Underground Students Safehouse, Zakabara Prime

"Whew, this smells hecking terrible!" Gelatimu, a factory engineer said while fanning the air away from her face with her wings.

"Enough of that! Just open all the bags. You can clean your beak later," Shikoba growled. It was not easy carrying these from the spaceport. The guards were suspicious because she definitely did not look like a farmer. She had to make up a story about being an agricultural goods merchant. The terrible codename the human agent made her use sucked. What does "Joan of Curve" even mean?

The guards probably didn't believe her, but this wasn't enough fertilizer to be really dangerous. She'd heard that some people had used these things to make explosives on Earth.

Shikoba was much more interested in the black and dark green boxes and tubes wrapped in plastic bags that were hidden inside the synthetic manure.

"This looks like a camera!" Gelatimu said excitedly as she unpacked the contents of one of the plastic bags onto the workshop table.

Reading the included instructions printed in standard Zakabaran, Shikoba replied, "I think that's the integrated sight assembly. Here, connect that to the big long tube, and test one of the included thermal batteries in it."

"Tell the specialists in from the other cells to come get their goods, and make sure you use the new frequency-hopping burst transmitters! We don't want the goons from internal security to trace us with our radios again. And make sure that you physically run that video guide on small unit tactics out to the squad leaders…"

Residential District 42, Zakabara Prime

Rekala was growing to hate close air support. Not because he was in danger, but because it was tiring to focus on his gunnery screen, looking for targets. And these missions were getting longer and longer as more and more rebels started to appear. Their entire squadron ran out of all orbit to ground missiles and railgun rounds several weeks ago.

It didn't help that he was shooting at people who looked just like him, too. He hoped that none of them were related to anyone he knew. It was unlikely, but still, it's been known to happen. More with the troops on the ground than the spaceship gunners, but it happens. He was also beginning to have these bad nightmares…

"Four targets in that bunker," said his commander with her eyes glued to the zoom camera.

It was a hole in the ground with sandbags piled up on its side, with a few birds in it getting suppressed by their infantry on the ground.

"I see it," he said, as he tilted the gun controls to focus it with the turret. The new thermal camera and stabilization system they recently installed worked without a hitch.

"Fire.

Rekala watched the ground explode in a cloud of shrapnel and dust from a high explosive cannon round launched from his ship. A corpse launched from the hole and flew out of his screen.

"Eight degrees north," the commander said in an emotionless monotone. She didn't enjoy this job any more than he did.

"I see the two-story building," Rekala replied as he moved the controls again.

"Second floor, fifth window from the right," she squinted at the rifle poking out of the window on her screen, "fire."

The window exploded. Shrapnel and debris poured out of the frame. Rekala thought he saw a body fly out as well, but tried not to dwell on the image. There lied madness, he knew.

Then, he zoomed out and noticed the seemingly empty buildings next to it. Something was wrong, he thought, wasn't this called in as a highly infested neighborhood?

Evidently, the commander thought the same thing, and said into her radio, "space bird 184 and space bird 189. This is 210. We're shifting forward to get an angle on a new firing position unless you see any-"

That's when two bird-portable surface-to-air missiles quietly found their way up to the two air support ships next to them, detonated their warheads, and killed all wings on board.

They watched in horror as the burning wrecks fell back to Prime.

Responding by instinct, pilot Munnifa immediately pushed hard on her throttle before the commander even screamed out, "CLIMB! Climb! Climb!"

This saved their lives.

The third missile, meant for her ship, was following right beneath her ship, right where her engines were pointing. Hitting the plume, it detonated too early outside the minimum lethal radius, but it still showered the ship's thrusters with fragmentation. One of the three sublight thrusters failed, but the other two still had enough combined power to keep the ship climbing.

Munnifa didn't ease up on the throttle until they reached orbit.

This is going too quickly, infantry bird Momoko thought, maybe it's a trap?

They had gotten to know a lot of those traps in the past few weeks. It was quite an education by fire. The Students had appropriated many of the insurgency tactics used by aliens on other planets, and were testing them against the security troops with zeal. His unit had suffered relatively light casualties, but some others had been wiped out in ambushes; it was only the intervention of the spaceships that had started to turn the tide.

