Chain Reaction - (Deathclaws x NOP) Chapter 10
Memory transcription subject: Governor Tarva of the Venlil Republic
Date [standardized human time]: July 29, 2136
I said what was becoming my familiar refrain “I believe we’re out of time, counciler. I have another appointment to attend to. Reach out to my aide with further questions or to schedule another time to reconvene. Excuse me.” I powered down my tablet and took a brief moment to myself to reorient. If you weren’t careful, time on Venlil Prime could get away from you without a definitive day and night to keep track of - to say nothing of fielding hundreds of inquiries from the wider galactic Federation, all of which had their own time of day. The existence of the deathclaws had been made public knowledge in the Federation, and now everyone wanted to hear about it directly from the source.
Now that we were off the call, one of my aides stepped into my office, bringing with them a slate of new reports, and - praise all that is holy - breakfast. I glanced through the reports - which either fell into status updates on the defense effort, budget requests for the former or requests for meetings to discuss either of the former. The silver lining to all this is that unemployment was dropping rapidly, and I might be able to swing some favorable trade deals off of a particularly insistent Nevok. I asked my assistant a few follow up questions to the reports between mouthfuls of the morning pastry - still warm from the oven, she’s getting a raise next budget cycle - and scheduled five more meetings for this coming week.
“What’s next on the itinerary?” I asked after swallowing the last of my breakfast.
“Your interview with Cilany, the harchen reporter.” said my aide after scanning her tablet.
“Solvin’s contact?” I asked, and my aide nodded.
I swept the few errant crumbs off my desk, while my aide touched up my appearance to get me camera ready. The aide then left to fetch the reporter, and I took the spare scratch to read up on my notes. All too quickly my aide returned with the harchen reporter in tow. Cilany’s scales were a bright emerald green, contrasting with her ocean blue eyes and red frills on her head and neck.
Cilany bowed her head “Madam Governor, thank you for taking the time to see me, especially under these difficult times.”
I bowed my head in response “If not for difficult times, we would have no time at all.” I gestured to the chairs I had set aside for meetings with reporters or other less formal affairs where I didn’t want to peer over my desk for the length of the conversation. I continued “Have a seat over here and we’ll get started right away. I apologize in advance that my schedule is tight - I have a hard stop in - Tiama?”
“Thirty two minutes, Governor.” answered my aide, checking the time.
We got seated immediately and after a quick sound check, the harchen formally began recording her interview “Ladies and gentlemen, I am reporting on location from Venlil Prime, and I am joined by its leading executive officer Madam Governor Tarva. Governor Tarva, welcome to the program.”
“A pleasure.” I said with a nod for the camera.
“I won’t mince words, Governor. There are some that are saying that the deathclaw predators are a hoax that you engineered to get favorable infrastructure deals for Venlil Prime.”
I nodded, unfazed “The arrival of the deathclaws was captured on no less than five different deep space monitoring stations, both on planet and off. Results that were then verified that same day personally by Captain Solvin and the entirety of his Federation First response fleet. The findings were then transmitted to every other member of the Federation. If this was a hoax everyone, everywhere has had an opportunity to discover it. We are not so lucky.”
“You say that Governor, but you are also the one advocating for a softer touch with the deathclaw predators. How do you square that circle?”
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst. We are under siege by at least one predatory species. Over allocation of Federation military assets to a non-critical need could prove disastrous. We need to gather information about the deathclaws before we can properly plan our response.” I replied.
“Turning to domestic issues, there are reports that a large number of Venlil are seeking asylum off planet among other Federation planets, given the proximity to the deathclaw predators, but are being turned away in droves. Why isn’t the government assisting its citizens through this difficult time?”
Were I not a career politician, my tail would have slapped the ground in irritation, but I couldn’t fully keep the bitterness out of my voice “Our immigration service has been taxed by the recent uptick in demand. It will take time to resolve the various travel issues, as we will need to coordinate with each of our Federation partners to secure habitation for our citizens. We are currently in discussions about civilians emigrating using cargo ships that are returning to their port of origin after disbursing their cargo for the defense effort. But there are logistics to work out, as not all are rated for transporting living beings.” I rattled off essentially word for word my briefing on the matter, Tiama was definitely getting that raise.
Cilany nodded along, but responded “I’ve heard that talking point before, but how do you resp-”
She suddenly broke off as my tablet exploded with notifications. I had barely raised myself from the chair before we could hear sirens in the distance. That dropped the temperature in the room considerably, and we all eyed the tablet with trepidation. I snatched it off the table, sorting through the notifications I saw an incoming call from Captain Solvin, which I answered.
The quilled Captain appeared on screen “Governor Tarva, scouts have confirmed a deathclaw vessel on a direct course to Venlil Prime. Eta: 3 hours.”
My heart was in my throat again “Confirm - One vessel?”
