First Contact

Nemta watched as the mantid engineers kept messing with holographic displays, pulling out lasers to measure distances, putting out small holographic projectors and placing them at certain points. Nemta couldn't understand quite what they were doing and it bothered him. One of them, he didn't know which one it was, kept reaching into his pack and pulling out tools or small machines or putting in chunks of broken electronics or broken armor.

The green mantids could be doing anything and not one of his fellow survivors seemed to really be too interested.

The other survivors moved around and Nemta moved over to them, talking to them to get a feel for their stories. Mostly their stories were the same. Workers in factories or menial labor, the Precursors arrived and started massacring everyone, the Terrans arrived and saved almost everyone. They had all, almost uniformly, hidden, and so had missed their chance to escape. Afterwards they had spent their time hiding from the remaining machines until they found Friend Terry.

Nemta felt slightly disdainful of his fellow survivors. They had done nothing but run and hide from the machines and had lifted Friend Terry up on a pedestal because he would fight the machines.

That made Nemta raise his eyebrows. They acted as if the Precursor Machines could not be stopped, but every news organization agreed that the Corporate and Military Fleets had to rescue the Terrans every time they had engaged the Precursors. Nemta had attended briefings about how the Terrans routinely lost to the Precursors and it was only the timely intercession by the Corporate, Executor, or Military Fleets that had saved the Terrans from certain doom.

The fact that the Terran fleet, which had been less than 1% the size of the fleet that Nemta had been part of, had been tearing the Council fleet apart never went through his mind. A small part of his mind remained convinced he had only had to ditch onto the planet because of mechanical malfunction, not that the malfunction had been caused by the pounding of the Terran's guns.

At one point Nemta winced with everyone else. They muttered a prayer to TerraSol as they wrapped shiny metallic foil around their heads and made another prayer.

The next time there was a sharp jabbing pain between Nemta's eyes nobody else even twitched.

"What keeps doing that?" Nemta asked 'Mother' after the fourth one.

"The screams of a Precursor. Too far away to hurt, but his powers tear at our minds regardless," Mother said. She tapped the tip of her cane on a rock. "Friend Terry is undoubtedly fighting them."

"Don't you worry he'll lead them back here when he is forced to flee them?" Nemta asked.

Mother looked at him strangely. "Why would he flee the evil ones?"

"Because he can't beat them," Nemta said confidently. "Everyone knows that. The Terrans are powerless against the Precursors."

It started slowly. A snerk, a giggle, then outright laughter from everyone around him. Nemta felt the fur on his back stiffen as everyone kept laughing at him.

"What's so funny?" Nemta demanded. "Many Council Military members have lost their lives because they had to save Terrans after they instigated the Precursors! If the Terrans had just minded their own business the UMC could have cleared up the Precursor threat in a tenth of the time without the loss of life that the Precursors caused!"

The laughter stopped dead.

The Telkan moved forward slowly, until she was nose to nose with Nemta.

"Have you even seen a Precursor, boy?" she asked.

Nemta sneered. "No. The UMC drove them from Council Space over a year ago."

"Then perhaps you can answer a quick chain of logic?" The Telkan, Hilima'ata, asked, glaring at him. Nemta was surprised by the force of her stare, as she had merely been a laundress before the Precursor attack.

"Fine. What?" Nemta asked, stepping back.

"You have not fought the Precursors, but you fought the Terrans, correct?" Hilma'ata asked.

"Yes. We lured them into an ambush through geometry and proper preparation," Nemta said, feeling pride in the fleet commander. "We lured them close with an emergency beacon."

"The Terrans are unable to beat the Precursors, correct?" Hilma'ata asked.

"Correct. They have been defeated in every engagement with the Precursor machines."

Hilma'ata gave a grim expression of pleasure. "Your fleet outnumbered the Terrans?"

"Yes, by a factor of one hundred and fifty even before we launched the torchships."

"And who won the battle?" Hilma'ata asked.

"We had taken nearly 40% casualties when the retreat order was given. I assume we were able to break off into jumpspace and escape," Nemta answered.

"So, you lost."

Nemta frowned. "Well..."

"How many casualties did you inflict on the Terrans?" Hilma'ata asked.

"I believe two of their ships were damaged."

"And how many of yours was 40%?" the Telkan seemed particularly aggressive to Nemta.

"Well, the fleet was over eighteen thousand ships, so at least 7,200, with many of the larger ones destroyed outright," Nemta admitted.

"So the Terrans, who were unable to beat the Precursors, beat you, who were able to beat the Precursos?" The Telkan asked.

Nemta stared at her. "They didn't fight fair. They kept pressing the attack after 10% of the fleet was destroyed and targeted the torchship carriers and the big capital ships."

"So, they were winning, so it wasn't fair?" Another asked.

Nemta felt personally insulted. "They use criminal tactics. They cheat. They don't fight fair and they don't fight by the rules. It's cheating. They cheat."

"How?" Another survivor asked.

