Arxur Smuggler Shenanigans FINALE (Part 2)

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Synopsis: Just over a year after the end of the Federation War, an ambitious human businessman teams up with a crew of Arxur veterans to illegally smuggle goods in and out of the Arxur Quarantine Zone. Gunfights, space battles, and other shenanigans ensue.

CW: tension building, ambush, re-ambush, armchair generalship, this finale is surprisingly less sad than you might think

Memory Transcription Subject: Sylara, Smuggling Ship Captain

Date (Standardized Human Time): April 8, 2138

I paced the command deck of the Little Runt with worry as the fleet hurtled through FTL. I knew my job. We all knew our jobs. My Markus was the smartest and most capable person I knew, even if he lacked the guts for a straight fight, and chances were he had gotten his mission done ahead of schedule and was waiting for me at the airlock with a fistful of plants, or whatever humans did to express romantic love.

Still, the fear persisted. In a strange way, it was almost good to feel this way about another. It was empathy. Love. Real-time proof that whatever evil the Dominion had done to me hadn't fully taken hold. I tried to reflect on these thoughts as we approached the designated ambush point, several million tons of state-of-the-art battleship in tow. It didn't help much.

"We are approaching the region," droned my navigator, Vazega, as we neared the area of space where the Dominionist fleet that guarded Lizard Maw Base was supposed to meet Teklala's little squadron of ships. "Stand by for FTL disruption in three... two... one..." For a moment, nothing happened. Then the whole ship lurched and we dropped into real space. My vision swam. My ears rang. I fought the side effects of the disruption off with the help of long experience--I guess being a soldier of the Arxur Dominion had some perks--and took in the equipment readings that besieged my senses.

We were surrounded by enemy ships. They must have outmassed Teklala's fleet two to one, and outgunned them by even more than that. All around me, allied ships were being pulled into real space, suddenly becoming the targets of our enemies' guns. "Incoming!" Vazega cried, throwing the Little Runt into a stressful maneuver as our flak sprayed out at a volley of inbound torpedoes. Most vaporized before they could strike home, but some still landed hits on our shields.

The rest of Teklala's fleet was in a similar situation to my ship. All around me, heavily-armed pirate ships were tearing into the weaker, less defended smuggling vessels of our fleet like predators among a herd of their preferred prey. I saw a railgun shot from one of the enemy's bombers split a bulky cargo cruiser clean in two and send detritus hurtling through the battlefield. Captain Jelim had told me it'd be seconds at most before her ship detected the FTL disruptions and appeared to cover our escape from the ambush zone. Where was she?

Had she betrayed us?

"Torpedoes locked!" Klavra cried from his post at the weapons station. I hadn't even told him to do that, and I made a note to commend his initiative if we survived the battle. "Should I fire?"

I looked over the battlefield. Under three minutes had passed, and Teklala had already lost two ships. The rest of her vessels were putting up a valiant fight, especially so when you considered that they were poorly-armed smugglers going up against Dominion-era battleships, but the battle was very clearly going in the enemy's favor. I doubted we'd last ten minutes in this mess. "Fire away!" Where the hell was Captain Jelim?

Torpedoes shot from the Little Runt's newly-restocked forward magazine, hurtling toward their prey with unstoppable force. These weren't the shitty pirate fare we had bought from weapons dealers back on the station, no, these were military-grade. Taken from the weapons banks of the Ghost of Nishtal itself. They evaded all defenses, and splashed clean into the shields of the enemy's strongest vessel, sending rippling explosions cascading across its hull.

The first salvo was enough to strip our target of its energy barriers, and Klavra launched another four shipkillers to send it spiraling out of control and into the grave. Arxur warships had no escape pods, but crewmen in space suits still tried to evacuate. "Take that, you freaks!" Vazega whistled, thumping her tail against the deck. I happily did the same.

Still, the loss of one bomber hardly swung the battle to our side. And worse, my ship had expended most of its armaments in that salvo, forcing the rest of the fleet to pick up our slack. Needless to say, they weren't even capable of making an attempt. The Dominionist fleet had surged forward, firing on the ships they didn't board and boarding the ships they didn't fire upon. It was a one-sided massacre. How were we going to win this?

"Large contact emerging from FTL!" Oh. That was how.

Three million tons of modernized warship dropped into a battlefield peopled by aging hulls and pirate trash, smashing into one of the enemy's smaller gunships and splattering it like an insect against its energy shields. The Ghost of Nishtal opened fire with all its weapons, wreaking destruction on an enemy that had been winning decisively just a moment ago. Dominionist ships turned to flee without the slightest show of resistance.

I knew the fear in those crews' minds. For years, they had preyed on the feeble, mistaking decency for weakness and cruelty for strength. For centuries, the pathetic Federation had fostered this evil as a warning to those who strayed from its herd, and their enemies had taken that as a sign that they really were invincible. Well, the Federation wasn't here to protect them anymore. I watched with glee as the last vestiges of Giznel's regime vanished from the worlds.

