Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

by Ronald Wintrick

  “We don’t even speak their language.” Tanya pointed out.

  “Yes you do.” The other Kievor said in a language I knew I did not recognize but somehow unaccountably understood.

  “Cerebral compulsory education?” I demanded angrily, taking a step towards the Kievor. Force educating was potentially highly dangerous. It often led to insanity for which there was no cure and it was not something I would have agreed willingly to do.

  “Our methods are completely safe.” The Kievor behind the desk said.

  “That’s what you say.” I was angry, but I calmed myself with difficulty. I supposed they had a point. There was no other way we were going to be able to pull off being one of them if we did not speak their language like a native.

  “Temper, temper.” Tanya said. “You seem a little hot headed.”

  “Yes I guess I do.” I admitted, recognizing how quickly I had become so. My new Alartaw hormones grew easily riled, apparently. “I bet the Alartaw do a lot of fighting amongst themselves.”

  “Not that we’ve seen.” The Kievor behind the desk spoke again. “Quite unlike humans, who seem to love to slaughter one another, and anyone else who has the misfortune of getting in their way”, (was this message particularly aimed at us), “we have seen no instances of Alartaw fighting Alartaw. They don’t hold back when it comes to other races, however. There are always numerous killings when the Alartaw are aboard, especially between the Alartaw and the various reptile races. Killings that go both ways.”

  “Lizards are vicious wherever you find them.” I said, finding myself defending the Alartaw, fellow bipeds and mammals. “Vicious and stupid.”

  “We have met some very intelligent reptile races.” The same Kievor said. “Yet it is true that they have a hard time separating their emotions from their intellect. It is their one true failing.”

  “So watch out for smart lizards holding grudges.” Tanya said, smirking. The smirk really seemed to work on the Alartaw face, and then I remembered the Alartaw female who had flirted with me as we had waited to board the lift; Tanya had her face. I said;

  “Tanya, remember the bipeds we saw when we were waiting to board the lift?”

  “Yes. You’re the male. I guess I’m the female who got her panties all in a bind over you.”

  “The very same.” I said, now the one smirking.

  “My panties don’t bind, so don’t let it go to your head.”

  “How are we going to make the swap?” I turned to the Kievors to ignore Tanya.

  “If you’re ready to go, we can do it now.” The Kievor who was still doing most of the talking said. “This part is easy and there’ll be no mistakes. They’re aboard our ship where we have complete control. As far as your own behaviors once you’ve been swapped, there should be no problem there either. We’ve cerebrally implanted thousands of hours of surveillance data into your memories. You should be able to bluff your way, I believe bluff is the word I am looking for, through almost any situation, especially with the two of yours unique skills in that area. You’ll know many hundreds of your patrons by name, and many thousands more by sight. Your establishment does a brisk trade and the two of you are quite wealthy. Do you have any more questions? We’re going to need to go now.” I really hadn’t needed to know all this because it was in fact all coming to me now, memories I couldn’t distinguish from my own though I knew I had never lived them.

  I looked at Tanya and without a second’s hesitation, asked;

  “Are you ready Meerla?”

  “Whenever you are, Master Brune.”

  I liked the name Brune but she had added the Master herself. Our attention was drawn to a vid screen on the wall behind the desk.

  “This won’t take long so don’t bother getting comfortable.” The Kievor said. There were no chairs in the room anyway so I wasn’t sure where it thought I might be getting comfortable at. I didn’t have time to think about it either as the screen immediately lit up.

  The image that appeared on the screen at first defied any logic I could place upon it. Bare skin and thrashing limbs soon resolved themselves into our two Alartaw, however, in the middle of an aggressive wrestling match. Then I realized they weren’t wrestling. As I watched I decided I had never seen a more violent display of mating rituals, and then the trans-metal ceiling reached down and engulfed them.

  “We’re not without our defenses.” The Kievor said pointedly. I gave Tanya a look which she did not acknowledge.

