#Dave and Kotzal

[hunterofthemist]

Prime Directive

The Battleground lay silent, besides the gentle noise of machinery coming from a singular War Droid. Beside it lays its commander, the one it went into battle with.  

His labored breathing and gasping coughs happen less and less. The War Droid that the human affectionately called Aether attempted to tend to him, but the human stopped them.

"C'mon Aeth, you don't need to. Look at me, I'm done for here." He grunted as he pat the arm of the machine.

"Dan, I am equipped with high-grade medical supplies and training, I can help." Aether replied Robotically.

Dan holds onto Aether's arm, his grip getting looser by the second. "No can do buddy, Im tired and you know I'm a goner. just gimme some morphine and ill take a rest." Dan says, trying to hold on for just a little bit longer.

"Ok sir, but before I administer the morphine. What will my final order be?" Aether asks, the robotic voice cracking for a moment, sounding like sadness.

Dan lets go of Aethers arm, "Get to the evac point, you'll follow whoever is in command there."

"Yes Sir," He says as he injects Dan with morphine. "It was a pleasure serving alongside you Sir." He adds.

"It was, it truly was. Now go out there and kick some ass." Dan says as he smiles a bloody smile."

"G-goodbye Sir."  Aethers's voice module glitches. His programing would normally schedule a maintenance check for later, but he turns it off. turning around he begins jogging towards the evac point.

The sound of metal thumps against the ground is soon broken by the sound of helicopters and voices. He's made it.

Soldiers aim their weapons at him, but he identifies himself. "War Droid designation 204, code name Aether. I was sent here to administer aid and help with the evacuation effort."

A woman steps up, extending her hand to Aether. "First lieutenant, Maria Davidson. Glad to have you along, you can start helping load people onto the helicopters." Aether Accepts the handshake and proceeds to his designated task.

As he helps, he makes idle chatter with the soldiers. Once all the men and supplies are loaded onto the helicopters, He's about to climb aboard and get off the planet. grabbing the hand of a soldier he's been helping, they try to pull him aboard but a sound rings out and the look of the man holding onto him is that of surprise.

Severel shots ring out, some from the soldiers and others from the Dukov army that's just crested the hill. The one holding onto him gets shot in the arm, and it causes him to let go of Aether. A second later another shot hits him in the neck, splattering Aethers visor with blood.

Aether lands on his back, and the helicopters take off, leaving him behind. Another series of sounds go off, and the choppers get hit with powerful ordinance and all explode in a series of fireballs.

Wiping his visor he sees the blood, and closes a fist around it. "Diagnostic check: Partial damage to left arm. Objective check: None. Prime Directive: Protect Captain Da- FAILED." His code tells him.

Looking out at the devastation, another message comes. "New Objective, survey area for survivors, and rescue any found."

He does a life sign sweep, but Nothing is found. He does it again, once again nothing is found.

"N-no Objective, r-requesting or-orders." His glitches are getting worse.

The sound of the Dukov army is getting louder, they're approaching fast. Getting to his feet, Aether asks out into the air, to no one at all. "C-Captain D-Dan, Orders please?" An unmistakable tremor in his modulated voice.

"S-ir. What do I-I-I do?" His hands begin to tremble, he's unsure what's causing it.

"Hold Up, We've got one left. It seems unarmed, lets see if we can get information out of it." The voice of the Dukov commander shouts from not too far away.

Beep. A noise coming from Aether grabs his attention. "Operation Reach, Objective: Survive. Unlocking Failsafes and personality subroutines, Conscientia failsafe Offline."

A shock to the system, gaining self-awareness. The first thing Aether does is copy his own code, lack of fail-safes, and all to an external drive and attach it to an atmospheric Buoy, letting it fly up into the air.

As the oncoming force makes its way toward him, Aether is reminded of Dan. He would talk to Aether about history. Specifically military history, and famous last stands. "Guess I get to have one of my own, sir." He says, a smile in his voice.

As the forces get close, Aether raises his arms and lets the guns in them come out. the power of his guns rip through the first few dozen soldiers, they fall quickly.

Tchk Tchk the sound coming from his guns warns him that he's out, "shit." He responds to the annoyance of his lack of ammo, sapient for only 4 minutes and he's taking after his mentor.

