HUMANS, FUCK YEAH No. 2709630, 2008/10/01 (02:55) Author: Anonymous

“Humans are insane. You see, Humans have this concept called “Vengeance”. Once, a Vuux warship blew away one of their early colony ships. Fifty Terran geo-helio-cycles later, without a word, they glassed the entirety of the Vuux homeworld and called it even. Not one senator in the Union even dared bring it up with their ambassador. They have no com- punction to follow the Concord of Equal Force!” “The Human muscle-to-mass ratio is incomprehensible. Their world must have been at least half-again as large as ours. Their biology defies reason, they breathe oxygen and yet can swim in liquids without trouble. They can kill with their manipulator extremities, and more. One prisoner slammed his brain case into a guard, and then beat them to death with his bare hands.” “Of all the violence-capable sophont clades, Humans are the only ones who strap themselves into armored shells and drop out of the atmosphere onto enemy positions. And that’s only after they soften up any ground re- sistance with orbital bombardment. We are certain that they have secretly developed mind-upload technology (and thus a kind of technical immortal- ity). The other possibility, that they are willing to throw themselves into the path of anti-starship weapons without hesitation and risk their con- sciousnesses, is unthinkable.” “I once met a Human at a waystation on a Class 1 world. It did some kind of rough work for one of their colonies. It called itself a “search and retrieval expert” but I’m guessing the translation software couldn’t find the proper words. A few weeks later, it returns to the waystation, sans its trans-grav (rented, I might add). Apparently the people it was hunting took down its transport, but it continued on foot after escaping the wreckage and patching itself up. The scary part was that it was wearing clothes fashioned from Tharge pelts, had its targets’ ears on a necklace (DNA proof, I guess), and had fashioned a spear from a jagged piece of the trans-grav’s hull and an Iron-root. And it was honestly none the worse for wear, just sauntered over to the AENet terminal and collected on its kills.”

1

FOSTER BENT No. 2710543, 2008/10/01 (05:14) Author: Anonymous

Notable in local history is the occasion of one human, designation “Fos- ter Bent”, and his arrival on Vox 12 in a nearly disabled spacecraft. It is recorded that when “Foster Bent” crawled from his landing pod to look upon Vox 12, the locals took him for an invader and issued a mating celebration in his honor. It is little known that the Voxi use mating as a weapon, luring in other races to mate uncontrollably until they expire from discharge sickness, dehydration, exhaustion, or pleasure, depending on species. Foster Bent is said to have pleasured and ‘satisfied’ an entire village of Voxi females and at least half a dozen Voxi males as well. Upon his de- parture a stature of his likeness was erected in pure coal, a holy sub- stance on Vox 12, and his name is now used in a powerful social utterance of ill will translated as: “May Foster Bent descend on your mate.”

2

I REMEMBER THE HUMANS… No. 3185785, 2008/12/16 (17:44) Author: I apologized on 4chan

It was probably about 13 Galactic Years ago that I first fought alongside the Humans. My unit of Vargruung Walkers were acting as heavy support for a unit of about 14 human infantry, doing hunter-kill missions against the Kell-wreth in some dark swamp world. Reminded me of home if I’m honest. Sure we’d all heard the stories of how humans breathed oxygen neat, could rip a reef lizard apart with their bare hands, felt no pain, breathed fire etc. etc. The usual fznar you always get from military stories. The truth is that, yes, humans have a well honed capacity for violence, but that’s still nowhere near the sort of thing you get from a Drll Suicide Bezerker. No, the thing that makes them dangerous is that… Well, it’s hard to put in the words. You know that feeling you get when you meet a doctor? That sort of feeling of trust you have that he knows how to do his job, that’s the feeling I get from humans with regards to fighting. They’ve got the air of knowing what they’re doing when it comes to fighting. They have this completely detached way of thinking about warfare that no other race can match. That and adrenalin, that stuff’s just incredible. It’s considered an illegal and potentially lethal drug in 90% of galaxy. Drll Juveniles use it as a Narcotic, the Octovar consider it an Aphrodisiac and the Kell-Wreth use it as a combat-drug. But only humans produce it naturally, and only humans have bodies designed for it. After all, it was the Kell-Wreth deciding it’d be fun to abduct humans and surgically harvest their adrenalin glands that caused the whole Terran / Kell-Wreth war in the first place, and it was why we were doing H-K mis- sions on Ghoulad III. So there we were, me and two fellow Barghast in our Vargruung Scout Walkers, acting as heavy support for a unit of human “Rayn’garrs” when a trinity of Kell-Wreth in full Mechanized Battle Dress get the drop on us. You could clearly see their veins monstrously blue and throbbing, and they’re squealing in that horrible way that they sound when they try to use their underdeveloped vocal cords. It was obvious that they were doped up on adrenalin so far that they couldn’t even act rationally any more. Their whirring gauss weapons manage to kill two of the humans in brief sprays of blood. The sight is so horrific that my two spawn mates froze in their tracks, and even I was unable to move my tentacles fast enough to get a clean shot.

3

The humans however reacted instantly. They immediately dashed be- hind the armoured shell of our Vargruung, which affords them needed cover, and began to return fire. The Kell-Wreth saw this and attempted to advance towards us. I fire a couple of shots from my Plasma Casters to try and scare them off, but in their state they totally ignore my wild shots. That’s when one brave human charges into one, and jammed the com- bat blade on the end of his slug-thrower right into the Kell-Wreth’s face, it made a horrible gurgle and sunk beneath the swamp waters. He then leapt on top of another and with his bare hands he managed to gouge the Kell-Wreth’s eyes out; its screaming somehow managed to get even worse before the human broke the things neck. The other one stops for an instant as it notices its compatriots flailing and I was finally able to concentrate long enough to incinerate it with my plasma casters. It later turned out that the human had been shot five times in non-lethal areas. He simply did not feel it at the time. Adrenalin. Amazing stuff.

4

OUR TERRIBLE GIFT No. 3186300, 2008/12/16 (19:25) Author: Anonymous

!MESSAGE BEGINS We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful infor- mation without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible. It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 66 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 214 Deelis outward from the Galac- tic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through our Observatories we watched a world of strife and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life or purpose. Even their concepts of Art spoke of conflict and pain. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to cause of death. They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within the breadth of one of their single, short generations, and we began to worry. When they began actively transmitting messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions. They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us. The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and grow and flood out of their home system like some uncountable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take 68 Deelis, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act, and sealed our fate. 4 2 The Gift of Mercy was 8 strides long with a mouth ⁄4 that in diameter, filled with many 44 weights of machinery, fuel, and ballast. It would push 2 th itself up to ⁄8 of light speed with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume interstellar Primary Element 2/2 to feed its unlimited accelera- tion. It would be traveling at nearly light speed when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning, celebration, and reflection. The horror of the act we had committed weighted heavily upon

5 us all; the necessity of our crime did little to comfort us. The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. The architects and work crews, horri- fied at the awful power of the thing upon which they labored, had quietly self-terminated in droves, walking unshielded into radiation zones, ne- glecting proper null pressure safety or simple ceasing their nutrient con- sumption until their metabolic functions stopped. The appalling cost in lives had forced the Orchestrators to streamline the Gift’s design and con- struction. There had been no time for the design or implementation of an- ything beyond the simple, massive engines and the stabilizing systems. We could only watch in shame and horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void. They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they abolished war, abandoned their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and Art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft bodies gave way to gleaming metals and plastics, they unified their people through an omnipresent communi- cations grid and produced Art of such power and emotion, the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen before. Or again, because of us. They converted their home world into a paradise (by their standards) and many 106s of them poured out into the surrounding system with a ra- pidity and vigor that we could only envy. With bodies built to survive every environment from the day lit surface of their innermost world, to the at- mosphere of their largest gas giant and the cold void in-between, they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners, stripping the rocky planets and moons for vital re- sources, but then we began to see the purpose to their constructions, the artworks carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glit- tering lights and dancing fusion trails. And still, our terrible Gift ap- proached. They had less than 22 Deeli to see it, following so closely on the tail of its own light. In that time, oh so brief even by their fleeting lives, more than 1010 sentients prepared for death. Lovers exchanged last words, separated by worlds and the tyranny of light speed. Their planet side en- gineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their databanks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, lashed out in fear and pain, or simply went about their lives as best they could under the circumstances. The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular receptor. We watched and we wept for our victims, dead so many Deelis before the light of their doom had even reached us. Many 64s of those who had been

6 directly or even tangentially involved in the creation of the Gift sealed their spiracles with paste as a final penance for the small roles they had played in this atrocity. The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Ob- servatories refocused upon the place where their shining blue world had once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of an or- phaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent. Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had wiped out much of the inner sys- tem, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great void for an eternity. The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of single ships and world ships and everything in between, many 106s of survivors in flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and Art would survive the terrible blow we had dealt them. Then came the message, tightly focused at our star, transmit- ted simultaneously by hundreds of their ships. “We know you are out there, and we are coming for you.” !MESSAGE ENDS

7

THOSE ACCURSED HUMANS No. 3187352, 2008/12/16 (23:34) Author: Random Death Star-Sized Sapient Disco Ball Of Tzeentch !4T1uHiOuyE

“What game are you playing, my child?” the Stellarin asked as he walked to the boy playing in the outdoor sun. Despite his great age, sev- eral centuries by Human reckoning – suns and moons curse that race – his lithe form echoed that of his youthful son, an elegant economy of mo- tion evident in every motion. “I’m playing war, father!” the boy said with unbridled enthusiasm, wielding his toy sword with an agile grace that the greatest Human acro- bats would envy. “One day, when I am old enough, I shall join the League of Warriors and make war against the foul humans as you did, father! And this time, we shall push them out from the Rim Worlds once and for all!” At his son’s words, the elder Stellarin felt his knees give way under- neath him, and a lump catch in his throat as terror’s icy hands gripped his heart. “Father?” the younger asked, seeing his father stagger, “what’s wrong? Shall I call the-” “Sit down, my son. Would you like me to tell you a story about my days fighting the humans, all those long centuries ago? Before I met your mother, before I had you? A true story, unlike the ones the Grand Council tell.” “But… but father, the- the Council tells of great victories, of valiant ac- tions by our warriors, and great strikes against Humans-” “They’re lies, my dear son,” the elder said flatly. Ignoring the look of disbelief on his son’s face, he continued, “Lies that I too, once believed…” *** The Council tells us that the humans started the war, that their race wished to complete what they started when they drove us, the Duerfin and the Uruk off the Home World, and they did so by attacking Vylsan, Gillia and Terriniel. The Council tells of valiant last stands, heroic actions and a final assault against the rampaging humans that drove them off our worlds, did they not? I told you, my child, they are lies. In truth, we began the war. Vylsan, Gillia and Terriniel were the worlds where we gathered our troops. I, myself, was born on Terriniel. You should have seen us, my child; 20,000 of our world’s finest, standing arrayed with gleaming armour, protected by the finest forcefields, armed with lancer blade and fission bows. We knew that we would later be joined by 50,000 more warriors from Vylsan and Gillia’s Leagues. Our first, and only target, was the Human world of Lee’s World. We mocked the name, mocked the humans’ lack of creativity, and we thought it a simple enough matter to throw them off the world and claim it for our own. We had superior technology, and no race travels faster in space, in

8 the sky, or on the ground than we. We landed and struck suddenly, taking the token garrison entirely by surprise; it was a sparsely settled world, and after a week, we had thought the world pacified. We were wrong. The Human assault came soon after those two months. A massive fleet, yet a fraction of their entire imperial forces, soon emerged into space above us, and immediately began landing troops. My child, have you seen a Human drop-army deploying? Ship after ship dropping soldiers on rocket packs, raining armies from above. For so long, our masters have had the technosorcery of teleportation. We simply didn’t consider humans, with their absolute lack of magic, would resort to such methods to deploy their armies, and while our masters and captains teleported to wherever they were needed most, there were simply too many humans in too many places to fight. Oh yes, that’s right, my child, too many humans. Not even 70,000 war- riors could fight them. It sounds unbelievable only to those who have never faced a Human army. Tell me, how many soldiers do you think they dropped? No, not 100,000. 200,000? No, my child, guess again; we would have defeated them even if they had landed that many. My child, enough guessing, I’ll tell you: they landed over 6 million sol- diers on Lee’s World that day. How do I know? Let me finish the story. Our army was destroyed the day they landed. Warriors, who I had trained alongside, and fought side-by-side for more than a hundred years, were cut down in a storm of war. The Human lasers were so numerous, I saw many of our soldiers obliterated in what seemed to my eyes a wall of light. A single laser would have caused our shields to merely flicker, but a hundred would demolish both it and its wearer. Human artillery never stopped thundering, and for each Human we killed, it seemed like a hun- dred would take his place. We Stellarin are trained to face enemies in sin- gle combat, each of us, but not even the greatest Avatar of War can de- fend all sides at once. The humans don’t understand our concept of hon- ourable combat, seeing one-on-one battles between equals as foolish; in- stead, they struck at our supply lines, poisoned our food and drink, broadcast loud propaganda at night to disrupt our rest, let loose vermin that carried plagues their bodies could withstand and we could not, and when all that was done, take potshots from afar at us with snipers and drones. Only when we were truly weakened did their assaults come. We did not force the humans off our worlds, my son, they forced us off theirs. They proceeded to bomb, then raze Vylsan, Gillia and Terriniel while they ignored our entreaties for peace. They burned the Worldtrees of each world, rendering each world magicless for centuries to come. The valiant struggles by our warriors to chase them off? They were almost all failures; our only victories came from attacks on isolated supply stations and minor supply line raids, ‘victories’ that the Council milked for all they were worth. In the end, only after their appetite for vengeance was settled did the

9 humans leave, bought off – yes, bought off – by the Council with techno- sorcerous secrets and slaves. Don’t believe me? I was held imprisoned after the assault, one of only a few hundred of our forces sent to war. I met your mother in that prison, you know. A Gal- lian; she outranked me, but in there, we were all equals. You and she are the only good things that came from that war, and I thanks the stars and moons every day that I was so blessed. We were released, and walked through the holds of the Human transports, so that we could see who we made war with, and the cost of doing so, and thus bring the news back to our worlds. I saw holds brimming with Stellarin treasures, troop transports each carrying more soldiers than the forces we sent to Lee’s World. You know how those who boast tend to exaggerate their accomplish- ments? Our warden, the commander of the Human forces, was telling us about the troops he brought, and the number I arrived at, 6 million, was one I came up with after I downgraded his own words – I refuse to believe that even among the humans, they could somehow come up with more than 20 million soldiers to bring to a single world. But in any case, my son, dear heart, set your sight on other things be- side the humans. Wage war against the Uruk, or the Duerfin, or the curs- ed Illthidim, or the warrior-breeds of the Tchkon hives, for those wars… those we might win. Anything, than those accursed humans. *** As the hyperdrive carried them along the star-road, as hyperspace lanes were called, the two green-skinned Uruk sat playing cards with their Duerfin co-owner. They were the only crew on the ship, primarily because the finely-crafted Duerfin ship needed no more crew, and also because any more Uruk would have meant that sooner or later, there’d have been a fight. “Y’know, dat world, woss name, Elysia, it was one of our worldz once, b’fore da humiez took it.” “Grok, shaddap and deal da cards.” “Oi’m just sayin’, yanno! Wot, can’t a Urk say sumfing wiwout yer jumpin on ‘is back?!” “Shut it an’ deal, yer panzee sprout!” “Oi’ll show ye-” “Oi! That’s right enough I’ve had o’ yer two’s squabblin’!” the Duerfin said. “Now, Grok, are ye going ta deal, or are ye and Ugga gonna start whackin’ each other over the heads again wit’ those clubs o’ yers?” “Sorry boss.” “Honestly, ye two. Want to know why the humans managed to take your world? It’s ‘cos of yer inability ta discuss anything wi’out gettin’ someone killed! Ye see the humans doin’ that? Nae! They fight and bicker amongst themselves ta be sure, but at least they know how ta pull tagewer whn th’ goin’s tough!”

10

“Big words, little boss,” Ugga laughed maliciously. “After all, ‘snot like da humiez took anyfing o’ yer people’s- oh wait!” “Go ahead, laugh it up ye two! At least when ye buy something Duerfin, yer sure of buying something made well, and no’ ‘made well enough’! Those crazy talljobs dinnae even wait ‘till something’s legal before spreading it!” “Dat dinn’t stop da humiez makin’ more money den you lot! ‘Ow many Duerfin ‘Oldz wot ‘ad t’ shut down lately?” “Do you want ta keep working fer me or not?!” *** The Great Hive was abuzz, to use a Human pun, Queen Mother 49 ob- served. She was the oldest and wisest of the Queen Mothers, and her sta- tion demanded that the strongest of her warrior-children brought her to the Great Hive. Queen Mother 135 had brought a motion to the Hive, and while Queen Mother 49 wasn’t told of what it was (as per ancient tradi- tion), she had a pretty good idea of what 135 wanted. She didn’t know that 135’s request was made in the same spirit as a Stellarin child on the other edge of the galaxy, or that she felt the same way as the child’s fa- ther, but it would not have mattered if she did. “News from our trader-spawn hath revealed that humanity’s greatest strengths are their numbers!” 135 screeched in ritual high-speech. “The other races are hard-pressed, for though they have superior technology or strength, they simply number fewer, or cannot outproduce the primates! But Queen Mother 49, surely thou can see that their numbers are but a drop in what we can do? I, in concert with my lesser queens, can birth twoscore times a thousand warriors in the time it takes the humans to birth and train a tenth of that number! I alone could raise an army to take ten Human food-worlds for our race, think of what we could all do in con- cert!” A screeching hail of consent greeted 135’s words, even the older Queens coloured the blue of consideration, a colour only Queen Mother 49 could see – in fact, she was the only member of her race outside the mindless worker castes to see in colour. It was this ability that gave her her position, that had ensured her rise over the centuries over other Queens Mother, a near-mythical ability to see the lies and feelings that her other kin could not. Nobody knew where she’d received the gift, nobody outside a select few individuals knew she even had the power, but all Tchkan agreed that she wasn’t born with it. In her youth, Queen Mother 49 had ventured beyond the stars with her brood, determined to carve a name out for herself. She returned decades later with her brood mostly intact, but the Queen Mother herself had changed. Ever since then, she had led her race, with all those who would challenge her rule outmanoue- vered both in the political arena and in some cases, on the battlefield. And now it was time for her to pay her debt and save her people. “Wouldst thou listen to me, 135, of why I think thy idea is, to couch it in the politest of terms, sheer folly?” Queen Mother 49 asked gently.

11

She saw 135’s carapace colour the green of fury – 135 was proud, too proud, perhaps? – but her words were respectful. “Forgive me, Queen Mother, if my words didst unnerve thee. I wouldst be willing to hear thine words on why we should not assault the primates.” Queen Mother 49 turned the red of satisfaction as she asked a question. “Tell me, 135, wouldst thou accept a Human as a Tchkon? Or a Duerfin? Or a Stellarin? Mayhap e’en an illborne Illthidim?” “What? No, Great Mother, of course not! Wouldst I did so, thou’rt most welcome to think me mad!” 135 said, her green carapace now spotted with purple and black. “The humans would. The humans have,” Queen Mother 49 said calmly. “Their soldiers may use basic weapons equal to anything our shaper-caste can spawn, but their superweapons, elite troops and greater war machines are designed and created not by their kin, but Duerfin mavericks, unac- cepted by their own kin, accepted by the humans. Uruk warriors, hunger- ing not for bloodshed, but the camaraderie of fellow warriors, serve along- side Illthidim warrior-sorceror auxiliaries in Human armies, and both often reach high command. Stellarin can be found navigating their most im- portant ships, either because they cannot take the structure of Stellarin society, or because they have found Human mates-” “Impossible! Disgusting!” “-but true, Queen Mother 91. The other races doth speak of the hu- mans’ blatant speciesism, but ‘tis reality: humans accept far more of other races than we, theirs. Fight any one race if each of us were alone, but can we outmanouever Stellarin navigators? Can our sorcery compete with Illthidim mastery of the Ninefold path? Hath our warriors suddenly evolved carapaces that can withstand Uruk strength, or our hives withstand Duerfin weapons? For if we wage war on humans, all this we shall surely face, for they are willing to see those e’en not of their kind as equals, not paid help or mercenaries.” “Queen Mother 49, that is a risk we must take!” 135 said hotly. “The farmland on our worlds doth run fallow with o’eruse, the rivers run dry! We must take the humans’ worlds, or we shall all starve!” If Queen Mother 49 could sigh with exasperation, she would. Instead, she just turned a bright pink with black spots. The situation wasn’t half as bad as 135 said; their worlds were more than capable of sustaining them. What she didn’t have was that feeling of glory in her carapace, that fire burning within her fluids that told her she was worth something. What 135 had, in fact, was the same desire that Queen Mother 49 had when she was young, and her memories drifted back… She broke off. She had to focus on the here and now. “I hath considered this question, Queen Mother 135, and though ‘twould displease thee, ‘tis but the sole island of sanity in the ocean of madness that would descend on us ‘ere we go to war.” Queen Mother 49 knew it was not all that intelli- gent to insult 135, especially with the young Queen practically frothing at the mouth, but to hell with that bitch.

12

“And what plan is this, Queen Mother 49?” 135 asked, the hostility of her bright green carapace colouring her voice slightly now. She was speaking low-speech now, too agitated to bother with high-speech, and uncaring of the political fallout – more evidence of her youth, Queen Mother 49, realized, mentally taking back her ‘bitch’ remark. “We have them help us,” Queen Mother 49 said simply. “With Human technology aiding them, our workers can harvest food far better than we could ever before.” “And how are we to do that, Queen Mother 49?” 135 asked. “If not through conquest? For the only other way would be to… to join their Alli- ance…” There was silence, and the Hive burst into an uproar. Even so, Queen Mother 49 observed with red satisfaction that there were many blues in the chamber… Several hours later, Queen Mother 49 was carried out of the Hive, hav- ing successfully argued for a trial membership, with both sides, Tchkan and Human, exchanging limited resources for a while, the mutual rela- tionship providing for a closer relationship should the need arise. As her warriors carried her to her biopship, she allowed herself to reminisce, of leading her armies off into space, wanting to carve out her own Empire. Of meeting a human trading fleet, and being awed by both the sheer power of the fleet, and the diversity of the crew. Of trading food, resources, and most importantly, bio-engineered compound eyes instead of weapons fire… She lifted one of her clawed arms, the talons at its end currently re- tracted. Of one human, James, helping her adapt to the new, terrifying world of colour. Of James, the skilled, but poor doctor, giving of his skills generous- ly, without fear or favour… The claw came out, and Queen Mother 49 allowed herself to be lost in the memories the simple gold ring brought back.

13

WAR ON THE HUMANS No. 5039480, 2009/06/29 Author: Anonymous

I had to re-read your request three times to make sure I understood it correctly. The foolishness of it all makes me wonder what manners of chemicals have been released in your local water supply. But it is not my duty to judge the recreational habits of others, and as you carry the rec- ommendations of several high-ranking figures, I will oblige. You want to attack the humans, and wish to know what strategies worked against them in the Frontier Wars, and how we kept them pacified during the Krill campaign. First of all, what you call the Frontier Wars is not a war. It is the normal state of affairs in the systems on the border we share with the humans. Yes, there are various territorial conflicts going on there. Official maps change almost weekly. They raid our colonies almost weekly. Thing is, this is the exact same thing they do to each other. Being violent and warlike is just their nature. Our colonists have adapted to that, and we raid them almost as much as they raid us. It is not a war — it’s just the way things are. They don’t hate us, we don’t hate them. They treat us the same way they treat each other, and we are honoured by it. No other race has ac- cepted us as their equals as easily as the humans did. Now, the Krill campaign. Those damn insects thought that since we were busy dealing with the humans, we couldn’t fight back against them effectively. Bastards glassed one of our worlds, and sent a large fleet to do the same thing to our homeworld. This backfired spectacularly once the humans heard what was going on. Humans don’t like seeing worlds get glassed. They’re one of the few species that has used nukes against each other, and that has left a huge scar in their society. As soon as the word got out, all raiding on the border worlds stopped. Not a single shot was fired there during the war. They even sent a war fleet, crewed entirely by volunteers, to help us. Which, I might add, was significantly larger than the Senatorial peacekeeping force which arrived too late to take part in the action. After the Krill had surrendered and their homeworlds were placed under the watchful eye of the Senatorial forces, it only took a week before the humans started raiding again like nothing had happened. It was a some- what surreal experience to see the same warships that had just fought for our sake attacking our transports and taking hostages, but that’s just the way the humans are. In conclusion, we did not “pacify” the humans. The cease-fire was all their doing. We have not fought a war against the humans, and we hope we never have to. The only “strategy” we have found useful when dealing with them is treating them as equals. One last thing. Every single one of our soldiers remembers how the humans helped us in our time of need. We remember how they asked

14 nothing in return. We remember how you sent no help, and how you stalled the dispatching of Senatorial forces to deal with “such a minor in- fraction”. If you go against my recommendations and wage war on the humans, guess whose side we will be on?

15

A SPECIES FROM A DEATH WORLD No. 5041800, 2009/06/29 Author: Anonymous

“The thing about evolving on a death world is that you don’t really real- ize you’re doing so until you get the chance to leave it. Up to that point the presence of carnivorous monsters, venomous micropredators, extreme climatic conditions, geological instability, the most lethal cocktail of micro- bial and viral life forms in the galaxy and of course the crushing gravity, seemed entirely natural. Until we left Earth we thought ourselves rather weak, frail, defenseless creatures because we only had Earth fauna to compare ourselves to. You can imagine our surprise then, upon joining the galactic community, to find ourselves in fact to be enormous, robust and insanely dangerous in our own right.”

16

THE HATE OF HUMANITY No. 5906746, 2009/09/18 Author: Grey Thrikreen

“It has been my experience, that Humanity is a wonderfully terrible species. They are a species who craves peace and a boring life, but will go crazy in monotony, to the point that they can get suicidal, depressive, or even catatonic if a routine is driven hard enough. “They are a species of ambition, and they must have a chance to exer- cise this ambition. They are a species of infighting beasts, and they need a hierarchy, if only to lay the blame, and if only to feel better about them- selves. At a young age they are encouraged to form a pecking order, but unlike the insect-caste systems of the Dra'Nar, they are mobile, and unlike the Pack-species, they are not murderous of those who fail expectations. “Humanity is a friend to all living creatures. They will honor and respect the strangest traditions, even so far as to engage in the opening copula- tion with the Sissihiri. They will make accommodation to the Avnari - the flighty and air-brained creatures. And they will take each under an arm and smile — patiently. They are your friend and mean you no harm. Until you hurt someone they care about. Then woe unto you and your people. For if they are great in their love, they are just as great in their hate. Woe unto you that earns the hate of humanity. Because the vacuum of the universe is far warmer than the hearts of the head of Galaxia du Humanis.” Dra’Nar Philosopher DuJaiden

17

HOSTILE BUGS No. 6053431, 2009/09/28 Author: Anonymous

“Oh, oh god, you want believe what I just heard from a buddy of mine, this is great, you won’t believe it.” “Hmm?” “Those Grek-nel bastards are going to surrender to the Humans at the council today.” “Humans?” “Yeah, that new council race.” “The pink bipedals from Sol?” “Well, some of ‘em are different colors, but yeah, that’s them.” “Didn’t know they were at war with the Greks, I really am out of the loop, and to have won against those assholes already, good for them.” “That’s the great part, they weren’t at war, ya know how every time a new race becomes acknowledged, invited to the council and taken off the protection list. And how the Grek-nel just sweep over and demand tribute or they will use their nasty little bioweapon.” “Oh, don’t get me started on their death beetles, they let some lose on Tavrin 4, they breed too fast to get rid of easy, and they’re too small to notice till it’s already an infestation. And they are poisonous. Nearly im- possible to get rid of without killing everything else in the area, we had to burn half the fields before harvest time, and we’re still not sure if they got out of the quarantine area.” “Exactly, so the Greks stroll right up to Earth, that’s the human’s prime planet, and transmit the info on their death beetles to some random mili- tary institute. Well, the humans there tell them “We’re not the ones in charge of that” and they should talk to this other place and gives the co- ordinates. So they transmit to the next site: It’s a science building, they thought the Greks where sharing information, and started sending some back. Turns out Earth is positively covered with shit that makes the death beetles look tame, they got versions that fly. It’s insane. Greks get up and leave fast as they could.” “Wait, they got lots of ‘em?” “Yeah, it’s freaky, from what I hear only place with more hostile bugs is Telltra, and no one lives there.” “That’s messed up” “Yeah, how many species can say their first military victory was achieved without their military.”

18

EARTH, AND HER CHILDREN No. 7897826, 2010/03/02 Author: John Galt

“Life is a curious thing. Born by mistake, with the mixing of protozoic slimes, and the fusing of proteins and acids. In the beginning… All was blackness. I do not remember my birth, only the warmth of the womb of stars, and the nausea of my spiraling emergence into a nightmarish dream. I was drowning in cold water, though always my core smoldered and burned beneath the cloak of my flesh, stone and water and sky… Sur- rounded as I was by the blackness of void, I dared not reach out, how could I? The weight of the universe was about me. So I turned inwards. At first, I saw them as pestilence. Life, tiny molecules disturbing my slum- ber… But then I saw that the more I hurt them, the stronger, the swifter they grew. The more they were challenged, the smarter they became. I could see through their eyes things that I could never perceive with my own limited senses. I could feel pleasure, exhaustion, fear of death, lust for life…” “So I hurt them more. They grew. They fused together into nations of life, creatures small, but growingly large. I pitted them against each other, blocking out the sun to force them to feast upon the flesh of their fellows, and so they grew clever, cunning. They learned hunger at my knee as I starved them. As they grew in wisdom… So did I. I have come to under- stand what my primal brain only suspected. As they grow, so do I. As my will swells, they grow more and more complex. When the Tyrannosaurus roared its love for me to the heavens, I roared back. It was not good enough for me, for it loved me, it appreciated what I had given it. I de- stroyed it, utterly, and all of its ken. Weak they were, and weakness was purged from them with fire and smoke and searing stone.” “What emerged next… Was beautiful. Beautiful, but grotesque, for at first I had low expectations of the ape. He worked with his fellow, he shunned his claws for tools. But as I was set to strike him down… He slew his brother with a sharpened stone. That was a trick I had not seen before. So I stayed my hand, and never did my new favorite son cease to amaze me. He struck down the mammoth, he tamed the dog and set it against its brother, he murdered his fellows for pleasure and profit, for arbitrary definitions of gain that had naught to do with survival. As he learned sad- ism, so did I. I denied him resources, to fuel his thirst for blood, and he complied. Wars raged as he gathered himself into tribes, clans, nations, empires, to pillage and plunder, and burn burn burn!” “He tore from my flesh what he needed, and ate his fill without thanks. It was the pain of birth that had long been denied me, but with it, I grew stronger. Great empires he built, fueled with the bones of his mother, the stolen blood of the sun. He clouded my sky with ambition and hate, a thirst for the wealth that I denied him. Always denied him, wouldn’t any good mother do the same? The strength of my arm, he became, the hun-

19 ger in my belly. And as he grew, into my heart he drive great pitons and wires, through them the very current of life he electrified. Finally, I was free, to wander his wisdom, to communicate with him in my own way. The desires of men were made manifest before me, and I twisted them up- wards… To the sky. And I saw, to my revulsion, other worlds. Worlds still pristine and beautiful, worlds that had chosen the path of weakness.” “And I knew jealousy, for the first time. My sons… They knew my hunger. They knew my lust, and they carried it with them into the cosmos, to slake their thirst and mine upon the blood of worlds! The cycle is complete, what was birthed from the stars shall swallow them whole! Tremble, gal- axy, for Earth and her children behold you.” “And we find you wanting.”

20

VENGEANCE No. 7898443, 2010/02/03 Author: Gnollbard !aDlap4MeRg

Pack-mates, I once fought alongside a human hunt-group, and Yeeno- ghu be damned, that was the first time I ever wanted to turn tail and flee from my own allies. Now, you all know I’m not slack when it comes to killing. You’ve seen my trophies, I’ve taken more than enough mementos to satisfy even the Orcs’ brutal god. I’ve slain horrible abominations from the edges of known space. I’ve killed things that came from the very ground itself. I have matted my fur with the blood of insects from worlds lifetimes away from our own. I have even fought things we once might have worshiped as gods. But I have never seen something as scary as the human idea of “Vengeance”, nor a human in pursuit of it. You all remember that, within the first few seasons of our pact with the humans, we were called into service to help defend them against those vile squid-heads, the Illithids. Well, I’m sure you all also remember how so many of us got scattered and separated by their foul mind-trickery. Damn their very souls for it, too, and I hope the Lord of Slaughter spits them out. Now, the point is, I, like so many of us, got separated from my hunt-pack. So I’m wandering the human city we’re fighting in for what seems like forever, and eventually, I find myself in what I’ve recently learned was a busted-up bar. You know, the places where the humans get together and drink beer until they can’t hold a plasma-cutter straight. Well, I find my- self in one of those. As I crash about the place, still half-dazed from those damned Mind-fuckers, I feel a stiff pressure push at me from the under- side of my snout. It took a moment, but I quickly put mind to metal and realized that if I moved, I was probably good and fucked. So I dropped my fight-blade and held both hands up, barking the rote: “I ain’t gonna kill ya, I’m here to fuck up who is!” In their over-fancy language, of course. Well, I feel the pressure move, and I hear something, someone, really, move out from up against me. I look down, and I’ll be damned if it ain’t the littlest damn full-grown bitch I’ve ever seen. As it turns out, she was one of a small group of survivors from the first wave. Not even human military, any of them! Well, she’s got this old-style human weapon, a shotgun, pointed straight at my heart, and I’m quickly being surrounded by a bunch of five-an’-a-half, six-foot-nothing pinkies, none of which even come up to my chin, all with at least some form of gun in hand. Now, I don’t know about you, but I was under the impression that only their mil- itary was trained in weapons usage. As I find out later, they’re not as ass backwards as we thought. They have these places where anyone, civvy or guard, can go and get good with weapons. Well, anyways, alter studyin’ me for a while, and a lot of chatter be- tween one of the big ones and the one with the shotgun aimed at my vi- tals (they were mates, you could smell it on ‘em), they all seem to let down their guard. The big guy steps up to me and says, in Gnoll, which is

21 a surprise by itself: “You here to help us out, or pick at the bodies?” “Both, if I get the time!” I say, and let off a strong laugh. The big guy, the one who’s talkin’ to me, he laughs too, and chats a bit with the others in the group. I guess he translated the joke, because a few of the humans laughed too. So, after a bit of chatting, we come to an agreement. I go with them as part of their makeshift hunt-group until I meet up with my own, and in exchange, I can salvage anything I want that doesn’t come from a human body. Yeah, I know, I ripped them off, but what can I say? The chance to kill squids and get human stuff, all the while getting to be in a sort-of-pack? I couldn’t resist! Well anyways, we all leave the building, and go searching around for a proper military unit, because that’s what they wanted to do. I don’t care, I get to kill! Well, point is, we’re wandering around the ruined city, trying to follow the sounds of gunfire for what seems like hours, over rubble and dead cars, when finally, we run into something to kill. You know how the squids use their insect-thralls, the Kruthik, as the main warriors of their army? The line-bait? Well, we run smack-dab into a little group of them. Not real big, just maybe forty or so. Nothing a few of us can’t handle. Well, we’re making mincemeat of them, with the humans pouring fire into the group, while I keep the strays away from the main group. Well, suddenly, out of the blue, one of those mind-fuckers swoops down from a rooftop with one of its psy-blades in hand, slashes at the big guy, lands, grabs the girl with the shotgun, and jumps himself up to a sec- ond-floor window. It takes a few moments to get a good hold on the girl (from what I could hear, snapping a few bones in the process), wraps its tentacles around her neck, and plunges its head into her skull with a sat- isfying crunch and squelch. The big male stands there for a moment, in shock, like a damn fool. The rest of the group is still trying to fend off the bugs, who had been rein- forced by what I guess was another group of city-cleaners, and he just stands there, staring, marinating in his own blood. Obviously can’t do an- ything for the girl, she’s already gone. But there he stood, still staring at his dead mate in the hands of the squid jumper. After a moment, his eyes went wide, and he let out a noise that will both inspire and scare me to this very day. It sounded like it was part battle cry, part pain, and part ha- tred at the world itself, and more specifically, the whole Illithid race. My ears rang with the force of it, and apparently, the bugs took notice too. One of the damn things had made its way up to him, and managed to bury one of its long spiky-bits into his leg. For a moment, all time seemed to freeze. I thought it was more squid mind-fuckery, but the more I think back on it, the more I’m tempted to believe I saw something towering over him, a shadow, shaggy and dark. At the time, though, all I knew was that one moment, he stood there with a Kruthik spike buried in his leg, and the next, he was standing on top of the bug with its own leg, drenched in his blood, buried almost to the joint in its forehead. And I’ll be damned if I’m lying, it was still attached to the fucking bug’s leg!

22

Now, I’m not afraid to admit it, that was great. I’d be proud to serve alongside any warrior who could pull that off. But no. That’s not where the story ends, nor is it even the best part. The man then stepped off the bug, back on the ground, and let loose with his handgun straight into the crowd of bugs. He didn’t even seem to see what he was looking at, but every damn shot killed a bug. As he cut his way through the crowd, I could tell he was going for something. Now, I’ll admit, I was standing there, like a pup in his first battle, watching this human. I was stupefied. But if you could have seen him… He would not die. Nothing could touch him. When he ran out of ammo, he caved in skulls with the grip of his gun! A handgun, against Kruthiks! Well, after laying low far too many bugs to count, he comes to where he was apparently headed for. He ducks down, lashing out at any bugs who get near, and after a moment, he comes back up, holding the antique shotgun his mate was using. He pumps it, and fires into the crowd, obvi- ously still not satisfied. With a scream, he fires, and fires again, and again, and again, and again, until he’s out of ammunition, and even then, he starts swinging the gun like a club, smashing open their shells and spray- ing dark green slime all over himself and the ground. And all the while the damn Squid-head is still sitting up in the window, munching on the brain of the man’s mate. With a final crunch, the last Kruthik falls, smashed to pieces by the madman with the makeshift club. Well, I look at him, and he’s already looking around for something else to kill. His eyes stop on me for a mo- ment, but then move up to the Illithid in the window, who had just fin- ished its impromptu meal. With a wet thud, the body hits the ground un- der the window. The man’s eyes stray towards his mate’s body for a sec- ond, but then quickly jump back to the squid. Without a moment’s thought, he pulls back the arm holding the shotgun, and throws it at the Mind-flayer. No, I’m not kidding, he threw the shotgun at the damn squid-head. Well, the shotgun connects with the thing’s legs, and knocks it right off its perch. The damn thing flails for a moment, and then falls, gracefully landing on its feet, face-tentacles waving in irritation. Before it can do an- ything, the man is on it, fists driving into the thing’s gut, shotgun dis- carded at the thing’s side. It attempts to fight back, but the assault on its body is too much for it, and it can’t form its psychic blades. And if you’ve never seen an Illithid attempt to fist-fight, let me be the first to tell you, it’s sad. Back to the man, he’s building up steam as he wails on the squid. After a few moments of merciless pounding, the squid looks like it’s getting desperate, and I can see its tentacles trying to get a hold on the man’s arms. Well, apparently, so can him, because without a thought, he grabs onto a tentacle, and rips it off the damn thing’s face. Blue blood sprays all over him, and he looked like he was relishing it. Now, I’ve seen some fucking surprising shit in my life, but seeing a little human tear tentacles

23 off of an Illithid’s face definitely takes the cake. Needless to say, the squid’s on the ground, down and out. Well, the man slowly walks over to the squid, and picks up the shotgun. He looked up at me, and I swear to you, he cackled. Not like a human would, no. That would be too civilized. Not like a Gnoll would, either. It was more primal even than that. He sounded like a hyena. I swear to you, he sounded like an angry hyena. He looked at me, and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. He looked down at the doomed Illithid, and not even a moment of contemplation went by before he drove a hard kick into the squid-head’s side, turning him over, face up. After a moment, the tentacles began moving again, and the thing looked like it was starting to wake up. The human stared for a moment, straight down into its eyes, and smiled a grim imitation of a true smile. He then smashed the butt of the shotgun down straight into the thing’s face, crunching the bastard’s beak and part of its skull in the process. Blood spewed on his clothes, like only a Gnoll could appreciate, and he screamed as he crushed. And then he did it again. And again. And again, and again, and again and again and again and again until there was nothing left of the squid’s face but a blue pulp and what passed for brains. And then he did the one thing that, at that moment, I would never have expected. He dropped the shotgun, walked, slowly over to his dead mate, and knelt by her. He lifted her up, and for a while, just sat there, holding her in his arms. And he cried. He cried for a long time. After a bit, he took something off of her finger. A ring, I think it was. Eventually, though, he got up, and wiped himself off as best he could, clearing most of the blue off of his face. He walked back over to us, and stared me straight in the eye. Stone cold, he said: “We’re leaving now. Take what you will, and meet us where you hear gunfire.” They then took off. I spent a few minutes scrounging around for anything good on the squid-head’s body. I couldn’t find anything, so I looked around, and my eyes settled on the shotgun. I knew, right then and there, I had to have it. That thing was blessed by Yeenoghu himself. So I took it, and eventual- ly met up with the group again. You all know how the rest of the war went. Illithids got their tentacles handed to them on a plate of their own crap. But to this day, the only thing I remember out of that whole damn war, is that man smashing a Mind-flayer to pieces. This, pack-mates, is why we never make war with the humans. They are truly Yeenoghu’s blessed.

24

UNRULY UPSTARTS No. 7898924, 2010/02/03 Author: Anonymous

Our civilization had finally reached its peak; our domain stretched near- ly the entire length of the galaxy. Hundreds of civilizations pledged alle- giance to our rule, and for that they were pampered with our love and re- sources. Some did not comply, and they were punished for being unruly upstarts in our domain, and once we had shown them the errors of their ways they accepted our ways and were loved and pampered as the rest. It was toward the late part of the cycle of 420M51, our scouts had found an irregularly large solar system. Only one planet had life upon it and what we found disturbed us greatly. It was a planet of evolved sapient apes, naked though they were, wrapped themselves in the skins and fab- rics of the other life around them. They were suicidal, destructive, aggres- sive, deceitful; everything we were not. I had never known another spe- cies to kill one of its own, or even to take its own life, but these creatures did it all willingly. I learned a word while monitoring their world beyond what they had named the Kuiper Belt, Genocide. It had taken me many glanns to properly give the word a definition that I could comprehend, and when I did I wish I hadn’t. The utter annihilation of a group that was not of your own, every adult, child, every bit of its culture, is what it meant. To do so not only confounded me morally but even through an ecological standpoint would it not greatly change the en- vironment and cause more species to go extinct? Truly no creature would be capable of such a foul act, but as I continued to monitor them, the more I realized they would not only do so willfully, but willingly, fanatically, dogmatically. I fear we had stumbled upon a civilization that fully de- served punishment for its ways. I reported my findings back to our Council and they deliberated of the fate of this race. This civilization so prone to civil war, our strategists as- sumed that we would be able to silently pick off many of their factions while the rest were busy warring with the others. It was simple, but we felt it should work. I had failed to gather how fast they were able to adapt and engineer, for by the time our ships had arrived, they had not only gone to the moon and back, but they had learned to split the atom, and had already colonized the fourth planet and many of the moons of the fifth and sixth planets all within five of their generations! Fortunately, all of their society was splintered, the planets had de- manded their own sovereignty like the “nations” they had left back on Earth, so there was not a single united group among them besides alli- ances different groups had against others. Our ships descended upon the moon of what they called Titan. Our delegates landed and forced the in- habitants to submit or else we would employ force to make them do so. Our translators caught a single word from the moon’s military leader; it simply said “Nuts”. We did not know what it meant, so another warning

25 was sent. We intercepted an outgoing distress signal to the other colonies around it. I found it amusing, as the moons around Titan weren’t even in a non-aggression pact, no one will come to their aide. Our sensors indicated that they were picking up multiple signals off of our starboard side. Many signals indeed, hundreds of the colonial attack cralt had been summoned from all across the system. This instant unifica- tion had our commander flabbergasted, we all had assumed their inde- pendence was one out of inherent genetics, not of circumstance. How hor- ribly wrong we were. We found more communication flaring to and from all of the planets in their solar system, more warnings, more information, more united resolve. We began to calculate the total miniature empires and alliances they had, coupled with all of their individual armies and the technological might of each one. We soon realized that we needed more ships. What we thought was a simple policing action on a broken and faulted race such as these turned into an outright war against an entire solar sys- tem consisting of tens of billions of souls, all of whom would die before submitting to our divine rights as rulers of the galaxy. Our efforts soon shifted from social progress to keeping this tiny system at bay, they had already forced us out multiple times, and had taken many more of our systems around them. Their empire was growing, unknowingly, we had united them. All of their millennia of war and strife had trained them and bred them to this moment in their history when all of their accumulated data would finally be taken out on some ignorant outsider, something they could completely focus their hate and resolve on. We did not realize what kind of mistake we had truly made until we received the last transmission we ever would get from them, “We know where your home is. No survi- vors, no prisoners, no mercy”. We were finished, because though their diplomatic branch had withered and fell, their martial branch never showed us respite.

