Sadira’s job was hell sometimes, but it never really sucked. For instance, she’d spend all day in Antaril’s pouring rain, trying to track down a group of natives, before realizing that She’d been the quarry all day long. That kind of day ended in dead Corpsmen, as they didn’t engage with the natives.
Oh, they weren’t forbidden to fight or even kill the natives-they had never even been registered as sentients by the Republic, which was why they were allowed to explore it on the ground in the first place. There was a code among the Recon Corp though. The planet has inherent worth. Without careful management, intervention will become net negative. Knowledge is net good. And finally, you can’t learn from orbit.
Oh, they weren’t forbidden to fight or even kill the natives-they had never even been registered as sentients by the Republic, which was why they were allowed to explore it on the ground in the first place. There was a code among the Recon Corp though. The planet has inherent worth. Without careful management, intervention will become net negative. Knowledge is net good. And finally, you can’t learn from orbit.
Antaria was a prime example of all of those. The planet was one of the most biodiverse they’d ever encountered. It already had advanced sentients-they were transitioning out of their Stone Age at the moment-with culture and legends that hinted at an amazing history. As such, it would be easy for careless meddling to irrevocably alter, rather than guide their culture’s development. And as for learning from orbit, well, that was even more true when dealing with sentients.
Sadira loved this world. Antaria was, in a way, Earth, five thousand years ago. It was, as some of her Corpmates said, a way to ‘Connect with your inner monkey’.
Of course, if she was a monkey, she was a strange one. While her clothing was unimpressive at first glance, it was made of resilient carbon nanostructures, and coated in a metamaterial that refracted visible-spectrum light away from it, making her close to invisible. She had a set of limb power-assistance modules in her backpack, though she doubted she’d need those more than the grappling hook or laser rifle they lay beside.
No, in accordance with the Corp’s ethic, if she had to use equipment other than her knife and medkit, she was doing it wrong.
Unfortunately, she had a second set of organs tagging along with her, and, while under normal circumstances she liked this second monkey, the particulars of this situation made it... Unpleasant.
“Josh.” She whispered into her radio. “You’re straying too far off the path-you’re going to end up dangling from a trap by your leg if you head too far to the right.” Alright, maybe she used more technology than just her knife and first aid kit, but the intent was unchanged-they tried to make their technological use as unobtrusive as possible.
“Copy that, Sadira.” He said, and the tell-tale shimmer of his metamaterials cloaking began to shift off to her side. “In all fairness, it’s not like there’s actually a path here.”
That happened to be true. The Wardens ‘paths’ were more ‘relatively lightly booby-trapped areas’. They were typically fifty to a hundred feet wide, not cleared, and only marked by the occasional stroke of a stone knife on a tree, sometimes years old. They didn’t think like Humans did, which is part of the reason she found them so fascinating.
She loved working with them. Their ingenuity, the simple rules that governed their society. They really did remind her of a simpler time in the world’s history, before people had gotten smart enough to screw it up in a major way. Sure, the natives were nasty at times-the females, while the males equals as hunters and warriors, were expected to be ‘available’ for the males at all times. They had an unpleasant habit of killing all males and children of other tribes that they could get away with. One of the more widespread belief systems required the periodic sacrifice of their own young.
In short, Sadira’s own brand of monkey still had a half-dozen atrocities on them-Racism, genocide, and the Process all came to mind. These natives were, culturally, children. Like a child, you could love them even while they broke the rules.
Something moved in the trees-a flash of orange. Ranakh had found them.
“Stop.” She whispered into her mic. “We’re there.”
“Copy.” Josh said, voice tense.
Josh wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t a bad corpsman-but he also hadn’t worked with the natives anywhere near as much as Sadira had. In fairness, no-one was her equal in knowledge of the natives, but Josh barely had a hundred hours of interaction logged. That was nothing-no-one would claim that you could understand a planet’s culture after a week-long vacation on it, and those were all composed of humans.
