Memory Transcription Subject: Benwen, Nevok Intern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

  “Hating your family? Nah, that’s…” For the first time since I’d met the old man, Tippen looked concerned. “That's no healthy way to go through life, kit.”

  I glowered into the campfire. “But that's just it, Tippen. It was my life,” I said bitterly. “I only get the one, and I had to spend it growing up in… in a glorified prison? I didn't even do anything wrong! It's like I was just born guilty! And now you're telling me my parents could have gotten me out of it, but didn't?” My ears pinned back in distress. “It's not fair. It's not right!”

  Tippen didn't respond for a long moment. Fine by me. I didn't need life advice from a violent drunk. I had…

  I sniffled, and I blinked away tears.

  Who did I have? Tika and Jodi? I’d scarcely seen them since we were freed. Debbin? He was helping the most, I think, but he barely looked at me most of the time.

  …Zillis?

  I laughed a little through the tears.

  “I feel like I’m already closer to Zillis than anyone else,” I said, sniffling. “I only met her this morning! Pair of utter messes, just trying to survive together. It’s like you said: Predator and Predator Diseased. A joke. Ancestors spare me, my life is a fucking punchline!” I kicked at the ground in despair and frustration, scuffing some pebbles up with my hoof.

  Tippen rubbed exhaustion out of his face. “I’m sorry I said that, kit. You gotta find your kin where you can. I shouldn’t have judged.” He stirred the cookpot idly, just to keep his hands busy. “Look, were you from the homeworld, or a colony, or…?”

  “I barely remember anymore,” I said sadly. “I think I remember playing in the snow…”

  Tippen nodded. In the faded light, the pale fur on his face was lit only by the fire. “Probably the homeworld, then. Ittel. It’s a cold place. Warmth costs dearly there. You cherish it wherever you find it. And you share it with anyone you find who needs it. That’s family. It’s not blood, it’s warmth.” He let the ladle rest, and prodded at the fire with a long metal stick. “You'll find it here on Seaglass. Just give it time.”

  I mulled over his words in sullen silence for a bit. It wasn’t bad advice, just slow advice. ‘Things will get better’ rarely made the here and now more bearable.

  I looked up as I noticed Tippen flinch. He stiffened upright in his seat suddenly and turned around, reaching for his sidearm, which was no longer on his belt, but mine. Clutching the fire poker instead like a cudgel, his eyes scanned the darkness. Had he heard something?

  “Hey!” said a familiar voice from the darkness. We were too close to the light to make it out, but I’d know that voice anywhere. Even Tippen seemed more relieved just at the sound of it. It wasn’t an Arxur’s voice, after all.

  “Miss Jodi!” I said, happily, as the older Yotul woman stepped closer to the light. I really missed her today, but if you forced me to be fair to her, she wasn’t my real mom, and I guess it was her day off. She had a small satchel with her, but her main adornment was the Arxur’s officer sword she’d been gifted earlier. It looked too large for her.

  Jodi flicked an ear in acknowledgement at me, and turned to Tippen. “This your fire, soldier?”

  Tippen snorted. “Aye. Funny, we were just talking about sharing warmth. Have a seat.”

  “Mm,” said Jodi in agreement. “Been a long while since I bivouacked in a field like this. Brings back memories. Fire and food are precious where I come from, too.”

  Tippen’s head tilted in confusion. “I thought Leirn was temperate.”

  Jodi sat, and made herself comfortable. She alternated between holding her paws out to the fire and rubbing a bit of warmth back into her arms. “Yeah. It’s nice and warm if you live near the tropics. I didn’t.” She eyed up the cookpot and the bowls. “Stew and bread really takes the chill off.”

  “Aye,” said Tippen, staring suspiciously at her. “You’re one of the other patients, like Benwen here? Remind me what you were in for again?”

  Jodi pulled her holopad out from her pouch and awkwardly fumbled with it. I’d never thought of her as a primitive, or lesser in any way, but she was old and hadn’t grown up with certain pieces of consumer technology the way I had. With a bit of effort, though, she showed us a news feed. It was a week or two out of date, from our colony’s last data dropoff, but news from the warfront was still the biggest set of headlines. The human-led invasion of Talsk, the Farsul homeworld, was going well, and their attempts to break the siege of Mileau--the Dossur homeworld, a former Federation species now allied with humanity, like Nevoks and Yotuls--had ground to a bloody stalemate, as they desperately tried to free the planet from Kolshian occupation. It felt insane, seeing the two Federation founders facing the predatory primates in open battle, and finding themselves on the back foot, no less. My new Yotul maternal figure just shrugged. “Apparently, I was in for rebelling against the Federation before it was cool,” Jodi said.