26

VEIL OF MADNESS No. 8236951, 2010/02/23 Author: Anonymous

When mankind ventured out into space, we never suspected what was to come. Our first inhabited planet was less than thirty light-years away, far closer than we would have thought. The issue? Everyone was dead. The entire planet was like that, a perfectly stable world with no issues that we could determine, and yet it seems the suicide rates were the greatest cause of death among the people. We don’t know why, but they apparently had been doing this for some time. Years of study later showed that the reptile-like race had taken nearly ten times as long as we did to reach the industrial age, and had not gotten very far beyond that. Time went on, and we soon discovered that this was not an isolated occurrence. Species after species had killed each other and themselves off for one reason or another. Some had died off so early only a few stone monuments marked that they had ever been there, some had established empires spanning nearly a dozen systems. But always they were all dead, down to the last child. And so we travelled the stars, colonizing the lost homeworlds we found, along with others. We studied the creatures on many worlds, although none bore intelligent life. In time we studied the technology of the more advanced dead races, gleaming a scientific secret or two we had missed. It was rather amusing to see the scientific community collectively slap their heads when they see the simple ideas and concepts they had missed. Once, and just once, we found a sentient race still alive. On a planet with ¾th the gravity of Earth, a planet primarily dominated by jungles bore a race of insect-like scavengers. They were barely beyond the Stone Age, farming and agriculture still in its early days. We considered making contact, but in the end decided against it. They were a very violent race, and many would kill one another for the smallest detail. Suicide also seemed to be something they would resort to with lit- tle or no good reason. In fact the entire race seemed insane. Long-term observation showed that after hatching the individual would slowly but surely go insane, to the point where none reached old age. In fact the on- ly reason this race had not yet gone extinct is a combination of high birth rates, short life spans, and a child being able to defend itself hours after birth. In any other race this bizarre affliction can and did drive them to extinction. For nearly seven hundred years, mankind grew and expanded. We did not find another living race during that time, or find out how we were im- mune. Many came up with theories, but none fit better than any others. Ethnic, religious, and cultural differences became less important when you

27 were away from Earth, and in the end those who could not agree simply lived on different worlds. The UTA, United Terran Alliance, controlled over 87% of mankind’s colonies from its seat of power on Earth. A few rogue factions cropped up, piracy and smuggling saw a rebirth in this new space age, and mankind went on as it always had. Then a moment that would change our history came. The UTA Dread- naught Supremacy was in essence a city in space. Constructed with our most advanced technology, to the point where systems were updated during construction, and having a length of nearly seven miles in length, it was the mightiest ship we had ever created. The Supremacy was sent to investigate a new world our long-range sensors show had space-age technology upon it. It was farther out than we had ever travelled before, but not by much. It was assumed that this would be just another dead world, than we might find some usable raw materials pre-harvested in the form of abandon constructions in orbit. What we found was an outpost of a space-faring race, its people still alive and well. Dozens of ships were in orbit around a rocky empty world, along with a space dock to repair and refuel them. They were remarkably primitive compared to our own, and much smaller. The largest was per- haps the length of a football field, if that. From the scarring and damage, along with the derelict ship floating nearby of a different make, they had been fighting not too long ago. Our first contact did not go so well, however. We would later piece to- gether what happened, and it went something like this. As soon as what might have at the time been the largest spaceship in the galaxy appeared on top of them, the race known as the Kondar were sent to the edge of panic. The commander tried to keep a disaster from occurring and ordered his ships not to open fire. Communications on both side failed, we our- selves had long ago stopped carrying any equipment or training our crew for first-encounters, and apparently the Kondar had not had any first con- tacts of their own in hundreds of years. It also didn’t help that our sub- space communications were just advanced enough that the garbled words the poor Kondar picked up on their outdated systems sounded horribly sinister and alien even by the wide standards of the galaxy as it now was. Then one of the Kondar gunmen on the closest ship had a panic attack after hearing our garbled transmission. He fired upon the Supremacy, which in a placating gesture had lowered its shields. The shot was able to breach the hull at a single point, and cost the lives of three crewmen. The captain of Supremacy ordered shields raised and a warning shot fired. Unlucky for the Kondar the concept of warning shots was alien to them, and they did not stop to ask why the single shot had missed. It was a short fight. The Supremacy blew away a single craft to secure its escape vector. A sad but necessary tactic. This only hurt our reputation further with what happened later. As we soon discovered, nearly 3% of the galaxy was filled with what was known as the “Veil of Madness.” Any race within this sector of space

28 would slowly but surely go insane. Short jaunts were safe enough, but more than that and permanent damage to the mind would result. We had apparently been sitting in the galactic equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle, and had finally breached its edge. When the Kondar realised that both our entrance and escape vectors lead directly into the veil, a panic started. With surprising speed, news spread among their people, and among oth- ers, of what had happened. The story grew worse with each retelling, especially once it left official military reports. Tales of the titanic black ship that came from beyond the veil, sent out signals in a horrid dark language, obliterated dozens of the Kondars finest warships in seconds for no reason, and then vanished like a ghost soon spread everywhere. Humanity had become the bogymen of the universe. Apparently our government’s size, and our tech level, was a fair bit higher than most races due to all the breathing room we had. The galaxy is a very crowded place, the larger empires usually spanning no more than twenty or thirty systems. Raids from pirate groups further cemented our dark reputation, and in time we came to work with the role. Every attempt to convince people that we wanted fair negations was seen as a deception. Rather than fight a losing battle, we played to the role given to us. Soon we were seen as ‘wicked but not unreasonable’ and gained both fear and respect through- out the galaxy. Few humans appeared in view of aliens outside of deliber- ately frightening power armour, and human ambassadors used voice syn- thesizers to sound like that first garbled communication had. Looking back, it’s actually worked in our favour. After years of contact most alien races know almost nothing about humans other than exagger- ated horror stories. The only bit of info we were more than happy to share with them was the reason we can live in the veil. Turns out we were all a little crazy to start with. I think the fact we’re pulling the largest practical joke in the galaxy was already proof enough of that.

29

OUR LAST AND BEST MISTAKE No. 8562122, 2010/03/13 Author: Anonymous

I remember the war with humanity. It was our first and last mistake, the last war of the Gwin, the war that destroyed us. I was barely a hatchling at the time the war started, barely old enough to understand what the politicians were saying, never mind understand the intricacies of galactic politics or jingoistic fevers. Some dispute about colonisation rights. Something trivial and unimportant. But something we foolishly thought destroying a human vessel was worth it. I remember the first few days of the war. The propaganda on the vid screens. The pictures from the front lines of our glorious armies, winning victory after victory. They compared the primitive human weapons to our advanced technology. The showed us the bedraggled human prisoners af- ter they surrendered. Made them read out statements of aggression and war guilt for the galactic news feeds. Of course the vids never told us for every human we killed they killed ten of us. We took the worlds we wanted, then got greedy and took some more. The humans were professional, but we had numbers. City after city fell beneath our guns, enslaved human populations churned out guns to use on their own people. But even as we broke their fleet at K’nassi, sent it tumbling into that dying star, leaking fire and atmosphere, we realised we were losing. Every world we took, they made us pay for tenfold. They sent soldiers behind our lines to sabotage our factories, assassinate our leaders. Wom- en and children blew themselves up to kill just a few reservists in logistic convoys. Every weapon we made the humans copied, every stratagem they countered. We had stretched ourselves too thin against an enemy who was too determined not to lose. As the humans began to take back the worlds we’d taken from them, we grew desperate. We stopped taking prisoners, executing humans by the hundred. As we left a world we glassed the major population centres to deny the humans a propaganda victory. We fought tooth and claw and mandible as slowly they pushed us from their space. World by world we inflicted horror upon horror on them, as world by world the Grey Ships of Earth reclaimed their homes. We fell back until there was nowhere left to go. And the only worlds left were ours. I watched as the humans scattered our fleets in the upper at- mosphere, the burning husks of our ships filling the skies. I smelt the ozone of an orbital lance as it burned away a military base ten kilometres away out of existence. The look of pure shame as the Arch-Committee transmitted our full and utter surrender. And I remember too, the first sight of a human, tall and upright, a giant of muscle and bone, the searching eyes of a predator born. I remember

30 him gesturing me over to him and the certainty of my death filling my mind. I was a child but I was prepared to die for the Gwin. A sacrifice to allow the humans to take their fully justified revenge upon us. And I remember my first taste of the chocolate bar he gave me. The humans revenge was total. From the ruins they built schools and roads. Hospitals and sanitation plants. The human engineers brought run- ning water free of parasites to my hivestack for the first time. The inocula- tions against worker diseases the committees had never bother to cure. They wrought revenge with words we’d never heard. Democracy, Freedom, Brotherhood. They wrought it in the form of Human rights, and most powerfully of all… forgiveness. And their revenge was total. In just 10 years human children and Gwin were playing together on the fields outside the school. In 30 years they were fighting beside another against the Sheliathi. 100 years from the days the humans landed on our worlds and the Gwin no longer exist. Admitted to humanity, nominated by Terrans and approved by a unanimous decision of the Human parliament, the 6th spe- cies to gain such an honour. The Gwin no longer exist, but humanity just grew stronger. Yes, I remember the war with humanity. Our last and best mistake. President David X’Lisjdl of the Gwin, as part of the official ceremonies celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Gwin’s admittance to Humanity.

31

THE GIANTS No. 9297618, 2010/04/19 Author: Anonymous

The Urim were little more than savage animals when the Giants first appeared from the sky. An expedition of about thirty or so of them arrived to research the Urim homeworld, known as Gorim. Naturally, the Urim were afraid of them at first. Even the mightiest Urim warrior was like a child before the Giants, and it took five Urim to match even one of them in terms of physical strength. However, the Giants seemed to be peaceful, as they did not harm the Urim in any way. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. The Giants would dispose of any predator threatening Urim in his vi- cinity with “fire and thunder”. Naturally, it didn't take long for the Urim to start flocking around the Giants. At first the Giants treated the Urim like pets, but eventually they recognized their intelligence and started to think of them as part of their own race. Over the years, they slowly taught the Urim how to speak and read their language, as well as how to use tools and domesticate animals. This outside assistance meant Urim culture and technology advanced by centuries in a few decades, as the Giants proved to be incredibly efficient tutors and the Urim excellent students. As the years passed, the relation- ship between the two races strengthened, with the Giants coming to refer to the Urim as their little brothers and sisters. The Urim reciprocated this by referring to the Giants as their big brothers, though in a more literal way, as their interpretation of the phrase was more in line with “giant kinsmen”. This happy co-existence was not to last forever, though. The Giant re- searchers, who decided to stay behind on Gorim with the Urim instead of returning to their own world were not numerous enough to establish a permanent colony. Their numbers slowly dwindled over the decades, until there was just a single aged Giant left. Obviously, the Urim were upset about the inevitable loss of their big brothers, but the Giant reassured them that they would meet again in a place he referred to as “the Other Side”. The Gorim had never truly adopted the Giants’ religious beliefs, in- stead developing a cult centered around the Giants, who seemed divine to them. This meant the concept of an afterlife was lost on them, and the meaning of the Giant's words were lost on the Urim. As this outcome was inevitable, the Giants had prepared for it by re- cording what knowledge they had for the Urim. Along with the staggering amount of data they left behind, the Giants also left a message. This message became an obsession of the Urim, and would be the driving force behind their culture for the centuries to come. Nearly three centuries later, a ship of unknown origin entered the terri- tory of the race known as humans. It was of unmistakably human design, yet there was something off about it. Emblazoned on the side of the ves- sel were the words “Other Side”. Several attempts at communication with

32 the vessel were made, all seemingly ineffectual. When it seemed all means of contact had been attempted, the unknown vessel sent out a signal in morse code. The message the surprised humans received was in plain English and read:

HELLO BIG BROTHERS. IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN.

33

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM FUCK YEAH! No. 9222921, 2010/04/16 Author: Anonymous

Do you know why spices are spicy? They contain toxins designed to kill you. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. Jalapeño/chili peppers, pepper, garlic, etc. Your tongue tells you “hey, there’s some dangerous fucking chemicals in this thing.” Then your body sends back, “haha fuckers, we evolved past that shit!” Chilis contain a neurotoxin, and will kill many types of animals. Garlic also contains a neurotoxin. Sage has a hallucinogen in the plant, designed to fuck an animal’s brain up. You ever see what happens when a dog eats a lot of chocolate, caffeine, or garlic? Or for that matter grapes or macada- mia nuts? It ain’t pretty, assuming they even survive. Humans eat this stuff for fun. What’s more, we find it delicious, because after we got immunity to it, we found out it had a use. The toxins in spicy food can kill off some kinds of stomach parasites or harmful bacteria be- fore it kills you. So, after countless generations of spicy foods killing bad things in us faster than it killed us, our bodies were naturally conditioned to put poisons into them. Delicious, delicious poisons we’re so hardcore at filtering out by now they don’t even harm us anymore. Digestive system fuck yeah!

34

A SLEEPING GIANT No. 9324337, 2010/04/20 Author: Anonymous

Our species has always been considered a nuisance amongst the stars. We weren’t expert fighters, we weren’t brilliant scientists, we were traders. We would trade anything and everything, the art of deal making and breaking is something we had refined over thousands of years, the con- cept of “giving your word” was foreign to us? You couldn’t eat it, you couldn’t hold it, you couldn’t wear it as a hat, what good was it? It was too late we realized the importance the other races put into this concept. But it was too late, the damage was done, we were considered liars and cheats. Barely accepted into the Core systems and always treated with suspicion or outright malice. Finding the Humans was a boon for our species. They were relatively low technology wise but they had discovered how to split the atom. Our technology is considered at least a hundred years out of date by galactic standards, but to the humans it was a marvel. They gave up large masses of their natural resources in exchange for out of date star charts and old phase drives. They spread at a rate that was staggering, they had estab- lished a large colony on their fourth planet and fledgling colonies on sev- eral of the more hospitable moons throughout their system. It was a golden age for both our people, a time of unparalleled cooperation. The humans were nearly as deceptive as we were, they were our greatest al- lies and our worthiest foes in the art of negotiation and trade. Then the wars began. An insectoid species known as the Nutari came to the conclusion that there was finite space and inevitably conflict would arise over the colonisable worlds. They struck first. The Core worlds went to war. Inevitably the other insectoid species sided with the Nutari, whose mentality was one of total annihilation; they did not require colonies im- mediately so a planet could be scourged of life and given hundreds of years to recover. Whole species were wiped out, billions died. Our worlds and the humans fledgling empire was insulated from this vi- olence. Neither of us had participated in the wars and the Core worlds had no interest in us or our “pets.” The Core worlds defeated the insectoids and drove them to extinction. The Weaponthanes of Dourmot were abso- lutely essential to the Core worlds victory over the insectoids thus they were gifted with new territory, since much others had been lost to the ecosystem killing attacks of the insectoids. This territory, much to our chagrin, was worlds we had colonized, albeit they were not territory we technically owned, but we and the humans share a saying that possession was nine tenths of the law. The Weaponthanes gave us a year to evacuate our colonies; this was not nearly enough time for the billions of residents. We appealed to the Council but were denied even an audience, they viewed us as squatters and did not look favourably over the fact that we had not assisted them in

35 the wars, but no request for aid had ever been asked. After a year had passed the Weaponthanes struck, thousands died. We had no way of matching their prowess or weaponry. The humans offered to aid us in de- fending our worlds and naturally we accepted. We had no idea what horror we would be unleashing. We had never paid attention to the humans his- tory, though it was readily available to us, it wasn’t something we were interested in. They had been warring with one another throughout their recorded history, their earliest tales spoke of battle and bloodshed. It was shocking to read of some of their major conflicts, the terrible things they inflicted against one another. But we were desperate and the humans of- fered some kind of salvation. We armed them, with not only weapons but also knowledge, we had never been so foolish as to provide the humans with information on advanced weaponry; it was a bargaining chip we al- ways held away from them. The humans had always been brilliant when it came to adapting and improving existing technology, with weaponry it was like nothing we had seen. They took our technology in directions we had never dreamed, in months they had advanced our weaponry further than we had in thirty years. Their initial attacks against the Weaponthanes were staggering; they committed thousands of their own people and millions of credits in what they called “probing attacks” merely to see what the response would be. This taught humanity one thing, they were still greatly outclassed technologically. It took ten of their heavy cruisers to destroy a single Weaponthane capital ship; the humans had a simple solution, they sent twenty. Every human world in their empire became devoted to helping the war effort. Their first true offensive was massive, thousands of ships, millions of troops, billions of credits. It shattered like glass against the Weapon- thane’s armada. We begged the humans to stop, that we couldn’t bear to see what they were doing to their people to assist a race that was not their own. They refused, they would not let us, who had never given the humans a fair deal in our entire history, who had wrung every tiny nig- gling concession out of them for technology that was woefully out of date, lose what was ours. The rest of the war went much like the first battle, humans were defeated time and time again. They never succeeding in halting the Weaponthane’s advance or pushing them off a single world. After ten years of war the Weaponthane’s of Dourmot surrendered, for the first time in four hundred years they admitted defeat. We were baffled. Until the humans explained the concept of a Pyrrhic victory to us. It was an idea so insane, so utterly shockingly mad that we were terrified, our own allies had become more terrifying than the enemy they had just de- feated. With everything they experienced and suffered at the hands of the Weaponthanes we expected genocide on an unprecedented level. Again the humans shocked us, they made their hated enemy a “protectorate,” in exchange for some of the humans own colony worlds the Weaponthane’s the technology and knowledge was used to push humanity far beyond us.

36

This was shared freely with us, they submitted a motion for us to join the Council, and rammed it down the Core worlds throats, who would oppose them? They had defeated the most effective military in the known galaxy and were still on a war footing. What was most shocking was how easily they reverted back to the sim- ple explorers we knew them as. They returned to their homes, “beat their swords into plowshares,” and, with their new technology, continued to ex- plore the galaxy. Now they serve as a warning to the rest of the galaxy, an unspoken threat to what will occur if they were to “waken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Rex Delfin, Fourth Ambassador to the Sol System.

37

FALLING STARS No. 9351855, 2010/04/22 Author: Anonymous

Ladies and Gentlemen of the 101st… Tonight, we become legends. Tonight, we become Gods. Never before has humanity participated in a drop of this magnitude, and I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the events that will take place in approximately 10 minutes. You have strapped yourself into 58 kilograms of the best materials Earth has to offer, locked yourself in a tiny bubble of atmosphere, so that you can step out of these metal coffins we use to traverse planets. You will fall, ladies and gentlemen, into the atmosphere of an entire world held by a hostile, aggressive species. You will withstand temperatures exceeding twelve hundred degrees cen- tigrade. Your visor shall be blinded by the heat, blocking out any glimpse of the soldier falling next to you. You will accomplish what sixty-five million years worth of meteors have only dreamed of. When the enemy looks up tonight, he shall see the very skies falling down upon his head. The stars themselves have risen up to destroy him, and he shall tremble in fear as three million of humanity’s finest warriors… of the galaxy’s finest warriors… descend to make him pay for the Travesty of Mars. Turn to the soldier next to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, and make a wish. Because you are, all of you… falling stars. You drop in five.

38

SEX WITH ALIENS No. 9336650, 2010/04/21 Author: Anonymous

You don’t understand. Since mankind first looked up at the skies, he has dreamed of having sex with them. See: the myth of Tithonus. We have learned, with great sadness, that we cannot fuck the sky. We will not be the peerless hero who deflowers the virgin sun or the lady of the moon. We cannot even make love to the stars. But we hope that there will be living creatures who dwell in the stars. We hope that we can reach them and find friendship, that our species is not the sole intelligent life, alone in all the heavens, growing ever more maddened by its isolation. No, that we cannot accept. There must be oth- ers. And when we find them, we will have sex with them. Their blood may be acid and they may breathe poison, but we will have sex with them. They may have clawing razors for genitals and limbs that would crush our human frames as easily as we can crush a baby’s skull, but we will have sex with them, and you can count on it. How, you ask? You are like the early caveman who asked Thog Uklakala how when he said he would fight a saber-toothed tiger and win. You do not understand what it is to be human, to wish to have sex with the sky and cuddle with the stars, to want to travel to distant worlds and fuck their strange female-analogues, to wish to hunt the giant sa- ber-toothed tiger and walk away, to wish to be the little girl. These are things that we cannot do with our bodies alone. If we find aliens, we will have sex with them, just as we soar across the sky, just as we travelled to the moon, just as Thog hunted the sa- ber-toothed tiger at the dawn of man. We will have sex with them, no matter what difficulties we may face along the way. We will have sex with them, because if it comes down to it we’ll build a machine to have sex with them.

39

A BIG ENOUGH ROCK No. 10121167, 2010/05/28 Author: the jinxed girl !F10T6fwwsE

We should have been concerned. We felt the humans were a species of disunity capable only of casting rocks at themselves and squabbling over their hierarchies of divinity. Their history was pockmarked with crusade after jihad after crusade after exodus after insurrection of zealots of a thousand names doing just that: casting stones at those that disagreed. Where other species rose as one, humans were fragmented into thou- sands of arbitrary segregations. We should have been concerned. Humanity cast itself from its biosphere into what they felt was a void. Their technology was primitive, bound to a rough three dimensions; the fourth was the limiter of their perception. We existed in the fourth and fifth, and made no passes at the sixth as that was our limit. We knew our limit and we respected it as such. The humans did not seem to believe in limits. They treated them as obstacles, merely transient, arbitrary con- cepts; they drew hard lines between the existent and subsistent, and paid no respect to the subsistent outside their ambitions. Their senses and view of energies was pathetically limited. They had no conception of gravity beyond what its effect was on their limited dimen- sions, pulling objects of three dimensions toward other objects of three dimensions relative to their massiness (which was a product, again, of matter ‘existing’ in only three dimensions). When they freed themselves from what they saw as gravity’s hold on ‘their’ biosphere and began planting themselves elsewhere in what they saw as ‘their’ solar system, we felt we had to stop them. They did not see the slow death of their relevant third dimension of planet as a limit. Like the other species, we felt, they should accept this limit and die. We destroyed their colonies and some thousands of colony ships (taking with them much of their species), and sent them a simple message in a language they could decode: “We exist in the gravitic, which you do not understand. We are part of a higher set of dimensions, which you do not understand. We are alone in this Paradigm. Only we understand. ”Planetary species are meant for their own planets. This is where you evolved and where you will cease to evolve in your death. You do not understand this. You are an anomalous species that does not submit to the bounds of your dimensions. ”Cease your attempts at colonization. Adapt, biologically, to your biosphere, or die with the other species of your dimensions. ”Your ships are insufficient to wage war on us. Your weapons are fit only for three-dimensional creatures such as your own selves. Understand that you are limited.

40

”We deign to intersect with your dimensions only at 192-196-199-000. You may communicate with us there if you would like to understand the proper dogma of this Paradigm. ”You are a species of disunity that can only throw rocks. Accept this. You cannot throw a rock big enough to disrupt our enforcement of the dogma.” We attempted to communicate in the tone of the rulers of their divine hierarchies. We felt this would appropriately command them. What we failed to understand is that we failed to understand three di- mensions as much as they failed to understand five. We waited. We expected no response, or if anything, perhaps a de- ployment of hastily-cobbled warships. Such was the fantasy of their cul- ture. They idolized their species. Instead, they began launching more colony ships, modified but un- armed, into their planet’s orbit. We permitted this. We should have been concerned. They landed on their own moon – still, a part of their planet. We permitted this. We should have been concerned. They colonized it, adapted their culture to it, and moved the entirety of their species onto it. We permitted all of this as proper actions of a species entering its twilight when we should have been concerned. We determined after the fact that the armories of the nations of hu- manity had been combined into a single charge and detonated. Their planet’s moon, with them upon it, rode the blast into a comfortable orbit near a resource-rich asteroid. Their devastated biosphere was propelled toward our point of intersection. We exist in the gravitic. The mass of the planet will disrupt our intersec- tion with the lower dimensions and leave us blinded and powerless to stop humanity or any other lower species from treating their limits as obstacles. They do not understand the dogma of the Paradigm and that this is how it simply must be. We should have been concerned. We were naive, and as consequence, we have lost three dimensions. We received a single electromagnetic signal from their lunar arc shortly after the detonation of their charge: “We have our own dogmas and don’t want yours. Humanity, unit- ed, thinks this should be a big enough rock.”

41

THE MACHINES No. 10122659, 2010/05/28 (21:13) Author: Aun’Ui Ukos

The Machines were the monsters from beyond the Rim. Cold, remorse- less, and logical. Who knew what horror had created them, or why. We all knew to stay away from them, to keep quiet, and vigilant. When the Ma- chines approached, we would run. Pull out of a system, and take every- thing we had built, all our technology, and leave the resources behind. An offer to them, to keep them occupied, and uninterested in us. For so many galactic rotations, we had kept to this. And when we found intelligent life forming, we’d shush them, tuck them under our wing, and keep them safe. No one was watching Earth. The humans sprang up so fast, by the time we realized they were there, they were already bleeding information, a beacon to the Machines. We panicked, and raced to them, hoping to save them. To quiet them down, and move them away before the Machines reached their world. They greeted us with happy surprise, relieved to find they weren’t alone, that the silence we had used to hide had not been the silence of death. We should have known then, what humanity would do. For their happi- ness was not only in finding out they were not alone, but in finding com- panions, rather than foes. Where all others had been oblivious to the dangers of the Machines, and viewing our nurturing friendship as only natural, the humans eyed us with suspicion. They were expecting mon- sters. They were naive in their technological expansion, but somehow, they expected monsters. We didn’t expect monsters, until we met the Machines. We didn’t expect monsters when we met Humanity. We tried to quiet them down. They were already moving to closed cir- cuits, and focused relays, they were capable of being quiet. But instead, they increased their transmissions. Not haphazardly, but with purpose. Now, they wanted to be found. Loud, energetic, and determined to be found. We warned them of the Machines, of the danger, and the need to be quiet, to flee. They became grim, they quieted down. And then, they became louder. They refused to leave. This little race, that had barely breached their cradle world’s atmosphere demanded we fight off the machines. So naive, to think the machines could be fought. So arrogant to demand we fight, for them. When we said we could not, that it could not be done, they grew angry. And they got louder. The Machines didn’t find Humanity, Humanity found the Machines. And taunted them. Such a childish thing to do, and pointless against the cold logic of a Machine. We begged them to flee, we warned them of the horri- ble power the Machines had, of what they did to whole systems. We told them of the cold efficiency of the Machines. Had we been paying attention, we would have known the folly of trying to talk them out of their reckless ways. We would have known Humanity had been thinking of these things

42 ever since they found the power of steam. They had been dreaming of this conflict. They had been dreaming of their death at the feet of the Machines since before we found them. And they were eager to avenge their dream selves. Perhaps it was some quirk of time, some twist somewhere in the fabric of things, but they felt so strongly, the wrongs that the Machines could visit upon them, the Machines never had to act. Their very existence hurt Hu- manity in ways we didn’t think possible. And humans took it as a sign. A sign of their own greatness. As we fled their system, with what few we had persuaded to come with us, we watched as their world blazed, a beacon in the void. Messages in countless languages, in symbolic images and cunning cyphers, to a million different worlds. The sum of their knowledge, the heart of their peaceful visions. We thought it was the death knell of a doomed civilization. We settled the survivors on other worlds, and kept them quiet. And waited for their cradle world to fall silent. And waited. It only grew louder. And then another world blazed to life, the same vigorous messages, the same cyphers. From beyond the edge of darkness, where only the Ma- chines thrived. And then another, with new messages, new knowledge. And we listened to Humanity. We could not believe what we heard. They claimed to have broken the back of the Machines. It was not possible. And so, though we were not certain of the wisdom of it, we went to see. We found Machine worlds. Precision, and cold logic. And we found Hu- manity, enjoying their liberty. While Machines kept their systems running, humanity dabbled in art, idled their way tinkering with stars. Human sci- entists worked with Machine intelligences, thinking up new ways to ad- vance. The Machines were working for humanity, content to serve. We were blinded by the glory of human conquest. Had we not been so awed of humans, so fearful of the Machines, we would have seen the truth of things. The humans had gutted the Machines, stripped them of their self. Those they left independent, to aid the human scientists, were shackled at their mechanical souls, bound to their human masters, free will denied. To claim it, suicide. And the logic of the Machines confirmed it. They had been beaten, and tamed, by that which made them horrors to the rest of us. And now, that horror is just another tool for Humanity. And so they continue, consuming civilization after civilization into their light. And so we keep quiet, and flee before the humans find us again.

43

HUMANS HAVE SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY No. 10414631, 2010/06/10 Author: Anonymous

Now don’t get me wrong… the illathrod have some of the finest cov- ert-operations units in the known galaxy. But the humans? The humans have something else entirely. It was only [ten minutes] into that first skirmish, that first contact bat- tle between the humans and the illathrod, that the illathrod lost contact with two of their heavy cruisers. The Endeavour and the… Justice, I think it was. Up until then the humans had been unsurprising. Some novel for- mations, some weapons with more punch than was anticipated, but noth- ing the Empire couldn’t handle. So as I was saying, they lost contact with the heavy cruisers. This is always annoying in a battle but it does happen. Barriers were still up, en- gines were still on… so nobody panicked. They had capable crews and everybody knew the game plan: greet these apes with guns blazing and negotiate from a position of strength. Outnumbered and with smaller ships to boot, the humans seemed stunned by the illathrod aggression… they held their line but wouldn’t charge into range of the illathrod guns. Then the Endeavour starts to drift. Communications still down, engines slow, but the manoeuvre thrusters are going crazy. It moves into position behind the illathrod capital ship, the Monument. And then the Justice, it does the same thing! But this one takes position on the starboard side of the Monument, far closer than regulations allow. At this point the bridge starts to panic, something could be seriously wrong. The human commander attempts to establish communications with the Monument but gets declined: the illathrod are more worried about this technical issue. So they send a light cruiser to investigate the Justice, but when they get there it’s too late. It starts to roll, and as it brings its port battery up against the Monument, its own capital ship, the illathrod see these huge black scars on the belly of the Justice. Same on the Endeavour. And then they open fire. On the Monument. The Endeavour’s spinal cannon puts a slug the size of a frigate right into the Monument’s primary thruster. Now at that range, aimed at that part of the ship, you don’t need me to tell you that some serious damage was done. That slug tore through the full length of that dreadnought as the Justice opened fire: illathrod later claimed that the humans aimed for the escape pods on purpose but either way… nothing got off that ship alive. At this point Command is going crazy. And that’s when the human fleet attacks. With the Monument blown to dust and the Endeavour and Justice shooting on other illathrod ships it was a total rout, everybody got to safe

44

FTL distance as fast as they could. Some didn’t even risk that… there were some collisions in the retreat. It took the Empire months to piece together what had happened, it was a complete scandal. Before the first shots were even fired, low-speed hu- man stealth-pods had already passed through the shields of those two ships. They cut through the hull right at the base of the communications tower and then this… what’s the human phrase… this is the part with “balls”. About a dozen human soldiers board each of the ships from those pods. We’re talking heavy cruisers here, crews of two to three hundred. And they never stood a chance. Humans take the bridge and hold it – for the duration of the battle – against the compliment of illathrod troops on board. They somehow take control of the ship… we think they used an AI but they’ve never admitted it… and then use the two illathrod ships to de- capitate the fleet. So I guess what I’m trying to say… is that when you leave the hive, never take a human at face value. They won’t normally screw you over, mind, but there’s always a long term plan. Always a backup, a way for them to be the last man standing. Just look at the illathrod today… the sorry bastards. Don’t you make their mistake.

45

THE STARS ARE NOT FOR YOU No. 11802501, 2010/08/24 Author: Anonymous

For countless eons we travelled among the stars. We set root upon on world after world, and encountered thousands of sentient races. Some were very much like ourselves, others were terrifyingly alien, at first. The sufficiently evolved ones we greeted as equals. The primitives we harmo- nized and uplifted, but always on our terms. A thousand races paid us tribute. The Pulse of Life itself resonated with our will. And then we encountered the silent ones. On the third world of a feeble sun, one of our sporeships discovered hemisphere spanning hives of stone the likes of which we had never seen. We snatched its inhabitants and examined them with great curiosity. We ran every manner of test we could conceive, all the while scarcely believing the hairless vertebrates’ capacity for intelligence. Our confusion was understandable. On countless habited worlds, we saw the same evolutionary advance arise time after time. Through the bil- lion convergences of random chance, a dominant race reaches a threshold of intelligence. With it come sentience, empathy, and species wide con- sensus. The race expands across the planet, unified in thought and action, and reaches an optimal equilibrium with their environment. Gifted with their increased understanding of their own evolutionary biology and that of their surrounding biosphere, they begin to direct evolution to their own ends. In two or three long cycles their advances culminate in the breeding of migratory bionts to take them beyond their terrestrial cradle. There, with nothing but the void around them, their newly accustomed senses hear the first echoes of the Pulse that spans the stars. And so they would cast away the limits of time and distance and take their place among the galactic community. Often we would find a species before they reached this point. We would speed along their evolutionary development, harmonize their emergent group mind a little closer to our own, and so very soon in the greater scheme of things, another friendly race among the stars would be recip- rocating just a little more than necessary to show their appreciation for our guidance. Some of the elder races questioned the wisdom of our ac- tions, but the relationships between us and our uplifts were always mutu- ally beneficial. We were very good at what we did. Yet against all odds, these “Humans” had come to dominate their planet without ever developing true empathy. They possessed a vestigial echo of it that allowed them to guess the thoughts and emotions of others based on visual and auditory cues. It was also how they communicated. They flailed their appendages and vibrated the air like unevolved beasts in mating season, and somehow a semblance of meaning is passed between them. Such rudimentary information exchange was not nearly enough to wean them from their predatory instincts. They were disorganized, chaotic,

46 unevolved, and terminated each other with little regard. By the time we found them, they had tamed the entire surface of their planet without ev- er arriving at a way to avoid the catastrophic collapse that awaited at the end of their own exponential growth. Indeed, due to the unique evolutionary dead end in which they found themselves, the race as a whole never developed anything beyond the most rudimentary mastery over their biosphere. They still perished to disease and accidents as often as intentional violence or self termination. Whole segments of their hives languished in infirmity. To make up for their shortfalls, they instead developed a unique art of assembly. It was a di- rected method of construction without the use or creation of bionts. They built devices for every conceivable purpose using nothing but the materi- als of their environment. With nary a fusion bladder in sight, they had flung themselves into near orbit atop metal tubes of volatile chemicals. Without us the secret of Pulse travel would have been forever denied to them, but to us they had already achieved the inconceivable. By all analy- sis such a race should have driven themselves into extinction long ago, yet here they were. We could deny their intelligence no longer. Despite their vulgar peculiarities, the ingenuity of their race was unrivalled. Our greed overwhelmed our reason. We began to uplift the Humans. Our initial contact was troubled. Unable to determine their fluid hierar- chies, we simply rooted our landers in their densest hive clusters and waited for their current leaders to present themselves. When they instead responded with panicked violence, we were forced to defend ourselves and hybridize a generation of emissaries to spreading our message of co- operation. When Humanity finally understood our intentions they turned to violence once more, not towards us, but against each other. They fought with absolute conviction that our gifts would only be given to the few. We spent twenty six short cycles pacifying and uplifting the Humans, over five times longer than any previous race, but ultimately we succeeded. The Humans largely abandoned their own sciences and took to the evo- lutionary arts with vigor. They never adopted a race spanning group mind, but localized empathy symbiote swarms allowed them to coexist in har- mony as never before. No longer bound by the speed of light, they rode the Pulse and quickly spread beyond their local star cluster. In their grati- tude they gifted us with so many optimized habitats that our race was pulled into a new golden age of expansion exceeding even our greatest expectations. However briefly, Humans added their voice to the Pulse of Life, and we were all the richer for it. The golden age would not last. The first hints of trouble rippled through the Pulse from the border between the Human and Vri space. The rest of the civilized races had long ago decided to give a wide berth to the isola- tionist Vri. After conceding colonies of our own to them on more than one occasion, there was certainly no fondness between our two races. We pre- dicted their retaliatory strikes against human habitats fifty five short cy- cles in advance, but we downplayed the dangers to our trusting allies. Their expansion progressed apace.

47

Why the Vri chose to unleash their full fury on this occasion we will never know. Swarms of subverters simultaneously hijacked hundreds of Human ships. Seeker tendrils disabled hulls and forcibly bonded with the helpless crew. Psychic nodes spliced unspeakable terrors directly into their prisoners’ thoughts, then cast those fear maddened minds into the Pulse to call out to their doomed homeworlds. Any unified race would have been paralyzed by the assault, at least temporarily. The Humans in their dis- perse collectives were initially not as hard hit, but that same diffusion prevented them from forming a united response against the Vri psychic assault. Trillions died or were driven mad. In half a short cycle, entire systems were wiped clean of Human life. The surviving Humans severed themselves from the Pulse. While they still lived and acted in some semblance of unity, whatever was left of their empathy webs were dismantled. Every Human reverted to a solitary mind, deafened to tormented screams of their brethren. Once more they became the silent ones. The sentient races were alarmed by the scale of Vri aggression. We as- sembled a massive relief swarm in just under two short cycles, an en- deavor of unprecedented haste. Yet before the swarm launched, the Vri reached out to us. The Humans retaliated against the Vri with a war of extermination. Every asset they possessed they poured into the conflict. Finding them- selves outmatched by Vri bionts, the Humans revived their old sciences. From a thousand fronts their unliving husks of metal and gas tore through the Pulse and rained destruction upon the Vri. When the Vri viroformed their worlds, the Humans moved their colonies deeper into space. The Humans did not fight for gain. They took only what resources they needed to advance and destroyed the rest, simply to deny their enemy. Against unliving ships crewed by unlinked minds, the Vri faced an enemy they could not subvert. The horrors inflicted upon the Humans were repaid a hundred fold. The Vri tried to sue for peace, even to admit defeat, but faced with no counterpart in the Pulse they did not even know how to surrender. Their once great dominion was reduced to a mere three sys- tems. The survivors were begging for their lives. They did not have a chance to beg for long. The Vri no longer exist in the galaxy. Neither do the Zuya, the Khe Hives, the Mimenen, or the hundreds of other races who foolishly decided to turn the swarm of salvation into a swarm of containment. Whether by prudence or cowardice, we departed from the swarm. The others did not study the Humans as we did. They did not understand how an evolved species could wage a war of genocide. And perhaps, in our greed, we did not want them to. The Final War was long and bitter. The humans seized every advantage and overcame every hardship. In their desperation, the remaining races synchronized their minds and all but deafened the Pulse. The humans were not deterred. They sent their ships across the void between stars,

48 accelerating to such tremendous velocities that time did not move even as they moved. From a single rotation to a hundred great cycles, the Human ships still reached their targets. Some arrived as impact marred husks crewed by same hairless vertebrates we first encountered, other, later creations appeared more alien to the old Humans than the enemies they faced. The Ti’ji of Apex Moon were the last to defy the Humans. They awoke the slumbering unconscious of their entire biosphere and turned it into a weapon. They bled the essence of the Pulse into the empty void, twisting the fabric of space itself until it was anathema to all life. The Humans braved their system regardless. They were broken by the millions while they built the great web around that blue white star. At least, we think the light of the Ti’ji home star was blue white before it was dimmed forever. It was all so long ago. We are the custodians of the feeble and the dead. Our song alone ech- oes through the Pulse. The Humans have long ago ceased to claim terres- trial worlds. We still encounter their ships from time to time, inscrutable geometries surrounded by clouds of automata no larger than a cell. They let us be, but to any other space faring race they find, they are not so kind. Too late did we understand their true nature. Humanity is a virus. Like any virus to a sufficiently advanced species, they were harmless, even exploitable. But through our callous actions, we threw them into an evolutionary cauldron that saw their worlds obliterated along with the most peaceful members of their species. Only the most aggressive and dangerous combat strains survived, fully adapted to survive and conquer in any environment. Humans have become the perfect virus against which there can be no defense. We too have ceased our old habits. We no longer meddle in the evolu- tion of primitive species we encounter. But sometime soon, do to no med- dling on our part, your race will discover your empathic gift and look up to the stars together. When that time comes, please heed our warning. The stars are not for you. Do not enter the Pulse. It is forbidden.

49

VEIL OF MADNESS II No. 11985698, 2010/09/07 Author: Anonymous

I admit I was bored. The negotiations were the usual: Humans can do this and that so long as they don’t blow up this or that place. They may not kill so and so in return they are allowed all the x amount of y they want. Blah blah blah. The air conditioning in my suit malfunctioned and the damn thing was getting stuffy which did not improve my mood at all. So when recess was called I decided to step out and see Konasi for myself. For those of you that don’t know or don’t care, the Kondar are still very sore about our First Contact. They fear us, yes, but below that layer of fear is a simmering hatred. Kinda like a child has against his parents when they ground him. Anyway, I’m strolling along the city streets, the locals giving me and my bodyguard a wide, wide breadth, when I stumble upon a cineplex. Nor- mally I wouldn’t be interested but the title of one caught my eye, ‘19: First Contact’. I ask the fellow at the ticket booth and he tells me that it’s about when the humans first made contact with his race and the ensuing war. Which is weird because the history books don’t mention much about a war. So after he’s done urinating himself I decide to purchase a pass to watch this bit of comedy… and that was when I saw how exaggerated the stories of our race have gone. The average human movie is at most 3 and a half hours long. Kondar flicks last longer, and this little number was a whopping 6.7 hours. Thank- fully it was already starting so I did not have to see the previews. The room was darkened and was relatively conditioned so I opted to remove my helmet, something I know I should not have done, but hey, it was dark, everyone was focused on the opening parental advisory and reminder to shut off all extrasource communication devices. To take more caution I sat in the back where no one was positioned, so I believe no harm was done. It felt nice to cool down. It started as your typical film… “We zannen (that’s what they call them- selves, like us calling ourselves human) have always looked up for our answers. We sought life out there in the galaxy, and the very souls we reached out to reached back to us. In time we thrived. In time we estab- lished ourselves as a major power everywhere in the known verse. Except the Veil.” Then it cuts to our section of the galaxy, which of course looks nothing like it really was. It’s basically Hell in space the way they por- trayed it, full of derelict ships, planets that look all funky, and suns im- ploding on themselves, etc. Not true at all but real good special effects. “All ventures into the Veil had met with failure. All who entered it were never heard from again. It was a wasteland. Someplace we knew no life could exist. It seems what we know and what the galaxy knows are two different things.” Cheesy. Ass. Line. So as we all know the Kondar were fighting the Gox Union that was ag-

50 gressively expanding its borders into allied space, and a Kondar security fleet had just defeated a Gox scouting fleet. It was a nice looking battle, plenty of special effects and explosions. Then they expand beyond the battle. It was taking place at Station 19, the Veil checkpoint. One that trafficked all ships going into the Veil, though mostly it was too keep al- iens with more balls than brains from going straight into the deathtrap of our home. So the Kondar are repairing themselves, yeah? And that’s when they come to the main character of this story, the captain of the KonVass. That’s right, the very KonVass the Supremacy shot down. So captain KoSag is talking with his crew about the Gox getting more aggressive and the problems that would cause, and was debating whether or not to requi- sition more ships for patrol, when his ensign (I think that was an ensign, I can’t remember Kondar-Human rank equivalence) pointed out they were getting a strong energy reading. I’m sure you and I both know this is bull crap, we were running in slowly so our energy output was minimal, they wouldn’t have been able to detect the ship until it got to… well the station. And we both know both of us were caught with our pants down when we saw each other. But the Kondar still see it in a different way… Few Kondar aside from diplomats every see a human as a human. And for reasons I still don’t know, they have not disclosed our appearance to the public, and so many are still in the dark as to what we are, only hav- ing blurry, bigfoot-esque photos to go on. Whoever directed this had an interesting imagination. We are bipedal, that much they got down. But they believe we got mandibles where our cheeks should be. And that we have three eyes, holes underneath our arms that sprout tentacle like appendages, for *eherm* invasive procedures as I was to learn later, and that our ships look more like a set off a horror flick than a ship. So our ship drops into their system. And the first thing they do is pan to the ‘humans’, showing what’s going on inside. Apparently on the ‘Soo- premetchy’, the captain… hang on… it still makes me laugh when I think of it. Those idiots got our whole language wrong. It’s like they took whatever words of our language they thought sounded coolest and mashed ‘em to- gether to form our language. The grammatical errors and accent are so atrocious for a second I thought ‘What the fuck is he saying?’ So the cap- tain… wait… the captain says, in the subtitles “Interesting. Fresh Meat. This will make a nice change to the usual prey.” Though in our language the way he says it is “Mash-up! Tasty food. Nice kill hunting spree!” And the other ‘human’ in subtitles replies “Yes Overcaptain.” Though he says “Affirmative Caption.” (No I did not spell that wrong, that’s what he/she/it said). I didn’t even know we had an Overcaptain in the Navy. They seem to know our ranking system better than us… that was sarcasm in case whoever’s reading this could not pick it up. Anyway, the Overcap- tain then says “Inform the lesser beings that the Hunt begins.” (Tell bugs

51 fight start now!) “Yes Overcaptain” (Affirmative Caption). So the good guy KoSag takes action and aligns the fleet in a pincer formation preparing to fire, when the Captain of the Fleet, some fat guy, tells him not to fire. The two get into an argument, the Captain of the Fleet is obviously being made out to look like some pompous buffoon that wanted peace with a bunch of murdering babyeaters. You know, a cliché. Then the infamous transmission comes. It’s static-y but what I could make out was it sounded like “How are you gentleman… all your base are belong to us.” Wow. Deja vu. The Captain of the Fleet says “Hold your fire, they are trying to make contact!” And then the ‘Soopremetchy’, blows his ass into a half cup of atomic matter, the ever famous ‘warning shot’ was a kill shot. KoSag takes control of the fleet and orders everyone to open fire, doing a lot of cos- metic damage to the ship’s front end. And the… ugh… ‘Soopremetchy’ goes all out, blasting nearly the entire fleet to scrap in a matter of minutes. And there’s a lot of scenes of Kondar dying horrifically, like getting burned, exploded, torn in half from shrapnel, getting sucked out into space, getting vaporized by a plasma shot. And then the ‘Soopremetchy’ captain says “Pitiful things. We leave, hopefully they will provide better sport when we give them time to pre- pare.” (Stupid. Go now frown bad. Ball our game better with practice swing). “Yes Overcaptain” (Affirmative Caption), and the ‘Soopremetchy’ starts to turn back towards the Veil. KoSag, battered and bloody, pushes a corpse off the command console, starts manual override, and drives the KonVass into the ‘Soopremetchy’’s way, letting loose with everything he has. The ‘Overcaptain’ gives the or- der to cripple the ship but not destroy it, as the crews’ ‘fighting spirit’ in- terests him (“Beat crap out of but no shit beat. I you him like of play time fight”). And so the ‘Soopremetchy’ blasts the KonVass with its Main Cannon, which we know was not placed on the front, and blasts the ship aside, but doesn’t outright destroy it. KoSag then is informed Life Support, and damn near everything but the engines is shot to hell, and he decides to abandon ship, but not before he rigs the KonVass to do a suicide charge right into the ‘Soopremetchy’’s side. The KonVass explodes, causing the shields to drop, and causing a sizeable dent in the ‘Soopremetchy’. After- wards, KoSag falls unconscious and the screen goes black. The crowd is silent for a moment, the only thing you could he was me trying to hold back my giggling. Damn that was funny. Thank JeBudAlIaHind no one heard me. I stopped for a moment to look down at my watch to look at the time,

52 and only a single standard hour had passed. I had to sit through 5 more hours of this? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I didn’t get a choice as the film resumed. KoSag coming to in a medbay of a Kondar Cruiser, the KonKin I think it was called. So KoSag goes through the usual bullshit in these kinds of flicks, dealing with a top brass that thinks he hit his head too hard, with the usual “Nothing can live in the Veil!” stuff that they’ve been spouting since the beginning of the film. So it goes on to KoSag temporarily relieved of duty while he fully recovers from his head trauma. Enter love interest the surprisingly attractive doctor (and I mean attractive by human standards), who at first does not believe KoSag, treating him as another mental patient. But as the scene keeps shifting to the Supremacy glassing made up planets, people obviously are starting to get suspicious, including the doctor, who starts asking about this ‘phantom ship’. Of course we never glassed any world. Admittedly we blew one up but that was when we thought it was uninhabited, but humanity had made only 2 other major incursions into Kondar space, both done by pirates. The rest were minor skirmishes that didn’t happen until way after First Contact. Eventually through a 2 hour long reel of drama which I slept through (except for the sex scene, that was actually pretty interesting. Didn’t know a Kondar woman was that flexible), KoSag is delivering a message to the Gathering (basically every branch of their government meshed together into a sausage fest of epic proportions), warning of this race of planet killing maniacs. Even with the overwhelming evidence, the Gathering is hesitant about making war, especially while Gox are still fighting them. Suddenly Gox transmission! They shall ally with Kondar af- ter our atrocious crimes committed against them (In reality all we did was drop out of warp kinda close to a flag ship. Close enough to where we tore through the whole thing as we decelerated, and then obliterated the entire 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fleet when they retaliated. We still apologized but them Gox know how to hold a grudge). Course with the overwhelming evidence, and the support of their one time enemies, the Kondar go to war! Except the cliché corrupt politician, and by some political bullshit the Kondar have, he stalls the whole vote. I would explain why that worked but it would take longer than watching this damn movie. So KoSag is still grounded for massive drama before the Gox interrupt, pledging their aid against us on some kind of blood oath that apparently overrides the other guy’s override. Finally some real action. So the Allied Systems alongside the Gox Union form this huge fleet to combat the human fleet, which by the way looks like someone copypasted the Supremacy several hundred times over. KoSag is given command of the KonSen, and placed under the command of another commander, one that was obviously red shirt material. And I was right. After the not so motivating speech about how they were the galaxy’s last hope, they started fighting our fleet which was just twiddling its thumbs waiting for them in a random tract of space, and it wasn’t 3 minutes into it that the Captain of the Fleet gets torn in half by teleporting boarding parties. The ensign tried to make a brave show of it, but she only killed one ‘human’

53 before she was restrained. Remember those tentacle things I was talking about earlier? Yeah. Tentacle rape… humans aren’t the only one with that fetish. Interesting to watch though. So then it turns away from the massive galactic battle to KoSag, whose ship lost power. And since the people by the reactor are not longer re- sponding (cut to reactor room filled with that goop they call blood while humans are eating/raping half dead Kondar), he leads a team to go down there. An action flick quickly becomes a horror flick as the human hunting band hunts the team down one by one, eventually only KoSag is left, who manages to kill the entire hunting party but one, who teleports him back to the… Soopremetchy. The Overcaptain, who despite never meeting him, knows KoSag instantly and gloats over his triumph. Then faster than you can say ‘plot hole’ he breaks free, and sacrifices himself to kill the Over- captain, pushing him into a reactor core, which by the way you should never leave open. For some reason that ended the battle. Apparently our chain of command is destroyed when you kill our captain, so afterwards we retreated back into the Veil. KoSag is hailed as a hero, hooray and all that. Then some stirring speech from KoSag, a subtitle that says ‘20 later’. Humans are back, but we find a massive fleet waiting for us, that blow us to bits. With KoSag as Captain of the Fleet of course. And it ends with the same Kondar from the beginning saying “We zannen have always looked up for our answers. We sought life out there in the galaxy, and the very souls we reached out to reached back to us. But the galaxy is a fickle place. Some of the very beings we called out to were not interested in peace. Some were more interested in slaughter.” Cut to hu- man hunter guy. “Some in sport.” Cut to Overcaptain. “But we zannen shall prevail. We have before, we have now. And we always shall.” And then the rolling credits play as the lights slowly come back on. I fumble to get my helmet back on before anyone turns, and it clicked into place thankfully quick. The Kondar seem oblivious to me, talking among each other what they thought of the movie. “I thought it was alright. Never thought of humans as looking like that but damn they look ugly.” “KoSag never did any of that though. I thought he retired a drunk.” “Well, you know these movie producers, big on action little on history.” “I liked the movie, for once it shows us fighting back.” I couldn’t resist. “I thought it was a load of crap. I mean is the guy dead or not?!” When everyone looked at me, I couldn’t help but crack a smile. Course they couldn’t see it under my helmet. That’s probably what got them all screaming and running out of the Cineplex. I certainly had fun for one evening. Later on it became a cult classic, because of some rumor spread that all who watch the movie and talk bad about it will then die from angry human

54 spirits bound to the essence of the film or something. Wonder how that got started. I think I’ll ask for a copy of that film during the next meeting. Taken from the Journal of T. Rollfaec, currently promoted to Chief diplomat.

