First Contact

He had watched the as the others had moved stuff according to Friend Terry and the two little green mantid's instructions. As Nemta watched, the engineers fixed the reactor to his ship and had increased both its output and stability. They'd taken almost the entire fusion reactor apart and put it back together again.

The fact that his fellow survivors had given low chants as the mantids worked bothered Nemta in ways he couldn't explain. Repeating zeroes and ones in a slow measured cadence as the two insectiod engineers had labored to rebuild the reactor made what had should have been a normal standard engineering job into something strange and alien. The fact that three of the survivors had moved around the group in circles with torches made the whole thing even creepier.

Finally the mantids moved away, flashing icons. Friend Terry stood up and moved over to the holo-display, cocking his wrists and bringing up a holographic keyboard. He twiddled his fingers for a bit then stepped back.

"The good news is, friends, that the engine is cycling. Full recovery and deslush," he said. "That should only take fifteen hours or so before it comes back online. Without all the supporting equipment it will take a lot longer to fully deslush."

"And the bad news," the Hamaroosa asked, leaning on her cane.

"It only has tank templates loaded. So unless we want to build a tank, we're going to need a few more things. But there are templates loaded that we can use. Environmental systems, medical systems, shielding. Tank battle-screens should work for our ship," Friend Terry said. He sighed, sitting down. "We're going to have to get jump-core and jump-drive specs, astrogration files, and jump software."

"We will pray upon it. In the morning then perhaps we will be able to discover a solution," the Haamaroosa, known only as "Mother" said. She got up and moved away with most of the rest of the survivors, except two "Keepers of the Flame" who stayed and made sure the fire around the Creation Engine stayed hot burning coals.

Friend Terry turned his palm over, bringing up a hologram, reminding Nemta that he was a cyborg. That fact still boggled his mind. Everything he had ever learned is that sentient races had nervous systems too delicate to handle cybernetics beyond basic prosthetics. That the nervous system would reject cybernetic systems, that they would be nothing more than pain and agony to any who were implanted.

Yet, Nemta had watched Friend Terry be healed by basically rubbing high tech debris on his skin and eating broken technological items. Nemta had seen him eat. He'd eaten half a ration tube and gave the rest to his two mantid friends. Apparently he only ate one every three days. The mantid usually ate a half ration tube between the two of them every day.

"We're going to need matter," Friend Terry said, suddenly looking up. "Maybe an emergency reclamation vehicle. I hate to say it, but we might have to use mat-trans tanks."

The two mantids slowly turned and looked at Friend Terry. 303 flashed a small handful of icons and Friend Terry flinched slightly, raising up his hand in a placating gesture.

"Sorry, sorry, you're right. You're the engineers here. That was rude of me," Friend Terry said.

The two Mantids went back to staring at the orb.

"What was that?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry looked over, chuckling. "I insulted them by accident."

"How? By telling them what you need?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry shook his head. "No, by stating the obvious. I acted like they are untrained. It would be like if I came up to you while you were flying and reminded you to use an aerospace fighter to fly."

"Oh," Nemta said.

Friend Terry went back to his hologram in his hand, moving his finger through it. Nemta was at the wrong angle to see what Friend Terry was looking at and just sat, staring at the fire. Finally he couldn't take the silence any longer.

"Why didn't you signal for pickup?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry made three jabbing motions into the hologram and shut it off.

"I could hear the sounds of the fleet, but my codexes and codes are year old," he said.

"Shouldn't they still be able to be used?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry shook his head. "No. Space Force rotates codes sometimes during battle. Better to risk a slight bit of confusion than have the enemy break your encryption and tear apart your Battle Tactical Net. My codes would have been automatically rejected even if I could have gotten transmission range to reach any vessel. I could hear them, could see their data-icons, but other than that, no."

Nemta sighed.

Friend Terry looked at him. "So, was it Precursors again?"

Nemta shook his head. "Someone attempted to assassinate your diplomat. A representative of your species fought his way into the council chamber despite having no right to be there and accused the Council of attacking peaceful worlds with armed force and bioweapons."

