Tales From the Terran Republic

Chapter The Round Enters the Chamber

Sheriff Gree-Val-Shel leaned against his grav-truck that was parked across both lanes of the small questionably paved road leading to “his” town.

One of his deputies was holding an advanced tactical binocular variable range multi-scanner to her ping-pong ball looking eyes.

Her crest inflated. She had the prettiest crest, just like her momma.

“Assholes incomin’,” she drawled as she tossed the scanner into the truck.

“Right on time,” he replied. He and his two deputies grabbed riot-blasters and cradled them in their arms.

Two grav-vans quickly approached. As they did the sheriff flicked a small switch on his belt and a large holographic “HALT!” sign appeared above them surrounded by flashing lights.

The vans reluctantly slid to a halt.

The sheriff approached.

“Hello frien’,” he drawled in that aggressively friendly/not friendly tone that all law enforcement officials have across the entire universe as he walked up to the vans. “What can we do for ya?”

A rather pompous looking Vulxeen glared at him, his gray skin flushing a light purple.

“We are on Federation business, move your vehicle.”

“No can do, frien’,” the sheriff said with a pleasant but firm voice. “We got humans up the road and we can’t be havin’ you track in the rots.”

“I can assure you that we are perfectly safe we-”

“And just where did ya come from?”

“We drove here from Zara-Knerh if you must know.”

“Lotsa humans in Zara-Knerh. Sorry, frien’. Can’t risk it.”

“We are here on Federation-”

“Don’t care,” the sheriff replied as several grav-tractors and large trucks started to approach. “You gotta scanner?”

“You know perfectly well we don’t!” the Vulxeen snapped. “There is a shortage and all units are assigned to vital-”

“Well, we’re fresh out too. Don’t have any fancy crap like that out here,” the sheriff smiled, “so we have to assume you are contaminated. Not gonna let you infect my humans,” he said firmly.

The Vulxeen spluttered and produced a tablet. The Sheriff put a polymer evidence bag over his hand and took it.

“Oh, you are here after those ‘dangerous fugitives’ what broke containment!” he laughed. “Well, sorry to tell you that you can’t have ‘em.”

“What?!?” the Vulxeen spluttered. “Those are Federation Emergency orders! We are in a state of martial law if you yokels haven’t heard!”

“Yeah, we might have heard somethin’ about that,” the sheriff chuckled. “But those ‘dangerous’ humans went and got themselves in a bit of trouble. We had to arrest the lot of ‘em… Pretty serious charges too… planetary felonies… Sorry, we can’t release them to you till we have finished our investigation.”

“What are they charged with?” the Vulxeen demanded.

“Now I can’t be divulgin’ the details of an ongoin’ investigation,” the sheriff grinned. “What sort of law enforcement official would I be if I went and did a damn fool thing like that?”

“In accordance with the powers granted by the Emergency Powers Protocols I am-”

He fell silent as the sheriff leveled his riot blaster at him.

“And in accordance with those same protocols I ain’t gonna let contaminated shitheads into my town! You’re gonna have a hard time spoutin’ those protocols with no fuckin’ head, frien’ ”

A half-dozen tractors and farm vehicles, crowded with armed pol-ka surrounded the Federation vans.

“Deputies, glad ‘ya could make it,” the Sheriff said pleasantly as they all leveled an assortment of weapons at the two vans.

The Sheriff turned to the Vulxeen, now sitting very still behind the controls of his van.

“See, now this might come as a bit of a surprise to someone like you but ‘yokels’ like us… We are a simple folk and we love simple pleasures… like fishin’… and huntin’…”

He idly tossed the tablet through the van’s window.

“Unless you want me to declare today Fed season,” he smiled nastily, “you are gonna turn your candy-coated asses around, go right back to Zara-Knerh, and not come back until you get a court order, from our court, that authorizes a (heh) ‘prisoner transfer’, and a med scanner with the medical personnel qualified ta use it. Otherwise...”

He paused as the “deputies” all chuckled.

The Vulxeen just glared at him

“You are honestly going to go to jail over a bunch of worthless porkies?” he asked angrily and then quickly fell silent as the pol-ka around him, especially the sheriff, hissed angrily.

“Those ‘worthless porkies’ have been a part of our community, our family, for over a hundred years!” the sheriff snarled around a mouthful of rage phlegm. “The only ‘worthless’ lifeforms I see are the ones right in front of me.”

The Vulxeen shifted nervously as he eyed the armed “deputies” surrounding him. They were disengaging their safeties!

“T-this isn’t over!” he exclaimed trying to sound like he wasn’t in fear for his life. “Let’s see how tough you are when Federation Marines land on top of you tomorrow!”

With that the two vans quickly turned around and fled.