Conversely, he noticed that many of the officers in his unit had started passing around ostensibly banned human literature on the subject among themselves. Only the higher ranked people could read and had access to such materials, but he'd overheard some of them talking.

Apparently, they were supposed to win the hearts and minds of the general civilian population, which made sense, but how were they supposed to do that when they were being shot at?!

This mission in particular had started smoothly. Way too smoothly.

They were called in to eradicate rebels in an infested neighborhood. Intelligence and the brass, an oxymoron he realized, told them there were hundreds and maybe thousands of them here. They had even called in three ships from orbit for close air support just in case. So far, they've only encountered a few pockets of resistance, and a few sporadic rifles in the windows of the dormitory buildings.

Casualties were light, and the air support ships were mopping the enemy up one by one. Momoko wondered if they were getting a lucky break finally.

Then, everything happened very quickly.

Three curious trails of smoke from the building they were facing arced from the roof into the sky.

Two of their close air escorts exploded into flames and fell out of the sky. The third was boosting upwards, with an engine trailing smoke behind her.

As his brain slowly adjusted to this sudden turn of events, the previously apparently empty building in front of him exploded into a cacophony of gunfire, with hundreds of muzzles flashing out of it.

Momoko dove behind a solid rock as several other birds next to him fell backwards into pools of blood. Screams filled the air. He noticed that the rebels had at least a couple of automatic weapons among the rifles, and they fired much, much faster and far more accurately than the one laying by the dead gunner in his squad.

"Fall back!" he heard someone yell. It wasn't even a superior, but that hardly mattered. The security troops were responding to the shock of the initial assault by beating a disorganized and chaotic retreat. Many were being gunned down in the open by the far more numerous attackers entrenched in every building surrounding them.

Momoko saw an opening, an empty gap behind them that he knew led to another building and some solid cover, and he sprinted for it, flapping his wings behind him to give him some extra speed.

He almost made it halfway there before a thermobaric round from an RPG-7 that was supposed to be in Chechnya detonated in the gravel not two steps away from him, cremating everyone in his platoon in a building-sized fireball.

Spaceport 30, Zakabara Prime

The excitement of the day and narrowing escaping death really riled Munnifa up. Filled with adrenaline with nowhere else to go, especially since she was avoiding Rekala for rejecting her a few weeks ago, she stayed behind on the ship.

She took her Mountaintop-High and feeding device out of her personal compartment. As she did so, she suddenly had a thought: I've seen this somewhere before. Munnifa frowned and thought about it. She'd seen this somewhere on their ship weeks before.

Ah, the commander's compartment! She must be a user too!

There were no locks on her personal compartment. Munnifa opened it. There it was, a feeding device identical to hers. Munnifa hungrily felt around her commander's compartment, wondering where she stored her goodies. Feeling a smooth rectangular shape, she grabbed whatever it was and extracted it out.

It was an entire brick of white powder.

This was much more than the two small baggies she had, and it would cost her way more than all the credits in her account! Especially after its price increased when Popptaw banned it. She opened the brick up and filled her feeding device.

She breathed in. It felt wonderful.

This wasn't the first time she's used it. Or the second time. Or the third…

The thrill of it had gone down each time. Each time, she needed a little more to be fully satisfied. So, she filled her tubes with more powder again.

And again. And again. And again.

She didn't even notice that her heart was racing as fast as a spaceship.

She passed out from the euphoria, never to wake up again.

Rekala felt bad for Munnifa. He didn't know she had a crush on him before she asked him out. It caught him by surprise. While he didn't think about her that way, she was a really pretty bird.

She had been avoiding him for the past few weeks and in general acting very weird since that night he rejected her. Maybe if I help her find another suitable bird, I could help her get over me, he thought vainly. And we'd be a close crew again.

Yeah, Rekala decided, I'll go talk to her about it. At least I can try to cheer her up.

As he walked back up the ship ramp in the hangar, he noticed something was wrong. It was the interior lights, he realized. They were still on. They'd landed for hours now. Munnifa should have turned them off by now.

