Memory Transcription Subject: Deputy Security Director Garruga, Seaglass Mineral Concern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 27, 2137

  I groaned as morning light peeked in from behind the shades and woke me. I felt dehydrated again, probably a symptom of all the blood and bone I was regrowing, and drinking that snowberry pomace brandy with the two doctors hadn’t helped. Fortunately, I was far larger than the both of them put together, so splitting the bottle three ways hadn’t been too deleterious for me, but the other two were…

  I tried to move, and realized I couldn’t without crushing the Nevok and the Zurulian, sleeping soundly, curled up next to me for warmth. The Mazic-sized hospital bed barely had extra room with a Yulpa sleeping on it, but the two doctors had taken what space they could. Doctor Wylla was large enough that she should have moved, but I guess the other bed still smelled like Arxur.

  Nevertheless. I had to pee again. I tried wiggling my legs--maybe they were healed enough already to support my weight?--but no, they didn’t seem to really like that. Dammit. I still needed help for this, and that burly Arxur Kloviss wasn’t in yet. What time even was it? The sun was up, but I suspected only barely. What about that Takkan nightshift orderly…?

  “No, wait, come back,” I croaked out softly as he snuck out the back door. Was his fucking shift over, or was he just--

  The front door swung open, and an Arxur walked in. I blinked in the dim light, trying to identify which. Identifying specific Arxur was not a skill I’d ever needed before. Smaller than Kloviss, scarred like Kitzz, but only on the… forearms…

  “You!” I tried to shout, but with my dry mouth, it came out like a whisper or a croak.

  Sifal, the Arxur commander, gave a half-hearted wave. “Me,” she confirmed. “Doing alright, huntress?”

  “I’m not--” I began, but I started choking on nothing in particular. Sifal found one of the undiscarded cups near me, rinsed it out, and filled it with water. She held it out to me for a moment. What was I supposed to do, pick it up with my hooves? In casts? Her eyes flicked down at my broken forelegs, and… I guess she drew the same conclusion? She held the cup of water closer to my face. For a brief moment, I was tempted to bite her hand, but… I really needed the water. I lapped it up greedily.

  “Better?” asked Sifal. She seemed tired. She smelled weird?

  “Why?” I said, squinting suspiciously.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sifal muttered irritably. Her eyes seemed bloodshot and baggy. I didn’t even realize scales could get baggy. “If I wanted to eat you, who exactly is going to stop me? The passed-out Nevok, or the passed-out Zurulian? Just… fucking stop.”

  I winced. I didn’t believe her, but she was right. I wasn’t in any position to negotiate. Just beg, at best. “Fine. I have to use the bathroom. I can’t walk, though, because you assholes shot my legs to pieces. Kloviss helped me the last time. Can you?”

  Sifal blinked. She looked at me, then the bathroom, then back to me. Then… the bed? “Yeah, probably?” she said. “Hang on, one sec.” She started fiddling with the settings on the hospital bed and found the brake disengage switch in short order. Unlike Kloviss, who’d just carried me to the restroom like a foal, Sifal used the wheels and started rolling the entire bed closer to the bathroom door. ‘Work smarter, not harder’ was an inane adage I’d heard out of Debbin more than once, but here we were.

  “Hmgh,” said Doctor Wylla, opening her eyes. “Eugh. The world is spinning. Why did I…” Her eyes widened, and she took a big breath to scream.

  Sifal had a hand over her mouth with the speed of a pouncing… well, Arxur. “No,” Sifal said. “Stop. You’re perfectly safe. I’m helping Garruga use the bathroom. Then I need to talk to a doctor. Can you compose yourself?”

  Tika stirred, subtly, at the noise and movement, and began to wake as well.

  Wylla nodded frantically. Sifal stared at her in suspicion and disbelief. Wylla closed her eyes and took several deep breaths through her nose, then nodded again more calmly.

  “Okay,” said Sifal. “I’m going to take my hand off of your mouth now so I can help your friend.” She paused for a long moment, considering. “Debbin and Benwen seem to manage some measure of courage and professionalism in the face of the Arxur. Is courage a male-specific trait among Nevoks?”

  Wylla’s eyes widened in outrage. Tika started cackling, then coughing. “Ow, it hurts to laugh,” said the little Zurulian. “Masterfully done, Sifal. Get her too offended to be scared. Clever. Sorry, may I call you by your given name, actually, or…?”

