System of the Damned

  Chapter 13 - Xavier

  Gumbo and gun show gathering.

  I stood on the map table, a cup of something called gumbo in front of me, and the wonderful sound of various soldiers arguing. The gumbo wasn’t bad and I had a properly sized spoon that I was using to stir and eat my dinner. One of the Ca’zeze soldiers was most likely only being cranky and loud because he’d angered Albert, so he was now sporting bright pink fur. These crab lobster aliens were a complete pain in the ass to fight, but they tasted very good if you spiced them right, and some of the local herbs we could now eat were spicey.

  Grek and Stormwind were here and had their translators off as they spoke with their people, and I could understand wanting privacy. I was still getting used to the odd guttural Ca’zeze names and the way that the translators translated the Lo’Kar names from the weirdly musical language. Sadly for them...my wife Lola was the one serving dinner, and she could understand them. That was most likely why one of the Lo’Kar was unconscious near her, never anger a female with a metal ladle in her hand. Especially when she’s in a powered suit, personally I doted on her as much as I could. Happy wife, happy life, less broken bones, and less concussions.

  The bowls were passed out, the main bit of the gumbo was safe for all of us, except the Rodu, but Lola had a vegetable stew going for the members of their group that were present. There were containers of extra options for everyone on a side table, and I watched as those present made the rounds. Commander Wulf was even present and had a pleased look as he tried his dinner, though I noticed he’d added a bit of sweetener to his, causing the small black cat on his shoulder to purr. We all knew that Madam Mittens could no doubt speak rough English, but cats have to be difficult, and females moreso. Which left Igor to eat and share his food with his feline friend, humans made such lovely pets.

  “Thank you Lola.” Was spoken by everyone who took one of the bowls she filled, and no one refused her cooking. Even the Rodu were polite as they took their bowls of the vegetable stew she’d made them, and as the last bowl was handed out, she made herself a cup. The Mantis that’d come with the salvage truck had eaten his wooden spoon and was slurping up his stew, its stew...the bugs were odd. They apparently had three stages, larval, an odd caterpillar juvenile stage, then this buff mantis form...that was asexual. The bugs were the oldest local species, the avians were the second oldest, so neither had much left working in the higher tech they’d started with. To be honest, most of them had only managed to keep at the level that humans had in their nineteen seventies, just usually with an information system. The lack of aircraft and spacecraft was thanks all around to a certain race of angry flying lizards, and a lack of spare parts.

  I was actually thankful that the Avians weren’t present in this meeting, they were annoying and creepy. They also had this horrid habit of staring at me like a bird of prey might, which usually caused me to go into a blur and yank a few of their tiny feathers loose. This gumbo was really good, and with this turning into more of a war as each day passed, we’d get to have this tasty meal whenever we wanted. The crab-lobster race attacked anyone or anything that wasn’t one of them or their herd animals. According to the bugs, there’d been more races before the crabs landed. Sergeant Johnson had been back and forth between our colony, the avians, and the bugs, so she’d learned quite a bit. It seemed all of the races complained more when they thought you couldn’t understand them. It also seemed that everyone hated the crabs that’d had to deal with them in any way, shape, or form.

  “We are doing what we can to impart upgrades where we can to the human equipment, while helping them with salvage operations, and also attempting to build new improvised vehicles.” The Rodu chief engineer said and popped a chunk of blue vegetable into his mouth, his tone was calm and informative, like a tech that was thinking about hitting you with something. “I do not have enough trained personnel to truly try and field combat troops, we’re doing what we can with support personnel.” Two hands working the bowl and spoon, another holding a canteen of some tea they drank, and the other...yep that was flexing in annoyance.

  “Chief engineer Ebacto…” Commander Wulf started to say.

  “Happy!” I chittered and my nearby suit snapped out, my little spoon pointing at the patch sewn to the Rodu’s vest. It was an evil looking smiley face that looked more crazed than happy, and Lola had sewn it on for him. “His handle is Happy...just worry if he ever smiles like that at you.” That got chuffs, trills, and snorts of humor from around the mess hall, it also seemed to make him stop flexing his hand.

  “Chief...Happy…” Wulf said and gave me a little side eye, Mittens tail flicked, and I winked at them. “We know your people are helping as best that they can, don’t worry about that. You’re doing your part. Our own people are doing what they can with the salvage operations, and fielding the equipment that your people are helping refit. The Lo’Kar and Ca’zeze are doing what they can with fielding some of their soldiers, and helping us with armor for...our special cases.”

  Braying squeaky giggles sounded from my wife, who stopped when she noticed people staring at her confused. She huffed and went back to eating her dinner.

