FSE

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Chapter 3

“Can you believe that?” sputtered the slightly drunk falashai. “Damn ships falling out of orbit onto the planet and crashing at the city outskirts like that. This world is going to the pits I tell you and Anatalay is sinking in first!” He poked the lupari sitting at his side in the chest with a finger to add emphasis.

The lupari grumbled and waved his companion’s hand away from him. “Shut up. I’m trying to listen to the news,” he grumbled. “They said it was a deep salvage ship, the Pargaro or something like that; serious damage to it apparently. Its comm system was out and blew right past any orbital station. Slammed down not too far from here in the mountains.” He looked to the space behind the counter he sat at. A rather voluptuous ra’lai was cleaning glasses with a rag there. “Hey, how come you still open, that ship smashing down like it did so close by? Puttin’ us in danger like this.”

The tawny furred ra’lai groaned a little and looked towards the lupari with a frown on her face. “Listen you two, if we were in danger from the crash we’d have been ordered to stay shut. We got no orders to do so. The ship crashed by the mountains, not on top of the city you dimwits. So be happy we’re open and drink up… unless you want me to send you home with your tails tucked between your legs where you can be safe and hide under your beds.”

“Hey now, no need to be all rude,” snapped the falashai defensively.

“Yeah, just have your good interests in mind too,” added in the lupari.

“If you two had my best interests in mind you’d have left already. It’s gods awful early in the morning and I’d honestly like to close up. You’re the only two in here left and until you go or it hits four in the morning, I can’t shut down. Owner’s orders.”

“I don’t think we’re wanted here Harkhal,” slurred the falashai, patting his companion on his shoulder.

“I’m getting that feeling as well my friend. So, let’s say we leave this place and come back when she’s less grumpy.”

“Thank the gods,” muttered the ra’lai under her breath. She started to clean the counter before her, wiping it down with the same rag and using a disinfectant spray. It was the end of a long, long night for her and she just wanted to go home and sleep. The bar was usually good business and she got paid well, but tonight was a little crazy with the ship crash happening. It was all anyone talked about for the past three hours, ever since it went down.

“But first, one more drink for my friend and I before we pound paws home!” called out the lupari. The falashai joined him with a high pitched, yapping cheer. The ra’lai groaned even louder.

The door to the bar opened up, a digital chime echoing through the single large room that comprised the place the patrons could be. An asishi filled the doorway, not in height, but definitely in width. He was broad shouldered and heavily muscled. The burly figure strode into the bar and let the door close behind him. He was wearing a neutral grey jumpsuit with knee and elbow pads. A heavy belt was around his waist, a few tools and pieces of equipment dangling from it. It made him look like a technician. All three inside the bar looked to the newcomer at the same time.

The ra’lai was about to say something but her mouth slowly closed. The fur on the back of her neck rose up and an odd feeling of dread came over her. She’d never felt that before and didn’t like the feeling at all. She looked to the asishi and said, “Sorry. Bar’s closed. You have to leave, okay?”

The asishi glanced from side to side, taking in the view of the many tables and chairs all about the establishment. He sniffed a few times and wrinkled his nose in disgust. He began to walk towards the bar slowly, one paw thumping down before the other. “I need a map,” he growled slowly as he approached the bar and the folk gathered there.

Harkhal, the lupari got up and was about to speak when the odd scents crashed into him like a wave. Even drunk he could smell something… strange. The asishi before him was dead calm, almost unnaturally so in his motions, but he stank of fear at the exact same time. He shook his head side to side quickly as if that would help clear his nose and make it work right. The stink of fear grew even stronger, more powerful than he ever smelled before. That was terror. He could almost taste it in his mouth and it made him feel sick to his stomach. It sobered him up immediately and he leaned back against the bar. His hand slid along it and gripped the bottle he was drinking from. “Rah’lahia, you better get out of here… right now,” he said to her.

The ra’lai stared at the lupari, confused and not understanding what was going on. The falashai pushed himself away from the bar and tromped over towards the asishi shaking a fist in the air. The lupari reached out for his friend’s shoulder a moment too late to stop him. He wanted to move forward but that unreasonable scent of terror had infected him to the point that he could barely move his own legs.