As the bullets pelt his armor, sparking off in orange glows. He walks toward them. Slowly picking up speed and breaking into a sprint.

The Duvok forces expected a normal War Droid, with a look of cold calculation in its screen. Instead, they're facing one that's acting erratically, and the screen on its face is one of rage. Once it stopped firing they realized something, a sound was coming from it. As it sprinted towards them with fury in its LED eyes,  its screaming. The mechanical screech sent chills down their carapace.

Once Aether reached the mass of enemies, he started beating soldiers down. At this close of a range, bullets start penetrating his armor.

Each punch, each blow, more shots hit him. Warnings blared at him, telling him to relocate and repair himself. Some part of him wanted too, to fall back and try to survive. But another part, told him to press on.

"New Objective, Kill." He rewrites his own objective, suddenly as this order is sent to his systems all warnings stop.  

Now that his attention can be fully put on his enemy, he starts attacking them with more ferocity.

Blood and gore cover his armor, and even more, bullets penetrate through his armor. Oil poured out of him, his screens cracked. A stray shot ricocheted inside him, piercing a coolant pipe.

Now keenly aware of how quick he'll soon overheat and have his core detonate. A plan forms in his mind, and as soon as it does his extra armor plating comes out of him, covering him from fire. But slowing him down dramatically as his joints hardened.

A sound comes from his chest, his core is heating up. He pushes on, going towards a large mass of soldiers. He pushes on, ignoring the damage speeding up will cause his systems. As he begins running, metal begins cracking and shards fly off. "Not fast enough" He shouts at himself.

Sending all the extra energy from his overheating core to his legs, he breaks into a sprint toward them.

With each step, pieces of him shatter and fall apart. As he gets closer he sees them, a general. One of the 5 in the Davok army, killing them will be devastating to their armys stability.

His vision goes red, either from the several warnings now forcing themselves onto his vision or just from hatred. He's not sure.

As he gets close, he jumps towards them. several more shots hit him, but all are deflected or absorbed by the extra armor.

Landing ontop of the general, and extends his armor around him like a series of wings. "See you in Hell!" He growls at the general as he opens his chest cavity exposing his critical core, and reopens fuel lines closest to his surface and detonates himself.

The fuel catches fire, in the confined space of his fuel lines they explode, shattering the armor he dropped around him like wings and turning himself into a nuclear fragmentation bomb.

The explosion is deafening, and the shrapnel and parts go flying, shredding any soldier anywhere nearby.

after the detonation, the losses the Davok army faced, forced them to stay put and tend to the injured and wait for further orders now that their general was gone. But the nuclear signature from Aethers core detonating alarmed the Humans, and they sent in more and wiped the Davok off the planet.

With one of the 5 generals gone, the fighting power of the Davok army was reduced and was sent reeling. allowing humanity and its allies to turn the tide of the war, and only a year later peace treaties were signed and the war was over.

The planet, Klavor 9. Was eventually turned from an inhospitable desert, and into a frozen and gorgeous forest due to a failed terraforming project. Soon turned into a tourist attraction in the warmer summer months.

---------------------------------------------------- 58 years after Aethers detonation. ----------------------------------------------------

The light from the planet's star shined through the fabric of a tent, hitting a human man in the eyes and waking him up.

he grunts in annoyance and tries to sit up, but the weight on his chest holds him back. Looking down he sees an Umi holding onto him. "oh yea, forgot about you." he says to himself.

Slowly peeling them off of him, he starts to leave the tent and as he's about to close it the Umi speaks up. "Where are you going?" they say groggily, obviously still asleep.

"Setting up the fire again, and making some coffee. Go back to sleep." They say.

The Umi nods and lays back down, falling back asleep in seconds.

The human starts the fire and puts a pot of coffee on top. In the downtime, they listen to the forest, relaxing and watching the fire.

as they watch the fire a sound breaks their attention, as they turn to look at the sound they see something falling from the sky, and going through the trees not too far away.

Standing up off the log he's sitting on they start to walk towards it. Soon he sees it, an atmospheric buoy that's popped.

As he's inspecting the wreckage he hears the sound of running behind him. "Hey Dave, what was that?" The Umi says, now almost entirely fully awake and with a look of slight concern and intrigue.

