Memory transcription subject: Governor Maulo of the Venlil Republic
Date [Standardized human time]: September 1st, 2148
[Day 25]
I couldn’t help but smile reading the police report. 120 yotul personnel were saved from Humanity First by an arxur of all things. It felt surreal to congratulate a gray on his heroic efforts, but I see now why President Mesu personally requested him. Aaron Clemont and two accomplices were confirmed dead, and using his holopad found at the scene we’ve begun tracking down other bases of operation.
I slid away the report, satisfied with the terrorists’ timely demises, and turned to an email from Mesu.
Dear Governor,
The experimental procedures to synthesize a vaccine of modified human immune cells was a rousing success in our first subjects. Dr. Silvon, as well as the infected personnel who were evacuated from the laboratory, have made miraculous near-overnight recoveries. They’re still far from cured, but we believe they will be healthy again in no time. Servaen has been forwarded a full report on the matter. It’s been a pleasure working paw-in-paw with you.
Ah, even better news. The research has finally yielded actual results. I’ll want to get this new vaccine rolled out as soon as possible, but I know the Sapient Coalition is not going to be happy that we went behind their back. I considered for a moment the likelihood of being impeached and swiftly decided my species’ salvation was far more important than my job. A notification pinged into my inbox, interrupting my thoughts. Speak of the devil.
Governor Maulo of the Venlil Republic, you are under suspicion of violating the Interstellar Species Rights Act of 2137, article 12, section 3: “Genetic modification, enhancement, or crippling of an individual and/or species without unanimous agreement among all representatives of the Sapient Coalition is to be considered a crime against sapience and heavily punished.” You are expected to attend a trial in the Interstellar Crimes Court on Saturday, September 6th, 2148 (HST). Failure to appear for the court hearing is automatic grounds for impeachment from your position as governor, and imprisonment.
Signed, Abdul Suresh, United Nations Secretary-General
“Fuck.”
“Governor?” Servaen knocked as he entered. “We’ve fully secured Ransu City, and as we speak several Humanity First headquarters are being raided by peacekeepers.”
I shook my head, expelling the feeling of impending doom before replying, “Good. Keep me updated on the situation. Let’s get these terrorists crushed before they can cause any more trouble.”
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Colin Mickson, UN Peacekeeper
Date [Standardized human time]: September 1st, 2148
[Day 25]
Through the windows of the assumed abandoned office building, we could see slight movement. The glass was tinted with grime, giving our snipers a tough time to discern bodies, so the ground team and I strapped up and got into position in front of the boarded-up entrance.
“Stand back,” Captain Harrison called, gripping the battering ram. I lowered the visor on my helmet, and the world shifted from stormy and dark, to bright as day with impeccable clarity. Two women tore the boards off the door with crowbars, then moved back to allow Harrison to start breaking it down.
I counted the impacts mentally. 1. 2. 3. 4- the door fell apart inward and we rushed forward. I scanned the room quickly, keeping my rifle trained wherever I glanced. “First room clear. Alpha team, move down the hallway to our right. Beta team, the left. Gamma stay put and make sure nobody slips past,” the captain’s voice crackled in my helmet’s headset. I followed my cohort to the right, which was a winding hallway that was supposed to wrap around the full diameter of the building, with a row of doors along the curved wall into the center of the dome-shaped office.
I kicked in the first door. There was a shuffle on the other side, a chair slid across the room and I immediately locked my gun on it. “D-don’t shoot!” a meek voice reverberated from where the chair came from. A human slowly stood, arms raised. He had a ring on his finger.
“Walk toward me slowly, hands raised, and don’t try anything,” I barked. A couple of other soldiers marched in, guns raised to make sure he didn’t try anything funny. When he was halfway across the room, he grabbed his waistband. I was quick enough to fire off a few shots, and his body crumpled to the floor. I searched around, checking under desks to ensure there weren’t any more, before finally declaring “First room clear, moving out.”
We pushed onward. “Second room clear,” “Third room clear,” all soon enough began crackling in my headset. We were now approaching the main office in the center of the building. We cleared another couple of storerooms and break rooms before meeting back with the Beta team at the back of the loop.