  “Of course,” said Sifal, taking her hands off of Wylla. “I’m Commander to my military subordinates, Madame Executive to my civilian subordinates, and Sifal to my friends and acquaintances when we’re not on duty. Rules as normal, in other words, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Her mouth newly freed, Wylla glared at Sifal, but she was clearly too provoked now to flee. “I’m going to make a pot of tea, and then use the restroom myself once Garruga is done, Madame Executive,” she said with the acerbic tone of someone who didn’t consider Sifal a friend. …Did I? No, of course not! No, no, the real question was whether I, as Second-in-Command of Security, was a military or civilian subordinate.

  “Sounds good,” said Sifal, tiredly. She moved to the far side of the bed, lowered the little safety rails that prevented patients from falling off, and started bracing herself for what was, presumably, a far more difficult feat of strength for her than it was for Kloviss.

  My eyes narrowed. “Why are you in charge if Kloviss is stronger?”

  For the briefest moment, Sifal flinched. Had I hit a nerve, somehow? “Why do the Yulpas, one of the strongest and most ferocious species in the Federation, let a flock of frail little bluebirds like the Krakotl run the Federation’s military?” she growled.

  My head reared back by reflex. “They’re an elder race,” I said, repeating the party line. “Nearly as old as the Federation Founders. Some small deference to their wisdom isn’t uncalled for.”

  Sifal snorted derisively. “The Krakotl are nothing without their fleet, and they’re barely anything then. They lost so badly at the Battle of Earth that their entire society collapsed into civil war and chaos.”

  My ears pinned back in rage. “That was your doing! The humans would have been exterminated if the Arxur hadn’t intervened!”

  “One Chief Hunter intervened,” said Sifal, stoically. Her eyes were tired and bleary. “One. Did you have a plan for two, or…?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “The Yulpas weren’t even in the anti-human Extermination fleet!” I growled. “We wanted them alive so we could sacrifice them!”

  Sifal looked askance at me. “You wanted to hunt people for sport and then torture them to death?” she asked, incredulously. “Honestly, why have our species never hung out before? We have so much in common!”

  I felt the rage in my heart burning bright. How dare she compare what we Yulpas did in service of the herd and the Spirit of Life to the Arxur’s brutal perversions of the natural order! “Predators aren’t people!” I growled.

  Sifal did a double-take. “Holy shit,” she said breathlessly. “I think I’ve had this exact conversation before with a human. Hang on. Let me see if I can remember his lines.” She cleared her throat. “That’s our favorite lie we tell ourselves. Those people over there? They don’t really count as people. It’s okay to hunt them.” She grinned. “Okay, now you keep doing the Arxur parts of the skit.”

  What the fuck was she talking about? “Stop calling it hunting!” I spat. “It’s not hunting when we do it!”

  Sifal grinned even wider. “Yes, yes, you’re doing great! Ahem. ‘That’s our second-favorite lie we tell ourselves, that it’s different when we do it.’” She nodded excitedly. Was this a fucking game to her? “Okay, now you gotta do the last part. Try blaming the Arxur for your actions.”

  “What the fuck? It is your fault!” I sputtered. “If Predators like you weren’t constantly perverting the natural order, if you just ate plants like normal people, we wouldn’t have to sacrifice you!”

  Sifal stared at me expectantly. She made a quick little gesture with her hand, like she wanted more. “You could always just, you know, not do that?” she said. “It’s not really a choice on our end. Our diet requires meat to live. Doesn’t have to be people meat, and we’ve been working on that, but we still need meat. You, on the other hand, don’t really need to hunt down predators and sacrifice them. You could choose not to. The world would keep turning.”

  My eyes twitched in incandescent rage. “The… the fully demonic entities called predators. The ones who are actively killing and eating us. You think we should just, what, politely ignore them!?” My voice had started soft, but I was shouting now. “Predators need to be killed! They need to be cleansed, their sin and blight scrubbed clean from the galaxy! No, we don’t have a fucking choice!”

  My throat was raw from the force of my roar. My voice was hoarse. I was panting and working up a lather. I glared at Sifal. Just standing there. Being reasonable. Acting like she was people. Acting like we had anything in common at all. Why? Just to mock me? To make me look like the crazy one? What did she expect me to do, politely debate her? ‘Oh, yes, Sifal. I see your point now. Murdering animals and people, gorging on their still-warm chunks of flesh and organs, this is just a perfectly-sensible alternative lifestyle choice. It isn’t a perversion of the natural order. Meting out divine punishment and cleansing your sin from the world, why that’s just as bad as sinning in the first place! Murder and executions are the same thing!’ Bah! It was nonsense! It was absurd, stupid, twisted, fucking NONSENSE! And for what? What was Sifal hoping to accomplish here? What the fuck did she even want? WHY WAS SHE STARING AT ME AND SMILING!?