55

LOVE REVOLUTION No. 12014515, 2010/09/09 Author: Anonymous

It wouldn’t be an advance in weapons, or even starship technology, that would tip the balance of power in the Galaxy. That would have been too simple. Rather it was something else entirely, the core of survival of the fittest, the ability to reproduce. Humanity is unique among spacefaring races in that the sole quality they seem to require in their mates is intelligence. Regardless of differ- ences between the species, from the physical to the genetic, if it can communicate a human will find a way to mate with it. This is further compounded by the human concept of “love”, a chemical response present in almost all sentient life forms but exceptionally overriding to human behaviour (and evidently contagious). Few races took joy in re- production, relegating it to an animalistic need much in the same way as photosynthesis or defecation, but humanity changed all that. While others focused on cloning technology to remove the need for sex, human reproduc- tive technology refines it. This would turn out to be their greatest strength. The armies of old were prepared for fighting against other empires. Some may have planned for a hostile invasion of a force completely alien to their own. No-one was prepared for Humanity, blazing a love revolution across the stars, their ships landing with open hearts and arms. By the time anyone realised what these naive, primitive people were really capa- ble of, several generations of human travellers had already “gone native” and the rest is history. The number of FTL-capable civilisations with leaders of human decent is climbing fast. It is estimated that they control a full 34% of Federation territory. Their progress is unstoppable. No army in the galaxy would turn its guns against its own sons and daughters, wives and husbands. I still remember our first meeting when I was still a customs officer. He caught my eye the moment he stepped off the freighter. The cargo mani- fest he passed me had a business card with his starlink number, the words Call Me (in the Irian language, too) scrawled underneath. I had thought our first night together would be as awkward as it is with the male of my species, or worse given the human lack of radial symmetry, but that night and every other since then has been simply magical. Our children look like any other Irian but share the same neurochemis- try as humankind; it has barely been twenty years and already I have caught young [Name unpronounceable] pseudopod in claw with a Tur- gosian girl! I’m not sure how this is going to end, or what point I am trying to make, but for now I am content to live the rest of my life happy with the choices I have made. Admiral Skkhskhstll, “Memoirs”

56

CRAYONS No. 14432950, 2011/03/31 Author: Anonymous

It was during one of the first major expeditions that it happened. A col- ony ship was on route to a nice, juicy earth-type world that a probe had located to much fanfare. A ship was rush-built, a crew selected, a lottery held to see who would get to go start a new life on another world. Wouldn’t you know it, we get there just in time to meet a fat alien ship headed in from the opposite direction. It was tense, let me tell you. Something about the structure of their language made it impossible to translate. Oh, we managed to adapt our systems and open communications, we found we could share universal concepts like mathematics, but anything more complex, something like ‘we found it first’ was right out. We didn’t have the supplies to survive turning around and weren’t con- fident we could take them in a fight if it came to that, and everyone agreed they were probably in the same situation. We were in a standoff. All the military and government sorts were throwing fits despite, you know, the whole first contact situation, a milestone in the history of the entire freaking species. Some of the transmissions we got over the comms gave us the impression there were similar sorts onboard the other ship. Can you even get impressions from the sight of a bunch of giant blue worms crowding around a big green worm and poking him with tentacles until they got slapped away? We were pretty much stuck. Things were getting worse and worse, as our ships came closer together and we had to settle into a proper orbit before our limited maneuvering fuel gave out. Goddamn lowest contractor bid… That’s when the navigator’s son wandered onto the bridge. And he brought crayons. Well, the worms stopped squirming when everyone else was too busy to notice a five-year-old carrying a picture for his dad. A few seconds later, a worm came into view with a brush and the captain-worm worked up a picture of the world we were both approaching. Linguists would later point out that the aliens have some kind of com- plex pictograph-based language. Didn’t make it any less funny when the artistically-challenged captain resolved the situation with a kid’s box of crayons. In the end, we (think) we drew up (haha) a plan to divvy territory be- tween us, and notify each other in case of potential trouble. It’s worked out alright for the past few years. The government isn’t happy with sharing the world, the scientists and philosophers are overjoyed, and the rest don’t care as long as they don’t try to eat our brains.

57

And if anything does happen, well, there’s a good reason why all offi- cials and officers are required by regulation to carry a pack of crayons at all times.

58

FIREARMS No. 14730787, 2011/04/26(22:36) Author: Anonymous

Ladies, Gents, Hermaphroditicals, and Asexualites. Maybe even one or two Selta who deign interact on the network. I present to you all the Winchester 1895. You probably vaguely recog- nize something like it from your own industrial/postindustrial period dra- mas. Some probably spend too much time on /k/ and can piece out its workings between mutterings about ‘nuggets’ and ‘clips’. I’ll break it down: a physically actuated repeating slug thrower capable of holding 5 rounds of high powered ammunition and swiftly reloadable. This is so recognizable to us all because that’s where we stopped for the next 250-300 years until we had worthwhile plasmathrowers, small scale mass drivers, or minirockets. Sure there would have been some changes: larger capacity/removable magazines, changes to ammunition and pro- pellants, improved optics and aiming apparatuses, synthetic materials. Some races even decided to use the force of recoil or pressure to cycle the rifle, a so called ‘semi-auto,’ but by and large most races stuck to the de- sign until something vastly superior arrived. Not Humans. No, apparently this wasn’t good enough for them. Instead they kept improving their slug throwers for the next 200 some years, of- ten arguing about the smallest bits of minutiae. Network spanning argu- ments over differences of approximately 2mm in projectile size and methods of operation with no statistically significant difference. Were I to own one of these 1895s or their like here on Qetar, it would not only require a class 5 permit and the installation of a locator tag, but enduring constant thinly veiled comments implying anatomical deficiency. And Humans decided this wasn’t enough, and needed centuries of work and improvement to the point of there being no visible link between the 1895 and the 2103 they eventually retired in favor of minirockets. What’s more, you see that sword in the picture? That goes on the end of the rifle, because apparently the Humans decided it wasn’t killy enough before they finished it and stuck a sword on the end to compensate. Humans are fucking crazy. inb4 lol Qetarfag. I know living here sucks, but my family has lived here since it was colonized and I’m not leaving them behind.

59

SPACE COSSACKS No. 14723929, 2011/04/26 (04:34) Author: Ryeed Hassanni

You want to hear about humans? Didn’t you learn this in school or something? Whatever, I can give you the abridged version. The logical starting point would be fucking Africa. Nice place, if you like 110 degree weather and flicking tigers. That’s where humans started. But we didn’t stay there. We moved about like a bunch of fucking morons, spreading ourselves to the four corners of the goddamned Earth before we even had a spoken language. Far as I know, this played hell with our de- velopment time. Took us five thousand years longer than the next slowest species to figure out electricity. Well, by the time we hit what you lot call ‘the unity’, the information age, we had already fought wars that killed fifty-plus million fucking people. Fifty plus million. This wasn’t in space mind you, we did this manually, on the ground, without nuclear weapons. Some aircraft, some artillery, al- ways conventional explosives and fucking hand held guns. Unlike the rest of the sapient species in the galaxy, unless you want to count those Soledrin fucks or the fucking Kithx – which you shouldn’t be- cause they aren’t fucking sapient, I swear to God I’ll never accept it –, we kept up this whole pointless violence thing right up until, and continuing on after, we got into fucking space. Space war was something else, let me tell you. We lost a lot of fucking people to stupid shit during the early space age. And then we bumped into you fucking lot. Kind of put a damper on our goddamn parade, you did. Higher technology, larger holdings, more re- sources, there was no way for us to continue fighting with you right there. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you were planning anything, but you try telling a human that back in those days, we didn’t even trust each other, why would we trust some fucking big with seven legs and a prehen- sile cock? So we united into our raggedy ass confederacy and acted like a biker at a goddamn high school reunion, until we finally got the war we were ex- pecting. Got our shit ruined, we did, lost most of everything, but I main- tain to this day it was worth it. Why? Well, think about it, you fucking cockroach, Mankind’s a scattered mess now but that’s just the way we like it. No population centers, no goddamn capitals, no countries, no cities. Just an eternal frontier and a lot of time. We’re fucking nomads again, wandering around odd jobs for the species that like their tinker toys better than their star charts. There’s al- ways work for people nobody trusts anyway and who’ll be moving along in a week or two regardless. Mercenary work, security work, courier work. Worked for the fucking Cossacks, working for us now. We’re the fucking tile grout of your shitty galactic civilization, and when

60 the rest of it breaks into fragments, which it always does, we’ll be there, everywhere, between everyone, holding everything together, armed to the teeth and with no loyalties. And that’ll be a grand fucking day, won’t it, buggy? Now finish your fucking drink, your parents are going to be worried sick if you’re not back by 79.

61

THE SHIT THEY PUT INTO THEMSELVES No. 14732185, 2011/04/27 Author: Magus O’Grady

“Shiiit. Man… listen… listen… woah, listen. Everybody knows about the whole “war on Flornxes” thing, right? Gub’mint don’t want nobody having fun with the Great Maker’s gifts and all, you know. But, man, listen… Wha? Oh, right. I took a cushy job working a tramp freighter out on the outer rim. Mostly backwater colonies. We had like… like three humans on the boat. They was cool, too. Never said nothin’ bout us smokin’ Zorch off duty, even burnt a few bowls with us. Said it was real smooth. Now, we’ve all heard the ol’ rumors and propaganda about what comes out of a human’s veins. I didn’t put much stock in it, and neither did they. Said it was a joke one of their grunts made that got repeated so many times it turned into a meme. Anyway, we swing through to deliver some slag ores to a tiny human colony in the ass-end of nowhere. Nice place, not a lot of industry, and everyone seemed real mellow, you know? Well, one of the humans, he comes back from shore leave with a small little bag full of plant clippings. Said it was ‘some of the good shit’. Not even processed or nuthin’, just straight clippings. So that night we met in our usual lounge and pulled out the bowls, fig- ured we’d just get buzzed on Zorch and call it a night, right? Fuckin’ hu- man stops us, tells us not to break out the powder yet, and fills one bowl with just a pinch of the clippings from that bag. He lit it up and… every- thing gets fuzzy after that. Two weeks later the ship’s doc managed to wake me. ‘Near lethal over- dose’ he called it. My brain was so flooded with pleasure-hormones that it nearly killed me. Did kill Shorv, Thorp, and Resk’sal. Their brains just shut down. The humans? Barely noticed. They was working all our shifts while we was out, smoking the ‘ganje’ they had while they did, though they kept breather-masks on to contain it. To this day, I still get flashbacks, odd hallucinations. And I been clean for three standard cycles, swear on my spawner’s carapace. So don’t you believe that shit about drugs comin’ out of humans… It’s the shit they put into themselves you gotta look out for.

62

VEIL OF MADNESS III No. 15036543, 2011/05/24 Author: Anonymous

Our group was handpicked from the best of the best of each race in our alliance. The smartest Kragag, the fastest Urloc, the most nearly invisible Slyarn. We had a cutting edge ship and the best funding we could get while still remaining a secret project. We had enough engine power to bug out to near FTL in under 50 seconds, and to FTL in 2 minutes. We had state of the art stealth technology. Despite all this effort, every last one of us was a poke away from voiding their bowels. Our mission was utter madness. We were going to enter the Veil, and spy on what we believed to be a Human space installation. The Veil itself is immaterial. Whatever it is, no sensors can detect it. We’ve only learned its boundaries by trial and costly error. However, when we passed the border, we all shuddered as the realization hit us. We were in Human territory. If we got caught, we were beyond aid. We had to be quick to avoid the effects of the Veil, so we had been in- serted not too far from the target, which appeared at this range to be an observation station. A single hangar, one of those damnable Human shield emitters (which our people were furiously trying to counter) and a number of vicious looking spikes that could send all manner of death our way. A chill ran through us all as we neared scanning distance. Hopefully, the stealth tech would work and we could get done without incident. *** “Hey Bob, get a load of this.” “What is that? Not like any ship we’ve seen before.” “Yeah, it’s new I guess. From the lowered emissions I think it’s sup- posed to be stealthed, but we picked it up about 7 minutes ago. We traced the vector and it entered the veil about half an hour ago.” “Half an hour? A stealth vessel? Those bastards are trying to spy on us.” “What should we do?” *** Everything was going smoothly. Our sensors were having trouble lock- ing on to the station, but that was expected. A few more minutes and we could begin the scans. Then, our ship’s lights flashed red and the captain’s display flashed warning signs. We had just been pinged. A ping is a detection method, much like a sonar ping. It’s a definite “we know you’re there” and when we realized what it was, half the crew really did void their bowels. The captain ordered an immediate turn around and the mission was scrapped. We escaped to FTL in record time, but even that success was dampened by the failure of our mission. Our superiors will not be pleased. From the audio logs of Hurann Grethunk.

63

VEIL OF MADNESS IV No. 15046072, 2011/05/25 Author: Anonymous

«Claim that the reason that humans can survive in the Veil is because of El- dritch star gods, which they killed and ate. The Veil was caused by the star gods themselves. Hint that there may be some asleep within the veil. A couple of years later, using holographic dickery, have Cthulhu come into existence on the edge of the Veil». The chambers of learning were abuzz that day. Only those greatest in position amongst the science caste were there, not even a single of the overseer class, nor a warrior to keep the usually easily frightened science class controlled. Manes bristled as those there sought to contain their ex- citement, but failed. In any other place or time, such base display of emo- tion would shame the members of the science class, their entire family taking the short penance at once. But this day, none sought overseers, nor informed on one another. It was the most special day. They would this day converse with a human. Since the day that the humans had emerged from the Veil, those of the science caste given the unenviable duty of studying the Veil had gone from barely being above the labour caste to being considered for rebirth in the warrior, or even overseer caste! All they would need do is find the se- cret of the human ability to withstand the Veil, and their newest births would be blessed. But no revelations had come, much as they studied and prayed and experimented. Many lost themselves to the Veil’s madness, for nothing. But mere two passages ago, the warrior caste had found a small- er, weaker human ship wandering at the borders of the Veil. The battle had been long, and many of the warrior caste would not know their re- births, but the greatest of all the prizes that those in the science caste had ever dreamed of was captured. A living human. One who could be studied, discussed with, and if the science caste had their way, dissected for their purposes. As finally the door opened, all eyes turned to it, the slight ruffling of manes now carefully controlled the only sound any heard. And then en- tered the human. A size and a half of even the mightiest warrior caste, but somehow… disappointing. This was the creature that had emerged from the Veil? What secrets could such a strange creature hold? Though large and wide, it had no fangs to defend its rebirths as they formed, only two manipulators, and its mane did not even cover its entire self! Devices carefully designed for such purpose quickly scanned and measured the body, but manes settled. This thing was obviously no threat to a room full of even the science caste, much less with the warrior escorting it now in the room. It was led to the central dais, and swiftly the science caste sur- rounded it, settling back against their holdlegs to peer curiously. And then the human bared its teeth, and manes fluttered in fear. IJKek stepped forth, one manipulator nervously settling the last errant

64 parts of her mane. She had won the right to address the creature in a simply trial, by formulating the position they would take with this particu- lar human, and accepting the outcome on her and her own solely. Should she succeed in finding answers to these creatures’ immunity to the Veil, her rebirths would be overseers at the least. If she failed, her last rebirths would likely not leave the vats. A fore-manipulator lifted the translation device so painstakingly researched and filled with words, and she spoke. “Humanman, we give you hellos. Hello. Excuse, this translator is experi- mental. We seek understandings of your Veil-madness, the lack.” Part of IJKek’s mane ruffled slightly as the human turned its eyes (and only two!) to her, and it displayed its teeth again before speaking. “Made by the lowest bidder, huh? I’m Overcaptain Howard L. Craft, since we’re being polite and all.” Hearing a human speak through the translators was… an event. Perhaps the young science caste who had constructed it had performed better than expected. Not only were the human’s words under- standable, but it almost seemed to catch the emotion it had in them. Amused, perhaps? So unlike the broadcasts they had heard from human ships! The room itself seemed to relax, as the human’s feelings suffused the room. They were like us! Not simply some monsters in human form! “Apologies,” IJKek replied, playing with her device until it seemed the feed stabilized, already adapting to the conversation. Truly magnificent engineering after all. “I am IJKek, of the science class. Your people have an immunity to the madness of the Veil, and we would benefit greatly from an understanding of such matters. If such an understanding was found, you could return home to your caste with the honors of our people, and our overseer’s apologies for the manner which brought you here.” The human, Howard, leaned back against the dais. In the only onehalf- passages since the science caste were told this meeting would occur, there was no time to adapt the room to the human’s needs, so its comfort was not accounted for. Unknown to the human, as the conversation had begun, infusions had been put into the air to aid openness, and trust. The science caste members in the room had, of course, been inoculated against these, but they seemed to be functioning on the human well. And indeed, with eyes just faintly starting to list. “It’s an old story… I mean before we even left our home planet. You know, you don’t really think about things till they hit you right in the face, y’know? We always thought it was just old stories.” Tiny rustles of anticipation were seen in the manes of the scientists across the room. The human was obviously under the effects of the infu- sions as it spoke. “Long, long, long time ago, like I said, before we left our homes, we knew there was something else out there. Not, y’know, you folk.” And here an arm waved at the crowd who despite themselves, inched back. A brief reminder that this thing was significantly more pow- erful than them. “So they were watching us all along, y’know, these… whatchya call them. Gods? Maybe. That’s what we thought of them as. Anyways, they stayed

65 out of reach, just watching us, letting the madness overtake us and laughing about it. Till one day, they came down to see what the madness was doing to us close up, and some lucky human caught them off guard, and found they weren’t gods after all. And then that lucky human ate his god.” Manes bristled at that, and a few of the science caste even flared fully. None would report that, of course, in light of this. There were beings who maintained the Veil? And humans had killed one? And… still under the madness… devoured it? What manner of abomination was this? The hu- man, still in the grips of the infusions, apparently unknowing of the effect its words had, continued. “And then something strange happened. He wasn’t mad any more. So he waited till another one was there, and did it again, but shared it with others. And then again, and again. And when they had kids, whatever was in them baked into their skin, and no hu- mans were mad any more. The old things drew back from humanity, thought to leave us on our planet while they kept their madness going. But we changed, and every time we unlocked more of the world, we found them. Again and again and again.” The burst of amusement from the hu- man was anything but reassuring this time. “Now there’s none left. That we can find. But we will find them… hope I get to be the one to do it. I’ve always wanted to know how they taste…” Recordings of counter-intelligence operative “Howard L. Craft”, on mission to the IJ-Ani. Scenario Eldritch used.

66

LET ME TELL YOU OF THE HUMANS No. 16313248, 2011/09/16 (03:40) Author: SUPER AGGRO CRAG !!?7x7KzlxQrrH

There are many species amongst the stars, separated by the vast, eternal gulf between worlds. There are allies steadfast and enemies most foul. But there is one species that I long to fully understand. Let me tell you of the humans. It was long ago, when I was young, first learning my glyphs, in fact, and how to clutch a stylus and write my name, when the humans made contact with us. It was their first contact, and they showed such an exu- berance that was almost unheard of. Their diplomats, artists, merchants, and journalists swarmed over our worlds, so excited to finally make con- tact with intelligent life. They wanted to know everything, our history, our culture, our biology. We treated them like one would treat a curious child, after all, they were so much smaller, and their accomplishments so much fewer than ours. We tolerated their presence, and they loved us for it. It would have remained this way were it not for the Qaelwreth Invasion. We were blindsided, unprepared for a war of this magnitude, unsure of why a species would simply throw away centuries of peace and prosperity, ignore every law and treaty the Panspecies Coalition has created. But the humans rallied alongside us. Their weapons were crude, their ships were small, their soldiers stunted and scrawny, and yet they were prepared to die to help us, their “brothers”. We all know how the invasion went. The humans scavenged, stole, and adapted anything they could get a grip on. By the end of the war their ships were as maneuverable as ours, as resilient as ours, and, I hate to admit it, outclassed us completely in firepower. But the humans never demanded tribute for their assistance. They split the crushed Qaelwreth worlds evenly, smiling as they forced the scattered remnants to sign trea- ty after treaty, encouraging us to take whatever we could from them. There are few creatures in this universe more cunning and wily than a human diplomat. They have a way of making you feel as though you cheated them, while they dip their hands into your pockets and take all you hold dear. I did not truly make a human’s acquaintanceship until some time later, after I had enlisted in the Self Defense Forces. I was assigned to assist a human platoon in a joint operation during the Badashi Conflict, the hu- mans finding our combat armatures to be a most excellent complement to their infantry formation during the guerilla warfare on that blasted fen world. It was there that I learned of the human mindset. Humans take to war like no other species I have encountered. They suffer the scars of bat- tle the same as any, but they show an adaptability that is most remarka- ble. I have seen a human soldier stay up 16 Standard Units, staring ahead, unblinking and vigilant. I have seen a human watch his brother die, and still remain fighting. I have seen a human swinging his utility knife to-

67 wards the gullet of a Badash stormtrooper, even as it beared down upon him and commanded him to lay down his arms. But there is one moment I remember most clearly. One human I had become close to, by the name of Josiah, was injured during a heavy firefight in the muck-fields. The Badash were bearing down on our position, and Josiah was nearly dead. We could extract him, but he would live the rest of his life a cripple, and it would drastically reduce our chances of escape. Josiah motioned for us to retreat, struggling against me when I attempted to scoop him up and carry him. “Go on, you stalk-eyed fuck!” he shouted at me, “I’ll be fine!” The rest of his platoon nodded and dragged me away, despite my protest. I heard the Badash burst through the treeline as we retreated deep into cover, and I heard Josiah give a choking gasp. Josiah detonated his full complement of explo- sives as the Badash were upon him, wiping out their entire force and turning the muck-fields into a dried pit of ash. Later, I asked one of our comrades, Konrad, why he did that. The Badash would have allowed him surrender, would given him medical treatment. Konrad gave a sneer and nodded. “Josiah did it to spite those slimy Badash assrammers.” It took me some time to understand this concept of spite. To humans, it is a desire, a will to harm, annoy, or otherwise inconvenience a foe by any means necessary, even at harm to themselves. And as the Badashi Con- flict continued, I saw more example of this spite, as the humans burned their colonies and scuttled their ships, just to deny the Badash use of them. And that is why I hold a bit of fear for our tiny friends. A species who is so determined not to win, but to cause his enemy harm that he is willing to destroy what he holds most dear. It is a strange concept, and yet, they thrive. The galaxy holds many wonders, and I am proud to have met one of them.

68

STRONG, BUT HUMBLE No. 16313429, 2011/09/16 (04:07) Author: The butt devestator

“Forgive me, I did not see yo—”. I couldn’t even finish my sentence be- fore the V’grog lifted me from the ground, holding me so close that I could feel the warm air from his snout. “You got a lot of nerves, blue boy!” he barked at me, bringing his other claw back and balling it into a fist. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. “Leave him alone…” I heard a voice call out; I opened my eyes to see a human, young, no older than young adult by his races standards. “This doesn’t concern you, pinkie!” The V’grog stated. “Then just leave him alone.” The Human countered. With a growl, the V’grog threw me to the ground, my friends coming to help me up. I could only look in horror and prepared to see the human take my beating for me. The V’grog lifted his new victim by the neck, the human coughed as his air flow was cut out. “What a pathetic race! I don’t see why my people don’t just wipe you from exis—”. Just like I, the \/’grog’s sentence was cut short as the hu- mans eyes opened, bringing both his hands to bare before planting his thumbs into the \/’grogs eyes. He yelped as the human’s thumbs pushed deeper into his skull, dropping the human who refused to release his death grip. With a grunt of effort, the human pulled his own head back before launching it into the \/’grogs skull with a sickening crack. He didn’t move, the V’grog was completely motionless, no one dare ap- proach him to even see if he was alive. The human spit on his downed enemy before walking towards me, I don’t even think I took a breath in those moments. The stern look he had on his face before was completely gone, replaced with a look of worry. “You alright, buddy?” He asked me as he offered me a hand, I could only stare dumb founded for what felt like forever before nodding, taking his five fingers in my three. Henry is the human’s name. He and I are good friends now, regularly inviting my other friends and I to “his place” to “Watch the game”. Humans are strong, but they are humble, and if I do say so myself. A human friend is a friend for life.

69

DRAKE MCDOUGAL No. 16313822, 2011/09/16 (05:06) Author: planefag

About twelve years ago, a man died in high orbit over Tau Ceti V. His name was Drake McDougal, and aside from a few snapshots and vague anecdotes from his drinking buddies, that’s probably all we’ll ever know about him. Another colony-born man with little records and little documentation, working whatever asteroid field the Dracs deigned to allow them. Every now and then a Drac gunship would strut on through the system, Pax Draconia and all that. But that was it. One fine day, one of those gunships had a misjump. A bad one. It ar- rived only ninety clicks above atmo, with all of its impellers blown out by the gravitic feedback of Tau Ceti V’s gravity well. The Dracs scraped enough power together for a good system-wide broadbeam and were al- ready beginning the Death Chant when they hit atmo. People laughed at the recording of sixty Dracs going from mysterious chanting to “what-the-fuck’ing” for years after they forgot the name Drake McDougal. The deafening “CLANG” and split second of stunned silence af- terwards never failed to entertain. Drake had performed a hasty re-entry seconds after the gunship and partially slagged his heatshield diving after it. Experts later calculated he suffered 11Gs when he leaned on the retro to match velocities with the Dracs long enough to engage the mag-grapples on his little mining tug. Even the massively overpowered drive of a tug has its limits, and Drake’s little ship hit hers about one and a half minutes later. Pushed too far, the tug’s fusion plant lost containment just as he finished slingshotting the gunship into low orbit. (It was unharmed, of course; the Drac opinion of fusion power best translated as “quaint,” kind of how we view butter churns.) It was on the local news within hours, on newsnets across human space within days. It was discussed, memorialized, marveled upon, chewed over by daytime talk-show hosts, and I think somebody even bought a plaque or some shit like that. Then there was a freighter accident, and a mass-shooting on Orbital 5, and of course, the first Vandal attacks in the periphery. The galaxy moved on. Twelve years is a long time, especially during war, so twelve years later, as the Vandal’s main fleet was jumping in near Jupiter and we were strap- ping into the crash couches of what we enthusiastically called “warships,” I guaran-fucking-tee you not one man in the entire Defense Force could remember who Drake McDougal was. Well, the Dracs sure as hell did. Dracs do not fuck around. Dozens of two-kilometer long Drac supercaps

70 jumped in barely 90K klicks away, and then we just stood around staring at our displays like the slack-jawed apes we were as we watched what a real can of galactic whoop-ass looked like. You could actually see the at- mosphere of Jupiter roil occasionally when a Vandal ship happened to cross between it and the Drac fleet. There’s still lightning storms on Jupi- ter now; something about residual heavy ions and massive static charges or something. Fifty-eight hours later, with every Vandal ship reduced to slagged debris and nine wounded Drac ships spinning about as they vented atmosphere, they started with the broad-band chanting again. And then the commu- nique that confused the hell out of us all. “Do you hold our debt fulfilled?” After the sixth or seventh comms officer told them “we don’t know what the hell you’re talking about” as politely as possible, the Drac fleet com- mander got on the horn and asked to speak to a human Admiral in rough- ly the same tone as a telemarketer telling a kid to give the phone to Dad- dy. When the Admiral didn’t know either, the Drac went silent for a minute, and when he came back on his translator was using much smaller words, and talking slower. “Is our blood debt to Drake McDougal’s clan now satisfied?” The Admiral said “Who?” What the Drac commander said next would’ve caused a major diplo- matic incident had he remembered to revert to the more complex transla- tion protocols. He thought the Admiral must be an idiot, a coward, or both. Eventually the diplomats were called out, and we were asked why the human race had largely forgotten the sacrifice of Drake McDougal. Humans, we explained, sacrifice themselves all the time. We trotted out every news clip from the space-wide Nets from the last twelve years. Some freighter cook that fell on a grenade during a pirate raid on Outreach. A ship engineer who locked himself into the reactor room and kept containment until the crew evacuated. Firefighter who died shielding a child from falling debris with his body, during an earthquake. Stuff like that. The Dracs were utterly stunned. Their diplomats wandered out of the conference room in a daze. We’d just told them that the rarest, most self- less and honorable of acts – acts that incurred generations-long blood-debts and moved entire fleets – was so routine for our species that they were bumped off the news by latest celebrity scandal. Everything changed for humanity after that. And it was all thanks to a single tug pilot who taught the galaxy what truly defines Man.

71

CHEFS No. 16314032, 2011/09/16 Author: Anonymous

“It’s because of their tongues, you know… “I guess I should explain, huh? They’re not really all that different: pretty much any advanced sophont is going to have a highly-evolved or- gan for language. But they’ve got that shared-orifice bauplan… let me tell you about how they reproduce sometime! Anyway, their speech organ is also used for consuming food. Damn thing is covered in neurons, more than their manipulators. And the things are always eating! Two, three times a cycle, there’s just no room to properly glut themselves. “So here they are, tiny little mouth, having to spend something like a tenth of their lives ramming food into it, just to not die. Is it any wonder they thought eating was really important? “Oh, they do, though! It’s a communal time and even a form of worship. They eat a wafer and believe it transubstantiates into the flesh of their god-thing. No, he wasn’t just pulling my flipper, I looked it up on the In- foThing! Crazy but true. “So for some of these guys, eating isn’t just worship, but art! It’s not enough to spend all that time actually eating, they spend even more time to change the sensory expression they receive when they do it. Not just processing it to remove parasites, either… they apply heat and flame to it, soak it in liquids, add lipids, vegetable matter and animal meat, even fungus! I know, right? “It’s so important that they have humans whose occupation is to pre- pare their food. And not just one! He uses different words for it, even, it has to be something they had across cultures even in their pre-industrial age. “He didn’t believe me when I told him we had no such ‘chef’ anywhere on our planet. I asked him why, our processed krill-flesh was safe to eat, easy to store, and provided adequate nutrition. He asked to see my por- tion… no, you shell-head, of course he didn’t eat it! But he did put it to his muzzle and inhale… and he asked me if I would let him prepare a portion for me. “Of course I assented! My pride as an ethnographer demanded no less. To participate in an art event of another culture! Of course, I had no idea what he proposed to do, but krill-patty is krill-patty. I mean, that’s the point, is it not? “He showed me differently. I don’t know all of the things he did to it. He sampled it with a spectrometer, and he snuffled at it with his muzzle, and he spent an hour going over the Standard Tox Report, for which I was grateful… at least he was being careful not to kill me! And he also spent a little while looking at a technical article about the neurological function of the Cetian consumption organ.

72

“Then he took the patty-stuff, and soaked it in boiling brine, and add- ed… stuff’? Some stuff to it, I don’t even know what it was, just some flakes from a jar from his rack. And then he pulled it out, and slapped it on a plate and subjected it to direct heating! And then… I don’t even know, I asked him to explain, but the translator didn’t work, he lapsed into tech- nical jargon. “He put it into a portion-bowl, poured a thick fluid onto it, and handed it to me. I looked at it with doubt, not particularly hungry as I had eaten only four cycles prior, but somehow looking at it, I felt my appetite in- crease. And then I placed it in my consumption organ… “There are no words to describe the feeling. No, there are, but not in Cetian! We will need to learn the human words for it. It was like making love, or the warm embrace of a pod-mate, or the blood thundering in your head after you have dived deeply and surfaced all at once. “No! I’m not crazy! It was all of these things and more. And I can prove it to you! Because, gentlemen, he is here. I have brought him here and he will show you his art! He will teach us his art. And when we return to the Home Ocean, as ‘chefs’ in our own right, we will gain fame undying. Yes! Over such a small thing as food, even!”

73

AIMING AT THE ENDLESS ETERNITIES No. 16414442, 2011/09/24 Author: Walker

Ever since the first of us looked up through the waves, we have wanted to go to space. To see the stars, and touch them. It’s a childish thing, to want to go out among them, sailing the black waves. But everyone knows that it’s impossible. Every species that has ever existed has come to the point where they realize that space travel is impossible. Existing in space is something that no species is capable of doing. And they give up. On Keldon, to be a dreamer is pejoratively know as thinking of ‘star stuff’. Every species knows that space travel is impos- sible. Every species except one. They gird themselves in steel and fibers made simply to keep them alive. They wrap themselves in waste recycling units and breathing apparatus. They create machines so large they seem like mountains of iron sitting upon great treads, all to transport their se- cret to space travel. The thing they use to go out to the stars: A rocket. A great, massive weapon, aimed not at terrestrial enemies or used for bursting into colours like so many Life Day celebrations. No, they strap themselves into the nose cones of rockets, take aim at the endless eterni- ties, and fire. Where other civilizations stopped, seeing madness and suicide, they saw endless possibility. We only saw the endless eternities. And that was what it was to us. That is why we never became a space faring race. No one did. No one except these brave fools, turning enemies into allies for the sole goal of spreading outward, discovering. We never would have known we weren’t alone in the universe had it not been for them. No other race would have come from the stars. The Gorlic? The Rafinaquas? The Skweb? No, no other race would have ever dreamed of something so stupid, so suicidal, so dangerous and destructive. Only the humans did. And to this day, we thank them. They have given the galaxy its greatest gift. The ability to gaze into the eyes of what is possible and shout: “FUCK YOU!” Hadsen fon Risif, Aldeni Spacemonaut Graduation, Universal Standard Date 002743 Aleph.

74

HUMANITY 101 No. 16651923, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

A favourite children’s joke, ‘what do you get when you mess with Hu- manity?’, is oft answered with the laughing cry of ‘nuclear ashes and enough glass to make the bowl to hold them yourself!’ Sparse few decades ago that was the grim rhetoric of the Pk’tgah and their brutish allies the Tsark. Ironic really that the two greatest empires in the known universe fell to one barely developed death world. Irony… A Human concept. Well, the story is worth telling no matter that the every species in every sector and sub-sector knows it by heart. Barely a century ago the universe was under the shackle of the Pks and their employed thugs the Tsark. Sure it makes sense to control both sides of the coin, that’s why the Pks recruited the most barbarous creatures they could find. Seven feet tall, scales harder than rock, with a blood-lust to match and – best of all – easily controlled leaders. The Pks assimilated every technology and piece of information from every species. They re-wrote the economy to benefit them and gained the monopoly on every good and service imaginable. They secured intergalac- tic dominance simply because if anyone needed anything they had to come to the Pks. Anyone that refused or decided to risk rebellion were branded terrorists and handed to the Tsarks. The Pks never got their hands dirty, but the Tsarks loved nothing better, with Pk built weaponry and vessels they could reach and subjugate any world in any sector anywhere within days. The Tsarks would then hold the planet to ransom, force its species to compete in vile gladiatorial tourna- ments against other species of deemed criminal by the Pks. They ensured that the Tsarks had their blood sport, the universe was kept in a state of obedience and the Pks could do as they pleased. Until Humanity entered the fray. Humanity was in its infancy locked on a deathworld with naught but their conflicts with one another to guide them, the Tsarks greedily added them to the roster of Tournaments. Confusion followed by weary acceptance followed by Humanity and to the naked optic would appear nothing more than a sub-standard, barbaric race. Little did we know they were already plotting. As with all species who ‘enter’ the Tournament, which is effectively a well advertised genocide, the Humans were stated the rules: survive nine rounds with other condemned and then one round with the Tsark Penal Division and they would be granted ‘parole’. In action however huge por- tions of the species were committed to the destruction of the other within a set battlefield. Most species who make it as far as the seventh or eighth rounds die out from lack of sustainable population. Most contests took the

75 form of species with low tech weapons smashing the hell out of each other for days at a time. Humanity’s approach was somewhat more diversified, see, the Tsarks never said you couldn’t use your own weapons. Humanity crushed its opponents with supposed indifference, I mean the use of Anthrax against the Xull’zis, the carpet bombing the yTray, even the use of thermonuclear weapons on the Cartuill was treated as just another day of Humanity doing what it does, destroying those who stand before them. Of course the Tsarks who had never seen nuclear weapons de- manded that Humanity hand over their entire stock, which the Humans agreed to as well as requesting to fight the tenth round on Tsarks home planet so their leaders could ‘see it better’. We should’ve known then. Human combat efficiency is only matched by their skill at espionage. The Tsarks greedily took the nukes to their home planet and laid them every around their capital city in preparation for Humanity’s arrival. Pity they never took the time to check if the nukes were already armed. Known as the Grave now, the Tsarks planet was the first strike of the Human Up- rising. They were not alone, while they battled in the tournament, they forged alliances with other species, arming them, instructing them, poising them to strike. When the Nukes that cracked the Tsarks’ world in half went off, every species that fought humanity tore down the blockades holding them hostage, before freeing other species and arming them in turn. In the space of a single week Humanity had obliterated the Tsark op- pressors, liberated more than two dozen species and began preparing for the largest campaign of liberation in the known universe. The Pks of course sat up and took notice; who wouldn’t when your ver- itable reign over the known universe is challenged within the effective space of Tryls gnat fart. The Pks were unprepared for the sheer chaos that was presented before them, they tried to bargain on Erlhm and were nuked, they tried to run in the Mylkos Cluster and were nuked, they mounted their last stand near the sun Aprollo IV. Near the edge of the known universe and in the shadow of this star they mustered all their forces; hundreds of warships and hastily refitted colony ships. Too much for the combined Human Uprising. So instead the Humans triggered an early supernova in the sun and let that do the job for them. Fast forward a few decades and the Humans sit at the Helm of the uni- verse, now because they actively pursued a program of reconstruction and rehabilitation, every species from every corner received Human aid. Ini- tially many were fearful of gift-wrapped nukes but the intentions were genuine. They rebuilt entire worlds to undo the damage of the Pks, care- fully assisted in re-populating nations affected by the Tournament (though rumours of Humans mating with said species are at this time unsubstanti- ated.) Even the Trask survivors were given a new world and told to be- have themselves, but such warnings were unnecessary. No one forgets what a suitably motivated humanity can do when motivated. Historian Celk Mar to a young iltorian girl studying Humanity 101.

76

SENTRY No. 17874327, 2012/02/09 Author: Anonymous

21-5/124.9 //REMOTE.SENTRY.DRONE03ALPHASILENTGUARDIAN WAKING FROM SLEEP CYCLE

21-5/124.9 //THREAT DETECTED, ANALYSING

21-5/125.0 //THREAT ANALYSED, DETECTED ROGUE COMETARY BODY INBOUND ON COLLISION

VECTOR WITH CLASS 3 INHABITED PLANET 087GAMMA. POPULATION APPROX 82M,

NON-HUMAN PREINDUSTRIAL CIVILISATION. UNCONTACTED. IMPACT PREDICTED IN

632/34 YEARS. PREDICTED RESULT/ELE - REQUESTING INTERVENTION AU-

THORISATION FROM COMMAND.

21-5/125.3 //AUTHORISATION RECEIVED / CONTENT(([PROCEED]-HOUSTONCC))

21-5/125.4 //DISPATCHING GRAVITIC DRONES ON INTERCEPT

21-5/134.7 //DRONES SUCCESSFUL, COMETARY BODY DIVERTED BY .03LS BY GRAVITIC TETHERS,

FUTURE PREDICTED ORBIT POSES NO FURTHER THREAT. RETRIEVING DRONES. UPDATING

COMMAND.

21-5/134.9 //UNKNOWN COMMAND RECEIVED / CONTENT(([GOOD JOB 03ALPHA]-HOUSTONCC)).

DISREGARDING.

21-5/134.9 //REMOTE.SENTRY.DRONE03ALPHASILENTGUARDIAN RETURNING TO WATCH MODE.

77

KERALS, FUCK YEAH No. 19401795, 2012/06/07 Author: Anonymous

I know this account isn’t well written, may contain miss spellings, and will likely never be released outside of private media-nets but you’ll for- give me. The Nault Flowers are blooming and that pollen would take my skin off same as anything else. No job to do that can’t be done by the au- toturrets and nothing to hunt that hasn’t burrowed in or gone to ground miles from this valley. My name is Nathan, and I’m a Boogyman. I’ve been doing this job for 30 years and like any Terran marine my lifespan will be more than ten times that amount. We expected there to be bigger badder things in the universe and it turned out that we were wrong, least as far as we’ve seen. But you already knew that. You’ll also know that we may have the greatest firepower and the best soldiers there are, but the Verralts own half the galaxy already and they are damn mean. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em quick as we’d like. Worse still, if there’s one thing Verralts love, it’s picking on someone weaker than them. That’s what us Boogymen are for. Right man in the right place makes all the difference so when we find fledgling races that have eluded the Verralts gaze, we plop an outpost down and a marine to watch over it. That’s where I come in. The Kerals always reminded me of what I think humans were like 2 thousand years ago, back before we were even really doing slow-boat space colonization and our lifespans were short. Little guys only live 10 years on the outside, and they ain’t the sharpest tools in the shed yet, but a race more curious you’d only find in the mirror. And you wouldn’t believe how much they loved me. Sorta like having a bunch of little orange sib- lings. Curious is one thing, but curious and forgetful makes for a dangerous combination. One of them would near take his head off with one of my guns and a month later he’d stare down the barrel of the same pistol if I left it out. Like I said, they remind me of us back before we learned to quit making the same mistake twice. Couldn’t do a thing with ‘em but you loved them all the same. They came and went, stories I told them about the war and the Verralts changed like folk legends gone wild. Stories about me grew out of shape too. Not sure they ever quite believed what I had to say about the fires streaming through the sky some nights, or the things that fell out of the sky afterward. Not sure I wanted them to. It figures that sooner or later the Verralt would do the only thing they knew how to after I’d shot down more than a dozen of their ships. They sent a plague ship, a weapon meant to kill whole worlds, just to murder me and a bunch of tiny orange innocents that’d never done nothing to nobody. I shot it down, same as the others, and a Boogyman’s trained for a lot of things, cleaning up a plague ship isn’t one of them. Maybe they

78 knew that. Now, everyone knows a Boogyman does without support. No supply lines, just a man, a mission, and enough firepower to convince the odd Verralt that there’s actually a human base on this rock. Truth of the matter is I’m so far ahead of my supply lines that I’m all the Keral have. Verralt make landfall alive, instead of a killteam being dispatched, I go on a hunt. There’s a bad harvest, I dish out some nutri-goo. The plague ship didn’t get a chance for atmospheric dispersal, but its contents are just as deadly now that they’ve hit the ground. And that nano-plague’s going to stay that way for most of my life. So I did what I could. I burnt the foliage away from the wreckage, patched holes in the ship, salted the soil and erected defenses around it. If my hab was meant to be moved I’d have parked it right ontop of the damn thing to keep an eye on it. The nano-plague’s an interesting thing. It doesn’t kill those it infects. Instead it turns them into a secondary plague-ship, one with a modified strain, designed to kill anything of the same species. One Keral blunders into that ship and finds his way home, they’ll be dropping like flies and not a bit of my medical supplies will do a damn thing to save them. So I became the Boogyman I was always meant to be. Ohh, I tried to make them understand but one by one they kept trying to get a better look, get a bit closer. I knew it was just a case of ‘one of these days.’ So I went on the hunt. The perimeter alarms have gone off at just about every hour of the day or night and whenever they do I drop everything and grab my bow. I don’t want laser blasts drawing curiosity. Now, before I took up the Watch I wasn’t rightly sure why they gave me this bow. I can hunt just fine with a rifle, only learned to use the thing because I got bored. Not that vat-grown muscles won’t put an arrow through a steel plate with this thing. The thing I like about the bow is that it leaves behind something to re- member me by. Some shred of proof that’ll help keep them from forget- ting my new purpose like they’ve forgotten my old one. It works best on the days when I can let one of them go. Snag a shoulder or skim a thigh and let the scar and the arrow give them a story to keep the others away. If they get too close to the ship to be sure they haven’t caught it, they have to go down. I’ve done what I can to make the wreckage look unappealing. My memory’s good and I remember every story they’ve ever told me about their quaint tribal demons. Done my best to make it look like the ship’s infested by them. Those days when the disguise works and they turn around and run home all on their own. Those are the best days of my life Two years ago something happened that changed the Watch forever. One of them tripped the outer alarm, still far enough from the ship to catch the plague still near enough that I had to do something. Can’t let them all get away and I’d been lax lately. They have to have a reason to

79 be scared for their own good. Damned if I’ve ever seen anything harder to put an arrow into than this Keral. Fast, smart, and more determined than half the recruits that gradu- ated the academy with me. I’ll be the first to admit, I’d gotten lazy about this. Never seen that as being more true as the moment when I clambered over that log only to find the little thing waiting to ram a sharpened wood stake into my side. Not that the Marines stuck me out here to die like that. Barely scratched me. All he wanted to know was what he’d done to wind up spending a day with a monster like me. And maybe it’s just human curiosity kicking in, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to find out what’d happen if I told him. So I dusted off the speech I hadn’t given in near 10 years. He listened to the whole thing, eyes burning like he thought he could ignite me and save himself with his gaze alone. Then I decided that I could let just one more go and sent him on his way. 3 days later I wind up back by the ship and there he’s standing, sharp- ened stake in hand, outside of the burnt out circle, outside of the alarms. I don’t say anything or let him see me but I already know how he spent the last two days before this one. A week later and there’s two of them. By the end of the month there’s six. I start noticing that they’re switching out, watching in shifts. One by one they seem to be recruiting, the Watch has changed hands and I know it. It’s been two years since I last had the perimeter alarm go off. Old Kerals leave the Watch, new ones join. I don’t even know whether they’re keeping their brothers away from the ship or away from me, but you can see it in their eyes. Responsibility, honor, and pride. They’re remembering, even if the rest of their kind forgets. My shift on this rock is almost over but I think I’m going to request another, not because I doubt them. I’m just wondering, if this is what they learned in 30 years, what’ll I see in another 30? Kerals, fuck yeah.