The falashai came up before the taller asishi and shouted, “Go on! You heard her. She said get outta here! The bar’s closed. What’s wrong, you deaf or something?” Up close he spotted a small tag on the breast pocket of the jumpsuit. It had a name on it, Yattik, but below that was a symbol of some kind followed by the name Pargaro. The jumpsuit was covered with dry stains and splotches. Old dried blood. This close, even the falashai smelled it.

The asishi’s arm shot out and gripped the smaller falashai by the wrist so tight the smaller one let out a cry of pain. The asishi twisted it hard and pulled down at the same time, smashing the arm against a table, loudly snapping the forearm bone and wrist at the same time. The falashai let out a shriek of pain and fell to the floor, cradling his broken arm. Before he or anyone else reacted, the asishi gripped the table next to the falashai and flipped it atop him, slamming the edge of it down on his head until both crashed to the floor at once with a sickening crack and wet sound combined. When the table rolled off him the falashai’s head was crushed, blood pouring from the fatal wound. Rah’lahia let out a shriek. The asishi casually stepped over the ruins of the body and continued towards the remaining two.

“I need a map.”

“Lurmashel?” whimpered the lupari. “Y-You killed my friend. You killed him!” Rage overtook him and the lupari lunged at the asishi. He swung the bottle and it crashed across the side of the asishi’s head, shattering and leaving a few fragments of glass in the killer’s face. Blood poured down the side of his head but the asishi didn’t even flinch or show signs of having suffered pain. He reached out and grabbed the shoulders of the lupari. Harkhal raised his arms and slammed his fists down on the asishi’s forearms several times to get him to let go but the attacker’s strength was relentless. He lunged forward, teeth clamping down on the lupari’s throat a moment later.

“Geh out uf the baaarrr!!” cried out the lupari in a final wet, gurgling scream directed at the ra’lai. She heard horrible sounds, cracking and tearing noises. The body was released and fell to the floor at the asishi’s paws. His face was covered with blood and it dripped down all over his chest, staining the jumpsuit an even darker shade. He looked to Rah’lahia and walked towards her, his expression never changing. He didn’t even look angry. There was nothing there; a totally blank face; devoid of showing emotion at all.

“I need a map.”

Tears streamed down her face and her hand reached under the counter of the bar, shaking so much she could barely grip the folded paper there. It was a rare item, but something kept in the bar for all to enjoy. A map made of paper. She brought it up and held it out, too terrified to run. Her hand trembled and the map shook. The asishi raised one of his hands up, one that wasn’t covered in blood. He took it and stared at it for a few moments, then held it on its side. The map fell open and revealed the surrounding city. He stared at it, but said nothing.

“Please… can I go? Can I leave? Please… I won’t tell anyone I… that you… I just… I don’t want to d-die,” she whimpered as she tried to slide along the wall behind the bar, moving away from the asishi.

He set the map down on the bar and looked at her. He began to walk towards her slowly. “But you must.”

She burst into sobs and cried out, “Why?! Why why why!!?” She sank to the floor.

“Because… you are not us.”

Her screams echoed out from the bar, but no one was there to hear.

Chapter 4

Kendra stretched her arms over her head and arched her back, her spine making slight popping sounds in the process. She wore a white lab coat with her ID on it as well as clearance to work in the lab. Her arms dropped limply down at her sides after the stretch and she reached for the cup of coffee on her desk, slurping at it. She let out a content sigh after a drink and set her cup down. A few taps on the terminal before her and she pulled up the itinerary for the day. She was mostly playing catch up and assistant for now but she couldn’t ever complain about this job being worse than the one she was at before. It was her first official day working in the lab after a week of training in all its protocols and she felt more relaxed here than anywhere since ‘it’ happened. She wasn’t sure if it was just being in this kind of environment, finally getting to face the thing that she hated most and coming to slowly understand more about it, or getting to be with the last person left from her closest family.

She glanced to her left and up, seeing the looming tordenchi over her. They were both at the same work station, her on a human sized station atop his station. It comforted her just to see him now. Kendra quickly fired off an internal message to Imacha, despite her sitting next to him. The tordenchi spotted the message, opened it up and frowned. He glared down at Kendra and grumbled at her.

