---Cowardice---
---Khr'kowan's perspective---
"Shameful!" snarls First Woman Ho'akhath of the Lhor’nhakhan Realm, Aunt to my father's latest brood and the most powerful woman in the North (both physically and politically), sat on the ground in my father's throne room, on the right side of the circle to me.
"Lady Ho'akhath, I advise you to bite your tongue…" I warn.
Lhamo [Dragonbird] Yeshe, the ambassador, waves a placatory hand in my direction from the far side of the room and soothes "Gen. Khr'kowan, I appreciate the defence but, please, allow Gen. Ho'akhath to speak… That is what this council is for, afterall!… I would hate for anyone to feel they did not get their say. Please, General…" she turns to Ho'akhath and invites "…tell us what you think is so shameful."
The Northern woman looks to me.
I sigh and gesture for her to stand.
Rising to her feet, Ho'akhath extends all three fingers of her right hand as well as her right pedipalp to the [GU] contingent.
"These vertebrates come to our world, unannounced and uninvited, and presume to dictate to us how we are to change our society to better comport with their soft sensibilities!?… This I call shameful!… They wish us to invite dirty, hungry, disease bearing Vermin into our homes and welcome them as friends!?… This too, I call shameful!… They wish us to hang up our bows and our spears and march forward into a world without war? What is a woman if not a warrior!?… Your world is one where men may live in comfort and ease but where women's hardness would wither away to an unbecoming weakness! Your history may be longer than ours but it is clearly a bloodless history of cowards!… This I call shameful!… Your unwomanly weakness is your problem! Do not make it ours!"
The Terrans look unimpressed. Emiko and Lhamo both actually look amused.
Lhamo nonchalantly stands to answer the challenge to her people's womanhood.
Before she can start, I become aware of something small, skittering into the room.
Appearing at the entrance behind the noise is Khuh, one of the nursery attendants, looking rightfully anxious about barging in on this unprecedented council.
I'm unable to see the culprit but I'm able to see the trail of surprise they leave in the First Women and Broodkings along their path.
When they finally emerge into the middle of the circle, I can see it's one of my youngest halfsiblings, though I'm not able to tell if they're a halfbrother or halfsister since it will be a while before they shed their babyfur.
There is an amused chuckle at having this meeting interrupted in such a way but the Terran woman takes it in stride, stooping to scoop the baby (around the same size as her head) into her arms.
The infant attacks her hand, playfully, drawing a little blood, which she does not react to.
Then, realising how warm she is in the cool of the night, it stops its biting and scratching and curls up against her chest.
The image she creates, bouncing a baby while her hand bleeds, is a fantastic juxtaposition of masculine nurture and feminine stoicism!
I wonder if she realises that?
Looking up at Ho'akhath while cradling her niece or nephew, the Terran woman speaks "General, I must correct you about two things. First) depending on where we measure from, there is a strong argument to make that your people's history is, in fact, longer than mine… I'm sure you've been made aware of the city on the Southern peninsula?… That's a city of stone, unequivocally built by your people, that would likely have housed a number equivalent to your entire living population and built at a time when Terrans had nothing remotely comparable… Second) our history is not bloodless!… I don't think you can grasp the scale of how bloody our history truly is!… It's precisely seeing the futility of spilling endless rivers of blood that has made us so committed to peace! We don't want you to need to learn our lessons the same way we had to… the hard way!"
"So you admit to your cowardice?! You admit to your disgraceful unwomanliness!?" demands Ho'akhath.
Lhamo opens her mouth to speak but, at that point, Emiko stands and says "If I may, Ambassador?" she walks forward to stand in the centre of the circle with the other two and the baby "I do believe that what we have here is an opportunity to play the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come(!)… Rather than trying to tell them how our history has shaped us into what we are, why don't we show them?"
"What did you have in mind, Dr Miyazaki?" smirks the woman holding my halfsibling.
"Well…" Emiko turns to look up into the face of the First Woman looming over her "…if the General here would be amenable to an invitation to the Embassy in 2 days time, I'm sure I could put together something in the meanwhile… the offer would also extend to anyone else in this room who's curious about our history… though, I must warn all of you, what you see will be gruesome!"
"Gruesome?" sneers Ho'akhath "I'm sure cowardly, false women like you don't know the meaning of the word! Though, you have my curiosity… I'll be there and so will every First Woman of the Northern Confederation!"
