First Contact

Four hours had gone by at a rapid pace for Vuxten. Convincing frightened new mothers/gestators to get in the elevator, carrying child-pods to the elevator, back and forth constantly. Fear had been replaced by hope in the injured, sick, recently given birth, or recently born neo-sapients.

Twice more he had heard the scream. The neo-sapients had cried out, ducking their heads, hiding their eyes, but the humans soothed them, hurried them.

The Fido kept licking, nuzzling, letting beings rub his fur, carrying podling cradles in his mouth by the handle, moving constantly through the crowd of beings all waiting to get into the elevator.

Four hours.

Four hours of work.

Vuxten couldn't believe the apparent size of the 'Navy Medivacs', each able to carry over a hundred of the neo-sapients.

The nurses and other medical personnel went with the Medivacs. So did some of the ambulance crews.

Afterwards, Vuxten helped a new human, this one in armor with a red cresent on one side of their chest and a red cross on the other, remove supplies from an ambulance and put it in the back of the Overseer security vehicle. The new one, Veritor, had differently shaped armor that whined slightly when he moved. Sergeant and the others kept referring to Veritor as Doc.

Now he was helping injured neo-sapients out of the wreckage of a building. The humans were able to move great weights, even structural beings and huge chunks of plascrete out of the way. All of the human's armor made slight whining noises as they cleared away rubble.

The purrbois/kittykitty had turned out to be small felines that wound around beings, rubbing against them, making a purring rumble like a sleeping podling, making soothing noises and speaking in soft small words. Three were surrounding nearly twenty podlings, all them with scrapes and bruises that the kittykittys had covered with a fast-drying foam sprayed from their mouths. The podlings were no longer crying in fear and pain but instead were petting and rubbing the kittykittys, some of them even starting to giggle. The kittykitty would rub against the face and injuries of wounded beings. Their fur left behind gel rather than hair, the gel rapidly hardening into a protective layer over a wound.

The Fidos, all three of them, moved through the rubble. Vuxten had watched their fur vanish in a ripple, revealing armored chassis. At first the Fidos had massive canine heads with heavy jaws full of gleaming conical teeth.

Sergeant had ordered them to reconfigure back into search and rescue mode. The fur had reappeared and the menacing dangerous heads had been replaced by the goofy looking harmless appearing canine heads.

Vuxten marveled at the wonders even as he worked hard. A Fido would bark out and his visor would translate. The kittykitty purrbois would disappear into gaps and radio back if they found a survivor.

A purrboi had radioed "littlelittleslotslittlelittles" and when Doc had heaved a huge slab of plasticrete out of the way that must have weighed tons, it reveal a scene that made Ustor stagger away, open her face shield, and vomit on the twisted wreckage.

Nearly two dozen broodcarriers were dead, crushed by the plasticrete. Looking out from between the bodies were podlings of various ages. some barely the size of Vuxten's paw, others big enough to hold a half-dozen of the tiny ones in their arms and hold them close.

The broodcarriers had pushed the podlings under tables and put their own bodies between the walls and the podlings.

Doc had rushed over to a broodcarrier, kneeling down, his armored fingers sinking into a massive rent in her side.

"Need a stretcher here!" Doc called out.

Vuxten had been alarmed the first time he saw it. Now he knew that Doc's fingers were full of surgical tools and that he was trying to save the broodcarrier's life.

"broodmommy said be quietquiet," a podling half Vuxten's size said, tears running out of her eyes.

"You did good," Vuxten said, kneeling down and stroking the side of her head. She was an immature broodcarrier, her large eyes wide with fear. "You did real good."

Mixi and Donovan ran up, carrying a stretcher.

Vuxten helped lead the little podlings down to the Executor vehicle, urging them inside. He helped arrange them so the badly injured broodcarrier could be put inside on the stretcher. She opened her eyes and reached out to pet some of the smaller podlings, crooning to them.

"We're full!" Laker yelled. The doors closed.

"Everyone on, we're got an evac point," Sergeant called out.

Vuxten watched, from next to the heavy laser cannon, as the vehicle's fans fired up then lifted the vehicle up. It smoothly moved, away from the collapsed building that Vuxten could see dozens of humans in armor working on.

Search and Rescue, Vuxten thought. Looking for people to help. Not neo-sapients, not by our species name, not any of the ugly words we are called, but people to the humans. In the middle of a fight to protect the planet the humans send in beings from the military who's job it is to rescue people.

It was almost frightening to Vuxten. They moved with such surety, such quickness, throwing themselves completely into a job, holding nothing back, charging into danger.

