An HFY Tale: Drop Pod Green

Aum-La looked up from her mug of coffee as a knock came at her room door, her data-tablet in her other hand with page one hundred and seven of "To Love The Fire" on its screen.

"Miss La?" A muffled voice called out through the door. "It's Tyllia? Tyllia Rhidi."

Aum-La looked around in a panic; She was wearing only her underwear, having been preparing to take a shower when she was done with her chapter.

"Shit!" She spat out, quickly setting down her mug of coffee and sprinting towards her closet, throwing her data-slate against her large couch.

"Miss La?" Tyllia called out, knocking once again on the door. "Are you in there? The little robot said it dropped off a coffee like, ten minutes ago."

"Shit shit shit shit." Aum-La fussed as she pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, wrestling herselves into place while trudging towards the door.

She hit the door release and it opened up, swinging outwards enough for Miss La to poke her head around and see Tyllia.

"Tyllia!" Aum-La nearly shouted, her free hand still tugging on her sweat pants and trying to get the tail-band into place. "What are you doing here? We have class tomorrow."

Now that she got a good look at the yellow Kafya, she looked quite distraught, and had obviously been crying.

Aum-La opened her door a little more, now concerned. "Are you okay, Tyllia? Did something happen?"

"I c-can't find my s-sister!" Tyllia stammered out, her eyes already threatening to spill forth tears once again.

Perfect. Aum-La thought to herself, pleased, as she opened the door fully and ushered the Kafya inside. "Well hold on now, there haven't been any deaths reported. It may just be a clerical error. Here, have a seat."

Tyllia sniffed and padded her way inside, apparently having gone barefoot around the station. She sat down on the couch as Aum-La came around the other side, sitting down heavily on the already indented cushion.

Tyllia sniffed again, then tilted her head as she spied Aum-La's data-slate. "What's… to love the-"

"Nothing!" Aum-La snapped, slapping the data-slate towards her bed.

Both the women watched the data-slate cartwheel across the thick comforters and thud against the opposite wall, thumping down onto the thick carpet.

Tyllia's ears were fully perked in alarm now, her lilac eyes wide as she slowly traversed her eyes to the large female Skalathir beside her. Aum-La cleared her throat, then took a more teachery pose from beside the Kafya.

"You said you were having problems finding your sister?" Aum-La asked, trying to recover her usual voice despite the panic still gripping her.

Tyllia nodded, holding up her newer data-slate. "Yeah, see? It says she can't be found."

Aum-La had to pretend to not understand why Rhidi's name was not there; She knew why the Kafya wasn't there, but she had to play her part. Aum-La hummed and tapped at her nose as she thought, then held out her hand for Tyllia's data-slate.

Tyllia handed it over, then scootched a little closer to Aum-La as the larger woman started tapping at the screen.

"I have to wonder if she… I mean she surely didn't." Aum-La said, still trying to engage the role of the equally confused non-Human.

Tyllia took the bait like a starving fish, placing her hands on the larger woman's forearm. "Surely didn't what?!"

"Well…" Aum-La said, masking her pleased smile into a pained grimace. "She is serving the Humans now-"

Tyllia tapped her pawed palms against Aum-La's forearm. "Miss La, that isn't true at all! She's just learning how they soldier, mama told me so!"

"... You call her mama?" Aum-La asked, distracted by the common phrase that was apparently shared between Humans and Kafya.

Tyllia nodded. "Carma, you know… mama?"

"... Sure." Aum-La replied, and returned to the previous question. "I'm not sure what your mother has told you, but I am fairly certain Rhidi took up a chain of duty during a ceremony, it was pretty big news all over their planet."

Tyllia now looked a little panicked, gripping at Aum-Las arm. "No! No that… that can't be right! The Elder Councils assured us that all the Kafya would come home very soon!"

"No, Tyllia, I'm afraid that is not the case at all." Aum-La mused, then entered in the identification pre-letter that Rhidi gained after she submitted genetic material. "Ah, see, she gave her ovum to the Humans for safekeeping in their medical catacombs. Remember when we discussed those?"

Tyllia was staring at the data-slate with eyes so wide, Aum-La was afraid the poor yellow Kafya was having a stroke.

