First Contact

It was a beautiful day, the sun shining in a blue sky decorated with a few fluffy clouds, the breeze warm and gentle. The city was hushed with only security drones in the air. There were small hover vehicles moving around the streets, usually with two to four people of various species in them. Now and then a hoverbus would rumble by full of people looking out the windows at the landmarks being pointed out by the tour guide inside. Treana'ad and Mantids took pictures, Rigellians filmed important areas, and various Terrans all chattered to one another.

The small cart was a ground effect wheeled vehicle, small with four wheels, set of comfortable seats, privacy-screens blurring the occupants from the outside but allowing crystal clear view of the surroundings for the people within. It had a mini-bar and snack area, climate control inside the privacy screens, and was a nice smooth ride.

What did draw looks was the fact there were two full warborgs in front of and in back of the cart as well as two on each sides. Many beings took pictures, positive there was a Mantid diplomat inside as they were often accompanied by warborgs.

What was inside was a Terran Space Force Captain and a slightly intoxicated matron, who was looking at everything with fascination.

"So the Mantid really did try to invade? Right here?" she asked, looking around.

"Yes," the human Captain said. "Almost two years of fighting."

"I thought they Glassed everything," the matron mused. "So, they struck at the world capitals with military forces and Glassed the rest of the planet?"

The human Captain nodded. "Yes, ma'am. It's pretty involved why they weren't able to Glass nearly a dozen capitals immediately."

The matron patted the human's thigh with her left hand gripping hand while she sipped her drink held in her right catching hand and held a human pipe in her left catching hand. "Tell me."

The human Captain leaned back slightly. "We have a concept of restricted airspace. Our countries back then were particularly on edge. We were about to have the Second Colony War. The majority of the human warship and military had actually been deployed to the Colonies to force them to submit, so weren't in the Sol System."

Matron Sangbre nodded.

"They caught mostly half finished construction and warships under repair from the Cygnus Incident that would have been the catalyst for the Second Colony War," the Captain said. "What the Mantids didn't really know, despite gathering intelligence, was that most of our combat fleets were already on the move."

"How did they miss that?" Sangbre asked, sipping at her drink.

"Operational security. We were moving on the Colonies, about twenty of them, and didn't want the colonies to know. Most of the berths either had construction or repair going on in them," the Captain said. He looked out. "The Mantids used a 'Kill the Queen' philosophy as well as 'Behold and Despair' theory in showing the attacks to the rest of the species."

"Like the Precursors were doing across GalNet?" Sangbre asked. She burped lightly, waved an excuse, sipped at her drink and continued. "That's why you Terrans think that we were fighting the Mantid Precursor machines."

The Captain nodded. "The Autonomous War Machines, which is what we called them officially, everyone else called the berserkers, that we had fought five previous times did not do that kind of psychological warfare. Those ones struck, struck hard, took some prisoners for research, then denuded the planet of any intelligent life."

The Captain leaned back and stretched. "We discovered during the Third AWM War that ones from the Second AWM War had reseeded the planets with genetically altered versions of the local intelligent life."

"Really?" Sangbre said. She looked out at the grass waving in the breeze and the cherry blossoms falling from the trees. "That sounds like the Lanaktallan Overseers."

The Captain nodded. "We have more evidence than that," he laughed. "In a court of law you could prove conclusively that the Lanaktallan built the Type-One AMWs."

The car slowed and stopped.

"So they didn't hit this place with orbital plasma weapons?" Sangbre asked as she turned in her seat and slid off the seat, into the afternoon warmth. She reluctantly left her drink behind and looked around.

White buildings, many with columns. There were ancient fortifications scattered around. She could see old wire that looked barbed and spiked on top of heavy cloth bags. There were burnt out vehicles still scattered around, rubble shoved and stacked to make everything into a maze.

"The orbitals over Earth capitals is restricted air space, heavily defended," he pointed off into the distance. "The four Mantid battlecruisers that were supposed to glass this city fell over there. Around the city of Mosky of the Stronk Fourty there's about a half dozen battle-wagons that crashed, but the Vodka Trogs of the time were absolute maniacs."

