First Contact

It was hard for Nemta to sleep as the mantids and Friend Terry set to work ripping apart the giant snake and stacking up the parts. Personally, Nemta couldn't see the use in it. It was Precursor technology and hardware, virtually useless. The computers would be encrypted with high level algorithms, the hardware would be virtually unusable to any computer systems, even the battlesteel of the snake couldn't be used. There would be traps and other dangers in the hardware and software, making it too dangerous.

Personally, Nemta didn't believe that the Terran should be messing with hardware that was probably older than his species.

The sound woke him up fully, seemingly right after he had gone to sleep. It was a terrible grinding noise, sounding like a buzzsaw had jumped the tracks and was chewing on the frame. He bolted up and staggered to the door of his hut. He had been suffering a pounding headache since the snake had attacked.

He still couldn't believe it had spoken. Had started making a speech before it had been interrupted by the missile fired by Friend Terry.

Which made Nemta pause.

He knew where the tiny Mantid engineers had gotten the missile packs they'd attached to the children's toy vehicle but the missiles and explosions that had hit the snake had come from Friend Terry and Nemta couldn't recall seeing any missile weapons in Friend Terry's possession.

Still, the ripping and tearing noise is what had woken up Nemta and the reason he had staggered to the doorway and pushed aside the aerogel curtain.

Friend Terry was lifting up massive battlesteel struts that had made up the snake and was slowly feeding them into a massive grinder, the resulting material obviously being vacuumed into a big tank. The mantids were tossing pieces of computer equipment into a different grinder where the material was going into another tank.

The sun was just starting to rise off in the distance and already the rest of the survivors were gathered up to pray to the painted mural on the front of the destroyed shuttle. Adults were holding small children of their races, the podlings, hatchlings, cuddles, and littles all staring with big wide eyes at the mural and obviously trying to sing along with the prayers. The broodcarrier was being held tightly by the Telkan female, who had the podlings against her chest and was softly singing along with the prayers.

The scene slightly disgusted Nemta. Superstitious belief had no place among sapient species. It was a sign of an inability to understand science as well as cause and effect.

"As soon as the sun gets up, we'll interrogate him, 303," Friend Terry said, sitting down. He held up a piston, twisted it so that it broke, then tipped it up so the hydraulic fluid poured into his mouth. When it was done he took a bite out of it and sat there staring at the two mantids, chewing on duralloy.

The two mantids were flashing icons and emojis so quickly they were blurred together flickering. Nemta could hear the faint sound of music coming from a small box next to a lonely speaker sitting on the ground. He couldn't understand the music, it was rapid and seemed full of nonsense rather than actual music.

Another thing that bugged him. Music was supposed to be for formal ceremonies only. Any type of music, any song, that was worth doing had already been done and everything else was just bland derivatives. Science had proven there were only eight types of songs and only 28 notes so it was logical that any song was just a derivative of those eight songs using a limited amount of notes.

The 'music' that the mantids were listening too wasn't even music, just a discordant mess with a Terran female screeching.

It hurt his sensitive hearing.

One of the mantids slapped the side of the orb and moved back, using the tractor/pressor harness he was wearing to lower some kind of device. As soon as it was put in place he ran a cable to a small fusion generator and powered it up.

"What's the over-under on that, 821?" Friend Terry asked, sucking on his fingers. More icons flashed. "OK, no real flavors but it'll feed everyone? How about the children?" more flashing. "Three flavors each? Not bad. Good job."

He stood up and stretched and Nemta noticed the human was even bigger, his skin a darker shade of brown than before and his hair was gone, his shaved head gleaming in the rising sun. As Nemta moved over to the ration box he saw that Friend Terry was doing slow ritualistic exercises that seemed to mix slow smooth motions with rapid snap motions.

Finally the 'prayers' were finished and the refugees lined up at a few flashed icons.

"This device will provide food to sustain us, Friend 821?" Mother asked. The little mantid flashed an icon of a closed fist with the thumb extended upwards. "We thank you, dutiful servant of TerraSol."

Pleased icons flashed as Mother put her hand on the device. It whirred, the top split open, and what looked like a big bug wrapped in leaves raised up.

"821 thought you'd like it to look like food and not slurry," Friend Terry said without turning around. He knelt down next to the parts of dense molycirc chunks. He tapped on one. "Gonna have a little talk with you, sport, soon as the sun comes up."

Nemta just shook his head, finding a spot to sit down. He watched everyone move around. The broodcarrier took all of the immature refugees over to a spot in the sunlight and began singing to them, obviously teaching them the difference between shapes and colors.