“Seriously, I consider you a professional Kendra. I take great umbrage at receiving juvenile messages from you of all people. A… what is this called again?” groused Imacha.

“Poop emoji,” she responded.

“Yes that thing. Why do you keep sending it to me? This is the third time this morning. Are you making this a new habit? I protest vehemently.”

Kendra let out a momentary laugh and shook her head. “Thank you Imacha,” she said with a slight smirk across her face.

“For what? Complaining at you? Well you deserved it. Poop emoji. Seriously.”

“For saving me.”

“I’ve done no such thing Kendra. I merely got you out of a job far beneath your station and into one where you and I can make a difference in the future,” he said.

Kendra turned her seat to face him and looked up. “Not this. I… I realized when I woke up this morning that I never, in the entire time that passed from that terrible day on the planet, thanked you for saving my life there. You carried me all the way back to the ship and pushed on when you clearly had nothing left. You did it for me, because you cared about me. I’m sorry I never said thank you before, so I say it now. Thank you my friend. I can’t ever repay you for that but you need to know that I’ll forever be grateful to you for it.”

Imacha looked about for a few moments, as if he was worried someone would hear him say his next words. He focused on Kendra and leaned his head closer. “You already have Kendra. For that one moment in time, I got to be a Guardian. Your Guardian. It was something I had wanted to be very badly in my past, but resigned myself to never getting to be so. Yet, when I had decided I did not want it any more, that happened. It was terrible, those events, but I can still draw a tiny sliver of good from it in my own way. It is what helps me cope with the loss of them every night. I still have you, because I could protect you that one, single moment in time.”

Kendra wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Imacha had never opened up to her like that before and it deeply touched her heart. “I love you Imacha. So much… and I missed you so, so badly this last cycle. Don’t you ever leave me alone again like that, okay?” she asked.

“I… love you too. I promise. I won’t.”

“You better not or I will seriously kick your ass.”

A droll expression crossed his face, whiskers twitching. “I tremble in fear at your threat… though my statement is meant in total jest as it is untruthful.”

She smirked and shook her head side to side. “Tordenchi comedians must seriously suck,” she chuckled.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a fan of comedy. I can’t easily understand some forms of humor. It eludes me. I tend to prefer documentaries and scientific expositions.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all. Speaking of that, would it be all right to spend some time over at your place to have you help me out with the science here? I’m pretty rusty at it and could use the help.”

“My place?” he answered, sounding a little flustered. “Why my place?”

“Because you can only fit your paw into my place and as much as I think all of you is kinda cute Imacha, I’d rather speak to your head than your paw.”

“Was that an attempt at humor?” asked Imacha.

“Yes.”

Imacha smiled at her. “It worked. We’ll go back to my home after today’s tasks are completed. Though, you might have to remain on the floor and speak to my paw if the mood takes me.”

Kendra waggled a finger at him. “Ahhh, you’re learning already. Good.” She and Imacha returned to their work.

* * * *

“There you both are, my diligent companions and researchers,” said Dr. Tahk as he entered the analysis lab where Imacha and Kendra were stationed.

Kendra was getting used to his whispery growl, almost finding it comforting. She raised her hand and gestured for him to come over to the station she worked at. Her other hand slid into the holo control suite before her and gestured upwards, creating a much larger holographic copy of her work floating in the air before the venerable arkatian. The looming dragon-like alien immediately recognized what she was going over when it came to the species.

“So, this is the breakdown of their sensory capacity, which is frankly astounding. Their senses of scent and hearing, according to all this data, rival the most acute senses of Union races. They hear as well as falashai and smell as well as lupari. But their sight is nothing special to speak of. Why didn’t they uplift that? Some of their enhancements make no sense to me Dr. Tahk,” said Kendra. “I can’t begin to parse out what their mindset is based on this mish-mash of biological abilities. I’m equally amazed with how they got it all to work together.”