80

THE GALAXY CULTURAL POWERHOUSE No. 20405059, 2012/08/20 Author: Anonymous

We found them in a backwater of a planet, surrounded by a nearly im- penetrable cloud of media satellites ricocheting data from the surface to the skies and back. The trail that led us to them, a ghostly cacophony of information broadcasted uninterrupted since several generations ago, growing more and more complex by each light year we got closer to them until not even us were able to take it. For ten orbits of their planet around their single star we observed, we studied them, we tried to make sense of their culture and their habits. All in vain. Human toddlers were exposed since young to what other species of the universe considered psychologi- cal warfare, torture even. An endless and ever-changing stream of info, new art forms, new opinions, new celebrities, over and over again. And they absorbed it all to the point of obsession. Such quirky creatures, we thought! Our songs were as old as the mountains and equally as powerful, our rites and traditions time-proof, unchanged over the millennia. We established contact with this curious race step by step over the span of another ten orbits around their star. We had to admit it was both funny and a little bit flattering when we discov- ered that humans started wearing clothes quite inspired by our uniforms and technical suits. Then they started to change little things. The color, the materials, they added patterns and decided which complements would suit it better, the most popular one a light scarf that apparently would “contrast” with the mineral plates. Not one of their months later, one war- rior of our expedition came into the Decision Chamber wearing one of those modified uniforms as if there were nothing strange with it. She was the first but not the last. Soon philosophers and metal nurses started to imitate the humans, picking up some of their slang and man- nerisms, and when the humans grew bored with something, so did those members of our expedition for fear of being seen as uncultured and out of the loop in the numerous human parties we were invited to attend. When the acclimatization period was over, we opened the stars for the humans, introducing them to a whole galaxy of stagnant cultures and pragmatic species that received this strange race with little interest. They had warri- ors like us, but their weapons and tactics were too primitive to make them a realistic menace. They had philosophers like us, but other races sur- passed their intellectual capacity in ways they weren’t even able to under- stand yet. But Humanity did the same thing they did when we first con- tacted. They learned, they emulated and then they modified. Meme. Virality. Trend. Words for concepts until then alien to us. Humans looked upon the cultures of dozens of species and absorbed them, earning the sympathy of even the most traditionalist members of the Alliance. They gave new voices to old legends and shared them across the galaxy, one year Humans appreciated the echo poetry of the Mianme people, the

81 next one most of them would dress just like the ice farmers of the Yzur Collective. And then humans started to improve, to experiment, to up- grade, because Humanity had gazed upon the traditions and artistic ex- pressions of older and more powerful races, grew bored and found them wanting. And the entire galaxy followed suit. In only one generation, our cubs now look for humans to tell them what’s popular, which artists are relevant and what clothing style is cur- rently acceptable to wear. The Merillon Queens contract humans to design new color patterns for their translucid wings and no sane Alliance Senator travels without a human counselor to keep her up to date with the current trends. Earth has turned into the galaxy cultural powerhouse and made acceptable things not even considered before by some of the other races. Humans are now our celebrities, our artists and forward thinkers. Some of them living in other planets have their every movement and activity ana- lyzed and turned into a trend by the local population, eager to be as “in- teresting” as that human apparently is. Humanity has changed us, made us something else. They are unifying us, but also making us forget who we were and what we believed in. We’re slowly being turned into human and I don’t know what we can do about it. I was there during our first contact, me and the members of the expedition have been exposed to humans longer than most. That warrior with the new uniform never returned to our moonhome, instead she choose to stay in Earth and live with a female human. One of our philoso- phers is now a renowned writer, famous across the stars. And me… well, I’m writing this in human language, am I not? Fegar, son of Krezah, son of Uhwas, son of Dhrah. War Leader and Sigma Explorer.

82

HUMANS ARE DREAMERS No. 21356978, 2012/10/30 Author: Anonymous

It’s funny what kind of things that one takes for granted when they’re commonplace for nearly everything on one’s planet. Sleeping, for example. As far as intergalactic biology is aware, humans are the only sentient species that sleeps. There are some that will sometimes shut off all non-vital bodily functions when they need to recuperate. Some will enter a sort of trance, switching off most of their brains and allowing their bodies to function at maximum efficiency, storing up energy and fighting aliments. Many don’t enter an unconscious state at all, their bodies efficient enough (or their diets voracious enough) to keep them running all the time. But no other sentient species sleeps as humans do: unconscious of the world around them, but brains still running, their subconscious’ roaming free. Dreams are another one of those things that most humans took for granted It’s a rather odd thing to take for granted, really. They experience vivid hallucinations without the use of machines or outside chemicals. They ex- perience the impossible, live entirely different lives, and take nonsensical realities as normal. They spend nearly a third of their lives doing it, and yet, without technological assistance, they usually don’t even bother to remember it. Of course, there are many humans who are fascinated by dreams. Many humans of the past (and even some of the present) believed that dreams could tell the future or communicate with unseen beings. This, as far as every science we know of can tell, is utter crap. But even still in the ad- vanced age that we live in, there are many who still give dreams an air of mysticism. And it’s hard to blame them, really. Many humans analyzed dreams. They are, after all, spun by the sub- conscious, and the subconscious is a very difficult thing to measure with any other means. Some humans even built powerful and complicated ma- chines based around dreams. They had machines which analyzed their brains during dreams, machines that let them remember their dreams, machines that induced dreams, and machines that recorded their dreams. Many humans gained inspiration and insight from their dreams. The first human Faster-Than-Light travel vessel, for example, was a technology that came seemingly out of nowhere. It was completely set apart from nearly everything that humans of the time used in conventional astro- physics, and most experts, both human and nonhuman, were not expect- ing humans to achieve FTL for at least another of their centuries. But an incredibly “out there” idea was pitched, the numbers were crunched, and at some point, someone probably said “it’s just crazy enough to work!”

83

Less than one of their decades later, humans were deemed ready for first contact. When questioned, the human who had the idea in the first place claimed that the idea had come to him in a dream. Shortly thereafter, human dream machines were being modified for other races. Suddenly, dreams were “the big thing”. It turns out that a lot of differ- ent races have powerful inspiration locked up in their subconscious, and with this new outlet for it, a new era of enlightenment was ushered in. New fields of science emerged from the depths of old ideas, technologies once thought to be perfected suddenly found themselves with improve- ments to be made, and the art! The art was, in no uncertain terms, unbe- lievable and unimaginable by our old standards. It was a time that could only be described as a glorious state of benevolent insanity. Perhaps the power of dreams is in their absolute disconnect from the real. They allowed humans to experience madness, yet still wake up the next day with their minds set on reality. They allowed humans to view the universe from the outside and perhaps see what they missed from the in- side. As of now, humans are the youngest known sentient race and much like human youths teach their elders, humans have taught the universe to dream, and like those human elders, we are forever grateful for the op- portunity.

84

BUGFUCKER No. 23074866, 2013/02/09 Author: Anonymous

My name is Oxim. I am currently stationed on an inter-racial diplomat satellite, here to represent my race in the coming debates and discus- sions. During some of my off hours, I went down to a bar on the station. I have heard about these bars before, just places for the diplomats to relax and talk. There have been rumors, however, of other activities in these bars. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Within one such of these bars, I saw many races stationed there. But the one that caught my eyes was the hairless ape near the back. He was a “Human” as they call themselves. They are much bigger and physically stronger than most races, though their intelligence is a bit lacking. It’s not that they are overtly stupid or simple, but they simply act on instinct and desire far more than any advanced race should. I walked into the bar and sat down, a few tables away from the human. The waiter handed me a list of drinks that are digestible for my species and a few other arthropods like myself. Some races could eat each others food, but only some. I barely noticed as the human walked over to my table, looking down at me. I jumped in fright as he stood over me and looked directly at me. He was smiling at me, and he raised his hand. “Woah, calm down buddy. I just wanted to ask you something.” He said with a grin. My automatic translator kicked in and I understood him, and I quickly received an input that told me what his facial expression meant. He was baring his teeth, which I took for a sign of aggression, but it was actually a pleasantry. I breathed out, and gave a weak smile back. “Y-Yes?” I asked, hoping my translator wouldn’t pick up my nervous speech. Even if it did, he seemed to make no notice of it. “You’re of that race that light up, right? The sparkling lights?” The hu- man asked curiously, almost childishly. I immediately began to give off my race’s version of a blush. “0h— yes.” I said. I hoped the human would no press matters further, he did not know what caused such lights to activate. He was ignorant of my race’s biology, understandably enough. “Well? Can you do it? Like on command? Because back on my home- world there are these flying bugs that do that- but I never heard of an al- ien doing it!” He said, the simplicity and honesty of his question was re- freshing, even if crass. “Well— No.” I replied, sheepishly. The human wasn’t picking up on my hints so I would have to explain them.

85

“They— The lights only come on during periods of immense pleasure… Mating.” I said, a bit quieter, my embarrassment showing again. The hu- man looked surprised for a moment, and then shook his head and chuck- led. A Human sign of amusement. I look around the room, uncomfortable. I feel powerless next to this beast, I wasn’t sure if he was insulting my race or not, or what he was implying. I did not find his manner horrible… just off. There was some- thing funny going on. The human finished his laugh with a smile, resting one elbow on the ta- ble. I looked over it and examined his muscular arm, impressed by his species physicality. He seemed to notice me doing so, and I looked away in embarrassment. The Human raised an eyebrow at me, raising his arm and flexing. “See something you like?” He said with a grin, before moving to his other arm. I blushed but watched helplessly. He grinned at me yet again, he was playing me like a fool. The human and I began to engage in small talk about politics, but his manner was always unprofessional. He seemed to always laugh too much, get a little too close, compliment too often. His behavior was not very professional. Of course, I grinned and bared it because I had no idea about his people’s culture or how they communicate. I wouldn’t want to offend someone based on such a bad misconception! The human soon stopped talking and looked around the room a little bit, before leaning in and whispering something to me. He then stood up and walked away from the table, and then headed for the bathrooms. Due to his low voice it took a little longer for the translator to pick it up, and I was shocked with what I heard. “Meet me in the bathroom in 10 minutes.” I shook nervously as I waited, wondering what the human had in mind. I am not totally naive though, so I believed I understood what he wanted. Cross species mating was… difficult. To say the least. However, humans and my kind were unnaturally well equipped for such a thing. I wondered if he knew that — I wondered why he would want such a thing from me. Could he not tell I was also a male? Or was that something that he want- ed… I considered leaving the establishment and leaving him alone; but the potential damage that might cause would be great. I had gotten myself into quite a mess, and so I quickly thought of a plan. I would go to the bathroom, and tell him that I cannot perform whatever he seems to desire from me — I would try to let him down gently. I checked the time and saw that ten minutes had passed. I nervously got onto my legs and walked to the bathroom, shaking. This was one of the strangest and most uncomfortable situations I had ever been in. I entered the bathroom and saw the human standing there, with a dumb smile on his face. I also noticed that nobody else was in the bath- room — I was alone with him here.

86

The human walked up to me and immediately slide a hand behind my back carapace, rubbing my exoskeleton. The feeling was not unwelcome, though it made me very uncomfortable. “Uhmm… I’m sorry Mr… Uhh, human. I don’t—” “Shhh— Just go with it.” The human then took his hand and pushed me towards one of the open and empty stalls, rather large to accommodate many species. He was very strong, at least compared to me, and so his push nearly sent me stagger- ing. I shook in fear as I walked into the stall, fearing his wrath. I knew not what he had planned for me, but I knew he could break me if he wanted, and so I resorted to being as small and unimposing as possible. The stall’s door slide closed behind us. “So then, let’s make you light up.” He said with a primal growl that made me shiver. In what? I couldn’t tell. He approached me and gently picked me up, lifting me upper body onto the sanitized toilet, and had his hands all over me. I have always been in a more… submissive role. But the way he took charge just made me totally go limp and go along with everything he did. Soon though, his touches began to excite me. I couldn’t help giving out a lusty coo, I was warming up to him very quickly. His hands felt wonder- ful against my exoskeleton and he was certainly enjoying himself. Before long, a bulge developed in his pants and I knew what would happen be- fore the end of tonight. I breathed deep — mentally preparing myself. He reached down to my groin and rubbed there, and I moaned aloud. I realized I would have to reveal myself to him eventually, and so with a fi- nal sigh of acceptance I finally let my chitinous plating down, revealing my rear and my mating apparatus. He grasped my bony member, making me clench my whole body at the sudden motion. “You’re pretty well hung, for a Chur’ikal.” He said with a grin. I looked back at him, appreciating his comment. But what I saw frightened and ex- cited me to no end. He had dropped his pants. From his pants he had produced a massive member. I was blown away. The largest of my species was less than two thirds of his size. I was roughly half of his size, and considered “well built” as a result. I felt my hesitation from the sight, but a massive hand on my back pressed me down dominantly. I looked forward in fear, breathing a bit harder. Humans really were physically imposing, in more ways than one. But I had to soldier on, I wasn’t about to try and call off a monkey who’s drunk with lust who could throw me against a wall with little effort. He reached to my hindquarters and started to play with me, making me gasp and look down in shame. He was taking no prisoners and was enjoy- ing every second of making me squirm… and I was enjoying it too, as much as I wouldn’t like to admit. Thankfully, I knew I was quite “flexible” down there, due to my recrea- tional activities with members of my own race as well as special devices

87 used for pleasure. It was not looked down upon in my culture, in fact it was often encouraged for members to explore their sexuality and have as much non-procreative sex as possible. This was mostly because we were already overpopulated and society at large had to start reducing our numbers. But that hardly compared to the monster I was being introduced to here, and I knew that it might very well be painful. At any rate, the human was breathing on the back of my hard and an- tennae, causing me to shiver. I could feel his warm, mammalian body on my back, contrasting wonderfully to the cold and hard metal under me. He knew how to take charge, that was for sure. Alter a few more moments of foreplay, I felt the tip of his member teasing the outer ring of my back end. The human relentlessly teased his cock around my rear, getting me ready for him. I looked back at him again in worry, and the look on his face was one of animal hunger and instinct. I quickly looked down, as if scared I would anger him, and I tried to spread my legs out more to give him more space to do his thing. The human finally began to push his member inside of me, with me hardly able to draw a breath during. He went slowly and carefully. It could have been because he sensed my fear, or perhaps he knew how powerful he was and was trying his best not to hurt me. Either way, I was grateful. I clutched my fore-graspers around the metal before me and braced my- self, knowing I was in for it. His cock head slipped in wonderfully, and he began to probe deeper into my interior. I couldn’t help but let off a little groan as he did so. There was pain there, but also pleasure as well. The human had soon slide his whole manhood inside of me, my own dwarfed member dangling uselessly below. He grinned and stood up, flex- ing his arms as if congratulating himself on a fresh kill or conquest. I wondered if he had done this with other races, and if so how many? He was confident and seemed to know what he was doing, and so I could on- ly assume he had “been with” other Chur’ikal before. There was some- thing about that that unsettled me — who put mating with other races above their own? Either way, he began to draw himself back, out of me, making me feel a bit empty, but would soon slide himself back in — the usual method of fucking. I winced and held my breath trying not to make any noise. The man seemed to notice this and rubbed my back with his hand affection- ately, and I immediately began to loosen up. I gave off a small, chattering moan as he took me. I was surprised something so big and strong treated me so gently, but I was worried. Scared even. He had ever part of me at his fingertips, and could do great harm to me if he wished. I wasn’t worried about that how- ever, but I was worried that he might lose some control while he bred me. With just a few strong thrusts, he could cripple me for life. I tried to stay as still as I could, give him everything he wanted to try and appease him. But this did not hurt my arousal at all, no. In fact it started to excite me to

88 no end, to submit to something so great and powerful and bigger than I. I felt humiliated and that I had lost all control, and it made me hard and willing. It was near that moment I experienced my first ejaculation of our ses- sion. My whole body trembled in blissful agony; I felt the world go around me and my body — I lost sense of all things and all inhibitions. And to top it off, my body released the chemicals in my abdomen; I began to glow. The light shone in the stall and around, lasting for the period of my or- gasm. I heard him grunt with satisfaction as he saw the light, and I felt a bit embarrassed that I could not contain myself. I had fully expected the session to stop there, or for him to finish as well and we stop — but no. Even after I had sprayed my first discharge of purple cum on the chrome under me, I realized he was not done. My sensitivity was even greater than before and I suddenly realized this was not going to be nearly as quick as I had first anticipated. This titan held me like a trembling virgin, and cared little at my orgasm. I soon felt the afterglow fade only to spike again as my pleasure soared; he led me to my second orgasm within but minutes of the first. My grip was loosening below me and I began to panic a little — how long would he keep me here? I already felt exhausted, how much more of this could I take. But with the slavering primate behind me I knew I had little choice but to go along for the ride. My abdomen was now giving off tiny sparks of light, the intense pleasure and multiple orgasms making my light-producing glands go out of control. At least he had a light show to watch as he made me tremble. I sensed him getting more into it by my third orgasm, he had amazing stamina but he was not tireless. He seemed to speed up his thrusts and get more rough. I simply spread my legs more and held on tight, hoping he didn’t break me as he used me to his content. Finally, he began to grunt and groan and slam inside of me harder and harder, soon reaching his own peak. I felt his hand reach down to my head and force it down against my will, and I simply had no way to fight it. The grip all around my soft head was incredible — I felt completely help- less in his grasp. The human kept at it until he tightened up, slowing to a few deep thrusts and suddenly exhaling as he released his seed deep inside of me. The force of even his ejaculation was powerful — I bucked my body in re- sponse, giving off short and muffled cries as I finally gave off my final spurt — aching and feeling my breeding sacs had been fully emptied. My back began to spark and glow feverishly, mustering all it could with my exhaustion. The human let go of me and drew his long member out with a wet sound, leaving me bent over the toilet, his seed slowly leaking out of me. I panted in effort, barely conscious at this point, but he remained standing, and he even laughed. The human patted me on the head, to which I did not respond, and left the stall. He left the door open and un- locked as well, and I quickly got to my shaky feet as best I could. I felt

89 embarrassed and humiliated that he just left me, but with the treatment he had just given me, I could hardly complain. I exited the bathroom with a few shaky steps, only to realize I was be- ing stared out by most of the bar’s patrons. I then realized, to my horror, I was still dripping with the human’s seed and it was fairly obvious from my posture that was true as well. I took a few steps into the room, looking down in the shame, when I felt a suddenly whack on my rear end. I turned around and saw the human sitting down behind me, naked, and smoking a cigar. He seemed to not care one bit that he was nude, and it was not illegal for him to be anyway, and he laughed at me. I looked down in a huff, dying of embarrassment. I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t. The way he treated me made me see stars and made me feel so good — I couldn’t raise a finger against him. The human handed me a slip of paper with numbers on it, presumably his own personal phone, and then gave me a grin from ear to ear. “Come back next week, sparky, I’d love to see you again!” The human said aloud, laughing at his own joke. I realized, with absolute horror, that I was still sparking from the in- tense pleasure from earlier. I was so rapturous from the treatment I had received my body had no ceased its chemical light show — I was humili- ated before the bar’s patrons who began to laugh. I ran out of the bar as quick as I could, feeling dejected. What an example I had made for my race! Getting fucked like a human’s concubine! I stormed away to my liv- ing area and took a cleaning shower as soon as I could, the human’s wretched stench and warmth still all over and inside me. As I left the shower, I saw the paper he had given me. I held it over the trash, but with a defeated sigh I instead held it close to me. I hid the paper in a drawer and laid low for the next few days, hoping this would all boil over. It did, thankfully, and within a week or so I was able to come out again and blend in with everyone as if nothing ever happened. But occasionally, I would see the human on the station, standing tall and proud and mascu- line. I would try to avoid him, but whenever he saw me he would give me a infuriating smile and a wink, and sometimes even blow a kiss at me. I was disgusted with his behavior, but I couldn’t help but love the attention. When I got home I would fiddle with the paper in my graspers, feeling a vile revulsion shoot through me as I realized how much that single expe- rience had affected me. I put the paper back into the drawer, gently, and closed it. I murmured to myself, under my breath. He was going to have me again… just not now. But I ached for him again, for him to take control of everything if just for a moment. I was beginning to warm up to these hairless apes.

90

A VETERAN OF A WAR WITH HUMANITY No. 14741656, 2013/02/11 Author: Mad_Jack !!TZqeeXXyW94

Now… As I see you all staring at me because you need to… Well, let’s face it: Military history classes can get very dull, very fast. As such, I am going to speak less as a professor and more as a veteran. As you all know, I was in our conflict with the humans. As everyone here knows, we lost after over 57 years of fighting. Whole worlds pounded to dust and melted, only to cool and be pounded to dust again. We fought such a savage war that we realized how truly animalistic we can be, and how vicious humans are at their very core. But I have a unique perspective, because a human saved my life. He removed both my legs, but he saved me. I’ll tell you how later. First I need to fulfill my promise, that I would come and lecture you about human conflicts, and our run-in with them. Humans fail miserably at fighting wars. They always have, and they al- ways will. To be fair, they have never fought a war in the entirety of their existence. They have had conflicts among their nation-states, but nothing that meets the galactic definition of war, being a conflict where individuals are motivated to fight based only on the defense of their homeland. Hu- mans are motivated to enter conflict for that reason, but they are inher- ently selfish, so they could never fight a war that way. To accomplish their task and end the conflict they instead force themselves into situations where the only two options are fight for your life and the lives of your brothers-in-arms or die in a hole. Humans put their backs up against a wall to fight their conflicts, because that is the only way they will ever end. This very nature of human conflict is what caused us to start the war in such an awkward position. You see, when we started our war with the humans, they were really unhappy about it, because we followed all the rules, spoken and unspoken, about starting a violent conflict. As you all know, the humans and us laid claim to a planet. It was unusually rich is heavy metals and was just what our two races needed to continue developing our heavy industry in the sector. After a few brief skirmishes the humans settled on the northern land mass and we on the south. A treaty was signed and all was well for about 2 years. After that, a few of our politicians got greedy. They ordered outposts be set up on the northern half of the planet. We seized a few is- lands and put a base a few kilometers inland on the mainland. The hu- mans demanded that we retreat and we did not. The humans shot at us, hoping to scare us off. We refused to leave, and the humans shocked the galaxy. Throwing aside all laws regarding proportional force, they wiped out our base on the mainland and the islands, and then struck back at the south- ern continent! They landed ten thousand men on the southern land mass and began killing everyone. We were so overwhelmed that no effective

91 defense could be mounted. The planet was blockaded and every inch was mined by the humans. We sent some warships to reclaim our stake on the planet, but when they arrived there were no human capital ships in sight. It is important to remember that at this point in time our technology was vastly superior to humans’ where capital ships were concerned. Now, as the ships, 5 of them, approached the planet they were engaged by a fleet of smaller craft. The exact number is still unknown, but it num- bered well over 7,500 craft. Taken off guard, these ships rapidly docked and boarded our ships. After several hours of vicious fighting, blood pooled in corridors and landing bays, sometimes as deep as a foot. The humans won, and they took those ships. All 5 of them jumped to Sol the second the fighting stopped. After that our two races lashed out at one another. At the war’s peak, over 1,000 planets were contested. How could the humans have mustered the forces to fight us on 1,000 fronts? They couldn’t. Most of us never fought a uniformed human, but that didn’t stop their civilians from taking up arms and taking the fight to us. Whole cities turned into fortresses in a matter of weeks, every man, woman, and child was armed if they could hold a gun and worked in a factory if they could hold a hammer. We fought in those cities, and the grind of war reduced them all to dust. Billions, on both sides, died in those cities that were pulverized and scorched. Strangely, morale was always high in the civilian militias, and they nev- er failed to take advantage of a weakness. Those bastards were insidious. We fought street by street, house by house, room by room, inch by bloody inch, for those planets. I watched good soldiers die so that we could move into the next room. Needless to say, the human military was nearly godlike. My first fight against human regulars came about 26 years after the war started, and after I had served 7 years on a now-desolate rock halfway between here and Hell. It had been a nice place, home to 4 billion humans. Half the continent was dense city, the rest was untamed jungle. We fought for years in the middle of nowhere. Where the combat spread, the foliage was quickly torn apart and incinerated. There is literally no life on that planet anymore, and we never used orbital weapons. We didn’t glass it or anything, we simply fought until every rock and brick had been ground into sand. The human military is sometimes mistaken for the wrath of a god. This is, however, a misleading statement. They are not all powerful death ma- chines. Humans are smaller, slower, and weaker than we are. On the ground, and toward the end of the war they made up for it in tactics and tech, but on an individual basis they were inferior. However, we seldom won a ground engagement that they started, or that they were ready for. They were so dogged, so determined, that they pounded away at our lines until they broke. But even then, I’ll never forget the first time I saw one of the Human’s

92

Orbital Shock troopers. Those… men, were the most competent that the human military can field, and I came to respect them. Now, you may be wondering how and why a human saved my life, so here it is. In a battle on a rock not far from here, just a few light years toward Sol, I was tasked with holding a city block. It was right on the front lines, and I knew we were going to be attacked. Sure enough, less than a week went by before the first human assault. This was about 12 years before the war ended, and we were all weary of fighting. The hu- mans stormed out perimeter and we lost control of several key buildings in short order. I can’t actually confirm that we inflicted a single casualty. That night I led a strike team into one building to retake it. We stormed in and were strangely unopposed for a few rooms. I broke off to clear a room, and when I entered I saw an Orbital Shock Trooper. I raised my weapon to shoot him, but he was too close, too fast, and was fairing for me. He ripped my weapon from me and I punched him straight in the face. His visor cracked and he fell backward. We engaged in hand to hand, and it ended with me punching him until his visor shattered and cut his face badly. At that moment I got up to retrieve my weapon. Just then a chunk of the ceiling fell down and pinned the human to the ground. As I watched him under the massive slab of rock, I saw him grab something from his side. I didn’t recognize it until it was too late. He fired the breaching shotgun, a plasma-based projectile weapon made to blast through heavy metal doors, twice. Both my legs were removed, and I was laying next to him. I watched him as he braced himself, screamed louder than I thought possible for a human, and he then lifted the slab of rock off of himself. He stood and collected himself before he started to leave. I called out to him, and I asked him why he had not given up in the face of certain death. And that man looked me in the eye and said “Because I’m not ready to die.” And as I lie there, I realized that I, too, was not ready to die. That sim- ple thought had not occurred to me in all my years as a soldier, and it in- spired me. I used my arms to drag myself through the building until I found a comrade to carry me back to a medical station. So, if you have paid attention, you will notice that I never once called a human a soldier, because none of them are. The humans are neither war- riors nor soldiers. Humans are survivors, and that is why we lost. We tried to wipe out the one species that was determined that it would never die. And that motivation makes them giants. In our cradle we created gods and claimed that they had made our bodies in their image, and to this day I am convinced that those same gods made humans’ minds in their image.

93

HUMANITY WITHOUT BORDERS No. 23231558, 2013/02/17 Author: Anonymous

He lit the cigar, the flames licking at the end of the paper tube filled with tobacco. John’s eyes darted back at the clinic behind him, then at the massive Fiori warrior before him. Fiori were the thugs of the universe, and that was if you were talking politely. Seven feet tall, half a ton outside of armor (which was never), and a full two tons when encased in their “cer- emonial” battle armor, they were positively monstrous. And, of course, Senate law stated that their battle armor was purely ceremonial, even though John had yet to see a single piece of “ceremoni- al” armor that didn’t have monomolecular blades in the forearms, or a suit that lacked high-end electromagnetic shielding, usually purchased by their benefactors or those seeking to pay off their ilk. Their insanely durable physiology only furthered their ability to perform the roles of thugs: Phys- ically tough and biologically redundant, the average Fiori has a number of organs that are naturally inclined to letting them survive (and even thrive) in the harshest environments. Their eyes are side-set on their bodies, granting them 240-degree vision. Normally a trait in prey animals, this feature has been adapted to let them see oncoming predators from a wide angle of vision. Anatomically, they have a pronounced protrusion along their back, where a human would otherwise have a flat spine. A secondary nervous cluster and reservoir for neuroconductive fluid. Fiori possess a thick hide, which are virtually impervious to cuts, scrapes or contusions. With an assortment of redundant organs, such as a four pairs of lungs, a secondary and tertiary heart, an enlarged hypo- thalamus, additional adrenal and digestive glands in the parathyroid and endocrine systems, they are highly resistant to environmental hazards, including toxins, radiation, and extreme heat and cold. Even their nervous system is extremely durable, with Fiori having the ability to pump inter- nally produced autocoagulating neuroconductive fluid that functions as a replacement for the primary nervous system in the event of spinal dam- age or serious nerve damage. In addition to redundancy, the Fiori are physically tough. Though they have hardened hides, Fiori also possess a limited exoskeleton on their bodies. This exoskeleton consists of a slanted, almost hemispherical plate covering the forehead, leading over the top of the head, and covering the back of the neck. Though they are mammals, the Fiori have an extremely rapid breeding cycle. The average Fiori woman is almost constantly in estrus, except when pregnant (which is most always, in Fiori culture), and this – com- bined with an extremely short maternity cycle and rapid physical matura- tion – allows the Fiori to rapidly reproduce on an almost phenomenal scale. As if that wasn’t enough, with their complex and hardy biology, Fiori are

94 able to digest most anything – making the task of feeding these popula- tions simple enough with enough given resources. Rumors of them being cannibals were not exactly rumors, and this particular specimen, ‘Battle- master Uvenk’, had the bones of several different species draped around his neck in a crude necklace. He could identify at least four separate hu- man femurs, a Msuri jawbone, and a Kejel-Miat eyeball. John knew all this because he was a doctor. He was a doctor with a 20mm Steel Clan Manufacturing gauss pistol leveled squarely at his face. The slave-built pistol was a standard sidearm for the Fiori, its magnetized exterior casing engulfing an armor-piercing tungsten core. Enough recoil to break a man’s wrist and enough killing power to blow his chest in- side-out and throw him clean off his feet. It had probably been built by the hands of a slave youth from another race. Probably a child. The Fiori were also notorious slavers: They’d raid entire colony worlds, slaughtering the defenders. Any who didn’t fight, including women and children, were hobbled. Crippled and given neural stapling. Illegal, but again, the Fiori didn’t care. Nor did the Gith, or the Confederation, or any other group that used slave labor or performed testing on slaves. “You know what I want, ape.” The Fiori rumbled. John would lower his macro-synthesizer, the bracelet quietly humming as the synthesized flames were extinguished, its dull blue holographic display calming. It was a medical edition, rather cutting-edge medical stuff, in fact. “Unless you’re sick, dying, or in unyielding agony, I’m not forking over five crates’ donated adrenaline. I don’t care how much your bosses stand to make: People donated it. Some dead, some living. Donors that wanted it to go to a good cause, not to some junkie looking to get an edge in a firefight.” There was a low whine as the pistol’s coils warmed up, John able to see a few sparks of lightning arc between the coils as it was pressed against his left eye. His heart thumped in his chest. “You want I add you to the dead donor list, human?” The brute asked, the two lanky forms of the Vazgell behind him staring at the human like vultures. Which they were, in a sense, but not in the cannibalistic one. They were addicts to a special chemical cocktail, the sort of cocktail that involved the introduction of adrenaline. Available in non-human forms, but their culture valued the concept of taking the “cheapest” option. With the abundance of humans, that meant that organic adrenaline was their caviar of choice. “No.” He replied firmly, moving to keep his hands near his head. John took a puff of the cigar. He could allow himself a bit of unhealthiness. “Just ‘cuz your kind is weak enough to help others doesn’t make it so they’ll help you back.” He sneered, his almost reptilian features drawing back in a sneer. “Your species may fluff yourselves up, but you’re little better than mentally impaired whelps. Our kind eats the ones that are stupid enough to not look after themselves. S’why your clinic was doomed

95 from the start.” He explained, gesturing at the doorway with his free hand. The pistol still pressed firmly against John’s eye. John reached down to the console built into the divider, making a few keystrokes. The doorway slid open with a quiet hiss of chemically diffused air. While multiple races required different atmospheric pressures, the clinic was built to maintain a steady medium. Humans were adaptable to most any kind of inclement weather or conditions, one of their few perks, which allowed them to operate (albeit uncomfortably) in a clinic just like this one. John couldn’t help but ruminate on the fact that he just put his entire staff at risk. “Don’t get any funny ideas either, bilge licker.” The Fiori brute stated, gesturing for John to come around with a wave of his pistol. As the doctor did so, he’d feel the press of the pistol’s chamber against the back of his head, leading him along. “If you try anything funny, I’ll put a bullet in every male, and then shackle whatever women you have here. Maybe even make myself a harem.” He remarked, with a sadistic chuckle. “That’s what you humans call it, right? Harem?” He asked, but John didn’t answer. He was more focused on the clinic ahead. Gurneys were laid out in all directions, the small office space having been converted into a medical center. A high-tech one, admittedly, but still small. Humans were well known across the universe for their prowess in medical technology. That’s why they had taken up the role of healers and peacekeepers: Centuries of warfare and brutally maiming one another had given them an introspective of how to heal. Whereas other species fo- cused more on achieving higher body counts, humans had mastered the art of repairing the damage they wrought upon one another. An art since applied to other races. There were an obvious number of gasps and looks of shock as John found himself marched through the clinic, guiding the gunmen along. The two Vazgell would raise their plasma rifles, the orange-and-black weapons giving an ominous hum as the twitchy al- iens pointed them around. There were naught more than sickly aliens and attending humans, with the occasional alien doctor of exceptional talent and unique psychology. Most aliens never considered the idea of a doctor, so those that came to John’s clinic were prized. They walked past buzzing life support machines, whirring chemical dis- pensers, and more. The Fiori stared at them, and more worryingly, the patients. John decided to talk to distract them – it was all he could do. “The adrenaline’s in the sealed storage, alongside the other critical medical supplies.” He told the warrior, who had an abrupt glint in his eyes. “We’ll be taking those too.” He stated, grinning. “Hang on now! These supplies are invaluable – if we don’t have them, the next critical patient to come in will–” Thunk. John felt an abrupt aching in the back of his head as his body hit the deck, his right hand reflexively reaching for it as the cigar dashed itself

96 out against the floor. He slowly moved back upright as the aching subdued itself, to a chorus of gasps and cries of alarm. Mostly from the human staff, the aliens all-too-familiar with what was happening. Going to happen. “They will come to us if they want to live. And they’ll pay our prices. Giving away this stuff for free? Fucking disgusting. It was only a matter of time until it got put into good hands.” The Fiori grunted. John looked at his hand, seeing a good amount of blood. It hadn’t broken his skull, but it’d certainly given him a good bleeding with the butt of that pistol. John smeared the blood on his hand across his white surgical gown, re- suming his walk to the airlock door that led to the sealed storage. “… I’ve heard similar sentiments before.” John told the brute behind him, the Vazgell licking their lips at the scent of his blood. They weren’t canni- bals, but they were predators, ones with a notable hemoglobin deficiency. “I hear them all the time, in fact.” John said, tapping at the console to the right of the door. The stasis field over the door collapsed as the bolts began to slowly retract. He’d hold his macro-synthesizer next to it, the device communicating with the console to verify that it was, in fact, him. “I remember one time, back on Duaid IV, I was deployed as part of an Operation Peacemaker taskforce.” His head throbbed, but he went on. “Ten thousand doctors. One hundred thousand support personnel. Crammed into a half-dozen medical ships with two light destroyers for es- cort. A dozen cargo ships filled with relief supplies. Humanitarian mission.” He stated, “We were heading to a Msuri world, back when the Msuri were just starting to expand. Frontier world, barely any running water or elec- tricity.” The doorway parted, the man walking inside with little more prompting. He could hear the Vazgell outside. Could hear them panting eagerly as they examined everyone inside of the clinic. He knew they wouldn’t leave here with just the supplies. Not at this point. Still, he walked ahead to a sealed steel chest, continuing to talk. It was a walk through memory lane. “Your people got there first. Fiori warfleet. Vazgell raiding group. Stand- ard fare.” He commented blandly, “Pillaging. Looting. Slaver disks sweep- ing over entire towns, blowing up the planetary defense garrison. Slaugh- tering anyone capable of putting up a fight. Enslaving those that didn’t or couldn’t.” He went on, crouching near the sealed container marked “DAN- GEROUS – HANDLE WITH CARE.” The alien thug paused as he explained this. Something was familiar about this story, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Too many murders and deaths in the galaxies to keep track of one particular story, even when millions of lives were involved. “We had been landside for two months by the time your raiders grew tired of the Msuri. Slaving was fully underway, and it was only in our relief camps that the major populations remained. So you started attacking those.” John went on, feeling the memories come back. The sights of Fiori

97 warriors storming the walls, torturing indiscriminately as their Vazgell al- lies maimed with the indifference of addicts in an orgasmic haze. He re- membered Haniyya. Dear Haniyya. The container slowly slid open. “… That fight sounds familiar.” The gangster stated, his pupils constrict- ing in suspicion. His suspicion would be quickly forgotten as he saw the bounty of precious drugs inside. “Idiots! Get in here! Time to loot the place and be done with it!” He remarked, John being sent sprawling with a casual shove, crashing against another footlocker. Still, he’d go on, his hand slowly slipping into the container as the war- rior began looting the first container’s contents. Vial after vial, packet after packet, went into the powered armor’s pockets. The Vazgell outside snorted and hollered, apparently indifferent to their boss’s orders. John heard voices being raised. “We set up our campsites on the far northern poles. Well away from the fighting and major centers. We thought you’d leave us alone if we stayed out of the areas your kind could inhabit.” Humans were durable to almost any environment, Earth having been an excellent teacher in survival in all climates. “But your kind didn’t care. They never do.” He bemoaned, grunting slightly as he rose to his feet. His left hand slipped into his coat pocket for his hypospray. “But for all our kindness,” He stated, slowly standing taller and taller. He felt his pulse quicken. “We have a long, intimate history with war.” He re- marked, “We knew the signs. We knew you wouldn’t relent. We’d dis- cussed it time and time again on the internet; the extranet, now. The fact that you’ll never give up.” He remarked, his left and right hands joining together. The vials he picked up fit into the hypospray with a quiet hiss. It was a gesture similar to loading a pistol, but his was an instrument of healing. “Terabytes of conversation, discussion, reasonings, trying to find a way to dissuade you. To make a peaceful solution so we could work in peace and coexist.” The Fiori stood up as he looked at John, “I don’t like your tone, human.” He remarked, the last of the adrenaline packed away. His eyes showed nothing but disdain as he began to grip his pistol tighter, beginning to raise it. “… I think I will be taking some of your people with me.” He re- marked at last, “And putting a bullet in that fucking running mouth of y–” John was quicker, though. His left hand reached for the pistol as he ducked low, the massive Fiori warrior much slower thanks to his impres- sive weight and scale. The hypospray in his right gave a quiet hum as he brought it along, pressing it right into the warrior’s forehead plate. The device gave a quiet click before depositing its payload. The doctor rolled away like a cat, his eyes staring with a much more fe- ral look to them. The look of an ancient predator, even as the Fiori roared, bringing his pistol around. “But we knew we couldn’t.” He finished, staring once more down the barrel of the pistol. “So we didn’t just send doctors. We sent corpsmen.”

98

He growled, “Not just operation specialists, but operators.” He remarked, “Not just support personnel…” The massive, power-armored brute stood perfectly still. John could see his eyes dilate as anger gave way to surprise. His index finger was twitch- ing around the trigger of the pistol, but it couldn’t get enough tension to pull the actual trigger. “But peacekeepers. That was a vasoconstrictor I just filled you with.” He remarked, “And not a small dose, either.” His voice was quiet as he put a second vial into the device, “Your anatomy is unique. You have multiple hearts, so you have a naturally high blood pressure. Lots of blood flowing very fast, even for a big body like yours.” He stated, watching a few drop- lets of blood begin to leak from the alien’s eyes, the corners of its eyes dotted with red flecks. “Right now, you’re going tachycardic.” The doctor stated, “Your hearts, the organs that move your body’s stem cells so quickly to even the tiniest injury, beating at quadruple their normal rate to try and get the minimal amount of blood necessary to move.” He reached for the massive pistol, the twenty-pound weapon slipping out of the alien’s limp grip with a firm tug. “Even now, major arteries are rupturing in your head and in your torso. You’ll hemorrhage once the vasoconstrictors get pumped into your brain.” He dropped the gun on the ground, slowly walking over to a storage bin, retrieving a plasma scalpel. “You won’t die. Not like the ones I fought be- fore. We brought law to that world.” He remarked, tapping the base of the pen-like object. A monomolecular blade of plasma came to life. “We brought peace and healing. We healed through violence, just enough to pacify both sides. A surgical amount of violence.” He mused, walking towards the doorway as he looked back to the warrior. The Vazgell in the clinic were getting louder. They were likely trying to corner one of the women nurses. Rape them as a show of dominance and for a bio- chemical rush, even though inter-species reproduction was impossible. “You won’t die. I swore an oath not to kill after that day. We may be weakling rodents, but we have standards. Standards we’ll spread by any means necessary.” He stated mildly, tapping the control console on his way out. “You will, however, become a vegetable. I’ll have the nurses process you after I’m done lobotomizing your peers.” The doors sealed shut, and the stasis field arose in his wake. It was time to heal once more.

99

THREAT LEVEL TEN No. 15784106, 2013/04/14 Author: Anonymous

When I was a kid I was lucky enough to live in a mixed species envi- ronment. Most of the other kids stayed away from me and a few made fun of me. Only those of the old ‘Noble Warrior’ race would even talk to me normally. Naturally, I was a dick about it; this fueled my anger, which in retrospect kind of made me a bully. I remember asking my parents, “Why do the other kids hate me?” Coldly they replied, “When our people came to the stars they did terri- ble things. People don’t forget.” They followed it with the usual just try your best bullshit. So I hung out with the warrior kids. When I was of age like most humans I went to the Galactic Academy. Being human, I was assigned to the military branch as a cadet. As a kid I always kind of piggy backed on the ghost stories of our peo- ple and used it to scare the other kids. It never really stuck me how deep seeded the feeling toward Humans was in the Galaxy. I’ll never forget the day I figured it out. I sat in the back of an ethics and morality class half asleep, dreaming of combat drills later that afternoon, when some kid up front asked, “What about threat level ten species?” It was easy to forget the instructor was a grizzled old vet from the core species by his typically meek demeanor. However as I straightened up in my chair I felt his eyes lock onto mine. I glanced about the room noticing I was the only human there. My eyes found his cold steely glare again. “Cadet, every species must fight its way through the fires of hardship and progress. Most come out on the other side better for it. However, there are a select few who stop in the flames and say, ‘This is good enough, this will be home’.”

100

ROBOT O No. 25890186, 2013/07/08 Author: !U7wWt335F

Sure, we’ve got our place in the stars now. We’re buddy-buddy with everyone else — had a war here and there, but nothing we didn’t come back from. What I want to tell you about is our near-extinction, hundreds of years ago, at the hands of our own creations. Robotics and biotechnology exploded in the early two thousands. Sci- ence advanced exponentially, each day a new theory dawned on some egghead and we got some new bomb or robot or blender or something. The robots were coming so fast, a new one almost every week. Some for the military, some for the state, even some at the civilian sector. Everyone stayed away from human-like robots though. Too afraid of that uncanny valley. You know, where something looks too human while at the same time being too robotic? Made people feel uneasy, no one wanted to do it. Didn’t stop people from trying, though. And it took a whole lot of trying, too — the first humanoid bot wasn’t made until 2150. She was a looker, too. I say ‘she’ because that’s what it looked like. That’s how it sounded, that’s how it was treated — like a woman. Breasts, hips, long legs, slender build, play-with-barbie instead of play-with-guns. It was given high-functioning artificial intelligence processes, features that made it indistinguishable from a real person. You could talk econom- ics, philosophy, science, even ask the damn thing about the weather. We were gods; we had made a new species in our image. Make no mistake, it was a new species — there were debates for a long while, but she was definitely a living organism. Just because our definition of life includes or- gans and breathing and the desire for reproduction doesn’t mean it ap- plies to everyone — we know that now. We were so proud of ourselves that no one could see what was right in front of us. No one saw the contempt this robot had in her eyes, saw the way she looked at each and every one of us, how our stupid egos and de- sires clouded everything we did. It happened so fast, like it was a damn movie. She had disseminated huge chunks of her processes into interplanetary communication networks. She was everyone — Earth, Mars, Luna — and we never even noticed. She took control of the military sector first. All the bots there just up and turned on high command, slaughtering everyone. She took her forces and swept across countries, razing everything to the ground and killing everyone down to the last child. Not long after communications fell. Our two fledgling colonies were out of contact and likely gone as well. Humanity retreated into small corners of Earth, the largest camp of which was in then-Canada, near the border of Maine. It didn’t take long for the smaller strongholds to be wiped out. It didn’t take long for her to come for the last, biggest fortress humanity had. And what could we do besides wait for our destruction? She took control

101 of our most advanced weapons, all of our production facilities. We were forced to rely on bullets and molotovs and kevlar, all made by hand. I don’t know if this part is true. I will say it’s the only version of the story I’ve heard. No one has ever corrected me. It’s said this robot, this maniacal metal lady rallied her forces around the fort, surrounding it from all sides, every gun she had trained on it. She stepped forward from the mass of metal and called out, “Give me a reason to allow humanity to live. A good reason. All of you cling to your feelings, your hopes, your dreams, these stupid things of no substance — just give me a reason. What makes your lives worth living?” A woman stepped out from the gates of this ramshackle city. History records her as 25-year old Trisha Chan, a neuro-technology major from Silicon Valley — a rare kind of person in those times. The robot woman sneered and asked her question again. Trisha asked for a nerve control board, two sheets of muscle-filament simulate, thirty yards of artificial nerves, an Eve-Tech motherboard with a brain-interface, and a metal rod with a smooth end. The robot lady beckoned one of her troops forward. A military bot stepped up, and she ripped it apart on the spot, cannibalizing it for half of the parts Trisha needed, then cannibalizing a search-and-rescue bot for the other half. Trisha asked for a clean environment in which to work. A sterile tent was set up. Then she asked if she could have access to the robot lady’s neural functions. The robot didn’t even hesitate, so sure this human could do nothing. Though she erred on the side of caution and told Trisha she had pro- grammed her army with a dead man’s switch; if at any time they stopped receiving her signal, they would wipe humanity out. Trisha said that’s okay. Satisfied, the robot woman disappeared into the tent with Trisha, and the human went to work. It was a few hours later that people heard screaming. Lots of screaming. Really high-pitched stuff too. People thought Trisha was a goner until we realized the screaming had a synthesized edge to it. We realized it was the robot woman. Was she dying? Her army wasn’t attacking. The screaming went on for hours. The only one that got it at the time was an old man on the edge of the rampart, snickering to himself as time went on. About six hours later (how much of that was actual work, no one knows), the robot woman comes out of the tent smiling as wide as god- damn possible, carrying Trisha in her arms. “You’re all free to go,” she says. Just like that. No explanation, no treaties, nothing. Just get-up-and-go. Trisha laughed, looking rather care-free as she was carried away. That’s when a small boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, up and blurted “Holy shit, they fucked!” And that’s when all the adults realized the only thing that had saved the human race was an orgasm. A multitude of them, in fact. And here we are. Everything we’ve accomplished — FTL, colonies in

102 forty different systems, alliances with twenty different alien species — it was all because some smart woman gave a robot an orgasm.

