Memory transcription subject: Ferris Holter, UN peacekeeper
Date [Standardized human time]: August 26th, 2148
[Day 19]
The shuttle jostled as we roughly set down on the abandoned highway. Just a half mile up ahead was the border to Ransu City, completely overtaken by exterminators acting on pre-war impulses. I double-checked that the rifle in my hands was loaded, and the safety was off, silently wishing I didn’t have to use it.
The vessel’s door popped open, and a landing ramp extended, wide enough for our full ranks to march down it in formation. We stepped out as one into the warm sunlight, guns forward, and joined up with the 9 other shuttles that accompanied our landing party. As one massive army, we were upwards of 600 strong, the estimated double what the exterminators had.
While we strode down the road I thought back to our mission briefing, repeating it over and over in my head to make sure I knew it by heart. We go in, we search for any refugees who may still be in the city, and then we take it back by force.
We were finally getting closer to the border. I could make out the maze of tents set up when we had control of the city, and the chain link fences torn down by the rioters. Smoke was billowing in great plumes all over the city and fogging up the sky.
I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow, partially because it was hot as hell, and because I was terrified of what we were going to find. I was on the shelter team, we’d run through every old raid shelter in the city to follow a tip one refugee gave over in Dayside. The potential to save at least 10 humans holed up somewhere out there.
As we got closer, I found it more and more unnerving that there was seemingly no activity around the border. No exterminators with their flamethrowers threatening to incinerate us, no rioters trying to get through, nobody. A poor conclusion on my part.
A gunshot sounded, echoing around us as the bullet smashed through the abdomen of a soldier way in front of me. In an instant, we were all separating to use the trees along the road as cover. I managed to conceal myself in some brambles as more shots rang out.
I glanced at my landing party’s leader, a man who was almost stereotypically a soldier, Jones. He waved us forward, the 60 men and women from my shuttle, minus the few who were already bleeding out on the highway, moved as one, ducking and weaving between trees. We were at the base of a sniper nest, we could see the barrel of the rifle sticking out and picking off the other peacekeepers.
Jones pulled the pin on a small, black grenade and chucked it as hard as he could upward. We all ducked for cover, unsure if it even made it into the nest. Seconds later, there was a deafening boom and a brief moment where orange blood rained down on us.
“Move!” Jones shouted, urging us toward the seemingly unguarded border’s entrance. I heard the sounds of rifle fire from the other parties. Sure enough, the exterminators were just waiting for us. I caught glimpses of jets of flame and fired toward them. A woman a little to my right was caught off-guard by one, and set alight. I dispatched her killer with a few shots to the chest.
We marched forward through the border, the tents were swarming with exterminators still, but we couldn’t open fire on them in fear of potential civilian casualties. A lot more of us were picked off. A few of the rabid venlil got their hands on actual guns. While keeping one in my sights for a good time to strike it down, another with a knife shoved it through one of the other party’s leader’s jaw, skewering his skull through the chin. The crimson spray as he ripped the knife out made me sick, I made sure I hit several nonlethal spots before finishing him.
Suddenly, the camp was ablaze. One of the exterminators missed us and lit up a tent, causing a chain reaction to run through the camp. Before long I was choking on smoke and clamboring with my allies for a way out, slamming down the respirator in my helmet. In the shadows of the inky black, I’d catch glimpses of burning bodies, the gleam of the ghostly white suits highlighted with burning orange, the bleeding-out bodies on both sides.
The radio in my helmet crackled, “Move forward! Out of the smoke!”
I ran deeper into the battle, finally past the tents. The world was clearing up quickly, and lots of us made it through. I explosion behind me rocked the ground as the exterminator’s ammunition supply caught fire. I didn’t see anyone else moving behind the wall of smoke. If there were civilians in there, at least we didn’t kill them.
A peacekeeper slapped me on the shoulder, making me jump nearly a foot in the air.
“How’re you holding up, Ferris?” one of the few venlil in our ranks asked.
“Fine,” I breathed, popping the respirator off my face.
“Where’s Jones?” I asked, quickly scanning the remaining members of my landing party.
“I don’t think he made it,” the venlil replied. “That makes me the leader,” he flashed a grin that I didn’t reciprocate.
He tapped the side of his helmet, his voice now projecting to everyone in the party, “Move forward to sector 3, we’ve got 2 shelters to get through today and absolutely no time to waste. Let’s go,” he urged. Everyone moved. One party stayed back to keep the border in check, and as we began walking down city streets, the other ones started breaking off from the main group to follow their own objectives. Just 40 of us were left in my party, with the venlil captain at the helm.