Sadira straightened, pulled off her gloves and hood, tied her jacket around her waist, and stretched her arms out. The metamaterials couldn’t be disabled-that was something like disabling the color green-but if you creased them, they refracted poorly. It was bizarre-if you did it right, instead of being more or less a floating head and pair of hands, you were a vague outline of a person, complete with highly disconcerting creases in visible light.
“Ranakh!” She shouted, voice carrying clearly in the jungle. “I am here.” She sounded so portentous talking like that, but, unfortunately, Ranakh still had a rudimentary command of English.
The native-the really needed a better name for them than that-literally dropped from the trees above her. Ranakh’s fur was a bright orange, with black highlights. He had a spear strapped to his back, as well as a stone knife strapped to his right leg.
He turned to face Sadira, cat-eyes narrowing. That gesture meant he was focusing on her. “Sadir.” He said, voice guttural. “What brings you here?” The pause between words was long, but not painfully so.
“You are making progress.” Sadira said, nodding, words still deliberate. “I wish that I could see you learn more.”
Ranakh cocked his head slightly-a gesture that he had picked up from her and the other Humans that he had interacted with. “You can not?” He asked.
Crap. Sadira thought. I had meant to break that news more... Tactfully. “I’m going away, Ranakh.” She said, voice sorrowful, the contraction ‘I’m’ slipping out before she thought better of it.
“Away where?” the native replied.
“You know, or have guessed where we are from, have you not, Ranakh?”
He nodded. “The sky. You are gods.”
Sadira didn’t like the Warden’s conception of the Corpsmen as gods, but the reality might do more harm to their culture than this misconception. “Yes. And do you see the stars in the heavens?”
“No-it is day.” Ranakh replied, body language indicating confusion.
Sadira shook her head. “I am sorry-do you know the stars of the heavens?”
“Of course.” Now Ranakh seemed confused that she was asking something so obvious-this was not going over well.
“Each of those stars is like a second sun, Ranakh.” She said. “Many of them have worlds like this one on them. We live on some of those.”
Ranakh nodded. “Like towns.”
She smiled, being careful to do it with her mouth closed-baring teeth was a vicious gesture among Ranakh’s people. “Yes, but much larger. And just as villages have messengers that go between them, we have ships that keep us safe as we journey between them.”
“What is ‘ships’?” Ranakh asked, confused once again. She was getting too technical.
“Never mind. But like villages, sometimes we fight each other. I’ve been called away to fight there, Ranakh.”
The fur around his eyes creased-their equivalent of a smile. She didn’t mistake it for a tender gesture though.
“You wished to be a god who fights.” He said. “This is good for you.” He had a vocabulary of only a few hundred words, and had to struggle to get his point across sometimes.
“War is never good, Ranakh.” Sadira said, bitterness slipping into her voice, remembering the months her father’s arm had spent healing, and the years it had taken after that for the prosthetic to fully integrate into his system.
“What is it like for you?” He asked, pressing the subject, eyes shining with eagerness. “What is it like when the gods fight in the sky?”
She shook her head. “We have weapons that split the sky, Ranakh. They can eat worlds, and kill more of us in one use than you could ever meet.” Visions of the fall of Raven, back in 4 YR swam through her mind. Admiral Killian Hazzard had bombarded the planet with Kinetic Kill Vehicles for days, before it became obvious that the planet’s defensive facilities were hardened enough to withstand the bombardment indefinitely-and he had already destroyed the civilian centers. That was right before he had deployed an antimatter loom, and while he had been one of the more merciful users of that particular technology-the planet had still been there when he was done, after all-the insurgent facilities had all been reduced to a soup of subatomic particles.
Ranakh made a noise, vaguely like purring, that she had learned indicated... Something rather like purring. “I would see these used.”
She smiled. “And that is why you do not have them. But there are other matters to discuss-namely a friend of mine. Yoshua, come forward.” She had informed Josh of the manner in which she intended to adapt his name to fit the native’s linguistic structure-she just hoped that he remembered it.