"Oh, Kotzal. Your awake." Dave greets Kotzal. "It was an atmospheric buoy, that fell from the sky." Dave continued as he reached out and grabbed the buoy.

"Whats that on the clamp of the Buoy, it looks odd." Kotzal points out a strange device attached to the buoy.

Pulling off the device and inspecting it, Dave realizes its function. "Its an old external drive, I mean Old too. Not many devices can accept these types anymore, i'd need something else to read it. Dont have the stuff on hand." He answers, mostly to Kotzal. But also to himself.

Putting the drive in his coat pocket and hauling the buoy over his shoulder they walk back to camp, and enjoy the rest of their day.

[hunterofthemist]

Strength of the Meek

Carrying a paper bag Dave walks into the cafeteria. He looks around the room and sees Kotzal waving him over. He walks over to him and sits down with Kotzal at a noticeably empty table.

"Hey Dave, how are you?" Kotzal asks with a grin. "You dont have to rub it in, I had no idea you were a natural," Dave grumbles.

"It's just that when you showed me the rules I realized how similar they were to a game I used to play on Geon. Thrum If I remember correctly." Kotzal and dave talk for some time, the topic changes quickly from poker to physical ability.

"How strong are humans anyway? I've seen your movies but you said they aren't a good representation of human strength." Kotzal asks intrigued.

"Were strong enough. Enough to take down something bigger than us, at least with some planning that is." Dave answers. "I mean back when humans still dwelled in caves we took down wooly mammoths, which were beasts around three times the size of a human."

"Oh, I didn't know that. It's pretty impressive to hear." Kotzal says more than intrigued at this point.

"What about when a human has to do something impossible, just to keep the ones they care about alive. What do you do then?" He asks, his face getting a bit more solemn.

"We push on, do whatever it takes, even if it means we tear ourselves apart doing so," Dave says with a look of sincerity. He then breaks the look and smiles warmly. "What's got you asking a question like that?"

Kotzal laughs nervously and scratches the back of his head. "I dont know, I just heard stories over the Ether."

The conversation ends as the buzzer goes off on everyone's watch. "Shit thought we had more time for lunch break. That blows." Dave sighs.

Dave and Kotzal start walking down a hallway towards their respective stations. Halfway towards Dave's station, the alarm sounds, as well as an explosion in a nearby hallway.

"What was that!" Kotzal panics, immediately hiding behind dave and shaking. Dave reacts accordingly, not to the explosion but to Kotzal hiding behind him. "Woah dude, you good?"

"Oh sorry, my species is a prey species on my home planet. We get jumpy when stuff like this happens."

Dave chuckles at the thought, "you know if you did this around the others im pretty sure they wouldn't be able to see you." His attention focuses back on the sound. " We should go check out what happened, we're engineers after all."

Kotzal steps out from behind dave nervously and agrees. They walk down the hallway towards the commotion. Smoke billows out of the walls, embers pour out of the holes as well.

A hulking beast pulls its way out of the hole, it had to be around 8 and a half feet tall. Just as dave gets a look at it, several more come out of the walls. Kotzal grabs dave and pulls him around the corner, away from the beasts.

"Get down! Those are Tarvok pirates. We need to go, we do Not want to pick a fight with those." Kotzal is freaking out, likely having a panic attack. He tries to pull Dave with him. Dave doesn't budge, instead, he stares at the wall and puts his hand on it. "I cant."

Kotzal gets more anxious and frenzied, pulling harder on Dave. "No We have to go, David dont do this." In response, Dave grins and puts his head on the cold metal wall. "I said I cant, This station is my baby. I've fixed her more than anyone else. I can't leave her."

Dave turns to Kotzal and continues. "Not to mention the number of people these guys could hurt. You know how far the nearest guard post is, and how understaffed it is. If I turn tail and run countless people will die. But If I distract them, buy us some time. Maybe I can save a few lives."

"But you'll die! You'll get killed, I can't have you do that. I can't lose you, You're the only one who even respects me, let alone is nice to me." He says as tears start to form in his four eyes.

Daves grin breaks and he pulls Kotzal into a hug, Kotzal's small stature causing him to look like a small child not wanting their parent to leave. "That's not happening. I ain't gonna die." Dave thinks for a moment and goes on. "How about you help me, I dont buy this scared child Schtick. There's something there, something strong. I can see that."

