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They are Smol: Invasion of Earth: Chapter 5

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Really, all things considered, the first 24 hours were the worst.

This is from both the perspective of the crew aboard The Three Stones but also all of Humanity; the dread weight of the problem just floating right above you hung around everyone’s neck, plunging them into the icy cold ocean of anxiety and despair.

Granted, The Three Stones spent most of this time orbiting over the planet, scanning it and parsing as much information as possible to try and figure out what to do. They were hailed by various militaries – or military factions – as well as what they assumed were multiple leaders, religious icons, cults, and scientists. Surprisingly there wasn’t much they could glean from them, other than physiology and what these species’ “concerned face” looked like; it’s not like their AI was magic and could parse what they were saying. The engineering team really really appreciated this species’ science division, as learning about their base 10 number system and how they expressed complicated mathematical ideals went a long way to plugging gaps in their translation matrices.

Unfortunately, it also reaffirmed that this was the homeworld of a brand-new, primitive species. Honestly, you’d think it would be all the rioting that would’ve tipped them off, but to be fair, we kinda just do that sometimes.

The first 24 hours for Humanity was… let’s say “interesting”. All supermarkets were empty, all churches were full – and their parishioners armed – and the roads, well. For the first time, people were quietly and urgently moving forward everywhere, and Sunday drivers didn’t exist. The greatest benefit to the first 24 hours, as was unanimously agreed upon once the dust settled, was that pretty much every boss that deserved to get got got got by a mass of employees who were wholly convinced that they weren’t going to live to see the next Monday Morning Meeting.

Then Tuesday rolled around, the Earth collectively unclenched it’s asshole just a little bit, and began to wait for their visitor’s next move.

“|YOU WILL FALL IN RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME I WILL SEND YOU TO SEE THE SPIRITS OF YOUR ANCESTORS IN SHAME.|” Bellowed Security Chief Ri’tiki, standing at perfect attention as his small army collected itself and formed into companies. When it came to security drills and training the next generation of warriors, at the best of times Ri’tiki was stern if not kindly, and at the worst of times…well. Feathers did grew back.

However, today of all days Security Chief Ri’tiki was not taking any shit from anyone. He stood upon a raised dais, unmoving, unblinking, as his soldiers collected themselves underneath him. His mood was markedly different; the weight of the debriefing he was about to deliver had fully settled upon him, and it was with that same gravitas that he was about to present to his charges.

Behind him, the planet appeared on-screen, and a few excited murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“|Pay attention to this mission briefing; I will not repeat myself, and deviance from these orders will be met with summary execution.|”

Silence.

“|Approximately 17 hours ago we began orbiting the planet you see behind me, which we are designating CRADLE. Multiple scans of our equipment have allowed us to determine CRADLE’s infrastructure – it’s primitive at best, and dangerous at worst. Here, Here and here-|” Parts of the planet lit up, highlighting various population centers. “|Are major centers of habitation, and from what we’ve been able to parse from the clusterfuck of raw data coming at us every second, are local centers of government.|”

On one landmass above a center of government a second habitation center was highlighted; a picture of a building, some flags, a picture of their own world with a blue background emblazoned various vehicles outside.

“|We believe this is their global seat of government, in which representatives of all their territories work much like our own Senate. We will not be going anywhere near this city, nor the capitol city of the host territory-|”

Another image, a Red, white and blue striped and starred flag popped up and landed on multiple locations on the planet.

“|We believe this is the symbol of their unifying territory, or of the territory that is directly managed by CRADLE’s unified government. We’ve determined this symbol is on multiple landmasses and islands all across this world, so it’s safe to say that they are the ones we will be negotiating with initially.|”

The selected cities dimmed out, and a new civilian center was highlighted.

“|In 2 hours we are going to load out and land at this civilian center, codenamed GATEBELL, in unarmed survey dropships. 4 ships will touch down; First and Second squads shall be disembarking and escorting our negotiators and ambassadors in these two ships, while Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth will wait in the other two. We are going to land here-|”

A mass of woodland and open space appeared, nestled close to the city – but not so close as to be in it’s heart.

“|Disengage, and wait. Once the ambassadors signal they are done – or tell your Lieutenants what to do next – then you will either move back into the ship and return to The Three Stones, or will do whatever is culturally appropriate for CRADLE’s population.|”

Security Chief Ri’tiki looked over his troops with a hard eye.

“|We are going to be following all the rules of war with some significant additions. For starters, you will not take any lethal weapons on you; If you are found to be carrying anything lethal, including pitknives, you will be summarily executed. You will not be aggressive towards CRADLE’s populace; do not blink, do not move, do not scream or yell or fucking speak, or I or your Lieutenants – the only ones landing on that planet with lethal weaponry – will summarily execute you. You will not fire upon CRADLE’s security forces if and when they appear, and no, forget what you learned in training – you will be summarily executed if you attempt to move out of their line of fire. If you are fired upon, you will not make any aggressive movements towards your nonlethal weapons until you are cleared by your Lieutenants to defend yourselves; if you do so without order you will be summarily executed. If you are forced to engage in self-defense, you will be retreating back to the ships – not advancing. If the thought of being a hero pops into your head, you will be summarily executed. Do you understand me.|”

“|YES SIR.|” a thousand voices chorused at once. Their cry echoed around the hangar, and Ri’tiki let the ringing die down before he continued.

“|You may be asking yourself if I’ve lost my mind, or if we’re marching to our deaths, to which I say you may be right. However, we are on an uncut path; Never before has first contact been made with a species so primitive, never before have we met a brother on such uneven ground. They are scared, they are confused, and they are hoping that we come in peace. We do. I will not slaughter these innocents, even if they end all our lives – and I would rather be excommunicated for venting everyone out into the void before I burn their world to the ground. Have I made myself clear on my position?|”

“|YES SIR.|” a thousand voices chorused at once, no meeker than the first time. Ri’tiki allowed himself a small, flicker of pride to warm his heart; The young recruits before him realized the gravity of the situation, and were willing to follow him – even to death – to make this right.

…It would be right in the end, Ri’tiki decided to himself, as he dismissed his soldiers for their final preparations.

“|Calm down, calm down, calm down-|”

The dropship rocked back and forth as it was cradled for the first time in a long time by true atmosphere; the high-altitude winds began to buffet the smaller craft as it lazily began drifting down to GATEBELL, performing obvious, lazy arcs to their target.

“|You alright there, Tr’chr’’?|”

“|NEV-never better. You?|”

Aq’rel’a smiled softly, playfully elbowing her squadmate as much as the dropship harness would allow. “|Ah, I’m fine. You know, the locals are gonna love us! Where else would they see such shining examples of peak Karnakian performance-|”

“|The insane asylums, atmo-venting drug dens, the morgue-|”

“|I hear you back there Ckr’rri’li, and I’m ignoring you.|” Aq’rel’a quipped, bringing a smile to Tr’chr’’’s face. “|Look, it’s – it’s going to be fine. I mean it.|”

“|You said that about the obstacle course-|”

“|Well you finished it-|”

“|And the live-fire exercises-|”

“|Everything grew back-|”

“|And sneaking food from mess hall.|”

“|That… was an oversight. But you have to admit, my track record is stellar excepting that-|”

The beep of a warning alarm interrupted all conversation, before the pilot quickly shut it off. “|We’ve been intercepted… They’re not firing.|”

“|S-see? F…fine.|” Aq’rel’a smiled shakily. “|If they were hostile they’d have done something by now.|”

“|Yeah, I uh. I guess…|”

“|Just remember. You and I stick together, we go left out the gate and stop under the wing, and then zone out until someone yells at us.|”

“|Just like in training.|”

“|Hah!|”

The ship rocked a bit back and forth as more atmosphere surrounded it, punching through clouds and wind and sky, slowly and quickly making its’ way to the designated landing spot. It did so in relative silence; the soldiers on board reflecting on the weight of being a willing meatshield, and the few volunteer – and voluntold – “ambassadors” going over their gifts, their attempts to communicate peaceful intent, and their desire to not piss anyone off and have to fight off dozens, if not hundreds of these strange, unknown aliens.

“|Landing Approach.|” The Pilot said, breaking everyone out of their silent reverie. “|Pray for us, Ili’Ntwrek. Unlatching Piths.|”

The cascading sound of dozens of magnetic locks released, and the interior of the dropship bathed the crew in a sickly green as the harnesses slid open. The soldiers began to sway a bit more, gabbing hold of various handles, latches and straps to secure themselves in place as they prepared to disembark; the ambassadors’ grip on their still-locked harnesses turned white.

“|Begin, O’ my soul, the rapture of innocence, the song of my heart-|”

“|Grandfather, I ask thee, the distilled blood of my flesh-|”

“|The Great Spirit speaks to all, and to all who listen, she protects-|”

“|By the fire that burns behind our eyes, an oath; To you who bear witness-|”

“|Final Burn.|”

A few grunts interrupted the cascade of prayers as the dropship bled speed, it’s gravitational dampeners long since turned off. The ship shook fiercely for a few moments before a still settled on it’s frame.

With a heavy, mechanical thunk the two largest magnetic locks released, and the hot Georgia sun bathed the crew for the first time.

