Firebrand

"I think that if Blackjack became any more relaxed, he would be dead," Holly chuckled. "So tell me, what do humans do to wind down, as you put it?"

"On this station, we'd usually head down to the recreation center and get some drinks in us, play some card games or maybe some pool. We can't do that, of course," Harry added. "The Chief has confined you to the suite. Otherwise, we might watch a movie, play some videogames. But again, the Chief has ordered me not to let you use the computers, so that's probably off the table."

"Then...what may we do?"

"What my folks would have called a quiet night in," he replied, rising to his feet and making his way over to a touch panel on the far wall. He dragged down a slider, the lights in the rooming dimming, then tapped at another icon. Beneath the monitor that was mounted on the wall at the front of the living room, a holographic, three-dimensional image flickered to life. It started off transparent for a moment before becoming solid, Holly's eyes widening as she watched from her seat on the couch. It was as though a fireplace had appeared from thin air, carved from what looked like white marble, the wood logs in the open hearth already beginning to sprout licking flames.

She slid down from her seat, inching across the carpet to examine it more closely, her antennae waving in the air in search of more information. The stonework seemed so real, reflecting the soft light in the room, the crackling fire casting an orange glow along with wavering shadows. As Holly drew within a foot of the hologram, she recoiled, looking to him for guidance.

"I know that it is not real," she said, the firelight creating beautiful hues of blue and green in her iridescent carapace as it cast its light on her. "Yet I feel heat. Would it burn me if I were to reach out and touch it?"

"You're right, it's a hologram," Harry replied. "It's cheaper to just simulate one rather than cartin' marble and wood fuel all the way out to the station. No, you can touch it. It won't burn you, I promise."

Holly turned back to the fire, her pink eyes reflecting its glow, edging a little closer. She extended an upper hand and brushed her fleshy fingers against the marble, testing if it was solid, and watching them slide through it like a ghost. It had no mass, no texture, it was just projected light. Next, she reached towards the dancing flames, crouching so that she could touch the burning embers. Harry watched her hesitate, then she plunged her fingers into the fire, seeming relieved when she was not burned.

"There's a heatin' element in the wall," Harry explained as Holly batted at the flames like a curious cat. "The fire doesn't actually produce any heat, it's just part of the illusion."

"But...why?" Holly asked, still mesmerized. "The suite is climate-controlled. The temperature, humidity, and lighting are all maintained by the computer. I have seen you edit their properties. What purpose does this illusion serve?"

"You're askin' why we'd go out of our way to fool ourselves into thinkin' that the warmth was comin' from a log fire, rather than just turnin' up the heat in the room? Can't you tell just by lookin' at it?"

"I do not understand, Sergeant," she replied as she stood upright again.

"There's somethin'...primal about fire, mystical. Sure, we could just turn up the thermostat and be done with it, but it feels good to sit in front of a fire. It's calmin' to watch the flames dance, and to feel its heat on your face. The way it lights up the room, that cracklin' sound. All we're missin' is the smell of charred wood, but we can't really simulate that here. Don't Bugs make campfires?"

"We regulate the temperature and humidity of our colonies using a system of ventilation shafts that create convection cells," she replied, Harry sighing.

"Alright, I guess not, then. Just...sit in front of the fire and watch it for a while, tell me how it makes you feel."

She looked like she was about to argue for a moment, she probably had a question ready about what the purpose of watching fire was, and how it didn't relate to her mission. Instead, she returned to the couch, sitting quietly as she watched the flames lick at the logs. Harry made his way over and sat beside her, the two of them peering into the hearth in silence for a minute or two.

"Sometimes it's nice to just waste time, y'know?" he muttered, Holly turning her head to glance at him. "We're always doin' shit, always thinkin' ahead. We never live in the moment. What are we doin' in ten minutes, in a week, in a year? Even when we're takin' time off, we're still busy. We have fun on a schedule, we relax to an itinerary. So let's just exist for a while and not think about anythin'."

"That-"

"Doesn't make sense to you," he interrupted, "I know. Bugs don't take breaks, Bugs don't waste time, but you're part human too. It's important that you learn how to be inefficient."

She couldn't help but chuckle, shaking her head at him.

