"In our society, we change genders when we reach a certain age," said the alien.

 
by Lisa Caitlin Grey

 

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This story is dedicated to my beloved friend and soul mate who passed away in November of 2002. Dana, I will always miss you terribly.
 
Part 9: Allies
 
Chapter 30
 
 
I reached the bridge just in front of the others and just in time to see two more strange...well, they were ships, I supposed, materializing in front of us. The ships, assuming that's what they were, looked unlike anything I had ever seen before. The appeared almost organic, like they were grown instead of manufactured. For all I knew these could have been the aliens themselves, and not their ships.

"Valerie, they are hailing us," Brian informed me.

"Very well, open a channel," I said.

"Greetings, visitors," the creature displayed in the screen said. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting. A BEM (Bug Eyed Monster) I suppose, but this creature certainly wasn't it.

The alien appeared to be classically bipedal humanoid. Its body, where I could see, was covered with a snowy white fur though it did wear clothing. The alien's face, despite the fur, was strangely human-like in its features. It appeared to have fine delicate features and its eyes were totally lavender except for an iris that was slit horizontally. The face was framed with a metallic-appearing silver cascade hair that grew out far longer than the white fur that covered the rest of the creature. The overall effect was breathtakingly beautiful.

"We have received your distress beacon," the alien continued in a high feminine sounding voice. "Your vessel appears to have been damaged by weapons fire. Please understand, we will not allow your kind to bring your petty wars into our space but neither can we do nothing for a living being in trouble. Can we be of any assistance?"

"I'm Valerie Callaway, Captain of this ship called the Duality Too. Our people have sent us to seek you out on a peaceful diplomatic mission," I explained. "We were ambushed by other people that would see our kind wiped from existence. What we need right now are raw materials that our autorepair systems can use to restore our ship's flight capabilities."

"You say you are on a mission of peace, yet our scans of your vessel have shown it to be well armed," the creature said. I looked meaningfully at Sam and he nodded in acknowledgement of the wisdom of not bringing a large military vessel.

"Yes, our vessel is heavily armed for a ship this size, but our weapons are largely used in defense," I explained. "As you can see by the condition of my ship, there are those who would destroy us on sight, just for being the people that we are. Surely, you must see that the ability to defend ourselves is neither warlike nor frivolous?"

"Indeed," the alien said, "we too will defend ourselves with violence if that is the only course allowed us by those that mean us ill. We are an empathic people, and I sense that you have killed many to get here, but that you are saddened at the waste of life. If it so saddens you then why do you kill?"

"Momma Valley," Little Brock asked tugging on my finger, "What's that?" he asked pointing at the Drandian on the view screen.

I picked him up and placed him in my lap. "That's a person we were sent here to meet with, sweetie," I explained to him.

"It doesn't look like a person, Valley," Brock said.

"This is a different kind of person from you or I, honey, but that doesn't mean it's not a person," I told my son and he nodded seriously, as if I had just told him the most important thing he would ever hear. Come to think of it, maybe I had.

"Valley," he said, with a smile, "it's a pretty person."

"This is the reason I have killed," I said looking back to the screen. "This is my child and I will protect him against any that would hurt him."

"Yet you have brought your child with you on a journey you knew would put him in peril?" the alien said.

"He would have been safer at home, I agree, but only if our region doesn't get attacked while we are gone," I said. "Our mission is a long one and his place is with his parents."

"I sense your love and fierce protective instinct for your offspring and also your people, though less so," the alien said. "The resources you need will be brought to you. In the meantime I will talk to my governing body and see if they will agree to treat with you."

We sent the Drandians a list of the materials that we would need, and one of their ships shimmered and disappeared. In the meantime, we returned to our meal to await the Drandian Government's decision to talk to us or not.

After dinner, Brian and Dan watched Brock and cleaned up the remains of dinner, while Sam, Miri and I returned to the bridge. We had been sitting there for about an hour discussing our plans for negotiating with the Drandians when a warning tone sounded, announcing another sensor contact.

"Oh shit," I said as I read the transponder.

"What is it?" Miri and Sam asked at the same time.

"Drandian Vessels," a voice came over the comms, "this is Captain Darius Edmunds of the Terran Space Navy Dreadnought Aquinas. We are here to take that ship and personnel into custody and bring them to justice. We apologize for their intrusion into your space. We'll just pick them up and be on our way."