Following the signs that read "Rally Point Echo" and "Assault Sally Point Tango" and "Mech Point Lima" Sangbre shook her head. Despite the warmth the day the shadows held an odd chill. A couple of times it sounded like she was stepping in liquid but when she looked down the shattered gravel was dry.

"Was the fighting fierce?" she asked. She thought about her own people, who had given up without a single shot when the Lanaktallan had showed up.

"Six hundred thousand humans died here, killed in battle. Two million were injured. A hundred thousand went missing," the human Captain said. "On the other side, the Mantids lost eight million warrior caste here and nineteen million worker caste, and eventually lost a Queen."

Sangbre shook her head. "That's... insane."

The human Captain shrugged. "The Vodka Trogs lost and killed almost as many, but the real maniacs were the Kawaii Samuria of Animeland. Every living human on the Island of Anime poured into their city. Hell, the Lolita Sorceresses of the Sailor Moon Sisterhood summoned a thing called Gojira at one point. The Mantid never took it," the Captain shook his head. "It was a year after the war had ended before the fighting in Lossglass Tokyo ended. Nobody ever figured out the casualties but they estimate it as nearly eighteen million humans and a hundred million Mantids.

"The place is like this now, cursed and silent."

Sangbre stopped and stared at a fighting position in the rubble. The side had been excavated away to show the buried room inside. There were small humans, she was able to identify them as adolescents. Male and female, with bandages on them, cleaning weapons, manning a heavy gun, laying on cots and sleeping.

"Those are your young!" she said, turning and facing the larger Terran. "Your younglings are not supposed to fight!"

The human nodded slowly. "Easy to say that, isn't it, Matron Sangbre? Standing here, right now. Easy words, aren't they?"

Sangbre felt a cold chill wind down her spine, like icy fingers down her back, and she slowly turned and looked at them again.

They had soot and dirt on their faces, their clothing was worn and torn, their eyes and faces looked much older. There was a small immature male covering the pale blood face of an immature female with a blanket. There were littles stacking ammunition magazines and bandages. There was a little stirring a pot made from an ammunition can.

She looked to the side and saw the plaque.

"The Irregulars of 11th Street 'Habkidz' fought from the interior of their destroyed hab-complex for fifteen months before being overrun by Mantids. The last death occurred when the last remaining Habkidz, identified as 9 year old Emma Tolgensun via DNA and video, detonated a fusion grenade when the Mantid warriors backed her against a wall.

"This fighting position, which held for eight months, was recreated off of images and video taken by the children who manned it."

She pressed the button and watched as the view came to life. The children moving around, their faces too old for their bodies, their eyes boring into Sangbre every time they passed over her. She was surprised to see children without even any secondary sex characteristics smoking cigarettes or drinking bottles that her implant told her were full of home-made alcohol. Each one she looked at, she got a quick breakdown of their birth date, their lives, their death, and how the children had recorded it.

"KYLD BY MANTIZ" was the universal cause of death. The one that made her gasp was "<>

Not one of the children lived past fourteen years old. The youngest that said "KILD BY MANTIZ" was seven years old.

She looked at the Captain, feeling her ears heat up with embarrassment. She looked back at the eVR mockup, which had gone still again.

"The hab complex contained twelve thousand people when it was bombed. There was just under a thousand children killed here," the Captain said. He shook his head. "The Mantids didn't accept surrender."

"Oh," Sangbre said, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"It's OK, you didn't know. You don't get it," the Captain said. "You have no cultural comparison for this, do you?"

Sangbre shook her head. "No. We surrendered almost immediately."

"We don't do that," the Captain said. He checked her vitals, she was stressed, anxious, and a little upset, but within the high end of tolerance. "Do you need embraced?"

Sangbre shook her head. "No. I should feel this. I need to feel this to understand."

The Captain nodded and followed Sangbre as she kept moving through the twisted paths between the rubble. He looked around, feeling sorrow for a moment. Sangbre stopped in front of another fighting position, this one manned by male and female humans of all ages. She touched the dataplaque, watching it come to life.

She reached out to touch another button when the Captain touched her shoulder. When she looked up he shook his head.

"Don't. That button shows you the last recorded images of this fighting position," he said softly. "This one is particularly bad."