  The trans-metal showed several ripples where it was obvious the duo were struggling to extricate themselves, but it was a one sided battle. It was still metal against flesh, and the bulging, squirming package was quickly drawn back up into the ceiling, which once again smoothed over and lay glassy and nonthreatening appearing.

  “What happens to them?” I asked.

  “They’ll be detained. For now.” The Kievor said. “We would prefer not to have to kill them.”

  “Sorry.” The other Kievor said, and then the ceiling fell on me, wrapping me in a grip of iron, and though I could not help but to struggle, I couldn’t affect the enveloping steel even in the slightest, and I was sucked up into its strange embrace, kicking and thrashing ineffectually.

  The bubble around me hardened measurably so that I could no longer influence it at all. I struggled to force myself to calm the instinctual panic which gripped me, and was finally able to take a smooth breath. I don’t know how I was able to breathe only that I could. A little more warning from the Kievors would have been nice. I thought that maybe I wouldn’t have reacted so badly. Not that it had gotten me anywhere. I guess in the end it really didn’t matter. Warning or not I was on my way.

  I wondered just how far the genetic change had gone. I wasn’t quite sure I really wanted the answer to that question. Everything but my personal memories, I supposed. Anything but total conversion could leave me susceptible to discovery, especially if the Alartaw’s technology was in any way equal to the Kievors. I had the inescapable feeling that it might be a long while before I would be able to contact the Kievors again. It wouldn’t be safe. The next time I could safely contact them again I would be returning to them, probably running from the Alartaw. I felt stranded. I wondered just what in the hell I had gotten myself into this time. This was the doozy of all my escapades.

  Somehow I was breathing even though the trans-metal was only scant millimeters from my mouth and nose, having shrunk down to the size of a loose piece of clothing. My chest had enough room to expand as I drew in nervous breaths (Kievor technology please don’t fail me now), but no more room than that. Nightmare visions of abandonment, or asphyxiation, or even drowning in my own urine when I couldn’t hold it further filled my thoughts. I don’t think I had ever been more at someone’s mercy than then and I liked it not in the least. Briefly I wondered how Tanya fared, thinking she would be liking this even less than myself.

  If I was to suffer a cramp or an itch, it could soon become agonizing, but the trans-metal bubble must have been capable of incredible velocity because by the time I had gotten myself completely calmed, not long, no more time than it took you to read these words, the metal was melting away from me and was sucking back into the ceiling above me. I recognized where I was. From the vid link. I was in Brune’s room. My room.

  It was incomprehensible that I had made the journey here from the core of the Station to, to Level Six forty-seven, the knowledge of where I was now at coming automatically, as if I had always known it, in no more time than it took a drop of blood to circulate through my heart, and that analogy an apt one, I thought, since in essence I was a white blood cell being delivered through the heart of the Kievor Trade Station to fight their infection.

  It was at least thirty seconds before the ceiling puckered to announce Tanya’s arrival. The metal bubbled down towards the floor and then ran like water back up, leaving a wild eyed Tanya in its place.

  “So much for the Kievor’s defenses.” She said, grinning wickedly, a predatory look on her
face.

  “What the hell did you do now?” I demanded, genuine alarm filling me, and I took a step towards her, but then somehow held back the strange sensation that had overcome me to strike her. She moved reflexively, but it wouldn’t have been fast enough to avoid me, had I actually carried through my initial reaction. Her eyes filled with calculation as she now considered me, an aggressive new me. I wasn’t going to strike now but I walked right up to her;

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything! I only showed them their defenses aren’t as foolproof as they thought.”

  “You dodged the ceiling?” I asked, real appreciation in my voice. “You didn’t hurt a Kievor, did you?”

  “Do you think me insane?”

  “Sometimes I’m not quite sure, Ta . . . Meerla.” I corrected myself. “I don’t know that I want to be stuck as an Alartaw forever.”

  “I don’t know that I want to give mine up.” Meerla said. “They took away my enhancements, but this body came with new ones and they're just as good. Maybe even better.”

