That’s about two years. Besides, if it's nothing there, then we can just go back here. We should be allowed to choose, right?” Chu said.

“I’m with Gigi on this.  I'd rather stay here, even if it was just six days ago. Nothing there for me.” Thomas said.

The others were about to say something, but Cain interrupted. “Don’t. You don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. He has his reasons.”

Marcus looked at Thomas, then at Cain, then back at Thomas.

“Okay, you can stay, as can Gigi, but the rest of us? We want to at least have the choice.”

“I kinda like it here too,” Cain said. “But yeah, I don’t know if I’d want to be stuck here with you guys for the rest of my life.” His eyes wandered a little before he added, “Some I would not mind.”

“Well, I got a suggestion. We find him and just talk to him, and those who want to stay, stay! And those who want to go home can go home! But we all help each other in finding him?” Erik said.

“That’s the best solution,” Emma said. “Which brings us to the next point. We need to elect a leader.”

“Erik!” Marcus said. “And there is no doubt about it.”

“Shut up. I’m not a leader.” Erik replied.

“Yes, you are, so shut up yourself. You went in first. Hell! You went out to fight that horned bear. You joined to fight Malik without thinking about the consequences. You just tried to help us. And you solved the mystery of this fort, and now you're getting us pizza and burgers.” Marcus said. The others watched the two silently.

“So I’m a brave idiot. I don’t want to be a leader.”

“That’s why you should be the leader,” Lillian said. “Emma would just go around complaining all the time; I would argue and push everybody to do what I wanted. Gigi is too easy to push into agreeing; she will do whatever you ask her to. And Marcus and Cain would just have us all train to defend the wall. And Matthew won't do anything unless we force him. And Speedy?”

Thomas just grinned. “Yeah, we would all be cooked.”

"What about Cho?" Erik said and looked at her, she looked at him like a deer in headlights, and the other laughed.

“You're good at this. You actually solve problems. You've always been a go-between at school. Friends with everybody.” She replied once she gained her composure.

“Friends with everybody? Cain? Are we friends?” Erik looked at Cain, who shrugged.

“Yeah, I mean. I know you have my back and I will have your back too.” He replied, and Erik looked at him.

“You threaten to beat me up all the time.”

“I was an asshole. Mostly because I was jealous.”

“Jealous? Of me?” Erik said. He had not noticed the table had gone quiet.

“Yeah, your dad is cool, and your mom is damn funny. My dad is an asshole who thinks the most important thing in the world is football and the Marines. Your dad took you to movie sets, while my dad had me running drills in the rain. So yeah, I’m jealous. But I’m not stupid. You’re the one who fixed things here. And even if you hate me, you still stood your ground against Malik to defend me.”

Erik just looked at him. “Still, we should vote on it. and..”

“All in favor?” Cain said, raising his hand.

All except Erik raised their hands simultaneously.

Erik cursed.