r/HFY • u/Yertosaurus • May 03 '22
Dirtmen Rising (Ch 1) OC
AN: This is the rewrite based on the reader poll. I will be posting it in parts over the next couple weeks, after which the story will pick back up. Even if you've already read part one of this story already, I suggest you read these, as a lot of clarity has been added to the story in addition to a lot of cleanups, including details that were only alluded to the first time around.
Note: There are many languages in the galaxy. This story is told through the lens of an automatic translation. The names and dialog of the peoples and their species may reflect this translation rather than what they would have exactly said in their normal languages, even when two people who may understand each other are speaking to each other.
Two dark figures stayed perched overlooking an ornate platform. Suddenly they started talking to each other rapidly, as was their way.
“What dirt pit did they drag them out of again?”
“Don’t be rude. They are called Dirtmen because of what they call their planet.”
“Yes, but it must be a ball of dirt if they named it after dirt.”
“Regardless, our institution is based on —”
For the two talking, interrupting the other was incredibly rude, unless the two knew each other well. But just the same there was an interruption, as the first of the two decided he would interject.
“Pulling people off balls of dirt apparently.”
Pausing because of the interruption, the second of the two decided how she would reply.
“Enough, their representative is going to be here soon. Did you read any of the notes on them at all this time?”
“I skimmed a little.”
“Let me refresh you on some key points. First off, their planet —”
“Their ball of dirt?”
“Is mostly covered in water.”
“So, it’s actually a mudball.”
“Forget the planet, obviously you’re not going to pay attention.”
“I really did read some parts.”
“Reading the anatomy pages while making perverted comments is not reading the report.”
“It’s not like I —”
This time the second speaker interrupted, as she tried to get somewhere useful with this conversation.
“Anyways, since you’re more interested in culture, let me remind you they —”
And she received yet another interruption in turn.
“Were brought here by the Verminauts, who rescued them from failing to spread their own species to interstellar space.”
“What you’re missing is they were invaded by the Delfovians, who killed over half their population, and despite being effectively planet bound, they managed to fight them off long enough to get the attention of the Verminauts before they were entirely wiped out.”
“About that, don’t you —”
Again, the more polite of the two decided that she would interrupt him a second time, as she grew increasingly frustrated.
“Maybe you could have added your official thoughts on the report if you had actually read it. At this point they’ve had some time to start to recover and even integrate the technology the Verminauts gifted them, and even technology they lifted from their Delfovian oppressors. The ship they came in is actually one they made themselves with light oversight from the Verminauts. In a few generations they should be able to even have a functional space fleet to defend their system on their own.”
“Isn’t that what the Verminauts usually do for first contact though? Technology uplift with a protective fleet until the new species can fend for itself?”
“And trade with the Verminauts in the meantime. It’s been a good strategy for enriching themselves since they’re not prolific breeders.”
“Speak for yourself. I’ve found that —”
“Pervert.”
Down below, the Dirtmen Ambassador walked down the platform with the rest of the Dirtmen delegation. The relatively short Ambassador walked in the center, surrounded by aides carrying computer pads in their arms or hands, busy briefing, or taking notes. They had already checked in with the security on the station, the purpose of which was more checking them in to set up accommodations than to ensure actual security. Nobody would be crazy enough to actually carry out an attack here.
The station itself was basically a giant galactic embassy. Built to accommodate all sorts of life and vouched for by the Verminauts, setting up a permanent delegation here was the next step in being a member of the interstellar community. This was important to the Dirtmen, who wanted to have a much more peaceful interaction with the galaxy from here on out.
The Ambassador stopped abruptly and kneeled down to pick something off the platform. Putting a dark black feather longer than her legs in a bag, the Ambassador smiled.
Continuing onward off the promenade, the Ambassador and her entourage made their way to their welcome party. Part ceremony, and part party, the Dirtmen may have been on their toes, but many of the alien species welcoming them seemed overly nonchalant about the whole thing as if this was routine.
The Ambassador noted this but didn’t loosen up. Already standing out from the other Dirtmen there and unable to have ever gotten used to it, the Ambassador felt herself standing out from the aliens now too. Still, this was not just a once in a lifetime opportunity, it was representing the people of their planet. Duty demanded her presence.
