An Ape Out Of Place 12
AOOP BONUS STORIES:
- The Spirit Of Hunters Past(Finished)
- New Exterminator On The Block
Memory Transcription Subject : Beau Hunter - Farsul Rescue : Date : Reclaimed Terran Time : May 13th, 2936
Space travel, as it turns out, was quite a terrifying experience. Especially at the exact moment when a ship first hits the atmosphere at a few thousand kilometers a second.
Me and Anna were quietly watching the Earth get closer and closer from the forward observation port of the ship, located directly below the ship's bridge. What me and Anna however were not expecting was the window we were looking through to suddenly catch fire before our very eyes.
I quickly became cognizant of how unbelievably high up we were now that there was a ground available for us to crash into, and also how unbelievably deadly the nothingness around us could be if the ship broke open on approach to our home.
I swear I nearly soiled my new underwear then and there, as the flighty aliens had to assure both me and Anna that the ship was in fact not on fire, and that this "atmospheric breaking” was in fact common practice amongst starships returning to a planetary atmosphere.
Afterwards I found myself to finally be experiencing the appropriate level of appreciation for the engineering that had gone into the ship I had spent the last couple of days on. Back in my day the largest thing humanity could put into space was barely larger than a god damn truck, but this behemoth of a ship, the size of a sea based cargo vessel, was currently descending into the earth's atmosphere, and was apparently going to take off again. I asked what kind of rocket fuel this ship ran on, and Aiko merely let out a little giggle.
As the earth grew closer, and I began to recognize the familiar continents from a perspective I would have only otherwise been able to garner from a map or globe, I honed in on where we were heading. We were coming in over the states, or at least what used to be the states, now apparently just referred to as the North American continent.
We looked to be landing somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico as far as I could tell and when asked Aiko just said we were heading to a research town by the name of Flaghill.
After the ship set down on this massive concrete plinth on this massive airfield…spacefield? Our group was scheduled to be some of the last people off the ship. Apparently some complications had come up, and the people at the space port terminal needed some more time to prepare for us. I rubbed at the metal of my collar ponderously as I questioned what exactly their worryingly vague declaration of ‘preparing for us’ could entail.
Daisy eventually got a radio letter from her holopad and we began to make our way out of the ship.
Before we had even made our way to the cargo bay, we were hit by the combined smell of engine oil, something like burnt toast and finally fresh mountain air. Distinct from the pristine hospital like scent of the ship.
As we walked down the massive ramp of the ship onto the landing pad, I really began to take in the scale of some of the ships that we had landed amongst. I stood there mouth agape, as I took in the sight of the multiple building sized behemoths we were surrounded with.
“I can hardly believe these things can even get off the ground!” Anna commented from beside me.
“I can't believe that there's even a ship left after all those flames we flew through on the way down.” I added.
Aiko sidled up next to me. “Yeh they really are quite impressive when you actually take the time to appreciate them.”
Dr.Bilnen from Anna’s side stood up on his hind paws and turned around, pointing out a feature on our own ship that we had missed while checking out the vessels surrounding us. “Check out that spot Aiko” He gestured with a paw. “That's probably what caused that massive jolt during the battle of Talsk.”
Aiko's head turned to see what he was talking about, and she shuttered in response. “Jesus Christ!" She yelped with a gasp and a shutter. “That's huge.” She spoke in reference to the massive burnt out blast crater pot marking the ship's hull.
“What caused that?” Anna asked. “What jolt?”
“Our vessel was the fleet's command ship.” Dr.Bilnen began to explain. “In reclamation alliance military tactics, all manned vessels are supposed to stay out of combat range when we send in the…. unmanned automated combat space ships to fight, or drones as we call them. The drones are supposed to take all the casualties, but the farsul and kolshian defenders of Talsk must have wanted to take out some revenge on our manned ships. Our command vessel was supposed to be the most protected one in the fleet, but I guess a shot got through, and it really rattled us during the battle.”