A knowing grin spreads across the Terran's face as she extends a hand "Shake on it?"
Ho'akhath hesitates before extending her own hand and grasping Emiko's.
---Tcakqaal's perspective---
On a perch in the lightly attended 'gardenworlder seating section' of the ambassadorial habitat, I cast my eyes over the host of Vrakhand filling the room.
Mostly women, but a handful of men are scattered among them.
It's my first time seeing their males.
Several things strike me about them; they're much smaller than their female counterparts, they're covered in thick fur which gives the impression that they're much plumper and, something I don't know if the Terrans will have realised is; they're noticeably dimmer in the IR spectrum.
Vrakhand, being mesotherms, shine less brightly than the endothermic Terrans but it seems that males have slower metabolisms than females.
Emiko takes the stage.
"Good evening, everyone!" she smiles "And thank you for your attendance!"
All that comes across via her translator is a tone of happy, affectionate warmth. However, I'm familiar enough with Terrans to sense an untranslated undercurrent composed of around 70% mania, 20% spite and 10% glee!
The talent for having such a wealth of tone and intention lurking just below the surface is something I'm not aware of any other species sharing… one of Terrans' many unnerving attributes(!)
The glamourous woman continues "Tonight's performance, which we have chosen to tentatively title 'What Made Terrans Cowards', is a curation of notable pieces of military technology that have been used in anger, from our last 900 years or so of history… equivalent to a little over 300 of this planet's years… Rest assured, our prior military history is equally… shall we say 'striking' and the only reason we chose our early 19th Century as the cutoff for inclusion is that, any earlier than that, we worried certain people might get ideas(!)… Every piece of military hardware you will see demonstrated is something we have judged to be not currently reproduceable by your people… The clips we have selected are a mixture of bodycamera footage, documentary footage, propaganda reels and entertainment media… It's-Oh! Yes, Broodking Mhirvakh?"
She gestures to the audience where one of the few males in attendance has both hands splayed above his head.
Lowering his hands, the man nervously asks "You said 'entertainment'?… I thought this was to be a demonstration of the horrors of war! Why would there be any entertainment included?"
"Ah, I can see the confusion!" smiles the woman, glee increasing its proportion of her undertone "This may be something of a cultural difference… You see, for my people, war stories are an enduringly popular genre of entertainment, even in times of peace… Obviously, a clip taken from a war film may have mild inaccuracies of the 'too little recoil on this gun', 'too little smoke from that one', 'wrong type of epaulettes on that officer's uniform' and the like… but we have specifically selected all such clips for the accuracy of how they convey the bloodshed and violence… No pratfalls, no ludicrous Wilhelm screams and no noble sinking into the arms of a comrade who's able to hear your final words as the music swells dramatically(!)… Every single clip will be a visceral look at the effects of our history's weapons of war… For the first few centuries of history we're going to show you, we will be leaning rather heavily on recreations from media works due to the absence of recording devices on these battlefields… I want to stress that the subject matter of every clip, original or recreated, will be highly distressing and that, if it proves too much for any of you, you are at liberty to leave at any time you want… though I'm sure that won't be a problem for Gen. Ho'akhath…"
Emiko beams broadly at the scowling woman as a light chuckle goes around the room.
"…Our first clip tonight depicts the Russian 'Decembrist Revolt', which took place in the Winter of our year 1825. This recreation is taken from the 2019 film, Union of Salvation, which I would like to thank our analyst Ms Petrikov for suggesting… Though what it shows is not exactly a 'battle' (since the soldiers being fired upon were simply standing in protest, rather than fighting back) it nonetheless serves as an apt demonstration of the weapon's capabilities… Nearly 700 of our years since this film was made and, Ms Petrikov assures me, there are still many who consider this scene to be the most realistic portrayal of this weapon ever put to film… The technology depicted is called 'grapeshot'… Oh, and, by the way, I should mention, for the first couple of centuries of the period we're about to showcase, comprising a little over half of the runtime of our presentation, all soldiers were men… Every… single… one…!"
Stifled gasps emanate from the Vrakhand, presumably in horror at the thought of male soldiers.
"With that, I think we can start!" chirps Emiko, outwardly cheerful.
She steps away from the stage and the lights dim.
The screen shows a city square, buried in snow.
