Memory transcription subject: Captain Sovlin, United Nations Fleet Command
Date [standardized human time]: March 7, 2137
I was proud to serve among a multi-species crew, back in my days presiding over my own starship. The Federation had been the emblem of unity, the glue holding the galaxy together from collapse at the Arxur’s claws. I didn’t spend much time thinking about my own kind, until Vysith and Hunter both prodded me for stories on the vid-links today. With the lockdown on the ship, I probably shouldn’t be dwelling on days long-gone and a now-obliterated planet. The truth was, I hadn’t felt much like a Gojid since long before what happened to my family; I’d become detached from my culture through exposure to other species. That was ironic from someone who’d been at the right paw of the Prime Minister, wasn’t it?
Writing it all off as depraved was easier, without the requisite to pass it along to my daughter. I’d been telling Vysith and Hunter about a Gojid holiday called Keilren, where the children would receive gifts left and buried by the “Spirit of Youth.” A supposed aspect of the Protector that was really parents, preserving that feeling of mysticism for the kids. I’d taken painstaking hours to draw a map to a gift Hania wanted, a claw flute. I recounted digging on my paws and knees in the middle of the night, with my burrowing claws churning up red clay outside our settlement of Lirren Orchard. Hunter sarcastically asked if every town was named after orchards, before Vysith lashed him on the ear with her tail.
The town nomenclature was just as generic and uninspired as everything else Gojids named, though I didn’t think a species with such a poor aptitude for naming stellar observatories had any right to judge. “Very Large Telescope?” Granted, humans at least had telescopes, which was more than Onso could say, but they could use a little humility. Regardless, I found my mind lingering on a culture I’d lost all interest in; the ancient Arxur, of all creatures, called Keilren a “delightful tradition.” What madness was the galaxy coming to? How could I ever get past the lies and deceit to determine if there was any beauty in our culture?
Tyler jostled me, forcibly snapping me out of my stupor. “Yoo-hoo, Sovlin. We’re under attack, and we need to be alert once they get to the bridge. Quit sucking your thumb.”
“He doesn’t have thumbs,” Carlos chimed in, a second before I could snap the same line, “but he’s happy to suck on his claws. Think we should get him a pacifier?”
“I do. Every time he says ‘primitive,’ stick a pacifier in it.”
“Yeah, yeah. If you give me orders, I’ll get it done, sir.” I attempted to shake off the emotions stirred by my abruptly-ended video call; a not-insignificant part of me would have preferred to be with Hunter on Earth, acting as the father figure I missed being so much. I owed a debt of service to the Terrans, and I couldn’t let myself forget that I hadn’t earned sitting in a swaying chair on the porch. “Where’s the atavist?”
Tyler scrunched his nose, rubbing the region of his translator implant. “A-ta-vist? Must’ve plucked that from someone else’s feed, ‘cause I don’t know that word. Ahem…don’t tell me, Carlos, I’m consulting the good ol’ search engine.”
The male guard raised his tattooed arms innocently. “I believe you can figure this out on your own. You’re a big boy…sir.”
“Very big,” I agreed.
“Big enough to smack some sense into both your heads, mocking a superior officer.” Officer Cardona checked that the Kolshians hadn’t reached the bulkhead yet, then squinted at his holopad screen. His blue eyes widened with indignation, and he jabbed an accusatory finger at me. “‘A creature that has traits of a more primitive type of that organism.’ Did you seriously find a new word for primitive?!”
“I’m a learned man, Tyler. You might not know this about me, but I used to read Gojid philosophy. Now answer the question: where’s the atavist?”
“Use his fucking name. I don’t know where he is, and it’s a little worrying, but Onso must’ve reported to a closer chokepoint. Could use him on the sensor station; that kickass Yotul’s a damn fine wizard with tech stuff, according to everyone here but you. Not an a-ta-vist. Pretentious word for a pretentious Gojid. How’s that for a big word?”
“It’s a lot of syllables, for you,” Carlos chimed in.
“You’ve been spending too much time around Sam. You got no chill now! I just try and talk like a normal human being. Nobody sane uses words like that in conversation. I’ll give you two some orders; point your guns at the door in perfect silence, and think how lucky you are that your commanding officer is so forgiving.”
Humans are strange. It seems like they’re the most chatty and raucous in the moments right before danger.
“Whatever you say, sir.” I turned my expression serious, and tried to focus, despite wishing I could return to my off-duty call with Hunter and Vysith. My hatred for the Kolshians was a solid distraction, after seeing how they’d tormented so many species and held an entire planet hostage back at Khoa. “Do we have a plan to deal with them?”
The sandy-haired predator shrugged. “Shoot them all.”
“That’s a good plan.”
“I was hoping you’d say that too, sir. They’re fish in a barrel,” Carlos offered, with a metaphor that had darkly predatory implications. The male guard had always been sympathetic to me, so it was easy to forget how connected to hunting culture even a human like him was. “I doubt they’ve seen combat action before, and if they have been on some black ops mission, it wasn’t against a real enemy.”
