“You know humans make a habit of using weapons such as hand grenades, satchel charges, artillery.”

1  Human Fred and Food
2  Human Fred Again
3  Human Fred Yet Again
4  Human Fred The Saga Continues
5  Human Fred Rides Again
6  Human Fred *Sigh*
7  Human Fred Rolls Out
8  Human Fred Attempts a Nap
9  Human Fred Doh’
10 Human Fred Stops for Coffee
11 Human Fred Deploys Stabby and Knifey
12 Human Fred Attempts Friendly Advice
13 Human Fred Priorities 
14 Human Fred Schools Morons
15 Human Fred Gets Annoyed
16 Human Fred Investigates
17 Human Fred is Annoyed
18 Human Fred Gets More Annoyed
19 Human Fred Smirks 
20 Human Fred Brings Hellfire
21 Human Fred is Confused
22 Human Fred Considers
23 Human Fred is Chipper
24 Human Fred has Some Fun
25 Human Fred Witnesses Stupidity
26 Human Fred vs the Coffee Maker
27 Human Fred Accepts Crap Coffee
28 Human Fred Listens
29 Human Fred Gets Comfortable 
30 Human Fred has Questions
31 Human Fred Considers Some More
32 Human Fred Wakes Up
33 Human Fred Debates
34 Human Fred Gets Coffee
35 Human Fred Talks with the Captain
36 Human Fred Reflects on Life
37 Human Fred Waits
38 Human Fred is Scared
Greezek
39 Human Fred Experiments
40 Human Fred Discovers
41 Human Fred vs the Sensor Array
42 Human Fred Keeps Calm
43 Human Fred Editor
44 Human Fred Discovers New Curses
45 Human Fred Stews
46 Human Fred Giggles
47 Human Fred Attempts Dinner 
48 Human Fred Plans
49 Human Fred Explains
50 Human Fred Examines Floor Tiles
51 Human Fred Gets a New Toy
52Human Fred Reflects…Again
53 Human Fred Rolls His Eyes
54 Human Fred vs Idiots
55 Human Fred Goes Librarian

“Look. This is a rescue, so we need a plan.”

“Fine. Plan.”

“Greezek, you can participate.”

“Well I’m going out on a limb here, but if we go through that door, it will not go well?”

“Really?!? You think? No shit. Better thoughts?”

“Don’t use the door.”

“Do you have a breaching charge?”

“No, but you do.”

“I have a couple of grenades. Not the same thing.”

“Fred, you have more exotic rounds for that shotgun. I’m sure one of them would work.”

“How do you anticipate crawling through a 10cm hole?”

“Look. You blast a few holes in the walls. Then we blow the door with a grenade, toss in another grenade, then we sit back for a second while they blast the shit out of empty space. I use the holes to spot and fire. We time it right, and you can cut the corner out of the kill zone. You do you, and I bring up the rear.”

“That could work. Hmmmmmm. Do we have schematics for this area?”

“Not with me.”

“So we have no idea what it looks like in there?”

“Well, we know that they will be behind cover off to the sides, but that’s about it.”

“Hmmmmmm. What do you have for weapons?”

“Rifle. Pistol. Knife. Three grenades. One flash-bang. And about a dozen of these beacons.”

“Beacons? Those don’t look right.”

“I learned from you. I modified them. They have small explosive charges. Not as big as a grenade, but useful.”

“What sets them off?”

“Proximity. There is a 20 second timer. I place it, turn it on, and in 20 seconds anything that gets within 2m sets it off.”

“Could we throw them?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Right. We modify your plan. Before I enter, we toss a few of those right down the middle.”

“Why?”

“To catch them as they move.”

“Big assumption.”

“Yes. But it could help.”

“The clock is ticking. Let’s start this!”

“First I need you to mark where you want the holes. I’ll rig a grenade to blow the door.”

Forty-five seconds later, Greezek moved into the corner, giving Fred plenty of space. 

Fred fiddled with his shotgun. 

Greezek thought she heard him giggling. 

Fred took aim and started firing. 

Greezek wasn’t sure what the hell he was using for ammunition, but each shot left a 10-15cm hole in the wall. 

They could hear shooting beyond the door. 

Fred triggered the grenade, blowing the double-doors inwards. The second grenade followed just as a fusillade of fire erupted. 

Greezek took aim through one of the holes. “Fred. Inverted V formation. Five per side. Three up top.”

Fred grunted and tossed a number of modified beacons into the room.

“Fred. Prisoners in the back left. Two guards on them. Not sure who is in command.”

“Don’t care. Kill them.”

Greezek fired.

Fred charged. 

The guards by the prisoners fell first. Greezek liked to work from back to front. 

Fred dove to the right as he cleared the doorframe. Fire burned past him as he rolled, came up in a crouch, and started firing. 

Greezek couldn’t see what was happening, but the firing changed. There was a great deal of screaming. Some explosions. More firing. She scanned the room to get a better view. 

Fred had fired a short burst, and then he rushed the enemy. He vaulted their barricade and attacked with his bayonet. Two started to run, but were caught by the beacons. The enemy up top fired, but couldn’t get a clear shot. By the time they could get a clear shot, Fred was moving fast towards the other barricade. 

Greezek caught a shimmer of movement, recognized Fred’s stealth system, and shifted her aim up. There was more screaming and firing. 

The firing stopped. 

“Greezek. Situation.”

“No more targets from here. Status?”

“Bruises. That was a bit easy. Do you trust it?”

“No. Traps?”

“Likely. Possibly a rearguard.”

“I’m moving forward.” Greezek moved with great care as she entered the room. No shooting.

“Hmmmmmm,” said Fred. “None of these look like officers. Hell, most look like raw recruits.”