Soldiers bearing ancient, muzzle loading firearms stand in neat, orderly rows, wearing tall, round hats with long plumes adorning the tops.
The ambient temperature is so low that the men's breaths hit the air as solidly visible gouts of steam! I wonder what the purportedly cold averse Vrakhand make of that…
One man, astride an equid, rides up to a younger man.
"Your Majesty, let me give the order… May the guilt for that blood fall on me." says the older man.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The camera reframes on the younger man, apparently some sort of monarch, who, after a brief pause, states "That blood will forever fall entirely on me." in a low, grim voice.
The older man gives a sympathetic nod and turns his mount.
Weighty, metallic strings begin to play, nondiegetically.
He raises a scrap of white cloth.
There is a cut to brass cannons being wound, to lower their elevation to near horizontal at the ranks of soldiers standing across the square.
"Load!" comes the calmly shouted order and we see a man take a lumpy, tightly wrapped, canvas parcel from a box and slot it into the mouth of a cannon with a *clank* followed by a slow, low *wooosh* of the air being displaced as it slides down the barrel.
"We stand!" shouts an officer from the side the cannons are aimed at "Leib-Guard! God is with us, law is with us, TRUTH is with us!"
"Stand!" hisses one of his juniors, sounding like he's trying to convince himself as much as the men in his command.
"They won't dare fire on us!"
"They won't DARE fire on us!" repeats the same junior.
"And THIS is a victory!"
Back on the monarch's side of the square, the white cloth is dropped and the battery commander screams "FIRE!!!"
A few seconds pass with nothing happening.
"FIRE!!!" he screams again.
The monarch, who had been riding away, turns back in his saddle, eyes wide, as he stares at the man whose subordinates are failing to carry out the issued command.
Breaking eyes with the monarch, the battery commander strides over to the nearest man and snatches something from his hand, elbowing him out of the way and snarling "Follow the order!"
Touching the thing he just took to the top of the cannon, there is a brassy *THOOM* as a blast of smoke issues from the end.
A few yelps of surprise go up from the Vrakhand.
The bombardment is unleashed as we see dozens of projectiles issue forth across the field with every cannon blast, visible by the lines of smoke they drag along in their wake.
We see the Terran soldiers buckle as the shot strikes them!
Bloodstained air blasts out of their backs and they drop to the ground.
There's a brief scene of civilians being caught in the crossfire, screaming.
Then there's a slow motion shot of one of the projectiles smashing through a soldier's gun to strike at his centre of mass.
Each time the terrible weapon sweeps away a section of the formation, there are one or two men left miraculously standing, untouched by the shot that obliterated their comrades and limping their way back to their space in the formation over the fallen bodies, their coats stained with the gore of those who just stood by their sides.
An officer runs to help a wounded man, only for the section of line that he ran in front of a moment ago to be cut down, one piece of shot ripping the man he was attempting to help out of his arms.
He turns and issues an utterly desolate scream!
The camera focuses on a section of the line we've already seen be cut down and we hear the incoherent, high pitched wailing of a man experiencing pain beyond anything he could previously have imagined, all thoughts of stoic dignity abandoned as he cries for someone to take the pain away!
Back on the monarch's side, we see a visibly shaken officer give the order to reload.
Large swabs are withdrawn from buckets of liquid and slid down the cannon, pushing smoke out of a small hole on the top back.
More of those awful canvas packages are loaded and the order is given to fire.
We're treated to many close ups of shot, ripping bloody holes through men's bodies as easily as it rips their clothing.
An old man in civilian garb, watching the slaughter with the crowd, says "Oh Lord." under his breath while performing a ritual gesture with his hand.
We see a soldier as his face is splattered with the viscera of the man who was just ripped away from his side.
The man breaks, running for safety but only getting a few paces before he too is cut down.
The camera focusses on an officer, staggering in a daze, before pulling back to drag us along a trail of blood stained snow, through a heap of lacerated corpses.
The groans, the screams, the cries of pain all feel real, palpable and, for that, utterly terrifying!
We see one man decide that it simply isn't worth it any more, that he has to flee!
The men behind him quickly follow.
Soon, the whole army has broken down into a chaotic, disorderly rout as officers issue contradictory orders and men flee for their lives.
The scene ends.
I turn to inspect the faces of the Vrakhand.