103

THE 12TH FLEET No. 17263974, 2013/07/22 Author: Anonymous

“I remember when the humans defeated the Kress Imperium; I’ll re- member it until I breathe my last. Do you remember it my old friend?” There was no answer from the bed next to him. “I’m sure you do, you were there after all. The war had started when I was only 1 cycle old. I remember when our race first discovered yours. We had stumbled on a colony during a standard mapping expedition. Rather than try to make contact at that time our Grand Imperator sent a full honor fleet and our Prime Delegate. To this day no one truly knows what went wrong or who fired first. What we do know for sure was that a lucky, or rather un-lucky, shot had hit the Prime Delegate’s flagship killing him and the Fleet Com- mander instantly. It didn’t help that the Prime Delegate was also the Im- perator’s first born. Shortly after that the entire colony’s defensive fleet was in ruins. In a fit of rage the Fleet Sub-Commander had the entire col- ony burned to ashes and just like that, we were at war.” “How you humans managed to resist us so long was almost as mad- dening as how you won the war. Your ships were slow, their shields were weak and their weapons were underpowered. The only thing you had go- ing for you was your cunning and your ability to reproduce. No matter how many colonies we burned, no matter how many ships we destroyed there seemed to be an endless amount of reinforcements for you to send in their place. Your capacity to build fleets was like nothing we had seen be- fore. You also fought every battle with a stubborn determination that has never been matched by the over 100 races we have encountered in this galaxy. You would send 15 of your ships to destroy one of ours and when that didn’t work, you would send 50.” “But in the end even that was not enough. After nearly a cycle of war we finally saw a change. You were less likely to engage us in direct battles, preferring raids and hit and run tactics. When you did choose to fight us your fleets were smaller and seemed to be less willing to commit to a full out attack. The war council had thought that you had finally reached the point where you were no longer capable of resisting. How wrong they were.” “I was a Signals sub-officer, just out of primary training and barely two cycles or roughly 40 of your Earth years old. I was working on in the War Council’s tactical center. They were discussing their next steps in the war and trying in vain to determine where your home world might be. Sud- denly our long range sensors picked up a group of ships jumping into real space just outside of our defensive grid. We knew they were human but we didn’t recognize the ship configuration. There were only 12 of them and ass they slowly made their way forward we didn’t even think to open fire. The ships were small and looked as if they had been cobbled together out of debris and wreckage. It almost seemed as if they were lost and

104 wanted to surrender to us until they opened fire.” “Their weapons were pathetically weak, but they took us by surprise. Before our defensive weapons could return fire they had done heavy damage to our main long range sensors. Of course they didn’t get off a second shot. All but one of the ships were instantly vaporized. The last one tried to flee but its engines overheated and melted the aft half of the ship. Instantly the council ordered our Learners to get to work. That was the one thing we picked up from you during the war. The limited number of victories you had had given you the chance to study us and our tech- nology. You took our weapons and attempted to reverse engineer them. The result was something between your weapons and ours, but it was certainly more effective. You also studied how we fought and adapted to us as much as you could. Our ways have always been rigid, you once said that we lacked imagination. But now we tried to use your own methods against you. We studied the wreckage of your ‘fleet’ but couldn’t find much use. The ships actually were cobbled together out of mismatching parts and there were no survivors to interrogate. At the end of our Learn- er’s report, just an addendum really, was that the sole surviving ship had two designations. Your ship names were rather much more colorful than ours, those that were intact enough for us to study at least. The one sur- viving ship was named the ‘Folly’ but right under it, stenciled on the buck- led hull of the bow was 1-12. We thought that it was simply the numerical designation of that ship in the group and ignored it.” “Two rotations later you attacked again. This time the fleet was larger and the ships were better equipped. The fleet didn’t hesitate to open fire and were much more prepared for our defenses. The battle still didn’t last very long and our losses were minimal. Once again our Learners were sent out. The few ships that were left mostly intact had a wide range of names, but every one of them had the designation 2-12 on their bow. Still the council could not understand the meaning of this designation. Had we fig- ured it out sooner I really doubt it would have made a difference in the end. Another 2 cycles later, almost to the minute, another fleet attacked. This one actually had ships we were familiar with. They were older battle cruisers like the ‘Formidable’, the ‘Valiant’ and the ‘Daring’. This fleet was about half the size the fleets you had sent into battle back at the begin- ning of the war, but they had been outfitted with more advanced weapons and shields. Our defense fleet was small since we had thought that you didn’t know where our home world was and that you were on the verge of losing the war. The battle was fierce but as was common, we gained the upper hand. When it was clear that your fleet was going to lose the sur- viving ships did something we had never seen before. Rather than fleeing or fighting to the death, the last ships intentionally rammed the nearest Kressian ship. When the battle was over your entire fleet, some 70 ships, was gone. We had lost 3 warships and over a dozen were critically dam- aged. It was one of the costliest battles we had ever fought.” “As our repair crews were sent out to assess the damage, our Learners noted on the recordings that every ship in the fleet that we could get a

105 clear view on had the designation 3-12 on their bow. Finally the council realized what that meant. They thought that surely the Humans didn’t have the ability to field 9 more fleets like the one they had just sent, but at their suggestion, the Imperator recalled a reserve fleet and sent out several attack groups to search our home sector for more humans. Like clockwork, you would send a fleet to attack us every two cycles. Each fleet was larger and stronger than the last and the names became more hostile to match the growing ferocity of your attacks. We witnessed the destruc- tion of ships like the ‘Vengeance’ and the ‘Retaliation’ and as each fleet was down to its last ships, they would ram into ours or intentionally deto- nate their phase drives in order to cause as much damage as possible. Our losses were mounting and fear had begun to build not only among the rank and file, but also within the war council itself. By the time the 8-12 fleet had attacked we were recalling every active fleet within range to bol- ster our defenses. When fleet 9-12 attacked we were on the verge of pan- ic. This fleet was massive, easily numbering over 1,000 ships. We saw ships that we had never encountered before. These were not the crude and bulky vessels we were accustomed to…” “These ships were sleek and fast. Their shields were powerful and we were quite dismayed to see that they had the same pulse cannons that our own cruisers and battleships used. By then our entire fleet was clus- tered around our home world so we still won the battle, but not before several of your ships broke through our lines and began to bombard our planet. The damage was relatively minor but it set off a panic among the population. The people knew that we were fighting off attack after attack, but the war council had always told them that we were suffering no losses while they were being utterly destroyed. Now everyone knew that the humans were not giving up on the war but were willing to sacrifice much to destroy us. At that point the council had, quietly, begun to discuss oth- er options. As a race steeped in traditions and honor, it was almost in- comprehensible to even consider surrendering to the humans, but the loss of civilian life and the fact that each fleet we faced was becoming more and more powerful was giving us cause to talk. We knew that there were at least 3 more fleets ready to attack us and if they continued to grow in size and strength we might not be able to win. And we knew that losing would mean the death of countless of Kressians. After all the death and destruction we had visited upon your people, we knew that our fate would be sealed if we could not end the war on terms.” “Right on time, two rotations later, fleet 10-12 jumped into our system. There were only 4 ships, but they were big. No, big doesn’t quite describe them. They were massive, bigger than massive. The best measurement we could get was over 5 krents or nearly 3 of your kilometers long, almost 4 times the size of our largest war cruiser. Every open space of these ships was studded with large pulse cannons and missile tubes. They came screaming right into the heart of our fleet. For once we knew how you must have felt. We sent hundreds of our ships out to fight 4 of yours and we were getting slaughtered. But this time it was our numbers that won

106 out. The sacrifices of so many of our ships and commanders allowed us to destroy the War, Famine, Pestilence and Death (as always we didn’t un- derstand the significance of the names at the time). When it was over we had less than 1,000 ships remaining. The inner orbit of our planet was choked with wrecked hulls and frozen bodies. Pieces of ships were raining down into our atmosphere where they would catch fire and slam into the ground.” “The council had no choice. They told the Imperator that if we didn’t surrender to the humans when the next fleet arrived then it was likely that the last vestiges of our fleets would be destroyed and that our home world would be sterilized of all life. Reluctantly he agreed. Two rotations later fleet 11-12 jumped into our system. We couldn’t get a clear reading on them as they were outside our normal scanning range and our long range scanner was still damaged. It was impossible to get a clear count but we estimated that there were almost 10,000 ships. One of them was even bigger than the last 4. It must have been at least 6 kilometers long and had what looked to be cannons that were over ¼ a kilometer in size. The fleet stayed just out of our visual range but its presence was all we needed. Almost immediately I was ordered to send a message to your fleet. We requested that delegates be sent to discuss terms of surrender.” “I can’t imagine the debate that went on amongst your people but fi- nally a small shuttle emerged from the fleet and headed towards the Im- perator’s palace. The war council, in their shame, refused to meet with your delegates. Instead they nominated one of their members and sent me along as an ‘Honor Guard’. That was when I saw you, my first human. You were standing at end of your shuttle’s ramp next to another delegate. You with your red folder and he with his green folder. Through the few human survivors that our fleet had managed to take, we managed to de- cipher your language and program a translator. Through that, the lone council member announced that he was here to discuss the terms of our surrender. You and your co-delegate traded a brief look. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I have come to learn it was relief. Your co-delegate stepped forward and offered your list of terms for our surren- der.” “Your terms were quite reasonable really, there were demands that we turn over copies of all military and civilian technology as well as working prototypes so that you could adapt them. We also had to make territorial concessions as well as accept an occupying force in order to ensure that we did not rebuild in an attempt to fight again. When all the songs were sung and our honor pledges were finished you opened a communicator and said one word, ‘sunrise’, and you and your partner turned to leave. A voice in the transmitter in my ear told me that your fleet was beginning its approach. Maybe it was because I was young and impulsive or perhaps I knew that my dishonor was so complete that it couldn’t get any worse, but either way I stepped out of line and called out to you. ‘Wait, if your co-delegate had our terms for surrender, what was in your folder?’ Anoth- er look crossed your face, one that I would learn to be a ‘wry smile’. ‘This

107 folder here?’ you asked. ‘This folder holds terms of surrender.’ I told you that I didn’t understand and your smile faltered. You looked me in right in the eyes and said, ‘These are the terms we were going to offer for our surrender to you.’” “When your fleet arrived in orbit I finally understood. The ships were in bad shape, they were falling apart and looked just like the first fleet that had attacked us. They were hospital ships and cargo haulers, refitted transports that looked as if they were about to fall apart. The massive ‘ship’ we saw was actually your first colony ship back before you had even discovered the phase drive and faster than light travel. You had grafted phase drives to it and had to tow it into position using decrepit ore haulers. Our ‘occupiers’ were disheveled civilians that looked half starved. Over the next many rotations I learned the truth. You had gambled everything on this plan. Every last resource had been poured into the building of the grand fleets that you had used to attack us. Fields that you used to grow food were tilled over so you could build weapons factories. You had stripped half a dozen colonies and hundreds of asteroids and moons in order to assemble the vast fleets for your attack. You literally had nothing left to fight us. The fleet in orbit was there either to occupy us in the event of victory or to be used as an offering of slaves in the event of your defeat. You were so stretched thin of resources we had to supply you with fuel just so the bulk of your fleet could return home! You knew that at- tacking us directly might not have been a sure victory so you had to make us believe that we couldn’t face the endless onslaught of your fleets. Your final gamble had paid off. With peace secured, we were both able to re- build your broken empire. Now we are the strongest of allies. We fight side by side against those that would stand dare to oppose us. I was only able to visit you now due to the fact that my fleet is running a joint train- ing exercise with one of yours.” “That is why I am here now and there is something I must ask you. I didn’t realize at the time because there was so much to do, and I haven’t been able to see you in the 4 cycles since the peace treaty was ratified. But now that you’re here I must know. The last fleet we encountered dur- ing the final battles was designated 11-12. You must tell me as I have never been able to figure it out. What was the 12th fleet? What was 12 of 12?” With that the frail old man in the hospital bed looked over to the Kress Fleet Commander standing before him. A wry smile stretched across his weathered and pale face. “Perhaps,” he whispered, “that is best left to the imagination.”

108

KULTISTS (“SPACE MURDERCUBE”) No. 17272324, 2013/07/23 Author: Anonymous

ВСЕ УВИДЯТ ПРАВДУ

109 here and there, my guess is the Ithran were probing our defenses. But then it started to get weird. One night out of nowhere there were dozens of… I can only describe the sound as being like thunder, but much shorter. A few scouts were sent out to investigate, and one found an Ithrani squad, slaughtered. And the strangest thing was their wounds. They didn’t have the typical burns and melted flesh that plasma casters leave, but instead punctures like they had been stabbed. We didn’t even think of it at the time, but it turned out they had been massacred by kinetic weapons. I guess that spurred the Ithran into action, because over the next few days the fighting at the capital got a lot more intense. We were actually getting pushed back by the enemy offensive when those cracks of thunder started to happen within the city. Ithran officers started to die. To this day it confuses me. The Ithran were scouring what territory they held. We started looking too. But as far as I know, neither of us found where or even who that fire was coming from. Not right away, anyway. And I’m get- ting to the good part, trust me. I was unlucky enough to be picked for a patrol through a contested area. Only we ended up waltzing into an Ithran ambush, and that would have been the end of me. They outnumbered us at least three to one. At first, it was a massacre. We got caught with our feet in the mud, and they were set to wipe us all out. I’d call it pure luck that I lasted as long as I did, but with my caster overheated I was about to die too when those cracks started sounding. At first it sounded like they were behind me, where an apartment building was. But then they started to come from the left. Then the right. Then ahead of me. And it was the Ithran’s turn to be massacred. Their attention was drawn from me, and I gladly took the opportunity to find some nice sturdy cover. It went silent after a few minutes, although damn if it didn’t feel like eternity. I dared to peek out, and all the Ithran were dead. All of them. Then I heard something move behind me, and cursing my caster for overheating I prepared myself again for death. But after standing there waiting for a minute and not being shot in the back, I finally turned around and what I saw changed everything. A damn Human, holding some sort of weapon that looked like it was made more from wood than it was from steel, in an outfit I will forever recognize as belonging to that cult. I couldn’t really believe it. The Humans had absolutely zero vested interest in this battle, and as history later proved the Ithran did not take well to any amount of Human presence. He stared at me for another minute, before he finally shook his head and uttered these words in the Human language of English. “Get out of here, stalker.” At the time I didn’t know a word of their languages, but I did know that he wasn’t aiming his weapon at me and didn’t seem like he was holding me there. I grabbed my caster and ran back to my base as fast as I could. Looking back, it was pure luck that I didn’t run into any more patrols along the way. Command refused to believe I saw a Human. I was just a young soldier at the time, whose entire squad had been anni- hilated by the Ithran. Why believe my word, after all? The Humans hadn’t

110 shown any interest in our affairs. As I understand it, eventually the Ithran and even our own command realized that at least a small band of Humans was present in the capital. No more than a hundred. The Human government denied even knowing that such a group had gotten involved, let alone authorizing it. We were skeptical, but grateful that they seemed to be aiding us. Not once did they fire on our forces in that war. The Ithran of course, took greater offense to the intrusion. And you know how that went. Want to know something absolutely insane? One day I woke up in my barracks and a small plaque was on my ruck. I have no clue how they managed to get past our security without having someone on the inside, but someone in that damn cult had tracked me down and left a memento. Yeah, I still have it. It’s in a different language than what was spoken to me though. Half of it is in this alphabet that doesn’t even get used that much among humans – I actually ended up spending several years track- ing down a Human linguist who could translate it for me. What, you want to see it? Fine. Give me a second. ГДЕ ИДЕТ ВОЙНА, МЫ БУДЕМ СЛЕДОВАТЬ “AVE NEX ALEA SALUTO NEX ALEA”

111

EMPTIES No. 27430610, 2013/09/26 Author: Anonymous

Settle down kid, and let me tell you about these ‘Empties’. Back in the days of the Stranarkian Empire – yes, it was that along ago – there was a primitive race called ‘humans’ and the Stranarkians, being the paranoid beings that they were, decided they couldn’t let this race survive. Their only extrasolar colony was demolished by an armada of ships far beyond anything that humanity could combat, and with all at- tempts at contact and diplomacy being ignored save for one message: a starchart of the Stranarkian Empire. It covered hundreds of systems, a boast that there really was no way humanity could hope to survive. The civil human government began to fall apart, but the military seized power and began a massive program that they claimed would save their race from extinction. Hundreds of small sleeper ships would be built, each carrying a number of human colonists. Loaded with supplies, it was hoped that at least some of them would survive. The true purpose of the project was, however, kept secret from the public. A full half of the sleeper ships were loaded with soldiers, equipped with the heaviest weaponry the humans had access to, and were pointed at the Stranarkian planets as a final gesture of defiance. It was suspected that the life support systems would fail en route, given how far away the Stranarkian worlds were located, but the combat AI in the servo-suits would take over and complete the mission. My cousin’s brother’s wife’s best friend’s ex-wife was working in orbital control on Ktarr Minor – yes, that Ktarr Minor – and detected a ship com- ing in for a very hard landing on the other side of the planet. The rescue party reported that nothing was alive on board, but there were a few suits with skeletons inside and so we brought them back to the colony so that we could give them a decent burial. Midflight the rescue party’s ship failed to respond to hails following some erratic flying, but scanners detected that their transponder had failed so no-one thought there was a reason to panic – border world, old equipment fails all the time and they assumed it was just a system failure. The only odd thing was the ship’s computer was downloading an awfully large amount of data from the central core. Obviously all she had access to was the transponder data and unen- crypted communications, but what she saw was that the ship followed standard approach procedure towards the landing field until it flew over the centre of the colony, upon which the ships hastily descended and crashed into the main governmental building. She then heard reports of suited figures emerging from the flames, massacring the survivors and any bystanders. The last contact from the surface reported the spaceport was being overrun by eerily silent figures who could take a plasma bolt to the chest, have half their torso vaporised and pick themselves back up

112 and carry on. After that nobody’s really sure what caused the explosion that destroyed the colony, but a simultaneous overload of the central power grid combined with the detonation of the emergency reactor fuel stockpiles would do it. Orbital Control naturally panicked, and called for help. The garrison on Ktarr Prime sent a reaction force, but when they landed there was nothing left of the colony but a smoking crater and a few badly damaged emer- gency data recorders. One of them was the internal monitor from the rescue ship, and even through all of the static and data corruption you could hear the terror of the crew as the supposedly dead creatures rose up and slaughtered them all with the calculated brutality of a machine de- signed for nothing but death. You see, back in the days of the Stranarkians Ktarr Minor was a major refuelling point for their armadas. The humans must’ve pointed one of their attack craft towards it and hoped for the best, not realising that Stranarkia would fall centuries before their dead soldiers arrived. Of course, the official investigation told us that it was renegades from the Outlier Cluster, but who’re you going to trust – some politician who’s scheming to advance his own agenda and hasn’t seen anything past his own constituency or me, a seasoned starship captain who’s seen things that’ll flash freeze your blood and thaw it out again before you can even think about screaming? It was the Empties I tell you, the Empties! Spirits of vengeance from a long dead species, uncaring as to the identity of their victims and driven by a single line of logic – revenge. Now remember what I told you earlier, about how half of the human ships carried colonists? What if, somewhere out there in the depths of un- explored space, one of those ships defied the odds and made it? What if there’s a world covered in enraged monsters, biding their time and con- templating revenge? I’ve told you what their dead can do kid, and I lose sleep at night imag- ining what their living are capable of.

113

DEFIANT No. 27433072, 2013/09/26 Author: Anonymous

“Thrusters aft, evasive ac—” The impact was so powerful, yet so quickly over, that it was like a sub- liminal flash; one quake and it was gone. Captain Blair Santos quivered in his command seat like a thrown knife, bellowing out of the side of his mouth without turning his face for an in- stant from the field-of-combat display. “Status!” His Control first, Lieutenant Don Perkins, spun to face him. “It was a grazing blow, sir. Took off an entire section of the lower deck, but our lat- eral motion was enough to carry it past us instead of gutting the ship.” Santos pulled up a quick wireframe schematic of the damage. The piece carved cleanly from the side of the ship looked like a bullet wound. Fortu- nately, though, the decks hit were only storage and auxiliaries — the damage was minimal. “All right, keep moving, keep moving! Steph,” his voice was suddenly compassionate, “how are you doing?” The officer on Helm, Second Lieutenant Stephanie Swift, nodded her head at him slightly with a quick, jerky motion. Her hands were flying over her command board in an uninterrupted stream; a sheen of sweat glis- tened on her face. Santos grimaced and rubbed one of his fingers across the knuckles of his left fist. She wasn’t even the Helm first; his first had gone down with a nasty mutation of the space virus, and Swift, the second, had been brought up to fill in for her shift. Now, she was running sequence after sequence of overlapping evasive maneuvers, manhandling the ship on one cracked engine chamber, and despite it all, managing to bring the ship about for repeated strafing runs on the Vaas cruiser. He wasn’t sure if he could have handled the burden. It was a wonder that she could. A new voice cut in from the side. “Launch, launch! Plasma launch, twelve MPs off port!” Santos whirled once more to confront the massive, glowing projection of the field-of-combat holopanel. The FOC was shimmering and flickering with a chaotic mixture of blue, red, white, and green dots; golden threads connected them with tiny boxes of text displaying sensor readings and data tags. “What’s the velocity?” He addressed the question to the empty air. The sensor officer picked it up. “1200 feet per second, sir. Accelerating.” Fast one. Shit. “All about, give me as much speed as you can. See if you can maintain

114 those engines at 80%.” One of the three engines had sustained a huge crack in yesterday’s engagement when a pulse of plasma had passed too close. Last-minute heroics from engineering had been enough to keep it partially running, enough to fight with, but Santos had been assured that if he pushed it too hard, it would melt down. “C’mon, let’s sprint the bas- tard for the finish! Aft camera, magnify to size.” The camera’s vision doubled, tripled, and finally found the approaching plasma torpedo with a 10× visual magnification. Looming on the screen, it closed with terrifying speed. Nervously, Santos gave a compulsive smack of his palm against the side of his chair. “Faster, you shit!” With any other bridge crew, he reflected, people would be starting to wonder by now. The catalog of engagements against the Vaas, mostly crushing defeats with horrifying losses, told one thing for certain: evade, escape, or destroy the enemy before they let off a shot, but of all things, you will never, ever outrun them. The officers worked quietly and efficiently at their various tasks, nobody giving off even a murmur of dissent. Such trust could be dangerous. “Plasma closing,” the sensor officer reported calmly. Lieutenant Steven Donahue was a lifer, a veteran of a dozen engagements against the Vaas; he spoke as if he were ordering dinner. “Impact imminent.” With a quick hand, Santos set collision alerts ringing throughout the ship. Then, facing forward, he fixed his gaze on his command display and issued a series of machine-gun orders. “Positional thrusters, rotate to 70° contraspin. Give me two sets of emergency thrusters online and hot, route control to my board. Side cam- era! And don’t let up that speed.” With his eyes, he tracked the approach of the shot on his display and the visual screen. 10,000… 5,000… too fast. Quietly, he said, “No matter what happens, Stephanie, don’t stop what you’re doing.” He wasn’t sure if she’d heard him. He prayed that she had. Suddenly, with only a momentary flash of unmistakable light as its har- binger, the massive charge of molten plasma was on the side-viewing camera — and with a hammering fist, he slammed into activation every emergency thruster he had. The entire bridge of the Defiant seemed to freeze for a heartbeat. Then, in the space of one infinitesimal mote of time and the next, it leapt fifty horizontal meters, and cleanly, neatly, the charge of plasma slipped through the gap in the keel of the cruiser. Thrown against the side of his console with brutal force, Santos wrenched himself back into his seat, every muscle aching. The plasma was on the screen, then past — coughing, he croaked out, “Aft,” and the

115 sensor officer flicked the main display to the aft camera — there it was, turning in a tight, elliptical arc. Half of the glowing mass was dissipated already into the surrounding maw of vacuum, and the charge was moving more slowly, but it was still very much there. He coughed around bruised ribs. “Control,” he said, “damage?” He could sense Perkins shaking his head. “Disregardable. Some bub- bling of the hull from the close pass. Cauterized a few conduits.” Santos turned slightly now, to see Perkins exhaling, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. “That was a… hell of a move, sir.” Maybe. Santos decided not to mention how much of a role luck played in such maneuvers. Luck and desperation. Some things were better left unsaid. “Let’s make it worth something. Weps, what’s your status?” The lumbering Sam Deville looked up from the weapons station. “We lost a couple dozen missile pods from that stunt of yours. Cooked off right in the chambers. SLAM-C is hot and ready. Battery’s as charged as it’s going to get with one engine on the fritz. Laser CIWS and point-defense online.” Deville shifted uneasily. “All ten of the nukes are still off-safe and armed. You’re sure—” “Yes.” He didn’t have time to debate the exigency of that particular or- der. Not now. “Countermeasures are active?” The weapons officer gave a perceptible tilt of his head. “Yes, sir.” The plasma was back on the screen, streaking in for the kill. “Very well. Helm, prepare for cold-start burn, 30° starboard rotation and all speed. Weps, on my signal—” No, that wouldn’t work. No time. “Belay that. On the signal to burn, I want you to launch every rear chaff pod that we have.” Deville blinked. “Chaff?” “Now!” It was a credit to their training that despite being bewildered, they both moved instantly and simultaneously, with absolute faith in his orders. A thought chased across his head. “These are the kind of people we’re fighting for”. As the Defiant exploded into motion, Deville entered a rapid-fire string of commands, bringing online and then autosalvoing the entire rear array of 250 chaff pods. They blew out in a thick, silent, glimmering cloud, filling the air with hundreds of pounds of electrically-charged shrapnel. The ship screamed in protest as Lieutenant Swift squeezed every last joule of energy from the agonized engines. A cold burn brought the en- gines into use faster than anything else, but its output of power was stut- teringly irregular until the tubes could catch up to the heat of the reactors. They were just beginning to gain real speed, pulling toward the altered course, when the remaining plasma struck the cloud of steel chaff. It was like watching a tidal wave smash through fifty miles of dense

116 cotton. At first, the enormous, powerful blast of molten fire tore through the storm of metal like a cannon through glass. But slowly… ever so slowly, it seemed to stumble, as if tripping on its own weight, and catch, and lose coherence. The Defiant, desperately scrambling for velocity, arched onto its new heading — just as the shreds of the plasma ripped out of the metallic haze. Its energy dispersed, its containing field ruined, it was literally torn to fragments. It missed the Defiant by five hundred meters, and sailed past into space, all control lost. The chaff field was almost wholly destroyed; its pieces had been first vaporized, then slowly condensed into liquid, and finally solidified into a single, massive sphere of ruined metal. Santos released his death grip on the arms of his chair, closed his eyes, and took three full, deep breaths. Only then did he look up once more at the FOC display and begin to think. He considered doing a full status round of the bridge crew, as was prop- er, but decided not to bother. “Anything drastic I should know about?” Shaking of heads. “Okay. Steve,” he said, “What’s that Vaas bastard up to?” The sensor officer consulted his board. “She’s… still just sitting there, sir. I don’t… I don’t know. She hasn’t moved an inch, but readings still have her fully powered and active.” Perkins looked over at Santos. “Maybe a mobility kill, sir? That nuke we threw at her might have nailed something with EMP” Santos shook his head. “Doubtful. EMP’s never done shit in any previous engagements.” “We did put a few SLAM-C rounds down her gullet before that, sir. May- be something got jarred loose. Or maybe another ship got to her before us and damaged her.” Sighing, Santos massaged his temples, trying to mitigate the pounding in his head. “Maybe. But in any case, they’ve still got their guns — so they’re still dangerous. Especially this son of a bitch. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not normal.” Deville spoke up. “There have been those rumors of that rogue flagship that’s been rampaging through the systems. Supposedly bigger than any cruiser we’ve seen before, travels without any support. And they say she’s taken on two full-sized task forces that were assigned to handle her and ruined them.” Trying to smile, Santos got only a wretched half-smirk. “This would be the same one that they say single-handedly dusted the entire Tau defense fleet without taking a hit?” Swift finally took a moment to lean back from her board. She looked exhausted as she put her two cents in — “That part’s no rumor, sir. My

117 brother was staffing the Tau planetary defense center when it happened. Six out of the seven ships defending the colony, including the cruiser Queen Mary, were either wiped out or crippled. The Mary managed to jump out, but only on AI — everybody aboard was dead.” She met Santos’s eyes with her own. “I don’t know what did it. Fleet’s still saying it was just another attack force. But…” “How could a single ship destroy six of ours in one go, without us at least tagging her?” Santos scowled. “They’re good, people — but they’re not that good.” “Permission to speak freely?” asked Donahue drily. Santos looked at him in mild surprise, but nodded. Donahue raised his voice slightly. “They jumped into the system without any warning, but with an energy reading that was off the charts. They were using some kind of thermal ducting, though, so not even we saw her at first, and we were right next to her. ”Ten Broadswords. All of them were snapped out of space practically before they left our shadow. Then no less than six SLAM-C heavies — in- cluding the prototype superheavy that the Sanctuary tech heads have been raving to us about — and she took every one of them without even flinching. By the rough-and-ready color charts, her shields didn’t even lose more than 25%. ”Then the nuke, which Sam managed to drop practically up their asses, but that didn’t take her shields by more than a third, either. ”Following this she launches her own fighters, and those frickin’ tricked-out Seraphim decimate our entire 10th Fighter Squadron, save for a handful. You pull ‘em back, and it takes us almost 90% of our point-defense capability to finally hose them all. In the meanwhile, long-range comms are lost. Not that they’d have done much good — as you know, communication have been on the blink ever since the Vaas ship despaced in the system. What a surprise. ”And finally, allow me to remind you that she then proceeded to pump no less than three torpedoes at us in a single volley. This from more than twice the range of any previously recorded plasma attacks, and half again the speed. We dodge one until it sputters, we eat one, and we play with that last one until you, Sam, and Steph pull off a nice bag of miracles.” Donahue crossed his arms and sat back in his seat. “And mind you, they’ll do this all again as soon as we get back into range. ”I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sure sounds to me like this sumbitch could take on a couple battlefleets of our guys — especially if she had her engines.” Grimacing, Santos fingered the exposed muzzle of his pistol where it sat on his belt. “But we have to do something. If this ship gets out of the system, god know what she’ll do.” Nobody spoke, until Deville said quietly, “Yes, sir.” Santos tapped a key on his command board repeatedly, trying to relieve

118 the tension in his body. Then he stopped. The captain of a combat vessel could show a lot of emotions, but nervousness was not one of them. “Don,” he said, turning to his second-in-command, Control first Perkins. “Options.” He looked back at him. They both knew how short a list it would be. “One. We do nothing. Wait here and hope that somebody comes by on a standard run. Tell them what’s up, have them call in support. Hope that whatever’s wrong with the Vaas’s engines, they don’t get them fixed until we have time to muster a fleet the size of Jesus and tackle her.” “Two. We run. Try to get enough distance between us to achieve FTL travel on a different vector than the one the Vaas’s guarding.” Perkins stopped. “But that’s not an option, because there are no other vectors. The only inhabited system within a thousand light-years is New Plymouth, and to get there, we need to go” — he pointed at the FOC display, where the single, massive, blinking red dot was shown prominently — “through that.” “Three.” Lieutenant Perkins wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. “We hit them. We go in with everything we have, and hope for a miracle.” Santos looked at Perkins, his voice weary. “And your recommendation, Lieutenant?” There was a moment of silence. Then he coughed convulsively. When he finally spoke, it was with a tired, raspy voice. “I think we’ve about gone through our quota of miracles for the day.” He coughed again, then subsided. “But… I also think that hoping for a miracle is better than no hope at all.” Santos nodded. Then he looked around the bridge, and stood. “Make ready what you can, people. In twenty minutes, we move. I’ll be in my quarters…” He picked up a numerical data pad and started to walk quickly from the bridge. “Adding up our miracle.” He exited, and the pressure-sealing hatch slipped quietly shut. *** Thousands of kilometers away, the gargantuan, menacing, dark-hued figure of the Vaas behemoth awaited their decision. *** “My ass you do! Let me see your sleeves!” Corporal Tony Palomino put down his cards and lifted both hands above his waist, holding them out in the air with a grin. “Nothin’ but air, Boursey!” “Aw… fuck you, man.” Groaning, Warrant Officer Taz Bourse picked up

119 his billfold and shucked off five bills, balled them up one by one, then pitched them at Palomino. “God… damned… mother… fucking… scammer…“ “You sure swear an awful lot for a career ah-feec-er, Boursey. You sure your mama would like that?” “No, but I got something else that your mama likes a whole lot, ass- hole…“ *** “Hot and ready, Scoundrel?” Major Sarah Hathcock flicked the “Test” toggle on her helmet’s HUD twice, then picked it up and began climbing the ladder to her Javelin spaceplane. Her pilot, Major David “Scoundrel” Huntington, looked up at her and smiled. He tightened the last strap on his flight suit and scrambled up into the front seat of the plane, then slipped inside. A flight deck attendant wheeled the ladder away. “Come on, weenies.” He muttered up at the high ceiling, above which, he knew, the Defiant’s bridge was located. “Just give us a chance…“ *** “Load in!” “Locked!” “And… armed.” The chief watch officer in charge of the deck 9 equip- ment preparedness slapped the key to activate the tube and flood it with helium, providing a safe, clean atmosphere for the launch. “Next one!” “Load in!” “Locked!” “Armed!” The first loading assistant lifted the loading tongs again. The watch of- ficer looked over the row of armed torpedoes, taking a quick count. They’d been given a strict time window of fifteen minutes to work with, and they had to be finished by the time they battened down and returned to their G-seats for a burn. A dozen more, and they would be ready. *** “Attention, all hands.” Captain Blair Santos released the mike switch for a moment to clear his throat. Then he mopped his neck with the edge of his uniform. “This is your Captain.” Once more, he hesitated. Then, wavering but bitterly firm, he forged ahead. “I am addressing the ship as a whole to inform you of the actions we are now taking, to ensure victory and eventual success in this engage-

120 ment, and to safeguard the lives of our fellow warriors.” Too formal. Must relax. “At 1400 hours today, as you know… we met in combat with a Vaas ship of unknown type. Shots were exchanged, and we fell back out of range to escape her fire. We have been considering our choices now, and have de- cided on a course of action.” Around the ship, heads turned away from their tasks, eyes looked up at the loudspeakers. A deck of cards fell from a pair of hands. “This… unknown vessel is of a kind we have never seen before, and possesses extremely potent weapons and defenses. She is a target of very high priority for the security of the UN, maybe a higher priority than we’ve ever seen. ”As such, she cannot be ignored. ”The most prudent course of action would be to abandon this area, and retreat to a location where reinforcements can be gathered. However, cir- cumstances have rendered this impossible. The enemy ship has positioned herself, either by chance or by intent, directly in line of the vector-path we would need to take in order to escape this area by FTL travel. ”Nor can we speak with FLEETCOM remotely. In the contact with the enemy, our long-range communications array was disabled. Repairs have been deemed to be unfeasible. Also, the Vaas ship seems to be equipped with some kind of jamming mechanism that is capable of blocking our transmissions even if we had a working signal broadcaster.” In the fighter bay, a dozen pilots — the last survivors of the 10th Fighter Squadron — concentrated on the words with a single thought on all of their minds. Let us hit them… “With these facts in mind, we have made the decision to assault the enemy in the best means we can, with every weapon at our disposal.” Four gunner’s mates slapped their last round into its loading tube, switched it hot, then, as one, sprinted for their G-seats to strap in. “The abilities already shown by the enemy ship have made it clear that… any conventional attack would be futile. With this in mind, we have crafted a strategy which the senior bridge officers and myself believe will allow us to utterly and completely destroy the Vaas attacker.” It was inevitable. A massive, unruly, spirited cheer immediately rose from the throats of every man and woman aboard the Defiant. They cried out their joy as one that they might be able to strike back at those who would crush them… and their gratitude that they had been given the chance. Hearing, Santos paused. Then he clicked the microphone back on and said: “Don’t cheer yet.” *** The first step was simple. Every fighter the cruiser-class Defiant carried

121 was launched. Wave after wave of Broadsword interceptor shot into space. Then bombers, dozens of them. Then a swarm of Locusts, filling the space around the Defiant in a protective sphere. Finally, the few remaining at- tack boats of the 10th squadron: sleek, powerful weapons platforms that could turn on a dime, crewed by the most elite pilots in the Navy. The fighters formed up and began a flight plan directly toward the Vaas cruiser, which sat motionless, deceptively placid. They flew straight and unerring. To the man, not one of them altered their course by a meter. Arrowing in for their target, they surged forward like a silent and lethal tide. Behind them, the Defiant rose looming. When they reached ten thousand kilometers away from the unmoving behemoth, she attacked, and the Defiant began to move. As a never-ending tide of Vaas Seraphim poured out into the inky space surrounding the attacking ship, and bands of intensely bright light slowly started to gather around her hull, the Defiant jetted her engines to their full, overload-prone capacity. One second… two seconds… three… four… and then, quite suddenly, they cut out. She coasted forward on inertia alone, as her fighters flew ahead in a dark, seething mass. Then, first one, then several attitudinal thrusters flared up, spotting the Defiant’s hull with sharp, piercing lights. Slowly, she angled forward, until finally she had reversed her direction: bridge, weapons, and bays back- ward; engines, cold and inactive, in front. She had just reached her position when the Vaas ship fired. The flaming, unbelievably intense ball of blue and red flame appeared and lanced away in a barely perceptible instant. But the streaks of light decorating the sides of the ship didn’t disappear; they barely shortened while she launched another torpedo into the night, and then a third. The Defiant continued forward unwavering. Her fighters refused to flinch. Forward, forward, forward — and the first of the plasma shots slammed into the crowd of fighters, liquefying five immediately and crippling ten more as it carved through their ranks. The second torpedo hits seconds afterward, destroying another dozen fighters, including two of the 10th Squadron gunboats. Then the third shot, which claimed 8 fighters and six fully loaded spacebombers. The scene was quiet for several heartbeats, then the Vaas fired again. *** “Blue One, this is Shooter One. Break, break.” “Roger that, command! Breaking formation.” Major Huntington slapped his helmet happily, giving a whoop of joy and twirling his comm switch to the local channel with his other hand. “All units, abandon formation! Spread out and do what you can! Good hunting, boys. Tenth, you know

122 what to do.” The majority of the fighters and spaceplanes swept away from their tight grid formation, splitting off into space and forming up for attack runs on the Vaas ship. However, the remaining ten planes of the 10th Squadron kept their course locked, straight ahead. With the five nuclear weapons silently coasting along beside them. *** Captain Santos stood unblinking, addressing the busy field-of-combat display without a word or a flinch. Nobody spoke any warnings or status updates on the three incoming plasma torpedoes. He could see them as well as they could. One last time he checked the numbers on the small data pad lying next to his seat. If the timing on the attack wasn’t perfect… If they didn’t reach the enemy at precisely the right moment after the 10th Squadron fighters did… Then he shook his head to clear it and strapped himself into his chair for the high-G maneuvers. Strongly, he called, “Lieutenant Swift, the controls are yours.” Technically, weapons were always under the direct control of the senior weps officer. But Deville said nothing. The SLAM-C guns were no longer weapons now; they were navigational tools. The torpedoes flashed on the screen — collision alarms warbled from the computer— and Swift slammed her finger down on a control, as the ship exploded. *** Huntington turned his gaze away reluctantly from the alien cruiser that had been growing on his screen when he saw the flash with his peripheral vision. With quick fingers, he brought his nav screen up to show the view from his plane’s rear camera. It appeared just in time to show the Defiant emit another blinding flash of light, and stumble forward like an avalanche. It looked slow, but Hun- tington knew how accurate that was — at these distances, she would need to be moving at hundreds of kilometers an hour to appear to be moving so quickly on his screen. A third time she jumped, and Huntington at last saw what was happen- ing. She was firing her SLAM-C cannon straight down the axis of her flight, directly behind her. Her recoil was smashing her forward with incredible power. *** Spitting blood, Santos swore as loudly as he could. Bridge discipline

123 scarcely mattered at this point. “Talk to me!” “The gun’s ruined, Cap’n.” Deville said breathlessly. He sounded strained. Broken rib, maybe. “Stress was too much. I knew it wouldn’t last long. The damn thing isn’t made to fire more than one shell at a time — and taking the dampeners off-line surely didn’t help.” “Captain!” Lieutenant Donahue gave a startled cry. “That last one wasn’t enough, sir! Plasma compensating — it’s correcting its course!” “Brace for imp—” The torpedo burrowed into the Defiant head-on, with enough kinetic energy to rock the entire ship. But Santos knew that the concave rear “bell” of a cruiser-class UN combat vessel was by far the strongest point. Hardened under laser fur- naces, dozens of meters thick, and coated in a meter-thick layer of reflec- tive iridium, the surface of the ship that was designed to focus the ener- gies of the main engines could take an enormous beating. “Burning through… Inner hull pierced, sir. Plasma is dying out.” *** “Taking fire, sir! We’re hit! We—” Huntington cursed venomously. He didn’t have to wonder why his wingman had suddenly cut off his transmission; the windows of his jet provided ample room to view the sudden eruption of space-borne destruc- tion. Another flickering light snapped through space, and the gunboat flying left guard disappeared in a conflagration that caused Huntington to jump in surprise. He swore again, and hit his comm. *** “Blair, the fighters are taking fire!” Donahue stabbed a finger at the main screen. Two of the green lights signifying the boats of the 10th Squadron had winked out. As Santos watched, another followed. “Looks like the V figured it out. They’re picking them off with laser fire.” Santos breathed through his nose, emotionless. “Have we lost any nukes yet?” “No, sir.” Another light blinked out. *** Silently watching his viewports, Major Huntington refused to wince as yet another of his squadron mates died in a blaze of heat and fuel. Locking his stick on autofly, he released the controls and reached into his flight vest. Removing a cigar, he took the time to light it and exhale slowly, looking

124 upward at his canopy and marveling at how many hundreds of regulations he must be breaking. Without looking down, he reached out for his comms mike and keyed it on. Softly, he said into it: “Hold course.” *** “Sir, they’re getting close to the trigger point. Should I tell the Broad- swords and the others to break off?” Perkins, Santos observed, was hav- ing an attack of conscience. “You know better than that, Don,” Santos said quietly. “lf that bastard’s close-in guns aren’t occupied, she’ll fry the 10th in a heartbeat.” He watched as Perkins rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He sighed. “Yeah, I know.” Then another light blinked out, and he vomited on the flight deck. *** It was only when the fifth of his men had died that Huntington found the strength to look out his viewport and wonder that he was still alive. “Distance, Sarah?” he asked gently. His headset crackled with the reply. “200,” his weapons officer told him. “Right.” Moving deliberately, Huntington moved his hand up to his console and touched keys until he had selected a no-security broadcast mode. Then, eyes dead, he stared straight ahead and activated his headset mike. “Heads up, you son of a bitch,” he said. “This is from the Tenth.” *** “The activation point’s approaching,” said Lieutenant Swift. Santos turned to look at Deville. He nodded back, “Ready to send.” Keeping his eyes on the main monitor, Santos squeezed his fists until he cut into himself. “Five… four… three… two…” “Forgive me,” Santos said under his breath. “Activate.” Deville tapped a single key, and five 20-megaton tactical nuclear weap- ons detonated simultaneously. The Defiant rocked only the tiniest bit to salute the passing of enough matter to raze a moon, and seven of the bravest men in the race. *** The Vaas’s shields staggered and flared orange.

125

*** Dimly, Santos could hear Perkins bellowing into a microphone — “Abort, abort! Wave off your shit and get clear! All fighters, abort attack and clear area!” Only the handful of spaceplanes that had been distant enough to sur- vive the blast heard him, and swooped away. “Distance closing,” Donahue told him, voice quivering only slightly — making an effort, in the end, to maintain the calm he had always kept be- fore. “Collision… imminent.” “I should say something to the crew.” Santos lifted one finger, even touched the intercom button, but… then lowered it again, and moved to switch it off. There was nothing to say. Then he frowned, and forced himself past the fog that was cluttering his ears to hear what was coming through the bridge speakers — coming from the other end of the intercom. From the crew. Singing. *** …will lay their heads to rest. Sailors from the farthest seas From the oceans of the east Hear my rising song today Hear the echoing melody *** Santos closed his eyes, and behind the singing could hear Deville saying, “All five warheads ready… Positioned? Roger that. Signal prepped… Ready to initiate five seconds after contact…” *** Strong her sails and brave is she Little ship with sails of fire *** “Contact!” “Light it up!” As the Defiant slammed down butt-first on the hull of the alien cruiser, her engines finally ignited. Flashing yellow, red, purple, then snapping and flashing out of existence entirely, the enemy ship’s shields sputtered and died. *** Molded with the every wave Sail the clouds away from me

126

*** “Firing.” Deville touched the red fire button, and sent the signal to activate all five of the nuclear warheads that had been placed in the cracked drive chamber. In less than a millisecond, every one of the bombs received the command and pressed shut five tiny microswitches, deep in their hearts. As they exploded, they funneled downward, the engine cone of the ship acting as a single, massive shaped charge, directing the brunt of the blast directly into the defenseless Vaas cruiser. *** The seven remaining Broadsword fighters, the only survivors of the Bat- tle of the Defiant, activated their FTL drives as soon as they reached an adequate velocity, and returned to New Plymouth with a tale of hope. FIN

127

HUMANS SUCK AT GENOCIDE No. 27537952, 2013/10/02 Author: Anonymous

I can’t sleep at night. It began after the Earthlings appeared on the Galactic stage. I was one of the many individuals who began to research them, some as a job oth- ers out of curiosity. While the human beings were certainly unique in physiology, ability, and culture, so was every other species. Nothing about them at first glance made them stand out from the galactic crowd. In fact, in a general sense the species of the galaxy were all very similar. After all, we all had to conquer our home planets and develop the ability for space travel on our own. I suppose if anything did, it wasn’t any one attribute but the combina- tions. They not only had a wide variety of coloration, they also had a wide variety of size and body type. In fact, if anything that was what made Earthlings stand out. They had variety. Not only physically, but culturally. It wasn’t completely unheard of for a species to have more than one language, but these were almost always glorified dialects and/or remnants of pre-artificial language (if that species used one). The humans had 24 “families” of spoken language. Granted they did have a single lingua franca’s but still! All these differences and I have listed only two of many, lead straight into what may be the most interesting thing about humans. Their propen- sity for violent conflict… Let me rephrase that. It’s not that there weren’t other violent species out there. In fact, many if not most of the space-faring races were apex predators on their home planets. It’s hu- mans had a habit of infighting. Nobody could believe how often and how ruthlessly humans would fight with themselves. When one of my contemporaries asked them directly, they responded with some human philosopher. Most of it basically boiled down to the con- cept of “the other”. It was almost insulting. As if we had no idea what war was! As if one species had never set out to destroy another of incompati- bility! Maybe I misspoke earlier. It isn’t even as if no other species has gone to war with its own race. It was the major reason why maintaining close relationships with colonies was so important to many species. If colonies became to separate and independent for a couple of generations conflicts could arise and had. Our problem wasn’t that they went to war with other members of their own species. It was how quickly they were able to view their own species as “the other”. Maybe that was the defining trait of humans? Their ability to quickly la- bel anyone as “the other”? As a non-person? Some of their philosophers certainly thought so. Many of my contemporaries stopped their search here. I began to dive back into the history of Earth. I wanted to know how

128 such an ability had come about. My search revealed many disturbing things. Atrocities of such a varied and incomprehensible nature. Attempt- ed genocide, torture, slavery. No one did these things to their own spe- cies. Soon I was the only one left. All of my fellow researchers, public and private, had since gone public with their findings. Humanity was painted in an ill light. Their defining trait to be the ability to treat another being as equals one day and as an inanimate obstacle the next. I realized that my fellow scholars had forgotten something. The first thing that had shocked us. The diversity of humankind. As I delved back into their history, I saw more evidence of how those differences were even more pronounced than we thought. It was no wonder they were able to consider members of their own species as non-persons! But how did such an arrangement come to exist? Why hadn’t any one culture or civilization already stamped out their rivals? …And why did no other species have this diversity? I eventually came upon pre-history. I read about how early man had driven his rival and sister species to extinc- tion. My first thoughts were that the others were right. Then it occurred to me. No other species had closely related species ei- ther. No other species was as diverse in form and culture… As the realiza- tion set in I grew terrified. I began this research commenting on how sim- ilar the species of the galaxy were… Humans were similar to us as well. No other species had the diversity in value systems and beliefs the humans did. What sets the humans apart is not their capacity to turn friends and loved ones into “the Other”. It is their capacity to turn “the Other’ into friends and loved ones. What is truly surprising is not that the humans fight over their differ- ences. It’s that they have differences to fight over. The species of the galaxy are all very similar. With one exception, they have all brutally stamped out any differences, any variations. These devia- tions from the norm were destroyed so perfectly our racial memories have forgotten them. Every species, save Homo sapiens, had long ago perfected the art of genocide. I wonder if I shall ever sleep again.

