It didn’t take very long at all for the aliens to contact him, just a few hours. One of them showed up just beyond his base’s perimeter and informed him that their captain wished to speak with Miller and had ordered this crewman to guide him there. And so the crewman did.
Miller soon found that he wasn’t the only person on the planet with a spaceship and, more importantly, the alien’s ship was functional. Their ship was larger than his, and far uglier too. It was a bulbous construction of blackened metal and glass, guns jutted out at random intervals, pointing in every which way, and the ship’s hull had definitely seen better days. It had clearly received shoddy repairs more than once, the hull being patched over in several places, and whoever had built the ship had clearly never learned that windows were a structural weakness.
But it was a ship, a functional ship, one that had landed on its own power and would be able to leave on its own power. They hadn’t set up much of a perimeter, just a few patrols and some deployable cover, but he supposed that they could be forgiven for that, seeing as they had a functional ship and could simply take off whenever they wanted to.
The existence of the ship did confirm something for him; they weren’t native to the planet. The system’s existence was known to external factions. This begged the question of why it hadn’t been colonized yet. It was, as far as he could tell, a perfect system. Several habitable worlds, a resource-rich asteroid belt, a gas giant, and a very well-hidden location within a nebula. It would be a perfect location for just about any kind of settlement.
He considered this as he was led into and through the ship until he arrived at the ship’s mess hall and was then led to the ornate table where the ship’s captain sat. The captain, much like most of his crew, was an avian of some kind. He was the largest alien Miller had seen, aside from the avian centaur and the insectoid juggernaut. The captain, when standing, would have stood at about a hundred and sixteen inches in height, and more than enough in width that miller doubted the captain would have fit through any of the Wisp’s doors, other than that of the hangar bay, that is.
The captain was, much like the majority of his crew, a humanoid, though possessing four arms rather than the human two. He looked much like an owl, one of the avian species that humanity had been able to resurrect via cloning. Much like an owl, the captain had large eyes, brown feathers, and a hooked beak. He also had a noticeable lack of wings, and a large array of scars on display.
Once Miller had settled into his seat and been provided with a flagon of what his suit’s scanners told him was a mead of some kind, the captain spoke. “I am Captain Kolhu, of the Word of Arnit, and I thank you for saving my crewmen. I owe you a debt of honor for the salvation of my crew, one that cannot easily be paid.” The captain saluted and drained his flagon, which the scanner told Miller was full of a weaker liquor than the mead before him.
“I am Captain Adam Miller, of the Wisp, and I greet you as a fellow captain and a warrior.” Miller considered dismissing the debt, but had a feeling that, if the captain’s culture was big on honor, that would be seen as an insult, and so he refrained from doing that. Instead, he drained the flagon of mead.
“Tell me, Captain Miller, what species are you?” captain Kolhu queried, his gaze assessing Miller. “My ship’s systems do not recognize your technology, nor do they recognize your species.”
“I am a human; my people have not ventured beyond our origin cluster until recently.” Miller responded, watching as a crewman snatched the empty flagons and replaced them.
“I see... Your people are warriors, or so I assume, considering what those you rescued told me.” The captain beckoned another crewman to his side. “Prepare the best of our merchandise, I will let our new friend take his pick from it, in that way I will begin repaying our debt.”
“You are a merchant?” Miller asked, though he was growing suspicious.
“Yes. And a veteran, much like you, I can tell you’ve fought in a few conflicts and suffered your fair share of wounds.” Said Captain Kolhu. “One of your legs is a replacement, I recognize the gait, you have quite a few scars on your face, many more beneath your armor, and you’ve got that alertness, the one that all soldiers who’ve seen active combat recently have. You’re watching the corners and anywhere that might serve as cover, or concealment, looking out for attackers. How long ago was it for you?”
“Two years since my last large-scale operation, four months since the last firefight.” Miller answered. “I think you’ve had a longer time still, seeing as your edge has dulled somewhat.”
“I’ll admit you’re right, I retired six years ago, after the Hegemon I served won her war of conquest. I’ve had firefights and little skirmishes here and there after that, but nothing to keep me on edge like planetary warfare did.” Captain Kolhu chuckled. “Sometimes I miss it. What about we exchange tales, old war stories, one veteran to another?”
“Certainly, it's been a while since I’ve spoken to anyone who knows a true war’s rigors.” Said Miller.
