Chapter Fifty-Four (Vuxten)

Vuxten's broodcarriers were distressed when he got home and it took long moments of petting their soft and warm fur to calm them. They shivered, holding on to him, pressing their faces into his fur, clutching onto him as the shook. It took long minutes to calm them and when he did he stood, perfectly still, his eyes wide with horror.

Humans had come to his house. In armor. With bright glowing green eyes. With weapons. One, without armor but still carrying a pistol, had come inside, asked the broodcarriers questions. His eyes had been bright green. He had been carrying a small tube with a flashing light on one end that made the Vid-screen go blank. There had been a Lanaktallan Overseer with the human, but the human had ordered it to stay outside. The broodcarriers told Vuxten that they could smell that the Lanaktallan was terrified of the humans. The human had come inside, asked to be shown the domicile, then shut the door in the Overseer's face. As he examined their little domicile the human had asked questions. They said that the human had tried to be polite, gentle, and spoke softly and attempted to speak soothingly, but they had been terrified by the questions.

Where does your male-mate and female-mate work? What shift? What does their jobs require them to do? How many are in your home? Where are your podlings? Are you pregnant? Does anyone in the home have illness, injury, or an ailment? How much food do you have? Is your food dispenser full of nutripaste? Do you know how to get to the nearest shelter? Do you have a shelter pass? Do you have a pass to be on the street outside of curfew?

It wasn't the way the human had asked. It wasn't what it had asked.

It was that it had asked.

The broodcarriers were terrified that during the night CorpSec or LawSec men would come and take Vuxten away.

It had happened to others in the massive habitat complex Vuxten and his family lived in.

Vuxten calmed himself and resumed petting the broodcarriers, calming them. He helped them to the bed, fear and anxiety exhausting them, then sat at the table in his kitchen.

It was odd. He could smell no trace of the human. Like the human had not even actually been there, but he knew the broodcarriers would not lie. Vuxten thought about it. He couldn't smell Sergeant either. He thought it over even harder. It was like Sergeant wasn't there in some ways. When he spoke Vuxten could hear him, but when he moved there was no sound. He had thought that perhaps it was the helmet that kept him from smelling Sergeant.

Vuxten wondered how Sergeant accomplished that. Could he be mechanical? No, that was silly. Those mechanical eyes, though. Everyone knew that civilized beings, even most neo-sapients, could not get mechanical prosthetics beyond and implant, that their nervous systems were too complex for crude mechanical implants to work.

Vuxten thought of how he had seen Sergeant move. Controlled, precise. In some ways almost mechanical, but with a weird predatory smoothness that left no doubt that the human was alive, flesh and blood, must somehow... different.

Sitting in the dim light of his kitchen slash dining room slash living room Vuxten turned his hand-paws over and looked at them. Dark black ridged and textured pad, fur, short blunt vestigial nails. He had a grip strong enough, after long years working the wax buffer, to lift almost a third of his body-weight without losing his grip. He was strong, for a Telkan, his grip strong enough that he had built up thicker pad-skin and many of his fellow Telkans winced when touching palms.

His wife, Brentili'ik, came home from her job. She could smell the broodcarrier's distress. When he told her what happen she became distressed enough she rocked back and forth, keening softly, tears running down her face. She too was sure that CorpSec or LawSec would kick in their door, some night soon, and take Vuxten away.

Vuxten soothed her, ate with her, and went to bed, holding her between the comforting warmth of the broodcarriers.

He stared up at the low plas ceiling for a long time.

they will down your mate's throat and pull her fucking heart out...

He held his wife closer and shifted his feet to touch the broodcarriers with a foot each.

pull her fucking heart out...

The human's words followed him into sleep.

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The buzzer went off. Vuxten got up, carefully put on the paper jumpsuit, feeling a slight bit of happiness that taking it off and folding it each day had resulted in the jumpsuit still being wearable after three days. He took his phone, his ID, and open the door to his apartment.

He was proud of himself for not screaming or urinating himself or worse.