  “Do you mean the small ones or the big ones?” Grek asked around a hunk of crab he was chewing on. The Ca’zeze were expressive in some of the same ways that Zeus and Hera were, but the aliens tended to wiggle their ears more. They also seemed to love my trick of waving at people by bending my ear, though very few of them were able to emulate it.

  There was a buzzing sound and the mantis cocked its head to the side as its translator spoke in an oddly deep tone. “The human commander means the larger of their two oddities.” It looked at me, and I waved an ear at it. “The smaller ones are a known entity to us all, this one put a stop to conflicts with explosions equal to orbital fire. Or do you mean the issue with the polymorphs taking to the fighting?” It asked and cocked its head as it looked at Commander Wulf. “I brought our guardian polymorph, so the others are behaving well enough, largely in part to how you humans have treated them.”

  The “Guardian” mimic was still using the form of a salvage truck and growling whenever it moved, failing to properly mimic engine noise. The cable in the truck’s crane had apparently not been eaten, instead it was using it to hurl smaller mimics out like a catapult. It was very hard to actually injure a mimic short of cutting them apart and separating the parts, or plasma, they weren’t fans of fire either. Though one of the “young” did seem to like to swim in acidic cleaners, and base cleaners, Foamy was an odd duck. Quite literally a rubber duck after someone had given him one as a toy, a five eyed, creepy as hell, little duck. Foamy still owned the squeaker from said duck.

  Commander Wulf sighed and sipped some of the juices from his gumbo, allowing Mittens to snag a hunk of crab. “Our people who’ve turned from being good soldiers and colonists into angry snarling beasts.” He shrugged. “They’re affected well enough by the poison in those spines, so they need a sort of combat armor. Instead of dropping strong unprotected and violent beasts into a fight, we’re hoping to drop well armored and decently trained beasts in.”

  Again the buzzing sound of the Mantis speaking. “Well, that is for the good. We have had few issues with the polymorph’s mineral, we had more uniformed alterations.” The head shifted and I could tell it was eyeing me. “Your small ones are still the more frightening of the issues that you have, which is why we asked that their abilities not be used in combat.” His anteni wiggled in annoyance. “Watching my predecessor be turned into a stain on the ground because it was trying to get the troops to keep fighting the feathered ones...has had an effect.”

  I squeaked and bowed, then chittered. “My children are far more terrifying than myself, and they fear my loving wife’s temper.” Lola had learned...somehow...to crack her knuckles and did so, tiny pops sounding and then she purred as Commander Wulf scritched around the base of her ear. “Though our son Albert has come up with a neutralizer for the toxin and is finishing his testing. More that the human lab technicians are testing it and he’s snoring in his cabinet, but the work is going as fast as it can.” I looked around and then to the Mantis. “We are helping as best that we can, and your people cheered when I turned an avian assassin into a puff of feathers and goo.” He made a sound somewhat like a cricket chirping and Grek chuffed, one of his ears twisting to listen to something outside.

  A red mantis waddled into the mess hall, about a third of the size of the emissary, and with four too many eyes. It wiggled and produced a sealed tube that it handed over to the emissary, who nodded its head. The mini mantis wiggled and seemed to ripple, showing that it was indeed one of the mimics. The next form it took was a wheel, which casually rolled itself back out of the tent. Lola chittered and spoke first. “You know, that is still strange to see, less than it was, but still strange.”

  “Says the small prey animal that has beaten many, much larger beings into unconsciousness.” Grek chuffed, an ear pointing to the unconscious Lo’Kar.

  Stormwind trilled softly and scratched under her mate’s chin. “I knew there was a reason that I liked her, but I’ve heard that your son has started to grow more like you?” She asked curiously.

  “Yes, her son Albert is using the artificial wombs we have aboard our ship to grow more bunnies.” Commander Wulf said and didn’t react as Mittens suddenly was glaring at him from his shoulder. “Captain Rowland approved it, with a few restrictions. Most of the restrictions are for safety reasons, like the restriction that none of the larger ones will be able to...go fast.”

  I chittered at that and sipped some of the juices from my dish, letting out a burp before speaking more. “It isn’t as useful as larger beings think, we have very little legs, so we have to walk large distances for us. It is our size that allows us to use our ability, so Albert is making sure that few of our smaller kin get the speed. Our larger kin will be more balanced or simply strong. The first batch will be born in sixteen local days...figure two to four months for growth and training.”

  My wife squeaked in laughter at that, then chittered. “I will ask for some of the females who are mothers to assist me with the first group. I’ve also told Albert to spare the females born of this, they will have only one child at a time. Otherwise we risk outgrowing the other races, you’re all nice enough, your people seem nice.” She shrugged. “But I’d rather not risk too many violent mothers with large families.”

