AM: Anti-Matter
65k: 65'000 Rounds
Integration of the human species into intergalactic communities has proven difficult. This is due to the fact that earth is among the small 10% of worlds within our galaxy where intelligent life exists in the form of mammals. To add to that there seems to be an innate phobia of insects and arachnoids, as recent studies have proven that humanity’s ancestors weren’t the only intelligent life form on earth around 900 thousand years ago. The ensuing prehistoric conflicts would wipe out 98.7% of humanity, leaving only roughly 1280 survivors of their species but fully eradicated all other intelligent life on earth. This also lead to an evolutionary trait which causes a sensation of fear or “creeps” within humans upon laying sight on certain bugs and arachnoids, this trait seems to be missing within some few members of their species for yet unknown reasons.
As such places like hospitals had to be equipped with human masks. These masks don’t nullify the humans discomfort but at least they stopped screaming on sight. Increased lighting was installed too, to prevent an increased fear factor caused through a dimly lit environment. Movement for staff has been restricted, as the stomping from wall crawling and the constant sound of buzzing wings seems to be annoying for many human patients. Also Wasp staff are no longer allowed to eat in front of human patients, apparently most cultures on earth kill their food prior to consumption…
“Touch Therapy” has shown to help with the more extreme cases of humans. By letting them touch the feelers, exoskeleton, spindly legs and hairy claws of staff, the human learns of and affirms harmlessness within these features.
NOTE TO CENTIPEDE STAFF: Please refrain from hugging with full force, there is more strength in your arms and legs than the human body can handle.
Tragically moth staff are not allowed to interact with humans as their hair can cause skin rashes, severe itching, and eye irritation upon contact. Known as lepidopterism, this reaction occurs because these hairs can embed into the skin, acting like fiberglass. This is very sad as humans seem to have the least issue getting used to moth staff.
"For the sake of all sapience in the world - let's make this union of ours eternal and unbreakable" - was what human current nemesis used to say.
"Your ship is designed like a shit on a stick, don't expect me to fix it for free and if you ever even think about touching my tail feather - I will peck your eye out and shit it back in your bleeding eye socket" - was what humanity's best friends used to say. (Though that guy actually fulfilled their threat.)
“And just how large is the occupying force?”
“Approximately fifty million sir”
“And the number of Humans involved?”
“Approximately ten thousand visas and “safari licences" have been granted so far, I believe”
“Then I still see no legal galactic immigration issues.” Said the Chancellor. “Legal procedures have been followed for valid galactic passport holders to help in the removal of illegal aliens.”
“Sir, is that the Departments legal position?”
“Yes.”
“And what should I say to the Ambassador”
The Chancellor thought for a moment before replying.
“I hope the bizarre, lurid tactics and weaponry of the human hunters you now face will provide some impetus to the overdue withdrawal of your illegal occupation of that world. For the losses you about to endure, you have my vague sympathy.”
Heads, antenna and other sensory organs turned toward the Human.
“Members of the Council, I have dispatched sources of mine to verify the condition of the ambassador.”
There were shocked murmurs amongst the attendees
“But it’s a death world! Nothing can be done! And YOU have no authority.” bellowed the vice-chair.
The human paused while looking around before replying “Council Members, as I understand it, the rules, regulations and procedures of this council give me, an admittedly minor council member, the power to independently verify information given to the council? Yes?”
There was a murmur of consent amongst the attendees.
“Well, to that end, I have dispatched the UNS Greebo with a 12 person combat search and rescue team.”
“But it’s a death world! Nothing living will be found! The Ambassador is lost I tell you.” screamed the vice-chair
Those who had suspected foul play watched with glee as the vice-chair started to squirm.
“But it’s a death world!” stated the vice-chair in a lower voice.
The human simply stared.
The vice-chair had a sudden sinking feeling in his hind gut as he finally comprehended what he was seeing when looking at the human council member.
All it’s sensory organs and processing were in one place, the head nodule. It processed its environment fast. Its major support systems were in a protective cage in the centre. Limbs could be lost and it would survive. How would such a thing evolve?
The Ambassador would be found and retrieved and his corruption and duplicity shown to the full Authority. He was finished as his races influence and advantages would evaporate.
And humans were intelligent death world predators.
He’d never appreciated their evolution, design and intelligence, until now.