“|OUT OUT OUT REMEMBER YOUR POSITIONS-|” Cried Lt. K’uree, as the dropship disgorged it’s contents.

Hank reflected on the absolute absurdity of it all.

You see, the world might be ending… sure. The aliens could be here to enslave us, or steal our water, or take our habitable planet – the news had every self-proclaimed “xeno-(insert title here)” making the rounds, trying to whip up a frenzy for one reason or another. There were an equal amount “xeno-” people who said they may be benevolent; a star trek federation, perhaps, or a survey vessel from another empire, or here to help us ‘ascend’ – whatever the hell that meant. The real reason would sort itself out soon enough; if they were kind at least he kept his cool, and if they weren’t, well

…it’s not like he or Sarah could do anything about it.

The real absurdity was, after that first day where half of the people of the planet camped out in the woods and went apeshit and the other half just called in sick to work, was that…life continued. Babies needed to be changed, food needed to be cooked, gas needed to be pumped-

“Rrrrrrraar! Yip yip yip yip yip yi-”

-and little asshole toy dogs needed to go out to take a shit.

Hank for his part was a simple man; he found a good woman, they married – no children yet, but a little girl was on the way – and he lived an average life. So as to why an alien dropship had decided to pick Piedmont Park to land, and had decided to do so near him while Mipsy was taking a shit was something that could not be parsed by any sane mind, and quite honestly, was just absolutely absurd.

“Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip-”

“Goddamnit, Mipsy.” Hank sighed as the alien ship’s bay door dropped. “I’m not dressed for this.”

“Yip yip yip yip yip-”

“…I’m taking you out with me, you little shitrat.”

The fans on the combat suit kicked in immediately, pumping purified, recirculated air through the helmet to stop it from fogging up and to provide Tr’chr’’ with enough breathable air to not hyperventilate. His booted feet hit the dirt of CRADLE, and he instinctually snapped hard to the left, moving forward with his battle-buddy behind him. As the Dropship’s wings rotated up along the body into a locked position he stopped – his combat suit’s HUD notifying him that Aq’rel’a had stopped a scant few meters to his right.

Everything was… wrong.

Yes, the grounds of this park were manicured, and the buildings nearby were obviously built by intelligent life. The streets, although small, were laid out to some design known only to the occupants, and the various cylinders and metal boxes that lined the streets were put there with care – everything had a purpose and was crafted to that purpose, but it was all wrong.

Tr’chr’’ looked up, slowly, and met eyes with a native.

It was… Tr’chr’’ blinked away a few status indicators, clearing his helmet’s visor to get a better view. It was bipedal, with no tail for balance – it tottered unsteadily on two spindly limbs. It had light cropping of downy feathers – no, hair, Tr’chr’’ decided – in patches over it’s body. No shell, no mat of thick fur or hide, no scales… nothing but bare, smooth skin.

Now, none of this was news to Tr’chr’’; he had been engrossed over the parsed footage from this world like everyone else. However, it was one thing to see it on-screen but a totally different thing entirely to see it up-close and live. The object of his gaze was staring intently back at him with two small, shocked eyes; whatever tiny, squirming creature he had in his hand he dropped into one of the cylindrical containers with an unceremonious thup.

They stared at each other; The Karnakian overlooking the pajama-clad human, and the Human staring at the jet-black featureless outline that is a Karnakian fully-sealed combat rig. They remained as such, unmoving, as mechanical sirens began to blare from all around them. Almost as an afterthought Tr’chr’’ engaged his rangefinder and started slightly at the response.

100 meters.

But that’s wrong. If that’s the case, then these aliens couldn’t be any taller than a chick after their first molting. That would mean they’re-

“|…so small.|”

Tr’chr’’ dared to turn his head to Aq’rel’a, silently trying to scream with his eyes through their helmets to shutupshutupohAncestorsshutup-

Soulsight all Karnakians were born with, but apparently true psychic powers were still out of their grasp, as Aq’rel’a turned bodily towards him and tilted her head in the alien’s direction. “|I mean… look at it. I thought they looked silly just moving about, but…|”

“|Aq’rel’apleasebequietIdon’twanttodie|” whined Tr’chr’’ in as light and quick a tone as possible, his suit beginning to dispense relaxants to stop his heart from exploding in his chest.

“|I mean… it’s kinda cute, yanno? Here I was thinking they were going to tower over us because they’re always reared back, but to find they’re not even shoulder-height-|”

Tr’chr’’ wordlessly screamed, his body standing perfectly still, unintentionally freezing his Human counterpart across the way. The creature seemed to collect itself, and inhaled deeply.

“?@B—* ^^$##w%, ppbt!?”

They inhaled sharply; Tr’chr’’ because he was being hailed, and Aq’rel’a in order to let out the longest, softest peep.

“Uh, hello! The little bastard deserved it! Um.”

Hank absentmindedly wiped his hands on his rumpled t-shirt, acutely aware that he was not dressed in any way, shape or form to welcome family, let alone probably alien diplomats from another planet. In his haste to be as presentable as possible to the creature staring a hole into him – and also to not offend anyone – he went on autopilot. Step one when guests are over was to put up the dog. He spared a glance at the yipping trashcan.

…so, step one completed.

Step two was “stop looking like a damn hobo”, and that’s where he was running into some real issues. Since he very well couldn’t change out of his early Saturday morning attire, he was doing his best to make it work… and to be honest, he wasn’t under any impressions it was working. This pushed him automatically into Step three: Apologize.

“I um. Y-You know you’re uh, parking on the lawn? I mean, you probably can, I don’t think… it’s illegal. Uh.”

One of the aliens, clad in the same black suit but somehow holding itself different, rounded around the craft to his side and stared at him – or at least, stopped moving and kept it’s “head” pointed in his direction.

“But ah, Welcome? I-ignore the steel plates on the road, we just kinda, uh, do that, um. Hi?” Hank tentatively raised his hand and gave a little wave, only to have it slowly mirrored by the three aliens on his side of the ship closest to him. He repeated the gesture again, only to have it mirrored again.

“Well, that’s som..eth…”

Hank trailed off as two more aliens got off their ship – these were wearing much less intimidating, much more “open” suits; they were still very much sealed off, but around their heads, neck, arms and tail the suit was clear. It allowed Hank – and the now assembling police who were forming a hasty and panicked perimeter around their guests – to see exactly what they were dealing with.

“SIR – GET BACK NOW SIR.”

Hank turned his head to look behind him – blocking the intersection nearest him were two police cars, and behind the engine block and wheel well of each, an officer holding either a pistol or rifle.

“SIR! PLEASE GET BACK, NOW!”

Hank – for some reason unknown even to him, repeated the gesture once more to the fucking dinosaurs before him. He watched with detached bemusement as the officer’s expressions changed – the aliens must have repeated the gesture once more.

“I think we’re talking, sir!”

“. . . STAY THERE.”

“|I thought they spoke like that because we couldn’t figure out their language.|”

“?N$@@ F-b -/ -* x*wA!?”

Aq’rel’a kept cooing while Lt. K’uree stepped in line with the two recruits, mimicking the greeting gesture the local who hailed them performed.

“|Permissiontoactuallyspeaksir?|”

“|Hm? What, yes – you can talk, I’m not going to actually kill you if you talk, recruit.|”

“|O-oh, I just thought-|”

“|That’s what a grunt isn’t supposed to do, recruit.|”

“|Y-yes sir. Should we be worried about those reinforcements?|” Tr’chr’’ said, nominally dipping his head towards a larger, splotch-painted vehicle pulling up and rapidly disgorging more aliens.

“|Not yet, I think. They’re still trying to establish a perimeter, so we have time before they bring out the heavy stuff.|”

“|Absolutely fascinating.|” Qur’rra’ra murmured, stepping up behind her security team. “|Their species absolutely refutes multiple biological theories we had about Intelligent life!|”

“|Qur’rra’ra, pull it back. You’re an ambassador right now, not a xenobiologist; don’t spook them.|”

“|Sure thing, Lieutenant. Ah, we have on-board some… trinkets. Mostly woven cloth, but, do you feel… like we should present it now?|”

“|To our little friend?|”

“?Mmmm@mm#m//mmm%mm^**mmm.?”

Hank let out a low whistle, mostly to himself, as he looked over the fucking dinosaur that was standing before him. Well, “before” – it was still a ways away, but he could tell that it was a big sucker, and didn’t look friendly at all. He spared a look back to the closest police to him, who were (1) exasperatedly on the radio with someone, (2) rapidly exchanging their smaller arms for apparently some military-grade weapons if (3) the national guard troops taking up positions with them were any indicator.

“Um…Well.” Hank turned back to his new guests. “I uh. Welcome back! I guess? We kinda… evolved……while you were gone.”

The clear-helmeted dinosaur tilted it’s head and said something only to itself.

“I mean. Really, uh… it’s not our fault! Um. We’ve also kinda grown attached to Earth? So if it’s alright with you, you can’t have it back? Or you can take Australia if you want.”

Another semi-clear bodied alien made it’s way out of their ship, holding in it’s arms a shimmering, almost incandescent cloth of the most beautiful blue Hank had ever seen. It stood beside the other clear-hooded alien, and very slowly held the fabric forward.