“I’ll begin, then, but first, a toast. To a fellow warrior.” The nearby crewmen appeared to have heard the captain as they too raised their flagons in salute. “I fought in Hegemon Kalirra’s war of conquest, she’s a big name in the known galaxy, as your people will learn. Hers is one of the greatest empires in existence, one of the largest, too.”
“I joined the war the year I reached the age of majority, thirty-three galactic standard years ago, by joining the Hegemon’s armed forces. I fought on many planets, but none so grueling as Skyla six.” He paused and drew an axe from his belt. “This axe was the reward for those who survived. Four hundred million soldiers died on that planet, less than ten million remained by the time it capitulated. It was a fortress world, in every sense of the word, so heavily fortified that twenty million had died by the time we made landfall.”
“Seventy percent of the world’s population was dedicated military, a military that never got the chance to deploy. Four hundred and fifty million, against billions. The world’s population went underground the second we landed, and the only entrances were fortresses. thirty million died before the first fortress fell, even ship-grade weapons could not pierce the defenses that it sported. It took a miracle to find a weakness, a tiny hole in the shield matrix, on the western side of the shield, just low enough that a ship in orbit would be incapable of hitting it.”
“It was out good fortune that the enemy had a traitor within their midst, one who happily exposed the shield matrix’s weakness. After that, the destruction of the fortress was only a matter of time, and then the real war began;” He paused, his hands spasmed. “Tunnel warfare.”
“Our enemy was everywhere; they knew the tunnels more intimately than anyone else and they knew how to use that to their advantage. My people dislike the tunnels, we evolved under the canopies of the Kemak trees, not in the dark and constrictive confines of the stone’s halls, yet there we were forced to fight.” Another flagon of liquor was drained before he resumed his tale. “The enemy could appear anywhere; at any time. We were ambushed countless times, peaceful sleep became a dream, the situation fostered paranoia, infighting, accusations of crimes and treason flew left and right.”
“But we kept going, down, down, ever deeper, searching for their seat of government, and we bled every step of the way.” said the alien captain. The hall had, without Miller’s notice, gone quiet, and every member of the crew listened attentively. “The tunnels seemed to flow with our blood, even once we reached the enemy’s seat of government. By then, there were less than a hundred million of us, and our enemy’s defenses had only grown fiercer, but we had been ordered to bring this planet into compliance, and so we would.”
“The battle for their seat of government lasted for weeks, and we were only barely able to prevent the escape of their leaders before the battle’s end. The destruction of their transportation system was vital to our victory, and costly, but it allowed us to prevent the escape of their leaders and the arrival of their reinforcements. Once that was done, their leaders were captured, and their surrender was secured. Had it been any other civilization, their leaders would have ordered that their troops continue to fight, and we would have lost that battle.”
“That certainly sounds like a difficult war, and is certainly far worse than my own experience, but I will tell my tale all the same, it is only fair.” Began Miller. “My people are a warlike people, something that is our greatest blessing, and our damnation. We have fought more wars among ourselves than our historians could ever hope to record, though that is in part due to the cataclysm that preceded our modern era. A single madman in power was more than enough to nuke our people back into primitivity, but that was hundreds of years ago.”
“We recovered from our cataclysm with significant amounts of bloodshed, with war and destruction, for nothing motivates us to progress more than war does, and we finally left our world for the stars. We didn’t get very far. The Beralox Dominion was waiting, and our “leaders”” He spat the word like a curse. “Bent the knee without much struggle.”
“But that was many years ago. In the modern day, our civilization exists as a vassal state, and those like me, my people’s soldiers, are forced to fight at the behest of our overlord. For years I served like any other soldier, traveling from world to world to put down rebellions and quell unrest, and building up resentment against our overlords all the while. My experience came to a head, however, at the battle of Santigar.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Santigar was a desert world, an endless expanse of sand as far as the eye can see, anywhere you land. The few colonies on its surface that thrived dedicated themselves to mining, it just happened that they dug too greedily and too deep and awoke a ravening foe. The first emergence saw an entire colony disappear, and unrest rose throughout the planet. It was the unrest, which became open rebellion when aid failed to arrive, that forced our deployment, not the rampaging insectoids.”
“The war on the planet’s surface was harsh, a three-sided skirmish upon the sands. The rebels were quick, crafty, and well-lead, they would soften up our troops with short skirmishes, and then they would evade the counterattack and let the bugs have their go at us. The bugs were endless, mindless, relentless in their attack, they would emerge from below and tear into our ranks, softening us up for further attack.”