That's when he noticed her lifeless body on the floor. Oh, no no no.

Running to her, he felt for her breath. There was none. Her wings were cold.

So cold.

As reality set in and his hope drained out of his body, Rekala's tears flowed freely down his beak as he sobbed.

He mourned for yet another victim of this cruel war.

Rekala got assigned to another ship. After finding Munnifa dead from an overdose, interior security troops had taken his former commander into custody. She had been found to be using the Mountaintop-High powder too.

He didn't feel her loss as badly as Munnifa, but it hit him how little he had left to care for.

His new crew were two badly groomed birds. Lohidi was a beady-eyed gal that acted as their pilot, and Grarom was their long beaked commander. They both had very rough feathers, and it looked like neither of them had showered in weeks.

Still reeling from his loss of his former crew, Rekala had a difficult time integrating into this new one. It was just not the same.

"Hey Rekala," Lohidi said, "why are you always so sad?"

"I'm not," he said hotly. Then, softening his glare, he said, "I was really close to my previous crew. We were like family, and I miss them."

"We're like family here too," Grarom beamed at him. He insisted, "we've been through thick and thin together, and you'll fit in just fine."

Avoiding the topic, Rekala tried to change the subject. "What happened to your gunner from before?"

"Mortar attack," Lohidi said softly, "our barracks got hit by the cursed new weapon a few days ago, and she didn't make it."

"I'm sorry," Rekala said sincerely. He knew how they must be feeling.

"That's ok," Lohidi replied, accepting a hug from him. "It wasn't you that started this war!"

"Yeah! It's Popptaw and her stupid Lords," Grarom chimed in casually, as if he hadn't just uttered treason that could get his wings clipped if anyone else reported what he said.

Lohidi giggled. Thinking for a second, Rekala realized they were right. He smiled at them and nodded.

Maybe he could find a second family here. It wouldn't replace the hole that Munnifa had left in his heart, but it was better than nothing.

Lohidi brought out a strange tube device, which he recognized as the one that Munnifa had on her when she died. She offered it to him, "here, breath through this, it'll make you feel better."

His brain screamed out in warning. This was what killed Munnifa when she took too much!

But his heart had stopped caring. Who cares what their leaders had banned? All their rules and orders, and they couldn't even keep Munnifa alive.

Besides, he was just going to try it once. He could stop any time he wanted.

Spaceport 1, Zakabara Prime

Mark and his unit had been hiding in the tall grass around the spaceport with ghillie suits for days. Watching, waiting.

Plenty of trader ships came and went. They could easily tell those apart because they landed in the trader section of the spaceport. Besides, they had a local gal in the space traffic control tower who was feeding them information on the ships coming in and going out.

After almost a week of camping out, the scout reported movement in his binoculars. A ship was beginning its take off sequence from the VIP landing pad! They calmly set up the portable weapon they had brought with them, and then got the message: "very important officials on board VIP shuttle, entire airspace cleared for takeoff, not alien."

The last part was what they were waiting for. They didn't want to hit some poor non-Zakabaran diplomat on Prime that was just looking to get off before the bird poop hit the fan.

Mark smoothly guided an anti-tank missile manually into the ship as it was beginning its engine ignition. It wasn't even hard.

The fourteen security troops in the ship didn't see it coming. Neither did two Lords and four of their lieutenants. They all exploded in a ball of fire as the air raid alarm for the spaceport started to scream.

Farm District 184, Zakabara Prime

Rekala noted how beautiful the planet was below them. Fields and fields of food. They were grown using new agriculture techniques coming from Earth, of course, but their leaders would never admit that. The abundance of the golden color that the wheat formed below really was gorgeous, especially in his current state of mind on a small dose of Mountaintop-High.

His crew knew about the dangers of the drug, and they were cautiously rationing their use. Rekala thought that was sensible, and he wished he'd known about it so he could have told Munnifa to save her.