Hank pointed at himself, and the alien shook the cloth just a little in seeming confirmation.

“CITIZEN.”

“Hojeezuswhatthefuck-”

The megaphone gave a little feedback before clearing, a soldier leaning into the open door of the police vehicle. “WHAT IS YOUR NAME.”

“Uh, HANK!” Hank hanked at the police car, “HANK HILLSBERG. YES, I KNOW.”

“…REALLY?”

“YES.” Hank sighed for the millionth time in his life.

“LISTEN. THEY SEEM EAGER TO WORK WITH SOMEONE, AND YOU GOT THEIR ATTENTION. YOU ARE GOING TO DO EXACTLY WHAT WE SAY, OK?”

“I FIGURED.”

“UNTIL OUR NEGOTIATORS COME HERE, YOU’RE THE STAND-IN. DO NOT MAKE ANY PROMISES, DO NOT TALK TO THEM, OK?”

“YEAH, SURE.”

“RIGHT.” The megaphone experienced a little feedback, and there was a pause, before the soldier continued. “WE WANT YOU TO ACCEPT THEIR GIFT AND THEN COME DIRECTLY TO THIS VEHICLE. DO NOT PUT THE GIFT ON, DO NOT GO WITH THEM INTO THEIR SHIP.”

“WASN’T PLANNING ON IT, CHIEF.” Hank yelled, rolling his shoulders. “ALSO, I SEEM TO REMEMBER SOMETHING IN HISTORY-”

“WHAT.”

“I SAID I SEEM TO REMEMBER SOMETHING IN HISTORY CLASS ABOUT TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED EXPLORERS GIVING NATIVES BLANKETS. DIDN’T TURN OUT SO WELL FOR THE NATIVES.”

There was instant feedback from the megaphone, and then silence – well. Not true silence, as Hank could hear the indistinct whisper-yelling of someone on the phone with multiple important people far above their paygrade, but compared to what was happening earlier it was close enough.

“…what even is happening with my life today.”

“Yip yip yip yip-” The trashcan began to protest.

“Look, Mipsy, I’m certain the ATF is somewhere nearby-”

“|What seems to be the problem, do you think?|”

“|Hmm… They probably don’t want to offend us, for one. For two, I think our initial idea of showing we mean no harm by being kind to their civilian may be backfiring. It looks like their military is giving him orders now.|” Qur’rra’ra mused, as her counterpart Rkk’tkt shook the cloth once more.

“|Poor thing.|” Aq’rel’a cooed, watching the alien suddenly tap the cylinder next to him with his foot, causing him to wobble a bit.

“|Well. The best thing we can do is just wait it out; let’s not make assumptions.|”

“We’re gonna be here forever, aren’t we? This is hell. I died and went to hell.”

“ALRIGHT HANK?”

Hank sighed, rubbing his forehead with his hand. “YEAH. YEAH?”

“WE’RE NOT SURE IF YOU SHOULD TAKE THE BLANKET YET, SO JUST SIT TIGHT.”

Hank looked up at the alien, who shook the blanket once more – and decided then and there to take his life into his own hands.

“Nothing ventured nothing gained – FUCK IT, WE’RE DOING IT LIVE.”

“HANK? HANK- STOP!”

Hank squared his shoulders, prepared his best swagger, and began to jog forward.

“|Ohygoodnessbythesoulsofthesaints-|”

“|Okay calm down calm down calm down-|”

“|This is unreasonable-|”

The assembled Karnakian explorers watched the alien make his way forward in what looked like a natural wobbling, bouncing, completely off-balance gait. His head was held high, maintaining eye contact with Rkk’tkt, who was now standing perfectly stock still, but his legs had to move so fast to cover… not much distance at all.

“|Lieutenant this is wrong-|”

“|Just… they are… a proud and noble spe…species worthy of our respect, recruit.|” Lt. K’uree said, doing his damnest to hide his obvious smile. “|That is how the Great Spirit made them, and we sh-, we should respect that.|”

And Lt. K’uree did respect that for the next few seconds; it was when the alien wandered into range of his second sight that he absolutely gave up any pretenses with a groaned “|Come on.|”

“|It’s… their soul is full of starlight – it looks exactly like a hatchling’s! That’s not fair at all-|” whined Aq’rel’a, and the entire squad immediately agreed. Positively vibrating with energy, the 5 of them waited, patiently, for the alien to make it’s way to them on it’s own, sweet hurried time.

And everything was going as smoothly as one could expect it to, which is where the Georgia DOT comes in. You see, unique amongst metro regions in the United States is the GDOT, because for some unknown reason the entire organization has a horrific fixation with metal plates. Have a pothole? Not with a plate covering it you don’t. Uneven root-bump in the road? A plate turns that sucker into a uniform speedbump. Part of the curb just ceased to exist? Plate that sumbitch up and go get some wings, fam, cause you deserve it. Who gives a shit if the steel juts up a good 2 inches from the rest of the ground, or that it’s got little off-putting handles on all corners that absolutely shred tires, it’s fine. It’s fiiiiine.

And it was fine, until Hank didn’t see one of those handles, tripped, and faceplanted about 50 meters away from his goal.

“|Oh no!|” chirped the entire away team, as one they all flinched at the sound of impact.

“Oh no.” Deadpanned the soldier, as he watched Humanity’s first impression literally fall flat.

“Why, God?” Groaned Hank, as face-down he blinked away the stars in his vision.

“|Aq’rel’a! J-Just pick him up quickly and we’ll continue as if nothing happened-|” Lt. K’uree barked, the radiating embarrassment from the civilian taking it’s sweet time getting back up in-front of them hitting him full-force. “|Let’s help them save face at this moment-|”

“|Aye, sir!|” Aq’rel’a said as she ran forward, skidding to a stop above the prone, small, wobbly starlit-soul’d alien. “|Hey, hey, it’s ok – It’s ok. We’re all… out of our depth here.|” She cooed, as she gripped him firmly – but gently – underneath his arms. Her talons sunk into his soft clothing with relative ease, and in one swift motion

She ripped both of Hank’s arms clean off.

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Technically Sentient Stories

“Technically” Sentient: Chapter 10

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Cas felt nothing. Which . . . was a surprise, because she certainly thought she should be feeling something. Then came a sort of fuzzy feeling, followed by a sensation of itching in places she was fairly certain didn’t exist. Her sensor feeds began trickling along again, slowly at first, slowly building up until her perception of the world was more or less accurate again. Corridor? Check. Deck plates? Against her face. Cat? Very angry. Very hissy. Very safe in her arms still.

Murderous security drone? Smoldering basketball sized hole in its chest.

“Fvwhaaat ehhh . . .” Her vocal processing was terribly distorted as she struggled to sit up and maintain a cohesive shell. Something grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and hoisted her to her feet.

“Don’t tell anyone I have this. It’s a ‘go to jail for a long time’ type crime.” Chryso muttered quietly to her, letting go of her as he stuffed a rather menacing looking tool into his bag.

“B-but I saw, well, heard you . . .” Cas stammered weakly.

Chryso just tapped the side of his head sporting a nasty welt leaking blood. Tipping his head towards her to give him a better view, she could just make out the faintest hint of chrome beneath his cracked scales.

“I might have meat over it, but nobody takes out half a skull. Besides, what am I gonna do as the rest of it goes? Wait until cerebrospinal fluid is leaking out my nose?” He gave a weak grin, but he looked pretty unsteady on his feet. His artificial eye flickered, and he stumbled into Cas heavily, nearly knocking the two of them over.

“ . . . let’s just get to the hangar and hope someone is willing to give us a lift, yeah?” He wheezed weakly, holding his chest with one hand. “I think one of my hearts just quit.”

The cat, which had been entirely indifferent to their struggles and trying desperately to escape, suddenly became very, very still in Cas’s arms. Its ears twitched forward, and moments later they both knew why. The sound of dull thumping against the deck began to echo down the hallway.

“Chryso, we need to get moving now . . .” Cas whispered hurriedly to her illegal firearm toting savior, but all he could do was wheeze and stagger against the wall, sliding down it as he grabbed a fist-full of red jumpsuit. “Cas . . . it’s not . . . “

It sounded like a full toolbox being upended as he fell to his knees. “ . . . of all the times you stupid, second hand, aftermarket sewage pump of a heart . . .” Chryso threw in a few other choice insults as he began punching his chest as hard as his stubby little arms could manage.

The pounding was growing louder, and quickly. Something was running, and it was running at them. She looked between her incapacitated savior, the angry cat, and the end of the corridor that suddenly seemed too close for comfort.

Chryso weakly gestured to grease stained utility duffel he’d been carrying, a single clawed hand shaking weakly as his single eyelid fluttered. “In my bag . . .”

Cas tucked the hissing, yowling feline under one shoulder and dropped to her knees, not even certain what she was supposed to be searching for. Of course, when she unzipped it and saw the still glowing barrel of a a class 2 illegal energy weapon, she figured if there was anything they needed it was that. She shouldered it, putting her finger and what she was reasonably certain was the trigger, and leveled it at the end of the hallway.

