Basically light armor would receive full damage from all attacks, medium armor would completely mitigate light attacks, and heavy armor would completely mitigate light and medium attacks. Attacks from behind would gain +1 penetration, causing medium armor to behave like light armor and heavy armor to behave like medium armor in those situations. Attacks that pass the penetration check do full damage.
Heavy armor would feel like heavy armor, as small arms fire would deflect off you and attacks from the smallest bugs would be completely mitigated. You could play aggressively and tank the front lines, locking down hordes of enemies. You could unload magazines of MG fire with confidence that your heavy armor will protect you from all but the deadliest enemies.
With the enemy focused on the front, your scout player with his light armor and marksman rifle would have more room to play his own style, avoiding enemies and focusing threats. With his reduced detection range, he could evade most enemies and let them focus on the Heavy player who could actually handle the aggro.
Medium armor would occupy the middle ground of course, balancing protection and mobility.
This change could help with the current meta of endless kiting, which is what everyone is forced into in the higher difficulties.
Other systems could be balanced to avoid making the armor too powerful. Maybe explosive weapons could have some % of their attack penetrate regardless of armor value, which would maintain the threat from rockets and grenades (both friendly or otherwise). Light armor might need a buff in some way or another to balance it against the damage mitigation of medium and heavy armor. And with attacks from behind gaining extra penetration, being surrounded would still be a dangerous situation for a player in heavy armor. And hunter patrols could still kill you if you aren't paying attention.
As an example, enemy penetration values would look something like this:

Penetration	Terminid	Automaton
Light	Scavenger, Pouncer, Bile Spitter	Trooper (gunfire), Commissar, Devastator (gunfire)
Medium	Warrior, Bile Warrior, Hunter, Hive Guard, Nursing Spewer, Shrieker	Trooper (rockets), Scout Strider, Devastator (rockets), Factory Strider (MG)
Heavy	Brood Commander, Bile Spewer, Stalker, Charger, Bile Titan	Berserker, Hulk (MG & rockets), Tank, Gunship, Factory Strider (Cannon)

Let me know what you think!

What's up all! 4thWall here. Hope you guys have had a fantastic weekend.
If this is your first episode of "The Black", Welcome!! I hope you will join us from the beginning!
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Tense silence greeted Corellus Grarzia. Moments ago, he had stepped off the shuttle sent for him, and now he was standing in the entryway to the main conference room aboard USN Wisconsin. This meeting greatly reminded him of his first meeting after taking captainship of Olyvia. This time however, there were many more players. All but two of the Privateers were present, the latter being simply too deep into a mission, and too far away to make it in time. Both of the missing ships had completed their objectives, and were in transit, but waiting for them was simply not an option. Admiral Grarzia had arrived with Wisconsin and the rest of the Privateers inside of a week from Cory’s transmission, and Admiral stevens had arrived a week after that. Admiral fulmori had retained the USN Texas as his Flag, having grown fond of Captain Gleeson. Unity High Admiral Kawmarin was still currently flagged aboard USN Galveston and was currently using her superior speed to respond to race across unity space in an attempt to rally Unity forces.

Admiral Clint Stevens had arrived with a five-ship battle group. He was flagged aboard USN Tharsis and was escorted by USN Furlong, USN Iowa, a recently retrofitted and upgraded DDS Protectorate, and a newly commissioned Delmar Frigate. The DDS Stormhold was a hybrid vessel. She had been in the early stages of construction when Humanity and Delmar met for the first time, and she had been modified during construction to make use of the recent innovations born of the their budding alliance. She had but half the displacement of an Iowa Class, but she sported two thirds of the weight of fire by destructive potential. Stormhold had struck many human sailors as what a battleship class would have looked like if the Martians had decided to build the class during Humanity’s civil war. Stormhold carried but a pair of super firing Kinetic batteries in dorsal and ventral positions with a single pair of super firing batteries at her midships. Each turret in the battery only boasted a pair of barrels, and they fired the same 1005 projectile. Stormhold was armed to please however, and she carried twice the same number of PAC batteries as USN Tharsis, and she boasted a full-length central weapon that was very uniquely Delmar. The combined minds of the Brothers grem and their research counterparts in Sol had spent years researching and iterating on the Martian Particle Acceleration Cannon, and they had found something.

DDS Stormhold sported a single long low profile blister stretching the length of her ventral hull, set just to the left of centerline to make room for her kinetic batteries. No less than 6 PAC systems were arrayed in parallel, all feeding one focusing array of titanic size. Stormhold could fire up to all 6 at the array, varying the amount of destruction she wished to adjudicate upon her enemy. Bart had dubbed tis weapon the C-PAC, or “Compound Particle Acceleration Cannon”. The discovery however was not that combining Pac beams was doable. Mars had tried and failed to accomplish this. The discovery was how to make it efficient enough to create a viable weapon. This accomplished, something became abundantly clear from the initial testing…. A C-PAC did not scale linearly, but exponentially. A C-PAC could produce the same destructive energy as an Eros, but only within two hundred fifty thousand Kilometers. The rate of fire was still low, and firing all 6 feeder PACs at once was a cautious calculation, as the heat generated was still a problem, but early tests in a long dead system had seen the accidental cracking of the target planet’s crust. The reaction that followed destabilized the planet entirely and said star system was now one interstellar body lighter.

Stevens brought more than just a battle group, having appropriated four troop transports. Each transport carried a detachment of Marines, with the two MACE squads spread between them for heavy support. It was a small number, but they were to be on hand to evacuate any survivors they could. “Alright people, gather round. All of you have seen the brief by now, and I know all of you are ready for this to happen. Let’s not go in halfcocked” Several heads bobbed in acknowledgement and Stevens turned to spear Cory with a gaze, “For those who might not have met yet, this is Corellus Grarzia, Captain of the Privateer that uncovered this little honeypot of horrors. He’s been the closest to this thing the longest.” Stevens waves to Cory, “Captain?”

Cory stepped up and took a long breath, “The situation’s only gotten worse since my first transmission. The prison freighters and the frigates in orbit are just the beginning of the problem. We’ve since discovered camps on the surface of the planet, I’ve marked them in your updated files” Cory flicked his wrist over his data pad, propagating the information to everyone else’s pad and the table in the center of the room, “This is not just a torture camp, it is an indoctrination and training facility. The kissing of the hand is a surrender trigger of sorts. Kiss the hand, and the child is taken from hell, given food, and given a task. Usually something simple and innocuous, but it is rewarded. If a child accepts without instruction, and without question; they are sent to the surface where they are put into an intense indoctrination program.” Cory took a pause, watching the faces of the men and women in the room. Hard eyes and grim expressions waited for him to continue. “The children are eventually taken on hunts…. Hunts of other failed children and adults of their own species… and hunts of the locals… they are creating insurgents. We may and will encounter opposition made of child soldiers and operatives on the surface. We’ve also discovered a fast response system. Attacking one freighter at a time will trigger the destruction of the other freighters, and it appears that the Frigates in the system are in direct communication with someone outside the system every 20 minutes. That is all we know, at this time.”

Cory nodded to the admirals before stepping back from the table. Mac gave Cory a nod before taking a deep breath, “Thank you Captain. Alright people, no idea goes unspoken. No question goes unasked, we only have one shot at this. Let’s get to work.”

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Warren’s eyes slowly fluttered open, aroused from his slumber by soft lips working their way up from the nape of his neck, “Hmm, Good morning.” He whispered as Jezz pulled herself atop him with a smile of her own. She kissed her way up his chin to his ear before responding, “Morning.” She coo’d back at him, her sultry tone lighting his senses on fire. Warren pulled her the rest of the way to his lips, kissing her gently just as his communicator chirped, “UUgghhhh!!” he groaned, breaking their kiss to open the channel, “L.T. Patterson here.” He stated, trying to keep his voice professional as Jezzaria’s lips began to wander again.
*Lieutenant, We’ve received word. The cargo transports finished loading earlier than anticipated. We will be departing in twenty minutes. Captain Yasushi has asked for your presence on the bridge.*

“Understood, I’ll be there… uh…. Momentarily.” Warren responded closing the channel, looking down at a smugly amused Jezzaria, “Jezz! Now how am I supposed to show up on the bridge with that…”

“Hmm” She mused coyly. “Probably shouldn’t, I better take care of that.” Warren never had a chance to respond.

Twenty minutes later, an only slightly breathless Warren arrived on the bridge, receiving a raised eyebrow from Excelsior’s Captain. “Cutting it rather close, Lieutenant?” Yasushi asked as he scanned the last of the information before departure.

Warren kept his face carefully neutral, “Unavoidable, Sir.” He said formally. “You asked to see me?”

“Yes, Is the Elerian delegation settled in?” Yasushi asked first. “We’ve done what we can to give them ample spaces on the ship attuned to their gravity, and signage to prevent accidents, but I’ve heard rumblings.”

“It not… the gravity sir… May we?” Warren responded carefully, nodding to the captain’s ready room. The two of them stepped into the more private setting, and Warren sat heavily into the chair opposite the desk.

Yasushi regarded the young officer with a studious gaze, “Talk to me son. I need to know if something is brewing during this voyage.”

Warren sighed inwardly. The delegation made up about a quarter of the surviving Elerian race, the Oldest of the Children saved from their planet. They had finished catching up in their education and updating on changes wrought while they were asleep. These Oldest had requested, and obviously granted, permission to travel to their home planet to participate in its recolonization. There was only one real problem with the situation. “Jezz wishes to continue to Delmar, but she is the defacto leader of her species. It is, chafing in some area’s.” Warren finally answered.

“Ah, I see.” Yasushi leaned back into his chair. “Has she told them that She is not staying?”

Warren shook his head, “No sir. She knows she has to stay. It’s just…. It’s just obvious that she hates the reality of the situation, that I must continue to Delmar. It does not help that Many of her people see our relationship as hurtful. They see us as narrowing the genetic pool from which they can recover.”

Yasushi’s eyes softened slightly in understanding, “Atticus’ research?”

“Almost complete sir, it’s all but certain that the Corth placed Elerian DNA in the Human genome. He believes that We could be the key to the genetic diversity needed to jumpstart their species, but… They don’t know that.” Warren sighed, “It’s all still heavily classified pending the conclusion. Her people don’t know what she has put herself through to ensure accurate data. They just see me as stealing their future, and her as a love struck girl playing at leadership.”

Yasushi nodded, bringing up the progress synopsis on his consol, “It appears that Atticus requires only one further ‘experiment’ before his conclusions can be reached. Do you know what that is?”

Warren shook his head, “Sorry, Sir. I don’t. We are to meet him in his onboard lab after lunch. He’s fastidious about records, I’m sure you will know by the time we leave his office.”

“Hmm,” Yasushi mused, taking a moment to review the update before closing it, “I know this is hard for you. You two have been thrust into quite a bit above your stage in life. Let me know if there is anything I can do. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

Warren saluted crisply, following Yasushi out to the bridge just in time to watch the small convoy leap into slip space. His feet slowly guided him back to the quarters he shared with Jezz, feeling the shift in gravity as he passed into the Eleri safe parts of the ship. It would be a two month sail to the Elerian homeworld, and Warren was not looking forward to its conclusion. His thoughts were interrupted by raised voices, one of which he was intimately familiar with, coming from around the corner, and Warren accelerated his gate.

“You know we barely have the numbers to survive! Instead of doing your duty, you’re bedding that heavy worlder!” It was the oldest Elerian male, Bregan, flanked by two other Elerians. They had ambushed Jezz against the door to the quarters Warren and her shared.
“Back up Breg, I don’t care that your father was pappa’s top general. This is not the play you want to make right now. I am Warren’s, and that is not changing.” Jezz’s voice was stern, and she noticed Warren arrive around the corner. The smallest shake of her head kept him from barging in. Elerian female leaders were a prickly thing, and because He was not Eleri, she needed to do this on her own. They had talked about it, expecting something like this once the first complaints had been whispered. Jezz was still kicking herself for not spending more time with her people, but she had also been instrumental in the Gate project that promised to bind the galaxy more tightly than ever before.

Breg openly scoffed at Jezz, “A woman, ordering me around? Maybe Your precious Human will have an accident.” He sneered, blatantly reaching for Jezz’s wingtips, “Then maybe You’s search for a proper m… UGH!” Warren winced as he heard the tale tale cracking of bone. Jez had slapped away Bren’s outstretched hand before driving her fist into his side. She had underestimated her power, having lived for over a year in various gravities that exceed that of her homeworld, and Bren doubled over with eyes wide as he fell to a knee. He clutched his side, glaring at Jezzaria, “Bitch! I’ll have you brought up on charges! Let’s see your precious human get you out of an assault charges, with witnesses.” Bren sputtered, and his two friends nodded angrily.

“Go ahead, but I do not think you will be successful.” Jezz pointed up to the corner of the corridor opposite Warren, “All hallways are rigged for video and audio. Every threat you have made was logged in the ships computer the moment you puked it out of your pathetic mouth.” Warren had to stifle the chuckle that threatened to escape his lips at the pure vitriol in Jezz’s ton. “As for witnesses, you can come on over, hun.”

Warren put on severe expression, locking eyes with Bregan even as the young mans eyes bugged out of his head. “My husband has been watching for quite a while and would make an excellent witness.” Jezz’s smug expression nearly broke Warrens facade as he crossed his arms in front of the three.

“Hmm, threatening the murder of a Naval officer.. Attempted assault on a reigning monarch… Getting recorded doing so, not a good look.” Warren rumbled, and Breg spat at his feet.

“Fuck you.” Bren spat, “If you believe that to be true, why did you wait for your woman to fight instead of protecting her, coward.”

Warren openly laughed in the boy’s face, “you assume my woman needed saving from you. She’s soared on Luna and Conquered the gravity on Ceres.” Warren paused as a profoundly contemplative expression washed over the three boy’s faces, “What makes you think you were anything close to a threat to MY mate.” Warren growled the last part, making the miscreants take an involuntary step back, “Now get out of here. And get that rib checked out, I heard it break from over there.”

The three Elerian boys scrambled down the hallway, unable to flee on wing because of the narrow space. Warren waited for them to round the corner, and felt Jezz collapse into him almost instantly after. Warren quickly opened their door and pulled her in with him, “Hey, hey, hey. Shhhh” He soothed rubbing her down patch between the base of her wings. She melted into him, but continued shaking for a moment. “Their gone, it’s ok now.”

Jezz took a long shakey breath, “I… I don’t know what to do…. My people are so scared… and I can’t tell them that we need Humans to recover our numbers. I… I don’t know what to do…”

Warren kept rubbing her back, “I’ll have lunch brought here. Breg doesn’t need to see that he shook you.” And Jezz nodded, and a few minutes later a pair of cold cut sandwiches arrived. The two of them ate, Jezz curled up in Warren’s lap. Violence was not a natural decision for her, and it had been the first time she had struck anyone outside her occasional sparring with Warren. Warren partially blamed himself for her not knowing her own strength. He always allowed her to strike at him as hard as she could, knowing that she was incapable of hurting him with her bare hands, and she had gained enough speed and technique to occasionally get through his admittedly average hand to hand skills. He had still not taught her to shoot Kinetics. He worried that she would be simply too fragile to shatter bones should she get behind one of his pistols, or even his rimfire rifle.

They were just beginning to leave when a knock at the door interrupted their clean up. And Warren opened the door, his face a serious mask as he prepared to deal with more of the… “Atticus?” He asked as the Androgenous Corth stepped into their quarters. “I thought we were meeting you in your lab?”

“You are correct Warren. However, after word of Jezzaria’s little incident spread across the ship, I thought it best to have this conversation somewhere more comfortable.” Atticus stated in his usual analytical tone, waving to the seating in the pair’s living quarters. Warren raised an eyebrow and the uncharacteristic catering to circumstances from Atticus and settled onto one side of the queen bed in the corner. Their compartment was spacious considering Excelsiors size, but still lacked any major furnishing outside of the bed, a place for clothes and a chair for the desk which held the computer console. Jezz sat down next to him, and Atticus pulled the desk chair to face them.
“What’s this about Att.” Warren asked, picking up on the small tells that told him that Atticus was stalling.

Atticus flashed a smile to Warren before responding, “I’ve completed my research, at least, as much of it I can without more direct observation, and I am unwilling to ask that with so few Elerians left.” He began, holding up a hand to Jezz who was already opening her mouth to protest, “I have already found some remarkable discoveries regarding you. As you are probably aware, being able to adapt to Luna, and even Ceres should not be possible for your species” he continued looking a Jezz as he spoke, “None of your people, who tried anything like that before have succeeded.”

“But Atticus,” Jezz asked in confusion, “I’m fine… I’m better than fine. Warren and I spent a weekend on Luna to say goodbye to his parents. I don’t have to be tossed to fly there anymore.” Atticus raised an eyebrow and Warren nodded in confirmation.

Atticus seemed to freeze for just a split second, as if adding the information to something before his eyes focused on the two of them again, “I’m impressed, but not entirely surprised, Jezz. You’re ability to adapt has an explanation, I simply needed to prove my original findings from Ceres.” Atticus leaned forward slightly, “My dear, you are an anomaly because of your relationship with Warren. I’ve been told that I am too direct, so I will attempt to be… less so” Atticus gave Warren a semi sharp look as he snorted, but continued, “Both of you already know this first part. My people, many many eons ago, used the fledgling Human species as a library of genetic markers meant to be able to save those species and cultures wiped out by the Cataclysm. What I have learned is that Humanity took many of those genetic markers and evolved with them as their own. Almost nothing of what we added to Humanity’s genetic code is how we left it, but some of our library is still capable of interacting with the origin species. That is what has happened with you Jezz.”

Jezz looked shocked for a moment, but then returned to her confused expression, “But, we haven’t done any of those experiments yet. You told me they were too dangerous.” Warren rubbed her shoulders but said nothing, simply waiting for Atticus to explain himself.

Atticus nodded, “I did, and they are; but I failed to account for something that was already happening naturally. To put it… delicately… Your body has been naturally been exposed those same Genetic markers, including the Elerian ones, in significant quantities since you and Warren chose to become life mates. Because those genetic markers include a hormonal component to them, and because of the extra strain your body had been put through on luna and ceres; your body has reacted to them, using them as a template for survival. Your bone mass has tripled since you travelled to Ceres, and your Muscle mass and composition has dramatically changed as well.”

“But how… Oh..” Warren’s face reddened as his mind finally put the pieces together, and Jezz’s cheeks flushed a bright blue upon her own realization. “But that would mean…”

Atticus shook his head, “No, luckily being able to monitor Jezzaria’s health has led me to a much safer way to help jumpstart the Elerian species, but there is a catch… I believe that this level of artificial genetic hybridization can only be done during the embryonic stages of Elerian life to be 100 percent safe, but I wont know until I study a….. natural hybrid.” Jezz’s breath caught in her chest as her eyes widened but Atticus raised his hands quickly, “I cannot ask this… but I know you would be angry with me if I hid this fact from you. I know the two of you desire children, and I will not lie. It is still a great risk. I’ve learned that the two of you prefer to make your own decisions, so I want you to do so with the most recent information. I’ll leave everything here for you to review.” Leaving a data stick on the desk, Atticus stood. He began stepping toward the door as the stunned couple stayed where they were, “I’ll give you some space. I am sorry for the heaviness of my findings.” Atticus opened the door and stepped out.
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If you made it this far, Thank You! I hope you enjoyed the episode. If this if your first time seeing this series, I hope you will join us from the beginning. I do have a patreon that has extra content that is not main story arc, but still cannon shorts, as well as exclusive content from some of my other series. If you believe I've earned it, feel free to give it a look; but know that just coming to hang is already enough.
Have a wonderful rest of your day.
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Edited by WaveOfWire
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Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!