“It was really scary," Aiko added, her expression going wide-eyed as if she was back in that moment. “The lights went all flickery for a few moments, and everyone in the ship’s bunker started to scream, I think it's the closest I’ve ever been to stampeding.” She added shakily.
“The ship’s hull was thick enough to keep us safe.” Dr.Bilnen spoke, as he reached out to hold Aiko’s hand in comfort.
“It almost wasn’t,” A gruff and low voice suddenly called out from behind us. They were speaking english or human now I guess. I turned to look at who it was, expecting another thawed human, possibly from one of the other ships carrying archives rescues.
Instead what I was greeted by was actually one of the cured humans. This one was an older looking man, dressed in the standard U.E military uniform but covered in a number of pins and medals, hinting at a distinguished career. His stoic aura was helped along by a large scar running down his left cheek, breaking up the greying stubble framing his elongated face.
“The attack drone that hit us was under stealth when it approached, sensors caught it almost too late, if we had been any later to turn into a proper attack angle, it wouldn’t have just pinged off the hull but punched straight through and knocked out life support.”
He pointed a line across the ship's hull to the crater as if to emphasize.
“Damn thing hit us at a bad angle, pinged right off, a few meters to the left and it would have hit the hull flat, and penetrated straight through. Damn lucky we are.” He said with a chuckle,
“Captain!” Daisy shouted out, standing up straight and saluting the man.
“At ease Exterminator" He barked in return. Before holding out a hand towards me and Anna, as Daisy relaxed her posture.
“Misses Schoen, Mister…. Hunter ” He spoke my last name with a light chuckle. “Its a pleasure to meet you both and I must say, Hunter? Bit on the nose don’t you think.” Continuing to smirk at me as he shook both me and Anna’s hand.
“It's the name my pappy gave me.” I replied. “Very subtle I know ha ha, Though I can’t really say I’d have ever expected it to ever be such a point of contention though mister?"
“Cutter, Captain Shaun cutter.” He spoke with a quick salute.
“A pleasure to meet you sir.” Anna thanked the man. “I am quite grateful you rescued us, and my friend, even if it was a bit late for her.”
The man removed his captain's hat and placed it to his chest, and bowed in respect towards Anna. “If I could have, I would have stormed the archives myself with just a pressure suit and a service pistol mam, I’m sorry it took us so long.”
“It's… alright.” She replied quietly. “That's how it happened, that's how it is.”
I placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder in a show of solidarity.
“You have my deepest of condolences for what has happened to you both, you especially though Mr.Hunter, I have ten kids between three wives, and I love each and every one of them to death. I would lose it if I lost a single one of them, and I’d mangle anyone who so much as thought to lay a hand on them.
**“**That sounds a bit err… predatory aggressive for a cured human to say.” I replied somewhat curiously.
“Ah that? Well lets just say that at my rank you can get away with a bit of… predatory behavior from time to time." He spoke cryptically in response before continuing. “I must say though while I have always fought for a better future for my family, I never really thought much about what would happen if I died or disappeared, what kind of effect it might have on the people I love, or at least I didn’t until I got this little beauty.” He said whilst pointing to a metal tube on the front of his neck that seemed to replace his larynx. A scar leading up to it hinting at how he got it.
”Oh wow, that's an interesting prosthetic you have there.” Anna commented curiously. “Your trauma care must be quite advanced to even survive the initial injury long enough to even get it, I take it must also be why your voice is so uncharacteristically deep compared to the rest of the cured humans, yes?” Anna commented.
”Very astute ancestor.” The captain spoke with a grin. “Yeh I actually had an offer to even get a new larynx cloned, but I ended up liking the sound of my new voice. I think it gives me an air of authority." He spoke with a chuckle. “And I didn't know it at the time, but it brought my voice closer towards the baseline of an original human.”
”How did you get it?” I asked. “If it's not too harsh a memory.” I quickly followed up, not quite sure how far this captain seemed to stray from the cured human baseline I had observed.