“Ah yes. Mindset. Psychology of an alien race. We had this conundrum accost us early on in the studies Kendra. When looked at individually, some abilities they have given themselves appear to be odd or out of place, incongruous with others or as you said a mish-mash. Amusing phrase. Yes. These abilities appear to be seen in races on vastly different worlds and unneeded on others because the threats they counter simply aren’t present on that planet. But, when taken as a whole… hyper advanced regeneration, deletion of senescence, fully functional equivalence of gills, superior capacity to neutralize toxins introduced to their bodies, a near perfect immune system, the ability to actually survive in hard vacuum for an alarmingly long amount of time, and more… it all adds up to one thing,” he said. “They likely fear death.”

Kendra stared at the long list of biological upgrades the species gave to themselves and scowled. She tried to come up with another answer for it but nothing else was coming to mind. “That sounds too simple though. I mean, all races have some degree of fear of death. It’s simply natural. No one wants to die, but we all have to.”

“Ah, yes, that is the natural order. But look at them. Their natural abilities are like checking off a list of things that can kill you and finding a way to eliminate that threat. That suggests a single minded dedication, far in excess of all other races we currently know of, to eradicate the one commonality all life faces inevitably. Death.”

“Well, we all would accept ways to stave off death if we could,” she tried to argue.

“Would we? To that degree? They have modified their bodies to the point that the creature you encountered and we now study likely looks dramatically different from what the race looked like prior to their uplifting. No, to me a race that would go that far to change themselves, to lose what they looked like in the past, was consumed by a desire to defeat death. That means something intense drives their mindset. Something dangerous.”

“A hatred of things that are not them?” asked Kendra. “Because that sure as hell matches what it told me.”

“No. Not hatred. Fear. People don’t hate death, not in the sense of hating a person. We fear it. It is an existential dread. These creatures likely fear it more intensely than we easily comprehend; so much so that they changed themselves in every way possible to overcome it. Now, a correlation to coincide with that is, if fear drove them so strongly to literally find a way to remove death itself as an enemy, what would they do to an outside force they encounter that they also fear?”

“Remove it. Render it so it is no longer a threat.”

“Correct,” he said. “In layman’s terms, kill it. The exact words you used to describe them in your captain’s log was, and I quote, ‘There is something out there and it wants to be left alone.’ They lashed out in a hyper-aggressive manner against everything you said they considered not them. It was all the reason they needed to kill. That is xenophobia; a fear of that which is different than you fueled by true thanatophobia; the actual fear of death.”

Kendra nodded in agreement.

“These annelid feared death so much they spent who knows how many eons finding a way to kill it. If they are willing to kill death itself, then I believe they will not hesitate one moment to eradicate something that is not them that they meet out of the sheer fear that the other would try to kill them,” concluded Dr. Kath.

Kendra sat there and thought more about the bigger concepts of what drove this new alien race and her mind began to go to very dark places. Not us. They killed the entire crew of the Lothia and tried to kill all of her crew as well, just because they encountered them. What if they weren’t the first people to encounter them though? Not us. She looked up at the arkatian with eyes wide. He was already staring down at her, arms folded behind his back.

“What if others had met them already? It had a copy of a yutri sized for them. It couldn’t just whip that up in such a short period of time from seeing yutri sized for your races. They would have to reverse engineer it first to figure it out. But if they had encountered our races earlier, ran into other ships out in the rim…” she mused.

“Imacha was right. You have a very sharp mind Kendra Forrest. You connect the dots rapidly and that is a good thing. I most certainly need you here because we have to impress upon the powers that be in command of the Union, both the Security Council and the United Assembly, that we are in danger. Not the kind of danger of possibly being in a border conflict with the rynar or some other belligerent force from a Fringe Space polity. I believe this is a danger that borders on that level of existential dread we just spoke of.”

“So you are sure they have encountered ships in the past and that they are a threat to the Union?” she asked.

Imacha spoke up and said, “Dr. Tahk had me spend a good amount of time poring over records in the past of ships being lost in the Rim along where you said the annelid gestured towards on the galaxy map it presented to you. I came up with no less than ten possibilities of ships that might have run into these aliens before the Lothia and either been captured or outright destroyed. The probability that all of them had met with bad luck out there, or the ships suffering catastrophic malfunctions, borders on zero. Not to fluff our fur too much, but we make ships better than that. Could they have encountered pirates or hostile rynar forces? Potentially. But with the revelation of these aliens… Dr. Tahk and I consider it much more likely that at least three and possibly up to all of those ship disappearances are linked directly to the annelid. It means they know us and have known us for at least twenty to thirty cycles.”

