Cosmosis

Reflect

(Starspeak)

“[Sorry, let me get this straight…]” Jordan said. “[You showed up, chose violence, and they…invited you to a party?]”

“[They invited us to a party,]” I corrected. “[The whole Jack crew.]”

“[And we’re not even thinking about passing this up?]”

“[Nope,]” I said.

“[Because this Mavriste rak didn’t kill you, and you’re feeling grateful?]”

“[Because I promised Serral I’d be on vacation,]” I said. “[…And we didn’t actually get to talk about what we were supposed to yesterday.]”

Jordan, Sid, Johnny, and I were hauling crates from the Jack’s cargo bay out to a trolley the spaceport lent us. As nice as Mavriste and Macoru’s invitation was, there was the awkward underlying truth that we’d have to bring our own food.

I was doing my best to seem casual about yesterday, but I didn’t think I was fooling Jordan. Tasser hadn’t even needed a single word when I’d returned. Just one quizzical stare told him everything he needed to know about where I was right now.

“[Okay, we’ve got the cookies and chips. Johnny got the drink coolers. What else are we actually bringing?]” Jordan asked.

“[I was thinking our chicken,]” I said. “[Sid can barbecue it.]”

It wasn’t really chicken. I wasn’t even sure the meat came from a bird. But, true to the saying, it tasted like poultry. There were only a handful of meats that Farnata industry could still produce after the Razing, and most of the human-compatible food came from Farnata sources.

But even lab-grown, it was still meat. Expensive. We only broke into our supply on special occasions. A beach party seemed like a good one.

“[Are you assuming I have some hidden instincts for barbecue because I’m from Georgia?]” Sid asked, putting a little extra into his accent.

“[I mean, I was mostly assuming you didn’t already have something to do at the party,]” I said. “[If the whole crew is coming, we’re all going to be able to chip in watching the munchkins.]”

“[So you’re going to give me more responsibilities in lieu of my ordinary ones being shareable?]” Sid snorted.

“[See, that’s what I appreciate about you, Sid, always keeping me honest,]” I conceded.

I almost expected Johnny or Jordan to take that opportunity to needle me more for attacking Itun, but, to my surprise, they both let the sentence pass.

Huh.

<[Hey Nai,]> I called to her elsewhere. <[Are people going easy on me with this whole blowing up thing?]>

She came back in Speropi,

<[Tell me about it,]> I scoffed. <[He’s given me dozens of times more shit for the Lightbringer junk, and I had no control of that.]>

I glanced at our progress.

<[We’re loading up the last few. So give us, like, ten minutes to haul it over there.]>

Wagons were an unexpectedly helpful psionic blueprint to keep readied. The four of us loaded the last of the relevant food crates and started toward the beach between our two group’s marinas.

I made a mental note to see about revising the blueprint’s wheels so they could be pulled across sand a bit more easily. The increased gravity was still getting to most of the crew, but at least we were adapting.

The spot the Missionary Marines had picked for their party was actually just a few hundred feet up the beach from the pavilion where my fight had broken out. No wonder Macoru had responded so quickly, their boats were docked just a quarter mile further.

Donnie, Tasser, and almost the entire rest of the crew were all crowding around Nai chattering suggestions while she materialized party décor. Picnic tables and bean bag chairs had been scattered on the beach, with some of Mavriste and Macoru’s troops plying their own Adeptry.

Macoru was busy manning a massive grill, cooking fish and what must have been some local vegetables over the flames. It was a coinflip on whether or not any given piece of Vorak food would be toxic to other species, so we were prepared with our own setup. Sid got to work.

If nothing else, it made it easy to feed the three Vorak crew members we had right now. I saw Halax making his way toward his old grade school friends. I’d be steering clear of him this evening.

Nai seemed busy moving onto more decorative features, but also materializing simple game hardware like cornhole, tetherball, and four square.

How much would the Vorak think those were Farnata games instead of human ones, just because of who was creating the materials?

The real question was if the Missionary Marines would think about the games themselves and not the increasing amount of mass Nai was dragging into existence on the beach. The tables and chairs? That wasn’t too much mass, but then the decorations and torches? And the games? And more?