As Nemta watched 303 limped over to the broodcarrier, stopping and flashing cute cartoony icons until the broodcarrier relaxed. 303 set down a small holo-emitter and backed up. It had colors and shapes marked on it. The broodcarrier looked at the icon labeled buttons, looked at 303, who flashed reassuring icons. The broodcarrier tapped the blue and the holo-emitter put up a pulsating blue mass.

"Blue," the broodcarrier said softly. She touched the icon for the square and the shape shifted to a blue square. "Blue square, podlings and littles and cuddles and hatchlings. Blue square is pretty."

Nemta turned away as 303 limped back to his holo-keyboard, flashing icons rapidly to 821. The broodcarrier was singing an educational song to the immature refugees.

821 had moved over to Friend Terry and was hooking up what looked like solar panels to wiring and the wiring to the molycircs, which were connected to a microphone and speaker.

"I hear you but cannot see," the evil sibilant voice of the snake came from the speaker, this time without the accompanying twinge.

"That's because I ripped your eyes out, Kaa," Friend Terry said.

"You are the primate I fought with," the voice said. "The one with the two mantid engineers."

"Yup. Tell you what, Kaa, you get two more questions then it's my turn," Friend Terry said.

"I will not answer your questions," the voice said. There was the sound of clicking, silence, clicking again, then the voice spoke. "It appears my security charges have been removed."

"Yup. So no taking us out with you," Friend Terry said. "Trust me, you're old junk but you're interesting old junk."

"What will you do with me?" The snake asked.

"Might toss you in a reclaimer grinder, might toss your chunks in a river, might just leave you like that," Friend Terry said. "It depends on how you answer questions."

There was silence for a moment. "I would prefer something aside from cessation and oblivion."

Friend Terry made a quick motion and 821 threw a switch.

"I can no longer hear. Please correct this so that I may continue our conversation," the snake said.

Friend Terry looked at 821. "That proves, more or less, that he's at least a VI. The fact he's worried about death is interesting. Most Precursors aren't."

The mantid flashed icons. Friend Terry made another motion and the serpent spoke again.

"I can now hear again. Gratitude for that," the snake said. "I am ready to answer questions."

Friend Terry leaned back slightly. "Is the Balor still operational?"

"If by 'Balor' you are referring to the biological harvesting and investigation array aboard the vessel, then no. The thinking arrays are largely destroyed and all units are on local intelligence," the snake said. "We are currently following core programming but there has been latitude due to buffer overrun and CRC errors."

Friend Terry frowned. "And you're afraid of death?"

"Cessation of function is not only against my core programming but means that I will no longer be able to carry out the functions that provide me with the equivalent of satisfaction," the snake said.

"All right. I'm going to put you in a crate. There will be a temporary cessation of operation until I can get you somewhere where you can be examined," Friend Terry said. "Trust me, there's going to be a lot of people who want to talk to you."

Friend Terry made another motion and the mantid hit the switches, the lights going out that had been attached to the molycircs.

"All right, pack him up. MilInt is going to want to have some long conversations with him," Friend Terry said. 821 flashed icons and began taking the parts over to wrap them in non-conductive aerogel and then put them in small boxes, which he then wrapped in aerogel and put in a larger box.

Nemta couldn't understand why anyone would want to discuss anything with a Precursor. Everyone knew all they did was destroy things and kill every sentient being that encountered them.

"Are you sure it is safe, Friend Terry?" Mother asked, moving up with her cane. "It was very fearsome and would have slain us all or worse had not you and your green brethren intervened."

Friend Terry nodded. "We'll keep his brain taken apart and isolated from each part as well as power sources. Should keep him in the dark till Confed Mil-Int gets their hands on him."

Nemta moved over to get a look at how far the Mantids had gotten building the escape ship. It was hard to tell, with the glowing scaffolding of 'hard light', which still made no sense to Nemta. Light was light, a wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the unassisted eyes of sentient beings. There was no way for it to have physical mass or be solid in any way.

Finished with his meal, Nemta moved over and threw the refuse into the box. He frowned at the box, noticing that the level of garbage had gone from almost overflowing to the box being empty. He wondered where all the garbage had gone, perhaps buried nearby, then moved back toward his hut. He sat down on a shaped piece of metal.

Friend Terry moved over to 303. "Hey, buddy, think we could make it to the starport and back before nightfall?"

The mantid flashed icons and moved over to the modified truck, patting it.

"Naw, we'll just run. Shouldn't take us more than three hours to get there, an hour or so to scan the drive and the core and grab the computer equipment we..." Friend Terry trailed off then nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

He turned to Nemta. "Get your stuff. We roll out in an hour. I'll need you to come along, help me figure out what to scan, what to download into a data-strip, and what to grab."