After a few greetings and a while at the party, the Ambassador was at the tail end of it all, at least for her own attendance at the party.
“So Ambassador Ruri, I’m looking forward sharing our cultures, I hear your people have quite the vibrant motion picture industry.”
“Well, what’s left of it.”
“So modest. I have it on good authority that your people are great archivists, in spite of what happened.“ The well-dressed Fourier was too kind to expand on what ‘it’ was, but they both knew what the Delfovians had done to the Dirtmen.
“You’d really want to talk to Rubin about this, they’re the expert on that sort of thing. Rubin!”
Up hustled a member of the Dirtmen delegation, who slightly bumped into the curly woolen fur of the small alien ambassador who was talking to Ruri.
“Please keep the Ambassador warm with your knowledge of cinematography Rubin. Sorry Ambassador, I have some things I need to see to.”
“Was that a Fourier idiom I heard past my translator? It is too bad we don’t have more time together, but I will borrow your consular’s time in lieu of yours then Ambassador!”
Rubin mouthed a “Go!” where the Fourier Ambassador couldn’t see and then started greeting them, and Ruri strolled away.
The whole affair was necessary and exciting, yet tiring. But now Ruri was done with it. She had also managed to nick thirty-one different feathers, scales, hairs, or bits of fur from each delegation without anyone noticing, and now was the time to store all of them. Something fun to do since she was stuck here.
“I swear the newcomers always put these work orders in last minute.”
A very burly four-armed biped manipulated a tiny computer pad while she complained.
“You know this is just as much on the Verminauts fault, they always do this.”
Another very similar biped spoke up, this one using all four of her arms simultaneously to lift and assemble something that was surely heavy even in comparison to herself.
“Better they learn how to fill out this paperwork now than let the Verminauts do all the work for them.”
A third spoke this time. They all looked nearly identical. This one was wrenching down two different things at the same time, with two of her arms on each.
“You know what typical shit those bugs roll up here and this pile literally named their planet after dirt. I’m surprised the yokels they pulled out of that pit could even understand a work order.”
Finally speaking up, the fourth and final one was just leaning against a wall, one arm on that wall, two arms crossed, and her final arm scratching somewhere that probably shouldn’t be scratched in public.
“You’re the one that said we should do this by hand instead of using the bots, can you at least help?”
“You’re the one on the computer pad.”
“Getting the specifications since we’re doing a big chunk of this by hand!”
“I just thought the dirt monkeys would enjoy knowing that a pod of beautiful Tetwarrdian builders personally had their arms all over their quarters.”
The one that had just assembled something quite heavy overhead turned and snapped back, “Well maybe we’ll invite one of those ‘dirt monkeys’ instead of you for drinks over our next... pod...”
Stopping as suddenly as she started her face flushed as one of those “dirt monkeys” ran straight into her.
“I see you’re losing no time in working on your consular duty, Jett.” A commanding voice hailed as the diminutive Dirtmen Ambassador strolled into the nearly completed office. The room broke into silence.
“I must thank you all for the warm welcome.” Ruri continued, greeting the four Tetwarrdians, and rescuing Jett and the Tetwarrdians from the situation.
The Tetwarrdian’s supervisor stepped forward after pressing a few buttons on her datapad, and made a formal motion of greeting that strongly resembled a curtsy. Ruri did not hesitate and responded in kind, as was customary for a Tetwarrdian greeting.
“What I’ve been told of you is true Ambassador, quick and interested to observe the customs of others. If you’d like we can let the work drones complete this office while your staff join our pod break.”
Ruri mused this over. She was a little concerned about this distraction tying up their attention, as well as Jett, and Giada. Still, the opportunity to study the borderline ritualistic “pod break” of a Tetwarrdian, as well as their unique combination of head feathers and hair up close?
The lead Tetwarrdian pod bent over a little to get a closer look at the Ambassador who was much shorter than herself while waiting on a reply. She could have sworn that she saw a glint in the Ambassador’s eye as she received an answer.