  The Mantis chirped a few times in that crickety way, then buzzed. “Spoken like a proper parent, we have taken steps to keep our population controlled here as well.” It’d been looking over the report it’d pulled from the tube, head cocking one way, then the other as it thought, read, and listened. “We have had only two deaths and four tens of injuries since this position was taken, it appears that the enemy is starting to amass forces.” It looked up from its report and twitched an antenna as it looked around at the others. “It will not be more than three solar cycles, most probably only one cycle before we are attacked in force.” It buzzed and then proceeded to eat the report, setting the empty tube on the table.

  Happy let out a loud snort as he stepped away from the pot with another bowl of stew. “Then we will need to keep all of the human’s space capable craft away from here. They are the only ones we have that can actively reach the salvageable ships in any safe manner. My people have checked our retired craft that we haven’t melted down and found them to need too much work. It will no doubt take us years for all of us to have reliable space transport again.” He looked to Grek and huffed. “Though it will be several days before we think that the gunships will be operational, we only have one of the tiny ones helping, and if you rush him…”

  “Things suddenly start exploding.” Commander Wulf said with a sigh. “Which is why we have constant requests for tiny desks, keyboards, and monitors being sent to the Lo’Kar.”

  He had a point, but I just shrugged before chittering. “Vaporization of tools is happening less as we get used to keeping control of ourselves. We’re bunnies, we get excited easily, it's hard to work around thousands of years of ingrained habits and instincts.” I pointed an ear at Mittens. “It’s like expecting her to strike up casual conversation with anyone other than you in private, or asking Stanley not to snarl at people. Sure he does it less, but that’s only because everyone that deals with him, bribes him.”

  “The angry fuzzy one is easier to deal with when you bribe him with things he likes. His human is much nicer, though his smile is worrisome.” Stormwind said thoughtfully as she rinsed her bowl out and put it on a stack on the table.

  “His smile is worse than my angry smile, though his skills with metals and combat repairs make up for his oddities.” Happy said before slurping up the last of his stew. “The angry small one is kind enough not to smoke around my people, at least since we learned that we have an allergy to one of the chemicals. The tiny one helping us has seemed to have gotten the angry one’s help when needed, the gunship work is moving as well as it can thanks to that. The human Sweetener is helping as well, though he is mainly dealing with the armor issues.” He paused in his walk to the washing table as there was laughter from the various races. “What did I say?”

  “You called the human named Honey, Sweetener. we need to adjust your translator.” The Mantis buzzed and pulled a tool from the odd pack that it kept on its back and main body sections. It waddled over casually as a nearly five foot tall mantis could with one leg being made of an odd alloy and organic plastic.

  I walk waddled over to hold up my cup and spoon to Commander Wulf, giving him the dreaded. “Help me, I’m little” look, which made him sigh and move to wash my dishes for me. I could get away with such things, I was little, humans thought I was cute, and I did have little legs. I could make the hop, but it might worry some of the people in the mess hall to see me doing such things. Best to keep them at ease, didn’t have anything to do with me not wanting to wash the dishes myself. I couldn’t help but casually watch as the Mantis worked the odd tool while touching the neck band of Happy’s translator, the insectoid buzzing out commands as he worked the various controls.

  “Your Captain sent word that your people have gotten a weapon working using the Eda bone powder.” Stormwind said as she looked over the map, sipping from her bowl as she studied the terrain. “He mentioned that you have also gotten other weapons working as well. Most of our advanced weaponry has failed due to wear, the little we initially salvaged.” She let out a few clicks that was her race’s form of a sigh and shrugged as her husband and mate Grek nuzzled her atop the head with his chin.

  Grek rumbled and his translator spoke for him, the odd trick of not quite talking, but subvocalizing worked best for the Ca’zeze. Some humans were taking to it as well, seeming to like it for combat teams. “Our daughter has one of only a few weapons we’ve managed to keep operational, and it’s lost some of its power that it once had.” His ears twitched in a shrug, but I noticed his shoulders rolling, they were learning from our pets rather well.

  I squeaked and then chittered, having to squeak to get attention since I was so little. “Issac is taking care of that issue for you and working on a way to reproduce it.” I shrugged and gave him a little grin as he looked at me. “Your daughter didn’t pay enough attention to her laser rifle when she focused on taking care of my person, my son borrowed it.”

  Lola squeaked at me and gave me that wifely look that spoke of pain if I didn’t have a talk with our son about that. Then she chittered. “I found Issac with the weapon torn down and checking all of its bits out. I rather prefer mechanical things to technical, and it was the spotted feline berserker that stole the weapon for him. My...husband...is correct in that he’s repairing it, and planning to make more. I’m very sure that my husband will have a talk with him about stealing from others.” I got a pointed look and nodded rapidly.