"Well... like... they just do," Nemta snarled. He stomped out into the darkness, ignoring the couple of shouts behind him, until he reached a tree and leaned against it.

There was another pain between his eyes and he flinched. It was more painful, more intense, and he faintly heard a loud sound off in the distance.

Nemta sat down, feeling angry. Yes, the Terran had fought their way free of the ambush and then had started blowing ships out of the sky, but that didn't mean he or his fellow Unified Military Fleet members were incompetent. The Terrans were just cheating somehow.

If he could just figure out how, he could stop them from cheating and that way they would stop interfering in Council business.

He mused over it, going over the battle in his mind. He had launched and been almost immediately engaged. Half of his fighter wing had been wiped out by a missile volley, then they had gotten in with the Terran fighters. Within minutes he had gone from being part of a 250 fighter wing to less than a dozen of them surviving.

When he thought about it, he wasn't even sure if any of his wing had been left when he'd ditched to the planet.

Nemta reached back to scratch the stub of his trail when he heard it.

A clicking noise, a slight buzzing sound, and the sound of metal on the leaves and the sticks of the woods.

Curious he looked around the tree, gasped, and pulled back.

On the other side of the tree was a long rust colored snake. It was segmented metal links put together, moving slowly across the ground. He could see thin beams of high-red light coming from the cluster of eyes on its head as it was slowly looking around.

He glanced back in time to see the snake-thing deploy additional scanner surfaces on its neck just below the head. It was moving slowly back and forth, scanning the area. As it got close to looking at Nemta he jerked back with a gasp.

With a rattling hissing sound the snake suddenly whipped around the tree, raising the head up and looking down at him. It slowly deployed not only fangs but serrated teeth inside the mouth.

There is only enough for one it whispered, driving Nemta to his knees in pain as it felt like a knife had been driven into his skull.

Nemta looked up, whimpering, and saw the snake was drawing back. Its tail was raising, a long blade of rusted durasteel sliding out of the tail like a needle. The eyes were staring at him, bright red, the high-red beams playing over his body.

You are not that one, the snake-thing hissed in Nemta's brain, the sound-not-sound like a white-hot wire burrowing into his brain.

The fangs came down, darting at Nemta with mechanical speed. Before they could sink into Nemta's flesh a black form tackled it, rolling around with it. There was the scream of tearing metal.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE! roared out, driving Nemta to his knees again. He was aware of his nose and ears bleeding even as he clapped his hands over his sensitive ears.

"THERE IS ALWAYS MORE THAN ONE!" Friend Terry's voice roared back. "NOW IT'S ME!"

Nemta stared as the snake wrapped around Friend Terry, who appeared to be entirely encased by some kind of matte-black material.

"No you don't, playa!" Friend Terry roared out, one hand holding the snake head back. The other started grabbing at the snake's body, ripping away armor, ripping internal parts free. Blows from his fist crushed armor and sent sparks into the air.

The lower 4/5ths of the snake's body went limp and Friend Terry grabbed the head with both hands, wrapping his legs around the snake's body. As Nemta watched Friend Terry twisted the snake's head, ripping it free of its moorings, twisted it again, sparks flying out, then ripped it free.

The snake fell to the forest floor and Friend Terry, or at least the matte-black creature that had Friend Terry's voice, stared at the rust colored body, holding the snake's head in one hand.

"Trying act like a McAsshole up in here," he held up the skull and stared at it. "You ain't tough against a mother fucker who can fight back, are ya, ya punk-ass bitch?"

As Nemta watched the black material almost seemed to shiver, like gelatin, go glossy, and slowly slipped away, like soap-suds.

Friend Terry stood there, 303 on his back, slowly turning to face Nemta.

"You don't have your stealth module on, Friend Nemta," the Terran growled, pointing one thick finger at Nemta. "Get back to camp or next time I won't save you."

Swallowing blood still flowing from his sinuses, Nemta nodded.

"Hey, Friend Nemta," Friend Terry said. When Nemta turned around Friend 303 was closing the snake's severed head. Friend Terry tossed the snake-head to Nemta's feet as Friend 303 ran up Friend Terry's arm to sit on his shoulder. "Take that back to camp, give it to Friend 821. Tell him to find out where it came from."

Nemta swallowed, picking up the head. It was heavier than he expected after the way he had seen Friend Terry just hold it in one hand and then toss it. It slowed him down as he moved back to camp. As soon as he got close to the firelight two of the survivors, one of whom had been a medical technician at a factory aid station, ran up and started fussing over him.

The first thing they did was wrap foil around his head. Then they put the harness with the heavy device with lights.

821 had immediately opened up the skull, flashing icons as it went to work.

Nemta sat there as they gave him juice to drink and tree bark to chew to deal with the headache.

"Try to not let the Evil Ones see you," Mother said. "Their war cry will injure your brain. Their gaze will steal your thoughts, sear your soul, and paralyze you with fear."

