The Reaper’s Legion

Chapter 44

Galactic Council

-Yamak Rettle P.O.V.-

Several Weeks Later…

I didn’t enjoy taking this much time off from work. Some people might say that mercenary work is a bloodthirsty and shifty business, the connotations around a mercenary being that you can pay them top dollar, but they’ll turn and run if the situation looks bleak. They’re not entirely wrong there, if it’s an utter certainty that a job would just be our death, we wouldn’t take it in the first place. It was a fact, though, that no paramilitary corporation that wanted to survive would have to stick their necks out for their clients at one point or another, usually if the job suddenly got more complicated.

Even so, I’d take that over having to deal with these political games any day.

This was the third such council that had been established that I was forced to attend. The first time the subject of the planet - which Sis now informed us was called ‘Earth’ by the native species - came up, no one understood the depth of what was going on with the planet. They were focused on how the Titherin Mercantile Group and associated branches had flubbed on their work. At first, it almost seemed like it would have been a slap on the wrist and they’d be let off easy, not something I was especially keen on seeing if I was particularly honest. Although, with external politics at work, the Council wanted to try to keep the matter quiet, dealing with it in house. If the general public caught wind of the breach in the first place, the blowback for the Council would have been tremendous, never mind what would have happened to the Titherin Mercantile Group.

The second meeting was called shortly thereafter by several prominent Obelisk Organizations that demanded a council formation regarding the addition of this new fledgling species. Which, I would like to point out, is really strange. Such organizations rarely bothered at all with politics and focused primarily on hunting Biotics in their own spheres of influence, occasionally selling their services as specialists in dealing with particular virulent and destructive strains. I myself had paid for such specialists from time to time; the price of not doing so would have been catastrophic otherwise, or so I believed.

They had no official political power, and were considered observers in the council at best. But on the flip side of that, no one wanted to purposefully offend the Grandmaster of any such organization. After all, you never know when you would find yourself in need of such services.

And so, the second meeting was joined, and the question prompted: “Why were we not informed of a planet with so much potential?”

The Unified Galactic Council had been caught flat-footed at that question. A recess was called, some promises and political maneuverings, and here we were, weeks later, with one of the largest Council gatherings since its founding.

It wasn’t simply due to the Organizations pressure, though the number of them that were interested increased dramatically in a short span of time, but also because of a veritable clusterfuck of other issues. Namely, the worst-case scenario happened. The public had gotten wind of a new planet that, due to some clever use of journalism, was painted as an underdog world that had been mishandled by the council and was still managing to fight biotics. And then there was the latest problem; Sis had reported that advanced technologies in the form of weapons and certain industrial processes had been restricted from her systems toward Earth, as well as her general processes that would have allowed her to help.

It was a rude awakening for the council members to wake up to reporters asking why they abandoned Earth.

“We now begin the proceedings of this council meeting,” a tall man, lanky and with four arms, began. His voice resonated through several stands, a wide open space that ascended and descended for dozens of floors. Pods protruded from the walls, each one bearing a handful of individuals divided sometimes by species, allegiance, or loosely aligned interests. I stood in on nearest to the largest of these pods in the center, directly connected to the right of the one where the tall individual had spoken.

Beside him to either side were two seats, including his own making five. They were the founding five, a position that lent them a fair amount of sway, but primarily their task was to ensure that the proceedings never devolved to hopeless shouting matches on sensitive issues.

“Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for being able to spare the time to convene here. Especially those of you on the frontiers, we understand biotic activities have increased dramatically of late.” The woman to the man's left spoke, hard chitin reinforcing sharp features, humanoid in appearance, but bearing several delicate looking aquatic limbs. “Secondly, we would like to address recent events to ensure that everyone is up to speed. You may follow along on your own screens.”

At that, the third one rose, floating in the air, easily the most estranged of the council, physically. The metal suit and reinforced glass that kept the highly caustic fluids that made up the composition of the individual made for an imposing visage. A deep voice rumbled out from it, fluctuating from male to female randomly, “The subject of Earth has been a rising issue of late, made more so by the public. Weeks ago it came to our attention-” at that point he nodded to a row just beneath their own, each pod bearing the insignia of an Organization, their spots always reserved, “-that Earth has many individuals who show high compatibility to many Organization’s membership requirements, as estimated by the Obelisk. Sis, report on this matter.”

In the middle of the room a hovering disk allowed Earth’s Obelisk administrator to flicker into existence, appearing to be a fairly delicate looking humanoid. These humans were pretty as a species, much better than the last adoptee of the council, the saurians.

