First Contact

Chapter Forty-Four (Ullmo'ok)

Ullmo'ok was a bad Lanaktallan. His mother and father had always told him so. He was uninterested in money, he was uninterested in power, he had little to no interest in politics, and he didn't care one way or another for rules. The last would have been understandable if it involved the first three in any way, but Ullmo'ok's idea of a fun evening was getting together with some friends, all of the them from the UnCivilized species or the neo-sapients, hacking a car's computer, and roaring around the city in it.

The final straw had come when Ullmo'ok had gotten high on stim-grass, stripped naked, painted himself red with the crowd suppression paintgun, stolen a LawSec cruiser and driven it on a two hour chase that had culminated in Ullmo'ok deliberately crashing the armored vehicle into the river and standing on top of it as it sank, rearing up to show his genitals to the TriVid cameras, his jowls full of stimgrass. He'd had a gun in each hand, taken from the LawSec cruiser, and kept shooting potshots at the cameras until a LawSec sniper had tagged him with a stunner rifle. The sniper had been forced to shoot the young Lanaktallan three times to drop him.

It was put up to the jowls full of stimgrass.

His parents had been horrified. His friends had found it hilarious. LawSec had taken the bribe and looked the other way.

Ullmo'ok had been entertained. He'd almost felt something, standing on the roof the sinking LawSec vehicle. He'd come so close but the stunner had hit him. He'd felt something then, not the ravening nerve pain that the second shot brought, not the darkness that the third shot had dropped onto him, but he'd felt something he'd never felt before.

He had been sent to where his father's uncle was in charge of resource collection in a system in the Unified Outer Systems. His great-uncle was less than impressed that Ullmo'ok had gotten intoxicated during the flight and had fallen off the gangplank and onto the spaceport tarmac, laughing like a pair of bagpipes in a paint shaker, a bottle of alk-brew in each hand and a stimstick in his mouth.

His great-uncle had tried to put him in the offices, doing busy work and just moving files and papers around down in the mail room.

Ullmo'ok had convinced the neo-sapients who worked in the mail room to fight one another in the "Pit of Fists Swinging" for the reward of time off, vacation days, and raises.

His great-uncle moved him to the warehouse, where Ullmo'ok had put together a racing rally with the wheeled ground effect forklifts with "prizes" for the winners. After that was stopped by his great-uncle he arranged a 'hover smash' where workers drove old hoverlifts and crashed into one another with the winners getting prizes. Soon every hoverlift was covered in sheet metal and spikes and mesh. Ullmo'ok himself took part in them until finally he broke one of his arms when he was t-boned by another lift. Ullmo'ok's uncle sighed and sent the young Lanaktallan out to one of the mines as soon as he healed.

Ullmo'ok himself had almost felt something when the bones in his arm had snapped and he'd whipped his hoverlift around to slam the heavy weighted end into the worker's side. He'd almost felt something when his uncle had ordered his arm set without painkillers. He'd knocked out the Umtervian medic with one hit when he'd reacted to the pain and felt a little bit of something that he had been chasing.

At the mines, Ullmo'ok's uncle had despaired. Ullmo'ok had gotten bored with paperwork and supervision the first week and had bribed one of the workers to teach him to use a cargo-mech to load the raw ore into the transports. That had led to "Mech Bash" competitions where mechs smashed against each other, slamming each other with graspers or lifters, while an audience cheered. Within a month the cargo-mechs were covered in metal and spikes and painted garish colors.

A few workers were killed in the competitions, but Mech-Bash went on, with Ullmo'ok participating to the roar of the crowd.

Strangely, productivity was up. Incidents between the workers and CorpSec were down. Alcohol and drug use were up, black market trading of ration chips and CorpStore script was up, fighting was up, but the amount of lethal stabbings, shootings, beatings, and ambushes went down.

Ullmo'ok's uncle just swept all the Mech-Bash incidents under the rug. He purchased junk mechs from the other Corporate divisions, thinking maybe having older, battered, less maintained cargo-mechs would stop the Mech-Bash and having massive redundancy would replace the cargo-mechs when they failed.

Instead Ullmo'ok's band started stripping parts from the junk-mechs and adding them to the cargo mechs.