  The door swung open and Captain Rowland walked in, giving a nod to each of the other prospective leaders. “Don’t mind me, I came along with a delivery and smelled food.” He moved around and got himself a bowl of gumbo, sniffing it, and then moving to add a few things to it. “I have the first shipment of mortars, heavy rifles, ear protection and com units, which will work for most races…” He gave the Mantis a look and sighed. “I’m not so sure about your people though, and honestly, do you have shorter names? Nicknames of some sort that work?”

  The Mantis looked at Captain Rowland and cocked it’s head to the side and then the other in thought, anteni wiggling, and then it buzzed. “Your soldiers have said that most of my people look like a giant insect native to your world. I agree with a few major known differences, you may call me Priest, I am among the leadership, though leadership isn’t the proper term, we have not found a proper term in your languages for it. Unlike your species...we have no religion, it was the Eda who raised us to the stars.” It cocked it’s head again. “That is a story for another time though, it happened many generations ago, and I must get permission to tell it in full.”

  There were several slack jawed expressions, or variants of it with the statement that the Eda had uplifted a species. Not only uplifting it, but apparently long before it’d come to long distance space travel or to be stuck in this system. Captain Rowland was the first to clop his mouth shut and went to stuffing his face with crab gumbo, Commander Wulf simply chuckled and gave Mittens a kiss on the cheek. “That answers a question and opens up so many more of them, Priest. I’m sure we’d all love for you to get the permissions that you need in order to tell us about that story.”

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  The Mantis buzzed as its anteni wiggled, looking from the Commander, to the others, and back. “I will do what I can, the information is what you might call...restricted, but less for security, than for shame.” It clicked a few times and slumped. “It is a very sad story, and I do not know all of it, we would need an Eda for the full story.” Priest let out a chirp as Lola was suddenly on its shoulder and gently petting the side of its head, chittering as she nuzzled and tried to sooth the big alien bug. After all, my wife hated to see anyone truly sad or depressed, she was fine with them being terrified of her, just not sad. Females could be so…odd.

  No one tried to pick her up or move her until she was sure that Priest was no longer a sad Mantis being, then she casually hopped back to the table and squeaked at the Captain, hand paws on hips.

  He grinned at her and nodded. “Yes mum, your kids got them made….” Everyone watched as she scrambled across the table and leapt into her suit. Soon enough it was powered on and moving to nearly dance around everyone as my wife damned near ran out of the mess hall. Captain Rowland just shook his head. “She asked for one of the machine guns we are making so she could use it, and something else from the ship. Dunno why she’s so hyper, just a gun and something engineering made…” He blinked. “Bollocks.” And then he ran out of the mess hall.

  Oddly enough, I was one of the slow ones in getting out of the Mess hall. Of course I had to get into my suit, into my controls, and power it up. Having little legs sucks moldy pellets. Funny thing was that Priest had taken to hopping onto the dug in structures and running across the tops, hopping from roof to roof. It got very little in the way of reactions, these were people who’d gotten more and more used to mimics, a giant bug running around was rather relaxed in comparison. Of course small bunnies that could accidentally vaporize things, or hurl small vehicles at you, also might have helped the relaxed feeling toward other races.

  And then I came into an open area and blinked, there was a man in uniform talking with my wife...he was glowing. The engineer was literally glowing more than I did when I licked a stun stick, and that is when I remembered about a certain engineering tech with a unique mutation. Lightbulb was all I knew the man as, quite literally wearing a mimic as a uniform, the creature soaking up the odd bits of alpha, and beta particles, with the few dashes of gamma that escaped from him. The man could change nuclear fuel rods by hand and be fine, though without a mimic...he’d end up killing those around him. Luckily there were plenty of mimics that didn’t mind a snuggle for a snack of potent radiation. They absolutely loved the stuff, and it was Lightbulb’s job to keep them out of main engineering...other than the one snuggling him.

  He was opening up a cargo box and setting a few things out as my patient wife...danced around him. In her mech suit. Like a human kid. Tendrils moved from his clothing and helped him set out two large shapes that were undoubtedly heavy weapons, taking his time as he unpacked the box. He was actually mildly painful to directly look at when I got closer, my screens automatically darkening. He casually tapped the sleeve of his “top” and within a minute, the mimic turned itself into a radiation suit with a tinted vision plate. This of course was with the addition of a few eyes watching everyone that was coming around its walking snackbar. “Captain, gentle...people.” He greeted us and then laughed as Lola squeaked. “Yes yes, let me get the rest of the stuff out first, it was too heavy to leave at the top.”

  Captain Rowland was the first of us to speak. “Lightbulb, what exactly did she ask her kids to have you bring her? I didn’t think of it until she literally ran away to get here…” He motioned lightly to the still impatiently dancing power suit, which growled at him.