A human stood there, his palm upturned and looking at a wire-frame hologram being emitted from his hand. Vuxten felt the fur down his spine and around his neck to rise up out of terror. It was big, it had glowing blue cybernetic eyes, a uniform that as he watched shifted pattern slightly to make the human blurry appearing, a belt with a pistol, and a weird hat on his head.

"You are Vuxten, ID Number 6336-234-53456?" The human asked.

Vuxten nodded, swallowing nervously.

"I am Staff Sergeant Nichols. Sergeant First Class Ulganga has assigned me to ensure you reach today's practice area," the human said. "You're last on my list. Follow me."

Vuxten remembered his thoughts last night and sniffed as he followed the human toward the dimly lit stairwell.

He couldn't smell the human.

"Olfactory masking," the human said as they went down the stairs. "Some xenospecies become distressed at a human's body odor. We excrete a lot pheromones."

"Oh," Vuxten said. He guessed it made sense. Humans probably smelled as predatory as they moved.

"How long have you been with CorpSec?" The human asked.

"Uh, ten years," Vuxten asked.

"Seen any action?" the human asked. The question was oddly intent, almost challenging, and Vuxten swallowed.

"Yes."

"Where?" the human asked.

Vuxten remained silent, trying to remember where the riot had been. "A riot. Two years ago."

The human nodded. "So you're an attack chopper pilot? That's who saw action in the riot two years ago, not ground troops."

Vuxten was silent as they went down three flights of stairs.

The human gave an oddly Telkan sigh. "Look, don't lie to me, all right? It's OK if you've never been to see the elephant."

"I have been with Kistimet Industrial Corporate Security for ten years," Vuxten mumbled.

"And I've been a rabbit for the same amount of time," the human said.

Vuxten wondered what a rabbit was.

"That's what Sergeant Ulganga suspected. Just keep saying that when asked," the human said.

They walked down the remaining fifteen flights of stairs in silence.

"Your people aren't psychically sensitive, are they?" the human asked as they walked down the long hallway to the exit.

"No, we are not," Vuxten answered. "Why?"

"It's a theory some of us are working on," the human said. "Most of your coworkers are not either, are they?"

Vuxten shook his head and the human glanced at him.

"Do you do that naturally or did you learn it from us?" the human asked.

"I had thought that the omnitranslator had told you to do that," Vuxten admitted.

"Nope. We've been doing it for about fifty-thousand years, since we were like lemurs," the human said.

Vuxten stayed silent as they walked out the door. He had noticed that humans took extremely long steps to the point he was surprised that their knees did not hyperextend. Again, when it wasn't talking, the human seemed almost as if it wasn't there. No smell, the outfit blurring him and often matching with the pattern of the raw duraplast wall, no sound of his footsteps, no sound of breathing.

"Do you mask your sounds?" Vuxten asked right before they pushed through the door.

"Uniform has sonic baffling built into it, same with electro-magnetic spectrum, thermal, and moisture masking," the human raised and lowered his shoulders. "Standard battle dress smart uniform in daily wear mode."

"Oh," Vuxten thought about it. That would make a human difficult to spot. If that was daily mode, Vuxten wondered what combat mode would be like.

He remembered the Sergeant knocking the robot's head off by dropping his boot heel to impact the plasteel.

"May I ask a question?" Vuxten looked around, not seeing the hoverbus. Only a heavy armored vehicle with large tires.

"Ask away, trooper. Only dumb question is one not asked," the human said.

"How long have you been what you are?" Vuxten realized he had no idea what the human actually did.

"I've been a soldier, a member of the Terran Confederate Armed Services for about two hundred years," the human answered, leading Vuxten toward the ugly armored vehicle.

"How long do you live?" Vuxten was startled.

"Four hundred years, maybe more. There's options after that. One of the benefits of being in the military is that you get the best medical care. Providing I don't get SUDS'ed too bad, blown to hell and gone beyond cloned replacements and force growth, or something really bad I don't really have to worry about some weird things, like how long I can live," the human stopped, one hand on a door handle. "Service brings citizenship."

Vuxten wasn't sure what that meant, but it seemed to be extremely important to the human who had opened a door in the vehicle to show a large compartment with benches on either side. The twenty-five beings of his work-shift were sitting on the benches, with the Sergeant standing up next to the door.