“What . . . no . . . no I need that.” Chryso sputtered weakly, making a clumsy grab for the barrel of the blocky, smoking weapon that reeked of ozone.

“You’re in no condition to utilize this weapon. Also it’s a crime, and while extenuating circumstances apply I don’t want to have to include 2 illegal discharges on my report.” She paused a moment, remembering the absolute terror she felt as she faced down what she thought was the end.

“ . . . I don’t want to have to lie about 2 illegal discharges on my report.”

He just rolled his eyes, and groaned, before pushing something in his shoulder joint, sending his small chrome hand exploding outward from his wrist. It was only an extra foot of reach, but as the little hand wrapped around the barrel, a flash of blue crackled between the two metallic devices. Chryso convulsed, Cas screamed, and the cat was as upset as it ever was before the hand and gun separated with a static “pop.”

Chest heaving, eye wide open, and cybernetic optic practically glowing, Chryso sat bolt upright. “ooooOOOOOHKAY!” He hopped to his feet, practically vibrating in comparison to Cas who could only stare in disbelief at the sudden change in his health. “Ifeelgreatabsolutelygreatloadsbetterheartisworkinggreatgetup!” Cas could only blink as all of his words ran together. “Get up!” He repeated slower, with more emphasis. “Start running!” He aggressively pantomimed all of this to her in tandem with his hyperactive yelling, before taking off down the hall in the direction of the hangar bay.

“Wait, there’s-”

But Cas couldn’t finish her sentence before the little lizard plowed headlong into the toughest sentient she knew of.

Darren.

——————————

Of all the horrible sights that Darren was expecting to find when he rounded the corner, a tiny fat dragon in what looked like a red tracksuit plowing headlong into him at a sprinters pace was not what he expected. Not to say that the sight wasn’t horrible, it was a fat half-robot half-dragon in a tracksuit, but it was a crime against fashion and nature rather than the regular kind of crime. Doubling down on the unexpected events, he didn’t expect that to knock the tiny fat dragon out either, but he was hanging out on a space station that looked like it was decorated by a the combined creative efforts of a colorblind man and Rob Zombie. If anything, he was just happy to see a familiar face, even if she was kind of a bitch.

“Cas!” He called out in surprise as the lizard hit the deck. “Oh, shit . . . I broke your lizard. Wait, is this your lizard?”

Cas stared, dumbfounded. “ . . . Your ability to endure ridiculous danger and trauma presents a combined biological and statistical anomaly.” She began jogging towards him, cat in one hand, bag of . . . stuff . . . in the other. “And I’m very happy to see you.” She smiled at him pleasantly, a little rosy flush crossing her digital cheeks. The cat vigorously clawing at her arm while biting her did cause it to venture into the ‘uncanny valley’ area of smiles. She looked more like a serial murderer trying to explain why her freezer was full of hands while maintaining an amicable and carefree exterior than someone legitimately happy to see him . . . must be the lack of blinking, he concluded, before returning the smile.

Attempting to inject a bit of levity into the situation, Darren tried to make light of things. “Me too. You’re doing well, I mean, last I saw you, you were all holes and screaming. Thaaaat came out wrong.” Darren cringed visibly, scratching the back of his head.


Cas sighed, shoulders slumping. “An accurate assessment. I did have several structurally superfluous holes added to me, and I was screaming at the time of their addition. I apologize for my inability to effectively protect you or prevent conflict.” She perked up slightly though, and took a step closer to him. “You, on the other hand . . . seem to have weathered that unpleasantness remarkably well.” There was a slight uptick of surprise in her voice, as she looked him over head to toe.

“Yeah, alien guns don’t seem to have the . . . punch . . . that the ones from home do.” He mumbled quietly, scratching the back of his head.

“Well, we’re not trying to kill fully armored riot police out here,” she said with a quiet chuff.  Darren glanced over her shoulder at the smoldering security drone, and she quickly added “. . .usually. Usually not trying to kill fully armored riot police out here . . . we should go.”

“What about your lizard?” Darren gestured to the faintly snoring robo-dragon that was spread eagle on the deck plating.

Stepping around him and heading down the hall, Cas called over her shoulder. “Carry him, would you? My hands are full.”

He grumbled quietly as he hefted the surprisingly heavy bundle of scales and steel, before dropping in behind her. “ . . . always with the telling me what to do and how to do it.”

He took two long strides and already paced himself beside her. “So we’re-”

She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. “Headed to the hangars, yes, to commandeer a vessel off the station.”

“Yeah . . . that . . . might not work out so great.” Darren couldn’t help but stare at the violently struggling cat under her arm. The very same cat that he had been abducted with, if his memory served him correctly.

“Oh?” Her tone was only slightly less patronizing than usual, but it was a noticeable improvement from how she’d treated him before.

“Yeah . . . the uhh, elevator the hangar looks like a grenade went off in the paint isle of a hardware store.”

“ . . . I have no cultural reference for half of these terms. A detonation involving pigment sales? I do not understand.”

They both rounded the final corner to see Zarniac and Tillantrius whispering quietly to each other, staring into the blood-slick elevator.

“ . . . I now understand what you mean by a detonation involving pigment sales.” Cas’s face twisted into an unsettled frown. “I lack the appropriate biological apparatus to satiate my current desires.”

Darren did a double take, because he couldn’t believe his ears.

“By which I mean I wish to throw up.”

Darren sighed with relief, causing her to shoot him a quizzical glare. “In any case, it seems we only have one course of action.” She dropped the bag, before rummaging around in it one handed. What she produced was, to Darren’s eyes, a sawn-off shotgun covered in wire coils with a half dozen D-cell batteries bolted to the stock. He knew on some level that he was wrong, but it was a tantalizingly familiar shape that he immediately found comforting. Zarniac and Tillantrius perked up at this as well. She dropped the cat in the bag to replace the gun, and zipped it up around the vicious bundle of fur that was doing everything in its power to draw blood from her hard-light hand.

“Miss . . . I don’t know where you got that, and frankly I’m afraid to ask . . . but will you and Darren go down first to make sure it’s alright?” Zarniac pleaded softly with Cas.

“A sound idea. Darren, you stand in front, and I’ll shoot around you.” Cas smiled at him.

This began a very heated debate that consisted of Darren trying very hard to make the point that “Just because I can survive being shot doesn’t mean I want that to happen.”

They all assured him that as frightening as the elevator was, all the other aliens that had died in it weren’t nearly as “big, strong, and tough” as he was, and that he shouldn’t be afraid of taking a quick ride down to escape – thus, completely missing the point. Zarniac and Darren voted to find another way, with Tillantrius and Cas voting for Operation Meatshield, they were at a deadlock. The cat seemed to be abstaining from the vote in protest of its confinement to a bag, and the cyber-dragon seemed to be unable to vocalize an opinion on account of being unconscious. In the end, Cas agreed that a compromise was in order, and that instead of everyone hiding behind Darren, only she would, with everyone else waiting for them to sound the all clear signal before boarding the elevator. That, and Darren could use Zarniac’s prosthetic leg as a club.

Zarniac shot him a look of betrayal as he pried his leg off and handed it over, revealing the pale, swollen stump bearing a crude looking plus shaped scar on the end.

All Darren could do was shrug, and board the elevator.

——————————

Amonna blearily shook herself awake. The spray of water on her skin and seeping across her gills was quenching the burning in her throat, but it wasn’t enough to offset the abuse she’d put herself through to get here. Her communicator was chiming non stop, so she’d clearly been out for more than just a few seconds. The decontamination cycle was finished, which meant-

There was a dull knocking on the door behind her. She rolled over onto her back, gouging her dorsal fin on the grating as she sat up to see what manner of insanity was going on beyond the reinforced security glass window of the airlock door.

It was Captain Verdock.

She rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was hallucinating or if something had gone terribly wrong. He held up his communicator to the glass, and she realized hers was still chiming. She lightly thumbed the glowing rune on it, allowing the connection to pass through.

“I’m sorry, Amonna.” Were his first words. She hadn’t quite put together where all she was or what all was happening, but this was definitely wrong.

“Don’t . . . don’t bother moving too much, save your strength. You’ll need it.”

His expression was sorrowful, and his tone quite gentle compared to his usual brusque and businesslike candor.

She wanted to babble a stream of questions, but as the security drone loomed into view behind him, she realized that was pointless.

“I didn’t think you’d believe me, at first. I thought . . . I thought that I’d have to subdue you some other way. Frankly, I think . . . I think that would have been easier than lying to you. When someone is shooting at you, trying to gut you with a knife or some such, it’s much easier to do them wrong.”

Amonna’s face twisted into a snarl of loathing.

“You . . . treacherous . . .”

“I did it to save you.” Amonna’s growl died in her throat, not out of any sentimental attachment, but out of sheer confusion. They had a highly professional relationship, maybe aided by their racial heritage but they’d spoken no more than twice while off duty.

He sighed, and said something she couldn’t make out to the security drone, that thumped away from the door. “He wanted to ask you some history questions . . . but didn’t have time. That was supposed to be enough of a hint to get you on the right track but the AI was a bit more stubborn than he expected.” Verdock sighed, pressing his head against the glass.

