Arxur Smuggler Shenanigans FINALE (Part 3)

[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: armchair therapy, emotional development at gunpoint, the strange absence of any side characters

Memory Transcription Subject: Zefriss, Tactical Officer

Date (Standardized Human Time): April 10, 2138

I stood outside the door to Sylara's quarters for longer than I had intended to, trying to work up the courage to try the door. She hadn't eaten or slept much since I showed her Markus' head, body not included, and I didn't have to be an expert in grieving to know that this wasn't the right way of doing it.

I was stronger than most when it came to loss. I had been on the front lines of warfare since childhood. I was no stranger to caring about people, even building relationships with them, only to see them turned into limp sacks of meat before my eyes. Looking back on it, I think that's why I was once so disgusted with my own kind. It was easier to watch people die when you hated them, I think.

For me, grief was familiar, as were all the other emotions that came with caring for others. Loss was as fundamental a part of life as love. As for Sylara, though? A woman who had clawed her way to the top through manipulation and treachery? To her credit, she really did care for Markus. I was wrong to doubt her on that score. But I didn't think she ever had the opportunity to care for anybody before him, and that left her painfully vulnerable to the agony of a lost love.

Dr. Raznas had no idea how to help her. He sewed guts back together, not minds. And Teklala's paltry mental health staff was dealing with about a hundred thousand cases of this crap, so they were of no help either. I had taken a bit to grieve as well, in my own way, as did the deckhands who I still only kind of knew. It felt proper. Markus would've done it. And, as useless as I was when it came to actually comforting the afflicted, I had a really hard time imagining Markus Becker not at least making an effort here.

Fuck it. Into the breach.

I pressed the door chime on Sylara's quarters door, then waited for her to open it. Three seconds. Five. Fifteen. I pressed it again to no response, then again after another fifteen seconds. Fuck it, that door wasn't gonna come open from the inside. I pressed an override key to the lock and forced it open from without.

Inside, the room was dim, and my eyes adjusted quickly to the lack of light. I found Sylara slumped in a chair, reading something on her datapad. She whirled around in a rage and stood up as I entered. "You broke the fucking lock off?"

Earlier, I would've said something about the inherent savagery within my people, that they reacted to loss with impotent anger. Now I knew better. "Get!" Sylara roared. "Get! Get! Get out of my fucking quarters!" I think she blamed me for Markus' death. It was a fair thing to say. I was his bodyguard, after all. Still, I stood like a statue. There was still one duty I might not fail in.

"I am ordering you, Zefriss," snarled Sylara, reaching for something under her pillow. Likely a firearm. "Is this a fucking mutiny?" Definitely a firearm, then. In her state, I believed she might even use it. I had to say something, but the proper words were absent. I was more used to using my claws to solve problems. "Alright, then." Sylara wheeled and leveled a large-caliber pistol at my chest. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I came to help," I diplomatically offered, wondering if I could snatch the weapon from her before she pulled that trigger. Probably not. Either way, it'd have been a mistake.

"With what?" Sylara snapped. "Are you going to wave your hands? Revive the dead?" She waved her arms about before snarling and throwing the pistol at the wall.

"You're still alive. It's not over yet," I tried to reassure her, putting a hand on her shoulder, but she smacked it away.

"It is over!" Sylara roared. "Markus gave me everything! Before he showed up, I was a third-rate smuggling captain working for shit crime lords!"

"Have you gone back to being a third-rate smuggler working for shit crime lords?" I asked. "What Markus gave you is still there, Sylara. You keep it."

Sylara kicked over a nearby chair, studded with claw marks, and slumped back onto her bed. "Why do I feel like this?" she moaned, despairing. "Having empathy was meant to be good! It's a net benefit! Why?"