Sangbre stared at him, reaching out one finger, and pressed it before turning to look when her datalink pinged.

The image shifted, the eVR shifting. She found herself inside the fighting position, standing against the back wall, almost transparent. The missing wall was back, a pile of what she had learned were sandbags, reinforced with broken pieces of concrete. There were three heavy guns that were roaring.

"THEY WANT US BAD!" one of the men called out. The gun he was on was beeping steadily, her implant telling her that a cracked barrel on the four-barrel rotary machinegun was overheating.

"TWO MINUTES TO EVACUATION IS COMPLETE!" a woman yelled, looking up from a computer that had network cable running from the floor to the computer. "KIDS ARE OUT! WOUNDED ARE OUT!"

There was an explosion on the ceiling and part of the roof caved in. The woman on the computer slapped the circular electromagnet on the top of it and there was a bright flash for a moment. By the time it cleared there were Mantid Warriors, each of them nearly eight feet tall pouring into through a hole in the roof. There were being torn apart by the concentrated fire from the people on the sides. A woman slapped a button next to the tunnel that led into the fighting position and it collapsed with a roar that sent dust into the room.

The Mantid warrior were huge, but even the smaller humans were able to tear off bladearms, rip off legs. In what looked like a practiced movement four humans would move in from the side while one would step up with a shield and parry the bladearms. The four humans would each grab a leg and yank, popping the legs off in a shower of gore and the one with the shield would stab the warrior through the thorax with a blade.

It was a whirling nightmare of death, destruction, screaming, roaring, and shrieking. More Mantids kept pouring through the hole as the gunners against the wall were killed or had to turn to defend themselves. More and more Mantids were managing to do more than just get killed dropping into the position.

The last one was a male Terran, pinned against the wall by a pair of bladearms. As the Mantid warrior's mandibles came down to crush his skull he lifted up his hand and let the spoon fly from a grenade.

"For Tina," the human gurgled through the blood.

The Mantid's jaws closed over the human's head with a crunch.

The grenade hit the floor.

A bright harsh actnic flash of the anti-matter grenade ended it.

Sangbre was shaking, crying, and hugging herself tightly. When the Captain went to hug her she pushed him away, shaking her head and holding out her hands.

"I... I need to understand," she gasped. She hugged herself again. "Need to," she managed to get out.

Captain Manners knelt down, waving back one of the warborgs marked with the red cross and the red crescent, watching Sangbre struggle with it all.

They didn't care. Neither side. They were both completely blood crazed, she thought. She opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. And yet, now, they hold each other close by the gripping hands and lean into one another for comfort amid a universe that hates them.

She sighed, wiped off her face, and climbed to her feet. She looked around.

"These were all your people's buildings, are they not?" she said, pointing at the rubble.

"Yes. Monuments, political centers, housing, businesses, streets," Captain Manners said. "Destroyed in the fighting. Never rebuilt. Not here. Not in this place."

"Why not?" Sangbre asked, moving slowly around a corner and to a Y-intersection. She wasn't surprised that there was another fighting position built into the V of the intersection. "You worked so hard to restore your planet, why not this place?"

"None of the capitals were rebuilt," Captain Manners said. "The Elven Queens said that the places were haunted. The elves wouldn't come in here."

Feeling the faint prickle of fear as she took a left toward the "Fort Come & Take It" Sangbre could believe it. Every once in a while she could swear she heard the far off sounds of explosions and weapons fire, of humans screaming their war cries and Mantids screeching on the attack. She could almost hear weeping, murmurs, the sound of weapons loading, and a constant scratching sound.

She stopped by the displays. Medical stations, radio stations, repair stations. She watched them, even though each time the fierce combat left her shaking and hugging herself. She kept refusing Captain Manners's offer to embrace her to ease her anxiety.

Sangbre needed to understand all of it. Her people were a small people compared to the Terrans. A people adrift without a history or culture who had grabbed onto the Terran Confederacy with gripping and catching hands both, holding tight.

She need to understand them, these humans. Understand the humans who said "Join us, be yourself, not how we say you should be, stand with us" so freely.

Sangbre knew she was much older than her daughter. A clan matron, respected by all of the other clans. She had been chosen, of all the matrons, to go to Earth, to Terra, and see these humans from where they were.

