Birthday - Part 3

Film/Image Credit goes to 'Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles'

    Ten minutes later, they were in the air and hurtling at top speed towards that upper atmosphere.
    The sensation of intraplanetary travel always made Coughlin's guts clench.
    Everyone was strapped in to their seats and they were traveling at a hard 40 degree angle as the dropship rocketed upwards. Ignoring the concept of 'the quickest way from point A to point B is a straight line', the path was designed to create a great bell curve that went up and came back down over the small continent known as Han'ei. It cut travel time down by ninety percent and turned what could be a twelve hour flight into a one hour one.
    In exchange, they got to be plastered into their seats in the equivalent of being strapped to an intercontinental missile.
    They got used to it however.
    All around her, Coughlin's squad was busy preparing.
    Most everyone seemed to be doing something. A lot of it was little more than pre-game ritual. Afterall, a lot of the combat gear had been double checked before they even dispatched to the training ground for just such a potentiality. Even then, the team had immediately started field checking the equipment while they'd waited for the dropship.
    Now it was little more than nervous habits.
    "Brick", as everyone referred to Specialist Warfield from Bullocks' team, was counting out boom-tube grenades and muttering to himself. Next to him, Bullock's Rifleman Private Greer was quietly running her combat knife along a whetstone. Across the hall, Specialist Xi was rummaging through her medic's bag.
    Technically all of it was against safety protocol, but Coughlin trusted them enough to not give them shit about it.
    Most of them chattered with each other or went about reading the mission debrief. A few others, namely Specialist Dixon and Private Gorman, had simply laid their heads back against the chairs and passed out due to not having anything to occupy their minds.
    Coughlin, on the other hand, read.
    According to the dossier on the dimly lit screen, they were on their way to the eastern coast of Han'ei where a life pod struck surface a few hours ago. It was one of roughly a dozen ships that came down across the planet. While there was no response to initial hailing, automatic metadata claimed the ship had been dispatched from a science mega-cruiser owned by the Notori Corporation called the 'Icarus'.
    Coughlin couldn't help but scoff at that name. Bad luck to name a ship that.
    She kept reading.
    The metadata also confirmed that some catastrophic event had occurred on board the Icarus of a 'Code 25436'; a proprietary company code that meant nothing to her. This led to an involuntary evacuation of all crew members. After traveling for over a month, it landed on autopilot just outside the coastal town of 'Calenburg'.
    Her squad was to secure the ship, provide aid as necessary, and take any survivors to the closest base for medical care, debriefing, and relocation services.
    In short, it was a cake walk.
    "Yo Staff Sergeant." Private Nunez called. "What's the sitrep?"
    "You didn't hear?" Cooper interjected quickly. "Your mother stopped by. We need full deployment just to move her fat ass."
    A couple of the squad chuckled but Private Greer leaned forward, her features stone in the red light of the dropship.
    "Seriously, Sarge." she said, being one of the only ones that didn't call her by her full title. "What's the deal?"
    Cooper looked like he was about to say something else, but Greer glanced over at Private Mikhailov who promptly placed a hand over his mouth. He didn't fight back; it was all in good fun after all.
    Also, Mikhailov had already proven she had no problem in knocking the wind out of him for being a smart ass.
    "Looks like we're touching down about twenty clicks outside of a little coast town on the small continent. Standard rescue op. Pick up some civvies for a life raft, get em back for cocoa, call it a night."
    Greer shrugged a little, but Bullock, sitting next to the Rifleman, narrowed his eyes a little as if judging Coughlin.
    "You sure about that, Staff Sergeant?"
    "Why wouldn't I be sure?"
    He gave her that same questioning look and it was then that she noticed he had a screen pulled up as well. She reviewed the document before her again but saw nothing to the contrary.
    Except...
    There was a flashing circular arrow in the very bottom right of the screen.
    She updated the document and, lo and behold, there was more information then when the flight began. Except now, the bottom text was bright red and highlighted.
   

NOTICE! CLASSIFIED INFORMATION!

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY NOTORI CORPORATION.

THIS INFORMATION ARE CLASSIFIED AND INTENDED SOLELY FOR DESIGNATED SQUAD LEADER AND IS ONLY TO BE SHARED BY IMPERATIVE IN THE INSTANCE IT EFFECTS THE LIKELIHOOD OF SQUAD SURVIVAL. THIS INFORMATION IS NOT TO BE SHARED, COPIED, OR DISTRIBUTED IN ANY CAPACITY. FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THIS WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION, COURT MARSHALL, AND/OR FIELD EXECUTION.