“I would be pleased to inform you all,” She bowed, each Sis differing dramatically from the next based on their home Obelisk. She rose, casting her gaze to many of the organizations, a glint of amusement there, “I can confirm that there is no error in the Earth scanning systems. There are a number of very talented individuals who have found their way to a Class entirely on their own.”

“Thank you, Sis,” the caustically composed individual then continued, “Given that, we must reevaluate the natives as a whole. Regrettably, we also have previously underestimated the threat that the Humans have faced. While there was a biotic meteor larger than average sent towards them, they were able to break up said meteor. Information provided by the Obelisk system dictates that the meteor chunks then intentionally focused on major occupied city centers. Human defenses were not able to keep up, thereby resulting in massive catastrophic damage to infrastructure and loss of life. Our initial estimates then supposed they’d gone only a month from impact before Obelisks arrived. That was inaccurate.”

“Sis records that it was six months since biotic incursions had begun. Approximately half of all human life ended at that time, though it is likely more. Record keeping became an auxiliary concern at that point, I’m sure.” His tone was cold and clinical, delivering information that a species that once had 9 billion people had been culled by half.

The realization of how grievously the population seemed to start sinking in at that, and the Titherin next to me visibly shuddered.

“Now, what we can estimate about humans from all of this,” the first man spoke again, “Is that humans appear to be exceptionally adaptable, and also capable of daunting amounts of violence. They regularly waged war with other members of their species, though such is hardly rare. However, the sheer number of times they have warred and the scale of those wars tells us that humanity has concerning disposition to war.”

At that point, one of the pods emitted a low tone, one that was a request to speak. Some individuals grimaced upon seeing who it was that would speak.

“Uthakka, saurian representative, you have permission to speak.” The man smiled as he gestured to the individuals.

There were three saurians in the pod, each one two and a half meters tall at the shortest and heavily built. Whereas a titherin was only lightly scaled and mostly smooth skinned, a saurian was the exact opposite. Large, hardened scales covered a heavily muscled body, armor that could stop any small arms fire easily. Their natural proclivity to ritualized warfare and ruthlessly effective battle strategy had impressed many. They were the newest council race, but lacked any kind of reverence to the Council itself.

“Are you saying that it’s a problem for the species to be good at fighting?” Uthakka’s tone and crocodilian smirk made it seem like he’d run across an inside joke.

The head speaker shook his head, “Humans being good at fighting is not the issue I am addressing, Uthakka. They have had two world wars and, according to Sis’s information, were prepared for a third one at any moment. With armaments that could have permanently damaged their world.” He explained patiently for the saurian, who looked thoughtful as he mulled that over.

“So the concern is the recklessness?” He posited shortly.

“That is certainly one way to phrase it, yes,” The headmaster replied noncommittally.

The saurian’s beside Uthakka visibly narrowed their eyes at the answer, but Uthakka himself betrayed no response, “No more questions for the time being.”

At that, the head speaker nodded, and the saurians pressed a button in their pod as a barrier that could neither been seen through or heard from propped up. The saurian’s themselves had activated it, no doubt to discuss the particularities of that moment. They were not a race known for timidness, but they did try to not make a scene in each council meeting. An improvement, from what I’d heard, over what they used to be like.

The metal encased council head carried on from there, “Aside the aggression, the species shows extremely high compatibility with the Obelisk system. Furthermore, nearly one-third of the species began hunting biotics within a week of activation. I should remind you that this is one of the highest of any civilized species so close to being capable of traversing space. However, we have run into some concerning irregularities.”

At this, he brought up a screen, showing several screens at once. In some, it was clear that the scene was happening shortly after the Obelisks had come online. Some individuals utilized chemical weapons against hordes of biotics. Others utilized incredibly aggressive strategies such as ingesting copious amounts of advanced drugs or poisoning biotics. One individual and a human companion even seemed to have deployed a small nuclear device. Which, at the time, the saurians had only just dropped the shield before a whooping laugh had to then be once more concealed behind the barrier.

‘Well, I guess the saurians like them.’ I shook my head with chagrin, wondering at what dynamic the two species might have in the future, if humanity even wanted to be a part of all of this given what had happened to them. ‘Which is exactly the problem…’

The head speakers showed the briefest moments of consternation at the suarian’s brief outburst, but carried on admirably, “Certain members of the species show far higher drive to violence than others, as you can see, they-” the speaker paused, noticing that Sis and the holograms were flickering for a few moments. “-Sis, is there an error occuring?”

“U-Uncertain,” she stuttered, flickering more for a few seconds before it abruptly stopped, “I will run diagnostics, please excuse the interruption.”

A man next to the first head speaker, an individual who was only about 120 cm tall, “The scynoi representative, Priestess Arianna would speak.”

