They were myths and legends. We knew that they could not be as bad as the legends said. That they could not be as terrifying, implacable, unstoppable, and fearsome as the ancient tales.

After all, had we not tens of thousands of years to surpass them? Was not our military might far beyond what they could have been expected to possess? Surely our vast armies and huge armadas of spaceships would overwhelm any fear they might instill. Forty thousand years gone by would reduce them, even if they returned, to veritable primitives who would be unable to even comprehend us.

That attitude lasted right up until the first C++ cannon with improved munitions hit.

Then we learned a lesson our forefathers knew but we had forgotten.

We remembered what fear tasted like. - Cu'rli'imo'o, Lanaktallan philosopher and socio-scientist, 13 Post-Solarian-Emergence, New Telkan Press

Hetmwit stared at the little infant human engraved on the guard of his cutting bar mark-two, trying to focus only on the chubby faced baby. He felt invisible tentacles writhing around him, some of them sliding along the inside of his skull only to miss any hold.

You can't influence me, my brain is the smoothest of smooth brains. Your arguments and facts just slide off, the meme bubbled up in his mind and he managed to keep from giggling.

A shadow fell over him and he glanced up without moving his head.

Another one of the column on a bowl aliens, the hanging tentacles twisting and writhing slightly, gleaming with what Hetmwit knew was digestive juices. It was opening and closing a rubbery toothless hole in the bottom that had tentacles now spilling out of it and digestive acids leaking from the edges of the hole in the bottom of the bowl.

Hetmwit looked back at the baby.

His little sister held onto his fingers as she took a few steps before her hocks and knees gave out and she plunked down on her diaper-clad bottom.

"Good. Very good," Wrexit said softly. He glanced at the couch, still letting his tiny sibling hold onto his fingers.

His mom was passed out on the couch, a handful of Juice Shooters on the table.

All empty.

She wasn't in the sling any more, hadn't been for over a month.

But she still complained of pain and had moved from Lox to Juice Shooters.

Wrexit left his sister sitting on the floor, playing with her own tail, to go into the kitchen. A check of the shelves produced two self-heat meals. He sighed, put them back, and kept digging.

There was a knock at the door and then it opened, Naxen slipping in. The other Telk's eye was mostly swollen shut and his ear was puffy from bruising.

"Hey, Telk," Naxen said softly. He reached into his jacket and got out a cannister of little-chow. "Look what I boosted."

Wrexit closed his eyes. He was only ten, Naxen was only ten, but the fact that the only way they could sometimes get food on the table was to steal it had started pushing its way into their lives.

Momma used to say that good grades would give me a good life, he thought. Now she just wants to know if we've got any shooters.

"Wrexit?" Naxen asked.

"I'm here, Telk," Wrexit said, opening his eyes. He got three bowls out for his little sisters and got his sisters, strapping them into their eating seat. He sat at the table while Naxen opened the can of little-chow and scooped some of the grainy yellow-ish pudding into the bowls. One of his sisters made happy noises and slapped her hands against the table.

Naxen laughed, handing the bowl to her and she ignored the spoon to lift the bowl up and try to drink the pudding.

"I got your homework. Teach said it's OK you didn't make it to class," Naxen said. He shook his head. "She still believes in us. Told me to tell you to keep up the good work," Naxen reached back into his oversized jacket and pulled out a dataslate. "Boosted you a workpad from a construction site."

"Thanks," Wrexit set the pad down when Naxen handed it to him.

His sisters were eating with their fingers, ignoring the spoons, but he didn't feel like correcting them.

"Got it hot-wired by a sixth year. Traded him two Fat Fart Sniffers for it," Naxen said. He grinned. "Found some shooters in one of the lockers when I boosted the pad."

Wrexit gave a sad smile. "Remember how hard work was supposed to get us a better life."

Naxen nodded, smiling. "It will! You'll see. We'll do good in school and study hard, then we'll get good jobs," his smile got larger. "I'll call you in the morning when you're cleaning your whiskers before we go to work for the same company."

