by Greg Laurel
“Right. Can I expect your input or help on this?”
“She asked you, so that’s up to you,” Veralis replied, and Miles nodded in a ‘fair enough’ manner before beginning his planning. The first two could be acquired through common trade, from the looks of it, but the Hajivakk Bloodstream Accelerant Module... that was an experimental medical device, and likely wouldn’t be available to him just asking as a random dude, so Miles asked Veralis to get the common items, while he handled the challenging task, a test for himself. She agreed, and Miles took himself to Caren’Das, the capital world of the leopard-like Hajivakk people, or Haji-Son, depending on the context. Hajivakk was just the name of the species, and Haji-Son were who they are as people. The sum of their morals, ideals, and accomplishments.
On arrival, Miles did some research to find who had access to the Accelerant Modules. He wasn’t planning to actually take one as much as figure out exactly how to make a new one. He was basically going to pirate the machine, like one pirates software. He needed to get close enough to hit it with a Lidar (or Light-Radar) Scan-Pulse, and get a full 3D model and composition map of the module, to deconstruct it electronically, and make one of his own.
After finding out the actual manufacturer of these devices, he made up a disguise as one of their maintenance technicians, and went into the research lab, posing as one for a surprise inspection, on the suspicion that some of the machines may have been using outdated software. Surprisingly, that worked, and he was left alone with the machine. It was actually more like a chip than a device, but a chip attached to an intravenous introduction device, to speed up the actual process of the bloodstream. The idea, it seemed, was to make the actual bodily processes work faster for a short time, essentially prematurely aging and destroying bacterial infections without adversely affecting the patient, as long as enough quantity of a fresh blood transfer could be assured.
Miles’s Lidar Scanner was able to completely map the device, and its elemental composition and electronic programming, then sending the schematic to his Keystone Forge. He assured the Hajivakk doctors that all was well on the check, and he was relieved to find out the alarm was false, at least on that one. A trip back to Cynofrax, and the Keystone Forge in Kaldres-Viane later, and he now had a perfect bootleg Hajivakk Bloodstream Accelerant Module, soon bringing it to Jaden’s lab on Redaria Omega, the neighboring planet to Laksor itself.
“Maybe I would download a car,” Miles said to himself before Jaden noticed his return.
“That was... alarmingly quick. How did you get ahold of it so without incident?” Jaden asked, impressed.
“Applied cleverness and a Lidar Scan-Pulse,” Miles answered. “Now, that thing is the tech you’re looking for in all but manufacturer. It turns out these things are being made by a single company, and that right there is essentially a perfect bootleg.”
“Perfect bootleg? That sounds like an oxymoron,” Jaden said, almost worried as she plugged the module into an almost downright sinister-looking device, like a space-age Iron Maiden. The worry was quickly quelled, however, when what was likely the GAMA machine powered up without a hitch.
“Yeah, but I did once hustle DVDs in middle school. My setup allowed me to perfectly rip the discs and burn them onto new ones with no change in quality to either. It helped that my father had a weekly free rental from his work.”
Jaden looked very confused.
“I just realized that DVDs are an Earth-unique term,” Miles said aloud. “But anyways, I’d still be cautious about that. Apparently even the ‘legit’ ones are still experimental.”
The GAMA device powered up, and ran a system check. All things were in order. “Actually, it’s more just a controversial tech. People have tried to make... well, this idea before. To speed up the process of the bloodstream and its natural detoxification system, but it’s often resulted in next level strokes and heart attacks. This thing works, it’s just difficult to convince the public after the times that it didn’t, despite similar assurance,” Jaden explained as she configured the machine. “By the way, I do need a volunteer for an inaugural run of this device. You never have liked being human, did you?”
“Not a day in my life I felt anything but disgraced to be human,” Miles affirmed.
“So becoming Laksorian would be an improvement, then?” Jaden quickly asked.