“Yes, Governor. It may be the same vessel as first contact.”
“I am en route to the situation room, you are authorized to begin defense coordination efforts.”
Solvin nodded and then cut the channel so he could focus his attention elsewhere. “Cilany, the interview is over. I give you authorization to enter the command shelter. You may find shelter in any of the other civilian shelters at your preference.”
“I’m not missing this.” said Cilany instantly, jumping to her feet.
“Then keep up.” said Tiama as we took off down the halls. There was a balance to be struck in situations like this. You needed to move with purpose so onlookers knew you were aware of the situation and were ready to intervene. You couldn’t outright run however, because that would look like panic, and was very likely to cause a stampede. Thankfully, we had to slow our pace to answer all of the incoming calls and messages, and we could tell when we were going too fast as Cilany had to break into a run to keep up with her smaller legs. Once we arrived, all we had to do was prepare for the end of the world.
Memory transcription subject: Captain Cyrus of the Terran Reclamation Committee
Date [standardized human time]: July 29, 2136
My mouth was actually dry as the small dot that Venlil Prime slowly came into view. Our sensors had picked up several dozen ships forming a defensive perimeter around the planet. It was a rather jarring shift from when we had last seen the Venlil. Perhaps this was closer to their normal operating procedure and we had just caught them at an inopportune time.
“Slow our approach to 80%, and open all hailing frequencies.” We weren’t in communications range quite yet, but it would at least let the Venlil know we at least wanted to attempt conversation.
Space was funny like that. We were traveling unbelievably fast, even with a slow deceleration but it still took minutes for the little dot of Venlil Prime to upgrade itself to a spec. And a few minutes more to become a blotch.
Eventually comms signaled that we were within range. “All stop.”
It took 47 seconds for the Venlil to answer. On screen was Governor Tarva, that I had recognized from our original transmission. We were also receiving a communication from what was the flagship of the orbiting fleet - it was one of the quilled creatures I recognized from the Arxur pens.
I began “Attention Governor Tarva and other representatives of Venlil Prime, I am Captain Cyrus of the Terran Reclamation Committee. We have previously established diplomatic channels and are here as formal representatives of our government to further form a dialogue between our nations. Please respond.”
Tarva answered “We receive you Captain Cyrus. The people of Venlil Prime are willing to continue discussions. You should also be receiving a transmission from Captain Solvin, one of Venlil’s allies.”
I nodded with a slight bow “Thank you Governor. We are receiving you, Captain Solvin.” I said addressing the quilled alien directly.
Solvin replied “No one here will believe your lies predator! You should leave while you can.”
Tarva’s eyes went wide “Solvin-!” she began but I raised a clawed hand to forestall her. I succeeded a little too well as I saw everyone on the call visibly recoil from the camera.
I hastily moved my claw out of frame “Hear me now. We do not lie.”
“Ahem.” said Tarva, jumping back into the conversation. “Captain Solvin is charged with the defense of Venlil Prime. A task he performs with zeal. He is skeptical of any new arrival until they have proved their noble intent.”
Solvin for his part looked at me with absolute loathing.
“Let us get to the meat of the matter.” I said, deliberate in my turn of phrase “Your reaction to our arrival is based on your previous interaction with the Arxur.”
Tarva stood up straighter “You encountered them?”
“Yes.” I responded “We were ambushed and they boarded our vessel. We drove them off.”
Solvin scoffed “We told you we would not believe your lies predator!”
In reply, I signaled Deeja who transmitted the camera feed from my armor from the Arxur raid. Solvin and Tarva watched the footage grimly, and in the latter case, through the gaps in their paws. More than once I heard cries of triumphant disgust as an Arxur was torn apart from somewhere offscreen. Deeja stopped the recording on a frame when I killed the Arxur in their cattle pens, as I stared into the huddled masses of captured aliens.
“Your fury at us is justified, but misguided.” I said to the two aliens.
“Hardly.” said Solvin who recovered first, while Tarva appeared to be dry heaving. “Whatever your intent was by showing us that footage just proved you’re violent monsters.”
That actually gave me an idea. I turned my attention to Tarva “Tarva - was Solvin not briefed on our previous communication?” To my side, Deeja looked at me as if I had lost my senses.
My odd line of inquiry seemed to shake Tarva out of her funk “I- what? No. I fully briefed everyone.”
“Then he knows our species is called ‘Deathclaws’ yes? That we were made to fight the humans’ wars?” I inquired, to which a very confused Tarva nodded to the affirmative.
“Then Captain Solvin, I commend you on your tolerance for not passing judgement on our species until you saw evidence first hand.” I said with mock sincerity.
Solvin sputtered something indignantly, but the translator couldn’t parse precisely what.
“Why?” asked Tarva “Why call yourselves monsters?”