“Yeah,” the sheriff chuckled as he watched them run. “Tomorrow might be just a little disappointin’ for ya.”

He turned to the driver of one of the tractors.

“Hey,” he called out. “Those AK’s show up yet?”…

***

Lieutenant Arraval looked at the monitors in front of him and frowned. The streets were nearly empty. He entered a series of commands and increased the altitude of the drones at his command.

He saw nothing but more quiet streets. Every now and then you would see a group of human adults quietly going about their business, usually moving quickly and orderly into the open and then almost immediately entering a dwelling.

One of his drones registered a huge energy spike. He saw a starship entering the atmosphere outside of an assigned starport. It seemed to be heading to an open area near an educational facility surrounded by spectator seating. He logged the information and added it to the ever growing list of vessels that were making landfall across the planet, far too many to interdict.

Ships were making landfall everywhere. He looked at the huge and ever growing list with concern. He had no idea the humans had so many ships! He sent a drone past the new arrival. It was registered with Steelfist Shipping LLC. The manifest stated that it was unladen and was “returning to home port”.

He tried to hail it knowing full well what would happen.

There was no response. The ship had powered down. None of them responded, but if an attempt was made to board they would promptly power back up, take off, and then land somewhere else.

It was sufficient grounds to seize and impound a craft, if you could actually grab one, but not enough justification to open fire with something powerful enough to down a ship, especially on the surface of a planet. A few ships, especially the ones in the ports, had complied and when boarded they were exactly as the manifests stated, completely empty.

It was the other ones he was concerned about. It made no sense.

He really didn’t like it when humans didn’t make sense. He was no racist, quite the contrary in fact. What was coming to light absolutely disgusted him and he hoped that the people responsible would get dragged through the streets! It wasn’t racism.

It was experience.

He had served the Federation for his entire adult life. He fought the Terrans and he had tangled with the criminal element, one part of the Federation where humans were quite well represented, for much longer.

One thing he had learned time and time again was when humans were “making no sense” or “acting stupid” or “crazy” it wasn’t because they were those things.

They knew exactly what they were doing. You just hadn’t figured it out yet.

They weren’t stupid. You were for missing something painfully obvious. They weren’t crazy. You were for sticking around waiting to discover whatever that was…

Exactly like he was doing right now. They were up to something, something big. That many ship captains and ship owners wouldn’t be setting their entire fleets up to be seized, which was exactly what was going to happen…

“We are missing something,” he said.

“What’s that, Lieutenant?” the old Federation Colonel asked he waddled into the room.

“We are missing something big, sir,” he said as he kept his eyes on his screens. He wasn’t about to miss the slightest slip.

“Their behavior is bizarre to say the least,” the colonel replied. “They may be able to evade us for now but their little hoppy-bug nonsense won’t help them tomorrow… Which they should know full well… I don’t like it either, Lieutenant. I don’t like it one bit.”

“And the streets,” Lieutenant Arraval grumbled. “Yesterday it was all we could do to keep the peace and now...”

“Are you complaining?” the colonel asked with genuine curiosity.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” the lieutenant replied. “How long have you been doing this, sir? When have you seen a pack of humans just go from hot to cold like that?”

The colonel stood there in silence for a moment, looking at Arraval. After a few seconds he spoke.

“Only once,” the colonel replied, “a very long time ago.”

“What happened?” the lieutenant asked.

“It was the very first time I encountered one, not too long after they first showed up,” the colonel replied looking off into the distance. "I was a newbie station guardsman, wasn’t on the force a year when it happened… It was a single human, a female, barely an adult. My partner and I started to detain her for petty theft when she suddenly clawed my face and started running. I don’t know if you have had the pleasure but those little hard plates on the end of their fingers? They don’t look like much but they hurt, trust me. I had some stripes on my beautiful visage for almost two years after that.”

He wiggled back and forth in his species's version of a head shake.

“We didn’t know it at the time,” the old colonel continued, “but she was wanted for questioning concerning two homicides back at their colony. What we also didn’t know at the time was that we weren’t the only ones looking for her. She had gotten into trouble with a group of humans known as The Red Teeth, really bad people, especially back then. She wasn’t running from us. She was running from who would get their hands on her if we hauled her in.”

The colonel flexed his eye ridges into a rueful smile.

“Anyway, we thought she was just running from the lock up when she was actually running from something far worse, a very unfortunate misunderstanding,” he said sadly.

He paused as he examined the screens for a moment as if searching for something and then shrugged.

“I tell you, Lieutenant,” the colonel chuckled, “She was something to behold. She didn’t just run. She jumped. She climbed. She even swung from cabling like some sort of arboreal denizen.”

He paused for a moment, lost in the memory.

