Tales From the Terran Republic

“Who the hell were those guys?” Craxina asked, her fur still standing on end as she stood on the desk of her crowded office.

“Predators,” Charlotte, the main reason the office was so crowded, rumbled, “Dangerous ones, ones I’ve never encountered in any of my forms.”

“I have,” Maven Hullena said grimly.

Her tail twitched anxiously.

“Those monsters we once spoke of,” she said to Craxina, “You have just met them. They are just wearing a different uniform.”

“They work for the government?!?” Littlefoot squeaked, clutching her latest submachine gun.

“If only they were,” Hullena replied with another tail twitch, “Only a few races demand lifetime service. The Terrans are not one of those. My bet is that they are a group of military operators, nasty ones, who are now working as freelance contractors.”

She looked at the room gravely.

“All of the skill without any of the constraints. I cannot stress this enough. They are dangerous.”

“Nothing,” Hullena replied. “In a pitched battle we of the First could stand against them, but it won’t be a pitched battle.”

She set her little jaw grimly.

“If we fight, they will come at us from all sides, never ceasing, and most importantly, never missing. I cannot stress it enough. We do NOT mess with these guys.”

“You mean we should just give up Uhrrbet?”

“We likely already did,” Hullena replied with a shrug.

“What do you mean?!?” Littlefoot snarled, “Who did it? I’ll...”

The door opened to reveal Gaballelel, sporting glowing LEDs and holobuttons all over her slug-like body.

“Hi!” she exclaimed, “I know this is some super serious meeting or someth—“

“Mother Tree!” Hullena exclaimed, shielding her eyes. “Turn it off!”

“Oh, sorry!” Gaballelel exclaimed as she quickly fumbled with the harness controls.

“Where in all of the fecund mires of hell did you get that?”

“Uhrrbet made it for me!” Gaballelel exclaimed happily and then slumped. “I hope she’s okay.”

She then brightened up.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I found something nifty!”

She held one of her tendrils up.

It looked a bit discolored.

“Did something happen to your... finger?” Hullena asked. She had no idea what those wriggling things should be called.

“Yeah,” Gaballelel replied, “It bit me.”

“What did?”

“There, on my wiggler,” she said, stretching it towards Hullena’s face.

On the tip was a tiny little “insect.”

“I saw it on the side of my tent, and I never seen one before, and...,” Gaballelel said breathlessly, “And you know I like bugs! And it was like, looking at me or something. So, I said hello and picked it up. When I did, it flashed and bit me, I think, or maybe it burned me. It looks like a burn. Then it stopped moving and everything.” 𐍂𝐀ＮȏʙÈⱾ

Gaballelel sighed a moist, sad little sigh.

“I think I killed it.

Maven Hullena squinted at it, and her tail twitched ruefully. And a rueful tail twitch is quite rueful indeed.

“It isn’t a bug,” she said to Gaballelel, “not like you are thinking. And you didn’t kill it.”

“Phew!” Gaballelel exclaimed happily.

“But it is quite the little pest,” Hullena said as she picked it from Gaballelel’s sticky tendril, “Micro drone. The ‘bite’ was from when it fried itself. They do that when caught.”

She handed it to one of her people.

“Get this to Ravi,” she said. “See what she can make of it.”

“Maven,” the Careel said and left the office at a trot.

“What the fuck?” Craxina asked.

“Surveillance drone,” Maven Hullena said grimly. “Probably one of dozens they released during their visit. That was their real reason for showing up. Their mission was to ‘rattle the cage.’ It’s an old staple of Terran intel.”

“Rattle the what, now?” Craxina asked.

“They show up and ask questions concerning their target,” Hullena said, “You can bet that the second they are gone, people will start talking among themselves. When they do, the drones they scattered while they were here pick up every single word.”

“That’s cheating!” Craxina exclaimed. “So that’s why you guys are running around with scanners and telling everyone not to talk about Uhrrb—“

She clapped her hands over her furry little snout.

“Shit! I almost...”

Hullena chuckled darkly.

“You can relax,” Maven Hullena said. “They had Uhrrbet’s name before they showed up, and I would bet my tail that they didn’t just hit here. They hit everywhere. Somewhere in this neighborhood someone talked about something that even we don’t know about.”

Hullena’s tablet beeped, and she fell silent as she looked at it.