Lohidi and Grarom had brought him up to speed on a lot of the real information they've been hearing over their radio. Apparently the Seconders had set up a station where they can get the actual news about the war, unfiltered by their deceitful superiors. The rebels were really the good guys in the war, and the only reason the government troops hadn't defected was because they were all afraid for their lives.

"What do you guys want from us this time?" Grarom asked the ground troops in his radio. He was a casual commander, and didn't even bother to use a lot of the jargon that'd been drilled into them in training.

"Ground to orbital support, we need you to raze that village four kilometer north of our position. They're hiding rebels in their houses."

Grarom rolled his eyes. The soldiers probably had no idea where they were just ambushed from, and simply wanted them to take it out on some random village. The voice on Radio Free Zakabara had told him that was what they did.

Nevertheless, he relayed the order to his crew.

Rekala took a deep breath, and he said, "no."

His crew members looked at him like their gunner had grown a third wing. "What?" Lohidi asked, stunned.

"No. I won't do it. Those villagers have done nothing wrong."

"This is wrong. This whole war is wrong. Our people have suffered long enough under Popptaw and her idiots," Rekala said heatedly.

"And we have a ship. We don't have to do this. What are we even doing here? Grarom. Lohidi. I don't have a family. You are my family now. Let's go. Let's all get out of here."

Grarom and Lohidi gaped his mouth at him. It had never occurred to them that this was an option. But Rekala was right about everything, and their altered state of mind was making them slightly bolder.

Maybe they could just get away from it all.

Then, being the practical gal she was, Lohidi asked, "it's a good idea, but where would we go? Popptaw will hunt us down!"

"We have a blink drive, right?"

Planetary Palace, Zakabara Prime

"What?!" Popptaw howled at the space Lord. "What do you mean the rebels are shooting back at your ships? Of course they are! It's a hecking war. You have weapons, use them!"

Many of Canouah ships were now refusing to do air support missions due to the danger posed by the effective new weapons the rebels were using. Several have deserted, and though they covered it up by saying that the rebels had destroyed those ships, they couldn't hide it from their own forever.

"S… so sorry… airspace not clear… c… can't… bad connection…" Canouah's voice stuttered through the radio as his connection cut out.

Popptaw was not fooled. That bird was a coward, and he was clearly avoiding her!

"Popptaw, we can't sustain our ground campaign without air and space support," one infantry Lord complained, "the rebels that we're encountering now have these automatic weapons."

"Yeah," another agreed, "and they must be getting their training from somewhere. Their tactics have evolved a lot. Our troops are getting herded around like a pack of hunted rats."

The intelligence Lord chimed in, "we have some mixed evidence that they may be getting human support from offworld."

Popptaw's eyes narrowed. "Human support?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet.

"It's not conclusive, but the debris from the Spaceport 1 attack yesterday contained some sophisticated parts that couldn't have been made in Zakabara. And before one of our recon units got overrun, they reported seeing the enemy using strange alien equipment. They put some kind of bulky device on their head that made them see in the dark. It matched the description of a human-"

Boom! An ear-splitting eruption and the ground shook to interrupt the intel Lord's report. Every glass window in the palace shattered, and everyone was knocked to the ground.

"What is THAT?" Popptaw shrieked as she struggled to regain her footing.

1,500 Meters Away

"You missed!" Shikoba accused. "How did you miss? The manual says these things are accurate down to the four meters!"

"Maybe you did the math wrong?" the Student operating the 81 mm mortar dared to suggest.

"My math is wrong? Ok, check it! Which part is wrong?" Shikoba shoved her calculations and the artillery chart at him.

Pohanadas squinted at the numbers from the side. They looked right…

The ammunition bearer hurried, "guys, we don't have much time. We're not supposed to stick around for more than two minutes after we fire. Let's just shoot off our two remaining rounds and get out of here!"

"And what? Hit the water fountain again? Let me see the rangefinder," Pohanadas said, snatching it from Shikoba. "Wait, this is set to yards, not meters!"

"Yards?! Why would they measure things in gardens-" Shikoba asked.

"Doesn't matter. We don't have time for the history lesson," Pohanadas said as she did some quick math on the clipboard. She turned to the gunner and commanded, "adjust down twenty-five notches and fire again."