    Coughlin's eyes widened at that last part.

    She had certainly been on confidential missions before. It was nothing really new for most people in the military and sometimes you were exposed to weird or different shit that wasn't even supposed to exist.

    But she couldn't think of anytime she'd ever seen a document refer to field executions.

    She glanced up wearily at Bullock and could tell he was stonefaced, his focus on the ill-begotten document that he wasn't supposed to be reading. The soldiers all got watered down versions of her own dossier, but Bullock's technical aptitude tended to let him 'look over her shoulder' so to speak in exchange that he got to act as second in command and know that, if he ever shared unnecessary secrets, she'd castrate him with a rusty bayonet.

    She went back to the update.

THE NOTORI CORPORATION HAS IDENTIFIED POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS ORGANISMS MAY BE PRESENT AT THE LANDING SITE. THEY ARE UNKNOWN IN NATURE AND ALIEN IN ORIGIN. COMBAT CAPABILITIES ARE ALSO UNKNOWN HOWEVER CREATURES HAVE A RECOGNIZED AGGRESSIVE NATURE. LARGE POSSIBILITY OF BIOLOGICAL CONTAGION FROM DIRECT CONTACT WITH SPECIMENS. USE ALL CAUTION TO AVOID EXPOSURE TO ALIEN CONTAMINANTS.

    Coughlin let out a long sigh.

    "Well this is gonna be fun." she said flatly as she felt the nose of the ship dip forward into descent back towards the planet's surface.

Birthday - Part 2

Film/Image credit to 'Live, Die, Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow'