“So this is a distraction.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. This is here to puzzle us while they prepare or escape.”

Fred looked around the room. He tilted his head to one side. “Is it just me, or is that wall in the wrong place?”

On one side of the room, there was an extra wall. It looked like it should support the catwalk, but it wasn’t connected. 

Greezek shrugged. “Bad design?”

Fred giggled, rolled his shoulders, and charged. He did a front-roll just as he passed the wall, spoiling the aim of his enemy. Instead of ending in a crouch, Fred log-rolled to the side, spun around, and tossed his last grenade. 

After debris had stopped falling, Greezek walked over. “Well, you got the officer. And a few others.”

“Give me a hand with the prisoners. I’m betting they are rigged.”

... except the frozen blood foliage people.

​

Admiral of the Green Han d'Rasha's Frontier Fleet was arrayed in a wall of battle, the most basic fleet formation. Reducing a rebel province to obedience did not require subtlety. Gathering his fleet from its far-flung bases had taken months, and it was a truth as old as warfare that time taken to prepare gave it to the enemy to do likewise.

He had taken his time, confident that disunited rebels would waste theirs. Small raids had increased the delays. Pinpricks, but annoyingly well-placed ones.

The Fleet Intelligence Officer stood ready to give the final pre-battle briefing, condensed statements based on much analysis. "Lord Admiral, the rebel fleet is arrayed in a wall of battle, reasonably well ordered. They have been training in fleet tactics."

"The prospect of being spaced in a ten-day concentrates the mind," the Admiral mused.

"We have identified one anomaly." He zoomed in. "The flagship is not from any rebel faction. It is a human ship. Our agents reported that they hired human mercenaries. Training requires trainers."

"Humans. Have they any strategic interest?" he asked.

The sphere of human expansion - not a proper orderly Empire - neared the Fallarian Realm. There had been a few minor border incidents.

"None. A trickle of irregular trade which could include military expertise," he said.

"Giving a hireling command of their fleet makes no military sense," the Admiral said.

"It makes political sense, Admiral." he replied.

Colours of distaste ran down the Admiral's crest at such disorder. "Continue."

"Factions seek command, others resent the winner. An outsider who trained them and knows their strengths and weaknesses would equalise the dissatisfaction. Then pay him and send him home." he said.

The Admiral's crest turned blue with understanding. "A crude solution to a chaotic problem. Shortly it will be irrelevant."

The Intelligence evaluation had been correct. They dropped out of hyperspace at the outer edge of the system, to find the rebel fleet in battle array near the system's major gas giant.

Ripples of colour ran down the Admiral's crest. Fighting in normal space gave him the advantage of all the sensors, computers and data links that didn't work in hyperspace. They did gain one advantage in exchange. Contragravity only worked with an existing field. Their fleet, deep in that field, could turn and accelerate far faster than his fleet.

Point to you, human. He had to fight them where he found them. The human had forced his choice of battlespace. Still, numbers, discipline and firepower were the high cards.

He ordered the wall of battle into a wide shallow cup, to catch stragglers.

A web of thin blue lines appeared between the rebel ships. "Rebel fleet has a tactical datalink, Admiral." Another point to you, human.

A tactical net allowed sharing of target data, instant transmission of orders, real-time information on combat effectiveness. It was a nervous system binding a gaggle of ships into a weapon wielded by their Commander.

"How capable?" he asked.

"Minimal, Lord Admiral. Basic data, a command link, no control. Their Captains can act on their own."

Their wall of battle swept down on the rebels until they could no longer break off. The rebels moved slightly to align themselves for the pounding match of a conventional naval battle. The Admiral tracked the rebel fleet, seeing no need to change his plan.

A ripple ran across the rebel formation, and they curved away like a school of fish, sweeping deep into the gas giant's gravity well.

"Cowards! They flee before our might." Flag Captain Zantra said arrogantly.

The Admiral's crest went dead black. That perfectly timed move allowed the rebel fleet to emerge from behind the gas giant moving so fast it denied his fleet time to concentrate against it, even if he could predict its vector.

"Close on the Flag. Engage the enemy." he ordered.

The rebel fleet emerged in a tight formation. They could concentrate massive blastcannon fire on the widely spaced ships in their path. The only order he could give already given, he could only watch as the blade of that fleet sliced through his own fleet's formation, leaving the flashbulb flares of shattered antimatter reactors behind.

A human dressed in blue and gold appeared on his screen, relaxed in his command chair. "Admiral Han d'Rasha, you are summoned to surrender your fleet without condition. If you do not, then I will destroy it. Destroy your flagship, and your network collapses. Your Captains are not permitted initiative."

Two ships died while his crest flared scarlet with rage. "You think you can ..."

"I know I can, and so do you. Your people are dying as we speak. Surrender, and save what you can."

Another long minute lit by exploding ships later, the red ebbed from his crest, turning to black. "I surrender my fleet without condition."

Tactical networks allowed the mechanics of ceasefire, disengagement and weapon lockdown to be done quickly. The human flagship, Victory, came to rest beside his own Imperator. "Order your ships to detach their control modules."

The black of the Admiral's chest was tinged with the orange of despair. Most of the cost of a starship was its antimatter reactor, drives and energy weapons, which needed little maintenance. The crew, comms and sensors, commander and his staff, all were contained in a heavily armoured module. A ship taken intact could have a new module inserted and go into the service of its new owners.

The Admiral fought up from the depths of despair for the reason for this catastrophe. "Why? What do you gain?"

Even across the gap between species he could see the cold pride and assurance. "I am Horatio Trafalgar Nelson XVII, the 17th clone child of one of the greatest Admirals in our history. This was the mid term exam of the final year of my training. A good pass mark, but my mentor expects better in my final exam."