"Up you go, Vuxten," the human said. "Last one, Sergeant."

Vuxten climbed up, struggling a little, and sighed inside as he tore the seam on the knee of his jumpsuit. Dura the Frestilek moved over so he could sit next to her. The other human climbed in, pulling the door shut.

Vuxten noticed it was as thick as his hand and closed with a quiet thud. He barely felt the vehicle start to move and noticed that both humans just shifted their hips to stay balanced.

After a bit the new human, Nichols, looked at Sergeant. "Ever seen troopers this quiet in a vehicle at oh-dark-thirty, Sergeant?"

Sergeant shook his head. "No, I haven't. I think that may be part of the problem."

Barely awake, the rocking, warmth, and slight vibration lulling everyone on the benches, even him, into slumber, Vuxten wondered what problem. What could be a problem.

"CorpSec my ass," Nichols grunted.

"Lieutenant Grieves went around to get dependent information. None of these guys are security, they were all janitors until yesterday," Sergeant said. "If I didn't think it would cause an interspecies incident I'd have one of the aVI's or DS's cut into their databases and find out what's going on."

"They're coming, you know," It was more a statement than a question and Vuxten felt a slight bit of alarm knowing that they meant the Precursors.

"Yeah. Googly-eyes in the Oort Cloud," Sergeant said softly. "We don't have much time."

"What's the Captain going to do about their dependents? None of them are..." Nichols started to say, stopping at a motion from Sergeant.

The ride was silent the rest of the way.

When the door opened again, Vuxten saw it was a parking lot with wire fence around it, with Executor and CorpSec and LawSec vehicles. There were Overseers in front of five different vehicles, the lights of the vehicles on and the engines running.

The Sergeant broke everyone up into groups of five. Vuxten found himself following Sergeant along with four others, including Dura, the Ikeekik named Keekikee, and a Telkan named Ustor. The one he'd never met was a Shavashan named Sleesavash. All five of them were roughly the same height and the human, Sergeant, walked them over the the Overseer, who was chewing on cud and waiting in his heavy Executor armor.

"I disagree with this, human Sergeant Ulganga," the Overseer said.

"Their small arms can't hurt a Precursor, their only chance is vehicle mounted and crew served weapons against the Precursors if you want to save this city," Sergeant said. "Personally, there are far too few troopers to defend a city this size, in my opinion."

"Then luckily your opinion does not matter, human," the Overseer said. He waved two hands in a dismissive gesture. "We understand that the Precursor machines frighten you, but they have been rebuffed from every world they have sought to take."

The human stared at the Overseer, then at the gathered up group of five that Vuxten was with, then back at the Overseer.

"Then we will see," Sergeant said. He pulled open the door to the vehicle and motioned to Vuxten and the others. "Get in. We'll go out somewhere for some target practice and teach you to drive and operate this vehicle."

Everyone got in, the human stopping Vuxten and having him get into the front of the vehicle with the Overseer and and himself. The human moved around on the bench, the gap between the back of the vehicle and the bench, to allow for the Overseer's rear legs, obviously taking him a moment to get used to.

"Like riding in a Treana'ad vehicle," Sergeant said. He shifted then looked at the Overseer. "Let's go."

The vehicle drove through the dark, heading out of the city. They drove to a place with old vehicles and parked them behind a low wall.

There, the rest of the day, the learned to drive the vehicles, how to use the heavy laser cannon on it. The Overseers were happy with their progress by noon but the Sergeant and the other humans made everyone practice jumping out of the vehicle and running to hide behind something, shooting from inside the vehicle, running to the vehicle while stopping and shooting on the way. Repairing the laser cannon, fixing the vehicle, how to patch the hoverfan skirts, and many other things. The whole times the humans watched, their eyes bright green.

The Overseer didn't seem to want to permit Vuxten and the others from learning about the vehicle but seemed to be vaguely afraid of the humans.

The ride back, after dark, almost everyone fell asleep. Vuxten noticed that the two humans in the back of the human vehicle let their eyes grow very dim, holding onto protrusions inside the vehicle, swaying back and forth as the vehicle moved.