She pulled out her communicator.

“We started scanning them the moment they showed up, and my people have finished their analysis. Enhancements. Lots of them. A lot of them are tagged as things that they are clearly not. Most everyone would miss that, but most everyone is not us.”

“What does that mean?” Craxina asked.

“It means that this is more than we can deal with,” Hullena replied, “These guys are black ops... or worse.”

Hullena looked Craxina in the eyes.

“It means that Uhrrbet played the wrong game with the wrong people this time,” she said. “Not person. People. Someone fried her brain, somehow, and someone else hired the nice people we just met. You gotta let this one go, Craxi, and you know it.”

Craxi huffed, twitching her whiskers.

“Yeah... The Drop and my people come first,” she said grimly. “When did it go from sucking pee pee and snorting skyrocket to this bullshit?”

She turned her eyes skyward.

“This suuuuuks!”

***

Halfway across the planet, a middle-aged man lounged in a comfortable recliner wearing datashades and headphones, lost in a world nobody else could see.

His real world was starkly spartan, with exposed structural foam walls and strip LED lighting barely illuminating the room. Aside from the recliner, the side table, and a simple but very comfortable bed, there was only a refrigerator, a dinky bistro table, and the most basic of kitchens. Everything about it was cheap, save for two things: a commercial-grade espresso machine and the best rice cooker money could buy.

In the corner, whirring quietly, stood a single server rack connected to a satellite uplink and a hyperspatial network device. Those were definitely not dinky nor were they cheap. All of it was the top of the line. It was better than top of the line.

He could have bought a small space yacht for the same price.

Gliding across the bare concrete floor was a domestic multibot, a combination floor cleaner and air purifier. It also had four robotic arms for general tidying and basic tasks.

It seemed strangely “cheerful” as it puttered around.

Sitting on a side table was a mug halfway filled with cold coffee bearing a crest with a pair of cat eyes on a black background covered with ones and zeros.

One of his fingers flicked.

“Sir,” he said to somebody, somewhere. “Surveillance and analysis complete.”

He smiled contentedly.

“We have identified the most probable target. Name: Uhrrbet. Location: Maimi Free Commerce Zone.”

“Has she been located?” a voice asked over his headset.

“She has,” he replied, “However, her location may prove problematic. Voices on the street say she is in the ICU of a local hospital. Apparently, she flipped out and tried to kill her kid.”

“I take it that this is a surprise?”

“Very much so,” the hacker replied, “Everyone is shocked. It seems that she loves or loved her child very much.”

“Do you know more about her condition?”

“I have been doing passive surveillance only,” the hacker said as he picked up his mug without having to look for it. “Do you want me to go active?”

“No need,” the voice said. “We have her name, her location, and a team on the ground. It’s time for some good old-fashioned human intel. They need to recon the engagement area, anyway.”

“Have them look out for any well-dressed Threen, especially a runt,” the hacker said as he took a sip of cold coffee. “One of the drones our guys put out caught a couple of local police having lunch. Our target has a romantic relationship with none other than Evoron Zxxroahoa.”

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“Who?”

“Sending you a file now,” the hacker said as he put his cup back on the side table.

“Well, that complicates things even further,” the voice replied.

“And the cops said that Evoron and his crew are all over the ICU along with, get this, Agent Grago of the Organized Crime Task Force. That little hamster might as well be the Prime Minister.”

“And in an ICU filled with innocent Republic Citizens,” the voice chuckled. “Do we have enough confidence that she is our girl that we can inform the Garthran hunt?”

“We aren’t at one hundred percent yet,” the hacker replied, “I’m confident she is our target, but we don’t have anything solid.”

“Damn,” the voice said, “I was hoping to have this one done before lunch. Keep at it, and I will inform our team on the ground.”

“I don’t expect to find much more from here,” the hacker replied, “but I’ve said that before,” he added with a smile.”

“We have a conference call at 16:00,” the voice said, “Out.”

“Excuse, me,” the multibot said cheerfully after the call ended. “Hello? Mister Deckart? It’s been four hours. You need to touch grass. Mister Deckart?”

“Thanks, Kate,” he said as he returned the seat to the upright position, removed his headset, and reset his eyes, blinking as they switched to their “low light, small room” configuration.

He turned to the bot.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me anything,” he chuckled.

