Interview with a Dirtbag

Chapter 28 - Fala (Linnaer Thinking)

This was the day that Michael had looked forward to when these interviews began. It was finally time to talk to Fala. She seemed to be the keystone to the pack. She brought them together somehow and she was keeping them together.

Everyone in the pack so far had sung Fala’s praises. She was a Rakiri Noble. She had held the pack together through thick and thin. If not for her, rebels would have ended them and who knows what that could have meant for them.

Fala had gotten the pack involved with Elinsys or perhaps Elinsys had serendipitously gotten herself entangled with Fala’s pack. He’d considered trying to contact Elinsys, except Michael had figured out by now that that would have been impossible. She’d been sent back to the Shil’vati homeworld. Probably getting tons of medals if what the pack had said about her was true.

She may have been lauded as royalty, however when Fala actually came into the office, it wasn’t quite what he’d expected. Though her nails were well manicured and painted a flashy red, hair which was white and usually in a neat puff on the top of her head, today was a bit looser than usual, like a pulled cotton ball. Her normally straight posture was noticeably slumped. Her ACU was rumpled, slightly off kilter. In general, she looked a mess.

“Hey, good morning, Fala! How are we doing today?” Michael asked nonchalantly.

She closed the door behind her and practically crawled to the chair opposite Michael. Bill offered some coffee and Fala gladly took it. She took a sip and greeted them quietly.

Michael decided to take a running start at a second beginning, “How can we help you, Fala?”

She took a long draw from the mug Bill had given her. She swallowed and looked up at Michael, “You’ve done quite a bit to help me already.”

Michael smiled, not believing her. He sat in silence for a moment to let her enjoy her coffee, “Well could you help me?” She nodded silently. “I feel like I know everything about you but I know nothing about you.”

“My reputation precedes me, eh?” Fala grinned wearily.

“We hear that you’re some kind of royalty.” Michael said with a glance at Bill. Bill sat a little straighter.

“That’s some kind of true.” Fala inhaled the coffee. “I’m what the Shil’vati might call a Noble, but I’m a Rakiri, so Shil’vati terms don’t exactly apply to me.” She shrugged, “I have more influence on my pack mates than any real power in the Imperial System.”

Michael shifted in his seat. “But to hear the pack say it, you walk on water.” Fala shook her head, not completely understanding the reference but getting the gist. “Similarly, I hear it’s a big deal that there are two males here.”

Bill stepped in. “We've talked to a few Shil’vati males, they’re pretty cool, but they’re distributed through different packs or pods or whatever they’re called here.”

Fala slipped in the answer. “Not if you’re married.”

“You’re married?” Michael exclaimed.

Bill interjected. “To both of them?”

“No, officially, I’m married to Ssgt Remington. But that was my way to try to protect him from further harm like at the waystation. They wouldn’t dare put me in harm's way, so therefore, I wanted to keep him close to me.”

Michael followed up, asking, “but it’s not romantic?”

Fala shrugged. “It’s not not romantic, but it’s not like we fell in love. He’s one of my people, I must protect him. The protocols allow for us to marry and for him to be stationed with me.”

Bill nodded. “And Finley? What’s your connection with him?”

“Well, they found him amongst the rubble of one of the buildings they’d destroyed to kill the rebels. There was, as you know, a lot of collateral damage. They found one of our own, the poor thing, shivering in the wreckage. There wasn’t another place for him, so we picked him up, dusted him off and made sure he would be safe as well.”

“Damn. So that’s why he’s a nervous wreck?” Michael and Bill looked at each other, ”PTSD?”

Fala sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

“Well, you never know a person just from looking at them, no matter where they’re from,” Michael leaned back in his seat.

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Bill crossed his arms. “You don’t know the load another is carrying.”

“Plus,” Fala admitted, “He is a little scrawny for our species.”

Bill squinted his eyes. “Is he more of a chihuahua or a pug?”

“That’s not fair!” Fala huffed, “you can’t compare us to the canine species you have here.”

Bill scoffed, “Sure I can! Harley is a cocker spaniel. Bel’a is like a lab mix. Linnet reminds me of a corgi. Ssgt Remington is some kind of a Great Dane from what I can tell. You’re a poodle mix. And Finley is…one of our more unfortunate victims of selective breeding.”

Fala rolled her eyes, “Perhaps. I don’t see it, but if you need to categorize for your understanding, go for it. To me, Rakiri are a people. One people. I’m aware that through your history you’ve categorized and segregated your own people.”