”I don’t mind telling, I used to get asked a lot more before I became a captain. Now everyone I meet seems to remember it better than I do ha ha, now let me think for a moment, where to begin…….”
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Memory Transcription Subject : Sergeant Shaun Cutter - United Earth Military : Date : Reclaimed Terran Time : November 7th, 2907 - Fifteen days into the Siege of Wriss.
The screams of bombs, strato drones and my own men rang out across the bombed out battle field. Accompanied by the rhythmic pulses of hydraulics as the land ship stomped its way through bombed out craters to our objective.
I stood there, coffee mug in hand as the Harchen made land ship crested the lip of a particularly large crater, the sensor officer's eyes lit up in recognition, and he quickly zoomed in the front camera to get a better look at our target.
“Objective in sight sir, defenses still active, multiple batteries and orbital defense cannons present. Multiple hostiles detected manning the walls.” The officer spoke as he tapped on the display showing the heat map of the cattle farm turned fortress, greys manning every square centimeter of its walls.
“About darn time.” I muttered out. I pointed to the comms tech. “Get the XO up here, and hail the rest of the convoy, target sighted, fan out and encircle. Keep the dossur platforms as a rearguard, they will stay put as a fast response element for when something goes wrong.”
“Got it sir” the woman said with a nod. Her determined expression barely lit up by the blue display lights of the cramped command pod.”
XO Berkeley was quick to barge into the command cabin as I finished downing my mug of coffee.
“Status report” I blurted out, slamming the metal mug down on the console, before gesturing to the room.
“Land ships holding together sir.” Engineer Lopez shouted out. “Port hydraulics got a minor leak but weapons and shield grids are all reading as fully operational."
“And the men?” I shot a sideways glance towards the XO.
“Thirteen criers and only five fainters Sir.”
“Wonderful! We got a brave lot today!”
When the briefing finished the XO ran back out the door and towards the troop bay to get everyone ready to move out for our mission.
As of now, Everything in this region that wasn't a cattle farm or cattle farm adjacent was either now a crater or a pre-crater, all in the service of an established strategy for getting as many cattle farm victims off world whilst having to deal with as few arxur ground forces as possible. However, as our campaign had taken us further and further into the heart of arxur space, the greys very reasonably on their part, adjusted their defense strategy in accordance with our tactics.
They had begun fortifying the hell out of their cattle farms, using their farms stock as sapient shields. Some bases in the past had even tried to use the lives within as hostages to secure their escape, let them go or they would kill all their stock they would threaten, not that we'd ever negotiate, they would eat them anyways, if not them then someone else later. The play now as a result, was to go in hard and fast before they could act on any of those threats.
I leaned forward, grabbing onto a handle bar as I watched over the pilots shoulder as our land ship approached the cattle farm. Streams of plasma flew both ways as we trudged closer and closer.
I found myself almost mesmerized by the glittering pulses of incoming plasma shot, as they flickered harmlessly against our shields, the arxur lacked the logistical capacity this late into the war to field any ground based artillery capable of harming our walkers shields, The only threat to this hunk that we really had left to worry about was….
BOOM
BANG
SNAP
A sickening metallic groan roared out throughout the land ship's superstructure.
Mines.
“Status!”
”Left forward leg is down and dragging, conditions too muddy for combat speed!”
“Set us down and call in a mine sweeping team” I loudly ordered. ”Keep firing on the farm’s defenses, the second their perimeter defenses are down, we will disembark and follow in the dossur weapons platforms on foot.”
But before the crew could even respond to my new orders the ship’s status lights began flashing red.
“Explosive detected on the hull”
Shit.
“Prepare for borders!”
Bang
The intruder alarms went off instantly as yet another explosive rocked the hull. I looked over to the security feeds as the display flashed white. The arxur had thrown in a room clearing explosive and were charging in after it. I didn't hesitate. I had barged through and locked the command pod doors before anyone could question me. Locking everyone the operation would need to continue inside.