Wrexit just gave a wan smile, remembering their last interaction with Lawsec.

It still hurt. He was a good Telkan. He did what he was supposed to. He even tried not to steal or boost anything even if it was just right there with nobody watching.

But Lawsec hadn't cared. They kicked him when he was down.

And that older girl had taken his school datalink back when he was eight.

Naxen helped him clean off his sisters and put them in bed in their nest, then came back to sit at the table with him as the lights autodimmed to let them know it was night. His mother woke up just long enough to grope at the table until she found a Juice Shooter to push up her nose, then she dropped the empty shooter on the carpet and curled back up, looking like she was asleep.

Wrexit looked at her and hugged himself tightly, fighting back tears.

I need you to be my mommy, not what you're becoming, went through his mind, the thought older than his ten year old brain should have produced.

He got it under control before he shed a single tear, before his eyes got watery.

He looked away from her and back at Naxen. The other Telkani didn't change expression, but Wrexit could feel the understanding coming from his best friend.

The two friends sat silent for a long time in the dimness of the kitchen.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"What are you going to do, Wrex?" Naxen asked in the shadows.

"I don't know," Wrexit answered honestly.

"How do you not know?" Imna's father asked.

"Because I don't know if I want to work for the company," Imna said.

"What, you're too good for it now that you're going to that college? Too good to work in the family business once you become a Citizen?" her father was angry.

"No, no, daddy, I just don't know what I'm going to do," Imna said. She closed her eyes. Why couldn't he understand that there was so much more out there than the family business? Why couldn't he let her pursue her own way, just like the family had always done? Why couldn't he give her the freedom that he had enjoyed?

"You're almost twenty. You've been in college for almost four years, and I've paid for every dime of it," her father said.

"I could have gone to one of the free ones," Imna countered. "When I offered, you got mad and said I was accusing you of not being able to pay for my education."

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"I..." her father stood up, his ears and whiskers going rigid. He stopped, blinking, then turned around, facing away.

Imna sat, frowning. Her father had never done anything like that before.

Finally he turned back around and sat down.

"Let's start over," her father said before she could say anything.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"You're smart, Imna. Real smart. Scary smart," her father said. "You got accepted to one of the most prestigious universities on Telkan-2 on your own merits. Not my contacts, not my efforts, on your own merits," he looked up at the ceiling.

The lights dimmed slightly and Imna knew it was from the slums pulling down power from the geothermal plants as all of the Telkan living in the slums turned on their tri-vees to watch programs.

"I have a need to control everything around me," her father said.

Imna blinked.

"There's reasons why. Reasons your mother understands. Reasons I'm not comfortable in sharing," he looked away.

"Daddy, it's..." she started to say.

"You want to be a Citizen, and that's why I get angry," her father said.

"Why? Why would..." she started again.

"You want to be a Confederate Citizen. A Citizen of the same Confederacy that watched from the sidelines as the Telkan systems burned during the Heirophant's War."

"Daddy, it was a civil war and the Confederacy," she started.

"Views it as an internal matter and will not get involved," her father said.

The lights got dimmer and the thunder rolled as it drew closer.

"But, Daddy," she tried again.

"I rejected my Citizenship," her father said, his voice flat as he stared at her. "I reject anything involving Citizenship," he said. "Reject as much as possible regarding both our government and the Confederate government," his voice grew harsher. "And you want to be a Citizen."

"I... I..." she didn't know what to say.

"And I'm taking my anger out on you," her father said, his voice relaxing even though his ears and whiskers were still rigid. "I realize, now, that my anger is driving you away. That I'm letting my anger at the government push us apart."

He looked down at his hands on the table and saw his fists were bunched. He inhaled deeply and relaxed his hands.

"I just want you to have it better than I had it," her father said. He stood up. "I just want better for you."

