Nakteti stared at the planet below, her mind reeling with shock. It was beautiful, with wide swathes of green vegetation, glittering green seas, snow capped mountain ranges. She could see the cities below, see the air traffic, see the massive highways all lit up.
Less than two months ago it had been, according to her own databases and Major Carnight, nothing but a sterilized blasted ruin.
The It Tastes So Sweet had finished its docking approach and was now awaiting Pubvian officials to board the ship to inspect it. They were careful, with a long list of prohibited items, demanding any ship staying docked to the station undergo a maintenance inspection to ensure it would not damage the station or cause other problems.
"How is this possible?" she asked Major Carnight, holding tight to one of his hands with her right catching hand. She felt slightly off balance.
"Nobody knows," Carnight admitted. "They think its tied in with the SUDS system, maybe the Singers in the Dark or a Symphony in the Night, but nobody has even tried such a thing."
"All of those people are really the same people as eight thousand years ago? Restored as if there was no Mantid attack?" Nakteti asked.
"From all the reports," Carnight said. He shrugged with his right shoulder, not wanting to tug Nakteti up by lifting his right hand.
"Normally, the more you get to know a person or a people the more you feel you have in common with them, the more familiar one becomes with them," Nakteti said slowly, hoping she wasn't about to offend the Terran. "Only, the more we learn about Terrans, the more terrifying you become."
"Really?" Carnight looked down. "We're a pretty simple people. We just want to largely go about our business and be left to our own devices and have the right of consent."
"Then why do you save others?" Nakteti asked.
Carnight chuckled. "Because we know what it's like to be the victims of someone more powerful than we are."
The light went from red to green on the airlock right before Nakteti scoffed at the idea of a species more powerful than the Terrans ever forcing them to submit.
The airlock cycled and three figures wearing armored vacuum suits entered. Nakteti could see the faint twinkling haze of personal protective fields as well as saw a circle around each figure that was red with yellow diagonal hashes. Runes stating "Please stay outside the Personal Space Marker" rotated around the circle.
The three stopped a distance that Nakteti estimated would be if she had her own circle and then roughly a half meter added on.
"Identity: Captain Nakteti, of It Tastes So Sweet, a registered trader and diplomatic vessel of the Tnvaru People, home port of Tnvaru Redux and TerraSol," one figure said. They were completely masked and had serial numbers over what she assumed were their names on the foreheads of their blank masks.
They also had three legs and what looked like three arms, one on each side and one in the middle.
"I am so," Nakteti said, once her translator finished with what it was identifying as "Archiac High Terran Omnispeech" and let her know what it was saying. Her translator turned her three words into roughly fifteen sound blocks seperated by spaces, not counting what sounded like tongue clicks.
"Identity: Major Devon Mary Carnight, Terran Space Force, Terran Army Rangers - Delta Force, Alpha Company, 19th Directorate, Close Quarters Combat, Shipboard Combat, and Diplomatic Envoy Protection Specialist, on loan to Captain Nakteti and the Tnvaru People," another said.
Nakteti's translator ID'd the language as "Ancient Terran War Cant" and she was slightly surprised to hear Major Carnight reply in the same language.
"You may address me as such until we are bound by national loyalties, orders, or blood," Major Carnight said, looking over the three figures with a distant and remote expression.
The two that had spoke stepped back and the middle one stepped forward.
"Your ship has been examined. It matches Terran Ship Registry and Luna Shipyard Restoration file annotations," the middle one spoke. All three of their voices were heavily synthesized, with no hint to individuality or any other identifiers. "What is your business in the Pubvia System?"
Nakteti looked up at Major Carnight, who looked at the middle one who stepped forward.
"You are aware, are you not, of what occurred in your recent past and my ancient history?" Major Carnight asked, sticking with Terran War Cant.
"If you, in your person, are referring to the extinction attack by the ancient Mantid ruling and warrior castes that occurred in this stellar system, beginning an interstellar conflict that ended eight thousand five hundred thirty five point two two two Terran Standard Years prior to this meeting," the middle figure stated. "Then, affirmative, we are aware of that event as well as a gap of eight thousand five hundred thirty five point two two two Terran Standard Years in our cultural, social, and species growth, advancement, and experiences."
"Then you understand what has brought me here," Major Carnight said.
Nakteti was having her datalink translate the speech into text on her retinal link, listening to the words themselves. She noticed that they were very formal, very precise, even if they were very curt, staccato, and in some ways almost bitten off.