"But…" Tyllia whispered, taking back her data-slate. "But you said… you said only Humans and Drafritti get to… get to use the catacombs."

Aum-La wrapped a large, blue scaled arm around Tyllia's shoulders. "Yes, but I also mentioned that Humans treat those who serve with them like Humans. If Rhidi took up a chain of duty, they now consider her Human, and she has rights to the medical catacombs."

"She's gone." Tyllia whispered again, looking up at Aum-La as fresh tears leaked down her furry cheeks. "She left on some ship like… a few days

ago."

Aum-La knew full damn well Rhidi was on The Wild Hunt, and even knew they had left on their first skip only a few hours ago. Still, she had to act as surprised as Tyllia was to the information, peering down at the data-slate.

"So soon? I thought she would have had more time off after training, must be something happening I suppose." Aum-La said, then pulled the Kafya tighter to her side. "Now don't fret too much. Whatever happens, their ships always come back here to refuel and get supplies. All you have to do is stay here on this station during your courses, and I'd be willing to bet she'll be back here in a few months."

Tyllia sniffed again while rubbing at her face, so Aum-La rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. "If you would like, I can see about you going into the staff communications suite and letting you send a message to her. We get to use the longer range communication arrays. Would you like that?"

"Yes, please." Tyllia muttered, still rubbing at her eyes. She was quiet for a few more minutes, then gave another sniff before looking up at Aum-La. "Mama is going to be so mad…"

Aum-La smiled, though there was an odd glint to her eye. "Oh hush now, I'm sure she will understand."

—

Tyllia didn't leave Aum-La's quarters until a full hour later, requiring a bit of cheering up before being sent on her way. This was mostly just Aum-La sitting beside her as they watched odd little Human recordings on her data-slate, but the Kafya finally got tired enough to sleep.

With Tyllia sent away, Aum-La could finally go and fetch her data-slate from where it landed on the carpet. She let out a tired sigh and undid her tail-band, then kicked away the sweat pants and once again found herself in her underwear. She looked down at her data-slate, then the time, and clicked her teeth in annoyance.

"Why bother. Mood is ruined anyway…"

Aum-La took off her tank top, shimmied down her underwear, then kicked them onto her sweatpants as she went into the shower. She washed away the day, applied all her scale lotions, then thumped grumpily into bed, not bothering to put on any clothes.

She thought back to the story, her eyelids heavy with sleep; The male protagonist was a blacksmith. She knew Humans worked with metal, but this was an "old" style of blacksmithing that mimicked her own, pounding steel with hammer against anvil to shape it.

Aum-La closed her eyes, trying to imagine the sound of a foreign anvil ringing, and how it would sound against her own… then opened them again as her alarm went off.

"Come on…" Aum-La groaned, growling as she slapped her hand around the pile of blankets that her data-slate was resting within. "It's not fair anymore…"

Aum-La had not had a proper dream in a long, long time. These nights of closing her eyes and then waking the next moment were draining on her mind, as well as waking up curled around her pillows or extra blankets.

She groaned as she finally found her data-slate, turned off the alarm, then rose up onto her hands and knees. She wobbled back and forth in her exhausted, pre-waking up state, then slugged back down onto her blankets with a whining groan.

It took a bit more effort, but after an hour of laying on the blankets and ruminating over her students, Aum-La found the will to rise once again. She didn't feel like dressing up much for this class, instead slipping on a pair of printless underwear, a pair of functional joggers with plenty of pockets, and a long-sleeve thermal shirt.

Before she had arrived at the door, the multi-wheeled delivery drone was already waiting for her with the order she placed back in her quarters.

"Wooow." It said, turning around fully to look at Aum-La. "You look like shit! You know you need sleep, right?"

Aum-La glared down at the delivery drone, grumbling in her throat before 'tsking' her teeth again. "Very acute of you. You got my coffees?"

"Yes, yes, all three of them." The delivery drone sighed out, opening its warming bay. "Either you need to go to bed earlier, or stop reading so much."

Aum-La narrowed her eyes while reaching down to take one of the cups. "How do you know I read?"

"Are you kidding me?" The delivery drone replied, handing her the second coffee. "Single Skalathir woman on a space station full of Human men, who doesn't interact with them, and is constantly chewing through bandwidth on her data-slate? We all know you're reading. Only question is what…"

Aum-La scowled at the delivery drone as she took her third coffee, then glowered at her door. "Mind your own business."