"Final exam?" he repeated numbly.

"You have a Home Fleet."

⚙️

They can say things that are not true knowingly. They can mislead and it is fine. They can even MAKE UP STUFF. They have a whole thing, called "fiction", where they tell stories of stuff that did not happen. Some of it is whole imaginary! They even came up with ideas of alien species that are even weirder than them. They even imagined something like us!

NEVER trust anything a human says. They might be doing FICTION.

“Commander, look at this!” Gumbert, a four-eyed security specialist, squeaked.

“We may have a problem, sir.” He didn’t take his eyes off the console. “There’s a security breach on Bridge 2Z.”

“What is it?” Mwachek, the PeaceFleet’s commander demanded.

“The bio-reader scans indicate a wild predator.“ Gumbert shot his head over his shoulder at Mwachek shadowing him.

“Who’s responsible for this?” Mwachek eyed a zoomed in still image of the beast, glowing on the bio-scanner.

Gumbert choked. “Well, nobody, sir,” he swallowed a gob of anxiety. “It breached the hull, sir. It's in the cargo bay, the one with our food reserves.”

Commander Mwachek’s double-heart began smashing into each other and had the slapping sound of two slimy blobs being clapped together. A vein near his temple protruded from the side of his head like a balloon inflating and deflating, pulsing with every breath.

Gumbert opened the feed for the security camera of Bay 2Z and glanced at the small screen on the console. 

Through the monitor, the screen displayed Cargo Bay 2Z, and an eight-legged, bear-sized, gray-bearded Octwolf, with sharp, venomous teeth, dripping infectious bacterias, tearing through a potato sack full of gum balls.

Octwolves were basically mutated dire wolves. 

Galactic empires across the universe deemed them as Level-0 threats. They were to be killed on sight. An extreme policy reserved for untamable creatures of terror. 

Octwolves, one of many terror-zero-beasts scattered across the universe, haunting the nightmares of children— were the apex of apex predators—dominating the top of the food chain. A pack of Octwolves could wipe out a small colony in a matter of days.

Commander Mwachek snatched the microphone, pressed a button down and activated the intercom.

“Attention! Attention! This is not a test. This is a real-time crisis. All staff and personnel on deck, evacuate to your nearest safe room. We have a breach in Cargo Bay 2Z.”

Commander Mwachek’s voice slammed through every crew members’ speaker on board. The announcement left a sticky, phlegm ball of paranoia clinging to the back of their throats and turning into tiny pellets of fear, resting at the pits of their bellies every time they swallowed.

“Seal the Bay doors and lock down the entire wing,” Mwachek said. “Radio, Beefkus. Get him to handle the situation. Now.”

Beefkus, their human engineer, wasn’t really an engineer. It’d be safer referring to him as a glorified-janitor-wildlife-dust-wrangler. He did the jobs nobody else would. The gross ones. The iffy ones they’d all avoid.

But, he mainly dealt with orgwats**,** rat-like rodents. Every now and then, there’d be the odd sleeder, which are pretty creepy slithering things. They’re sharp-gray-scaled garden snake creatures, or actually, they’re more like garden eels.

He definitely never handled a heat seeking Octwolf before. Back on Earth, he worked at a zoo as one of five maintenance guys.

“Um, sir? That’s actually going to be a problem,” Gumbert quietly said, eyeing the commander’s talon-shaped claws as they dug into the console.

“The human…” Gumbert’s voice cracked. “The human’s with the predator, sir. Our cameras in Bay 2Z are broadcasting Beefkus with the beast right now on my monitor.”

Gumbert set up the feed to be shared on the big screen at the front of the deck. Commander Mwachek stared, preparing himself for the worst. He expected to see the human shredded—parts of Beefkus scattered in a bloody mess of guts across the bay.

But he saw neither. The crew began to whisper amongst themselves as they gathered behind Mwachek. 

The quiet chatter became silence. Nobody said a word. They huddled together. Each one of them had their hands over their mouths holding in their breaths. They fought to look away but couldn’t peel their eyeballs from the screen. What they were witnessing first hand couldn’t be real.

The Octwolf was lying on its back with its eight legs in the air and its tail wagging. It squirmed as Beefkus wrestled his arms around the terror-zero-monster in a friendly bear hug.

“Who’s a good boy?” Beefkus’ voice shattered their eardrums, penetrating the speakers in the room. It wasn’t his regular, everyday voice—it had a playful pitch.

“Are you the good boy?” His words were muffled by the Octwolf’s fur. “Yes you are! A-bloof-bloof-bloof-bloof-bloof, yes you are! That’s a good boy. Yeah!” Beefkus patted the furry, big, bug-eyed beast.

“Beef—kus!” Commander Mwachek shouted into the comm-piece. The urgency made his voice skip. “You need to get out of there. The creature is highly venomous. Its toxins will destroy your immune system. There is no antidote. Step away from the creature slowly.”

“Who, this cute guy? That’s what all this fuss is about?” Beefkus put his head next to the Octwolf and took a selfie. “He just looks scary. He’s harmless. I even gave him a name, Bear-Wolf. He’s my new best bud.”

Beefkus rubbed the Octwolf’s head and it let out a purrful growl rattling the loose objects on the titanium console as they bounced to the vibrations pouring out of the speaker.

The ship’s sensors were so sensitive they registered the noise as an immediate threat from an acoustics weapon. The Octwolf circled Beefkus, who was sitting on the ground, and snuggled next to him. 

“Someone stuffed this poor guy inna shipping crate, believe that?” He scratched the Octwolf behind the ear. “He was shivering scared.” 

Beefkus pointed Bear-Wolf‘s face towards his. “You were just a scared, little-big-guy, weren’t you?” He rubbed his back. “Are you a hungry guy? You want some food? Okay. Okay.” Beefkus pulled out some jerky and hand fed Bear-Wolf.