Michael held his hands up in defense. “We didn’t.”

Fala said pointedly, “Historically.”

Michael hummed, “Fine, but we aren’t doing it to judge you.”

Bill hooked a thumb at Michael, “Says the white man.” He winked at Fala, “I got you, girl.”

Her muzzle in the air, Fala countered, “And yet you have distinguished one from another of our Rakiri based on our appearance.”

Michael huffed, “I mean, yeah, you all look different.”

Fala swished her whiskers from side to side, “But you have a bias against one of us based on what you assume his identity to be.”

“And his behavior.” Michael poked his head forward for punctuation.

Unfazed, Fala continued, “You judge him based on his behavior? You who’ve smoked our barracks out regularly.” Bill smirked. Fala noticed and pointed a padded finger at Bill, “And you, who have taken to being taken at their leisure like some kind of sex toy.”

Bill grinned further, “I think of it more as put out to pasture. Breeding stock. Besides, I haven’t heard you complain yet.”

“We cannot interbreed with Humans.” Michael could hear Fala’s tail thunking against her chair in barely hidden excitement as she spoke.

“So you say,” Bill smoldered, “doesn’t mean we can’t try.” He and Fala locked eyes.

Michael needed to break this up, “Can we take a step back?” Bill and Fala both looked at Michael with more than a little frustration. “So Rakiris are one people, fine. But you’re some kind of special Rakiri?”

Fala cocked her head to the side, then straightened it, “Well, I suppose, within our people my family is known.”

“Y’all don’t differentiate based on superficial skin differences, but you’re above the others because of your family? Because of your,” Michael hesitated to say, “your pedigree?”

Fala interjected, “It’s different!”

“Is it?” Michael squinted at her.

“Yes. My family were the strongest hunters. We could see danger where others seemingly couldn’t. We were loyal. And I have chosen to demonstrate that loyalty by keeping my people who have worked together to root out rebellion inside of the Imperium together. They are a unit with a shared past. No one will be able to bond as cohesively together with them as they are with each other.”

Michael continued, “And that was your argument for keeping the pack together?”

Fala answered, “They tried to separate them, for a brief time, with poor results. My argument as you put it is what the Imperium saw when they divided us. It simply made sense to keep us together.”

Michael scratched his beard. “Then maybe there’s a reason why they’ve kept you together on Earth?”

“Far away from Shil, the Shil’vati home world?” Fala admitted, “Yes. Probably.” After a bit more thought, “That may be the price of getting Elinsys.”

Michael recalled their previous interview, “Ssgt Remmington told us that Elinsys happened to be in the right place at the right time to save him.”

“Right,” Fala began, “However, it was my intention to keep her as close as we could. I took special pains to make sure she got all the assistance we could provide. Elinsys didn’t make many friends in snuffing out the rebellion by any means possible. In fact, she could have had something to with sending us here–as far away from those enemies as she could get us. Or, who knows, maybe there’s something afoot higher up. All I know is that she went her way and we went ours.” She looked sadly into the distance.

Bill cut off that line of thinking, “Well, we’re all here now. What can we do to ease your stress?”

Fala sank into her seat, “I haven’t really gotten farther in my planning than to get here together.”

Michael and Bill asked in stereo, “What do you want? How can we help?”

Fala picked and fluffed her hair. “I don’t know yet, but to know that the two of you are here to help look after the well-being of my people is enough for now. I don’t trust those outside of our pack too much, we’ve seen enough horrors under their leadership. We’ve adopted you into our ilk and placed you in this position where you can do some good for us. Whether you help anyone else is up to you, but I imagine you will. My main concern is that I keep my pack together and as happy as we can manage. So far so good.”

Michael smiled. “You know where we are. If you think of a way that we can help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I will. Thank you.” Fala gave a little bow and started for the door.

Bill got up quickly and rushed to the door. He opened it for Fala. She winked at him and sashayed out of their office. The stylized puff of white hair at the tip of her tail swished as she went. He whistled as he closed the office door, “Do you know how hard it is to get poodle hair out of my sheets?”

Michael rolled his eyes, “Especially if you keep inviting her back.”

“I can’t help it. Call of the wild, bro.”

“I’m sure. You’re a beast.”

Bill did a silly dance on his way back to his desk; it involved a lot of growling and thrusting.