"I will if you get some sleep!" The delivery drone shouted with a jab of its delivery arm. "Put down the books and pick up a pillow, woman!"

"Buzz off." Aum-La muttered as she opened her door and stepped through.

The delivery drone let out a digital raspberry, then sped down the hallway with a whine of its motor and rubber wheels.

Aum-La sank down into her chair, drained the first coffee in one long go, then tossed the cup into a slot on her desk. The trash chute was partially vacuum powered, sucking down the cup to be recycled.

"What should we talk about this time…" Aum-La sighed out to noone, pulling up her data-slate and scrolling through her lesson plans. She scrolled for a little while, passing all the usual topics until she came to one in particular. "Ah… mastery of the macabre. This should be a good one."

Aum-La began loading all the videos and pictures onto the Qua-quid display, and had just finished up the last of the uploads when her students began to arrive. Tyllia still seemed a bit glum around the eyes, but Aum-La couldn't help but notice a subtle interaction between her and a blue Kafya.

A male blue Kafya, seeing Tyllia obviously upset, had reached into the pocket of his brand new sweatpants and pulled out a small handkerchief. He offered it to Tyllia…

… But Tyllia shrank away from him, giving the blue Kafya a look as if he was insane to even offer it to her. The male blue Kafya seemed to shrink in on himself, scurrying away to a seat further down the table, then pulled the hood of his hoodie over his head. Aum-La raised a scaled brow ridge as the blue Kafya pulled the drawstrings tight, sucking the hood around his face in embarrassment while Tyllia seemed to pretend the blue Kafya did not exist.

"... Wow. Alright." Aum-La chuckled to herself. "Room to improve then…"

When all the students were seated, Aum-La approached the room with her favorite opener.

"So." Aum-La said, gesturing with her hands to the students before her. "Who here has played with a dead body?"

A female Pwah in the front of the class looked aghast, her eyes wide with fear. "Huh?! P… Played with a dead body?!"

All a part of the plan, the other students laughed nervously or from the absurdity of the question. There was some light chatter, but it quieted down when Aum-La raised her right hand a few inches.

"Yes." Aum-La mused, slowly stepping across her little half circle of stage. "Playing with the bodies of the dead. Today we are going to go over the macabre nature of Humanity, their dual fascination with both life, and death."

The room's mirth dried up like a desert sun hitting a puddle, though the Drafritti leaned back in their chairs, waiting for the others to learn what they already knew.

"We discussed how Humans will go above and beyond the call of preserving life, whether that is escorting a spider out of their domicile, or hunting around a cleared planet for any surviving life." Aum-La began, turning on her Qua-quid screen to display a picture of a female Human dressed in gothic attire. "Now we shall discuss their fascination with death."

The classroom was dead quiet now, and Aum-La smirked to herself as she pulled up an image of ancient Human art pieces.

"Humans, for as long as any of us can figure, have been obsessed with death. They gave death a name, calling it The Pale Death, the Grim Reaper, and the Lead Valkyrie." Aum-La intoned, pointing to the figures on the display; A pale, sickly man riding a white horse was staring forlornly at a dying tree, a skeleton in a black robe holding a scythe stared gazelessly at the students, while a woman with wings and adorned with broken armor gripped two fallen warriors by their plate carriers. "We have no name for death, we simply know it as dying. Not even we Skalathir or the poetic Pwah ever bothered to personify death, let alone give it any more attention than the process of life ending. Even now there are those in the IDC that still argue about the existence of souls, an argument that will likely continue until all of our bones have turned to stone."

The Qua-quid screen began cycling through more art as Aum-La continued to speak.

"Humans may respect life, but they are fascinated by death. This fascination can even edge into contempt, with some Humans becoming so bathed in death that they begin to look at it with humor, or with such disregard that they can ignore even the most horrifying things around them." Aum-La said, pulling up images of the Pactless war by tapping her fingers on the thumbpad of the same hand. Pictures of Humans spelling out warnings to the Pactless with the dead bodies of their kind came forth, as well as Pactless who were butchered in rites such as the blood eagle, or crucified upside down. "No one is really sure why Humans can do such things, actions that would turn the stomach of nearly every race known to the IDC and our slice of this galaxy, but many believe it begins in their casual acceptance and personification of death."