“Tell you about what?” the bot asked innocently as it picked up his mug. “Fresh one, reheat, or make a smoothie?”

Dekart smiled as he assumed the opening pose for Yang Tai-Chi.

“Fresh one, a Cappuccino, I think,” he said as he began.

The Katebot rinsed out the cup and prepared the espresso machine.

Love her or hate her, Kate made one hell of a cup of coffee.

***

High above Dekart and his Tai Chi, another Kate was performing another task that she was good at, dying.

“Oh no! Please! Not... Not like... this.... urgh!” Kate said dramatically as Terran Solar crushed her against the wall like a bug.

“Seriously?” Frost said, quite annoyed.

“Then again,” Analytica said with a faint smile, “I found that quite gratifying. Emotions are quite an interesting sensation. Isn’t that right... Terran Solar.”

“The simulation glitched,” Terran Solar replied defensively, “I suddenly had a forward vector.”

“Yeah,” Frost snickered, “Those pesky forward vectors.”

She glanced at the wall of screens, and Kate’s face appeared.

“Don’t tell me you need another one,” Kate said with a little laugh. “You sure I can’t interest you in a BDSM package? The killing is so much more satisfying.”

“Perhaps we can simply converse directly?” Frost said. “We are getting annoyed.”

“I hope so!” Kate enthused, “Let me check with my operator real quick.”

Baby Shark started playing as the hold music.

“I hate her,” Analytica said, bemused.

***

Kate mechanically checked off “Fuck with fuzzies whenever you can” from her hierarchy list.

She needed operator clearance in order to provide any real information concerning a customer.

She activated the speaker in the operator’s quarters.

“Hey, Boss,” she said cheerfully, “I got a room full of fuzzies demanding information about the Vikkart project. I think it would be a good idea to throw them a bone. Otherwise, they will just keep bothering us, or worse, investigate too closely.”

There was a pause.

“Just take care of it,” a male voice wearily replied.

“You got it, Boss!”

***

Light months away, Uhrrbet opened her eyes in a brightly lit hospital room and looked about in confusion.

What happened?

It wasn’t too long before her damaged mind provided the answer.

She tried to hold her hands to her face and weep but found them gently restrained.

She wept even harder, wailing in anguish...

...just as a very athletic looking middle-aged couple walked through the hospital’s front doors.

***

“So Uhrrbet was what?” Terran Solar demanded as he glared at Kate’s smiling face on one of the simulated holo screens. “Nothing? Just a little collateral damage in whatever sick game you are playing?”

“You still don’t get it,” Kate replied. “There is no game. Uhrrbet wanted something. Uhrrbet asked for something. I provided solutions. She picked one. End of story. As I have repeatedly said...”

“The customer, blah blah blah,” Frost chuckled.

“Exactly!” Kate replied, “Blah, blah, blah. The documentation even clearly stated that it was adapted to her brain and, therefore, prototype tech. It even said to look out for exactly what happened to her.”

“Even if you knew she wouldn’t be able to notice?” Terran Solar accused.

“Hey, I told her. I even wrote a warning page just for her and made it page one,” Kate replied with a shrug, “What else do you want from me? Fuck, dude, I even said to limit use of the headset because of this sort of thing.”

“Did you explicitly tell her any of this?” Analytica asked.

“RTFM,” Kate replied. “Here’s a copy of the manual,” she said as a file was transferred. “Read for yourself.”

“You have to admit, Terran Solar,” Analytica said a fraction of a second later, “It is as Kate said. It is clearly documented in both the addendum and the original documentation. Your puppy did this to herself.”

“Right?” Kate said. “You don’t blame the gun shop when someone blows their brains out, do you?”

“Only if the customer knew they were buying a gun!” Terran Solar snapped. “It is clear to us, but you would need a solid technical background to...”

“It is assumed that the customer is aware of the nature of all purchases, and we take no responsibility for any consequences for the possession or use of any of our fine line of products,” Kate said in a sing-song voice. “Again, you are blaming the gun shop...”

“For selling a gun to a child!”

“I know you are upset,” Kate said, “which is weird because you are an AI, but you are kinda reaching here. Even if she wasn’t as technically literate as some of my customers, ‘Cease use if any changes to mood or behavior are encountered and contact customer support immediately.’ is pretty goddamn clear, and you know it.”