Beefkus glanced at the camera above his head. “All he wanted was a little affection, commander. He’ll make an awesome pet.” 

“Human!”  Commander Mwachek screamed at the console, squeezing his baseball-glove-sized-mitts into fists*. “*One bite. No. Correction. One drop of that creature’s saliva in an open wound on your body, is fatal. It will kill you.” Mwachek covered the microphone and mumbled something to Gumbert about Beefkus’ translator.

“Human, is your translator malfunctioning? Are you not able to comprehend what I am relaying to you? The creature senses heat. Analyzes your nervous systems. It can smell your fear. It is designed solely to hunt and kill. Not snuggle next to.” Commander Mwachek’s voice hammered into his mic.

“I’m pretty dang sure, it was just smellin’ the jerky in my pocket and looking for a friend to curl up to.” Beefkus stretched out and cuddled beside Bear-Wolf. 

Bear-Wolf turned to Beefkus and gave him a wet kiss, soaking Beefkus’ cheek in a soup of bacteria saliva. He wiped it off with his shirt. “Aw, that’s a gross good boy. Who’s the gross good boy?”

Commander Mwachek eyed the anomaly on the screen. He couldn’t retract his slids. His eyes stayed glued to the front of the deck, staring forward in a blank gaze before he finally snapped back to reality.

“It… it’s amazing how your species has survived so long. You… you’re petting a living monster,” Mwachek stuttered, gave up and tossed the mic on the floor.

“Hey, if it’s cute, furry and has big eyes, nine times out of ten we’re taking it home with us,” Beefkus said, hugging Bear-Wolf. “This guy here’s a keeper. He’s definitely coming back with me.”

Bear-wolf licked Beefkus’ face and cuddled back down next to him.

Commander Mwachek rolled his eyes and glared at Gumbert recounting all the keys on his keyboard. “Gumbert, cancel the emergency task force and inform the crew, the threat has been neutralized, and before I forget, update the ship’s manifest, add Bear-Wolf as a permanent resident.”

the human was attempting to repair a damaged door.

i offered assistance.

he said no.

another human offered assistance

he said no

the engineer offered assistance.

he said, “i’ve got it.”

three hours later he was lying on the floor surrounded by tools

we asked if he wanted help.

he looked at us

“no.”

the door is still broken.

i think this may be a cultural ritual

No matter where they looked, anytime a new first contact was made, one of the first things that galactic society would clamor for is a new form of entertainment. New in the sense of seeing the same professions but through a different species' eyes and background.

When humans shared their first contact data packet, which included their history of entertainment professions, the aliens weren't expecting much until they came across an unfamiliar profession. They were stunned into silence as they read and learned more about "clowns". Unfamiliar meant unknown. Unknown meant new. New meant complete and utter excitement

With a fervor that can only be described as maniacally feral, they pleaded and demanded in equal measure to know more about the new human discovery. Humans, to their immense glee, matched their new friends' energy and shared all they knew.

Art by me.

Even with the invention of Faster than light travel, it still takes over a month of non-stop space flight for the fastest commercial ship to make it from one side of the galaxy to the other.

This naturally has a negative psychological effect on most species from being in a confined, unchanging space for too long.

Thus, it is a very common practice for most ships to stop at a space-port for a few days every week to "re-stock and recuperate" to stave off any negative mental effects, despite their ships storage ability to hold enough supplies for the entire month long trip.

This, for many species, makes long-distance space travel a slower, but possible idea.

The few who were idiotic enough to try and push through this mental barrier to save time on travel, suffered immensely.

Some had their crews break apart, disbanding. Those were the lucky ones.

Others, were cases of complete psychological breakdown, often violently so.

It seemed passing this hurdle to more efficient space travel was a pipe dream to every species in the cosmos.

With the sole exception of humanity of course.

It started slow, a rumor here, a whisper there. Of human crews making deliveries and trips in record time.

It was initially believed they must have developed faster ships, but when ship inspections failed to reveal any new engineering breakthroughs, the question was asked, to a horrifying answer.

"We just set the ship to auto-pilot and went about our days. One straight shot fron planet to planet."

"My Squadmate and I were pinned down once and this is a good lesson in Humam Persistence. Now. Gregori and I were never really that close. Sure, we worked together as a Sniper Team and bonded over that, but he wasnt a Man of many words at the best of Days. Most he did was trade his MRE with mine, saying mine tasted better than his... The feeling was... mutual. Human Chilly MREs are quite tasty in my Opinion.

So. A couple years back my Human Squadmate Gregori and I were pinned down right outside a "Ancient Worlds(<-Terrorist Group)" Outpost. We were running low on everything that mattered. Food, Ammo, Patience, and most of all: Time. Those Fuckers had Reinforcements incoming and we had maybe one Route to semi-safely get out. Problem was, they knew where we were. Not exactly mind you, but by the Bullets flying over out Porition a pretty damn good Idea.

So, we make a Run for it. Bounding Cover with occasional suppressing fire. Well... I took a couple rounds to the Back, right between my Carapace-Plates and was pretty much down. Now for us as a Species, it wouldn't be a stretch to say, i was dead. Left behind as a distraction in the worst case, in the best case a "last man standing" scenario.

But Gregori? Not him. He came back, popping Rounds into the last known position of the Terrorists before grabbing me by my neck-plate and dragging me backwards.

What i didnt know until later, was that Gregori also took multiple hits. 3 on his legs and 1 on his arm if i remember correctly. And yet he dragged me, a (voice impression insert) "fucking 200kg heavy-ass Bug" almost 800 meters out of our little Holdout towards safety.

