Chapter Eighty (Vuxten)

The battle and fierce fighting had ended only a week before Vuxten had been released from the hospital ship the CNV Mercy. His leg had been shattered and the Terrans had regrown it. It had been painful, itchy, and tormenting during the three days it had regrown. He had not cared, even the intense physical therapy to help him overcome the lingering effects of his injuries and the mental therapy he had received to help ease combat trauma had not damped his spirits.

He had spent his time in the arms of his broodcarriers and his wife, Brentili'ik, surrounded by giggling podlings who were eager to play little games of hide and seek and watch me dance with him. He had been shocked to see Donovan, as the last time he had seen the big human scout he had been shot through the head by a Precursor.

Donovan had not remembered him too clearly, and at Brentili'ik's advice had not bothered the human too often.

Now he was back home. Well, as close to home as he could get.

The city he had been born in, raised and educated in, and had lived his life in was a shattered skeleton of its former self.

He had spent a month fighting in that city. Wrapped in Terran scout armor almost the entire time, only leaving it when he was inside one of the massive armored vehicles, and only then so he could clean himself while his armor underwent maintenance. He had left a few times to drop off refugees at the heavily fortified encampments and hospitals.

But most of his time had been spent in the streets and buildings of that city.

His eyes stopped on a skyraker. It had been five-hundred stories of offices and luxury apartments. The atomic fire on the fourth day had ripped it down to sixty stories, but it still towered over the skyline. He could remember, knew if he closed his eyes he would relive, running up those stairs, following Sergeant, carrying anti-armor rockets that they fired from the twentieth floor into the top of the Precursor assault machines.

He swallowed deeply.

Brentili'ik noted her mates distress and gathered him up in her arms. She nuzzled his neck, crooning softly to him.

She had disagreed with returning to the planet so soon, but her husband had insisted. She disagreed even more with him coming here, to view their former home, but again, he has insisted.

Brentili'ik felt nausea at seeing the city so destroyed, so damaged, even as part of her soul felt vindicated by the damage. The Overseers had hidden away or fled, those who had not been maddened by the Precursors screams, had left her people to die on the planet. It felt right to her that their center of power had been so ravaged by the battle, by the war.

Does it make me a bad person to feel this way? she wondered to herself as her husband buried his face in her fur. Their two broodcarriers moved up to hug him with her, to shield him with their fluffy tails as they began to croon to him and stroke him. The dozen or so podlings, all orphans, holding tight to the broodcarriers fur made soothing chirping noises to try to ease Vuxten's pain.

How things have changed, Brentili'ik thought. Only a little while before the broodcarriers would have been confused by Vuxten's anguish and would have been distressed that they didn't know how to care for him.

Now they were familiar with his pain and how to soothe it.

Finally he was ready to be released, touching noses to her.

"I am sorry," he said softly, staring down at the street where he could see the battered ground car they had used to drive to the outskirts of the city. "I did not think it would be so difficult."

"We are a gentle and peaceful people, my husband," Brentili'ik said softly, turning away from the melted looking skyline. "We were ill equipped for this fight."

Together they started walking down the hill. The podlings looked around with wide eyes at the grass, at the denuded trees, at the odd things strewn around.

It didn't really register to Vuxten and his family that they walked around an abandoned tread and running gears from a Precursor tank. It was just another piece of rubble.

"Do you think the Overseers will return?" Brentili'ik asked.

"They better not," Vuxten said, one hand dropping to his side to find nothing. Brentili'ik caught the motion, almost Terran in the way he had done it, and knew he had been reaching for his magac pistol.

"I have heard the Terran lawyers have emancipated us," Brentili'ik said, repeating the rumor she had heard moving through the refugee camp. "I have heard they stand with us now."

"Blood to blood, steel to steel, my life is yours, brother," Vuxten quoted.

Part of Brentili'ik missed the factory worker who was more concerned with getting the family out of debt.

"We will burn with a life of our own, sister," Brentili'ik added.

Part of her missed the simple sanitation worker concerned with the same things that she had been.

You can't go home again, Brentili'ik quoted to herself.

They got in the beat up ground-car, a former corporate vehicle that had been sprayed black with a blue stripe down the side to denote its non-combat status. Vuxten drove and for a split-second Brentili'ik wondered where he had learned to drive.

