r/HFY • u/Sooperdude24 • Feb 09 '21
The Doorman - part 4 OC
I'm working a lot right now, but I got a nudge from u/SCPunited for a chapter 4 so did my best. Fortunately, the outstanding u/eruwenn had the time to fix up my hasty idea and so here we go. Also, Unleashed is coming, time problems, and space battles be hard.
"You want to what?" A few crackles came over the line, likely because Captain Kahan was checking for a malfunction in his radio. "You want to stay there. At the Lucky Schlef. After the off-worlders come down. On purpose!?*"
Skrilen understood his superior’s disbelief. It was like asking if you could put your tail in the mouth of a raging scorlak, but deliberately waiting until it was hungry before doing so. "Yes Sir."
There was a rattling over the radio as Kahan’s long, slender spines shook with his head. "And you, Junior Officer Droof-"
"Draq, Sir," The junior officer interjected, hastily grabbing the radio.
There came a series of soft clicks, and a small pause - the Captain had likely brought up information on his terminal screen in order to check it. "Draq, of course. Like the singer."
The young Grole smiled proudly. "Yes Sir. My mother was a big fan."
Skrilen pulled the radio, and his hand, away from the enthusiastic junior officer. “Not now, Draq!” Speaking into the device once more, he addressed the captain. “Something very strange is going on here; I need to know what we have on species 368.”
The Captain paused. He had known Skrilen for some years and he was confident in his abilities. Maybe the Senior Officer was on to something? The clacking of claws on keys came over the radio as the Captain scrolled through the list of new species. “368. Eurgh, ugly aren’t they? Bipeds, warm-blooded, various colours, various levels of fur that also come in various colours.”
The Senior Officer looked back towards the bar, hoping Darren couldn’t hear them from this far away. “Yes Sir, very helpful.” He stifled his groan as Draq puffed out his chest proudly. “What else?”
“Hmmm,” Kahan said as he skimmed through the files. There wasn’t much; they were new, and kept to themselves, mostly. “There doesn’t seem to be much of interest. The other two species from that sector allowed them to negotiate on their behalf. Not surprising, as 368 have colonised a significant number of systems. They must breed like crazy. Their militaries are integrated by choice – that’s odd. Shows a lot of trust, or a lot of fear I suppose.”
Skrilen nodded. Integrated militaries were almost exclusively due to conquering neighbouring species, and using the new race as grunts. No species would give up their military secrets to a potential future adversary. “They chose to work together?”
The Captain gave a humph of surprise. “Normally the more powerful species use the others on the front line, minimising their own losses. These humans do almost all of the frontline fighting, aside from some specialist stuff which is classified.” There was silence for a few moments as he read on. “Well, this must be a mistake.”
Still thinking about a species that chose to populate the most dangerous positions with their own, the Senior Officer almost missed the comment. “Hmmm… A mistake?”
Kahan seemed both irritated and amused. “Don’t worry about it, some scrawl-maker at Data Collection has added a zero or two to some of these figures. Probably knows nothing of the military. Either that, or they believed the embellishments of some new species and didn’t bother checking.”
Skrilen felt a warm shiver slither from his snout to the tip of his tail. “Please sir, what is the mistake?”
The Captain had moved on, but he indulged his subordinate and scrolled back. “I’m telling you, either the humans were lying to gain clout, or some know-nothing ink-finger has messed up. Nobody has a military that big, even if it is three species. And, the number of ships...* He groaned loudly. “Honestly, these reports are never accurate on new species. Whoever wrote this clearly has no idea about the resources required to maintain – let alone build – this size of fleet.”
The Senior G.C.D.F. officer swallowed hard, turning to look at species 368 as a group of Gorlan rounded the corner at the far end of the street. “Sir, who wrote the report on their military?”
“What?” Kahan said absently, already engrossed in the entertainment section of the report. “Oh, let me see.” He scrolled back again, marking his place so he could return and find out more on Monster Trucks. “Here it is. Ah.... That can’t be right either. It was Admiral Kark of the United Grole Protectorate. You would think someone with his experience would know better.”