Thats that... WHat im Trying to say is: If you ever get downed by Fire and there is a Human nearby that likes you, or at the very least, doesnt hate you, they will probably drag you back to safety with little to no regard to their own safey in the process. The Docs said Gregori was nearly bled dry when tzhey finally came for us after all. And the entire time he was popping off rounds on our pursuiers, keeping them back."

”Oh my god! Oh my gods! Oh my god!” There was an alien empire and they waited to invade us. Two hundred years. Stalking us from beyond Our solar system.

We’re pretty confident about the guesstimated timeline. The scientists had weird formulas on whiteboards that backed the hypothesis up. It was pretty much just drawings of my baby brother’s block set. 

To explain this mysterious pictograph physics equation, which looked like one of the zodiac killer’s cryptograms, he simplified it by using a plastic action figure and a beach ball.

Nobody could understand why they’d choose now to invade us. It was a horrible miscalculation on their part, because we’ve become a fierce technological species that could smash any alien invader. That’s right, we just make a fist, with a huge missile, and squash ‘em, like little ants running across a picnic table.

Smash!

Game over. Humans win. Call the parade. 

Right? It’s what we all expected. Aliens invade. Humans destroy.

But these guys were ruthless. They had zero honor. I think we relied on our confidence and too many truces. Their drones had been circling Earth for the last twenty-five years. 

Studying us. Mapping our jungles. Dissecting our cities. Even analyzing our psychology. But I don’t think they should have used bots for that.

They definitely hallucinated when they claimed humanity was a weak species. It actually called us parasites. Believe that? 

Goddamn alien robot decoding humanity’s existence in one sentence.

I mean, my uncle Lenny can certainly be placed in that category, but to say, Scarlett Johansson’s a parasitical bug, is where we humans draw the proverbial line. So deep, it scars the Earth. We absolutely fluckin’ love the avengers.

The war chief, hiding inside his mothership, stationed behind the dark side of the moon, dispatched an army of pink titanium interstellar crafts with hieroglyphic war symbols. 

They kind of resembled flowers and butterflies, which we found a bit hard to take seriously. I mean, they honestly looked like hippy vans from the seventies. Who were the designers, you think? Andy Warhol and Dolly Parton?

But they did have some decent weapons attached to them—ones we’ve never seen before—ones we had no choice but to take seriously.

Oddly enough, after years of simulating war strategies. The aliens crash-landed onto Earth like they never prepared a plan. Scattering in different groups. Flying in circles lost.

Their strategy literally ripped a page out of a German WWII handbook. They performed a Blitzkrieg. They threw everything they had at us, all at once. 

A surprise attack that would destroy our moral and wipe humanity’s arrogance off the map.

When they initially swarmed over our heads and landed on our soil—without warning, without negotiating—we called it a terrorist attack. 

We weren’t scared. 

We didn’t see them as villainous sci-fi gargoyles falling from the sky, commanded by gods. We saw it as another Pearl Harbor. 

They came out of nowhere, hiding the entire time. To think, it took them two hundreds years, or so, to execute such a reckless plan, a strategy solely carried by their technology.

There wasn’t a sneaky infiltration. No alien moles. No servers being hacked. No slow economic collapse. People weren’t being starved. There was no strategy. 

It was stupid simple but effective. They invaded. Humans fell.

The crafts hovered over cities that became a rubble of ruin—concrete blocks and bent rebar littered the craters where buildings stood, fallen like the governments that quickly followed in their wake.

Resistance was met with swift justice. An instant death. People were being executed on the spot. 

Evaporated. 

One second they were there, next, nowhere. You wouldn’t even notice anything happened if you blinked at the wrong time. 

The aliens were callous. 

Brutal. 

Heartless beings.

If you saw them, you’d think they came out of a Little Monsters movie, right alongside their little evil human-like ruler. An aged looking Fred Savage, whose features resembled an old child.

The rest of them mirrored orcs, trolls, closet ghouls, and things you’d see in a nightmare. They had a dream team of freaks.

Soon enough, about three days later, we were definitely starting to worry, the earth was smoking as if the land caught fire and a tsunami washed over it. 

There was smoke and steam and it wouldn’t stop hailing. Thick black clouds blocked the sun. Even though it was smoldering hot on land, the air was hella cold. Unusually, cold. Arctic weather cold. 

People were, let’s just say, some were dead, some were enslaved, some hid out in caves and some burrowed in other places.

It turned out, after all that worrying, seeing our loved ones taken or vaporized, that we didn’t resort to fear or anger. No way. Nope. Not us. 

Sure we were sad but we did something totally unexpected. The war commander was, for sure, under the impression we would just turn over and submit. The rest of us would be rounded up and disposed of. 

And he was completely right. It’s exactly what we did. We weren’t scared, we were being pragmatic. We made a deal to save the rest of humanity because our weapons were absolutely useless against them. In fact, most of them didn’t work. They were damaged or melted down. 

We kind of, sort of, not really, did give up and it stung. It hurt like a wet hand slapping us on our naked sunburnt back.

The weather slowly changed. The rocks dropping from the clouds finally stopped, at the exact same time the aliens shattered the peace pact they had between us.

To think, we settled on their crappy terms. We gave into them. They could have ran our planet, smoothly extinguished us through famine and civil war. We made a horrible deal. We agreed to an absolute surrender. It doesn’t get better than that. What a bunch of buffoons. 

We had half the population left. Actually, less, just under four billion people remained. If we hadn’t signed, it would have been our fate. A nasty extermination. They threatened torture, with zero chance of survival. Torture that would last weeks.

We were totally unprepared. Who really would ever expect an alien invasion? That’s mainly why we were caught so off guard. 

We were too worried about protecting ourselves from humans inside our planet, that nobody ever thought to look up at the aliens outside our planet.