“This is Yoshua.” She said, saying the name so slowly that it sounded comical to her, as Josh’s head and hands appeared a dozen or so feet away. Ranakh barely stirred at this occurrence-he was used to it by now.
“I. Am. Josh.” He announced, and Sadira smiled-he had easily let ten seconds pass between each word.
“Yoshua here will be replacing me-and, if possible, should spend some time with your people as you allowed me to do.”
Ranakh made a gesture equivalent to a frown. “That will probably not be possible. There have been... Whispers in us of late. There is a group that is calling for driving away the gods-though I know not how this is to be done.”
Chills ran up her spine, along with a single word, from a half-forgotten history lesson. Montezuma.
“That will end badly for them.” She whispered.
Ranakh nodded. “But they do not know you like I do.”
“Stay safe, Ranakh.” She said. Then, for no real reason she could determine, she repeated something else from her childhood. “Fee amaan Allah.”
Ranakh cocked his head. “What is that?”
“Nothing.” She replied, perhaps too curtly. “A... Silly gesture. It means ‘In the protection of Allah.’”
“Who is Allah?” That was the only really possible answer he could offer, after all.
“He doesn’t exist, Ranakh. He’s a silly story that someone made up long ago to explain things.”
He purred in a way that she had learned indicated assent. “I see. But let me give to you a...” He was clearly struggling for words. “Thing of parting.” He finally said. Sadira could only assume that it was customary to give a gift to a friend who was going away among their culture.
He drew a stone knife, and pressed it into her hands. “Kill a god for me.” He whispered, and she wasn’t quite sure if he was attempting to be humorous.
She decided to assume he was, and smiled back. On a whim, she drew one of her own, and returned the gesture.
“Sadira...” Josh said, voice tense. “That’s against policy.”
“Shut up.” She said, glancing to him for a moment, then back to Ranakh. Stone for Carbon nanotubes-a perfect summary of this world.
“Goodbye, Ranakh.” She said, as she turned to leave. It felt forced-hell, it was forced-but it was easiest that way. She would leave Josh with Ranakh, even if it wasn’t long-term, as the two would have to get to know each other if they were to work together.
She’d take the next supply tug from the Brilliance back to the Depot-it was leaving in a few hours, but the one after it wouldn’t be for another few months. The Recruiter had been very persuasive though-by which she meant that she had been cajoled, bribed, and threatened, in exactly that order.
She didn’t understand why-there seemed to be no reason that she would be special to him-but the factor that had finally convinced her still held. If someone was willing to go to lengths that great to get her onboard with a project, she was sure as hell going to find out why.
Sadira loved this world. Antaria was, in a way, Earth, five thousand years ago. It was, as some of her Corpmates said, a way to ‘Connect with your inner monkey’.
Of course, if she was a monkey, she was a strange one. While her clothing was unimpressive at first glance, it was made of resilient carbon nanostructures, and coated in a metamaterial that refracted visible-spectrum light away from it, making her close to invisible. She had a set of limb power-assistance modules in her backpack, though she doubted she’d need those more than the grappling hook or laser rifle they lay beside.
No, in accordance with the Corp’s ethic, if she had to use equipment other than her knife and medkit, she was doing it wrong.
Unfortunately, she had a second set of organs tagging along with her, and, while under normal circumstances she liked this second monkey, the particulars of this situation made it... Unpleasant.
“Josh.” She whispered into her radio. “You’re straying too far off the path-you’re going to end up dangling from a trap by your leg if you head too far to the right.” Alright, maybe she used more technology than just her knife and first aid kit, but the intent was unchanged-they tried to make their technological use as unobtrusive as possible.
“Copy that, Sadira.” He said, and the tell-tale shimmer of his metamaterials cloaking began to shift off to her side. “In all fairness, it’s not like there’s actually a path here.”
