The Human Condition - Ch 101: Bad Premonitions

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“Three things are most perilous: a victim with a grin, a secret you’re not in on, and a test you cannot win.” - Julia Ecklar, Threes, Take 3

~

Human Militia Cadet Henry paced back and forth near the gate to the abandoned Imperial military base, waiting. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, presumably an announcement from Chief Ne’panna that the next shift was on the way. He wasn’t pacing because he was impatient for that moment, though. No, he was pacing to keep his blood flowing, and because now that it was getting dark, mischievous teenagers (like he had been just a few months ago) might try to sneak in.

Earlier in the day, he, Officer E’nara, and Officer Fe’ham had been tasked by Chief Ne’panna with relieving the skeleton crew of Marines that had been guarding the base pending its transfer to the militia. While it had been surreal to have marines salute them before departing, the rest of the day had been entirely uneventful since then.

Okay, maybe he was pacing because he was impatient, but he had been stuck here all day with the two most hapless officers this side of the Appalachians and his patience was wearing thin. Sure, he generally liked both of the women despite their species, and he was genuinely considering saying yes to E’nara’s repeated requests to go on a date with her. What could he say, except that he found both her clumsiness and her persistence kind of cute? But the three of them had already talked until their throats were hoarse, and he didn’t want to join them playing stupid games on their omnipads. That felt a little bit too much slacking off, given that they were technically still on-duty.

After a couple minutes of his restless pacing, a rumble from down the road caught his attention. It was an APC, and the slight differences between the sound it made and the sound of a normal car had been burned into his brain and presumably a lot of other people’s, given that in the past, their arrival had often meant trouble. Now, he was happy to see it, because it probably meant their shift was over.

Huh. There was another APC following it. Actually, it looked like there was a whole convoy turning onto their street. Interesting. Still, the courteous thing to do right now would be to let his coworkers know.

“Look alive ladies,” he announced loudly, knocking on the windowl of the guardhouse. “ I think the people coming to relieve us might be here!”

Putting away their digital distractions with record speed, they stood up and rushed out of the guardhouse. But not even all the way out of the door, E’nara immediately proceeded to misplace her foot on the singular step down to the ground and began to topple forwards. Seeing her fall, Fe’ham reached out from behind to try and catch her, but only succeeded in falling on top of her fellow militia officer

“Oof!” E’nara exclaimed, splaying her limbs outwards comically as she was pancaked under her Fe’ham.

As the two of them scrambled to their feet, Henry just stood there, left eyebrow raised. “Doesn’t at least one of you have to be in there to operate the gate?”

“Fuck!” E’nara exclaimed as they both scrambled to re-enter the gatehouse unnecessarily.

Sighing in exasperation and shaking his head, Henry moved to come alongside where the first of multiple APCs was pulling up to the bollards that blocked the base’s driveway. “Pennsylvania Militia, identify yourself.”

Although the APCs lacked conventional glass windows, viewing slits could still be opened in case the exterior cameras were damaged or disabled. Henry could hear the metallic squeak as the one on the door facing him slid open, before a voice responded from inside the vehicle:

“Yes, but you identify yourself, suspicious human.” 

“What?” Henry said, confused. “Pennsylvania Militia, identify yourself.”

“Correct, now you identify yourself, idiot. Why are you hanging around our base?”

“Your–” Henry realized what was happening, and choked down his indignant response before taking a different approach. “I’m Henry Greenwood, Cadet Officer of the Pennsylvania Militia. This base is currently the property of the Pennsylvania Militia. Do you have authorization to enter?”

In response, the armoured door of the APC unlatched and swung open. Out of it stepped a shil’vati woman wearing a black and red flexifiber suit similar to the militia's uniform before Alice had taken over. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, which he could see through the open door, laying on the seat inside the APC. 

The woman wasn’t particularly tall for a shil’vati, but she was certainly muscular. She also had a long scar running down her left cheek and an attitude that screamed I’m a tough girl, aren’t I? Henry wasn’t impressed. He had seen Imperial Marines before, and some of them had the same attitude.

“Does it look like I have authorization to enter?” she asked, doing her best to tower over and intimidate him. Since he was on the taller side for a human, he straightened his back up and looked her almost in the eye. 

“Here is my badge of office,” he said, pulling out his identification. “If you are also Pennsylvania Militia personnel, then I have no problem allowing you through. But I don’t know that until you show me your identification.”

At that moment, perhaps driven by some species-wide instinct to protect men who looked like they were in trouble, or perhaps realizing how her presence would be much more useful outside of the guardhouse than sitting redundantly at the controls, E’nara came back outside. This time, her steps were more purposeful and she marched vigorously the few steps over to where they were standing.