On the night when it all happened a young man called Smallmouth found himself in quite a pickle. He shivered and paced clumsily all over the second story porch of a cabin that used to be very nice, which overlooked a snowy down-sloping field that used to be kept up properly and carefully. He was already six packs deep into a carton of cigarettes he had bought only two days ago from a Casey’s General Store on his way up. He could recall the look on the young woman’s face at the register when he asked for a carton of Parliament Menthols, her eyes showing one blink of humorous surprise and another couple blinks of obvious concern, which faded to professional indifference as she rang in the sweet, icy killers. Smallmouth stopped his nervous dallying when he caught himself in the kitchen window; a large, shadowy figure sulking between the inside lights and the cold, almost glowing world downhill. His eyes still on his murky reflection, he patted his coat pockets for his seventh pack, pulling it out and smacking it against his left palm before cracking open and lighting it at his mouth. In a slow, warm flash, he could briefly see his own face in the window.
“Oh man, it’s bad” , he thought to himself.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his beard grew coarse and thick. A face that his mother had once called handsome had become a clean plate covered in steel wool. Well, maybe not so clean. Under and around his eyes were the obvious bruising of sleeplessness and his skin had lost its lively color and clarity of yesteryear.
“Ughhh” he groaned, turning away from the window to look over the porch and into the freezing, beckoning night.
The pickle that Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett found himself in involved his uncle, and his uncle’s evening logistics, to be precise. Smallmouth had been kicked out of his parents home on December 27th due to a slight misunderstanding at 2am when he believed the living room Christmas tree to be the downstairs bathroom. He had passed out on the couch after drinking a fire pit full of crushed Hamm’s cans and his brain tried desperately to get him up and to the nearby toilet. His little sister Stacy was tucked in fast asleep on a loveseat by the tree when she was brutally torn from her sugarplum dreams to hear the terrible hiss of Smallmouth’s folly. She screamed, the parents woke up, and, well, there you go. After well over three strikes, Smallmouth’s temporary residence had come to an end, and he was thrown to his mother’s brother’s cabin to dry up and straighten out before he could ever even be considered to return.
“You two deserve to live together. He can’t say no either because he owes me a lot more than this!” Smallmouth’s mother had screeched over him as he sat at the kitchen table the following morning with a cold bag of peas against his throbbing right temple. “You go there and you GET RIGHT!! I don’t care how long it takes just clean up your act and MAKE something of yourself! And for goodness sake tell Chuck to do the same, while he still has time!”
Yes, Uncle Chuck had his own shelf full of good time problems, and that’s what put Smallmouth in a bind tonight as he pondered over the white yonder that led to a black nothing, a black nothing that in the daylight pretended to be a forest. At night, it showed its true nature, an endless world of dark secrets and aching regret. At least that’s how Smallmouth saw it in this moment.
Chuck had gone down to the ranch he worked on for a New Years party with his work buddies. They liked to gather at the big barn where all of the vehicles and equipment were kept, sitting around a card table passing out stories about women and other trophy game that were either outright lied about or illegally poached. Oh, and they also liked to pass the bottle around. Therein lied the conundrum for Smallmouth.
Uncle Chuck was many things, but one thing he wasn’t was a drunk driver. Chuck’s wife Rebecca had been struck and killed by a drunk driver almost ten years ago when she was out jogging the back roads early one morning. Everyone assumed that’s what led him to his openly hard drinking and sneakily pill popping ways in the first place. For Chuck, most nights were kept at home, parked in front of a TV watching old westerns and cleaning out a full bottle of Wild Turkey 101 before snoring in his recliner. On the few nights he would go out, he would always call a ride if things got out of hand. As you can imagine, he tends to need a ride home.
“I should be home bout 11:30. Service ain’t so good up there near the barn so if it gets bout 11:15-11:20 and I ain’t home, go head and do me a favor and come grab me son.” Chuck had told Smallmouth before he left, closing the warped screen door behind him.
Smallmouth had spent the evening trying his best to stay entertained without the help of any chemical enhancement. His family’s anger and resentment really struck him and this time he was determined to truly get right and get his life back on the rails. He was 29 years old. He had gone through college clean as a whistle, bright and driven, receiving his MBA with plans to work his way up in a promising career in business. That worked for a couple years. Then he found a calling in ministry, deciding to quit the corporate world to fill an opening of a tiny country church in the area. They needed a deacon who could take care of things around the building and assist in the worship service. He wasn’t much for public speaking, haven been given the nickname Smallmouth at a young age due to his soft spoken nature, but he could pass plates and give a hushed prayer every now and then. He liked to mow and paint and help old ladies up the stairs. The quiet country life was really nice for him, for a while. Strange, radical ideas eventually spread through the church though, and half of its members left overnight to form their own congregation. Its funding cut in half, the church had to close its doors and the other members absorbed into other churches. Smallmouth rarely ever saw the people that had departed from the church, but rumors creeped that they met at an old abandoned building deep in the woods, performing all sorts of different acts and rituals that would purify themselves and destroy all evils. Nevertheless, Smallmouth was out of work and picked up shifts bartending at a small town dive. His soft fortitude was no match for the booze and drugs and women that would pass through there and soon he was out the door. That landed him mooching off of his parents, draining their sanity and eventually draining himself on their Christmas tree. The last strike.
So there he was all night, waiting up for uncle Chuck. He was two days clean of everything except caffeine and nicotine, a major improvement. He felt a boost of hope and confidence the first morning after a sober nights sleep. He found the mornings to be the best parts of the day. At least he had coffee and cigarettes to get him out of bed. That would wear off quickly and the rest of the day was filled with trying to find distractions until the sun set about 5pm. Then he would watch a movie or two with Chuck. Last night he had been able to call it early and go to sleep at 7pm shortly after Chuck started sawing logs in front of True Grit (the original John Wayne version of course). Tonight he saw 7pm struggle and churn into 8…….8:13……..8:48……9:05……9:29………..9:31………9:52……..9:58……….10:11…….10:12 (oh cmon)……10:27…….10:56…….and finally 11:08. It was like the clock was a 35 year old four cylinder engine oiled with crunchy peanut butter. Now, crunch time sat in the cold air as Smallmouth finished his cigarette and stewed over his decision. He really didn’t feel like going down to the barn and getting Chuck, even though it was only a couple miles. In the infancy of his sobriety he found the smallest of choices and activities to seem dire and at the very least upsettingly out of his way. Surely Chuck can get himself home on his own, right?
“No. Who knows if someone’s Aunt Rebecca or grandmother or son is out there on the road tonight” he thought.
As much as he had tried to screw up his life, Smallmouth usually knew what the right decision would be, even if he so often refused to listen. It was there ever so clearly on this New Year’s Eve, wailing in the back row of his mind like a misbehaved child during a church sermon. Smallmouth left the porch and went inside to grab his keys.
He walked out to his truck, got in, cranked it, let it sit down to one rpm, and started down the gravel driveway, which led to the gravel county road that Chuck and his few and far between neighbors lived on. He got to the mailbox and suddenly shot his attention up the road, where headlights revealed themselves out of the deep dark. It was rare to see any cars this far down Chuck’s road. In fact, there were no other houses to the right of Chuck’s cabin, spare for a couple of empty ones that were condemned but were attached to a lot of forest property.
Smallmouth squinted his eyes as a large black Dodge Ram 3500 came barreling by with a livestock trailer. Even inside his own truck he could hear a terrible noise coming from that trailer. He recognized it instantly as a pig squeal.
“The hell?” He whispered as the truck and trailer tore down the road, going around a nearby corner and out of sight. He couldn’t guess what on earth that could be about at this hour, and especially since nobody lived down there anyway. He shrugged it off though, and turned left out of the driveway, headed for drunk Uncle Chuck down at the ranch.
Ten minutes and a couple of snowy country miles later Smallmouth found himself through the metal gate of the ranch and up to the main barn, where a couple of smiling ranch hands had Chuck held up between them just outside one of two closed garage doors. A lamppost nearby cast a glow of debauchery on all of their faces, especially Chuck’s. Smallmouth got out and walked up to them smiling and shaking his head.
“Well well well…” he said with a slight laugh.
“Your Uncle put on one hell of a clinic tonight ‘Mouth” one of the hands said.
“I…..I….I don’t know what they’re tawlkin bout son” Chuck slang out before a high pitched giggle.
“I got another couple rounds in me I thinks!”
Smallmouth laughed.
“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that uncle! Let’s get on home now and let these fellas get on too.”
“Y’alright alright” Chuck said as Smallmouth took him from his buddies arms into one of his own and led him to the passenger seat of his truck.
“Happy New Years boys!!! Let’s do it all again okay?” He hollered to his waving buddies as they drove back away from the barn and through the metal gate toward home.
“You have a good time Uncle?”
“Oh…ohhh…I reckon I showed those boys how to do it” Another childish giggle.
A light snow shower seasoned the cold air as the truck rolled down the gravel country road. In the yellow headlights it made a pleasant white noise for the eyes. Chuck put his hands up staggered and vertically, fingers together and outstretched, pointing out in front of the truck down the road like he was aiming up for a rifle shot. He closed one eye.
“Straight as an arrow ole son. You’re good at this.”
“I ain’t drunk pops” Smallmouth chuckled.
“Sure ya are. Everybody’s drunk son. Even people that ain’t drink. Ticket is to get drunk on good stuff” Chuck’s face calmed from a goofy grin as he kept his eyes out front into the slow swirling tube of visible night.
“You sound like you’re drunk on some pretty damn good stuff” Smallmouth retorted as they shared a look and a good laugh.
“Suppose’n you ain’t wrong. Gotta work on that just like you are. Proud o’ you for a couple days clean man. We’ll get right. We’ll get right. All I meant was that man is born to get drunk on somethin’ or other. What I mean is God. Man is born to get drunk on his God.” Chuck said as Smallmouth shot him a raised eyebrow look of confusion.
“Once God gets ya drunk then you’re home free ol’ son. That distillery is never ending eternal forever. That land flows with whiskey and honey.” They both shared another laugh.
“Okay okay I think I somewhat understand now Uncle.”
They rode in a few seconds of comfortable silence before Chuck put his hands up in an aim position down the road again.
“You know…man….man….man has a GOVERNOR…..you know that right?”
“A what? A governor?”
“That’s right a GOVERNOR…that’s right…a little bitty device in his brain that keeps him on the road…keeps him from turning right off into the dark. You ever hear that little voice that tells you you can turn off into the ditch…into oncomin’ traffic? Tells you you can shoot your buddy instead of the deer? That you can jump off the top of the building and onto the pavement when you’re up there enjoying the view?”
“I…uh…I don’t know…I mean maybe? Pretty sure those are intrusive thoughts and they’re normal.”
“Well whatever they are that’s what the governor is for. Keeps ya straight. Keeps ya from harmin nothin.”
“Alright man, alright.”
They pulled back into Chuck’s driveway and parked. Smallmouth helped his uncle out of the truck and up into the cabin, snow starting to color the roof and pile against the side of the house near the door. Arms locked Smallmouth propped open the screen door, opened the inner door, and led Chuck through the kitchen and to his bedroom. Chuck layed down on his camo comforter with a deep, long exhale.
“Ahhhh yes……yes” he whispered with a smile.
“I love ya son…I’m glad you’re heeeeere. Let’s get better….your mom needs it…..stay in the Lord’s light son…don’t let them devils get ya….let’s get better….lets….” He was off into the distant deep ether almost immediately, and his mouth hung open.
“Goodnight uncle…love ya too.” Smallmouth patted the bed twice before walking over and closing the bedroom door behind him.
He went and sat at the kitchen table. He regretted his behavior earlier in the night. How it pained him to have to stay up a little later to go help out his uncle.
“Cmon…” he whispered.
He agreed with Chuck. He was here to get better. To do better. Maybe Chuck was right. If he couldn’t get drunk off booze, it was time to pick something else to drink. Better things. Maybe even God? Smallmouth hadn’t paid much mind to God since his church job fell through. God surely hadn’t been there for him these last few years when he was at his lowest. Or was He there the whole time? Had Smallmouth just ignored Him? These things floated heavily in his mind and soon he realized he had been staring at the front door for several minutes. Had he even blinked? Then something else came to mind.
“Wait hold up”
That truck and trailer from earlier. What WAS that? He meant to bring it up to the ranch hands. They would’ve seen it come barreling down the road right by their front gate. Oh he wished he had brought that up to them. Oh well. It’s probably nothing. Smallmouth looked at the clock. 12:12.
“Happy New Year old boy.” He said to himself.
He sat for a moment in the warm kitchen light, his eyes not leaving the front door. Well, he’s up this late already, why not go run down and check on the abandoned properties?
No…no…it can wait. It’s probably nothing. Right?
Wrong. There’s that wailing kid in the back pew of his mind again. Come on kid can’t you just be quiet and listen to the sermon? No, no it can’t. It must be heard. Always. He knew he had to go check it out.
“Ughhhh FINE!” Smallmouth got up and grabbed his truck keys, patted to make sure his cigarettes were still there, and was out the door again.
The snow shower had ended. As he pulled up to the edge of the drive, he stalled for a moment and peaked out as far to the right as he could down the dark road. Nothing. It wasn’t very far to the end of that road, where two out of service mailboxes should’ve stood in a small cul-de-sac if it weren’t for teenagers beating them to splinters. Can’t really blame them either. Smallmouth considered his plan. Whether or not that truck belonged to the landowner down there, he shouldn’t feel like he needs to sneak around. He is merely a concerned neighbor after all. He began down the road and around that same corner the stranger disappeared earlier.
After a couple of slow, curious minutes Smallmouth could see the evidence of a great big fire in the near distance, beyond where the road ended. Through the bare trees and against the snow it cast orange and red that could surely be seen a mile in every direction, that is, if there were anyone there to see it.
Slightly intimidated, Smallmouth decided to turn off his headlights and let the fire guide him as he slowed up to 5mph and gently crackled his last few yards of gravel up to the remnants of the nearest mailbox post. It seemed the fire was on the land of the farther property, whose mailbox posthole was about 30 feet from where he came to a stop and parked his truck. Smallmouth turned it off and quietly got out into the cold. He crouched down as he walked over to the farther driveway, getting down on one knee to give it a stealthy closer look.
The abandoned property boasted a busted up trailer that sat pitifully about 500 feet from the mailbox memorial. Beyond that was a good ten acres of field that ended at the forest edge, which marked the beginning of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge. As Smallmouth peered on, it was obvious that the fire was way out in that field, blocked by the old trailer, which wore the hot light and columns of smoke on it like a devilish crown. Given the cover, Smallmouth crept over to the trailer and started easing around the right side.
Rounding the corner he noticed a propane tank that would be perfect for hiding behind and getting the best look he could at the mysterious activity. He got down on his belly and crawled his way over to the tank, before sitting up and peeking slowly over the top and out into the field.
Way down there, a couple acres away from the tree line, was a huge fire, made up of about fifty wooden pallets. It raged and lit up the whole field like it was just the beginning of sunset. Somewhat near the fire was the black Dodge Ram 3500 and trailer. Smallmouth could see a group of people dressed in all red, as if covered in bloody bedsheets from head to toe, circled around a crude cage, seemingly fastened together by pieces of metal fencing. They stood still as the pines, and twice as silent. Smallmouth, in a rare moment of curious courage, decided he had to get closer. He got back on his stomach and began to crawl through the cold, knee high grass.
Using the fire light as his North Star he crawled and crawled, feeling his hands, clothes, and beard get wet with snow. He didn’t care. Something was up that wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He could feel it in his cold gut. When he thought he was close enough without giving himself away he planted his palms and ever so slowly raised his torso up into a weak push up to try and see out. He was glad he didn’t go any further. He may have been too close already.
He was close enough to read the name of the truck and count the holes in the livestock trailer. There were seven strangers in red sheets all around the makeshift cage, all holding long spears. One of the figures had a crown of black thorns on his head. They all had two eyeholes and one hole for the mouth. They didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, before the Crowned One forcibly touched the end of his spear to the ground.
“Now is the time, Brother and Farmer Abraham…there is no more for us in waiting.”
Smallmouth had just noticed the passenger window to the black Dodge was down, and he could hear the driver door open and soon saw a normal looking older man in a ball cap at the back of the trailer. He was holding a leash of some sort. He opened up the trailer and whistled into the dark of it. After a couple of loud, heavy thuds a gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC Yorkshire pig came slowly shrugging out of the trailer. It was light pink in color but filthy, and gave wet sounding oinks as it came to the man’s hands expecting food. The thing must’ve weighed 1500 pounds, and at least ten feet long. It actually had to lower its head to reach the man’s hands, its ears coming up to the man’s chest. Smallmouth couldn’t believe his eyes. The man reached in his pocket and revealed a handful of some type of feed, which he tossed on the ground at the pig. It started right in as the man fixed a collar on the pigs girthy neck, then attaching a leash. The pig gave a slight squeal.
“Good girl, good girl…cmon now” the man called Farmer Abraham sweetly coaxed the animal. He gave his end of the leash a tug and the monstrous swine reluctantly left its food and followed the man over close to the Crowned One. The fire raged and raged nearby, throwing crazy shadows all over the place.
“What have you brought us, Brother and Farmer Abraham?”
“Yeah, uh, this is Old Azazel, she’s been in my family for years, man.”
The Crowned One dropped his spear and knelt down to the jowls of the hog, the dark holes of his eyes meeting those of the animal. The other red cloaked figures remained statuesque around the cage.
“Ah, yes, Old Azazel, hello. You are to be of great importance in the history of the Earth tonight, old friend.”
The Crowned One got back up to address Brother and Father Abraham, who seemed obviously put off, yet submissive.
“And is this Old Azazel a natural specimen? Is it fed only of the earth and the filths therein?”
“Yessir, I’d reckon so.”
“This is necessary for a proper sacrifice, Brother and Farmer Abraham. You may only bring your best, your cleanest, your most dear to the alter of the Almighty.”
“I understand.”
“May I take her now?”
The farmer gave his end of the leash to the black gloved left hand of the Crowned One. The Crowned one stood with it for almost a full minute in total stillness and silence. The only noise Smallmouth could hear was the sloppy smacks and oinks from Old Azazel. The farmer anxiously waited, wringing his hands expecting the next move from the Crowned One.
“Turn away, Brother and Farmer Abraham. Turn away from us and toward the fire now.” The Crowned One finally spoke.
“Phew, alright. We’re still good on our deal? Do you still promise to make my little girl better? Like you said?” The farmer asked, with some hopeful desperation.
“Turn now.”
“Well okay” the farmer turned his back to the Crowned One and toward the fire.
“I can assure you with all of the knowledge in my mind and in my heart, you will never see your daughter sick again in this lifetime, Brother and Father Abraham. You may find peace and solace in this truth.”
The farmer nodded in relief as he looked upon the fire. Smallmouth, taking it all in with great confusion, could see a smile on the farmers fire lit face, and turned back to the Crowned One just in time to see him reach under his red garment and pull out a pistol and shoot a round into the back of the farmers head, blowing his cap off, which frisbeed down near his shaking, crumpled body. Old Azazel threw a fit immediately, screaming and trying her best to flee. The Crowned One held the immense beast with one hand, and with seemingly little effort. The other red clothed figures finally made noise, laughing deep and heartily around the cage. The Crowned One, keeping Old Azazel close, walked over to the doubled over farmer, putting two more bullets into his head, essentially hollowing it out into a carnal mess. The farmers shaking mercifully stopped.
Smallmouth had to slam his forearm up to his mouth to muffle the scream that would’ve come out and blown his cover. His eyes were flown wide open and his arms were shivering.
The Crowned One put the pistol back under his red cloak and led the great pig, still squealing as high pitched and piercing as the human ear can withstand, over to the mouth of the cage, which was opened by the nearest red clothed stranger. Old Azazel flew in to the cage, having been unleashed by The Crowned One. It struggled around the cage, which was no bigger than 15x15 feet, giving it no room to get comfortable. It circled the inner perimeter, showing impressive speed for such a large animal. It squealed and squealed. The sound stung Smallmouths ears, and he covered them with his hands. He was still out of sight in the tall grass. The Red People around the cage laughed at the hogs entrapment. The Crowned One raised a hand to signal silence. The Red People were still and quiet again.
“Now, my brothers, the sacrificial gift is in our possession. Tonight…is a HOLY NIGHT.” The Crowned One raised his voice as if getting to the climax of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY WHAT WAS ONCE CAST OUT BUT NEVER VANQUISHED!! WE WILL RID THE EARTH OF A GREAT ARMY!! AN ARMY OF HELL THAT HAS FAR TOO LONG ROAMED AND SICKENED OUR LANDS AND KILLED OUR LOVES!! TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY THE DESTROYERS…THE LEGION OF SATANS SOLDIERS BORN JUST AFTER THE GARDEN OF EDEN FELL…”
The Crowned One fell to his knees, his arms up and stretched toward the frozen sky. A mighty wind began blowing at Smallmouths back. He had to lower his head as it roared over him. After a moment it calmed and he was able to lift up again to see. Winds from all corners of the field met at the cage, swirling over it in a great snowy funnel that led up to the clouds. Old Azazel screamed and screamed from the cage.
“I SEE YOU VILLIANS!! I HEAR YOU HOSTS OF HELL!! I KNOW YOU LIVE IN THESE TREES!! I KNOW YOU COWER WITHIN THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!! SHOW YOURSELF!! TAKE THE BODY OF THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW AND FACE ME!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE I-“
The Crowned One’s vocal cord shredding performance was cut short by a single burst of black lightning that shot down from the middle of the snowy funnel cloud that surrounded the cage. The Crowned One and all the Red People were thrown several feet back from the blast. Thunder immediately exploded across the field. Smallmouth buried his face as the force and sound raced over him. Ears ringing, he kept his face down for a few seconds. He squinted back up to the strike zone.
The strange black lightning had blown the cage completely apart. Two of The Red People had been hit with the metal fencing. One laid motionless. The other gargled in pain as he put a hand to the pole that was sticking out of his sternum, having penetrated all the way through. His legs buckled and he fell forward, the end of the pole hitting the ground first and propping him up for a moment, before his body slowly slid down to the ground around the metal. He went silent. The other four Red People, yelling in surprise, gathered themselves, looking to the charred hole in the ground where Old Azazel should be, right in the center where the cage used to stand. The Crowned One got to his feet and picked up his spear.
“My brothers, gather your arms…” the Crowned One whispered, breathing heavily under his red cloak.
“The work is not over…”
The four remaining Red People grabbed their spears and slowly walked over to the burnt, smoking hole, holding an attack pose over it until further instructions were given.
“Are you with us, you age old tormentors?” This was the first time Smallmouth could hear fear in the tired voice of the Crowned One.
“Are you with us now? Are you ready to die, you infernal bastards? Are you ready to-“
The Crowned One was interrupted by a booming noise from the hole that tore Smallmouths wits to shreds. It was similar to the cry of Old Azazel, but much deeper and ten times louder and angrier. It was as if a freight train was blaring its horn and slamming its brakes at the same time.
“NOW MY BROTHERS!! STRIKE THE BEAST OF HELL WITH YOUR SPEARS! NOW!!!”
The Red People all threw their weapons down into the smoking hole. The hellish noise from within stopped in an instant. The Red People crowded closer to the edge of the hole, waiting for the smoke to clear. The Crowned One walked over to them, putting his black gloved hand on the shoulder of the nearest man.
“Oh, Brothers. Oh my dear, dear Brothers. Your acts tonight have rid the earth of a Great and Powerful Evil…”
Before he could continue, a fully enraged and re-inspired bellow thrust itself up and out of the hole like a serrated blade. Much, much louder and angrier than before. The Red People were taken aback in terror. Suddenly, from within the hole, a large head emerged and gaped a huge, disgusting maw up at the crowd. The head was burned black and its eyes were half boiled white and without pupils. It shrieked out that most terrible noise as if it didn’t need oxygen.
“There’s no way” Smallmouth heard himself say under his breath.
All in one motion, the beast leaped out of the hole, and turned to face its attackers. It was Old Azazel, except swollen with burnt mass. It appeared to have grown a half a size at least. Three spears stuck out of its sizzling, charcoal colored back. It snapped its gigantic jaws at the Red People, who shuddered in horror. The Crowned One spoke:
“DO NOT RELENT BROTHERS!! ATTACK!! ATTACK THE BRUTE!!”
He pulled his pistol back out of his cloak and fired the remaining three rounds on the new and horrible black burnt Old Azazel. The beast’s cloudy boiled egg eyes shot open along with its unnaturally stretched jaws. It took the three bullets as if they were tennis balls. At the speed of a charging grizzly and with multiple times the power Old Azazel raged over to The Crowned One and dove onto him mouth first, putting both front hooves on his chest as he was knocked down. The Crowned One cried out in a shockingly high pitched wail, like a man being electrocuted. The Beast bit right into the soft of his belly, and began to shake him around like an Orca trying to separate a seal from its pelt.
“OH GOD!!!! AHHHHHH GOD OHHHHH!!! HELP ME!!!! NOOOO!!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!! MAMA!!!! OHHHH!!! MAMA!!!!!”
The beast ate and ate and shook and shook and tore and broke and destroyed while the Crowned One lost more and more of his body, all while crying out to the sky at the top of his punctured lungs. The other Red People sprinted to the black Dodge Ram, opened its doors and piled inside. Smallmouth heard it crank up and it began to speedily turn around and race away from the fire and back toward the road. The beast unhooked from the Crowned One and let out another ghastly roar of victory before biting into his neck, ending his screaming forever. The beast then left his half devoured body and began a tremendous and terrible charge after the truck, which was greatly slowed down by the trailer. Smallmouth put his face down as the beast passed him by only about 10 feet on its way to the truck, which had just made it back to the road and was using every RPM possible to get away from the demon charged killing machine on its heels. Smallmouth turned around to watch both parties disappear down the road, the echoes of that great and evil blasting noise stabbing his ears again. He remained on his stomach in the tall, snowy grass for another two minutes as he normalized his breath and tried to make any sense of what he just witnessed.
Eventually he slowly rose up and looked to make sure that terrible thing was indeed out of the area. No signs of life or death from up at the road. The danger was at least a couple miles away by now. Smallmouth then turned back toward the fire and to the dominated body of the Crowned One. He carefully walked up closer and closer. To his amazement he heard wheezy noises coming from the emptied out torso of the man, a scattering of insides and flesh and blood strewn all around him. Troubled, rattling breaths escaped from under the red clothed head, whose crown of thorns had flown off in the attack. Most of the red cloak had been ripped to shreds, and all that remained covered were his shoulders and above. The cloth slowly ebbed and flowed with breath. Smallmouth could not believe this man was still alive. His entire digestive system was eviscerated and his ribs were exposed. Smallmouth knelt down beside him and lifted his cloak over his head to let him at least breathe his last in the open air.
Smallmouth let out a gasp. This man had a face that Smallmouth knew very well. He recognized him immediately from the old church he worked at. The clean shaven face. The short, silver hair. The sharp nose. This was a man that had joined his church two weeks before the schism. He never spoke in church but it was rumored he would meet at the homes of different members and try to sway them to his strange ideas. He was the one rumored to have led the radical faction somewhere in the middle of the woods. To Smallmouth, it was all starting to make more sense.
“I know you,” Smallmouth said softly, “I know who you are. You tore a church in half didn’t you? You’re the crazy guy that split up my ole church! What the hell have you done?”
The man struggled to breathe and tried his best to spit up a couple of words. His neck had deep lacerations that flowed with escaping life.
“I…I…I…uhh…I only…I only…I only did what I believed…” he whispered before a wet, stifled breath.
“What did you do?!!!” Smallmouth grew angry, and his voice followed suit. This man had ruined his job and now he had unleashed something horrifying on his neighborhood. He had tampered with things that man has no business tampering with.
“I…I…I have…have…I have failed, Smallmouth Bassett” the man croaked. Smallmouth couldn’t believe he had bothered to remember his name.
“I have failed. I have failed. God help you all…” with that the man’s face fell and he let out one last slow exhale before all was still.
Smallmouth got back on his feet and looked away from the dead man and toward the fire, which towered and raged in the reflection of his eyes.
“Oh no…oh no…oh no” he said in between terrified breaths.
Then another though hit him like a wrecking ball.
“Uncle Chuck…”