“She caused quite the mess, and just kept racking up charges,” he chuckled. “Property damage, assault, assault on a guardsman, grand theft of a cargo conveyor, reckless endangerment, felony property damage… The charges just kept getting bigger and the potential penalties greater. I remember thinking that it didn’t make sense. There was no reason for it. I mean it was just petty theft. It would probably just be a stern talking to and her butt getting chucked on the first transport back to wherever she came from. It was crazy.”

The colonel just shrugged ruefully.

“But it wasn’t crazy was it? What those Red Teeth people would have done to her…” he said grimly, “Anyway, it was a space station. There was nowhere to go and we, after a minor injury or two, finally cornered her in a blind corridor. She just… stopped. She then turned around just as calm and polite as you pleased...”

“What happened then, sir?”

“She just looked at us with these strange eyes and just and made a little one of their little laughing noises and said ‘Well, I guess I’m out of luck, huh?’ and held out her hands as if she was submitting… My supervisor pulled out some restraints, and when he walked up she, with that same little happy smile, pulled out a knife and struck so fast nobody could even twitch and so hard she almost took his head off,” the colonel said calmly.

“Creators!” the lieutenant gasped.

“It didn’t stop there,” the colonel continued. “If we thought she was fast with all that running and jumping it was nothing compared to what happened next. She was a demon! It was like there were five of her all at once and the whole time she was… smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world. She smiled and laughed as she killed four other guardsmen before we finally managed to land a shot, and killed another before we managed to put her down.”

“By the Void...”

“The strangest thing… the thing that has stuck with me all these years,” the colonel said, “wasn’t that she laughed. Humans can do that when they fight. It wasn’t that weird animal sound that comes out of them sometimes when they attack. No,” the colonel said with a shudder, “It was one of their happy laughs. And when I pulled the trigger on the final blast that ended her life she… She smiled at me as she fell.”

The colonel closed his eyes as he remembered.

“I’ll remember that smile for the rest of my days, Lieutenant,” the old officer said quietly. “And that was just one of them. This… this is a whole planet. We’ve taken every human in the Federation and have driven them into that same blind corridor that I drove that poor woman all those years ago.”

The colonel swayed back in forth regretfully.

“We need to warn-” the Lieutenant started to say but the colonel just cut him off with a snort.

“We tried,” the colonel laughed. “Foolish civilians, they don’t get it. Those pompous bureaucrats have never had to face a human before. They actually think they are cowed by the few hundred soldiers we have patrolling the streets. They actually believe that they are hiding, afraid of the (heh) ‘overwhelming force’ that will enter the system tomorrow… Idiots… They have no idea-”

The old colonel froze, his eyes widening to their fullest extent.

“Monitor four! Monitor four!” he shouted lunging forward, shoving the startled lieutenant aside as he flailed at the controls.

The display froze and then reversed. A lone human female appeared, looking up at the drone.

She was waving…

with a smile…

“That’s it!” the old colonel shouted. “Those are the eyes! That is the smile!”

He sagged for a moment. Then, he drew himself to his full height. Lieutenant Arraval looked up at him in surprise. The colonel, the soft-bellied, self admitted “tin cog”, as they derisively called mindless bureaucrats in military uniforms, faded before his very eyes.

In his place stood something that actually looked like a leader.

“Tomorrow,” the colonel said quietly. “I will likely start issuing orders that will bring my thoroughly undistinguished career to an end. Whether or not you follow them is entirely your decision. Excuse me,” the old officer said. “I have much to do.”

“What do we do?” the lieutenant asked helplessly.

“We do our duty,” the colonel replied. “Today, your duty is to glue yourself to these screens. Look at everything, everywhere. Miss nothing. Do your absolute best to try to catch the uncatchable, to find the unfindable. Figure out exactly what we are missing,” the old creature said firmly. “Not every mission is fair nor even possible. This is one of them. Even so, try your best to do the impossible. Whatever you find, no matter how insignificant it may seem, report it directly to me.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And, lieutenant,” the old officer said as he laid an appendage on his shoulder, “I’ve authorized the armory to issue arms to all personnel. Go and select something that you are comfortable with.”

“Sir!”

The weary old colonel moved towards the exit.

“Oh, and Arraval,” he said as he paused at the door, “If there is anything personal you need to do, anything unsaid that needs to be said, do it now.”

The lieutenant just nodded as the colonel disappeared into the hallway.

Arraval just sat there looking at his screens for a moment. Then, he leapt to his feet and rushed out of the room.

***

Jessica Morgan, holding a cup of tea, walked into a room full of video screens and took her seat in her command chair.

On the monitors were dozens of grizzled old villainous faces.