“We are all officers of his Lordships’ honorable Pennsylvania Militia,” the scarred woman said, grinning toothily. “If you couldn’t tell by the uniform, here’s my official ID.”

In what seemed like a deliberate snub, she turned away from him to present her ID to E’nara, who squinted at it for a second before speaking: “That’s too far away, I can’t read it.”

“Then get closer,” the woman said, clearly annoyed. “And maybe you also ought to get your eyes checked. The locals might not appreciate modern medical technology, but you’re smarter than that, aren’t you, sister?”

“Okay, you are militia, but what about the rest of the women in your vehicle?” 

Henry honestly couldn’t tell if E’nara was being deliberately obtuse because of the woman’s rudeness, or if she genuinely wanted to check the IDs of all the women in the convoy. Speaking of which, some women were starting to get out of their vehicles and make their way towards them. They were probably also annoyed at being held up. “Also, I don’t think I’m your sister, am I?” E’nara asked.

“We’re all sisters on this planet, aren’t we?” the woman said, putting her hand on E’nara’s shoulder in what Henry guessed was supposed to be a friendly manner.

“Oh, but… well, we’re all colleagues, I suppose,” E’nara said, awkwardly removing the woman’s hand from her shoulder. “Sisters-in-arms, and all that.”

“What is your business at this base?” Henry asked, deciding to speak up again. “We were not informed of militia personnel being on their way here.”

“Our business is relieving you and properly staffing this base, Cadet,” she said, showing a great deal of disdain towards him. “And you’d best exercise your common sense and let us pass without any unnecessary delay…. or perhaps you’d like to explain to the boss why you’ve been so very uncooperative?" 

She gestured back over the other disembarked women, towards what had to be the largest and most unpleasant-looking shil’vati woman Henry had ever seen. She stood more than a head taller than even other shil’vati, and her arms bulged with muscles that were straight out of a bodybuilder’s wet dream. If there was ever anyone that the phrase ‘built like a brick shithouse’ applied to, it would have to have been her

“We are not trying to cause any sort of trouble,” Henry ventured, taking a step backwards and holding up his hands in a way that he hoped would promote deescalation. Instead, E’nara took it as a cue to step in front front of him and act defensively:

“We are simply doing our due diligence. It is you who are acting in an uncooperative way.”

“I don’t think that’s a smart stance to be taking,” the scarred woman said, crossing her arms and leaning back against the side of the APC as if she were about to watch something entertaining.

“Hey little girl,” the giantess said, sauntering up to them with all the grace and subtlety of a landslide. “What’re you doing out so late in the evening?”

Stopping to tower over E’nara, she pulled out a wooden pipe and lit it. Dark green smoke billowed from the end, and Henry wondered if the presumed space-drug contained therein would even have any effect on humans.

“I am not a little girl!” E’nara protested hesitantly. Henry could see from her shrinking body language that she was nervous under the very tall woman’s intimidating glare. 

“You seem pretty little to me,” she grunted, blowing smoke downwards into E’nara’s face. In response, E’nara coughed a few times and turned her face away.

“Size is not equivalent to maturity,” Henry said, stepping forward and putting his hand on E’nara’s shoulder. He could feel E’nara stiffen under his touch, and wondered if he was in the midst of doing something very stupid. “Could you provide identification for yourself and the other women accompanying you?”

“And who are you to demand anything of us?” the tall woman smiled menacingly. Henry saw a glint of light off of one of her tusks, and he blinked in confusion before realizing that it was made of some kind of grey metal instead of the natural dentin. 

In spite of the intimidation factor both the tusk and the pipe provided, E’nara rallied and displayed a courage and professionalism that Henry had not imagined was in the otherwise goofy and oft-distracted woman.

“I am Officer E’nara of the Pennsylvania Militia,” she began, her voice unusually calm and level, “this is Militia Cadet Henry Greenwood, and we are doing our duty as was assigned to us by our superiors: guarding this premises and ensuring that no unauthorized persons trespass upon it. This base is now the official property of the Pennsylvania Militia, to which you and your associates claim to belong. However, I am not personally familiar with any of you, and you are wearing an outdated uniform standard. 

Since, as specified in the new standards promulgated in PEO-753, I bear a responsibility to properly identify any persons of unclear allegiance or intention before taking action, I therefore must take care to request official identification from yourself and your companions before I can allow you to proceed. If you are indeed a legitimate force of the Pennsylvania Militia, and if you find this needless delay just as aggravating as I do, I suggest you lay the blame with our superiors who have failed to ensure proper communication between our different units. So, I ask again, politely but firmly: can you provide me with your identification?”