“Council Members, I would like to resign as Vice-Chair. I believe in this trying time, perhaps the esteemed representative for the humans should take my place.”
Alien: Human Fred, what are you doing to your rifle?
Fred: It’s just Fred. I know I’m human. No one else is named Fred. And I’m fixing this shitty rifle.
A: Fine. Fred. What is wrong with the rifle? It’s brand new. The most advanced design we make!
Fred: And yet it is a piece of shit.
A: Why?
Fred: It is too light to use to beat an enemy. There isn’t a physical sight. And some dumb-fuck didn’t include a bayonet lug.
A: Fred, why would a plasma rifle need that?
Fred: Have you even been in combat?!
A: Well, not really. A few minor skirmishes.
Fred: Say you know shit. Dude. Your rifle needs to be a club when things get close. Never underestimate the value of a bayonet. And this fancy aiming rig? It will fail.
A: But it’s been tested!
Fred: It will fail. I’d like to live through combat, so I’m adding a physical sight and bayonet lug. I can’t do much about the weight, but I can add some reinforcement.
A: You aren’t qualified to make these adjustments!
Fred: Look. I know how to live in combat. So I’m making the changes. You can bill me.
Two weeks later, Fred climbs out of a really messy foxhole, bodies stacked four deep.
Fred: Told you, you stupid fuck.
Their soft, many-tentacled bodies were not up to the job of exploring the hot side of the asteroid. That's why they'd adopted the crew of the drifting shuttle that had come close to crashing into the base building.
Unfortunately, the human crew were all too keen to volunteer to map the "sunny side of the rock."
They returned after the first week with a sample of semi-sentient fungus and were now arguing amongst themselves about what to do with it.
Alfonzo wanted to cook it like his momma taught him.
Étienne wants to work out how to mate with it.
Billy, however, wants to get it drunk and fight it.
Alien Scientist: It’s three in the blasted morning! Why are you calling me?!?
Alien 2: Sorry sir, but you know that project we’ve been working on? The fusion acceleration system?
AS: The one that doesn’t work? That can’t work? That is utterly ridiculous and impossible?
A2: Yes sir. That one. Well. It works.
AS: It’s very early in the morning for jokes. Who put you up to this?
A2: Seriously sir. It works. Security called me because they saw lights on in the lab. When I checked, the fusion accelerator was turned on and running properly.
AS: When I left it was in pieces around the lab. Who was there?
A2: That is the odd part.
AS: More odd than an impossible device suddenly assembling and working?
A2: Yes. I found Human Grace asleep on a chair.
AS: Human Grace? The student? What was she doing there?
A2: Apparently she had an idea, got into the lab, assembled the device, and it works.
AS: She got an idea?
A2: That is what she says. She claims that she was struggling to sleep, got up for a drink, had a flash of what she called ‘inspiration,’ and rushed to the lab.
AS: Wait. I’ve heard of this. Sometimes Humans suddenly figure out complex problems by accident.
A2: Yes, that is why it’s good luck to have one on the team.
AS: Well I guess we reward her and offer her a job.
A2: She is requesting to use the replicator without the safety protocols. She wants to celebrate with her favorite meal.
In what is now seen as the worst possible action in the entire history of the alien civilization, AS: Sure. She earned it.
The inquest revealed that Human Grace replicated something called ‘Bear Spray,’ subdued the entire lab, stole the fission accelerator, a police ship, and delivered the device to a Terran outpost. Within four standard orbits, Terrans subdued three civilizations.
So much for exchange student programs.
Alien 1: What are those apes you hired called again?
Alien 2: Humans.
Alien 1: They're on the small side but I must admit they fight like demons.
Alien 2: Yes, that's why I hired them. Their mercenaries are respected and feared by most militaries that have encountered them.
Alien 1: Hopefully we can ally with them.
Alien 2: That's in the works. We're already on friendly terms. When they're not fighting they're surprisingly friendly. They're still unpredictable and unruly but they're friendly. Especially if you give them ethanol to drink.
Alien 1: ...they drink ethanol?
Alien 2: Yes it's one of their favorites. It also paradoxically makes them more social and more prone to violence.
Alien 1: Absolutely deranged. Good thing they're on our side.
So tell me, folks; what inspired this conversation?
