Chapter 20
TWENTY
MARIA
"This is some Zootopia-level craziness," I murmured into the private com as I stared out at the spaceport.
I was stationed right next to the shuttle landing pad, watching the crowd move through the pedestrian walkways between the pads.
I'd already checked over the delivery and cleared it for contamination, and the trader had already left with the goods we had unloaded.
Now, it was just a matter of Lyrien's drones moving everything on the ship.
My MECH suit was great for carrying things; I could move boxes all day with the hydraulics supporting my every action, but Lyrien agreed with me it was better that I stay watchful.
There were so many different species that inhabited the spaceport.
There were multiple planets in this system, so the spaceports on each planet were used for a lot of intersystem trade.
There were definite types of aliens, and my guess was that the four-armed, four-eyed ones all originated from one planet.
My brain kept trying to categorize them, identifying features that lined up with creatures I was familiar with.
There was a clumped group loading up a small spaceship that was definitely hyena-like, and other giant ones with wrinkly mud colored skin that looked like elephants with no trunks walking upright.
There were too many to really take in all at once, but the longer I stared, the more I saw some of the social structures play out in the crowds.
The hyena pack ended up having a bubble of space around them, like no one wanted to get near them, and seeing one of the smaller aliens around my size literally turn around and run the other way when they saw the pack made me glad I was completely hidden in my metal suit. No one even glanced at me twice.
"I don't understand that reference," Lyrien said in my ear.
"A lot of these aliens have fur, scales, or feathers," I said.
"In my world's media, we had make-believe movies about what it would be like if the different non-sentient species on our planet had evolved to walk and talk like we did.
This place reminds me of that. They're not quite the same, of course, with the whole arms and eyes and other things, but there are some similarities. "
"Evolution, at least on planets with heavy competition, favors the most efficient designs," Lyrien said. "Bipedal locomotion is the most energy efficient, which is why many species develop that way. I can see from the history I’m able to access on the available net that this particular planet used to have large old growth forests before they encountered the Calicium and were manipulated into harvesting them on a massive destructive scale and exporting the wood in off world trades. The four arms originally evolved for climbing.”
"What about that guy?" I said, pointing at what looked like a lump of jello sliding down the walkway.
"Don't point at it," Lyrien said. "You don't want it to think you're initiating friendly contact.
That species is remarkably difficult to kill, and its culture has extended periods of polite conversation to the point where they don't understand other cultures' social cues for ending communications.
They're well known for extensive traveling and did not originate in this system. "
I dropped my arm.
I was about to ask him more when a flash of silver, light moonlight, dragged my attention to a small familiar shape, a sight that shocked me for a moment before it vanished into the crowd.
Did I just see a human?
The hyenas caught my eye again. They had stopped what they were doing and were all focused in the direction the flash of silver had vanished, like they were a pack on the hunt that had caught sight of prey.
As I watched, one of them took a step forward, and then they were all moving together, clearly on the hunt.
I took a step in that direction before I thought about what I was doing.
"Maria?" Lyrien said, his voice worried. "Where are you going? I thought you were going to stay by the shuttle."
I knew I should do that, stay there.
But at the same time, there was this strange feeling in my gut telling me I needed to go see what they were up to.
"I just need to check something out," I said. “I thought I saw a human.”
"If they’re on this planet they’re in a lot of trouble.
Just don't leave the spaceport," Lyrien reminded me, not questioning me.
Then his tone turned dark. "If I have to land on this stupid planet to come after you, I'd rather not crush an inhabited area.
It would be a psychologically damaging experience. "
"I won't," I said, meaning it. There was a level of risk I was willing to take while dressed up in my armor, but that risk did not involve crossing a border I knew for a fact I couldn't get back across, nor did it involve testing my alien boyfriend’s statement that he would commit mass murder to get me back.
It was easy to follow the hyenas when the crowd parted around them like they stank.
Lucky for me, the air was filtered through my suit.
The only time I lost sight of them was when one of the giant elephant aliens came lumbering down the pathway.
