Bloodclaw Chronicles Pt. 46
Alright... I'm back to it.
And it appears that Reddit has, once again, changed the posting format.
Couple updates before getting to the meat of things.
First is I am writing a "Questing" story alongside this one. In case you didn't realize by the word in quotes, it is being posted on Questionable Questing. The story's title is "The Edges of Chaos" and it is a Sci-fantasy isekai story where the readers get to vote on the various directions and major decisions the story goes in. Have a look at it if you wish. I am greatly enjoying the lack of a character limit that site gives.
I started it primarily to knock the rust off and get me thinking outside the box on how to finish parts of this story... and it worked. Because.. to be completely honest, I had the first POV of this chapter done before I posted the last chapter earlier this year. I've just been stuck in writer's block hell on how to finish it.
Which brings us to here. I actually WILL have another post for friday. It is a side POV I've had written out for an extremely long time and h as been waiting in the wings for its moment to arrive.
So, without further ado, here are the links, and I hope you enjoy.
_______________________________________________________________
-Hawke-
The news of Lily’s death had hit him hard. His people, his crew, his bridge crew, gone. So close to rescue and safety that it physically hurt. She had been able to see the damned compound walls. A young woman hoping to contribute something to and make her mark in the galaxy. A young woman under his protection, relying on him to be able to make the calls that would see her home safe again. See her able to reach her dreams.
Cut down far too early. Because he had failed her.
He knew he wasn’t directly responsible for her death… no decision he could possibly have made would have changed the outcome in any reasonable way without allowing for more to be exposed. For more to die. But he was still responsible. He was the Commander of the ship. He was responsible for them all.
They had been lucky beyond reproach. There really was no other way to describe it. To have had only a single crew member fall in the opening stages of a fucking planetary invasion. Faced with a horde of infantry transports dropping on their heads, in unfamiliar territory, with no back-up, nothing but their own wits and resources.
And they had only lost a single person.
But the numbers didn’t matter.
He sat in his quarters, and stared at her recruitment picture on the terminal, and the shot already poured on the desk in front of it.
It wasn’t the most efficient method of coping and processing… hell, probably wasn’t even the healthiest. But it was his. It was his process to get the second guessing, the self-recrimination, guilt and grief out of the way in a ritual that he could handle. It wasn’t the first time… and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.
“Not with this damned invasion hanging over our heads, anyway.”
So, he took his scant few moments of privacy in his room, worked through what he needed to work through, picked up the shot, toasted the face of the girl on his screen, downed it, and tossed her name plate into a box with others from his past. He would need to write the notification letter to her family. But that will have to wait until they weren’t scrambling to get things done, to prevent more deaths. He turned and left his room, the Commander mask in place once more.
Damien was there, looking exhausted. He had been running his ass off getting medical set up with the new information and gathering further details. Currently he was leaning casually against the bulkhead just outside his door as he waited, knowing full well what was being done and why. And what needed to come next.
“Alright… report.” Hawke sighed.
“I’ve assigned crews to begin building HESCO walls around the town and within to separate it into defensible and manageable sections. Complete with choke points and watch stations covering likely assault points. The Chirleen are working with us to ensure that it gets done right. We also have a crew looking at how best to drag the wreck of the Windrunner to shore so we can start cannibalizing it for equipment and resources. The Ruulothi have agreed to the effort and are doing what they can to help facilitate it as well. They are more than happy to set things up to get another crack at the Qazirxel.”
“I can imagine. I have no doubt that they would refuse take the deaths of their crew and loss of their ship lying down. Do you have any information regarding their losses?” Hawke asked as they walked to the bridge.
Damien sighed, “Too damned many. They lost around half of their dedicated security team in the ground fighting. A fair number of their bridge crew and their entire engineering team. Hell. Right now the only member of their cargo team still functioning is one of the Junior Loaders. The Human kid, Conrad? He took one hell of a hit saving the others of their little band and Claire. I’ve seen people get chewed up, sometimes literally. But that? That was fucking brutal. Even with all of our advanced medical equipment it is going to take weeks to put him back together. He’s stable though. Claire knew her shit. She’s honestly the only reason he’s even still alive.”