“And what they know they immediately fear because it is not them,” said the arkatian.

“And what they fear, they kill,” said Kendra.

All of them fell silent for a few moments, the doctor and Imacha giving Kendra time to process everything. She sat there, her hand up at her cheek, finger slowly running along the scar on her dusky colored skin.

“How advanced do you think their technology is?” Kendra finally asked.

“In biology, genetics, and likely medical practices, so far beyond our level of science as to consider our methods laughably rudimentary,” said Imacha. “For the rest, we’re unsure. Best case scenario is perhaps a few generations ahead. That is still close enough to potentially overcome if something happens. That would be the level disparity you humans faced against the rynar. You were able to fight back but were in dire straits.”

“Worst case?” she asked.

“The worst case,” whispered Dr. Tahk, “… is that the annelid are at singularity level over us. It means that their technology is so advanced to us that it is nigh incomprehensible to our current understanding of science. If such is the case and we are forced into a direct conflict with the species that results in a large scale war, we face utter annihilation. We will neither have the ability to overcome them militarily or negotiate peace with them. All advantage will be theirs and we will be at their likely nonexistent mercy.”

“So that’s what you and Imacha have as the big plan huh? To impress upon the Security Council of the Union that to even so much as try to engage these aliens is potential disaster.”

Dr. Tahk nodded slowly. “Yes. Currently the Union has decided to wait two cycles from the date initially declaring the Rim a no-entrance zone. They feel that is enough time to let things ‘cool off’ between the annelid and the Union, that these aliens will be more open to proper diplomacy by then. They will then send in lupari diplomats to attempt to make contact with them.”

“If all you surmise about them is correct and their message to me holds true, that the annelid demand we don’t go into their space any more or they will come out to us…” said Kendra, “Then we’re done. That will start a war, no negotiations possible.”

“Correct. So though our purpose here is, according to what the Union wants us to do, to study all aspects of the biology of the species and glean what we can from it, Imacha and I have our own additional goal. That is to persuade the Security Council and United Assembly that to attempt to make contact with the annelid is the height of folly and will plunge the Union into a war we might not be able to win. We will spend the remaining cycle we have to build up an irrefutable argument to support our position. Hopefully.” The old arkatian let out a sigh and adjusted his glasses on his snout.

“I for one believe we need more to back up our propositions though,” said Imacha. “My trust in the government to make the proper decision on this matter is non-existent. The Union, though I deeply believe it is benevolent and seeks the best for its people and I will support it to the end, assumes the best when it steps into a negotiation of good faith with other new races. If Dr. Tahk’s current psychological assessment of the annelid, predicated on the foundational bases of their biology and self-uplifting, and your testimony of them Kendra holds true then the entire diplomatic standard the Union relies upon is completely useless with them. It can and will only lead to all-out war with the race.”

“This sounds a little bit above my paygrade all of a sudden,” said Kendra looking back and forth between the two aliens. “Last time I tried to warn people that these things were dangerous I lost my pilot’s licenses and couldn’t even leave world or get a good job. This though, what you two are proposing, is even bolder and a hell of a lot more risky. You want to tell the Union itself that a diplomatic method that’s worked for hundreds and hundreds of cycles isn’t worth shit with this new race. Basically, you’re calling them all idiots in this specific case.”

“A crude way of putting it, but fundamentally… yes,” said Dr. Tahk, almost cheerfully.

“I look forward to it,” chirped up Imacha quickly. “Sometimes those in authority need a reality check.”

Kendra shook her head side to side and smirked. She chuckled to herself softly then tossed her hands up into the air and cried out, “What the hell. Fuck it. If we succeed and stop a war, hooray us, we all win. If we fail and these things turn out to be the end of everything, then we will all go down together… as one… as the Union says we should be. All I know is, I’ll never not be at your side again Imacha. So you have my support in this stupid plan.”

The giant mouse’s hand came down to her chair and one finger gently brushed against Kendra’s side. She petted the pink digit and smiled up at him. “Don’t get all soft on me now. I like you stuffy and grumpy.”

“Shut up.”