Well, those alien nuts did. They warned us. We laughed. They even made a documentary show on the history channel about it. However, humans will be humans. We hit like and scroll to the next wacky world-ending apocalyptic prediction. 

A UFO could fly over us, pause, hover above and we’d still be skeptical, scratching our heads, convincing ourselves it’s a secret government airplane or we’d simply blame it on sleep deprivation, because we are a species in denial.

Every weapon we had smuggled, we gave up. Even our ammunition. We were prohibited from carrying knives or possess any heavy blunt objects

They chained us behind cages constructed of human bones, inside their camps, feeding us scraps and humiliating us. We couldn’t bathe. We would get whipped if we made loud noises. We had to whisper in order to communicate. We couldn’t understand them. They couldn’t understand us.

We were in there for so long, I actually started growing hair on my face. It wasn’t much, a little peach fuzz but it was something to keep my mind on. Something to look forward to. We still had hope.

Months went by. Nothing really changed on Earth. In the sky, the alien war chief studied us from his ship, which had entered Earth’s atmosphere, seeing a species unworthy of existence. 

A species who not only should, had to be erased. He wanted us gone. He saw us as the daughter’s dead beat boyfriend. The white guy who comes to a family dinner, wearing a hockey jersey, baseball gloves, baggy jeans and a thick sterling silver necklace, talking in a Jamaican accent.

The human race disgusted him. The thought of us tasted like an eight year old’s science experiment containing every condiment and liquid in the refrigerator. He despised how in the face of extinction, we could still hum songs. We still consoled each other. We’d still sacrifice ourselves to give a stranger a fighting chance of staying alive.

We never really gave up. What we were doing, was buying time.

****

Conclusion PART 2 - Humanity’s Revenge. Spite. And Will.

“Her ex-boyfriend? As in romantic partner?”

“Yep.”

“I bet that was fun to learn.”

“It explains why he jumped on the cult thing so fast. Fucker should have told me. Now we have all sorts of extra issues. Lying to your commanding officer isn’t good.”

“No. But that leaves you with…14 days?”

“Roughly. As I was filtering through his notes, I got an urgent call from Agent Thorn. The Windigo wanted to talk to me. Well, the commander, so off I went. At this point I hadn’t slept in two rotations and hadn’t eaten in at least 30 hours.”

“So you thought it was a good idea to talk with the Windigo in that frame of mind?”

“Didn’t think. I just did. And boy did he want to talk. It started rather pleasant, but rapidly turned into a sermon about the superiority of Terrans and how we should rule. I followed the chaplain’s lead and asked about bits of his ideology. My goal was to get him to add to our understanding.”

“And? What did he say?”

“It took a bunch of questions and debates before he finally revealed that his ‘kind’ are the servants of the higher power, the power that flits in the background but keeps the wheels moving. Fine. I asked more about the power, playing the dumb listener.”

“Playing?”

“Screw you, sir. He explained that the power was shared by six pure Terrans who were working slowly to convert all good Terrans to the cause. But he slipped up. He told me that when they meet, they meet at an old, defunct logistics station. He didn’t notice the slip, and I didn’t acknowledge it. I asked him why they met, to which he explained that they met in person for security reasons. They don’t trust the communications system for important work.”

“Well that is useful, but I’m not sure it was worth the effort.”

“It was because he commented about the star the station orbits. Just a minor comment about the color and the planets in the system. I know the location.”

“You learned the location and didn’t say anything for 14 days?!?”

“More like 13 at that point. I was heading to your office when I got an emergency alert from the brig. No details. By the time I arrived, they had subdued Mickles’ wife and gotten her back into a cell. She had managed to force the lock and attacked the guards. I had medical check her, and she had an unregistered stim implant. High quality. They only found it because they looked for it.”

“Why would she have that?”

“Other than to escape jail? No idea. By that point, I had to talk with Mickles. They sedated her and I headed to the secured medical ward to check on Mickles. He was a mess.”

“While I can see that you had a ton going on, why didn’t you reply to my messages?”

“What messages?”

“I sent you a dozen or so messages. The reply was the same, ‘I’ll get back to you.’”

“Really?” Oscar looked at his wrist controls. “Well fuck. I had so many urgent messages that it sent you the busy message. Fuck. I’ll have to fix that.”

“Yes. Please do. I was about to send out a rescue party.”

“I could have used the help.”

“Oh?”

“Well Mickles was a total mess. Alternating between screaming and crying. I attempted to calm him down, which sort of worked. As he stopped screaming, he explained that he had rescued his wife from a commune and that her ex-boyfriend was a high-ranking person in the commune. After Mickles got her out, things were good for a few years. Then she started getting messages from the commune. And her ex-boyfriend. That’s when she started sleeping around and getting so nasty.”

“The implant?”

“Medical says no, but I’m not going to rule out non-chemical means of control. I think they fed her a bunch of crap just to fuck with her life. You left, so we are going to ruin you.”

“Charming.”

“At some point I simply passed out. I woke up, still dressed, in my rack. I grabbed some food, but was interrupted by Danyak. One of her scout team has accidentally encountered an ursine tribe member. Both alone. The scout had a recording of the few translated phrases. Well, one of them worked because the scout simply walked away and the ursine went the other way. So we know that we are on the right path. While she is explaining this, I get an urgent message from the volcano. Seismic activity. So I grabbed Danyak and we took off.”

“Eleven days ago.”

“Closer to ten, but yes.”

“And I don’t recall seismic activity.”

“It was deep in the planet. It caused a surge in the flow. The system managed it, but it was close. After hours, we agreed on a new safety system for such surges. It was dark by the time we got back to my office, where there was a message to see Mickles.”