On the night when it all happened a young man called Smallmouth found himself in quite a pickle. He shivered and paced clumsily all over the second story porch of a cabin that used to be very nice, which overlooked a snowy down-sloping field that used to be kept up properly and carefully. He was already six packs deep into a carton of cigarettes he had bought only two days ago from a Casey’s General Store on his way up. He could recall the look on the young woman’s face at the register when he asked for a carton of Parliament Menthols, her eyes showing one blink of humorous surprise and another couple blinks of obvious concern, which faded to professional indifference as she rang in the sweet, icy killers. Smallmouth stopped his nervous dallying when he caught himself in the kitchen window; a large, shadowy figure sulking between the inside lights and the cold, almost glowing world downhill. His eyes still on his murky reflection, he patted his coat pockets for his seventh pack, pulling it out and smacking it against his left palm before cracking open and lighting it at his mouth. In a slow, warm flash, he could briefly see his own face in the window.
“Oh man, it’s bad” , he thought to himself.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his beard grew coarse and thick. A face that his mother had once called handsome had become a clean plate covered in steel wool. Well, maybe not so clean. Under and around his eyes were the obvious bruising of sleeplessness and his skin had lost its lively color and clarity of yesteryear.
“Ughhh” he groaned, turning away from the window to look over the porch and into the freezing, beckoning night.
The pickle that Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett found himself in involved his uncle, and his uncle’s evening logistics, to be precise. Smallmouth had been kicked out of his parents home on December 27th due to a slight misunderstanding at 2am when he believed the living room Christmas tree to be the downstairs bathroom. He had passed out on the couch after drinking a fire pit full of crushed Hamm’s cans and his brain tried desperately to get him up and to the nearby toilet. His little sister Stacy was tucked in fast asleep on a loveseat by the tree when she was brutally torn from her sugarplum dreams to hear the terrible hiss of Smallmouth’s folly. She screamed, the parents woke up, and, well, there you go. After well over three strikes, Smallmouth’s temporary residence had come to an end, and he was thrown to his mother’s brother’s cabin to dry up and straighten out before he could ever even be considered to return.
“You two deserve to live together. He can’t say no either because he owes me a lot more than this!” Smallmouth’s mother had screeched over him as he sat at the kitchen table the following morning with a cold bag of peas against his throbbing right temple. “You go there and you GET RIGHT!! I don’t care how long it takes just clean up your act and MAKE something of yourself! And for goodness sake tell Chuck to do the same, while he still has time!”
Yes, Uncle Chuck had his own shelf full of good time problems, and that’s what put Smallmouth in a bind tonight as he pondered over the white yonder that led to a black nothing, a black nothing that in the daylight pretended to be a forest. At night, it showed its true nature, an endless world of dark secrets and aching regret. At least that’s how Smallmouth saw it in this moment.
Chuck had gone down to the ranch he worked on for a New Years party with his work buddies. They liked to gather at the big barn where all of the vehicles and equipment were kept, sitting around a card table passing out stories about women and other trophy game that were either outright lied about or illegally poached. Oh, and they also liked to pass the bottle around. Therein lied the conundrum for Smallmouth.
Uncle Chuck was many things, but one thing he wasn’t was a drunk driver. Chuck’s wife Rebecca had been struck and killed by a drunk driver almost ten years ago when she was out jogging the back roads early one morning. Everyone assumed that’s what led him to his openly hard drinking and sneakily pill popping ways in the first place. For Chuck, most nights were kept at home, parked in front of a TV watching old westerns and cleaning out a full bottle of Wild Turkey 101 before snoring in his recliner. On the few nights he would go out, he would always call a ride if things got out of hand. As you can imagine, he tends to need a ride home.
“I should be home bout 11:30. Service ain’t so good up there near the barn so if it gets bout 11:15-11:20 and I ain’t home, go head and do me a favor and come grab me son.” Chuck had told Smallmouth before he left, closing the warped screen door behind him.
Smallmouth had spent the evening trying his best to stay entertained without the help of any chemical enhancement. His family’s anger and resentment really struck him and this time he was determined to truly get right and get his life back on the rails. He was 29 years old. He had gone through college clean as a whistle, bright and driven, receiving his MBA with plans to work his way up in a promising career in business. That worked for a couple years. Then he found a calling in ministry, deciding to quit the corporate world to fill an opening of a tiny country church in the area. They needed a deacon who could take care of things around the building and assist in the worship service. He wasn’t much for public speaking, haven been given the nickname Smallmouth at a young age due to his soft spoken nature, but he could pass plates and give a hushed prayer every now and then. He liked to mow and paint and help old ladies up the stairs. The quiet country life was really nice for him, for a while. Strange, radical ideas eventually spread through the church though, and half of its members left overnight to form their own congregation. Its funding cut in half, the church had to close its doors and the other members absorbed into other churches. Smallmouth rarely ever saw the people that had departed from the church, but rumors creeped that they met at an old abandoned building deep in the woods, performing all sorts of different acts and rituals that would purify themselves and destroy all evils. Nevertheless, Smallmouth was out of work and picked up shifts bartending at a small town dive. His soft fortitude was no match for the booze and drugs and women that would pass through there and soon he was out the door. That landed him mooching off of his parents, draining their sanity and eventually draining himself on their Christmas tree. The last strike.
So there he was all night, waiting up for uncle Chuck. He was two days clean of everything except caffeine and nicotine, a major improvement. He felt a boost of hope and confidence the first morning after a sober nights sleep. He found the mornings to be the best parts of the day. At least he had coffee and cigarettes to get him out of bed. That would wear off quickly and the rest of the day was filled with trying to find distractions until the sun set about 5pm. Then he would watch a movie or two with Chuck. Last night he had been able to call it early and go to sleep at 7pm shortly after Chuck started sawing logs in front of True Grit (the original John Wayne version of course). Tonight he saw 7pm struggle and churn into 8…….8:13……..8:48……9:05……9:29………..9:31………9:52……..9:58……….10:11…….10:12 (oh cmon)……10:27…….10:56…….and finally 11:08. It was like the clock was a 35 year old four cylinder engine oiled with crunchy peanut butter. Now, crunch time sat in the cold air as Smallmouth finished his cigarette and stewed over his decision. He really didn’t feel like going down to the barn and getting Chuck, even though it was only a couple miles. In the infancy of his sobriety he found the smallest of choices and activities to seem dire and at the very least upsettingly out of his way. Surely Chuck can get himself home on his own, right?
“No. Who knows if someone’s Aunt Rebecca or grandmother or son is out there on the road tonight” he thought.
As much as he had tried to screw up his life, Smallmouth usually knew what the right decision would be, even if he so often refused to listen. It was there ever so clearly on this New Year’s Eve, wailing in the back row of his mind like a misbehaved child during a church sermon. Smallmouth left the porch and went inside to grab his keys.
He walked out to his truck, got in, cranked it, let it sit down to one rpm, and started down the gravel driveway, which led to the gravel county road that Chuck and his few and far between neighbors lived on. He got to the mailbox and suddenly shot his attention up the road, where headlights revealed themselves out of the deep dark. It was rare to see any cars this far down Chuck’s road. In fact, there were no other houses to the right of Chuck’s cabin, spare for a couple of empty ones that were condemned but were attached to a lot of forest property.
Smallmouth squinted his eyes as a large black Dodge Ram 3500 came barreling by with a livestock trailer. Even inside his own truck he could hear a terrible noise coming from that trailer. He recognized it instantly as a pig squeal.
“The hell?” He whispered as the truck and trailer tore down the road, going around a nearby corner and out of sight. He couldn’t guess what on earth that could be about at this hour, and especially since nobody lived down there anyway. He shrugged it off though, and turned left out of the driveway, headed for drunk Uncle Chuck down at the ranch.
Ten minutes and a couple of snowy country miles later Smallmouth found himself through the metal gate of the ranch and up to the main barn, where a couple of smiling ranch hands had Chuck held up between them just outside one of two closed garage doors. A lamppost nearby cast a glow of debauchery on all of their faces, especially Chuck’s. Smallmouth got out and walked up to them smiling and shaking his head.
“Well well well…” he said with a slight laugh.
“Your Uncle put on one hell of a clinic tonight ‘Mouth” one of the hands said.
“I…..I….I don’t know what they’re tawlkin bout son” Chuck slang out before a high pitched giggle.
“I got another couple rounds in me I thinks!”
Smallmouth laughed.
“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that uncle! Let’s get on home now and let these fellas get on too.”
“Y’alright alright” Chuck said as Smallmouth took him from his buddies arms into one of his own and led him to the passenger seat of his truck.
“Happy New Years boys!!! Let’s do it all again okay?” He hollered to his waving buddies as they drove back away from the barn and through the metal gate toward home.
“You have a good time Uncle?”
“Oh…ohhh…I reckon I showed those boys how to do it” Another childish giggle.
A light snow shower seasoned the cold air as the truck rolled down the gravel country road. In the yellow headlights it made a pleasant white noise for the eyes. Chuck put his hands up staggered and vertically, fingers together and outstretched, pointing out in front of the truck down the road like he was aiming up for a rifle shot. He closed one eye.
“Straight as an arrow ole son. You’re good at this.”
“I ain’t drunk pops” Smallmouth chuckled.
“Sure ya are. Everybody’s drunk son. Even people that ain’t drink. Ticket is to get drunk on good stuff” Chuck’s face calmed from a goofy grin as he kept his eyes out front into the slow swirling tube of visible night.
“You sound like you’re drunk on some pretty damn good stuff” Smallmouth retorted as they shared a look and a good laugh.
“Suppose’n you ain’t wrong. Gotta work on that just like you are. Proud o’ you for a couple days clean man. We’ll get right. We’ll get right. All I meant was that man is born to get drunk on somethin’ or other. What I mean is God. Man is born to get drunk on his God.” Chuck said as Smallmouth shot him a raised eyebrow look of confusion.
“Once God gets ya drunk then you’re home free ol’ son. That distillery is never ending eternal forever. That land flows with whiskey and honey.” They both shared another laugh.
“Okay okay I think I somewhat understand now Uncle.”
They rode in a few seconds of comfortable silence before Chuck put his hands up in an aim position down the road again.
“You know…man….man….man has a GOVERNOR…..you know that right?”
“A what? A governor?”
“That’s right a GOVERNOR…that’s right…a little bitty device in his brain that keeps him on the road…keeps him from turning right off into the dark. You ever hear that little voice that tells you you can turn off into the ditch…into oncomin’ traffic? Tells you you can shoot your buddy instead of the deer? That you can jump off the top of the building and onto the pavement when you’re up there enjoying the view?”
“I…uh…I don’t know…I mean maybe? Pretty sure those are intrusive thoughts and they’re normal.”
“Well whatever they are that’s what the governor is for. Keeps ya straight. Keeps ya from harmin nothin.”
“Alright man, alright.”
They pulled back into Chuck’s driveway and parked. Smallmouth helped his uncle out of the truck and up into the cabin, snow starting to color the roof and pile against the side of the house near the door. Arms locked Smallmouth propped open the screen door, opened the inner door, and led Chuck through the kitchen and to his bedroom. Chuck layed down on his camo comforter with a deep, long exhale.
“Ahhhh yes……yes” he whispered with a smile.
“I love ya son…I’m glad you’re heeeeere. Let’s get better….your mom needs it…..stay in the Lord’s light son…don’t let them devils get ya….let’s get better….lets….” He was off into the distant deep ether almost immediately, and his mouth hung open.
“Goodnight uncle…love ya too.” Smallmouth patted the bed twice before walking over and closing the bedroom door behind him.
He went and sat at the kitchen table. He regretted his behavior earlier in the night. How it pained him to have to stay up a little later to go help out his uncle.
“Cmon…” he whispered.
He agreed with Chuck. He was here to get better. To do better. Maybe Chuck was right. If he couldn’t get drunk off booze, it was time to pick something else to drink. Better things. Maybe even God? Smallmouth hadn’t paid much mind to God since his church job fell through. God surely hadn’t been there for him these last few years when he was at his lowest. Or was He there the whole time? Had Smallmouth just ignored Him? These things floated heavily in his mind and soon he realized he had been staring at the front door for several minutes. Had he even blinked? Then something else came to mind.
“Wait hold up”
That truck and trailer from earlier. What WAS that? He meant to bring it up to the ranch hands. They would’ve seen it come barreling down the road right by their front gate. Oh he wished he had brought that up to them. Oh well. It’s probably nothing. Smallmouth looked at the clock. 12:12.
“Happy New Year old boy.” He said to himself.
He sat for a moment in the warm kitchen light, his eyes not leaving the front door. Well, he’s up this late already, why not go run down and check on the abandoned properties?
No…no…it can wait. It’s probably nothing. Right?
Wrong. There’s that wailing kid in the back pew of his mind again. Come on kid can’t you just be quiet and listen to the sermon? No, no it can’t. It must be heard. Always. He knew he had to go check it out.
“Ughhhh FINE!” Smallmouth got up and grabbed his truck keys, patted to make sure his cigarettes were still there, and was out the door again.
The snow shower had ended. As he pulled up to the edge of the drive, he stalled for a moment and peaked out as far to the right as he could down the dark road. Nothing. It wasn’t very far to the end of that road, where two out of service mailboxes should’ve stood in a small cul-de-sac if it weren’t for teenagers beating them to splinters. Can’t really blame them either. Smallmouth considered his plan. Whether or not that truck belonged to the landowner down there, he shouldn’t feel like he needs to sneak around. He is merely a concerned neighbor after all. He began down the road and around that same corner the stranger disappeared earlier.
After a couple of slow, curious minutes Smallmouth could see the evidence of a great big fire in the near distance, beyond where the road ended. Through the bare trees and against the snow it cast orange and red that could surely be seen a mile in every direction, that is, if there were anyone there to see it.
Slightly intimidated, Smallmouth decided to turn off his headlights and let the fire guide him as he slowed up to 5mph and gently crackled his last few yards of gravel up to the remnants of the nearest mailbox post. It seemed the fire was on the land of the farther property, whose mailbox posthole was about 30 feet from where he came to a stop and parked his truck. Smallmouth turned it off and quietly got out into the cold. He crouched down as he walked over to the farther driveway, getting down on one knee to give it a stealthy closer look.
The abandoned property boasted a busted up trailer that sat pitifully about 500 feet from the mailbox memorial. Beyond that was a good ten acres of field that ended at the forest edge, which marked the beginning of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge. As Smallmouth peered on, it was obvious that the fire was way out in that field, blocked by the old trailer, which wore the hot light and columns of smoke on it like a devilish crown. Given the cover, Smallmouth crept over to the trailer and started easing around the right side.
Rounding the corner he noticed a propane tank that would be perfect for hiding behind and getting the best look he could at the mysterious activity. He got down on his belly and crawled his way over to the tank, before sitting up and peeking slowly over the top and out into the field.
Way down there, a couple acres away from the tree line, was a huge fire, made up of about fifty wooden pallets. It raged and lit up the whole field like it was just the beginning of sunset. Somewhat near the fire was the black Dodge Ram 3500 and trailer. Smallmouth could see a group of people dressed in all red, as if covered in bloody bedsheets from head to toe, circled around a crude cage, seemingly fastened together by pieces of metal fencing. They stood still as the pines, and twice as silent. Smallmouth, in a rare moment of curious courage, decided he had to get closer. He got back on his stomach and began to crawl through the cold, knee high grass.
Using the fire light as his North Star he crawled and crawled, feeling his hands, clothes, and beard get wet with snow. He didn’t care. Something was up that wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He could feel it in his cold gut. When he thought he was close enough without giving himself away he planted his palms and ever so slowly raised his torso up into a weak push up to try and see out. He was glad he didn’t go any further. He may have been too close already.
He was close enough to read the name of the truck and count the holes in the livestock trailer. There were seven strangers in red sheets all around the makeshift cage, all holding long spears. One of the figures had a crown of black thorns on his head. They all had two eyeholes and one hole for the mouth. They didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, before the Crowned One forcibly touched the end of his spear to the ground.
“Now is the time, Brother and Farmer Abraham…there is no more for us in waiting.”
Smallmouth had just noticed the passenger window to the black Dodge was down, and he could hear the driver door open and soon saw a normal looking older man in a ball cap at the back of the trailer. He was holding a leash of some sort. He opened up the trailer and whistled into the dark of it. After a couple of loud, heavy thuds a gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC Yorkshire pig came slowly shrugging out of the trailer. It was light pink in color but filthy, and gave wet sounding oinks as it came to the man’s hands expecting food. The thing must’ve weighed 1500 pounds, and at least ten feet long. It actually had to lower its head to reach the man’s hands, its ears coming up to the man’s chest. Smallmouth couldn’t believe his eyes. The man reached in his pocket and revealed a handful of some type of feed, which he tossed on the ground at the pig. It started right in as the man fixed a collar on the pigs girthy neck, then attaching a leash. The pig gave a slight squeal.
“Good girl, good girl…cmon now” the man called Farmer Abraham sweetly coaxed the animal. He gave his end of the leash a tug and the monstrous swine reluctantly left its food and followed the man over close to the Crowned One. The fire raged and raged nearby, throwing crazy shadows all over the place.
“What have you brought us, Brother and Farmer Abraham?”
“Yeah, uh, this is Old Azazel, she’s been in my family for years, man.”
The Crowned One dropped his spear and knelt down to the jowls of the hog, the dark holes of his eyes meeting those of the animal. The other red cloaked figures remained statuesque around the cage.
“Ah, yes, Old Azazel, hello. You are to be of great importance in the history of the Earth tonight, old friend.”
The Crowned One got back up to address Brother and Father Abraham, who seemed obviously put off, yet submissive.
“And is this Old Azazel a natural specimen? Is it fed only of the earth and the filths therein?”
“Yessir, I’d reckon so.”
“This is necessary for a proper sacrifice, Brother and Farmer Abraham. You may only bring your best, your cleanest, your most dear to the alter of the Almighty.”
“I understand.”
“May I take her now?”
The farmer gave his end of the leash to the black gloved left hand of the Crowned One. The Crowned one stood with it for almost a full minute in total stillness and silence. The only noise Smallmouth could hear was the sloppy smacks and oinks from Old Azazel. The farmer anxiously waited, wringing his hands expecting the next move from the Crowned One.
“Turn away, Brother and Farmer Abraham. Turn away from us and toward the fire now.” The Crowned One finally spoke.
“Phew, alright. We’re still good on our deal? Do you still promise to make my little girl better? Like you said?” The farmer asked, with some hopeful desperation.
“Turn now.”
“Well okay” the farmer turned his back to the Crowned One and toward the fire.
“I can assure you with all of the knowledge in my mind and in my heart, you will never see your daughter sick again in this lifetime, Brother and Father Abraham. You may find peace and solace in this truth.”
The farmer nodded in relief as he looked upon the fire. Smallmouth, taking it all in with great confusion, could see a smile on the farmers fire lit face, and turned back to the Crowned One just in time to see him reach under his red garment and pull out a pistol and shoot a round into the back of the farmers head, blowing his cap off, which frisbeed down near his shaking, crumpled body. Old Azazel threw a fit immediately, screaming and trying her best to flee. The Crowned One held the immense beast with one hand, and with seemingly little effort. The other red clothed figures finally made noise, laughing deep and heartily around the cage. The Crowned One, keeping Old Azazel close, walked over to the doubled over farmer, putting two more bullets into his head, essentially hollowing it out into a carnal mess. The farmers shaking mercifully stopped.
Smallmouth had to slam his forearm up to his mouth to muffle the scream that would’ve come out and blown his cover. His eyes were flown wide open and his arms were shivering.
The Crowned One put the pistol back under his red cloak and led the great pig, still squealing as high pitched and piercing as the human ear can withstand, over to the mouth of the cage, which was opened by the nearest red clothed stranger. Old Azazel flew in to the cage, having been unleashed by The Crowned One. It struggled around the cage, which was no bigger than 15x15 feet, giving it no room to get comfortable. It circled the inner perimeter, showing impressive speed for such a large animal. It squealed and squealed. The sound stung Smallmouths ears, and he covered them with his hands. He was still out of sight in the tall grass. The Red People around the cage laughed at the hogs entrapment. The Crowned One raised a hand to signal silence. The Red People were still and quiet again.
“Now, my brothers, the sacrificial gift is in our possession. Tonight…is a HOLY NIGHT.” The Crowned One raised his voice as if getting to the climax of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY WHAT WAS ONCE CAST OUT BUT NEVER VANQUISHED!! WE WILL RID THE EARTH OF A GREAT ARMY!! AN ARMY OF HELL THAT HAS FAR TOO LONG ROAMED AND SICKENED OUR LANDS AND KILLED OUR LOVES!! TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY THE DESTROYERS…THE LEGION OF SATANS SOLDIERS BORN JUST AFTER THE GARDEN OF EDEN FELL…”
The Crowned One fell to his knees, his arms up and stretched toward the frozen sky. A mighty wind began blowing at Smallmouths back. He had to lower his head as it roared over him. After a moment it calmed and he was able to lift up again to see. Winds from all corners of the field met at the cage, swirling over it in a great snowy funnel that led up to the clouds. Old Azazel screamed and screamed from the cage.
“I SEE YOU VILLIANS!! I HEAR YOU HOSTS OF HELL!! I KNOW YOU LIVE IN THESE TREES!! I KNOW YOU COWER WITHIN THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!! SHOW YOURSELF!! TAKE THE BODY OF THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW AND FACE ME!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE I-“
The Crowned One’s vocal cord shredding performance was cut short by a single burst of black lightning that shot down from the middle of the snowy funnel cloud that surrounded the cage. The Crowned One and all the Red People were thrown several feet back from the blast. Thunder immediately exploded across the field. Smallmouth buried his face as the force and sound raced over him. Ears ringing, he kept his face down for a few seconds. He squinted back up to the strike zone.
The strange black lightning had blown the cage completely apart. Two of The Red People had been hit with the metal fencing. One laid motionless. The other gargled in pain as he put a hand to the pole that was sticking out of his sternum, having penetrated all the way through. His legs buckled and he fell forward, the end of the pole hitting the ground first and propping him up for a moment, before his body slowly slid down to the ground around the metal. He went silent. The other four Red People, yelling in surprise, gathered themselves, looking to the charred hole in the ground where Old Azazel should be, right in the center where the cage used to stand. The Crowned One got to his feet and picked up his spear.
“My brothers, gather your arms…” the Crowned One whispered, breathing heavily under his red cloak.
“The work is not over…”
The four remaining Red People grabbed their spears and slowly walked over to the burnt, smoking hole, holding an attack pose over it until further instructions were given.
“Are you with us, you age old tormentors?” This was the first time Smallmouth could hear fear in the tired voice of the Crowned One.
“Are you with us now? Are you ready to die, you infernal bastards? Are you ready to-“
The Crowned One was interrupted by a booming noise from the hole that tore Smallmouths wits to shreds. It was similar to the cry of Old Azazel, but much deeper and ten times louder and angrier. It was as if a freight train was blaring its horn and slamming its brakes at the same time.
“NOW MY BROTHERS!! STRIKE THE BEAST OF HELL WITH YOUR SPEARS! NOW!!!”
The Red People all threw their weapons down into the smoking hole. The hellish noise from within stopped in an instant. The Red People crowded closer to the edge of the hole, waiting for the smoke to clear. The Crowned One walked over to them, putting his black gloved hand on the shoulder of the nearest man.
“Oh, Brothers. Oh my dear, dear Brothers. Your acts tonight have rid the earth of a Great and Powerful Evil…”
Before he could continue, a fully enraged and re-inspired bellow thrust itself up and out of the hole like a serrated blade. Much, much louder and angrier than before. The Red People were taken aback in terror. Suddenly, from within the hole, a large head emerged and gaped a huge, disgusting maw up at the crowd. The head was burned black and its eyes were half boiled white and without pupils. It shrieked out that most terrible noise as if it didn’t need oxygen.
“There’s no way” Smallmouth heard himself say under his breath.
All in one motion, the beast leaped out of the hole, and turned to face its attackers. It was Old Azazel, except swollen with burnt mass. It appeared to have grown a half a size at least. Three spears stuck out of its sizzling, charcoal colored back. It snapped its gigantic jaws at the Red People, who shuddered in horror. The Crowned One spoke:
“DO NOT RELENT BROTHERS!! ATTACK!! ATTACK THE BRUTE!!”
He pulled his pistol back out of his cloak and fired the remaining three rounds on the new and horrible black burnt Old Azazel. The beast’s cloudy boiled egg eyes shot open along with its unnaturally stretched jaws. It took the three bullets as if they were tennis balls. At the speed of a charging grizzly and with multiple times the power Old Azazel raged over to The Crowned One and dove onto him mouth first, putting both front hooves on his chest as he was knocked down. The Crowned One cried out in a shockingly high pitched wail, like a man being electrocuted. The Beast bit right into the soft of his belly, and began to shake him around like an Orca trying to separate a seal from its pelt.
“OH GOD!!!! AHHHHHH GOD OHHHHH!!! HELP ME!!!! NOOOO!!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!! MAMA!!!! OHHHH!!! MAMA!!!!!”
The beast ate and ate and shook and shook and tore and broke and destroyed while the Crowned One lost more and more of his body, all while crying out to the sky at the top of his punctured lungs. The other Red People sprinted to the black Dodge Ram, opened its doors and piled inside. Smallmouth heard it crank up and it began to speedily turn around and race away from the fire and back toward the road. The beast unhooked from the Crowned One and let out another ghastly roar of victory before biting into his neck, ending his screaming forever. The beast then left his half devoured body and began a tremendous and terrible charge after the truck, which was greatly slowed down by the trailer. Smallmouth put his face down as the beast passed him by only about 10 feet on its way to the truck, which had just made it back to the road and was using every RPM possible to get away from the demon charged killing machine on its heels. Smallmouth turned around to watch both parties disappear down the road, the echoes of that great and evil blasting noise stabbing his ears again. He remained on his stomach in the tall, snowy grass for another two minutes as he normalized his breath and tried to make any sense of what he just witnessed.
Eventually he slowly rose up and looked to make sure that terrible thing was indeed out of the area. No signs of life or death from up at the road. The danger was at least a couple miles away by now. Smallmouth then turned back toward the fire and to the dominated body of the Crowned One. He carefully walked up closer and closer. To his amazement he heard wheezy noises coming from the emptied out torso of the man, a scattering of insides and flesh and blood strewn all around him. Troubled, rattling breaths escaped from under the red clothed head, whose crown of thorns had flown off in the attack. Most of the red cloak had been ripped to shreds, and all that remained covered were his shoulders and above. The cloth slowly ebbed and flowed with breath. Smallmouth could not believe this man was still alive. His entire digestive system was eviscerated and his ribs were exposed. Smallmouth knelt down beside him and lifted his cloak over his head to let him at least breathe his last in the open air.
Smallmouth let out a gasp. This man had a face that Smallmouth knew very well. He recognized him immediately from the old church he worked at. The clean shaven face. The short, silver hair. The sharp nose. This was a man that had joined his church two weeks before the schism. He never spoke in church but it was rumored he would meet at the homes of different members and try to sway them to his strange ideas. He was the one rumored to have led the radical faction somewhere in the middle of the woods. To Smallmouth, it was all starting to make more sense.
“I know you,” Smallmouth said softly, “I know who you are. You tore a church in half didn’t you? You’re the crazy guy that split up my ole church! What the hell have you done?”
The man struggled to breathe and tried his best to spit up a couple of words. His neck had deep lacerations that flowed with escaping life.
“I…I…I…uhh…I only…I only…I only did what I believed…” he whispered before a wet, stifled breath.
“What did you do?!!!” Smallmouth grew angry, and his voice followed suit. This man had ruined his job and now he had unleashed something horrifying on his neighborhood. He had tampered with things that man has no business tampering with.
“I…I…I have…have…I have failed, Smallmouth Bassett” the man croaked. Smallmouth couldn’t believe he had bothered to remember his name.
“I have failed. I have failed. God help you all…” with that the man’s face fell and he let out one last slow exhale before all was still.
Smallmouth got back on his feet and looked away from the dead man and toward the fire, which towered and raged in the reflection of his eyes.
“Oh no…oh no…oh no” he said in between terrified breaths.
Then another though hit him like a wrecking ball.
“Uncle Chuck…”