Every single one is painted with abject horror at what they just witnessed.
---Ho'akhath's perspective---
I'm sorry!
I'm sorry!!
I'm sorry!!!
I'll never question your species' ovaries again, please just make it stop!
"But trench warfare, chemical warfare and military aviation were not the only technologies to be debuted in the vainly named 'war to end all wars'…" comes the translated voice of the (confusingly) old woman narrating this section of the grizzly spectacle "…In September of 1916, a terrible new weapon would roll onto the field of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette."
A large shape rumbles through the haze in this land made barren by these insane creatures' war!
The shape emerges from the fog, revealing itself to be a beast of metal, entirely wrapped in two moving bands that propel it across the corpse strewn wasteland.
From its sides jut two of those fire spitting death wands these lunatics war with!
"…The Mark I, male variant, armed with two QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss naval guns and, secondarily, with three M1909 Hotchkiss machine guns, this machine would forever become known by the codename the British had used while designing, building and transporting it to the battlefield; the Tank!"
I flinch as one of the wands issues a deafening *boom* over our heads.
Weaver, preserve us!
---Tuun's perspective---
This whole thing has been laying it on a little thick with the whole 'war bad' angle but I'd be lying if I said it didn't seem effective!
We're out of the horrors of the 19th-21st Centuries and yet to arrive at the horrors of the War but substantially more than half of those present at the start have excused themselves, looking nauseated.
It would be infantilising to think that the Vrakhand haven't invented propaganda but they obviously have no immunity to this kind!
A new excerpt begins, opening on a levelled patch of jungle overlooking a placid sea.
Sitting on a felled treetrunk, surrounded by the corpses of monstrous looking robots, a large, light haired man sits alone, facing away from the camera, his clunky durasteel clad shoulders juddering in fairly clear sobs.
The camera approaches and a woman's voice asks "LCpl Þórsson… LCpl Þórsson… Do you have any comments about the battle that just occurred…?" speaking English with (I presume) a Tagalog accent.
The one she addresses looks back only for the briefest moment but that's enough for me to identify them.
That's my mum! That's Mamma Kat!
She may have a beard and shorter hair than I've ever seen on her in real life but there's no mistaking it!
Her spine stiffens and she looks away, clearly trying to hide her bloodshot eyes as she slips her old fashioned helmet over her head and says "No comment." in a cracked voice that's deeper than I've ever heard her speak with.
"But Lance Corporal, the people have to know…!"
My mum stands, the camera's low perspective giving some idea of what a terrifyingly large person she is to anyone who isn't 2.2m tall, and shouts "Didn't you hear me say 'no comment'?! Does it look like a good time for an interview? Get that fucking drone out of my face!" her teary eyes shrouded in shadows behind her helmet's medieval looking, hinged visor.
Unperturbed, the reporter pushes "Lance Corporal… I think this is the perfect time for an interview…" her voice serious and sincere "…tell every world in the UTC how you're feeling right now…"
My mum gives a breathy half sob-half laugh as she answers "What do you want me to say?!… That this isn't the most miserable experience of my life?! 'Come on down, boys and girls! Enlist today to blast away some droids on Bagong Dagat! It'll be so much fun! Just like a video game!'(?)"
"No, because that's clearly not how you feel…" answers the reporter, nonchalantly.
"You want to know how I feel?" demands my mum "How would you feel having to mow down an army of nightmares that scream and wail and cry as you shoot them!? Creatures that never let you forget what torture their creator was subjected to at the hands of that psychopath!"
"To what extent do you blame Dr dela Cruz for what is currently transpiring on this planet?" asks the reporter, shrewdly.
My mum hesitates a moment before taking off her helmet, her eyes bloodshot and tears running down her cheeks into her beard as she stares directly into the camera.
"Every drop of blood spilled on this planet is on his hands!" she snarls with more bitter ferocity than I've ever seen or heard her come close to!
"You don't blame Maganda at all?" she asks, clearly somewhat surprised.
"How could I!… How could I blame her when I know every torment that sick fuck inflicted on her! He treated her like a toy and millions are paying the price for his twisted amusement!!!… Her droids scream his name every battle!"
"What would you say to him if he were here right now?"
My mum's lips twist as she sneers "Freeze in Hel, motherfucker!"
The clip stops and Emiko stands to give a lecture on it that I'm not able to pay attention to.