"Laser weaponry? That's a concert venue. The lasers are entirely decorative and harmless."
"Your 'harmless' laser shot down one of our ships!"
"Okay, leaving the question of why one of your ships was flying where it had no right to be, how was it supposedly shot down? Those lasers are pretty, but they're not powerful enough to cause even a sunburn."
"That was what we want to know! The pilot was clearly sniped through his cockpit glass. Recordings clearly show a burst of anomalous neural activity and muscle seizures when your lasers swept over the ship..."
"Anomalous neural... did your pilot have an epileptic seizure from seeing lots of flashing lights?"
I cast the downvote against humanity myself.
I want that on the record before I say anything else, because in the cycles since, a great many of my colleagues have discovered that they argued against it. They will tell you they saw what I could not. They are lying. Every voice in the Chamber was with me that day. I merely held the deciding weight, and I used it, and I was certain, and I was the most respected Arbiter the Accord had produced in nine hundred years.
Let me tell you why I was certain. Then you can decide whether to pity me.
When humanity petitioned for full seating, the work of judging them fell to me. This is what an Arbiter does. A new species offers itself to the Lattice, and one of us reads the whole of them, their history and their hungers and their thousand small cruelties, and renders a verdict the rest of the galaxy can trust. An upvote seats them. They gain the full current. They become us.
A downvote does not destroy a species. I want to be clear, because the humans later described it in language I found theatrical. A downvote is a held door. It says not yet, not you, not until you are something other than what you are. It is the most serious thing one of us can do, because it costs. The downvoted remember. But it is mercy, too. Better a closed door than a chaos let into the house.
I read humanity for a full cycle. And what I found, I could not in conscience seat.
They were not one people.
You have to understand how this looked to me. I come from the Veshan, and we have been a single chord for ten thousand years. The humans were not a chord. They were a riot. I read their history and it was war, and then a pause, and then war again, in a rhythm so constant I first mistook it for a heartbeat. They killed one another over lines drawn on the surface of their own world. Over which unseen god they imagined behind the sky. Over the color of cloth. Over the outcome of games. I found, recorded with no apparent shame, a conflict that had begun over a contested call in a sport and ended with the burning of a city.
This was the species asking for a seat at a table where every voice flows into every other. Seat them, I reasoned, and we do not gain a member. We gain a thousand civil wars, poured directly into the commons, forever.
So I built my case the way an Arbiter builds anything, on evidence, and the evidence was a mountain. And then I reached into the Lattice, found the petition of humanity, and pushed it down.
I knew exactly what would happen next. That was the unbearable part, in the end. My certainty was not arrogance. It was research.
A shared rejection, delivered to a divided people, fractures them further. This is law. We had watched it happen to four other candidate species, lesser ones, who took the verdict and turned immediately upon themselves, faction blaming faction, each hunting for the traitor who had cost them the stars. The downvote is a stone through a cracked window. I did not expect humanity to survive it intact. I expected their signal to scatter, their unity, such as it was, to come apart in my hands, and in coming apart to prove my verdict correct. See. They could not even hold themselves together long enough to be refused.
I threw the stone. I watched the window.
The window did not break.
For the first hour, nothing. I took the silence for shock, and I was patient. I had been patient with greater species than this.
In the second hour, the human factions began to go quiet, and I leaned in, because this was the scatter beginning, the great coming-apart, and I wanted to record it precisely.
I had it backward. They were not going silent because they were breaking. They were going silent because they had stopped arguing with each other.
I watched two human power blocs that had pointed weapons across a strip of contested water for sixty of their years stand down in the span of an afternoon. Not negotiate. Stand down. I watched rival information networks, which had spent a generation calling each other liars, merge their signal without a single meeting, as if a decision had been made that no one needed to announce because everyone had already made it. I watched a billion private human voices, each of which had been pointed at some other human in some small and bitter feud, turn, all at once, in the same direction.
They turned toward me.
I have tried many times to describe the next part to colleagues who were not in the current that day, and I have never found the words, so I will simply tell you the number. A species of more than ten billion individuals, who I had proven beyond dispute could not agree on the shape of their own god or the borders of their own land, generated a unanimous signal in under one of their days.
Unanimous. Do you understand what I am telling you. Not a majority. Not a consensus hammered out in chambers. Every voice. Pointed up. At the Arbiter who had downvoted them.