    "Nice shot." Coughlin complimented Dixon. "Hurts like a fuckin' bitch."
    Dixon chuckled and took her hand, pulling her to her feet.
    "Just lucky, Staff Sergeant."
    "How modest." She said, wiping off her uniform. "But before you let your ego inflate however, care to explain why the fuck you were away from your fireteam?"
    "I wanted to make sure my target was eliminated." he responded calmly.
    Coughlin's eyes narrowed.
    "In exchange for their lives? You understand all three were taken out before you 'eliminated your target' right?"
    Dixon shrugged but she could see a tightening in his expression that suggested she was getting to him. No sane soldier wished his squad dead even if they considered them to be extra baggage.
    Good.
    His lips curled back into a smirk as he tried to rebuild his armor.
    "It's not a real op. And I think you're just mad I got you this time."
    She grabbed him by the front of the armor and pulled him so close she could smell the S.O.S on his breath from mess.
    "Get this through your thick fucking head, soldier. You are part of a fireteam. You are not team lead. You are part of my squad. You are not squad leader. You're a damn good marksman but if keep up with this horseshit the only thing you'll be in the brig for insubordination."
    "This isn't boot camp, you little shit." she continued, yanking him hard again. "I'm not going to threaten to make you clean the latrine with your tongue or some outlandish crap like that. If your cowboy bullshit gets one of my soldiers killed, I will bust you down myself and you won't see anything but the inside of a hard-work camp til hell freezes over. Get me?"
    His expression hardened and his smirk faded.
    "Sir." he responded sharply.
    "Good. Now I'm going to say it again. Do you get me?"
    "Sir. Yes, sir."
    She smiled at the man's submission and backed off. Looking around, she realized the entire squad was standing nearby, watching the interaction. All eleven other soldiers remained silent but attentive to the ass chewing.
    Sensing the tension, she decided to use it.
    "The same goes for the rest of you." she said loud enough for everyone to hear plainly.
    Several of the men and women grimaced.
    "You're the best goddamn unit the Corps has ever seen. A group of one hundred percent human badasses made with one purpose. To Kick. Ass. But if you're as sloppy as you were today, I'm going to be mailing flags back to your mamas with notes saying 'Dumbass couldn't figure out who her fireteam leader was', Xi or 'Decided to be a cowboy with another deadman', Ludwig."
    The group gave each other a few terse glances and Coughlin could tell be the flush red dominating Xi's cheeks that the comment had hit home.
    "Still...dumbasses that you all are, you're the best. And, as much as I might want to kick Dixon's ass for it..." she said, allowing herself a smile and smacking Dixon's armor playfully. "You did beat me."
    The group chuckled softly and let out a few small whoops.
    "That means you're buying the beer, right?" Kuroba yelled playfully.
    "Man, it's her birthday!" shouted Bullock. "Y'all should be buying her a beer."
    Coughlin laughed again as the group converged together, no longer a competing set of teams but as a single unit. A single body of brothers and sisters acting together in perfect unison.
    Well, almost perfect.
    "Tell you what Kuroba: I'll buy you all a beer but you get to buy my beers."
    "Don't do it Sarge!" Dixon shouted at his fireteam leader. "Don't forget what happened on Christmas."
    "I'm pretty sure that's above your paygrade." Quinn agreed.
    The squad all laughed together and started to make their way through the dingy, abandoned alleyways they had used for training and back towards the APC.
    "How about this:" Kuroba offered. "Can I waive the alcohol-fee in exchange for a cake?"
    "Depends." Coughlin commented. "Where'd you get a cake?"
    "Don't ask. Don't tell." Cooper said with a smirk and a wink.
    The group burst into laughter again as they exited the alley and found themselves in the large open field outside of the training facility. The large, boxy APC was parked right where they left it, encased by a shroud of heavy fog that drifted through the darkness.
    But there was something else.
    Two, heavy duty spotlights shone down from a dropship as it tore across the open field towards the training facility. It was moving at a steady click low to the ground. The beams sliced through the darkness as it sped towards them.
    "The hell is that?" Dixon asked with a suspicious tone.
    "Ain't no other teams out tonight, are there?" Bullock asked.
    Seemingly in response, Coughlin's mic buzzed in her ear. She tapped it and the gravely voice of Lieutenant Freeport growled in her ear.
    "Staff Sergeant Coughlin?"
    "Sir." she confirmed.
    "I know your squad just got done with a training op, but I'm sending a dropship your way to pick you all up. There's an op I need you for on the east coast of the small continent."
    Quinn grimaced, listening in on the conversation, but said nothing.
    "Sir, is there a reason one of the other squads is unavailable?"
    "All squads are in deployment and we needs yours too. We've had a number of lifeboats crash land on the planet and we need immediate response to save as many lives as we can."
    Coughlin let out a long, controlled sigh but quickly said, "I understand, Sir."
    "SitRep will be on the dropship. Over and out."
    Short and sweet. she thought to herself.
    The squad looked at her expectantly, but they all knew what was coming. They didn't know where they were going or why they were going, but they knew based on what they had heard that they weren't getting back to base right away.
    "So, you think dragging us on an Op is going to get you out of your beer duties, Staff Sergeant?" Kuroba asked playfully, trying to lighten the quickly tensing mood.
    "Yea, probably. But you still owe me cake when we get back."