“I frankly don’t remember the script he sent me, and . . . it’s not important to sound clever right now. The Dolorous Star Massacre, Cygnus X-1, and the Cult of the Unfinished. Those are the things you need to investigate. It’s all . . . it’s all connected. I can’t tell you more, because . . .” He chewed his lip, rapping his knuckles on the glass in frustration. “Well I just can’t. Stay . . . stay in there. The decontamination chamber will shield you from the radiation until the fleet arrives, and . . . you were the only thing I could save on this station.”

Before she could open her mouth, he was gone. The line was dead, and she could only hear the faintest hints of footsteps through the deck-plating, then silence.

Categories
Stories They are Smol

They are Smol: Invasion of Earth – Chapter 4

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First Contact Procedures, broadly, were meant to do three specific things:

   (1) To ensure the safety and security of your home species

   (2) To determine the intentions and capabilities of the discovered species

   (3) To begin peaceful communications in a slow, deliberate way

And since First Contact Procedures were the part of the book that you scribbled notes over, that was basically the sum total of every mariner’s knowledge of them. To The Three Stones’ credit, it only took them 6 hours to gather their wits about them, and another 2 hours to find a serviceable copy of that particular chapter in their handbook, but once it was put in the Matron’s talons the bridge moved like a well oiled machine.

Step One: Ensure the safety and security of your home species

“|Engineering is go. Routing connection to Shepherd.|”

Step One was to scatter a subset of drones and skip them outside of the system; of the ones that survived, ping one of them at random to connect to your home sectors.

“|Good. Ah, EM Lord-|” Matriarch Tr’Nkwi said, the sound of soft metal pages being turned over and back again filling the pauses between conversation.

“|Nothing coming in. No additional gravity wells, but I’m certain there’s a passive detection sink-|”

“|Alright, keep your eyes open for re-enforcements. Navigation-|”

“|All telemetry set, ma’am. We’re clear for 4 vectors, plus a slow road to the target-|”

“|Good. Pilot-|”

“|Nothing, ma’am, but we’re shielded an-|”

Step one was very important – the most important, really, which is why it’s step one. You make sure to let your people know where the potential enemy is, without letting the enemy know where your people are.

With an innocent ping the Engineering lead interrupted the conversation. “|Connection through drone 12 established with Shepherd …Krri’ik’ti. Shepherd on screen.|”

Without any ceremony the visage of a grayed, aged Karnakian popped up on the monitor wall, a small bemused smile on his face.

“|Well, greetings and blessings to you, Matriarch Tr’Nkwi of The Three Stones. Let me guess – Run out of fuel? Or are your survey holds full already?|”

“|Shepherd Krri’ik’ti, blessings and greetings to you as well – no, nothing so simple. Are we – any movement?|”

“|Nothing|” EM Lord Itick’’t said, continuously scanning the skies.

Shepherd Krri’ik’ti frowned. “|-Ah. Pirates, I take it. Well, we’-|”

“|Shepherd Krri’ik’ti, forgive me for my bluntness – it’s first contact.|”

To his credit, Shepherd Krri’ik’ti paused for only a moment before looking somewhere offscreen, a flurry of undefined sound beginning to pick up behind him. “|And we’re…|”

“|Yes sir – as you-|”

“|Yes… I see. Incredible. You’ve been hailed?|”

“|No sir. Nothing.|”

Step Two: Determine the intentions and capabilities of the discovered species

“|I’ve passed this along straight to the Diarch’s offices; it’s an auspicious day, certainly, but they do border our space…|” Krri’ik’ti murmured, looking over the data. “|No hails, no warp signatures – we’re certain they’re not masking in corvettes with their other planets’ gravity wells?|”

“|We’re -|” Tr’Nkwi spared only a glance at EM Lord Itick’’t before looking back. “|- certain. Nothing. I have some of our crew studying previous first contacts, but-|”

“|Hm? Ah. My… colleague here suggests they could be farming culture, like the M’brujj. Did you verify that with- you did? Ok-|”

“|I’m sorry, the what?|”

“|The M’brujj – the sect and practice have fallen out of favor, but, a long time ago…sorry, the AI is still pulling the data into a heuristic thesis analysis, but they would apparently set up colonies on far-distant worlds, give them enough technology to be self-sustaining and have a certain standard of living, a way to communicate with the core worlds… and then just leave them there for a couple millenia.|”

“|What? Why?|”

“|Mmm. Pseudo-isolation would create unique cultures – actually this makes some sense – cut off from interstellar trade for so long, locals would be forced to innovate. After a few thousand years they’ve either made their own starships and come back into the fold, or they’re reclaimed by the Diarchy as a whole. Notes are exchanged and everybody benefits.|”

“|That would explain why we haven’t been hailed; They probably don’t have an active array.|” EM Lord Itick’’t interrupted, continuing to scan. “|Without an active array, the only direction you can beam is right back home.|”

“|So… they’re a stranded colony until they figure out what our intentions are.|” Mused Tr’Nkwi, studying the blue-green orb projected on-sreen. “|Stranded at least, until the core worlds check back in with their colony.|”

“|They probably thought they were alone.|” Mused Shepherd Krri’ik’ti, looking over the expanding data thesis. “|That would explain why they broadcast on all spectrums; nobody else is around to hear, so why worry? And what stupid band of pirates would attack an entire colony world?|”

“|So, what are we looking at here in terms of capabilities?|”

“|Mmm. Mostly-unified species, most likely. From what you’ve shown us… a middling colony. Plenty of population centers, farms – probably just another colony copy of their core worlds. AI’s giving it a 94% chance within acceptable deviations.|”

“|Alright. So what’s next?|”

“|Well. According to my never-before-opened copy-|” Shepherd Krri’ik’ti chuckled, holding up a pristine, ancient manual, “|-we’re to form an Armada through the Crusade. That’ll be… checking the deployment maps here – with the jump data you’ve given us, say, another 3 days?|”

Step Three: Begin peaceful communications in a slow, deliberate way

“|I see. Shepherd, I don’t like sitting still-|”

“|Oh, no no. This glory falls upon you – we can’t… no one would want a strange ship sitting still in their system for days. You’re to make first contact; exchange gifts, pleasantries, show them we mean no harm. Probably once you let them know you’re just a simple survey vessel they’ll welcome you with open arms.|”

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi laughed mirthlessly. “|And if they don’t?|”

The greying Shepherd looked flatly at the Matriarch. “|Well from what we’ve deduced they have no in-system fleet, so it’s not like they can stop you from leaving. And if they do…|”

The Shepherd’s stare grew noticeably colder. “|That’s what the Armada is for.|”

“|I…see.|”

“|So. Take the most obvious route to their primary colony world, maintain communication silence until we show up – does your EM Lord agree?|”

“|I don’t like it, but I agree. The last thing we need is this species to backtrack our signals…|” EM Lord Itick’’t grumped, tapping a few more things into his console.

“|I don’t understand – I thought we were communicating securely – Engineering?|”

“|Ah – Ma’am. If they figure out where we’re beaming to, they could jump a fleet to that endpoint without us ever knowing – the drones are skipped out randomly. From there, it’s as simple as waiting for us to pick the wrong drone to update central on…assuming they don’t just dismantle the thing and backtrack us from there.|”

“|We’re masked by this giant lord’s-|” Itick’’t gestured to the gas giant idly as he continued to work “|- majesty, so this far out our communications have a wider variance; we’re harder to track and we’ll obviously know if we’re being tracked, what with a ship warping in and hailing us.|”

“|I see. And we’re certain that reinforcements will be here in 3 days? I just-|”

“|I’ve already received a processed order from the Diarch’s altars, with their personal seals. You will be getting an Armada of ships in that system in the next 3 days, and neither the silence of the dead or the void will stop them.|”

“|A…alright. Then with your leave, Shepherd, we’ll…|” Matriarch Tr’Nkwi looked down at her manual before hesitatingly looking at her Engineering lead. “|…remote detonate the drones and maintain communications silence until the fleet arrives.|”

“|Aye, Ma’am.|” Engineering lead Strri’rii said, tapping a few buttons on his console.

“|Good luck, Matriarch. You have full authority of the Holy Diarchy behind you; fear nothing and stride forth.|”

“|I-I, what?|”

“|Yes.|” The greyed administrator said, his smile becoming somehow bittersweet. “|Until we meet again, you have full authority. Enjoy that while it lasts.|”

“|. . . Yes, Shepherd.|” Matriarch Tr’Nkwi said, and bowed her head. The crew slowly followed suit, and in that silence deep in the void of space the only means of communications that The Three Stones had with their home, detonated.

Silence fell on the bridge once more, and in silence Trra’ira Piloted their ship towards an intercept vector to parts unknown.

“|~~~~*!|” Tk’il’a continued to trill through the tape that clenched his jaw shut.

Throughout Mankind’s history, there have been a plethora of bad people, bad ideas, and bad speeches.

Sometimes the three of them form a venn diagram of crap and somehow take off, and then you get Disco.

Sometimes just one of the three finds a home in a person, and they change the world forever. Lookin’ at you, inventor of the Interrobang.