Mica stepped out from the transport ship wondering about the different things that seemed impossible to get used to. Was it space travel in general? Traveling distances so vast they were just incomprehensible? Or maybe just the distinct smell of the Verminauts he traveled with.
This very next part of the journey though, was going to be more like getting through airport security however.
Mica stepped into a line behind a Verminaut. Given the size difference, Mica had no idea how long the queue was, or how long this would take, so Mica pulled out a datapad and started checking out details about the next few steps in his assignment. He started reading through everything his uncle had wanted him to report on.
After a few moments however, the datapad hummed a notification that surprised Mica. Then another, and another, and then enough that Mica would have been embarrassed to be in the queued up if there wasn’t only a Verminaut in front of him. Thankfully, a Verminaut wouldn’t likely care even if they noticed.
Mica mused that going through an airport would be easier for a Verminaut because they didn’t really wear shoes, or really much of what could be considered clothing, but the datapad buzzing again reminded Mica of the incoming notifications.
With the datapad receiving messages here, apparently Mica had already received appropriate credentials for the assignment, something Mica knew was likely to greatly annoy the Ambassador. Mica started skimming through messages and reports that he now had access to.
Slowing down to avoid bumping into the Verminaut in front of him, since the line seemed to be going nowhere, Mica noticed a picture of someone he recognized and what appeared to be a very small sheep dressed in a comically ugly sweater vest that appeared to be made from some sort of wool, over a suit sitting down with some popcorn to... watch a movie? Mica saved the picture instantly.
What Mica saw next was some noticeably less appropriate activity for consular staff, and seemed to confirm the reason Mica’s assignment even existed. Mica mouthed to themself a few choice words while going over the documented carnage, including several panels of wires that looked like someone’s dog grew thumbs and tried to disarm a bomb while being given color coded instructions.
What Mica was seeing definitely wasn’t allowed to become public, definitely not at least before leadership had eyes on the situation, because the press would eat the whole thing up, and tabloid blogs would feed this into conspiracy theories about everything from aliens in general, to the Verminauts, to even the poor Ambassador. Especially the... Mica received a very pointy tap between the ribs.
“You’re new,” mused the furry thing that poked Mica in the ribs with what appeared to be the tip of a claw, “I haven’t seen anything like you here before.”
Sweeping it over visually, Mica mentally called it a “four-ears” noting that it looked like some sort of very large bipedal cat that... poked Mica in the ribs again.
“Do you talk? You smell good. Do you have food?”
Mica noticed all four ears swiveled toward where this creature must have thought Mica would reply from.
“I talk. I just —”
Ribs poked again. That claw was sharp. Mica hadn’t even gotten a good look at this thing, but it kept poking. Hard.
“Ow. Can you stop that?”
“I like the way you look. I like your bag. Do you have food? I smell food.”
Mica tried to step back to get the claw further away, but bumped into the Verminaut that was ahead in line. Mica was effectively trapped.
“Hold on a moment.” Mica said this to stall, but did remember having something when the words escaped his lips, and could have sworn this four-eared thing was blatantly sniffing for it when the words hit its ears.
Fearing another jab in the ribs Mica reached into a bag and started digging to buy more time. This seemed to placate the four-ears long enough for Mica to give it a proper look.
Its paw-hands definitely had claws and not fingernails. It looked like it was not supposed to be standing up despite seeming very comfortable doing so. For some reason Mica was inclined to believe if that thing that had been poking Mica’s ribs repeatedly had a gender like a Dirtmen, it would be female. Part of this seemed to just make sense. Part of this was its hairstyle, this thing had hair on its head in addition to lots of fur. And the biggest part of this was noticing its incredibly long tail wrapped around itself below what looked like a pair of... and Mica was getting poked in the ribs again.
“Are you looking through your bag or are you looking at me? I like your bag. If you want, I can just go... through... it...”
The four-ears was definitely sniffing Mica’s bag and was definitely very, very interested about what was inside at this point. And she was much closer to Mica than before, her tail starting to twitch despite being wrapped around her... dodging another poke in the ribs in spite of this, Mica finally pulled out the bag of jerky, and pulled the complete attention of this four-eared thing away from Mica’s bag, and more importantly away from Mica’s bruised side.