  The man waved a suited hand lightly. “Oh nothing very bothersome sir, a pair of weapons we were thinking about giving to Major O’Connell’s people, and a weapon for her.” He pulled a few smaller boxes out and stepped back. “There you go Miss Lola, all yours.”

  A shrill happy squeak sounded as my wife lunged forward and dug her suit’s hands into the cargo box. “It’s so lovely! You got the triggers where I asked as well!” Happy giddy squeaking chitters and then she stood her suit up and ripped up the oddest mace I’ve ever seen. The handle was about a meter long, with an armored charge pack at the base, while the handle was oddly fat. It seemed like it’d been made for a much larger person, even with the use of the suit, especially since the head of the mace was a spiked ball about half a meter thick, with the spikes being short fat cones adorning it.

  “It still needs a name, mam, I’m sure someone else will want one.” Lightbulb said as he moved to arrange the things he’d already pulled from the cargo box.

  “A name…” She chittered and hefted her new weapon, giving it a little spin between her suit’s hands and chittering in thought as she started to work it around her suit.

  “Awe bloody el! That’s why you've been scaring the cooks spinnin crap around? Cause you had em making a bloody mace for you?” Captain Rowland growled out as he looked at my wife.

  She squeaked and paused, taking a moment to chitter. “Not a mace…” Her suit turned and seemed to be looking around, then she snapped her mace out. The head flew a good three meters, a chain snapping tight between it and the handle. “Humans call these flails...and I’ll figure out a name later…” She let out a chittering squeaky giggle as her suit held a button on the handle, and the head was dragged back to latch in place. I knew she was grinning as she hefted her weapon and spun it in her suit’s hands, then spun it up above her head, lashing it out to slam the flail down at length into bare ground.

  “No sir, it appears that Miss Lola has gotten herself something that will be useful for her to break armor with. Like the armor of a vehicle, or one of those giant crab aliens.” Commander Wulf said as he moved beside Lightbulb and started to inspect the two heavy weapons. “Though I suspect that only she or one of our special people could use such a weapon. His hands hefted up a rather common human machine gun and he turned to the other leaders. “This is a very old human design, and we’ve only reinforced it for the new powders. It is the M2 Browning machine gun, named after its designer, but more fondly known as the Ma Deuce or Fifty Cal. This is old and reliable tech.”

  Captain Rowland snorted. “Course the bloody thing is reliable, we humans have been using the bloody thing for bout two centuries or so. We’ve strapped it to vehicles and put it into defenses since the yanks started using it.” He picked up a loose round and hefted it in his hand as he walked over to the other leaders. “They changed the casing and each round is sealed, so it can be used in space as well as on ground. The bullets are a version of the same thing that our one tank is currently firing.”

  “That thing is more torturing on the ears than one of our female pulsars during her first birthing.” Stormwind said as she made her race’s equivalent of a grimace, a tightening of the lips and a squinting.

  “We didn’t alter the design in the expectation that it would be used in a fortified defense, that noise was hoped to disrupt opposing troops.” Happy snorted at the end and looked over the bullet as it came to him. “We don’t currently have another way to operate such a rapid firing weapon and keep it fed. They’ve installed noise dampeners around it.”

  Grek chuffed and looked at his wife, then around at the others. “Something we’ve taken to installing in our hospitals and medical tents. It has helped keep down injuries and damage from certain people getting especially loud. Some of us have sensitive ears.” He was smartly not looking anywhere near his wife’s face, seeming to sense her glaring at him.

  There was a chirping and then buzzing as Priest hopped down beside the table and gently picked up the machine gun in his talons. “You multisexuals are so amusing with your behaviors and interactions.” Claws shifted and the oddly folding arms worked to carefully turn the weapon around and inspect it. “This weapon seems to be for a single individual to hold and fire, yet the round should produce enough recoil to make that a bad thought process.” And then it set the weapon down and waddled away from the table. “I have noticed that the soldiers are putting other models of this weapon into their positions, and stockpiling ammunition for them.” Its head cocked to the side as it looked at the Captain.

  Captain Rowland nodded softly and didn’t notice Lola moving her suit over to casually trade her monster flail, for another of the heavy weapons. “They are usually mounted to vehicles or on tripods in fixed positions. Unlike in the past, we are also going to be collecting most of the spent casings to reprocess them and reuse them.” As he spoke, she connected a thick cable from the back of the long and wide weapon to an output on the hip of her suit. “We’re hoping to be able to keep up with the production of ammunition needed to keep the crabs away from this fire base and distract them from our true goal.” He still hadn’t noticed her fiddling with the weapon, or that Lightbulb had moved over to carefully connect a tall box to the top of it. “Our true goal after all is to lower the enemy fighting force, while forcing them away from our goal of reaching the active Eda ships.”