He gestured to a pod further down the right from me, one of the long time member races, the scynoi had a rather alluring upper half, looking humanoid with soft, smooth skin, often very sinuous, and unbelievably venomous. Their lower halves were fully serpentine, large, thick scales adorned their forms, and could crush stone by compressing. Also, their lower halves would take a shotgun point blank and not do much more than bruise them.

“We’ve been talking about their aggression, but what of their other perks?” She spoke, a smooth voice that could have been a singers, “They appear to have quite the taste for aesthetics, and their music and movies are wonderful.”

There was an awkward pause at that when the shorter head speaker spoke, “And how do you know this?”

“Obviously, we came into possession of such information,” she responded slyly, “I rather like them. I’ve taken the liberty of uploading information about their cultural wonders on the side. You’re welcome.”

The first head speaker shifted uncomfortably at that, “Thank you, Priestess Arianna. I would like to draw everyone’s attention too-”

“Ah, I have another question,” she pressed, having not surrendered her turn to speak, “Why has the council sanctioned the removal of weapons from these humans?”

This time the background buzz of whispers silenced as all eyes settled on the head council. “Princess Arianna, that is an… unpleasant way to word that inquiry. Would you perhaps like to rephrase yourself?”

Princess Arianna’s response rippled through the chamber, “I would not; my inquiry was phrased accurately, since the Titherin Mercantile Group was informed to rescind weapons permissions on behalf of the council heads. Oh, but of course, don’t take my word for it.” She shuffled a few buttons and sent more information to the rest of the council members, wearing a beaming smile that showed off her longer fangs.

I watched the scene with a mix of emotions, scanning the five head speakers for anything. The majority of them were wide-eyed with surprise, bringing up the file to see what was within. However, the fifth man did so calmly, his fingers moving across the holo screen in front of him, but his eyes locked onto Lazka Muran beside me, who shrank almost imperceptibly at the look.

‘Oh shit, it’s real.’ I gulped hard, pulling up the evidence, complete with a sound file that would have been difficult to get without inside help. With plain shock I looked towards the Princess, who shifted her own eyes over me at the same moment. Almost too quickly for me to catch, she winked, seeming incredibly amused with this turn of events.

The only problem is that the information provided only proved that a high-ranking council member had supplied the order, not who. That, however, would have been resolved by this blatant display.

The saurians shouted out, not in anger but in utter dismay, “You took weapons out of a warrior’s hand? You may as well have taken the ammo out of a machine gun when the soldier was on the front lines! They’re gonna be pis-” The barrier came up then, enforced by one of the head speakers, though the words had already been spoken at that point. Alot of people, I noted, were getting interrupted too. But, the suarian’s were right, the humans would definitely be pissed about this.

“Princess Arianna, this information is-” The head speaker began, trying to regain control of the proceedings.

“I’m done speaking for now.” She smiled, the shield on her pod coming up as she activated it. Across the way, there was extremely loud thumping coming from the pod that the saurians were in. If I knew them at all, they were probably laughing so hard that their sides were splitting.

The head council members shuffled uncomfortably, unused to being on the receiving end of such a debacle.

“It seems that this information must be investigated.” The head speaker, to his credit, managed not to scowl, “There will be no more questions. We will have to reconvene after a brief recess.”

At that moment, though, the entire council chamber seemed to freeze as the lights flickered, Sis’s own visage flickering as her digital eyes went wide.

“Oh? But we were only just getting to the good part.” A voice echoed, the blue lights coming from so many platforms flickering red chaotically, “There’s so many things I’d like to know more of. Why did you decide to withdraw such support? Why keep Sis from communicating with Earth?” Images flashed across screens, gunfire, a tangled horrifying mass of flesh that I’d only had the displeasure of hearing about before. The disgusting abomination that was an Amalgamation-type biotic, category Harrowing, something that could end worlds if given time and other biotics to fuel its ravenous growth. The images and flickering video showed the thing as it advanced on a human bastion, explosions and destruction rampant. Then it came down to a melee and the weaker stomached of the council members turned away.

I couldn’t, not seeing the sheer ferocity of whoever’s viewpoint this was. It was a disturbing spectacle, catching the blinks in time as the thing sought to take the body of the one who’s viewpoint we used and pervert it, a corruption of the flesh. And then the explosion, and blackness as the creature died, along with the fading consciousness from the host of the video.

All the while, the council chamber’s lights shuddered, red to black. Across my holographic display the scene played, but in the background what seemed like a broiling mass of tentacles flashed into existence, blinking away in the next. It was a surreal and unsettling experience, and only seemed to worsen.

The voice crackled over the air, warped and wrought with static and seething rage and set the hair on the back of my neck on end.

“Why did you abandon my Legion in the time we needed your help the most?”