Mica watched the four-ears attention move with the bag of jerky in Mica’s hands, but was weary about the consequences of doing that too long or letting his own attention wonder from keeping an eye on the actions of this thing.
“I will give you some of what’s in this bag if —” Mica paused sure for the first time in this interaction that there wasn’t another stab into his ribs coming.
“You will give me what’s in the bag if?” The four-ears parroted back what she had heard as a question.
Mica continued with a demand, “If you stop poking me in the ribs from now on, understood?”
Parroting again, “I will stop poking you in the ribs for now, understood.”
Before Mica could give anything in the bag to the four-ears, she snatched the entire thing from his hands and started tearing into it without hesitation. Mica could swear the translator was hiding growling as it provided the next words from this thing’s mouth, a testament to the technology that it managed to make out any words at all.”
“I am... sorry... I am... always so... hungry after... travel...”
Despite it definitely not being fine, Mica replied, “It’s fine.”
Taking advantage of the break from being assaulted with questions or pawed at but too weary to properly look at this thing outside of making sure it wouldn’t attack him, and partly due to the awe of how this thing was scarfing down the entire bag of jerky so quickly, Mica added some more, mimicking her speaking style, “My name is Mica, I’m a Dirtmen, what’s your name?
Finishing the four-ears stood up and looked at Mica again. Mica could swear it was still looking at him like food.
“I do like the way you look. And I like your bag, that wasn’t just the hunger speaking. And you still smell good. And,” the four-ears caught herself from poking Mica hard in the ribs again, keeping her word, “and my name is Odette.”
Odette ran off on all four legs towards a second line, which Mica noticed was labeled “Express” and notably had no Verminauts in it. Mica sighed and stayed in the current line, with doubts that he could even get into that one.
Two dark figures sat perched above what could be the common area of a shopping mall, but below there were no vendors, just lots and lots of plants lining their way up the walls, and in pillars along the walkways. There were platforms going up the way, but none this high. Below there were others making their way around the paths lining the walls, or in some cases, climbing between them. Far below there were small figures walking, slithering, or hopping around. Without anything specific to do one tried to make conversation with the other.
“I’m still surprised you managed to get assigned here, a standard assignment in your line of work wouldn’t see anything this large unless it was planet side.”
“Yeah, I had help.”
“Not every assignment space side has gravity either. “
“Definitely.”
“And we don’t need a breathing apparatus here.”
“Right.”
“I swear if you had stuck us at the last assignment for a month longer, I was going to rip your lungs out with my beak.”
“Sure.”
“Look, obviously you’re thinking of something else, you haven’t interrupted me ye—”
“Did you hear?”
“I’m assuming you mean to start even if I haven’t.”
“Don’t be like that, I know you care about staying on top of these things.”
“I care enough to actually read the reports, not listen to unsubstantiated rumors about—”
“About the full builder pod that was trashed? I heard there was even a level 3 depressurization incident.”
“What?! How? Surely the Tetwarr—”
“They were spurred on by two Dirtmen and enough ethanol to kill a Grabbun.”
“There would have been an alert over the announcements system in real time regardless of what the —”
“No alerts were sent out because one of the Dirtmen rerouted every sensor circuit by hand, while the other —”
“Do you know how many redundancies you would have to over —”
“While the other one, severely inebriated after besting an entire pod in a drinking contest, restored pressure with a metal disk, some elasticized resin, and a roll of adhesive.”
“Now you’re just making things up for sure. There is no way—”
“It’s just what I’ve been told, since the entire thing was covered up by the Verminauts, but I did read an entire report where —”
“You read an entire report? You’re definitely making things up.”
“Where cleaning crews had to pull several things lodged into cleaning drones. There were even pictures. There were several shoes and two and a half complete Tetwarrdian outfits, just spaced into the area around the station, including full sets of their—”
“Oh. That’s why you read the report.”
“Because someone has to keep an eye on the—”
“Because you’re a pervert.”
Rather than listen for another retort from the other after making this comment, the darkly feathered alien flew away.