“Only 3 confirmed casualties,” Captain Harrison stated, “out of an estimated 50 potential terrorists in the building. If they’re anywhere, they’re gonna be in here.”
Our combined teams were now 30-strong. We’d be outnumbered if we weren’t armed better. The door to the office was hardly reinforced. Some hastily-implemented wood boards fell away quickly with the battering ram. Next thing we knew, we were charging into the heart of the dome.
Being the only entrance, we should’ve known they’d put most of their efforts into protecting it. The second that door opened there was gunfire. I knew by the sounds that they were just 9mm handguns. We ducked at the entrance, firing into the room where the Humanity First members were cowering behind overturned tables.
“Their cover isn’t bulletproof, aim for the tables,” I yelled.
We focused our fire, shredding them through the flimsy ‘protection’. Soon we cleared a path, and a couple of brave terrorists moved in to replace their fallen comrades, only to meet the exact same fate. I fired off a shot clean through the head of one, then hastily reloaded my rifle as the rest of the team moved through.
From behind a desk immediately out of our view jumped a human who blew apart a peacekeeper with a shotgun blast to the face, though he was very quickly dealt with.
The office was rows upon rows of dividers and workstations. The barriers looked about as flimsy as the desks, so we began firing through. We were ordered specifically that eliminating the organization is more important than taking them in. Despite my reservations about those orders, I fired through the walls anyway.
Anyone that dared even try to fire back was given a lead filling. I marched down along the rows, peering into workspaces to gauge the outcome of our massacre. Every station had at least two shredded corpses. I had the displeasure of finishing off a couple. One was quick enough to get a shot at me, the bullet hit my chest and knocked the wind out of me, and the assailant was shot down by another peacekeeper.
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For another 6 hours, we swept the halls and rooms over and over, checking crawl spaces and vents. We concluded, at long last, that the headquarters was empty. We were among tens of simultaneous raids across the planet to wipe the Humanity First scourge out for good, and I was happy to report back home at the end of the day.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Jakiv, Arxur scientist
Date [Standardized human time]: September 1st, 2148
[Day 25]
“Ooh, that one looks good on you,” Nuri chirped as I examined the dark purple jacket in the dressing room mirror. The marsupial insisted I try on just about every hoodie they had in the store, despite my distaste for a majority of them. The one I wore now was insulated with fluff that trapped body heat exceptionally well, keeping me nice and toasty.
“I supposed,” I muttered, putting my hands in my front pockets. I put the hood over my head and yanked the drawstrings.
“Look at that, you can still be all moody in it,” the yotul giggled.
“I’m really going to miss the old one though,” I replied, taking off the article and setting it in the stack with the others. I involuntarily grimaced at my visage in the mirror. I was shirtless, showing off my ribcage that poked out beneath my scales, and the skin that barely clung to my bones. The glimmer of the metal was more extreme around the 6 new dents on my body from the bullets. I wrapped my arms around myself shivering.
“Hey,” Nuri spoke, “How about this one?” she held a folded black hoodie similar enough to my old one, with a lighter gray for highlights that streaked down the arms from the hood. I ran a claw along the inside before slipping into it. It was snug, I almost didn’t notice it wasn’t made for an arxur.
“Where’d you find this one?”
“The human section.”
“We weren’t looking there to begin with?”
The marsupial shrugged. “Do you like it?”
It was baggy enough to make me look bulkier, exactly what I wanted out of a jacket. “I love it,” I concluded. Nuri smiled, taking me by the arm to the checkout. The yotul manning it had been keeping a very close eye on me the entire time I was in the story. Poor guy.
“Th-that’ll be 15 credits,” he mumbled, scanning the hoodie and passing Nuri the chip scanner.
Before she could pay for it, I managed to slip my credit chip into the device. I was getting better at beating the overzealous marsupial to the punch! “Hey! I told you I was paying!”
“I don’t think so,” I shook my head and slid the chip into my new hoodie’s pocket and put it on.
We exited the store, the midday air was warm and humid. I never cared for moisture, so I was glad to retreat into Nuri’s car. She punched in her home address and we cruised past the historic town square.