On the night when it all happened a young man called Smallmouth found himself in quite a pickle. He shivered and paced clumsily all over the second story porch of a cabin that used to be very nice, which overlooked a snowy down-sloping field that used to be kept up properly and carefully. He was already six packs deep into a carton of cigarettes he had bought only two days ago from a Casey’s General Store on his way up. He could recall the look on the young woman’s face at the register when he asked for a carton of Parliament Menthols, her eyes showing one blink of humorous surprise and another couple blinks of obvious concern, which faded to professional indifference as she rang in the sweet, icy killers. Smallmouth stopped his nervous dallying when he caught himself in the kitchen window; a large, shadowy figure sulking between the inside lights and the cold, almost glowing world downhill. His eyes still on his murky reflection, he patted his coat pockets for his seventh pack, pulling it out and smacking it against his left palm before cracking open and lighting it at his mouth. In a slow, warm flash, he could briefly see his own face in the window.
“Oh man, it’s bad” , he thought to himself.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his beard grew coarse and thick. A face that his mother had once called handsome had become a clean plate covered in steel wool. Well, maybe not so clean. Under and around his eyes were the obvious bruising of sleeplessness and his skin had lost its lively color and clarity of yesteryear.
“Ughhh” he groaned, turning away from the window to look over the porch and into the freezing, beckoning night.
The pickle that Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett found himself in involved his uncle, and his uncle’s evening logistics, to be precise. Smallmouth had been kicked out of his parents home on December 27th due to a slight misunderstanding at 2am when he believed the living room Christmas tree to be the downstairs bathroom. He had passed out on the couch after drinking a fire pit full of crushed Hamm’s cans and his brain tried desperately to get him up and to the nearby toilet. His little sister Stacy was tucked in fast asleep on a loveseat by the tree when she was brutally torn from her sugarplum dreams to hear the terrible hiss of Smallmouth’s folly. She screamed, the parents woke up, and, well, there you go. After well over three strikes, Smallmouth’s temporary residence had come to an end, and he was thrown to his mother’s brother’s cabin to dry up and straighten out before he could ever even be considered to return.
“You two deserve to live together. He can’t say no either because he owes me a lot more than this!” Smallmouth’s mother had screeched over him as he sat at the kitchen table the following morning with a cold bag of peas against his throbbing right temple. “You go there and you GET RIGHT!! I don’t care how long it takes just clean up your act and MAKE something of yourself! And for goodness sake tell Chuck to do the same, while he still has time!”
Yes, Uncle Chuck had his own shelf full of good time problems, and that’s what put Smallmouth in a bind tonight as he pondered over the white yonder that led to a black nothing, a black nothing that in the daylight pretended to be a forest. At night, it showed its true nature, an endless world of dark secrets and aching regret. At least that’s how Smallmouth saw it in this moment.
Chuck had gone down to the ranch he worked on for a New Years party with his work buddies. They liked to gather at the big barn where all of the vehicles and equipment were kept, sitting around a card table passing out stories about women and other trophy game that were either outright lied about or illegally poached. Oh, and they also liked to pass the bottle around. Therein lied the conundrum for Smallmouth.
Uncle Chuck was many things, but one thing he wasn’t was a drunk driver. Chuck’s wife Rebecca had been struck and killed by a drunk driver almost ten years ago when she was out jogging the back roads early one morning. Everyone assumed that’s what led him to his openly hard drinking and sneakily pill popping ways in the first place. For Chuck, most nights were kept at home, parked in front of a TV watching old westerns and cleaning out a full bottle of Wild Turkey 101 before snoring in his recliner. On the few nights he would go out, he would always call a ride if things got out of hand. As you can imagine, he tends to need a ride home.
“I should be home bout 11:30. Service ain’t so good up there near the barn so if it gets bout 11:15-11:20 and I ain’t home, go head and do me a favor and come grab me son.” Chuck had told Smallmouth before he left, closing the warped screen door behind him.
Smallmouth had spent the evening trying his best to stay entertained without the help of any chemical enhancement. His family’s anger and resentment really struck him and this time he was determined to truly get right and get his life back on the rails. He was 29 years old. He had gone through college clean as a whistle, bright and driven, receiving his MBA with plans to work his way up in a promising career in business. That worked for a couple years. Then he found a calling in ministry, deciding to quit the corporate world to fill an opening of a tiny country church in the area. They needed a deacon who could take care of things around the building and assist in the worship service. He wasn’t much for public speaking, haven been given the nickname Smallmouth at a young age due to his soft spoken nature, but he could pass plates and give a hushed prayer every now and then. He liked to mow and paint and help old ladies up the stairs. The quiet country life was really nice for him, for a while. Strange, radical ideas eventually spread through the church though, and half of its members left overnight to form their own congregation. Its funding cut in half, the church had to close its doors and the other members absorbed into other churches. Smallmouth rarely ever saw the people that had departed from the church, but rumors creeped that they met at an old abandoned building deep in the woods, performing all sorts of different acts and rituals that would purify themselves and destroy all evils. Nevertheless, Smallmouth was out of work and picked up shifts bartending at a small town dive. His soft fortitude was no match for the booze and drugs and women that would pass through there and soon he was out the door. That landed him mooching off of his parents, draining their sanity and eventually draining himself on their Christmas tree. The last strike.
So there he was all night, waiting up for uncle Chuck. He was two days clean of everything except caffeine and nicotine, a major improvement. He felt a boost of hope and confidence the first morning after a sober nights sleep. He found the mornings to be the best parts of the day. At least he had coffee and cigarettes to get him out of bed. That would wear off quickly and the rest of the day was filled with trying to find distractions until the sun set about 5pm. Then he would watch a movie or two with Chuck. Last night he had been able to call it early and go to sleep at 7pm shortly after Chuck started sawing logs in front of True Grit (the original John Wayne version of course). Tonight he saw 7pm struggle and churn into 8…….8:13……..8:48……9:05……9:29………..9:31………9:52……..9:58……….10:11…….10:12 (oh cmon)……10:27…….10:56…….and finally 11:08. It was like the clock was a 35 year old four cylinder engine oiled with crunchy peanut butter. Now, crunch time sat in the cold air as Smallmouth finished his cigarette and stewed over his decision. He really didn’t feel like going down to the barn and getting Chuck, even though it was only a couple miles. In the infancy of his sobriety he found the smallest of choices and activities to seem dire and at the very least upsettingly out of his way. Surely Chuck can get himself home on his own, right?
“No. Who knows if someone’s Aunt Rebecca or grandmother or son is out there on the road tonight” he thought.
As much as he had tried to screw up his life, Smallmouth usually knew what the right decision would be, even if he so often refused to listen. It was there ever so clearly on this New Year’s Eve, wailing in the back row of his mind like a misbehaved child during a church sermon. Smallmouth left the porch and went inside to grab his keys.
He walked out to his truck, got in, cranked it, let it sit down to one rpm, and started down the gravel driveway, which led to the gravel county road that Chuck and his few and far between neighbors lived on. He got to the mailbox and suddenly shot his attention up the road, where headlights revealed themselves out of the deep dark. It was rare to see any cars this far down Chuck’s road. In fact, there were no other houses to the right of Chuck’s cabin, spare for a couple of empty ones that were condemned but were attached to a lot of forest property.
Smallmouth squinted his eyes as a large black Dodge Ram 3500 came barreling by with a livestock trailer. Even inside his own truck he could hear a terrible noise coming from that trailer. He recognized it instantly as a pig squeal.
“The hell?” He whispered as the truck and trailer tore down the road, going around a nearby corner and out of sight. He couldn’t guess what on earth that could be about at this hour, and especially since nobody lived down there anyway. He shrugged it off though, and turned left out of the driveway, headed for drunk Uncle Chuck down at the ranch.
Ten minutes and a couple of snowy country miles later Smallmouth found himself through the metal gate of the ranch and up to the main barn, where a couple of smiling ranch hands had Chuck held up between them just outside one of two closed garage doors. A lamppost nearby cast a glow of debauchery on all of their faces, especially Chuck’s. Smallmouth got out and walked up to them smiling and shaking his head.
“Well well well…” he said with a slight laugh.
“Your Uncle put on one hell of a clinic tonight ‘Mouth” one of the hands said.
“I…..I….I don’t know what they’re tawlkin bout son” Chuck slang out before a high pitched giggle.
“I got another couple rounds in me I thinks!”
Smallmouth laughed.
“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that uncle! Let’s get on home now and let these fellas get on too.”
“Y’alright alright” Chuck said as Smallmouth took him from his buddies arms into one of his own and led him to the passenger seat of his truck.
“Happy New Years boys!!! Let’s do it all again okay?” He hollered to his waving buddies as they drove back away from the barn and through the metal gate toward home.
“You have a good time Uncle?”
“Oh…ohhh…I reckon I showed those boys how to do it” Another childish giggle.
A light snow shower seasoned the cold air as the truck rolled down the gravel country road. In the yellow headlights it made a pleasant white noise for the eyes. Chuck put his hands up staggered and vertically, fingers together and outstretched, pointing out in front of the truck down the road like he was aiming up for a rifle shot. He closed one eye.
“Straight as an arrow ole son. You’re good at this.”
“I ain’t drunk pops” Smallmouth chuckled.
“Sure ya are. Everybody’s drunk son. Even people that ain’t drink. Ticket is to get drunk on good stuff” Chuck’s face calmed from a goofy grin as he kept his eyes out front into the slow swirling tube of visible night.
“You sound like you’re drunk on some pretty damn good stuff” Smallmouth retorted as they shared a look and a good laugh.
“Suppose’n you ain’t wrong. Gotta work on that just like you are. Proud o’ you for a couple days clean man. We’ll get right. We’ll get right. All I meant was that man is born to get drunk on somethin’ or other. What I mean is God. Man is born to get drunk on his God.” Chuck said as Smallmouth shot him a raised eyebrow look of confusion.
“Once God gets ya drunk then you’re home free ol’ son. That distillery is never ending eternal forever. That land flows with whiskey and honey.” They both shared another laugh.
“Okay okay I think I somewhat understand now Uncle.”
They rode in a few seconds of comfortable silence before Chuck put his hands up in an aim position down the road again.
“You know…man….man….man has a GOVERNOR…..you know that right?”
“A what? A governor?”
“That’s right a GOVERNOR…that’s right…a little bitty device in his brain that keeps him on the road…keeps him from turning right off into the dark. You ever hear that little voice that tells you you can turn off into the ditch…into oncomin’ traffic? Tells you you can shoot your buddy instead of the deer? That you can jump off the top of the building and onto the pavement when you’re up there enjoying the view?”
“I…uh…I don’t know…I mean maybe? Pretty sure those are intrusive thoughts and they’re normal.”
“Well whatever they are that’s what the governor is for. Keeps ya straight. Keeps ya from harmin nothin.”
“Alright man, alright.”
They pulled back into Chuck’s driveway and parked. Smallmouth helped his uncle out of the truck and up into the cabin, snow starting to color the roof and pile against the side of the house near the door. Arms locked Smallmouth propped open the screen door, opened the inner door, and led Chuck through the kitchen and to his bedroom. Chuck layed down on his camo comforter with a deep, long exhale.
“Ahhhh yes……yes” he whispered with a smile.
“I love ya son…I’m glad you’re heeeeere. Let’s get better….your mom needs it…..stay in the Lord’s light son…don’t let them devils get ya….let’s get better….lets….” He was off into the distant deep ether almost immediately, and his mouth hung open.
“Goodnight uncle…love ya too.” Smallmouth patted the bed twice before walking over and closing the bedroom door behind him.
He went and sat at the kitchen table. He regretted his behavior earlier in the night. How it pained him to have to stay up a little later to go help out his uncle.
“Cmon…” he whispered.
He agreed with Chuck. He was here to get better. To do better. Maybe Chuck was right. If he couldn’t get drunk off booze, it was time to pick something else to drink. Better things. Maybe even God? Smallmouth hadn’t paid much mind to God since his church job fell through. God surely hadn’t been there for him these last few years when he was at his lowest. Or was He there the whole time? Had Smallmouth just ignored Him? These things floated heavily in his mind and soon he realized he had been staring at the front door for several minutes. Had he even blinked? Then something else came to mind.
“Wait hold up”
That truck and trailer from earlier. What WAS that? He meant to bring it up to the ranch hands. They would’ve seen it come barreling down the road right by their front gate. Oh he wished he had brought that up to them. Oh well. It’s probably nothing. Smallmouth looked at the clock. 12:12.
“Happy New Year old boy.” He said to himself.
He sat for a moment in the warm kitchen light, his eyes not leaving the front door. Well, he’s up this late already, why not go run down and check on the abandoned properties?
No…no…it can wait. It’s probably nothing. Right?
Wrong. There’s that wailing kid in the back pew of his mind again. Come on kid can’t you just be quiet and listen to the sermon? No, no it can’t. It must be heard. Always. He knew he had to go check it out.
“Ughhhh FINE!” Smallmouth got up and grabbed his truck keys, patted to make sure his cigarettes were still there, and was out the door again.
The snow shower had ended. As he pulled up to the edge of the drive, he stalled for a moment and peaked out as far to the right as he could down the dark road. Nothing. It wasn’t very far to the end of that road, where two out of service mailboxes should’ve stood in a small cul-de-sac if it weren’t for teenagers beating them to splinters. Can’t really blame them either. Smallmouth considered his plan. Whether or not that truck belonged to the landowner down there, he shouldn’t feel like he needs to sneak around. He is merely a concerned neighbor after all. He began down the road and around that same corner the stranger disappeared earlier.
After a couple of slow, curious minutes Smallmouth could see the evidence of a great big fire in the near distance, beyond where the road ended. Through the bare trees and against the snow it cast orange and red that could surely be seen a mile in every direction, that is, if there were anyone there to see it.
Slightly intimidated, Smallmouth decided to turn off his headlights and let the fire guide him as he slowed up to 5mph and gently crackled his last few yards of gravel up to the remnants of the nearest mailbox post. It seemed the fire was on the land of the farther property, whose mailbox posthole was about 30 feet from where he came to a stop and parked his truck. Smallmouth turned it off and quietly got out into the cold. He crouched down as he walked over to the farther driveway, getting down on one knee to give it a stealthy closer look.
The abandoned property boasted a busted up trailer that sat pitifully about 500 feet from the mailbox memorial. Beyond that was a good ten acres of field that ended at the forest edge, which marked the beginning of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge. As Smallmouth peered on, it was obvious that the fire was way out in that field, blocked by the old trailer, which wore the hot light and columns of smoke on it like a devilish crown. Given the cover, Smallmouth crept over to the trailer and started easing around the right side.
Rounding the corner he noticed a propane tank that would be perfect for hiding behind and getting the best look he could at the mysterious activity. He got down on his belly and crawled his way over to the tank, before sitting up and peeking slowly over the top and out into the field.
Way down there, a couple acres away from the tree line, was a huge fire, made up of about fifty wooden pallets. It raged and lit up the whole field like it was just the beginning of sunset. Somewhat near the fire was the black Dodge Ram 3500 and trailer. Smallmouth could see a group of people dressed in all red, as if covered in bloody bedsheets from head to toe, circled around a crude cage, seemingly fastened together by pieces of metal fencing. They stood still as the pines, and twice as silent. Smallmouth, in a rare moment of curious courage, decided he had to get closer. He got back on his stomach and began to crawl through the cold, knee high grass.
Using the fire light as his North Star he crawled and crawled, feeling his hands, clothes, and beard get wet with snow. He didn’t care. Something was up that wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He could feel it in his cold gut. When he thought he was close enough without giving himself away he planted his palms and ever so slowly raised his torso up into a weak push up to try and see out. He was glad he didn’t go any further. He may have been too close already.
He was close enough to read the name of the truck and count the holes in the livestock trailer. There were seven strangers in red sheets all around the makeshift cage, all holding long spears. One of the figures had a crown of black thorns on his head. They all had two eyeholes and one hole for the mouth. They didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, before the Crowned One forcibly touched the end of his spear to the ground.
“Now is the time, Brother and Farmer Abraham…there is no more for us in waiting.”
Smallmouth had just noticed the passenger window to the black Dodge was down, and he could hear the driver door open and soon saw a normal looking older man in a ball cap at the back of the trailer. He was holding a leash of some sort. He opened up the trailer and whistled into the dark of it. After a couple of loud, heavy thuds a gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC Yorkshire pig came slowly shrugging out of the trailer. It was light pink in color but filthy, and gave wet sounding oinks as it came to the man’s hands expecting food. The thing must’ve weighed 1500 pounds, and at least ten feet long. It actually had to lower its head to reach the man’s hands, its ears coming up to the man’s chest. Smallmouth couldn’t believe his eyes. The man reached in his pocket and revealed a handful of some type of feed, which he tossed on the ground at the pig. It started right in as the man fixed a collar on the pigs girthy neck, then attaching a leash. The pig gave a slight squeal.
“Good girl, good girl…cmon now” the man called Farmer Abraham sweetly coaxed the animal. He gave his end of the leash a tug and the monstrous swine reluctantly left its food and followed the man over close to the Crowned One. The fire raged and raged nearby, throwing crazy shadows all over the place.
“What have you brought us, Brother and Farmer Abraham?”
“Yeah, uh, this is Old Azazel, she’s been in my family for years, man.”
The Crowned One dropped his spear and knelt down to the jowls of the hog, the dark holes of his eyes meeting those of the animal. The other red cloaked figures remained statuesque around the cage.
“Ah, yes, Old Azazel, hello. You are to be of great importance in the history of the Earth tonight, old friend.”
The Crowned One got back up to address Brother and Father Abraham, who seemed obviously put off, yet submissive.
“And is this Old Azazel a natural specimen? Is it fed only of the earth and the filths therein?”
“Yessir, I’d reckon so.”
“This is necessary for a proper sacrifice, Brother and Farmer Abraham. You may only bring your best, your cleanest, your most dear to the alter of the Almighty.”
“I understand.”
“May I take her now?”
The farmer gave his end of the leash to the black gloved left hand of the Crowned One. The Crowned one stood with it for almost a full minute in total stillness and silence. The only noise Smallmouth could hear was the sloppy smacks and oinks from Old Azazel. The farmer anxiously waited, wringing his hands expecting the next move from the Crowned One.
“Turn away, Brother and Farmer Abraham. Turn away from us and toward the fire now.” The Crowned One finally spoke.
“Phew, alright. We’re still good on our deal? Do you still promise to make my little girl better? Like you said?” The farmer asked, with some hopeful desperation.
“Turn now.”
“Well okay” the farmer turned his back to the Crowned One and toward the fire.
“I can assure you with all of the knowledge in my mind and in my heart, you will never see your daughter sick again in this lifetime, Brother and Father Abraham. You may find peace and solace in this truth.”
The farmer nodded in relief as he looked upon the fire. Smallmouth, taking it all in with great confusion, could see a smile on the farmers fire lit face, and turned back to the Crowned One just in time to see him reach under his red garment and pull out a pistol and shoot a round into the back of the farmers head, blowing his cap off, which frisbeed down near his shaking, crumpled body. Old Azazel threw a fit immediately, screaming and trying her best to flee. The Crowned One held the immense beast with one hand, and with seemingly little effort. The other red clothed figures finally made noise, laughing deep and heartily around the cage. The Crowned One, keeping Old Azazel close, walked over to the doubled over farmer, putting two more bullets into his head, essentially hollowing it out into a carnal mess. The farmers shaking mercifully stopped.
Smallmouth had to slam his forearm up to his mouth to muffle the scream that would’ve come out and blown his cover. His eyes were flown wide open and his arms were shivering.
The Crowned One put the pistol back under his red cloak and led the great pig, still squealing as high pitched and piercing as the human ear can withstand, over to the mouth of the cage, which was opened by the nearest red clothed stranger. Old Azazel flew in to the cage, having been unleashed by The Crowned One. It struggled around the cage, which was no bigger than 15x15 feet, giving it no room to get comfortable. It circled the inner perimeter, showing impressive speed for such a large animal. It squealed and squealed. The sound stung Smallmouths ears, and he covered them with his hands. He was still out of sight in the tall grass. The Red People around the cage laughed at the hogs entrapment. The Crowned One raised a hand to signal silence. The Red People were still and quiet again.
“Now, my brothers, the sacrificial gift is in our possession. Tonight…is a HOLY NIGHT.” The Crowned One raised his voice as if getting to the climax of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY WHAT WAS ONCE CAST OUT BUT NEVER VANQUISHED!! WE WILL RID THE EARTH OF A GREAT ARMY!! AN ARMY OF HELL THAT HAS FAR TOO LONG ROAMED AND SICKENED OUR LANDS AND KILLED OUR LOVES!! TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY THE DESTROYERS…THE LEGION OF SATANS SOLDIERS BORN JUST AFTER THE GARDEN OF EDEN FELL…”
The Crowned One fell to his knees, his arms up and stretched toward the frozen sky. A mighty wind began blowing at Smallmouths back. He had to lower his head as it roared over him. After a moment it calmed and he was able to lift up again to see. Winds from all corners of the field met at the cage, swirling over it in a great snowy funnel that led up to the clouds. Old Azazel screamed and screamed from the cage.
“I SEE YOU VILLIANS!! I HEAR YOU HOSTS OF HELL!! I KNOW YOU LIVE IN THESE TREES!! I KNOW YOU COWER WITHIN THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!! SHOW YOURSELF!! TAKE THE BODY OF THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW AND FACE ME!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE I-“
The Crowned One’s vocal cord shredding performance was cut short by a single burst of black lightning that shot down from the middle of the snowy funnel cloud that surrounded the cage. The Crowned One and all the Red People were thrown several feet back from the blast. Thunder immediately exploded across the field. Smallmouth buried his face as the force and sound raced over him. Ears ringing, he kept his face down for a few seconds. He squinted back up to the strike zone.
The strange black lightning had blown the cage completely apart. Two of The Red People had been hit with the metal fencing. One laid motionless. The other gargled in pain as he put a hand to the pole that was sticking out of his sternum, having penetrated all the way through. His legs buckled and he fell forward, the end of the pole hitting the ground first and propping him up for a moment, before his body slowly slid down to the ground around the metal. He went silent. The other four Red People, yelling in surprise, gathered themselves, looking to the charred hole in the ground where Old Azazel should be, right in the center where the cage used to stand. The Crowned One got to his feet and picked up his spear.
“My brothers, gather your arms…” the Crowned One whispered, breathing heavily under his red cloak.
“The work is not over…”
The four remaining Red People grabbed their spears and slowly walked over to the burnt, smoking hole, holding an attack pose over it until further instructions were given.
“Are you with us, you age old tormentors?” This was the first time Smallmouth could hear fear in the tired voice of the Crowned One.
“Are you with us now? Are you ready to die, you infernal bastards? Are you ready to-“
The Crowned One was interrupted by a booming noise from the hole that tore Smallmouths wits to shreds. It was similar to the cry of Old Azazel, but much deeper and ten times louder and angrier. It was as if a freight train was blaring its horn and slamming its brakes at the same time.
“NOW MY BROTHERS!! STRIKE THE BEAST OF HELL WITH YOUR SPEARS! NOW!!!”
The Red People all threw their weapons down into the smoking hole. The hellish noise from within stopped in an instant. The Red People crowded closer to the edge of the hole, waiting for the smoke to clear. The Crowned One walked over to them, putting his black gloved hand on the shoulder of the nearest man.
“Oh, Brothers. Oh my dear, dear Brothers. Your acts tonight have rid the earth of a Great and Powerful Evil…”
Before he could continue, a fully enraged and re-inspired bellow thrust itself up and out of the hole like a serrated blade. Much, much louder and angrier than before. The Red People were taken aback in terror. Suddenly, from within the hole, a large head emerged and gaped a huge, disgusting maw up at the crowd. The head was burned black and its eyes were half boiled white and without pupils. It shrieked out that most terrible noise as if it didn’t need oxygen.
“There’s no way” Smallmouth heard himself say under his breath.
All in one motion, the beast leaped out of the hole, and turned to face its attackers. It was Old Azazel, except swollen with burnt mass. It appeared to have grown a half a size at least. Three spears stuck out of its sizzling, charcoal colored back. It snapped its gigantic jaws at the Red People, who shuddered in horror. The Crowned One spoke:
“DO NOT RELENT BROTHERS!! ATTACK!! ATTACK THE BRUTE!!”
He pulled his pistol back out of his cloak and fired the remaining three rounds on the new and horrible black burnt Old Azazel. The beast’s cloudy boiled egg eyes shot open along with its unnaturally stretched jaws. It took the three bullets as if they were tennis balls. At the speed of a charging grizzly and with multiple times the power Old Azazel raged over to The Crowned One and dove onto him mouth first, putting both front hooves on his chest as he was knocked down. The Crowned One cried out in a shockingly high pitched wail, like a man being electrocuted. The Beast bit right into the soft of his belly, and began to shake him around like an Orca trying to separate a seal from its pelt.
“OH GOD!!!! AHHHHHH GOD OHHHHH!!! HELP ME!!!! NOOOO!!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!! MAMA!!!! OHHHH!!! MAMA!!!!!”
The beast ate and ate and shook and shook and tore and broke and destroyed while the Crowned One lost more and more of his body, all while crying out to the sky at the top of his punctured lungs. The other Red People sprinted to the black Dodge Ram, opened its doors and piled inside. Smallmouth heard it crank up and it began to speedily turn around and race away from the fire and back toward the road. The beast unhooked from the Crowned One and let out another ghastly roar of victory before biting into his neck, ending his screaming forever. The beast then left his half devoured body and began a tremendous and terrible charge after the truck, which was greatly slowed down by the trailer. Smallmouth put his face down as the beast passed him by only about 10 feet on its way to the truck, which had just made it back to the road and was using every RPM possible to get away from the demon charged killing machine on its heels. Smallmouth turned around to watch both parties disappear down the road, the echoes of that great and evil blasting noise stabbing his ears again. He remained on his stomach in the tall, snowy grass for another two minutes as he normalized his breath and tried to make any sense of what he just witnessed.
Eventually he slowly rose up and looked to make sure that terrible thing was indeed out of the area. No signs of life or death from up at the road. The danger was at least a couple miles away by now. Smallmouth then turned back toward the fire and to the dominated body of the Crowned One. He carefully walked up closer and closer. To his amazement he heard wheezy noises coming from the emptied out torso of the man, a scattering of insides and flesh and blood strewn all around him. Troubled, rattling breaths escaped from under the red clothed head, whose crown of thorns had flown off in the attack. Most of the red cloak had been ripped to shreds, and all that remained covered were his shoulders and above. The cloth slowly ebbed and flowed with breath. Smallmouth could not believe this man was still alive. His entire digestive system was eviscerated and his ribs were exposed. Smallmouth knelt down beside him and lifted his cloak over his head to let him at least breathe his last in the open air.
Smallmouth let out a gasp. This man had a face that Smallmouth knew very well. He recognized him immediately from the old church he worked at. The clean shaven face. The short, silver hair. The sharp nose. This was a man that had joined his church two weeks before the schism. He never spoke in church but it was rumored he would meet at the homes of different members and try to sway them to his strange ideas. He was the one rumored to have led the radical faction somewhere in the middle of the woods. To Smallmouth, it was all starting to make more sense.
“I know you,” Smallmouth said softly, “I know who you are. You tore a church in half didn’t you? You’re the crazy guy that split up my ole church! What the hell have you done?”
The man struggled to breathe and tried his best to spit up a couple of words. His neck had deep lacerations that flowed with escaping life.
“I…I…I…uhh…I only…I only…I only did what I believed…” he whispered before a wet, stifled breath.
“What did you do?!!!” Smallmouth grew angry, and his voice followed suit. This man had ruined his job and now he had unleashed something horrifying on his neighborhood. He had tampered with things that man has no business tampering with.
“I…I…I have…have…I have failed, Smallmouth Bassett” the man croaked. Smallmouth couldn’t believe he had bothered to remember his name.
“I have failed. I have failed. God help you all…” with that the man’s face fell and he let out one last slow exhale before all was still.
Smallmouth got back on his feet and looked away from the dead man and toward the fire, which towered and raged in the reflection of his eyes.
“Oh no…oh no…oh no” he said in between terrified breaths.
Then another though hit him like a wrecking ball.
“Uncle Chuck…”

~First~
The Bounty Hunters
“So we’re number four thousand eight hundred and twenty two on the waiting list?” Slithern asks Mother Lytha. He’s wrapped up in her coils with Mother Cindy on Pukey’s lap and between them. She’s holding George and Harrika is holding little Darruda Dawn Schmidt Powercoil. Or DD, it turns out that the name was too good for the nickname of Booger to stick. To Slithern’s disappointment. Surrounding them are his honourguard in full formal plate. Even though they were told this was going to be casual.
“It’s going through quickly.” Bike remarks from his position. He had decided to be a gentleman and let Susie-Lu have his seat. Which is why her sister was leaning against an unused part of he console next to where Bike was working.
“So does that mean we still need ta stand at attention all formal like? Or can I relax a lil?” Sallie asks. They had managed to easily fit everyone in the ship onto the bridge so there had been a minimum of fighting for seating space. Mostly the spaces around respective husbands. The Crimsonhewers didn’t care. The Sidewinders had moved fast. Nuit and Soir were all over Tang as Mustard relaxed with Andrea and Roth. Jade was crouching next to a sitting Onyx with Air Farce draped over their shoulders like the most impertinent boa to ever exist.
The Hat was reclining with his newly made piece of clothing as J3 was jotting down a list of all the funniest loopholes he could find in Mordonan bylaws and Orhanas traditions. It was in bullet point format and he was halfway through his fifth page already.
Mustard, Andrea and Roth were all but tangled up together and while The Hat wasn’t technically surrounded by his Crimsonhewer brides, there was also a higher concentration of them around the big man.
“We have contact!” Bike suddenly says as the queue in front of them jumps in time to see a man take a pull of a clear liquid that is unlikely to be water. “Are you Observer Wu?”
“I am, and you would be Officer Drake Engel. Your Aunt sends her regards.” Observer Wu says putting the bottle to this side.
“The queue behind us just expanded to several thousand. Still working on your cyber-security?”
“Yes. Unfortunately my duties require that I take an initial observation of all human outposts and interests before physically going there to evaluate in person. Meaning I can’t simply shut it off as Admiral Cistern has recommended.” Observer Wu says and there are numerous sympathetic looks.
“Well, if nothing else it should confirm just how female dominant the galactic population is.” Pukey says. “I will not hold it against you if you wish to drain the flask.”
“I’ll need more of it for later. My supplies are currently limited.” Observer Wu states. “Now then, from my understanding you are one of the earliest groups that went out and sought further interactions with the galaxy at large. You have also a recent report of one of your members attaining noble rank in a friendly empire known as Lablan, is this correct?”
“That would be me.” Slither says. “Behold my honourguard! I’m afraid I’ve left the Crystal Star back in my quarters however.”
“I see. Is there anything in particular that I should be made aware of?”
“There have been a few encounters with some very dangerous things. Some are still legally classified, others are classified under an Undaunted Remit to control dangerous information.”
“Dangerous information?
“A disgustingly powerful weapon that is easily mass made but terrible in all it’s means. The ones we’re referring to are named Pale Generators. They’re in the Albrith files.” Pukey says and Observer Wu nods.
“More to read for me then. Now I understand we have you thank for some unholy hybrid of an elephant gun, anti-material rifle and artillery cannon.”
“Yes, the Pop Gun. Often impractical, but most people scanning for weapons look for things like railguns or coilguns which have certain energy profiles, but a Pop-Gun is inert until used. Meaning it can slip through a lot of scans. Couple that with it being made of common materials and you can hide these monsters just about anywhere and there’s no way of knowing where they are without actually seeing them.”
“An excellent contribution.” Observer Wu remarks. “You were also involved in the conquest of Vucsa were you not?”
“They picked me up there!” Jade says holding up a hand and dislodging Air Farce by accident. There’s about a half second of excitement as the man lands mostly bad, jumps off it hard and turns it into a flip.
“Hah!” He proclaims and Jade laughs. “What’s the matter? Can’t get one on your old man?”
Any further taunting is cut off by her grabbing him into a tight hug as Onyx laughs before pausing as she feels her stomach.
“Little sis kicking?”
“If I hadn’t had a scan I would swear you had two sisters on the way little lady. She’s going to be a big one.” Onyx notes wryly.
“Sorry big girl, I don’t do things by halves.” Air Farce says now standing up next to her and is just barely poking over her shoulder as he does so. She leans back to kiss him.
“Make it up to me then.”
“So business as usual?”
“Business as usual.” She confirms.
“Well, I can see that there’s certainly a great effort to see how humans interbreed with other races.” Observer Wu states. “What has been learned about that?”
“Well for starters, even if there’s an enormous difference between the parents the child is still healthy. Little George here hatched from an egg that his three foot tall mother laid.” Pukey says and Observer Wu openly taps a few keys on his chair to zoom in.
“Congratulations, the child looks healthy, if a little small.”
“He should grow a fair amount more in short order. But he seems to be almost completely human.”
“Almost?”
“There is a slightly stronger type of ligament and reinforcement around his hands. His nails are also coming in stronger. I have more than a few ancestors from the mountains, with the stronger grips and everything. Looks like my little Georgie is going to be hard to stop from climbing over everything.”
“Really? So your specific breed of Kohb have stronger grips?”
“Very much so. There are those with larger hands designed to aid in digging, then there are some with finer smoother scales for better swimming.” Cindy says nuzzling down first George, then DD when she makes some noise.
Then the older sister giggles and decides to try and talk with her brother again. “Uh oh, looks like we’ve got some chatting ahead.”
“I think we should duck out then. Need to keep the littles well attended to.” Pukey says rising up as he carries them all. “If you’ll excuse me sir, I have an adoptive daughter and a newly born son to attend to.”
As the door closes behind them there’s a pause.
“So now that they’re out of the room, does anyone want to talk about them?” J3 asks in an amused tone.
“I think we can skip that, now, your particular role is to effectively take up a second occupation and pursue it while reporting back to The Undaunted as a whole, that must have been quite the step up. How were you chosen for this? Recruitment? Volunteered?”
“We were firstly singled out as more energetic and unusual crew members, the fact that all of us...”
“Ahem.” Tang interrupts.
“Almost all of us.” Bike amends his statement. “Almost all of us had some kind of strange nickname but ALL of us were rated highly for independence and initiative. We’re all always doing something, and this gives us something to do as well as being outright encouraged to get our hands on and play with every possible new toy we can.”
“And how many planets have you visited at this point?”
“Several dozen. Although if we were to simply go from world to world to drop off every criminal we had found that was a border jumper of some kind then we would rapidly visit another hundred, easily.”
“Not to mention revisit a great many that we’ve already gone to.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem with vacation worlds. People like running to them and often need to run from them after doing something stupid.”
“However the fact that a lot of bounties let you get first grab of a criminal’s illegal items, we’ve gotten quite the stash of weapons and equipment. TO say nothing of the weird techniques we discover that makes us see things even more tactically.”
“Such as?”
“One of our earliest bits of bounty hunting was The Multi-Armed Maimers, they were categorized by having many limbs as you can guess.”
Observer Wu nods.
“Well they had a trick where they’d lead any chase they ended up in directly into a treacherous canyon that would overhang to form an open air cave with numerous quartz veins, magnetic interference and a path so dangerous that chasing them was suicide, and if it was blocked off they would up their viciousness until it was uncovered, and if someone waited on the other side? Guaranteed death for whoever they took hostage, and not a clean one either.”
“How did you handle it?”
“Bought the wreck of a local van, repaired and upgraded until it was borderline illegal to own, and then went through the canyon, a little faster each time, until Air Farce there could fly it at his top speed with his eyes closed.”
“Okay, so you could stop them from harming a hostage. What else?”
“Well, we also knew that they would likely try it twice, so we set a trap at the entrance after they went over it. Using positioning and sensors to set it off at the exact right time in order to shred the underside of their vehicle. The resulting crashed stunned and injured the Maimers, allowing for easy capture.” Air Farce finishes before grinning. “Big girl here was also on the hunt and I showed her our ways. Taking her for a leisurely drive with the songs of earth to serenade her when she asked how we did it.”
There is a moment of silence before he chuckles.
“Poor girl doesn’t have a single romantic bone in her body! She...” Air Farce begins to ease before a large dark hand tipped with claws wraps around his head to silence him before he’s dragged into Onyx’s lap.
“Anyways, after he nearly scared my fur off, I realized I was dealing with the kind of man so energetic that even getting a few sparks of that would power me for millennia.” Onyx says fondly before she lets go of Air Farce to let him breathe.
“Speaking of energetic, that reminds me of something. Lieutenant General Escareno would like Pilot Rico Bravo to know that so long as he lives the threat of military prison continues under Mexican skies.”
“So long as the General lives or so long as I live?” Air Farce asks.
“He didn’t specify. I saw the forms he has ready. He just needs to file it for a dishonourable discharge, and has refused to speak of what exactly you did to anger him so much.” Observer Wu says and all heads turn to Air Farce.
“Hmm... I was explicitly told that the Gag Order was ‘until everyone forgets this embarrassment’ and failing to uphold it would see the biggest boot he has on the strongest foot he can find to kick my ass into the smallest cell he can manage if I ever tell anyone what happened.”
“Still no clues man?” Bike asks with a large smile.
“Once again, the only clue I’ll give you is that General Escareno has no sense of humour.” Air Farce says flatly.
“We’ll get it out of you one day.”
“Not legally you won’t.” Air Farce says. “Besides, what I did was technically legal.”
“Not anymore it’s not.” Observer Wu replies.
“Well it was legal at the time.” Air Farce amends.
“Every time you open your mouth I have more questions.” Sergeant Migara notes.
“That’s normal.” Air Farce says with a massive grin as he suddenly has Aviators on and there’s some groaning around the bridge.
“Where did those come from and why?” Observer Wu asks.
“He’s got a little Axiom pocket tattoo behind his ear. He has them in there.” Jade explains.
“Jade! No! Sweetie please, not my secrets!” Air Farce calls out and Observer Wu just shakes his head.
“Yes, this is clearly a surprisingly normal ship. Incidentally is Captain Schmidt still listening? There is someone here to meet him.”
“Oh, yeah we’re just outside, just making sure the little ones having a conversation isn’t interrupting.” Pukey says as he and Cindy slip back in with the two babies happily babbling at each other.
“Here, let me help.” Harrika says as she turns around and walks over. Little DD and George are happy to be near each other with George grabbing at DD constantly and her giggling every time his fingers slide over her reinforced skin.
“So you have someone here to speak with me?” Pukey says before Observer Wu nods and gestures for someone to walk over. “Baked?”
“Hey.” The man says. His expression is immensely slack but not outside of regulation. “You’ve done well.”
“I have. I’m surprised you recovered quick enough for the second round.”
“Eh, it still hurts. But it doesn’t really matter.” Baked replies. “So... three kids?”
“Four, the next egg is soon to hatch.” Pukey says and Baked pauses.
“Still kinda weird that humans can come from eggs now.”
“Well, the next one up is a daughter. Little snake girl coming up.”
“Really? That’s nice.” Baked says and there’s nothign else he says. After a few moments everyone turns to Pukey wondering what the hell is going on.
“It’s just Baked, he’s about as calm and mellow as a human can get. Even with chemical assistance, he’s not worried.”
“Why worry? Things turn out how they turn out.”
“Yes, yes the do.” Pukey says and then there’s another silence as Bike slowly looks back and forth and Air Farce starts outright snickering. “Look he’s just like this. I can’t stop that! Breaking his own ankle barely got a peep out of the man!”
People start laughing as Pukey rolls his eyes in frustration.
~First~ Last Next

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

The Severed Hand - 01 The Severed Hand - 04 The Severed Hand - 06

Isif.mtr

[!] WARNING: This device is optimized for Severed Hand .mem files. While .mtr transcripts can be read, they are not fully supported! Proceed?
[+/-] (+)
Memory transcription subject: Chief Hunter Isif, Arxur Dominion Sector Fleet
Date [standardized human time]: June 1, 2138
"Chief Hunter Isif."
"Your Savageness."
It was atypical of Giznel to be calling me. It was even more unlikely for it to be anything good.
"I'm calling to talk about the humans."
"The Severed Hand unit?"
"Who else would I be talking about? Of course. You seem to have taken quite the interest in them."
"They are the only true sapients we have ever found, Your Savageness."
"Such hunters, in fact, that they lost their homeworld to the prey! So deadly that they lack claws! So strong and ruthless that they couldn't last a second without you propping their weak hides up!"
I paused. I needed Giznel on my side. His ire was inescapable. "Your Savageness, the humans are a valuable--"
"How? Show me what the humans are doing for you, other than being a pitiful case of prey pretending at being hunters!"
"The Severed Hand has the means to produce meat without the need for costly cattle raids. But it has also taken an interest in stolen Federation technology. Specifically, they are making unmanned war machines to make up for their numbers. Either on its own would be justification enough."
Giznel took a long pause. "I want to visit their station. If you are lying in the smallest letter of the smallest word of those improbable claims...."

