Chapter Eighty (Vuxten) (1/2)

The battle and fierce fighting had ended only a week before Vuxten had been released from the hospital ship the CNV Mercy. His leg had been shattered and the Terrans had regrown it. It had been painful, itchy, and tormenting during the three days it had regrown. He had not cared, even the intense physical therapy to help him overcome the lingering effects of his injuries and the mental therapy he had received to help ease combat trauma had not damped his spirits.

He had spent his time in the arms of his broodcarriers and his wife, Brentili'ik, surrounded by giggling podlings who were eager to play little games of hide and seek and watch me dance with him. He had been shocked to see Donovan, as the last time he had seen the big human scout he had been shot through the head by a Precursor.

Donovan had not remembered him too clearly, and at Brentili'ik's advice had not bothered the human too often.

Now he was back home. Well, as close to home as he could get.

The city he had been born in, raised and educated in, and had lived his life in was a shattered skeleton of its former self.

He had spent a month fighting in that city. Wrapped in Terran scout armor almost the entire time, only leaving it when he was inside one of the massive armored vehicles, and only then so he could clean himself while his armor underwent maintenance. He had left a few times to drop off refugees at the heavily fortified encampments and hospitals.

But most of his time had been spent in the streets and buildings of that city.

His eyes stopped on a skyraker. It had been five-hundred stories of offices and luxury apartments. The atomic fire on the fourth day had ripped it down to sixty stories, but it still towered over the skyline. He could remember, knew if he closed his eyes he would relive, running up those stairs, following Sergeant, carrying anti-armor rockets that they fired from the twentieth floor into the top of the Precursor assault machines.

He swallowed deeply.

Brentili'ik noted her mates distress and gathered him up in her arms. She nuzzled his neck, crooning softly to him.

She had disagreed with returning to the planet so soon, but her husband had insisted. She disagreed even more with him coming here, to view their former home, but again, he has insisted.

Brentili'ik felt nausea at seeing the city so destroyed, so damaged, even as part of her soul felt vindicated by the damage. The Overseers had hidden away or fled, those who had not been maddened by the Precursors screams, had left her people to die on the planet. It felt right to her that their center of power had been so ravaged by the battle, by the war.

Does it make me a bad person to feel this way? she wondered to herself as her husband buried his face in her fur. Their two broodcarriers moved up to hug him with her, to shield him with their fluffy tails as they began to croon to him and stroke him. The dozen or so podlings, all orphans, holding tight to the broodcarriers fur made soothing chirping noises to try to ease Vuxten's pain.

How things have changed, Brentili'ik thought. Only a little while before the broodcarriers would have been confused by Vuxten's anguish and would have been distressed that they didn't know how to care for him.

Now they were familiar with his pain and how to soothe it.

Finally he was ready to be released, touching noses to her.

”I am sorry,” he said softly, staring down at the street where he could see the battered ground car they had used to drive to the outskirts of the city. ”I did not think it would be so difficult.”

”We are a gentle and peaceful people, my husband,” Brentili'ik said softly, turning away from the melted looking skyline. ”We were ill equipped for this fight.”

Together they started walking down the hill. The podlings looked around with wide eyes at the grass, at the denuded trees, at the odd things strewn around.

It didn't really register to Vuxten and his family that they walked around an abandoned tread and running gears from a Precursor tank. It was just another piece of rubble.

”Do you think the Overseers will return?” Brentili'ik asked.

”They better not,” Vuxten said, one hand dropping to his side to find nothing. Brentili'ik caught the motion, almost Terran in the way he had done it, and knew he had been reaching for his magac pistol.

”I have heard the Terran lawyers have emancipated us,” Brentili'ik said, repeating the rumor she had heard moving through the refugee camp. ”I have heard they stand with us now.”

”Blood to blood, steel to steel, my life is yours, brother,” Vuxten quoted.

Part of Brentili'ik missed the factory worker who was more concerned with getting the family out of debt.

”We will burn with a life of our own, sister,” Brentili'ik added.

Part of her missed the simple sanitation worker concerned with the same things that she had been.

You can't go home again, Brentili'ik quoted to herself.

They got in the beat up ground-car, a former corporate vehicle that had been sprayed black with a blue stripe down the side to denote its non-combat status. Vuxten drove and for a split-second Brentili'ik wondered where he had learned to drive.

She knew the city behind her, slowly receding into the distance, could have whispered the answer to her.

The podlings were excited but quickly tired out. The broodcarriers fell asleep with them, their fluffy tails hiding the sleeping orphans. One had crawled up into Brentili'ik's lap and she stroked its soft fur gently.

It was missing an ear.

It was nearly nightfall before they got back to the refugee camp. It was a huge, sprawling thing, with walls around it festooned with tower mounted guns, anti-aircraft guns, point defense systems, battle-screen projectors. The walls were scarred here and there.

The Precursors had thrown their might at hit twice and had rebuffed both times by a handful of human troops and hundreds of Telkans, terrified and distressed, firing rocket launchers and magnetic accelerator rifles they had been barely trained upon.

Now the night no longer had Precursor machines lurking in it. A huge BOLO tank sat nearby, ready to defend the refugee camp of 2.2 million Telkan if any Precursor machine had managed to remain hidden long enough to sneak up on the refugee camp.

Brentili'ik had expected the refugee camp to be a place of mud, sewage, and misery. Instead it was orderly, almost a normal city, if it wasn't for the featureless and stark architecture. The streets were paved, lined with lights. There were little parks for broodcarriers and podlings (there were shelter entrances scattered around them) as well as ponds, fountains, and some hastily assembled statuary that the Telkan found pleasing. The buildings were designed for Telkan comfort, the insides comfortable even if the outside was black durasteel and ceramasteel armor with crysteel windows.

The refugee camp is more Telkan than anyplace we have ever lived in generations, Brentili'ik thought to herself as they slowly drove down the street.

She knew the humans had built it with Telkan psychology in mind and part of her shuddered to remember that it was her willingness to answer questions, to speak to the Terrans about her feelings, wants, desires, and what made her comfortable or distressed that had weighted heavily with the planners who put together the refugee encampment.

The fact that the Terrans had deployed massive machines that built the refugee center in a manner of hours still shocked her.

Vuxten knew why the humans had possessed the machines, why they had known they would be needed.

Humans understood war, knew that war created refugees, even before war had come to his home.

They carried the podlings and chivvied the sleepy and logy broodcarriers into the building they were staying in, into the elevator, and down the hall to their private quarters. The broodcarriers sleepily gathered up the podlings in their nest, crooning softly as they drifted off to sleep.

Vuxten and Brentili'ik went back into their living room, holding hands and just being with one another for a little while. The sky went indigo and then black, the stars coming out slowly but surely.

Both of them took comfort in the fact that more than a few of those stars were human warships, watching over the planets of the solar system in case the Precursors returned to try to finish the job they had started.

Finally Vuxten broke the silence. ”Will you take the job?”

Brentili'ik squeezed his hand. ”Will you?”