I saw more than a few Vorak stunned, not just by Nai’s absurd mass limit, but by we abductees’ lack of reaction to it. The Flotilla had been operating for two years now, and Nai had been there for almost every minute of it. She was an old face.

Not a single munchkin blinked at Nai’s casual creation of thousands of kilograms. Ulrich and Lorelei were all but dragging her off to play games with them.

She acquiesced, but wrangled Nemuleki and Corphica into helping her keep the eight middle schoolers in check.

Tasser and I mostly lurked. As fun as the games and socializing would have been, I was more interested in the opportunity to relax. He was good company, and we spent the better part of an hour sipping on sugary drinks, alternating between brief conversation and comfortable silence.

Sid and Deg eventually called Tasser over for some help putting food on trays, and I was left mostly on my own.

There was one other Jack crew member keeping a low profile.

Donnie.

I had to be honest with myself. He was my least favorite Puppy. In the mess with Kemon, he’d been the most intent on violence—albeit not the most vocal. And he’d explored firearm Adeptry a bit too quickly for my taste.

Was I also still sour about how much he was needling me about being called Lightbringer?

Okay, honestly, yes.

But there was a reason we got along like oil and water.

We had different ideas about violence. I liked Spider-Man, he liked the Punisher.

But tonight Donnie had his eyes mostly on the Missionary Marines. But not as a group. He kept moving his eyes between them, like he was trying to pick certain ones out of the crowd.

I could at least give Donnie credit about the Vorak. Despite Kemon’s success demonizing the entire race of aliens, Donnie had been the first one to really divorce himself from that trap. All the Puppies had been quick to come around, but Donnie had been the first one to suggest a more diplomatic contact with the Vorak.

I wasn’t sure how much he’d give himself the credit for it, but the Flotilla had gone looking for someone like Peudra in large part because of Donnie.

Tonight though, he wore a look of pure suspicion.

“After yesterday, I know it’s rich coming from me, but you’re not thinking about anything violent are you?” I asked.

“[Not my violence,]” he said. “[Just trying to guess which one of these rak are the killers-escaping-justice types]”

“[Itun’s staying over by the grill,]” I pointed out. “[Pretty sure he’s going to stay close to Macoru all night.]”

“[Like she’s his mom?]” Donnie snorted.

“[Funny thing is, she’s definitely younger than him,]” I said. “[But way more powerful. She seems wiser too, frankly.]”

“[I won’t lie, I am liking not having to pay so much attention to neutral pronouns with these rak,]” he said.

“[Is it really that much work?]” I asked. “Just keep using ‘they’ for everyone unless someone corrects you, [and, poof, you’re good.]”

“[It’s not that much work,]” he agreed. “[It’s not even unreasonable. But it’s still annoying to remember. Like when you forget to cross a ‘t’ or dot an ‘i’. It’s annoying to have to go back and change it.]”

“[I guess I’ve just been doing it longer,]” I said.

Truth was, it had been two years. Donnie had been doing this pretty long too. But I wasn’t interested in making a mountain of a molehill.

Donnie, however, was more interested in my original question.

“[Half these people are murderers or criminals right?]” Donnie asked. “[You really cool partying like this with fugitives?]”

“[…Not really,]” I admitted.

Donnie blinked, surprised.

“[You agree with me?]”

“[I didn’t attack Itun just because I got a little angry,]” I said. “[I tried to kill him because he genuinely deserves to die. He killed people. In cold blood. Not out of anger, or frustration, or impatience, but cold rational expedience. I don’t like the idea of him getting off scot-free, and it’s not hard at all to extend that to the rest ]”

“[It’s surprisingly easy to forget how much you got up to before all the Kemon drama unfolded,]” Donnie admitted.

“[I didn’t go through it alone,]” I said. “[Nai and Tasser have been through it all with me. We’re friends. You can’t go through what we did and not respect one another.]”

“[Nai and Tasser more than just respect you; it’s not just that you’re friends. They’re aliens, but they like you. They like your personality.]”

“[And you don’t,]” I nodded.

“[Not always,]” he said.

His tone made me think he was being polite, that, ‘not often’ were the words he might have said were he even slightly less discreet.

“I appreciate the honesty,” I said, switching back to Starspeak.