2138-6-1 Rensek.mem

SUBJECT: RENSEK, VENLIL PRISONER OF WAR
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
Why are you even bothering getting up, monster?
Mostly to spite you.
I stand from my little nest in the corner of the room and walk over to the assembly line. My morning routine is quite simple now. Walk up to the line, open a hatch, and take a slab of--
Flesh! You abominable--
And take a nice, tasty bite of it. And I make sure to enjoy it, just to spite that voice.
And--
Voices. And not ones in my head. Humans coming.
Time to find a place to hide. I take a quick look around and find a random hatch I've never explored. Well, now's as good a time as any.
I tip toe my way over to the hatch and open it. Climb down, close hatch, and...
Look at how many ways you could--
Shut up, voice.
Its a glorious stash of weapons. The room is an armory. The lights are off, but even in the dark I can see the outline of rifles, grenades, human armor.
How nice of them to include a maintenance ladder. This station was obviously not designed to handle runaway Venlil living in its bowels.
You insult all Venlil by calling yourself one of them.
Yeah, whatever. Now time to arm.

2138-6-1 Admiral Daniel Stone.mem

SUBJECT: DANIEL STONE, HUMAN SEVERED HAND ADMIRAL
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
Door opens.
"Here is the requested report."
The man leaves. I read.
REPORT-A0I3M2: OPERATION VICTOR-SET RECRUITMENT FOR GROUP CAESAR (ANTI-MORALE OPERATIONS)
--CURRENT VOLUNTEERS:
---- 6/9 Squadrons ---- Hibernum-Mono (Martin Lukeson, Commander) ---- Imperium-Hex (Victor Saunders, Commander) ---- Milites-Novem (Milites-Novem-Lead, NEURAL) ---- Silens-Hex (Silens-Hex-Lead, NEURAL) ---- Tempora-Oct (Tempora-Oct Lead, NEURAL) ---- Zelus-Pent (James Mirion, Commander)
Not enough volunteers. Some will need to be ordered. I open my pad. Menus, authorizations, codes. And then.
INDEX OF SQUADRONS
Excellent.
> SELECT
> SORT=RANDOM
> FILTER=!NEURAL
> NUMBER=3
OUTPUT: Negator-Tri (Gideon Michael, Commander), Ordo-Null (Aaron Rogers, Commander), Quibus-Tetra (Timothy Stevens, Commander)
> ACTION
> MESSAGE/ORDER
> SWIFT-MESSENGER, UNTURNED-STONE: "Was shortage of volunteers. These three are assigned to Group Caesar for Operation Victor-Set. Edit plans."

2138-6-2 Commander John Suarez

SUBJECT: GIDEON MICHAEL, POSTHUMOUS SCAN
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
Bipedalism is hard, I get it.
But does it really need to take this long to get neurals that can walk?
As the neurals fall over themselves trying to get past the rocks for the exactly four hundred and twenty-second time, I pull out the microphone.
"Log: Five Hundred Sixty-Seven. Subjects of Aeternus-group failed on obstacle tri."
At least the aiming has gone better. I look over to the range, where the other prototypes are nailing targets. Though maybe its because the targets can't walk very well--they're using neurals, too.
The distance is impressive at least. I add to the log.
"Log: Five Hundred Sixty-Seven, Addendum Mono. Subjects of Bellum-group are hitting their targets, though defects with the navigation modules are probably making it easier than it would be on the field."
I look at the nearest target bot, crawling away on all fours. Hmm, they seem to be better at that than bipedalism. Maybe I should consider throwing in the towel and just making them walk like that normally.
Then the shooter unleashes another spray. The target bot continues trying to crawl away, now--though that damage would no doubt have put a sapient down--until the shooter bot fires again.
There's a certain cold brutality to it. I suppose I should expect that from neurals being made to kill enemy soldiers.
I watch a few more targets go down similarly. One walks out from a barrier and gets taken down with a head shot. A second exits from a trench.
A third walks out of a house--some of the best upright navigation today--and it has enough time to turn to look toward the shooter before it is destroyed.
That one felt... wrong, somehow. But why? Target exits house, and...
Civilians.
It looked like a war crime, that's why.
The Admiral ordered a firebombing of residential areas.
He will try to give similar orders to my neurals one day--he already has! Group Caesar has neural-fighters in it.
Am I willing to allow that?
The Severed Hand - 01 The Severed Hand - 04 The Severed Hand - 06

Part 1 Part 3
Eight years ago I arrived in West Africa.
Not out of choice, you understand, but out of necessity. If you haven’t read my earlier notes, you won’t understand. This is where I landed after I escaped the underground beetle camp, and where I’ve lived for so long.
Last year I posted my story online. I just meant to put down my thoughts, to ensure my experiences didn’t die with me, but I was blown away by the overwhelmingly positive messages in response. The kindness of strangers really is incredible.
I suppose I’d resigned myself to my life as it was - a man out of my own country, cut off from family, forced to live on the streets forever. But people gave me hope. It took a bit of work but I tracked down my family. My father died about five years ago, but my mother and sister came to visit me. They stayed a couple of weeks. It was difficult at times - my mother is convinced I had a mental break, and that my story is a delusion, and we both hated when she had to return to England and leave me there.
My sister, on the other hand, was more receptive. Hannah’s three years older than me, and was a proper older sister to me. She annoyed the crap out of me when I was at school, but over the years I really missed her. I video call my mum whenever I can, about once a week, but me and Hannah WhatsApp each other every day. They’re planning to visit me again this summer.
Hannah is a logistics manager these days. I can’t say I’m entirely sure what that means, but she’s one of the most organised people I’ve ever met. A couple of months after they went back, she invited me to a group chat. She’d found others who had escaped those caverns with me!
Over the following weeks, more joined, until the group chat had 19 people (plus Hannah). They truly are amazing people, and our experience fighting the beetles had brought out the best in them. All of us are homeless now, of course, most in a foreign country and that brings great risks; but 19 of us had survived, none of us had turned to drugs, and all have stories worth hearing. Chao, a Chinese man living in Mexico, now ran his own landscape gardening business; Anupama (or just Anu), an Indian woman now in France, has built a homeless charity, and is known for “choosing” to live on the streets with those she helps; Gerome, the Senegalese man, is a celebrated artist on the streets of Moscow. Each of us is fluent in two or more languages, and at least passable in English.
We all remember the number we assigned ourselves, the order in which we escaped from the cavern. The last of us to escape was Rajinder, an Indian man who I remembered as a boy of 16. He had been number 26, and had watched as several beetles jumped down into our pen and scuttled towards the remaining humans. Our friends. Josie, number 24, escaped just as the beetles reached them. Evander should have been the 25th of us to escape, but instead he was impaled by the sharp leg of one of the beetles and fell to the ground. Others near Raj were injured; Raj himself was slashed across the arm by the serrated edge of a beetle forearm. Surrounded by shiny black death now, he threw himself head-first into the door, injuring his head as he arrived in the Vietnamese countryside. He doesn’t think anybody else escaped after him.
25 of us got out of the caverns. We don’t know what happened to the other six; they could be dead, or perhaps Hannah just hasn’t found them yet. We all arrived on land, but who knows where the others came out? If they found themselves in Antarctica, say, or Death Valley, they would have had little chance. I don’t think we’ll ever find out for sure.
So here we were, our group of 19. A few of us have studied insects over the years (“No”, Nida told me, “it’s ENTOMOLOGY. Etymology is the study of words”), or geology, to try to make sense of our imprisonment. Some have tried to forget their time below ground, but none of us ever really could. And as we talked, our discussions adapted and evolved.
Hannah set up a Discord server called “Beetle Survivors Social Group”. But that wasn’t enough for her. She sent smartphones to those who didn’t already have them; I have no idea how she got smartphones capable of accessing Discord to our members in China and Russia. She sent cash as needed and tracked down most of our families, arranging calls and even visits. And one day, Hannah renamed the server “Beetle Survivors Support Group”.
We talked about our experiences. I posted my story on there, and others wrote up their own. Nida wrote about her research into beetles, and how the creatures we encountered must have different biology than the insects known to science. Gerome sketched the beetles excellently and worked with the biologists to figure out how their bodies probably worked. Jason, Angelique, and I drew maps of the caverns, as best we could from memory.
Some of us wanted to move on from our experiences, but had spent the last eight years unable to; we all still had nightmares from time to time. Some of us felt frustrated, unable to do anything about the underground insects. And some of us were angry. People began posting fantasies about fighting and killing the beetles; how we could do it, how many we could take down, how we would celebrate over their chitinous corpses. Soon enough, somebody - I think it was Chao - renamed the server again.
“Beetle Survivors Revenge Group”
Fantasy turned into conjecture, which became plans. Frustration became hope, and anger evolved into determination. I’m still amazed that all of us decided to go through with it. We talked about the problems and hazards; we planned our equipment lists; we worked through our ideas, picking holes in and improving each other’s suggestions. But in the hundreds of hours of planning, I never once heard the words “it’s too dangerous”. We were as one; a crack unit of commandos, ready to wage war.
The date we chose was the 3rd of March, for no particular reason other than we were ready. At exactly 2pm Ghana time (that’s where I lived), all 19 of us walked through a door.
It was dark. It would take some time for my eyes to adjust from the bright West African sun. I couldn’t see anything at first, but then there were a couple of clicks, and flashlights blazed into life near me. We came together, and took stock of our situation.
There were only four of us in the cavern. Febe, a Russian woman; Beshadu, an Ethiopian woman; and Carl, the American who had woken me on my first morning underground. Febe and Carl turned off their flashlights and we looked around, listening carefully. There didn’t seem to be any beetles near us, presumably because they hadn’t been expecting arrivals. We quietly moved together, looking for the wall of the cave.
The caverns were once natural, but they have been worked by human hands over many years, being expanded and smoothed over. This worked to our advantage as we traversed the largely stone-free floor, and eventually found the relatively flat cave wall. We worked our way along it, still mostly by touch rather than sight, and soon came across an opening. A corridor. A short way down the corridor we found another opening, coming to a small, empty room. We settled down and went through our equipment.
Febe turned her torch on. We needed to see, but this made us very uncomfortable. How I would have loved to be able to close the door to prevent the light leaking out into the corridor! But the beetles don’t have doors, and even if they had, we wouldn’t have been able to use them.
Besha and Carl had brought several USB battery packs. We’d each fully charged our phones before stepping through the doors, but we had no idea how long we would be down there. We turned off all our phones except for Carl’s, which he set to power-saving mode.
We all had battery-powered flashlights, and Febe had a lot of spare batteries. They should last a while. Carl was in the army when he was kidnapped, and had explained to all of us what sort of food we should bring, so we all had a couple of weeks of high-calorie food in our backpacks. We also had weapons. Besha was a markswoman, and had a hunting rifle and a pistol, with a lot of ammunition. Carl had been working in a quarry, and had brought his powerful granite-breaking pick. Febe had somehow managed to acquire a couple of fire axes. And I - well, as an occasional gardener, I’d managed to pick up two machetes and four billhooks.
Not everybody has heard of billhooks. They’re used to cut down small trees and undergrowth, and those I had sported a 10-inch serrated blade, viciously curved at the end. I figured they would be excellent for severing the limbs of the beetles, and I had a decent amount of experience with them, although only against saplings that didn’t fight back.
There were 19 of us who entered a door a few minutes earlier. Febe, Carl, Besha and I had arrived down here very close together at the same time, but there was no sign of the others. Our group had a variety of personalities and reasons for coming here - some were angry, some wanted revenge, some were driven by a desire to make the world safer - but I knew everybody well and I don’t believe anyone bottled it, certainly not 15 of us. Perhaps we might find the others elsewhere in the cave, but for now, we had to assume that we were the only ones who made it. Fortunately all of our equipment came with us, though it was a shame we didn’t have Ju’s flamethrower.
We had hoped to have enough armed humans for a proper assault. Now we had to change our strategy. Carl was the best of us to plan; he had been on active duty and experienced combat in a small group. The most important thing right now, he said, was for us to get the lay of the land. We weren’t sure exactly where we were, and our maps were incomplete, so the first thing was to orient ourselves in the cave system and find out where the beetles were.
Febe, the smallest of us and light on her feet, offered to scout around and report back; but Carl insisted on going with her. We must never, he said, go out alone. So Besha and I sat in the small room in whispered conversation, our hands never far from our weapons, while Febe and Carl crept away. I thought back to Besha’s broken English when we lived together in the darkness, and marvelled at her near-fluency in her newly-acquired Australian accent.
It must have been more than two hours when we heard movement nearby. I barely heard Besha stand up, although the quiet click when she cocked her pistol sounded like a gunshot in the silence of the caves. As I reached for a machete, Carl’s whisper sounded.
“Don’t cock your pistol, Besha. It’s double-action, you don’t need to and it’s too loud.”
Carl and Febe came round the corner. The caves were so dark I don’t know if I saw their silhouettes, or only imagined them. The pair sat down.
“It’s not the same cave,” said Febe.
My heart stopped, and my mind raced. Had this all been for nothing? Were we in some random empty underground system, trapped here to die?
“It’s smaller,” she continued. “At least, the main cavern is. We found a pen, like ours but much smaller. There are burning torches around it, but no humans. It might be their work time, but we haven’t seen any so far. Maybe they don’t have any slaves right now.”
“There are beetles down here, though,” Carl said. “We heard some of their clicking, off in the distance. We’re not sure how many there are.”
“This corridor has a few small rooms like this, all empty. Probably something they started excavating, but abandoned.”
“Or they had to wait for new slaves.”
“And we’re pretty sure we found where they live. We didn’t investigate, not with just two of us.”
I have to say, Carl and Febe made a great team. They’d been reunited in person only hours ago, but were already finishing each other’s sentences.
Carl brought out a chemical glowstick. He had many of these, and I was grateful; a flashlight would just have dazzled us at that moment. He and Febe sketched out a rough map of what they had explored so far, and we started to plan.
We would only get one chance at a surprise attack, so our first strike needed to be precise. Aim too small and we wouldn’t do enough to hurt them; too big and they would overwhelm us. We only had two guns between us, so Besha kept her hunting rifle - she’d become quite a markswoman hunting small game in the Australian outback - and gave the pistol to Carl. Besha and I then walked out to explore for ourselves.
The main cavern was left out of our small cave, so we turned right. The single corridor quickly branched off into multiple paths. Besha had brought several balls of string, so we tied one end to an outcropping to help lead us back. It was a risk, but then so was coming here in the first place, and we were reasonably sure by now that this region was abandoned, at least temporarily. We both had several of Carl’s chemical glowsticks, and used one to light our way, hiding it whenever we heard the slightest sound.
We didn’t even try to map that maze-like area of small corridors and dead ends. Besha and I held hands whenever space allowed, and held the other’s backpack when it didn’t. Her hearing is far more sensitive than mine, so if she suddenly dropped my hand, I knew it was to grip her rifle, and that was my cue to unclip a billhook and machete from my belt.
We moved extremely slowly, creeping silently along the left wall, pausing to listen every few metres. We can’t have gone more than a few hundred metres when, an hour later, I saw something in front of us. I let go of Besha’s hand, put the glowstick away, and brought up a machete and a billhook. Besha saw it as well, and raised her rifle.
There were two of us. Two, against these creatures we’d watched massacre our friend years earlier. A rifle and a couple of knives? I hate to admit it, but when it came to fight, flight or freeze, I froze. I don’t know what went on in Besha’s head at that moment, but for me, it was abject terror. I would simply have been useless in a fight.
There was a light - very faint, and flickering, but getting brighter. The two of us stood there frozen, anticipating a confrontation. A moment later we heard footsteps, clear as anything in the otherwise absolute silence. They were human footsteps, and underneath those, the occasional faint clicking of a beetle.
As the light got closer, we could see the scene clearly. The tunnel widened until, about thirty metres in front of us, it came to an end as another tunnel crossed it. Three humans, very thin and in ragged clothes, walked past, followed by two beetles. We watched as they passed in front of us, and then the torchlight and the sounds slowly faded.
We stood in absolute silence for what must have been half an hour. Besha was the first to speak. She put her hand to my head, bringing my ear to her mouth, and in the quietest whisper ever made by a human, made her proposal.
“It’s sleep time. Carl and Febe said the beetles live on the other side of the main cavern. We should explore.”
I nodded my agreement, then - realising that she couldn’t see me - whispered “Okay” into her ear.
Our progress was even slower and more careful now. At the junction we tied the string off, not wanting to leave any trace on the path they’d taken, and headed in the direction they’d come from. There was a faint light up ahead, but no sound at all, and gradually we were able to make out the shape of the corridor.
Eventually, we came to a split in the corridor. The light was coming from the left branch, so that’s where we went. And soon we arrived in a large room. I’d worked the forge occasionally back in our first cavern system, so although it was different, I recognised it immediately. The light was coming from the embers of a stone kiln, which would die completely in the next few hours.
We looked around the place, deserted at this time. As expected, there were a few tools that could be used as weapons, but nothing as useful as our own, and not that many - the beetles weren’t keen to supply their slaves with anything more powerful than necessary. A chimney led to a small hole in the ceiling; it surely led outside, but it was no more than 20 centimetres wide, far too narrow for any of us to squeeze through. Nearby there was a thick, flat iron plate, which I assumed to be an anvil, though different from the one I’d used. A hammer lay on top of it.
The room was fairly large, but apart from some firewood and lumps of rock - presumably iron ore - it was otherwise empty. We’d seen enough, and headed back out to take the other path.
This path led quite quickly to another large cavern, but without any light. After listening for several minutes, I brought out my glowstick - but it had expired. Besha reached into her pack and retrieved her flashlight.
This room was a mine, and much bigger than the forge. Several pickaxes were stowed at the far side of the room. Again, it was empty of living creatures. We both knew how it would work - the beetles usher the slaves in, who then move far enough away before taking their pickaxes and starting work. The mine consisted of a main room, and smaller corridors, gradually hacked away until the place had become a bit of a warren. We recalled the maze we had been careful not to get lost in earlier; perhaps that was an earlier mine, abandoned after the iron ore the beetles had been so keen to get had been mined out.
As a teenage boy I’d been wiry and very capable of squeezing into small places, so I volunteered to explore the tunnels while Besha stayed outside with the flashlight to guide me back. Some of the excavations were plenty big enough for a couple of miners to work side-by-side; some, presumably natural tunnels, were barely big enough for me to traverse. A few times the flashlight went out; this was Besha’s signal to me that she’d heard something, and I froze in absolute silence until the light came back on, when she was sure it wasn’t an unwelcome interruption.
Eventually I came back out, grabbed a notepad and pencil, and sketched a map of the tunnels. Then Besha turned her flashlight off and we set off back through the darkness.
Before we headed back, we wanted to check one last thing out. Where had the humans and beetles who passed us gone? We were fairly sure, but wanted to be certain. We carefully followed the path they’d taken, and after some time, came out into the main cavern. Off in the distance we could make out torches around the human pen, and a few shadows of beetles moving around. We had no desire to go in unprepared, so we headed back to the junction. The string guided us home, and, exhausted, we were reunited with Febe and Carl.
We compared our maps. We were fairly sure we had a pretty comprehensive map of most of the complex, with the notable exceptions of the maze Besha and I had found, and the presumed living quarters Febe and Carl had located but not entered. We started to make a plan.
Febe was the most vicious of us, eager to just start hacking limbs off the beetles, but she gave way to Carl’s expertise in warfare. I pointed out that we had never actually fought a beetle, and it would be good to strike small at first. Eventually we came up with the first part of a plan, ate a good amount of food to keep ourselves strong, and went to sleep.
We spent the next day waiting. Our timing was off, and the slaves would have been at work already by the time we woke up. Febe had actually brought a pack of cards, and by the light of a single flashlight, we each taught each other various games. We slept again, awoke in plenty of time, and the four of us made our way to the mine.
It was empty, as we expected, and we each hid ourselves from view in the larger mined-out tunnels. An hour, maybe two, in utter silence and darkness. Then we saw the flicker of an orange torchlight. I steeled myself, reminding myself that we had four of us. I’d put on a big show of bravery, but honestly, if there weren’t weren’t two people with guns, I don’t know if I’d have been any use at all.
Besha, Carl and Febe were completely hidden; only I had a view of the entrance. Five humans entered, followed by three beetles. Besha and I had hoped for just two beetles, like we’d seen leaving the last time, but this was our best chance. I waited for the humans to cross the main cave to their picks, then shouted “NOW!” The four of us turned on flashlights on the floor and leapt into action.
Febe and I moved to the sides and held back, while Besha fired her hunting rifle. She was an excellent shot, striking one right in the mouth. That would have taken down a human instantly, but the beetles were tough, and it screamed and lunged forward. Or at least, I assume the high-pitched screeching was the beetle equivalent of a scream.
Carl unloaded all eight shots of the pistol into the injured beetle’s head. The crack of chitin splitting apart rang across the cavern, and the insect collapsed to the ground, just centimetres from me.
One down, two left.
I had a billhook in each hand. A beetle was right in my face - I’d forgotten just how fast they can move - and plunged its front claw at my chest. I leapt back just in time and swung my right billhook at its extended claw. I connected, and using the hook to keep its claw out of the way, stepped sideways to attack its nearest leg with my left billhook. I hooked and pulled with all my strength. The leg popped out, clattering across the floor. Black stuff oozed out of its abdomen. It swung its other front claw at me, but it was unbalanced now. I parried with my left billhook and released it from my right, using it to strike its mandibles from above. One was severed instantly. The thing collapsed to the ground but it was still moving. Still dangerous. I moved to the side, out of the way of its front limbs, and pushed both blades into its head.
It stopped moving.
I looked around. Carl’s granite-breaking pick was lodged deep in the abdomen of the third beetle, as he retrieved the empty pistol from the floor and started reloading. Febe, on the other hand, was hacking away at the motionless insect’s head with a fireaxe, while she shouted a mixture of Russian and Chechen swearwords, with occasional English interjections. “Hah! How you like that, svoloch!” Her back was to the cave entrance.
Besha was the first to spot it. “Febe, behind you!”
Febe started to turn. Too late. Blood showered my face.
Carl unloaded his pistol. Both Febe, and the beetle that had attacked her, fell to the ground, revealing another beetle behind them.
Click. BLAM! Besha’s rifle hit home, and pieces of chitin exploded around us. The beetle, wounded but not down, turned and ran. It could not be allowed to fetch reinforcements. Click. BLAM! It stumbled, but continued to limp on.
Carl grabbed a billhook from me and chased it down. The speed from his adrenaline was more than enough to catch the slowed beetle. Knowing that he had it, I turned my attention to Febe.
Febe was covered in blood, conscious but looking terribly pale. A front beetle limb pierced her side, having gone all the way through. I hacked it off at the beast’s thorax, but I knew I could not pull it out; the serrated edge would have ripped her apart if I drew it back, and if I pulled forward, it would just widen the wound.
Carl returned, and retrieved his medical kit. As he started to treat Febe’s injuries, I braced myself for his remonstrations against her for turning her back, for shouting, for losing her attention and focus when she needed it most. I did not expect what came out of his mouth.
“You did well girl.”
That’s when I knew, I think.
Febe tried to sit up. “No, don’t move. I’ve got this.”
“Ithhh…” Febe sputtered, and blood dribbled from her mouth. “Ith it gonna be okay? I kill it?”
“You were amazing Febe. You killed it! Now relax, I’ll sort you out in no time.”
“Thanth … you …”
Those were Febe’s last words. She slumped to the ground. Carl laid her down and closed her eyes.