An exterminator made the mistake of turning down the same street as us on his patrol and was almost immediately shot down, the tank on his back igniting from one of our shots and engulfing the shredded suit in flames. We passed charred skeletons, some human and some venlil, and the buildings around were all vandalized. We passed a brick wall on the side of an old bakery that read ‘Predator’s Disease’ in orange spray paint, with a skull thrown above it.
A voice called from one of the ruined buildings, “Don’t shoot!” and our entire party turned, guns facing a pair of paws raised over the sill of a broken window. A venlil slowly popped his head up. He had matted and unkempt fur that at one point was gray, but was now smeared brown and orange.
A pair of medics rushed over hastily, inspecting the survivor for wounds. He coughed into an arm and a splatter of blood made a new stain on his fur.
“He’s sick,” a medic observed.
Our leader pulled down his respirator, “Get him out of the city and quarantined immediately.”
“Are there more of you?” one medic asked. The refugee solemnly shook his head and allowed the pair of humans to help him out of the building. They called a handful of soldiers from the nearest party to help escort them out.
We marched on, finally close to the first raid shelter. Just as the tip suggested, the entrance was in an alleyway by a domed building. It led into a long, concrete corridor that ended in a blast door. There were two burned corpses by the entrance, a human leaned against a wall, and a venlil, skull splattered on the floor.
“Ju’kil movah tep zhash,” our party leader barked.
“Could you repeat that?” a new voice crackled over the radio. The venlil was noticeably confused and stopped to fiddle with his helmet.
“Tizu, blugh ce?” he spoke.
“Ma’gui suv tu, kech’un ti yuh,” a human peacekeeper told him, then opened his mic, “translators don’t work here. There’s too much interference above us for good service. Supposedly they work down in the actual shelter though.”
The venlil barked something for the human to manually translate, “He says forward, we get through the door, make our presence known, and find the refugees.”
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Two peacekeepers twisted open the heavy door, revealing a second one beyond a small room. It was blown wide open, there was a staircase on the other side with the remains of the door resting on the floor at the bottom.
“This is the United Nations, we’re here to get you out of-” a peacekeeper at the bottom spoke before being torn apart by rifle fire.
“Shit!” I cried as we cautiously crept down the stairs. I was closer to the back of the group, missing out on the action at the front, but I could hear several gunshots, only some of them were ours. “Confirming the bodies of 10 humans,” the radio crackled as I finally made it down to get a view of the carnage. We lost a few peacekeepers, but the exterminators were seemingly all dead. Orange blood soaked the tiled floor, leaking from the tattered bodies.
On one side of the room were the human corpses. They weren’t charred like the others, they were maimed, and horrifically mutilated. They still looked like they were in agony. The cuts and bruising all over their bodies revealed they were tortured to death. I shuddered at the thought, then noticed a shuffle among the pile.
I trained my rifle on it, as a hoarse, pained voice groaned “Don’t shoot.”
“We’ve got a survivor!” I called, quickly sifting through the bodies that covered him. A gaunt and horribly disfigured man stared up at me. He’d lost an eye and was severely burned in a couple of places.
“What’s your name?” I asked as the medics began dressing the severe cuts on his limbs.
“Porter,” he moaned as the bone jutting out of his elbow was nudged by one of the medics.
“Porter, okay, are there more of you?” I asked hastily. The main looked around with his good eye at the corpses, “No,” he wheezed.
“The only- the only others made it out I think,” he muttered while being lifted onto a stretcher.
“Call in a shuttle, we need to fly him out of here,” a medic said.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Daniel Stat, human virologist
Date [Standardized human time]: August 26th, 2148
[Day 19]
I clicked the microscope to a higher magnification. I was having some real Deja Vu watching the rhinovirus bobble around the slide. There was a startling tap on my shoulder. I spun around to see Tinasi giggling behind her goofy goggles.
“Sorry, Dr. Stat,” she apologized, “I’ve got some samples from that recovered pup. You oughta take a look,” she said, handing me a small orange vial.
“Thanks, Tinasi,” I said, carefully dripping a tiny bit onto the slide. I observed the venlil immune cells, expecting them to fight off the virus. Instead, something strange happened, neither cell interacted with the other. It appeared after the host got sick and recovered, that the virus itself stopped attacking it, effectively making them immune. But the cause was completely beyond me.
“Tinasi…” I mumbled.
“Yeah, I see,” she said, studying the holographic display the microscope was plugged into.
“Do we even know how the venlil gained immunity?” I asked.
“No, we don’t. All we know is some manage to recover, and then they just don’t get sick again. It’s a complete mystery to everyone,” she answered.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered, “Okay, can you go grab me some-”
The lab door flung open suddenly, the sounds of claws on tile overtook the whole lab. I turned quickly to see a pair of red, reptilian eyes staring back at me. An arxur.