More images came on screen, displays of skulls, bones, museum pieces, religious artifacts, and even mundane things such as Humans hanging the skulls of their hunted animals on the wall, or decorating shelves with the skulls of bovines. The pictures slowly slid along to show many festivals that were occupied with death; Samhain, Totensonntag, Día de Muertos, Halloween, and Obon. Catacombs filled to the brim with bones of the dead, religious icons adorned in gold and posed in positions of prayer, and even the reliquaries that contained the bodies of the "incorruptible".

"Even now, at the current time, Humans are still fascinated by death. If you were to go down, right now, and visit a Human military graveyard, you would hear the horns of easing in the air, the smell of incense burning, and the sound of the wind cutting through their grave groves. If you were to enter a Human armory, you will find artifacts from the dead, taken and put on display; Torn and destroyed armor, helmets dented by the final blow to their bearer, all are put on display and remembered. Those of the Ashen Templar order pray with beads made of bone, followers of the Odinic Shieldwall paint black bars across their eyes with the ash of yew trees before they go into battle, and Buudhists paint their faces white before they engage in the aspects of war, mimicking the skull that lays underneath their flesh." Aum-La said, lacing her fingers together near her chest. "This all may seem romantic to some of you, but this is merely a single facet of Humans. On the other side of this morbid coin is the Human fascination with active death, such as killing. For hundreds of years, Humans have told stories of killers, monsters, cravens in the night that stalked and murdered through the trees. Theatre productions have actors portraying themselves being murdered, killed, or committing suicide."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Aum-La always enjoyed this part, tapping along the palm of her hand with her fingers; Across the screen loomed Jason, the hockey-masked killer of fiction, stalking after a pair of oddly under-dressed female Humans. She let the entire video play, pausing only after the students began to scream as Jason butchered the two women with his machete.

"Scary, isn't it?" Aum-La asked, smiling to herself as she looked around at the horrified faces of her students.

The Drafritti weren't nearly as scared, however, as they had seen their fair share of slasher flicks.

A Kojynn female stood, holding out her four hands towards the screen. "How could they allow that?! He killed them both! Where… where are the security forces? The lawmen?!"

"Are these kinds of Humans down there?!" A male Pwah shouted as he, too, stood. "How can we even be safe on this station with monsters like that running around?!"

Aum-La giggled to herself, which unnerved every student in the room besides the Drafritti.

"It is fake." Aum-La said as she let out a gleeful laugh, tapping along her palm again to pull up a recording of them putting the actor in makeup. "This entire scene? Recorded on digital media with a mixture of practical and digital effects."

The female Kojynn sat down in shock, thumping down into her chair with a skittering of the legs, while the male Pwah still stood.

"This… this is a theatrical… villain?" He asked, staring wide eyed at Jason's actor swinging his fake machete.

Aum-La nodded. "Kind of takes the cake away from the Pwah drama houses, doesn't it?"

"It's… it is grotesque!" The Pwah shouted.

Aum-La laughed again, setting the videos to slowly cycle. "It is what Humans see as scary. Twenty Eight Days Later, Nosferatu, Silence Of The Lambs, Jaws, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Event Horizon, The Shining, The Fly, Humans have been normalizing themselves to any and all threats that may present themselves. It takes a lot to scare a Human, especially ones born after the war against the Pactless. They've lived or watched horrors that we could only dream of, and it was their unflappable edge on death that allowed them to secure our victory against the Ur."

Aum-La pulled up one movie in particular, playing a scene where a massive metal, robotic foot crushes a Human skull. The focus then travels up to the leg to show a robotic Humanoid holding a large rifle, looking about a battlefield as explosions plume in the background.

The effect was instant amongst her students; Confusion, horror, as well as many furrowed brows that instantly made the connection.

The Drafritti were instead talking in their silent language about which Terminator was the best, with many agreeing that Aum-La had chosen wisely.

More pulse rifle fire filled the room through the sound emitters of the screen, a great metal machine trundling forward as Humans ran towards the threat, firing away with their own pulse rifles and other such weapons. Humans screamed and died, flying machines rained hell down from above, while other Humans fired rockets from ramshackle vehicles.