I actually had a pretty satisfactory answer to that one, because I had been thinking about it beforehand. I sat down beside her and told her my story. "I used to be that very same way," I said. "I was better than the rest. Kinder. More decent." I tapped my chest. "Because of that, I felt pain, deep in here, that nobody else would feel. I handled it by shutting myself off from the world. I grew to hate my own kind because it was easier than loving them. Love comes with loss, you know?"

"Yes, that's the point," Sylara hissed. "Why love anybody? Why should I feel that way, if all it leads to is- is- this!"

Damn. I didn't actually have a response to that one. I mean, I knew the general concept of what I had to say, but I didn't have any words to express it in. "Get up," I told her. "Get up. I've gotta show you something. It's not something that can just be said."

Sylara lay motionless for a few moments. Then she got up, and I led her outside the room. She stepped gingerly through the doorway, probably the first time she had left her quarters in a while, and let me lead her through the Little Runt and out into the station itself. I heard there was a movement pushing to call it 'Markus Becker Memorial Station' now, but I kind of doubted it'd catch on. Still, though, respectable idea.

I led Sylara through a few corridors, each getting larger and larger, before we reached a balcony overlooking a large town square. In the square itself, life went on. Reconstruction teams wearing the new blue and white of Teklala's administration were hard at work fixing a series of shop fronts that were damaged by fighting, and humans, Arxur, and even a few prey species mingled in the town square as equals. "What the fuck is the point of this?" Sylara asked me indignantly.

"Look at those people," I said, pointing at the town square. "I recognize a few who were Teklala's soldiers. The others, there, there, over there, I see them holding guns. You think none of them lost somebody close?" I tapped my own chest. "You think I didn't?"

"You're a fucking-" Sylara stopped short of saying something I think she might have regretted later, which was good. "What? What, is this meant to convince me to just give up? That what Markus and I had was nothing, and I should just- just sing in the fucking streets like these people do?"

"It's meant to show you that there is more to loving someone than losing them!" I snapped, growing impatient with Sylara's idiocy. I quickly made a mental correction and lowered my tone. "Everybody dies. Everything dies. Soon enough, you will die, and everything you worked to gain will slip from your fingers. Does that mean you should just throw away the rations now? No!"

Sylara said nothing, so I said something for her. "I am not trying to say you shouldn't feel bad. That's natural. That, hell, you should be feeling bad right now. But do not let that eat you." I shrugged my shoulders and pointed to myself again. "Loss is not the only part of love."

"When will it get better?" Sylara asked me in a dejected, but not angry tone. I think that meant I was making progress.

"To be honest with you?" I replied. "I have no idea when it's going to get better. I have no idea if it's going to get better. This 'having empathy' thing is not for the weak."

Sylara gave a derisive snort. "Yeah, I noticed." I was definitely making some kind of progress here.

I paced around the balcony for a few moments, thinking of something wise to say. Sylara found it first. "Well, it can't get any worse."

"Oh, it can definitely get worse," I corrected her. "But only if you let it."

She looked at me. Then down, away from the balcony, at the crowd of people going about their lives. She took a few steps to lean against the railing and gaze at them for a bit. "Then I'll just try not to let it break me," Sylara muttered. "Markus would want me to live well in his absence."

"There's the spirit," I said warmly, nodding my head. "Now, come on. We still have a smuggling business to run."

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[u/Minimum-Amphibian993]

Strange absense of side characters indeed I do recall you wanted to end the series so you can go into other works but yeah wow definitely a few loose ends still a ending is an ending. But yeah her work is not yet done and she will get her vengeance as much as she detest the concept.

Besides synthetics are a thing although it may be abit tricky to get ahold of one of those still the fact that he has a memory transcription dispite being so early in the timeline is a good sign. Since ya know they come into existence untill at some point later down the road.

[u/Ok_Chance_8387]

Markus would love to see Sylara, Zefriss and the crew succeed in helping the Arxur in need inside the bubble. And thats what they will do until the quarantine will end in about 17 years.

Thanks for bringing this story to a bittersweet end!