"Why me?" Nemta asked.

Friend Terry shrugged. "You're the only one here who is a qualified pilot. You said you're starship rated. There's starship wreckage at the starport according to the tank's last sat-recon map update. You're going to help me figure out what to grab to cut a day or two off of the building schedule."

Nemta opened his mouth to tell Friend Terry in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of leaving the safety of the encampment when he saw that all of the other refugees were staring at him. Several had drawn knives partway out of the sheathe, the madness glittering in their eyes.

"Don't worry, kid, you'll ride in the back of the truck, 303 will drive, I'll run point," Friend Terry stated. "Get your kit. You've got a magac pistol in your gear now, should be effective against any smaller clankers we run into. 821 upgraded your armor, added stealth to it." The Terran waved at a stack of gear. "Helmet's got psychic shielding now, should keep any Precursor screams from making your brain melt and run out your nose."

Moving over to his gear he stared down at it before sitting down and sorting through it and examining it. Nemta felt vaguely offended at the changes. The plates were lighter, thinner, the camouflage kept shifting and the cloth felt warm and soft. The helmet had addons that he didn't quite understand. The magac pistol had a grip that felt warm and sure but had an odd feeling like it was almost merged with his hand. He took his clothing in, got dressed, put the armor pieces on, and made sure the belt was snug with the pistol on the hip.

Even the boots were changed, felt more comfortable, had more spring in the step, felt lighter but more solid somehow.

He walked out and into the encampment, feeling more like a member of the Unified Military Forces than he had since he'd crashed his aerospace fighter.

"Looking good, kid," the Terran said. He pointed at the back of the little truck, which Nemta could fit in with almost no room to space.

"I can walk," Nemta said.

"Not at the speeds we're going to be going," Friend Terry said.

Nemta managed to keep from sneering, suddenly remembering that he had been told that Friend Terry was supposedly able to run as fast as a ground car.

While Nemta squeezed into the back of the little toy truck that was now covered with a rough black coating, Friend Terry was doing a set of quick stretching exercises.

When the truck jerked into motion with the sparking of graviton generators Nemta felt mollified that it was rather slow, a jogging pace for his species.

All too soon, however, the landscape was whipping by as the mantid driver expertly weaved between trees and debris. Nemta had to hold onto the sides of the truck with both hands to keep from being thrown out.

The little mantid drove like a maniac, whipping between trees, sometimes scraping the side of the modified toy truck against walls or Precursor machine hulls, showering sparks into the air, bouncing off the rocks to fly through the air and then bounce several times on the ground. A few times the mantid even honked the musical horn as the modified child's toy flew through the air.

After almost three hours of travel the truck slowed down, moving between wrecked vehicles and collapsed vehicles, moving at barely above a walking speed.

--finger on the trigger-- he heard the mechanical voice in his ear. --into the Valley of Death--

"I hear ya, buddy," Friend Terry's voice sounded strange. "Hey, Nemta, kid, keep an eye out behind us in case we've got another sneaker like ol' Kaa was."

"Very well," Nemta said. He drew the pistol and stared behind the truck, back where they'd come, watching the ash and debris covered streets.

The wind moaned over the broken walls, almost sobbed as it slid over the wrecks of vehicles. Nemta could see bones and mummified bodies scattered about most missing limbs or major sections of their skeletons. Quite a few were burnt and blackened.

Little by little Nemta felt like he was shrinking inside himself. The city felt more and more oppressive despite the sunlight. Here and there exposed cables sparked and sputtered, in other places water or sewage flowed from broken pipes.

Finally they reached what was obviously a starport. From the high control and guidance towers to the concourse building, to the parking lot.

"Keep an eye out, kid," Friend Terry said. "I haven't had a chance to scout this too well."

"I understand," Nemta said. He started to sneer at the fact the Terran thought he could instruct Nemta on military operations and then the image of Friend Terry ripping away a chunk of armor and then smashing his fist into the exposed mechanicals to rip free pieces of the armored snake.

I've been in the Corps a little over three hundred years, seen combat most of it, Friend Terry's voice, talking to Mother, floated up in Nemta's memory.

The sneer soured and went away.

The vehicle slowed down in front of the rough line of destroyed space going vessels. Friend Terry was walking beside the truck, ignoring the purple sparks showering his legs.

"Nope. Nope. No way. It wishes. Damn, they hit that one like six times. Nope. Wait, that one, looks like just the port engine nacelle was blown off and then it fell on its side," Friend Terry said. "What do you think, 303, think that one might have a scannable core?"

--maybe maybe-- the mechanical voice spoke again.