Vuxten wasn't sure, but he suspected that both of the humans were somehow actually asleep.

When the vehicle stopped both human's eyes immediately brightened back to bright blue. When everyone got out of the vehicles Sergeant walked in front of the group.

"You did good today, men. You're doing your best. The Terran Confederate Armed Services is going to give you the best support. Go home, be with your families. I will see tomorrow," Sergeant said.

Vuxten was quiet on the hoverbus. Everyone else was exhausted but he stared at the window, not really seeing outside of it, just staring.

He had seen almost two paws of humans, he had counted nine of them, all moved in the same predatory way, all able to move silently and blend in with their surroundings, all of them armed, and all of them with the glowing cybernetic eyes and the heavy duty datalink implants.

The idea of being a "trooper" or a "soldier" for two centuries seemed outlandish to Vuxten, but the more he thought about it, how the Overseers lived for at least five centuries, the more he believed.

When he got home, his wife was distressed and so were the broodcarriers. His wife had been told to go home early, had found out all her jobs were on hold.

Their debt would increase.

She had also heard that humans had been in the habitat building. She was worried about Vuxten working with the humans. She was afraid for him.

It took him a long time to soothe them. Dinner was quiet, his wife sobbing now and then, but holding it together till they were lying between the two sleeping broodcarriers. She put her hands on his face, kissed him, and asked him to be careful.

He promised he would.

It took him a long time to get to sleep.

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He was awoken by a human touching him. He jerked away, then shrunk back. A human he did not recognize, with bright green cybereyes, was standing over him. The uniform was gone, some kind of sleek looking black armor covering him. His visor was open, drawn back into the helmet, and Vuxten could see that the helmet was padded thickly enough to be tight to the human's head.

"Get up. Get your family. We don't have much time," the human said. "Quickly, quietly."

The broodcarriers were frightened, clustering up close to his wife as the human urged them to grab only what they needed. The human let Brentili'ik grab the small book full of holos of siblings, family, of smiling podlings so small you could hold one in your paw. He let the broodcarriers take the bedding from the bed and hold it tightly around themselves.

There was a paw's worth the other humans in the hallway. They had on bulkier armor, making them look huge. They had heavy looking weapons in their hands, backpacks with a tube on the top, and one had a thin antenna coming up from his back. The broodcarrier's flinched back, making soft noises of distress but Vuxet petted them, calming the peaceful and nervous beings.

"Let's go. We don't have much time," the human said again.

"Thirty minutes, sir," one of the big one's rumbled. The broodcarries made soft sounds of distress.

"Don't talk, you're scaring their gestators," the 'sir' said.

They hurried, quickly, the broodcarriers panting from exertion as they hurried their chubby furry warm bodies down the hall. Outside, in the street, was a black vehicle on skids, a ramp down. It was dead silent, no lights, just dim red light spilling from inside through the open doorway at the top of the ramp.

The broodcarriers keened their distress, but followed Vuxet's gentle urging up the ramp. They were upset enough they regressed to moving on all fours, belly low to the ground, long soft furry tails curled protectively under themselves.

Inside were families of the beings he had trained with. Dura's family looked like they were in shock, their eyes wide and terrified. Pups clutched the father tightly. Keekikee's family was clustered together. There was some kind of heavy plas box with soft plas cloth inside that held eggs with a red shining lamp attached to the side of the box so the light shined on the eggs. Sleesavash's family was behind her, the little tiny saurian children trying to look around their parents out of curiosity. Ustor's husband was holding a swollen broodcarrier, petting her, while the other broodcarrier held tight to a clutch of five podlings who were looking around with bright interested eyes.

"We're full. Let's go!" sir called out as soon as he got on board. He hit a button and the ramp pulled up to cover the hole even as the craft lifted off, tilting almost immediately and making some of the more frightened beings aboard cry out.

Sir turned around and looked at everyone. "I'm Lieutenant Istant, Terran Confederate Army. Your families do not have shelter space allocated or shelter passes," he said.

Istant, a funny word that sounded a lot like the Telkan word for bent spoon.

