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MAK
The civilians aboard the Revenge might be eager to set foot on the surface immediately, but the first landing party will be a small team. We have plans to meet the Deadhead Ka’lakka and tour the fallen capital city.
The Deadhead’s human queen has brought another of the humans from their group along with her, and I can’t help but feel a jealous bubbling at the back of my throat when I see them.
But by the middle of the day’s work, I find myself feeling grateful that Francesca didn’t have to experience the many horrors that awaited us on the surface.
Some of the area we surveyed is rubble marred by blobs of cooled lava formations. These are the places where the Azza first tried to land, concentrated near where the planetary defense council was once headed. The Azza invaders intended to enter the complex and immediately take control of the defense weaponry so that it could be engaged against the Alliance. When they failed time and time again, the landing parties moved further out of the city. The Azza must’ve thought that they were something like booby traps at first. They had no idea the planet itself was reacting to their unwanted presence.
The places where there’s been no physical damage are far more ominous, however. The attack that the Azza launched on the Deadheads wasn’t the average bombing. It didn’t even have to reach every citizen to kill them all. Once the poison gas was released on a large enough chunk of the population, it triggered a response from the population-wide microchip system that controlled the hormones of every Deadhead old enough to walk and talk. Almost every Kar’Kali warrior on the planet dropped dead within moments. Now, their bodies scatter the place, sprawled here and there, as our silent group picks its way down a seemingly undisturbed street.
It has been passings. Animals must have visited some of the corpses. The weather did its damage too. Every fallen body brings bile to the back of my throat. Me, a male who has seen ugly battles. Me, a male who has killed many. This is not the average horror of war. It is more insidious, and it makes my stomach churn like it hasn’t since I was a young boy running for my life through gathering puddles of blood.
Funny how the closest memory to this disturbing sight is a crime these very people committed against me.
I shouldn’t feel for them like I do, but no one deserves this.
We have a self-piloting skimmer with us because we knew we would encounter this. Teams dispatched by the Intergalactic Union have already been hard at work on the disaster response remotely, but they can only do so much without boots on the ground. We load each body we find into the skimmer. Pakka and his fellow survivors plan to send them all to the spirit in the Deadhead way. It’s not such a different funerary rite from our own. They still use the funeral pyre, just without the traditional prayers and ceremony. I will pay my respects by attending, even if any of these corpses would not have hesitated to murder me when they were still breathing.
My mate is cool-headed and well-acquainted with the uglier sides of the universe. But I still think she’s better off for not having seen this.
When the light fades from the sky, we wrap up our tasks and meet with the Deadheads for one final meeting. Before our team parts ways with theirs, I draw their leader Pakka away for a private conversation.
“Pakka, I have a sensitive matter that I’m hoping I can lean on you to solve.”
He nods, stowing a small tablet into his bag to give me his undivided attention. He’s a sturdy male with rigidly straight posture and a closely cropped haircut.
“In the interest of peace between us, I will commit to anything helpful that will not burden my team.”
“Your scientists… They’ve been preoccupied with the war effort, but have they done any further experimentation with the biological aspects of the matebond? That was a primary concern of yours before you left Earth, correct?”
He’s surprised by my line of questioning, his head tipping ever-so-slightly to one side.
“Ah, one of my original team, Kiva, could not stop himself from investigating that particular topic if he tried,” Pakka says. “But it has been relegated to his spare time. Why do you ask?”
“I wanted my mate to be here with me today, but for private reasons, she wouldn’t be accepted as one of us by the Kali’Ka at this time. I’d like to resolve that in nontraditional ways, and your history of lab research is the only resource I can think to tap.”
He reads between the lines of my statement with squinted eyes and prudently decides not to comment on my unconsummated matebond.
“Very well. I would be happy to help. Do you recall Kiva, a member of my team whose daughter was the first hybrid born to us? He’s a brilliant scientist, and he would find this a fascinating challenge. I recommend you speak with him, but I cannot guarantee results. As you know, there are far too many distractions going around—” A hand wave toward the rubble that was once the center of his people’s military power.
“I trust you’ll keep this matter between us,” I say.
“Certainly. Your people might know matebonds that go smoothly from start to finish, but among my warriors, the bonds always feel like a treacherous journey. That would have been the case even without throwing human sensibilities into the mix.”
“I will not forget this,” I promise him.
The scientist named Kiva is fussing around the laboratory Pakka indicated on a map of the city. The place is in chaos. All the cabinets are thrown open, as it seems the male is in the process of going through what salvageable equipment he wants to claim from the building. I’ve met him once or twice before. He possesses a similar hair type to mine, blue and curly. His hair is a short mop that falls into his eyes. I had wondered if there was any rhyme or reason to naming practices among Deadheads. His name is a shortened version of my own, a name my own grandfather would go by. The many Makivas of my family line are known for our kali-blue hair. Was he named for the hair too?
He blinks up at me.
“Oh, hello there,” he says, grinning. “Pakka said you were coming. I apologize for the mess but I—” He hesitates as I come closer, looking suddenly nervous. “Am I supposed to do something? Seeing as you are a king, is there some salute I am meant to engage in? I do not know traditional greetings, but perhaps I should learn.”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it. This is a casual encounter. There are no expectations.”
“Ah, good,” he sighs. He hardly takes a breath before launching into a new round of excited words. “Pakka explained the matter that you were requesting assistance with, and I must say it’s been on my mind. After all, the act of reinhabiting this planet cannot go smoothly if we cannot use resources like non-Kar’Kali support groups to aid us along. Naturally, there’s the delicate subject of inviting humans here to encourage more mate bonding to occur, but that’s not going to be a possible step if we cannot have unmated non-Kar’Kali visitors setting foot on the planet.”
“Indeed,” I manage to agree as he pauses.