  “I always knew.” I said slyly.

  “This is better though. This body was designed for them. Bio-engineered enhancements can never equal Mother Nature’s designs.”

  “We’ll be switching back once this is finished, don’t get too comfortable.”

  “Speak for yourself.” She said, and I didn’t comment. That was a battle we could fight later.

  I left her to experiment with her new body while I perused our new living arrangements. The first thing I checked, and not by accident, was the weapon’s room, the last room in the string of rooms behind the bar. The Alartaw, or Brune, at least, loved his weaponry as much as I did. Of course I had Last Chance’s guns, and felt ahead of him, but Brune’s weapon room, I mean what is now my weapon room, was a square cubicle about ten by ten meters or a hundred square meters in all, and completely, and I do mean completely, chock full of various unrecognizable weapons. The walls were covered and there was a circular rack in the middle of the room, all full. They hung from hooks in the ceiling. They were everywhere. Hundreds.

  I recognized some of the weapons from my surveillance memories of both Brune and other Alartaw. I picked out the weapon I had always seen Brune wearing. Within my memories were a memory of it in action and I picked it up to examine it. It was a hand held weapons I would have mistaken for a laser pistol if I had not known better, except that it was immeasurably more powerful. I had seen Brune use the weapon on a lizard once when Brune was out carousing other bars (and looking for a fight!). Brune had drawn the weapon so quickly it had appeared to materialize in his hand, and then it had literally vaporized the lizard.

  Other fights I had seen Brune participate in were resolved hand to hand, or in most cases, hand to claw, except that Brune’s hand had always been holding the knife he never went anywhere without. The Alartaw obviously prided themselves on their pure physical abilities, though the Alartaw weren’t always necessarily victorious in these hand to claw confrontations. I wondered if I could fill his considerable shoes. It wouldn’t be easy.

  “Imagine finding you here!” Meerla said behind me. She had crept up on me, testing her new abilities. Successfully, I might add.

  “It’s like I’ve died and gone to Heaven.” I said after I turned and looked at her. I had meant to refer to my new weapons collection, but when my eyes fell on her I had to extend my meaning further; she stood there wearing nothing but a strange look upon her face, similar but not quite the same as the one she had worn while baiting the Kievors.

  “We have to play our roles.” She said coyly. “Next time I won’t give you any warning!” Then she leapt upon me.

  The Alartaw men might have been dominant in the public eye, but the Alartaw women ruled the bedroom, or in this case the weapons room. The glimpse of the violent lovemaking I had seen while spying on the original pair had been a detached, non-personal look and had in no way prepared me for the reality of what I now experienced. It was like bedding a violent, half crazed animal!

  She easily threw me to the floor, surprising me with her immense strength and the unfamiliar throw she used to accomplish it. I wasn’t able to bring my own incredible strength to bear until we were tangled together on the floor, and then my new natural Alartaw instincts took over and we fought for dominance until I had forced her into a position of submission. She ripped my clothes from my body and I took her as I had never taken another woman in my life; violently, aggressively, ruthlessly, and all the while she clawed and scratched and gouged in pretense of resistance, but I bit her ear and held her down and had my way, as every Alartaw man had taken every Alartaw woman from time immemorial. I knew I would never be able to look at the act in quite the same way ever again.

  When I was spent, and Meerla had been brought to orgasm a half dozen times, and my back had been clawed to ribbons, and I tasted blood in my mouth from biting her, and reality began to creep back into my senses, I stared down at her in horror at what I had done, but she wasn’t staring back in horror at all. She had the strangest, most content look upon her face that I had ever seen her wear (even if it wasn’t the face I was used to, it was still Tanya) and was looking up at me dreamily as if this had been the culmination of all her hopes and dreams, and I had simply been too much of a fool to see it.

  “What the hell was that?” I exclaimed, still expecting her to be furious with me, but of course she wasn’t. She’d instigated and wanted it this way as much as I had.

  “What was what?” She asked strangely. Then; “Don’t go all knock-need on me now. You can get off me too.”