"We're evacing your family right now to the CSFV Mercy. It's been designated a relief ship for families of those we can help," Lieutenant Bent Spoon said. "We'll be stopping at the Space Port, your families will be loaded aboard an armed transport, and we'll be heading back to the Corporate Security building."

He turned away. "No questions at this time."

Vuxten's wife gripped his hand, squeezing hard. She was holding a broodcarrier with her other arm, who was holding the second broodcarrier.

"Husband, I am afraid," Brentili'ik said softly.

There was the sound of someone shrieking, far away, but Vuxten barely heard the suggestion of the noise.

"Sir, they're incoming!" one of the armored troopers yelled.

"Drop us at the Corp-Sec and get this crate to the Mercy! We've got no time!" Bent Spoon yelled. "Light the throttle!"

The whole craft began to vibrate, there was faint roar that made several children cry out. There was a sudden jerk and what sounded to Vuxten like the rattling of fireworks somewhere. One of the humans bent down, saying something to Keekikee. He twisted two plas tubes, the tubes faintly glowing red, and tossed them in the box. It then put more plas cloth over the eggs and put a lid on it, clamping it down. Keekikee's husband grabbed the box, holding it tight, his beak shut tightly in fear. Vuxten saw a human grab another box down, pulling the heavy weapon out of it, and sliding it to Ustor. He grabbed a hand full of stuffies out of a compartment and tossed it to Ustor.

"Put the podlings inside!" the human yelled. Ustor nodded tightly, his ears flat and fur sweat shiny with fear. He put the stuffies in the box and the podlins happily climbed in, purring and growling and yipping with glee. The human twisted another plastic tube and it glowed blue.

The craft jerked and more firecracker sounds. The human tossed the tube to Ustor, then handed across the lid. Another human had managed to convince Ustor's wife to cover both broodcarriers with the soft looking plas cloth. The swollen one purred and rubbed her face with it, looking up and saying 'thank you. is soft' to the human.

The craft suddenly tilted, almost a 45 degree angle, and Vuxten felt high stomach rise up as it dropped suddenly. It whipped the other way, went nose up, leveled out.

The craft came to a sudden slow stop. One of the humans put his foot out so the swollen broodcarrier could grab it with her rear paws.

"LET'S GO MEN, DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?" Sir Lieutenant Bent Spoon roared, slapping the button. The door crashed open and he waved at it. "GO GO GO!"

A human grabbed Ustor's arm, pulling him up, moved to the door and jumped out.

"Come on," one of the big one's said to Vuxten.

"I love you all," Vuxten said to his family as he let himself get picked up.

The vehicle turned suddenly and then went back to nose up.

"Love!" Broodcarrier Synthal'la called out.

"Love!" Broodcarrier Ilmata'at crooned out.

"I LOVE..." his wife yelled.

The human holding him jumped out the door.

Vuxten gritted his teeth so he didn't scream as he realized at was over two hundred feet to the parking lot where a ship had crushed limosines.

They dropped silently, the human shifting his grip so that Vuxten was held against his chest by crossed arms.

"Try not to puke," the human growled.

They dropped silently, until right at the ground there was a sudden purplish flare that Vuxten could barely see. His stomach plunged to his feet as he somehow lost all velocity, floating down in a heartbeat to the ground.

The others fell next.

"Look," the human said, pointing into the air. "There they go."

Vuxten looked. There was a handful of dark specks in the sky, sweeping across the stars.

"It's time to earn our pay," a different human said. "Follow."

The five little neo-sapients followed the five humans, six counting Sir Lieutenant Bent Spoon who landed last, across the parking lot toward the building.

There was no guard at the gate.

He was against a car, kneeling down, smashing his face against the side of the car. There was blood everywhere, but he kept doing it. The other guard had put his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

roared out.

It staggered the five little neo-sapients.

The Lanaktallan beating his face against the car put his fingers into his own mouth...

...and tore away his own jowls in a spray of blood that left his flat teeth exposed.

"Let's go, men, you can't help them."

Vuxten followed, trying not to look.

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INCOMING ATTACK

INCOMING ATTACK

INCOMING ATTACK