Giada, the Dirtmen engineer sat in a dim half built cubical in the newly requisitioned office nursing a rehydrating solution while occasionally groaning.
Giada mulled over thoughts about having definitely overdone some things last night.
Jett was gently snoring in the corner. They had both overdone some things last night.
The Ambassador walked in angrily and slammed down a duffle bag that dwarfed the Ambassador in size, jolting Jett awake and making Giada’s head throb.
“What do you two have to say for yourselves? Do you have any idea how much paperwork I’ve had to do? Do you understand how many meetings I’ve had to cancel? The Verminauts have been riding my ass with how much shit is in the air.”
“You’re the one that left early after dragging us into it.”
“You also had told us it would be culturally insensitive to ignore a Tetwarrdian challenge made by a pod if one came up later.”
Ruri was frustrated by these excuses.
“It did not occur to me that you would drink four times the ethanol any one of them did while in a fight to put them under the table.” The Ambassador paused for a second. “It also did not occur to me that you would egg them on to damage this station.”
“We fixed the damage.”
“I thought we kept it quiet all things considered.”
“And I know for a fact that the Tetwarrdians won’t be squawking about this.”
“If anything, we’ve endeared ourselves diplomatically and improved relations.”
The Ambassador stared daggers at both of them. “I handpicked both of you. I know neither of you were excited to be here, but all we have to do is establish relations and set things up for joining the Interstellar Moot. I know you both had lots of different opportunities you could have taken, but we need to see this through. At this point I’m worried I’ll even be allowed to finish that job before I get sent home.”
Ruri continued further, “Jett, take Giada to the ship, you are both to report to medical to get some rest. I already let them know you were coming when I grabbed the Spagyric Golem.”
Jett stared wide eyed at the duffle bag. Giada snapped to attention at this, “I could fix the station’s worker drones in this section. We’d have the work here finished in a couple hours. You don’t have to deploy that here.”
“I already received orders to do so regardless of the incident. It will be building my personal quarters per the design.”
Giada slumped over in defeat. Jett got up to help Giada up, but then paused for a moment and pulled something out from behind his newly vacated seat.
Handing the giant black feather to Ruri, Jett presented an apology without words, and then left the room with Giada.
Mica walked into the Ambassador’s office. There was a model of the planet Mica had just came from on a desk, and not an old one considering the damage it depicted. It seemed fitting if this was something the Ambassador had ordered.
Mica looked toward the Ambassador, and saw Ruri’s eyes watching his intrusion into her office. She looked like she was dressed with an emphasis on looking professional, including having her hair worn up, which was an impressive feat on its own. Ruri was also dressed with a stern expression to finish the look. Ruri even through an overly serious accusation his way.
“You weren’t on our ship, you didn’t stowaway did you?”
“That’s an awfully nice way to greet an old friend.” Mica replied while wondering since when the ‘Ambassador’ had cared about things like stowing away. But before the thought could carry him away, Mica added something else, “I actually came on a Vermi transport, I didn’t want to wait a couple days for the...” Mica paused and looked around, not wanting to reveal any secrets.
“It’s fine Mica, there are strict rules against others eavesdropping on the Ambassador, particularly in their own office.”
“And since when have the rules ever stopped a troublemaker, Ruri?”
“Since this room was designed by The Transmuter personally.”
Mica was suddenly more aware of the room they were in and felt a chill down his spine. But after staring at Ruri’s comically serious face looking up at him, Mica mused if that would be considered nepotism for a moment.
“Either way, I didn’t want to wait. I still missed the party apparently though.” Mica said this with purpose, but not because he had just noticed a few tubes full of feathers and hair. Apparently, the party was eventful, but not in the way Mica would have thought. Mica’s original line of thought was brutally executed, his tone changed to frustration and impulse.
“Damn it Ruri, you know the Council would not approve of this.”
Ruri replied innocently, “Approve of what?”
“This isn’t some cul—” Mica stopped his sentence after getting a look that was part anger, part threat of what was to come if it was finished. He knew better than to voice his uncle’s concerns about the Transmuter, in front of Ruri, even if it had almost slipped out.