To my surprise, he matched me.

“Well let me be more honest then. I think this is a stupid idea. Partying with these guys, coming to this whole planet, all of it.”

“Then why haven’t you objected sooner?” I frowned.

“Because I don’t have a better alternative,” he said simply. “I feel like we’re always a minute away from a huge mistake or everyone dying. Not a single day goes by where I don’t think you’re about to do something like you did yesterday. But [if you don’t have anything nice to say…] you know?”

“[Just something you’ve had to learn to live with,]” I surmised.

“[It’s fucking awful,]” he spat. “[But, yes.]”

“[That’s how I feel right now with Itun,]” I said. “I want him dead, and he deserves it. But actually doing it would come at too high a price. So I’ve got to live with it.”

“I’ve heard you really did a number on him,” Mavriste said.

“Agh!” I jumped in surprise. How long had he been there?

No—better question—how come I hadn’t noticed him psionically?

It wasn’t like his mind was undetectable…

It was just…quiet.

“Sorry, sorry!” he chuckled. “I wasn’t trying to surprise you.”

Donnie had reacted too, his hand going for a gun on his hip that wasn’t there. But it would have only taken a thought.

Nai had done work with all the Puppies though, so despite his muscle memory flashing, he stopped himself from materializing his weapon.

“Your sister’s got the black fur, how are you the sneakier one at night?” I said, trying not to let my annoyance show.

Donnie was not keen on hanging around Mavriste. It was written plainly on his face. The sensation he gave off as an Adept made even me nervous.

“Hey boss, I’m going to go see if Johnny doesn’t want help with…something,” he said.

“Subtle,” I said, but waved him off before turning to Mavriste. “We didn’t actually get to have the conversation I wanted yesterday.”

“No, you almost killed Itun,” the rak replied easily. “Again. Like I was saying, I heard you really did a number on him the first time.”

“I blasted him into a ceiling,” I said. “Huh. You know? Funnily enough? That’s how Nai killed his boss too. She blasted him into a ceiling.”

“Hmm, I’ve noticed you use ‘him’ for Itun, and now his boss too,” he said. “I mean, I do the same thing, but that’s because I’m not from a Vorak culture that does that. But you seem to respect Peudra’s formality. The way Itun tells the story, you weren’t on personal terms beforehand, were you?”

“I’m on personal terms with anyone who tries to murder me,” I said. “Just ask Tox.”

I nodded toward the rak in question.

“He’s the one who bungled most of my First Contact. Sicced four commandos on me rather than let me escape custody. He’s gotten a lot of good people killed, on both sides of the war. But do you know why I’ll suck it up and work with him?”

“Because his mistakes were honest—or well intending, at least,” Mavriste guessed. “His intentions were respectable, if not agreeable to you.”

“Yes. So you see where I’m going with Itun, right?”

“I do.”

“You seem like a good guy. You didn’t need to fight me as gently as you did, and it would have been a lot easier and safer for you if you hadn’t. So I’m really curious how someone like you decides to give someone like Itun a second chance.”

“It’s not that special of a story,” Mavriste said. “For that, you’d need to hear why Mac and I chose to do this in the first place. And that is much longer, sadder story than I’m prepared for at a party like this.”

“I’m fine with not-so-special stories,” I said.

“We came across Itun quite coincidentally,” Mavriste chuckled. “The Prowler fleet dissolved, but different nations on Kraknor have taken up different positions on who in the defunct fleet needed prosecuting. Our Missionary Marines were moving from the Pellu Abri— a nation eager to clap them all in irons—to the Ogi States, where their focus is aimed for ranks higher than Itun’s. If he stayed in Pellu Abri, he’d likely be executed. We laid out our conditions, made an offer, and he accepted.”

“Can’t say I disagree with that sentence,” I said.

“The sentence? I think you might,” Mavriste said, “even if you do believe Itun deserves that fate.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Pellu Abri is embroiled in some intensely polarized political divide right now, and the powers that be in the nation are so eager to punish those they believe deserving that they’ve passed temporary legislation to expedite certain trials, lowered certain standards for convicting criminals. I might not know much about you, Lightbringer, but when your vengeful impulse was checked, you reigned yourself back in. You admitted fault. That tells me you likely believe in fair trials. Even for the guilty.”