He left the room and Imna looked around. Stared at the high tech gadgets, the smart surfaces, the opulence of the dining room, at the robotic servitors that hovered against the walls ready to fulfil her every whim.

"Better than this?" she asked the empty room.

The room suddenly dissolved into streams of wet spaghetti, sliding down around her to reveal a horrible creature reaching out toward her.

She managed to scream.

Wrexit opened his mouth to ask his friend something, he wasn't sure what, when Naxen and the shabby apartment suddenly dissolved into greasy strings. He lunged over the table, trying to grab his friend, but everything slid through his fingers like slimy earthworms.

He threw his head back and screamed in rage as everything wobbled and he saw something, a thing, something obscene, reaching toward him with one hand that extended from the middle of a column of black and red muscle tissue, and unblinking lidless eye staring at him from above the shoulder joint, four red eyes staring down at him from the top of the column.

His right arm snapped to a full 45 degree extension and the grav-fist snarled.

Hetmwit squeezed the hilt, coming up, putting his legs and back into it as the Mark-Two cutting bar roared to life, the teeth chattering and clacking.

It ripped into the lower bowl, chewing through the acidic tissues of the mouth, ripping up into the column-like body. Gore and bodily fluids sprayed as the creature screamed.

A black pit appeared in his vision, widening, threatening to swallow the whole world as the cutting bar ripped through the creature.

The other one, more crystalline than exposed muscle tissue, rotated slightly toward him.

The air wobbled and Hetmwit felt it slide over him as he threw himself to the side, rolling, the rifle on his back smacking against the console.

The two Telkan and the robots froze again, the robots shifting their aim slightly to take into account the movement of the creatures.

Two-hundred and eighty seconds had passed since Hetmwit had radioed the Captain.

Captain Decken kicked one of the creatures against the wall, pinning its bulk there as he put four rounds from his SMG into it. The smoking remains fell to the deck plating as he turned, firing down the hallway, the rounds exploding against the creatures swarming him, trying to stop him from advancing any further.

Captain Decken kept moving forward, slow deliberate steps that slammed his boots against the fibrous mat of tissue that covered the blackish looking battlesteel of the floor. His HUD said that just beyond the door were the stranded and under attack members of his crew.

Six steps, not even pausing or slowing a step even though he had to smash the cobbled together flesh and tentacles out of his way, and he kicked hard at the door.

It held, although it dented in.

He heard the scream, felt the barbs reach for his mind.

GET OUT! his brain screamed.

He felt the barbs pulled back, scorched and broken.

He revved up his cutting bar.

Hetmwit heard the resounding thud on the door.

The big one in the middle screeched and flailed its tentacles as Hetmwit scurried to behind another console.

The big heavyset Telkan had his arm extended, the grav-fist snarling. The female Telkan had a clear face shield and he could see she was drooling from her open mouth, her pupils widely dilated, but she still held tight to her rifle.

There was a clattering on the door and Hetmwit looked over in time to see a red hot line appear.

There was another screech and a set of ripples.

Again it slid over him, like a wave of greasy water.

Red hot cutting bar teeth ripped through the door and a good foot of the cutting bar extended from the door, sawing back and forth, up and down, tearing the gap taller.

Two of the creatures rushed forward, ripples coming off of them that shattered into rainbow hues of sparks and contrails when the ripple hit the cutting bar. It was angling now, ripping the hole wider.

Hetmwit glanced over the console.

The big one was backing up against the far wall. The remaining two rushed forward.

One of the ones by the door was pushing two arms against the door as if it was holding it closed, its eyes wide and making high pitched keening noises. The other joined it, and the two others rushed forward, pushing out rods of glowing energy against the door.

The cutting bar ripped through one in a shower of sparks.

Hetmwit ducked down, patting his gear harness. He grabbed off an implosion grenade, pulled the pin, and 'milked' the safety lever.

One one thousand.

The large reddish ones were all screeching, trying to hold the door closed as the cutting bar ripped up and down a good three feet and four inches wide.