"Greetings, Terran Space Navy Dreadnought Aquinas, I am called Pack Commander Talia and I must regretfully decline to allow you to take possession of the vessel in question unless you can establish your rightful claim to it," the Drandian we had originally talked to informed Edmunds.

"I'm sorry, did you just say you refused to give us that ship and personnel?" sputtered Edmunds. "I'm afraid I really must insist. The crew of that vessel are wanted criminals charged with everything from insubordination and sabotage of a TSN vessel, flight from justice, desertion, and most recently 2103 counts of murder."

"How do you respond to these charges, Valerie Callaway?" the Drandian asked me.

"The murder charges are the three ships and three fighters I was forced to destroy to defend my crew," I said. "It was only murder if you consider killing someone who is intent on killing you, murder. I consider it self-defense. As for the rest, all of those charges are true and they stem from a single incident. Ask Captain Edmunds about it, since he was my commanding officer at the time."

"Captain Edmunds," the Drandian prompted.

"Callaway was under my command at the time and she, or rather he at the time, was on watch when he let a ship cross the blockade we were guarding practically unchallenged. His orders were to destroy any ships entering or leaving the quarantined area. He also encrypted our fire controls so that we couldn't fire on the ship when he was relieved of duty."

"Ask him why I let the ship through," I prompted.

"Captain Edmunds, why did she let the ship through?" the Drandian asked.

"He said it was because it was an unarmed cargo vessel," Edmunds said dismissively.

"It was an unarmed cargo ship on a mission of mercy," I corrected. "The vessel carried a load of medical supplies desperately needed by a world inside our blockade to cure an epidemic that would have cost 90% of the population of the planet their lives had I not let the ship pass."

"Such orders are unjust and cruel," the Drandian said. "Captain Edmunds, why would you give Valerie Callaway these orders?"

"I didn't," Edmunds told the alien. "They were standing orders given to us by our government. The people in the blockaded zone we guarded were determined to be a threat to our society."

"These are the very people we come here to represent. Ask him why these people were singled out a called a threat?" I suggested.

"Because they are immoral deviants," Edmunds said weakly, obviously not believing his own statement.

"How are they deviants?" the Drandian asked.

"You say your people are empathic, Pack Commander?" I asked.

"Very much so," the Drandian said.

"Okay," I said motioning Miri over to me, taking her hand. While I was looking deeply into her eyes, I asked the Drandian, "Can you feel the love I have for this woman? And she for me?"

"Yes," the Drandian said in wonder. "It's pure, so warm, and beautiful; so strong and intense. How do you manage to contain it? You are both soul mates. Thank you for sharing such love with me."

"Because we are both female, the Terran government says we are deviant to feel this way for each other," I explained. "It is also because I was not born a woman. People like me are also called deviant, despite knowing that there is nothing we can do about it. It’s a well known biological fact that it's the way our brains are wired; we can do nothing about it except take a now illegal pill to make our bodies conform to our minds."

"I know of this feeling you speak of," the Drandian said. "I can feel it in you and it's so bleak and hopeless. What I am feeling is just a memory of the actual feeling and it must be terrible to have to live with it. In our society, we change genders when we reach a certain age. We all start as males and if we survive to thirty of our cycles, we become females. Many of us have a hard time dealing with the change due to the fact that we survived because we were strong and aggressive, while after the change, we are weak and must be protected. Yet our society is matriarchal and our leaders are females because they have the wisdom of experience. We mate and produce offspring, but we usually find our soul mates in our own generation, therefore, with our own gender. There is nothing deviant about this."

"Captain Edmunds, I can feel that you think what is happening to Valerie Callaway and her people is wrong, but I also sense in you a strong sense of duty. You also feel responsible for the deaths that you accuse her of. You don't really blame her for doing what she did, because she was fighting for her life and that of her family. Deep down I sense you respect her and even envy her willingness to stand up for her principles. You feel like you have sacrificed your honor in favor of your duty to an unjust leadership. I'm afraid you must leave our space at once without her ship or its crew, unless of course you would care to join Valerie Callaway in her struggle against the oppression of your leadership."

"I will not leave here without her," Edmunds said stubbornly.

"You cannot take her from us by force, Captain Edmunds," the Pack Commander said. "You command a powerful ship by human standards, but I promise you, my one ship could easily devastate yours in seconds. It would be like Valerie Callaway's ship picking a fight with your ship. But then, if you fire on either my ship or Valerie Callaway's, you won't just be dealing with my ship." Five other Drandian vessels, each larger than the dreadnought, shimmered briefly into view all around the dreadnought before disappearing again. "There are how many lives onboard you ship? 1700? The lives of your crew depend on what you do now. Leave now and they live. Force my hand and they will die."