I was pretty big in my MECH suit, but not so big that I could shoulder check a mini kaiju, and they didn't move aside for anyone.
I had to press myself to the side of the walkway like the rest of the crowd to let it go by, and when I did, the hyenas had vanished from sight.
I walked further down in the direction I'd last seen them when a familiar sound caught my ear, causing my heart to jump.
I turned down an alley between two large ships to see the hyenas had formed a semi-circle around two figures, one of which was a small, human woman in a gorgeous moonlight dress that flowed around her like it was made out of silk, who looked both utterly terrified and furious.
“It is a human,” I gasped on the private com.”
"What is wrong with him?" Lyrien gasped through our coms. He could see everything I could. "No Vaurelcar wouldn't have his core walking around like that, not without some form of shell around it! Why are his neurofilaments so short?"
His tone was strangled, like he was seeing something horrific and confusing at the same time.
It caused me to drag my eyes away from the first human I’d seen in months, to the alien with, one whose appearance was familiar but also confusing.
He looked like Lyrien's core, but that didn't make any sense.
His neurofilaments were short, like hair.
Where was the rest of his body?
"Maybe he is just raw dogging life?" I asked.
"Something has gone very wrong for him," Lyrien said. "That, or he is insane. Don’t get too close to him. Having the core exposed like that can cause severe issues, as the instincts will be going haywire to try to rebuild or reconnect with the rest of the body."
"Just tell us how much you want for her," one of the hyenas barked out, their language clipped and guttural.
The planetary language was loaded into my translator, but based on what Lyrien knew of the planet, there was a good chance that none of them would have one equipped, so even if I could understand them, they couldn't understand me.
I didn't need them to understand me.
I popped my guns out and charged them up, pointing them at the hyena's backs.
"Say hello to my little friends," I said.
The woman's eyes popped open so wide as her gaze wrenched past the aliens surrounding her to land on my form. One of the hyenas glanced back over his shoulder.
Red boxes popped up around each of the hyena’s faces, with labels appearing at the bottom of each one marking them as hostile 1, 2, etc.
“I’ve labeled the hostiles so that your auto targeting system will focus on them if you start firing,” Lyrien said on the private com.
"You're from Earth?" the human gasped.
"Yes, I have a translator so I can understand their language," I said. "These guys bothering you?"
I waved my guns at the hyenas again, and they took a step away from me, looking at each other.
The human grabbed the alien next to her by the hand and dragged him through the opening towards me.
One of the hyenas reached out towards her, and the stunted Vaurelcar let out a snarl. He had a long neurofilament coming out of the base of his spine like a tail, and it lashed out, slamming into the hyena's chest so hard it knocked him backward, causing him to stumble and fall down.
"They know where other humans are," the woman said. "They bought me from a human woman, they said."
Could it have been Evangelia who sold her? Evangelia was the one who brought me to the research station.
"What did she look like?" I demanded, taking a clunking step toward the group. "When did they buy you?"
"My friend wants to know what the woman you bought me from looked like and when the sale took place," the woman in the moonlit dress said.
"Your friend?" the messed-up Vaurelcar asked. "You can understand it?"
"He doesn't appear to have a translator, which means he must have been on this planet since he was young," Lyrien said on our private channel. "That doesn't explain why his neurofilaments look like they've been severed recently."
"It speaks my language," the woman said to him. "It's from my planet."
"Taller than this one," said the hyena spokesperson, brightening up as he gestured at the woman. "Darker hue, thicker mane. Traded for laboratory supplies and food."
That was the description, but was it her?
"What was her name?" I demanded.
"It wants to know her name," the woman translated.
"Sounded like lettuce," said the hyena alien. "Stupid name."
The word in their language for the leafy green plant he was talking about sounded like Angelica.
"Evangelia?" I asked.
"This one is ours," the hyena pointed at the woman. "Her kind is a delicacy. We ate the other two before we realized how much her meat would sell for. Do you have more to sell? We'll buy all of them."