It seemed insane.

Vuxten resisted the urge to look up at the sky. The entire sky was covered with clouds that looked as if they were burning. His armor's visor somehow edited it out, but ash and drops thick with vaporized metal were falling from the sky, covering everything with a sticky black substance.

The sun had risen while he had been helping evacuate the hospital but all it seemed to do was light the entire sky on fire.

There were rumbling explosions in the distance that vibrated the truck. Vuxten didn't look. The last time he had looked he had seen beams of light striking down from the heavens to blow a massive ship into pieces and then keep shooting the pieces.

The Executor Riot Control vehicle was starting to shudder, shake, a screaming coming from one of the fans. The screaming cut out and the vehicle seemed to get sluggish, like it was sliding on thick syrup.

"This thing's about had it," Mixi said.

"Use what we got," Sergeant snapped back, his voice tense.

"Crowd ahead," Laker said. "By the Digital Messiah..." his voice was full of horror.

"Saint Doss help us," Doc whispered.

"Two Fido's out. Left. Right," Sergeant snapped. "Combat configuration."

Vuxten watched in shock as the fur and goofy looking head melted away from the Fido, revealing a four legged heavy armored frame, that menacing looking head, and a weapon lift from a compartment in the back. It was triple-barreled and had a line of ammunition linked together by a belt going from the weapon to what looked like a puddle of liquid metal.

"Killboi Mode," they both growled, jumping off.

Vuxten wondered why they'd been put into that configuration.

Then he heard it.

A roaring, a screaming roaring wailing, like all the damned souls of an afterlife. No words, no individual voices, just one upraised howl of hatred and agony. He had never heard anything like it in his entire life, it was a noise that made his fur all try to stand on end inside his form fitting armor.

"Plotting route!" Sergeant yelled, yanking the hovercraft around a corner.

As they rounded the corner Vuxten saw them.

Overseers. Thousands, tens of thousands of them. Their clothing blood covered, ragged, torn, dirty. They blurred into one big mass of weapon waving arms, empty eye sockets or wild reddened eyes, bloody jowls, all wailing at the top of their lungs as they galloped down the street.

Vuxel saw a frightened Ikeeki lunge out of a public transit shelter, only to be grabbed by the Overseers, ripped at, suddenly dismembered, the torn and shredded body dropped to be pounded under by hooves.

He would have thrown up. Before he had been awoken by an armored human in the middle of the night, he would have been sick.

Now all he did was turn away.

He couldn't help. Nobody could.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

Some of the crowd collapsed, half of the crowd turned on each other.

The rest was still running.

The Sergeant gunned the engines, the screaming coming back as he reactivated the dying hoverfan and put on the speed.

The hovercraft howled down the empty street. Donovan suddenly jumped up, turning in midair, and landing on the top of the armored bay, bringing his rifle out from behind him and holding it in his arms.

"Many, many chasing," Donovan said, his voice eerily calm.

The vehicle started to shudder as it went faster. He saw Laker grab the laser cannon's handles, thumbing the switch to bring it back to life.

"SAR One Seven Delta to SAR Command, over," Vuxten heard on his headset. Sergeant's voice.

"This is SAR Command, over," a new voice said.

"We've got about a million rabid cows in the street. We're getting hemmed in. Have a load of civilian injured. Please advise," Sergeant said.

"Lethal force is authorized. Protect your cargo, SAR Command out," came the terse reply.

"You heard it! Load and load it! Troopers, if you cannot fire, duck down and hold on. This is going to be butchery," Sergeant said. "Troopers, keep the sides clear. Stay in the vehicle, for the love of Saint Patton."

Vuxten activated his rifle. He saw, on his visor, the word UPDATING appear. In two seconds it went away and his weapon came online. There was a small semi-transparent window in his upper right, showing his rifle was pointing at the ground, showing what the rifle saw. His targeting reticle was at the bottom of his visor.

The rifle carried a hundred and fifty rounds in the magazine he slid in, slapping the bottom of it after he locked it in.

"Omnimessiah protect us," Laker said softly, lowering the barrel. "They've gone mad."

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The scream, echoing in Vuxten's brain, was suddenly countered by another one.

THEN YOU WILL DIE ALONE!

Laker said something, lost in the twin screams, and hit the trigger on the cannon, aiming it low and in front of the hovertruck. Donovan, on top of the truck, behind firing his rifle in tight, controlled bursts.

Vuxten crouched down next to the door panel that had slid up in front of him. He leveled his rifle over the door panel, kneeling like he had been taught. He chinned a piece of gum chewing on it.