  Most of the leaders kept a fair amount of their attention on Captain Rowland, though a few, myself included, kept looking to where Lola was standing. The Captain was on a roll and doing his duty like any of our good pets, but he started to turn his head as Lightbulb stepped back and Lola triggered her suit’s braces. It was something Marie had come up with after seeing her mother’s issue with sinking into the ground, giving the suit’s feet three reinforced plates that could snap down for extra support. “After all that is our end go...what are you do.” CRACK!

  Captain Rowland’s words were muted as my wife had tilted the weapon up to about thirty eight degrees and set it off, showing all of us that she was using a shoulder fired railgun. Everyone but the Captain and Priest had gotten hands over their ears, not that the supersonic crack seemed to bother the giant bug. There were ten more loud cracking noises and flashes of sparks as my loving and patient wife...went through apparently the entire magazine. Her suit had been shifted some with each firing, and as she finished, she had to work her suit’s feet free of the hard packed soil.

  I was suddenly very proud of Captain Rowland, who stopped himself and took a few deep calming breaths as Lola unhooked the weapon and laid it back in place. “Mum, would you mind giving a proper warning when you’re about to fire an experimental weapon?” His tone had that odd sweetness that humans got when they were trying not to scream at someone. I would have to find him a good master or mistress, maybe one of Zeus and Hera’s pups, he seemed like a dog person. He also most likely needed to smoke and calm his nerves as well, but he was doing well for now.

  The chest of her suit popped open and she squeaked softly, giving him a soft nod, then the armor plates snapped back shut. Her suit translating her chittering. “Sorry about that Captain, you were on a roll though. I had the location of one of the enemy formation points, and I just fired every shell I had in that clip...into the enemy camp a full day cycle’s march from here. That is usable with one of these suits.” She pat the weapon tenderly with her suit’s hand.

  Lightbulb held up a hand, finger raised. “With shielding, you can fire one while wearing an exoskeleton, if you have heavy shielding or the same sort of plating that her suit has. The shoulder fired weapon doesn’t have the same level of shielding on it as the Rodu turret that we ripped apart to see how it works. It will daze you if you fire it like she just did...without shielding, like it dazed Sergeant Duke and Captain Evans. Space suits will work, but Captain Evans said that she will let anyone stupid enough to fire it in space...drift. It has recoil systems, but microgravity and space are an unforgiving bitch. She said she’s just trying to keep up.” He ended with a shrug, the mimic wiggling as it kept Lightbulb from blinding us.

  “Major O’Connell seconded her order, and ordered that in the case of anyone firing one without a suit or in space...is to be left to die, while the weapon is retrieved if possible. After seconding and reinforcing her order, he was dragged back to the Pulsar’s camp. Thunder has apparently taken it as her personal duty to make sure that he is settled and stable mentally.” Commander Wulf said and looked to Stormwind and Grek.

  The duo of leaders shared a look and then Grek chuffed and nuzzled his wife, looking back at Commander Wulf. “She’s very much like her mother, in some good ways, but the Lo’Kar since we ended up stuck here...have learned that we Ca’zeze have a small issue with emotional trauma. We’ve calmed since being here and behave as best we can, and so have our former enemies, the furless…” He grunted as his mate put her powerful elbow into his gut, and then he wheezed and coughed, dropping to his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

  This was something of a norm for the duo, so no one went to help Grek. Stormwind never truly tried to kill him, but she’d learned many places to hit her husband, and he’d...well the less lewd tricks he used were usually tickling or sitting on her. I won’t go into the other ones since I still sometimes wish for what humans call brain bleach. Granted I’d tapped into what the humans call porn and I have to admit that humans will rut in the oddest ways with the oddest things. Though humans weren’t the only odd ones in the galaxy, after all I was watching the violent loving ritual of two very different races, who’d bred. Though the latter apparently was only possible thanks to Caltunium and its ability to mutate those that it didn’t murder.

  Speaking of murderous things, Stormwind was gently caressing the top of her rather fuzzy husband’s head, working fingers around his ears as if nothing was wrong. “What he was getting to before he tried using the old insult...is that we’ve learned ways of dealing with their trauma. They can turn into lumps of limp fur or even ravenous enraged beasts of nightmare depending on how the trauma affects them. Lo’Kar males are the far more gentle of our species, not that we don’t have male warriors, but most are females. Females who have learned to handle the occasional goddess be damned enraged ball of claws and fur.” She let out an odd sort of clicky squeak as her husband had suddenly shifted his head and bit her behind.