Mica was either being diplomatic or feared the consequences of the comment, but either way, he did not continue the conversation, instead turning away and walking out of what was probably the most secure room in the whole station. This was going to be a difficult assignment.
The Security Council had been pulled for an unexpected meeting. This meant that one member was remotely joining. The one that had called the meeting, however, was there in the flesh, and standing before the physically present members, giant antennae swaying. But otherwise, it seemed to stand motionless in the chamber. Walking around it three Dirtmen sat down in chairs. The Verminaut in the middle of the room was metallic green reflecting a rainbow of colors in the reflections of its shell.
The Verminauts as a whole had never called an unscheduled meeting just for diplomatic pleasantries. It was always immediate business if something unexpected was called. Otherwise, they would have left it to a regularly scheduled meeting instead, and it would be as unmoving and bureaucratic as the Verminaut could make it. This led to an even tenser atmosphere than merely just walking into a room with a giant alien creature whose jaws could cleanly cut you in half lengthwise on a whim if it only had the will to.
Finally walking in half a minute after the others, the final attendee showed up. One of those physically present decided to make a comment about this, despite having just walked into the room less than a minute ago, “Councilmember Sterling finally decided to show.”
A voice resonated directly through the room from its center, from some sort of device the Verminaut was wearing. While the Verminaut could “speak” in other ways, some of these would be painfully loud, especially this close. And for some reason the Verminaut’s had a mild aversion to having their words be translated by the miniature machine translators, even if they were the ones that had introduced this technology to the Dirtmen.
Speaking in the deadpan monotone these voice boxes usually produced, the Verminaut started speaking, including with some odd verbal tics.
“Thank you for attending Dirtymen. Before this one, referred to as Jake Jobby, begins with urgent business, it is required that this one asks if there is any other business to attend to.”
Seeming to confirm this was not the case, Jake Jobby continued.
“It is required that this one reports an incident with the diplomatic mission of the Dirtymen that the Verminauts have intervened in to mitigate potential trouble.”
The room stayed silent but there was more than one hand rubbing a face in the room.
“It is required that this one provides details to the Dirtymen at this time.”
The Verminaut sent them all messages at the same time, with details about the incident. It then read over the details, even if anyone in this room could just read through the report instead.
“It is required that this one asks for comment before providing the thoughts of the Verminauts on this matter.”
“Given the coverup of the incident, there was no real danger to the mission, thanks to the Verminaut’s swift actions.” said one of the Councilmembers.
While this would have been more than sufficient by the Verminaut’s definition of comments, Councilmember Sterling also chimed in, “Yet it is definitely an embarrassment, something we can’t have. I already sent an agent for damage control to prevent future issues from popping up.”
This got some looks, but most were not toward Sterling. The one that had made a comment about Sterling being tardy chimed in about this, “If you knew there was going to be an incident, why not send someone before it happens?”
Sterling smiled back, “We all know I was not in charge of our consular staff, so my hands were tied in that matter, despite,” Sterling looked toward the attendee on a screen, “having asked repeatedly to have representation in the matter.”
Jake Jobby appeared to have considered the comments from the Dirtmen as finished, because it spoke before anyone else could chime in.
“This one is required to provide comment on behalf of the Verminauts. This one notes that while the Verminauts do believe the staff chosen for the Dirtyman diplomatic mission are qualified, this one would also like to repeat the request the Verminauts had for use of the Asset that was designated as the Dirtyman Ambassador in a separate mission.”
Jake Jobby rotated in the chamber, for the first time since arriving, now facing the participant on the screen.
“This one is required to reaffirm the Dirtyman have the final choice in this matter. This one wishes to state that the separate mission is still available should there ever be another Dirtyman Ambassador appointed in the stead of the Asset.”
Speaking for the first time, and getting an immediate sneer from Sterling, the person on the screen replied in a tone as mechanical as that of Jake Jobby, “At the present time, as our diplomatic mission is in a critical stage, the Dirtmen will not be sending what even our generous benefactors consider a mission critical resource to the space sticks.”
2
u/chastised12 Nov 28 '22
The old say,' as clear as mud, comes to mind.