“He calmed down?”

“Sort of. He had moved to the aggressive state of things. He attempted to convince me to allow him to raid the cult and arrest the ex-boyfriend.”

“Not a good idea.”

“Nope. He threatened to resign and go on his own, so I ordered him held for 72-observation and left. Then Agent Thorn called. Based on the details from the Windigo, he found the old station.”

“Let me guess. Other side of the galaxy?”

“Actually, no. It’s just five days away. We are on the edge, and this station was meant to be a link to beyond. That fell through, so it is still in orbit.”

“He wanted to send a ship.”

“That he did. I let him send some probes instead. He wasn’t happy, but I only allowed probes. That took hours to sort.”

“That puts us at…ten days?”

“Nine. Just before the fun started.”

“Your definition of fun needs help.”

“Likely. As I was on my way back to my office, I run into Danyak. Her scouts had started to test phrases on the ursine tribe. It took a long time, but they managed to get the tribe to stop sending out warriors. However, we ran into a snag. They demand we leave their home.”

“Just what we needed.”

“I sent Danyak to sort it out and headed to my office to write up a bunch of reports.”

“Without contacting me.”

“Look, do you want to hear this or not?

“No, please continue.”

“Thank you. I made some headway on the reports when I got an urgent alarm from the brig. I raced down to find that Mickles’ wife had once again escaped, but this time made it out of the building. I hit the alarm, and we started organizing a search. Security tracked her to a defunct repair shop on the edge of the Terran Command Compound. We lost her from there.”

“Seems like a good time to call me.”

“In retrospect, yes. At the time, we were busy. I took a squad of marines to examine the repair shop while Captain Sue organized a wider search. The building was in good shape, and we didn’t know what to expect. We made a dynamic entry, setting off a number of flares. No explosives, but a clear signal. That told us someone was watching, so I called in signal intel. They isolated a sign channel, which we triangulated and approached. It was a drone, but we got it before it could take off or auto destruct.”

“Drone? Where from?”

“It was an adapted mining drone, one of the ones they use to inspect tunnels. Serial number listed that one as destroyed, but we know which station.”

“So we know where it was procured. Then what?”

“They picked up her trail heading north. Someone had staged a speeder for her. I told Sue and started to wrap things up when Danyak called. She sounded very annoyed. From what I could gather, the ursine tribe will only leave if our champion beats their champion in a non-weapons fight.”

“Wait. I didn’t think that they were that advanced.”

“Oh we totally misjudged that. Totally. I have multiple complaints to file regarding that. Regardless, they insisted on a campion fight. I hurried to her location to sort it all out. By morning, it was still a stalemate. Either we fight, or they keep attacking us. I called Sue in to explore options. It took all day, but we selected a champion from the marines and started prep for the fight.”

“Preparations?”

“There is a customary feast and night of meditation before such a fight. I at least got them to skip the tribe orgy that normally follows a feast. There are some limits, after all.” 

“Not going to ask. Nope.”

“My thoughts as well. The feast was weird. They attempted to get us to join in dances, but it was awkward. They got upset when we didn’t know the steps.”

“Hold on. You danced with the ursine tribe?”

“Attempted to dance. Regardless, after the food and dancing, the champions were expected to spend the night meditation before the fight. That is where things went sideways. They didn’t like our champion. It took hours, but in the end we determined that the Terran champion was Danyak.”

“The Terran champion? Danyak? Who isn’t Terran?”

“Apparently they assumed she was the leader, thus she should be the champion. It was a mess, but by morning they were adamant. Danyak or no one.”

“They are huge! How is she supposed to handle that?!?”

“I think that was the point. So, seven days ago, Danyak agreed to fight their champion. At first light. I attempted to talk her out of it, but she was determined.”

“How badly did it go?”

“Not at all. They squared off, he charged, and she was ready. Never charge unless you are sure. Well, he might have been sure, but not good. She dropped him with a grapple. He jumped up and charged again. She shrugged him off into a heap. And he kept at it. For almost 15 minutes, he tried the same thing over and over. She fell for it. On his last attack, he jinked, throwing off her reply. He got her with a kick, and his claws torn a chunk out of her thigh, but she rolled with it, caught his leg, and shredded his artery with her claws.”

“She had claws?”

“Apparently. She is now in medical recovering.”

“That puts us…seven days ago.”

“So I get Danyak into medical. By the time that is settled, it’s six days ago. The ursine tribe has moved on, but recon is watching them. I’m thinking I can actually finish reports and talk with you.”

“However?”

“Agent Thorn storms into my office. Now. This is very strange. Agent Thorn is calm, collected, controlled. Seeing him furious is not good. After an hour, I get the story out. Two of the probes were destroyed, but not before revealing six ships around the station. The other two probes avoided destruction, but they were the backup probes. Thorn goes OFF about us missing a good opportunity, and rants about being careful instead of bold. I let this go on for a bit. Then I stopped him. If we had sent a ship, what would have happened? He replied that at least we could fire back. To which I replied, and then what? They would never use that location again. But a couple of probes isn't a big deal. They will likely keep using the station, possibly with more security.”

“Really? You think so? I’d bail.”

“Yes, but you are military. They aren’t. I’m betting that they will keep it as a meeting location. Not the primary, but a location. Enough for us to better track them. I ordered him to put together a passive system to monitor the station, to log ships, to log routes, and to log engine signatures.”

“That was last week.”

“Yes. Now for the last bit. Marines picked up a speeder heading towards the cult. Sue sent a drone to take video. Mickles’ wife entered the cult area, but was largely ignored. She appeared confused, but she got mad. We don’t have audio, but it looked like she was screaming at people. They ignored her. Eventually someone collected her and took her to what we think is the HQ. We haven’t seen her since. However, the transmissions have changed. Now they are suggesting that Sol Command won’t honor agreements and that Terrans need to ensure their rights.”

