Why Humans Make Bad Pets!

I’ve found a new family III

Oh. that’s what Manthlel had meant. It was a transfer. After what I guessed was about 3 weeks, our shuttle docked with another troopship. I would have said it was identical, except for an extravagant paint job the previous had lacked, which attempted to make the lumbering troopship look like anything other than a gargantuan beached whale. Really, these things were just massive space blimps. How do you paint something like that to look fierce? A few minutes later when I got a look at the kinds of soldiers inside the ship, I figured they could have done better by painting the faces of the personnel on the hull.

If I had thought the soldiers on the last troopblimp had looked professional, then these soldiers were ninjas. Every one moved with the stalk of a killer, something I had yet to have seen in any alien. No one kept their weapons in the storage bins under their beds either. Everyone was in full combat gear, which seemed to be somewhat expanded from the usual gear that was handed out. Lava knives, swords, scimitars, spears, and even a twinblade – maybe he’d trade – could be seen on nearly half of the crew, and those without carried boring if no less lethal non-lava versions. Ray guns were also in supply. Everyone had an anti-tank ray gun, instead of just three per group, an well as two heavy ray guns, a pistol, a backup personal shield, and a grenade.

It was the grenades that had impressed me. I had assumed them to be your normal run-of-the-mill explosive type, but they had proven to be far worse. Instead, they seemed to let off some kind of mind-numbing emission that, if you were too close, would fry you brains out. Literally. Those grenades seemed to be the only thing that could legitimately hurt me. In fact, they were even more potent against me, although I don’t know why.

I was lucky my first encounter with them hadn’t also been my last. I had seen it coming though, and assumed it to be an explosive, which would have been just as lethal, so I jumped away from it. Even with three good four meter leaps between it and myself, it had given me a stunning headache when it had gone off. Now my squad could actually do something for me instead of it just being a one way street. I’d make sure no one could shoot them, and they’d make sure no grenades got too close to me. Turns out you can actually shoot these grenades and they won’t go off.

We’d barely had a second to stretch our legs after having been stuck on that shuttle for nearly a month before an alien I’d never seen before approached our blue-giraffe leader. Yeah, I technically knew his name, but how on Earth were you supposed to pronounce something that didn’t sound like it had any vowels in it? I just called him Turkey, because that was kind of what his name sounded like and it was easier to remember than “Terksal” or however you would spell it in English.

This new alien seemed to have gotten the short end of the stick when it came to balance, although it seemed to make it work with a thick tail. Apparently someone had thought it was a good idea to give a horse the legs of a kangaroo. I will say, however, that this particular biological configuration led to an extremely entertaining form of locomotion. Instead of walking like a normal being, it jumped like a kangaroo. With four legs it created an entirely different effect. Prancing majestically to our fearless leader, horse-kangaroo said something in a coughing dialect, hacking away until I was sure he or she was going to collapse a lung. Apparently it made sense to Turkey, because he started clicking orders at us.

Turning to me, he motioned Giving him the thumbs up, I followed after the horse-kangaroo, resisting the urge to make a “boing” sound in time with its jumps as I followed in its hop-steps. My fabulous guide showed me to a weapons depot similar to the one Manthlel had shown me upon my first day, except this one was significantly larger. It was still recognizable though.

“Oh no, I don’t need a ray gun. Wouldn’t work for me anyway. I’ve got all I need right here,” I explained, gesturing to my combat-harness and lava sword. Horseroo jumped up and down excitedly, gesturing towards my lava scimitar with his or - nope, check that - his snout. Definitely a he. It looked like he took more after a horse than a kangaroo. I glanced to where his snout was pointing. “My lava scimitar? Wait, can you get me any lava weapon I want?” He didn’t answer, or course, but kept jumping up and down. I tried a different approach. I pointed to my lava scimitar, then at the weapons depot, then held up two fingers. Horseroo cavorted gloriously to a console near the depot. Sitting on his hind legs like a kangaroo, except with another pair of legs rather than arms.

He somehow used his ungainly appendages to hit several buttons on the console, bringing it to life. It was much more interesting to watch this time though, since it fabricated my new weapon right in front of me. I watched as the alien 3D printer gave me a new sword in a matter of minutes. As I watched, I began to consider all the wonderful possibilities this machine could provide if I discovered how to use it. That would be for a later time, however. The machine presented me with my new weapon, sheath and all. I would have asked for a twinblade, but those looked like they required skill to use, so I decided it was better to stick to my unskilled hack and s***h method.

Newly armed, I was escorted back to the shuttle by my guide with magnificent leaps. The rest of the squad were waiting. They too had been newly outfitted, each armed to the teeth.

Turkey gesticulated.

Taking a deep breath, I followed the squad. Here we go again.

Trxcl seemed to be having difficulty summoning his usual determination as he began to give the squad his pre-game rundown. “There’s not much to this battle as far as strategy, or at least any strategy we need to concern ourselves about. Our orders are about as straightforward as they get. Charge the enemy and punch through their lines. That won’t be as easy as it was when we were with the 109th. There will be turrets, entrenchments, rovers, tanks, Vulza, and if the boys up here don’t do their jobs we might be getting a few Darkbats.”

+You’re not wrong+ mused Manthlel, closely examining his new anti-tank pulse-gun. It was times like these he wished it could actually live up to its name. Apparently there had once been a time when anti-tank guns could actually hurt a tank, but if that had ever been true, it must have been during the very first years of vehicular warfare. Now, you might as well hit the tank with your fists as shoot it with an anti-tank gun. Except for a Fusion weapon, no handheld weapon could harm a modern tank, or even one of the lightly-armored rovers, although it could probably put a dent in those. Manthlel didn’t know how they had been used in the past, but these days they were fastest way to shut down someone’s personal shield, as long as you had the stamina to hold the behemoth thing.

Trxcl wasn’t done yet, although Manthlel had almost stopped listening. “Because of all the coilguns and artillery-pulse fire down there, we won’t be able to use our usual charge tactic.” Shame that, it had been such a comfort. When they had realized that Human couldn’t be seriously hurt by heavy-pulse fire, they had let him lead the charge, the rest of the squad following in a single file line, attempting to cower in the wake of pulse free space Human created as they ran the normally fatal distance towards the enemy encampment. It wouldn’t help them now. Manthlel doubted Human could survive the explosion from a coilgun blast. After all, those were only things that had been able to kill a Vulza before Human had showed up.

“Remember your training, and stick together.” Trxcl seemed to want to say more, but in the end decided to leave it at that, pausing a moment to give Human that odd hand gesture before sitting down. The outer bay doors opened, an open maw into space, and began spitting out waves upon waves of dropships towards the small tropical planet below.