“Undoubtedly. But there’s clearly lots of species in the universe, and I’ll need time to think about which one to—”
“I think I can eliminate that time for you. There are no cons to going Laksorian, only ever benefits.” Jaden was clearly excited about the idea of turning Miles into one of her kinsmen, almost unnervingly so.
“I understand, Jaden. Just... give me some time enough to make that call myself, all right?” Miles implored, to which Jaden agreed, as if pulling herself back from a different state of being. “Make no mistake, Jaden. You’ve honored me with this offer. I won’t forget it, and when I’ve made my choice, I hope you won’t have, either.”
They said their goodbyes, or more like ‘till next time’s, and Miles warped over to Redaria Prime, the neighboring planet in this solar system called the Velani Array. Apparently, it was a happening place. Miles was able to quickly verify those claims, and have himself some well-earned R&R.
Chapter the Tenth
The Aura had clearly given Miles a boost to his ability to metabolize, because the drinks weren’t having much an effect on him. That wasn’t a bad thing, of course. In fact, a hell of a blessing to never really be able to get beyond just lightly buzzed. Someone sat next to him, which seemed odd, until he took a quick look and saw the Hykentiu Miirkae.
“I took a look at the footage of you taking down Avanchenvaldr,” he started. “I think the term for how it’s doing on Pogo-Pira is... viral. It’s given a lot of closure for a lot of people, and that sendoff wasn’t half-bad, either.”
“I can’t imagine you’ve come from Turazin just to tell me that,” Miles replied, appreciating that he was able to do something helpful for Miirkae’s people.
“Not entirely, but that was the main point I wanted to make.” Miles had a little trouble swallowing that, and the Redarian Ale he had a mouthful of.
“I’m... not entirely sure what you meant by that.”
“Well, I figured I could also let you know that there’s a group of Hykentiu Demon Hunters on Gliropa that while their record is impressive, there’s been some doubts about their continued loyalty, and most of the leadership of both planets are too worried about their continued positions of power to actually do anything about it. They don’t want to end up being wrong, so they won’t risk it,” Miirkae explained, while showing Miles a screen with bios of each member of this group, known as the Chorgon Nehr.
“This seems like the kind of thing you might’ve told me about first,” Miles noted with another sip of drink.
“Not really. It was way more important for you to know how much you’ve done for the Hykentiu people.” Miirkae then turned towards the bar for an order. “Cloudburster, please.”
Another surprise for Miles on the ways the universe preferred to work. “I’d argue, but I doubt there’s a point to it. I guess I’ve lived too long figuring the next task was more important than how one did on the prior.” Miirkae nodded to this affirmingly, and Miles scrolled through the Demon Hunter’s dossiers. “But why are people doubting the Chorgon Nehr? Like you said, their record is clearly impressive.”
“That’s the thing. The Chorgon Nehr isn’t the problem, their doubters are. Loud minorities on the Galus-Net seem to be intent on a slander mission, choosing to highlight their minor missteps in the past over noticing their actions in the present. And unfortunately, they’re gaining supporters. Gliropa’s authorities and leaders have no plans to denounce the Chorgon Nehr, but they can’t seem to grow a set and call out these idiots who clearly haven’t even been on the same planet as a Demonic incursion.”
Miles scrolled through, noticing in particular a single inciden
t where the Chorgon Nehr destroyed an entire attacking force of Demons, but friendly fire wounded accidentally a couple of bystanders, with at most a single fatality. Some called for the dissolving of the defense force, not even paying attention to that the next of kin to the victims were compensated far beyond reasonable doubt with funerary arrangements and monetary payout. “Damn, even the families of accidental friendly-fire victims are calling foul on the dissenters. You sure can’t honor the dead by turning them into weapons for the living.”
“And that’s almost word-for-word what the families are saying,” Miirkae added, taking back the screen once Miles handed it over, then taking a drink. “These bastards can’t be dealt with traditionally, or they’ll say shit like it’s proving their point. Someone on the outside needs to find some way to get them to quit whining over resolved issues that they didn’t even have a part in.”