The second round squarely hit the guard house, killing all four of the internal security troops there who were looking around for them with their far more primitive binoculars.

The third round hit the roof of the palace, putting a massive hole in it and all three floors beneath it. A load-bearing pillar disintegrated. The walls of the palace groaned at the sudden loss of support, and an entire wing started to collapse.

The cell disassembled the weapon, retreated to their safehouse, and celebrated their success while they waited for their next shipment of high explosive rounds. The "Seconders" were shipping a lot of fun toys to Prime these days.

"What the flying rat is that?" Popptaw screamed at her Lords, who have all taken shelter near pieces of hard furniture. They were in the section of the palace that was not hit, but she could already see some casualties lying on the ground at the guard house and in the collapsed part of the palace.

"I think it's an explosive of some kind," the intelligence Lord took a stab at doing his job.

"I know that, you idiot!" Popptaw shouted angrily, "gather your birds together and find out whom it came from. In the meantime, I'm going to go get you more reinforcements from our cowardly space Lord!"

Ganymede Station, Sol

"Are you sure you entered the right coordinates?" Grarom asked Lohidi. The big planet outside their window looked as lifeless as it was red.

"Yeah," she replied confidently. "This was the one they said to go to on the radio, for when traders need help. The humans must have some ships nearby."

They'd all agreed this was the right idea. After all, the radio said that the humans were wonderful people. And they'd heard rumors through the grapevine that they were the ones who made the Mountaintop-High powder. So, they must not be bad people, right?

Suddenly, a voice came through the communication channel.

"Zakabaran military vessel, you have been targeted and your blink drive is locked. Cut your engines and-"

Grarom replied into his radio as they planned, "hello, are you the humans? We are here to surrender."

And then he added just in case, "please don't eat us."

???, Zakabara System

"… we took out two of their top generals, possibly the only two remaining competent ones left in their ground armies," Mark reported. Getting out had not been easy with the Primers searching the spaceport, and it had taken them several days to get to their parked ship.

"Good, very good," came the reply from Earth. "From all the reports we've gathered from our intelligence ships in orbit, we think the rebels are actually in a good position for a decisive- hold on a second."

The line went silent for a few minutes. Mark wondered what was going on that was so urgent they'd interrupt a top secret briefing. Maybe changes to his next assignment?

The voice came back on the radio, "alright, there's been a change of plans. Some coked up birds defected to Ganymede a few hours ago."

Mark held his silence. However secure their encryption was, there were just some things that he couldn't say over the radio.

His controller continued, "we picked apart their ship and found some interesting flight plans. This one is important. Don't bother to pack your zip ties on this mission."

"Who is it?" Mark asked eagerly.

"Look in your playing cards. She's on your ace of spades."

Zakabara Prime Territorial Space

There is no such thing as perfect stealth. Anything as large as a ship leaves footprints, especially in the vacuum of space.

The largest of these footprints is its thermal one. In an atmosphere or on a liveable planet, this isn't the biggest concern. Objects everywhere retain some form of heat. The exhaust of a fighter jet gives off a lot of heat, but to a thermal camera far enough away, it doesn't look so different from a big rock that's been in the sun all day. Or a hot mountain in its background. Besides, there are many things in an atmosphere that can obscure the infrared radiation given off by a jet.

In space, thermal waste becomes a big concern. Early on in humanity's foray into the galactic community, human traders found that the Bhaks, who lived on a scorching planet near the sun, had discovered more efficient materials and methods of storing heat. These quickly became adapted into human inventions, like computers, automobiles, and manufacturing.

The engineers at Lockheed Martin and many other military R&D corporations around the world did not fail to notice the immediate implications of being able to store large amounts of waste heat.

The second largest of these footprints is the radar signature. Ships could detect each other by sending radio waves at empty space and waiting to see if it bounces back. On Earth, this was the predominant form of detection for aircraft. Several methods had already been invented to reduce an object's radar cross-section: radar absorbent material and a distinct smooth shape that would trap radio waves or reflect them away from the receiver. The most advanced of these modern aircraft have a smaller frontal cross-section than an insect.