"When I observed that the Pubvian people had committed to a vote count rather than the absentation that has become ritual, I then verified it to ensure it was not an error. I immediately traveled to the Pubvian System to see for my own eyes that one of Terra's most staunchest allies had indeed returned to this reality," Major Carnight finished in tones that made it seemed as if it was some kind of test.
There was silence for a moment, although Nakteti could see through her datalink's retinal link that the ship was registering electromagnetic bursts, sharp encoded compressed bursts between the three.
"The Pubvian People are questioning of this sudden curiosity that would bring one such as yourself this long distance beyond the mere exercise of franchise of the Pubvian People," the middle one said.
"My ancestor died here. On Bluelight, the larger moon of Pubvia itself, defending it from the Mantid Attack. She gave her life in the defense of the Pubvian People and I wished to see with my own eyes the people she felt were worthy of her own life," Major Carnight said. To Nakteti it seemed as if the words were infused with a stiff arrogance.
There was silence again.
"The Pubvian People welcome you, Child of Warrant Officer Grade Two Amelia Carter Carnight of Nineteenth Warmech Division, pilot of The Last Sight, to the Pubvian System. Your request to visit Bluelight Moon as well as Pubvia Prime has been granted for a period of: lifetime permissions and blood debt citizenship with full Pubvian Citizenship Access," the middle one said. The mask turned to Nakteti. "The Pubvian People welcome you, Citizen Nakteti of the Terran Confederacy, Representative of the Tnvaru People, to the Pubvian System. Your request to visit Bluelight as well as Pubvia Prime has been granted for a period of one year as well as the possibility of diplomatic access for other Tnvaru People. Your access is restricted to diplomatic, tourist, and economic zones."
The three turned and moved together toward the airlock.
When the airlock cycled Nakteti turned to Major Carnight and stared at him for a long moment before she stepped forward and hugged his legs with all four of her arms.
"What's this about?" Major Carnight asked, using the modern Terran Galactic Standard.
"That was disconcerting and slightly frightening, I wished to soothe your distress," she said, pressing her face against his stomach. She held him for a long moment as he reached down and put his hand on top of her head.
The moment broke when Nakteti released him, turning to look out at the planet again.
She could see the storms brewing, noted that there was lightning flickers in the clouds.
They have access to weather control technology but I have yet to see it used to break up or stop these large storms, the electrical discharges, or even high winds, she thought to herself, putting one gripping hand against the macroplas window. Even the Rigellians, with as protective as they are about their males, still allow the weather to largely act unimpeded. Why? What is it that makes them ignore their obvious technological ability to completely control and subdue their worlds?
The world, turning slowly beneath her, did not answer her.
------------------------------
Nakteti sat in the armored vacuum suit on the seat next to Major Carnight, holding onto her gripping stick with three of her four hands. Her other hand was resting on Major Carnight's leg, holding tight. She felt nervous, surrounded by six limbed Pubvians, all silent in their featureless, opaque, and slightly menacing vacuum suits. They were only differentiated by colors. Some were bright pink, others were red, some were purple, and there were two yellow. The bright pink and the red suits were heavier, thicker plating, the material replaced by articulated plating.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The pink and the red suit clad Pubvians were obviously armed.
Major Carnight sat in a suit much like Nakteti, who with an opaque face plate.
It is rude, almost lewd, to show one's face to others that you do not know, she thought slowly, looking at her hosts. To show fur to a non-Pubvian is insulting, claiming that you do not need to be careful of their fangs or claws or weapons. The display of skin or facial features is an act of dominance.
She looked up at Major Carnight's face, noting his faceplate was transparent. The Pubvians had order-asked him three times to turn his faceplate opaque and he had refused each time. She had expected problems, but instead, the Pubvians almost seemed as if they were satisfied by it, as if they expected it.
The early Terran governments were warlike, she thought to herself. They had room for Mantid, Treana'ad, Pubvian, Rigellian, and others. All of them but the Rigellians had attacked the Terrans, either upon meeting or soon afterwards and the Terrans had brought them close as friends as soon as the sound of the gunfire had faded.
Nakteti shook her head slightly. Every species she knew of would have disarmed the attackers, occupied them, never allowed them near weapons again, never trusted them again.
"It was only twenty or so space battles," was all Major Carnight had said about the Pubvian/Terran War. "Not even a planetary landing. We just locked gripping hands and headbutted them back just as hard to prove ourselves to them."