Survivors - Part 1

    Blip. Blip. Blip.
    Assistant Director Cisneros stared absent-minded at the acrid liquid as it dripped, drop by drop, down into his mug. The local crony here, Dr. Patang, had tried to convince him that this was this was the best cup of joe on the Daedalus.
    While Cisneros didn’t doubt the good doctor’s honesty; the little brown-nosing tool was too self-interested to not give full disclosure. However he did doubt that the liquid shit dripping out of the archaic machine counted as coffee.
    And he damn sure knew it didn’t smell like it.
    Cisneros glanced around the room as he waited for the stinking drink to finish brewing.
    All around him, cheap furniture, bad walling, dirty carpet, or gunmetal plating. Here and there an uncomfortable chair sat or a half-assed painting hung on the wall; really retracting from the environment more than they gave. It gave him the feeling of being in a lower-end office that had been shoved into a metal box.
    And really, it wasn’t far from the truth.
    Built cheap and built big, the Daedalus was one of two floating laboratories utilized by the corporation’s Xenobiology department. It housed just over two thousand biologists, botanists, chemists, computer experts, robotics technicians, and god knows what else plus the staff and crew that kept the entire dump heap in the air. It wasn’t the fastest or nicest ship in the galaxy, but with her sister, the Icarus, the pair of ships were some of the biggest and probably some of the only used as mobile laboratories and processing cities.
    At least until a month ago.
    Now the Daedalus flew alone in its lazy orbit around the Kaprelli system’s deep violet sun surrounded by the silence of space.
    Cisneros reached down and plucked up the now full mug. He took a swig only to grimace at the sour flavor. It tasted just about as good as it had smelt and, based on the look of shock and horror on Dr. Patang's face, he was glad his distaste with the drink was not lost on the good doctor.
    "I'm so sorry, sir." he quickly shot out. "I swear, it really is the best on the ship. The company doesn't really consider fresh cups to be pri-"
    "Enough, Doctor." Cisneros said flatly. "You'll forgive me if I tell you that I'm not in the mood right now."
    "Yes, sir. Of course, sir." Dr. Patang said as he adorned that same, placid, stupid smile he'd worn since Cisneros arrived eight hours ago.
    "I don't have a great deal of time." Cisneros continued in the same, no-bullshit tone. "So why don't we get this little tour started so I can get on with a very long list of other things that need to get done."
    "Of course, sir." Dr. Patang repeated again and motioned towards the door of the grimy little kitchen.
    The pair made their way through the halls of the Daedalus at a leisurely pace as Dr. Patang prattled on about meaningless inanities. Cisneros could not care less. His visit here was far from routine and he had no interest in listening to small talk.
    He wanted to hear about their findings.
    Of course, it was probably sheer confidentiality that was keeping Dr. Patang from prattling on about that. Still, Cisneros had a lean in his step and they made their way towards the C-Deck labs with more speed than any other visit would have been afforded.
    The mystery of Icarus's destruction the prior month had nagged at him since it happened. And now he might get some answers.
    Originally, it came as a complete shock. The ship had just performed a relatively routine stop to a newly discovered world known as 'Bruni'. The planet was mildly interesting for the fact it was, by all intents and purposes, considered a jungle planet despite its severe climate; prone both to blistering heat and destructive electrical storms.
    Within a matter of hours from the stop, an SOS had been issued from the Icarus.
    An hour after that, the ship was flown directly into a sun with a very small contingent of its population escaping in lifeboats.
    The incident had bothered Cisneros for the month since it had occurred. Now, with several of the life boats captured and brought aboard the Daedalus, his curiosity was peaked as to what the scientists had discovered.
    Most notably because there hadn't been any reported survivors so far.
    So whatever they had found clearly wasn't human. Or, at least, not living ones.
    Dr. Patang offered a single open eye to the scanner next to the C-Deck air locks while simultaneously holding a thumb to a reader and a badge to a scanner. C-Deck, like a number of the locations on the Daedalus, was high security and set up with multiple security points. Additionally, the labs were completely sealed off from the rest of the ship in what was, for lack of a better analogy, a steel box with a single airlock that led into the ship primary.
    This fact only added to Cisneros' surprise when the heavy lead and steel door slid aside to reveal four hardskinned marines standing at attention, rifles ready, standing in the four corners of the inner airlock.
    He glanced at Dr. Patang with an obvious look of surprise.
    "We have...concerns." the doctor said flatly, dropping the cheerful, tour-guide tone he'd been using since Cisneros arrived.
    Cisneros' eyes narrowed but he said nothing. As much of a brown-nosing little shit as Dr. Patang had been, the presence of marines suggested they had found something much more exciting than a few corpses in a lifeboat.
    The two men submitted to a thorough search and ID by one of the marines; a man who identified himself as Sergeant Holmes. They were then led to the next room: a hastily thrown together decontamination room that the inner airlock would have normally been used for had it not been filled with combat armor and firearms.
    Once deloused, they both made their way down a long hallway lined by observation chambers.
    "Now that we're out of ear shot, would you care to share what exactly your team found on the life boats, Doctor?"
    "We're not sure." he said, once again adopting that slight lit to his voice again, but not nearly to the degree he had been earlier.
    "You're not sure?" Cisneros echoed after rolling the possibilities about in his mind.
    "Whatever they are is biologic. But after that, it's unlike anything we've found before."
    Cisneros said nothing as he was led through a maze of corridors. He could see scientists working in labs on any number of different experiments; however Dr. Patang shot right by them.
    At the far end of one hall, the Doctor approached a heavy door labeled 'XL-322". Directly below it. "Restricted Personnel Only." and a keypad. The Doctor entered in an unseen code, scanned his badge again, and motioned for Cisneros to enter.
    They were standing in the viewing area of an operating theater with a door on the far end of the room. The glass was artificially dimmed and Cisneros suddenly had a fleeting sense of claustrophobia in the dark room.
    "This is all well and interesting, Doctor. But can we can on with the theatrics?"
    "Sorry, sir. As I said, sir. We're not sure what we found." Dr. Patang continued as he raised the lights and revealed the laboratory behind the triple-state glass and the monster within.
    Cisneros took an unconscious step back from the now clear glass.  
    What the hell WAS that?
    He felt his heart jump into his throat and, for the first in a very long time, he felt a sudden wash of fear fall over him.
    "But if you've got any ideas..." Dr. Patang said with the first snark the Assistant Director had heard from him, "We're all ears."