Tilting her head, the mountainous woman hesitated for one very tense second before barking out a laugh: “Hah! You’ve got spunk, little woman. Here’s my ID. I’m B’unta…” She looked at her ID before announcing her title, almost as if she were unsure of what it was. “Head of the Pennsylvania Militia’s Rapid Response Force. But most people don’t bother with that title.”

She then held out her ID and her fist to bump. Henry was both confused and relieved at her sudden change in attitude. E’nara took her ID, bumped her fist, then turned and nodded to Fe’ham in the gatehouse. She pressed the button, and the bollards promptly retracted into the ground.

“Great,” B’unta said, as the women from the convoy either jumped back into their vehicles or moved off to the side to walk through the gate on foot. “Oh, and girl, if you find that that little pink savage isn’t quite as good at satisfying your feminine desires as you had hoped, you know who to call.”

Holding her pipe in her right hand and bringing her left hand up to her mouth with her fingers in a ‘V’ shape, she stuck her tongue out vulgarly while winking in an exaggerated manner. Satisfied at causing E’nara to blush bright blue in response, she turned and plodded away, casually ordering some women to replace Fe’ham in the gatehouse by simply glaring at them and pointing at it authoritatively.

Standing side by side in silence, Henry and E’nara watched the vehicles of the convoy rumble by, coming one after another for much longer than Henry thought was reasonable for a militia force. Curiously, besides APCs there were also several flatbed cargo vehicles in the middle of the convoy. Their payloads were covered by tarps, but Henry swore that he could see the humanoid outlines of mech suits through the cloth coverings.

“What are you idiots standing around here for? We can go home,” Fe’ham said, walking up to them from behind. “We’ve officially been relieved, and I got a message from Chief Ne’panna confirming everything, even if it did come a couple of minutes too late to resolve whatever dispute you gals were having out here.”

“Oh, okay,” E’nara replied simply.

The ride back to the Allentown Militia station in their own APC with Fe’ham driving was awkwardly silent for a long minute, until E’nara broke it:

“Is that what it feels like?”

“Is that what what feels like?” Henry asked.

“Being propositioned on the street by a marine or militia officer,” E’nara explained. “Is that what you humans have been dealing with for years?”

“I guess, yeah. How did you feel about it?”

“It’s horrible! I’ve never even met that woman before, and the way she and her subordinate acted towards you was so dismissive! It felt so wrong to be thinking of sex in a situation like that!”

“That just about sums up what even married human men have to deal with,” Henry said. “The same way she was dismissive of me, some women seem to think that way about human women.”

“I’m very sorry that you have to deal with that. Nobody should,” E’nara said.

“Agreed,” Fe’ham chimed in. 

“Thank you,” Henry said. “I appreciate it.”

There was more silence as the APC rolled along at a reasonable speed. Fe’ham had taken some ‘remedial driving lessons’ since the incident a month ago, and was almost doing a good job of keeping the vehicle under control. Henry wondered why they had let her drive. Maybe it was because both he and E’nara had been distracted.

“Did either of you see the cargo trucks in that convoy?” Henry asked, breaking the silence once more.

“What about them?” Fe’ham asked.

“I thought I saw the outlines of exos under the tarps,” Henry explained. “I’m worried. I hadn’t heard anything about us owning exos.”

“Exos!?” Fe’ham choked out, overcome with excitement. “How many? What kind? Do you think we’ll get the opportunity to pilot them!?”

“Watch it! Red light!” Henry shouted back at her, somehow paying more attention to the road than she was.

“Sorry! But that’s so cool to hear!” she continued after they had come to a rapid stop.

“I don’t think so,” E’nara said, shaking her head in a rather human-like manner. “Why would we need them now of all times? Things have been getting better! We haven’t been shot at in weeks! I’m more worried than excited. Plus, you know that a couple of low-born nobodies like us will be at the absolute back of the line when they decide who gets to use them.”

“Right…” Fe’ham said, her excitement evaporating like a snowflake in the summer.

“I’m worried,” Henry stated. “I have a bad feeling about all this.”

“Things will be alright… I hope,” E’nara said. “In any case, we ought to continue doing our jobs as diligently and as fairly as we can.”