“In principle,” I agreed. “But in practice? Itun is the kind of person who puts that to the test.”

“I suppose that might be a fundamental difference between us,” Mavriste mused. “I cannot bring myself to only look at what is deserved, currently. What someone could deserve, in the future, with the right work, with the right help…I cannot ignore that.”

“Even if it means rubbing elbows with murderers and worse?” I asked.

“I believe anyone can be good,” Mavriste said simply.

I had no words for that.

For a few dreadful milliseconds, part of me was paranoid he’d plucked those words straight from my own head. But, no. He didn’t show enough reaction to know how deeply they struck.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Mavriste said, “less than ten people in the Missionary Marines have warrants awaiting them once their service is complete, much less warrants for crimes like murder. The majority of our personnel are volunteers and enlistees.”

That was…actually far fewer than I’d expected. Less than ten percent of the company.

“And you just shelter them from justice until that period is over? How many people have pretended to sign up only to wriggle away, consequence free?” I asked.

“Those are two different questions,” Mavriste said, unconcerned.

You could hear it in his voice. This was not the first time any of them had fielded such questions.

“How many?” I reiterated.

“Consequence free? It’s hard to say,” Mavriste said. “Somewhere between two and zero.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It depends on your definition of ‘consequence free’. In the eight years our armed company has operated, many have joined to flee prison sentences. We promise harsh consequences for any who even attempt to abuse our enlistment policy, and in that time only two rak have managed to escape those consequences.”

“Yet it’s also zero?” I asked.

“Neither one of them survived longer than three days,” Mavriste said. “They escaped our ability to pursue, but not our friends. Don’t get me wrong, the many nations of Kraknor despise us. Our company answers to no legal authority, and we do interpose ourselves between those nations’ laws and the perpetrators that join us. But we also enjoy a reputation for dependability, and that’s come with powerful friends on all corners of the sea.”

“So you throw yourselves into wars, hunt down bad actors, and drag war criminals to justice, and in exchange, you guys get leniency when you find someone willing to try reforming themselves?”

“It’s not quite that simple, but those are the broad strokes,” he confirmed. “Technically, we offer the chance to join up to most folks we take prisoner in battle too, but few are willing to agree to our terms.”

“Such as?”

“All recruits have to follow the chain of command to the letter, upon threat of death,” Mavriste said. “This is more true for our criminal recruits than our ordinary enlistees, but still, we are not playing a game and all members of this company put their lives on the line and entrust their safety to their peers. Recruits are given strict curfews and schedules, and punishments are harsh. We preach redemption and forgiveness, but if you aren’t ready to sweat and bleed for it, the Missionary Marines are not the outfit for you.”

“What’s the actual term of service?” I asked. “How long are your ‘criminal recruits’ allowed to stay?”

“As long as they continue to demonstrate their commitment to reform,” Mavriste said, “until they die, or until they surrender themselves to the law for their crimes.”

“They can stay as long as they like?” I asked, surprised. “So someone could escape a death sentence just by signing up and following your rules, with no intention of ever reforming?”

“Remember what I said about abusing our policy?” Mavriste said. “That would qualify. You can’t just cleave to our rules. At a certain point, peeking over the edge must become a proper dive. You have to convince Macoru and myself that you are not, in fact, merely going through motions. How exactly that happens is their responsibility.”

“I can’t tell if your Marines are a brilliant idea to reform the worst criminals or if they’re a travesty of justice,” I admitted.

“The answer is both, of course,” Mavriste said, showing a toothy grin.

I wasn’t prepared to keep going back and forth on this any longer, but Jordan had been glancing my way for a few minutes now.

Jordan said, coming into earshot. “”

“It’s legal,” Mavriste assured her. “You simply have to ensure the missile in question travels out over the water and not toward the city.”

“You want help?” I asked Jordan.

“Sure. Mavriste, we can talk about humans on this planet once the party wraps up more,” I offered.

“Anytime,” he said, “but I’m actually interested in the fireworks too.”

“You’re a soldier. You don’t already see enough things explode?”