"CONTACT!" Sergeant called out.

The Fido's began firing, solid shafts of light as the bullets vanished into the bottom of the dual, side by side guns. Links and copper shells flew out from the guns as they moved back and forth in tight little arcs. The laser cannon was firing, the red light bright and eye watering.

The sounds of the weapons were lost in the wailing of the crowd.

"Captain Veritor to all units! BIO BIO BIO!" came the call. "All units, all units, BIO BIO BIO! All units, all units, BIO BIO BIO!"

Vuxten felt something shift in his armor. A needle poked into his lower back, over his liver, another one into the back of his neck, and the pain vanished before he could do much more than gasp. His ears popped and he felt like the air was rushing around his nose.

"NBCARN ONLINE" appeared on his visor. (Nuclear Biological Chemical Atomic Radiation Nanite)

The vehicle went through an intersection. The Fidos were standing in the road, their guns firing.

The Overseers were shattering, blowing into rags of flesh, ten, fifteen deep as the light from the Fido's double-barreled guns swept the screaming rampaging crowd.

It was just a single wave in a tsunami, the crowd still moving forward as if the deaths of the front ranks gave them room to run.

Vuxten leveled his rifle, pulling the trigger, shooting at a small group by the side of a building that were smashing at the plascrete.

They burst when the weapon hit them.

He swallowed thickly.

"What about our passengers, Doc?" Sergeant snapped as if he wasn't driving the hovercraft through a slurry that had once been part of a crowd.

The hovercraft was through the intersection, the Fidos running after the hovertruck, the barrels of their guns faint red and smoking. Laker stopped firing the laser cannon.

"Fidos went to positive pressure generation, purrbois are sealing," Doc snapped. "Uploading biosample genome one. Genome synching two through eight."

Donovan started firing again, shooting behind the truck.

Without the laser cannon firing the vehicle picked up speed, Sergeant cutting the fan out so the vibration eased up.

"Bay sealed!" Doc called out. "Uploading Sequence Seven!"

"Eight clicks!" Sergeant called out.

It was a hell ride for Vuxten. Three more times the humans used the laser cannon, the Fidos fired their heavy dual-barreled weapons, and Vuxten did something he'd never even considered before.

Not ever.

He squeezed the firing stud.

And Overseers popped like cheap ballouns.

"LEATHERNECK LINE COMING UP!" Sergeant yelled.

The hovertruck was pouring smoke out from under the fans. Vuxten saw his weapon go to safe mode as the truck slowed down. The Fidos were onboard, long alloy tongues hanging out as they made panting noises. The heat was coming off of them and they were whining about 'slushy' as they cooled off, ports open for heat sinks to dissipate the heat. Doc kept calling out the "genome sequence" number and calling out "upload" during the time they kept moving.

The truck moved by a group of humans walking in toward the city. These humans were massive, towering as tall as the truck in some cases, in other cases smaller and only slightly taller than the door of the hovertruck, which was still floating on an air cushion. The big ones had heavy cannons lifted up from their back, the smaller ones carrying rifles. They were all jet black, bright green eyes, moving with a purpose.

There was some friendly sounding callouts of weird words that Vuxten heard. Words like 'ground pounder' and 'army rat' and 'suck it' and 'leatherneck' and 'jar head' and 'crayon eater' with lots of friendly waves from the big black humans.

A few of them called out "Hi, Fido!" and the Fidos barked happily.

Finally the hovertruck slowed, almost coming to a stop. Massive robots, maybe humans, waved the truck through and it moved slowly, barely able to stay up on the two smoking fans, to stop next to other vehicles.

Vuxten saw wounded humans and other beings taken out of other vehicles. One human, missing both legs, the ragged bloody stumps extending past the shattered armor, was singing and as the hovertruck went by gave the staring Vuxen a gesture that consisted of a closed fist with his opposable thumb stuck straight up.

Figures in the same kind of armor as Doc ran up, opening the back. There was a roar and three of the big black heavy drop-ships lifted up off the ground. Vuxten looked around, his fellow 'troopers' were kneeling in the open crew bay, heads down, hands in their laps or on the floor, their rifles on their backs. They were all weeping.

Vuxten helped carry the podlings and other wounded in. When he was done, he sought out Sergeant.

Ustan was curled up, rocking back and forth, holding her legs tight to her chest. A human was knelt down, visor transparent, talking softly.

"Sergeant?" Vuxten asked.

"Yes, trooper Vuxten?" Sergeant asked.

"Can you take me somewhere private I can take off my helmet?" Vuxten asked softly.