Headbutted. An interesting way to describe a war, Naketi thought.
One of the Pubvians across from her slowly rotated its head to look behind it, out the porthole, as the vehicle bumped slightly landing.
The sight of the Pubvian just rotating its head to look behind it made Nakteti's fur stand up.
The shuttle was silent for a moment, the atmosphere was pumped out, leaving everything with the razor sharp crystal clarity of vacuum. The safety harnesses released and the Pubvians all looked at Major Carnight.
Nakteti looked up, watching the Terran stand up. He motioned at Nakteti, who took one of his hands, and followed him to the door with slow movements. The hatch unlocked, stairs extending down about ten feet to the dusty surface of the moon.
As the dominant one, he's expected to step out first, to be the first boots on the ground, Nakteti thought to herself.
She followed Major Carnight down to the surface, the bluish dust puffing up beneath her boots. She could see the red line leading them only a hundred steps or so into the terrain of the airless moon. She checked her visor's upper half and saw the Pubvians following in groups of three, the middle one always in the lead.
Nakteti stopped next to Major Carnight, who was stock still, slowly looking around.
"There is no trace of her," he said softly.
"We know not why. The Pubvian People only know that this is where she fell. We know naught what transpired or why her mortal remains are absent," One of the ones in yellow armor stated. "May it bring comfort to you that no wreckage, no mortal remains, no evidence of the Mantid Attack upon the Pubvian System remain due to unknown means."
Major Carnight just stayed silent. Nakteti knew he was watching recovered video evidence of his ancestor's last stand, back to back with others of her warmech unit, drawing Mantid fire in the vain attempt to draw the Mantid away from the nearby refugee point where hundreds of females and puffies would attempt an escape but ultimately fail when a Mantid torchship gutted the unarmored transport just ouside orbit.
Finally Major Carnight moved, slowly, reaching down and pressing his fingers into the dust. He stood back up and turned around, staring at the Pubvians.
Nakteti noted that his eyes were a dark, dim crimson.
"It was good that she did that," he said, the words sounding oddly formal even if they seemed to Nakteti to be oversimplified. Again, Nakteti noted that they were speaking the odd Terran War Cant.
"She did that for the good of many," the so far silent yellow suited one stated.
"We find what she did was good," the other said. That one turned and made a geusture toward Nakteti. "Is it good that she will know what was done here?"
"It is good for her people to learn that the Pubvian were one of Terra's most valued allies," Major Carnight said. He motioned. "It is good that we leave my ancestor in peace now. She may rest, now that the Pubvian People are restored and the child of her children has witnessed where she did good things."
Nakteti was silent all the way back to the station, thinking on not just what she had seen, but what she had not seen, what had been said and what was unsaid.
----------------
Nakteti examined herself in the mirror, tilting her head slightly. She was dressed, head to toe, in concealing sheer cloth, right down to a veil, gloves, and leggins that covered her fur. She had found out that jewelry was acceptable and had adorned herself to show her wealth, her power, her position.
The cloth was expensive, brought up from the surface. The Pubvian female tailor who had taken Nakteti's measurements had been, unsurprisingly, female. Suprisingly, she had been very chatty, gossiping with Nakteti about her brother-in-law's infidelity, her eldest puffy's scholastic achievement, the latest Terran movie, and how it was such an amazing thing that she had woken up in her clothing shop as if she had just fallen asleep on the floor with no memory of what had happened.
Nakteti had searched the databases, looking for what reason that Pubvians went around fully clothed unless they were inside their domiciles, but was unable to find one. It was the behavior she had expected from the Rigellians, maybe, due to their environmental collapse back in history.
Satisfied she was covered, she left her cabin and made her way to the It Tastes Sweet's shuttle. Major Carnight was already there, dressed in his military uniform. Again, she noticed that his hands were uncovered, his face exposed. He had his hat in his lap, but Nakteti felt it was strange that Major Carnight was the only one with his face exposed.
The ride down to the surface she kept looking over what little historical records had been brought up from deep storage and academic databases.
Pubvians were scavenging omnivores that gave birth to 'litters' of two to five. They saw more in the infrared spectrum than the cool blues, preferred bright colors up in the red spectrum. They were known to be extremely formal. Terran xenobiologists had noted that at one time they must have had a major predator, based on the way the Pubvians could rotate their head nearly 360 degrees.