"Very well," Edmunds conceded. "We're leaving, but if she sets foot out of your space we will get her. We will be waiting for her." With that he turned his ship and left.
 
 
Chapter 31
 
 
"Thank you for protecting my family, Pack Commander," I said sincerely.

"You are quite welcome, Valerie Callaway," the Drandian said. "We do not wish to become involved with your human affairs, but we will not place an honorable person in the hands of unjust enemies. It might interest you to know that our governing body was monitoring that exchange and they have agreed to speak with you."

"Great," I smiled. "Just give me the coordinates and when our ship is fixed we'll go there straight away."

"Actually, Valerie Callaway, it will be faster if I take you there," the Pack Commander said. "I will dock with your vessel and we will go to them."

The Drandian vessel moved into position over the Duality Too. What appeared to be vine-like tendrils shot out wrapping around my ship and pulling us snugly to the belly of the Drandian vessel. The Pack Commander warned us that we would be shifting into hyperspace. We traveled for about three days before we dropped out in normal space and entered orbit around a planet.

"Valerie, your child, your mate, and yourself, as well as Samsual Keller will be required to meet with our leaders on the planet," the Pack Commander told us. "Your ship will be docked with our orbital station where the resources you requested will be made available to the rest of your crew so they can effect repairs."

An umbilical, that looked exactly that, extended out of the Drandian ship and attached itself over our airlock door. Once we were sure it had a seal we opened the door and entered the umbilical. There was no gravity in the umbilical so Miri had to have Brock hang on to her as she made her way up to the Drandian ship. I had a more difficult time because I had to help Sam who was much larger and also not familiar with zero-G. Gravity returned once we got onto the Drandian ship. It was a lot heavier than our norm, but not enough that we had too much difficulty. I estimated it to be at about 1.25 earth norm. Offsetting that was the fact that the oxygen content of the air was slightly higher than ours, tending to energize our bodies against the constant extra load.

The inside of the Drandian ship looked just as organic as the outside, but there were interface panels and other structures that looked manufactured. The air held a faint pleasant musky odor that I assumed was the scent of our hosts. Lighting was dimmer than what I was used to but not so much that we had too much trouble seeing. Our host, Pack Commander Talia, was a bit of a shock, though. She, we'd found out during our talks that she was old enough to have made the transition to female, turned out to be a very imposing figure, standing about 8 feet tall and rippling with muscles. In person, I could see her movements were very graceful and feline. She approached me with her hands out palms up.

"This is our form of greetings, Valerie Callaway," Talia explained to me. "You should return this by extending your own hands, palms up and then placing them palm down into mine. This would be reversed if you were the host, and I would place my hands in yours."

I did as she directed. Her hands were warm and covered with soft short fur. They dwarfed mine and they were tipped with short pointed nails, which I felt against my wrists. This process was repeated with each of our party.

Little Brock walked up to Talia and raised his arms up to her, hands opening and closing, indicating he wanted her to pick him up.

"Sweetie, maybe she doesn't want to hold you," Miri said to him.

"It's quite alright," Talia said. "I don't mind at all. Your young ones fascinate me. Ours are born in an egg sack and develop to full grown in a communal nursery. We have no concept of individual parental identity. All elders are parents."

Miri smiled and showed Talia how to best hold Brock and then handed him to her. Talia held him exactly how Miri had done, arm around his back and supporting him with her hip. Her eyes widened in surprise when little Brock threw his arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. I can't swear to it but I think the Pack Commander actually purred.

"He likes you," I grinned.

"I can feel that," Talia said. "Are all human children filled with such love?"

"Generally, until life teaches them otherwise," I said sadly. "Innocence allows them to love without judgment, but as they lose their innocence they lose that ability."

"That's so tragic," Talia said as she nuzzled Brock's neck, again calling to mind cats.

I suppose I should be clear, Drandians don't really look much like cats. They look like fur-covered humans, except for small details, which are suggestive of cats. They moved with feline grace, brutally strong and lightning quick. Their eyes brought to mind those of a cat, though the iris was horizontal instead of vertical and they had razor sharp needle-like fangs that evidenced their predatory ancestry.

"Come, we must go now," Talia said as she turned, still carrying my son, and moved off down the corridor.