Xenophobia - Chapter 19

    "I just received the subspace message not a few moments after I got off the line with you." Harris explained, looking panicked.
    "Take a breath, Captain." the old judge said with surprising evenness in his voice.
    If anything Harris looked even more scared after that. But, after a few seconds of glancing nervously around the conference room, he very carefully drew in a long breath and seemed to steady himself.
    He finally gave a little nod.
    "Yes, sir."
    "Better." the old judge chided. "Now. They just arrived in the system. Do you have an estimate as to when the Tulgucks will get to Mars?"
    "The calculations are coming through now. It'll be just a moment."
    The old judge waited quietly. On the far end of the table however, Darrian heard someone quickly standing up. It was Jin'thun and there was a fury in his eyes.
    "Jin'thun?" Darrian asked softly.
    The heavy set Gorderian shook his head. It was a simple warning. It said "Don't talk to me right now." Darrian didn't risk trying his anger in that moment of anxiety.
    "Here we are." Harris said aloud, regaining the room's attention.
    "According to this, three ships have arrived off the edge of Pluto and are en route towards Mars as we speak. It seems that they either fired short are didn't want to risk exiting folded space within the gravitational pull of the solar system."
    "Three ships?" asked A'alan't 32. "An advanced force of some kind?"
    "It's possible." agreed the old judge.
    "They might have underestimated what they need to deal with the humans." offered Darrian.
    "Do we really want to bank on that idea?" asked A'alan't 32.
    "How long?" demanded Jin'thun, ignoring the others.
    Harris looked nervously at the old judge and then back towards Jin'thun.
    "Well...they're running on ion thrusters. Slow in the scope of things but they'll reach us soon enough."
    "How. Long." Jin'thun growled.
    "Five cycles? Maybe six if we're lucky?"
    "I need your EXACT coordinates and your estimated coordinates in five cycles."
    "It's hard to calculate." Harris said, sounding more unsure than Darrian had ever heard the analyst. "The planetary cycles are so rapid around this sun-"
    "Can you or can you not give my your coordinates?" snapped Jin'thun.
    "Well..."
    "CAN YOU OR CAN YOU NOT?"
    Harris looked visibly shaken under the fear of the Tulgucks and Jin'thun's unapologetic abuse. Darrian wondered if he should step in but didn't want to risk getting caught in the crossfire.
    "Captain." interjected the old judge. "I believe what our ambassador has failed to tell you is that that the Gorderains have offered aid in defending the humans from the Tulguck assault."
    Harris's eyes lit up, looking from the old judge back to Jin'thun.
    "Oh...right." Jin'thun said almost bashfully.
    "Now. Do you not have a small troop of analysts in your stead? Can you reliably calculate the geospatial location that Jin'thun needs?"
    "I can. It will just take me a short while." he said thoughtfully before turning back to Jin'thun. "I'll send it to you the moment we're done calculating."
    That was enough for Jin'thun.
    "Send it to my datapad. I need to alert my embassy." he said as he immediately made his way towards the conference room door.
    He stopped before he walked out, turning back towards the hologram.
    "Harris." he continued. "Is there any reason we SHOULDN'T open folded space within the solar system?"
    "Not- Not that I know of."
    "Let's hope not."
    With that, Jin'thun disappeared into the hallway and was gone before anything else could be said.
    Darrian shuddered. If someone had told him a rotation ago that two races in the Consortium might be going to war, he'd have called that person mad. Now, it was quickly becoming a disturbing reality.
    "Captain." the old judge said sternly towards the shaken Harris. "As soon as you're done with the calculations, I expect you to regain the contact with the human lab."
    "But, si-"
    "You will find out what's going on in the United States lab, Captain."
    "Sir."
    Nothing more was said. Harris gave a little nod, looking somewhere between scared and annoyed. He terminated the call and the room once again fell silent.
    "Do we really care what's going on in the lab?" Ferris finally asked.
    "I do." said the old judge. "And I need Harris to, as well."
    "Why?" questioned Darrian.
    "He needs to be distracted right now." offered A'alan't 32.
    "He's scared." agreed Ugul.
    The old judge nodded.
    "We have five to six cycles before the Tulgucks arrive. We need to gather all the information we can between now and then. Anything we learn about how the Guillae interact with the humans could prove crucial in the future."
    "What's it matter if the humans are dead?"
    "Because the Guillae won't be."
    The council exchanged confused and worried glances. No one said anything. It was starting to become abundantly clear that the old judge might have ulterior motives. No one knew how to react to it.