  “And you’re carrying an Arxur officer’s sword,” Tippen said, incredulously.

  “Yeah,” said Jodi, licking her lips hungrily at the stewpot. “I’m a real trend-setter.”

  “She fought Miss Sifal in a duel and won,” I explained.

  Jodi nodded. “Yup. She wants me as a bodyguard. Thirty years of military service, and I’m chaperoning a giant space lizard while she visits a bar. You suppose the Arxur are lightweights, or…?”

  Tippen scoffed. “Who gives a shit. Besides, what do Yotuls even know about war? You never had to defend against a raid.”

  “Sure I have,” said Jodi, looking mildly offended. “Led a few raids, too.”

  Tippen’s jaw dropped in utter horror. “I meant a raid by the Arxur.”

  Jodi shrugged. “Okay? They’re big and strong, but they’re not bulletproof.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “No. You don’t know what it’s like,” muttered Tippen. “I’d like to see what you’d do, facing down a full Arxur hunting party charging right at you.”

  “False retreat into an ambush, volley, then fix bayonets and counter-charge,” Jodi said immediately. She didn’t even dignify the question with a glance toward Tippen. She just sat there, warming herself by the fire. “Come on. You’re at least an officer, right? This is basic fucking skirmishing tactics. How is this even a real question?”

  Tippen stared at Jodi incredulously. “That’s ridiculous. Your troops would panic and scatter long before you could coordinate a maneuver like that.”

  Jodi stared back, equally incredulously. “Why are you fielding troops that haven’t been properly drilled on how to stay in formation?”

  I wasn’t really following the conversation very well, but most of what I’d read about the war so far hadn’t been emphasizing the humans’ ferocity, but rather their tenacity and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. Even in my own life, the first thing Debbin asked me to try to do was stop being so scared of the Arxur. Debbin, Tippen, even Sifal… they’d all given me the same advice, in the end.

  Be brave.

  “Maybe that’s the trick, then,” I said, smiling bleakly. “If you’re not afraid of the Arxur, they can’t hurt you. At least, not as easily.”

  Tippen sighed wearily. “Maybe,” he muttered. He pulled the dough he’d made out of the bowl and tore it into three big chunks, slapping them down onto flat stones near the fire. They started to bubble and toast rapidly while he watched them to make sure they didn’t burn. “Hitting up a bar with an Arxur, then, huh? Bah. Things are changing too damn fast for my tastes.”

  “No, I think I like it,” I said, smiling a little at the light and warmth of the fire. I thought of the new friends I was making and the new opportunities that were opening up for me. None of it would have happened if Sifal hadn’t cracked the status quo asunder. Love her or hate her, I’d still be in a facility without her. “The world is changing, but it’s changing for the better.”

  --------------------------------

  Memory Transcription Subject: Sopa, Mazic Aquaculturist

  Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

  “I don’t like this,” said Mira, the Krakotl, her pretty blue feathers bristling as she stared into her drink. Glass of wine, splash of spirits, extra bitters. She wanted bitterness tonight. “The world is changing, and it’s changing for the worse.”

  “Damn straight,” said Cowlin sourly. The gruff Takkan longshoreman tapped the top of the table for four we were sharing at The Vice Queen’s Court. He raised a large mug of beer to his huge maw and drank. I think Takkans evolved those maws to crunch through gourds whole, but between that and the gray skin, it was still a little eerily reminiscent of the Arxur. “We can’t just sit around here, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Brother, do you even wear shoes?” said Bori, chuckling sadly. The boisterous Gojid constantly got on Cowlin’s nerves, but they always seemed attached at the hip regardless. Bori, too, had a menacing aura to him. Big guy, big claws, and a back studded in sharp quills. Cowlin was bigger--and I, as a Mazic, was obviously bigger than both of them put together--but Bori was close in size to Cowlin, and with his natural weapons, Bori could probably fight an Arxur and have half-decent odds of surviving. Good skill to have, in this day and age.

  “It’s a terrifying time and place we find ourselves,” I conceded. The Arxur ringleader hadn’t attacked me when we talked this morning, not with a whole hunting party at her back, but she was no less intimidating for it. “The Arxur commander spoke to me this morning. She wants me raising cattle for her! Just little fish, for now, but like… that’s how it starts, right?”