Space is mostly empty, but there is still debris and other astronomical bodies that give off immense amounts of radiation. Without recognizing the specific signatures of stealthed human ships, sensor systems can only be so sensitive before the noise makes detection impossible.

Cruising silently around Zakabara Prime with these innovations, the ship known to its occupants as the X-70 watched as a transport ship launched from Spaceport 1 right on schedule. Using small, quick trajectory adjustments, Mark and his crew managed to avoid the detection of the hundreds of patrol ships defending Prime.

There is no such thing as perfect stealth, but you could get close enough.

The transport containing Popptaw and her personal security detachment sailed right up to the X-70, less than 20 kilometers away.

There were no warnings given, no ultimatums nor negotiation. No opportunity for her to activate her blink drive.

"Popptaw's ship just disappeared!" a bird cried out to Canouah.

"Like a human ghost ship?" he asked incredulously. Did they invent something like that at the University and decided not to tell him?

"No, we're detecting an expanding debris field. They've been destroyed," his lieutenant reported, "should we fly closer and render aid?"

He thought for a minute.

"No, get me on the ground now. It's time to move our plans forward."

Planetary Palace, Zakabara Prime

The most dangerous and critical time for any system is a transition of power. This applies to any system, democratic or authoritarian or any hybrid mix of. Without safeguards, it opens the door for ambitious individuals to seize power.

In this case, it was Canouah. He saw her ship go down first. And in hindsight, it could have been worse: it could have been someone who actually wanted the throne of power and was delusional enough to believe they could hold on to it against the angry rebels at the door.

As Lord of space, he did not have many ground troops. On the other hand, his troops had the high ground, and there was not that much resistance with most other ground troops desperately fighting the insurgency.

They flowed into the broken palace, arresting everyone they saw. Anyone who resisted ended up bleeding to death on the ground.

Conveniently washing his hands of the mess in the administration before him, Canouah broadcast onto the radio, "my fellow Zakabarans, there has been a change in planetary administration. Popptaw is dead. Internal security troops have been ordered to disarm and stay in their barracks. The military will hold talks, beginning today, with leaders of The Students group to discuss the creation of a new government. Our collective fates will be chosen by the will of the people and the consent of the governed."

The Zakabaran people did not have a history of military coups and transition to civilian rule, Canouah thought as he preened at his wings, but there were plenty of examples they could borrow from the humans, especially from this country they had which shares their name with a large pheasant animal. That last superficial fact appealed very much to him.

Galactic Union HQ

"Secretary General Wilson, the bird faces are on the line," Amanda's secretary said outside her office.

"Put them through."

Two Zakabarans appeared on her screen, both momentarily surprised that the other was on the line.

Mollikutta started first, "Ambassador Pohanadas, the people of Second would like to congratulate and recognize the election of your new leader, Shikoba. We hope that there will be many years of fruitful cooperation between our peoples!"

Pohanadas nodded her thanks as Amanda added, "as do the people of Earth and the Galactic Union."

"Secretary General, Governor, thank you both for your congratulations. This afternoon, we will be announcing our intention to formalize our status as the successor state to our previous planetary administration, including all her treaties and obligations," Pohanadas said diplomatically, "we are also eager for the negotiations regarding the resumption of free trade into our ports."

"Thank you, Ambassador," Amanda said warmly, "like all species, we will make sure you get an equitable deal that is agreeable by both our peoples. There is also the issue of Second recognition…"

"Of course, Secretary General Wilson, this is yet to be announced as well, but one of the first policies in the Shikoba Administration is formal recognition of the independent status of our cousins on Second," she replied, then broke into a wide grin, "and we are looking forward to the double representation our species will receive in the Union."

Amanda almost chuckled and said, "there isn't much precedent for that, but yes, your planets will both be recognized equally, and we suspect there may be more species who go your route in the future with their colonies. We ourselves are looking into it."

"As for the issue of resumption of trade, we've been lobbied by several of our businesses on Earth to bring up spaceport real estate rental, including one fast food chain that is anxious to open franchises on your planet, with vegetarian options for your people of course…"