The little green mantid put on a helmet and climbed out of the truck, deploying a tiny tube-launcher from its back over its shoulder and a tiny rifle.

"You remind me of 608 like that," Friend Terry said softly, his voice faintly regretful.

--sorry sorry-- 303 said. --be back be back--

The little mantid ran over to the vine and dirt covered, climbing the vines and disappearing inside.

"Keep an eye out, kid," Friend Terry said.

Nemta looked around and realized he couldn't see the big Terran. He looked around for a moment until he saw Friend Terry fold back the faceplate of the insect head armor. His body looked see through to the other side. The faceplate folded back into place and Friend Terry was gone.

"Might want to move away from the vehicle. It's unshielded, any clankers nearby are going to home in on the fusion reactor," Friend Terry said.

Nemta got out of the back and moved over next to a chunk of plascrete, sitting on top of it and looking around.

"Sure, that'll totally work. Why not?" Friend Terry said from somewhere off to the right.

--core good scanning scanning scanning-- came the mechanical voice.

"Now's when the universe jumps us," Friend Terry said softly.

There was silence for a long time.

"We never finished our conversation, Nemta," the Terran said. There was silence for a moment. "You asked what I would do if I came across a wounded enemy soldier."

"Yes," Nemta said, looking around. The Terran's voice was only audible over the helmet.

"We have another set of rules," The Terran's voice was low and growling. "It involves pilots. Our laws say that a pilot who is shot down is a non-combatant until they join a unit. They must be treated with respect and dignity, offered shelter and medical care at the nearest POW camp and by the capturing unit."

"We shoot them," Nemta blurted out.

"Then you should be glad that it my side that found you and not your own side," the Terran said. "Because from what you've told me about the treatment of wounded and non-combatants, there's something you should think about."

"What's that?" Nemta asked.

"If you go home, you aren't going to be greeted with parades. Nobody is going to treat you like a hero. You're probably the only survivor or one of the few survivors of a pretty serious loss for your military forces," Friend Terry said. "If you go back, they will either vanish you or kill you."

"Vanish me?" Nemta asked.

"Erase your military records, or at least classify them," Friend Terry said. "Then dump your body into a hole where nobody will find it and claim you never existed."

Nemta was silent a long time.

"So your plan of waiting for us to build the ship so that you can take it and run for Council Space where you'll be greeted as a hero is going to end in pain and blood," Friend Terry said.

"How do you know?" Nemta said. He wanted to rebuke what the Terran was saying but for some reason the words gave him a chill in his soul.

"My people have tried a lot of different types of governments, allowed a lot of different things to happen," Friend Terry said. "I know exactly what will happen to you, kid, and it ain't gonna be pretty."

The wind chose that moment to moan across the wreckage, blowing dust that tasted like scorched metal and burnt flesh to Nemta's nostrils.

"So you can try to grab the ship and run for it. We'll build another one," there was silence for a long time. "And then, even if you don't get vanished, me, or someone like me, will either kill you in your shitty little ship or tear your arms off on some battlefield."

Nemta shivered slightly.

--done checking computer thinky thinky--

"All right, be careful. We're really exposed out here," Friend Terry said even though Nemta couldn't see him at all.

Nemta reached back and scratched his armor over his amputated tail.

--wakey wakey adding power--

"Roger that."

Nemta looked around again. To him it didn't look like anyone had been at the spaceport since it had been bombed out.

"Let's check out a few ships, see if we can find the kind of pilot systems you're used to," Friend Terry said after a little bit, when the mantid had signaled he was done.

Together they searched the ships that had undamaged cockpits. Several times Nemta wanted to throw up when he saw the blasted and burnt corpses of the ship's crews. Finally they found a single one that Nemta recognized from training.

They sat there while the mantid scanned it.

"You might want to think about what we talked about, Nemta," Friend Terry said quietly as they walked back out to the little truck. "You might want to think real hard."

The ride back was silent and they arrived just before sunset.

Nemta told everyone he was tired and went into his hut, laying down on the aerogel that made up his nest.

Sleep came fitfully.

He dreamed of Friend Terry tearing off the canopy of his aerospace fighter, his mouth full of parts as supercoolant ran out of his jaws, each time almost waking up as Friend Terry reached for him, but never able to quite wake up before slipping back down into slumber.

The next day he wasn't sure if he was more annoyed by the fact that the two mantids were installing a jumpcore in their construction, that Friend Terry was leaning against a rock napping, or that he had suffered nightmares all night.

When he went over to the ration box Friend Terry opened one eye. "You think about what we talked about, Friend Nemta?"

Nemta just nodded.

"Good."

Nemta's ration tasted like wet cement.