The Accord had only recently learned, from these same humans, what it meant to be on the receiving end of a single no. We had no preparation at all for ten billion of them arriving at once, in perfect phase, a wall of refusal so total it registered in the Lattice not as many signals but as one, a single voice with the mass of a species behind it, and the voice said: no. You do not get to decide that we are not one people. We will decide that. And we have.
I have stood in the path of stellar weather. I have judged species that could unmake worlds. I have never in my long life felt anything like the pressure of that unanimous human no, and I pray to the chord of my ancestors that I never feel it again.
A human envoy came to the Chamber afterward. Her name was Adeyemi, and she was not angry, which frightened me more than anger would have. She was patient with me, the way you are patient with someone who has made an understandable mistake about something obvious.
I asked her the only question I had left. I asked how. How a people I had documented, exhaustively, correctly, as the most divided species in the catalogued galaxy, had become one thing faster than my own unbroken chord could have managed in a year.
She thought about it. Then she said the thing I have carried in me ever since, the thing that ended my career and, I think now, finally educated me.
"You read all our wars," she said, "and you thought they meant we were divided. But you don't go to war with strangers. You don't even bother. We fought each other because we were the only ones who ever felt close enough to be worth fighting. Every war you put in your dossier was a family argument. Loud. Ugly. Ours."
She let that sit.
"You're not family," she said. "That's the whole thing you got wrong. The day you downvoted us was the day you taught every human alive exactly where the family ends. We've been looking for that line for our whole history. We could never find it, because there was always another human on the other side of every fight, and you can't draw the edge of the family when it's family all the way down." She almost smiled. "Thank you for that, actually. You drew it for us. You're standing on the far side of it. So is everyone who voted with you."
The Accord seated humanity in the end. Of course it did. You do not leave a species like that standing outside the house, holding a grievance, with a unanimous voice. We learned that much.
I am old now, as my people measure it, and I am no longer an Arbiter, and the young ones who study my case are taught it as the great error, the day certainty failed. They are not wrong. But they take the wrong lesson, the same way I did. They think the error was the downvote.
The error was believing that a people who fight each other must be weak.
I downvoted humanity to keep their thousand wars out of the commons. I did not understand, until a patient woman explained it to me in a quiet Chamber, that the wars were never the danger. The wars were the family talking. The danger was always the silence on the other side of them, the speed with which ten billion arguing voices could stop, all at once, and agree on a single thing.
I taught them the one thing they had never been able to learn on their own.
I showed them an outsider.
<<First chapter / < Previous Chapter
I opened the door, went inside the house and returned with my tablet in tow. The cat-toy pacified serval didn’t move from her seat.
“By the way, how’s the situation on the ground?” I wondered. “Are the other prads slacking too?”
“Obviously they fucking are,” the serval girl huffed, eyes closed. “It’s cat… he he he… catastrophic! The Highborns are up on the ships pretending like this is fine. It is not fine. Shit’s never been this bad.”
“Why?”
“Scrutimancy doesn’t work properly on your planet,” she said. “Normally… on a high Aetheric density world, a Scrturttt knows exactly how to find someone or something. They sniff out n' kno' the best path forward to victory. Ten thousand Scruts making landfall would find the Princess in ten minutes on a normal planet! But noooo…”
She sighed.
"The gals in London? They spent day and night searching for Platform 9¾. They took apart an entire train station wall looking for a dimensional gate that doesn't exist! Division 226 in Beijing bought a mountain of xianxia novels for gold cubes from a group of humans who practically threw it at them and are now trying to decode the 'secret techniques.' Their Datamancer made a 29-dimensional spreadsheet trying to correlate cultivation realms with power levels that clearly DON'T FUCKING EXIST!”
“Because of Aetheric density?”
“Because they don’t want to do real shit. Like I don’t want to do shit. Fuck this shit sideways,” she grumbled.
I smiled mentally. Malicious compliance at its finest.
"Most of Division 117 is out hunting for Baba Yaga's chicken-legged house. A CHICKEN HOUSE! They've deployed all of their Corpse Seekers to comb through Siberian forests looking for a fairy tale for children! Meanwhile, Commander Unicia is having her wolves sniff through comic book stores because she's convinced Arachnids-Man is real and hiding somewhere in New York. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.”