“Good afternoon,” Jessica said as she smiled at them. “Firstly, I would like to congratulate all of you. The efforts undertaken by you all can only be described as a logistic masterpiece! The volumes of ships, weapons, supplies, and people that you have coordinated is simply awe-inspiring.”

She grinned as she sipped her tea.

“And to do all of it right under the noses of the Federation! This is something that we could never have done during the wars! It seems that all of those years you have spent as ‘legitimate businessmen’ haven’t been entirely a waste.”

She smiled as the room filled with transmitted laughter.

“We are first on the battlefield and our foe is completely unaware,” she smiled. “The plan of battle has been transmitted to all of you. Are there any questions?”

She smiled patiently as sipped her tea and spent entirely too many minutes clarifying what should be obvious and addressing a host of minutiae that people really should be able to figure out for themselves.

Then again, such things were her job now.

“Now that’s all settled,” she said after everyone was satisfied. “I want to make a few things very clear.”

She set down her cup and leaned forward.

“Our fight is with the Federation, not innocent bystanders. Keep it clean! We are going to try to legitimize our fight in the eyes of not only the Republic and the Empire but in the eyes of the people of the Federation as well! We cannot do that if the news has us running around with pieces of xeno hanging out of our mouths… I’m looking at you, Gwen!”

“You were plenty happy with us the other day, bitch!” an old silver-haired fiend snarled back.

“Yes, a single, calculated atrocity,” Jessica replied, “and it worked wonderfully. We triggered the proclamation of martial law exactly when we wanted it to be declared and we have caused an expeditionary force, just loaded with weapons and supplies, to be deployed exactly when and where we wanted it to go… Your great-granddaughter is adorable by the way.”

Gwen Shay beamed proudly.

“Isn’t she a firecracker?” she asked happily. “She took the mark like a champ, wanted it done the old way too!”

“That’s wonderful!” Jessica smiled back. “I tell you, Gwen, it was like looking back in time. She looks just like you. Hard to believe you were ever that pretty!”

More laughter, including Gwen’s, filled the room.

“Back on subject,” Jessica said firmly. “The main reason I was singling-out Gwen here was that they are in the Zaran system. Both on Zaran and everywhere the Pol-Ka are absolutely off limits! I fucking mean it! They have been very good friends of humanity since day one! They still are! They have been helping and sheltering us even to the point of squaring off against the fucking Feds themselves. As far as I’m concerned, the Pol-Ka are human! Make sure your people know this and if any of you see any of the unaffiliated starting shit you shut that down. Kill them. We don’t have time to waste on people that would do something like that. If any of you feel the need to pick up some 'snacks', then that’s where you grab them from.”

She recovered her tea.

“We’ve all been in business long enough to recognize the importance of public relations. War is just another business. We need to cultivate and maintain our ‘brand’. Are we deadly? Yes. Are we savage? Yes. Are we capricious? Sure,” she said with a smile.

“But are we monsters?” she asked, “The answer is no. No, we are not fiends, we are not monsters, we are simply people who will do whatever they must in order to survive. We are people who were attacked first. The Federation harnessed a fucking bio-weapon in order to try to make us extinct out of hatred and greed. We just decided to not take that lying down.”

She paused and drained her teacup.

“That, is the brand! That is the image we want to present to the galaxy! We are warriors, desperate and vicious, who have been forced to fight and will fight anyone who seeks our destruction and will do anything to seize an advantage but we are not monsters.”

She leaned back with a smug smile.

“Even the Mother Void loves an underdog,” she said, “but everyone knows what you do with a sick, rabid beast. We want to be that underdog, not that beast. It’s simple branding.”

She paused and then grinned wickedly.

“Now, I’m not telling you all to suddenly turn into good little boys and girls,” she chuckled. “I’m just telling you to keep it away from the cameras. There is plenty of room in Mother’s embrace for you to do whatever you fucking want but just keep it out in the void. We don’t need one of your barbecues showing up on the fucking news. In fact, I would greatly prefer it if you skipped the barbecues altogether. This isn’t the old days. We should have plenty of supplies available. If any of you want ‘dietary supplements’ just buy some fucking vitamins, please.”

She tapped a key on the old fashioned keyboard in front of her.

“I am now sending you a little list that we have made,” she smiled. “It’s a list of friends, enemies, and the unclassified. We want to start respecting our friends and punishing our enemies immediately. For example, the Pol-Ka are not to be harmed… the Vulxeen, however...”

Wicked chuckles broke out.

“In fact, if you do want a barbecue-”

“Nah,” Gwen called out. “They taste like pencil erasers!”

“… Good to know, I guess,” Jessica laughed. “Any other questions or concerns?”

Everybody either shrugged or shook their heads.

“Excellent!” Jessica exclaimed. “I look forward to watching your exploits tomorrow!”