  Anger suffused me quickly from some place within me I did not recognize, and my face must have shown it, because her eyes widened just a fraction and the corners of her mouth quirked up ever so slightly in an expectant smile, but now that I’d had her another Alartaw part of me had suddenly lost interest in her. Alartaw women were taken when wanted and kicked aside the rest of the time. I got up off her and went to take a shower. Dark red blood washed from my body and ran down the drain from my back, and I understood where the Kievors had gotten their DNA sample. I could only hope the Alartaw healed quickly as well.

  It was amazing to me how two individual, distinct races set so far apart within the Universe could still have evolved so similarly. I understood the concept of the Gravitational Theory of Evolution, which posited that only planets with certain gravity fields are conducive to life that eventually leads to space exploration. The planets have to have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere, but not be so massive that that same atmosphere is compressed to liquid state (where fire and tool making are impossible) so most alien races had evolved in similar circumstances as mankind, but still, to be so similar! Without the canines I believed I could walk on any human world without so much as a second glance, humans being so varied now, and even with the canines, probably, people were getting all types of weird enhancements these days and nothing was impossible or out of the ordinary anymore. The Kievors had certainly brought that point home to me.

  Thousands and thousands of races had been found which were sentient (mostly by other races than mankind, we were yet relative newcomers ourselves), but many would never have reached the stars under their own power. Earth’s own dolphins were a good example, though closest to humans genetically, they would of course never have reached the stars without us. They existed on most human worlds now, those with open bodies of water, but they were dependent on us for transshipment. They worked for us and even piloted star ships, but they were totally dependent on us.

  I stepped out of the shower and found a clean towel to dry myself. At least the Alartaw weren’t one of those races which did not believe in personal cleanliness. Most other mammals and nearly all the reptile races had an abhorrence to cleanliness. Almost all of the reptile races would swim if there was open water but if swimming wasn’t involved they weren’t getting in it.

  I had to find new clothes because the ones I had been wearing had been to
rn nearly to shreds. When I went into our bedroom I found her lounging in our bed and eating a piece of green fruit that gave off a strong, meaty smell. My first reaction to the smell was distaste but then my stomach rumbled. I would have to eat what the Alartaw ate whether I liked it or not, but I had a sneaking suspicion I would find myself liking it once my Alartaw senses took over.

  “Get ready for work.” I told Meerla. She smelled of sex and sweat and something else I couldn’t define. Pheromone satisfaction, maybe.

  She got up without complaint and was in the shower before I found clothes I found suitable. Alartaw taste was certainly different if not much else was. I wound up choosing real leather pants (definitely a statement about their predatory nature as well as a defense against claws), a shirt made of some semi-metallic substance that I guessed would be a type of armor, and metal studded, reinforced shit kicking boots. I had memories of his using those boots to kick holes in big lizards. Those boots were no joke. Despite their technological advantages the Alartaw were a primal, barbaric race. Their aggressiveness was probably a large part of why they had been so successful, yet on the other side of the coin were the Kievor, who weren’t aggressive at all, except in the pursuit of the better half of every trade they made. Yet the Kievor were showing they could be aggressive, after all. But I’m no Alienologist and I’ll let those who think they know things ponder these greater mysteries. The only theory I was wont to ponder was the theory of what would happen to me if I did not succeed in stealing an Alartaw data base for the Kievors, and what the rest of my life an Alartaw would be like.

  Meerla slinked in from the bathroom, toweling herself as she walked, threw her towel on the bed when she was finished (which unaccountably annoyed me) and then began going through the clothes in her large closet. When she disappeared into the closet I walked over to see just how big the thing was. Of course the damn thing ran the entire length of the bedroom wall and appeared to contain even more clothes than what she had in her quarters aboard Last Chance, if that were possible. Finally, after much rummaging, she came out carrying what was obviously going to be a skin tight one piece outfit of a deep, dark red, similar to the color of the blood I had watched running down the drain just a moment earlier.