“Just don’t let these guys see Earth, they’ll get ideas. I’ve unfortunately had to see my share of fools like that. I never did figure out anything solid beyond quiet assassination. Not that I acted on it, this was before I had The Aura. I’ll certainly do what I can to make sure no one has to die, because I might have some proper ideas how to shut them up beyond tearing out vocal chords.”
Miirkae took a decent drink of his Cloudburster, clearly his favored cocktail since that’s what he was drinking back on Turazin before remarking “Radien, you’ve got some very creative ways of ending people, are you sure you’re not from Raon-Arashal or Zharekk?”
“I wish” was the response.
“But then again, I might not know as well as I do a fool when I see or hear of one,” Miles continued. “I’ll finish my stuff here, then head to Gliropa.”
“There is no rush here,” Miirkae said. “That’s why it was the second thing I told you about. And that’s also why I’m gonna stay here if that’s fine by you.”
“Of course. And perhaps we can talk of things other than fools and Demons.” The two laughed and had their drinks, food, and conversation. Miles even played a set on this hangout’s stage when he learned they were having their equivalent of an open mic, and had one of those Replicators like in Kaldres-Viane. After that, he and Miirkae went their separate ways, Miles warping back to Veralis’s home, and heading to the Holographic Arena he relocated from Earth for some training. Miles tended to get lost in this for a while, as he genuinely enjoyed honing his skill like this, and Veralis had to switch the arena off to get his attention when she entered the room.
“I had him!” Miles exclaimed when his opponent disintegrated prematurely.
“That’s why I was willing to turn this off now,” Veralis remarked, leaning on the projector with a rather oddly high amount of smug. “I want a turn, move your butt outta here.”
“Make me.”
It was as if that was the response she was hoping for, and the impromptu spar began as Veralis walked over calmly, before leaping forward with the kind of push kick that starts most fights in high-octane action movies. Miles dodged out of the way, and threw his leg out to sweep Veralis’s that she was standing on, but missed since she was that much taller than him. The miscalculation gave her the time to reposition and retaliate, but the fist was swept away with the back of Miles’s hand. The two began their dance from there, as if fencing with single hands to see who had more control, who had more precision to their credit, before the tactic was broken by an attempted tackle from the Vulpian, and Miles’s subsequent sprawl. He managed to wrap his arms around and lift her entirely off the ground, only to drop the both of them back down, and roll backwards into the full mount. Veralis quickly reversed the positions by pinning their bodies together and throwing her hips over to roll on top of Miles, and Miles simply made sure no progress could be made by pinning her arms, or parrying them out of the way, making it nearly not worth it to keep him on the ground. Veralis dove off, and both stood up, striking threatening and stylistic poses at each other, before both burst out laughing.
“All right, have fun,” Miles eventually said, and left her to it.
“You’ve gotten way better,” Veralis commented as she configured her settings for the Arena.
“I still don’t like ground fighting.”
“Then I can see why you like to make it so much hell to keep you there. Make it not worth the time, so everyone’s better of just doing it the old-fashioned way.”
Miles nodded, and decided to lay on his bed for a bit, even though he didn’t actually need to sleep, he could if he wanted to. But he was just planning to lay there for a bit, until he had a better idea. Eventually, he decided to head to Gliropa and deal with the Chorgon Nehr’s dissenters.
First was a meeting with the contact Miirkae noted, by the name of Dorg.
“The problem with these buggers, as I’m sure Miirkae already established, is that they’re in a position with nothing to lose and everything to gain. If any of Gliropa or Pogo-Pira’s authorities do anything about these dissenters, it’ll give them all kinds of ammo to spew,” Dorg established, while a list of the known dissenters of the Chorgon Nehr scrolled by on a screen.