Talia lead us to a hanger deck and entered a small ship. She placed Brock in a seat and motioned us to do likewise. As she brought the ship to life, tendrils came out of our seats and held us firmly but not uncomfortably in place. Talia moved the ship out of its dock and pointed it toward what appeared to be the hanger door. As we moved toward it, the iris door opened and we passed though it and into space.

The flight down to the planet's surface was smooth and very fast. In less than five minutes we were settling gently onto a pad atop another organic-looking structure that proved to be the Drandian capitol building. Talia conducted us to a chamber that was very similar to the Council chamber on Diversity, except of course, for its organic appearance. It amazes me how some things are universal.

Talia introduced us and we stood there in silence, getting the distinct impression we were being examined. Finally, one of the council, I guessed the leader, spoke.

"What is it that you would ask of us?" the Drandian asked.

"We have come to plead for any assistance that your people might be able to give us," Sam said. "Our people are in grave jeopardy and could be wiped out at any moment by our enemies. We are powerless to stop them because they are far more numerous than we are and control vastly more resources than we do. We are asking if there is anything at all you would be willing to do for us that could offset this advantage."

"Please understand that while we are not unsympathetic to the plight of your people," the Council leader addressed us, "we cannot intervene in your human conflicts."

"We understand and respect that," Sam said, "however..."

"However, we are willing to allow you to make your request and negotiate a treaty with you," the Council said. "Will this be sufficient to your needs?"

"Indeed," Sam said. "It's more than we had hoped for."

"We abhor injustice," the Drandian Council said. "We could tell that many of your fellow humans feel that your government is oppressive and unjust. Such a government will eventually be a threat to our peace, though they could not hope to win such a conflict."

"Pack Commander Talia will be responsible for you during your stay here and will see to your needs. Our engineers will need to speak with your most knowledgeable person to get an idea of how we may best help you in the event that we decide to follow this course and which of our technologies your people will be capable of producing. We hope you enjoy your stay and wish you well in your coming struggles. On a different subject, before you go we would like to ask you a few questions about your culture."

The Drandians asked many questions about our culture and why other humans hated us because of it. They were mystified, because our way of life was not a threat to other human people and therefore should have been a non-issue. They sat in awe when they asked to share the love Miri and I felt for each other and our child. They said they had never felt such strong emotions. Finally, they let us go and Talia showed us to what would be our living quarters for the duration of our stay there.
 
 
Chapter 32
 
 
For the next several weeks, Sam was tied up in nearly constant meetings with the Drandian council. Dan and I had sequestered ourselves with the Drandian techs, going over various possibilities where the Drandians could give us an edge over the TSN. That left Miri and Brian to look after little Brock and see to the repairs to our beleaguered ship.

In our working relationships with the Drandians we learned a great deal about their culture and them as a people. In their history, which was much longer than that of humans, they had come into contact with several other alien peoples. They had fought more than a few wars against more aggressive races. The Drandians along with several other beings had even been enslaved once by a more powerful race. Fortunately, they had banded together with the help of one of these oppressor’s powerful enemies and thrown off the yoke of oppression. Thus, they were somewhat sympathetic to our cause.

Though the Drandians as a people were peaceful, individually the young males could be quite aggressive and ill tempered. It was this trait that I ran afoul of and very nearly cost us the help of the Drandians.

Talia had taken Brock, Miri and me out on a tour of the city to see their many sights. The Drandians had a great deal of recognizable culture. They had art and theater, as well as athletic competitions and what not. We were walking down the street after having left a museum when Brock tripped over a join in the walkway, running headlong into a young Drandian male. Fortunately, Miri was walking a little bit ahead with Talia, or things might have gone worse. The Drandian reacted to what he perceived as an attack and instantly had Brock on the ground, wicked claw-tipped fingers wrapped around my child's throat.

I found out later that I went berserk. As brutally strong and as lightning fast as Drandians are, parental rage is a great equalizer. Combat training taking over, I viciously kicked the Drandian in his exposed rib section. The Drandian howled in rage and pain and slashed me with the hand not holding my child down. His claws gouged deep furrows in my belly, but failed to do any critical damage as I smashed my joined hands into his face. His nose exploded into a gory mess. He released my son and lunged for me. We grappled, and my small 130 pound female body was no match for him. He picked me up and threw me though a storefront window, further lacerating my back and sides. He made to pounce on my again to follow up on his advantage, but he wasn't familiar with human martial arts. I caught him on my legs and flipped him over me, using his momentum against him. He crashed through various displays of goods before coming to a halt, momentarily dazed.

