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verdigrispoisoning · 1 day ago

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With Friends Like These...

The alarm startled N’ren. It had a mechanical, animalistic howl which hurt her ears. It was so loud, that she could feel the deck plates vibrate under her feet, tingling with noise. As she looked around, she could tell that it bothered the humans too, but other than a small flinch when it went off, it seemed to energize them. They all got more focused, more serious and moved faster.

The trip had been a whirlwind of sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations. N’ren Kitani, as the ranking officer of the Mel’itim - The Discoverers - was selected by the Captain to go over to the human ship and meet them. The fact that she was part of the secret police, and if she were… killed by human treachery it would not be considered that much of a loss to the crew was not lost on N’ren, but as much as she disliked the taste of that thought, she had to admit it did make sense. She had more training on body language and politics than anyone else aboard. Even if she didn’t know the details of the human’s political situation, she - probably - could see the larger picture easier than anyone.

She needn’t have worried about any human treachery. They had been more than accommodating to her and her needs, and everyone was fascinated by her presence. She knew that they were merely curious, but their close set eyes following her as she was given a tour of the ship was unsettling.

Menium - our ship - had been in contact with the human’s own ship AI - called Longview - and between the two of them they had worked out a rough translation of the two sapient’s languages. Their language was an unintelligible garble of sounds and phonemes to N’ren, but Menium was an excellent translator, and she had managed to understand and be understood.

They had invited her to a meal and while she attended to gathering gladly, she didn’t eat anything. Not only was eating unknown food from a new group of sapients she had just met madness, Menium had warned her that some ingredients the humans used was toxic.

After the meal, N’ren had explained the war with the Xenni, how they were trying to expand their territory, and how - without some help - the war would last for decades at best, and be over quickly with the K’laxi being subjugated by the Xenni at worst. Three K’laxi border colonies had already been captured, and a dozen deep space stations had been destroyed outright. Almost exactly as she finished explaining the war, the Xenni came through the system gate and the humans’ long range sensors had detected the missile launches. N’ren had warned that they tend to go after ships with their energy weapons after the missile launches, and sure enough everyone aboard Longview heard the thunderclap report of the energy weapons ablating part of the Starjumper’s thick hull.

N’ren knew that the discovery of the humans, with their gigantic starships and wormhole generators was exactly what the K’laxi needed to turn the tide of the war. She needed to get back and report this new race to Fleet Command.

She was jolted back to reality by a human shouting at her in that staccato language they had, full of fricatives and harsh consonants. Menium spoke to her as the translator and she was able to get a sanitized and generalized version of what they actually said. N’ren didn’t think Menium needed to do the voices for different people though. Still, the point got across. It was time for her to go. Now.

“Leave? But, the checks aren't finished! Does my Captain know? She’ll need to make preparations.” N'ren said, worried.

"No. No time. Go Now. Your ship talked to our ship. They figured it out." The human was hurriedly putting on an armored pressure suit while talking to N'ren.

<Human Francine is right N'ren.> Menium said - in their regular voice - through the comm. <Longview and I have worked out the details and I know - mostly - how to operate their wormhole generator. Can you believe they’re actually giving us their own FTL drive? The Mel’itim command’s fur is going to puff out to twice it’s size when they see it.>

<Mostly operate it?> N’ren said back to Menium, worried. <Is it dangerous?>

<Is it more dangerous than getting captured or destroyed by the Xenni?> They countered. <No. Is it more dangerous than taking the Gates? Most assuredly.>

<Wait, never made contact?> N’ren hadn’t had time to speak to the humans about the other sapient groups they knew, but she had assumed they had met someone.

While N'ren put on her pressure suit - unfortunately not armored like the humans' - she wondered why Menium sounded so excited. They had never exhibited this kind of behavior before. It was more like she was talking with a person instead of the flat, matter of fact speech of a ship.

As she tightened the last ring on her gloves, she felt, rather than heard the strikes. Huge booming thumps along the bottom of the human ship and suddenly her suit shrieked that the pressure was dropping rapidly. Her large inner ears along with her prehensile tail gave her a better sense of balance than the humans; she was able to feel Longview start to rotate along it's axis.

"What's going on?" she asked Francine, the human that had been helping her thus far.

"Longview's rolling to keep your ship out of the firing line." Francine said, though Menium’s translation. "Longview's a big, old ship, she can take it" she said, and grinned through her helmet.