“They made sure they neutered every other race in the galaxy. That ain’t helping them here. We’re not just gonna roll over like a dead cockroach. ‘Sides, home field advantage is with us. We chop ‘em all down, and we go look for Onso soon as the coast is clear,” Tyler said.
I turned my attention to the camera feeds manned by Terran comms technicians, who were relaying live information on the enemy’s location. The Kolshians had broken up into two teams, with the largest on a direct course to the bridge. Strange events were befalling the smaller group on a different display, who were bogged down in cartloads of foam. Some stealthy operatives must’ve gone off to spring this trap, and gun down the enemies who moved toward the rear of our vessel. Humanity wouldn’t want any area to go uncontested, even if it wasn’t of strategic importance; deep in their fighting spirit, it was still their territory.
The comms station was tracking the party en route to our location, and hounding them with devious machinations built into our walls. Turrets blazed as the Kolshians snaked around one corner, pumping a few soldiers full of holes before they could blink. The team ducked back to what they thought was safety, to have an automated gun roar to life from behind. It would be hilarious if they were picked off before they got here, even if Tyler had gotten me riled up to take them out. The enemy group found cover in a small storage closet, however, and set off EMP charges to prevent the massacre from worsening. Several bodies were sprawled on the floor, but the heartless bastards made no efforts to revive any comrades that couldn’t move on their own.
I remember how I used to say the Arxur have no regard for life. That’s true, at least with the monstrosities that they are today, but these Kolshians don’t have a nurturing brain cell in their skulls either.
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As my mind brought up my recollection of Keilren again, I wondered if I could be helping my daughter bury presents for her own children, had it not been for the Kolshians and the Farsul. All of the pain in the galaxy traced back to those meddling bastards, and the Aafa natives were here to perpetrate a further legacy of death and destruction. If they’d sabotaged a ship, killing my protégé Recel to make it look like humanity attacked their friends, how many prey lives would they sacrifice to point the claw at Earth? We were going to take this mission all the way to their homeworld, free Slanek, and return to a safer galaxy so I could help Hunter adjust to this century like I promised. I’d have no qualms killing as many of these emotionless monsters as possible.
The way I thought about predators before discovering humanity, I could see all those traits within the Kolshians, clear as day. There was no mercy or negotiating with them; they imposed their way and killed anyone they didn’t have a viable use for. Maybe they disguised their brutality a bit more than the Dominion, but the manicured worlds they created were cattle pens just the same. Our lives, our suffering, and the blood we’d given to their cause meant nothing to them. My features hardened into a scowl, as my eager claw moved over the trigger. This wasn’t only to help Marcel and redeem myself—it was personal.
“Hostiles moving across the walkway to the bridge,” a comms technician barked. “They’ve got a blowtorch to cut through the bulkhead.”
My spines bristled from forceful rage, rather than fear. “Let them come. The walls will be painted violet by the time we’re through with them.”
“I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. We don’t go down without a fight,” Carlos agreed. “Not to a merciless enemy. These guys make a spectacle of basic sapient rights.”
“I finally get it. Predators aren’t monsters by default, and Gojids weren’t either. We were just people.”
Tyler gritted his teeth. “So were we. They can’t fuckin’ treat us that way, so I’ll be damned if they get their filthy tentacles on this beautiful ship. Paint it purple, you racist old Gojid.”
As the bulkhead’s edges were melted to slag, the team of Kolshians kicked it over without hesitation. The humans had entrenched themselves behind cover, and found opportune angles to pick off anyone who attempted to make headway. An orchestra of bullets played across the bridge, as half of us saturated the single path into the command center with gunfire. The enemy rolled a grenade at us, but an audacious Terran rushed forward. He scooped it, and, utilizing his exemplary arm torsion tailored for stoning prey, he returned the explosive to its sender.
I watched the cartridge fly through the air at the panicked Kolshians, who were perhaps amazed by the perfect precision of the impromptu throw. While our enemies dove away from the returned explosive, it detonated in mid-air, impaling them with shrapnel. It was difficult to tell if the device was a copycat tool of Terran throwable weapons, or if it was another killing device that the conspiracy had concealed from other species. Simmering with wrathfulness, I trained my barrel right at where one enemy’s heart allegedly was. The trigger was pulled within a second, and my aim was dialed in enough to strike true.
Reset and finish them off, Sovlin. There can’t have been more than four dozen with this posse, and that was before the turrets and our defensive setup here struck them down.
The dazed Kolshians found their composure, and one crept forward with a cannon-like object; the grenade launcher was a weapon I’d only seen used by Terrans and by the Arxur before them. It shouldn’t surprise me that the tentacled bastards would replicate the Dominion’s butchery tools. The humans attempted to pick off the threatening enemy wielding the weapon, but it was too late to prevent the incoming munition. The boarder had propped the launcher onto his shoulder, and hurled a shell in our direction as he fell. I tugged off an errant shot at our foes, before hunkering down at the sensors station.