She knew the city behind her, slowly receding into the distance, could have whispered the answer to her.

The podlings were excited but quickly tired out. The broodcarriers fell asleep with them, their fluffy tails hiding the sleeping orphans. One had crawled up into Brentili'ik's lap and she stroked its soft fur gently.

It was missing an ear.

It was nearly nightfall before they got back to the refugee camp. It was a huge, sprawling thing, with walls around it festooned with tower mounted guns, anti-aircraft guns, point defense systems, battle-screen projectors. The walls were scarred here and there.

The Precursors had thrown their might at hit twice and had rebuffed both times by a handful of human troops and hundreds of Telkans, terrified and distressed, firing rocket launchers and magnetic accelerator rifles they had been barely trained upon.

Now the night no longer had Precursor machines lurking in it. A huge BOLO tank sat nearby, ready to defend the refugee camp of 2.2 million Telkan if any Precursor machine had managed to remain hidden long enough to sneak up on the refugee camp.

Brentili'ik had expected the refugee camp to be a place of mud, sewage, and misery. Instead it was orderly, almost a normal city, if it wasn't for the featureless and stark architecture. The streets were paved, lined with lights. There were little parks for broodcarriers and podlings (there were shelter entrances scattered around them) as well as ponds, fountains, and some hastily assembled statuary that the Telkan found pleasing. The buildings were designed for Telkan comfort, the insides comfortable even if the outside was black durasteel and ceramasteel armor with crysteel windows.

The refugee camp is more Telkan than anyplace we have ever lived in generations, Brentili'ik thought to herself as they slowly drove down the street.

She knew the humans had built it with Telkan psychology in mind and part of her shuddered to remember that it was her willingness to answer questions, to speak to the Terrans about her feelings, wants, desires, and what made her comfortable or distressed that had weighted heavily with the planners who put together the refugee encampment.

The fact that the Terrans had deployed massive machines that built the refugee center in a manner of hours still shocked her.

Vuxten knew why the humans had possessed the machines, why they had known they would be needed.

Humans understood war, knew that war created refugees, even before war had come to his home.

They carried the podlings and chivvied the sleepy and logy broodcarriers into the building they were staying in, into the elevator, and down the hall to their private quarters. The broodcarriers sleepily gathered up the podlings in their nest, crooning softly as they drifted off to sleep.

Vuxten and Brentili'ik went back into their living room, holding hands and just being with one another for a little while. The sky went indigo and then black, the stars coming out slowly but surely.

Both of them took comfort in the fact that more than a few of those stars were human warships, watching over the planets of the solar system in case the Precursors returned to try to finish the job they had started.

Finally Vuxten broke the silence. "Will you take the job?"

Brentili'ik squeezed his hand. "Will you?"

They both sat silently for a long moment.

"Yes," they both said at once. They asked the same question at the same time. "Are you angry?" and answered at the same time. "No."

Bentili'ik looked at her husband. The gray around his mouth, around the metal of his cybernetic eye, on his remaining ear, and the lines engraved into his face from having been under stress for so long. He still walked with a light limp and the scars had not yet been covered with fur. She held his hands tightly.

"Citizenship is a heavy burden," she quoted.

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The commander of Refugee Camp Osmium looked up as his newest assistant entered the office. His implant identified her immediately and he noted that her picture that was in the datafile open on his desk-terminal did not do her justice.

Strong came to mind with the way she carried herself. Intent was easily applied to her clear eyes and gaze. Dedicated was something that was obvious in her expression.

The commander stood up, holding out his hand. The Telkan woman took it, shaking it slowly.

Brentili'ik took a seat at Colonel James Hikikitik Harvey's gesture, holding the printouts on her lap as she looked at the human. His skin was brown, his hair shaved away to leave a bare and gleaming scalp, both eyes had been replaced by cybernetics along with half of his face being nothing but dully gleaming black warsteel.

He looked competent to her eyes and that was all that mattered to her.

"It's good to meet you, Mrs. Brentili'ik," Col Harvey said. "When Fleet told me they had a good fit for a Telkan Liaison Officer I was a little worried till I received your file."

"Thank you, sir," Brentili'ik said softly.