Then CorpSec reported that the junkyard where the old defunct corporate crowd control and law enforcement vehicles had been robbed.

Ullmo'ok's uncle knew exactly who had robbed it, but at least this time there was no evidence. The older Lanaktallan had boarded his executive hoverlimo and gone out to the mine, chewing narco-cud the whole way to ease his anxiety.

He could see two cargo-mechs battering each other as his hover-limo came in for a landing. As he watched in horror one of them opened up with a chain-gun that was the same type as the heavy crowd control vehicles from CorpSec used.

He could hear the roar of the crowd even through his armored limo's windows.

When he landed a small Puntimat neo-sapient lizard asked the older Lanaktallan if he wanted to purchase something called 'box seats' or if he wanted refreshments or to meet some of the 'Mech Slammers" personally.

The Uncle, who went by the name of Lo'omo'nan, harrumphed and demanded to see his nephew. Lo'omo'nan found himself escorted by two young female Lanaktallan of lower caste, secretaries for the Corporation's mining facility, dressed scandalously so much of their udders showed. Instead of taking him directly to see his nephew Lo'omo'nan was taken to a seat protected by pressor beams and armaglass.

"Where, harrumph, is my nephew?" Lo'omo'nan asked, accepting the offer of a narcobrew.

One of the Lanaktallan females pointed out at the dirt field where a cargo-mech had just walked out. The cargo mech was covered in crude metal armor, garishly painted, with chain guns, a giant sawblade for a hand, and a crudely fashioned metal spiked fist replacing one of the graspers.

"He is right there, Most High Guest," the Lanaktallan female informed the older male.

As Lo'omo'nan watched the cargo-mech raised all four arms, slamming the forearms together as the crowd roared.

The entire crowd roared so fiercely that Lo'omo'nan's tendril curled and his crests inflated defensively.

The battle was fierce and made Lo'omo'nan cringe and feel nauseous. His grand-nephew showed no hesitation, like a proper civilized being would, and instead charged his opponent and met him blow for blow. The battle ended when the other cargo-mech landed on its back with a crash and the crowd roared. Lo'omo'nan thought it strange that his nephew reached down one mechanical hand to help his opponent to their feet and raised the mech's hand with his own, to the roar of the crowd.

One of his female hanger-ons asked Lo'omo'nan if he wanted a Tri-Vid or VR chip of the battle as a souviner.

Only 24 Corpscript.

Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe that the crowd had been chanting his family name at top volume. He himself avoided crowds, which all stared and muttered as his limo moved through. He saw his nephew pushing through the crowd, slapping extended hands with his four hands, cursing loudly, and swigging narco-brew handed to him. His nephew, Ullmo'ok, was sweaty, wearing only a cooling vest and a bandage over one of his side eyes, not even a sash to proclaim who he was and what his standing was. Lo'omo'nan watched, horrified, as one of the tall neosapient mammals, a two legged Hikken, poured narcobrew on her fur covered mammary glands and his nephew pressed his sweaty face between them, shook his head, and made blubbering sounds.

The crowd around his nephew roared with glee.

Another worker being, another neosapient, stripped off her shirt, revealing scandalous flesh and fur, handing her shirt to Lo'omo'nan's nephew. Ullmo'ok wiped his face and chest and handed it back, the neo-sapient clutching it tight to her upper body, her eyes bright as she watched Lo'omo'nan's nephew swagger between a doorway.

Lo'omo'nan was led to his nephew's "office", taking a winding way. They moved through the maintenance bay where Lo'omo'nan saw maintenance techs working on the crudely armored and armed mechs. Past makeshift lounges and bars where Lo'omo'nan saw wealthy executives of the Corporation yelling, shaking fists, and shouting bets as the narcobrew flowed and the stimcud was chewed. Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He knew that Lanaktallan, a senior executive with the Corporation, from distinguished family lineage, who's family was wealthy and powerful even by Unified Core Systems standards. The SEO was at the bar, shouting at the screen where two cargo-mechs brawled, a narcobrew in each hand of his four hands, while two small lemurian Welkret females combed the Lanaktallan's fur and rubbed his skin while sitting on his back. As Lo'omo'nan watched, the wealthy and powerful being turned at the waist to face the two on his back. The closer one took a deep drag off a stimstick held by the other one, put her hands on either side of the Lanaktallan's jowls, and blew the smoke directly into his nostrils.