I moved to help cover the breach point, custom plasma pistol in hand. What men had survived had already repelled the initial wave of borders, the arxur, panicked and clearly unprepared for their own success, failed to capitalize on their surprise attack. I arrived just as my men gunned down two arxur who had foolishly peaked out from the side of the hull breach, clearly intending to hold position until their second wave was ready.
We waited for a long minute, as the arxur no doubt assembled outside. Before a loud growl roared out.
“CHARGE!!!!”
The air filled with the sound of plasma and kinetic fire again, as the attack began again in earnest. I didn't fire though, not immediately, they always sent the dregs in first, I simply turned my head, closed one eye and lined up my sights on the door. I didn't need to wait long for my intended target to arrive.
A larger, much more well fed elite unit poked its scaly snout through the breach point, eyes focused, weapon ready.
There you are… -BANG- the sound of my overtuned plasma pistol rang out across the ship, taking the greys head clean off its body.
The crew continued to fire.
The private in front of me’s mag went dry while the bodies of our opponents were beginning to pile up, serving as cover for the next wave of arxur, I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back, “fall back to the next bulkhead!” I yelled whilst lining up another arxur. -Bang- then another -Bang-, I grabbed a stumbling lieutenant, “Keep going!” I roared, covering my men's retreat. -Bang-Bang-Bang- three shots, each trigger pull well aimed, and placed right at the base of the neck, it was a far more reliable target than the head, it swayed less as they moved.
I slowly backed up to the new firing line, taking my time, as I saw no reason to rush, these arxur had one way in, they were clearly panicked and rushing in blindly, poorly prepared for step two of their plans, the second wave was thinning out and I needed to keep composed as an example to my men.
I lined up the last big one and took my time, he was just another grey rushing in madly, 3…2…1…
BOOM
BANG
“SHIT!”.
The hull was rocked by another explosion, compromising my footing and causing my shot to go wide, and the arxur was on top of me in seconds.
I leaped back and balled up, abandoning any semblance of offense and trusting in my men, the grey first slashed at my arms, but the smart fabric in my sleeves stopped any kind of penetration, but it still hurt like hell, he slashed at my head, and managed to claw up my face.
The world went red.
Another slash, and I felt a warm wetness across my throat. All the while.
-Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang-
My crew had unleashed a rainstorm of plasma shots upon the enraged arxur, striking it what must have been at least a dozen times, before its battered form finally collapsed onto me, dead.
“Medic!” I heard a distant voice call out.
I heard shuffling around me, through the crimson and darkness.
I struggled to breathe, but the massive grey’s weight was too much, and when they finally got it off of me, I quickly discovered a new problem. I had sat up on reflex , gasping desperately for air, only to be met by blood finding its way quickly into my lungs, causing me to fruitlessly cough and hack in panic.
Wasting no time the combat medics shoved me to the ground. In my instinctive panic I shoved them right off, but luckily the crew was there to help hold me down through my flailing.
I couldn't make out what they were saying, my panicking mind wasn’t concerned with such things, merely the overbearing need to get oxygen into my lungs instead of blood.
They started shoving something into my throat. I felt cold air being forced down where it shouldn’t.
My heart was pounding so hard in my chest it felt almost deafening.
I was vaguely aware of my men charging past me, propping up their weapons on the arxur corpses between me, the medics and the breach point.
The medic grabbed my snout, turning my head and shining a light in my eye. “It's okay sergeant we got you! Just keep trying to breathe alright, don't give up!.”
Okay. Is what I wanted to say, but I couldn't form the words If I’d wanted to.
And I would never do so the same way ever again.
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Memory Transcription Subject : Beau Hunter - Farsul Rescue : Date : Reclaimed Terran Time : May 13th, 2936
“I was laid up for the rest of the ground operations after that, that arxur cut went deep, doctors told me any deeper and I might have died from the spinal injury.” The captain spoke, whilst rubbing at his metal throat.
