The Arbiter

Shadows fell over the flat city section as Unity station made another rotation. Unity station was the second largest station made by the Great Galactic Union, second only to Prosperity station at a little under 1000km in diameter. Night and day were not defined by the dimming of streetlights like on most stations, instead the dodecahedron shaped station had large holes within the station’s outer walls that let in light from one of the two yellow stars of the Unity system. Station controllers managed the spin and artificial gravity of Unity and maintained a tight control over the light allowed into the station. Creating a natural and flawless day and night cycle, with one half of the station cast in shadow while the other was cast in light. The only part of Unity station that experienced constant daylight was the core where the station’s wealthy elite and important government sectors holed up.

The incredible planning and engineering of Unity station had once fascinated the Arbiter. Who wouldn’t marvel at living on the greatest engineering feat known to the Great Spiral Galaxy? It had once been the Arbiter’s dream to work as a station controller. They had dedicated themselves to the study of mathematics, orbital mechanics, and engineering. Of course it was later revealed to the Arbiter that their dreams were doomed from the start, the realities of their upbringing and nature made becoming a station controller completely impossible. Someone of the Arbiter’s social standing couldn’t be allowed to work as a menial public servant, nor would any want someone of the Arbiter’s species in charge of something so vital and important. The Arbiter’s people were better used for grunt work and violent sordid affairs like the ones the Arbiter was now tasked with.

The Arbiter worked for the Deathworlder crimes unit of the station’s central security force; a unit designed to deal with the threat of criminal deathwolrders. The unit had received a report of a mentally unsound Deathworlder on the loose in this section of the station. The Deathworlder had already hospitalized and crippled one Voral, and it was only a matter of time before it struck out and hurt someone else. The Arbiter had to reach it before that happened. A determined deathworlder could tear through a whole crowd of innocent people before anyone could respond with enough fire power to bring it down. The Arbiter had seen such massacres many times and wasn’t ready for another.

The myriad of different people living in this section of the city only needed one look at the Arbiter’s heavy black cloak before moving out of their way. The Arbiter’s uniform was different from ordinary station security officers, it was a heavy lead lined black cloak that kept them grounded in the lower gravity of Unity station. Under the hood of the cloak was a personal privacy field that obscured the Arbiters face with a fuzzy grey hologram. Everything about the Deathworlder crime units uniform was designed to distract people from their heritage and invoke an image of cold justice.

For most people it had a calming effect, and for deathworld criminals it made them uneasy. To the deathworlders clinging onto Unity’s underbelly the dark cloak and heavy boots symbolized the one force on this station that could handle their great strength with ease. To the Arbiter and their fellow officers the atrophied muscles of permanent station dwelling Deathworlders were not a threat, not when compared to the enhanced gravity training they put themselves through on a daily basis.

The Arbiter turned a corner to where a battalion of ordinary station officers had set up barricades, trapping the deranged Deathworlder in a storage warehouse. Each heavy footfall of the Arbiter’s boots alerted the officers to their presence. The commander in charge of this operation turned to address the Arbiter “Good, if I had to wait any longer then I would have gone in to finish the job myself.” The tall Zxx’thi commander said peevishly.

The Arbiter glanced up through the dark cowl “If you had, then you would have lost many good men” the Arbiter said placidly, the pitch of their voice coming out garbled due to the voice modulator around their throat.

The officer looked affronted “We are armed with bolt guns rated to take down Deathworlders. If we hadn’t been ordered to stand down then we would have taken care of this whole situation an hour ago.”

The Arbiter shook their head “You and your men have cornered it, and a cornered Deathworlder is dangerous one. They have been known to fight past the voltage of bolt guns and tear officers limb from limb before their hearts gave out.”

The Zxx’thi officer looked affronted “I have dealt with Deathworlders before, they’re not that great.”

The Arbiter was annoyed by the Commanders backchat and disrespect, “You have only dealt with Deathworlders in their right mind, the kind that know they can’t fight off the entire force of the Union. Those ones choose to listen because it would be too much hassle to fight back. But this one is different, this one snapped and attacked its foreman, who is now receiving intensive care. This is a job for my unit.” The Arbiter growled before stepping past the barricade into the warehouse.

When the Arbiter had been approaching the ordinary officers the heavy audible boot-steps had served to alert them to their presence. But now within the dark interior of the warehouse the Arbiter changed their gait, taking each step silently and briskly. Fifty meters in the Arbiter heard muttering and knew that their target was nearby.

“You’ve really fucked up now, couldn’t just hold yourself back? Now they’re after you.” a male voice muttered to itself.

The Arbiter turned the corner and saw the huddled form of middle-aged Caucasian human male hugging his legs to his chest. He was muttering to himself, unaware of the Arbiter’s presence until some unknown instinct alerted it. It snapped its head up and focused its sharp predatory eyes on the Arbiter. In the darkness it took the primate only a few seconds to see who was there. “So they sent the boogieman after me?” it asked, seeming more resigned than afraid.

“Get down on the ground, put your hands behind your head, and interlock your fingers.” The Arbiter growled.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” The human growled back.

“There is a Voral in the hospital that begs to differ.”

“He attacked me!” the human roared, frustration pushing it over the boiling point. “That mother fucker made me work a triple shift, then tried to make me work another. He attacked me when I tried to leave!”

“And you threw him so hard that you shattered his spine.” The Arbiter said, biting off every word. Arguing with humans was always pointless, they were so ruled by their own emotions that they refused to see reason.

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“I was tired” he said, his tone begging for understanding. “its hard to hold back when two-meter-tall mosquito man jumps you. I only pushed him off me.”

“If you really are the victim then the courts will let you off with a warning, now get down on the ground.”

“Fuck that, everyone knows the courts convict any deathworlder they can. I’d rather die than go back to prison.” It jumped at the Arbiter, using the lighter gravity and its Deathworld made muscles close the distance in seconds .

This was why the Arbiter had been sent to deal with it instead of the normal patrol officers. Deathworlders weren’t like ordinary people, deathworlders evolved on hostile nightmarish planets that would instantly kill most ordinary people. Their worlds had higher than average gravity, higher exposure to cosmic rays, and unbalanced climates that sporadically changed. These factors all came together to create a situation of hyper competitive evolution, where every day was a desperate fight against vicious carnivores, aggressive pastoral megafauna, and a whole slew of contagions that made engineered bioweapons look feeble and impotent. Any species that could weather these threats and reach out for the stars were not only more resilient and durable than most people, but also more aggressive.

Carnivorous Deathworlders were known to fall to their baser instincts and attack ordinary civilians with vise grip-like teeth and flesh shredding claws. Herbivorous and pastoral Deathworlders would spook and fly into a blind rage, crushing everything under several tons of muscle. Terrans on the other hand were far more dangerous than your conventional Deathworlder, because not only did the Earth give birth to one warlike race, but that very same race had then uplifted all the strong and aggressive predators on their home world. Terran sapients ranged from powerfully built hyper-carnivores like Ursiloids and Feliniods, to clever and versatile primates like Apes, Chimps, and Humans. Out of all the Terran species Humans were the physically weakest, and also the most dangerous.

They were both prey and predator, creating a hyper vigilant mindset always on the lookout for threats and possible prey. They had the dexterity and fine motor skills common among primates, matched with muscle enough to hold their own in a fight, and the endurance to outlast any opponent. They had a brain built for clever tricks and traps, and a comparable intelligence to even the smartest of Union races. This lent itself to the creation of unusual tactics and deadly unconventional weapons.

Human run street gangs and organized crime cartels were always the most difficult to deal with. The Arbiter had risen through the ranks by uncovering several major human smuggling operations, and thus had the most experience dealing with their kind.

The Arbiter knew the attack was coming, they saw the signs of its mania and panic overtake it. Just like the Arbiter wanted it to. The Arbiter easily sidestepped the man’s attack, swept its legs out from under it, and slammed it face first into the ground. The man tried to fight past the Arbiters strength, but its muscles only received proper exercise from the manual labor of its profession, while the Arbiter spent hours every day in an enhanced gravity center. The Arbiter let the man raise his head before slamming it into the ground again, the Arbiter trained every day not only to handle Human strength, but also the strength of other Terran sapients. The Arbiter needed every bit of an edge when it came to facing down massive strength of Ursiloids or the deadly agility of Feliniods.

This fight would have been much more dangerous if the human had come at the Arbiter with a weapon. Human hand eye coordination, reflexes, and better than average eyesight made them a menace with a gun. And the ability to multiply force with their arms could turn any old pipe into a deadly bludgeoning tool. But this man wasn’t a hardened criminal, he hadn’t thought about getting a weapon, nor had he really wanted to kill the Arbiter. This made him easy to put down.

The Arbiter rammed his head into the cement three times before he passed out and went limp. They wasted no time in getting steel cuffs around his wrists, and then proceeded to pull his unconscious body off to the officers by the barricade.

Something had changed at the barricade since the Arbiter left. Before they had even subdued the human the Officers had dispersed, and now instead of a line of waiting officers the Arbiter found a trio of Zxx’thi awaiting their return. One was the commander they had spoken with before; the other two the Arbiter only knew from their civilian persona. Dread creeped up the Arbiter spine at the idea of dealing with them.

“Councilmen Ozzath.” The Arbiter growled, their low-grade menace piercing through their speech filter. “What brings you to the outer shell city-07?”

The tall regally dressed Zxx’thi council man glanced down to the Arbiter. “Am I not allowed to leave the core?” he asked loftily.

The Arbiter ignored his statement, people like the councilman could run circles around the Arbiter when it came to double talk. It was easier to cut through the bullshit. “Are you intending to interfere with my duties?” The Arbiter asked bluntly.

The aid by Ozzath’s side, Mazus, looked unhappy. It seemed like Mazus was about to say something, but a dismissive tail flick from Ozzath silenced him.

Ozzath plastered on a benign expression, “Arbiter, I spent a good deal of time advocating for improved funding for this stations overworked officers. In my campaign your name came up more than a few times, I thought it was best to see you at work for myself.” He glanced to the still unconscious human. “I see that you are as efficient as they said you were. It really is a shame for Chief Jin to assign you to a desk job.”

The Arbiter peered at the councilman from behind their privacy field. “So, you were the one who sent me out here, why?” The Arbiter had made a name for themself as a ground level enforcer, but had recently been promoted to a more investigatory role. The Arbiter had wondered who had sent them to deal with a single flustered human in the shell, and now they had their answer.

Ozzath looked peeved at the pointed question, but he kept that to himself “Like I said, your name came up more than a few times, and I wanted to see you in action for myself. It really is a waste to pull you off of patrols. Someone with your abilities should be on the streets where your skills can be used to their fullest.”

“You want to put me back on patrols? Do you even have the pull to do that?” the Arbiter asked, pretending to lend some hope into their tone.

Ozzath dipped his head and gave her a conspiratorial look “Not unless you want to.”

A feeling of suspicion rose up within the Arbiter as Ozzath’s words confirmed their doubts, there was more at play here than met the eye. Ozzath was playing a game and wanted to use the Arbiter as a pawn, just like their parents had. “I decline.” The Arbiter said bluntly before dropping the human prisoner at their feet.

As the man hit the ground he rolled over and the three Zxx’thi got a good look at the humans face. His nose had been broken, and his left eye was forced shut by a growing purplish bruise. The Arbiter was not a subtle person, in fact they hated how people often tried to twist their words to manipulate people. This human male was a blunt message to the councilman of what kind of tools the Arbiter had at their disposal.

Ozzath stared at the human with disgust, “My, how brutal of you.” he said before looking up. “But should I really expect better from a human like you” he said pointedly, blatantly bringing up the Arbiter’s race.

Mazus looked unnerved, “No sympathy, even for their own kind?”

Ozzath shook his head and looked at the Arbiter like they were some long-suffering beast. “I’m not really surprised; humans always were a brutal and barbaric species. Its sad to see that nothing has changed even after I negotiated Humanity’s entrance to the Union.”

The Arbiter felt their face grow hot as rage boiled their blood. Despise and hate the Arbiter could handle, it was the pity that angered them the most. The Arbiter knew how to handle those things, but their civilian persona wasn’t equipped with the same all-encompassing rage that fueled the Arbiter. Their civilian persona was naked and ill equipped to handle those things, she reacted rashly to the hate a pity people sent her way, so she was locked away tightly while the Arbiter wore their cloak. The Arbiter took in one deep breath and let it out slowly before turning on their heels and walking away without giving Ozzath the pleasure of a reply.

~~~*~~~

Councilman Ozzath watched the dark cloaked human walk away from him, he felt his lips pull back as he barred his teeth at the Arbiter in displeasure.

“Such disrespect.” Mazus said in disgust. “If it weren’t for chief Jin I would have her canned on the spot for you sir.”

Ozzath glanced to his lackey “Don’t bother, this failure is on me. I have known this particular human since she was an infant, her parents are some of my strongest supporters, I thought she would be the same cowardly girl as before. But it appears that cloak of hers has granted her an actual spine, I have seen this sort of thing from humans before. Its called wearing a persona, they change up their appearance in some significant way and all of the sudden they’re able to act like someone else.” Ozzath shook his head “Such a strange species, it would be so much easier to deal with them if they were just violent brutes. Instead that adaptable nature of theirs makes the behavior of a single individual hard to predict. No matter, commander Ezzat would please bring this human to the usual place.” He said to the officer without turning back.

Ezzat glanced at the cuffed human, “I’ll grab some of my Carkic officers.” He said before sauntering off to find officers strong enough to lift the human.

Once Ezzat was gone Ozzath looked to Mazus, “I think we should arrange another visit with the Heart family, I think it’s time for them to bring their daughter back under heel.”

Mazus flicked his tail in pleasure “yes, I think you’re right Sir. Tomorrow morning should work for your schedule.”

“Good, make it so” Ozzath said before turning back to his parked shuttle car, waiting to take him back to the core of Unity station.