"Follow me. There's a tent over there," Sergeant said.

Vuxten followed, going through the airlock, the mist pouring down him as he went through. On the other side it was empty and Sergeant stopped, loooking at Vuxten.

"Are you all right, trooper Vuxten?" Sergeant asked.

"I just need a minute. I need to do something," Vuxten said, moving up next to Sergeant.

"One second, trooper," Sergeant said. He took both of Vuxten's weapons, then his vibro-knife. "OK, go ahead. You can remove your helmet."

Vuxten removed his helmet, stood there a moment, crying silently, then threw his head back and screamed.

Sergeant knelt down and wrapped his arms around Vuxten as he screamed.

"It's OK, trooper. It's OK. Let it out. Get it all out," Sergeant said, holding Vuxten tight.

After a minute Vuxten stopped. Sergeant held him for a second, then slowly let go. Vuxten stood straight up, wiping off his eyes, then put his helmet back on.

"Are you ready, trooper?" Sergeant asked.

"Yes. I think so," Vuxten said. "My family..."

"The CSFV Mercy jumped out of system three hours ago."

Vuxten felt his knees go weak in relief.

"I am ready. There are other being's podlings still trapped in the city," he said.

"That's the spirit, trooper Vuxten," Sergeant said.

-----------------------------

CONFEDERATE SPACE FORCE VESSEL MERCY REPORT

Arrived in the Lelkenian System. All sapients and injured on board survived jump. Used Stringdrive due to necessity for speed. Will be evacuating passengers to TSF Refugee Base ONTARIO, then will be returning for more.

Multiple xenospecies have volunteered for service to help care for members of their own species. Attached is a list.

MERCY IS OUR STRENGTH

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

"Come, beloved ones, come podlings," Brentili'ik said gently, motioning to the broodcarriers. She had nearly twenty to look after, and over a hundred podlings. She had a half-dozen purrbois following her. The podlings loved the little robotic felines that used more of that amazing 'hard light' to simulate soft fur. They toddled after them, some of the older podlings carrying them.

The broodcarriers and the podlings followed Brentili'ik out of the dropship, blinking in the light of a strange sun.

The place was in a forest. Tents and shelters put up between the trees, among ferns. A few of the humans were walking around and Brentili'ik saw her first human outside of armor.

They were massively built, even the females. They moved with careful grace, looking down in the ferns.

One moved over to Brentili'ik, giving a closed lip upward curve of the mouth that was the human equivalent of a smile, just like Brentili'ik.

It made her feel better.

"Welcome to Are-Bee ONTARIO," she checked her list. "Brentili'ik, is it? Did I say that right?"

"Better than the Overseers," Brentili'ik said. She made an encompassing gesture. "These are the broodcarriers and podlings I have been asked to care for," she looked around. "Is this forest real?"

The human nodded, another similarity to her people that Brentili'ik appreciated.

"Yes. It was chosen for your people. Right now, we have to divide all of you up by species, to ensure you get the correct medical care, food, and supplies," the female held out her hand. Brentili'ik took it gently, rubbing her palm-pads against the human's thickly callused hand. "I am Major Weskill, I will be your liaison and primary medical provider."

"I thank you," Brentili'ik said. "The podlings and the broodcarriers are tired."

"We have tents set up to simulate burrows for them. We have set up soft plasticloth fences to keep the podlings from wandering off," the human, Major, said. She looked down at Brentili'ik. "I am happy you have chosen to serve your people."

Brentili'ik sighed. From one set of Overseers to another.

The next words made her look up in confusion.

"You are brave to volunteer for citizenship now. Your people will depend on you and your leadership. I will look to you for guidance on how to help them," Major said.

"Me? Lead?" Brentili'ik asked.

The human nodded. "Citizenship carries a heavy burden. I am thankful you have agreed to shoulder it. Your people, your broodcarriers, your males and females, your podlings, need someone to speak for them, to tell us what you need. They need you to act as a leader, to help us help you."

Brentili'ik's head swam and her knees buckled. The human quickly knelt, steadying Brentili'ik with her strong hands.

"Just all caught up to you?" Major asked.

Brentili'ik nodded.

"I understand. I am here if you need me," Major looked at a podling standing next to tree, a kittykitty held in her arms, a bandage over a missing eye, a smile on her face as the kittykitty purred. "We need to get up. They need us."

Brentili'ik nodded, straightening up herself.

"I am pleased to be of help," she said, staring at the podling.

The podling, who had lost an ear and an eye to a maddened Overseer, shyly waved, her other arm holding the limp but purring kittykitty.