“Old? How old is Longview?”

Francine stood up and stared off into nothing for a moment. “She must be at least two thousand years old at this point.” She said and moved her head up and down vertically, once. “Yes, about two thousand years old."

Two thousand- <Menium, is that a translation error?>

Another brace of explosions rippled down the hull, knocking everyone off balance. Francine put her hand on N'ren's shoulder and pushed. "Go. Now." There was another explosion, this one larger. "RUN.”

As N'ren ran down the halls of the Longview, Menium reminded her to run on the right side of the hall as humans - all in pressure suits - ran with purpose around her. She noticed that more than a few humans were carrying weapons. <Why the weapons?> N'ren asked her ship.

<They're preparing to be boarded.> Menium said.

<What? The Xenni don't do that!>

The idea of humans forcibly docking with an enemy ship and pouring in, attacking gave N’ren chills. She made a mental note to report this to the Mel’itim.

N'ren made it to the umbilical that connected the two ships. There was a group of humans bustling around the docking room, checking settings and tossing crates through the umbilical towards Menium. A human engineer noticed her arrival and waver her over. “N’ren, your ship is ready. Our ship taught your ship how to work the wormhole generator and we're ready to set you off and escape.” He gestured towards the umbilical as he spoke. “We're going to push you with the docking arms, so don't hesitate to fire your main drive. Our hull is thick, your drive exhaust will be barely a summer breeze to us, we'll be fine." He grinned and stepped back.

“What about you? What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Oh, Longview is very old. She was a Starjumper before we developed wormhole generators. She’s practically more engine that ship. We'll turn our Stardrive on them as they come around. No worries!"

What did that mean? She wondered. Aloud she said “Sorry, I meant your wormhole generator. Aren't we taking it?"

Impossibly, the engineer grinned harder. "Oh, no we bottled a message and used the generator to link a beacon back to human space. Someone will come and bring us a new generator in a week or two. We'll be fine."

More explosions wracked the ship. The engineers grin fell as the ship began to vibrate worryingly. "Go. We'll be fine, but if you hold up much longer there won't be any ship left!” He clapped her suited shoulder and gently directed her towards her ship. “I’m glad we met. Go and tell your people."

****

Back on the command deck of Longview, the ship was relaying information to Captain Erlatan.

"Captain, Menium has been pushed away, and they're boosting away from us at their full speed. A small group of attacking ships has peeled off and is giving chase."

Suddenly, there was a blinding flash, and Menium was gone.

“It looks like Menium figured out the wormhole generator." Captain Erlatan said. "Excellent. Longview, shall we shake off our attackers?"

"With pleasure, Captain. Permission to engage War Emergency Power and thrust at 6 gees for 3 minutes?"

"Permission granted. I authorize you to use War Emergency Power. In the case I am incapacitated you are free to make your own decisions to continue the mission, save the crew, and save your own life in that order. Acknowledge."

“Acknowledged, Captain. War Emergency Power engaged. Fuses and limiters removed. We can operate at WEP for eighty three minutes before permanent damage occurs.”

If someone was watching the battle from a great distance, they would see Longview begin to rotate along the axes of the massive flywheels deep in the center of the ship. N’ren didn’t even get to see them in the tour. The humans were friendly and accommodating, but they knew that everything they showed her would get reported back. No need to give away all their secrets.

Longview oriented itself until the rear of the ship was facing the swarming Xenni ships. Thinking they were turning to run, the Xenni pressed their attack, and grouped together to concentrate their fire. When they were a few dozen kilometers away, Longview lit its old relativistic Stardrive and a jet of pure white, kilometers long, shot out the back as the ship thrust away at a withering six gees. Everyone on board was secured in acceleration couches or command chairs and while it was very unpleasant, it was over soon enough.

Moving too quickly to dodge the jet of pure physics, the Xenni ships were destroyed the instant the torch of exhaust played over their hulls. None survived to report the incident back to the Xenni Consortium.

I bet you thought I forgot about you! I'm still around, I'm still writing, though you'll probably see my stuff more on Royal Road or Reddit these days. I'll still post here when I can though. This is a major re-work of a very old story of mine, and I'm planning on expanding it out into a full length novel about first contact between the humans and k'laxi.

#I think I'm gonna buy this one when it gets released

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