  Mira nodded. We’d spent last night together, just two women drinking and fucking our sorrows away, but if I were being frank, most of the night by volume had just been cuddling, crying, and bemoaning our fate. Sometimes, that’s all you really needed. It had brought the fire back to her eyes, certainly. “Exactly. Predators, overrunning our home. We all understand what this means, right?” Mira drummed the tabletop with her wingtip claws. “This is Exterminator work.”

  “We don’t have exterminators,” groused Cowlin. “At best, we’ve got one Yulpa, and nobody’s seen Garruga since yesterday. I told my cousin to check in on her, but he’s too scared to go to work with Arxur milling about in the infirmary.”

  “Ride his ass harder about it,” said Bori, uncharacteristically serious. “We need to know if she's okay. And I’m guessing orderlies don’t exactly get infinite sick days.”

  “What do you suppose they’re doing to her in there?” I asked, timidly. I took a long swig from my cider and grimaced. “They haven’t eaten anybody yet, that we know of, so…?”

  “It’s Arxur we’re dealing with. Torture’s not off the table,” Mira said confidently. “We need a plan to break poor Garruga out.”

  “We?!” Bori repeated, his quills flaring incredulously. “Come on, lady, are you joking? Cowlin and I are fuckin’ longshoremen, Sopa here grows seaweed for a living, and the last time I checked, Mira, you were a gods-damned geologist.”

  It was true. Mira scoured the land for valuable ores, I scoured the seas for valuable plants. We’d had a bit of common ground in that regard. Earth science buds.

  Mira scoffed, turning her beak up at Bori’s condescension. “Half my family are Exterminators. This kind of work probably comes naturally to me. I’m sure I can muddle along and get us some early victories. And after those, then we’ve got practice under our belts. That’s practically the same as being a real Exterminator’s Guild branch, then.”

  “Militia,” groused Cowlin, nursing his beer. “You’re not talking about Guild work. You’re talking about forming an Exterminator Militia.”

  “As well we should!” Mira said. She gestured a wing at her heart dramatically. I wasn’t sure about all this talk of fighting or rebellion, but I direly wanted to bury my face in her chest feathers again… “We, as proud citizens of the Federation, have a responsibility to look out for each other. To look out for the herd and the flock! In better times, perhaps, we might have the Guild to rely upon, but these are harder times we find ourselves in. I’m sure all of us wished we could have lived in more peaceful days, but we must endure the hands we are dealt and rise to the occasion.” Both claws on the table, Mira leaned forward. “Are you with me?”

  Bori snorted. “Fuck yeah.”

  Cowlin nodded. “Dunno how much I can do, but I’ll do what I can.”

  Federation herbivores didn’t generally have eyes that locked in on you the way an Arxur’s or a human’s did, but a beak, a maw, and a snout all turned to point at me expectantly.

  The gods only knew how deep my misgivings went, but… I was a coward in the end. Against the overwhelming might of peer pressure--and a girl I’d accidentally caught feelings for--what was I supposed to say?

  “I’m in,” I said quietly, praying that no one noticed how unconfident and hesitant I sounded.

  Mira cooed at me softly and nodded fiercely. “Then it’s decided, then. Cowlin, talk to your cousin, the orderly. We’re going to try to rescue Garruga. That’s a good starting point, and a relatively unobtrusive mission to earn our fledges on. I’ll do what I can to advise our group on matters of Extermination work, but we certainly can’t go wrong by looping in someone experienced.”

  I stood bolt upright, eyes wide, knocking my chair over. The other three at the table swiveled around to look where I was staring. In a matter of moments, they were on their feet in a panic, too, like half the tavern, knocking their chairs over as well. Mira fluttered up and perched on my back. I didn’t even mind that her talons were digging in a bit too roughly. It was just nice feeling her touch again, especially in the face of… well…

  “Hello!” said Sifal, the Arxur commander, showing her teeth off menacingly in a freakish mockery of the Terran ‘smile’ gesture of friendliness. A primitive with an enormous sword followed behind her, guiding her to a barstool. Sifal waved at us all, especially the live band, who’d abruptly stopped playing for obvious reasons. “Please, carry on. Don’t mind me. Just checking out the local scenery.”

  I backpedaled up against the wall in terror. How were we to survive in the face of such unthinkable horrors as this?