The huge crystalline one rippled out another wave.

It slid over Hetmwit and exploded into rainbow sparkles where it touched the cutting bar's white hot teeth.

Decken felt the psychic wave hit him but ignored it.

It was nothing.

He had once ripped apart four Speakers with a broken cutting bar on the sands of Anthill. Crushed the life from warriors and speakers with a broken weapon, his bare hands, or a shard of atomic glass.

Hetmwit looked up as the crystalline one hit the far wall.

Two one thousand.

He looked back at the ones on the door.

Three...

He hucked it underhanded, arcing it to be in between the four of them.

It suddenly came apart, the fuse unscrewing, the casing coming apart, the entire thing disassembling. The fuse popped inside a bubble, doing nothing.

Another wobble and he rolled behind another console, popping up and looking.

The robots were still held still, their weapons pointing at nothing as the four creatures were against the door and the fifth had moved up on Hetmwit and gotten sawed apart. The female Telkan was pointing her rifle at nothing, the creature having moved. The male had graviton energy snarling around his fist, was in the middle of turning at the waist to pull the fist back, his feet planted.

The crystalline one held everyone still.

He rolled foward.

The door collapsed as Decken yanked the cutting bar free and drove his boot into the door just to the left of the slash he had torn in the heavy battlesteel.

One of the creatures went down, the door slamming on top of them. It made a screeching sound for a half second before Decken took two stomping steps into the room, his heavy armored form walking across the door. The other three reeled back, screeching, flailing arms and tentacles as if they were in sudden pain.

On Captain Decken's second stomp Hetmwit saw the creature's eyes pop out as its mouth vomited up blood and things it probably wanted to keep inside as the door and the Captain's weight crushed it.

The other three didn't stand a chance. One was cut down by the cutting bar, one was shredded by point blank SMG fire, the third was slapped aside and raked by the SMG.

Decken turned to face the crystalline one.

Hetmwit realized, crazily, that the Captain wasn't wearing his helmet.

There was a rapid series of wobbles that Hetmwit ducked down to avoid, then popped up to look.

The Captain fired his SMG but the bullets were taken apart before they got to the halfway point. He let the SMG go and it snapped to his waist as he moved forward, one thudding step at a time.

The Captain's cutting bar revved as the Captain moved forward.

Hetmwit fired off a burst at the creature, the bullets disassembling before they hit but having no other effect.

The Captain was two steps when the chain stopped on the cutting bar blade, the teeth white hot and smoking. Hetmwit heard the gear chatter and growl as it tried to move a jammed chain.

The Captain let it go and it snapped onto his belt.

Hetmwit fired again to no effect.

The Captain moved through the ripples like they were nothing more than odd refractions of light. He reached out with one hand, pressing the creature against the far bulkhead even though his hand was stopped six inches from the creature's crystalline body.

His other hand came up in a fist, level with his shoulder.

Captain Decken began driving punches into the creature's face. sparks spraying out from the creature's formerly invisible protective field.

Decken's fist was like a pneumatic piston as he drove rapid punches.

There was a shower of phasic sparks right before blood and tissue exploded in a halo from the creature's head as the first punch went home.

Decken kept punching.

The robots and the female Telkan fired into empty space. The male Telkan swung his fist at thin air.

The Captain dropped the corpse.

There was silence for a moment.

"Enemy eliminated," Super Slugger stated, bringing his rifle to port arms.

Hetmwit giggled.

The Captain turned around.

"Let's clear these abominations and search this foul place," Decken said.

Hetmwit stood up as the Captain lifted his helmet from his waist and put it on.

"Ready?" Decken asked.

"Aye, sir," Super Slugger said.

"Ready, Captain," Hetmwit answered.

"Ready, sir," the female Telkan said.

"Sure, why not?" the male said.

"Excellent," Decken said, lifting up his SMG.

"Let's get to it."