That happened to be true. The Wardens ‘paths’ were more ‘relatively lightly booby-trapped areas’. They were typically fifty to a hundred feet wide, not cleared, and only marked by the occasional stroke of a stone knife on a tree, sometimes years old. They didn’t think like Humans did, which is part of the reason she found them so fascinating.
She loved working with them. Their ingenuity, the simple rules that governed their society. They really did remind her of a simpler time in the world’s history, before people had gotten smart enough to screw it up in a major way. Sure, the natives were nasty at times-the females, while the males equals as hunters and warriors, were expected to be ‘available’ for the males at all times. They had an unpleasant habit of killing all males and children of other tribes that they could get away with. One of the more widespread belief systems required the periodic sacrifice of their own young.
In short, Sadira’s own brand of monkey still had a half-dozen atrocities on them-Racism, genocide, and the Process all came to mind. These natives were, culturally, children. Like a child, you could love them even while they broke the rules.
Something moved in the trees-a flash of orange. Ranakh had found them.
“Stop.” She whispered into her mic. “We’re there.”
“Copy.” Josh said, voice tense.
Josh wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t a bad corpsman-but he also hadn’t worked with the natives anywhere near as much as Sadira had. In fairness, no-one was her equal in knowledge of the natives, but Josh barely had a hundred hours of interaction logged. That was nothing-no-one would claim that you could understand a planet’s culture after a week-long vacation on it, and those were all composed of humans.
Sadira straightened, pulled off her gloves and hood, tied her jacket around her waist, and stretched her arms out. The metamaterials couldn’t be disabled-that was something like disabling the color green-but if you creased them, they refracted poorly. It was bizarre-if you did it right, instead of being more or less a floating head and pair of hands, you were a vague outline of a person, complete with highly disconcerting creases in visible light.
“Ranakh!” She shouted, voice carrying clearly in the jungle. “I am here.” She sounded so portentous talking like that, but, unfortunately, Ranakh still had a rudimentary command of English.
The native-the really needed a better name for them than that-literally dropped from the trees above her. Ranakh’s fur was a bright orange, with black highlights. He had a spear strapped to his back, as well as a stone knife strapped to his right leg.
He turned to face Sadira, cat-eyes narrowing. That gesture meant he was focusing on her. “Sadir.” He said, voice guttural. “What brings you here?” The pause between words was long, but not painfully so.
“You are making progress.” Sadira said, nodding, words still deliberate. “I wish that I could see you learn more.”
Ranakh cocked his head slightly-a gesture that he had picked up from her and the other Humans that he had interacted with. “You can not?” He asked.
Crap. Sadira thought. I had meant to break that news more... Tactfully. “I’m going away, Ranakh.” She said, voice sorrowful, the contraction ‘I’m’ slipping out before she thought better of it.
“Away where?” the native replied.
“You know, or have guessed where we are from, have you not, Ranakh?”
He nodded. “The sky. You are gods.”
Sadira didn’t like the Warden’s conception of the Corpsmen as gods, but the reality might do more harm to their culture than this misconception. “Yes. And do you see the stars in the heavens?”
“No-it is day.” Ranakh replied, body language indicating confusion.
Sadira shook her head. “I am sorry-do you know the stars of the heavens?”
“Of course.” Now Ranakh seemed confused that she was asking something so obvious-this was not going over well.
“Each of those stars is like a second sun, Ranakh.” She said. “Many of them have worlds like this one on them. We live on some of those.”
Ranakh nodded. “Like towns.”
She smiled, being careful to do it with her mouth closed-baring teeth was a vicious gesture among Ranakh’s people. “Yes, but much larger. And just as villages have messengers that go between them, we have ships that keep us safe as we journey between them.”
“What is ‘ships’?” Ranakh asked, confused once again. She was getting too technical.
“Never mind. But like villages, sometimes we fight each other. I’ve been called away to fight there, Ranakh.”
The fur around his eyes creased-their equivalent of a smile. She didn’t mistake it for a tender gesture though.