“Then they know it's fiction?”
“Everyone on the ground knows it’s fiction. Buuuut there’s a tiny, microscopic chance that it might not be… like the vampires found here, thus they’re diligently keeping at it, sending reports up for their superiors and Datamancers to review.”
I smiled.
She rolled onto her back. "And don't even get me started on Division 667 at the Vatican. They're trying to steal the Holy Grail. FROM THE VATICAN. Which doesn't have it because IT'S NOT REAL! But no, the Alpha Scrut of 667 is convinced the Pope is hiding it in some secret vault because 'so many humans believe in its power.'"
"The Frontenachii fleet," she continued, voice dripping with disdain, "the mighty force that's conquered a thousand worlds, is being defeated by… human fiction. We're chasing shadows and stories while the actual humans are..." She paused, squinting at me. "What ARE the humans doing?"
"Panicking, mostly," I said. "Some looting. Lots of praying."
"See? Kind of normal conquered species behavior! But are we establishing proper dominion protocols? No! We're looking for… what’s its name… Urrrrmmm… Bogwarts! Division 441 filed a report claiming they found evidence of a 'wizarding school' because they discovered a Garry Cotter theme park or someshit!"
She sniffed the bag full of catnip toys. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is? We're supposed to be professional conquerors! Instead, we're running around like idiots chasing every myth, legend, and pop culture reference on this insane planet!"
“Tell me more about your Wendigo commanders. Are they stupid? Don’t they understand that it’s fiction?”
“Ughhh…. Where do I even start with those antlered fucks?" She held up a paw, and then got distracted by wiggling her fingers and giggling to herself. "Some of them... some are definitely complete morons.”
“Why?”
“Because they were raised without any outside contact in time-dilation bubbles. BUBBLES! In a confined space of like five rooms separated from the rest of reality. By Prad instructors from the most fucked up worlds imaginable."
"Time dilation bubbles?" I asked. “Why?”
"To make them grow up faster. The fleet had to have many Frontenachii commanders. A few weeks pass outside, two decades pass inside. And the instructors teaching them?" She laughed bitterly. "Traumatized Prad veterans who've died so many times they barely remember their own names. So you get Wendigo commanders who know seventeen ways to skin a dragon but think chocolate milk comes from brown cows because that's what their brain-dead wolf instructor believed!"
She fumbled with another catnip toy, tearing it open with her teeth. "Then you've got the old-as-fuck Frontenachii Matriarchs. The ones who've been through the Incarnator too many times. Each resurrection degrades them a little with each death. One of 'em complained to me that she can't remember her own childhood in Omnithornia anymore. Replaced with various invasion n' kobold management tactics and a vague sense that she should be angry about something but can't recall what!"
"Sounds pretty bad," I said.
"That's the Frontenachii way!" Nexxali laughed, high and unhinged. "Keep plowing on and on like a stupid, blind elk! The fleet might look fancy and ancient from afar, but was actually put together on a whack schedule by an enslaved prad-crab-race rapidly using time dilation so that the Omnid Homeworld wouldn’t even know shit about it. It’s all a big, terrible secret! Everything up there is held together with hopes and dreams and nano-graphite-tape! Aha ha ha ha! They're trying to conquer as many planets as possible before Omnithornia notices and shames them into slowing it down!”
“What about current soldier morale?”
“Marshals like me are trying to keep up morale,” she scowled. “The only problem is that nothing works right on this linear-Aether shithole of a planet. Charmchain barely functions. I can't even make a human freeze up properly!" She gestured wildly at me. "Look at you! Sitting there all smug and resistant! Didn’t even flinch when I ordered you to stop running!”
“Oh?”
"Do you know how pathetic I am?” She clawed at her face. “I'm supposed to be the top Riffmancer in the fleet! My voice made Lords bow, forced Archmage generals to surrender armies and nations! Made entire cities kneel! And you?" She poked my side slowly. "You just... ignored it. Like I was asking you nicely instead of commanding your very soul!"
"Maybe you're just having an off day," I suggested.
"An off day?" She huffed. "No. My core Skill is so weak here I can barely charm a... a..." She looked at the catnip toy bag. "I can't even think of a good comparison. See? Even my amazing wit is failing! This planet is poison to everything we are!"