Tyler and Carlos shielded their heads, fully hitting the deck in a short timeframe. We were fortunate the rocket wasn’t bound for our station, but powerful explosives could still be devastating in close quarters combat. Beyond the risk to life and limb, the projectile could tear apart crucial systems; I hoped the Terrans had redundancies built into any key functions. As the shell cleared the doorway and connected with a barricade, a human security detail, just shy of the navigations station, erupted in flames. The sprinkler system was triggered, forcing the small pockets of flame to fizzle out. My ears rang from the shockwave, my fur was soggy from overhead water, and my stomach lurched as I saw mutilated, screaming predators still moving.
“You okay?” Tyler screamed, knowing I could hardly hear. All I could manage was imitating a human nod. “Keep it together. Get up. Shoot them!”
Carlos shook his head with vigor. “Fucking hell. Any closer, I think they’d have ruptured our eardrums. They’re not pulling any punches.”
“Neither are we. I want to see a KO—they shoulda never stepped into the ring. Put them on their ugly asses.”
What the fuck is a KO? It doesn’t matter, I guess. I have to do my part, so we lose as few innocent lives as possible. The Terrans deserve better than to lose any more good people to this needless war.
Bullets peppered the approaching Kolshians, as retaliation for the explosion in our midst. The enemy popped off quite the kinetics volley of their own too. I could feel one whisk by my ear, and see a handful of bullet holes marring the station. Shattering glass echoed behind me, as a holodisplay was taken out by the flurry of metal. I righted my rifle, not allowing myself to contemplate how close I was to metal slugs that could end my life. While I’d attempted to cease my self-hatred, I wasn’t afraid to pay the ultimate penance on humanity’s behalf; that still wouldn’t cover the sum of what I owed their species. My claw hooked around the trigger with practiced certainty, hitting an enemy with a gutshot.
Downing a single enemy could mean the difference between Tyler or Carlos catching a bullet. I watched the blond human taking his own measured shots, his binocular eyes hungry for a target. Carlos’ bear tattoo was facing me as he inched forward for a better angle; in the chaos, it was tough to tell if he was responsible for any of the blood-spurting Kolshians. I popped off several shots in quick intervals, hoping to hit enemies with haste. The bridge was in disarray, with carnage in the fray’s wake. Predator barks sounded through the air, calling to wounded comrades, alongside pained emissions from the enemy side.
Whoever can mop up the other side the quickest will be victorious. Right now, that looks like us, but we can’t get lackadaisical.
The humans closest to the ravaged entrance had taken the most hits. Captain Monahan was behind a tactical map display with a sidearm drawn, a stern look on her face; she’d been consulting with tacticians and the comms station since the firefight began. They were prepared to mount a final stand, if our defenses failed. However, I could see various angles from our cameras the Terran staff were monitoring, which showed that few Kolshians had gone unscathed. Forward progress had proved tantamount to suicide, plunging headlong into our unyielding bullets. The walkway was being painted violet, with listless corpses splayed out in heaps.
The dead were becoming an obstacle to our enemy’s motion into the bridge too, so they were forced to hang back and trade blows from afar. Humanity had the edge with depth perception, and also had fortifications to offer some refuge from the chaos. I was glad to be crouched on the far side of the sensors station’s table; at least there was something between me and any munitions flying through the air. My own shots toward the discombobulated boarders were staccato pops, sent as soon as I could switch between marks. The screeches and yelps were becoming much stronger on the hostiles’ end than ours.
With Kolshian ranks getting decimated, self-preservation was kicking in for the sparse survivors. The bullets shredding our walls had ceased, but the predators didn’t slow down because of a lull in enemy fire. If anything, our barrage became more energetic, determined to drive these raiders out of our ship. The humans were a merciful species, but this was the shadowy tentacle of a government that had spit in the face of their good intentions. There would be no restraint in finishing the job, and seeking retribution for their malevolence.
“Listen up! Not a one of them escapes, or becomes a stowaway on this ship!” Captain Monahan decreed. “It’s not enough that their insertion failed. We defend every piece of UN territory like it’s Earth—zero tolerance for attacks. Move! Comms station, keep us posted on enemy movements and escape attempts.”
The humans remaining intact on the bridge slunk off in search of fleeing combatants, while medics hurried toward our wounded to patch them up. Our warship had taken an internal beating from various explosions and projectiles, but it was still in our possession, and would be free of intruders soon. Tyler ventured off to the comms station on a detour, asking for information on Onso’s whereabouts. A strange look flashed on the blond officer’s face, before he hurriedly led us down the gore-riddled walkway. I consulted my own holopad, and found the Yotul closer to the maintenance airlock with Samantha. Was that atavistic marsupial the one responsible for the fire-foam massacre at the rear of the ship?
That makes no sense, but I guess that just checks the standard box for life among Terrans. Nothing is as it should be when I’m with these predators.
At the end of the day, I was glad that our posse had come through the mission’s first engagement without casualties. I’d grown to care for the alien soldiers I worked with, and I wanted to see Aafa’s fall alongside each of them. With the Kolshians’ bold-faced attempt to swing the war in their favor turning out as a miserable failure, I hoped it was a sign of what was to come.