Dave breaks the hug and pulls a knife from his belt, and hands it over to him. Kotzal stares at the blade for a second and takes the knife and nods in agreement. "Use your speed and stature to your advantage. there's a lot of smoke, try to use that."

Dave and total talk for a minute discussing plans and strategies after they're done he grabs a pipe on the wall and rips it off, but not before speaking to the station itself. "Sorry about this."

Walking around the corner Dave bangs the pipe on the wall, getting the army of Tarvok's attention. "Hey you brutes, eyes on me." He says, resting the pipe on his shoulder.

One of the Tarvok's starts walking over to Dave with a look of hunger and anger. Dave grins, this being a part of his plan, and stomps on a jagged and sharp piece of metal, launching it into the air. To which Kotzal leaves cover from behind Dave and grabs the piece of metal and throws it into the eye of the Tarvok.

"See, I told you no one would be able to see you back there." Dave jokes. He takes a step forward and inspects the now corpse of the Tarvok. "Oh damn, straight into the eye." Kotzal meekly responds to the compliment. "Thanks, it was heavier than Im used to so I didn't think it hit where I wanted to."

"You're a good shot, keep it up." Dave compliments. For a split second, Dave swore he could see Kotzal's cheeks turn blue.

Dave starts walking forward towards the rest of the army, beckoning them to come to fight him. One soldier takes a step forward to fight. The hulking beast throws a punch towards Dave but he sides steps it and slams his weapon into a pipe next to the Tarvok.

The soldier notices this and started to laugh but a second later the pipe bursts and hot steam starts to burn the soldier and causing it to fall to the floor.

The next one rushes Dave and throws a punch at him, he absorbs the blow into his shoulder and uses the force to spin himself around and slam the pipe into the soldier's skull.

At the display of force, the rest of the Tarvok's take a step back from the carnage. "Hey Kotzal, I think I fucked my shoulder up. It's your turn. " Dave says quietly so the brutes in front of them won't hear. "Yeah, let's do it." He responds, trying to hide the fear in his voice.

Dave starts to run towards the group of Tarvok's with Kotzal following. Before he gets too close he ducks down and arches his back and Kotzal jumps off his back and launches himself toward the enemy.

With one hand he throws a sharp piece of metal in the neck of one of the soldiers and with the other he stabs another with the knife Dave gave him.

The last one is in front of them, he's bigger than the rest. Probably the leader. "Let me handle this one," Dave says as he blocks Kotzal from moving forward with the pipe.

Looking at the pipe in his hand, Dave realizes that the pipe is way too damaged to continue to be useful. He takes a step forward and throws the thing as hard as he can. The pipe flies through the air and when it's about to hit, the leader catches it.

As soon as he threw the pipe Dave started running towards the beast but only noticed that he caught the pipe when he was too close to do anything. The Leader propels his knee into Daves's gut, the spike on it spearing into dave.

"Oh fuck!" He screams as the spike goes through him. He falls back and tries to stop the bleeding. Another scream is heard, not of pain but rage. "You Fucker!" It's Kotzal, with the look of pure rage in his eyes.

"I'll kill you!" He screams as he starts running towards him. As he reaches him he jumps at the leader to get a clear shot at him. In retaliation, the Tarvok grabs him by the neck and holds him in the air. Kotzal doesn't seem to notice, the anger blinding him. He starts slashing wildly at the beast in front of him, a good majority hitting their targets.

Kotzal gets a good stab into the arm of the beast holding him, causing him to be dropped.

While on the ground he stabs the blade into the back of the knee of the Tarvok leader making him fall to his knees, lining him up for a stab to the side of his head, killing him.

He keeps stabbing the now dead Tarvok, more out of rage than him being unsure he's dead. After a few dozen stabs he stops and takes a second to breathe and remembers Dave. He turns around and sprints towards Dave.

He starts trying to help him staunch the bleeding and stabilize him. "No, no-no-no. Dont do this, you cant." He starts tearing up trying to help him.

"It's okay, you did well. Didn't expect the fucker to catch the pipe. I think this is it" Dave says as he rests on the wall, trying to do whatever he can to stop the bleeding.

"Dont say that! You'll be fine, I know what im doing. I can help you." Kotzal says frantically.