Tears run down my face.
Gods!
Now I understand why she never wanted to talk about her time in the military!
---Alchyinad's perspective---
fff♫We stand, shoulder to shoulder
We stand, shoulder to shoulder
We stand, shoulder to shoulder
You can't ERASE us, you'll just have to FACE us!
We are the ones who will never be broken!
With our final breath
We'll fight to the death
We are soldiers, we are SOLDIERS!!!♫fff
sings the voice of legion, emanating from (by my count) half a million armoured Terrans as they march to the beat of drums, in perfect, rhythmic lockstep, onto a gigantic platform at the bottom of what I recognise as the Roswell Space Elevator.
"Looks kind of nice, doesn't it(!) Such camaraderie(!)" smiles Miyazaki, long since having given up pretending to be anything other than the Devil(!) "Now lets see how one of those companies was doing a little later in the War."
An audible groan of misery erupts from the Vrakhand, their pattern spotting ability allowing them to clearly see where this is going!
The footage opens on an unhelmed Terran woman, some kind of liquid (I'm taking to be blood) splattered across the left side of her face and tears streaming down her cheeks, desperately screaming "MEDIC!!!… I NEED A MEDIC HERE, NOW!!!" as she cradles a very clearly already dead comrade in her arms, behind cover, in a hailstorm of fire.
That street they're on looks strangely… familiar…
"Wait! What the shit is THAT!?" demands the soldier next to the one wearing the helmetcam, pointing up.
The viewpoint swivels to look up and I instantly know what 'the shit' that is… because it's me.
Flying on leathery wings, among my Sisters of the Papal Guard, I descend upon the Terrans' position as they scream "CONTACT OVERHEAD!!!"
I fold my wing membranes to drop the last stretch of distance and land among them.
My glaive is deployed, ignited and I begin a balletic dance of death as I hack apart the poor souls standing against my Sisters and I.
They raise a chilling symphony of screams.
Bullets shot at us bounce off our durasteel armour, reverse engineered from captured Terran examples, as we tear apart their formation.
How could I ever have believed I was on the right side of history?!
Thinking back, my every rationalisation feels utterly paper thin!
Seeing it from the perspective of the Terrans really hammers home what I was…
One of my Sisters in arms marches up to the camera wearer.
A plasmasword ignites at the bottom of the screen but is instantly dashed from the girl's hands by my Sister's glaive.
Taking the opportunity to toy with her prey now that no other Terrans are left alive, she reaches down, seizes the girl and lifts her up to eye level.
Cleverly (but futilely) the Terran's hands seize upon the only thing she can use as a weapon, my Sister's own helmet! Grasping it from her head and turning it to use as a bludgeon, the desperate girl brings it down with all her might… only for who I now recognise as Dachielva to seize the Terran's wrist with the hand not holding her up.
Dachielva shakes the girl's arm, violently, to force her to drop the helmet which lands with a *clang*!
I'm forced to stare into the eyes of my Sister in arms as this girl saw them in her last moments, as those of a fairytale monster brought to life, before she bares her teeth, rips the Terran's helmet off and our POV only catches a pair of jerking feet, suspended in the air, as screams give way to gurgles… then silence…
---Ho'akhath's perspective---
On the newly forming road to Khawekh, just outside the embassy compound, the most fearsome woman of my species seizes me by the shoulders and bares her toothplates, snarling into my face in a way that should be terrifying but feels… distant… like it's happening to someone else… a long way away.
"Do you understand WHY I told you to bite. your. tongue now, HALFWIT?!"
"I do…" I mutter, still dazed from the [hours] of endless death, suffering and misery I've just been subjected to.
"The only thing holding the Terrans back from unleashing every horror you just witnessed on us is the TERRANS!… They fought the entire rest of the [GALAXY] and WON! You think WE'D stand a chance(!?)… Their 'better nature' is the only thing standing between them and our annihilation!… A better nature you SPAT on as unwomanly COWARDICE!"
Numbly, I ask "Do you think… if I offered them my head… it would put this right?"
She takes a deep inhale and sighs before answering "If I thought your head was the price of putting this right, I would bring it to them myself… but, I can assure you, they don't want your head… What they'll want is an apology… an apology you're going to give them at tomorrow's council, aren't you!"
"Yes." I state, resolutely.