She pressed her paws to her temples. "The planetfall Alpha Scruts know your fiction isn't real. They KNOW. But they have to pretend to search because what else can they do? Admit to the Admiral that this entire invasion is a catastrophic waste of resources? That we can't even properly bind the locals permanently because our magic keeps... fizzing out like a wet firecracker only after a few hours or days?"
"So the invasion is failing?"
"Eh, we'll still win," Nexxali said miserably. "Eventually. Through invincible Corpse Seeker and orbital moon-dropping superiority. But it won't be the clean, efficient operation the Admiral promised. It'll be messy and stupid and take forever. And meanwhile, I'm stuck here, ranting all of our secrets like a loopy idiot. Why am I so ranty? Curse you and your delicious bags of tasty grass!”
“Are you still gonna murder me?” I wondered.
“I’ll murder you twice as murdery now!” she promised. “As soon as I can move properly again! I just told you enough shit to have me turned inside out and upside down for a bazillion years.”
“Riiiiiight.” I held up my tablet, typing a message to Napoleon. "Hey Nexxali, hypothetical question. What happens if locals take a pradavarian high ranking officer hostage?"
She snorted through the catnip haze. "Standard Protocol One-Two-Nine. Immediate extraction with a Corpse Seeker or… hostage termination from orbit and extraction of the bracelet. No negotiations."
“Bracelet?”
She wiggled a black bracelet on her wrist. “Lazarus bracelet. A planet-killer explosion could go off and it wouldn’t even get scratched. S' Immovable metal.”
"Who makes the call on extraction or hostage termination?"
"Direct commanding officer. Or in their absence, the ranking fleet officer available." She chewed thoughtfully. "Why?"
"Just curious about your command structure. Aaaanyway... If, say, a low-ranking Scrut gets captured, their Alpha makes the call?"
"Exactly. Quick and clean. Either extract them alive with maximum violence or..." She made a mushroom-cloud explosion with her fingers. “Explode the locals and extract the bracelet.”
"What if the hostage has sensitive information? Like, really sensitive. Fleet-compromising sensitive."
Her ears perked up slightly. "That's... different. Protocol shifts to Sub-Section B: information containment. The highest ranking Intelligence officer takes over and attempts to solve the problem… surgically. With negotiations, using Charmchain magic."
"Intelligence officer like who?"
"Like me, technically. Marshal Commandants handle information security since we can just order any planetary resistance members to do whatever… Like not to spread the information..." She paused, golden eyes narrowing at me. "Commandants act… when operational security is at risk."
"So you could make the call about a hostage who has sensitive information?"
"In theory. But only if—" She stopped again, staring at me. "What are you doing?"
“Learning,” I said. “How high are you as a Commandant?”
“Right now?” She chewed on the catnip. “The highest! Since Division 881 was the first to discover an actual vampire nest after everyone kept flapping around like clueless knobs for hours and hours, 881’s rank is number one in terms of Planetary Dominion rating. I’m 881’s Commandant, which makes me the Commandant in charge of any future problems on this Abyss-damned planet.”
“Such as information leaks?”
“Yes.” She stared at me. “What is happening?”
I turned the tablet screen toward her, showing a paused recording timer at 15:47. "Congratulations. You’re now my hostage."
"WHAT?!" she sputtered.
"See, here's what I just learned," I said. "You're the highest ranked Marshal Commandant on Earth. You handle sensitive information cleanup. You just revealed massive operational secrets while high. And according to what you just told me, in situations involving intelligence compromise, YOU would be the officer making decisions about the hostage."
Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
"Which means," I continued, "you're now both the hostage AND the officer responsible for deciding what to do about said hostage. You can't report this without reporting yourself. You can't call for extraction without admitting you leaked everything to a local. You're trapped by your own protocols and words."
"Wh-huh?! Y-you can't..."
"I can and I did. This recording?" I waved the tablet. "It's already uploaded to our internet. Propagating across Earth's networks. Thousands of copies by now, thousands more being made by my associates. Your confessions about executing your squad, the Admiral's indiscretions with a local, calling the Frontenachii 'the baddies', your fleet put together with time dilation against the wishes of your homeworld... it's all documented and...”
"Delete it!" She snarled weakly, trying to grab the tablet. I easily pushed her face back and she wrapped her hands around my wrist, trembling and blinking.
