Vanguard Word Update

4000 words

***

“Uhm… yes,” Samiha replied. The two humans exchanged a glance.

“’Yes’?” the waiter asked. “As in…?”

“I’ll take them both. And the eye fillet, the sirloin as well. You know what, just give me one of each. Rare as you please, I like it bloody.”

The waiter typed her order into his datapad with a diplomatic very well. “Just the rump for me, thanks,” Ryan said when it was his turn. “And some calamari. Oh, and one of each sauce as well.”

“I’ll run this by the kitchen,” the waiter said, the alien speaking up once he was out of earshot.

“Rump?” Samiha echoed.

“Can’t go wrong, and chef recommends it,” Ryan said as he pointed at the little disclaimer. She seemed to find this both confusing and funny at the same time, shaking her beak at his strange choice.

“So this battle in the nebula, tell me about it,” Ryan continued. “We heard the that ANS Gallipoli found your carriers out in the Folium Nebula, but the details are sketchy.”

Samiha’s eyes hardened, her pupils thinning into vertical slits. “Touchy subject,” she replied. “All I’ll say is that we were both saved, and killed by humans, both during and before your Navy discovered us.”

“Oh. I won’t pry then,” he said, Samiha looking away as she brushed at her tail in a way that came off as self-concious. “You really don’t get out much, do you?” he asked when the silence stretched to an unbearable point. “Unwind a little, Samiha. Ask me something about humans.”

“Weren’t you listening? I already know as much as I need about your species,” she replied curtly.

“How’s that? You have some history classes before you came here?”

“Our pilots had extensive interactions with your kind during our time in the nebula,” Samiha explained. “They told us of how… boisterous you are, your skills and tactical ability to outmaneuver our more powerful opponents. They also told of how most of your equipment was repurposed, personnel included.”

“Production’s a little slow on the Hub, can’t pump out ships of the line just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “You talk to anyone in particular? I knew a few people on the Gallipoli, catch any names?”

She shook her head, pursing the end of her beak as she sipped at her glass. Ryan got the feeling there was more to her silence than just her inexperience at cutting loose, but he couldn’t be sure.

The pause was thankfully broken by the return of the waiter, balancing two plates in each hand. He set Ryan’s plate down first – a generous slab of steak surrounded by a bed of steaming vegetables and crispy chips – then used both hands to keep Samiha’s dish steady. In the middle of her plate was a tower of meat, stacked about seven or eight high with variously sized steaks, piled high and drizzled in a creamy-looking sauce. The meat pillar sat on a bed of greens, wobbling uneasily as the waiter eased the plate down, bending his knees to reach the table, it all looked like a bit out of a bad comedy.

“I’ll return with your condiments, sir,” the waiter explained, relieved he’d walked to their table without dropping anything. He shuffled off again, Ryan watching Samiha’s gaze light up as she eyed her dinner. He wondered if she would use the cutlery supplied or just her hands, then got his answer as if on cue.

“Where are the gloves?” she asked, glancing around the table, peeking beneath it as though something would be hidden down there.

“Gloves? Why’d you need gloves?”

“To eat,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Haven’t you noticed when we’re in the mess hall?”

“No, you’re always at a different table, and Tilu eats with her hands.”

He remembered seeing Samiha sit by herself while the team had ate and chat at their personal table in the mess, trying not to look too lonely as the only other Balokarid shared meals with a person she’d detested. Maybe he should have gone a little easier on her and invited her over, it sucked to be alone in the most communal place on the quadrant.

“Balokarids protect their hands when we eat messy or oily foods,” Samiha explained. “Keeps our feathers from getting grimy. What do humans use?”

“These.” He held up his cutlery and demonstrated how to use them, Samiha giving them a go after a bit of encouragement. The knife and fork were basically toothpicks in her giant hands, and she gave the silverware a hard look when they kept slipping between her fingers.