“All the blasts I see are dust, vapor, and shrapnel. Never pass up a good colorful explosion—they come along too rarely.”

We followed Jordan out of the party’s main cluster, closer to the water, where Johnny and an Adept I recognized as Middle Bear from yesterday were materializing and positioning firework mortars aimed out at the gulf.

“Mavriste, this is Johnny Ingram,” I said. “You might recognize him from the beach yesterday where he wisely did not join the fighting.”

“I could have helped,” he frowned.

“But Caleb shouldn’t have been fighting either,” Mavriste said. “Yours was the wiser choice. Caleb Hane, this is Vo.”

“You guys really go in on the first names, don’t you?” I asked.

“Reform is a personal process,” Mavriste said. “Frankly, so is fighting alongside one another.”

I hadn’t seen much of their arsenal yesterday, but they had reacted almost as quickly as Mavriste. They were skilled.

“A Vorak named ‘Vo’?” I asked. “That must be the most nondescript furfish name on the planet. It’s like calling a human ‘Hugh’.”

“Why? It’s not like ‘human’ is the word for us in every Earth language,” Jordan pointed out.

“Your friend is right,” Vo chattered in Tarassin. “In my native tongue, we don’t call ourselves ‘Vorak’. We are ‘Antuan’.”

“You understand what we’re saying?” I asked.

“Starspeak is. A new language. For me,” they said haltingly. “Psionics. Make listening more easy. But speaking. Not so much.”

“How long have you been learning it?” I asked, trying to give my Tarassin a stretch.

“Only a few months,” Vo said. “The Missionary Marines provide excellent training.”

“Well if you’re already that fluent, proud should you be. It took me one half year to be that fluent,” I said. Hearing myself talk out loud, I caught some of my small errors as I said them, but there was no helping it. Growing pains like that were part of the process.

“I learned multiple languages as a child,” Vo said. “That makes it considerably easier to pick up a third.”

“Learning Starspeak made learning Ogumi and Tarassin easier,” I agreed.

“Oh, you speak Ogumi?” Vo asked, switching to the Casti language.

“Better than Tarassin,” I said. “My friend Tasser taught me.”

I pointed back up the beach at…well, you couldn’t really see who I was pointing at in particular.

While Vo talked with me and Jordan, they also conducted a parallel conversation with Johnny while they finished setting up the fireworks, and exactly how to get each one needed to be packed and aimed to get the right results.

Soon enough, they were done, and they shooed us away back toward the rest of the crowd on the beach.

Macoru was the one to seek me out this time, practically melting out of the night. Unlike her brother though, her psionic presence wasn’t so hard to notice.

“Vo said it would be a few more minutes before the fireworks,” she said. “Care to discuss a human with my brother and me before or after the show?”

“Do we have the time to fit it all before?” I asked.

“It’s likely, yes,” Macoru apologized. “We do not know much, but we’ll share everything we can.”

I said.

Macoru made her way to Mavriste who was chowing down at one of Nai’s picnic tables, and she sat beside him.

“Alright,” I sat opposite. “I’m all ears. You ran into a human: get talking.”

“Our typical annual schedule is to spend one third of the year recuperating and training, the next third helping with seasonal storms that regularly devastate this region, and the last third fighting in whatever conflicts crop up following the stormy season,” Macoru explained. “Currently we’re perfectly between the first and second thirds. But last year, we were in the region and we came across an Adept alien we’d never seen in person before.”

“Her name was Ingrid,” I bet.

The two of them nodded.

“You’ve heard of her.”

“She left the abductees orbiting Hashtin almost two years ago,” I said. “She must have been down here a while.”

“Well she had psionics,” Halax said. “Including that English-to-Starspeak dictionary, but where she was, people didn’t speak enough Starspeak to communicate effectively with her. We did, which is how we were asked to translate.”

“Normally, something like that wouldn’t be worth our time,” Macoru said, “but Ingrid wasn’t on her own. She had a powerful benefactor named Cadrune. They’re a cesspit local that’s richer than a few small nations, but they compensated us for our help well in excess.”

“Cesspit?” I asked.

“North of here,” she explained. “There’s a reason we came this far south in Ogi this year. North of here about two hundred miles is a sovereign city-state called Pudiligsto.”