“I had a lot of time to think then, I sat on the deck of that land ship for an hour, and in the bed of a medical frigate for days. I missed out on the rest of the ground fighting, but I couldn't help but think of anything other than my family and kids, about what would have happened had my crew not been so quick to react, or those dossur reinforcements hadn't arrived so quickly afterwards. I wasn't worried about losing my own life but... How it would affect those I cared about, the thought of depriving them of a father, of making them sad at my loss, it hurt me, and those thoughts stayed in the back of my mind for the rest of the war.” He finished off solemnly.
“Cherish every moment you have with them.” I spoke wearily. ”You never know when it could be your last chance.”
The captain simply nodded in reply, pulling out a metal tube from his hat, and placing it to his lips and letting off a puff of smoke.
Some kind of space cigarette?
“How did you dodge a screening?” Daisy asked, "After all you did in the war?” She clarified.
“Like I said, rank has its privileges” he smiled before turning his hat on his head and looking at me intently with one eye, before shaking his head.
“Listen son.” he started speaking again in between puffs. “I’m not one of those R.A folks, I’m not going to sit here and blow smoke up your ass with pleasantries and prettied up speeches. I know you're both going through your own kind of hell right now. You didn't ask for any of this, and you no doubt will have a lot on your plate to deal with going forward. But it needs to be said, humanity needs you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’ve no doubt seen how the ship's crew has reacted to you all, while yes plenty have been curious, others excited even to meet you, plenty have been afraid, depressed, and even worried. Concerned that they might have some latent predator influence buried deep inside them, that they might explode at any moment and hurt those they care about.”
“That's ridiculous!” Anna proclaimed.
“I know, but that's the truth!” The captain shot back.“ And that's just been the response of my crew alone, a crew mind you, that knew about the predator reveal long before anyone else, most of the planet right now doesn't know about even half the stuff they did, hell most of the R.A citizenry doesn't know, there are suspicions and no shortage of evidence floating around, but most people for now are happy to just write it off and dismiss such things as simple rumors spread across holonet message boards and conspiratorial blog posts. The average person just knows for certain that the Federation altered our histories, and not much more.”
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
“Billions of people across the galaxy, not even just humans, are soon going to learn that their predators, and billions more are going to learn that their herdmates and neighbors are predators as well. There is going to be chaos, stampedes, and no doubt plenty of people who might not be able to live with the news.” He spoke solemnly as he took another long puff from his cigarette.
“We can't afford to not tell them, however. Things can't carry on like they are, people deserve to know, and we need allies if we are going to end this war, or at least, people who won’t back the kolshians. And for all of this we need your help, a lot more than you need ours.”
“What do you even need from us?”
“We need you to be yourselves, to show the galaxy predators are people too, and that they're not monsters for being descended from one. I've met monsters ancestor, I’ve looked them dead in the eyes, and plenty of those eyes were located on the sides of their heads.”
He casually placed his cigarette back into the folds of his captain's hat.
“I know that may seem like a lot to put on you right now, but that’s the situation, and those are the stakes.”
“Is that it?” Anna chuckled nervously. “That doesn't sound too bad.”
“Yeh no pressure at all.” I said in a tentative joking voice.
“No big deal at all,” the captain said with a smile. ”Just be yourselves, and put up with the press for a while, that's all I ask, leave the rest up to the politicians. And while I'm sure from what you’ve heard about this planet, that it might not feel like yours anymore. I sincerely hope you can make a home here in time."
The captain began to talk about what he expected from our stay in the research town based on what he has heard so far, but was cut off by some frantic shouting from across the pad.
“Captain Cutter, Captain Cutter!“ I heard a pair of frantic exterminators shout in unison. "We need your help with…. “ Only for them to freeze, as the speakers stopped the second they got our group's attention. I'm not sure if it was me or Anna, or the captain’s gaze that got the exterminators to freeze up, as the pairs panicked gazes couldn't seem to settle on what threat they wanted to focus on more, as they glanced between me, Anna and the captain, but one of them managed to get his shit together when the captain snapped at them. “Spit it out officers!” He snapped, "What is it you need help with?”