Hey all, fair warning this chapter is a little more violent than the previous ones as I do go a bit in detail of gore. With that being said, please enjoy chapter 7!
Lys,Verkrawn Male, Fauna Research Specialist
It’s awfully quiet, and if you ask me that’s the worst part about space. The deafening silence that seems to envelop us all as we sit still in the hidden safe room. If I couldn’t hear the thrumming of the ship’s engines and my own two hearts beating, I believe I would have gone crazy with the silence.
Goddess, this is creepy… Is it because it’s the real thing and not a drill?
I look over at Jordan Cores and see a very tiny black dot on the back of his left ear. I initially thought it was a universal translator given the design and placement.
Wait, what is it then?
I try to whisper quietly to Jordan Cores, “So, what’s that on your left ear? A cultural decoration?”
He replies quietly, but his voice is slightly shaky, “Wh-What? I don’t wear earrings.”
Earrings…? Interesting name for an item, but it makes sense if it’s on the ears. Huh, that is actually quite simple, but effective for a name. I might have to inquire further later on about these “earrings”.
Before I could muse further on my thoughts, the ship LURCHES to the side, causing me to slide into the wall with Jordan Cores falling against me due to the sudden movement with a grunt. I hear him quietly apologize as the lights flicker and go out. After a few seconds the red emergency lights turn on, casting long shadows across us all as the red lights lit everything up. I slowly move to stand up and try to see if everyone is okay, and while the red light makes it kinda hard to fully see everyone they seem to be good for the most part. I then look at Jordan Cores and notice that he seems to be staring at the hidden door as if he heard something.
Then battle ERUPTS outside the doors, as the noticeable sound of BYR Rifles and TOR Pistols firing between Security Forces and Pirates fighting in the hallway outside. BYR Rifles firing off in bursts of their explosive payloads, and TOR Pistols with their concussive yet lethal semi-automatic BANG BANG BANG echoing outside, and despite the thick wall, you could feel the vibrations of gunfire traveling through the air and into you. The only issue is, TOR Pistols are not carried by any of our personnel and there’s a sudden lack of the burst fire of the BYR Rifles. Then the uncanny dead quiet as everything seems to stop.
Oh Goddess… I’m going to die here. I at least thought I would die researching exotic species, like, I don’t know… a Trymin?
Really? A Trymin of all things? We might die, and you’re thinking of dying to a Trymin instead?
You’re right, this might be a better death. It was just the first thing that came to mind, I don’t know why I thought giant acid spitting [owls] would be a better death.
I don’t know when I shut my eyes, but I had them shut quite tightly as I suddenly opened them as I heard a sound I didn’t want to hear. A noticeable wrrrrrrrr of plasma cutters scorching their way through the wall.
I stare at the wall in fear as it heats up red and orange, before it starts to slowly cut open. I start hyperventilating and I try hiding away, getting away from the wall as fast as I can.
How do they know we’re here?! This room is hidden, and the panels are hidden within expertly concealed panels in the walls! Goddess please save us!
The crewmates and I are all huddled up together, cowering in fear as the plasma cutters inevitably pierce the wall and start cutting open a hole. I’m the smallest of us all, so I’ve been shuffled to the center of the huddle by pure instinct to protect the weak and small. The pirates finally finish carving through the wall as there’s silence before an eerie, groaning, metallic creek as the cut is pushed open, revealing a taller than average Alcoranth with orange skin. The red lights flash across him as I see the creepiest smile I have ever seen.
It’s so disturbing with those pitch black eyes staring into our souls.
The Alcoranth leans over and grabs something that looks kind of… short and it’s flailing in its tentacles.
Wait… There’s one more person who is smaller than me. Where’s Jordan Cores?!
“Ah, there’s the bosses bait. You still got that bugger in your ear?”
His voice sends a chill down my spine and tail, this Alcoranth does not see anything as a person and has clearly killed many.
“Y’know, me boss’ employer don’t want no weird new things. He wants workers, not pets!”
Wait, he wouldn't dare!
I try to run towards the Alcoranth, I don’t know why I did, just something compelled me as I watch the Alcoranth raise a bloody… a very bloody PPMI Pistol to Jordan Cores’ mouth as he struggles and squirms in its tentacle grasp, trying to free himself. I’m almost there when the Alcoranth looks straight at me and gives me a crazed smile.
BANG
The Precise Plasma Mechanical Isolator Pistol shoots a pure plasma bolt through Jordan Cores’ jaw, exiting out the back of his head and into the wall behind him, the wound partially cauterizing.
The Alcoranth then drops the limp corpse of Jordan Cores onto the ground with little care for just killing what is probably a brand new undiscovered species. He then steps over him and approaches us, causing me to back up and retreat back into the huddle.
“Now, be good and you won’t end up like that ugly thing! I hated having to waste a good bug on it! I didn’t even get to play with it.”
I feel tears swelling in my eyes as I stare at the orange Alcoranth.
Goddess… where’s my sister? Goddess, save us!
Then there’s a very disturbing gurgling sound.
“Grruuuuhhhhhh….”
“Hm? What’s this?”
I look behind the Alcoranth and see that Jordan Cores is lifting himself off the floor despite the heavy amounts of blood coming out of his head.
“Lookie here! It ain’t dead yet! Oh I’m going to enjoy this!”
“Shguut gup.”
“What was that?” The Alcoranth asks as it leans in closer to Jordan Cores, smiling like a madman.
“I SHAID SHADDUP!!!” Jordan Cores screams through blood pouring out of his broken jaw and mouth as I can see his eyes full of rage. What happens next, is probably going to be scarred into my memory forever as Jordan Cores grabs the Alcoranth by its tendrils, ripping some out as it grapples the much larger 7ft being by sweeping it by the back of it’s legs, causing the Alcoranth to start falling backwards as Jordan Cores grabs onto it’s head while yelling.
He slams it into the floor head first as he then straddles it, knocking the PPMI Pistol away and just starts punching its heavily armored head. His own hands break and his fingers twist with each sickening punch, but it seems to be effective as the Alcoranth is screaming in pain as I can see its exoskeleton head denting, cracking, and starting to split open. Suddenly, Jordan Cores shoves his hands into it’s eyes and rips them out in a rage filled yell before shoving his hand back inside it’s head, seemingly grabbing something sturdy.
If I wasn’t in a state of shock from what I was witnessing and about to witness, I would have puked. Again.
Jordan Cores rips out the Alcoranth's brain stem and some of its nervous system with a primal yell. The Alcoranth becomes quiet and limp. Clearly dead. With such a display of gruesome ferocity, everyone, literally everyone is in a state of shock and fear.
The two other pirates that were with the Alcoranth were still in the hallway staring in complete shock as Jordan Cores turns his attention to them, before he starts trying to run at them with a quite literal bloody shout, but before he could get there, a loud burst of a BYR Rifle tears into the pirates, the explosive payload rounds going off in their limbs and chests, killing them near instantly. Jordan Cores stands there, staring at the corpses on the floor in front of him, leaving the Alcoranth corpse behind him. He stands there, panting heavily before turning to us with a literally broken smile, "Everyone okay?" he says before collapsing as Cerelia rounds the corner.
“LYS! Are you okay!?” I hear the voice of my older sister as she runs into the room before coming to a sharp stop, staring at the Alcoranth on the floor and then at a very bloody Jordan Cores collapsing, gurgling in his own blood, panting angrily as he seems to be fighting off death now.
“What in the 17 Hells happened here?! What happened to Jordan?!"
Security Commander Triwt then appears, quadruple wielding 2 PPMI Pistols and 2 Stun Batons at the same time before she holsters her batons as she slithers in.
"I'll take Jordan Cores to a regeneration bay. Captain Cerelia, I'll take out any hostiles along the way, but there's still an estimated 37 pirates remaining, please focus on the rest of the crew, I'll handle Jordan Cores."
She then grabs Jordan Cores with her two lower arms and slithers out much faster than what one would expect. Leaving Cerelia with us with a pained worried expression on her face. She's slightly bloody, but Altrin blood isn't blue.
Jordan Cores, Human Male, Part Time Security Worker
I can't believe that asshole fucking shot me! I'll rip his throat out for that!
At the time, I wasn't aware I had already killed the asshole. But I was unable to move at the time as my body was starting to fail. I’m pretty sure the adrenaline in my system is the only thing keeping me alive right now and someone applying pressure to the back of my head where the exit wound was.
What's this white fluffy thing? Oh I'm getting my blood on it, I'm sorry.
Triwt, Female Valis-Trobat Hybrid, Security Commander
I grunt as I place 5 rapid Plasma Bolts clean through 6 pirates. I got lucky with the 6th as they were standing behind the 5th one, but my aim was still on point, all killshots to the head.
Fairly surprising Jordan Cores survived a Plasma Bolt from a PPMI Pistol...
I keep racing, winding and slithering through the hallways, using my long tail and [snake] like body to practically slither across the walls and ceiling, turning combat into a confusing bullet hell for the pirates. Another 4 killed. Approximately 27 left now.
Also, it's going to take forever to get Jordan Cores' blood out of my white fur. I swear if I turn pink!
I shoot another pirate, her head being smaller so I shoot her in the lungs, any air she had in her lungs escaping her, leaving her unable to scream or speak as she drops her TOR Pistol in writhing pain. Painful way to go, but considering the situation, I don't care for these pirates.
Actually pink might look good on me...
And end of Chapter 7, I do hope this chapter is longer than the others or feels longer as I had been writing for the better half of... 4 hours lol. Please let me know your thoughts and ideas, even feel free to leave suggestions.
(And yes, Triwt is such a skilled combatant that she does have time to think that pink might look good on her)
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"1. Aims and Objectives We believe that most of the ills that afflict mankind stem from a bad social organisation; and that Man could destroy them if he wished and knew how.
Present society is the result of age-long struggles of man against man. Not understanding the advantages that could accrue for all by cooperation and solidarity; seeing in every other man (with the possible exception of those closest to them by blood ties) a competitor and an enemy, each one of them sought to secure for himself, the greatest number of advantages possible without giving a thought to the interests of others.
In such a struggle, obviously the strongest or more fortunate were bound to win, and in one way or another subject and oppress the losers.
So long as Man was unable to produce more than was strictly needed to keep alive, the conquerors could do no more than put to flight or massacre their victims, and seize the food they had gathered.
Then when with the discovery of grazing and agriculture a man could produce more than what he needed to live, the conquerors found it more profitable to reduce the conquered to a state of slavery, and put them to work for their advantage.
Later, the conquerors realised that it was more convenient, more profitable and certain to exploit the labour of others by other means: to retain for themselves the exclusive right to the land and working implements, and set free the disinherited who, finding themselves without the means of life, were obliged to have recourse to the landowners and work for them, on their terms.
Thus, step by step through a most complicated series of struggles of every description, of invasions, wars, rebellions, repressions, concessions won by struggle, associations of the oppressed united for defence, and of the conquerors for attack, we have arrived at the present state of society, in which some have inherited the land and all social wealth, while the mass of the people, disinherited in all respects, is exploited and oppressed by a small possessing class.
From all this stems the misery in which most workers live today, and which in turn creates the evils such as ignorance, crime, prostitution, diseases due to malnutrition, mental depression, and premature death. From all this arises a special class (government) which, provided with the necessary means of repression, exists to legalise and protect the owning class from the demands of the workers; and then it uses the powers at its disposal to create privileges for itself and to subject, if it can, the owning class itself as well. From this the creation of another privileged class (the clergy), which by a series of fables about the will of God, and about an after-life etc., seeks to persuade the oppressed to accept oppression meekly, and (just as the government does), as well as serving the interest of the owning class, serves its own. From this the creation of an official science which, in all those matters serving the interests of the ruling class, is the negation of true science. From this the patriotic spirit, race hatred, wars, and armed peace, sometimes more disastrous than wars themselves. From this the transformation of love into torment or sordid commerce. From this hatred, more or less disguised, rivalry, suspicion among all men, insecurity, and universal fear.
We want to change radically such a state of affairs. And since all these ills have their origin in the struggle between men, in the seeking after well-being through one’s own efforts and for oneself and against everybody, we want to make amends, replacing hatred by love, competition by solidarity, the individual search for personal well-being by the fraternal cooperation for the well-being of all, oppression and imposition by liberty, the religious and pseudo-scientific lie by truth.
Therefore:
Abolition of private property in land, in raw materials, and the instruments of labour, so that no one shall have the means of living by the exploitation of the labour of others, and that everybody, being assured of the means to produce and to live, shall be truly independent and in a position to unite freely among themselves for a common objective and according to their personal sympathies.
Abolition of government and of every power which makes the law and imposes it on others: therefore abolition of monarchies, republics, parliaments, armies, police forces, magistratures, and any institution whatsoever endowed with coercive powers.
Organisation of social life by means of free association and federations of producers and consumers, created and modified according to the wishes of their members, guided by science and experience, and free from any kind of imposition which does not spring from natural needs, to which everyone, convinced by a feeling of overriding necessity, voluntarily submits.
The means of life, for development and well-being, will be guaranteed to children and all who are prevented from providing for themselves.
War on religions and all lies, even if they shelter under the cloak of science. Scientific instruction for all to advanced level.
War on rivalries and patriotic prejudices. Abolition of frontiers; brotherhood among all peoples.
Reconstruction of the family, as will emerge from the practice of love, freed from every legal tie, from every economic and physical oppression, from every religious prejudice.
This is our ideal.

1. Ways and Means We have outlined under a number of headings our objectives and the ideal for which we struggle.

But it is not enough to desire something; if one really wants it adequate means must be used to secure it. And these means are not arbitrary, but instead cannot but be conditioned by the ends we aspire to and by the circumstances in which the struggle takes place, for if we ignore the choice of means we would achieve other ends, possibly diametrically opposed to those we aspire to, and this would be the obvious and inevitable consequence of our choice of means. Whoever sets out on the highroad and takes a wrong turning does not go where he intends to go but where the road leads him.
It is therefore necessary to state what are the means which in our opinion lead to our desired ends, and which we propose to adopt.
Our ideal is not one which depends for its success on the individual considered in isolation. The question is of changing the way of life of society as a whole; of establishing among men relationships based on love and solidarity; of achieving the full material, moral and intellectual development not for isolated individuals, or members of one class or of a particular political party, but for all mankind—and this is not something that can be imposed by force, but must emerge through the enlightened consciences of each one of us and be achieved with the free consent of all.
Our first task therefore must be to persuade people.
We must make people aware of the misfortunes they suffer and of their chances to destroy them. We must awaken sympathy in everybody for the misfortunes of others and a warm desire for the good of all people.
To those who are cold and hungry we will demonstrate how possible and easy it could be to assure to everybody their material needs. To those who are oppressed and despised we shall show how it is possible to live happily in a world of people who are free and equal; to those who are tormented by hatred and bitterness we will point to the road that leads to peace and human warmth that comes through learning to love one’s fellow beings.
And when we will have succeeded in arousing the sentiment of rebellion in the minds of men against the avoidable and unjust evils from which we suffer in society today, and in getting them to understand how they are caused and how it depends on human will to rid ourselves of them; and when we will have created a lively and strong desire in men to transform society for the good of all, then those who are convinced, will by their own efforts as well as by the example of those already convinced, unite and want to as well as be able to act for their common ideals.
As we have already pointed out, it would be ridiculous and contrary to our objectives to seek to impose freedom, love among men and the radical development of human faculties, by means of force. One must therefore rely on the free will of others, and all we can do is to provoke the development and the expression of the will of the people. But it would be equally absurd and contrary to our aims to admit that those who do not share our views should prevent us from expressing our will, so long as it does not deny them the same freedom.
Freedom for all, therefore, to propagate and to experiment with their ideas, with no other limitation than that which arises naturally from the equal liberty of everybody.
But to this are opposed—and with brute force—those who benefit from existing privileges and who today dominate and control all social life.
In their hands they have all the means of production; and thus they suppress not only the possibility of free experimentation in new ways of communal living, and the right of workers to live freely by their own efforts, but also the right to life itself; and they oblige whoever is not a boss to have to allow himself to be exploited and oppressed if he does not wish to die of hunger.
They have police forces, a judiciary, and armies created for the express purpose of defending their privileges; and they persecute, imprison and massacre those who would want to abolish those privileges and who claim the means of life and liberty for everyone.
Jealous of their present and immediate interests, corrupted by the spirit of domination, fearful of the future, they, the privileged class, are, generally speaking incapable of a generous gesture; are equally incapable of a wider concept of their interests. And it would be foolish to hope that they should freely give up property and power and adapt themselves to living as equals and with those who today they keep in subjection.
Leaving aside the lessons of history (which demonstrates that never has a privileged class divested itself of all or some of its privileges, and never has a government abandoned its power unless obliged to do so by force or the fear of force), there is enough contemporary evidence to convince anyone that the bourgeoisie and governments intend to use armed force to defend themselves, not only against complete expropriation, but equally against the smallest popular demands, and are always ready to engage in the most atrocious persecutions and the bloodiest massacres.
For those people who want to emancipate themselves, only one course is open: that of opposing force with force.
It follows from what we have said that we have to work to awaken in the oppressed the conscious desire for a radical social transformation, and to persuade them that by uniting they have the strength to win; we must propagate our ideal and prepare the required material and moral forces to overcome those of the enemy, and to organise the new society, and when we will have the strength needed we must, by taking advantage of favourable circumstances as they arise, or which we can ourselves create, to make the social revolution, using force to destroy the government and to expropriate the owners of wealth, and by putting in common the means of life and production, and by preventing the setting up of new governments which would impose their will and to hamper the reorganisation of society by the people themselves.
All this is however less simple than it might appear at first sight. We have to deal with people as they are in society today, in the most miserable moral and material condition; and we would be deluding ourselves in thinking that propaganda is enough to raise them to that level of intellectual development which is needed to put our ideas into effect.
Between man and his social environment there is a reciprocal action. Men make society what it is and society makes men what they are, and the result is therefore a kind of vicious circle. To transform society men must be changed, and to transform men, society must be changed.
Poverty brutalises man, and to abolish poverty men must have a social conscience and determination. Slavery teaches men to be slaves, and to free oneself from slavery there is a need for men who aspire to liberty. Ignorance has the effect of making men unaware of the causes of their misfortunes as well as the means of overcoming them, and to do away with ignorance people must have the time and the means to educate themselves.
Governments accustom people to submit to the Law and to believe that Law is essential to society; and to abolish government men must be convinced of the uselessness and the harmfulness of government.
How does one escape from this vicious circle?
Fortunately existing society has not been created by the inspired will of a dominating class, which has succeeded in reducing all its subjects to passive and unconscious instruments of its interests. It is the result of a thousand internecine struggles, of a thousand human and natural factors acting indifferently, without directive criteria; and thus there are no clear-cut divisions either between individuals or between classes.
Innumerable are the variations in material conditions; innumerable are the degrees of moral and intellectual development; and not always—we would almost say very rarely, does the place of any individual in society correspond with his abilities and his aspirations. Very often individuals accustomed to conditions of comfort fall on hard times and others, through exceptionally favourable circumstances succeed in raising themselves above the conditions into which they were born. A large proportion of the working class has already succeeded either in emerging from a state of abject poverty, or was never in such a situation; no worker to speak of finds himself in a state of complete social unawareness, of complete acquiescence to the conditions imposed on him by the bosses. And the same institutions, such as have been produced by history, contain organic contradictions and are like the germs of death, which as they develop result in the dissolution of institutions and the need for transformation.
From this the possibility of progress—but not the possibility of bringing all men to the necessary level to want, and to achieve, anarchy, by means of propaganda, without a previous gradual transformation of the environment.
Progress must advance contemporaneously and along parallel lines between men and their environment. We must take advantage of all the means, all the possibilities and the opportunities that the present environment allows us to act on our fellow men and to develop their consciences and their demands; we must use all advance in human consciences to induce them to claim and to impose those major social transformations which are possible and which effectively serve to open the way to further advances later.
We must not wait to achieve anarchy, in the meantime limiting ourselves to simple propaganda. Were we to do so we would soon exhaust our field of action; that is, we would have converted all those who in the existing environment are susceptible to understand and accept our ideas, and our subsequent propaganda would fall on sterile ground; or if environmental transformations brought out new popular groupings capable of receiving new ideas, this would happen without our participation, and thus would prejudice our ideas.
We must seek to get all the people, or different sections of the people, to make demands, and impose itself and take for itself all the improvements and freedoms that it desires as and when it reaches the state of wanting them, and the power to demand them; and in always propagating all aspects of our programme, and always struggling for its complete realisation, we must push the people to want always more and to increase its pressures, until it has achieved complete emancipation.

1. The Economic Struggle The oppression which today impinges most directly on the workers and which is the main cause of the moral and material frustrations under which they labour, is economic oppression, that is the exploitation to which bosses and business men subject them, thanks to their monopoly of all the most important means of production and distribution.

To destroy radically this oppression without any danger of it reemerging, all people must be convinced of their right to the means of production, and be prepared to exercise this basic right by expropriating the land owners, the industrialists and financiers, and putting all social wealth at the disposal of the people.
But can this expropriation be put into effect today? Can we today pass directly, without intermediate steps, from the hell in which the workers now find themselves to the paradise of common property?
Facts demonstrate what the workers are capable of today.
Our task is the moral and material preparation of the people for this essential expropriation; and to attempt it again and again, every time a revolutionary upheaval offers us the chance to, until the final triumph. But in what way can we prepare the people? In what way must one prepare the conditions which make possible not only the material fact of expropriation, but the utilisation to everybody’s advantage of the common wealth?
We have already said that spoken and written propaganda alone cannot win over to our ideas the mass of the people. A practical education is needed, which must be alternately cause and effect in a gradual transformation of the environment. Parallel with the workers developing a sense of rebellion against the injustices and useless sufferings of which they are the victims, and the desire to better their conditions, they must be united and mutually dependent in the struggle to achieve their demands.
And we as anarchists and workers, must incite and encourage them to struggle, and join them in their struggle.
But are these improvements possible in a capitalist regime? Are they useful from the point of view of a future complete emancipation of the workers?
Whatever may be the practical results of the struggle for immediate gains, the greatest value lies in the struggle itself. For thereby workers learn that the bosses interests are opposed to theirs and that they cannot improve their conditions, and much less emancipate themselves, except by uniting and becoming stronger than the bosses. If they succeed in getting what they demand, they will be better off: they will earn more, work fewer hours and will have more time and energy to reflect on the things that matter to them, and will immediately make greater demands and have greater needs. If they do not succeed they will be led to study the causes of their failure and recognise the need for closer unity and greater activity and they will in the end understand that to make their victory secure and definitive, it is necessary to destroy capitalism. The revolutionary cause, the cause of the moral elevation and emancipation of the workers must benefit by the fact that workers unite and struggle for their interests.
But, once again, can the workers succeed in really improving their conditions in the present state of society?
This depends on the confluence of a great number of circumstances.
In spite of what some say, there exists no natural law (law of wages) which determines what part of a worker’s labour should go to him; or if one wants to formulate a law, it could not be but that: wages cannot normally be less than what is needed to maintain life, nor can they normally rise such that no profit margin is left to the boss.
It is clear that in the first case workers would die, and therefore would stop drawing any wages, and in the second the bosses would stop employing labour and so would pay no more wages. But between these two impossible extremes there is an infinite scale of degrees ranging from the miserable conditions of many land workers to the almost respectable conditions of skilled workers in the large cities.
Wages, hours, and other conditions of employment are the result of the struggle between bosses and workers. The former try to give the workers as little as possible and get them to work themselves to the bone; the latter try, or should try to work as little, and earn as much, as possible. Where workers accept any conditions, or even being discontented, do not know how to put up effective resistance to the bosses demands, they are soon reduced to bestial conditions of life. Where, instead, they have ideas as to how human beings should live and know how to join forces, and through refusal to work or the latent and open threat of rebellion, to win the bosses respect, in such cases, they are treated in a relatively decent way. One can therefore say that within certain limits, the wages he gets are what the worker (not as an individual, of course, but as a class) demands.
Through struggle, by resistance against the bosses, therefore, workers can up to a certain point, prevent a worsening of their conditions as well as obtaining real improvement. And the history of the workers’ movement has already demonstrated this truth.
One must not however exaggerate the importance of this struggle between workers and bosses conducted exclusively in the economic field. Bosses can give in, and often they do in face of forcefully expressed demands so long as the demands are not too great; but if workers were to make demands (and it is imperative that they should) which would absorb all the bosses profits and be in effect an indirect form of expropriation, it is certain that the bosses would appeal to the government and would seek to use force to oblige the workers to remain in their state of wage slavery.
And even before, long before workers can expect to receive the full product of their labour, the economic struggle becomes impotent as a means of producing the improvements in living standards.
Workers produce everything and without them life would be impossible; therefore it would seem that by refusing to work they could demand whatever they wanted. But the union of all workers, even in one particular trade, and in one country is difficult to achieve, and opposing the union of workers are the bosses organisations. Workers live from day to day, and if they do not work they soon find themselves without food; whereas the bosses, because they have money, have access to all the goods in stock and can therefore sit back and wait until hunger reduces their employees to a more amenable frame of mind. The invention or the introduction of new machinery makes workers redundant and adds to the large army of unemployed, who are driven by hunger to sell their labour at any price. Immigration immediately creates problems in the countries where better working conditions exist, for the hordes of hungry workers, willy-nilly, offer the bosses an opportunity to depress wages all round. And all these facts, which necessarily derive from the capitalist system, conspire in counteracting and often destroying advances made in working class consciousness and solidarity. And in every case the overriding fact remains that production under capitalism is organised by each capitalist for his personal profit and not, as would be natural, to satisfy the needs of the workers in the best possible way. Hence the chaos, the waste of human effort, the organised scarcity of goods, useless and harmful occupations, unemployment, abandoned land, under-use of plant, and so on, all evils which cannot be avoided except by depriving the capitalists of the means of production and, it follows, the organisation of production.
Soon then, those workers who want to free themselves, or even only to effectively improve their conditions, will be faced with the need to defend themselves from the government, with the need to attack the government, which by legalising the right to property and protecting it with brute force, constitutes a barrier to human progress, which must be beaten down with force if one does not wish to remain indefinitely under present conditions or even worse.
From the economic struggle one must pass to the political struggle, that is to the struggle against government; and instead of opposing the capitalist millions with the workers’ few pennies scraped together with difficulty, one must oppose the rifles and guns which defend property with the more effective means that the people will be able to find to defeat force by force.

1. The Political Struggle By the political struggle we mean the struggle against government. Government is the ensemble of all those individuals who hold the reins of power, however acquired, to make the law and to impose it on the governed, that is the public.

Government is the consequence of the spirit of domination and violence with which some men have imposed themselves on other, and is at the same time the creature as well as the creator of privilege and its natural defender.
It is wrongly said that today government performs the function of defender of capitalism but that once capitalism is abolished it would become the representative and administrator of the general interest. In the first place capitalism will not be destroyed until the workers, having rid themselves of government, take possession of all social wealth and themselves organise production and consumption in the interests of everybody without waiting for the initiative to come from government which, however willing to comply, would be incapable of doing so.
But there is a further question: if capitalism were to be destroyed and a government were to be left in office, the government, through the concession of all kinds of privileges, would create capitalism anew for, being unable to please everybody it would need an economically powerful class to support it in return for the legal and material protection it would receive.
Consequently privilege cannot be abolished and freedom and equality established firmly and definitely without abolishing government—not this or that government but the very institution of government.
As in all questions of general interest, and especially this one, the consent of the people as a whole is needed, and therefore we must strain every nerve to persuade the people that government is useless as well as harmful, and that we can live better lives without government.
But, as we have repeated more than once, propaganda alone is impotent to convince everybody—and if we were to want to limit ourselves to preaching against government, and in the meantime waiting supinely for the day when the public will be convinced of the possibility and value of radically destroying every kind of government, then that day would never come.
While preaching against every kind of government, and demanding complete freedom, we must support all struggles for partial freedom, because we are convinced that one learns through struggle, and that once one begins to enjoy a little freedom one ends by wanting it all. We must always be with the people, and when we do not succeed in getting them to demand a lot we must still seek to get them to want something; and we must make every effort to get them to understand that however much or little they may demand should be obtained by their own efforts and that they should despise and detest whoever is part of, or aspires to, government.
Since government today has the power, through the legal system, to regulate daily life and to broaden or restrict the liberty of the citizen, and because we are still unable to tear this power from its grasp, we must seek to reduce its power and oblige governments to use it in the least harmful ways possible. But this we must do always remaining outside, and against, government, putting pressure on it through agitation in the streets, by threatening to take by force what we demand. Never must we accept any kind of legislative position, be it national or local, for in so doing we will neutralise the effectiveness of our activity as well as betraying the future of our cause.
The struggle against government in the last analysis, is physical, material.
Governments make the law. They must therefore dispose of the material forces (police and army) to impose the law, for otherwise only those who wanted to would obey it, and it would no longer be the law, but a simple series of suggestions which all would be free to accept or reject. Governments have this power, however, and use it through the law, to strengthen their power, as well as to serve the interests of the ruling classes, by oppressing and exploiting the workers.
The only limit to the oppression of government is the power with which the people show themselves capable of opposing it. Conflict may be open or latent; but it always exists since the government does not pay attention to discontent and popular resistance except when it is faced with the danger of insurrection.
When the people meekly submit to the law, or their protests are feeble and confined to words, the government studies its own interests and ignores the needs of the people; when the protests are lively, insistent, threatening, the government, depending on whether it is more or less understanding, gives way or resorts to repression. But one always comes back to insurrection, for if the government does not give way, the people will end by rebelling; and if the government does give way, then the people gain confidence in themselves and make ever increasing demands, until such time as the incompatibility between freedom and authority becomes clear and the violent struggle is engaged.
It is therefore necessary to be prepared, morally and materially, so that when this does happen the people will emerge victorious.
A successful insurrection is the most potent factor in the emancipation of the people, for once the yoke has been shaken off, the people are free to provide themselves with those institutions which they think best, and the time lag between passing the law and the degree of civilisation which the mass of the population has attained, is breached in one leap. The insurrection determines the revolution, that is, the speedy emergence of the latent forces built up during the “evolutionary” period.
Everything depends on what the people are capable of wanting.
In past insurrections unaware of the real reasons for their misfortunes, they have always wanted very little, and have obtained very little.
What will they want in the next insurrection?
The answer, in part, depends on our propaganda and what efforts we put into it.
We shall have to push the people to expropriate the bosses and put all goods in common and organise their daily lives themselves, through freely constituted associations, without waiting for orders from outside and refusing to nominate or recognise any government or constituted body in whatever guise (constituent, dictatorship, etc.) even in a provisional capacity, which ascribes to itself the right to lay down the law and impose with force its will on others.
And if the mass of the population will not respond to our appeal we must—in the name of the right we have to be free even if others wish to remain slaves and because of the force of example—put into effect as many of our ideas as we can, refuse to recognise the new government and keep alive resistance and seek that those localities where our ideas are received with sympathy should constitute themselves into anarchist communities, rejecting all governmental interference and establishing free agreements with other communities which want to live their own lives.
We shall have to, above all, oppose with every means the reestablishment of the police and the armed forces, and use any opportunity to incite workers in non anarchist localities to take advantage of the absence of repressive forces to implement the most far reaching demands that we can induce them to make.
And however things may go, to continue the struggle against the possessing class and the rulers without respite, having always in mind the complete economic, political and moral emancipation of all mankind.