“Thank the Gods for that. This is enough of a political shitstorm without him dying senselessly.” Hawke answered, keying them into the bridge. The door hissing as its hydraulics pulled it open. “Any word on those injured by the Qazirxel? I saw the reports coming in but wasn’t able to sit down with it.”
“Still processing. But we believe that we have an answer as to how their infantry weapons work. It is functionally a disruptor. It gathers and fires a cluster of protons, which explode and destabilize matter upon impact, sending wild protons out in random tracks. Inorganic compounds are far less affected by it. But organics…”
“Organics get fried by radiation and their component parts spliced apart at the atomic level.” Hawke finished with a grimace. “That is… horrific.”
“Agreed, but a small silver lining is it at least makes deaths clean… and is potentially promising for our future.”
“Promising? How so?”
Damien drew in a breath before he continued. “Several things. First, we can treat it if the person survives and gets to help in time. Radiation treatment has long been simplified and handled thanks to colonization effort and space travel necessitating it. We also have the tech to undo the splicing effect and restore their body to functionality if given enough time. It’s not easy, but it can be done if we recalibrate our trauma and diagnostic nano-tech to focus on the detecting and reattaching spliced tissue, similar to the way we handle re-attaching amputated body parts. The problem there is it has to be done separately from the radiation treatment, otherwise our efforts won’t matter when the flesh necrotizes again. On that note, we can also reduce or even eliminate the existing radiation damage dependent on the severity and where and how many times they were shot.
“Second is what it says for their Doctrine, Sir. A species that uses a weapon like that… is trying very hard to not damage infrastructure. I’ve a feeling, based on what we saw and what we have learned since that these Qazirxel are effectively parasitic, culturally speaking. They don’t destroy and rebuild in their image. They supplant, take over and assimilate the infrastructure that’s left. Maybe they have something in case there is no other option… we can’t say for sure. But I do find it curious that we haven’t been attacked since, bombed from orbit or assaulted by the landers themselves with their heavier weaponry for the audacity of standing against them. The only thing we saw them use even remotely close to that sort of thing was their lander weapons against troops and vehicles in the open. There were no strafing runs, no bombings, no overt destruction in their assault.”
Hawke nods as he listens, “True… that has been bothering me, too. It is something to keep in mind and hope for… but make sure we aren’t lowering our standards expecting it to stay that way, alright?”
“You got it, Sir.”
They stood in the center of the bridge and Hawke stared at the flashing icon on the screen as he thought. The icon indicating that the final Crash Burst had been sent after their sensors read the enemy fleet encircling the planet, the connection to their satellite long since severed by the same ships. They were now blind, mute, deaf and completely cut off.
“Alright. Get back to overseeing the construction and rescue efforts… and Damien. Thank you.”
Damien allowed a small smile before turning to leave, “Always, Kaleb.”
________________________________________
-Ruufarrl-
He found himself once again in the med-bay with Conrad, simply watching as the process of his healing worked to complete itself.
As the days had gone by, he found himself returning here often. Not only to watch over his charge but because, as a medical ward, it was exceedingly quiet and peaceful compared to the wild activity of the outside world.
The humans had not stopped moving. Even with the time he had already spent amongst them, he had been surprised by their sheer industriousness and fortitude after the attack.
They only stopped working to sleep. Even eating was done on the move. The doctors and med staff stepped into private rooms briefly to consume something before moving on, the operators of their heavy machinery ate in the cabs of their vehicles, often while still operating them. He strongly suspected that the command staff even ate on the bridge, he’d even overheard some of the support staff talking about having bedrolls under their stations, so they didn’t have to run to respond to an emergency.
Their dedication showed serious results.
Walls of those strange modular barriers had gone up around and through the entirety of the town, creating chokepoints and kill fields against any outside attack, and limiting internal spread of any breaches. The outer walls being built into a rough star shape to encourage overlapping fields of fire. Sequences of trenches had then been dug around the entire town to limit direct access to the walls and disrupt ground based movement of infantry and vehicles. Enough bunkers had been dug and covered with protective layers of concrete and barriers to fit the town’s entire populace in case of another attack.
They’d set up an entire weapons range and converted the Ruulothi’s weapons using the design that Conrad had come up with, allowing everyone to train together to get used to the both the new weapon design, and one another’s weapons. An understanding of the whimsical logistics of battle that the Ruulothi greatly appreciated.
