Humans Fuck Last

“Does that look Viir-height to you?”  General Mahogany had lost none of his terseness in defeat.  Twelve hours after entering orbit above Ashaban-4, the Human Empire’s remnant on the planet had responded affirmatively to the frequency broadcasting a call for negotiation.

The Sister Species Forces had suspected a trap, particularly the humans amongst them.  General Mahogany was a known “pacifier” for troublesome colonies, and had spent the last several years fighting Viir insurrectionists.  He’d advised the Emperor himself on Viir-world policy, and his recommendations had bourne vile fruit.

“General Mahogany,” Commander Baylanish Kahl smouldered, wrapping her knuckles on the next table as it was set down, “is this really what we’re arguing about with my troops making landfall as we speak?  Pockets of resistance could be losing lives.”

The stately Thren sat next to her most trusted subordinate, Captain Laizh, and their Murai counterpart, Disdain-Despair-Awe.  Across the latest stark white plasteel conference table in the dreadnought’s conference room sat a feared and reviled war criminal.  

Hard to believe.  His brow looked more swollen than imposing to Kahl, and his twisting scowl did little for the quality of his complexion.  It was the visage she’d expect of a Human Empire loyalist staring someone down, but certainly not how he’d stare at a Thren.  

At his side, a Viir.  They hadn’t been introduced and Commander Kahl wasn’t educated enough in their anatomy to sex at a glance.

That he hadn’t blown himself up or swallowed a suicide pill suggested to her he was either plotting to, or truly willing to negotiate.  As much as Kahl had grown to distrust the humans, she couldn’t let herself become them either; so long as Harmony was attainable, she’d strive to achieve it.  

Nothing less was fitting of a Thren Federation officer, much less a commander in her position.

“What does it look like we’re doing, Baileys?” asked Mahogany, popping the last cigar out of his case and striking a light.  Acrid smoke billowed out of his mouth, the noxious cloud doing nothing to abate the tensions in the room.

“You look like you’re stalling for time.  You picked up our call, you came to us.”  Commander Kahl pointed to the wall.  A thin sheet of metal split to reveal a screen.  It showed the world below, seas snaking around green continents, a fertile misshapen fruit of the ghastly “Tera”-forming project that stripped it of almost all native life.  

The fields of Ashaban-4 had once been a vibrant teal.  

Now, even from space, they were a plastic green.  The sickly bright kind of that human rydoo stand-in they waved around trying to buy their way out of anything as they fled the frontline.  Nobody listened when they were told the money was worthless, at least, nobody they caught.

“We’ve landed at every major spaceport.  Viir,” Disdain-Despair-Awe twitched her feelers inquisitively at the General’s companion, “have taken control of the defense grid.  We’ll fan out to take control of logistical networks and soon there won’t be a hyperloop or highway out of our control.”

“You patted me down twelve times on the way in,” Mahogany spread his free hand in a dismissive wave, “and you’ve got the spaceports.  You’re right about the defense grid, all under wraps with the Viir.”

“The Human Empire’s in freefall.  Think to your subordinates, General.  The faster you act–”

“My subordinates who haven’t taken their pills or swallowed their barrels, you mean,” General Mahogany punctuated his interjection with a puff.  The Viir made a sound the Commander’s translator didn’t ascribe any particular meaning and stunningly, the General passed the cigar to them.  The Viir took a puff out the side of their head through their Weevilish breathing apparatus.

“Or the nurses got to them,” Captain Laizh chimed in.  “You’re belabouring the point, Mahogany.”

“That’s what they paid me to do,” he said, taking the cigar back after his Viir–companion?  Associate?  Bodyguard?  Slave?–took another puff.  “Belabour.  But yeah, anyone who hasn’t chosen to off themselves or gotten off’d by the time they heard I was headed up here.  They’re not looking for a fight.  They’ll be cagey, for sure, but as long as I’m here I can get most of them through this.”

“Through re-acclimation programmes,” Commander Kahl said.

“Through the war,” Disdain-Despair-Awe’s translator box chirped.

“Through something alright, yeah.”

“For those who are still alive, let us negotiate a total surrender.  The Human Empire’s day is done,” Commander Kahl said.  With a click to the button on her wrist she set the viewport screen to show a strategic map of all forces on the planet.  Those labelled V? for presumptive Viir revolutionary forces had begun to cluster around the troop landing sites.  Lilith’s Legion and the Thren Federation forces alongside Murai detachments would be meeting Viir of this world in the field for the first time.

It was neither the first nor the last time the Sister Species had arrived to find the Viir had already overcome their would-be masters.

The General gave it a side eye.  What the Commander almost took for a sly grin split his face.

“You seem to misunderstand the situation greatly, Commander.  I’m not here to negotiate.”  Tension.  The guards tightened their grips on their weapons.  Disdain-Despair-Awe’s threatened pheromones wafted out over the room.  

“Blood Red Banks here is.  He owns the place.  The whole suicide-murder party’s half a day cold already, about fourty percent of my mine died in it.  Anyone willing to join your shindig’s already on the way,” he gesticulated at the V?’s and a satcam showed trucks full of humans pulling up alongside the Viir forces.  Some wore camo fatigues, others lab coats or dress shirts. 

“Welcome to my planet, deerlings.  Please leave with the prisoners we are escorting to your ships.  Thank you.”

Silence.

“Blood Red Banks, are you sure we shouldn’t–”

“We have vetted them for spies and saboteurs.  Those, we killed.”

More silence.  Grasps slackened, and the much more steady aroma of awe overtook DDA’s temporary wave of pheremonal confusion.  Stronger than normal though, it almost smelled like freshly cut impliwat.

“For the service of transit, we will overlook your brash invasion of our sovereign space.  Vacate the Ashaban system with your fleet and we will forgive the present trespass.”

“Furthermore, inform your superior that the Ashaban system is my herd’s grazing land.  Including mining operations and research platforms.”  Blood Red Banks added.

“You would seem to have me at a disadvantage, General Mahogany.”  The Commander’s eyes raked from Blood to him and back.  “Care to explain to me what entity it is you two represent?”

“I surrendered to Banks twelve hours ago,” Mahogany explained with a wry grin that grew to a wheezing chuckle.  It was a racking wheeze, belying smoke addled lungs.  “I tell you what antler brains, you all get the first fuck.  Thren always fuck first, I’ll give you that.”  

“But humans?  Humans always fuck last.”

“False,” Banks quipped as he snatched Mahogany’s loosely grasped cigar and took a hard drag from first his right, then his left.  He let them both out at once in a rather draconic flare of Toboxo fumes.

“Our herd fucks first, deerlings.  Mark well: we found common cause against man, but as you well put, their day is done.  General Mahogany had the foresight to preserve the lives of his herd, so many of them as were willing to live, and forearmed me against any presumptive annexations.  This planet is ours.  You are guests.”

“And you are no longer welcome.”  Blood Red Banks rose from the seat he’d semi-squatted on, many legs not making for any clear way to straddle such a device.  “I am Blood Red Banks.  The stars were young when my herd had its first Prime.”  

“And they will be dead before we bow again.  To anyone, present company included.  We are both herds, Thren,” the word shook out of the Viir’s mouths like a vibrato held just a moment too long.  “But mine is the stampede.”

“A colourful analogy,” added Captain Laizh, “I take it to mean that you–” 

Blood walked over to the viewport, clipping the lit tip of the cigar on the edge of the retracted metal sheets, and proceeded to scrawl smoldering ashes across the whole screen.

“We fuck first.”