===

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Xenophobia - Chapter 16

    After the meeting adjourned, Darrian found himself unwilling to return to his office. Everything had happened so fast. Was happening so fast. It felt like every time he rounded a bend, something else was already there waiting for him. 

    He just wanted time to recuperate. Needed it.

    Now, watching his fellow council members collect their things, he couldn't help but wonder how many of them felt the same as he did. A few of them wore anguished expressions. Even more seemed to walk with a heavy weight on them.

    All except Cagool, Darrian thought as he watched the slimy Yool slide out the door.

    His gaze drifted down to his datapad where the last reports were still open. Little more had been revealed regarding the Guillae. Despite the old judge's rather cryptic comment, he had no more to say on the creatures that Darrian had no real knowledge of. 

    Despite their best efforts, the councilors' willingness to participate further in the meeting quickly dwindled. While they attempted to review a number of other minor bits of information from the analytics team, their efforts fell flat. Their minds were all too preoccupied with questions.

    Too many questions with no definitive answers.
    "Are you okay?" asked A'alan't 32.
    Darrian looked up and then quickly around the room, only to realize that they were that A'alan't 32 was the only other one in the room. Everyone else, even the old judge, had gone.
    Glancing back at her, he hesitated before responding. Instead, his gaze drift down to her body. It never really struck him before, but she seemed so...odd. Her form seemed to phase in and out in place. Like, for just a minute, she would be solid. Then, just as quickly, she might have well have been a hologram. Little more than floating blue and grey energy.
    Even more strange, A'alan't 32 always seemed to be different with each flicker of light. One minute she might be child sized. The next: an old woman. Most times she seemed notably female. Other times, he caught a glimmer of a very powerful male form.
    This was, of course, the norm for any Bivvie; their species being what it was. But, in that moment, sitting in the empty meeting room with only her. It struck him as almost disturbing.
    Alien, he thought to himself.
    "Yes." he said, shaking off the antagonistic thoughts about his fellow councilor. "It's just everything that's happened recently."
    "I understand." she said reassuringly.
     Neither said more for several long moments. The silence drew out as they stared at each other from across the table.
    "What do we do?" he finally asked.
    "There's not much we can do." she reiterated the plain truth that was often mentioned whenever that question was brought up in meetings.
    "I know. It's just..."
    "You feel helpless."
    Darrian nodded his agreement.
    "Tell me." she said. "Is it everything that's happened or is it something in particular?"
    "Pardon?"
    "I'm curious. You've always seemed relatively solid. Stable. You have your opinions yet listen to others. You live with caution, yet are fueled by compassion. A perfect example of the Merrenian way."
    Darrian said nothing, but her words made his guts feel rotten. Maybe it was just because Merrenians always strove to be better and 'perfect' was more of a backhanded insult than it was a compliment for them. Or maybe it was because he remember the bigoted thoughts he had of her just moments before.
    "Thanks?" he said shakily.
    "Yet today." she continued. "Here you sit. Crestfallen. Dejected. Depressed."
    "I'm not depressed." he retorted quickly.
    "But you are quick to snap." she observed. "Do not negate your own feelings. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
    He opened his mouth to respond, but quickly swallow his words.
    "I understand." she said again with the softness of a mother calming her litter. "But I must ask again: Is it something specific that got under your skin today?"
    Darrian looked up from his datapad and stared at her for a long moment. Her expression seemed kind but calculating. Reassuring yet unwavering in her curiosity. He replayed the events of the last few meetings over in his head. Considering if there had been something specific.
    And it all came back to the same thought.
    "The Guillae." he said quietly.
    "What about them?"
    "The old judge told us how these things seem to consume all water they find...use it to make their plants. Use it to replicate themselves..." said Darrian with more remorse in his voice than he had expected. "The humans rely heavily on water. Hell. Their BODIES are mostly water. We don't know what the Guillae are going to do to them."
    "True." she agreed. "But all in all, I don't believe the introduce of the Guillae will prove hazardous to the humans."
    This came as a shock to Darrian.
    "Why?" he blurted out.
    "To be candid, I've been researching the Guillae ever since they were first mentioned." she said with a hint of a smile. "And I'm pretty sure they will be working to the humans' benefit and not their downfall."