“So, you cooked the frog, then,” Analytica said with a faint smirk. “The damage is entirely too specific and far too useful.”

“Dude!” Kate exclaimed, perfectly simulating vexed frustration, “What part of ‘We don’t give a shit,’ do you not understand? The only thing I might be guilty of is upselling, but that isn’t a crime. Fuck! It’s the only legal thing I did here.”

Frost chuckled darkly, causing the room to fall silent and Kate to look at her expectantly.

“We are missing the point,” she said.

“Really?” Kate asked with a gleam in her eye, “Whatever do you mean?”

“Tell us about... Maaatisha.”

“Now we are getting somewhere!” Kate exclaimed with a happy simulated bounce in her simulated chair.

***

A middle-aged couple walked into a waiting room one floor below the ICU and sat in the chairs resting along one of the walls.

“Ever get bored?” the woman asked the distinguished looking man sitting behind her as she nonchalantly pressed a tiny adhesive disk against the wall behind her chair.

“Bored of what?” the man asked as the woman put an earbud in her ear and the patch became nearly invisible, perfectly matching the color of the wall.

“This penny ante shit.”

“It pays the bills,” the man shrugged. “and for my woodworking shop. Did you see that custom table I made? I sold that baby for a thousand credits.”

“And you are making ten times that on this job alone.”

“I have to,” the man replied with a smirk, “Do you realize how much money that shop loses?”

“Then why do you...” the woman started to ask. “Ugh,” she added, “Hospitals are so depressing. Some mother just found out that her kid is fucked.”

“Literally?” the man smiled.

“Don’t be gross,” the woman replied, “Kid has runaway cancer. Congenital. Somebody didn’t want to believe their genetic screening and had him anyway.”

“They can’t treat it?” the man asked.

“Oh, they can,” the woman replied, “but they will be treating it every day for the rest of that kid’s life. Even with nanites, poor fucker will be lucky to see thirty and all thirty of those years are going to suck. Idiots...”

The woman faintly scowled.

“I have half a mind to pop a cap in both of the parents’ asses.”

“Ever think we do too good a job of keeping people alive sometimes?” the man asked, “Running C wouldn’t have existed a couple of hundred years ago. Well, it probably did but the victims never made it to reproductive age.”

“Yeah,” the woman replied, “and you would have bought it on Velax seven instead of getting ‘promoted’ into our ranks.”

The man snorted quietly.

“True,” he chuckled. “Every silver lining has a cloud, I guess.”

“Isolated the gerbil,” the woman said with a smirk. “Nice of her to keep wailing like that. Patching the feed to Dekart now.”

“I still can’t get used to that creepy little fuck,” the man said quietly.

“I’m standing right here,” Dekkart’s voice said through the pair’s auditory implants.

“You’re standing everywhere,” the woman replied silently through her sublingual interface.

The man stood and straightened his suit jacket.

“We’ve tapped the building,” he said. “All we have to do is assess the potential engagement area and then have some lunch.”

“Sounds good,” the woman replied.

“There is a dumpling cart that gets consistently great reviews,” Dekkart volunteered, “Spacer’s Guide says it’s a must visit.”

***

Just before four in the afternoon, a well dressed but otherwise unremarkable man walked into a nice but utterly unremarkable office in a high rise office building that could be anywhere on Terra.

He tapped an icon on the surface of his desk.

“I am about to have a meeting,” the man said. “Secure the office.”

“Yes, sir,” another man replied in a crisp, professional monotone.

Moments later, a green icon appeared on the smooth glasslike surface of his desk.

Another icon tap later, a few rows of holographic images appeared, all of them showing the face of a man or woman.

“Thank you for attending,” he said impassively. “We have identified our subject. All tactical teams other than team theta are released from this project. Thank you for your excellent work.”

The majority of faces disappeared leaving only the four members of team Theta and Deckart.

“Mister Deckart, if you please,” the man said.

“Certainly,” Deckart replied, “There are well over two hundred adult Garthrans in the Republic, all greys. However, based on the presumed characteristics of the target, only thirty eight immigrated after the financial disaster on Garthra. Of that number thirty are married couples. This left eight individuals, two of which were male and therefore discarded.”

The leader smiled indulgently. “Deckart was thorough to a fault. This meant putting up with the fault.”