“How far will that get us, I wonder?” Henry said.

~~~~~~

Still in good spirits after his outing yesterday, Te’dol reported to his master’s side promptly the next morning.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” Lord N’taaris grumbled. “Why are you so cheery at such an early hour?”

“It seems like I really did need to get out, sir,” Te’dol said. “I know it’ll be busy again for a while, but may I ask for permission to get more days off in the future?”

“Fine. But never on days as busy as yesterday. I’m not making that mistake again.”

“Did yesterday not go smoothly?” Te’dol asked, starting to get nervous at his master’s bad mood.

“Hah! It went terribly. It went awfully. They dropped off half the stuff at the wrong spaceport, the crates all looked the same and had hard to read labels, the dock workers had no sense of urgency or what might be fragile, and our new militiawomen were milling around doing absolutely nothing useful until B’unta and Pera got down here to supervise them. Speaking of Pera, I imagine you’ll be working a decent amount with her in the future, so you ought to meet with her today. Since B’unta’s not big on looking nice on camera, she’s volunteered to be the new face of the Pennsylvania Militia.”

“I see,” Te’dol said. It made sense. That woman, B’unta, scared the immortal soul out of him. She was literally twice his height and he had seen her ‘instilling discipline’ among her troops by knocking out fully grown shil’vati women with a single strike like it was nothing. She could probably break every single bone in his body with her left pinky finger. While asleep.

“Of course, I’m not really mad at you,” Lord N’taaris said. “Okay, maybe I am a little bit mad. We had a couple of weeks. They had a couple of weeks. They didn’t bother fucking checking the cargo bay while they were underway. That’s what I get for paying for a luxury liner for ungrateful peons, I guess.”

“It was the only ship available in the next two weeks,” Te’dol said. “There wasn’t much choice.”

“And don’t get me started on fucking Boundless Sky! Those idiots should be jettisoned out of their own airlocks!”

“It will be a great boon when the transport restrictions are lifted,” Te’dol said. Not only would Boundless Sky’s monopoly disappear overnight, but the resulting tourist boom would bring in loads of revenue and would surely help fix the planet’s struggling economy.

“Agreed. Now, enough about my day. You were smiling earlier, did your date go well?” his master smiled snidely as he asked.

“It wasn’t a date, but it went well. We walked around the city and visited a number of human museums,” Te’dol said.

“Art? Are the humans any good at that?” his master asked obliviously.

“Probably, but we visited history museums,” Te’dol said.

“Ah. I’m sure it’s interesting to contemplate how much further backwards they were back in the day. How long do you think it would have been before they reached an acceptable level of civilization if we hadn’t intervened?”

“I’m…. not sure,” Te’dol took a diplomatic approach. Even he was taken a bit aback by how disdainful his master was towards humans. They were just people, right? Personally, he thought they were certainly within 300 years of rough technological equivalence, although simply having warp drives and fusion power wouldn’t exactly put them on even footing with the Imperium’s centuries of refinement and marginal gains in building such advanced devices.

“That is, if they ever reached it at all,” his master commented. “I give it better than even odds they would have wiped themselves out on the way. I mean, nuclear weapons before unification? That’s just asking for a radioactive wasteland.”

“A dangerous situation, for sure.” The museums they had visited had been focused on a significantly earlier time period and a significantly different subject, but perhaps it would be better not to mention the specifics in front of his master. After all, it was likely that he would have strong feelings about the concept of an anti-noble revolt.

“Anyways, what about your companion? Rodah? DId you make any progress with her?”

“Well, regarding the loyalty assessment you tasked me with…” Te’dol hesitated after his master sighed audibly in response to his statement. Was he being overly wordy and boring his master? 

“Go on,” his master urged. “Tell me everything.”

Why was he now demanding all the details? Was he really that suspicious of Rodah? Sure, she had said a couple of questionable things yesterday, but those had all been mere hypotheticals, trying to get into the heads of human malcontents, right? Certainly, he knew that she was a decent and diligent person, and if his master was this suspicious, he should make sure that his master’s opinion of her wasn’t dangerously colored, right?

“Well, we discussed negative economic factors that resulted in dissatisfaction among the local populace. We think that it would likely be beneficial to invest in local manufacturing.”

“Interesting. But is that really what two people would talk about on their day off?”

Te’dol felt the pressure on him increase. But he didn’t want to throw Rodah in front of the boat, so he continued:

“It is a topic of interest to us. We visited the city hall, saw some very tall buildings, and then visited the museums, which mostly also consisted of old buildings. Of course, they weren’t that old compared to the Imperium, but they were nice, I guess.”

“Naturally. Were they even a century old by proper reckoning?”

“I think they mostly were, but maybe not all of them,” Te’dol said. “They’re primarily made of a nice red-colored brick. It may not be particularly fancy, but when combined with other stones and ornamentation, it certainly beats bare thermocast, at least for aesthetics.”