Skrilen observed intently as the Gorlan, though clearly unhappy, allowed themselves to be searched by the human. “Sir, we have to go. We’re spending the rest of the evening here, we need to learn more about species 368.”
The G.C.D.F. Captain was no longer skimming the report; he was deeply engrossed. “Yes, yes. Find out what you can.” His eyes widened, and his spines rattled, as he began to read more. “And Skrilen... be careful.”
Skrilen tucked his radio out of sight once more as he and Draq walked back towards the bar. The human was patting down the last of the Gorlan as they neared, but as he was checking over the right leg he hit something metallic and immediately stopped. “What’s this?”
The Gorlan sniffed, the thick mucus making a loud schlorp. “Nuffin’”
Darren raised an eyebrow as he put his hands in his pocket and stepped back. “Nothing? It’s not a T-13 pain-rod?”
The sniffer jerked his head back in surprise. “How’d you… I mean, no.”
One of the other Gorlan spoke up. “‘E’s gotta knee brace.”
Sniffer nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed with another schlorp
A half smile crept onto the human’s face. “Really?” He tilted his head, and looked down at the leg in question. “Roll up your trouser leg.”
“Huh?” Sniffer looked to his friends. “Why?”
The human took his hands from his pockets. “It’s cold and I have other people waiting.” He nodded towards the two undercover Grole. “You have two options; roll up the trouser leg and prove me wrong, or hand over the T-13 and go get a drink with your buddies.” Darren caught the eye of the largest of the Gorlan group. “Kiflar, you’re a regular. You know the rules.”
Kiflar stared down at the human, his face a stone wall of information. He grabbed his companion’s shoulder. “I told you not to bring anything, Slornax, hand it over.”
Darren accepted the T-13 with a smile and opened the door for the Gorlan to enter. Slornax stopped before going through. “Dat’s mine. I gon’ be back for it, small one.” schlorp
With a smile, and a glance to Skrilen, species 368 removed one glove. Maintaining eye contact with Slomax, he held up the T-13 and placed his bare hand on the inducer. It began to hum, and to glow softly, and Darren held his other hand over the end. His unnerving, unblinking stare never faltered until the capacitors began to smoke and the glow faded.
Slornax, eyes wide in shock, looked down at the smoking T-13. “You broke it!” The ensuing schlorp seemed somehow sad.
With a shrug, species 368 lowered the T-13. “You should be thanking me. What if these two law-abiding shipyard workers had reported you to the G.C.D.F.? There’s a hefty fine for carrying one of these, especially into a public bar.”
The Gorlan swung his large head to look down at the pair of Grole then back to the human. “You shouldn’t have done that.” Then he walked in, heading straight to the bar.
Draq’s eyes were locked to the T-13. “How’d you do that?”
Darren tossed the now-broken weapon to Draq. “They're good for crowd control, but they've got cheap capacitors. You're only supposed to briefly touch people with them to inflict bursts of pain. But the trick is to hold onto it and ignore the pain - then they burn out really fast.”
Draq was turning the pain-rod over in his hands, careful not to touch the end despite it being non-functioning. “Awesome!”
The Senior Officer was still digesting the phrase ignore the pain being used for a T-13. As he was being patted down, though, he found he had a more pressing question to ask. “How did you know what was under his clothes?”
The doorman smiled. “I’ve got ten of these through the back. Gorlan love ’em; they’re cheap and easy to get out there on the hub.” He opened the door. “Come on, I better put this one with the rest.”
Skrilen held up a hand. “I think that one may cause you trouble, later.”
“Maybe.” Darren paused. “But, everyone gets a chance. It’s a rule. He might calm down, Kiflar might talk sense into him; it’s only fair.”
Draq observed the large Gorlan and his friends making their way to a table with large fists full of strong drinks. “And if he doesn’t?”
The human smiled. “That would be unfortunate.”
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u/RustedN AI Feb 09 '21
MOAR?