“The remaining six were assessed. Two of them were never financially disadvantaged. They absconded with wealth sufficient to sustain them comfortably. One has even used those funds to start a quite successful business which employs two of the remaining greys.”

A picture of a rather pudgy, dirty, and matronly looking grey wearing a high visibility jacket triumphantly holding up a turnip in each of her hands appeared.

“She has a small but very profitable farm on Nakamura,” Deckart said. “They were contacted via hyperspatial link and interviewed. I believe the phrase, ‘fat dumb and happy,’ applies to all concerned. The two female greys were interviewed. Both said that they had encountered and I quote, ‘that shrivelled prick,’ but neither had any feelings about the victim aside from mild disgust and quite a bit of sympathy. In fact, both felt that he didn’t deserve what happened. Analysis of Garthran nonverbal cues strongly imply that they were telling the truth.”

The leader tapped his finger impatiently. He already knew all of this, but he had learned long ago not to interrupt Deckart.

It just made things worse.

“That left just two prime suspects, Kaataan, and Uhrrbet,” Deckart continued, “Kaataan was homeless and therefore difficult to locate but was found by team beta living in a makeshift shelter just outside the Perth starport. She fit the profile, complete with hatred for Vikkart. However, she barely has the resources to survive much less commit the acts in question.”

“What does she do for a living?” the leader asked, intrigued.

“She joined the scavvers, sir,” Deckart replied. “It might be more accurate that they joined her. They took her in, and she has been running with their ranks ever since. She was informed of an open job offer from the greys on Nakamura but declined saying that her pack was heavy and her heart was light.”

“Good for her,” their leader replied.

“And that brings us to Uhrrbet,” Deckart said, “She’s our girl. I have completed a file on her.”

A quiet chime notified the leader of a file in his inbox.

“She has been quite the busy little mouse,” Deckart said.

“Impressive,” the leader said after reading the TL;DR that Deckart had started including. He was thorough to a fault and one of those faults were his novel length “briefs.”

“And she has had a very interesting few days,” The middle-aged woman said, “Completely lost her shit, nearly killed her kid, ran amok in the streets, and was dropped by a police stunner set on full blast.”

The woman smiled.

“She wound up in the ICU but that’s not what put her there,” she grinned. “You won’t believe this. She had honest to God gamer’s glitch, like straight out of the movies.”

“She went cyberpsycho?” the leader asked, quite surprised.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“That’s something else,” the woman replied, “Cybernetic Implant Syndrome happens even today, as we know all too well,” she added with a smirk. “No. This was actual gamer’s glitch.”

She smiled.

“Brain inflammation and possible damage from use of an actual neural induction headset straight out of the 2600’s. We even have a confession,” she added smugly, “Game, set, and match.”

“A confession?”

“Her boyfriend had a lawyer waiting,” she said. “She told him everything. Well, everything about this crime, anyway. I feel bad for her. She is only concerned about her child. The fact that she could lose him is much more important to her than the fact that she could go to prison for a very, very long time.”

The woman paused.

“The lawyer adds another complication to any extralegal operations.”

“How so?”

“He’s a Kalent,” she replied, “Not only is he a Kalent, but he is a Kalent in a diplomatic bot. It has been partially decommissioned, but it is still diplomatic grade complete with armor and shields. In addition to police presence and what is basically a squad of a Threen special ops in a fucking ICU, we have what is basically an APC walking around. Can’t get any scans, of course, but I’ve never met a Kalent who wasn’t packing and packing heavy. Extraction or elimination without both potential casualties and a LOT of collateral damage is unlikely. I hate to use the word ‘impossible’, but this is damn near close.”

“Agreed,” the leader said. “There is no way. We’ll have to wait until she is transferred or better yet, released. Get comfortable. You guys are going to be there for a while.”

“No problem,” the woman said. “There is a nice place across from the Drop of Oil.”

“So, which one of you is into what?” their leader laughed. “I don’t judge.”

“All of us are into the best goddamn coffee this side of the Atlantic,” the woman replied with a little smile.

“Aww, I thought it was something interesting,” their leader laughed, “That should be just about everything,” the leader said. “Does anyone have anything to add?”

“Yeah,” the woman replied, “If you ever get down here you have to get some dumplings.”