The machines advanced in their gleaming metal bodies, while Humanity fought all the while.

"To some of you, this may look quite familiar!" Aum-La called out with a smile, gesturing at the Qua-quid screen with a sway of her tail. "But what if I told you this recording, or 'flick' as the Humans call them, was produced and released before the Pactless ever invaded their planet? Made before we ever found them and asked them to join us in the war against the Ur? What if I told you that they had not one, or two, but dozens of different flicks made about beings from beyond their skies invading their planet?"

A Lilgarn female slowly held up her hand, then nodded her head when Aum-La pointed to her. "Are… are Humansss… seersss?

"Not from what we can tell, no." Aum-La replied. "They are just extremely forward thinking. So, what do you get when you find a race of the Stars that has not only been desensitising itself to gore, trauma, and the horrors of war, coming off the backend of an alien invasion, and instilled with hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, of fascination with life and death?"

Very slowly, a male Lilgaran hand rose into the air.

"Yes?" Aum-La asked, pointing to the hand.

The Lilgara tried to not flare his hood out of fear, and swallowed thickly before uttering a single word.

"... Monstersss?" He said, more in question than statement.

Aum-La grinned, her teeth gleaming from the glow of the Qua-quid screen. "Perhaps. Does anyone know the direct quote from the UAA General of the Army when he was shown recordings of the Ur?"

A white female Kafya silently whispered "Oh!" before raising her hand, sitting by herself on the opposite side of the classroom, away from the other Kafya.

"Yes, Lirya?" Aum-La called out, pointing to the isolated Kafya; She still had no idea why the others would not sit near her, as she was currently surrounded by Pwah and Lilgara.

"He um…" Lirya said, faltering for a moment before casting a worried side glance at the other Kafya on the other side of the classroom. "He said 'Oh, we've seen this one before'! I never really understood what he meant, and thought he was talking about the Pactless… but I guess he meant these flicks!"

Aum-La smiled at her, then side-eyed the other Kafya as she replied. "Very good Lirya. Yes, they took to the war with humor. Many soldiers even made fun of the oncoming battles against the Ur and named their Brigades after characters from the movie series. While we went into combat shaken, the Humans were unshakeable. The Ur had gained considerable advantages over our forces by exploiting our fear of death. The Humans, already so unafraid of death from their own cultures, provided a mental shock to the Ur that allowed us all to recover and assist them in the war. Now let's dive a little further into their death festivals, starting with Halloween-"

"Do they kill each other on that holiday, or make sacrifices?!" A rather excitable male Pwah called out, leaning forward in his chair.

Aum-La turned around, eyebrow ridges raised. "Hmm? Oh, no, they get dressed up in costumes and hand out candy to children."

"... What?!" The Pwah shouted, the excitement on his face turning to outrage as the Drafritti all quietly laughed at him. "Candy?!"

Aum-La nodded, pulling up the pictures of Human and Drafritti children running around a street packed with other revelers. "Mhm. They conduct hit and run operations known as 'trick or treating' in order to gain candy and other such treats. They also carve pumpkins, create haunted houses, and have all a manner of activities."

"Oh, I like the pumpkins!" Tyllia said in a hushed yell to another nearby yellow Kafya, which made Aum-La snort.

"Alright, let's start with the beginnings of Halloween, which actually stem from Samhain, where they would leave out food for the dead, and other such things to honor their ancestors." Aum-La began, already tapping along on the pad of her thumb.

—

Rhidi leaned to the side as her ship came out of their last skip, slowing down to its normal speed as it hurtled through the void of space.

She looked down at her data-slate, then tapped the circle to stop the timer. She did some mental math then whistled, hooking in the last cable to her data-display. "Must be in a rush now, we were skipping for well over six hours. Hope that big bastard next to us can handle it."

They had been slip-skipping alongside the Moose, with the other ships all staying locked in certain positions. Slip-skipping was common for fleet movements, with the large ship causing the rip and then everyone else slamming into it at the same time. Rips only stay open for a minute or two, so a wide rip is made so all ships can hit it at once.