"Well, that about covers the pleasantries," The human said. He touched an icon on his desk and map of the area popped into being in mid-air between them. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us. We need to get your people out of the refugee camp and into more permanent settlements. Let's start looking at which one needs what to make it comfortably livable."

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The humans were walking down the line, yelling at the little Telkans who were lined up to stand up straight, perk up those ears, stare straight ahead, curl those tails off the ground, close your mouth! They all had a little bag in front of them holding their worldly possessions.

Adaptive Camouflage Uniforms, modesty clothing, personal grooming devices, boots, gloves.

Vuxten walked with the big human, who had told the lined up Telkan that they would refer to him only as Sergeant. His cybernetic eye whirring as he looked at the eager Telkans. He limped slightly but it no longer ached.

"Did I look so little, Sergeant?" Vuxten asked as they reached the middle of the line.

"You? Hell no, Trooper Vuxten, you were twenty feet tall, made of warsteel, and on fucking fire," Sergeant half-yelled. "You were born to be a Marine."

Vuxten was at the recruiting and training center to get all the training he had missed out on, that he needed to be a Marine, but he also was to act as the Telkan Liaison, to advise the human cadre and to provide the other Telkan someone they could confide in.

A low flying aircraft went by in the clear blue sky as Vuxten and Sergeant kept walking down the line of eager recruits.

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Brentili'ik stood at the front of the classroom, watching the Telkan being instructed how to read. So many of her people were functionally illiterate or only iconoliterate that it hurt her heart. Colonel had agreed with her that education of her fellow Telkan should be a priority.

She had been attending classes herself. Learning about the trauma that was inflicted on slave-castes and the methods of easing and eventually erasing the trauma.

The biggest thing, all of the textbooks had stressed, was the feeling of independence and control.

No longer living in a world full of symbols that you were unable to understand had been made a priority by Bentili'ik. Teaching her people to read, teaching them the value of knowledge, the importance of learning, was important to her.

She was proud of her people. It was difficult, leaving the sheltered burrow and emerging, blinking, into the terrible brightness of freedom. More than a few Telkan bemoaned the old days, but those days were gone.

She felt a swell of pride as a Telkan podling stood up and read aloud what was on the classroom display, her voice firm and sure. Her heart soared at the knowledge that the podling could not only read the words but knew the meanings.

Brentili'ik knew that to others it may not be that important.

To her, it was everything.

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Vuxten stepped out of the heavily armored vehicle, his macac rifle tight in his fists. Behind him a group of a half-dozen Telkan recruits followed him. They were armed with laser rifles powerful enough to damage Precursor armor but not strong enough to damage the warsteel of the armor they, and he, wore to protect themselves. Like him, they were in the final phase of 16 weeks of hard training. Now they just had to prove they could put everything they had learned to work.

"All right, Lance Corporal Vuxten, this village should be cleared, but Colonel Harvey wants it swept by ground pounders just in case and that means you and your troopers," The voice of Lieutenant said from where he was watching the datalinks inside the heavy vehicle. "Just remember your training and you'll do just fine."

"You'll do fine, Vuxten. If you're unsure what to do, talk to me, I'll help you out," Sergeant said over a different channel.

"Thank you, both," Vuxten said. He opened the other channel.

"All right, men. Follow me. Spread out five meters, I don't want a grenade or unexploded mortar round killing half of you," Vuxten said, trying and failing to keep the snap from his voice.

His men just tabbed the 'affirmative' icons. All of them were sweating nervously. LCpl Vuxten was a legend among the Telkan who wanted to be troopers. A janitor who had become a Terran Marine.

As one they gripped their lasers tightly and started moving into what had been an Overseer luxury resort. They were all eager to please Vuxten, please Sergeant and Lieutenant, and please the Confederacy and the Marine Corps.

They had all seen the posters, all signed up. All gone through the training that had been compressed and hurried due to the war raging outside the walls of the refugee city.

The offer was amazing. More than any Telkan had ever been offered before. A simple offer but one that to the Telkans, used to being little more than neo-sapient slaves, reached out for with every fiber of their beings.

Service Brings Citizenship.

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A month later an atomic charge went off in the wreckage of a city.

Vuxten got that familiar tightness down his back. Something/one was coming and they weren't coming to help.

Brentili'ik knew that feeling. It meant that someone had decided that her people had something worth taking.