1. Conclusion What we want, therefore, is the complete destruction of the domination and exploitation of man by man; we want men united as brothers by a conscious and desired solidarity, all cooperating voluntarily for the well-being of all; we want society to be constituted for the purpose of supplying everybody with the means for achieving the maximum well-being, the maximum possible moral and spiritual development; we want bread, freedom, love, and science for everybody.

And in order to achieve these all-important ends, it is necessary in our opinion that the means of production should be at the disposal of everybody and that no man, or groups of men, should be in a position to oblige others to submit to their will or to exercise their influence other than through the power of reason and by example.
Therefore: expropriation of landowners and capitalists for the benefit of all; and abolition of government.
And while waiting for the day when this can be achieved: the propagation of our ideas; unceasing struggle, violent or non-violent depending on the circumstances, against government and against the boss class to conquer as much freedom and well-being as we can for the benefit of everybody."

• Errico Malatesta, 1920

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-an-anarchist-programme

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:*https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1cibp3n/troublemakers\_a\_cloak\_of\_rage\_to\_hide\_the\_pain/
......
Drake walked through the softly sloping hallways that substituted for stairs between the lower levels of the mansion. As he walked, he flexed what felt like a new muscle, pale flames bursting from his palm and lighting his way every few seconds. As he lit the flames by an open doorway, he heard crying, turning his head to see a semi-opaque figure cowering in the corner of the pitch-black room wearing little more than tattered rags. He slowly stepped in, looking at the chains and manacles hanging from the walls by thick chains. Kneeling by the figure, he extinguished the flames.
To his surprise, the figure disappeared the moment the flames were extinguished. Reigniting them in his off-hand, he gently set a hand on the shoulder of the figure. They sniffled and looked back at him, Drake almost cringing as he saw a piece of fungus growing out of their skull. The figure was of a malnourished Klauvil, gender demolished by fungal growths. A croaky voice asked.
"Death... is that you?"
Drake's mouth fell softly open, but then the ghostly figure brought a skeletal hand to stroke the air a few inches from his face. A look of utter relief washed over their face as tears dripped from their one intact eye. Drake clamped his mouth shut as they softly cried, their gaze falling to the pale flames in his palm.
"It is you... I'm ready to go home... please, let me rest... set me free..."
Drake looked between the flames in his palm, and the soul's outstretched hand, before softly taking it. The soul cried out in agony and Drake tried to let go, but they held onto his hand with a death grip, refusing to let go as Drake tried to disengage. But then he noticed...
The fungal growths were burning away, turning into golden ashes as the Klauvil began to weep tears of joy. The flames slowly licked against their flesh to burn away the scars and infection, Beautiful white robes knitting themselves over their nude form. The flames dissipated slowly, leaving a young Klauvil man with plump, rosy cheeks holding onto Drake's hand with the most grateful expression he'd ever seen. His voice was still weak, but it no longer sounded scared as he slowly let go of Drake's hand, his form blowing away like mist on an unfelt wind.
"Thank you, for laying me to rest... angel of Death..."
There was an odd feeling like the new muscle he'd gained had grown stronger, the flames burning with an almost purified light as he rose to his feet. There was something odd about this... power... he'd gained. Before now he'd only noticed the flames when he pumped his conviction and anger into his sword, but now, He could almost summon them at will. Extinguishing the flame in his palm, he left the room with a deep steadying breath, softly saying to himself.
"That was... odd..."
Continuing to hike up the sloped hallways, Drake passed a door that whooshed open as he walked by, Halcyon slamming into him and falling back with a grunt. Drake looked at Halcyon blankly, then looked into the well-lit room he'd just burst out of. A dozen fighters, clad in freshly made combat armor looked at him with both shock and guilt in their eyes; More than half of the assembled fighters were the recently acquired Geknosian Warborn. Drake slowly took in more details of the room, muted surprise making him take a moment to comprehend what he was looking at.
Looking down at Halcyon, who looked panicked to have run into him. Drake offered Halcyon a hand up and softly asked.
"Raiding party... and you didn't invite me?"
Halcyon took Drake's hand, letting himself get hauled to his feet before admitting.
"Yeah, Martha came up with the idea. she knew you wouldn't approve of us going out on our own, so she didn't tell you. I take full responsibility for that, sir."
looking at those gathered, he patted Halcyon on the shoulder.
"Well, if I'm being honest, nothing would get done if I had my way. Martha is the brains of this operation, I'm just the brawn. Anyway, spill, why're you in such a hurry?"
Taking a deep breath, Halcyon gestured Drake into the room, the door swooshing shut as the blonde-haired hellion gestured at a map of Golgotha spread out on a table. Chess pieces were used to mark locations based on a small key pinned to the corner of the map. Rooks marked manufacturing plants and warehouses. Knights the landing locations of the various Geknosian armed forces. Bishops to represent armored divisions. A king was set on top of the sprawling fortress that was D'vinn's castle, alongside a queen that had a little piece of paper as a crown reading: Go'mon. Pawns marked various troop barracks and blockades. Halcyon explained all this rapidly while Drake scratched his chin, absorbing the information. Halcyon pointed to a rook with a red line drawn to it from the mansion, following an odd, jagged path.
"We're aiming for this warehouse, Martha says that there's been a bunch of odd shipments to it from one of the geknosian ships. She couldn't get any more information from the system than that it was something stored in pressurized canisters."
Drake nodded, furrowing his brow softly before gesturing for Halcyon to continue as the fighters checked their equipment. One man lugged a backpack with two single-use rocket tubes onto his back, grunting beneath the weight as Halcyon continued.
"Martha says that we should be able to pop up right in the middle of the warehouse floor if we take the sewers, but recommended we pop out roughly a hundred yards from the front gate of the storage compound. It's fenced in so chances are there's going to be armed guards. I've already explained this to them, but stealth is of utmost impor... why is your hand on fire?"
Drake glanced down at his left palm, having flexed the strange new muscle as a fidget. Extinguishing the flames he stated.
"practicing, continue."
Nodding, The sandy-haired young man cleared his throat quickly stating.
"stealth is of utmost importance, if we can get in and out without them knowing we were there, all the better. But... we are bringing some heavy artillery in case things don't go to plan. Got that boss?"
Drake nodded and then looked to the man who was adjusting the straps of his rocket launcher backpack, holding out his hand for the backpack.
"I'll carry the heavy stuff, You'll make more noise if you're Huffin' and puffin' from exertion."
The man breathed a sigh of relief and unslung the backpack, laboriously putting the strap in Drake's hand only for Death's chosen to sling it over his shoulder like a knapsack. Drake looked over Halcyon's men approvingly, they carried themselves with the confidence of trained soldiers. A small, soft smile came to his lips as he asked.
"You decide on a name for your group here yet?"
Halcyon shook his head, nervously chuckling.
"I don't, never really thought we needed one, you got a suggestion?"
Drake gave them a rare, soft smile.
"How does Halcyon's Hellions sound?"
A geknosian warborn barked a soft laugh saying.
"It's fitting!"
There was a general murmur of agreement and Halcyon let out a soft sigh and short laugh.
"Halcyon's Hellions it is."
...
The soft splash of cold, fetid water marked their progress through the sewers. Coming up on a set of floor-to-ceiling bars blocking their path, Halcyon looked to Drake.
"We could probably squeeze through, But you wanna see if you can't remove them entirely?"
Drake nodded slowly, unslinging the launcher pack and setting it to the side as he popped his neck. Grabbing a bar in each hand, Drake pulled them in opposite directions. The metal screeched in protest before buckling, dust falling from the duracrete ceiling the two bars warped enough to be pulled free. Drake tossed the bars into the water before picking up the launcher pack and waving for them to go through.
"Thanks, boss."
Halcyon stated, patting Drake's exposed bicep as he passed through. Taking up the Rear, Drake looked back the way they came, he'd had a feeling they were being watched, but he couldn't sense anything. Even with his enhanced senses, he saw and heard nothing, slipping through the bars he heard something, head snapping up as a strained clicking noise came from deep in the tunnel from back the way they came.
"Drake! Something wrong?"
"I think we're being followed!"
The soft splashing of the Hellion's boots stopped, in the utter silence that followed, Drake closed his eyes, sharpening his hearing to a pinpoint. That's when he heard what he'd been missing, The soft sloshing of more than a dozen pairs of feet trudging slowly through the water. Opening his eyes Drake urgently whispered.
"Keep moving, I don't think they know we're onto them."
The whispered command was relayed and they continued marching forward, Drake holding the rear as he kept his ears open for that odd clicking or a change in the slow trudging pace behind them. As they marched, one of the warborn spoke up.
"I've heard that before the Geknosian empire took over this place, It was used as a testing ground for chemical and biological weapons by the Tyranians... I was not informed of much more... but the empire has a habit of disposing of things improperly."
Glancing at the warborn who was scanning the ceiling with a cybernetic eye, Drake nodded, turning his vision up and pausing in shock. Deep, gouging marks covered the ceiling, small clumps of fungus growing from some of the gouges. A fungus he recognized from only hours before.
"What kind of biological and chemical weapons were they testing here?"
The warborn looked to Drake hesitantly before falling back to speak in a low tone.
"From what I was told, they were engineering a fungus from your planet into a weapon. I do not remember the name of it, but like all their weapons... I'd have to assume it was meant to turn a certain percentage of the population into mindless beasts that attack friend and foe indiscriminately. I'd have to assume the experiment was a failure."
He gestured up at the ceiling, cradling his slug thrower in one arm before whispering.
"Judging by the fact we are not being run down, and assuming you're correct that we're being followed... They didn't get the mindless drones they wanted..."
The words sent a chill down Drake's spine. Spotting a ladder affixed to the wall he made an executive order.
"Everyone! Out of the sewers, I've got a bad feeling about what we're marching towards."
Halcyon looked back at Drake through the gloom as the Hellions stopped in their tracks. To his horror, so did the trudging splashing behind them. Drake whipped around, drawing his sword as a loud clicking noise came from behind them. The strained sound came from at least a dozen sources hidden in the gloom beyond where his eyes could negate the darkness. His heart pounded in his throat as he whisper-yelled.
"Somebody hand me a flashlight!"
A plastic cylinder landed in his hand and he clicked the button on the back, shining it down the tunnel behind them. His blood froze in his veins as the blue-white beam of light illuminated a lone figure just beyond the range of where Drake could pear into the gloom. It was a figure that was so covered in fungal growths that it couldn't be made out if it was man, woman, or something else entirely. Thick fungal stocks protruded and rose from the four vacant eyesockets in its deformed skull. Thick plates of fungus covering its emaciated body, it cocked its head, a large hole in its throat opening to release a loud clicking sound. The jagged hole was reminiscent of a bite mark, no, it was a bitemark, a very human-looking one. Drake watched with mounting horror as a few dozen more slowly stepped into the light, one appearing to be a mass of several bodies that had melted together, the fungus fusing over discolored flesh to make a towering monster with four heads. But they didn't move to attack, they just stood there, facing down Drake and the Hellions like a monstrous specter.
The one that appeared to be the leader released another loud series of clicks, almost covering up the sound of something scratching along the ceiling.
Drawing his sword in a fluid motion, He whipped around. Flinging it by the crossguard into the gaping maw of a fungal creature with its head turned backward that crawled on the ceiling by digging hardened, chitinous claws of fungus into the duracrete, pinning it there. The beam fell on the still struggling creature, and then down the tunnel along the ceiling where dozens more silently clung, milky white eyes shining in the light. But to his surprise, they didn't attack, instead, they shied away from the light fearfully. The one with his sword in its mouth scrabbling against the handle before yanking it out and backing away to a healthy distance. Drake caught his sword slowly shining the beam around at the various fungal creatures that had them surrounded in the sewer tunnels.
"What the fuuuuuuuuck..."
Halcyon confusedly whispered, looking to Drake for answers. But Drake could only shake his head as if to say he was just as clueless. Shining his light back on to what he would consider the "leader" of the fungal creatures he called out.
"If you can understand me cock your head to the left!"
The creature slowly cocked its head to the left, sealing the hole in its throat as Drake glanced back around at the strange creatures and the uneasy Hellions. Focusing back on the leader of the strange, corpse-like creatures he asked.
"Are you going to hurt us?! Left for no, right for yes!"
The creature straightened its neck before letting it fall back to the left with a muffled click.
"Can any of you speak?"
The creature's head cocked to the right and Drake nodded, tension stiffening his muscles. Then, slowly, he flexed his new muscle, his right hand bursting into pale flames as he almost whispered.
"Do you want me to set you free?"
The being's head fell to the left almost eagerly as Drake suddenly understood the grim situation. Turning to the Hellions he stated.
"Forge ahead, I'll link up with you at the emergence point."
Halcyon gave a sharp nod, shuddering softly before beckoning the others to follow. Cautiously walking beneath the ceiling crawlers, their guns still pointed at the poor creatures. As the splashing of the Hellion's boots faded into the distance, Drake felt a pair of cold, clammy hands gently take his burning palm. He looked back at the leader of the poor creatures as it pressed Drake's hand to what must've been its cheek in a caressing motion. Pale flames burst out over its body, charring and burning flesh and fungus alike without a wisp of smoke. The clicking that came from its throat was one of great relief, of gratitude as it slowly crumbled away into ash, revealing a young woman with arachnoid features. Deep black eyes gazed into his, a soft chittering sound coming from her mandibles before she blew away like mist.
His eyes were wet as he gently stroked the cheek of the four-headed creature. A gaggle of small forms fell out in a lump as the fungus and flesh burned away. Five small children of various species he didn't recognize saying things in languages he didn't understand, but sounding oh so grateful as they blew away like dust on the wind. He had to close his eyes as he took the hands of small, scared, tortured creatures, their gentle sighs of relief and freedom like a bittersweet symphony. He could feel their pain, though it was not his own. With a great weight on his shoulders, he slowly looked down at the smallest figure; Little more than an emaciated ball of fungus, and gently scooped them from the ground, cradling the small bundle in his arms as he hummed a soft melody he vaguely remembered from childhood. The fungus burned away with an intense white flame, leaving behind a small, giggling human baby. It reached towards his face, laying its small, chubby hand against what it could only perceive as the cold metal of his helmet, a few inches away from his face. Then, with a fading giggle, they blew away like a whisp of light.
Drake clicked the flashlight off and weakly fell to his knees in the fetid water, composing himself as a cold sort of rage filtered through his system. The flame in his palm burned pure white before he extinguished it in a clenched fist, sending their souls back to the cycle.
...
Halcyon peered through the second-story window of an abandoned slum apartment with a pair of binoculars. Twelve Geknosian soldiers in power armor stood in stiff rank-and-file as they guarded a freshly installed armored gate. He checked the simple digital watch on his wrist, Drake had been gone for almost an hour with no word. Halcyon worried something had gone horribly wrong for the boss deep down in the sewers. But the sound of a bulb popping down the quiet street caught his attention. Smoothly sliding from the window, he crept over to the kitchen and peered out the window where they'd left the maintenance hatch open.
A figure clad in darkness rose from the sewer like Death himself, a blood-red mohawk adorning his helmet as he step-climbed out of the hatch and stood to his full height. He'd never seen the boss wear a cape before, but there it fluttered about his shoulders over the launcher pack. As he marched down the street, the lamps flared and popped as he passed, drawing the attention of the soldiers.
They stepped forward as a unit, fanning out into an arrowhead configuration as Drake brandished his sword out to the side, pale flames bursting forth as the Geknosian soldiers took a knee behind pre-determined defensive positions, marked with sandbags. Halcyon gasped softly as he realized what Drake was doing and quickly signed a message to his second-in-command through the window. He snatched up his rifle, making sure the suppressor was on tight before he took up his firing position at the living room window, bringing the helmet of a Geknosian soldier into the crosshairs of his scope, dialing the zoom in for a clearer view of the soldier's eyeslit. The menacing figure that was Drake slowly marched into his peripheral vision, raising his sword like a gavel.
Then he brought it down like a Judge with an audible THUNK! but it was not Drake's sword that made the noise, but the sound of twelve Hellion rifles spitting suppressed hatred. The clatter and squeal of falling power armor broke the silence of the night as Halcyon grinned.
"I fucking love you, you crazy bastard!"
He ecstatically whispered, Quickly uprooting from his position and hurrying down the stairs to regroup with Drake and the rest of the Hellions. His men joined his side in the main street before they joined Drake's side, Halcyon at his right hand to ask knowingly.
"If only we had a way to bust this gate open without drawing half the city."
"If only..."
Drake growled softly, marching forward and kicking the gate open with an audible, but very much less audible than an explosion. Two small secondary crashes echoed from either gate door alongside the clatter and whine of power armor hydraulic leaks. Drake strolled in with a menacingly confident stride towards the only warehouse that had extra reinforcements to the doors and windows. Halcyon and his Hellions followed in a low Crouch-walk, not feeling as invincible as the boss. Drake held up a fist to halt them as he reached the warehouse door and kicked it open with a crash. Four guards who'd been playing poker around a table rushed for their power armor. The boss's sword flicked through the air like a whisper of fate, pinning one of the Geknosians into their armor. Like magic, the sword flew back to his hand with a flick of his wrist only to get thrown like a spear again to penetrate the armored stomach of the only one who'd managed to enter their power armor. The soldier fell to their knees as their legs collapsed beneath them, the two warming bodies of their comrades slumping from their armor, bodies riddled with holes from suppressed rifles and slug throwers.
Drake stepped up to the soldier and mercilessly kicked them onto their back before stomping in their helmet, purple gore spewing from the visor as Drake breathed slowly and heavily. Then with a sigh he reached up and pulled his helmet off, taking deep calming breaths as dark veins slowly receded down his neck. Halcyon looked on, a little disturbed as he asked.
"You okay boss, what happened down in the sewer? what were those things?"
Drake slowly looked at Halcyon, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot as he sighed deeply, looking at the various pressurized cylinders marked with a few numbers, symbols, and a word: Cordyceps-M. Drake looked at the ground and his gore-covered boot before raspily replying.
"They were people... Victims of... this... I set them free, but I got a little pissed in the process. Change of plans, We're taking a canister of this back to the mansion and we're having Martha figure out a way to counter it, I refuse to let anyone get infected with this... it's a fate worse than death."
He gestured at the canisters before picking one up by a stainless durasteel handle before marching back toward the busted doors. Pausing he stated.
"Leave the bodies, I don't want to be here any longer than we have to. I'm gonna go drag the gate guards inside so it's not immediately obvious. Regroup in thirty minutes at the maintenance hatch."
Tossing a salute, Halcyon was secretly relieved not to be the one giving the hurry-hurry order as he made a signal for everyone to get to work. Slinging his rifle over his back he curiously checked the soldier's cards.
"Well, that's a fucked up coincidence."
"What is?"
"All four of them had the dead man's hand. Two black aces and eights."
"Death must have a sick sense of humor."
......
Part 102: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1clhj0i/troublemakers_the_comfort_of_shared_pain/

Basically a repost of, but not really because the inventory is so different now: ^{https://www.reddit.com/airsoftmarketcanada/comments/1ba9jw4/wts\}on_airsoft_gear_for_sale_t8cgs_mws_parts_mc/)
https://imgur.com/a/REix9XL (Roughly in order of appearance)
Item Descriptions!1!!11!!!
I don't think this chain will EVER end. I also have a boneyard G36C, if you want to see it, DM me, I won't list it here.
Various Pieces of used gear, some parts, and a few items that have been here since post one. Pls buy, I need money am very poor :(
Product List is as follows:
Idogear JPC 2.0 Set, size MED ($110 + shipping)

Idogear Zip-On Bag Idogear M4 Molle Panel Idogear TenSpeed Triple M4 Pouch Idogear 2in Tactical Belt (Medium) w/ Inner Belt (Will part out for $15) TMC Side Plate Pouches TMC M4 Molle Panel Insert UTX Buckles for Placard (Preinstalled) Emerson GP Pouch 

JPC will be sold disassembled, it is easier to set it up to your needs when it is in pieces anyways, and because functionally it is a 1:1 replica, the assembly process is the exact same as the real deal. The side plate pouches will come with foam inserts, but the JPC itself will need plates, size MED SAPI or Swimmer Cut. Genuine Multicam Fabric.
5KU Micro Comp for Glock Gen 3, 4 14mm CCW ($10 + Shipping)
A cheap, neat little compensator for any airsoft Glock, ideally gen 3 or 4 since it doesn't have the protrusions for a smooth fitment on gen 5 models. May cause locking problems on any ALS holster, but a bit of filing often solves this issue. Has minor cosmetic damage and missing the grub screws, but grub screws are cheap. Likely M3 or M4 sized grub screws.
WE Glock 19 Gen 5 Parts ($120 + Shipping) (Mags Priced Separate)
A bunch of WE Glock 19 Gen 5 parts, list is as follows:

Stock Glock 19 Gen 5 Complete Frame Stock Glock 19 Gen 5 BBU w/ Nozzle Stock Glock 19 Rear Slide Plate Stock Glock 19 Front Sight Post Stock Glock 19 Chamber Set Stock Glock 19 Outer Barrel Stock Glock 19 Faux Ejector Stock Glock 19 Guide Rod Set w/ CowCow Spring 2x Stock Glock 19 Grip Pad Enlarger Thingies 2x Guns Modify Nozzle Sets 1x PTS MEC V Piston Head Set 3x Guarder TM Magazine Lip 3x Guarder Magazine Screw Maple Leaf Chamber Set for TM G17 (84mm Crazy Jet Inner Barrel, 60 Degree Bucking) (Will Part Out for $40) 

Magazines
3x WE Glock 17 Mag 1x WE Glock 19 Mag

($22 Each, or 68 for all 4 + Shipping) 

Most of these were originally purchased as spare parts for my WE G19 Gen 5, until I fumbled the damn pistol while attaching a comp and it fell onto my desk then the floor, which somehow split the slide in half and gave it a nasty dent directly in front of the ejection port. Regardless, I am just going to sell what is functional. I don't want to bother with another WE Glock after that, nor do I want to test my luck and see if a gen 3 slide is compatible. It was an interesting situation to say the least. Tested and inspected everything else, all in good condition. Bagged items are brand new and unopened.
The magazines are still in stellar condition, and are currently still holding pressure. Guns Modify, Guarder, and Maple Leaf parts are cross compatible with the TM G17 Series. I only got to game the pistol 4ish times before winter started, then it just broke, so everything internally is still in a pretty good condition.
Condor Modular Chest Set ($60 + Shipping)
Probably the biggest purchase I made to never even use to date, the modular chest set. Bought a few years ago for paintball magfed, never used it. The rig ended up being way too large for me, even on it's smallest size. For reference I often wear medium plate carriers, and my AVS currently has a maxed out Crye S/M cummerbund, yet this thing on it's smallest size is still way too big for me. Good for people who are larger than the average joe, you think Crye stuff is sized huge? Wait till you see this, you have to be like 6'8 250 lbs of pure muscle to wear this.
Regardless, carries 6x 30rd STANAGs in 6 built in magazine pockets with bungee retention. Has a MOLLE admin pouch located in-between the shoulder straps that can carry your common admin items, like pens, notepads, maps, reeses peanut butter cups, kitkat, you get it. It also has a built-in long hydration carrier, for those long 3L reservoirs, lots of space in there.
LC2 Suspenders ($10 Each + Shipping)
I had a slight retro gear phase, back when I did paintball instead of gods glorious creation of airsoft, I had to use one of these suspenders to hold my belt up, pretty sure it was the one on the right that was used. Left is as new as you'll get for previous issued kit. If you know the condition of any previous issue ALICE gear that isn't torn, you'll know the condition of these. Our grandchildren will probably be wearing these after the nuclear apocalypse because of how unkillable ALICE gear appears to be. Anyways, they work with literally any ALICE belt, repro, Rothco, or real. They're comfy, they hold a belt up, that's really it.
Idogear Battle Belt ($20 + Shipping)
A thick battle belt I bought a few years ago, meant to be used in paintball, never saw any serious use though due to COVID, so it spent most of it's life in storage in my room. Not even a basement, just an old gear bag under the table. Belt can be popped out over the Molle for belt attachments like holsters. Has a couple hanger clips for holding things like gloves or chemlights and some weird velcro loops I don't know the purpose of. Laser cut MOLLE equates to 2 MOLLE straps in terms of functionality. Fits any waist 88cm+
Assorted Multicam Pouches/Accessories Bundle ($60 + Shipping)
A bunch of Multicam stuff, listed top to bottom, left to right.

Idogear Multicam Dump Pouch ($10) Idogear Multicam Dangler ($10) TwinFalcons Multicam Shoulder Pads ($20) Tactical Raider 2L MC Hydration Carrier ($10) Idogear Multicam IFAK/GP Pouch ($10) DMGear Phone Holder ($10) DMGear Tubes Adapter ($10) Idogear Multicam AVS/JPC MOLLE Panel ($5) 

As mentioned previusly, it's just a bunch of Multicam accessories, will part out select pouches for the prices listed above, or buy as a bundle for $25 off. Pouches are relatively lightly used, the phone holder probably got used the most. Look up DMGear Phone Panel on aliexpress, you'll basically see the instructions on how to mount it to any MOLLE panel out there. FYI it will only mount to Velcro MOLLE though. The Hydration carrier will fit any 2L Short bladder, long ones won't fit. You could probably shove a 2.5L short bladder in there if you really tried. Tubes will only properly mount to 3-Band cummerbunds.
Black Multi-Fit Dropleg Holsters ($10 Each + Shipping)
Please read this before you go and buy these, the one of the left will fit larger sized pistols like a Desert Eagle, will the one on the left will better fit your more average sized pistols like a 1911 or a P226. They are both generic, black, drop-leg holsters. nothing special about either of them to be honest. The left one will fit flashlights, the right one wont.
Amazon Scope Mount ($15 + Shipping)
A scope mount I bought off amazon for my first airsoft rifle, a KWA Ronin T10. It held on pretty well despite the violent recoil of the T10, and never had my scope come out of place nor had the mount itself wiggle off the rail. Has picatinny rails on top of the scope rings for small red-dots and other small accessories. Scope rings will fit 30mm tubes. Screws won't back out easily when torqued down enough, and worst comes to worst, loctite it!
IF you have a trade offer, don't be afraid to shoot your shot, you may have something I actually want.
Located in Northwestern Ontario, Thunder Bay. Will ship on buyers expense. Some packages may be shipped in flat-rate shipping boxes. If something is sold outside of Reddit, I will appropriately mark it as sold outside of Reddit.

https://carrioncomfort.substack.com/p/grief-unending
My father has died, suddenly and quite unexpectedly. I find myself overwhelmed and unprepared, as if a well-known path through the woods has suddenly become dark, tangled, and disorienting. A thick underbrush has quickly sprung up around my feet, making every step forward laborious yet urgently necessary. The only way out is through.
Regret and longing wrap like tendrils around me, making my chest feel tight. I find myself rifling through my memories looking for any last scraps, though every new recollection stings of bitter joy. Still, the fear of forgetting even the smallest scrap twists my stomach in two, so I endure the thorns.
I believe every relationship in life is a canvas splattered and smeared with shared moments across time. The exchange of every word, every glance, every gift, every wound — all the things that give life meaning — every single one is a brushstroke.
Grief is stepping away from the canvas and accepting that the work is complete. There are a million things left unsaid, many other things you wish you'd had time to paint. Many brushstrokes you wish to erase. But the work — such as it is — it is finished. It forms the basis of memory. Stepping back from the canvas is painful, but you see the work differently. The play of light and dark in the piece become more stark, as the memories themselves crystalize, subjected to permanent recollection and objectification. We long to stay at the canvas painting indefinitely - but a work can only be truly beheld once it is finished.
But this isn't satisfying - your memories are just a snapshot of a person. It is an imperfect way to capture the abundant complexities that a human life represents. Once a person close to you has crossed into the realm of memory, they lose the ability to surprise you. This is the uncanniness of memory, you know that it's forever insufficient to truly capture the essence of this person you've lost.
Even worse, a part of yourself is lost. We are all in some sense historians for each other — “No, that isn't what you said! What you really said was…”. What our loved ones see in us is often different, more clear than how we see ourselves. My father's painting of my life looks different from my painting of his, even though we share many shades of common memories and shared emotions. My father knew much of my life better than I know it myself. Those parts of me are lost to me when I lose him.
I'm allergic to all the usual Christian cliches on loss. To varying degrees they may in the end be true, but these have always felt sterile to me, reminding me of the acrid disinfectant smell of the hospital. Perhaps because they're too neat, too clean. They offer reassurance of future joy, but that fails to reckon the dissonance of the here and now.
I know dad is in a better place. I believe in the resurrection, that he will be made whole, that I will be with him again, God willing.
But I also look around and he's totally and completely gone. Every part of creation reflects his absence. Everything that was once familiar to me — forests, hills, roads, stars — I see them now through the lens of his loss. I could spend the rest of my life looking for a single sign of his presence and all I'll find is these fragmented artifacts of his loss. The tomb is not empty, but the rest of the world certainly is.
If there's a sliver of comfort I can find, it's this: just as part of me dies with him, a part of him lives with me. My shoulders were never quite as broad as his were, but I will carry as much of my dad with me as my strength allows. That much of him still lives, no matter how much it pales in comparison to dad himself. Dad still lives through me and through everyone else whose lives he touched, and maybe on that great day of resurrection we should hardly be able to tell each other apart, because so many of us will all be carrying a small part of my father with us.
I should very much like to see him again. I don’t think I will I can possibly feel complete until that day.