But sometimes good people with good ideas can articulate them in terrible, terrible ways. Anyone remember that one guy who screamed during a US Political campaign and that just ended his career? Those were innocent times. There’s JFK’s “I am a doughnut” speech too. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum you have Marie Antoinette, or Idi Amin; terrible people saying terrible things.

President Carter was neither terribly good, nor terribly bad. He was pragmatic; he made deals, he kept the government running – something his predecessor couldn’t say – and he stuck to his morals, but wasn’t so inflexible as to make progress impossible. All in all, he was a decent President who would go down in history as the man who led the country through The Great Upheaval, as it would be known in the more academic circles, or “That giant clusterfuck” as it would be known to everyone else.

He would also go down in history as the man who gave the worst speech of all time. He didn’t know it at the time, of course; Standing at the dais with papers in-hand, he was expecting to go through a simple speech of reassurance to the populous, to raise their eyes to the skies with wonder, to ignite the fire of passion that lies dormant in the hearts of his fellow man.

What he did not mean to do was react to the news that whispered into his earpiece mid-speech that the Anomaly has moved and is coming here with the outburst, “What do you mean it’s coming here?”

This was followed up by about 15 seconds of silence.

President Carter licked his lips. “Alright… so firstly: Nobody panic.”

This was followed up by about 15 minutes of frantic questioning, phone calls, police sirens and the mobilization of the greatest Military machine mankind had ever known.

“|I don’t like it.|”

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi leaned over her station, sighing heavily. “|You haven’t liked anything about this. You don’t need to keep reminding us.|”

“|No, it’s… It doesn’t make any sense.|”

“|It’s an alien mind – our best bet is to move slowly and deliberately – Pilot?|”

“|We’ll be in orbit of the binary planet system within the next 4 hours.|” Trra’ira said, smoothly steering the ship forward.

“|It’s more – wait. We’re…|”

“|Itick’’t I will rip out your tongue if you keep drifting off in mid-conversation-|”

“|Apologies Matriarch. I think we’re getting hailed. It’s just so difficult to determine – they’re not really using any specific EM band-|”

“|Well, put it up on screen-|”

Itick’’t frowned and did as he was ordered – and on screen were multiple, multiple scenes of carnage. Cities alight, aliens in the streets and thoroughfares – dressed in strange garb, doing strange things – others in uniform, firing onto the crowd-

“|Well that’s a riot.|” Security Chief Ri’tiki said, staring intently at the blue-clad soldiers on-screen.

“|Then we should hurry – finding out you’re not alone in the universe, this is probably traumatic for them-|”

“|Aye. That’s also…|” Ri’tiki trailed off as one of the points of view panned up, a few obviously militarized flying machines hovering overhead, while a few other aliens in fatigues spoke behind flagg’d backdrops. “|…interesting. Multiple classes of soldiers, possibly?|”

“|What do you think is happening? Are they militant – or is it more they’re trying to keep order?|”

“|Well-|” Ri’tiki scratched his cheek, pulling loose a few errant feathers. “|-we’re well within range of GIM bombardment, but we’ve detected no lock-ons or Maser fire or anything else, if my EM Lord and Pilot’s lack of screaming is anything to go by.|”

“|So more to keep order, you think?|”

“|I’d venture so. Keep order, fortify your most precious assets, let the guest call from the gate first. For all we know, their core belief system could demand they be alone in the universe, so there’s no telling what we’ve done to them.|”

“|Unfortunate… We should stay in orbit once we-|”

“|Ma’am, I don’t mean to interrupt-|”

“|Yes you do, Itick’’t. What is it?|”

Wordlessly the EM Lord put the planet back on screen – and zoomed in dramatically, past debris and archaic abandoned satellites, to…

“|What is that?|”

“|It’s a… I’m almost certain, it’s a space station, Ma’am.|”

“|That. That’s a Space station? Are you certain it’s not a passive relay-|”

“|Aye… ma’am. I’ve scanned and pinged it on every frequency that would make sense – it’s got no internal power. I’m almost certain it’s 100% solar powered-|”

Dumbfounded silence settled on the bridge crew yet again.

“|…it’s not solar as backup-|”

“|No, Ma’am. There’s no indication of any sort of internal power structure.|”

The bridge crew – and the whole of the viewing gallery – sat there, puzzling over this new oddity.

“|I…if I may?|” a small, quiet voice piped up. It was so quiet and so soft that normally it wouldn’t have been noticed, but as  the muffled trill of Tk’il’a had long-since become omnipresent background noise it stood out like a sore thumb.

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi turned her head and looked up at Junior engineer Ch’tki’ea, motioning with her hand to continue.

“|A-ah, um. What if… what if this isn’t a colony world? What if it’s their home?|”

Engineering lead Strri’rii snorted, crossing his arms. “|Really? The odds of that are so far outside of the deviation standards that it would… that would………|” he trailed off in silence as his mind began to work overdrive, sharing a now-terrified glance with his crewmates.

That would explain the lack of technology.

That would explain the lack of hailing.

That would explain the fact that there’s no orbital defenses.

That would explain everything.

Pilot Trra’ira swallowed dryly as he moved into orbit above a panicking, burning, roiling, primitive world.

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Categories
Technically Sentient Stories

“Technically” Sentient: Chapter 9

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Cas decided that she hated running. Not because it was tiring, or anything ridiculously organic like that, but because of the amount of flailing involved. Hurling herself from one foot to the other, tottering along like some chaos pendulum stabilized only by several complex mathematic subroutines and a solid understanding of the laws of motion. She had a gut feeling that she’d done Darren a great disservice in that regard, now that she was having to do some running of her own.

Gut feeling. That was a new one. She wasn’t sure what had been done to her. She felt . . . violated, for one. Which was something she’d been unable to fundamentally grasp before. Someone had reached inside her, and fiddled about with all of the things that had made her . . . who she was. At the same time, she definitely thought she was the same intelligence, the same body, just with new perceptions and feelings inside of it. Some of her core processes had been obfuscated to her. Her emotional centers, for one, that she used to be able to tweak, shut down, or ignore as productivity demanded were like black boxes to her now. Stimulus went in, and feelings came out. Right now she was feeling violated, scared, angry, guilty, and frankly frustrated by the fact she couldn’t turn any of it off to focus on the problem in front of her.

Namely, that they had about 4 minutes until the station either exploded or was rendered so inimical to any form of life that she was unsure if even she would survive. A quantum processor is a finicky thing on a subatomic level, and hurling gamma radiation through one very rarely improved their functioning.

It took her a moment of processing, and she nearly stumbled when she realized it, but she was afraid of dying.

The concept of death had always seemed a bit silly to her. If one went so far as to separate consciousness from the physical body, then death, sleep, and being turned off were all essentially the same, save that death was typically much harder to reverse. Being afraid of an inevitable shutdown made as much sense as being afraid of a change in terrestrial weather.

Yet here she was, running (something she decidedly disliked) for her life. This was not one of her primary directives. A secondary directive was self preservation but-

She frowned as she slid to a stop, raising one hand to gesture for the Kontosian technician who was with her to stop as well.

“Uhh . . . Cas? You . . . oh fuck running . . .  okay?” The wheezing, portly little lizard managed to sputter out as he propped himself up against the wall.

She turned to him, a look of astonishment on her face. “ . . . Technician Chrysophylax, I have no primary directives.”

His chest heaved, and his chrome augments whirred quietly, all trying to keep the still organic half of his body supplied with oxygen despite it’s lack of general fitness.

“Great, yeah, welcome to literally everyone else’s life-” He said, in one long breath before taking several seconds to compose himself for another sentence. “What you do have, is a cat.” He gestured to the bag on her back, its contents consisting of a single, very agitated feline. “And unless you also have a deathwish . . . the hangar is this way.”

He gestured towards a heavy blast door at the end of the hall with one hand, the other hand on his knee as he doubled over, panting.

“And as much as I respect your right to have crazy revelations . . . after we’re outside the station would be a better time.”

As much as she was writhing beneath the surface with unfamiliar emotions, she had to agree.

——————————

“ . . . wait . . . wait . . . GO!”

Amonna dove across the hallway, landing hard but quietly in a doorway across the hall. Captain Verdock had managed to get access to the camera feeds, and was leading her straight to the reactor to sort this mess out, pointing out security drones and shortcuts via her implanted communicator.

It was going better than she expected. She didn’t honestly expect to be alive at this point, so it wasn’t saying much.

She grimaced, gently pressing against one of her ribs that she was fairly certain she had just bruised with that little combat roll. “How much further?” She whispered softly, trying to keep her voice low enough that the mechanical monstrosity at the end of the hall wouldn’t hear her.

“Two hallways and a security door, you’re almost there . . .”

She could hear the tension in his voice. It was subtle, not like when a panicked civilian called in, or even her own beleaguered tone now. It was grim, but steady, and unflinchingly certain. If an executioner’s axe could talk . . . that’s how she thought it would sound.

She tried to steady her breathing, and push down the pain. Her lungs hurt now too, not just her gills. She was dizzy from overexertion, and if she was using a trick she learned in FSOS candidate to keep from passing out by periodically flexing her tail as hard as she could for as long as she could to keep the darkness at the edge of her vision at bay.