“This thing couldn’t cut through sand,” she complained, pricking her thumb against the knife before he could stop her. Her skin must be tough, or her feathers were adding a protective layer over her skin, the knife failing to cut through.  She added a string of clicks and words from her native language as she sawed at the first steak, Ryan getting the impression she was cussing.

“Just use a napkin,” he tried before she could break the knife over her knee. “Doubt they’d have any gloves here that could fit your hands anyway.”

As she layered her hand in a napkin, the waiter returned with a tray full of sauce cups, each one filled with a differently coloured condiment, chunks of herbs and marinated vegetables bobbing on their surfaces. He set the tray down between them, the waiter raising a brow as he watched Samiha wrap napkins around her hands like she was a boxer getting ready for a match.

“Which one is the hottest?” Samiha asked, eyeing the sauces hungrily. “This station is so cold, I need a warm belly.”

“The pepper sauce, ma’am,” the waiter answered. “Sourced straight from Concord, so you know they’re good.”

“Who or what is a Concord?”

The waiter chuckled, explaining that it was a colony world in the Reaches focused primarily on crop growth. He seemed to find interacting with the alien amusing, but at least he wasn’t rudely staring or being overtly nervous around her, she’d got plenty of that back on the street and even on the base, Ryan feeling a pang of guilt as he realised he’d done nothing but add to that kind of treatment. Was it any wonder she’d been so hostile?

“Then I’ll order one of these peppers,” Samiha said. “I could do with a little spice.”

“You can use mine,” Ryan said, placing the sauce on her plate. She gave him an odd look, then mumbled something as she picked it up.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, barely louder than the first time. As he smirked at her, Samiha upended the whole cup onto the steak at the very peak of her tower, the thick sauce dripping down the edges. He watched as she plucked the first steak off the pile, the alien opening her beak to bite into it. From this angle, he could get a good look at her palate. Her tongue was so dark it was borderline black, as was the roof of her mouth, the flesh concaving into rows of pearly teeth, tiny and slightly hooked, with wicked sharp points.

Her beak overlapped the steak, Samiha pulling back with a wet smack, a wedge of meat ripping away. She chewed maybe twice before swallowing, the visible lump in her throat moving down below her collarbone.

“Good?” Ryan asked, blowing on a steaming piece of sweet potato.

She nodded, finishing off the steak in two more bites, starting on the second. Most of the pepper sauce had been on that first slab, and she eyed his tray of sauces with her reflective eyes, Ryan pushing it towards her when he noticed.

“You’re not having any?” she asked, picking up a cup at random.

“Ordered it for both of us,” he said, waving his hand. “Balokarids share food, right?”

“We host the occasional communal banquet from time to time,” she admitted, Ryan asking her to elaborate. “There are special days during the cycle where we celebrate, holidays, I think you’d call them? Anyway, the majority of the clan gathers in one place, usually the Kith’s palace if we were on Balokar or Dur’shala. All the finest dishes and supplements are shared among the clan, and everyone is allowed to take their fill.”

There was that word again, supplements. He wondered if that was just an error in translation, or there was more to it. “How many people are in a clan?” he asked.

“Hundreds of thousands, usually more. My clan, the Kaaleshi, numbers around a quarter of one of your millions.”

“That’s a pretty damned big banquet,” Ryan mused. “This palace must be gigantic.”

“It was, but there’s a lot of room to go around when there’s nothing but sand dunes in all directions,” she explained. She finished off her second steak before Ryan even got through most of his, her mood souring a little as she continued. “Of course, there used to be much, much more of us. Confederates butchered our burgeoning colony, and now our banquets must be held on the communal decks of our carriers, and it’s not nearly the same when your food can float away when there’s no gravity.”

“Mustn’t have been easy, losing your clan like that.”

“More than you realise,” she answered, sipping from her water again.

“At least you’ve got the chance to start again,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Look at us, we’ve got our own little banquet right here, just on a smaller scale.”