“Apologies for my tardiness,” the gray huffed, “transit is a nightmare on this planet,” he grumbled, striding up to me and extending a clawed hand. I stared at him a moment, unsure what he was even doing on Leirn.
He shot me an inquisitive look suddenly, glancing between me and his claws, “This is the customary greeting for your species, no?”
“Oh, uh yeah, sorry,” I shook his hand hesitantly.
“I’m Jakiv, it’s a pleasure to meet you, doctor,” he growled.
Tinasi wore a grimace, almost identical to every other yotul in the lab.
“The Technocracy requested aid from Wriss in their efforts to combat the Skalgan Flu, if you’d please give me a rundown of what we’re dealing with currently, it would be much appreciated,” Jakiv spoke sort of robotically, over-annunciating each word. He gave off an aura of professionalism, or an attempt at it at least, with a lot of social awkwardness.
“Danny,” Tinasi whispered, the arxur looking between us expectantly.
“I can catch you up to speed, Jakiv,” I spoke, “Allow me to go grab some of the files and statistics,” I excused myself from the lab with Tinasi in tow.
As soon as the decontamination cycle finished, and we stepped out into the hallway, she exclaimed “DANNY WHAT THE FUCK?!”
“Shh! Hey, keep your voice down,” I whispered.
“Keep my- what? That’s a fucking arxur!”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I replied.
“In our lab?! Fucking- I-” she fumbled and gesticulated, physically grasping for how to even express herself, “They ate people! They farmed us! Why would- why!?” she got out.
“I know, I know. I don’t know who thought sending us an arxur was a remotely good idea-”
“The fucking president apparently!” she threw her hands up, “If that bastard fucking eats one-”
I put my hands on the yotul’s shoulders, “Tinasi, listen, panicking will do us no good here. Besides, let’s not assume every arxur is necessarily bad, right?”
She scowled at me, “Oh yeah, let me sympathize with the- your uh-” she searched for a good word, “The nazis!” she exclaimed.
“That’s actually a terrible comparison,” I replied. “Look, Tinasi, let’s just give him a chance. Arxur or not, he’s gotta help us. The least we can do is let him, right?”
She crossed her arms and glared.
“Right?” I urged.
“Right…” she muttered, sighing heavily.
“Good, now let’s get Jakiv some documents and fill him in on things, okay?”
~~~
We re-entered the lab, a heavy folder in hand. “Jakiv,” I greeted as the door slid open. I looked around the room, my eyes finally landing on him huddled over a microscope and… chatting away with one of our coworkers?
“Then of course, the venlil said ‘I only serve sapients,’ so I apologized that he couldn’t serve himself,” the yotul next to him busted out laughing. The arxur nodded, “Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week,” then noticed our return.
“Ah, Dr. Stat, welcome back. Have you got the information I need?”
I shot Tinasi a smug smirk, and she responded with an attempt at ‘fuck you,’ in venlil tail language, instead saying ‘grass stain’.
“Thanks for being patient, Jakiv,” I handed him the folder and began explaining the developments we’ve made since the outbreak started. Tinasi would hopefully warm up soon enough, though I can’t be too hopeful given the arxur’s track record against prey species. Only time will tell.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Charlotte Blake, Skalgan refugee
Date [Standardized human time]: August 26th, 2148
[Day 19]
Earth was a pretty planet! Lewie told me he used to live here, with the green trees and pretty flowers. I had to stay in a little room, but they let me play with all the toys I wanted, and watch TV, and Lewie would stay with me every day.
A doctor would sometimes come in and say he needed some blood, but Lewie told me it was for good, and I was helping people with it. I liked helping people! So I’d be strong, even when the needle hurt a little. Then, right after, they gave me ice cream.
“How’re you feeling, Char?” Lewie asked while we watched some cartoons.
“I feel good,” I answered. I was really sick before, but I got all better. And the doctors said I could go outside soon, and live with Lewie on Earth! He kept telling me I could go to school soon, and make a bunch of friends.
I was so excited!
“That’s good,” he said. “Hey, do you remember Jeremiah?” he asked. I nodded, he was my friend! I missed him a lot.
“How’d you like to see him again?” Lewie asked with a smile.
“Really?” I replied, bouncing up and down excitedly.
“Yeah! He’s back on Earth too. He wanted to see you, Char.”
“Yes! When can I?” I asked.
“Just a couple of days, as soon as they let you outside, we’re gonna meet him at a playground, you know what that is?” I nodded furiously. I was so excited! Things couldn’t get any better!
I hugged my new dad tight, “I love you, Lewie.”
He chuckled and patted my fluff, “I love you too, Char.”