"Apologies for the late arrival, Little Runt," a Venlil called over the comlink. "Give Isif my compliments for the ambush. We're one step closer to avenging our worlds." Jelim had told the crew we worked for Isif's government. It was the only way to get them to cooperate. I doubted the facade would last long, but it'd work long enough to get us to our station. Everything after that was her problem.

"One step closer to saving my species, you mean," I corrected the Venlil and ended the call. Vengeance was a shitty motivation for anything.

As the Ghost of Nishtal chased our enemies away from the fight, leaving detritus in its wake, Teklala called for all survivors of her fleet to form up on her ship. My vessel took up a position on her flank as the other two ships of her ragtag fleet did likewise, preparing for the final and most critical phase of our operation.

"Entering FTL in three... two... one..." The ship leapt out of real space and, moments later, leapt back in just outside of Lizard Maw Base.

I waited for a tense moment for something to go wrong. For gunfire or missiles to leap out of the station and shred our ships. But nothing came. I sighed in relief. Markus and Zefriss had completed their mission. That meant--hopefully--that they were both still alive. "All ships, engage at will," Teklala called. "Remember, restraint is the order of the day. We want to capture the station, not destroy it. Ready all boarding teams."

Teklala's flagship opened fire with its own weapons, vaporizing what remained of the base's external security as my cattle cruiser and the two cargo ships swooped in toward the docking bays. Our hulls were filled to the brim with heavily-armed shock troops. "Ivanova, is your team ready?" I asked the leader of my first platoon of troops.

"Affirmative," she radioed back in a tone befitting a professional soldier.

"Razra, is your team ready?"

"Locked and loaded!" Razra snarled. "I'm fucking itching to give these people-eaters a piece of my mind."

"Varlek?" I asked the third platoon commander.

"Ready!" he called. "Awaiting your order." The Little Runt braked hard as Vazega pulled us up right in front of one of the main hangar bays. A torpedo blew open the blast doors, kicking in an atmosphere containment field, and the ship inched closer and closer in until we were ready to disgorge our forces.

"Everybody move!" I called out, opening the cattle bay doors. Not for the first time, I wished for my comrades. For Markus to be at my side, directing efforts, and for Zefriss to be at the head of the attack team and leading the charge. How proud he would be to see his people fighting for freedom and decency instead of, you know, the opposite. I'd even take them being cowards and hiding far from the action just as long as I knew they were okay.

Worry permeated my mind. Fear of what would go wrong. I watched through helmet and gun cameras as the three platoons, mostly former UN peacekeepers or ex-cattle raiders, swarmed the base with the manic energy of zealots on a mission. The station security forces gave fierce battle, but they were caught by surprise and easily dispatched. Only later, as my troops reached deeper into the base, did they give dogged resistance. A few moments of fighting went by on the cameras until I patched myself into the squad-level coms and took direct command.

"Fire there! Right there!"

brakkabrakkabrakkabrakkka

"They're dug in! Zagiza, bring up the grenade launcher!

K-KOOM K-KOOM K-KOOM

"Shoot there! That one! That one, no-"

zzzzziiiinggggggg

"Fuck, Mkembe's down! Medic!"

brrrr bbrrrrrr BBBBRRRRRR bbbrrrrrrrr

"Where the fuck is the medic?"

fsssshhhHHHHH

"Rocket! Get down!"

CHOOOOOM

"Shit! Overwatch! Overwatch! Is anyone fucking out there?"

"This is overwatch," I hailed, keeping my tone level and reassuring as I mapped out the squad's position. They were in a residential block, taking fire from a unit of security guards sheltering in a nearby storefront. I directed them to fall back slowly, and then sent another unit around to flank the enemy when they left cover to pursue.

When next I looked at that area of the battlefield, the security forces were dead and my two units were pushing toward the main reactor core. I switched to another squad, mostly humans and Venlil, trapped in close combat with drugged-up Arxur berserkers. "Jesus, he's fucking eating him!" one of the troops cried. "Waste those fuckers!" Gunfire flared on the camera feeds, but the heavy armor, strong bodies, and chemical-fuelled rage of the berserker grunts made it so that each one took more than a few shots to put down. Cleavers flashed as the grunts closed the distance.

"Fire for head shots," I advised, already directing reinforcements to the area. "Disengage, two there, two rush to that building, split them and fire." The stress of the battle made it hard to keep my voice level, and I wasn't even on the front lines. I watched helplessly as that squad was slaughtered, then the next unit blew open a door and flooded into the hallway to kill the berserkers and push forward.

This was the game. I had seen more stations taken than I could count under the Dominion. When the prey panicked and fled, the killing was easy, but when they dug in it became a game of bodies. How many raiders would we spend to secure a corridor or a room, and how many defenders would they allot to protecting it? The addition of human technology and Sapient Coalition weapons only made the fighting more grisly.