The humans had even somehow managed to pull in Chirleen volunteers to train.
What surprised him and the others of his crew the most was that the Humans had managed to pull the Windrunner to shore and begun cannibalizing it for useful parts, at the Ruulothi crew’s direction, of course.
The ship’s cannon was already mounted and watching over the coastline approaches, married to a console on this ship that was under the direct control of the remaining Ruulothi bridge crew.
The humans had even invited some of the Ruulothi crew onto their own bridge to help minimize the delays in communications and support. It was there that this weapons console was run.
They’d wanted to analyze the power matrix of the Windrunner to make things more compatible, but unfortunately, not even Captain Loorthal had the authority to do so. Not to a non-GalCom species.
That would be a political mess of far more extreme proportions than they were in even now.
The humans had understood, then simply asked for assistance in getting the Ruulothi equipment properly running in a way that didn’t require knowledge of trade secrets.
It had been difficult with the majority of the maintenance crew either dead or physically unable to assist, but it had been done.
He looked at Conrad again. The boy was still sealed inside the medical capsule. His skin was remained a pale, almost gray color. But he was assured that it was fine. The monitors showed that he was responding well to the treatment and his coloring was a side effect of what effectively amounted to a medical stasis while his body was rebuilt.
It would still be several weeks before he would be allowed to regain consciousness. Anything sooner threatened to destroy the repair process with unnecessary movement. Even then, it would take time for him to properly regain the full use of his arm.
The door to the unit hissed open, letting in the sounds of bustling people and boots on metal before closing again.
“Ah… Master Ruufarrl. It is good to see you again.”
He smiled and nodded to the young woman, “It is good to see you as well, Ms. Claire.”
In the days since the attack, the woman had taken charge of Conrad’s recovery. Ruufarrl knew it was likely tied to the events of the day. That she was grieving over her lost friend, and frustrated by her inability to save her. That by ensuring Conrad survived, she might in some way alleviate that grief.
That kind of grief was something he understood intimately, and he certainly didn’t begrudge her the effort.
Rather he appreciated the personal touch to Conrad’s recovery. He would much rather his charge not become just another number to take care of.
He watched as she checked the monitors and the levels of various medical supplies, noting the relevant information on a small tablet with Conrad’s medical files.
“He is recovering well.” She announced, bringing him in to the process, “I am seeing no complications or rejections of any of the processes.”
She paused a moment before continuing, “I… I’m not sure if it is appropriate to do so… but do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Claire’s voice was soft, concerned about overstepping when she looked at him as she finished her notes and set them down in the holder on the capsule.
“It certainly never hurts to ask. I will inform you if I cannot answer.”
She breathed a sigh of relief while wringing her hands together, “Thank you. This has been bothering me since the attack, and I didn’t know how to address it.”
The woman took a few moments to gather herself before continuing.
“Please don’t take this as a criticism, I’m just not really sure how to vocalize it. But… can I ask why most of your crew still seem to be… reserved? I guess is the right word? About interacting with us? I would have thought that surviving an attack like that and being forced to survive for an undetermined amount of time on an unknown world would… I don’t know… push us all past that sort of boundary?”
Ruufarrl chuffed as he sat back and took a deep breath in, his ears laying back and humming as he thought. The question was a deep one and touched on a lot of things that many were intentionally turning a blind eye to or were unaware that they had in the first place.
“That… will take some time to answer properly. Do you have a few minutes to discuss it?”
“I do. I’m not due for another rotation of checks for another fifteen minutes.”
“Very well then.” He paused and gathered himself as he organized his thoughts.
“It is a very good question. The answer, as all proper ones do, stems from a number of sources. Some cultural, some personal, others… artificially enforced.” He shook his head back and forth with the last bit.
“I will start with the large story and refine it down to the personal, hopefully this will help you to understand how things came to be. The GalCom as a whole has a stigma against new arrivals. They designed the application process to be as difficult as possible intentionally. This allows them time to research and find pressure points with which to ensure that any new members cannot join without owing them something. This allows the GalCom a measure of control and oversight over new members and allows them to protect themselves from and malfeasance and ill intent.