“You wished to be a god who fights.” He said. “This is good for you.” He had a vocabulary of only a few hundred words, and had to struggle to get his point across sometimes.
“War is never good, Ranakh.” Sadira said, bitterness slipping into her voice, remembering the months her father’s arm had spent healing, and the years it had taken after that for the prosthetic to fully integrate into his system.
“What is it like for you?” He asked, pressing the subject, eyes shining with eagerness. “What is it like when the gods fight in the sky?”
She shook her head. “We have weapons that split the sky, Ranakh. They can eat worlds, and kill more of us in one use than you could ever meet.” Visions of the fall of Raven, back in 4 YR swam through her mind. Admiral Killian Hazzard had bombarded the planet with Kinetic Kill Vehicles for days, before it became obvious that the planet’s defensive facilities were hardened enough to withstand the bombardment indefinitely-and he had already destroyed the civilian centers. That was right before he had deployed an antimatter loom, and while he had been one of the more merciful users of that particular technology-the planet had still been there when he was done, after all-the insurgent facilities had all been reduced to a soup of subatomic particles.
Ranakh made a noise, vaguely like purring, that she had learned indicated... Something rather like purring. “I would see these used.”
She smiled. “And that is why you do not have them. But there are other matters to discuss-namely a friend of mine. Yoshua, come forward.” She had informed Josh of the manner in which she intended to adapt his name to fit the native’s linguistic structure-she just hoped that he remembered it.
“This is Yoshua.” She said, saying the name so slowly that it sounded comical to her, as Josh’s head and hands appeared a dozen or so feet away. Ranakh barely stirred at this occurrence-he was used to it by now.
“I. Am. Josh.” He announced, and Sadira smiled-he had easily let ten seconds pass between each word.
“Yoshua here will be replacing me-and, if possible, should spend some time with your people as you allowed me to do.”
Ranakh made a gesture equivalent to a frown. “That will probably not be possible. There have been... Whispers in us of late. There is a group that is calling for driving away the gods-though I know not how this is to be done.”
Chills ran up her spine, along with a single word, from a half-forgotten history lesson. Montezuma.
“That will end badly for them.” She whispered.
Ranakh nodded. “But they do not know you like I do.”
“Stay safe, Ranakh.” She said. Then, for no real reason she could determine, she repeated something else from her childhood. “Fee amaan Allah.”
Ranakh cocked his head. “What is that?”
“Nothing.” She replied, perhaps too curtly. “A... Silly gesture. It means ‘In the protection of Allah.’”
“Who is Allah?” That was the only really possible answer he could offer, after all.
“He doesn’t exist, Ranakh. He’s a silly story that someone made up long ago to explain things.”
He purred in a way that she had learned indicated assent. “I see. But let me give to you a...” He was clearly struggling for words. “Thing of parting.” He finally said. Sadira could only assume that it was customary to give a gift to a friend who was going away among their culture.
He drew a stone knife, and pressed it into her hands. “Kill a god for me.” He whispered, and she wasn’t quite sure if he was attempting to be humorous.
She decided to assume he was, and smiled back. On a whim, she drew one of her own, and returned the gesture.
“Sadira...” Josh said, voice tense. “That’s against policy.”
“Shut up.” She said, glancing to him for a moment, then back to Ranakh. Stone for Carbon nanotubes-a perfect summary of this world.
“Goodbye, Ranakh.” She said, as she turned to leave. It felt forced-hell, it was forced-but it was easiest that way. She would leave Josh with Ranakh, even if it wasn’t long-term, as the two would have to get to know each other if they were to work together.
She’d take the next supply tug from the Brilliance back to the Depot-it was leaving in a few hours, but the one after it wouldn’t be for another few months. The Recruiter had been very persuasive though-by which she meant that she had been cajoled, bribed, and threatened, in exactly that order.
She didn’t understand why-there seemed to be no reason that she would be special to him-but the factor that had finally convinced her still held. If someone was willing to go to lengths that great to get her onboard with a project, she was sure as hell going to find out why.