Lo'omo'nan hurriedly clopped past that, closing his side and rear eyes so he didn't have to see such disgusting deviance carried on by members of his own species.

Finally he reached his nephew, who was sitting on a broken couch, a stimstick in his mouth, a Welkret female with a medikit tending to his bruises and small cuts on his hide. The younger Lanaktallan had his eyes closed, his hands at his sides, and Lo'omo'nan was horrified to see that his nephew was allowing two comely young Lanaktallan females manually stimulate him sexually as he relaxed and the Welkret tended to his wounds while loud music, prohibited by the Corporation, blared from speakers stacked in the corners.

"Nephew!" the elder Lanaktallan harrumphed, hoping the sound of his voice would put a stop to this degeneracy and debasement.

He was shocked and appalled that the two females didn't even look up, instead just leaned over his nephews back to entwine their jowl tendrils, their hands still busy. The Welkret ran the auto-suturer down a cut on his nephews flank. Everyone else cheered as an arm was torn free from a cargo-mech as the other yanked the arm straight and ravaged the joint with the chaingun.

"I perfected that move, you know, uncle," His nephew said, pointing at the screen with a half-empty narcobrew.

Lo'omo'nan yanked his attention from the huge display, normally used by executives to display data, and looked at his nephew, who was patting the rumps of the two females and shooing them away.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Lo'omo'nan demanded of his nephew.

"Getting 'patched up' to use a phrase, Uncle," Ullmo'ok answered, taking a swig from his narcobrew. "My opponent was skilled and determined. I was proud to defeat him, Most Honored Uncle."

"Honored? Honored? You destroy the honor of our line, of our name, by brawling with these... these... neo-species," Lo'omo'nan sputtered, his tendrils tight with outrage.

"If you say so," Ullmo'ok said. He twitched slightly and the Welkret snapped at him to stay still so she could scrape the emergency coagulate off his skin and suture the wound.

"Your workers cause damage to company property, costing the mine credits, undoubtedly putting this whole facility into the red! If you don't care about our honor, what about our stockholders?" Lo'omo'nan barked as best he could, inflating his crests to establish dominance over his nephew.

His nephew ignored the crests, taking another swig. "Is it money you're worried about, uncle?" The younger Lanaktallan said slowly. He signified disappointment and resignation then made a tossing motion toward the older male. "View that if all you worry about is the profits."

Lo'omo'nan snorted and opened the datafile. It was a spreadsheet of company costs and expenses balanced against income, with man hours, and expenses and income broken down.

Ullmo'ok watched his uncle digest the data that seemed so important to the older Lanaktallan but was infinitely uninteresting to Ullmo'ok himself.

Anyone can turn a neo-sapient upside down and shake the credit chits from his pockets, Ullmo'ok thought to himself. Only the best can convince them to roar out his name is frenzied appreciation.

Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe what he was seeing. The entire facility was making more profit in a single planetary cycle than it ever had in its entire existence. Membership fees, drinks and narcotics, prostitution, viewing fees, entrance fees, income from TriVid and VR chips, GalNet broadcast on shady Netsites that were pay per view only, gambling, and more. The credits were pouring in, outstripping even the cost to black marketeers for weapons, armor, narcotics. Even outstripping worker payments, taxes, everything else. The books were then cooked, using the mining and refinery plant as cover. What the refinery actually made in profit could have been listed in the slush funds compared to what his nephew was bringing in from his illegal and immoral activities.

Even more startling was that Ullmo'ok had reported every drip and drop of income to the Unified Taxation Office and paid the taxes.

Ullmo'ok watched his uncle's tendrils tremble in pleasure and gave the equivalent of a sigh of envy. His uncle looked almost orgasmic, a feeling that Ullmo'ok chased but could only taste the bare edges of.

Only in the cockpit of his cargo-mech.

"You did all this?" Lo'omo'nan asked, surprised his nephew even understood how to do multi-column accounting.

Ullmo'ok snorted in amusement. "Hardly, uncle. I pay employees to do it and pay them well."