“How the mighty have fallen,” Samiha trilled. “that is the correct saying, yes?”

Samiha was putting her meal away like it was nothing, but it wasn’t because of gluttony. Her chest was as broad around as a barrel, her athletic arms bulging with muscles even the most hardcore bodybuilder would be envious of, her sleeveless top allowing him to admire her thick biceps. They were double the size of Ryan’s, and they’d have to be if she needed to carry those wings of hers around, and the story was likely the same with her legs, she must weigh thrice as much as the average human. Her kind probably had a huge calorie requirement if they wanted to sustain their bodyweight.

He had her try the squid he’d mentioned before, Samiha reluctantly shoving a fried tentacle into her beak. She chewed twice before spitting it out, complaining that it was too salty for her tastes. The sauces were far more to her liking, Samiha sampling each steak with a different kind of condiment, combining the ones she liked the most and experimenting the contrasting flavours.

She finished her meat tower long before Ryan was done, despite the alien clearly pacing herself so that she could stay occupied, it was impressive in a way. After she was done, she tapped her nails against the faux wood table, scrunching her napkins into little balls as she looked around the restaurant.

“This place, the Hub,” she clarified. “was it built by the UEC as well?”

It seemed the meal had put her in a more talkative mood, Ryan pausing to swallow as he answered. “Independently established, actually. The most popular trade routes ran straight through this system, and a couple of traders decided to take advantage of the traffic and set up a pitstop”

“Pit-stop?”

“Imagine… if you’re walking across a desert, and you come across an oasis. It’s like that, a place to stop and rest before moving on.”

“Got it. Continue.”

“So these traders, they set up a little depot in the system, bringing a couple of fuel liners in so cargo haulers passing through can top up, as well as a yacht-class ship where crews can stretch their legs. Yachts are ships full of luxuries, like theatres and swimming pools, no guns or armour, just a ship for rich people to cruise in.”

“That yacht is now the thing the torus spins round, that glowing ship up in the sky? It’s been modified and repurposed into a sort of command center over the years, and that’s where the top personell live, like the Senator and her staff, your Kith probably has a suite up there as well. Anyway I’m jumping ahead, so the pitstop, it became so popular after a while there wasn’t enough room to accommodate all the ships, and it soon developed into a commercial depot, where trade ships could meet halfway instead of flying the entire route. People with money started vying for places to set up shops, which then led to people living there permanently. Then finally demand got so high someone decided to straight up build the megastructure we’re currently standing on, with every colony out in the Reaches pitching in the funds and the manpower. Place has been the biggest trade hub for hundreds of years, and that’s how it got its name.”

“Now I see why there are so many places to spend one’s money here,” Samiha noted. “This place is rooted in commerce. It must be a very valuable structure.”

“It was the heart of trade for humanity,” he said, nodding. “And the UEC wanted in in the action, set up a few bases to keep a presence, biggest of which being the quadrant we’re training in. The founders, the people who’d funded the Hub’s construction, they weren’t too happy about being policed, especially since the Core Worlds were against the idea of a Hub in the first place, thought it would keep the money flowing away from Earth and Mars, and they were right. UEC managed to broker a deal to keep a small standing force on the station, but the soldiers were either exiled or switched sides when Senator Estera took the reins and declared independence.”

“There had to be fighting, surely.”

“Yeah, but the revolutionists came out on top in the end, drove the Fed’s back to their Core Systems.”

“Yet they are still here,” Samiha commented. “I passed entire squads of UEC when I first came here, Confederate grunts, officers, corporals… the enemy still walks the torus.”

With a start, he realised what he’d been missing. She wasn’t just new to all this socializing, she had issues about his background.

“Is that why you’ve been at me since day one?” he asked. “because I was a Confederate?”

“’Was’,” Samiha scoffed. “Just because you wear Hub colours now doesn’t mean you weren’t affiliated with the people who attacked my home.”