“Bad place?”

“Bad enough to call it a cesspit,” Macoru snorted.

“You guys don’t seem like you’d be the types to be repelled from a place just for its unsavory elements,” I said. “On the contrary, in fact. Seems like you folks like to go where the sinners are.”

“We go as regularly as we can justify,” Mavriste said, “but the truth is, that city’s evils just aren’t the kind we’re capable of defeating.”

“It’s a stable country, very rich, actually. But it’s rife with corruption and organized criminal elements,” Macoru said. “Ingrid actually described in English as—and I’m quoting here—‘[like Vegas, Monaco, the Caymans, and Switzerland]’ all rolled into one.”

“Places on Earth with sterling facades and big tourist destinations,” I nodded, “but also a reputation for having a seedy underbelly. Illegal gambling, money laundering, and generally being favorable to criminals in some way.”

“The city enjoys large amounts of foreign investment,” Macoru noted. “They’ve made a business of hiding others’ money, so many of the things we’d like correct in that city are enshrined by law.”

“We’re a skilled group of mercenaries, but even we cannot topple a country on our own,” Mavriste said. “Even if we did, it’s doubtful we could change anything for long.”

“You said Cadrune was rich?” I asked.

“They likely participate in the city’s corruption on some level, yes,” Macoru said, reading into my real question.

“Was Ingrid their prisoner?”

“Difficult to say,” she replied. “We weren’t struck that way speaking to her, but we only met for a few hours. We traded psionics and gave her our Starspeak-Tarassin dictionary.”

“Any reason to think she isn’t still there?” I asked.

“Not to our knowledge,” Mavriste said. “Harpe Cadrune is a known local—if far from the public eye.”

“I realize this is your whole reason for coming to this planet, but I strongly urge caution if you go to Pudiligsto,” Macoru said.

“She’s right. Don’t trust that city for a second. If you go there as your friend said? On vacation? You shouldn’t run into trouble. They love tourists,” Mavriste said. “But if you have to tangle with that city’s monsters? Well…”

“Put it this way, we beat you. So will they,” Macoru said.

“I appreciate the warning.”

“But you’re going anyway?”

“We have to. If Ingrid’s there, we need to help her.”

“…Well, there’s no faulting you for that,” Mavriste said. “I enjoyed meeting you, and I believe the rest of the Marines feel the same. So, do your best not to die?”

“I’m on vacation,” I said. “I will do more than my best.”

“Bit of a strange place to vacation though,” he replied. “Why pick here—oh. Right humans in the region.”

“Yeah,” I snorted. “Why would it be a strange place though?”

“More of a strange time, Mav,” his sister said. “Our annual schedule, remember. We’re moving into the third where we typically provide disaster relief aid—especially in the form of Adeptry.”

“…And you’re here,” I realized. “So you think there’s going to be a disaster soon.”

“Seasonal storms,” Macoru nodded. “I think the word in English would be [hurricane]. The last several years have been quite mild, and when that happens, the streak usually ends with a season much worse than usual.”

“Years past, we’d focus more on the north end of Ogi,” Mavriste said. “But this year there’s a large earthquake expected here in the south, so maybe you have the right idea heading toward Pudiligsto.”

“This isn’t liable to land within the next week is it?” I asked. “The Jack is still in the gulf for the next four days.”

“You should be fine,” Mavriste said. “We’re relayed some satellite meterological data regularly; the storm’s already building up, but it won’t make landfall for another week, at least. Two, more likely.”

“Well that’s a relief,” I said. “Hope you guys weather it well.”

Whatever conversation might have been left was cut off with the sound of a rocket streaking into the air. The glowing purple light soared a thousand feet up before it burst into red and blue sparks.

It couldn’t have been Johnny’s first time launching fireworks. The timing was too good. Or maybe it was Vo’s.

Still, glancing down at the beach, I could faintly make out some of the psionic mechanisms they’d embedded into the mortars, governing when they would go off. A show like this would ordinarily take a team of a dozen people hours to put together.

But two Adepts had put one together in just a few minutes.

Hell, thinking about the party, Nai had singlehandedly done the work of…I didn’t even want to think about how many people.

Psionics and Adeptry really were cheating…