They had only met humanity a "short time" prior to the Mantid Attack. There had been a "short, brief war", then the Pubvians had surrendered when the 19th Warmech Division made planetfall on Pubvia. The surrender had been transmitted before the Terrans had been outside of their dropships for longer than an hour. After a decade, they'd been admitted into the Third Federation of Aligned Systems/Beings.
With a sigh of frustration she leaned back, folding all four arms across her chest.
"What's wrong?" Major Carnight asked.
"I can't find the answer to my question. There's so little data on these people," she said.
"Ask the question. I've got access to the military files," he said.
"How come you get to show your face and hands? Why is it offensive for anyone else?" She asked.
"A Mantid could walk around without even a vest or an abdomen wrap," Major Carnight said.
"Why?" Nakteti asked.
"Because, only two species have ever beaten them, have ever displayed their dominance over the entire Pubvian people," Major Carnight said. "To display bare skin or fur and a bare face is a sign of dominance. I'm human, they're Pubvian."
"Oh," Nakteti rolled her eyes in frustration. The answer was so obvious.
"Of course, they didn't consider any creatures who hadn't developed jumpdrive to be intelligent enough to bother with, so the Kobolds and a few others are considered dominated by the Pubvian's obvious superiority," Major Carnight said. He chuckled. "Apparently the fact that somehow my people brought them back after continuing to fight for the last eight and a half thousand years has lifted my species dominance to the point that I could just go into a random house and eat out of their fridge."
"They take it seriously," Nakteti said. She sighed. "They'd get along great with the Lanaktallan from the sound of it."
"Doubtful. They'd be more likely to shank a Lanaktallan as being dishonorable," Carnight said. "When they met the Kobolds, because the Pubvians were dominant, it was up to the Pubvians to help the Kobolds up," he sighed. "A lot of how the Terran Confederacy, hell, Terrans in general, act toward other species was based on the Pubvian Model."
"Don't they consider what the Mantid did to be dishonorable?" Nakteti asked another question that had been bothering her.
Carnight shook his head. "No. They didn't planet crack or novaspark Pubvia, they attacked in force, spaceships and ground forces and glassing. To the Pubvians, the Mantid proved their dominance. It gets more complicated that the Terrans then gutter stomped the Mantid and then 1%'d them."
The shuttle landed and Major Carnight kept speaking as he stood up.
"It's why the Pubvian haven't left their system and why there's a lot of diplomatic work going on. They're trying to figure out exactly where everyone stands," he said. He held out his hand for Nakteti to grab. "Won't help the Lanks, though."
"What do you mean?" Nakteti asked as she walked with him to the hatch that opened into the tube that would lead to the concourse.
"Half their fleet joined Space Force to dispute Lanaktallan dominance," Major Carnight said.
Nakteti wanted to burst out laughing but instead mis-quoted a line from a movie.
"The Lanks piss off people on the other side of the Glass Sea that haven't even heard of them, just had their reflection described."
-----------------
PUBVIAN GESTALT
Hey, Akltak, about those old designs...
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS
Yes?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
PUBVIAN GESTALT
Let us know how they work out. If you want, we can have some of our engineers confer with yours over them once we start catching up on the technology advancements.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS
We thank you.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
What do you think of all the advancements ion technology.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
PUBVIAN GESTALT
It's pretty breathtaking, but once we discovered how long we had been gone, we are not surprised.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TNVARU GESTALT
Why not?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
PUBVIAN GESTALT
Because it involved Terrans.
Dal-Carnex's Eighth Law states: A body in motion tends to stay in motion.
Terran Descent Humanity is always in motion.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
True.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
Usually chasing something in hopes it can eat it, tame it, or fuck it.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RRASO
rdee har h
////
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Hey, Cyb, have you figured out what's going on with that? It's obvious he can hear us, but we can't hear him right.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
No. Every time I attempt to run error checking and examine the datalines I get kicked out by...
...well...
Naw, you won't believe me.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
With everything that has happened, how about you just tell us.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
We keep getting chased away by...
An angel with a fiery sword.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Really?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RIGELLIAN MILITARY SYSTEMS
These are indeed strange times.
Wait, why am I using the header from the Mantid War?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE HIVES
No clue.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
COMBINED MILITARY AUTHORITY
Who's screaming over these interlinks?
/////////
ALL> Scream in terror
IMPERIUM MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS SECURE CHANNEL
STOP SCREAMING!
/////////
ALL> Scream louder
CONFEDERATE GESTALT
What the hell are you all screaming about?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Um, nothing. Glitch. Sorry.