“So it’s blame by proxy, is it? You know I left them long before anyone ever knew you aliens existed.”

“You think that makes it better?” she snapped, her feathers shaking in what must be anger, given the context. “You think that after however long you served the UEC, that turning your back on them now makes everything right?”

“I’m not proud of my service, if that’s what you’re asking. When I saw how they treated the people out here in the Reaches, their methods of subduing any outcry, that was it, I was done. When the next opportunity to get out of there presented itself, I took it.”

“On Balokar, someone who abandons their people is called a clanless,” Samiha said, the way she glared at him from across the table reminiscent of when she’d come at him, nails ready. “Clans are more than just your family, they are your protectors, who share their water and treat you with their hard-earned supplements. To abandon them is one of the most shameful acts, unthinkable, but not necessarily unheard of. Not every clan tolerates each other, but no Balokarid would ever think of even sparing a glance at a clanless, yet everyone seems to have forgotten about that, after your people saved us in the nebula.”

“So you’d rather I’d have just stayed as a Confederate?”

“If you were Balokarid, you would be exiled to the deserts.” It wasn’t really an answer, but Ryan doubted she saw things so black and white. “You are traitors, you and every other Confederate on this station. Our pilots rave about your skills and your technology, yet when I look around, I barely see a single concept not inherited straight from the mouth of your former clan. You are Confederate, and Hub, but lacking the conviction of either side.”

“Your clan and us are after the same thing,” he tried. “That’s why we’re called the Alliance now. We’re not proud of our past, but that’s what this program is all about, training ourselves to fight for a better cause.”

“Feeling regret is no substitute for being a traitor,” Samiha growled, slamming a fist on the table, making their plates jump. “You think that a pardon from your Senator gives you a clean beginning? You say that you are not proud of your service, yet you still served, can’t you see that? By the Dust, you are still referred to as Corporal! From where I sit, you are exactly the same as the soldiers who invaded Dur’shala, you’re just wearing different colours.”

Ryan grabbed at his drink, the sweating glass wetting his fingertips. This was the kind of reaction he’d expected from his human peers, not from an alien, and any of the preplanned responses he’d made didn’t really make sense against a Balokarid, he’d have to try a different approach.

“You’re right,” he said after a moment of thinking, Samiha’s eyes reflecting the light as she blinked at him. “I’m a traitor, a clanless, and I can’t change that through words, but I still want to change it.”

“You cannot. All our pasts are set in writing, for better or worse.”

“Not talking about the past, I’m talking about now, starting with you.”

“Me?”

“You’re the first person to call me out on my Confederate ties,” he explained. “so who better to start making things right with?”

Samiha crossed her arms over her pronounced chest, her wings fanning out to make her look much larger than she already was, like the splayed sheaths of a peacock. “You’d be better off convincing those of your own race,” she said. “though, I imagine you wouldn’t exactly meet much resistance, from what I’ve seen.”

“Thought you and me were doing well so far,” he said, gesturing at their empty plates. “coming out here, agreeing to share a meal.”

Her headdress twitched, Samiha’s eyes glancing from side to side as she considered something. “It was an… interesting diversion,” she relented. “But, if you think one evening out can change anything, you have missed my point.”

“I know, I just… Look, I just want to make sure we’re not gonna be at each other’s throats the next time we’re training. If you could just forget I’m an ex-Fed for a while, this program will be a lot easier for the both of us, cause like it or not, we’re part of a team, and we’re stuck together until we finish it, or we’re cut loose. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather we finished our training on our terms. Hell, you might even get your own Rakshal team if we finish on a high note.”

That last bit got her attention, Samiha pausing as she mulled it over. “I cannot forget what your people did to mine,” she murmured. Ryan went to reply but she held up a finger, gesturing for him to be quiet. “But, I’m willing to set our differences aside, for my and Tilu’s sake, not yours.”