“Miirkae told me of this. The method I figured barely has a chance of working, because the problem is that the crazier they are, the more potently they’ll use any excuse they have. I’ve seen this special kind of manipulative before, on Earth. They’ll never be the ones to throw a punch first, but will utterly goad you into being the one who only technically started fighting,” Miles said those last words with a tone of massive disdain, to show just how unbelievably infuriating he found such people. “We need to find a central point for them, ideally location. Like, is there a city that contains only these cosmic cancelers? A hideout or building or semi-secret lair they rub their hands plottingly in?”
Dorg thought for a moment, then brought up a new window on the screen. “Sort of. There’s an event in Hulae upcoming that, while it says its an expo for ‘new social ideas’ and what have you, it’s just a big meet-up for them to all agree with each other that anything other than perfection is evil forever, unless they themselves do it.”
Miles started to think.
“We already thought about something like that, but even with the majority who’d be happy to see those dimwits gone, it’s too risky for collateral,” Dorg cut in.
“No, I wasn’t thinking to bomb them. I have a different idea. So, it looks like these people practically take over the entire downtown?”
“Just about,” Dorg explained, curious to see what Miles was coming up with. “They have a frankly strange amount of funds, so they rent several blocks worth of buildings. Thing is, we know we need to act soon, because everyone else is getting restless about these ridiculous dissenters. And they’re not just on about the Chorgon Nehr. This expo is almost a solar system’s worth of people who’s hardest decisions in life was which well-respected person to attack next over a discretion from half a lifetime ago. I don’t know why they do it. Jealousy? Ease of effectiveness?”
“Dorg, what’s the problem you were going to tell me about?” Miles said to set the Hykentiu back on track.
“Right. There’s a lot of backlash against these guys from the everymen of this sector. Business owners in the Hulae board up their shops and take vacations for the duration of this expo so that they don’t have to hear a word from their insufferable mouths. But words have been that people are gearing up to fight them proper. ‘Show them real problems’ as it were. We don’t want this civil war on our hands, there’s plenty of things to worry about as it is.”
“But there’s a non-zero amount of time where a large area has nothing but these people?”
Dorg nodded, and Miles explained himself.
“If we isolate the area that fits that criteria, basically nothing but Chorgon Nehr dissenters and other Space SJWs, I think we should try to force some kind of crisis on them. One that they can’t run away from by leaving their expo, one they have to endure. But it’d need to look natural. There can’t be any room for postulatin
g that we’re behind it.”
Dorg was very confused at the Earth slang Miles used to describe this group that would have downtown Hulae, but seemed to get the idea.
“Either they burn in the crisis, or grow a damn set. No matter which, the amount of people being this shitty decreases massively. I’ve been doing this on a much smaller scale on Earth for a while. Making absolute fools of the kind of people who would insist on ‘civil discussion’ with slave owners, because they underneath it totally want to own slaves, but know they’d get decked if they admitted it. I can only imagine how many flavors of those kinds of people there’s gonna be in Hulae.”
Dorg nodded solemnly. “I don’t even want to guess. I’ll trust you to figure it out then, and don’t tell me what specifically you’re gonna do. Ideally, I don’t even want to be able to guess what your involvement was. Makes less loose ends,” Miles agreed and headed out, renting a room in the industrial sector of Hulae. Cheaper, and surprisingly decent.
During the night, he almost flustered himself trying to think up his plan, until he finally had one, but it was admittedly the last one he wanted to use. But by the time he needed to be making moves, it was all he had. He sighed before he left for downtown with a briefcase-concealed device that honestly, he’d rather not have resorted to.
He arrived via private bus, commissioned by one of the groups present at this event called “Torgaen’s Unfound”, or something. His plan was to head into the center of the downtown square, and activate a containment grid around the place, cutting them off from the rest of the planet. The make of the device was obscure enough that no species or planet could be pinned with what was about to happen, this siege from within.
Something felt off, though. A new player, not previously known had entered the game, so to speak. Miles’s eyes darted around, trying to figure out what The Aura seemed intent to warn him about.