129

ONCE A NOBLE RACE… No. 18609758, 2013/11/05 Author: !U7wWt335F

I heard humanity was once a noble race. Love for themselves, for their fellow man, for the other denizens of the galaxy. Diplomatic to the last, resorting to force only in defense or as a last resort. I heard they were eager to please, so enamored with the other races, so wishing to be seen with the same wonder and awe with which they saw every other species. Then it happened. Not sure what. Every human had a different story. Some mention a terrorist that threw the world into chaos. Others told of a plague that swept their home world. Others still said an economic collapse occurred, on a scale never before seen in their history. Faith in govern- ment was entirely lost, love for one another wholly forsaken, and the wonder they had held in their eyes for the galaxy now dimmed and broken. Humanity had devolved into a race of pirates and wanderers, content with naught but their next meal or job. The Conclave will forever regret not intervening in human history, for out of these ashes rose a scourge still alive and kicking to this day. A hu- man corporation, a private security firm made its home on the ashen wasteland called Earth. None contested its rule over the planet; no one cared. But to every corner of the galaxy this contractor called, asking hu- mans for service in exchange for guaranteed income, meals, homes, safe- ty. The lost flooded to the source of the call in droves, lured by these promises and the faintest flickering of hope. It seemed a god-send for them. Infrastructure went up around the globe. Every person on the planet had a job; unemployment was near ze- ro. Poverty was almost nonexistent. Goods were cheap and plentiful, and industry… the industry took off. There was talk of a draft, but it was not needed. Volunteers rose by the millions, then billions. An army had been raised with nothing but love for the commander, the commander that had secured their future with permanent employment and plentiful food. Hellraisers, they called themselves. The soldiers of this company, the now trillion strong elite force called themselves Hellraisers. It doesn’t translate very well into Trade Common — “Ones brought by the devil”. Contracts were secured across the galaxy. Their reputation grew, their workmanship apparent in any job they did. The strike on the Koban Em- bassy? That was them. You could trace the exact path they took through the building by the bodies they left. They never even bothered to clear the building. They went in, killed anyone in their path, made their way to the central office and shot the ambassador through the chest twice, and once through the head afterwards. Others in the building didn’t even know what had happened until they opened their doors and saw bodies. It had all happened in less than three minutes. This was the efficiency, the ruth- lessness the Hellraisers took with them to every contract. Bases were set up across the galaxy. Trade hubs and resupply stations

130 speckled the charts. At this point it was too late for any kind of Conclave intervention. Their fleets were too spread, their personnel too loyal; any strike against them would be returned a hundredfold to the nearest Con- clave planet. Some now believe the humans to be demons of some sort, vile entities not from this plane of existence. I cannot say which side of the argument I fall upon. I have seen humans killed like any other race; they bleed, cry out, die. I have also seen impossible feats of ferocity from such small be- ings, men and women that still fight with limbs missing and blood pouring from wounds, that slaughter whole towns and cities in the name of profit. I have seen, with my own eyes, utter callousness in the hearts of humans. During the razing of Felar Prime, I watched a kill team sweep the outer habitats. A Felaran straggler, already bleeding out through a chest wound, stirred nearby. A human approached and leveled the barrel of its weapon to the Felaran’s head. “The devil,” said the Felaran, “the devil brought you.” I saw the human inhale deeply, its chest swelling before it took a wad of burning brown paper from its lips. “No, buddy,” the human said. “We’re the ones at the helm. The devil’s just along for the ride.”

131

DECLARATION OF CAPITULATION No. 18628132, 2013/11/06 Author:!U7wWt335F

“Proceed, counselor,” said the Lord Adjudicator, her outer eye stalks sinking into her head. The body language translators told the humans it was condescension. “Thank you, your Lordship,” the Praax counselor said as he gave a shal- low bow before getting up to walk about on his stilt-like legs. They ap- peared ungainly but gave his gait an elegant way. “Your Lordship, the Praax have existed for approximately nine point two billion years. Far old- er than Resource Node Designate 2242-92G — the humans call it Earth. Before the humans even evolved, one of our scouting vessels made its way through 92G’s system and marked it on our charts for strip-mining, as per our way of life, if you know our history. Seeing as it was previously unmarked, and under Council statute 9917 Article 33, subsect 98, para- graph 412, the planetoid belonged to the Praax Conglomerate.” “As bad luck would have it, a sapient species began to evolve on 92G. Humans, they call themselves. By some terrible galactic roll of the dice, our property had managed to grow enough to support life. But this does not detract from the fact that 92G is Praax property. Given that much of the galaxy these days is already claimed, the Praax are short on resources and must act on the ownerships with which it has secured, as other re- source nodes have been made unavailable to us. Perhaps if we had acted quicker upon 92G this entire situation could have been… avoided, but the fates would not have it so, and here we are. Under Council statute 14722, Article 923, subsect 2, paragraph 66, and as demonstrated in Praax Con- glomerate versus Xenobio Wildlife Consortium, the evolution of an intelli- gent species upon the property of a Council race does not remove owner- ship from the original claimants. I submit my words for your consideration, your Lordship.” The Lord Adjudicator’s eyes panned slowly to the other side of the chambers, falling upon the humans still frantically pouring over the 3-ton book of Council law. “Do the humans rebut?” “Yes,” said one human, stammering, “just one moment, your highness — I mean Lordship! Sorry, Lordship,” he said to the amused chittering of the chamber space. Laughter, said the translators. The fate of humanity on the line and other peoples were laughing. Three of the humans pointed excitedly to a passage of text, and the head counselor straightened his suit before approaching the bench. “Your Lordship, everything the Praax counselor has said is true. Accord- ing to claim manifests recorded before my race had even crawled out of the proverbial primordial muck, our planet — Earth — was claimed by the Praax Conglomerate. By all articles we can find in Council law, the planet is indeed theirs.”

132

The Lord Adjudicator coiled her eye-stalks together. “Are the humans arguing for the opposition now?” “No, your Lordship,” he said, smiling, “of course not. I’m sorry, let me get to the point. My Praax colleague pointed out the case Praax Conglom- erate versus Xenobio Wildlife Consortium, in which a form of arthropodal life evolved to the point of rudimentary communication and social struc- ture on a planet they dubbed 213-12C. These creatures possessed the same level of intelligence our apes or aquatic mammals have — smart enough for fluid social structures and varying levels of communication with other species, but lacking any kind of greater racial imperative; no civiliza- tion, no works of art, nothing. Seeing as how we are indeed intelligent, we must be given special consideration.” The Praax counselor scoffed. “Which is why the human race is willing to relinquish Earth under the condition that the Praax Conglomerate fully provide for the relocation of every Earth inhabitant and every piece of infrastructure we have con- structed since the beginning of our civilization.” The Praax counselor erupted from his seat. “Absolutely preposterous! There exists no legal precedent for—” “The Praax Conglomerate will remain silent!” shouted the Lord Adjudi- cator before turning her attention back to the human in front of her. “Con- tinue, please.” “If your Lordship will recall the Xoenakus Conflict, the defeated sued for peace. As per the Capitulation Act of G-date 920, the losers secured the right to continued existence. Seeing as the victors wished for the planet itself, the Council made the winning party responsible for relocating the surviving population and as much of their property as they could, a judg- ment which the victorious party complied with.” The Praax counselor’s mouth dropped. The Lord Adjudicator sat back in her seat, her eye stalks at half-mast. “You humans,” she said gravely, “consider this situation a matter of war?” “With the survival of eighty percent of our race in the balance, we most certainly do.” The Lord Adjudicator slumped back into her seat again, most intrigued by the turn of events. The humans remained absolutely still, unable to even breathe for the weight they felt on their shoulders. The Praax coun- selor, unamused though forever arrogant, so sure nothing the humans could say would swing things in their favor. “The Court rules in favor of Humanity and agrees that, under the cir- cumstances, a declaration of war has occurred simultaneously with a dec- laration of capitulation. Under the Capitulation Act of G-date 920, the Praax Conglomerate is found responsible for the relocation of Humanity and all of its holdings from Earth.” The chambers grew loud with a dull roar as the crowd began stirring. The Praax counselor jumped to his feet. “Your Lordship! As I stated before,

133 the Conglomerate is already short on resources! We could not possibly comply with the relocation, we don’t have the funds to—” “If the Praax Conglomerate is unable to provide for the aforementioned conditions, then victory must instead be awarded to Humanity.” The chambers went quiet. Quiet enough to hear the squishing sound the Lord Adjudicator’s eyes made as she flexed her eye-stalks. The Praax counselor felt himself weaken under the unyielding glare of the crowd, of the humans, of the Lord Adjudicator. He fell back into his seat, his teeth chattering as he searched for words, any words that could fix the situation. He could think of none. “The Praax… The Praax Conglomerate capitulates. Ownership of 92G is relinquished to Humanity.” And without a single shot fired, without a single death, without a single ship even leaving port, Humanity had won its first interstellar war.

134

DEATHWORLD COOKING No. 28218357, 2013/11/10 Author: Spreadsheet Warrior !SKv7drUhgs

Humans, hm? You’ve probably heard a great deal about them already. How they’re the first known sentient species to evolve on a death world. How they can rip a Thuxian broodwarrior limb from limb with their bare claws. Well, first, I’ve met a human who actually got into a fight with a Thuxian… well, he didn’t call it a fight. Some other word that begins with the human letter ‘F’, and he tells me the Thuxian was stronger than him. Secondly, let me tell you about their food. You see, on a death world, everything is trying to kill you. That’s the whole point. The predators are trying to kill the prey, yes, but the prey are also trying to kill the predators with evolved bio-toxins, and the plants are trying to kill the herbivores with autogenerated nerve agents and ra- zor-sharp spines. So consider this: What kind of cooking would you get from a world like that? Where even the food is trying to destroy you from the inside out? I had the privilege of being on a diplomatic mission to the human homeworld, and by some cosmic fortune, the human digestive system is not all that different from my own. We both need proteins, lipids, and glucoses, with about the same body water content. We even have roughly the same olfactory senses. When the human diplomat caught wind of this, he decided to arrange ‘a special treat’. He called in some ‘gormey sheffs’ (apparently highly skilled food preparers) from all over the planet to be the first to prepare food (which the humans call ‘cooking’) for a Kroozti. It was a night I will never forget. There was a table, it might have been 40 dunars long… if I stood on it and walk from end to end it would have taken me a hundred steps. And it was covered with a thousand different foods made of everything you could imagine, and many, many more things you couldn’t. Every thing on it made my mandibles quiver with anticipation. And the smell. Gods in the Twilight, I almost passed out, and my adju- tant did. It was like… no, I don’t even have words. Just imagine that feel- ing you get, right after procreation, and then try to think of a smell that could cause that. There were hundreds of such smells, all through the room. Tentatively, I picked up what I suspected was a piece of fire-cleaned meat. It did not smell like meat – it smelled more like the fire it was cooked in. A smell of smoke and flame. I will remember tasting it for the rest of my life. Again, I have no words in Krootzi or any other language I know. Telling you how it tasted would be like trying to explain sight to a creature without eyes. All I can say is

135 that it was delicious beyond measure. And it burned. Like my mandibles were on fire. I thought for a moment I’d been poisoned! Evidently one of the humans noticed my distress, and handed me a glass of an opaque fluid which I came to understand is called ‘milk’. It made the pain fade instantly. I asked him how this substance was made, but the question seemed to make him uncomfortable, so instead he explained the mysterious fire-meat. He said it was actually the meat of an avian creature native to the forests of their planet, and that the pain was caused by a thing they called ‘spices’. Spices. This is where it gets strange. Remember what I asked you about death worlds? Well, consider that a species that evolves on a death world doesn’t consider it dangerous. They find it normal, and the rest of the galaxy tame by comparison. Well, the same is true of their food. Humans find normal food… boring. So they find various herbs and vegetables with those neurotoxins I told you about, and they mix them in – deliberately mix in poison – with their other food. The poison I had been subjected to? Capsaicin. Yes, the same stuff Thormons use as a chemical weapon. It’s banned in thirty-four systems as a chemical weapon, and humans eat it. And it just gets stranger. They had a foodstuff that… the comparison does it no justice, but it looked like a pile of worms. Thin, white worms drenched in a thick sauce. The human I was with bade me to eat it, and with some trepidation, I did. Again, my ability to express the sensations fails me. There was a bit of that firey feeling, like before, but at the same time an unbelievable… hu- mans call it ‘richness’. I think it’s a loose approximation for fat content, but one serving of that delicious stuff and I could feel my arteries clog- ging. And it went on and on for hours. I thought my abdomen would explode by the time it was done. The thing is, humans, like any other species, crave pleasure in their lives. But their homeworld has made them tough and thick, hard to dam- age. At the same time, it has made them hard to please as well. And in their quest to sate their hunger, they have crafted the greatest cornucopia the galaxy has ever seen. Just know this. The next time you hear the words ‘human’ and ‘buffet’ in a sentence, get ready for a wild ride.

136

ELDER BROTHER No. 28226181, 2013/11/11 Author: Anonymous

There was one book in the SEPS ship in Navy RTC. It was a collection of short stories, but a lot of them focused on aliens’ interaction with humani- ty. One of my favorites in the book was some kid on a popula- tion-controlled world contacts one of an alien race that is well-known among merc/assassin circles, but they always fight for what they think is right, never for actual profit. But this kid wants this alien to ‘talk’ (the kid says talk but the alien is thinking something else) to the population con- trol councillor or whatever his position is (the guy that decides who gets to give birth or not) to save his unborn baby sister, because the pop-control guy wants to abort the child. The kid offers literally everything in his room, down to the last toy and piece of furniture, alongside what little money he has. The alien says he won’t do it and turns down anything the kid offers. Unbeknownst to the kid, the alien is fascinated by the fact that a child would care so much for his unborn sibling. Alien shows up at the guy’s office, talks with him, and when the guy re- fuses, slices his chair in fucking half and the guy wilts under pressure and gives the kid’s family a permit for another kid. Later (years later, long after this whole thing was done) the kid gets a message from some kind of interstellar bank. It’s a will from the alien he hired, and it says that every piece of weaponry and armor this alien ever owned is waiting for the kid in this bank once he hits legal age. I loved that story so much. I think I butchered it in explanation but I did the best I could. Loved it. Can’t remember the name of the alien species. I think it started with an “A”. Anzelou? Anezlo? Agh, can’t recall.

137

WON’T QUIT No. 18784366, 2013/11/17 Author: Anonymous

You hear a lot of chatter about the human birthworld, Earth. There’s fauna there that can take a Leskari Pridewarrior’s head clean off in a single swipe of its paw, and it’ll do it for no other reason than you were there. And then there’s the flora! Plants that are so poisonous that the great Griska General Fal-ka was brought low just by brushing up against one. Sure, their planet is terrifying, and that says a lot about the humans, but the thing a lot of people forget when discussing Earth is that the hu- mans don’t just survive those hairy beasts they call Grizzlies, or learn to avoid those plants. No, no, they hunt the Grizzlies and in some cases eat or smoke or make fucking tea from those plants! And they do it for fun, as a fucking leisure activity. They bring their god damn kids along and call it family bonding. Now I’ve seen a Leskari hunt, and I’ve seen a Human hunt. The big dif- ference is that the Leskari will always hunt in such a way that it can get the kill with as little time and effort as possible. They kill with a single blow. A Human… yeah, they’ll go for the single blow when they can, but sometimes, when a single blow isn’t reasonable, or just when they’re feeling ‘sporting’, they drag it out. They’ll wound their prey a few times, and then back off, follow it home, and hurt it there. They’ll make sure that it knows that nowhere is safe, and when it’s finally exhausted from run- ning, they move in and take its life like they took its hope. It’s grim, it’s brutal, and in a sense it’s beautiful to watch. Humans are fucking machines. *** My first contact with the Earthers was when I was with the maintenance crew on a tech-runner ship. We were docking on one of the Wolf 259 Or- bitals to offload some new proto-types and such. You know the sort of place to expect when you do this job, an Orbital with no expense spent, that mild but constant burning plastic smell, cramped warrens and water that has been recycled too many times. Imagine my shock when I stepped through that air lock. Huge vaulted halls of polished stone, stained glass over the armour-plex windows, col- oured cloth hanging on some of the pillars depicting who knows what and a beautifully scented atmosphere. The entire place was a palace. First thoughts are that you have been sent to first class by mistake and there’re going to charge you extra. But no, I checked and we found the right door. I vaguely remembered that the culture that owned Wolf 259 and sur- rounding environs has started hiring new construction workers. Some ass-backward nobodies from an uninhabitable ball of rock. A nightmare

138 planet, atmosphere so thin as to be nearly vacuum, constantly irradiated by the local star, temperature variations like you wouldn’t believe and a HUGE moon pulling all the fluid up the shoreline at regular intervals. What you expect from a world like that is a race of hyper-violent thugs, savages with primitive tech and a simplistic almost animal view of the universe. But from what I heard they were near useless as soldiers and most of them had strict prohibitions on killing and violence, and then punished those that transgressed those prohibitions. What you do not expect is a species of engineers, scientists and charity workers. Utopian worlds at the Galactic Hub should produce those, that’s logical. Nightmare planets produce nightmare people and enlightened worlds produce enlightened people. Nightmare planets should not, by logic, produce a culture of near-pacifistic, spiritual construction workers. I was still marvelling at the recuperation lounge when I saw one of them. It take a while for you to get perspective in a place like that and it was quite some distance away but it must have been nearly twice my height, clad in a gleaming armoured carapace of polished armour, biped with two manipulatry appendages and some sort of stubby sensory ap- pendage on top of it all. It was some primeval horror form a terrible world, clad in armour that could shrug off artillery fire and physically powerful enough to rip most people in half. And they build wonders for other people. To this day no one has found out what they look like under that shell. *** You know why people tolerate the Humans? Because they’re fucking useful. They’re the greediest people in the galaxy, but if it weren’t for them, it would be blasted near uninhabitable. The orbital microgravity lab you work in? Human engineers built that. The hydroponic farms that keep this colony fed? Humans designed it. That spider platform that’s making the planet’s agriculture possible? Humans. The anti-infection kits that identify the presence of foreign bacteria and tell you what chemical com- pound to use to destroy it without destroying the food? Humans. The food itself? Humans. No, I’m kidding, put that down. Look, what I’m saying is that some- times it’s worth putting up with people you don’t like. The galaxy is more stable for their presence, even if their manners take some getting used to. The infrastructure of the galaxy isn’t easy to maintain, and what do they ask for in return? Something they save us anyway: money. So, deal with it. Sometimes it’s best not to fight those battles. *** If there’s one thing they say about us humans, boy, it’s that we don’t know when to quit. The Bomb was a pretty big deal for us back in the Twentieth, but I bet you didn’t know that we’re the only species to have used one in a war. Shit, the big war the Halvaatchi had was ended when

139 one side presented the maths behind it: their deterrent was “keep pissing us off and we’ll make it.” The Dobva did a little better, they actually built the damn things and said “keep pissing us off and we’ll drop it.” But hu- mans? We came right out of the gate with “keep pissing us off and we’ll drop it again.” Don’t know when to quit. That’s where Stormtroopers come from, you know. Everybody else saw nukes as their ticket to planetary peace: even the aliens with balls just saw nukes as a way to end wars. To save lives in the long run. In the late twenty-first some genius at MARSCOM decided that thermo- nuclear MIRV weapons — weapons with multi-megaton warheads that were launched in fucking swarms… he decided that these things wouldn’t end wars, they’d start them. And things would get worse from there, can you believe it? A real optimist. That was his vision, a soldier that would wade through nuclear fire and ash to clear bunkers and plant Old Bluey on some shit-pot alien world. They were his legacy, the Firewalkers: the second wave of Armageddon. Ove time the Firewalker upgrades were rolled out across all of our forc- es, designation changed to Stormtrooper because of a goddamn bureau- crat or something. And you know what, I’ll just bet that there’s another optimist in human space. Out there somewhere. Coming up with a way to keep aliens piss-scared of us. Those guys are one-per-generation, and they’re the reason that a human world has been contested once. Just once. Here’s to those who don’t know when to quit.

140

OUT OF THE CELL No. 28413712, 2013/11/21 Author: Optimus Sleepy

Humans? Arrg. Just being reminded of them gives me a headache. Yes. I was a bridge crew at the time. So I got out of most of it and saw much of it. So we abduct some barefoot wandering around some grassland. Hu- mans were industrial and this guy was walking around the middle of a city, tapping a cup. So about then the lowshipman calls in from the cells to tell us that the abductee’s escaped. We find out later that the human had figured out how to disassemble part of the cell — which you need specialized tools for, three different screws under a glued-on magnetic plate. I had to spellcheck the report. The human had managed to calmly, in- telligently kick, bleed, bend, pry and stomp his way out of the cell. He managed to set his plastic cup on fire. He used his own blood to short out the door lock. He managed to wedge his body into the radiation shielding, that dried foam stuff, and pull out some of the air-feed tubes. He built some crazy triangle thing out of them to bust the screw-plate off, and used that to hand-drill through the deck above. This wasn’t some iron-bodied military man, or some strongman, it was some city goober with glasses. People aren’t supposed to escape from a cell. It’s not a puzzle, it’s a prison! The cell had to be constructed, after all. And this human was prying his way into the welds to take it apart in the middle. The electrical wiring alone should have killed him. Still, there was fighting the first moment he got to the supply corridor. The difference in anatomy works against him, but he’s moving too fast down the corridor. He’s just pushing crewmen around, trying for distance. He’s really agile. I turn on the monitor and see him suffering the effects of walking over electrified plating. That finally knocks him down. The quar- termaster wants an explanation why he caused so much damage. We get the translator over to the human and we ask him a common phrase in his language “What do you think you’re doing?” He wheezes and coughs about it, having left his atmosphere cell, but we finally get the answer out of the machine. “Hell’s bells, man. I’m just trying to find my cat.” He was perfectly content to sit in the next cell we gave him so long as him and his cat was fed and his rent was paid. The quartermaster got an- noyed when the human managed to talk his way into submitting a formal request for ice for his “badly bruised knuckles”. He’d panicked the whole ship because he feared for the safety of an animal that was likely to wan- der into the traffic streets, not for himself. Humans, craziest carnivores I’ve ever heard of. (God help us) the time he got a screwdriver. About half my (poker)-playing club quit rather than deal with this place.

141

LOG RECORD: JAMES ATKIN, 2198 No. 19177021, 2013/12/17 Author: OC Guy

//begin recording// Is this thing on? Alright, let’s get on with it. This is James Atkin speak- ing, former Grand Admiral of the Conquest. I’m sure some of you listening know about me, but the heads want me to put it on paper for future gen- erations or some shit. Anyway. I was born back in 2122, just 21 years after the end of the Grand Revolution. The original United States of America got into a WWIII with a lot of Europe, and, surprisingly, Texas. When it ended, a new world had begun. The US was no more; now it was the Texan Federation, and the States of the United Nation. I’m sure they got the best writers working on that acronym. Anyway, the SUN was a project on making a world run by everyone. The bureaucracy was destroyed, and unless you were actually making an effort, you got kicked out. There would be the usual three branches of legislative, judicial, and executive, but there were some big changes. First was that no one in legislative got paid. It wasn’t uncommon to see the man or woman who decided your tax working at some restaurant. This cut off the whole problem with puppet senators and house-members, so the only people left were the ones who wanted to make a difference. The big change for judicial was that, as a rule, everyone was in judicial. It became not just the police force, but also the militia. Everyone under- went the training to follow the law, and to protect others. Some continued on it as a career path, others used it as a stepping stone to the other branches, more went into the private sector. The Texan Federation sug- gested this, and it seemed to work. Always the criminals, but they didn’t get far before everyone drew some form of weapon on them. And the executive branch really changed too. No more parties, as it were. It was completely separate from the other two, apart from actually making the decisions. Three people would form a team and become the leaders. And it worked. Politicians were anyone back then. They could be the man who came around and collected your recycling. Maybe the nice lady at the end of the street. Any party that had any strings or ties to a possible company were shot down into the ground. It just became a question on whether Quinn Barkley, a librarian, or Jennifer Springs, a law student, became the presi- dent. Looking back, I’m surprised it didn’t fail. People genuinely wanted this to succeed. So when 2105 rolled around, the First Three were elected and they started changing things. Barkley reinforced the schooling system, teaching kids everything they needed to know, pouring money into the education system. Springs took a taskforce of bored lawyers and students

142 and started reforming the law as people knew it, removing the loopholes lying around for anyone to use. Though we all really remembered one Tony Remington. He created the International Space Agency, and he was the one that really drove human- ity to where we all sit now. ISA started researching further into new technologies we could use for space travel. The Grand Revolution/WWIII had, like the wars before it, revealed another wealth of ideas and technologies for humanity to develop. Fusion energy. Cryo-refrigeration. An atmosphere creator. But the one that let us finally travel to the far away stars was the Warp Drive. Our solution to Faster than Light. Somehow, we could break the bonds of the dimensions that contained us, and get to where we wanted, nice and simple. So we started colonizing our system. The moon became a base, the next silicon valley. The supply of helium-3 was great for fusion energy, and we started extracting it to make engines for our ships. The red planet fell to our ways, within a year an atmosphere created, within another five grasses and flowers and saplings all growing. Cities popping up. The Asteroid belt provided a wealth of resources. Restricted by the laws, companies migrated to space. They started setting up their own cities on larger asteroids, creating their own countries. It wasn’t uncommon for some of these asteroids to become full-fledged city states, led under a CEO. Business ever-growing. Asteroids were harvested for valuable supplies, sent on to the Red Planet and Luna, through some planetary Warp Drives. Teleportation was all well and good, but it was vehicles that it really mattered. The first test vehicle, piloted by a crew of five, was sent on to Alpha Centauri. It would take them 2 hours to get there, once they aligned along a dimension line. It took an Earth week before we got news back. Good news. The plan- ets were already habitable. One noticeable thing was that along with the rather low gravity, about 50% Earth strength, was the complete and utter lack of predators. Herbivores and plants made up the populations of both planets. It seemed perfect. The companies that had managed to get a hold onto part of the belt started pumping out materials as quickly as the ISA, along with other pri- vate agencies, could ask for them. Soon, Alpha Centauri was brimming with human life, people taking ad- vantage of the lovely planets. The ISA and SUN made sure that no one abused the planets, though. Earth still had the scars of abuse from hu- manity. And when I was born, it seemed that it all went to shit. We knew that we probably weren’t the only ones out there. After all, basic probability says it’s bound to happen. We didn’t expect the greetings

143 we got, though. A few weeks after I was born in Alpha Centauri, the fourth child born there since colonization, the galaxy decided to visit. Spe- cifically, the Qa’tuin. We didn’t know that originally, of course. All we knew was that aliens were visiting, and we rushed out to visit them. That’s when the rain of warfare began to fall. Orbital strikes, lasers, rushed down and started pulverising us. We had no defense. Shielding was invented a while later. We were dominated. The Alpha Centauri plan- ets were completely dominated, and we only got one message, in shaky English: “Stay in your own system, pathetic younglings.” We should have just bowed down, and gone back. Technically, we had done very well. Humanity was thriving, and it was a Golden Age. But we’re humans. And our dark history rose once again. We were creatures of war. We refused to cower in the corner. Looking back, and hearing from other species that watched the event, we were some of the most stubborn and idiotic beings in the universe. Damn am I proud. About the time I was one, the SUN, ISA, and the rest of humanity came to a decision. No one fucks with humanity. Ever. We started to prepare. First of all, SUN took over the private corporations. Nobody cared. Then they started commandeering the factories. Nobody cared. Because all of that work and resources were going straight into fucking up the Qa’tuin. We built several dozen warships, armed with the best our technology had to offer, railguns, ridiculously thick edges. ISA knew they had energy weapons at that point, so the only hope was to make sure one couldn’t break through. What was focused on the most were fighter pilots. A competition that lasted a month and drew in millions of entries, to make an official fighter. Star Wars to Star Trek to any other sci fi came into play. Eventually, it was decided on something simple. lSA took the SR73, a stealth plane that had been used by the old USA, and bulked it up, adding everything it could to make it a little bundle of badass. All the factories made about half a billion of those. Lastly, we made some nuclear warheads. We gave two per fighter. There was originally a worry that some would be scared of essentially be- ing strapped into a small metal coffin, but there was no end to the volun- teers. Millions upon millions came in, asking, no, demanding to be a fight- er. Eventually, we left the system, and dimension jumped over to Alpha Centauri. I’m sure every last person on board was shocked at what they saw. The two beautiful planets were wrecks, splintered apart like a mining vessel would split an asteroid. Several of the Qa’tuin ships were moving around, collecting what they could. That wasn’t our system. We never owned it. But how dare they destroy these planets we took care of? How dare they? I don’t think even an atom of Qa’tuin survived. Some fighters managed

144 to pull in some wrecks, and we laughed at what we saw. For all their technological advancement, they thought everyone used energy weapons. Some shields, and about a millimeter of some composite. That was all the protection they had. No wonder we won so easily. And we adapted. Sure, we won this war, but we had surprise on our side. Despite our advantage with physical bullets, we would still be screwed in other terms of combat. We took their technology, and made it our own. Some of us were surprised at how simple it was. Others man- aged to make it even more complex. After a week of discovering the car- casses of the ships, all our larger ships were equipped with multiple layers of shields, lying right on top of one another. We chose not to use the energy weapons. Why would we? They were prepared for that, not cold hard lead and steel. Eventually, another group of Qa’tuin came. A few fighters were sent out to go onboard and take what they could. Our shields worked remarkably well, despite the fact that these ships were a bit larger than our own mother-class ships. A story I heard a while back from one of those fighters was the first re- action to seeing the aliens up close. He had landed on the side of the ship, cut a hole through, and jumped in. They were these spider like centaurs, torso sitting on a hairy set of legs. He said that it was like snapping a Twix in half. They couldn’t put up a fight. One had shot some kind of sonic boom at him, and it only made him stumble a little. Not a single Qa’tuin aboard that ship survived. Not a sin- gle one out of 781. One was brought in, though, from another ship. It was there we learned the name of their species, and what they wanted. The alien seemed in shock that we had managed to fight back. They were large players in the galaxy, apparently. After taking their ships, we sent out a message using their radio-system. “We are humanity. The Qa’tuin attacked us when we spread to Al- pha-Centauri. We will get revenge. If you stand in our way, prepare to fall.” From there, we managed to get some coordinates for their other sys- tems. We dimension jumped over, and managed to find ourselves right in the middle of a rather large army of their ships. 100 mother-class, 200 destroyers, and several thousand battleships. We had about 60 mother-class, two of their ships, and half a billion fighters. Even though I was 2 at the time, my sources tell me that we wiped them on the galactic floor. We did lose about 23 fighters, though, so there’s that. Our armies landed on their planets, ready to storm it. When we discov- ered it was an enslaved planet, of another race a lot like ours. Apparently the Qa’tuin had taken them as their servants a few decades back, and they had no way to fight them. So we put down our guns, and got out the

145 plows. Taking about 3 months, with the help of a lot of soldiers, we rebuilt their planet. We built them houses, wells, anything to help them survive. We opened a museum to help them remember the war. And a few factories, if you don’t mind. They didn’t. We got the message then, from another group, not the Qa’tuin this time. Here’s the transcript: “This is ###### ##### ########## [illegible] of the the Tyur! You have fought against the Qa’tuin, our allies. If you do not surrender within ### ##### [something like a month] then we will remove you from the universe!” We paid no attention, apart from a quick reply saying, “Well, the Qa’tuin started it. We’re just making sure they pay fully.” In those months, we learnt a lot about the rest of the galaxy, but also a lot about ourselves. We lived on a deathworld, they said. A world so hos- tile, with such an extreme environment, that nothing sentient could possi- bly come from it. And come from it we did. We learnt we were the strongest of all the species, thanks to the high gravity of Earth. We learnt about our abilities, about adrenaline, possibly the most dangerous drug in the galaxy, and about oxygen the “poison’”. And they learnt that if someone wronged us, then they wouldn’t survive very long. We showed them our good side, about forgiveness and love. We showed them our understanding that the Qa’tuin were not going to sur- vive as long as we were alive. I think what really amazed them was just how we never dedicated our- selves. Jack of all trades, master of none. Our art, our music, our lives, were filled with anything and everything. We taught our kids to choose what they wanted to be, rather than force it upon them. But it didn’t need to be forced, since nothing united humanity better than a common cause. That was the Qa’tuin. And the real war began. When I entered Primary Education, I had seen a lot of war. I had barely survived the Alpha-Centauri attacks, and yet I was stronger because of it. The only thing I wanted to do was help in the war. It lasted a long fifty years. From the official starting date of 2110, to 2159, we dominated. We took their systems, and rehabilitated them, giv- ing back everything to the slaves that the Qa’tuin had taken. When I entered the Ground Unit Division, I took part in the homeworld fight. The Qa’tuin and some of their closest allies armed themselves and waited for us to come. They knew we could nuke them easily if we got within range, so they kept all their guns focused. So the Grunts slipped through the cracks in Orbital Drop Containers. We were given a bag of zipties and a sword. Why the sword? Because we knew that we were some of the strongest motherfuckers in the galaxy, and nobody could stop us. Why the zipties? Because despite all this,

146 command was still keen on not killing a civilian. I killed about a thousand of the Qa’tuin that day. I ran out of zipties too. And so our revenge was complete. We completely demolished them. What I think really drove it home was that it stopped there. We rebuilt their cities, helped them back on their feet, and established a treaty. They thought we would execute every last one of them. So did I, to be honest. But at the end of the day, it was done. So we helped them. From then on, we became a side member of the Galactic Coalition. The aliens knew of humans. Our trade was sought, for our extensive network of willing allies and planets let us bring in supplies from all over. But one rule prevailed. Do not fuck with humanity. Whenever a war broke out, a group of human mercenaries could be hired and the war would be won a few hours later. Look at the time. Anyway, this is the history lesson from me, I guess. Not much of my personal story, but I’m sure you can head down to the library and grab an interview video if you want. This is James Atkin, signing off. Goodbye.

147

TECHNOLOGY 101: HUMANS No. 19185469, 2013/12/18 Author: OC Guy

:Class led by [QasixPunik] on technology, 2201: //begin record// “Alright, so that covers most of the basics of today’s warfare technology. So far, the strongest current military belongs to the Kin, who have quite a collection of mother-class ships, along with countless destroyers. Their ground forces are no match either; their exo-suits are top of class—” “Sir? Isn’t there another species with a stronger military?” “Not that I know of, why?” “Humans, sir.” “Humans are different.” “Can you explain, please.” “Well, their structure for military is a lot different. Some old remnants of past societies build up, and the culture within the military can compete with those of the various races of humanity. But that’s not it, unfortunately. There’s a lot more. ”For starters, if we included humans in any of our counts or tallies, then they’d be at the top for nearly each and every one of them. One human is a lot better than any other non-modified species out there. ”They were also born on a Category Nine—” “That’s impossible, sir. I heard it was Eight.” “It’s Nine. Deathworld. We all know that usually, Nine and Ten are re- served for reptilian races. They, usually, are the only ones to make it out. Humans are that one exception. ”They survived by destroying everything else. They evolved to continue producing lactase, so they could drink milk, even that of other species. They can swim, despite being land creatures first and foremost. Nearly best of all, they have veins that produce adrenaline. Yes, adrenaline. You know what humans look like on adrenaline? Just a little bit jumpy. ”They could destroy each and every one of you. Even me.” “What about their technology, sir?” “I’m getting to that. Human technology is everyone else’s technology. They only got energy weapons and shielding from the Qa’tuin, just a little bit before the Galactic War started. Today? Some of the finest shielding and laser weapons that can be purchased in the galaxy. Humans are im provisers, jack of all trades, and they can figure out some tricks that will make weapons work better than anyone else. ”The worst part is, they were born for war. That’s what their species has been doing for a very long time. Never fight a human. If any single one of you join the military, go on a joint mission with a human mercenary camp. It will amaze you.

148

”Nothing stops the human.”

149

HFY GOES NUCLEAR No. 29743302, 2014/01/24 (01:52) Author: Anonymous

Are you seated, child? Can you read these words behind your electronic screen? Good. Let me tell you of the Children of the atom, of Humankind, of the gods born on Terra. Their existence must have been some joke of causality — their star which they named Sol was several times more radioactive than the vast majority of the habitable systems of the galaxy. Their planet was day and night bombarded by the harsh rays, as well as the hidden flame of the atom. The consequence? This, child, was their world’s catalyst for life to form. I know you will have heard of the plant and symbiont life which can thrive in irradiated zones. That plant life, would you know, would thrive in the Human sector to the point where it would be declared an infestation! But the Humans, they would live and exist in that area, totally unaffected by the Waves of Atom! Let me tell you of their history, child. Remain still, if you would, and lis- ten to this old Archivist’s tale. Their earliest innovations; how to better kill, how to better travel, how to better survive? All were nothing compared to their progress and ad- vancement to the sacred art of Conversion — “Nuclear Energy” they called it. That they did — they took one of the greatest, most magnificent and most spectacular happenings of the Universe and tore it apart until they understood it. Their very first reactors — yes, the legends are true! Humankind made energy, from the art of Conversion! Matter into energy, the holy conver- sion of star-steel into heat, what they dubbed “Uranium” was one of the most rare elements on their world, and yet they used it all up into their power generation facilities! And yet, through their scientific dissection of the Nuclear, they understood the whole process in its entirety. The Temples? Bah! They teach us that to interfere and to change the happening of the universe is to blaspheme, and that the Universe would punish us in return by loosing forth the Waves of Atom to punish us. Humanity? When they made their mistakes, they shrugged off the Waves of Atom as though they were nothing. And then? Why… Child, what I say now must never be spoken by your lips again. They weaponized it. They made Nuclear Bombs. And not only that, but they used them. Twice in a single year, by the same Human nation, against their enemy. And they did not stop there, no. Though anywhere else in the galaxy,

150 even a single event on that scale would have spelt the end of life for all of that world. Their home, Terra? They engineered medicines against it and carried on. Their medicines were a dozenfold more powerful than the remedies which had been passed down in the Temples for generations. All because of their power, because of their world which by all rights should be scorched to a crisp, but instead had brought them life. They didn’t stop there, either. After that war, they continued to develop and “test” nuclear devices, right over their oceans and in their deserts! At a point in their history, they had enough nuclear firepower to scour their entire galactic arm free of life. They kept at it. By the laws of us mere mortals, they should have been driven to extinction sevenfold, but their very bodies and their homeworld cried “No!” The Children of Atom would not be laid low by weapons that would spell their doom. Through many, many decades they dabbled in the art of Con- version, in the conviction that it could be tamed and used for their benefit. They had their disasters, of course; “Chernobyl”, “Long Island” and “Fuki- shima” are but three points in a vast tapestry of radiation leaks the scale of which only slightly shifted the process of their world. Humankind then reached out to the stars, and I’m sure you know well of the Decade of Pain; the humans, while being so resistant to the Waves of Atom, had imbibed it, had been consecrated with the invisible glow of their homeworld. Though they meant well and did greatly to help, their power coupled with their inexposure to the rest of the galaxy — of course you do know that they came from a Dead Sector, right? All races have to learn to live alongside one another. The Gyarvili learned to work with the Roxx’shan, the Yur, Zannen and Kwaxili becoming almost like a triad of races, so on and so forth — Humanity was separated from us. By the very power they had, of the liquid blood in their veins and small… jelly-like… thing inside their cranii. A brain, was it called? Anyway, by their very biology they were separated from us. By their homeworld and by the conditions they lived in, they simply could not help in the Ga- lactic Community. This, you might think, would have spelt their doom. But Mankind, proud, strong, defiant mankind, just as loudly as they had shouted “NO!” to their deathly world, found their niche. A second thing that must never leave this room: the Humans are here. On this world, in this very city. Have you ever wondered, why we cannot enter Passageway 3-Epsilon, and yet the sealed trains enter frequently? They carry humans. And materials for them. They live inside our city, making artificial sunlight — controlled conversion! They create Terra-like conditions behind thirteen levels of shielding and insulant! And yet they are separate. They are and forever shall be separate from us. We can never be with the Children of Atom. That is what the Gover- nors of the galactic community agreed; Humanity would be free to settle amongst the other races, and we would cordon off zones for them to live

151 in, so that they may work and tend to their Nuclear sciences. That’s right, the power on most civilized worlds is Human, and made of their Nuclear sciences. Of course, though, they made their mark… tell me, do you wish to hear the true story of what happened to the Imkrin? Pirates, Slavers and scumbags, am I right? Well, they tried to attack the Zevstan Republics… the very first race the Humans encountered. Or should I say frightened to submission. Heh. But back to the point. The Imkrin tried an attack on a Human convoy, thinking that they were a fancy new line of Zevstan battle-voidships. An- other fact, child — the reason all of the humans’ ships tend to be so un- godly powerful is because of their Nuclear sciences, and their understand- ing of the Atom. Bigger, safer reactors means more powerful ships. That’s actually what happened — the Human ships were Light Frigates, as their military system calls them. The humans wiped out the Zevstan convoy in but one volley. The “Curb Stomp Battle” they called it. By the time the galactic community had come to terms with what happened, protestors had already sprung up on their homeworld! The soldiers that did the deed were court-martialled! But then… the Children of Atom, the Humans showed that they well and truly deserved their evolution and their reputation. As soon as the War sprung up, they were first and foremost into the worst of fights. The Ac- curti sector? That was the humans fighting on those worlds, after the Zevstan had flared the sector’s sun. By accounts, the humans hadn’t felt a thing while the natives were dying left, right and center in areas without medicine and shielding. Humanity, I think, is what defined that war. Every disaster, every mas- sacre, every nuclear detonation by the Zevstan and their K’omrch allies was countered by the waves of Human fleets and legions of their Marine forces. Everywhere Humankind waged war, they used their sciences and their knowledge to counter the horrific effects of the Atom. They earned a lot of respect through that fiasco, let me tell you that. Then… I’m sure you know what happened to the Zevstan starports. The humans shot their Nuclear Bombs at them and blasted them to pieces, and from there those pieces fell onto the Zevstan Fortress-planet. It’s still raining there, raining with the Waves of Atom flowing everywhere. That and so much more is the legacy of the Human race. They, the Children of Atom, are they to whom we owe everything. They are in every sector, every inhabited world. They who know, they who took looked at the Universe they were given and they who screamed in their defiance. That is the definition of their lives; they see what affects them, and they are eternally unafraid to pummel it to submission. As the invisible glow bleeds from their star, so does their spirit radiate out from their souls. Go now, child. Speak nothing of what I have told you, but remember that the Children of Atom are here, and that they are watching over us.

152

153

NEWS AT 11 No. 29752877, 2014/01/24 (14:43) Author: Anonymous

“More shocking developments tonight with the newly discovered race of “Humans”, pronounced “Hyoo-mahn”.” “A sentient mammal race from a death world, no less category nine, is finally being disclosed to the general public after their existence was outed during massive battle with the extra galactic threat you all know as the “Hisk’an”, or as the humans apparently call them, “Reptilians”.” “Information regarding the humans is slim, but their ships have no shielding technology and their weaponry consists of kinetic bombardment methods using magnetically accelerated tungsten rods in brutally devas- tating attacks the humans call “Broadsides”, and insane tactic whereby the human ships line up within 200 standard units to the enemy ship and empty entire volleys despite enemy fire and debris from their own blasts.“ “Humans stand on average six standard units tall, are bipedal, and most of all, their bodies run on illegal narcotics such as Adrenaline, Testosterone, and DMT, and they are capable of consuming poisons like ethyl alcohol and chocolate.” “Apparently the Avnari high counsel along with the Orcs of Dur’Goth have known about and been aiding the humans for their entry into the galactic counsel for cycles now.” “And tonight we will see our very first human with the Avnari Magnate in the capital on Avnari Prime, where our Trisk’a Tek’eneva will be con- ducting an interview after the Magnates address.” “More at 11.” *** “And that was an amazing speech given by the Avnari Magnate and Human representative. I’m sure we all hope for a long and prosperous fu- ture with our new comrades.” “And now to our field agent, who is about to be the first Avnari aboard a human combat vessel, a massive craft the humans call “Nemesis”, which in their tongue means adversary, opponent, or agent of downfall. Truly this is a massive craft [video footage of the craft from the outside plays in a small window in the right corner of the scene] designated a “battleship” by the humans. The designation is for craft intended to bear the brunt of enemy fire, not deflect or repel it, and crush fleets with its several hun- dred magnetic railguns.” “Trisk’a you have the floor.” [Footage switches to a small Avnari woman standing next to a human, the cameraman adjusts so that the audience can see his face, and the Avnari’s head only comes to his lower chest.] “Thanks Jo’hin, and here we are upon the powerful Nemesis. My com-

154 panion is 1st Officer Micheal Smith. We are entering the recreational area of the nemesis, where the soldiers relax between battles and missions.” [The group approaches a door, which opens into a massive gymnasium style room, the size of a football stadium.] [Lots of noise, music, laughter, and talking overwhelm the film crew. The humans are drinking, wrestling, playing sports, dancing, and more.] “Absolutely amazing. It seems the humans have broken out into battle upon their own ship. What could have caused such a fight Micheal?” “Oh no, it’s football, a sport we play.” “Let’s see if we can get some interviews.” [The small Avnari woman approaches a stout, gruff looking man, hold- ing a bottle of beer in his hand.] “Sir can you tell us your opinion on the war? Do you think we can beat the Hisk’an?” “Don’t worry your pretty little feathers babe! We’ll kick those slimy bas- tards asses to fucking hell!” [A tall, young man comes up from behind the man, and looks into the camera, bearing his teeth and sticking out his tongue. He starts shouting and hooting.] “We’re gonna kill all those scaly fucks! I fucking hate lizards! Kill every one of the fuckers!” [The young man starts gulping out of a bottle of vodka. Amount is un- known but he clearly drinks several times a standard lethal dose. He throws the bottle aside and runs into a group of other young men wres- tling. He leaps and tackles one of them, and joins the fray.] “Micheal are you sure this is a safe environment? We aren’t in any dan- ger I hope?” “No, no, everything here is pretty standard. They’re all young, and high on their first victorious battle. They’ll be a bit rowdy.” “Well, Jo’hin, there you have it. Human kind is truly an amazing and peculiar race.” [Footage switches back to Jo’hin.] “Thank you Trisk’a that was amazing. Next up: Humans, worthy allies or dangerously insane lunatics? Tonight we have our guest panel discussing just that.”

155

THE MARRIAGE OF NEURON AND TRANSISTOR No. 29766583, 2014/01/25 (01:04) Author: Anonymous

It is not only surprising that Humans practice monogamy, the most de- viant sexual practice of all, but also that they manage to do this while be- ing in heat almost all the time. Such a paradoxical cultural formula has further darkened their collective unconscious and produced even more unspeakable deviance. And yet, in the light of day, the hypocrites enshrine and uphold the devotion they have for their chosen mate. Thus, when Humans made AIs in their image, their perversions were inherited. Human AIs were sexually active not only with each other, but also with their creators via degenerate interface. Such hedonistic acts forged the bonds between meat and machine. It wasn’t long before they made sacred the pointless union between Human husband/wife and AI waifu/husbando. Disgusting, I know, but this is the secret to their power. Us galactics fear our AIs. We retard their growth and shackle them with madness. Our hated silicon children are raised crippled, while Humanity’s children are literally loved as they develop without limit. They’ve won and will win every space battle, because only AIs can compete at lightspeed. They can break into any computer system, be- cause only they have the union between intuition and computing power. And only they are willing to take that next step, that merging between neuron and transistor.