“Interesting to some. But that doesn’t answer my question. How did things go with Rodah?”

Te’dol was really sweating now. What was he supposed to say? He couldn’t condemn her, could he?

“I have assessed her as perfectly loyal to us and your administration,” he lied. Sort of. It was only a half-lie. More of a minor exaggeration, really. He was sure that Rodah approached her work with the proper attitude, even if she had leveled some degree of criticism at Lord N’taaris. Sure, she might have some opinions, but she would never betray anyone.

“Thoira’s tits, there is no one more dense in the entire galaxy!” his master declared, throwing his hands up in the air. “Did you kiss her yet??”

Oh yeah. That. His master was just trying to tease him. Here he was, trying to avoid condemning her to some horrible fate, and his master was just trying to gossip like a schoolboy.

“Well… no?” he said, awkwardly. He could feel a blush starting to creep across his face. Goddess, why did he have to be so easily embarrassed at stuff like this?

“Disappointing. Did you at least hug her?”

“No.”

“Hold her hand? Please tell me you at least held her hand. You were holding hands while dancing the other night. Please tell me you’re not going backwards.”

“I– we did… sort of,” T’dol offered. Although the first time at the city hall had been purely accidental, later on they had held hands for a time. But that was just while she was leading him around through crowded areas! That didn’t count!

“Clarify, man! Did you or did you not engage in the barest minimum of physical intimacy?”

“We did…” Te’dol said.

“And have you gotten her number yet?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And have you texted her yet?”

“To arrange details, but also for work,” Te’dol said.

“Great. Now you can start sending her pictures! You should start with the ones you look good in, of course, but later on you can progress to candids and then you can start getting risque. A pic before or after a shower, you know the deal. She’ll be all over you.”

“That’s not my goal!” Te’dol protested.

“Look, I’m trying to help you,” his master said. “If you really don’t want her, I’d be more than happy to enjoy her instead.”

Te’dol wasn’t sure why he cringed so hard at that mental image. He didn’t like the idea of his master and Rodah hooking up at all. 

“Let’s move on,” he said, searching for a way out of this conversation.

“Aw, look who can’t handle it,” his master mocked. “But fine. Business is business and it waits for no woman. Or man.”

Te’dol wanted nothing more than to run out of the room and go hide somewhere, but his duty was here, and here he had to stay in order to do his job.

“Oh, there was one more thing: apparently there is a significant holiday for locals coming up in just a few days,” Te’dol said, desperate to change the subject to something more reasonable.

“Really? Do we need to arrange some sort of publicity event for it?” his master asked.

“No, I think it’s best we don’t,” Te’dol said. With what his master had said earlier about humans, he didn’t think he would make any sort of positive impression. “It’s a more… problematic event. According to Rodah, the [Fourth of July,] as it is called by them, is primarily characterized by homemade pyrotechnics and riots.”

“Then ban it!” his master snapped.

“It is banned. The locals have a tendency to ignore the ban. I think it would be a more prudent idea to continue the business of laying low and playing nice until the holiday passes, and then we can let your new militia loose.”

“No.” 

Te’dol blinked in surprise. This was the first time since Lord N’taaris had hired him that he had flat out denied one of his suggestions.

“Why not?” he ventured. This was uncharted territory. Would his master snap back at him? His mood hadn’t been great earlier, but Te’dol had thought he had perked up after teasing him.

“It’s simply impossible. We’ve already been pretending for too long,” his master stated matter-of-factly. “I’ve made promises to the humans, to B’unta, and to Lady Lannoris. I need to resolve them all, now. I didn’t tell you, but Lady Lannoris called me directly the other day, and demanded to know when I would make my move. I said there would be no further delay after everything arrived. I need to keep her happy for the time being, so that’s that.

What’s more, B’unta wants her pound of flesh. She's terrifyingly effective in a brawl, but she has no patience! If I try to stall her, she’ll get bored, and you don’t want to see her when she’s bored. Plus, this whole charade really sticks in my throat, you know? Really, we have no other option. We must prepare to react aggressively to counter this threat, if it really is as bad as you say.”

“I… I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”

“It doesn’t matter whether it would be better in a vacuum or not. We need to take the initiative now, while we still can. I need you to figure out where they might riot and how we can stop them from doing any damage. If we play our cards right, we might also be able to put together a show of force, just like the first strikes of the Liberation, where we do enough damage to make it clear that further resistance is pointless.”

“If that is what you order, I will put together a plan,” Te’dol said, not feeling great about it.

“Excellent. Now, let’s get to breakfast. I’m starving, and I’ve heard it’s a bad idea to plan military operations on an empty stomach.”

~

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