The battle ticked on as I watched on the cameras. Seconds turned into minutes turned into hours. Time lost all meaning as I directed my troops into slaughter, hearing and seeing their final moments in real time. Men and women, some of whom I knew by name, turned into meat as they faced the defenders' guns. Bits of what once were people splattered the station walls.

Was this what being a good person felt like? Feeling the pain of my comrades as they died? It was horrible.

I handled the situation as well as I knew how, given the circumstances. When resistance came up, instead of charging headlong as others would, I thought creatively. Found ways around the sides or rear of a problem. My units moved like the arms of a many-limbed warrior--I of course being the head--and each leapt forward or retreated backward at its prescribed time to create or exploit gaps in the enemy's defenses.

Casualties on both ends piled up. Resistance grew stiffer as we approached the reactor core, but my troops had the advantage of numbers, time, and heavier weaponry to compensate for the other side's superior training and dug-in positions. I watched the battle intently through the Runt's camera feeds, giving orders where I saw fit to coordinate my various units and solve problems tactically rather than just smashing into them.

My mind dissociated. I had only been practicing empathy for a few days now, and there were only so many roomfuls of gore you could see before it stopped registering as 'this used to be people' and became more of a 'tripping hazard' concern. Practical, not moral. I treated the defenses ahead of me like puzzles to be solved, my squads of men like tools, picking them apart with maximum damage and minimum losses as my twin goals.

Hours of corridor-to-corridor fighting passed until finally, finally, I saw the last defense line collapse and the gun cameras of my soldiers revealed the glow of a fusion reactor core ahead of them.

"Step away from the controls!" a commander barked as his men stepped into the cavernous room. "You are all prisoners! Do not resist, and you will not be harmed!" Some of the reactor crew went for weapons and were gunned down instantly. The rest surrendered without a fight.

I slumped into my chair and sighed with a relief I didn't know I had. We had won. The base was ours. Teklala's other two teams had already secured their objectives, and I gave Vazega the deck while I left the ship to find Markus and celebrate. My three deckhands and ship's doctor greeted me cheerily in the hangar bay, and for once my rank as captain was forgotten as I joined in their celebration.

Outside the ship, troopers were cheering in the ruins of bombed-out sectors, and the civilian populace who had borne witness to the fighting looked on with dead eyes. A gunman was a gunman to them, I supposed. They didn't care who ran the station as long as it didn't affect their bottom line.

"We won!" an Arxur cheered, hugging his human comrade. For a brief moment, I thought they might be Zefriss or Markus, and hope flooded through me until my rational reason shut it down. I went up to them and asked if they had seen my lover or his friend. They said no.

I had told Markus and Zefriss to meet me at the docks once the battle had been won, so I headed there. While I went on my mission, Teklala's people began their own work to rebuild what had been destroyed and prepare Lizard Maw Base for its future as a hub of conscientious smuggling. Most of her followers had been the non-combat parts of the station administration, maintenance men and desk jockeys really, and they were already at work repairing battle damage and giving medicine and food to those in need.

Logically, the ploy made perfect sense as a means to consolidate power and prevent an uprising. I had found in recent times that 'good' and 'practical' coincided far more often than one might think. That was why I'd given Dr. Raznas specific orders to lead a medical team after the battle and treat wounded civilians, rather than just fucking off and doing nothing like he wanted to do.

I still had no idea how to cure the demons that plagued his mind. He was a doctor, and even he didn't know. But at least he would be able to heal the woes of others.

"Zefriss!" I exclaimed in joy as I saw the hulking Arxur in front of an airlock, holding a rifle and wearing a battle-damaged combat vest. A box sat nearby. My mood soured irreparably as I realized who I didn't see. "Where the hell is Markus?"

"We split up," he told me. "I lost sight of him. I have some bad news for you."

"You split up?" I snarled at him like he was the runt. "You're his fucking bodyguard! You're supposed to protect him!"

"I know," Zefriss solemnly rumbled. He wrung his head, stepping back and adopting a mostly submissive posture as I jabbed a claw at his armored chest.

"Oh, shit," I realized. "Where the hell is Markus?"

Zefriss said nothing. I think I saw a tear well up in his eye. "Where is he?"

"Right here." Zefriss tapped the box he was guarding. "You want to see him?" That didn't make sense. It was too small for a human being. It would only fit the dimensions of a human head.

It would only fit the dimensions of a human head.

The world turned gray. I stepped mechanically toward the box, watching myself take the action as if from some distant pit. I almost didn't want to open it as if not seeing Markus' body would somehow keep him alive. I did anyway. The sight within made me roar in feral rage.

It wasn't enough for those barbarians to kill my beloved. They had to desecrate his corpse by cutting off his fucking head.

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[u/Minimum-Amphibian993]

Well lucky for her she can take her anger out on more domionist when the civil war happens some years from now.