“Good enough for me,” he said. “we’ll get through the program faster if we try and work as a unit. Sooner that happens, the sooner we’ll be out of each other’s hair, or feathers,” he added, nodding at her. “So we’re square?”

He held out his hand, the alien clicking her beak in confusion. “It’s called a handshake,” he explained. “It’s how humans come to an agreement.”

She reached out, her hand so large that his digits completely disappeared into her feathery figners. Her coat was so soft, like she was wearing a pair of mittens made from the softest silk, tickling his skin. She gave her arm a single pump, and then released her.

“Great,” he said, Samiha’s feathers bristling as she looked at the hand he’d touched. “Now that that’s out of the way, how about some desserts?”

“Where would you put that much sand in this place?”

“No no, desserts, it’s a meal eaten after a… well, a meal.”

“Why is it named so closely to deserts? Is it because it’s dry, sandy?”

“There’s no sand involved, believe me.”

After waving down the waiter, he ordered two slices of cake, and they arrived soon after. Samiha cupped her piece with a napkin, devouring the whole thing in one bite, her gums slapping wetly as she swallowed the glaze down.

“Oh wow,” she said, licking the napkin clean of the fudge. “What did you say this was made from again?”

“You didn’t give me time to explain, but it’s cocoa, chocolate,” he said. “don’t lick the napkins by the way, that’s the opposite of what they’re for.”

“That dessertwas way too small, as were the steaks. They should serve Balokarid portions.”

“You’d eat them out of business if they did,” he said. “You had almost the whole menu.”

“And enjoyed every moment of it.”

“I’m glad,” he chuckled, Samiha’s headdress flittering at his reaction. The meal was a little rough towards the end there, but they’d talked things out, and he felt comfortable they’d return to their training with a new outlook on each other.

The waiter returned with their bill, Samiha leaning out of the way as he picked up their plates. “Enjoy your meal, ma’am?”

“A little overdone, but I did, yeah,” Samiha replied. “I was just telling my colleague here about how you should serve larger portions.”

“Maybe some larger booths too,” the waiter suggested. “sorry about your seating arrangement, we’ve only seen a handful of Balokarids out and about, but if that’s changing, we might have to rearrange the floor.”

“I’ll recommend you to my Kith,” Samiha said. “She told me to let her know if I found any interesting places.”

“We’d appreciate that, business has been slow lately.”

He bid the pair farewell, Ryan opening up the bill and wincing at the price. Clearly importing some proper meat and sauce from Concord wasn’t a cheap endeavor.

“What’s that?” Samiha asked, leaning over to look at what he was doing.

“Our bill,” he said. “Could have wiped out a street vendor with this kind of money, but oh well, Navy pay’s the best on the station.”

“I’ll get it,” Samiha chirped, digging her nail into the cover and sliding the bill onto her side of the table. Ryan began to protest, but she cut him off. “You didn’t let me pay your hospital fee, and I ate maybe nine times as much as you, this one’s on me.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know how to use money.”

“The Kith explained it to me this morning,” she said, producing a little card from her pocket. “We were talking, and I happened to mention we were going to someplace on the torus. She was far more interested after that, for some reason.” She stared into space, a thoughtful expression on her face. She shook her head, returning to the present. “So how do I use this?”

“Well, that looks like a credit card, she tell you how much was on it?”

“One thousand credits.”

“Pretty big allowance. Just go ahead and tap it against the little scanner there, on the side.”

He watched with a smirk as she proceeded through the whole ritual, awkwardly slapping the card against the reader. Her culture must not have digitized their currency as much as humans had, as she asked him if she shouldn’t just hand over the card as collateral.

“The transaction happens automatically over the station’s net,” he explained. “The money on that card is in an account stored somewhere else, and that card’s a way to access it, Don’t lose it, or anyone could use your money.”

She tucked the card away safely, and they got to their feet, making their way back to the base. All in all, he felt better about spending the next couple months in Samiha’s presence. To think all he needed to do was get socked in the face by her for them to come to terms.