Nemta opened his mouth to argue but then remembered that when the snake thing had leaned its head forward to stare at him when it had told him that there was only enough for one, he had wet himself and been unable to move.

The lasers, the high-red lasers, had played over him for a long moment, and it had felt like it was almost mocking him right before it had been tackled.

"You should not go out without that," Mother said softly, sitting on a large piece of gleaming metal and pointing at the life-signs disruptor with her cane. "The servants of the Evil One scour the land even with the Arch-Demon's death, looking for any to slake their thirst for blood."

Nemta nodded, holding his tongue. He was still trembling with how close he had come to getting killed.

He could remember how Friend Terry looked. Like a big hunchbacked insect. Bulbous joints, insect-like triangular head, big claws, matte-black chitin covering him. The eyes a dull red. Friend Terry had looked larger than when he had left only a few hours before. Not only taller, but wider.

Trembling Nemta staggered over and got a ration, peeling it open and slowly eating as he watched 821 jam his single bladearm into the molycirc inside the snake's head.

"You all right, Friend Nemta?" Friend Terry's voice asked.

Nemta almost screamed. He hadn't heard the big Terran come up behind him. He looked up, half expecting Friend Terry to look like a giant bipedal bug.

Instead he looked like a human. Large, heavily muscled, thick bones, close set eyes.

"I believe so," Nemta said.

"You got lucky. A half-second later and it would have paralyzed you and dragged you away," Friend Terry said. He sat down on the metal that Mother had been sitting on. "That was a Balor-Snake. A retrieval model. You wouldn't have liked what happened to you."

Nemta frowned. "What would have happened?"

"You'd have been experimented on. It would have kept you alive for days, weeks, experimenting on you," Friend Terry said. He picked up a ration tube that the breeze blew against his food, rolled it between his hands, and popped the plas into his mouth, slowly chewing.

"What is a Balor?" Nemta asked. The word was strange and felt thick and cloying in his mouth.

"Type of Precursor. It prefers to take prisoners. Mainly uses bioweaponry. They're nasty and a priority target," Friend Terry said. He sighed and tilted his head to one side and then the other, making crunching noises. "It's about two hundred miles away, but the Strategic Intelligence Housing is blown out along with most of the other arrays. Problem is, the thing is big, and there's a couple of smaller systems popping out Clankers and Crawlers and sending them out."

He sighed again. "It would have taken you back but there might not have been anything to do, so it would have just killed you."

"How do you know?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry shook his head. "I check it every week to see if there's anyone that needs saving. So far, there hasn't been."

Mother came up and leaned on her cane, staring at Friend Terry, who got up and moved to another stop to sit.

"Did you find what we may need?" Mother asked.

Friend Terry nodded. "Not too much. Astrogation files and computers. Two of them, so we'll at least be able to figure where we are, where we want to go, and how to get there."

"But?" Mother pressed.

"No jump drive templates. Hyperdrive templates, but..." he sighed. "I don't know if you guys can handle hyperspace. It blows holes in computer systems that aren't hardened well enough and basically gives Dee-Esses brain cancer."

Mother nodded slowly. "Paths only the servants of the Mad Arch-Angel TerraSol may tread."

Friend Terry nodded. "Pretty much. I checked the spaceport a ways away just in case."

"Is there good news, Friend Terry?" Mother asked.

Terry nodded. "Maybe. Hopefully. I won't know till I can get a replicator scanner out there. There's no templates, but there's a jump-core in one wreck and a jumpdrive in another wreck. No power, so I couldn't check the computers," Friend Terry waved at where 303 was dragging a piece of machinery over to the orb. "He thinks we can get jump-drive software off the computers. We took them from the two wrecks."

"Only problem is the amount of Clankers lurking around the space-port. That's why we're thinking of doing a replicator scan instead of moving our operation there or bringing the drive and core here," Friend Terry grinned, baring his meat tearing teeth. "Now that we have a map, that makes it easier. From the wreckage markings on the map compared to on the ground, I'd say that tank had made it to almost the end."

"How long do you think it will be before we can leave Purgatory?" Mother asked.

Nemta managed not to wince at the quasi-religious words and tone.

"I'm not sure. The good thing is, I'm pretty sure we can leave now," Friend Terry said. "If worse comes to worse I'll have the boys make me a sled and I'll drive the core and drive here and just fight my way through all the Clankers it attracts."

"It will be what it will be," Mother said. She turned and hobbled away, leaving Nemta alone with Friend Terry, something he did not find he was enjoying. She snapped her fingers and the three survivors from before checked Friend Terry for injuries, rubbing the bruises with aerogel, wiring, armor bonding agent, and other technological pieces.

Although all Friend Terry did was sit there, playing with the hologram he was projecting from his hand, Nemta still felt nervous the whole time.

He was glad when Friend Terry was finished with "maintenance" and moved away to talk to the two green mantid engineers.

Just looking at the Terran made Nemta remember the way he'd twisted apart durasteel like it was paper.

And made his stomach hurt.