“So, we hunted down the rebel bases, those that we could, and waited for reinforcements once it became clear we would need more troops, and reinforcements we received. Would that the reinforcements had included less incompetent Beralox Nobles. The nobles took control of the operation upon arrival and immediately began to torment us, shock bracers, psionic thought enforcement, and general cruelty became our fare around them. Tens of Millions of us died because most of the alien nobles were too incompetent to command us, and lacked sufficient common sense to divine that the rebels would not establish a base within the insect-infested underground, where they would handily be devoured.”
“I was one of the poor fools who was sent down into the underground, into the bug tunnels, and it took everything I had to survive. The tunnels were a labyrinth, twisting, turning, full of chittering pests just waiting to tear anything that wasn’t one of them apart, and we were tasked with charting them, searching for a rebel base that did not exist. Ichor flowed freely then, and we spent three years fighting the bugs before the decision to simply glass the planet was made. Then I went home and joined the rebellion, the real rebellion, and volunteered as a scout, and here I am.”
“You must have killed thousands of bugs during that deployment.” Kolhu noted. “And now you fight against your people’s vassal-lords... Tell me, what became of your leaders?”
“Many retired, because nobody would elect them, and others were forced out of office, and then disappeared from the public eye.” Said Miller. “I know at least one, a member of my people’s larger subspecies, the “Goliaths”, enlisted and was promptly killed in action.”
“A subspecies? What subspecies are you?” Kolhu asked.
“I am of no subspecies. My people’s subspecies aren’t natural subspecies, rather they are a result of our experiments with genetic modification in the 2600s, an attempt to create better humans.” He stated, a gesture from Kolhu made him continue. “The Goliaths are big, strong, durable, shorter than you, but larger than any other subspecies of my people.”
“I am far taller than most of my people, a genetic defect.” Kolhu added. “Are there other subspecies?”
“Yes. The second subspecies is rarely seen, and was not created by my people, but by our indolent overlords. We call them ‘Enforcers’, a perfect splice of our genetics with those of our overlords. They are faster, more reactive, possess keener eyesight, and have greater flexibility. But they are weaker. They are more susceptible to the elements, take longer to heal, and cannot bring to bear quite so much strength as we can... and they cannot survive the same wounds we can.” Said Miller.
He detached his cybernetic leg, which was not covered by his armor, and placed it on the table. “The wound that necessitated the amputation of my leg, while traumatic, did not kill me, I bled out for minutes before coming to, and still survived. Granted, the suit helped to restrict the flow of blood to the wound site, but even with that aid, an Enforcer would have bled out and died far faster than I would have.” He explained. “Killing them is easy, so long as you can hit them.”
Further conversation was interrupted as the crewman who Kolhu had sent off to prepare their goods returned and saluted them. “It appears it is time, come, let me show you our goods, they’re quite impressive.” Kolhu said as he stood. Miller reattached his leg, the limb locking in place with a hiss, and stood to follow.
Their walk was brief, a quick jaunt through some halls to a lift and then a brief walk towards a cargo bay upon disembarking it. The sounds he heard coming from the bay were not encouraging. He had heard similar noises before, in the times when he had patrolled through camps of evacuees fleeing the havoc of war, and it remained engraved in his memory even now. He didn’t need to step into the compartment to know what awaited him.
His hosts were slavers. He thumbed his pistol’s safety, though he knew that using it would be folly. He was surrounded by enemies. And soon he was surrounded by suffering masses of aliens. A quick count gave him a hundred count, a hundred wounded, beaten, collared aliens. It was something you only saw in holovids... unless you were unfortunate enough to serve under a Beralox, then you would be the one collared.
“These are not the finest of our goods, just the most recent ones to be collected. Follow me to where we keep everything of quality.” Kolhu lead Miller through that compartment and to the next where a similar sight awaited him, and then to the one after that. It was the fifth compartment that finally gave him a different sight to behold, though not one he’d call better. This compartment held only ten aliens, and not all were of the species he’d seen in the previous compartments.
“Here they are, our highest quality goods, these fetch a high price in the Confederacy, though the Hegemon despises our trade. You get to pick one of your choice, as a thank you for your aid. I’ll give you what information we have on them.” Kolhu stated.
Kolhu gestured towards an impressive alien who was glaring at them from within a room that very much resembled a prison cell with a glass wall rather than a hard-light barrier. This one was tall, standing at ninety-four inches, certainly shorter than Kolhu but Miller had no doubt that she, and it was obviously a she, would certainly still be more than capable of tearing miller apart.