  There was a chirping and then the gentle buzz of Priest speaking. “And if you multi-sexuals will please hold off on your odd mating rituals, I’d like to hear about this second large weapon that the nice radioactive human and tiny growling one have to show us.” It said through its translator with the casual calm of a leader. “I can hear her squeaking about beating manners into a pair of leaders that like to rut in public.” Calm and casual as could be, though my wife’s suit stiffened and the “head” turned to look at Priest, which got a wave of an anteni. “It is a long story, small one, and I’m more interested in hearing about that other weapon.”

  Captain Rowland smiled as he moved a safe distance from the others and lit a cigarette. “I was just going to get a hose and spray them with it.” He winked at me as he’d been looking half toward me and I couldn’t help it.

  I erupted in giggles at the mental image of Captain Rowland and no doubt Commander Wulf using a large hose to blast the duo down with water. My suit rocked around, but stayed on its feet as the hands twitched and wiggled, arms shivering with movement. A good ten seconds of laughter later, I was wiping tears from my nose and eyes and saw that the others were all looking at me. “We...need...squirt….bottles…” I managed to chitter out as I had to work to stop myself from laughing. Commander Wulf let out a braying laugh as Mittens hissed in my general direction.

  Aaaand that is when my wife lifted up an odd canister with a fat tube on one end, spinning it up to her shoulder and slamming a lever forward. Priest was the only being who escaped the apparent water cannon that my wife had fired at us. I figure around seven gallons of water exploded out of the end of the cannon, hit special baffles, and erupted in a mist like a hurricane’s kiss into the rest of us. And then a chitter filled the air and was translated. “I like the emergency extinguisher, much better than a bottle, my husband.” There was also this odd chirping noise from far off to the left of us, like a stuttering cricket. “High pressure carbon dioxide pumped into a seven gallon tank. Very effective for extinguishing many fires. Dorothy came up with it.”

  Then she set the extinguisher down and lifted up the final weapon. “Now that I have everyone’s attention.” She chittered firmly and held the shoulder fired and oddly long barrelled weapon in her suit’s hands. “This is a modified design of a pair of salvaged Rodu and Lo’Kar lasers. I do not know the technical details on all of it, but I know that the emitters inside are based on Rodu design, and the focusing systems are Lo’Kar. We have more railguns being made than these lasers, that is in part thanks to our wiggly friends.” She nodded her suit’s head toward Lightbulb.

  “The…” He paused and looked over at Priest, then shrugged. “Insectoids...I guess. They’re less affected than the rest of us by radiation. We’re going to be refitting two out of three to be used by them, others will be built to be used in space or as a crew served weapon on the ground.” He paused and pet his suit, then bent and picked up a passing dog sized pink crab. “Our wiggly friends…” He pet the crab and there was a smile in his voice as the crab turned into the oddly gelatinous blob and snuggled into his arms, eyes looking about. “Love radiation and we can use the lasers on the ground, so long as people are willing to get very friendly with our little friends. The laser is a gamma ray, and not nice to the rest of you folks. I personally emit the things, so I could fire one all day long.”

  “Which is why everyone just calls you Lightbulb, you can walk into the reactors and adjust things by hand without a suit.” Captain Rowland said as he took a puff from a new cigarette, since his last had gotten soaked. “And Albert asked me to pass along that your wife’s treatments are coming along well. His request is still apparently open as well about the name of the child.”

  It took me a long second before my brain clicked on an interesting issue for the mimic wrapped man, he had a wife, and he’d impregnated her before realizing that he gave off radiation. She was getting genetic treatments to remove her risks from the radiation using her husband’s dna. The main issue was the fact that she had an oddly glowing spot inside her stomach, and Albert wanted the child’s name to be Glowstick, or Ray something. I couldn’t really chastise him, I’d tried to name him Bugs. Lola had said no of course, such was the way of wives.

  Lightbulb chuckled. “Well if things work out, then I’ll see what I can talk my wife into letting me name our kid. And just so that everyone knows and they can let all of their people know. Even if only Priest’s people use the laser weapons, after a long run of use, or daily if we can manage, they have to be broken down and a mimic let to check the parts. This isn’t for damage issues, it’s so that they can pull the radiation from the materials. I don’t know how they do it, but they can do it, and we will be letting them. Do not let them get hold of the power core in the back though, that is a sealed bit of uranium and Caltunium. They will crack it like a nut and eat the uranium like a starving beast. We do not have enough to toss it to them like snacks, so they can feed from the radiation, not the fuel rods.” He pet the mimic he held, even as it slid over him and replaced the mimic that’d been playing suit for him. That one turned into a rock and rolled out of the way. “That is all we have for right now, and I think Miss Lola has something to say.”