"Skip complete." Came a voice over the ship comms, the sounds of a busy bridge just audible behind it. "We are ahead of schedule with a two day cool down. Fastest skip was five hundred and three leesoo."

Rhidi snorted to herself, chuckling in her throat as she brought the display online. "Leesoo, they are so silly."

Leesoo was a verbalization of the LYSU, or "light year speed units". The Inner Dolcir Coalition had tried plenty of times to get the Humans to adopt the shared "skip travel acceleration measurements", but apparently STAM was not as fun to say as LYSU.

Rhidi squinted her eyes at the display as it warmed to life, coming into crystal clarity as power surged through it.

"Alriiight!" Rhidi called out, rapidly clapping the tips of her pawed hands together as she leaned forward. "Now I can get caught up on Band Of Brothers!"

Rhidi picked up her smaller data-slate and sent a message to 'the girls' group communication, then started pulling out her bags of snacks. She had gotten the little idea while they had been skipping, timing the rattling and bouncing of the ship to quickly run back out to the PX for a few more snacks.

There was a knock at her door, and she leaned back with her foot to press the release. Saffi quickly jerked open the door, pillow in hand, before Rhidi could recover, finding the yellow Kafya fully stretched out while holding two bags of snacks.

"... Doin a little yogurt there?" Saffi asked with a teasing smile, sliding in and shutting the door behind her.

Rhidi puffed out a single breath of a laugh and came back to center, shaking the bags in her hands. "No, I was just… wait, yogurt?"

"Yeah, you know, yogurt. The weird poses the Humans do." Saffi said over her shoulder, bending over at the waist to admire the large data-display. "Wow, this thing is huge! I could only afford one of the little ones."

Rhidi politely pushed Saffi's wagging green tail out of the way, rolling her eyes as she started setting out the snacks. "Yoga, Saffi. That's called yoga, not yogurt."

"Ah potato tomato." Saffi said, flapping her hand behind her back. "Do you think we should start all the way over? I really want to watch 'crossroads' again, but Uppil keeps wanting to watch ahead!"

Rhidi peeled open a can of bean dip, setting it down beside a bag of chips. "No Saffi, we have to watch them in order first, then we can skip around and watch the good scenes."

"Man! I don't like the snow scenes." Saffi grumped, tossing her pillow on the ground before sitting on it, crossing her arms across her chest. "It's just snow, explosions, and more snow!"

A knock came at the door again, and Saffi reached up, unlocking it so Uppil, Dimili, Enflia, Imridit, Anfilid, and Marides could come inside.

"Oooh, look at the big spender with the wide display!" Marides said, also bending over at the waist with the rest of the newly arrived. "Man, you can even see their pores on this display."

Anfilid giggled. "Spiers looks like even more of a snack now."

"Don't be weird, Anfilid." Uppil sighed out as she rolled her eyes. "Besides, everyone knows Shifty is the cutest trooper in the movie."

Dimili laughed, helping Rhidi open up more of the snacks. "She has you there, Anfilid."

"No she doesn't." Anfilid muttered, snatching up a bag of tortilla chips.

Another knock came at the door, and Oin soon joined them all carrying her own bag and pillow. "I brought more stuff to eat, since we're going to be suffering all of tomorrow. That 'dropper-meal' was a joke."

"I thought it was rather nice, myself." Anfilid replied, fluffing up her sitting pillow.

Imridit cracked her toes from her perch on Rhidi's bed. "Surprise of surprises, Anfilid likes peanut butter."

"Peanut butter sandwiches and a litre of milk, the fucking audacity…" Oin grumbled, fishing for her salmon fillet that was at the bottom of the bag. "They better have better stuff next time, or I am going to riot."

Marides laid back on her pillow, resting her shoulders against the enclosure for Rhidi's bed. "I assume they will, the whole menu is on the ship's data-layout. Said tomorrow was paprika beef and bread."

"Thank fuck for that." Oin replied, snuggling down onto her own pillow. "We finished 'crossroads', right?"

Rhidi nodded, setting out everything within arms reach of her guests; She may have been Kholihl, but she was also the host for tonight. "We'll be watching all the way to 'the breaking point' tonight, since we need to sleep."