"What if one of the neo-sapients tries to cheat you or rob you?" Lo'omo'nan asked, sure his nephew didn't understand how to keep the neo-sapients in line.

"The first one that did I had chained to the fist of my cargo-mech and pasted him against the chest armor of my opponent with a few punches," Ullmo'ok said matter of factly, as if he wasn't talking about the brutal killing of another sentient being. Lo'omo'nan stared at his nephew in horror as the younger one gave the equivalent of a shrug. "It's one of the most downloaded and paid for clips. My opponent painted over the dark blue of the dried blood with bright blue paint to remind everyone of that battle. Since then, my employees only steal about 2%, which I'm willing to overlook."

Lo'omo'nan just stared in horror. Without another word he turned around and galloped back to his limo, returning to the capital with a promise to himself that as long as his nephew kept bringing in record profits the maniacal Lanaktallan could just stay at the remote facility.

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Ullmo'ok looked at the being. Called a 'human' apparently. A bipedal primate with the closely set forward facing eyes of a predator, thickly muscles, with hair only on its head and around its mouth, with five fingers instead of four. It was dressed in clothing covered with holograms that showed cartoon female humans chasing each other and hitting one another with blunt object. It made Ullmo'ok inflate his crests with amusement.

"You know, I can replace that eye with a cybereye in about an hour," the human said, using a universal translator. "No charge. Just have the medibot do it while we conduct business."

Ullmo'ok signified his agreement with one hand, his eyes only for what the human "Junker" had brought him.

Massive robot power armor. Armor meters thick. Bristling with weapons. Designed like a biped but just oozing malice. All of them designed to appear aggressive and menacing just sitting there with their fusion reactors pulled and weapons empty or disengaged.

A spider-bot climbed up Ullmo'ok's foreleg, then up his torso, then onto his head, settling over the empty socket of his right side eye.

Ullmo'ok ignored it. A medibot was nothing to grow anxious about. He mentally braced for pain. Pain was inevitable. Pain was good.

Pain was life.

"I've got some old Terran battle-cruiser battle-screens. That should protect the crowd from any missed shots as well as provide really slamming effects when they're hit. Nothing outside a nuclear penetrator can get through that class of shields, even though they're old tech. Pulled 'em off some blown out ships back around Rigel-6," The Terran, human, Max-a-Millions said, slapping his hands together eagerly, the motion like he was brushing off dust but more animated and loud.

Ullmo'ok liked that body language. He tried it himself and found it much more satisfying than the handwringing of anticipation that most of his race used.

"That sounds sufficient," Ullmo'ok said, following the Terran's body language of nodding rather than inflating his crest in assent. He liked that too.

"Now, these mechs are civilian grade, usually used by frontier harsh environment worlds for heavy security. They'll rip a pirate ship to shreds, can go toe to toe with light armor, and can even take on your civilian government grade heavy armor units," Max said, pointing at one of the smaller mechs. "That one, right there? That can crush most heavy armor units used by your civilian governments with a single stomp. I wouldn't try taking on a Confed Mil-spec tank, that thing would rip you apart. But against anything you'll probably face? No contest."

Ullmo'ok nodded, admiring the lethal lines of the massive mech. He liked the one with the skull face, the big fists, and the retractable rotating sawblade sword in its forearm.

"So, how many do you want?" The human asked, rubbing his hands together. Ullmo'ok's implant told him that it was eagerness, not distress.

Ullmo'ok stared at all the mechs in the massive freighter's hold. Over a hundred of them. All heavily armored and armed.

"All of them."

The cartoon female humans frollicking on Max-a-Million's suit all waved their pom-poms with their eyes replaced by throbbing hearts.

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CorpSec Chief Executive Officer Moolim'ak exited his armored LawSec wagon, adjusted his sash, and trotted forward. The small neo-sapients waiting for him performed the elaborate welcoming rituals that were his due. Two lower caste Lanaktallan females, their implants marking them as food service workers for refinery executives, both trotted forward to coo at him and rub him. A Welkret climbed up on his back and began rubbing soothing narco-cream into his four shoulder-blades. He liked her, she had strong, soft hands and new how to rub his muscles just right to force knots from tension to relax.