“Uh.. uh… sorry sir, we are stationed aboard the Hope of the Herd, and we have just tried to wake up one of the human ancestors on board our ship using the notes and recordings we got from your ship, b..but when we woke them up they almost immediately flew into a rampage sir, and we cant get them to calm down! We even deployed the bloodlust countermeasures to try and calm them, but it did nothing but make them even angrier! We were hoping your crew could help us sir.”
Aiko perked up at this, Daisy tensed up, and a contemplative expression crossed Dr.Bilnen’s face. As the new officers regarded our little group.
“Well officers,” The captain said slyly, “I’d say it's fortunate that we have the planet's foremost experts on ancient human thawing standing right here with us!”
------------Lore Time!-----------
I usually don't do this, but I couldn't fit these fun little lore tidbits into the battle of Wriss flashback, so I thought I'd include them here.
You might be wondering what got into the fed species heads to give them the courage to storm the battlefields of Wriss to rescue their captured herd members. And that's an easy question to answer.
Success.
As drone warfare units transformed the reality of space combat for the federation militaries. Eventually came the realization that the arxur could be beaten, and with the capturing of the space above a number of arxur cattle colonies, the desire and confidence eventually came about to fight them on what was historically their own turf, to take the fight to the arxur on the ground.
The federation strategy was three fold.
Step one: secure planetary orbit, and achieve uncontested orbital supremacy.
Step two: bomb everything that isn't a cattle farm or holding facility to smithereens, with a combination of conventional and antimatter bombardment.
Step three: Send in the ground forces.
It should be noted that the federation military at the time and the Reclamation Alliance forces after it, essentially wage war in the most cowardly way possible, whilst accidentally channeling both the clone wars and warhammer universe in aesthetic.
The harchen designed land ships, which the captain is riding in this chapter, were essentially built with the ethos that while fed forces were decent at ship combat with the greys, they struggled at ground warfare, so naturally you must simply build a space ship but put it on the ground, problem solved!
Not mentioned here but the feds also employed a number of krakotl designed aerial combat drones, built after the initial success of their space born counterparts, these were designed to fight arxur forces on the ground, and only occasionally misidentified the walking harchen land ships as enemy arxur.
One vehicle that seldom got to participate in the battle of Wriss was the Gojid spikeback, an armored truck design, covered in ablative spike armor to prevent arxur mobbing of the vehicle, while absorbing plasma shot and rocket hits.
The reason for their lack of inclusion was that the area surrounding the cattle farm they were trying to raid was not only too fortified for the unshielded trucks to approach, but also too covered in craters for the wheeled vehicles to safely navigate without getting stuck.
Last but not least for now, we have the Dossur combat platforms. The Dossur in general in the war were surprise MVPs. Turns out when the little guys get over the “Ahh predator” thing, they are actually quite brave and composed, and make for excellent squad commanders for mix species units. The Arxur’s immense size never really bothered them, because they were always smaller than everyone else by default.
And the Dossur certainly weren't afraid when riding in their combat platforms. Heavily up armored and up gunned dossur walking platforms. These six crewed little dossur mechs, had guns facing in every direction, and were designed for maximum crew survivability like all federation armored units. Their ease of production and flexible use cases made them a staple on every ground battle or station raid during the final stages of the federation push into arxur space.
In summary, Federation vs Arxur ground warfare was always a messy and chaotic affair, as they tried to leverage personal safety and the emotional security of their men, against the ferocity of their foe and the need to push forward despite their fears. Battles were won or lost at the hands of those commanders who might in any other circumstance be labeled as diseased.(In fact many were after the war) In large part due to the fact that the feds had no real ground doctrine before this besides burn it with fire and run away. It was up to the brave few to learn on the fly and push their herd mates through to the finish line.
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Posted Feb 6, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC