Earth died long ago, but humanity lives across the stars. You can find humans in many places, most not pleasant and rarely worth talking about for any reason other than how to avoid them, but you cannot find a human that is free. The closest you might get would be a common criminal, living a life in the shadows of their supposed betters, hiding in a sewer making counterfeits, though you would have to look closely, or they will slip from your gaze like a falling leaf at night.
One of the few who could find such a human, Inquisitor Kas’perax, was walking back to his desk on the 51st floor in the Regional Authority Enforcement building. His presence commanded attention, the sleek ocular implants he had installed earlier that morning adding an intense focus to his gaze. The air around him seemed to thrum with the energy of the bustling office, whispered respect blended with the subtle scents of his colleagues' perfumes and the distant aroma of brewing coffee greeting his passage, as a single unexpected sound cut through his concentration.
Thump Thump Thump
He looked around puzzled, as the only other sounds were of normal office chatter and similar ambient noise, catching the eye of a secretary embarrassingly looking down at her tablet for some reason.
Thump Thump Thump
This time he clearly heard the strange sound coming from the office of detective Xaris, his subordinate and aide, who as he followed the sounds he found sitting at his desk, his face resting on the surface.
"Did you drop something Xaris?" he asked, puzzled.
"No sir," Xaris mumbled without lifting his head from the desk.
Kas'perax looked around the office, looking for defective equipment or another such contraption that could explain the sound before continuing.
"Then what made that-"
Xaris raised his head from the desk for a fraction of a second before slamming it back down on the hard desk.
THUMP
Kas'perax stared in disbelief at this display of insanity before the gears in his head clicked into place.
"Humans?" he ventured, his voice a mix of curiosity and exasperation, cutting through the soft murmur of office life.
From his desk, Xaris’s reply came as a slurred, “Huumaans…”, the word barely escaping his lips.
Kas’perax let out a sigh, the sound cutting through the office's murmur as he approached Xaris.
"What did they do this time?"
Xaris's response was a muffled groan against the desk, 'Guess...'"
"Did they find a new way to smuggle in drugs? Last year they injected them into hard shelled fruits like that coconut thing they are so fond of?"
"No..."
"Did they dig tunnels under the walls of their exclusion zones?"
"Didn't even have to dig this time.."
"What? Come on Xaris, sit up and compose yourself, I'll get us something to drink."
Kas'perax returned a few minutes later, the slight clinking of glass against glass heralding his approach. He carried with him a bottle whose contents shimmered with a golden hue and two crystal glasses that seemed to capture the light of the room, refracting it into a spectrum of subdued colors. Xaris, having managed to regain some composure, sat up straight with an exhausted yet slightly embarrassed look on his face.
As Kas’perax opened the bottle, the room filled with the rich scent of oak and spices, a testament to human craftsmanship in distillation. He poured the golden liquid into glasses, its sound a soft murmur in the office's quiet. Settling onto the couch, he offered one to Xaris, the sound of the pour a soft, inviting whisper in the quiet of the office. Then, seating himself on the office couch, he filled his own glass.
Kas’perax turned his olfaction sense fully on and took a delighted whiff of the room, a satisfied smile spreading across his face as he shivered faintly in delight. "Now spill it, Xaris. What did the humans do this time, and why are you trying to break your desk in half?" Kas'perax's voice, though firm, carried a note of genuine concern, tempered with a weary curiosity.
"Well... Sir," Xaris began, the scent of the spirits seemingly giving him pause.
Kas'perax, listening, raised his glass and took a sip, the liquid's journey across his palate an intricate dance of sweet, smoky, and spicy notes. Each sip revealed new layers, a testament to the humans' knack for creating something profoundly beautiful from simple ingredients. It was a moment of reluctant admiration for their ingenuity, a trait that, despite himself, he couldn't help but respect.
"Xaris," he said sharply, bringing the focus back to the matter at hand, the rich aftertaste of the drink lingering, a reminder of the complexity of the situation before them. "Whatever it is, I'm sure I've heard worse. I've been dealing with these damn humans for three decades by now. They're cunning bastards, and I won't hold it against you if they pulled a fast one on you, as they would say. Tell me already," he said as he took a swig of his drink, fully savoring the drink.
Xaris looked sheepishly at his superior before answering "We found an illegal still in the sewers, sir, making counterfeit... well..." his gaze drifted to the drink in front of him, laden with implication.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Kas'perax looked at him dumbfounded for a second before he finished processing the information, violently spitting the drink across the room from his mouth, coughing as the liquid caught in his throat.
"Sorry sir."
"YOU COULDN'T HAVE TOLD ME BEFORE I OFFERED YOU A DRINK??! OR AT LEAST BEFORE I DRANK OF MY OWN??!" Kas'perax practically screamed at the man.
"Well, sure, but when I found out I was having a small drink myself," he said as he looked over to the bin, which Kas'perax now noticed was filled with a lot of disposable cloth wipes and what looked like the shattered remnants of a bottle. "and I figured it wasn't fair that it only happened to me, sir. Also, you made me wade through the sewers looking for human smugglers," he stared deadpan at Kas'perax, "because you didn't want to fill out the paperwork to requisition a search bot from headquarters."
Kas'perax spat on the floor in disgust. "Well played, Xaris. I presume you were banging your head in hopes of catching my attention then?"
"No sir. It was a custom I observed during an earlier stint, one human performed it as we informed them that we needed to seal off their quarters to preserve evidence. It was doing it in clear view of other humans who didn't seem to react to it, so I assume it to be a standard practice for humans. When I asked another human if that one was defective, he just shrugged and told me it's a relatively normal way of dealing with stress and frustration for humans. He called it 'Percussive healthcare'.. Then he snickered to himself."
Xaris stared ahead for a few seconds, a thoughtful frown on his face. "I might have been duped, sir."
"Well, did it work at least?"
Xaris pondered the question for a second, then shrugged in a very human way.
"It didn't hurt, so to speak.
Shaking his head softly, Kas'perax's gaze fell on the almost full bottle still in his hands. 'Made by Humans', stood in elaborate letters on the etiquette.
Made by Humans.
His booze was made by humans; he ate human fruits for dessert, wore suits of human design, used human figures of speech, adopted human mannerisms, and, by the gods, investigated human crimes all damn day. The realization hit Kas'perax harder than he expected. There was no denying the humans' knack for creativity and survival, even in the most dire circumstances. He pondered over this as he stared at the bottle, a symbol of human defiance and ingenuity.
Kas'perax sat in silence, the bottle's label staring back at him as if it held a mirror to his very soul. He realized that despite his position and his species' dominant status, his life and his world was undeniably, deeply intertwined with human culture. "Did we truly domesticate them?" he wondered aloud, barely loud enough for Xanis to hear him.
"What was that sir?"
"Hmm? Oh, nothing. I was just.. How many words of the human tongue do you speak Xaris?" he asked, still staring at the label, his fingers tracing the edge of the paper that was slightly peeling from his touch, a feature that would have seemed preposterous to a Xel'tar such as himself. Yet, as he had to admit, it held a certain charm.
"I wouldn't say I'm fluent, but I can certainly hold a conversation. Jastin from the 49th floor is much better than I am," Xaris said plainly, cocking his head. "You're the only one in the office that has continuously ignored management’s training seminars on learning human, sir," he continued a little more sternly.
"I've been busy, you know that, Xaris," Kas'perax replied absentmindedly, turning the bottle in his hands, a motion that mirrored the gears in his head grinding the information into fine powder.
Kas’perax held his glass aloft, the amber liquid casting a warm glow against his face, eyes lost in thoughts that had been lingering in the back of his mind. He turned to Xaris, his gaze thoughtful. “Do you ever consider the paradox of our relationship with humans, Xaris?” He set the glass down, his eyes scanning the room, taking in the elements of human design that had become so integral to their environment. “We sought to control them, yet it's their culture that has woven itself into the fabric of our daily lives.” His words were an invitation to reflect, not just a statement. “Look at us, celebrating their craft, speaking their language. It's as if we're carrying a piece of their legacy within us, even as we stand guard over them.”
Xaris just nodded. "We’re not the only ones sir. The confederacy employs humans as freighter crew and the dominion uses them as slave legions."
The silence stretched on, a heavy blanket of thought between the two. Finally, Kas'perax broke it, his voice laced with a dark humor. "It's ironic, isn't it?”
“What is sir?”