"Yes mama." Dimili muttered as Rhidi turned on the movie, the yellow Kafya cocking an eyebrow at the brown while everyone else tittered in quiet laughter.

"Keep talking like that and you'll be going to bed hungry." Rhidi said in a sideways manner, pressing play on her data-slate.

There was another "Yes mama" whispered by someone which caused more laughter, but they quickly settled down as the episode began to play.

Slowly the episode began to find its legs, going into the process that Easy Company had to endure while holding their lines within Bastogne. As the shelling began, startling the members of Easy Company, Imridit swallowed her mouthful of cheese whiz and crackers in order to speak.

"Is that how it really was? Just having to sit there and take artillery coming in? Is it the same way for the Regs?" Imridit asked, watching with wide eyes as American soldiers dove for their foxholes.

Oin shrugged. "The second world war was a harsh theater, but this is how it really was. They would just shell the shit out of each other for days on end before attempting a push. Ruined their sleep, kept them on edge, all while they froze in the cold."

"Seems like such a rough way to wage war…" Marides murmured, popping another gummy shark into her mouth. "Just sitting there, waiting."

Uppil started peeling her orange, squinting at the display as those on screen screamed and suffered. "No one waged war like the Humans. They are patient, and the Human Regs honestly scare me more than the Human HOIs. They are fast, violent, and dig in like feral animals when they need to. Not even the Ur could dig out a Human, no matter how hard they tried."

"They tried all they could, but it didn't really get them far." Anfilid said, her voice distant. "When we were being overrun, Human Regs came down in ships, piling out around us and deploying combat dozers. They had a line dug in a matter of hours and stabilized us all. The Ur started shelling us, a lot like this, but the Humans held firm while we all cowered in the shadows of their trenches. I had never seen someone stand proud and laugh through an artillery strike… it was like they thought the Ur were playing."

Rhidi tossed a bean dip covered chip into her mouth, gazing idly at the screen. The episode progressed into the actual first proper attack onto Easy Company's positions, German vehicles roaring through the forest as they advanced.

The Kafya and Pwah watched quietly, a room of veterans that had seen first hand what it was like to fight alongside Humans. Despite the chaos, spilled coffee across trousers, and machine gun fire, the Humans held and fought each other, each force refusing to yield. They didn't say another word all the way up until Captain Winters relieved Lieutenant Dike, sending in Lieutenant Speirs to replace him.

"Even their most incompetent officers make ours look like clowns." Dimili muttered, bringing a soda bottle to her lips before pulling it away with a light 'ploog' of a suction. "I remember the stupid cocksuckers they had commanding us during the early moments of the war…"

Rhidi let out a choking laugh, then burst into wet giggles as she turned to Dimili. "Cocksuckers?! Such language!"

"Still fits." Dimili said glumly. "Trying to crack Ur body armor and shields with our gaur-rail carbines… what a fucking joke it was. I lost count of the number of times my rounds ricocheted off those damn shields…"

Anfilid sniffed in memory, then exhaled out slowly as she kept watching the screen while speaking. "They refused to admit they were not effective on target. Just demanded us to keep firing and wear our targets down. I remember the first time I saw a Human rifle tear an Ur apart… made it all look so easy, while we were dying by the hundreds of thousands in the beginning. Lead, encased in steel with a penetrator, propelled by powder. Made us all look like morons."

"Those cyborged birds decimated us in close combat as well. They knew all our secrets, all our weaknesses, and exploited us like a resource, feeding us into their machines to process into their own sustenance. For months we couldn't even recover the bodies of the dead, knowing they would end up as food slurry…" Uppil said, her voice trailing off as she, too, watched the screen.

Imridit, knees pulled to her chest, was resting her chin on the top of her knees. "We got so few wounded back, let alone the dead. I personally asked a Human commander to get our wounded back more, or at least secure their bodies so we could take them back to their homes, to their families. I can still remember his smile when he said 'We'll take care of it', then started asking me what information I knew. I told him about the slurry tanks, how the Ur recycled us… the fury in his eyes… I can still see those angry amber eyes when I sleep, sometimes."