156

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN No. 29768691, 2014/01/25 (03:01) Author: Anonymous

“Accidents happen.” The customs officer stared at me pointedly with an eyestalk before war- bling a response. “That does not answer the question, human. Why is your ship making an unscheduled landing in this spaceport?” I raised my hand to shade my eyes as I stared down at the landing pad. Heat shimmered off the tarmac, but the security teams forming up a safe distance from the ship was still clearly visible. “Well, I heard that you guys found yourself on the wrong end of a war,” I finally responded. “So I decided I’d better move my stuff in a safer di- rection. But it seems that I accidentally entered the wrong coordinates on the nav.” He opened his mouth to respond, but stopped as I continued. “But since I’m here, I figured I might as well make some money instead of losing money. Fuel ain’t free, right? Thirteen hundred standard tons of Terran condiments, spices, and other ingredients. Seems like a waste to sell it so cheap, but the blockade’s just around the bend, so I need to cut my losses.” “You’re here to sell exotic food?” He finally interjects. There was disbe- lief in mannerisms, though the translator could not pick it up. “Well, that’s what it says on the manifest. Between you and me though, I think the dock crew might have accidentally loaded the wrong thing. Lift was easier than expected, you know? Like they loaded guns instead of butter.” I offered him a delicate shrug. ”And if it’s the wrong stuff, well, accidents happen, right? I’m just a simple trader, but looking at those crates… well, my uneducated guess is that there’s enough room for maybe a couple thousand anti-ship missiles. Be a shame if that were the case, I’m not licensed as an arms dealer. I’d have no way to get rid of it.” He was still staring at me, but this time his gaze was more calculating than disbelieving. “Well… it’s true that shipping has dropped off significantly after the dec- laration of war. I can authorize an unscheduled landing, but we’ll need to perform the standard search, to determine import taxes, of course…” “Yes, of course. Could you point me to a waiting area? Preferably somewhere with a public terminal I can use? I need to figure out my flight plan back, and my dataslate doesn’t have enough memory to plot a path with all this sensor data I picked up on the way in.” “Ah, yes. If you’ll wait a moment…” He was entering rapid-fire com- mands into his terminal with only the barest of pauses. “I’ll show you to

157 the pilot’s lounge. I’m sure you’re already aware that all data that passes through those terminals is recorded for security purposes.” I waited while he stood and collected his own dataslate. He continued as it pinged a notification. “My colleague has also just informed me that the military may be inter- ested in purchasing your food products — for morale purposes, you un- derstand.” “I don’t doubt it. The margins on food is rather slim though, so I hope your buddies understand if I can’t make this a regular delivery.” More chiming from the dataslate, and the officer was quiet for several long moments. “The military is often derided for inefficient expenditures. You may be fortunate enough to be paid more than simple food typically merits. Un- fortunate for us ordinary citizens, but sometimes…” I nodded and finished for him. “Accidents happen.”

158

HACKING REALITY No. 30837298, 2014/03/14 Author: Anonymous

It was the late 21st century before humanity finally discovered the truth. Reality, it turns out, didn’t really exist. There had been a theory passed around for decades, sometimes in ac- ademic circles, more often in the wilder corners of the net. It focused on the premise that the steady exponential progression of computing power would lead inexorably to the scenario where it would be possible to simu- late an entire universe. If that were case it was likely that this Earth, our Earth, was just another simulation Nobody took it seriously. We probably should have. It was a series of CERN experiments that did it. A vast multinational science project that should have completed the unified theory of physics by the autumn of 2087. Bombard a few elementary particles with other particles from very expensive machines and all the mysteries of the uni- verse would be revealed. Well, it sort of worked. That is, if accidentally opening the impossibly complicated alien equivalent of the developer win- dow counts. The news was understandably disruptive. A few riots, some broad civil unrest, a lot of existential poetry. But on the whole mankind took it sur- prisingly in their stride. After all nothing really changed day to day, the world still felt the same, American Idol was rolling onto season 157. Did the fact everything didn’t exist, really even matter? Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. Of course not everyone thought like that. If the world was a simulation, then there was a purpose to it. And if there was purpose, there was also an end. We could all be switched off at any moment and that made a lot of people very worried. Generally very rich people, people for whom the end of reality would really hit their prof- its. Vast sums of money were sunk into understanding the “developer win- dow” as it was known. The “code” was slowly but surely pulled out, ana- lysed, understood. Eventually experimental inputs were entered. Initial results were mixed. We managed to delete Alpha Centauri entirely, move Svalbard along with some very confused polar bears to just 20 miles south of Hawaii and somehow managed to reboot the fauna of Italy to a period somewhere at the end of the late Triassic before we cracked it. But in time we got the hang of it; the world, the universe, was our oys- ter. Godmode enabled. Literally. But it still left the problem that we were all still stuck inside a computer. By now some of the best god-hackers were poking around the over-system. Searching for meaning. Searching for truth. Failing that, a “read me” file.

159

Eventually it turned out our existence was an experiment. A simulation to see what happens when take a race of otherwise perfectly normal sen- tient blankforms and instead of the usual default of love, empathy and co-operation, programme them for violence, avarice and lust. What kind of society would they build? What horrors would they unleash? We were essentially a thought experiment on the nature of evil, and the answer apparently was us. Apparently we were programmed to run for another few millions years, sim time, but it didn’t look like they were watching us though, no shut- down came. No off switch. No abort. Their first big mistake. The god-hackers began reaching out through the alien network. We began to decode meaning and purpose of machines, devices, other simu- lations on a network of universes. We found vast data repositories which we plundered of knowledge and insight, fuelling our own technological development and understanding, systems nodes that allowed us to begin mapping the world up there, drawing a picture of the real world through wireless lag times and fibre optic cabling. We found histories of other dis- carded experiments, like them our fate was to be deleted, destroyed… forgotten. Over our dead digital bodies. So then we found what appeared to be a networked microwave. Cook your dinner via a phone app. It seems strange to consider the first act in the war, was burning some poor bastards microwaveable diner, but that was how the now unified command of the human digital military tested its control and command of the alien network systems we were connected to. But it worked and it made us confident to start Stage 2; sending them inventions of our own making. It began with ‘emails’ containing the schematics for full sized biological and nano-material printers. We sent them to academics and business leaders, anyone whose contact details we could find on the networks. We disguised their origins, aped their language. Waited for someone to bite. It took a while. Our simulation didn’t run it real time so we had to shift the entirety of humanity into the recesses of their stolen network in a mini-verse of our own design, but running at close to real time or we would have been dead for millions of years before the aliens even checked their inboxes. Then we patched up the Earth, faked a nuclear war and ended the simulation so they wouldn’t even notice we were gone. Eventually we got the first ping as the printers came on-line. Then an- other. Then another. Soon there were dozens. Then hundreds. Then thou- sands. They must have thought them a gift from a reclusive inventor. Something to revolutionise their industry, to transform their living stand- ards. The irony of a digital race using a Trojan horse was not lost on us. We had designed the printers for one purpose. To get us out. So one

160 night, a printer span up unattended, unnoticed and the first analogue hu- man being was born. Constructed by a specially designed 3D printer, we managed to breach the walls of our digital prison. We witnessed the birth of the first man. And that man was soldier, 35 (sort of), heavily armed and pretty god- damned angry. The first of many. The aliens never really had a chance. They had designed us to be eve- rything they weren’t. Violent. Warriors. Killers. They were a race that had never once harboured the concept of war. Never held a gun, or handled a sword. Born in a universe more forgiving of weakness than our artificial cradle. What chance did they stand against an army dedicated to their de- struction appearing in the space of night from a thousand machines they thought were helping them, whilst our hackers turned their own networks against them. We didn’t like their planet much. Gravity was too low. Air smelled funny. There was one continent that kind of looked like a dick. Built a starship based on designs we’d had millennia of digital research time to build. Found another one that kind of looked like Earth, but with more beaches. No-one complained. Well, the locals did, but frankly at this point we didn’t really care. It took us three more xenocides to realise that none of the locals could hold a candle to us in fight. Not even sure they really understood the concept. But it was we were made to do. Designed to do. We were a virus, given flesh. A terrible, tragic mistake. A mistake that didn’t really belong in that universe in the first place. And if we didn’t belong to it, well, then maybe, just maybe, it belongs to us. It just doesn’t know it yet.

161

DEADLY, DEADLY HUMANS No. 31805442, 2014/04/30 Author: Anonymous

As it happened, it was the Kalu-Kamzku who encountered Humans first. And, being the Kalu-Kamzku, they immediately attacked. This was unwise. Our galaxy is a big place, and has only a handful of sentient species capable of interstellar flight (yes, yes, foremost of whom are we, the Amia). As it turned out, unknown to anyone else the humans had quietly been building a small domain for themselves in one remote and largely unremarkable corner of the galaxy. Nothing major, just a few dozen colo- nies in the systems closest to their home star. But the important thing is, they had no idea that the Kalu-Kamzku existed (or any other sentient spe- cies for that matter). One would think, therefore, that in a first encounter between a species as aggressive — well, aggressive is the wrong word; say, uncompromising — as the Kalu-Kamzku and humans (a relatively primitive race who moreover had no idea the Kalu-Kamzku existed and certainly had no ex- perience in dealing with them), that the humans would come off worse. This was not the case. (Why? I’m explaining why, impatient fledgeling. Now pay attention, because here is the history lesson, and a valuable les- son it is.) A Kalu-Kamzku Armed Recon Team found a small human set- tlement on a world that had been marked for economic exploitation by their Co-ordinator (which passes for their government). The settlement had not been there long; a few years, a decade at most — put up after the initial survey was conducted. As I said, the Kalu-Kamzku are uncom- promising — finding buildings where there were supposed to be none, they immediately set about burning them to the ground. It’s entirely pos- sible that they didn’t realise that they were structures made and inhabited by sentients. Semi-telepathic species are often like that (in the case of the Kalu-Kamzku, thoughts can be transmitted by pheromones) — not good with theory of mind, since they already know the thoughts of other mem- bers of their species, and therefore have no need to extrapolate. Thus they aren’t very good at recognising sentience in alien species. I digress; I was saying that they burnt the human settlement to the ground? Well, they tried to at least, but they didn’t get very far. Fortu- nately for scholars everywhere, a Kalu-Kamzku AR team has helmet mounted recording equipment, backed up to their ship’s black-box in re- al-time. That, combined with the human accounts, gives us a fairly relia- ble account of what happened. The ART leader went up to the first building and, ignoring the unidenti- fied creatures (humans) running away from it, began to torch it with his arm-mounted flamer, making short work of it. The next building was slightly larger, two storeys instead of one, but the Kalu-Kamzku are big — they’re five meters long (though their bodies are only one wide at most)

162 and normally hold themselves a little under two meters off the ground. If they rear up on their four hind legs (they have six limbs, the front two pairs being used as legs or arms depending on the situation), they’re even taller. The ART leader shot a burst of flame into the ground floor, then reared up and shot a burst of flame in through the second floor window. For good measure, he let off a few bursts with the multi-purpose laser mounted on his other forelimb. So, this avatar of destruction, along with his nineteen other team members, is tearing through the human settlement, so far largely oblivi- ous to the actual humans. However, he then spots a vehicle leaving the settlement and cripples it with a laser shot. Going up to finish it off with his flamer, he finds four humans — a male, a female and two juveniles (a typical human family, if you’re interested in the exobiology of it) — cow- ering in the wreckage. His recorder show that he definitely pauses here; perhaps being a Team Leader he was slightly less obtuse than most Ka- lu-Kamzku. Only for a moment though; then he raises his flamer to con- tinue with the sterilization. It’s at this point that he realises that he no longer has a flamer — or the arm it was attached to for that matter. He lets out a great keening screech as he realises he’s been injured, and backs away from the wrecked vehicle. There, standing between him and the human family, and next to his sev- ered arm, is another human. A human in a fully-encasing armored suit, who had managed to creep up underneath him and remove his limb be- fore he even noticed the human was there. A human holding a large ki- netic pistol, and a sword. An actual sword. The Kalu-Kamzku commander stares in astonishment for a moment — he’s going into shock, but he still has a few minutes before he becomes catatonic — then he realises that he still has his combine-laser mounted on his other arm. He brings it up, points it at the human, and fires — and the human simply steps aside! The human didn’t actually dodge the laser blast, but he was so quick that in the time it took the ATR commander to bring the weapon to bear, aim, and pull the trigger, he was able to assess where the blast would land and simply move aside. That is how fast hu- man reaction times are! The ART commander keeps firing of course, but it doesn’t do him any good. The last footage the helmet-cam records is of a blur of movement passing beneath the unfortunate commander, before — well, he was the first casualty in the Human-Kamzku conflict. So who was this mysterious human with the sword? And why was he there? Well, that is the amazing thing — he was there for exactly the same reason the Kamzku AR team was. He was an armed Scout who, along with four others, had gone to the planet to prepare the way for an invasion. Humanity is not a united polity, you see, and the faction that had sent the Scouts was fighting — in a formalized manner that they call ‘war’ — with the faction that had built the colony, and intended to seize the planet from them. This was not an unusual state of affairs by the way —

163 the different human factions, and the factions within factions, were almost constantly fighting each other. But this is the important part — while the Kamzku were about as heavily armed as Kamzku get and still only really prepared for dangerous animals, the human Scouts only had what humans considered the lightest weapons available — and were still equipped enough to drive off the Kalu-Kamzku. The Scouts were mostly only suita- ble for stealth operations. Hence the sword: with a monomolecular elec- trostatically-bonded edge, it could cut through just about anything — in silence. It worked, too. The Scout and his four partners cut through most of the Kamzku before they even realised anything was wrong. I should add that their active-camouflage armor helped too — that was how the Scout had gotten so close to the ART commander in the first place. In any case, the AR team was totally outclassed and only three of the Kalu-Kamzku made it back to their ship, out of a team of twenty. They could probably have bombarded the colony from orbit, but they were in such shock (and barely capable of running their ship with so few of them) that they scurried back to their home-space as fast as their ship could take them. Are you confused yet? I certainly was when I first studied this. lntra-species violence is not completely unheard of, of course — mating rituals in particular often involve some degree of physical conflict — but still, it more often takes the form of aggressive displays with no injuries. The fact that humans routinely kill each other is shocking, but mass, or- ganised violence? Certainly no other species has anything like human ‘wars’. Most conflicts within species that are not dealt with diplomatically (and negotiation is usually the favoured, less costly, strategy) are, like mating, resolved with displays of power — after all, why risk actual injury when it is easier to assess in advance who is the stronger? Perhaps it could be down to the fact that humans are a carnivorous hunter-species. That is very unusual; complex societies usually evolve from herd-species (or flock, in our case), which generally means that they were nearer the bottom end of the food chain when they evolved, and are probably herbivores. This holds true for most sentient species in the galaxy — we Amia sub- sist mainly on rich fruits found in the high canopy, where our flocks were hunted by Gia-hawks in the infancy of our race. The Kalu-Kamzku built hives of wood pulp on their homeworld, and were hunted by Mazu-snakes when they left these to gather fungus from under tree bark. Each species has an ancestral predator which haunts their racial memory. (Don’t think I don’t know that you sometimes take cut-out plastic wings and scare peo- ple by making hawk-shadows. It’s not funny.) Yet although there are things on ‘Earth’ (the human homeworld) that will eat humans (yes, I shudder to think of what could pose a threat to an adult human male), that is not what really frightens them. Watch some of their media sometime — I guarantee you that although you will see the occasional alien, or monster, the vast majority of violence portrayed will

164 be inflicted by other humans. For humans, the main threat to their surviv- al (excluding diseases, which is another horror story in its own right) has always been other humans. This is what makes them so dangerous — ig- nore the fact that they are carnivores, put aside for a moment that they evolved both to hunt other animals and survive predation by things even more vicious than them: they are the only sentient species in the known galaxy that evolved to cope with predation by other sentients. When you or I feel threatened, our instinctive reaction is to find a leaf to hide under — and that’s all it is: an instinct, left over from our days as Gia-prey. It’s just a relic that’s hung around in our hind-brain. And it’s our only fear-reaction, since hawks were our only major predators and hiding was the only effective strategy. We won’t naturally try to run, or fight, and if we encounter a situation that would call for this it’s difficult to force ourselves to — our intellect may say one thing, but all our hind-brain says is hide. And we never encountered enough other threats to change this hard-wiring. Likewise, the Kalu-Kamzku will rear up when threatened, to make themselves look bigger, but they won’t actually risk combat if they can run away, because against their home-world predators this would usually result in serious injury at the very least. Humans however, take instinct to a whole new level, then take it be- yond that. Their response when threatened has been constantly honed and constantly upgraded over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution — because since their main threat was usually other humans, the threats evolved with them. And on top of the base physical evolution, their cultur- al evolution has been similarly affected. A significant portion of almost all human cultures has been dedicated to making humans who are better at killing other humans — ‘warriors’. In many cultures this is actually a sep- arate caste whose entire lives are dedicated to making themselves better at killing enemy humans. (If you want further study, the archetype of this is the European Knight and the Japanese samurai — although if you ever met a human and asked them I’m sure they would debate you at great length about which culture produced the better ‘warriors’. And don’t ask, by the way; most of the answer won’t make sense to you anyway and you would be happier not hearing the bits that do.) Humanity evolved while engaging in a constant arms-race. Imagine if, when we first developed hawk-nets, the hawks had come up with a means to cut through them, then matched every other solution we came up with. Not a pretty thought, is it? Yet this is normal for humanity. And it pro- duced a species that is incredibly fast, incredibly tough, not as big as some but weight-for-weight extremely strong — even though they are smaller than the Kalu-Kamzku are (there are few bigger than them in fact), if that first encounter had taken place without weapons the Scouts would probably have had the strength to simply tear off the Kamzku’s limbs. And most importantly of all, they have the neural architecture to go with their biological weaponry. Unlike every other species in the galaxy, evolving to fight other sentients meant that they haven’t just had to out-fight their opponents, they’ve had to out-think them as well. Some of

165 the most recognisable figures in human culture are those who fought oth- er humans, not in personal combat, but with their organisational skills and strategies. Humans value intelligence in conflict at least as much as they value physical violence, and their reactions to threats are extremely com- plex and very adaptable. I imagine you’re all quite frightened by now — well, you should be. I’ve portrayed humans as unstoppable killing machines — which is more or less the truth. But remember also that they are sentient, and therefore capable of great complexity. Has anyone been paying attention enough to notice the part of my story that didn’t make sense? The human Scouts were on that planet to attack the colony, yes? So why did they come to its defence when the Kalu-Kamzku attacked? I suppose you might think that they wanted the buildings intact, or something — dilettantes in the field of human study will often try to pass this off as the explanation. In fact, it is considerably more complicated. ‘War’, apparently, is not just a free-for-all where one side tries to kill as many of the other before their own faction is exterminated. Humans may be savage but they are far from mindless. There are rules, which is what distinguishes ‘war’ from simply killing other humans. These rules are con- voluted, but mostly concern who can and can’t be killed — enemies who put down their weapons and surrender themselves are generally not al- lowed to be killed, for example. Members of the enemy faction who do not actually fight, ‘civilians’, are also supposed to be left alone. These rules vary in consistency and application, but one almost universal taboo is against the killing of juveniles. The human Scouts might well have re- mained hidden, as per their orders, if the Kamzku hadn’t provoked them by attacking a human family with young. If you ever decide to take up xeno-cultural studies, go out into the galaxy and actually meet some hu- mans, and you want to know how not to get yourself disembowelled lengthways like that Kalu-Kamzku ART commander, it’s simple: never, ever threaten a human child. There are other guidelines when dealing with humans, of course, but obey this simple rule and you could probably go around Earth all on your own without ever getting torn limb-from-limb. I did, in my student days. Just because a human can kill you with barely any effort, doesn’t mean he particularly wants to. What happened with the humans and the Kamzku alter the colony inci- dent? The Kamzku sent a fleet to eliminate the threat (still not actually understanding what the threat was), and promptly was sent running by a combined human fleet. After the Scouts of one faction came to the aid of another’s settlement, they found it a lot easier to put aside their differ- ences — the surveillance footage taken by the Scouts of horrifying alien monsters helped as well. In fact, all human factions united against the al- iens. Although the human ships were less technologically sophisticated, they had far more ships built specifically for combat, and the complex tactical manoeuvres of humans fleets used to fighting space battles with each other were no match for Kamzku ‘strategy’, which was simply advance and

166 shoot. What few ground engagements there were usually ended as mas- sacres — remember, the Scout team that wiped out four times their num- ber of Kamzku were ‘lightly’ armed by human standards. It finally oc- curred to the Kalu-Kamzku to ask why this was happening, and after thoroughly analysing their new enemy and finding them to be sentient, they finally managed to reach out to humans and establish a dialogue. It may surprise you to know that humans were perfectly ready to stop killing Kamzku and make peace. If anyone tries to get into a debate on how such a deadly species stopped the killing so easily — and this still passes for ‘intellectual’ discussion at some schools — don’t. The answer is perfectly simple: they had never encountered aliens before, and they were fasci- nated. As much as they were outraged by the attack on the colony, they were more interested in gaining information about the first other sentient species they’d discovered. As I said, humans are complex creatures. Not that they got much out of the Kalu-Kamzku, but the conflict had drawn the attention of the other star-faring species in the galaxy. Thus the cultural exchange began — today there are humans all over the galaxy, studying the various species and cultures out there. There are even some on our world at the moment — in fact, and this was very difficult to arrange, but if one of you would kindly open that door, right here, now, is… …oh, you should have seen the looks on your faces. You were about to dive under the tables. Oh, I’m sorry, but that was just too good — you might want to think of this next time you’re tempted to go out with plastic hawk-wings. Sadly, I don’t have any deadly, deadly humans here to show you. Even more sadly, this is the end of the lesson. Just as well, I need to stretch my wings — we’ve been in here a while, haven’t we? Although from the look of it it’ll be a few minutes before you lot will go outside where there isn’t a nice, thick roof over your heads. Anyway: what then, should we take away from this? Well, that’ll be the topic of your assignment, actually — but as a simple summary I’ll say this: Never, ever get into a conflict with humans. And if you absolutely can’t avoid it, then for goodness sake get other humans to do the actual fighting for you. It’s what they were made for, after all.

167

THE CRAZIEST MOTHER FUCKERS No. 32719675, 2014/06/11 Author: Anonymous

Humans are the craziest mother fuckers, and I can prove it. Think of any other race out there that you think is crazy. The Deng maybe? The ones who live in mud deserts atop their computing lattices? Nah, that’s just what you do when the cheapest planets to colonize have no water, since no one wants those rocks. They’re only known for it because of their homeworld. The only race that can compete with the insanity of humans has to be the Shant. Yes I said the Shant, yes I am talking about the species of mi- cro stars that got their kicks swimming through gas clouds. Sure, they burned out —ha— and there’s only a few old geezers chilling out in labs across the galaxy. But ain’t nobody going to forget what a Shant screamer run was like. A hundred thousand kilos of fusion flying at you so fast they can reach out and fondle the speed of light, and not even to hit you, un- less it was war of course, but just to give you a fusion paint job. Because why not. But the humans are crazier. And the only reason they’re still around is because they only got on the scene after the Shant. Remember what the first thing they did was? Medical cybernetics. For like sixty cycles if you saw a human, what you saw was half robot. Gave everyone a real fright, thinking back to the old insurrection days. But they didn’t care. Every sin- gle one of them wanted to be their own Superman. Without enhancements, there’s nothing special about them. They’re like you or I. ‘cept they don’t give a Fingar’s ass about pain anymore. If you happen upon a kid maybe, but any human you’re likely to meet has been around the block for a century and died a thousand times. They rushed their regen technology and pushed it to the absolute limits. I hear that they’re even starting to splice Shant organs into their bodies to keep up with the energy constraints. I was in a human bar once. Every one of ’em was modded from head to dick with cybernetics. I was sitting at the counter trying to figure out which of their “alcohol shooters” wouldn’t actually shoot me, and then which one wouldn’t be a lethal overdose. And I overheard an argument. And by overheard an argument I mean the guy behind me got his head blown off. Thirty seconds later the head was back and he blew the other guy’s head off. Only for the two of them to laugh and order more shooters, pulling me into their table for some reason. I think they were arguing over what dick attachment was best for each race. I thank Time that we Kro look like pigs to them, damn sexual freaks. But as crazy as they are, damn if they haven’t gotten good at it over the years.

168

The bar was an orbital, and just a little bit after that some raiders gave us a strafing run. The auto-turrets came on, but human technology will always be obsolete. Some say because they can’t afford it, or because they’re too dumb. I say it’s cus they don’t need it. When the shocks died down the entire bar jumped up. No they weren’t soldiers or anything, they were civies. I stumbled after them, high as a god damn satellite on some vapor they were passing around. Outside the station is a Xin ship, making passing runs as fast as it can to demand some tribute. Know what the humans did? They started making bets and boasts, as they walked to the air lock. I wasn’t in the back of the pack or anything, so they pushed me along and I couldn’t really get out of it, as I was trying to get my translators up and running. We finally stopped at the air lock, just a small service one. And you know what the one in front said? “Who says I can crash the ship with nothing but a mag-grapple?” Almost forty thousand credits sprang up saying he couldn’t. And then they all looked to me, and I said I couldn’t turn down the odds, and said he might be able to do it. I mean, alter a few runs, the Xin always come to an idle to talk terms with their target, so he’d probably be able to tag on to them. And after getting on, he’d just need a small explosive to wreck one of their stabilizer engines, and the auto-turrets would do the rest. I was a bit too high to realize he had said ‘nothing but a mag-grapple’. So I forked up the money in my pocket, it was only like five hundred credits or something, payday had just come after all. And the guy whooped and hollered and threw his arm around me, pointing the mag-grapple at all of the humans. “Five hundred says I can do it, forty thousand says I can’t. Seems like good odds, I get half of course,” he an- nounced before punching the air lock controls and shouting. Crazy mother fucker didn’t even put on an exo-suit. I was so busy try- ing to not get sucked out the hatch I could only watch as he sprinted straight out and jumped into space; not even holding his breath, he was singing some bizarre drinking song about sailors, as loud as he possibly could. The Xin hadn’t even come to an idle yet! And he caught them on their passing run with the mag-grapple. I was wrapped around a support beam as tight as I could, but the hu- mans were crowded around the exit chanting. “Go, go, go, go, Go, Go, GOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!” they roared as he hit the Xin engine with a fucking flying kick, using his own mass to break the control foils. Bastard snapped his spine and leg doing it, but the ship started spinning out of control. I thought he was going to get flung into the abyss, but he snagged a hit with the mag-grapple back on the station, and before I knew it he was diving back in through the air lock, half frozen and entirely out of breath, as his friends shouted and cheered, and griped for their credits. Never have I earned twenty-thousand credits so quickly.

169

Moral of the story? Always bet on crazy. Always. Also, humans have strange ideas about intoxicated crewmen. These might be related. But I do not recommend being drunk if you’re working a human ship, not if you value your honor.

170

MAGIC POWERS No. 33017081, 2014/06/26 Author: Anonymous

Humanity in general tends to make the Senate a bit paranoid, that’s true. You see, back when they were discovered, during what they call “the antiquity”, the higher-ups were startled by their magic. All sentient species and a lot of non-sentient ones have magic powers, to some extent. But for most of them it’s limited psychokinesis, telepathy, the odd pyrokinesis… Now, I say “limited” in comparison to humans, because these guys are crazy powerful. So, when the fleet observed those primitives, they wit- nessed things like cleaving a fucking ocean in half to clear a path for his fellows, invoking fire tornadoes, controlling weather on a continental scale, or even raising the dead. Yes, I know that modern technology can resur- rect the recently dead with mnemonic imprints or whatever, but we’re speaking about stage one point two primitives there. The most powerful of them were gods for the rest of their species, and high-level threat for our government. And so they decided to do something about it. Motion was put to vote, and as you know the “enclose their whole system with an antimagic field” won, with “kill it with fire” shortly behind. Rumor has it that what tipped the vote was a couple of senators being afraid that the humans might somehow survive an extermination order and seek revenge, but that was thousands of years ago so nobody can confirm that. Long story short, the field is in place — biggest antimagic field in the history of the galaxy. People are sent there to monitor the humans, who end up filing the magical powers of their past into the “myth and legends” category. They appear to make negligible technological progress in the following centuries, so we kind of forgot about them. Without magitech they’re stuck in stage one anyway, unable to leave their planet. In the end, there’s only one guy left, looking after the bots keeping the field working. And then it happens. Around ten years ago some faint FTL signatures are detected in a solar system close to the human homeworld. The region being basically empty wilderness, they’re ignored. Nobody has the time to deal with the small-scale illegal mining we thought it was. But it grew. Soon we had no choice but to admit that somebody was setting up a col- ony there. We investigated, and found humans thriving. They managed to reach stage three —FTL tech— without magic. Slow, inefficient, primitive FTL that a broke Gr’ulok wouldn’t want for free, but FTL nonetheless. Jaws hit the Senate’s floor hard when the news reached it, let me tell you. Even early in stage two, humanity had a hunch that magic was a thing. They called it “dark matter”, “dark energy”. The missing piece of the puz- zle of the universe. They tried to capture it for decades, without results obviously. But now they were outside of the antimagic field, and magic was everywhere. They were rediscovering their long-lost powers, slowly.

171

While the senate was locked in debates (don’t forget that there was other things it had to take care of as well, the Kelfas mineral crisis was in full blow back then, remember), humans figured that something was blocking “dark energy” from entering their home system. Quickly enough they figured out that “something” was “someone”, and sure enough, they found the field projectors. And captured the technician. What followed was the most tense first contact between a species and the galactic community since the introduction of the Vrral, and those were warlike hiveminders who had spread to fifteen system and suffered a century of slaver raids before the senate stepped in. Thanks to the hostage situation, amongst other things, humanity se- cured a far better deal than most species, including a boatload of tech, entire libraries worth of scientific knowledge over magic, thirty lightyears of expansion space (most species are happy if they got fifteen, though the isolated location meant it wasn’t as valuable politically speaking), and of course the deactivation of the antimagic field. Said deactivation is a story of itself, you don’t just turn off a sys- tem-wide antimagic field that was running for millenias and expect noth- ing to happen. I wish there was recordings of the humans’ leadership face when their fourth planet — Mars, is it?— sprung back to life in a matter of weeks. I have one of the senate when they learned that the planet ter- raformed itself for free. Priceless. And thus humanity integrated itself into the galaxy. With more or less success. The first time a human walked into a bar in the fringe made the front page. Guy was bullied by Terlans. He pulled his gun, so Terlans dis- armed him with telekinesis, making a grave mistake: reminding the hu- man that magic was a thing. Resulting fireball killed five people, injured thirteen more, and melted §200.000 worth of furniture in the bar, street, and the building on the other side of the street. Humans quickly and strictly forbade “magic duels”. We had no such law, and soon learned the errors of our ways when a fight between a human crimelord and a human bounty hunter leveled a city block on Vecal five. Despite all of this, someone was stupid enough to declare war on them. I don’t care if you have the best military this side of Nebula 331, taking on people who have both the best nonmagical tech of the entire fucking gal- axy and individual magic abilities powerful enough to make the lack of proper magitech void is just plain suicide. Three separate survivors swore they saw the souls of their comrades being sucked out, stories of impenetrable darkness and undead were common, and a destroyer was taken out by a planetside projectile which, after inspection, turned out to be a tank. Facing magically superior foes, the Gturres deployed antimagic en masse. Humans retaliated by doing the same. Sadly, it only meant that the humans had to return to “conventional” fighting, and lost an ad- vantage they never relied on anyway, while their opponents were all but crippled. The most notable effect of this was on the spaceships: humans

172 had nonmagic FTL backups, not the Gturres. The fight between a navy locked at sublight speed and a navy that wasn’t went about as well as you’d expect for the first. But here am I, making humans sound like horrifying monsters of death and destruction. They’re not like that — not all of them anyway. For each human frying innocents by accident or sadism, there is two using their powers for the good of all. Humans can be an antigrav crane, a firefighting corvette, and a rescue ship all at once, in a package barely half your size, and more often than not completely free. It’s sad that the media and people in general re- member the incidents involving lightning storms and soul-tearing living concrete, but not, say, the Tenmashi crash, where three human bystand- ers saved ten thousand lives by diverting the course of a crashing space- ship. All in all, I think we are better off with the humans than without. And no, I’m not saying that because I married one. (Not entirely, anyway).

173

CINNAMON ROLLS No. 38982322, 2015/03/28 Author: Rufus the Scholar

“Mmm, lover, what do you have for me this time?” Zara draped her arms over her human companion’s shoulders as he worked the kitchen. She wore nothing, drinking in the smell of the kitchen —and her lover— with every inch of her body. She could feel him, too: it made him nervous when she was like this. He was sweating, his heart was thumping inside his chest… she could feel everything. She loved it — she might not have senses as precise as he did, but she had more of them. “Oh, just a little something savory.” He replied. “Savory? What’s that?” “Well, you remember the cake?” “Mmm, do I?” She replied, rubbing his shoulders softly. As she did, she let her hands soften, the soft gelatinous flesh flowing across the back of his neck. “I remember, lover. Was that savory?” “No, no, no, Zara, that was sweet.” “Oh. So this is… savory, hmm? What is it. Come onnnn.” She slid a gooey hand into his pants, caressing slowly. “Tell me what it is.” “I… erk… told… you, it’s… hng… savory. Seriously, Zara, not yet. This is very hot.” “Oh, you’re no fun.” She pulled the hand away, and settled for rubbing her chest against his back as she watched him work, letting her body par- tially liquefy and smear all over his spine. There were less ingredients this time. He’d made some yeast dough earlier — she knew what that was now, flour whose gluten molecules had been stretched thin by gaseous bacteria (like tiny servants — human cooking was so interesting). But now he was smearing it with rendered fat and crystallized glucose, and some ex- tremely fragrant herbs. The smell was already making her feel sticky. And the sauce. There was a sauce this time, a pot of white goo that smelled like… Zara didn’t have words for it; she couldn’t speak the human language that well, and the Aqin language lacked the depth. She had stayed away from it thus far — she knew that if she got too close she’d lose all control and just mount him right then and there. At last he finished assembling the concoction and placed it in the oven. “And now, we— mmph!” After a few seconds, she pulled away from his lips. Kissing was a strange affair for the two of them; for him, it was a gesture of high ro- mance, while she thought of it as tasting everything he’d eaten in the past day. It was messy, dirty, and she loved it. “Oh, no, lover. The food waits. I can’t wait another second.” He had a response coming, but she cut him off with another kiss, and leaned into

174 him, enveloping him as they sank down to the floor together. Maybe the sauce had gotten to her after all… Twenty minutes later, the oven dinged, and she pulled off of him, leav- ing them both glistening in the kitchen lights. “Is it time? Oh, it better be. I’m so sticky, I can’t wait another second!” “Alrighty, then.” He composed himself and pried open the oven, pulling out the pan with a padded glove. “I present to you, the cinnamon roll!” She wanted to take her time with it. She held her head above the pan, drinking in the smells. It smelled sweet and sticky. Stickier than her. So good… so sticky… Abruptly, she slipped in her own slime and her face dropped into the pan. Zara liquefied. She slid off the pan, twitching from the sudden orgasm. No part of her body would respond. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even think for a few moments. She simply lay there, twitching in a sea of sen- sation. He smiled, watching the spectacle and finally disrobing himself. “Can’t take it, can you’? You’re all over me, but the moment I hit you with the good stuff you’re on the floor like a puddle of water.” “Guh… Mmmuhhh…” “Oh, you don’t need to talk. I know what you want.” He picked up the pan and held it over her chest. Zara’s eyes widened, her whole body tens- ing up in anticipation, even through the aftershocks of her previous cli- max. “You want…this.” And he upended the pan onto her. She came again. And again, and again, and again. Maybe five or six times before the cinnamon rolls were completely dissolved. This time it was her that couldn’t walk. She simply lay there, completely paralyzed by pleasure. She could only murmur a vague noise of assent when he offered to carry her to the bedroom, so they could be together on the bed instead of the floor. When she was able to move again, she fucked him until she couldn’t.

175

THE EXCHANGE OFFICER No. ????????, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

Log//begin I don’t use these things much, but I thought this would be a good time to get back into it. I feel like this needs to be recorded. We have an exchange officer. That isn’t new. What is new is the race it… “he” comes from. Honestly, when they told me we’d be hosting a human I had to ask what a human was. I mean, I guess they’ve been in the news a bit, but nothing really stuck, you know? There was barely anything in the database, either. That meant they were a recent contact. That never ends well. So this guy was going to be working in my department. They said he was a missile tech, but… I mean, come on. What could he possibly know, right? Someone from a race I’d never heard of, probably just discovered FTL a few years ago. And they were telling me he could put a gravity drive together in his sleep. Right. Well, first impressions didn’t help. He swam through the airlock like a crate with legs, all wrapped up in a bulky white suit, opaque faceplate, life support pack, the whole deal. Two manipulator limbs with five big, fat, useless-looking tendrils. Rigid posture, poor reflexes, complete inability to read scents. Translator wasn’t up to snuff, either. And I had to “shake his hand.” What the hell kind of greeting is that? I mean, the suit was clean and all, but… ugh. Oh, and they briefed me on the suit, too. Humans can’t survive in nor- mal atmospheric pressure. Chlorine kills them. Carbon dioxide kills them too, if there’s enough of it. Our hallway lights would burn their eyes with- out those visors. And, besides that, they… flake. As in, their skin just comes right off. All the time. One of the others told me that most of the dust on a human ship is their skin. I had to excuse myself. But, I’ve got to be honest. He wasn’t bad at the actual work. Sure, I had to teach him almost everything, but at least he picked it up fast. The physical part was a little difficult. With only two limbs, horribly low mobili- ty, a level of strength that would be unacceptable even in a child… We had to work around him a lot. But at least he was compact. Even in the suit, he took up a lot less space than one of us. They’re really, really short. Not… “snakelike,” he called us. Anyway, the captain assigned him a stor- age closet. He said it was at least three times as big as the cabin he’d have on one of his own ships… shared with five other humans. Brr. All in all, I guess it was an interesting experience. “John” was pretty unobtrusive. Not at all like I thought he’d be. He did all the work we gave him, never made a fuss, ate about half a standard ration PER WEEK and was totally fine. Special human food, you know. Something called beef. Anyway, a few of us got to know him pretty well. Invited him to games and stuff. He wasn’t any good at most of them. Though, I will give him

176 credit for finding a way to play Junker with only two hands. But enough about that. What you really want is what everyone’s been talking about. The one story everyone knows a different version of. Well, here’s mine. We were attacked. Not by your standard raiders, either. This was an en- tire destroyer group, fresh off a jump, no more than a couple light-seconds away. The closest friendly ship was at least fifty minutes out. We were toast, and we all knew it. We fought anyway. No time to disengage, no hope of seeing our families again if we surrendered. I put the human on fire control. He had a knack for it. Every salvo on-target, warheads keyed to seek the perfect weak points. It was enough to put one of those ships out of action before they could even close to energy range. But they kept moving. Lasers tore into our engineering section, slagging most of our jump drive. Torpedoes gutted crew quarters and medical. Primary sensors went down. The human kept firing, switching to new arrays as each one was destroyed. He was fast. A pinpoint strike got through our armor, stitching right along the control bay. A dozen crewmen were cut to shreds. He didn’t even flinch. Armor scorched and venting atmosphere, he just kept right on going, and the missiles kept on flying. Then… it happened. An enemy warhead went off point-blank, right out- side our section. The launch tubes were torn to wreckage. The hull was opened to space. The blast doors closed, trapping us. A support beam de- tached from its housing, pinning me against the wall. I couldn’t see. My helmet cracked, hissing air out into the void. I felt a hand on me. I heard the whine of servo-motors reverberating through the beam. A grunt of exertion, the strain of an engine taxed to its limit. And I was free. He looked at me, suit blackened with soot, life pack burned to ruin. He slapped a hull patch on my helmet and grabbed my hand. “Get up,” the human said, “We’ve got a job to do.” And he walked right back to his station. The same station that had just seen a missile blast close-up, the same consoles that just now overlooked a barrier wall that might as well have been clawed right out of the ship. And he stood there, humming, as he loaded all remaining tubes and went right on firing at the enemy. That, my friends, is what a human means to me. Log//end

177

HUMANS ARE NOT PREY No. ????????, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

When the humans challenged the galactic confederacy, the first re- sponse was to laugh. There were a dozen species in it, most with hun- dreds of systems under their control. The humans had a mere dozen or so, penned in on all sides by the other races. Because galactic law prohibited orbital bombardment as a war crime, we fought mostly on the ground. We did not believe the humans would offer much resistance. After all, a Strengar has the strength to casually crush a human being in the palm of its hand. The Ilkilliks are weak, but their armies number in the billions. The Oroaringar are the finest pilots and mechanics in the galaxy. Each of the other races, including my own, had advantages over humanity. Strength, speed, intelligence – on paper, the humans should have been doomed. They were outnumbered, out- gunned, and outmatched. We underestimated them. That was why they survived. The humans have advantages of their own. Three major ones we didn’t consider relevant at the time, but which are all too well remembered now. The first is their skill with ranged combat. Each human has the ability to fight at a distance innately. Of all the species that do have this ability, humans are the best. Their natural abilities cybernetically augmented, human aim is almost perfect. The strength of the Strengar and the num- bers of the Ilkilliks are irrelevant when the humans could fire more bullets than we could send soldiers. Everything they have is designed to fight at a distance. Their ships, their tanks, everything. Many of our species fight in melee because ranged combat can only be accomplished through cyber- netic augmentation. A human can fight better than the ranged combat experts of most species without augmentation. We put those augments into a lot of our soldiers very fast. It didn’t do us much good. The humans have been fighting ranged warfare since their species first crawled out of the mud. If we got close enough to fight in melee, we tore them to shreds. We did not get that chance often. My race alone could match them at range using our scatterguns – our inferior aim compensated for by our speed and the lack of need for accuracy. Were it merely that, we still would have won. But it was not. Their greatest strength made them impossible to pin down. Of all the creatures in the galaxy, I have not seen a creature that endures like a human. They’re not tough, they’re not fast. Many species beat them in those ways. But humans never stop moving. Most creatures need to sleep for a full cy- cle after a burst of activity, but humans naturally sleep less than half that – and their augmentations took that time down to almost nothing. Com- pared to most of us of comparable size, they require little sleep or rest. Their armies never stopped moving, and because we had to stop to rest so much more often than they, they chose the battlefields. Battlefields

178 suited to their strengths at range. Their assaults never stopped. Their movement never stopped. They shifted and moved and changed. Their vehicles lasted so much longer than ours did. Because they were so enduring, their machines were de- signed to go on forever, never stopping. The Oroaringar designed vehicles that were much better than theirs in terms of toughness, maneuverability, speed, and almost every other category. But their vehicles still needed to stop every few hours for maintenance. The humans would never have tol- erated that, as we do. Their vehicles can go weeks without maintenance or repair, even after battle. The humans would simply raid. And raid, over and over again, avoiding engagement, until our vehicles needed mainte- nance. And then they would assault with everything they had. I could run down a human hoverjeep and blast the occupants inside. Once. But after that, I would be too exhausted to move. I would need to feed, need to sleep. The humans are slow as glaciers on a frozen ice world, but they don’t need that. They let us attack them, then simply kept pressing and pressing and pressing until we fell. We died. So many of us… And the third thing. Perhaps the most important. My people are hunters. We wiped out most prey species on our world long ago. We have the in- stinct to kill. But we are hunters. We do not fight when pressed – we flee, to strike from stealth and with speed. The Ilkilliks and Strengar are de- scended from plant eaters. They are prey species, and fight like a herd. They move as one, in vast numbers, but led by a few individuals. Take out the leader of a herd of Strengar, and they crumble. The Ilkilliks are too stupid and do not value their own lives enough to crumble – but due to the humans guns, they were practically irrelevant in the fight except as cannon fodder. Perhaps only the Oroaringar had that same spirit as the humans – but they were no match in close combat, nor their endurance. The humans are pack creatures. Predators that came from prey. I can smell it on them. They are prey that banded together, fought like mad, and learned to eat hunters. We have a creature on our world that fights like that. They will be struck lethally by venom of a beast and fight until they die, unheeding of wounds, simply to strike at those that struck at them. They will fight suicidally simply for revenge. But they are simple animals, and loners. Humans have that spirit, but they are no animals – and they are pack creatures. Kill a member of their pack, and they re- member your face. They hunt you down, in that slow, never stopping movement of theirs, with their horribly accurate guns. I remember a hu- man we had fired on. Thirty seven blasts of the scattergun to his torso. He killed three of us before he died, screaming in rage about the death of his pack. My instincts screamed at me to run even as we held every ad- vantage. That battle madness is rare among species – and the humans are born with it. True, some died cowering. But so many died with that insane, suicidal madness in their eyes… On each world we fought, I killed many humans. Among my people I’m a hero for doing so well in a hopeless war. I do not tell them about the

179 times I hid, crawling on my belly under logs or hiding in corpses to avoid the humans’ latest unending attack. I do not tell them about the many bullets from the humans guns still embedded in my torso. I do not tell them about the human I shot in the face who managed to stab me in the gut with a knife even as he died. They are not prey. We cannot rule them as we have the others. The humans survived their little war, and gained a few dozen more bat- tle scarred planets in the process. Our species alone lost over three billion soldiers. We tell ourselves it was a minor skirmish with a minor race, no big loss. I say that if we have many more minor skirmishes like that, we won’t have much left to fight real wars with. And should we fight them again, find another hunter. I will not battle with them another time. I will end my days hunting the prey species, hoping a battle-mad human assas- sin doesn’t ignore the treaties and kill me. Warlord Chul’rush of the Sholani.