Friend Terry made a weird noise, sucking air past his teeth suddenly. "Oof, that's not good."

"What?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry leaned back slightly against the shelter wall, which was made of Precursor armor. Nemta noticed it creaked slightly.

"The Confederacy forbids the use of biological or chemical weapons and limits nanotech, atomics, and nuclear weaponry to only certain applications. If there's Confederate worlds that took a biological attack then the Confederacy is going to respond in an ugly way," Friend Terry said. "We've got a few taboos when it comes to warfare."

Nemta shook his head. "That is foolish."

"Like expecting us to break off action, let you retreat and regroup, after only inflicting 10% casualties on you instead of closing and finishing your military units off?" Friend Terry asked, shaking his head.

"Are you people susceptible to bioweapons?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry shook his head. "We're a lot more resistant than most races due to our history. Plus, every citizen had a piece of hardware that cleans out our blood. We've just got an ugly past when it comes to bioweaponry."

Nemta was curious now. "Why?"

Friend Terry inhaled slowly then exhaled sharply. "We had some bad experiences with bioweaponry. Damn near wiped ourselves out a couple of times. A couple of our colonies got wiped out messing around with bioweaponry."

Nemta nodded. "Surely that's far back in the past. Surely you have mastered it since then."

Friend Terry laughed again. "We'd mastered it before spaceflight," he slapped the inside of his thigh. "I've got a piece of cyberware that was developed before FTL travel. It's a blood cleanser."

Nemta frowned. "You developed bioweapons for use on yourselves?"

Nodding, Friend Terry picked up a carafe, went and poured water in it, then a powder. He sipped at it before sitting back down, then looked at Nemta. "Look, I realize that we're a little different. We developed bioweapons, atomic weaponry, chemical weaponry, and used them on warfare against our own species before we even managed to send anything into orbit."

Nemta flattened his ears in shock.

"We used atomic weapons twice in order to end a war. There were a couple of incidents later, including a terrorist attack, a few reactor melt-downs, a couple of nations threw a handful at each other. Bioweapons got accidentally and/or purposefully released, and we fought an entire war where chemical weapons killing millions in the trenches of the battlefield," Friend Terry said, shrugging to signal his horrific indifference to such atrocities.

Nemta felt light headed at the horror.

"We used planet crackers and worse," Friend Terry shrugged again. "So we developed rules."

"Well, there are rules to warfare, like allowing the rest to flee when 10% has been killed," Nemta said.

Friend Terry sighed. "Do you know why we have the rules we do?"

Nemta shook his head.

"To keep from killing non-combatants. If your Council used biological weapons, they've told us that they consider civilians a viable target instead of collateral damage when no other recourse is available," Friend Terry said. "Do you know why my people developed smart weapons?"

Nemta shook his head.

"To minimize civilian casualties so that we only hit our target with pinpoint accuracy. Terran weaponry must be accurate to within meters or less," Friend Terry said. "If your troops landed on a planet and invaded a city, could you shoot into a habitation complex?"

Nemta nodded. "Of course. It could house enemy soldiers."

"So, without proof of enemy presence in the building, without the building being used for enemy combat operations, you'd attack the building?"

Again, Nemta nodded.

"What about a hospital?" Friend Terry seemed really intent and Nemta had the urge to back away.

"Of course. It could be used to treat enemy wounded," Nemta said. "Wouldn't you?"

Friend Terry shook his head. "No."

"That's foolishness," Nemta said. "The soldiers would be healed and return to the fight."

"What about wounded soldiers? What do you do to them?" Friend Terry asked.

"They are executed or left to die on the battlefield or else they will return to the fight," Nemta said.

Friend Terry nodded slowly. "And you call yourself civilized." It was said with deep disdain.

"My people are members of the Civilized Species Council," Nemta answered, feeling a sudden urge to defend himself. "What would you do if you found a wounded enemy soldier?"

Friend Terry sighed. "As I have."

"A Precursor?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry shook his head. "No. I've been in a lot of fights. Been in a couple of wars. Signed up about three hundred years to fight the Mar-gite. A couple of times I've captured wounded enemy soldiers," he made a snorting noise. "Not the Mar-gite, though. Even a wounded one would kill you."