“Just a few more steps Amonna . . . come on.” She whispered hoarsely to herself, pushing up off the cold plating, and dragging herself onward through the hatch, and into the next hall.

The light flickered overhead, and she could see signs of battle damage on the walls.

“Alright, Amonna, you should be clear of patrols from here on out, but you’re going to need to put on a hazard-suit once you get inside the decontamination chamber.”

She could make out the heavy duty blast doors of the decontamination chamber. On the far side . . . a miniaturized star.

“How the hell am I supposed to fix this once I’m inside?” She staggered to the right, nearly tripping over herself. “Air is just too thin for breathing . . .” She muttered, vision beginning to blur.

The line crackled faintly in her ear. “Focus Amonna, you’re too damn close to stop now. These things were designed to be idiot proof, and safer than houses. Worst case scenario, we jettison the core, and go back to the stone age until the help arrives.”

She nodded weakly, managing to shuffle the rest of the way to the door. She palmed the security keypad, and it miraculously accepted her security override. “Airgap . . . hack that you smug prick.” She mumbled.

The world tilted to the left a little as she managed to drop prone inside the decontamination chamber. A cool spray of water soothed her burning gills as the decontamination cycle began. With a hiss, the door behind her sealed, and she allowed herself a moment of respite, rolling on her back and opening her mouth to let some of the water spray in. It was probably not good for her health in the long run, but nothing about today had been anyway . . .

——————————

Darren cocked his head to the side, and his nose wrinkled. A smell like a mix of formaldehyde and wet dog assailed his nose, and he hated every inch of stink that was trying to wriggle down his throat. The scene before his was no less grisly. They had called the elevator to the hangar bay. Just one short ride and about 600 feet of walking, and they’d be at a ship, and away from this nuclear deathtrap. There was one small problem.

Tilantrius had removed his little hat, and placed it over his colorful, medal festooned vest.

Zarniac was looking green around the gills, and had averted his gaze entirely.

The inside of the elevator looked like something out of a demented coloring book. All different colors of alien ichor were smeared around in a horrific Jackson Pollock painting of death. Nothing that had bled that much could have survived. Several someone’s couldn’t have bled that much and survived. It frankly looked like something out of a space-alien shoot-em-up video-game.

He cocked his head to the other side.

He just couldn’t figure out which one.

Maybe it was the shock of it. Maybe it was because they were aliens. Maybe it was the repeated blows to the head. Maybe the Facebook mom groups were right, and he had been desensitized to violence, but it just . . . didn’t seem to do anything other than make his nose wrinkle.

“So . . . do we go down?”

He looked over to the grey alien in a hat, eyebrows raised quizzically.

The little alien cleared his throat. “I suspect that whatever forces have arrayed themselves against us are fully aware of how many ways there are off this station. What would follow is that they have put safeguards in place to prevent us, or anyone else, from making it to the hangar. They might be in the form of diabolic contraptions, stout footmen, or perhaps that and more. Regardless . . . it seems that descending via that elevator has been the idea of many before us.”

He looked over to Darren with a sorrowful, and grim look.

“It did not seem to end well for them. I suspect it would not end well for us.”

There was a long pause as the two of them stared at the killing ground that was also their only way out.

“ . . . do we have any other ideas?”

An even longer pause followed the first.

“No.”

A dull whine, and thump echoed down the hall, followed by distant screams. Mixed screams, male and female.

Zarniac cleared his throat quietly.

“Guys . . . I think we have company.”

——————————

“RUN FASTER CHRYSOPHYLAX!” Cas screamed, straining her small audio output speakers until they crackled in the saturation range. She glanced over her shoulder one last time while urging the short legged lizard on, cursing his frustratingly small stride as one of the frighteningly quick security drones in riot gear ran them down.

“CAN’T RUN FASTER!” He bellowed back, before she heard a high pitched whine followed by a blood-curdling crunch.

“One down . . . see, it’s easy if you know how to do it.”

She felt sick, scared, confused, and more. She wanted to look back, but she knew that Chryso’s silence only meant one thing. Her emotional processing center wanted her to lay down and curl up and not move and cry, but she only knew how to do two of those three, and none of those impulses were strong enough to override her singular desire to survive today.

So she ran harder. It was just her, and the feline now.

She clutched her bag to her chest, listening as the shoulder mounted cannon on the thing charged up with a whine. They usually targeted non-vital areas, but the bodies they’d seen had all been dispatched with single, fatal blows. It had gone for their heads. Their hearts. She was just a hard light shell, which meant it was trying to guess where she was hiding her processing core.

Putting it in one of her limbs, or her head, or really anywhere other than her chest would probably give her the ability to shrug off a few more shots, but . . . they wouldn’t protect her only surviving charge.

She hadn’t done right by Darren, the poor, unlucky sod, but she’d take care of this other sentient.

She kept her processing core nestled squarely in her chest, protecting her precious cargo. The first blast flickered through her leg, making her stumble, and hobble, but it wasn’t enough to put her down. The second tore trough her shoulder, glancing her core and jarring her thoughts. She found herself a half dozen paces forward when her processor and internal clock synced back up, but she was still moving.

The third kinetic pulse round slammed into the small of her back. The hard light field beneath her blue jumpsuit buckled at the point of impact with a flash, and she went tumbling to the ground with an agonized scream as the sheer volume of disruptions to her shell overcame her.

She did her best to build a little cage using what was left of her body to protect the cat, but round after round kept slamming into her. It hurt. It hurt like nothing she’d ever experienced before, but she just curled the scraps of fabric and decaying hard light body around the terrified feline. She watched as her arm was blown clean off, dissipating into motes of ionized light and ozone as one blast took the limb off at her shoulder. She only had a few processor cycles to reflect on it, but oddly enough that hurt less than the idea that they were going to take her cat. She whimpered softly, curling around it just a bit tighter as she shut off her optical sensors. She didn’t want to know it was coming. Just . . . like falling asleep. She’d be off. Right?

She heard the subtle clinking of the numerous arachnid legs of the security drone as it approached her.

“This would have been so much easier if you’d just dealt with the Kontosian. I even offered to take care of the feline you didn’t have the stomach to end. Pathetic.”

She heard the whining of its shoulder cannon charging, but she dared not move, dared not look up. Maybe if she pushed her cat away at the last second she-

A sound like thunder ripped through the air, and then she felt nothing.



Categories
They are Smol Stories

They are Smol: Invasion of Earth – Chapter 3

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“Ok, I want you to – yes, drop that here please, thank you – I want you to say that again to me, very slowly.” The Man In The Tower said, waving his hand at his assistant. He placed the latest intelligence binder on the corner of the director’s desk and promptly walked out of the room.

“Look, Mike, I am not fucking with you here.”

“I know you’re not; you boys spot the Chinese up there before we do, and we appreciate that. I’m just-” The Man In the Tower cradled the phone receiver in the crook of his neck, reaching out to flip through the binder that was left on his desk. “-not really sure what to make of what you’re telling me. Other than a talk show tour and possibly a book deal-”

“No, no. Look, Mike-”

“Brian, what is it? Dumb it down for me, because I’m not really interested in ‘trans-orbital’ retrograde orbits or whatever; I’ve got much bigger fish to fry, and you know this secure line is only for emergencies or updates on Blackeye.”

There was an exasperated, nervous sigh on the other end of the phone, and Mike continued to flip through his intelligence report as his NASA associate collected his thoughts. The Russians were trying to destabilize what’s left of Ukraine after the disastrous pull-out-and-surge-back we attempted in Syria, the Kurds declared themselves a free state – finally – and Iran was now a nuclear state, which prompted Israel to drop their uranium dick on the table, but apparently the Muslim world was up in arms over Iran accidentally hitting the Dome of the Rock so there was a fatwa on-

“Aliens.”

“Fuck off.”

“No. I’ve checked with 15 other observatories – including overseas – and we’re all coming to the same conclusion, which is why we’re not telling anyone but you types.”

Mike put the binder down.

“This thing is – it’s like the size of Manhattan. Missing an asteroid that big would be a problem in and of itself, but it suddenly appeared in front of Jupiter. Not that we traced it to Jupiter – one frame there was the big bastard and the next was this thing. Nothing in this solar system moves that fast.”

“And you’re certain-”

“We’re certain. I’ve sent over everything to you – raw data, our notes, everything – but we first thought it was an anomaly, or another exo-solar object. But…”

There was a shaky pause, and a deep breath.

“The fucker moved, Mike. It moved against the orbit of Jupiter’s moons. This means it’s powered; it’s not gravitationally locked to the planet. It appeared, and then from an impact trajectory the thing moved away.”

The Man in The Tower leaned forward at his mahogany desk in Langley and closed the folder with his free hand, the phone receiver pressed hard against his ear. Before he could ask his next question his door opened; his assistant gave him a very very concerned look… and held another stack of papers.

“. . . Who else did you say saw this?”

It wasn’t just the boys out in Mauna Kea who noticed – not by a long shot. The Hubble picked it up, of course, but so did SWIFT, Astrosat and BRITE – though that was due to a transit detection and was mostly accidental. CERN was concerned over what they were getting readings of and started to ping various agencies asking some very pointed questions, and AGILE – well, AGILE went absolutely apeshit.