"Too late. It's out there. Even if this tablet and I explode right now, the zipped up file’s already uploaded to my network of friends who will share it with their network of friends. And here's the beautiful part! Your Protocol says 'immediate extraction or termination,' right? But you can't extract yourself without explaining why. And you can't terminate yourself because... well, you're you."
She stared at me with a wide open mouth. "You used my own words to..."
"To put you in a tight position, yes. As the Intelligence officer dealing with a hostage situation involving massive information compromise, what's your call, Marshal Commandant? Do you report that Marshal Commandant Nexxali has been compromised and needs extraction? Or do you contain the information leak by... what was it... 'making problems disappear'? Aka lying a lot? Turning Corpse Seekers and guns off?"
"Information is more valuable than a single officer," she choked. "Operational security takes precedence over individual assets."
"So by your own protocols, you should keep quiet about this whole thing to prevent this terrible information leak from spreading?"
Her paws went to her head. "Slayer! This is crazy! You're using our own regulations against me!"
"Welcome to Earth, where bureaucracy is a weapon and everything's made up but the points still matter."
"Points?"
"Never mind. Earth joke from an improv TV show. The point is, you're now super stuck. As the Intelligence officer responsible for this decision, you have to make the call that protects operational security."
She slumped in the seat. "Which means covering this up."
"Exactly. Filing false reports. Destroying evidence. Pretending everything's fine while being held hostage by your own leaked intelligence."
"I should kill you right now," she muttered without conviction.
"But you won't. Because my death triggers the dead man's switch I've just set up! The recording gets unzipped and explodes across every network if I don't check in every few hours."
"You... You're lying!"
"Am I? Want to test it? I'm friends with some verrrry paranoid Eastern European programmers. Setting up automated systems is kind of our thing."
She fell quiet for several seconds, then laughed bitterly. "You know what the worst part is? By our own protocols, I'm making the right call by covering this up. The information security breach of this magnitude getting out would be catastrophic. Multiple commanders would be implicated. The Admiral herself could get voted out! Leviathan's tits! The entire command structure would..." She shuddered.
"So we're partners now? Eh, eh?” I grinned deviously.
"We're not partners," she spat. "You're a hostage-taker using information warfare, and I'm a compromised asset who has to play along to prevent wide scale operational failure!"
"Partnership with extra steps."
"I hate you. You're a horrible human. So mean! Wait… no… I…” She stared at me, muttering something under her breath.
"Fair. You'll still help me clean my house and file a nice report to the fleet, yes?"
She nodded miserably. "I don't have a choice. By my own protocols, containing this data-leak situation takes precedence over... everything else I do."
"See? You're very good at your job! Even when your job is covering up your own compromise."
"This planet is hell," she groaned. "A special kind of hell designed specifically to torture Intelligence officers."
"Oh, it gets better. You'll need to keep me extra healthy and alive and free to prevent that recording from spreading. Which means you're now my protector as well as my prisoner."
Her eye twitched. "You've thought this through."
"I'm making it up as I go, honestly. You just keep giving me more ammunition like a good kitty. Gotta follow the rules of the Blood Contract, yes?"
"Yes. Ughhh… Never should have gotten drunk," she muttered. "Never should have taken this assignment. Shouldn’t have made planetfall with the rest of 881 nor gotten excited about extra vampire capture outside of their compound. Should have just stayed on the ship playing cards with the maintenance crew."
"But then you wouldn't have discovered Earth's greatest weapon… bureaucratic jujitsu! Using the enemy's own weight against them."
"Stop being pleased with yourself. This is temporary. I'll find a way out and murder you!" The cat girl insisted.
"Maybe. But until then, we're stuck together. The Intelligence officer hostage and her information bomb! Very poetic." I pointed out.
“Ah! Ahh!!!” She puffed up. “This situation remains in play as long as Division 881 is first in global Dominion rankings! As soon as I stop being top Commandant I have to report that I'm compromised as my own hostage to a superior Commandant!”
“Then I just have to make sure Division 881 finds more genuine vampire artifacts… while others fail horribly,” I grinned.
“How the fuck would you do that?” She stared at me.
“It's a secret,” I whispered with a grin.