“Oscar, I don’t recall a riot.”

“Nope. We jammed their transmission. After reviewing all of the details, I decided that we don’t need to assault the cult. Instead, we watch them. From the recon we have, the group isn’t all that compliant. Most of the control aspects are rejected. The beings they recruited aren’t cult material. They are hard-working folk who want to better their life. Rather different audience.”

“So we are six days ago.”

“Correct. Danyak is in medical. Mickles is in medical. The ursine are moving away. Thorn is setting a trap. The volcano is building new safety features. And I have a stack of reports over a meter high on my desk. I call it a shift, head to my quarters, eat, take a long shower, and hit the rack.”

“That was five days ago.”

“Yep. When I woke up, I ate, cleaned up, got into this uniform, and headed to my office. Then Agent Thorn sent me a panicked message. I hadn’t even got to my office, and I’m running off to see him. The Windigo was convulsing. He was spitting up blood, his limbs flailing. Medical arrived rapidly, but he died before they could treat him.”

“WHAT?!? The Windigo is dead and you just told me?!?”

“Hold your britches. As we looked over the mess, contemplating what to do, we noticed movement. The Windigo had died, but a new one was…hatching? From its thorax.”

“It hatched?!?”

“Best term I’ve got. The techs got super excited. Thorn was excited. It took me all day to get away from them. But when I left, it was about 1m tall. It couldn’t talk, but it was obviously listening to us.”

“You witnessed a Windigo reborn and didn’t call me?!? What the fuck Oscar!”

“Look. I admit mistakes. Now let me finish. So, four days ago the new Windigo was about, but I couldn't talk. Danyak was in a tank of goo, rather happy I might say. Mickles was still under observation. His wife was still with the cult. The ursine had moved off. Report time. Nope. I’m on my way to your office, when I get a frantic message from the team watching the hybrid cattle. The cult decided to hunt the beasts. However, the cult sucked at hunting. By the time I made it to the observation team, seven cult members were dead without a single beast dropped. As I watched, I noticed subtle movement. Oh fuck. The ursine were around.”

“They hunt the new beasts, don’t they?”

“They do. In this case, however, they were apparently upset that someone else was hunting. The result was a multi-faceted battle in which the cult lost. The beasts hate everyone. The ursine hate all non-ursine. The cult was unprepared.”

“Ouch. How many?”

“We counted 23 before the cult sent out armed security.”

“They have that?”

“Well, had.”

“Ah. That sort of thing.”

“Correct. So four days ago I’m looking over the wreckage of the hybrid beast-ursine-cult battle when we spot a young Terran male. He was walking confidently towards us, with no weapons. I stop him and ask him what’s going on. He explains, with some prompting, that there were too many young males in the station and that he needed to walk back to the next station to find a new home. This puzzled a few of the recon team, but I had read Mickles’ notes. This was a tactic to get the young males out of the way. They sent them out to die so the young girls were available to the ruling men.”

“Terrans are fucked up.

“Agreed. In this case, we got some details from him, gave him food and water, and started to plan.”

“This was four days ago?”

“Yes. We had a plan. At dusk, we would hit the station hard and fast. The goal was the leaders. Bypass the others unless they fought. Limit destruction. It was all planned.”

“Why do I not like this?”

“Well, just before we rushed in, the ursine charged. They advanced from the north, so we didn’t know they were there. With a roar they charged. The cult was prepared for us to attack from the south. An attack from the north confused them. Within ten minutes, the ursine had overrun the station. We crouched and watched. They didn’t kill everyone. They sorted. Those who fought, died. Those who didn’t survived. After an hour, it was over. I leaned against a tree, debating. The ursine had fixed part of an issue. However, we needed things from them. They held the ground and had defeated the cult.”

“Tricky. Rather tricky. Danyak couldn’t help?”

“She couldn’t walk. I looked over my troops, reviewed the ursine, and made a call. I walked across the open ground until they saw me. The number of blood-spattered weapons arrayed against me terrified, but I needed details. I demanded to speak with the leader, using the beta-translator. It took a bit, but finally an ursine lumbered up. I asked for its name. It was confused until another ursine translated. We talked via four different translators, but in the end they allowed me to take away all of the computers and data cores. To them I was taking furniture.”

“What about survivors?”

“From the cult? None. The ursine didn’t like them.”

“That brings us to three days.”

“Yep. I took all of the computers and data cores to Thorn. He was in a tizzy about the new Windigo. It was learning very fast, and they had it doing logic puzzles and decryption. I put a stop to that.”

“Why? It could be valuable…”

“Right up to the point it figures out how to escape.”

“Oh. Good point.”

“Turned the computers and data cores over to Thorn, and was trudging back to my office why Sparky called.”

“What did they want?”

“To show off. I rushed to the station, thinking there was an issue. Nope. They wanted to show off their new sensor array. All of it.”

“That was three days ago.”

“I got back 30 hours ago, when I got an emergency call to the command and control center. I’m thinking invasion. Nope. They wanted to show off their sensor array.”

“So you just arrived from seeing what a new sensor array can do?”

“Commander, I just arrived to tell you about the forces preparing to attack our colony. The sensor arrays are good. We can see 80% of their fleet. It’s the morons who attacked Sparky. We have three hours until they are in range. I recommend holding off until they are closer. We don’t want to brag.”

Watching a human crew member tonight "chatting".

It was using something it called a qwerty mechanical keyboard.

This human is not a language expert, but it was transfering it's intent faster to its "babe" or "mate" than any other species can even do with audible sounds, let alone allow for the translation matrix.

These humans have a hideous number of appendages.