“Y’know, I’ve been thinking a bit,” I stated.
“That’s new,” Nuri remarked.
“Y’know, I don’t have to tell you about it.”
“Okay, okay, my bad,” she smiled. “What’s on your mind, Jaki?”
“When I first got here, I got to have a chat with Mesu. I tried to make it very clear I was only here for work, not to make friends.”
“Well good going,” Nuri giggled.
“Yeah,” I mused, “I guess that fell through. But I’m not too confident I’d be allowed citizenship on Leirn, as much as I want it.”
The yotul cocked her head, “They’d be fools not to let you stay,” she said. “Besides, you clearly haven’t been keeping up with the news lately.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” She popped open the car’s center console and withdrew her holopad. It opened to a news site with big, bold words that my translator got to work deciphering. “Hero arxur saves over a hundred in terrorist attack… I thought you weren’t going to put me in the news.”
“I said I wasn’t going to use our friendship as an easy promotion. This is a lot different,” the marsupial scrolled down to a photograph of me taken when we hit the bar right after. I had bullet holes in my hoodie and a drink in my hand.
“Hero arxur…” I murmured, “hell of an oxymoron.”
She smacked my arm with her paw, forgetting how hard my scales were, then waved it in pain. “Aw! Shit!”
“Oh don’t hurt yourself,” I grinned.
“Don’t rag on yourself either,” she retorted, “You deserve way more respect than I can put into the news. I hope this at least means you’ll get less shit out on the streets.”
The car began slowing down in front of her house, which was quickly becoming my home too. I haven’t even stepped foot in that hotel Mesu got me in a good few days. We got inside and I flopped down on the couch immediately, the comfortable cushions were inviting after a long day of shopping.
“So, when are you going back to work?” Nuri asked, sitting down next to me.
“Eh, I don’t know. Whenever the lab is considered ‘safe’ again. They outsourced the vaccine’s development to some place in Olsa.”
“Aw, that sucks.”
“Nah, not even. Just means I got more time to hang out with you,” I smiled.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Well, I’m gonna order dinner. You want anything in particular?”
“Hmmm… maybe harchen,” I growled.
“Shut the fuck up,” the marsupial laughed.
~~~
I woke up to the sound of my holopad buzzing. The house was silent, and the time was 2 am. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and yawned before the contact ID instantly awakened me. I got up from the couch, careful not to step on Nuri who was soundly asleep curled up in blankets on the floor.
I slipped into the bathroom and hit answer. “President Mesu,” I exclaimed surprised.
“Jakiv,” he began cordially, “Congratulations on your research, and for making the news.”
“I- uh, thank you,” I responded awkwardly.
“Once everything with the vaccine is said and done, you’re set to leave Leirn on the 8th,” the yotul stated.
“Oh,” I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice, “I actually… can we talk a bit about that?”
“Sure,” he replied.
“Well, I know I said I didn’t come here to make friends, and I certainly didn’t come here to save lives, but I-” I quickly glanced at the bathroom door. I couldn’t hear anything outside it, and prayed Nuri was still asleep, “I met someone here that I don’t think I can live without. She’s my best friend- my only friend, and I really want to stay. For her,” I breathed.
“You… want to stay on Leirn?” he asked incredulously. I nodded. He scratched his furry chin for a second, I worried he was set on sending me away regardless, but then, “Okay. I’ll forward you the immigration forms.”
“You will?” I gasped.
“Of course. You’ve done Leirn and Skalga a great deal of service. I’m honored you’ve found a home here, Jakiv.”
“Thank you so much, Mesu!” I felt myself getting teary-eyed.
The marsupial nodded, “Thank you. Now then, you look tired. Go get some rest,” his visage flickered and dematerialized. I was left in the bathroom alone. I looked myself in the mirror and smiled at the form reflected back at me.
I opened the door and-
“Nuri!” I cried, startled. She wordlessly wrapped her arms around me. I reciprocated, putting mine around her and relishing the moment.
“I’m so happy for you,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” I smiled, “I did it for you.”