At this point in time, I'm not even sure if Excel is the best thing to use for what I want to achieve, but I gave it a go any way.
For worldbuilding purposes, I want to create a military Table of Organisation and Equipment in Excel. Basically, my goal is to make different formations the building blocks and then be able to call upon the contents of those building blocks, to very easily get totals for everything I have put in at the bottom.
So far, I have experimented to create a semi-automatic system that allows me to define parts of the organisation at the smallest level in sheet1, providing formation name in Column A, equipment in Column B and amount in column C. I found that in order for the next level to work, I need to put the unit name on every line in column A.
https://preview.redd.it/e35qfr5818xc1.png?width=232&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d02182f0be5f148d73cff91e1af7cc32f2ae6b3
Then on sheet2, I named the higher level formation in column A, put the subordinate formation in column B as written on sheet1, provide the amount of identical subordinate formations in column C and then started with my formulas. I used =UNIQUE combined with FILTER, referring to the information on Sheet1, to display every unique item I assigned to that specific subordinate formation. This works.
In column E, I subsequently use a SUMIFS to find the amount I defined on sheet1 as belonging to one formation and multiply that by the amount I put in column C.
​
It has resulted in this.
The problem I however have is that if I want to go one level higher on Sheet3, it'll only find the exact line that has the name "Rifle Platoon", combined with the "Rifle Squad".
​
https://preview.redd.it/7j7g0vlm18xc1.png?width=419&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b8756de7c9cd401a0bf14dd784bf8c226e9ff9d
To fix this, I found that on Sheet2 I need to add both "Rifle Platoon" in Column A and "Rifle Squad" in Column B, for all items from column D to be counted.
​
https://preview.redd.it/2stf9no328xc1.png?width=389&format=png&auto=webp&s=11a265ae31dae847065323acce0b905aec564ea7
https://preview.redd.it/z5spwzw428xc1.png?width=393&format=png&auto=webp&s=8c230e27a3665c12b1821bafa7332fcb8d9102a5
And I would have to do that for every single item I create.
My question at this point is, are there any alternative formulas I could use that yield a similar result, without requiring me to copy the names in Column A and B down the entire way each time just to get to a higher hierarchy level? Or have I already found the best formula with my use of UNIQUE, FILTER and SUMIFS?

[FIRST][LAST][NEXT]
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Captain Farva
Have I died? Am I dead? It was supposed to be a bright glowing flash then nothing right. The detonation had come but I was still standing here, My thoughts flowed slowly as if molasses, I felt Nyan's claw dug firmly into my fur. I took a breath, the air was clean, filtered, artificial. I felt lighter, stronger? No, it felt like I had just gotten onto a federation ship with galactic standard gravity. I shifted my weight, with each shift of my legs cool metal met my paw pads.
“Where are we?” Nyan Cried, burying himself in my arms. “How… How….?”
“I don’t know” I murmured.
I opened my eyes slowly, surprised they still worked, I thought myself blinded by the nuclear fire that filled my irises. We were in some sort of hangar, flanked by strange dark gray ships. They were monowing craft presumably designed for both spatial and atmospheric flight, topped with angular cockpits and weapons affixed to the bottom of their wings. A large doorway lay opened up to space. The atmosphere we were breathing was being held in by some kind of energy field. The size and shape of the doorway was familiar to me. It was the doorway to the hangars of the Daedalus, only the last time I had seen them was from the outside of the ship.
How were we here?
We were on the bridge, but now in this hangar bay?
Did someone move us?
The ship exploded, rescue would have been impossible.
Did our section survive?
“I don’t know” I fought for rational thought.
I felt like I had just stayed up for like 6 claws.
“No wait I had”
“What?” Nyan spoke softly, I had spoken that thought aloud.
Maybe the Daedalus was able to shield the bridge section somehow, Isolate the reactor from the rest of the ship.
I took a headcount of my dazed crew, many in shock, some took in their surroundings like I did, some sat there with blank expressions. Had we been more lucid, had we not already had just come out of a life or death scenario, I'm sure they would have stampeded.
I counted twice, losing track the first time.
When I finished the quick count I was dismayed, engineer Donu was gone, she must not have been saved, how could she have been, she was at the site of the detonation. I stared at the stars as I layed down flat in the middle of the hangar bay, cradling Nyans head in my arms, this was too strange.
The Adrenaline fueling me was gone. We were safe I think?
I was tired, my body craved only rest.
The blood on my head, the cuts and scrapes of my crew did not register anymore. Caldwell would take care of them I thought as my eyelids grew heavy. They had almost closed entirely, but I felt Nyan tense up. He kicked weakly. I opened my eyes to see the approaching figures of our saviors.
The Blurry figures approached, they spoke in frantic sounding growls.
“The med kits at the door!”
“Medics are on the way”
“Captain I can confirm, we have 16 confirmed rescues, I will report back shortly on their status over” a sharp electrical bleep followed his proclamation.
They were tall lanky upright beans. Bipedal I think I struggled to focus on their faces. They had a strange discoloration atop their heads, their eyes didn’t look quite right…..
I jolted upright, screaming. I crawled away, clutching Nyan tightly in my arm. The predators waved their arms above their heads to frighten me, whatever words their mad growls translated too did not penetrate my feared addled brain, I raised my sidearm and opened fire. The predators lept out of the way before I could fire the first shot. They took cover behind the fighters, their low hanging wings making excellent cover for their lithe forms. They were spread out, most of my crew had frozen, the rest who were lucid enough to stand were lost, surrounded, there was nowhere to flee, the predators had blocked the exit, and the only way out was into space.
The door to the hangar opened, further armored predators ran into the room, these were armed but one stood above the rest. I fired frantically into their formation, my shots going wide. While the rest had dove for cover, this one stood firm, he raised his arm, a strange device unfolded in his hand, a blue light shot forth and overtook my form. I felt a sharp pain overtake my body. Nyan screamed. Unconsciousness finally overtook my body.
Officer Report - Lieutenant Colonel John Shepard
CLEARANCE LEVEL 5
After awkwardly removing my hand from Teal'c’s shoulder, in the wake of a somewhat uneventful opening engagement, with a distinct lack of exciting ship rocking, I sat back and took in the sights. Our rail guns were firing off full blast, not seeming to do much to the enemies shields, nothing new there, but lucky for us their energy weapons, little piddly blue dots of space nonsense weren't really scratching our shields either.
I leaned over the Teal’c
“Why do we even bother with the railguns I mean their good enough against fighters but I feel like we've never onced used them effectively against anything that wasn't a dart”
“Goa'uld shields in the past have been quite resistant to our kinetic weaponry, Perhaps our missile armaments will be more effective, as in our home dimension” he responded quietly so as to not disrupt the action going on in the bridge ahead of us.
I looked on as Caldwell ordered some mark 8’s to be launched at the “Ark~sur?” craft. I think that's how it's pronounced. Anyways I still find it kind of weird how quickly and frequently we go to the nuclear option in this line of work. During my deployment in the regular air force, I have dropped plenty of ordinance in my time, but to utilize not just nuclear bombs but nuclear bombs powered up with weird space rocks. It never ceased to amaze, though I never really got a chance to sit back and properly admire the impressive explosion they delivered. Kind of like just now when all of our missiles were intercepted by enemy countershot.
This again! Really!
As the Arxur opened up on us with some additional armaments I leaned over to Hermiod and raised my voice for the captain to hear.
“Sir I know Hermiod won't be a fan of this strategy, but perhaps we can do what we did to wraith over Atlantis way back when, with the you know.. the teleporters”
I said the last part somewhat timidly, I could feel the death glares coming from Hermiod boring into the back of my skull.
What so wrong with using teleports as weapons, why give us the shields which are used for combat! if you're gonna get mad when we try to weaponize all the other stuff.
I was half expecting an argument from him but it seems like Hermiod and Caldwell have had discussed the matter beforehand. With a sigh Hermiod coldly replies.
“I can not transport the warhead onto the enemy craft but I can transport one directly to the precipice of their shields”
“That will do” captain Caldwell replied
“Contact the armory tell them to prep a mark eight, hammer down protocol, and standby in the designated beam out point” The order is relayed.
“Orders confirmed” a staticy voice buzzes up from the munitions locker.
“Smoke in the air!” the sensor office suddenly shouts “nine contacts projected target allied craft!”
“Take them out! all hardpoints!” Caldwell orders.
I watch as the guns swap to point defense mode, I don't think we have ever used them like this. I've seen footage of those badass seaRams we keep on our naval vessels back home but never once can I recall ever having missiles shot at us by anything alien. And honestly till now I didn't even stop and question if we could shoot down missiles.
Fortunately for Captain Farva and her crew we could, I craned my head slightly to see if we could pick off all of them, they were coming at us from all angles in a star pattern to fly around our ship, the angle split our fire making them harder to intercept, we nailed like six of them and the venlil got two of them with their own missiles, unfortunately one got through.
I cringed as the missiles hit its mark, remembering how shot up the ship looked when it dropped out of hyperspace originally. The sensor screen was littered with noise around the vessel as I assume debris was scattered into space by the hit.
Carter piped up.
“Sir we’re reading a drastic increase in the radiation levels from the friendly ship, It looks like whatever reactors issues they had, have been exasperated, radiation will reach lethal levels in minutes, we need to get them out of there”
Captain Caldwell looked in my direction ”Shepard, Teal’c get to the port hangar bay, you will meet up with the medical and security teams to process any survivors!”
“Got it!” I said and Teal’c gave his signature dignified nod, hands clasped behind his back.
“Radio ahead and signal the armory officer to expect us.”
I told the comms officer as we hurried out of the room.
“Damn I wanted to see that explosion!” I complained to Teal’c
“Have you not witnessed the utilization of nuclear weapons before Commander Shepard?”
“It's not the same, only some piddly Geni nukes, and most of our wraith kills I usually running away from so I don't get to get a good look at them to really take it in you know”
“I do not”
We made it to the armory without issue and without much follow up conversation and we were on our way to the hangar when we realized we had to book it because one of our rescuers started to shoot up the damn hangar bay!
When we got to the entrance there were two guards manning the door waiting for backup, alongside the medics who were likely thinking they were going to have to pull some overtime for this job.
Wasting no time we lined up by the two gunnery officers manning the door.
“Okay guys we get in there fan out, get to cover and show and give them a nice show of force, We are dealing with scared survivors so be quick and think on your feet, got it?” They nodded, and I began to count down with my fingers.
When we ran in we immediately began taking fire. As the little alien guy was shooting some blue lasers at us. On the bright side about half of my guys followed orders and got to cover. Teal’c on the other hand apparently had their number though. As he simply walked in raised his zat, did the cool cachink thing to his zat to power it up and iced the poor venlil who clearly wasn't thinking or aiming straight.
Looking at their abysmal shot grouping they clearly weren't doing much aiming, and it looks like they even had a child in their arms.
“Ouch poor kid” I said aloud, The rest of the Venlil aliens were a mess cut up and covered in what I guessed was orange blood. My blood pressure and any adrenaline response quickly faded. These guys were cleary scared shitless, I've seen a lot of scary sci fi bullshit in my career, and If it had just escaped my universes Arxur equivalent, been on a ship that was about to explode; a piece of debris bounces off the hangar bay oxygen shield; did explode, and then likely got teleported for the first time onto a vessel full of strange aliens twice my size I would be kind of scared too.
Some of them were frozen on the floor, kind of like our fainting goats back on the ranch. Hopefully they will come to like them as well. The rest recoiled not far though, their vision was like a horses, their focus hard to track but it looked like they were regarding the deck crew as well as me and the approaching guards and medics with equal concern.
I held up a hand to the approaching medics, I needed to calm them down first. They were scared but also cornered, fight or flight response dictated they could lash out if cornered.
I slowly approached them trying to make myself small. Keeping my hands where they could see them, I didn't have any means to speak with them, though someone said earlier that Rodney was coming down with Hermiod to get something set up.
I spoke as softly as I could manage ”I'm going to check to make sure these guys are okayed, the weapon my friend Teal’c here fired” I gestured to Teal’c who was being his usual intimidating self(not helping)”Is a really nice guy and the weapon he shot your friends with is designed to specifically not kill, they should only be stunned”
No visible reaction. I know they couldn't understand me but I hoped my calm voice and diplomatic demeanor would put them at ease.
Teal’c attempted a smile to appear friendly, but Teal'c's smile is scary enough to most humans so naturally the venlil collectively let out a terrified yelp.
Teal’c stopped.
With that setback I approached the now unconscious pair of venlil. I grabbed the alien sidearm and one of the security team members palmed it. I then proceeded to check them for signs of life, I tried to check their wrist for a pulse, my hand effortlessly encompassed their entire wrist, there was a vein there but I couldn't quite get a pulse out of it. I did notice how lovely soft their wool was. They would make lovely cuddle buddies if they weren't so distressingly injured.
I bent my head down toward the little one, my plan was to check for the breathing but the venlil didn't like this at all, I was met with what I assumed what venlil screaming. A few of them covered their eyes and folded their ears against their head.
Awhhhh…
“Hey Hey it's okay, I'm just checking for breath!” I mimed breathing to them taking exaggerated inhales and exhales while making gestures with my hands'' Breath, Breath ” I repeatedly tried to make them understand before gesturing to pair, and once again lowering my head, turning my head first so they understood I wasn't trying to bite them or anything.
I listened carefully, our crew knew to be quiet but I still heard some gentle sobbing coming from the alien crew. While the little one's breathing was faint, mercifully it was there, along with the larger ones as well.
“Okay It looks like they're still alive, but they're covered in open cuts and electrical burns, and alive doesn't alway mean is going to wake up” I scoop up the pair and turn around to hand them towards a medic.
As I did this a brown floof had sprung from their group and latched itself onto my leg, This one looked less injured and it was covered in brown fur with white speckles, It looked up at me with its singular right eye, Braying loudly, I couldn't make out what it was saying, but if I had to guess it was a pleading expression, as tears fell from it orange eyes.
Teal’c lined him up, looking like he was going to stun it, which would have the unfortunate consequence of stunning me as well.
Hand full I turned my body to shield the venlil from Teal’c. “Easy Teal'c, their unarmed, why don't we lower our weapons, we need them to trust us if we want them to let us treat them”
Teal’c thought for a moment but unable to come up with a better plan, powered down his zat, and the soldiers lowered their rifles as well.
I handed off the pair to the medic, and knelt down to eye level with the poor thing. I pried his little claws off my leg, and clasped them together in front of him. The poor thing was shaking up a storm. The only comparison my mind could draw was one of those BSPCA animal cruelty commercials. I gently rubbed his paw fur. I looked him in the eyes, he seemed to recoil at this so I closed them and whispered gently.
“Hey little guy I know you can’t understand me but it's going to be okay alright”
Having no real way to verbally assure him, and my nurturing instincts kicking in somewhat I swapped to the nuclear option. Pressing their frail frame against me I cradled them in my arms like I would an infant. Gently petting him softly between the ears. He tensed up something fierce when I initially grabbed him, and while he was still shaking I could feel some of the tension leave his form.
I glanced up at Teal’c, he gave me an accusing look.
It felt awkward and I was probably committing some kind of alien social faux paus but In my defense it seemed to do the trick. Releasing him, I gestured towards one of the medics asking for a first aid kit. I was no medic myself but hopefully basic first aid rules applied with the weird space goat sheep guys. The alien idled in front of me, his ears gesturing at odd angles, my guess to signify confusion. I would be confused too I suppose if an alien started getting handsy with me. I set the kit down in front of him, slowly opening it and pulling out everything I would need to treat him. Taking care to show him and every venlil there that it wasn't anything scary. I gestured to the cut on his right arm, I could tell they were trying to hide it from me. But I didn't want to force them to face me if I could avoid it. I gently put my hand behind their elbow, not so much grabbing them but guiding them into a position where I could see it. I took a wipe and began to clean the wound best I could, I was worried how they would react to the alcohol, they flinched a bit but seemed fine, It seemed like they were trying to act tough, but they had cried a little to much into my tactical vest to convincingly sell that illusion.
After I had patched him up, I urged him using hand signals to return to their little venlil huddle. They chattered among themselves in hushed voices, making repeated sideways glances to the most injured of their group. I began eyeing up the medics to see if I could grab maybe the physically smallest one, when a startled gasp erupted from the crowd. I looked past the medics and saw a disgruntled Rodney emerge from the door with an equally upset Hermiod.
Rodney is holding a box of a various cables and computer equipment, while Hermiod is struggling with a standard issue 2005 Dell XPS M170 Laptop which looks comically large in his hands (fucking google it it has like a single gigabyte of ram and a single 3 core 2.17ghz processor, and their fucking using it to hack alien space ships!!!!).
“Rodney, these audio sensors are damaged, they are not receiving input!”
“It’s called a microphone and its working just fine I used it earlier to take notes”
“The translation program is not receiving input”
“Well it might be struggling to run on windows”
“Rodney, I worked long and hard to make a usable software interface for the Asgard and S.G.C.s operating system. The program is running fine!”
“Here it is, someone plugged in a headset from earlier the input is set to the wrong device”
“Why does it not change to the correct device automatically”
“I Don't know, I don’t program these things!”
Engrossed in their work I was willing to bet their hourly shouting match would agitate our guests.
I approached the pair halfway between the venilil and the door speaking with a quiet but terse voice
“Rodney you need to keep it down, these guys are really spooked and were having to try very hard not to frighten them”
“WHAT” Rodney asks, completely too loudly.
He peaks around me and glances at the crowd, his eyes widen in panic. “Oh um are those the Venlil, I thought they would be you know.. more uhh. people looking“
“Their aliens, they look like what they look like, frankly it's weird that most of the aliens we meet look so much like humans. But forget that, is the translation program working or not cause we could really use that right now things are tense as hell over here.”
Hermiod responds “I believe that we are ready, the program is receiving audio input now we should be good to go”
“Yeh uh you guys should go ahead I think I'm going to go check on the drive systems.. Uuh good luck!” I grab Rodney
“Hold on what's gotten into you, we just met aliens from another dimension and you want to bail now?”
“I have a phobia of animals okay, I got kicked real bad by a goat when I was a kid”
“Well that explains a lot. Now stick around I might need your help to explain some technical aspects of this ship and figure out what happened to theirs, your the only one who’s qualified, and besides their not animals their aliens Rodney, do I need to have Woolsey put you through cultural sensitivity training”
Rodney looked on quite timidly at my rebuttal of his word choice.
I returned to the group of venlil, Rodney kept his distance but Hermiod walked up and set down the laptop. I helped arrange the microphone and speaker so we could get a clear copy on the venlil.
It was good that Hermiod was there now that I think about it. He was much smaller and had the physicality of a plate of wet spaghetti noodles. Nobody the size of the venlil with their size and claws could reasonably be afraid of the skinny 4 foot tall asgard right?
I was partially correct, I think the order of emotion was fear, confusion, and then slightly less fear as they got used to the idea of a strange new alien race.
Hermiod gave me the go ahead and I proceeded to make a proper first contact with this alien race.
“Hello there, My name is John Shepard of earth, we mean you no harm, do you understand me?”
The Brown speckled one from before that spoke up
“Uh… Yes we can understand you, we have translators, What have you done with the captain and Nyan?” His words took a moment to translate, the asgard translation program really putting the laptop through its paces. But the synthetic human voice was clear enough.
“Our medics are sending them off to the med bay to check on them, we have never used a zat on your kind before, you can relax tho a zat is the weapon my buddy Teal’c here used to knock out your captain, perfectly safe where we come from but we want to make sure we didn’t your friends any lasting brain damage.”
“You predators…. But..You have medicine?”
Predators?
“What makes you think that they were predators? Not that you're wrong it's just that well… were kind of just a bunch of funny looking space monkeys with drastically receding hairline, and the only thing they predate on is bananas, Is this predator thing why your scared of us, I for one promise we won't eat you or anything weird like that, Id take it since you're scared of us that must also mean your herbivores?”
The Venlil looked confused, his ears; his voice having translated as masculine; returning to that odd little one up one down thing he was doing earlier.
“You're trying to trick me predator, you want to lure us into your clutches!”
He said weakly.
“Ummmmm, well not to sound threatening but you're already in our ‘clutches’, and we are trying to help you, we can't hope to treat your wounds if you are panicked and trying to shoot up the place”.
“You just want to be healthy to make us into cattle! or slaves like the small predator!” The venlil screamed weekly, as new life seemed to pump through their veins at this line of accusation.
“Woah Woah Woah, I'm sorry but your response infers that those arxur guys use your kind as cattle!?”
I glanced towards Teal'c returning a rare look of horrified confusion.
“They actually like, lock you up and make you guys umm.. you know?”
“You can't fool us human with your feigned ignorance, we have encountered your race before, you keep cattle just like the arxur did, you know nothing but war and kill your own kind, you gas your own children, your bloodlust knows no bounds!”
We weren't from this galaxy but his accusations did not, not apply to our version of humanity. I didn’t exactly wake up today expecting to have my whole species essentially put on trial by a small alien space goat from another dimension, fortunately Hermiod came in to pull my ass out of the fire.
“My race the Asgard have been observing humanity for some time, we are familiar with the events in which you speak, this level of violence and sadism is not unheard of for developing sapient species, all species have their problematic outliers and the humans who perpetrated those action were an unfortunately powerful but small outlier. You should know that modern and even ancient humans have proven to conduct themselves with honor and selflessness in the best of times, and while I may have my personal gripes with some members of the species”
Hermiod gives Rodney the side eye.
“They have proven themselves to be a valuable ally to Asgard, in safeguarding both our home galaxy and many others as well. They have earned both our friendship and our trust”
Teal’c spoke up ”The members of the Tauri have proven themselves to be formidable allies to the free Jaffa people as well, helping to liberate my people from the dominion of a parasitic alien race known as the Goa’uld”
The Venlil looked stunned for a moment but quickly turned orange with rage. “Predatorshit! That's impossible. You claim to be from a different galaxy, that trip would take millennia! Not even the fastest federation vessels could even approach the necessary speeds to think a predator race could implement a vessel that…. ”
Hermiod cut him off while raising one of his little nub fingers ”I think we should also mention that we are not from this dimension and that events likely diverge from that of our home dimension, considering we have never encountered your kind or the arxur, any trends or preconceptions you may have from this galaxy may not pertain well to ours”
I could see this furthered venlil's confusion. This was going to take all day If I didn’t wrap this up. He was stressed and I could tell he was trying hard to rationalize what we just said, being a man from the late 90s, whose job it was to drop in on renaissance era villages on a weekly basis, I was no stranger to culture shock, so I know you have to skip on a lot of the little details sometimes and push to the heart of the issue.
“Alright listen here, I'm sure you have a lot of questions, which I will be happy to answer, but you clearly have bigger issues right now. Listen, your ship exploded, and like it or not you asked us to help, we helped and now you're stuck here with us. We are going to try and help you people but we are not entirely sure how to do that, we have never encountered venlil before, and our guys are going to need your help to treat your wounded. While you are here you are under our protection and we are not going to let any harm come to any of you. All we need from you is to let our guys take a look at you before you all bleed out in our hangar bay”
The venlil regarded both us and their crewmates, looking back taking in their state the energy drained from his form, He was obviously concerned about us humans, he ducked his head down to return to converse with the others, clearly conflicted and struggling to come to a decision, while earth was in this dimension everything else seemed very different, there was no arxur or venlil in our home dimension, but apparently the holocaust or some equivalent event was a universal constant, who knew.
Our point man venlil returned.
“We will agree to let you treat our wounded, but we also want to make sure that our captain and the child are okay”
One of the ships medics approached the microphone with a placating gesture
“Your bio chemistry is very alien to us, if you could have a medic accompany us to our medical bay; where your captain is located; we could work with our scientist there to work on chemical treatment options and surgical solutions if the need arises.”
“That's a great idea” I said, patting the medic on the back to congratulate his initiative ”Kill two birds with one stone!”
The Venlil did not like that allegory.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Chief Engineer Donu
16 cycles till retirement, 16 cycles and a trusted old former apprentice would cycle in from Venlil Prime to take up my position and complete Nyan's training. The Boys youthful exuberance was a refreshing change of pace from the board journeymen that made up the rest of my staff. While they struggled to stay awake, Nyan never ceased to stare in wide eyed awe as I regaled him with tale after tale of daring escapes, and jury rigged engines. He would sit mouth agape as I showed him tricks and workarounds that the pencil pushers back in venlil occupational health and safety would gawk at. He graced my ears with a happy amused whistle as I told him about all the trouble me and the captain would get up to playing pranks on our antagonistic Krakotl instructor back at the academy. And while I enjoyed his company, almost thinking of him as a son or grandchild, my back wasn’t what it used to be and my joints far from as flexible as they were in my 20s, I always strived to be at the forefront of engine design and innovation, to push the horizon, but it was starting to get away from me, it wasn't as exciting anymore, my colleagues wished to settle into comfortable positions, settle down have families and in time so did I. In my later years after my children had settled down and husband had passed away due to a degenerative neuron condition. I took this post at the request of my long time friend Farva. An excellent posting, someplace quiet, isolated, to spend my waning years.
I suppose it was not to be, When the ship's reactor was hit, I made sure to get the crew out, they still had their lives to live. Me, I was on the way out, and I had one last job to do. The Radiation gently warming me like Venlil Primes sun on a warm day. It would have been comforting had I not had even the most basic radiation safety info well drilled into my skull. I knew what would begin to happen soon.
I worked to reroute and seal the cooling fluid, the pipes burned even through the safety gloves as I scrambled to turn off valves and apply fast acting sealant to the piping that was salvageable. I breathed frantic breaths through the muzzle like a respirator that covered my snout. The air grew hotter, life support failing to keep up.
I needed to be quick to keep the engine from overheating no matter what. We were running and couldn’t stop. I knew the stakes. I didn't let the captain finish her sentence when she tried to explain. She needed every scrap of power I could coax front this machine. And I was going to deliver.
As the radiation irreparably damaged my body on the cellular level, I did everything I could to give a fighting chance to my crew. I shored up the coolant lines to keep the engine as cool as I could for as long as I could, the heat would compromise the housing more, further distortion would only allow more radiation to seep through. As the engine core grew hotter and hotter, the remaining heat sinks bucked and warped under the strain. I cycled the remaining heat sinks to give them time to cool, Nyan on the bridge diverted power away from non critical systems, but it would make little difference, the warp drive was the power hungriest system on this ship by a long shot.
The heat was starting to get to me, as the captain sent word of a last stand. so I transferred engine control and heat-sinc management to Nyans station on the bridge. Some combination of heat sickness and radiation poisoning was starting to hamper my awareness.
I slumped against the console, the heat overwhelming me, my body had nothing left to give.
“Be good Nyan, Take care of Farva for me”
The warning lights around me faded out, darkness overtook me, I was at death's door, I suppose it should have bothered me more, but all I could think about was how disappointed I was, that I couldn't see this one last voyage to its end.
Suddenly The alarms stopped.
I opened my eyes, perhaps to see what the afterlife looked like.
Through watery eyes there was an ocean of gray.
A strong pair of arms lifted me and deposited me onto a soft welcoming mattress.
Gentle appendages poked and prodded.
A concerned voice deep but caring rocked through my bones.
An orange light winked into being, gracing my blurred vision.
My body ached.
But the strange light relieved me of that burden.
A coughing fit racked my body.
Metallic blood coated my lips.
But a warm paw and a soft cloth delicately cleaned me of the jettisoned life essence.
My tired eyes strained to see.
Past the light to the caring angel who chose to ease me of my burdens.
The light was mounted to the center of a paw, delicate graspers splayed out like a star.
Focusing harder, a flat face revealed itself.
Its eyes set forward, a snarl graced their lips.
They screamed aggression, hunger, the mark of a killer.
But those eyes, those piercing blue eyes, they spoke to me.
They spoke of care, concern, compassion, a silent promise that everything was going to be okay.
A warm blanket hugged my body.
Fresh water soothed my tongue.
That voice.
“Hang in there little guy, you're doing great. You've been through a lot but you can rest now.”
Assured my mind.