Nemta frowned again. "Were they pacifications or rebelling worlds?"

Friend Terry opened his hand, bringing up the hologram. "Nope."

Nemta watched him poke at the hologram. After a moment his eyes widened.

"Hey, 303, come here, buddy," he said. "I found something only about sixty miles away."

The Mantid detached his bladearm from the Orb, sliding it out of the slot, and limped over, his missing leg slowing him down. The mantid flashed a few icons.

"Check it out," Friend Terry said, tilting the holo. The Mantid moved over and stared at it, then rapidly started flashing icons.

"Yeah. Three wings of aerospace fighter-bombers. Those models had jumpdrives, right?" Friend Terry asked.

The Mantid flashed icons and Friend Terry looked dejected. "So we could escape, but these guys maybe not?" More flashing icons. "No, it's not available."

The Mantid touched Friend Terry's palm and the hologram started flickering rapidly.

"Why would you be able to escape but nobody else?" Nemta asked.

"Hyper drives, not jumpspace. We don't really use jumpdrives any more. But I don't know how hyperspace will effect your people. I need jumpdrives, lower band, where you guys travel. I don't wanna take you into the higher jumpspace bands or into hyperspace and have you dissolve into particles," he said.

Nemta flattened his ears again at the insinuation that he was somehow inferior. "Anything you can survive, I'm sure we can."

Friend Terry stared at him for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was low, gravelly, and suddenly menacing. "You sure about that, champ?"

The green mantid had stepped back.

"I am a trained aerospace pilot with over thirty years experience," Nemta snapped.

"And I'm trained heavy assault infantry with over three hundred years experience. I've spent more time in combat than you've spent in the military, fuzzy," Friend Terry, who suddenly didn't look so friendly, said, his voice still low and ugly.

"Just because your people can't finish any wars," Nemta started, standing up.

The cane struck the metal between the two of them. Terry didn't move, still staring at Nemta, his eyes flat and unreadable. Nemta jumped, turning to see the Hamaroosa "Mother" staring.

"Both of you stop it. Friend Nemta, you should know that a single blow from Friend Terry's fist can smash through battelsteel armor that the Precursors use," she snapped. She turned to the human. "Friend Terry, you need to remember, he has not seen you as we have seen you. He has not seen the wrath and glory of the Mad Arch-Angel TerraSol."

Friend Terry nodded, a jerky, spastic thing. "Me and 303 are going to go check out a bombed out airfield. We might find stuff we need."

The human stood up, the mantid climbing quickly onto his back, his bladearms sinking into the humans back. Friend Terry sneered at Nemta and jogged into the darkness.

"He will be gone for two weeks," Nemta said, somewhat satisfied that the Terran had left.

"Why?" Mother asked.

"He has to go sixty miles. That will take him five days each way," Nemta said.

Mother stared at him for a long moment. "He will be there in under an hour, unwinded, still capable of fighting, probably still angry."

"Why are you acting like I'm in the wrong. He's the savage," Nemta said. "His people haven't even been walking upright for as long as some of our cities have existed."

Mother shook her head. "He is a servant of the Mad Arch-Angel TerraSol, blessed be her name."

Nemta glared at her. "Stop acting as if you are a cult."

"Friend Nemta, you have not seen what we have seen," Mother suddenly said. "You have not borne witness to the fury and wrath of those such as Friend Terry," she suddenly changed the subject. "Did you fight the Precursors?"

Nemta shook his head. "No."

"Friend Terry did," Mother answered. She began moving away, leaning on her cane. She stopped and turned slightly to face Nemta. "You should be careful in how you treat Friend Terry."

"I will treat him as that savage treats me," Nemta answered.

"That is not wise," Mother said. Before Nemta could form an answer she lifted up one trembling finger. "If you cannot treat him as a friend, I would advise treating him as something else."

Nemta frowned. "What should I treat him as then, Mother?"

"A weapon. An extremely deadly weapon being pointed at you."

The shadows of the evening wrapped around the lamed Hamaroosa as she moved away with her cane.