“They were spread across the Alliance as refugees after they lost their homeworld, then the Dominion and the Confederation got their hands on a few as slaves, and now they are essentially endemic across the galaxy, even if they are at the very bottom of the hierarchy. Such a tragic species. Ten thousand years as slaves and undesirables, just as they had started to taste the stars,” Kas’perax said slowly, a sadness in his voice as he peeled at the edges of the bottle label.
“If I remember correctly, they didn’t even have spaceships yet. Only rudimentary shuttles and manned rockets. With their own ships, they'd thrive anywhere. Uncontainable.”
Kas’perax shuddered at the thought. The two aliens sat in silence, both contemplating how events were accelerating in the otherwise very static galaxy.
After a moment of silence, both aliens contemplating how events were accelerating in the otherwise very static galaxy, Kas'perax breathed in a heavy sigh, then spoke up again. "Speaking of uncontainable, let's get back to business. We’ve had some unfortunate escalation from one or more of the fringe groups. A cyber attack on the central data hub. It was thwarted, but the methods were...unusual. We’re not sure exactly what happened, as we only detected it accidentally.. Central thinks it might be some human group that got their hands on some of our tech, either through the black market or by stealing it. We’re trying to trace it, but so far our leads are all running cold, so I need you to-"
An urgent chime from one of Kas'perax's implants interrupted his briefing. It was the secure line, reserved for matters of immediate, critical, concern. An alert it was unheard of for an inquisitor to receive on a world as secure as Gaang Kahr. Kas'perax, with a sense of confusion and foreboding, answered the call. The voice on the other end was crisp, laced with a tension that instantly set Kas’perax on edge, shattering his silent hope that it was a joke that had gone too far.
"Sir, we have a situation. We lost contact with the outer system defence perimeter, and we are experiencing a cascading system failure with the rest of our satellite network. We fear a major fleet attack may be imminent, seek shelter immediately. This is not a prank, I repeat, this is not a- Unknown ships have just emerged across the Leap-zone, wait no that can’t be-, several contacts have emerged outside the Leap-zone as well- we have confirmations of shots fired, ships across the homefleet has taken direct hits, seek shelter immediately and stand by for more information," A firm but increasingly shaken voice reverberated in his head before cutting the connection. Xaris, receiving a more sanitized message from his implant, stiffened visibly, his eyes wide in shock.
Not wasting a second, Xaris jumped to his feet just as a siren started blaring across the building.
“Sit down, Xaris.”
Xaris, half way out the room already, stopped mid stride and stared back at his superior, a completely dumbfounded look on his face.
“Xaris, anyone capable of hacking our entire defensive network and launch a surprise attack on our home fleet is either going to leave this building, and the immediate neighborhood, a smoking crater down below the emergency bunkers, or they are here to deliver a message, and are going to leave it completely untouched. Either way, I need a drink first,” he held up the bottle he still held in his hand, a slight tremor to his tight grip; “Tell me, was this actually brewed in a sewer?”
Xaris, visibly shaking, took a moment to compose himself before nervously sitting down in front of Kas’perax.
“There’s a mark, a circle with a cross, on the backside of the label if it’s a counterfeit.”
Kas’perix peeled the label completely off in a single motion, looking at the backside. No circle, no cross. With a hearty sigh, he poured a cup for Xaris, then himself. Xaris immediately downed his glass, not waiting for Kas’perix to finish pouring. Kas’perix simply poured him another glass, then picked up his own and raised it between them
“To the Smiling God and his whims,” he said solemnly, an ancient toast among their people, before downing his glass himself.
As he was setting down the glass, getting ready to pour himself and Xaris another, his implant buzzed with another urgent alert. Steeling his nerves, he put the bottle down and waited for the message to begin.
“Sir, our fleet has taken significant losses, most of the homefleet guarding the planet is disabled and the rest have signaled for surrender. The enemy fleet has transmitted a message for Central Administration, transmitting now.”
Kas’perix listened intently as the message from the fleet commander of the enemy fleet, his face shifting from concern, to bewilderment, to slack-jawed disbelief.
Xaris, unable to bear the tension, asked “was it the Szarlics? The Confederacy wouldn’t do this, would they?” with a shaky voice, knowing full well the gravity of a warfleet of the Dominion reaching this deeply into Alliance territory.
Kas’perax looked at his friend and subordinate, mouth open, eyes unfocused.
“Xaris,” he started with a tone of utter incredulousness in his voice, “It seems that I need to learn to speak human.”