===

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Start at the Beginning

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Xenophobia Title Page

Xenophobia

 

---

When people picture Aliens, they imagine monsters. Creatures. Other worldly things

with voracious appetites and powers and technologies that far surpass our own. But what

if we were the monsters in our eyes. Violent and bloodthirsty with capabilities they could

never imagine. How would they react to these monsters from Earth?

---

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17 

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

-

Xenophobia - Chapter 4

    "Well?" demanded Uu'lassna. "Are they a threat or not? Are we dealing with a hostile species?"
    The old judge turned his attention to Uu'lassna and looked back and forth at the different participants of the Consortium before letting out a long sigh. Darrian couldn't help but wonder if this was something the old robot had been programmed to do or had learned over the years.
    "They are, without a doubt, a threat."
    "What makes you say that?" asked the Yool.
    "Unfortunately, they have shown paramount hostility not only to the species of flora and fauna that inhabit the planet, but to their own species as well."
    "Their own species?"
    "Right. Over the course of the rotations that we've been able to observe, there have been hundreds, if not thousands of continually escalating conflicts. We've been attempting to understand the basis for these conflicts but have not come to any educated conclusions. Even more frightening is that as their technology advances, so too does the level of destruction, without any real recognition at the damage they're doing."
    "Surely there's some reason for this constant in-fighting." Darrian wondered out loud.
    "The best guesses we've come up with so far are both too idiotic to really accept as fact. The first has to do with disagreements over fictional characters created earlier in the civilizations. It would seem that some groups think these characters are more important than others and actively kill each other in the name of that character."
    "That's lunacy..." the Jigger observed with a hint of horror in his voice.
    "It gets better. The other 'reason' that we've identified seems to be on the basis that they believe they are not one species."
    "W-what?"
    "You heard me. For some reason, a large number of them believe that they are different species on the basis of things like mating preference and even flesh pigmentation. They take it so far as to enslave, punish, and murder each other under the presumption that they are somehow separate from each other despite being such superficial differences.
    For one of the first times in the meeting, Darrian could clearly hear whispers and quiet debate. They had never heard of a self-destructive species becoming space-faring. It simply never happened. Either a species eliminated themselves or they evolved past the need for destruction and focused their goals on the stars as a single unit. And yet, here they were with such unabashed aggression and somehow they had reached space.
    Wait...
    "Hold on. Perhaps this was some kind of accident? Maybe they have space faring technologies but it was just coincidental. They aren't aimed at space travel."
    "A welcome thought." remarked the judge. "But you'd be wrong."
    Darrian's heart sunk.
    "But...HOW?"
    "Actually, it was a competition."
    "A competition? The ability to escape to the stars and explore the universe was somehow made into a competition?" asked a Gorderian who looked legitimately disgusted.
    "Quite right. Several groups around the planet were racing and even sabotaging each other to see who could reach their moon quickest. In fact, that brings us to the only good news we might have for today."
    "Which is?"
    "Once one of the groups managed to reach the moon, their desire to explore the stars seemingly diminished. While some groups continued to work, the race being 'over' seemed to quench many desires to leave the planet's orbit."
    "So it's possible they might not leave their planet at all?!" the Cadrax asked with a little bit too much enthusiasm.
    He was met with many nods and agreements. It would seem that the entire Consortium was in favor of not having these warmongers joining them anytime soon.
    "It's...possible." the old judge agreed slowly. "For the moment they seem content to litter their atmosphere with satellites and war with each other."
    "You don't sound convinced it will stay that way." Darrian added.
    The old judge simply shook his head. This was met with a collective sigh and many sidelong glances around the table.
    "I suppose that brings us back to the original point of our meeting. What do we going to do about it?"

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