“Wait… what the fuck. Sherlock Holmes. The map with the location close to Cascade. Vampire car parked at your house. You… you gave us the location of that fucking vampire nest?! You…?!” She choked, eyes wide and unfocused.
“A magician never reveals his cards.” I grinned.
She pulled out another catnip toy, shoving it in her mouth. "When this is over, however long it takes, I'm going to find a way to make you suffer horribly that's completely within protocols!"
"Looking forward to my future torture, Commandant.”
<<First chapter / < Previous Chapter / > Next chapter 31 [On royal road]
1/1/2300
ARSGC Anakanai (WCLT-38)
The punishment for piracy in the Republic of Antares is death.
It has always been that way, even in Imperial times.
However, there has been a disproportionate amount of engagements between civilian and pirate vessels in recent years, and we’ve noticed an interesting pattern.
The vast majority of the most successful pirates today are human, including the notorious David Davidsonn.*
Either way, human or not, they’re still an incredible thorn in the side of Antarean commerce and have attacked both Terran and Antarean vessels to the point where both of our Stellar Guards and whatever ships the Navy allocates are overwhelmed.
And we must prune them out before that thorn grows even bigger, or else Terran-Antarean commerce is surely doomed.
But that still leaves one question.
Why are there so many human pirates, and why are they so successful…?
*character created by Yhardvaark
“Sir, we have a small object on the scanners. It appears to be drifting.”
‘Define small.’
“Maybe 15 meters? Roughly cylindrical.”
‘Range?’
“Edge of the perimeter. I confirm that it is simply drifting. No engines. No thrusters. Just drifting.”
‘Any reason for debris out here?’
“Nothing on record. A picker reports that it matches a Terran escape pod.”
‘Terran escape pod? Out here? How?’
“Not clear. Images show that it is heavily scored and frosted. And it is an older model. Random drift?”
‘Possibly. Very unlikely. Have a picket tether it and tow it into Bay 7.’
Standing in Bay 7, looking at the damaged pod.
“Confirmed Terran escape pod. Launched from the Halibut. We are guessing it was launched by accident. Records are sketchy, but we are estimating it’s been drifting for 40-45 standard orbits.”
‘Hmmmmmmm. Anything in it?’
“We haven’t opened it. Waiting on your instructions.”
‘It’s 40 orbits old. What do you think will be in it?’
“It is Terran.”
‘I’ll grant you caution is needed. Open it up.’
Some techs moved close and opened the escape hatch. It took some effort, but once opened, they saw a small box, wrapped with a bow.
‘What the hell is that?’
“It’s a small box wrapped with a bow. Nothing else.”
‘Bring me the box. This is just too weird.’
“Take care, sir.”
‘Yes, yes. I know the feared Terrans. You’d think they were so sort of demon by how much they are feared. It’s just a damn box.’
After tearing off the bow and opening the box, they find a folded sheet of paper.
‘There is a message on this. Let me see. [Congratulations! We of the Halibut commend you on finding this escape pod! We took bets on how long it would take, so if you live, please send Fleet Command a message. Enjoy what time you have left.] Is this a joke? If we survive? It’s an escape pod! No weapons! No explosives! What the HELL is this?’
“Should we send a message to their Fleet Command?”
‘Why?!?’
“They did ask. Politely.”
‘Oh for zarkings sake, YES! Send a message. Idiot Terrans wasting our time with stupid wagers. Examine the pod, salvage what you can, dump the rest.’
Roughly 45 secs after the techs powered up the pods computer, all of the replicators in every ship in the fleet suddenly started building small drones. It took about ten minutes for anyone to notice, and a few hours before someone figured out that the escape pod had uploaded multiple viruses into the ships mainframe and comms. By that time the drones activated and started methodically disassembling power systems, life support, and opening airlocks. Within eight hours, the entire fleet was disabled, with many of the smaller vessels being disassembled into scrap. When a rescue team arrived two standard rotations later, there was one a field of debris from methodically disassembled ships.
The Terrans did thank them for the message. Ensign Dale—now CPT Dale—won the bet and got the ten cases of beer.
if anyone dont get it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMgsFZ4rkEI
Marking you as her prey <3
She was a teacher for goodness sake, not a psychologist for the destructive tendencies of alien youngsters.
Last week they’d attempted to build and test an afterburning anti-matter engine.