  There was a firm squeak and my wife set down the laser, picking up her flail with her suit. “The crabs will be here in roughly one day cycle, that means that none of you are to be here more than three quarters of a day cycle!” The last chitter was snapped out as her suit shifted to look over them all. “His major fluffiness has already proven that major leaders shouldn’t be close when the crabs are attacking, so none of you will. If any of you try to go past the reinforced and dug in command post...someone will knock you unconscious and drag you through a portal out of danger.”

  Captain Rowland’s eyebrow had snapped up. “I beg your pardon, who gave you that authority my dear?” His tone was icey.

  The tone made me go stiff in my armor, and gave me a tiny craving for ice cream when I thought about the cold tone. Though my wife made me proud, because she popped out of her suit and looked around at the other sophonts in all of her six inches of glory. I climbed out of my suit and stood like she was, like a human would, and on the shoulder of my suit. When she nodded to me, I chittered, and my suit translated. “Because we are the Firsts of the Order of Bun Bun, who’ve lived with, trained with, and learned the ways of your human marines. We take the task of protecting leaders even when they wish to be foolish. Those that join the alliance have become our people as well!”

  “Your people?” Grek asked as he looked back and forth between Lola and I, his ear twitching, apparently not liking the decree.

  I nodded toward Lola, who went on for me, and was much more firm sounding in her chittering and just had that demanding look of a mother staring down a child. “Yes, you are our people, even Mittens and Stanley are members of the order. And by your alliance agreement, those of us who could do the most damage, cannot fight.” The grin she gave was oddly predatory for a bunny, and made me want to nuzzle her. “And Grek...if we cannot fight like fools...then neither can you. If I or my husband died, it would be hard on handfuls, if any of you died, it would be hard on many more. So. You. Can. Not. Fight.”

  And then my person arrived, his voice a harsh snarl in the sudden quiet as he towered over everyone present. “If you try to fight...Adam will record you getting your behinds kicked by a tiny bunny in unarmed combat. Or a cat, or if you piss us off...a badger. Being a leader isn’t leading from the front, and I learned that the hard way.” He was in his great fluffy form, upon each shoulder sat one of my sons. Isaac arcing energy between hand paws, and Albert holding a needle like a dagger. My person had gotten so much better at talking in this form like a human would, though he sounded rather harsh, like a really angry puppy.

  Grek opened his maw to object, Stormwind’s opening a microsecond behind it, though neither of them got a sound out since my person let out a roaring snarl of a howl into the air. Which got me to look past him at the figures leaping up onto the entrenched buildings. Giant panda, Multi tailed fox, Giant cat, and a giant honey badger that gave a friendly wave. Apparently the others noticed the berserkers looming atop the other buildings and I grinned as my person spoke again. “This isn’t a military coup, or us taking over, it's just a simple rule until we get more armored vehicles and possibly suits for you. I have a woman I snuck out on, so I’ll be returning to the Pulsar camp, you folks have a nice day. I’d rather not have to sit on her again and she keeps the beast calm…” His harsh voice became softer and he tossed something to Lola as he walked away to vanish back into the buildings.

  Lola caught it and hooked the item under her arm, which turned out to be a small laser pointer. “Now you folks go back to planning and being leaders...or I use the dot.” She blinked the light onto Commander Wulf’s forehead and Mittens swatted at it. “She is the smaller feline…” She pointed out to where one of the giant fuzzy forms was now much closer. “Now go be good leaders and plan things and work things out, I have work to do passing the noisy things out to the ones who will be fighting.” Heads turned and looked out at the giant no doubt feline, and then they started back for the mess hall, bitching merrilly.

  I moved up to keep pace with Captain Rowland. “Sorry about this sir, we all decided it was best since we’re not sure how the other races are going to want to fight. Let alone the aliens we’re going to be fighting.” I chittered softly and looked over at him as we walked.

  He shook his head calmly and snorted. “It's not that, I was expecting to head back to the ship. I have other duties and I planned to let the bloody grunts do the fighting.” He gave me a sidelong look. “You honestly didn’t notice that Major O’Connell was buck ass naked?”

  There was a mewl behind us and Commander Wulf spoke. “I was more worried about the werewolf having a raging hard on at my fucking eye level.”

  “What was the thing at the base of it?” Stormwind asked curiously.

  “A knot...swells up when a male orgasms and locks them to the female for a time. Helps with impregnation.” I chittered, having looked it up myself. “Why?”

  Grek chuffed and rumbled. “We do not have those, your canines are even more different from us than we thought.”

  The Captain paused, causing all of us to stop. “Wait, why was the bloody yank roused and ready when he came to yell at us?” His eyes darted to me and then back at Stormwind and Grek.

  Stormwind let out a few clicks of agitation. “Our daughter has what you refer to as a heat cycle.”

  Captain Rowland’s shoulders slumped. “Awe fuck.”

  “Probably will.” Grek chuffed out with the sound of a defeated father in his voice.