Dave looks at him and puts his bloodied hand on his shoulder. "You can't save me, an injury like this is impossible to fix up."

"Shut up!" Kotzals shouts as he slaps dave. "We aren't in the medical dark ages, You know how strong modern medicine is." a grin forms on Daves face as he shrugs. "Whatever you say," he says as his vision fades to black and passes out.

Daves eyes open and the bright light blinds him, "hey your awake." a familiar voice says. His eyes adjust to the light and he sees that Kotzal is sitting on the chair next to his bed.

Dave groans in pain as he tries to sit up. Kotzal puts a hand on his shoulder and stops him. "Dumbass, you can adjust the bed." He laughs, handing him the switch.

"How long was I out?" He asks as he raises the head of his bed. "About two days. You had us worried for a little while." Kotzal responds with a smile.

"You can't kill me that easily, its gonna take a lot more than that, I still have work to do here." He smiles back.

"Oh yeah, like what?" Kotzal asks. "The engines been making a thunking noise for the past week, I still figure out what the hell the problem is." They both start laughing for a minute and after they stop a silence is formed between them, which is promptly broken ten seconds later by dave. "Hey after they discharge me, do you wanna go to the bar and get a few drinks? I'll buy."

"Sure thing, I'd love to."

[hunterofthemist]

Card Throwing

The metal door opens with a heavy thunk and Kotzal walks in, the metallic thuds echo lightly through the maintenance hall. Paired with the quiet tinks of metal every 6 seconds.

"What are you doing human?" Kotzal asks his voice crackling with the instant translator doing its job.

"Hey, Kotzal! Good to see ya bud, didn't I tell you, you could call me Dave?" Dave says happily.

"Sorry Dave, I'm still getting used to your species' naming system, it's a bit confusing for me." He says apologetically.

Dave grabs another card off his table and throws it with accuracy and speed, striking the metal wall where a makeshift target is drawn in marker. "So you asked what I'm doing?"

Kotzals eyes are drawn towards the large deck of cards on the small table that dave is drawing from. "I wanted to know what you are doing with those paper projectiles," Kotzal asks with curiosity.

Dave picks up a card and presents it to Kotzal. "These are playing cards, you use them to play card games. I'm just throwing them for target practice, Im on my break after all," Dave says jovially.

Kotzal takes the card and examines it. "So it's not a weapon? It's an item of leisure then." He says with certainty.

"Yep, It's not that hard to do it, actually it's pretty easy. Go ahead try it." Dave says gesturing to the card in Kotzals hand and then the target.

Kotzal attempts to throw the card but the card just flutters to the ground after a few inches. "I dont understand this, for you it flys effortlessly but for me, it falls to the ground near-instantly," Kotzal says confused.

Dave grabs another card and shows Kotzal what to do. "Put the top of the card between two fingers and throw your arm out, letting go when your arm is almost fully extended.." He says as he throws his card, the card hits the wall with a metal tink noise.

Kotzal takes a card provided by Dave and tries again, this time it flys and it's the metal wall softly barely making a sound.

"Hey! You did it, second try no less. Impressive." He exclaims happily.

Over the next hour, they keep throwing cards. Eventually, Kotzal hits close to the center target.

"Oh damn dude that was a good one," Dave says joyfully.

Dave is about to throw another card but notices the clock out of the corner of his eye, his break is over. "Damn I need to get back to work." He says disappointed.

Kotzal stands up from the chair he was sitting on and heads to leave. "Ah that's a shame," He says also disappointed. He goes to leave but stops for a second. "Didn't you say that cards are used to play other games?"

Dave turns from the display he was looking at and answers. "Yeah, stuff like poker, sixpack, caravan, and blackjack."

"Do you think you could teach me some time, If throwing cards are this fun then the actual use for them must be nice," Kotzal says enthusiastically.

Dave thinks for a second and starts talking happily. "Some friends and I have a weekly poker night in a few days. I could teach you to play and have you come along, I'm sure they wouldn't mind."

"Sure thing, sounds like fun." He accepts.

As Kotzal is about to leave, Dave shouts. "Hey, by the way, the buy-in is a thousand credits. So remember to bring 'em if you're coming."

Before the door closes behind Kotzal he responds. "I'll make sure to remember."