The smell of hot lubricant, scorched metal, sweat, and anticipation filled the CorpSec CEO's nostrils and his tendrils shivered in anticipation.

He was a wealthy and powerful male of the Lanaktallan executive caste, even beyond this planet. Yes, he should arrest young Ullmo'ok and every being involved or served by the younger male's illegal activities, but Moolim'ak couldn't bring himself to even think about such a thing.

After all, where else would he see such amazing sights?

The sound of music, new music, harsh, demanding, thundering, aggressive and violent, poured over the CEO as he entered the Most High Class Executive Lounge. He merely used that entrance to gain access to the facility. He handed off his sash and badges of rank to the little Puntimat at the door, who was inside an armored cage and took all valuables and put them in registered locked boxes. The sign at the top of her armor-plast window stated a warning: "Not Responsible For Grabbed Stuff You Take In!" The CEO nodded at the warning, gave the little neo-sapient a week's worth the meal chits for the way she bobbed and grovelled as she put his stuff away, and headed deeper into the facility.

He passed the other members of his race at the clean and immaculate feeling lounges, moving past that to where he preferred. The greasy, slightly dirty, shabby lounge where the neon glowed, the music was almost too loud, and more than once some of the neo-sapients and even members of his own race threw fists over the outcome of a match or a disagreement over which cargo-mech pilot was best.

A bunch of his CorpSec men, all lower executives, raised up narcobeer and cheered him. Moolim'ak signaled the being tending the bar to bring another round to the table and clopped over to his men. They all thanked him for getting them in to the Grand Mech Bash. Something new was promised, something grand, and the alien sounded hard driving music hinted at whatever it was, it was going to be big.

When the fireworks went off and the lights went out, Moolim'ak turned to watch the oversized vid display. Sure, the tables in the executive lounges had built-in holoprojectors, but the faded and transparent holos just didn't have the excitement of the vid screens.

The little Welkret on his back tapped him and he turned around to face her. She took a drag off her stimstick, put her other hand against his left hand jowl, and slowly exhaled stimsmoke into his nostril. He inhaled deeply, gratefully, feeling the already activated stim surge into his bloodstream and shivered.

What stomped out onto the viewscreen, obviously shaking the ground of the arena, was something that Moolim'ak recognized, something he had seen in classified videos from the furious fighting against the Precursors over the last two months.

A human Warmech.

It raised its arms over its head, clasing the massive hands, and shook them while the crowd roared.

Moolim'ak was aghast. How had those war machines, some weighing as much as 500 tons, gotten to the planet? How had young Ullmo'ok gotten his grasping four hands on one? He stared as special effects froze the giant mechanized war machine, spun it around, put it in garish colors, and then detailed the weapons.

Sweat popped up on Moolim'ak's crests and he inflated them with agitation. That giant beast carried two 200mm autocannons just to start off with. It packed missiles, lasers, particle beams, something called a 'chainsword", and more. Its polyceramic warsteel laminate armor could shrug anything his entire CorpSec force could bring to bear and those autocannons would shred anything he could field.

"Yeah! Yeah!" One of his subordinates, a Senior Executive Officer cheered. "Slamsmash! Slamsmash!"

The little Welkret tapped Moolim'ak and when the CEO turned at the waist to face behind him the little mammal pressed both hands against his nose and slowly exhaled narcosmoke into first one then the other nostril. Moolim'ak closed his eyes and let the little neo-sapient put his four hands on her fur and start to stroke.

It soothed him, such degeneracy. It calmed him, indulging in such deviance. He would never do so in private or at work, but here, surrounded by pounding alien music, in a dimly lit grimy "sports-lounge", surrounded by his subordinates and other Mechbash fans, he indulged himself in vices that he would have never imagined as a young Lanaktallan in the Unified Core Systems where he had grown up.

He turned around, shifting his arms so he still reached behind him to stroke the Welkret, who tapped the inside of one arm with a narcojet, just in time to see the opponent. A giant warmech the same weight class, different weapons, painted in the garish colors of another competitor. This one armed with lasers, particle cannons, missiles, with point defense and other missile defenses.