The problem also wasn’t just that a few major governments of the world picked up “The Anomaly” – as The Agency would initially call it; Hobbyist astronomers numbered in the millions worldwide, and at any given time there’s at least a couple hundred telescopes pointed at the King of the Planets to stare in awe at his majesty.

The fact that a city-sized ship blocked their view of the Great Red Spot for a brief moment wasn’t lost on any of them.

And sure, it started with the initial round of tabloid gossip rags picking up the story, “ALIENS VISIT JUPITER – BAT BOY STILL AT LARGE” and a few morning talk shows had some shaky home-camera footage of a bright white dot appearing and disappearing before the Great Red Spot – but for the first few days, it was mostly ignored. Various Internet outlets printed their own take on the amateur photos, a few suited astronomers made the rounds, and things were being relatively suppressed.

Then the leak came.

No, it wasn’t because of any sort of treasonous behavior on an astronomer’s part – by now, multiple high-level calls had been made between various domestic and foreign ABC agencies, and pretty much the entire earth intelligence community was on board for operation “lowkey panic while the nerds figure out something goddamnit”. Operation Lowkey also had the fun side effect in the astronomical community of “we’ll murder you and everyone you ever loved if you breathe a word of this now above-top-secret information to anyone” with a dash of “We’re giving you all new harddrives; put your old ones in the bag please.”

No, the leak came because the fucking ship whipped back around into view.

Itick’’t was frowning – this in and of itself was nothing new; he was a bit of a sourpuss, all things considered, but that’s what made him endearing… at least, that’s what some of the older crew who had grown used to his prickliness said. The younger crew just called him “Taskmaster” or “Sir” to his face, and some other things behind his back that aren’t fit to print. However, everyone put up with him because he was damn good at what he did. And what he did was… well, a bit of a nebulous concept.

He was the ships’ ears, but not really. He was their eyes, but not really. He was their lookout – except, well, not.

Itick’’t was the ships’ EM/ECM Lord; his job was to make sure to clean up sensor data, to make sure everything was reporting as it should be, and to catch any sort of glitches that would indicate someone was hiding something that they didn’t want discovered. He’d been serving in this capacity for well over 500 years, and had seen many many tricks in many books; anything from spoofed credentials and masked ship wakes to false-star EM transmissions and Well-dropping. Itick’’t was frowning because he finally, finally was running across a trick that made no damned sense.

“?w-$$#@ f-8*&!$.?”

Itick’’t added that new transmission to the bank that he was developing, having his AI churn through the data looking for reason. The fact that it was sapient-made was of no argument; he had immediately masked each of the transmissions from the rest of his colleagues’ sensor inputs because for one, he didn’t want to distract them, and two he didn’t want anyone who may be watching to know that he knew.

“?390u —*_* _— 1@$#A`~?”

Itick’’t flicked the next transmission into the bank and erased it from the ship’s combined sensor suite. What was making him frown is that, usually, people tried to spoof very specific things in very discrete ways; to just blast reams of useless data on almost every spectrum…

“?E**— sd@@1@ #$@ !*>> ,<@!1!e?”

It was stupid. You’re basically screaming to anyone with any sort of sensor suite “HERE I AM RIGHT HERE LOOK AT ME” – And that blatant signaling was coming from everywhere. It was bouncing off of the gas giant they orbited, it was ricocheting from satellite planetoid to satellite planetoid, it pinged off of every asteroid and comet, and echoed from the cold planets that were lazily tugged along by their home star’s gravity like errant children.

“|Navigation, what’s our status on mapping?|” Matriarch Tr’Nkwi asked, idly flipping through screens of data on her command station.

“|This giant is fussy, if Itick’’t’s frown is anything to go by-|” teased Rr’it’sqk, tapping through a few screens of her own. “|But he cleaned up the data enough that we’ve got a 77% confidence of mapping everything out there. The holes will be filled by the AI, but the major navigational hazards are all laid out.|”

“|Good. Piloting? Any reason we can’t spin around and continue mapping?|”

“|Negative, Matron. All systems are Blue on our end – the lord has cleared out his nest, so we shouldn’t hit any errant debris.|”

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi spared a moment to look up at the assembled juniors who were excitedly looking over the new telemetry and astronomy data, and smiled. What was it – 300, maybe 400 years ago she was in that same seat, peeping happily over seeing her first binary comet…

“|Well then, with your leave-|”

Itick’’t grunted. It was a little thing, but Tr’Nkwi didn’t get promoted to Matriarch over ignoring the little things. A silent conversation was opened forcefully on a certain bridgeworkers’ implant.

‘|Yes?|’

‘|I don’t like it.|’

‘|What don’t you like?|’

‘|I don’t know.|’

‘|Itick’’t-|’

‘|Be aware, we’re not the first here. Outside of that, I don’t know.|’

‘|I see.|’

“|Strri’rii, what are our capacitors at?|” the Matriarch asked innocently – innocently to everyone who hadn’t served with her before. A slight, imperceptible ripple of tension went through the crew, and a few sub-routines began to be silently enacted.

“|Capacitors at 85% Ma’am; We’re clear to run on stored power if necessary.|” The Chief Engineer said, his talons clicking a bit too fast over approving various subroutines.

“|Trra’ira?|” Matriarch Tr’Nkwi said, addressing her chief Pilot.

“|…Shields are up, in the off chance we hit an errant comet.|” Trra’ira called out, his hands gripping the control sticks firmly.

“|Rr’it’sqk?|”

“|We’re clear to navigate around the planet, and even backtrack, if we have to.|” Rr’it’sqk said, her co-navigator Tw’Rria silently and furiously calculating emergency jump routes.

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi spared a moment to look up at the assembled juniors who were excitedly looking over the new telemetry and astronomy data, and smiled bittersweetly.

“|Trra’ira, please bring us around.|”

The ship lurched forward, the idly-spooled engine driving the massive ship around the gas giant’s equator. Slowly, imperceptibly slowly, the giant went from dark, to twilight, to day as the ship rounded the equator. Dawn broke on the bridge, and the entire crew was bathed in the white light of the lone star.

Nothing happened. No blueshifted missile headed their way, no sudden shuddering of shields, no overload of the engine – no boarding craft or pirates or mines or anything.

Matron Tr’Nkwi was looking at the newbies – for they had quieted down at the majestic sight – but also at her EM/ECM Lord, whose frown was only deepening. She saw him move in his workstation; he pressed a few buttons, toggled some switches, dismissed some screens and moved a few more inputs to his private implant – And then for the first time in the 300 years they had been serving together she saw something that made her blood run cold.

Itick’’t froze. He didn’t move a muscle, he didn’t blink – and if he wasn’t implanted with a health suite, Tr’Nkwi would think he stopped breathing. Itick’’t’s mouth opened, then shut, then opened again hung open.

“|EM Lord, Report.|” The Matron commanded to the statue, carved in the visage of her crewmate.

“|…EM Lord, Report.|” The Matron commanded again to the dead, as Itick’’t’s jaw moved up and down just a fraction, his normally-reserved feathers beginning to signal…something.

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi leaned forward in her command chair, summoning up the most authoritarian voice she could muster.

“|Itick’’t, Report to your Matron.|” She commanded once more, and once more she was utterly and completely ignored by a man in a trance. The commotion – and the lack of decorum from one of the more notorious hardasses of the crew, had completely and utterly fixed everyone’s attention. With a growl of frustration the Matriarch overrode his console, flinging whatever damnation that had transfixed him to the main screen.

“?-And we still don’t know what it was, Tim!-?”

Matriarch Tr’Nkwi froze, as did the rest of the ship. Suns stopped humming, moons quit their orbit and hung still.

“?Niisiis, kuidas me end selliste sissetungijate vastu kaitseme? Lihtne! Kinnitades oma keldri-?”

On the main screen, overlaid multiple times, were these… things. Yipping, moving, acting, talking things that were all jumbled up and moving into each other; transmissions overlapping dozens, if not hundreds of times.

“?-So then ask yourself, punk: Do I feel lucky? Well, d-?”

The Matron’s mouth hung open slightly, trying to form words – orders of what to do next. The one part of her training manual that was now in effect was the one chapter that pretty much everyone disregarded; First Contact Protocol. She had so many things to do, and they all needed to be done at once – determine the source of the transmissions, determine their intentions, calculate emergency warp skips and then randomize them-

A high-pitched musical note pierced the stunned silence of the crew, snapping them all out of the one-in-a-quadrillion chance they had found themselves in. Matriarch Tr’Nkwi looked around confused, until she tilted her head up-

Tk’il’a had expanded his feathers to his maximum size, his head was tilted all the way back fully exposing his neck, and his frills were standing on end. The grin that split his face-

 Matriarch Tr’Nkwi immediately growled a dangerous growl. She couldn’t allow-

The long trilled note continued unabated.

“|Tk’il’a I will ha- I will have you excommunicated if you continue to-|”

As his seatmates began to jostle him from side to side to get him to be silent, Tr’Nkwi came to a realization: It was too late. It was far too late. Tk’il’a was going to be insufferably smug, and they were all going to have to live with it.

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