The other matrons were terrified of the Terran's power. Of the might of TerraSol. Nothing the Unified Council had possessed could stop the Precursor war machine. Colonies, whole worlds had been lost to them.

But the Terrans had not only destroyed every single Precursor machine that had attacked, they had destroyed literally thousands of them, hundreds of the larger ones. Had beaten them in space and on the ground.

The other matrons were terrified that the humans were just going to replace the Overseers, replace the Lanaktallan boot with a heavier boot of their own. The Lanaktallans were frightening and overwhelming, but there was just something to the way the Terrans threw themselves into something.

Sangbre needed to understand humans.

Walking through the ruins of the BurgerKing City she started to understand.

In the center was a memorial. It read that how when one of the Queens was killed the smaller Mantids turned on the warrior caste, threw down their weapons and raised their bladearms, and began singing. How the humans paused for a second, then rushed past the smaller ones to rip apart the warriors and speakers. How it was discovered that the Speakers, normally able to overwhelm nearly a planet's worth the Mantids on their own were completely subsumed by the pure rage pouring off of the maddened humans. How the shock of losing the Queen in MechaKraut Berliner had stunned the other Queens, who had never felt another Queen die. How the smaller Mantids turned on the Queens, the Speakers, the Warriors, even as humans charged through their suddenly shocked lines.

Sangbre watched the reenactment twice. The second time letting her datalink show her through rapidly changing viewpoints.

The small mantid's cries of "FREE! FREE! FREE!" across the battlefield as they turned their weapons on the larger ones or threw them down chilled her blood.

"Don't let them take my mind," a small gold mantid said, looking up. "Don't let the Queens take away my mind again," it said.

The human, his face dusty and streaked with blood, looked at the waist high gold mantid. "Where is she?" The gold mantid pointed. "Is she near?" the little gold mantid pointed and nodded. "Then let's go kill her."

According to her implant, three hours later and the Queen was dead, the warriors were retreating, the Speakers were retreating, and the smaller mantids were getting as close to the humans as they could. The sheer rage pouring off the humans was blocking the Speaker's abilities to overwhelm a smaller mantid's mind according to the information on her datalink.

Sangbre sat on the bench, fanning herself with her hat, and considered what she had just seen.

In the middle of a desperate fight, a last stand according to the eVR recreation, the chromed warriors of MechaKrautLand had overwhelmed the Berliner Queen, killing her, and sending a shock through the world's hive-mind. It had disrupted it and the humans had noticed it, had broke off their attack against the smaller mantids. It had taken a few seconds in some spots, but it had stopped.

Then they allowed the small mantids to stay close to them and overran that Queen. All around Earth it had happened.

In the middle of a battle it had happened.

Sangbre took a deep breath and looked up.

In the middle of all that rage, all that hatred, in the middle of a desperate last stand, the warriors of the Hamburger Kingdom, in the wreckage of BurgerKing City, had stopped attacking the suddenly freed enemy and had pushed through to carry victory.

"I am ready to go back. I have seen what I have come to see," Sangbre said confidently.

She was silent as she walked back. She glanced at each fighting position, downloading the historical eVR recreation and putting it on the personal datacube in her pocket.

She knew what she would show the other matrons.

She knew that they too would understand, as she did now.

It wasn't what the Terrans could do. It was what the did and proved themselves capable of.

Colonel Manners paid close attention to Sangbre on the way back. Her emotions had suddenly stabilized, suddenly gone deathly calm, at the end of the playthrough of the reenactment of The Last Burgerstand, and through the second playthrough.

He made sure to ping the medics, letting them know Sangbre might need checked out.

As for herself, Sangbre studied the footage over and over again.

It was there. Right there. A wounded human had kicked a little green mantid's rocket launcher away and was raising his boot to stomp it when the green mantid raised his arms and went "FREE! I DIE FREE!" and the human stopped, staggering slightly to regain his balance.

That was what she would show the other matrons.

Sangbre knew they would listen to her.

She sipped her drink slowly, staring out the window of the suborbital transport taking her back to San Angelos.

She understood them now, understood them better.

I Die Free!