She resembled, of all things, a Minotaur, a mythological creature that appeared to be a human with a bull’s head. Though, in this case, it was more than a bull’s head, and the minotaur glaring in his direction was obviously female, unlike her mythical counterpart. It was an intimidating sight, especially considering the sheer amount of muscle the creature had, covered in little more than a layer of fur and the tattered uniform of some alien military.
Hooved feet slammed against the ship’s metal as she stood from where she sat, and the pair of horns that adorned her head glinted in the artificial light. Somehow, the creature managed to look feminine. Kolhu saw what he was looking at and grinned “That is Becka Halfhorn, she was a corporal in the Domrin Federation’s army, until she and her comrades failed to apprehend us. She is strong and would make a good war-thrall.”
Next, Kolhu pointed out another alien, one of the reptillian humanoids that had populated the previous bays. “That is Princess Signy, of the native kingdom of... I never bothered to learn what they call themselves... Ah, it doesn’t matter, the point is that she’s important to her people, and a capable warrior and leader, seeing as she led her troops against us valiantly. Valor just wasn’t enough to beat us.”
The reptile was far calmer than the minotaur, and that gave Miller pause, she was calm even when captured and possibly about to be gifted off to some stranger? Then again, it could be an enforced calm, he’d suffered through such a thing before and didn’t put it beyond slavers to use such technology.
This alien was certainly formidable, even when calm. Eighty-four inches tall, proportionally wide, and very well armored. No doubt she was a terror on the battlefield. Her entire species would likely be a terror on the battlefield. Bipedal, possessing thick scales, a long tail to help with balance, clawed hands, a short reptilian snout with razor-sharp teeth... they’d be a foe to be reckoned with in any battle. Especially with the consideration of their coloration, as most appeared to be some variety of verdant, the sole exception being the blue scaled ‘princess’.
At the very least they didn’t seem to be able to reach the same proportional muscle mass that some humans and evidently, minotaur-like aliens, could, and instead seemed to keep to something like a sprinter or acrobat’s build. Or at least, none of the reptilians he had seen so far had displayed anything beyond that build, not even the seven generals that Kolhu proceeded to point out.
The next notable alien that Kolhu pointed out was one that surprised Miller. While most of the aliens that he had seen so far were extremely distinct from humans, even if some did bear resemblances to Earth’s creatures, this one could absolutely be mistaken for a human, a very short, stout, and hairy human, but a human, nonetheless. The bearded fellow, who Kolhu had called Thorfinn Blackrock, glared at them and muttered something that was not audible through the glass, but was likely a curse of some kind.
“Thorfinn was transferred to us by the Schale company, whom his family apparently owed sufficient debt to that they decided to take a member of the family as payment. Thorfinn was a prospector, which will no doubt come in exceptionally useful if you wish to chart any exploitable sites on this planet.” Kolhu finished explaining. He’d made a similar sales pitch for most of the ten aliens, and Miller would need to consider his decision carefully.
He didn’t want to leave any of them here, so he would certainly be trying to free them all sooner rather than later, but that would be risky. He was outnumbered. He needed someone who knew how to fight with modern weaponry. He doubted that the natives could be included among that number. Only two of those arrayed before him might know how to use modern weaponry, so he had to make a choice between them, but that was easy. One was a soldier, the other a miner, he picked the soldier.
“Good choice, Miller. I’ll upload some language files to your translator, so that you can speak with any others that land on this planet and properly order your new pet around." Kolhu stated. “I’ll keep my ship on the planet for a few weeks yet, so we can collect more merchandise, and in case you change your mind and decide to join us. Now, would you like me to have my crew transport her to your camp, or would you like to take care of that?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Said Miller. “I appreciate your hospitality, and the gift. It is not often I meet a fellow veteran nowadays, and not often that my people make amicable first contact.” Miller tried to act as he had previously, to prevent suspicion, though he felt slimy just from doing that.
He felt even worse, however, as he watched the alien he had picked be escorted from her cell and given a few shocks from the collar on her neck when she tried to resist. And worse still when he remembered that, until recently, he had been getting along with the cause of this predicament that the aliens were in. He was going to kill every last one of the slavers.
He and his selectee were led out of the ship through the hangar’s exit and he and Kolhu said their amicable goodbyes. He’d see to it that the next time he saw Kolhu would make him the last person the alien would ever see. But that was for later, first he had to recruit his companion, and make some preparations. For this, he waited until they were at such a distance from the alien ship that no one would be around to spy on them.