“We literally have the project files that lead to our creation. We are born violent monsters. We chose to be better than that.”
Solvin found his voice “You’re just a twisted mockery of a real civilization! Even if you’re smart enough to create tools and weapons, you’ll never create art, or culture or anything of real value.”
I responded with a low baritone thrumming through my chest, holding the note for several seconds, and slowly began oscillating that note up and down, like an old cello slowly drawing its bow over its lower register. Figuring out what I was doing, Deeja joined me in frame. She added her own tones, with far more complexity than my humble affair, showing the range of her vocalizations, switching effortlessly between growls, yips, wails and roars. As the pattern repeated, we faced each other and we rhythmically began clashing our horns together. Now that the base, tempo and melody had been set, the other members of the bridge crew began to join in. Some layering their bass notes with mine, others enhancing Deeja’s melody with their own vocalizations and others enriching the rhythm with foot stamps, horn clashes and claw scythes. The song built on itself over and over again, going faster and faster until it crescendoed in all of us unleashing our basest and most primal roar.
Deeja and I embraced, and turned our joint attention again to the alien dignitaries, whose jaws were upon the floor. Good to see that one also crossed the species line. Deeja smiled “A bit primitive to be sure. But we have not had the benefit of centuries to build up our musical tradition.” she tilted her head and considered, before showing her clawed hand again “Or more accurately, a musical tradition that you can use with claws. The humans had quite the backlog. We can share that too if you’re interested.”
“Yes - please do.” said Tarva, shaking herself from a stupor. “Any evidence of art, music and culture you have. This is unprecedented…” she breathed.
“Tarva, this is clearly a ruse.” said Solvin snapping. “After their encounter with the Arxur, they must have learned that this is something we would be interested in, and are deceiving us into letting our guard down.”
I nodded along with Solvin. “It makes perfect sense actually. After our disastrous first attempt, we blundered into Arxur territory, killed them, rifled through their belongings before finding the one thing that would make the Federation welcome the deathclaw predator race into their fold: contacting you through song.”
Tarva let loose a whistling laugh, as I saw some tension leave her frame. Solvin, predictably, had the opposite reaction. “Are you mocking me!?”
“Actually.” said Deeja as she leaned further into frame. “By framing it in a context that would sound absurd to you, we have definitionally used cognitive empathy.”
You could hear a pin drop.
“And point of order -” continued Deeja “-we did know that is something you would be interested in.”
“You’re-you’re predators! You can’t have empathy!” screeched Solvin.
We ignored him, and instead just focused on Tarva. Her feed was muted, but she was obviously having a rushed conversation with someone just off screen. Her conversation finished, Tarva stepped back into frame. “In-in light of the evidence, and under the counsel of medical professionals, I am willing to grant passage to one member of your crew to be submitted to an empathy test so that we may confirm these findings scientifically.”
“NO!” roared Solvin. “Monsters like this killed my family and you’re just going to let them run free!? No! I’m going to do what I should have done as soon as these monsters crawled out of their hole! Full advance, charge weapons!”
In hindsight, we probably pushed Solvin too far. Problems for another day. “Helm, get us out of here!”
Our ship had barely begun to move, and Solvin was already gaining, when from the planet’s surface a single plasma shot burst from the atmosphere, directly in the path of Solvin’s flagship.
“You SHOT AT US!” The Gojid stared at his weapons console, as though considering whether to return fire. “You actually shot at us. That’s an act of war.”
“That was a warning shot. We don’t want to hurt you, but we will,” Tarva hissed, the two of them seemingly unaware that comms were still open.
“How can you be so ungrateful? After all that we’ve done for you,” he spat. “I’ll be recommending sanctions in my report. And the next time you call for help…we’ll let the grays eat you miserable fucks. Assuming you live through today.”
Solvin’s transmission finally cut out, and nearly the entire fleet around Venlil Prime turned and simply left.
I had our helm call off our retreat, and slowly maneuver back to our prior position. All the while, Tarva simply watched us.
“You just burned a very large bridge for our sake.” I said, in a vast understatement.
Tarva stood up straighter “If you understand the enormity of the risk I’m taking, exhaust yourselves in your effort to be worth it.”
I bowed my head in respect “It will be done. I accept your offer to undergo this empathy test.”
“Very well, I am sending coordinates of where you are to arrive. Deviate from them at your peril.”
—-----------------
If you’re wonder what the heck the deathclaw song sounded like, I’m going with an amalgamation of the following:
The Hell Choir from Doom Eternal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3mpXZTfxU
And
Heilung: https://youtu.be/2wy-W-pYlds?si=4E8BjIsYYvhZz7CE&t=168
As performed by deathclaws: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz2WkYUmg4E
I was originally going to use “Sixteen tons” as the song, but it seemed to give some more credence to Solvin’s argument than I was willing to lend.