As luck would have it, this appeared to be some sort of sporting goods store. As I climbed to my feet, my hand encountered what appeared for all the world to look like a baseball bat. I grabbed it and as I stood up the Drandian shook off his daze and charged me again. I reared back and blasted him savagely in the head with the bat as he came in range, snapping his head back sharply and knocking him off his feet. I made a move to follow up, murder in my eyes, but as I swung the bat toward my opponent, he deftly caught it and ripped it from my grasp. He then kicked my legs out from under me, rolled on top of me, and was about to rip my throat out with a razor-clawed hand. The only thing that saved me was the timely reaction of the other Drandians in the area; they grabbed and restrained my adversary before he could finish me permanently.

I found out at the medical facility that I had also put my attacker in the hospital. My kick had broken several of his ribs and caused some internal bleeding. His nose was broken, and his unscheduled flight through the store displays had fractured a wrist, and finally, the blow I had deliver to his head had fractured his skull. We had both collapsed after the fight was over. For my part, I had multiple lacerations from both his claws and the glass of the window. I had lost a lot of blood and was going to have some nasty looking bruises.

Brock was unhurt, though he had been terrified. As soon as I had gotten the Drandian off of him, he ran to Miri. Talia, for her part, had a cast on her foot. She had to restrain Miri from becoming involved and Miri had broken our host's foot by stomping on her instep as Miri fought to come to my aid. Only little Brock had prevented her from doing more damage to our host.

The whole episode almost cost us Drandian aid, as the council was about to summarily send us packing, except for a very unlikely intervention, the young Drandian male I had fought. As the council deliberated our fate, the Drandian entered into the council chamber and approached. He spoke to the council on our behalf, proving this was indeed a truly alien culture.

After explaining to the council about his error, he then approached me. He knelt on the floor in front of me and leaned his head back as far as it would go.

"Please forgive me for my assault on your young one and yourself, Valerie Callaway," he said.

I stood there staring in wonder. I couldn't believe this being, with whom I had been locked in mortal combat, was now asking my forgiveness. We stood there until Talia spoke.

"Do you wish to forgive him, Valerie Callaway?" she asked.

"I do," I said.

"Then place your hand on his exposed throat," I did so, "And say to him, 'You will live, let what is passed be behind us.'"

I repeated the words Talia told me and removed my hand from his throat. He looked visibly relieved. Later, I understood by making his offer I could have killed him without repercussion, for he had literally placed his life in my hands.

He stood and bowed to me before saying, "Thank you for my life, Valerie Callaway." With that, he left the room.

Then it was Miri who stunned me. She assumed a similar posture before Talia to what the young male had done before me. "Pack Commander Talia," she said, exposing her throat, "please forgive me for the injury I have caused you who is not my enemy."

Talia smiled in amusement, reached out and softly laid her claw-tipped fingers against Miri's throat. "You will live," Talia said to her. "Let what is passed be behind us." She removed her hand and offered it to Miri, assisting her to stand.

The tension was broken and shortly after this incident, the council agreed to help our people with a very limited technological assistance package. In truth, most of their technology was far beyond our capacity to produce anyway, but their engineers gave us some vital insight on improving our own technology in the areas of power, propulsion, and weaponry.

The real gem, though, they gave us as a gift, having installed the prototype on the Duality Too. It was a shield generator that made us nearly invulnerable to light based weapons and took about 30 to 40 percent of the punch out of PBC hits. Included with the prototype was the information needed to produce versions scaled to be large enough for a capital ship.

Preliminary designs were already chasing through my brain for a next generation of ships utilizing this new technology. I would have been in ship designer's heaven if I hadn't also had to worry about getting home alive to actually build them. It was daunting to think of how difficult it was going to be to rejoin our people. I was certain the TSN would be waiting on us and I dearly hoped they hadn't realized the impending danger the Zone now represented and made a preemptive strike.

The Drandians again reaffirmed their position that they would not directly intervene on our behalf. I couldn't blame them really. It wasn't their fight. They did sign a treaty with us though. They explained that eventually, if the current regime continued to be in power, they would eventually decide that the Drandians represented a threat to them and attack. Though they were confident such an attack would not go well for the TSN and the Terran government, they explained that they hated warfare and killing. They would defend themselves, but they hoped to derail any such conflict and would be assisting us to remove the threat, thereby bringing about an amiable relationship between their people and the new government we would form.

For our part, we were only too happy to accept whatever assistance they could offer us.

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