“The GalCom has a rough history, and those protective measures are there because they were needed. While it started as a method of self-defense, as with all things, it has become twisted over time. They know, without any doubt, that they will not be able to pull those kinds of acts with your race. As such, they have collectively decided to make your joining as difficult as possible, possibly even to prevent it. In doing so they have built a public image of your species that is strongly at odds with what we are being shown here. Those of our crew that did not know any better before coming here, are having a lot to process. I also have no doubt that they intentionally sabotaged the first meeting of our races to play our species personal triggers against one another.”
Claire’s shoulders slumped at the realization, “So they are waiting for us to make a mistake that justifies a harsh response… Shit. This whole situation is the perfect fuel to give them exactly what they want, isn’t it?”
Ruufarrl smiled wryly and nodded, “It certainly seems to be the case. Though I doubt your people will make it so easy for them to accomplish. From what I have seen by traveling among them with Conrad and here, you are remarkably adaptable and cunning. I am sure someone, somewhere in your government is well aware of what is happening and what is at stake. In fact… I am absolutely certain of it.”
He chuckled, remembering his meeting with Conrad’s Instructor.
“Now, as for us as a people. Again, the impressions from that first contact meeting soured many against you. Clans among our people are largely insular. What one believes is different from what another will believe. My Clan, the Nightmanes, is one that believes strongly that you were misrepresented, but others will take time to reconcile that impression with what they are seeing. They will come around, especially those that have already interacted with Conrad extensively. Then they will send that understanding back to their own clans, and it will spread.
“Provided we all survive, of course.” He shrugged.
“Then there is the belief that one shouldn’t interfere with someone who clearly knows what they are doing. Your crew here…” He chuckles, “There is very little for us to do to directly contribute at this point. We are not versed in civil engineering, battlefield engineering, or any of the other tasks your people are accomplishing. We run a ship, we fight, and we move cargo. Some of us tell the others how to do that. But that is all. For us, it is better to stay out of the way than it is to potentially interfere or make things worse.
“Finally there is our own cultural stigma. For us, when one is directly rescued, as it is in this case, it is expected that something will be asked of them in return. The Saved are effectively at the mercy of the Saviors until the favor has been repaid. They are… ambivalent and wary of what is going to be asked of them. Of what is going to be seen as proper recompense for their lives.”
He held his hand up to stop her retort.
“Not, that I am actually expecting you to do so, beyond contribution to our shared survival. From what I understand of most of your people, and what I have learned about this particular organization as a whole. That sort of thinking doesn’t apply.
“Though, if I may impose. Perhaps you could tell your immediate supervisor about this? I believe he is your XO, correct? I believe that a direct addressing of these issues might be best. Ruulothi both respect and appreciate the direct approach over assumptions and guile. It may go a long way to improving and eliminating that distance you are feeling.”
Claire nodded in agreement, “I can absolutely do that. I have to meet with him this evening anyway.”
She breathed slowly and deeply as she processed everything he had told her. Eventually, she gave him a soft smile and a slight bow of her head.
“Thank you, Master Ruufarrl. I don’t know if I would have gotten as clear of an answer if I had attempted to ask anyone else. I know that the Captain and XO will appreciate the direct insight. And I know that none of us want to make you all feel unwelcome. We are all kind of just… playing it by ear as we go. Even though we have emergency protocols in place, nobody expected to have to deal with anything like this. Those protocols were… really more of a fever dream response to have something to go off of more than they were ironclad measures.”
Ruufarrl chuckled in amusement, “Indeed. The Winds blow as they may. Not always do they bring the scents of blooming flowers or prey. Sometimes you are the Hunter, others you realize you aren’t.”
Claire giggled at the idioms, “It is what you do when the deck is stacked against you that defines the legacy you leave behind. It isn’t how many times you fall, but rather how many times you stand that makes the difference.”
Ruufarrl grinned widely at her, “It is wisdom like that that makes me feel like our peoples will get along nicely once we get over the first impression issue.”
Claire smiled back at him, her back straightening as stress appeared to lift from her, “Thank you again, Master Ruufarrl. I will pass your words along. Hopefully, we can nip this in the bud and get us all on the right track for our futures.”
“Indeed, fare well, Claire.”