  Sifal… hugged me. Patted my mane. What the fuck?! She almost seemed proud of me! “And that’s the third lie we tell ourselves. We have no choice, there is no other way. There are always choices, there are always other ways. You said it yourself. Kloviss helped you the other day. Spent the whole afternoon here with you, by the sound of it, and nobody died. He even passed an empathy test. You didn’t have to kill him. Everything was fine. The world kept turning.”

  The fire of rage petered out. My eyes started tearing up. I was shaking like I had a fever. I felt lost. For the first time in my life, I think I truly didn’t know what to do. None of my experiences, none of my peoples’ teachings, ever prepared me for this. My heart was racing. I didn’t understand at all. Sifal felt so warm. Nothing that was happening was possible. I needed advice. I needed guidance. Fuck, I needed a priest, at this rate. Did the colony even have a chaplain of any denomination? I’d barely woken up, and I already felt like I wanted to fall back asleep from exhaustion.

  There was a conspicuously loud slurping noise behind me. I rolled my head slightly to get at least one eye on them. Doctor Wylla was holding a cup of tea and tapping her hoof impatiently. “Either use the restroom already, or quit blocking the fucking door.”

  “Oh. Right, sorry,” said Sifal, embarrassed by her own forgetfulness. She shifted her stance and how her arms were wrapped around me, and with a grunt of extreme effort, managed to hoist me out of the bed and set me down gently a few paces away by the toilet. By the time I’d finished, she’d figured out how to lower the bed as well, minimizing the height she’d have to lift me to put me back in. She half carried, half rolled me back onto the bed, and put it back in its usual spot with its usual settings. Brakes on, guardrail up, normal height. Like a tiny prison for invalids. Glorious. Doctor Wylla scurried into the restroom, and two more Nevoks scurried in through the front door.

  Executive Debbin--I guess he was Chairman Debbin, now--looked tired, and had a black eye. Had he been assaulted?! His assistant, Benwen, looked fine, but visibly sick to his stomach. Sifal took a seat next to them, establishing something of a patient intake area as Doctors Wylla and Tika wrapped up in the restroom, and washed their paws.

  “Alright, Debbin, what happened to your eye?” asked Wylla, tiredly.

  “I misunderstood the situation,” he said stiffly. “I was ungentlemanly. Laza was, if anything, rather generous and merciful given the circumstances.”

  Wylla blinked. “I’m sorry, an Arxur hit you?!”

  “No comment,” Debbin muttered. “It was my bad. Just treat it.”

  “And you, Benwen?” she asked.

  Benwen looked like he wanted to throw up. “I accidentally ate meat,” he said miserably.

  “Accidentally!?” Wylla sputtered.

  “I was watching movies with Zillis,” said the younger Nevok. “I got the snack bags mixed up. I ate a pork rind.” He looked up at Wylla with wide eyes. “Am I going to die?” he whimpered.

  I grimaced. That sounded horrible! But Tika only laughed again, and poured herself some tea from the pot. Wylla shook her head, but I could tell that she was trying her hardest not to laugh, either. Why weren’t they taking the matter seriously? They had that much faith in Tika’s research on predatory contamination? “Probably not, but we can run some tests. And you, Madame Executive? What’s the problem?”

  Debbin did a double-take. “...I don't get a ‘Mister Executive’?” he mumbled, confused and hurt.

  “Ancestors spare me, Debbin, we are on a very first-name basis,” Wylla said. I had never seen her smoke, and yet she looked like she desperately wanted a cigarette. “Now again, tall lady with the teeth, what's your medical issue?”

  “Poison,” Sifal said, eyeing up the teapot with the most hunger I’d ever seen on her face. “Recreational and self-inflicted, but poison nonetheless.”

  Debbin’s nose rankled as he caught wind of the odd scent from the Arxur. Worse, he seemed to recognize it. “Ancestors spare me. Are you kidding me, Sifal? Really?!”

  Sifal blinked, startled. “What?”

  “You think I can’t smell her on you?” Debbin said. “You didn’t even shower before coming here!”

  Sifal shook her head, wide-eyed. “I thought I was poisoned!” she protested. “I came straight to the infirmary after I woke back up! What, you wanted me to head back to my quarters and freshen up first, maybe risk passing out and dying in the bath or something?!”

  “I would have preferred if you hadn’t fucked Vivy in the first place!” Debbin shouted.

  Benwen stood up immediately in a rage and rounded on Sifal like the little PD patient was going to fight her. “You slept with Debbin’s wife!?”

  Wylla put a paw over her mouth to hide how much she was struggling not to laugh. Debbin put a paw over his face in exasperation. “No… kid, where do I even start…” he groaned.