"I remember the days after that." Rhidi said this time. All eyes drifted to her, and while the rest of the Kafya and Pwah in the room were line infantry, she had been a far more advanced wing of their special forces. "I was still fighting tooth and nail to get into some kind of unit while watching the recordings. Humans sprinting across torn ground to pick up and carry a wounded Kafya, or Pwah. I had never seen a race fight so hard over dead bodies, fighting tooth and nail against the Ur in melee as they sought their food source. Did you all see the Shamcil Outpost recording?"

Oin laughed bitterly. "Seen? I was the one who recorded it. I was there when Human drop troopers rained down from the sky in their landing ships, firing from the doors as they landed in order to keep us alive. The base had started with over ten thousand Kafya and Pwah, but we had been ground down to just under three thousand by the time the Humans arrived. The Ur had us hemmed up in the inner fortifications while they gathered our fallen into convenient mounds for processing. The Humans fought on the mounds of dead, taking the Ur to melee in order to secure our fallen, to keep them from becoming food slurry. They added their fallen to the mounds but refused to give ground, then surged forward when they had regained control of the base."

"They ran the Ur all the way back to their main base." Anfilid said quietly, sniffing. "A few of my friends had survived that battle and were running along with the Humans. Their pace was so fast and frantic that not even we Kafya could keep up. The Humans ran them all down, like animals, hunting and hounding them through the day and night. I don't think they were aware that the Ur forces were turning the dead into food, but once that little secret was out of the bag, the Humans didn't just kill the Ur… they…"

Rhidi reached over, scritching her fingers between the brown Kafya's ears in order to calm her. "They made them pay, yeah. Cooked them alive with flamethrowers and incendiary bombardments from their bombers. They could have shelled them to death with their artillery, but they wanted the Ur to burn, to pay for what they had done to the 'honorable fallen'. Using us for their slurries just may have been the worst mistake they had ever made."

"The Humans did the same for us, in the same kind of way." Marides said, setting down her bottle of RC cola. "One of our kings had fallen during the ending stages of the war, leading from the front while many others led from behind. The Humans had given him the nickname 'Ankle Biter' because of how vicious he was with the proper weapons, and loved him dearly. We had all been on the advance when an Ur skid round had cut through his neck, right in the gap of his armor. When he fell, and the Humans knew how hungry the Ur were, they came in their wheeled vehicles, roaring across the ground with their growling engines."

Oin smiled to herself, leaning back against Rhidi's bed nook. "For Ankle Biter and the Dying Court."

Marides smiled at the screen. "Yes, that is what they bellowed when they arrived. The Ur were so hungry that they were advancing just to try and knab our fall bodies, or drag away the still bleeding wounded. Humans wouldn't let them. I still remember a female Human medic still trying to bring Ankle Biter back to life, pumping on his chest as four riflemen crouched around his body, refusing to retreat even as the Ur got close enough to swing their blades at them. There is a great statue of that medic kneeling beside Ankle Biter in the grand courtyard of the Dying Court, while those riflemen bleed from their wounds. I got to see it once, it's quite moving…"

The tempo of the episode picked up as the battle peaked, the room filled with the scattered reports of submachine guns, rifles, and explosions. They all watched quietly, eating their snacks, drinking their drinks, until the episode wound down into the next.

Rhidi watched on with the others as the war seemed to be winding down, one last patrol before going back. Jackson, a young Human warrior was killed by his own grenade, over eager to enter the building and take prisoners. They were all quiet as he died, knowing the character and all he had done, the tragedy of dying by your own hand not lost on them.

The rest of the episode was more demure, the music somber as it showed Easy Company and the Humans that survived their trials… leaving their active war. They gained commissions, scooped up rations, or just hopped up into a vehicle, leaving the war torn front for time away.

"Reminds me of the war." Rhidi said with a sad smile. "All the noise, all the chaos… and then one day, it was all over. Planets had been torn apart, entire peoples destroyed down to their histories, cities ravaged, then one day it was just quiet."

Oin nodded. "The rebuilding began, Humans gained their major seat on the stage of the stars, things repaired and were began anew."

"And now here we are, heading off to do the whole thing all over again." Enflia said with a soft laugh. "Tracing skip lines across the void in order to take rifle and blade to another creature born from dust. It really does make you wonder how the Humans can do it, you know? How they can keep grinding along, turning enemies underfoot like mud while pulling their friends up from the depths… I've never seen anything like them, really."