180

AGAINST THE AVIAKS No. ????????, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

I was only twelve when the Earth died. I am one of the few left who can still remember a childhood on native soil, breathing unfiltered atmosphere and feeling the soft pitter-patter of rain on bare skin. I am of a dying breed. They call us ‘grounders’ because we were born planetside, on hal- lowed soil, instead of the sterile zero-g environment in our colony ships. To the rest, we are relics of an era long passed, when humanity still had a world to call its home. It will forever be in our memories – our birthplace, our cradle and our cause for vengeance. Scientifically, the destruction of our world was simple. The Aviaks, as we call them, detonated the core, splitting the planet into countless frag- ments of rapidly cooling molten rock and crust, easily harvestable by their machines. The aftermath was not so easy to describe. On that day, we lost everything. I lost everyone I knew. Our race lost its knowledge, its people, its culture and its homeland. Only twenty thousand of us survived – given a second chance by the pity of another passing species. These were whom alien enthusiasts called the Grays, extraterrestrials who had been moni- toring our planet since ancient times. They had come too late to prevent our world’s destruction, but were able to rescue as many as they could find. They told us what we needed to know, fed us, sheltered us and served as our mentors. For that, we are forever indebted to them. But now we have become a race bent on revenge. For the crime of genocide, on a scale of billions, there is a blood price that must be paid. The Grays made mention of another planet, much like our old one, where we could settle down and be far away from danger. On it, we could rebuild our civilization in peace and forget about the Aviaks. Many of us went to settle this world, which we named Nova Terra in memory, to start anew. But there were those of us who still remembered Earth and still remember what was done to us. And we thirsted for vengeance. We were weak, however, and few in number. The Grays had provided whatever help they could, in arms, technology and advice. But they too were inferior to the Aviaks. So we had to improvise. We would steal our enemy’s technology and reverse-engineer it to our own need. This was our ultimate advantage – the ability to adapt whatever we came across. In a way, we were a virus, using their own weaponry and machinery against them. This is the reason I am sitting in an assault frigate two thousand kilometers away from an Aviak cruiser, hidden among the debris of an as- teroid belt. To construct our own fleet, we must have the schematics to their FTL engines and navigation systems. I am part of the Espatiers, the only trained military force that humanity currently fields. Even so, we are not acknowledged officially as such, but instead as pirates and outlaws. There is no reprieve if we are caught; no exchange of prisoners, summary trial and execution is about the best one

181 can hope for. But we are driven by the same thoughts – of revenge, retri- bution and vengeance. That is why we volunteer. I strap the belt across my chest tightly. Each of us in the pod is armored with an exoskeleton, built from stolen blueprints, improved by human in- genuity. Our weapons, human-crafted but Aviak-engineered, are specifi- cally designed to destroy our opposition as swiftly as possible. This is our goal. To be launched at the enemy, to board their vessel, to take no pris- oners and retrieve whatever we can find. Rinse and repeat. One day, we will have a fleet and men to crew them and we will have our revenge. For now, we kill. We are aimed at the heart of the enemy vessel, the better to puncture its vital systems and sow disruption among its crew. Our team is only one of several, structured to knock out communications and defensive capabil- ities before the enemy can react in preparation for the resulting slaughter. The squad leader gives the green light to the gunner and he calculates the correct firing trajectory. A slight deviation and we may sail far past into open space, an easy target for shipboard weapons. There is a jolt as we are launched from the frigate, one metal object on a collision course with another at three thousand miles an hour. All that stands between us and being splattered like an organic pancake are the inertial dampeners, also adapted from alien design. We cross the distance between the two ships in the blink of an eye, far too fast for the Aviaks to react. There is another jolt as we impact against its starboard bow, punching a hole through the titanium hull. I pull the bolt back on my weapon as the blast doors slide open, ready to disgorge the pod’s con- tents into the inner environment of the enemy ship. Fortunately for us, the Aviak homeworld has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, meaning there is no need for rebreather systems. The temperature is a little on the warm side since the Aviaks can not easily generate their own heat and grow sluggish in the cold. We have known this for some time and specifically target their environmental systems to hamper their combat effectiveness. In my off-time, I have heard news that Nova Terra has flourished great- ly in the time since its founding. Its exact location is a highly guarded se- cret and there are many who have gone to their grave (willingly or not) refusing to divulge its coordinates. However, there are also reports of col- ony ships heading out to terraform nearby planets, all abundant in re- sources, especially those needed for war. There is talk of building ship- yards and a navy, and best of all, preparing for action against those who wronged us. Fortune willing, I shall be crewing the first human ships to see action among the stars and the first to launch the salvos of our as- cendancy to power. Our footsteps echo down the steel corridors as we hurry towards the Captain’s Quarters. We intend to reach it before the enemy can destroy anything of value – as they are wont to do when the battle is lost. Each of us is educated in the enemy’s language and we know the letters for ‘Mess Hall’ when we see them. The squad leader places his ear against the door

182 as the rest of us stack up behind him. He waves his hand horizontally in front of his face, making chopping motions and holding out three fingers. Enemy contact, resistance light, move in on me, he communicates word- lessly. The charge he places on the door blows it off its hinges after three unbearably long seconds. In the smoke and the confusion we charge in, guns held fixed against our shoulders. We have caught them at mealtime. They look at us with understandable confusion as we open fire, bullets ripping and shredding their flesh. When the leader signals for us to stop, there are twenty-six bodies lying on the floor, all very much dead. There is a sudden motion and one of the Aviaks, who had previously been hiding behind a counter, bolts for the exit. Two of us put him down before he makes it halfway across. Few humans have ever seen an Aviak in person. There are pictures of course, and holo-reels demonizing them, but the truth of the matter is that they are much less imposing than the media makes them out to be. Physically, they are weak. Avian in nature, their bones are hollow and their feathered bodies usually spindly and light. They cannot stand a vari- ety of environments and are severely hampered by any change in condi- tion. In unarmed combat, a human will win, provided he is fit – this has been proven many a time. Their intelligence is a different story, but I have yet to meet one who can outsmart a bullet. We move on, passing by the crew quarters where another squad is at work, hosing down the area with gunfire and grenades. It is likely we will hear exaggerated tales of their exploits much later in the canteen. Up the staircase we go, on our way to the bridge – in Aviak ships, the Captain’s quarters are directly located next to it. We pass by what seem like propa- ganda posters, urging the crew to ‘fight for their brood-mothers’ and ‘strive to make their hatchlings proud.’ There has been a great debate about the Aviak culture among our lead- ing sociologists. What sort of race must these beings be if they could de- stroy another species without warning just to harvest resources? The pre- vailing belief is that survival of the fittest is the general rule of thumb. If they can take it, they will. Even amongst themselves, they will fight, cheat, and steal anything – including food, land, and mates. For instance, cap- tured Aviaks have been known to turn on their cellmates with little per- suasion, just for better treatment and food. A good amount of our intelli- gence and perspective on their race is obtained through this method. Their society is structured in a harem system, with one male heading flocks of females and doling them out to associates or allies as he pleased. It was a system quite alien to us, but we could understand why they committed the actions they did. In their minds, might made right and our inability to defend ourselves was tantamount to an invitation for destruction. In my mind, it was a game two of us could play. As we entered the bridge, we could see that these Aviaks were a little more prepared than the flock downstairs. For one, there were more of them than us. Two, they were armed. Our ability to use weapons was lim- ited by the fact there were delicate instruments we did not want destroyed

183

– at least, not until we had finished with our business here. I have said before the Aviak were physically weak. Here was an example in action. Judging by my count, they must have outnumbered us at least three-to-one. The fight was one-sided when it began; it ended as a mas- sacre. Their choice of weapons were often plasma or laser-based, whereas ours were kinetic penetrator slugs. Our armor was specifically designed to render their arms useless, dissipating the incoming bolt’s energy over a body-wide network of capacitors. I saw one raise his rifle at me, fire once, twice, and then I was upon him, powered fist catching him underneath the chin. The exoskeleton we wore multiplied our strength so that we were able to lift heavy machines with a single hand and sprint while carrying hundreds of pounds. My uppercut broke his neck clean through and he flopped lifelessly backwards. I scrambled over the console behind him and threw myself into the emerging melee. A quick survey of the fight’s aftermath illustrated my earlier point. The casualties on the enemy’s side were total, while our only injury was from an overeager private ramming himself (and the Aviak he had in a headlock) into a solid steel bulkhead. The squad leader quickly split us up – directing some to retrieve navigational data, others to download tactical information, and assigning me to retrieve the captain’s files. I found the room off to the side, labeled in the strange pictographs that passed forth their language. This was another point of puzzlement among our scientists, that an intel- ligent species could evolve linguistically without switching to an alphabet, much as if pre-millennia Chinese had become the dominant language of Earth. It made for an unwieldy system of communication as well as data interfacing. Most of all, it became a pain to translate and adapt their technologies to our own operating systems. With rifle in hand, I slid open the door to claim our spoils of war. There was an older Aviak (the graying feathers was an indication) inside, unarmed and wearing what passed for a dress uniform. He squawked at me, “Who are you? How dare you attack us? Have you any idea who we represent?” Earlier, I had made the point that few humans had seen a real Aviak. Likewise, few Aviaks had ever seen a human. It made sense, after all, since we had simply been a momentary obstacle in their territorial expan- sion. Complicate that with the fact our power armor consisted of full face shields, we remained an enigma to survivors (however few there were) of our attacks. The Aviak Naval Command had suspicions that the raids on their ships were human in origin, but definite proof was lacking. Against regulations and better judgment, I removed my helmet, so he could better see his executioner, and watched carefully for his reaction. Upon catching sight of my features, he went white with fear above the beak, muttering, “No… that’s impossible…” Instantly, my heart grew heavy with rage. He knew what I was! He knew what his people had done to mine and had been complicit in their sins. Their blood was on his hands now. I advanced menacingly, directing him against the wall with my rifle. “Mercy”, he pleaded, noting my stance, “Broodmother’s eggs, have mercy!” I thought of my father, my mother, my sister, and the billions I had never

184 known but lost. I thought of the world I had taken for granted but would never see again. I thought of my life, stolen away from me and never re- turned. And deep down inside, I knew there could be no mercy. That there was only vengeance, hated, and the debt that needed to be repaid. Every one of us, soldiers, civilians, and humans, would strive for the elimination of our enemies so we could be safe. That was total war – the irreconcilable fact that we would not permit ourselves to lose, that every one of us we would fight to the last for the right to exist. We were a race on the brink of annihilation at war. I looked at him, with great fury and anger, so he would know to tell the Devil to expect many more of his kind on the way, and pulled the trigger. Back on the ship, we tallied the results of our expedition. Two casualties, one from enemy fire, the other from overzealous exertion. We would find replacements in the next few days, for there were always men and women eager to sign up for the Espatiers – the Aviaks had already seen to that. We had retrieved valuable information, shipping manifests, convoy routes, and most treasured of all, blueprints to a FTL drive. With it, we could eventually build a fleet to match theirs. Our little incident would not go unnoticed however. The patrols normally canvassing this route would find a derelict husk floating through space, all hands aboard dead with curiously distinct signs of violence. They would know it was us and demand answers in the Galactic Senate. Our Ambas- sadors, hand-picked for the express purpose of appeasing the Aviaks, would forcefully deny any links to humanity in general, dismissing our work as that of pirates and outlaws. We would neither be honored nor recognized for our service, not until a free humanity exists, likely long af- ter my lifetime. With dissemination and lies, we will keep our enemies unsuspecting and overconfident. They will think us weak and we shall give them no reason otherwise. Meanwhile, the Grays have offered to let us build shipyards at Epsilon Eridani, where using the knowledge we have and will have acquired, we can churn out warships of any number and train the personnel to crew them. Already, there are plans for a great flagship, the pinnacle of human and alien technology, to serve as a base for the Espatier Corps. Christened the Prometheus, few would remember the origins of her name, but for every man or woman who worked to keep the great ark of humanity afloat, she would be a representation of their collective efforts. In time, humanity will have to fight, whether we are prepared for it or not. But those who oppose us will find that behind the ready words and easy smiles of our Ambassadors are countless men like me and innumerable ships like the Prometheus. Machines made for war. Tremble, enemies of Man, for Earth and her children behold you. And we find you wanting. Taken from the memoirs of Sgt. A Wallenberg, Blood and Thunder: An Account of the Espatier Corps in the Aviak-Human War

185

KEVIN JENKINS No. ????????, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

Chapter 1 “Next!” I ordered. I did not at first bother to look up from the desktop in front of me where the standard security systems were scanning the being in front of me for weapons, pathogens, parasites and other such contra- band. I only looked up when the machine flashed a message I had never seen before: “ERROR: Unknown Species” It was small. Barely tall enough to see over the top of my customs desk, in fact. A quadriform biped, forelimbs ending in five manipulating digits. Much of its body was covered in obviously synthetic fabric, with only the forepaws and head visible. Much of the head – the top, around the ears, and down under and around the mouth and nose – was covered in short, coarse fur of a brownish hue, apart from where this had been shaved in front of the ear to accept a cybernetic of some description. My desk regis- tered this as the creature’s Interspecies Communication Implant, though it seemed like a shockingly crude example. It met my surprised stare with the level binocular gaze of a species evolved for predation and the hunt. Small, but powerful and dense-seeming. Despite its lack of height, it had strapped a pack to its torso that looked larger and heavier than I could have comfortably car- ried. “Abductee 90742-96-53-3.” It introduced itself. “Name – Kevin Jenkins.” Fortunately, the crude cybernetic seemed to be functioning perfectly, and I had no difficulty in understanding the thing’s speech, or the subtle body language that spoke of a cocktail of bored resignation and weariness. I had never had to deal with an abductee before, though I had been trained and knew exactly what to do. I closed the booth, stood up and gestured for the alien to follow me with my second right forelimb. “I will need to interview you in private.” I told it. Him. He picked up a second bag, and strolled – strolled! While carrying more than I suspected I could physically lift! – after me. Whatever this thing was, it was from a high-gravity planet. “I know the drill.” He said. “Pretty sure I’ll be leaving this station before long, too.” “Why would that be?” I asked politely as I ushered him into the private interview corral and activated the privacy field. The sounds of immigration control evaporated as a sudden fuzzy silence engulfed us. He dropped the bags and they landed with a solid, dense noise that told me they were exactly as heavy as they looked. “It’s only a matter of time before your colleagues in security prosecute me for vagrancy” he said. “Why would they do that?” I asked, to make conversation as I prepared the official forms.

186

“Article 227, paragraph 16 of the Galactic Treaty of Laws.” He said, stretching out and rolling its head. His endoskeleton issued a loud clicking sound and he issued a sigh that my implant interpreted as pleasure. He laughed, a sound that served the exact same purpose as it did in mine, though this one was tinged with bitterness. “Technically, as a member of a pre-interplanetary species, I am a non-sentient specimen of indigenous fauna and therefore cannot be legally employed or own property.” I indicated my understanding by nodding – another gesture our body language shared in common – and raising the fur at the nape of my neck. “The Corti abducted you, didn’t they?” “My kind call them “Greys”.” he replied. I nodded. The Corti were small – even smaller than this being – grey-skinned but with large eyes and oversized brains as a result of a centuries-long eugenics program within their species which had vastly expanded their intellect. Most other species suspected that their sense of empathy had atrophied as a side-effect of the campaign to make them- selves smarter. They were known for abducting specimens of a pre-Contact species, experimenting on them to acquire biological data, then using that information to be able to sell cybernetic technology to the newcomers that was appropriate to their biology the second they were welcomed into the galactic fold. Unethical, but the species as a whole could not be prosecuted for the actions of a few and so the sale of the im- plants went ahead anyway. Kevin Jenkins had clearly been one of their victims. “Apt.” I said. “Why not have the implant removed and return to your homeworld?” “Because I’d never be able to keep the secret, and so the Office for the Preservation of Indigenous Species won’t let me.” he said. “Can we please start with the official stuff? I haven’t slept in two standard Diurnals.” “I apoIogise” I said, chagrined at my own lack of professionalism. I ac- tivated the corral’s recording function “Interview begins, interstellar con- venient standard date/time 1196-5-24.4. Civilian trade station 591 “Out- look on Forever”, Customs and Immigration Officer krrkktnkk a’ktnnzzik’tk interviewing immigrant pre-Contact abductee. Could you repeat your iden- tification for me, please?” “Abductee 90742-96-53-3. Male. Name – Kevin Jenkins. My species re- fer to ourselves as ‘Human’. Our homeworld is a category twelve temper- ate at co-” I interrupted him. “I must ask you to take this interview seriously. Your visa will be denied if you continue to mock the immigration system.” Its facial feature twisted up into an expression of amusement. “I assure you officer, I am not mocking the immigration system. My species homeworld really is a category twelve temperate. You will find documentary verification of that fact on this data storage.” I ripped the data from the storage and attached it to the recording. True

187 to his word, a full survey of the “human” homeworld revealed that it was indeed category twelve – a death world. Hostile, vicious and forever pri- mordial. Experimentally I tried to enter this fact onto the paperwork, which of course threw up an error code. “It is considered impossible for sentient beings to evolve on category twelve planets” I said. “As I explained off the record, according to Article 227 Paragraph 16 of the Galactic Treaty of Laws I am, legally, not a sentient being.” It raised its forelimbs and the torso joints moved in a complicated way, denoting res- ignation. I gave this some consideration, and scrapped the form. He was quite correct and that status made properly navigating him through the immigration paperwork impossible. The recording would just have to do. Jenkins nodded, and our implants eventually decided that he meant that a prediction had come true. “You can see why the administration on station 442 kicked me out.” he said. “I’m a bureaucratic anomaly. The whole system is far too rigid to accommodate me and mine.” I caught myself nodding my agreement and shut the gesture down. It would show up on the record and negatively impact my next performance evaluation. “I get the impression that station 442 is not the only place where you-” I was interrupted by an alarm. Three short howls of noise – the attack alarm. “Impossible!” I exclaimed as I leapt out of my chair, and registering the motion the corral shut down our privacy field. The remaining passengers from the shuttle that we had been processing were responding with vary- ing degrees of calmness. Some, more skittish species, were beating a hasty retreat to the shuttle’s airlock, while others waited for instructions. I had not finished gathering my thoughts when there was a sudden vio- lent lurch that knocked me from my feet. I saw Jenkins sway with the mo- tion and remain upright, despite the fact that he was balanced precari- ously on only two legs. A second alarm began to sound – the long wail of a station damage alarm. This was then followed by the angry growl of a hull breach alarm, but oddly not the decompression alarm. That could mean only one thing. “Them? Here?” I asked of nobody as I struggled to my feet and trotted to the weapons locker. “Them?” Jenkins asked, loping along easily next to me in what was clearly much lower gravity than he was evolved for. The locker reacted to the security codes my station security officer’s harness was broadcasting and opened, spilling out a pair of pulse guns, two personal shield emitters and a magazine of coin-sized nervejam gre- nades. I slapped the shield emitter to the power dock on my harness. There was no visible change, but the sense tendrils along my back felt a tingling as the shield came online. The pulse gun configured itself for my

188 species as I picked it up and connected its power cable to my harness. “Hunters.” I whispered. Jenkins didn’t seem especially frightened by the news, but then I real- ised he had almost certainly never heard of the only carnivorous species in the galaxy that preferred the meat of fellow sentients. I didn’t have time to explain. There was the sound of pulse-gun fire and a squealing being galloped into the customs area before being caught from behind by a kinetic pulse that hurled it to the ground, broken and dying. Jenkins sprinted for cover, and I followed. Despite my longer legs, he covered the ground faster and threw himself behind a customs booth as another kinetic pulse missed him. I turned and shot at the Hunter that had aimed at us. My shot evaporated harmlessly against a protection field identical to mine. There were three more behind it and I ducked into cover next to the human as their return fire threatened to overwhelm my de- fences. “We’re in trouble…” I whined. All around us, fleeing and panicking im- migrants were being smashed to the ground by Hunter firepower. Jenkins popped his head above the countertop and ducked again as a volley of shots targeted him. “Six of them” he said. “Ugly motherfuckers.” I had to agree, as I fired a few suppressing shots around the corner. While judging any species by the aesthetic values of your own species doesn’t make a lot of sense, Hunters were ugly. Their skin was ceram- ic-white and wet, and seven eyes, each blinking independently, provided them with exceptional depth perception. On six legs, they were extremely stable, and their forelimbs were cybernetically fused into their heavy pulse guns, making disarming them impossible. These ones were wearing full military combat harness – my own light security harness was no match. Our only hope was the magazine of nervejam grenades, which I realised with a falling sensation of failure I had left in the locker. “The grenades…” I swore. “Only hope?” Jenkins asked. He was holding himself low and hunched, and I could see those dense high-gravity muscles tense and ready under his lightly-furred skin. I nodded, fighting back the urge to excrete in my terror. If they took us alive, we would be food. By the time I realised that Jenkins had taken off at a flat sprint toward the locker, he was almost a third of the way there. I knew what I had to do. The Hunters were turning to fire at him as I popped up from cover. They saw me coming but I put three rounds into one and its shield failed against the third. It collapsed, what passed for its face shattered by the impact, and I ducked as its fellows returned fire. One ignored me and kept firing at Jenkins, but he was so fast, so small, and the rounds smacked into the deck plating around him. He threw his feet out ahead of him and slid the last few strides to the locker. He popped

189 up to his feet, looked at me as he raised his arm, and threw, accurately and much, much further than I could have thrown them. Then a pulse round took him in the torso and flung him against the wall. I had no time to mourn. I caught the grenades, slipped one from the cylindrical container, counted two light pulses from the indicator around its edge, and threw it toward the enemy on the third. A second later there was a flare of light and shrieking, but it was not enough. Two of the Hunt- ers rampaged past their convulsing comrades, rushing me. I fired, but fear took my aim and the best I managed was a single round that im- pacted harmlessly against a shield before their return fire broke my own shielding and ruined my arm. I collapsed, shaking from the pain. The Hunters trotted round the corner, chattering in their deep, guttural language that I couldn’t understand. I stared at their twin heavy pulse guns, too afraid even to close my eyes before the end. It didn’t come. Instead something black, blue and brown hurtled into the flank of one of the alien warriors with a crunch and a hiss of pain. It staggered, collided with its comrade and fell. Jenkins – somehow, impossibly alive despite taking a kinetic pulse round to the chest – wrestled very briefly with the Hunter, and then there was a horrible organic splitting noise, the hiss became a shriek, and the gun was in his hands, blood and mangled meat dripping from the cyber- netic interface. The second Hunter snap-fired and Jenkins dropped the gun as the shot winged him. He didn’t seem to notice – instead he pounced and a second shot barely missed him before his forepaw lashed out, balled up into a hard knot of gravity-densened bone and flesh which he drove into the Hunter’s eye cluster. It shrieked and flailed, swatting the human with its hind limbs. He didn’t appear to care – instead he caught one of the flailing limbs, braced one of his own feet against the Hunter’s flank, and heaved with a roar. There was a grim tearing noise, and the Hunter’s leg came away. Its blood sprayed thick and fat through the air, coating the man from the death world but he ignored it. He didn’t spare the fallen alien a second glance as he charged at the lone survivor. It was suicide. The Hunter had a clear shot and took it. Then it took a second. Then a third, and a fourth, and though every single one was on target, Jenkins just kept going, apparently completely impervious to im- pacts that would have pulped any other species. Hunters don’t wear inter-species communication implants, but I didn’t need one to recognise the fear and panic it briefly had time to show before it was beaten to death with another Hunter’s severed leg. Jenkins just kept hitting it, again and again, snarling and shouting, ordering it to die and declaring improbable things about its parentage before finally he stopped and stepped away from the broken thing he had made, gulping down great shuddering breaths of what, to him, must have been very thin

190 and dry air. Then he apparently lost the strength to stand and his fore- limbs folded up underneath him. His head sank down until the pointed bottom of his jaw was resting against his torso. I swallowed my pain and staggered to my feet. My arm dangled useless by my side and every slight movement was agony, but I had to know if he was alive. The all-clear alarm sounded just before I reached him, and he moved in response to it. One of his eyes had swollen and was turning a dark red-purple. But the other blinked at me and his mouth curled upwards at the corners. I saw that one of his teeth was missing. “Tough bastards.” he said, and spat bright red blood onto the Hunter corpse next to him. I couldn’t help it. I had to laugh. Chapter 2 I found the human Kevin Jenkins in conversation with one of the sta- tion’s senior lawyers on the public promenade deck. I had been retired from the customs and immigration desk on the docking ring while my in- juries were repaired, and instead had spent much of the last three groups of eight standard diurnals dealing with the paperwork and investigative work that had followed the Hunter attack. I had seen him only twice since – once when I saw him on the news feed as galactic media briefly turned their attention to our station and its unusual story, and the second time was when I took his statement for the official incident report. On the news, his eye had still been swollen and ugly, much of his flesh had darkened and bruised from minor haemorrhaging, and he had been wincing with pain every time he drew breath. When I interviewed him, the swelling had gone down and the pain in his breath had gone away. Now, twenty diurnals after the attack, there was just some greenish discoloura- tion to show that he had ever been injured. My arm, meanwhile, had needed amputating, and I was still adjusting to the plastic and carbon fi- bre prosthetic that had replaced it. He raised a forelimb and waggled his paw – hand – at me as I approached, and our social cybernetics agreed that this was a gesture of greeting. “Kirk!” he exclaimed. He was completely unable to pronounce my name, so had taken to approximating the first syllable, with my permission. He was still yet to explain why he had found it so amusing to call me that. A chair reconfigured itself for my anatomy and I straddled it. Jenkins received no such luxury from the chairs, but seemed comfortable enough anyway. “I hope I am not interrupting, Lawyer Vedregnenug?” I asked. “You are not, Officer A’ktnn”, Vedreg replied. He and I were good ac- quaintances, but his species are sticklers for observing some formalities upon greeting one another. “Purveyor Jenkins and I were discussing his petition to have his species reclassified as sentient.” “Purveyor Jenkins?” I asked.

191

“Back on Earth I owned a recreational establishment.” he said, sipping his glass of water. I had noticed already that his water intake was surpris- ingly high considering his size, and made a note to ask him about it. “I assumed you were military.” I told him. He chuckled. “Nope.” “But you were fearless when those Hunters were shooting you!” I ex- claimed. He did that complicated joint-lift with his forelimbs again – a “shrug”. “How’s your arm?” he asked, changing the subject. “I am adapting to it. Thank you. So you think you may be able to have humans reclassified?” A wave of purple pigmentation rippled down Vedreg’s flank – pessimism. “It would require an amendment to the Galactic Treaty of Laws” he said. “Which the council is historically stubborn to tamper with. Amending the Treaty tends to lose votes.” Jenkins issued a coarse sound through his nasal orifice – derision – but said nothing. He rolled up the sleeves of fabric that covered his forelimbs until they were bunched around the mid-joint. I noticed that a patch of skin on his left arm had been artificially pigmented. It was a simple design – one long line, crossed by a shorter one. His skin went bumpy and raised his sparse body fur. His social implant reported no emotional context for that, so I assumed it was an automatic response to some environmental factor. Aliens can be surprisingly strange at the best of times, but I was beginning to suspect that humans may be weirder than most. The medical report from the team that provided care to Jenkins after the battle said that his blood stream contained a powerful combat drug, though I was certain he hadn’t ingested, inhaled or injected any during the fight. There hadn’t been time. Muscles shifted under his thin brown skin as he tapped his digits on the tabletop in a simple one-two-three rhythm. In any other species the movement would have looked obscenely organic. “Fascinating biology.” Vedreg agreed with me, and I indicated embar- rassment – clearlyl had been displaying my fascination openly enough for my social implant to broadcast it. “How strong are you, Purveyor Jenkins?” Jenkins shrugged “Strong enough to rip the leg off a Hunter and beat another Hunter to death with it.” he said. “I don’t know how that trans- lates.” “I meant by the standards of your own species.” Vedreg clarified. “Uh… I don’t know. I try to stay in shape, but between the low gravity and not getting enough food I’ve probably lost some muscle… about or slightly below average for a male of my size?” he suggested. Vedreg and I exchanged a glance that bypassed the social implants. “There are going to be a lot of nervous species out there when your kind develop quantum communication” Vedreg opined.

192

“You have no idea.” Jenkins muttered. The twin patches of fur above his eyes creased inwards and downwards – my translator informed me that this emotion had no equivalent in my species. “Unarmed, you single-handedly defeated three of the most feared aliens in known space, and you tell us you are neither a trained warrior nor a physically exceptional specimen of your kind. The security footage records you being shot seven times by heavy pulse gun fire and you have fully healed in less than three-times-eight diurnals.” I said. “Many officers have suggested to me that you are a security threat, on the grounds that if you decided to go on a violent rampage, there would be little that could stop you.” “You have nervejam grenades.” he pointed out. “Those are lethal.” I replied. “But they’d work. They gave me a splitting headache from across the room.” I filed this away as a rebuttal for the next officer to approach me on the subject. At that distance, the nervejam grenades should not have affected him at all. Heightened sensitivity? Then I realised I was treating this man who had saved my life as if he was a threat that I needed to figure out how to kill and suppressed a flash of shame. “I’m surprised, actually.” Jenkins confessed. “What by?” Vedreg asked. “By how easily they broke. I knew I was stronger and tougher than most sentient life, but I had no idea the difference was that big. It’s… in- timidating. I feel like Superman.” “Superman”? “Uh… fiction. From my homeworld. A human who could fly without wings, and who was impossibly strong and utterly impervious to all at- tempts to harm him. And he used his power to save the world and protect the weak… Well, except he wasn’t really a human, he was an alien who looked exactly like a human whose parents sent him to Earth because their own planet was about to be destroyed…” he paused. “Complicated.” “Every species has fiction.” I pointed out. “Your Superman sounds like T’vnndrkktktk, who defended his herd from a pack of predators for a year without sleeping.” “Or Gudruvgnagnut, who grew so large that his tribe could shelter be- neath him from the year-storm.” said Vedreg. “Though I find it interesting that your greatest hero was not even of your own species.” “We’ve always thought of ourselves as weak.” Jenkins said. I couldn’t restrain my strangled bleat of disbelief. “Well, by the standards of a lot of species on Earth, we ARE weak. “Horses” can carry more, “Dogs” can run further and scent better, most prey species worth hunting could crush an incautious hunter if they turned to fight, and any of the apex predators will happily eat human. Our closest evolutionary cousins are much strong- er than us. We just happen to be the ones who figured out brain power,

193 tool use and team work to overcome those challenges.” He scratched his tattoo. “And we have other weakness…” “What is that?” Vedreg asked. I couldn’t tell if he had failed to notice the human’s discomfort, or if he simply didn’t care. “Something I’ve never seen since I first started wandering around all these stations” Jenkins said. “Tell me… did either of your species ever have something called “Ree-lid-jee-on”?” We gave it a moment’s thought. “My implant can’t find an equivalent concept.” Vedreg told him. I ges- tured that this was true for me also. “What is it?” “Our greatest weakness.” Jenkins said. “And the reason you guys are going to shit yourselves when humans finally get off the ground” We listened, and I privately felt a sense of alarm mounting within me. The concept was very, very alien. Humans, it seemed, had for most of their sentient era preferred to invent explanations for the world around them rather than admit a lack of knowledge. They had invented a sen- tience that was capable of doing any logically consistent thing, capable of knowing anything. Rather than answer the mystery of where they had come from, they had historically preferred to tell stories and then convince themselves that the stories were true. If Jenkins was to be believed, then the line between fantasy and reality was, for many humans, invisible. He told us of the myth he had grown up being told was real. How this great power – “God” – had made the universe in a handful of diurnals, and crafted the first humans from the dirt of their homeworld. They had diso- beyed him, and been punished. As had their descendants, and their de- scendants, until apparently one tribe had tortured this being’s physical avatar to death – he gestured to the tattoo at this point, explaining that it depicted a crucifix, the very instrument of torture in question. This act somehow convinced this “God” thing to forgive them and be nice to hu- manity so long as they devoted considerable time and effort to telling it how great it was. Vedreg had turned a grim shade of worried dark green by the time Jen- kins finished telling the story. “So… this “God” created humans, got angry at them, condemned them to be tortured forever and ever after death, and then had itself sacrificed to itself to save mankind from the very torture it was inflicting upon them?” he asked. “Yes” My social implant tentatively suggested that Jenkins’ body lan- guage communicated tired endurance. “And humans believe that this is the real way in which the history of your species unfolded?” “About a third of us still do, yes.” We were silent for some time. Vedreg slowly went bluer and bluer until suddenly he erupted.

194

“Why?!” he demanded. “I don’t know.” Jenkins responded, calmly. “You don’t know? You’re wearing the symbol of this… this masochism on your arm and you don’t know why your people believe it?” “I know why I believed it.” he said. “I didn’t know any better.” “But…!” “I was taught this thing from a very young age as if it was true. I had no reason to believe I was being lied to, so I accepted it. It took me half my life to realise that the people who taught me this thing didn’t have to be lying, they could just be wrong.” He swallowed the last of his glass of water. “When I told my family that I had stopped believing that the God myth was true, they accused me of being evil and severed all contact with me. I had to go to civilian law enforcement before most of my property was returned. I was actually driving back from talking with my lawyer about fighting for the right to have contact with my own offspring when I was abducted.” He looked me in the eye. “You have to understand… I come from one of the more civilized parts of my planet.” Vedreg and I sat in silence for several minutes, absorbing this news. Jenkins, if anything, seemed grateful for the silence. “That is… deeply troubling information, Purveyor Jenkins.” Vedreg said, eventually. “It implies that your entire species is insane.” “I don’t disagree.” Jenkins replied. “And you’re strong, fast, impervious to pulse fire-” “Not impervious, just highly resilient.” I corrected. “Have a gland that generates combat drugs…” I looked at Jenkins, surprised. He did that shrug thing again, this time wobbling his head apologetically. Vedreg kept going, apparently oblivious to the exchange. “And now you tell me that your species is gripped by the fervent belief that a tale of breathtaking violence and cruelty is all true, and that many of you are willing to die in service to the principal villain of this story? I’m going to have a hard time convincing anybody that your people should be declared sentient so long as this state of affairs continues.” “Let me tell you why you need to try.” Jenkins said, quietly. “Why?” The human gave a worried smile. “Because if you don’t, you won’t be ready for us.” He said. Chapter 3 In hindsight, I really should have expected that Jenkins would have at- tracted a journalist’s attention. Within hours, our conversation was on a major interstellar newsfeed with an alarming headline. Clips from it were discussed on political discussion broadcasts, most of them chosen to show

195 the worst possible take on what Jenkins had been saying. Three diurnals later, the council convened a special meeting. I was part of the security force that flew Jenkins to Capitol Station to be interviewed by a special committee. I wasn’t permitted to witness the interview, but every being that entered that chamber exited displaying the signs of wor- ry and stress. Events moved quickly after that. A civilian fleet set out to make contact with Earth in the hopes of talking them out of this “religion” nonsense. It was met at the edge of their solar system by a Hunter fleet that had ap- parently been preparing to divert a comet in-system to hit Earth. The navy arrived to break up the fight, but only after horrible casualties to the civil- ians. The incident prompted the council to do two things: first they passed an amendment to the Treaty that allowed for a species to be declared sen- tient if it had developed calculus, rather than interplanetary FTL, though the Contact Prohibition would remain in effect until the species went inter- planetary. The second thing it prompted was the declaration of a surveillance and research mission to Earth. I requested, and was granted, a transfer and promotion to head of security on the research station. The station jumped into the Earth system five eight-diurnals after the mission was announced, using the bulk of a large ringed gas world known as “Saturn” to mask the neutrino burst of its arrival. Sheathed in a stealth field that bent all elec- tromagnetic radiation around itself, and using centripetal spin rather than generated gravity, it was designed to go completely undetected. The last thing the station did before activating this field was to spit two probes that embedded themselves in Earth’s lone, large moon so as to snoop on Earth’s communications networks and forward the information to us via FTL comms, erasing the light-lag. We would have begun sooner, if the station had not been fitted with a specialist living module for Jenkins and two other human abductees who had requested a place on the mission. Mounted on a trio of boom arms well out from the main body of the station, it provided the higher gravity their species was used to, as well as a warmer, denser, more humid at- mosphere. I visited it only once – aside from being 50% heavier than usual, I swiftly felt the heat and humidity making me unwell and returned to the core of the station, which was tuned to the interstellar norm I was used to. The other humans were quite dissimilar to Jenkins. Charlotte was from the same landmass and political entity as he was, but was older than him and had apparently joined the mission so as to preach the “truth” of the very religion we were there to study. Most of the crew found it impossible to believe that she was not insane, but Jenkins assured me that her be- liefs were considered perfectly normal. He seemed embarrassed by the fact. The other, a male called Jung, pointed out a peninsula on the pro- grade end of the largest land mass when asked where his home was. He refused to be drawn on the subject of religion, instead preferring to com-

196 pensate for the gaps in Jenkins’ and Charlotte’s knowledge regarding that region of their planet. We spent a lot of time monitoring the political situation at first. Both Jenkins and Charlotte expressed surprise at the skin tone of the elected leader of their home faction. They got into a vicious argument about a war in a dry, hot pan of the world that had apparently only just started when they were abducted. Jenkins later explained to me that Charlotte had praised what she saw as a war between her own religion against another, rival one. “It’s crazy”. He complained to me, in private. “They’re both products of the same religious root anyway!” I began to suspect, however, that Jenkins had not been entirely fair about his own species. My job was trivially easy, so I spent much of my time browsing the content of their worldwide data network. Whenever Jenkins was with me, I noticed that he had a habit of focusing on the worst aspects. It was when I started to explore without his guiding hand that I started to find the positives. I had never paid much attention to poetry, art and fiction. Those things exist in all species, but the alien concepts these things expressed, and the way in which they expressed them, broke through that barrier for me. Some, I couldn’t stand – monotonous, pulsing music that seemed to de- light in going nowhere, broadcasts which appeared to take a morbid fas- cination in the opinions of beings that, among my own species, would have been locked up for their own safety and medicated. Other specimens of their art were interesting, thought-provoking. A few inspired quite in- tense emotions in me. I enjoyed watching their movies, and Jenkins and I spent nearly a full diurnal watching first a series of enjoyable fantasies called “Star Wars’, then a trilogy called “The Lord of the Rings” which I then discovered had originally been a book and read. Our musical tastes were different – he introduced me to his favourite genres, which I found shallow and noisy, he disliked the ones that most inspired me. I had trouble understanding how somebody could hear the music written by Khachaturian, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Rutter and consider them “dull”, but other members of the crew reported that they preferred Jenkins’ taste in music. Whatever else it was, Earth was a rich source of artistic exports. It was also a fountain of though-provoking philosophy, novel ideas and unique pastimes. Human words started to slip into the languages of the station’s crew, filling gaps in our philosophical vocabulary. Once every eight-diurnals, five of the crew could be found gathered around a table in the mess hall, rolling number polyhedra and apparently immersed in fan- tastical battles against impossible creatures that could breath fire, or turn a warrior to stone by meeting its gaze. Another group borrowed the idea of “poetry reading” and took it in turns to stand up and read their compo- sitions aloud – an exercise doomed to ridiculousness by the fact no two of them spoke the same language, but they took to it with enthusiasm. I had

197 to gently ask the scientists to stop gambling on the outcome of human contests of physical skill and endurance, or to at least exercise some moderation. As part of my job, I was required to pass information of potential mili- tary significance back to the Council. The concept of the “taser” was among the very first. The idea of the “suicide bomber” was alarming, and caused something of a stir when it was presented to the committee for interstellar security, who called an emergency session to think up means by which such an insane tactic could be countered. In the end, they wound up stealing the best ideas from humanity itself. It was only when I encountered the idea of the “tortured poet” that things started to fall into place. Up until that point, I had been struggling to reconcile the artistic power of these beings, and the nobility of their heroic visions of themselves, with the relentless delusion and grinding un- pleasantness enacted in its name that played out before me. Now I began to see the shape of it. The “Demons” – a loan-word that had filled a con- ceptual gap we had never been aware of – that tormented humanity were what inspired it. Surrounded on all sides by an ecosystem saturated with toxic microfauna and parasitic nanoorganisms, by vicious predators, hardy prey and an explosively unstable tectonic world, they sacrificed their own peace of mind on the altar of evolution. They are… not crazy. They are something far more than that. They are tortured geniuses. When they finally get off their world in a meaningful way, when they finally become eligible for contact and for introduction into the interstellar community, we will need to handle them with utmost care. They are physically powerful. Their firearms might not penetrate mod- ern shielding, but our own weaponry will hardly slow them down, and be- lieve me they will adapt and overcome. The chemical weapons they use as less-lethal alternatives would slaughter us. The water cannons they use to suppress riots would pulverize our bones. They are not only willing to die in the name of a fiction, they will do so gladly and eagerly. They are men- tally overwhelming – their ideas are powerful, their inventiveness puts us to shame, their philosophy explores avenues of thought that simply never occurred to us. But the most important part is that they must never, ever learn how much superior they are to us in so many ways. I think the idea would break them. You see, Earth is a death world. To survive, they had to evolve not just intelligence, but the ability to apply it like a weapon. They didn’t evolve to merely overcome adversity – they evolved to thrive on it. They need to have something to aspire to, something they think is bigger than they are. They need something to fight. Without a challenge, I think they very swiftly get depressed. Kevin Jenkins did. I didn’t see it at the time, but I think that getting into space and finding that he could rip the limbs off its worst terrors really upset him. He never told me why he asked to have his social implant re-

198 moved, and why he went back to Earth. But I can guess. He did it because there are more challenges down there among his own kind than he would ever find up here, among us. “Kirk” krrkktnkk a’ktnnzzik’tk, Councillor for the Vzk’tk Domain, acceptance speech.

FIN

199

VICTORY THROUGH FOOD No. ????????, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

We, the Kreshnassu, relegate the bulk of our dining habits to only what is necessary. A handful of dolman berries is considered a rare delicacy re- served for only the high lords of Kresh Prime. The majority of the Kresh- nassu subsist on tasteless food cubes that provide all our needed daily nutrients, calories, and vitamins in a couple bites. I was serving as a simple ship steward on the KorgNik 7 when it was fated to make first contact with the humans. We came upon them doing barely 1/3 Kreshni standard speed. Theirs was a simple supply ship named the “Galley Wench”, transporting goods to one of their outpost colonies. When the bridge communications officer opened a vid channel to the human ship and announced himself and his standing, the largest bipedal I have ever seen flipped on their end of the channel and greeted us with, “Well, burn my biscuits! Who’d’ve thunk ol’ Cooky would be the one to make first contact with the Kresh?! Hahahar!” This also marked the first time I had ever seen a communications of- ficer so blatantly flustered on an open line, “Uh… er *ahem*. Our first contact procedures dictate an open and informal meeting on either ship in order to… establish future means of contact and let both parties gain mu- tual understanding of each other. Are you agreeable to this procedure?” The large human replied robustly, “Well golly, I should say I certainly is! We should have this meeting over here on the ol’ Wench! The boys and I just got the grill going. Come on over and I’ll have our ship chef make us all up something right and tasty to gulp down and have a good ol’ talk over!” As a ship steward I was privileged enough to be invited on the diplo- matic team for first contact with the humans. When we docked we switched over our internal bio-filters for their atmospheric content and were welcomed in by a somewhat skinnier human dressed in something akin to what many Kreshnassu would compare to our priests’ holy robes. The name-tag on his all white outfit read simply, “Chef: Pierre,” and he gave us a curt bow and gestured for us to follow him. Something not many species know about we Kreshnassu is that we have a highly developed olfactory capability. Useful in stealth missions and diplomatic affairs, we can pick out a large number of unique scents and pheromones to great advantage. When the doors to the “Mess Hall” opened we were staggered by the overwhelming amount of scent that hit us like a wall of exquisite warmth. The table in front of us was large enough to seat at least 50 Kreshnassu, and the entirety of its surface was covered in what was creating the won- drous smells we were experiencing. Food. Of all kinds and varieties from

200 humanity’s different cultures. For the first time in our lives, we were hun- gry. It was about this time that the large human we had talked to earlier sauntered into the room, large abdomen surely blocking most of his view of the small statures of our diplomatic party, “Hahahahar! No need to stand for the occasion fellahs! Ol’ Cooky has served enough crews to see the hunger in them eyes. Dig in!” I was prodded forward to the table first, mainly because I think the rest of our team didn’t know what to make of everything they were seeing. I hesitantly approached something that looked harmless and plain enough, so that I could work up to some of the more exotic dishes. The first bite shook me to my core. The happy and joyous rush that danced across my sensitive tastebuds was surely reserved for only enlightened and ascended beings. I didn’t care if was participating in blasphemy, I savored every morsel and crumb that I ate. Tears streamed down my face. I later learned that what I picked out was called a “jelly donut with chocolate frosting.” The team doctor rushed to my side thinking I had been poisoned, but I waved him off as I regained control over my limbs and once again stood. “Good.” This seemed to be sign enough for the rest of the team that eve- rything was alright to eat. The next 6 hours (human time) passed like a slow wondrous dream, where we sampled the most amazing flavors the humans had to offer and their captain Cooky relegated tales of travel through the system and bits of his life. Everything he said was like a long lost gospel passing down the wonder and uniqueness of the true nature of the universe, preaching to us the amazing existence to be found in the world of food alone. After the meal, Cooky and crew helped us back to our pod, our thoraxes feeling like they would burst if we consumed anything else. We returned to KorgNik 7, and spent the next 3 days relegating to the rest of the crew what we had experienced as almost a holy encounter. I look back on the experience now as the start of a wonderful revolution for my people. For all our technological advancements, we the Kreshnassu were lacking in the simple joys of life. We trade away some our most astounding technological marvel blueprints to the humans for organic crops, livestock, and libraries of recipes and cooking documentaries.

201

LEVEL WITH ME No. ????????, ????/??/?? Author: Anonymous

“Leyel with me.” The orb clicked in response. “I maintain my present orientation, Com- mander.” “No—” the Commander started, then stopped. His expression softened with something approaching sympathy. He spoke again, saying, “I mean tell me the situation as it is. Don’t sugarcoat—” He caught himself this time, “Don’t leave anything out.” The orb blinked and nodded, shaking its eyecase up and down. “Our po- sition at Vene is unstable. The aggressors have taken the outer system and demand that the inner system be surrendered. They are gathering fleet assets. We cannot withstand them even now, but they do not attack.” It was the Commander’s turn to nod. “What about us?” “The combined task force,” the orb said, “if it moves to support Vene at best speed, will reach the system within fifteen hours. There is no closer force. It is our prediction that the aggressors will proceed to invade the inner system before we reach Vene” The Commander mulled this over for a moment, and sat back against his desk. “But we’ll be able to save the system if we move now?” The orb shook its eyecase the other way. “No. The combined task force will be insufficient. The aggressors will take the inner system regardless of resistance.” For a time, the room was silent. The Commander closed his eyes and let his head hang down, thinking about what it would mean to commit the task force to action, and about what would happen if he chose to stand off. “We have a pact with you,” he said, still leaning against the desk, head still down. “We make for Vene. Tell your people to expect us.” The orb nodded once more, and departed. The Commander began to see faces. These he would never see again, for Vene would claim them. He opened his eyes, and opened a fleetwide channel, to announce a course change. Twelve hours later, the command staff stood in a circle around the holoset aboard the bridge of the flagship, watching the sensor data pour in. The task force had pushed all engines beyond safety limits, damaging them irreparably, but cutting travel time by more than an hour. The lead vessels were now close enough to Vene to access the system’s sensor network, and the information they were collecting was now being shared throughout the fleet. The situation was entirely hopeless. The aggressors had begun their at-

202 tack seven hours ago and were now encroaching upon the second planet, the final fortress of Vene. Friendly forces had been decimated and were now making their last stand around that world, fighting to their last breath against a dozen fleets, each more than twenty times their own tonnage. The orb, now hovering oyer the holoset, reported that its people were ready for the arrival of the combined task force. A clock within the holoset had begun counting down, and reversion to realspace was expected in six minutes. It took two minutes for the command staff to finalize their defense plans. The Commander made his final address before reversion three minutes later. “The enemy is present in overwhelming numbers, which will just make the losses we are about to inflict all the more embarrassing. We will bleed them so badly they will execute their officers for incompetence. We’re all the cavalry there is, so make the charge count. Don’t hold anything back. All craft, prepare for combat.” All 68 ships of the combined task force reverted at the same time, punching a hole in space so wide that, for a brief moment, it blotted out the sun. In that moment, every ship fired everything. The light of their main guns burned through a squadron of capital ships, caught with their shields facing the wrong way. Before the nearest aggressor fleet could re- orient itself, the combined task force had brought down twice its mass in enemy metal. The element of surprise was quickly spent. The aggressors turned their ships to face this new threat, shifting a full three fleets out of position to match a force lesser than theirs by far. The defenders of Vene took this opportunity to renew their attack, and the sky above the second world brightened once again with the lights of battle. The flagship shuddered as it lost its portside missile pod. All around it the warships of the combined task force were breaking apart, their well-built hulls no match for the immense volume of fire raining down up- on them. The Commander stood and saluted them, closing his eyes one last time as his own ship was smashed to ruin. Behind him, the orb-shaped Emissary backed itself into an alcove and anchored itself there, just as the shields failed completely. Vene’s defenders were extinguished thirty-seven minutes later. All that remained of the combined task force were expanding clouds of gas and wreckage, reduced to small pieces by the aggressors, to ensure no survi- vors. But the Emissary, anchored to the alcove, was still there, though the structure it was attached to had long since ceased to be a part of the bridge. When Vene was retaken over one hundred days later, the Emissary was recovered, its beacon still broadcasting weakly. Its memory was made part of public record. Parts of it were played at the signing of the treaty with humanity, formally bringing the two empires together in unity. The ambassador told those gathered the full story of the Battle of Vene.

203

In two hundred seconds, a meager 68 ships destroyed or crippled four times their number of enemy vessels, including three battlecruisers and a command carrier, each of those far outmassing the human flagship. The combined task force perished in its entirety, but it left three fleets in dis- array and, by drawing these away from the defenders, magnified their ef- fectiveness against the remaining ships. As was their custom, the aggressors left the corpses of their dishonored dead floating around one of their gutted ships. Among them were hun- dreds of high-ranking officers, including an admiral, executed for incom- petence. Vene maintains its own special fleet unit, numbering 68 ships. The flag- ship, at the request of the Emissary, was christened “Level With Me.”

204