It then pulled back, displaying the modified arena. Giant chunks of 'armor' made up of warsteel and battlesteel, glimmering energy fields, and other things to take cover behind. Plasma 'mines', auto-turrets, flamers, all kinds of hazards that the crowd could activate by throwing 'BashCash' at it in the form of work-chits, food chits, corp-script, Unified Systems Credits, even promises of favors.

The count-down started and Moolim'ak calmed his agitation by touching the little female in ways that a member of his species, his caste, his executive status probably shouldn't. He brought her around to his chest, cradling and stroking her in his four arms, while she blew clouds of narco-vape across his nose and balanced a mug of narcobrew on her stomach.

The battle started and Moolim'ak quickly forgot his agitation. Particle cannons thundered, autocannons shrieked, the shields screamed and sparked with misses that thrilled the crowd as they were only held off from certain death by the invisible hands of battle-screen projectors.

Ten fights, all between massive Terran Warmechs. Moolim'ak won as often as he lost, but by the time he was halfway through watching the fights he was cheering as often as everyone else. He broke a narcobrew bottle across the face of a Senior Executive Lanaktallan from Financial Services during the sixth fight, clasped hands with the same being and cheered during the seventh, the two males slapping each other's sides in shared joy as the mech they had been on defeated the larger one. One of his subordinates put a fist in his eye and he responded by kicking the other male in the chest to the roar of the onlookers. He bought his defeated subordinate a large mug of the subordinate's favorite narcobrew to show how gracious he was in victory. The subordinate cheered Moolim'ak's name as they all left togheter and rode home in the same executive limo.

Ullmo'ok's uncle looked at the profits from the "New & Improved Mechbash!" and had to shuffle funds around at a Senior Executive level to hide the profits. He noticed the CEO of CorpSec had a swollen eye during a luncheon, but didn't pay it any mind, CorpSec types often had to put down riots.

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The air was full of thunder as atmospheric craft roared overhead. More humans had arrived, to protect the system from a possible Precursor attack. Humans had sworn to protect the star system, had deployed massive amounts of war machines through space, around moons, on planets. Everywhere a Precursor might attack, might strike at the beings they so hated.

While other Lanaktallan had run in circles panicking, wringing their four hands, inflating and deflating their crests in fear, shaking their jowls in terror, bleating and crying out in anxiety, Ullmo'ok felt a tingling tremor deep inside. Actually felt it.

He invited Terrans to his Mechbash, comped them entrance, drinks, anything they wanted.

They had enjoyed it.

Ullmo'ok liked the Terrans he had met. Members of something called V Corps (Old Metal) that just made his tendrils coil in joy. Ullmo'ok had noticed that even their officers liked the dimmer, grimier looking lounges, more deviant and dangerous the better.

Two humans had pulled knives on each other, fighting on the floor of one of the lounges over a Puntimat female they had both been petting. Neither one had been killed but they had been injured. Ullmo'ok had ordered the Welkret 'medicos' to not use painkillers on the Terrans to see how they reacted.

Every reaction to pain brought jeers from their fellow Terrans. One who had flinched had narcobrew poured over him by his fellows.

The two knife fighters were arm in arm, cheering, less than a fight later.

Ullmo'ok was fascinated by the Terrans.

They looked... looked...

alive.

Ullmo'ok envied them.

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V CORPS COMMANDER'S MEMO

Attendance at Ullmo'ok Mech Bash Arena is permitted via recreation pass.

Please stop stabbing each other. It looks bad to our hosts when senior officers duel with knives over who gets to pet the furry xenospecies 'with great tits' no matter how much it amuses your subordinates. I appreciate a great set of mammary glands as much as the next species, but rolling around on the floor while the enlisted pour narcobrew on you is undignified. Real officers use stun-pistols at twenty paces. While dueling is legal, please refrain from doing so unless it is vitally important, like who may have stolen your last pack of Terran cigarettes.

--General Nodra'ak, V Corps, Commanding

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------------

KESTIMET CORPORATE MEMO

Attendance at this so called "Mech Bash" is strictly prohibited to all executives by order of Kestimet Corporate Headquarters, Core Worlds. Attendance to any of this illegal activity can result in a fine of up to three day's pay.