"So much of what you say makes little sense to me, Sergeant Hayes, yet I find it difficult to argue with you."

"We don't have any marshmallows, and the fire isn't real, so we couldn't roast them anyway," Harry added. "But a hot drink is customary when sittin' around a campfire."

"If you keep feeding me hot chocolate, I will exceed my daily nutritional requirements, Sergeant."

"That's another important human skill that I'm gonna teach you," Harry replied, rising to his feet and making for the kitchen. He returned not long after with a steaming mug of cocoa in his hands, passing it to Holly, who waited for it to cool as she gazed into the flames. The plates that made up her jaw splayed open again when she was ready to drink, the off-blue proboscis dipping into the warm liquid.

"How are you feelin'?" Harry asked.

"I will admit that the low light and the glow of the fire has me somewhat relaxed," she replied, continuing to drink through her fleshy straw as she spoke.

"The word you're lookin' for is vibe," Harry corrected. "But yeah, I think I nailed it."

"I wanted to ask you," Holly began, pausing her drinking and retracting her proboscis. "Have you ever been to Earth?"

"I'm an Earthling born and raised," he replied, "an Iowa native."

"I didn't want to make the assumption that all humans come from Earth," she added, "I know that your species has many colonies."

"I'm sure that I'd appreciate the thought if I was a Martian or a Franklin. So, what did you want to know?"

"What's it like there?" she asked, peering up at him with her expressive eyes as her antennae waved in the air. They always did that when she was curious, maybe she was instinctively trying to collect more information.

"That's a hard question to answer," he laughed, leaning back on the couch. "Earth has a lot of different environments, lots of different places. Where I grew up has nothin' in common with a Brazilian jungle or a New Zealand seastead."

"My father spoke of Earth's diversity," she replied, her proboscis reemerging to take another drink from her mug as she clutched it in her lower pair of hands. "It is hard for me to imagine. Up until a few days ago, I had only ever known the valley where I was hatched. Even beyond its boundaries, there is little diversity on Jarilo. Giant trees dominate the landscape, they have colonized every continent. It is beautiful, but no matter where one goes, everything looks...similar."

"Sounds like our Pacific Northwest, I've been there before."

"Yes, the Sequoia," she replied enthusiastically. "My father often made that comparison."

"Are you into that kind of thing, like your dad?" he asked. "I guess the word would be naturalism, right?"

"I spent my formative months in his company while he explored the area surrounding the hive," she replied, staring off into space fondly. "It would be impossible for his curiosity and enthusiasm not to imprint on me. He is a courageous man, and he has an uncanny ability to see things from different perspectives. I try to embody that as much as I can."

"I'd say you're doin' a pretty good job so far. It took guts to come out here, to confront people when you know that they don't want to listen to you. The right course of action is rarely the easy one."

"You attribute more bravery to me than I deserve," she replied, "it was not my choice to come here. I was born for this role, purpose-designed."

"But you wanted to come?"

"I did," she admitted.

"Well, then you can't attribute everything to your Bug programming, can you?"

"I suppose not," she conceded, taking another sip of her cocoa. "So what was it like where you were raised? Iowa, you called it."

"Rolling hills covered in green grass," he said, locking his fingers behind his head as he reminisced. "Lots of farmland, golden fields, hay bales. Patches of forest and snaking streams weavin' between them. You can see for miles there, I'll bet you can't see a hundred feet in any direction on Jarilo, right?"

"Indeed, the forests can be dense. What of Blackjack?" she asked, leaning forward to look past Harry. The giant reptile was in his usual spot, stretched out on the floor. It was hard to tell if he was listening, but he would often open one eye when something of interest was happening in his vicinity, and the one that they could see from their angle was currently closed.

"BJ's planet is different. His people live in swampland and marshes, they spend about as much time wallowin' in mud and swimmin' in lakes as they do on land. Livin' on the station is a little harder for them than it is for us, they need their basking pools so that they don't dry out, and their heat lamps to warm them up."

"Do you miss your homeland?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he admitted, "everyone gets a bout of nostalgia every now and then. How about you?"

"This is all still new and exciting to me," she said, her proboscis probing the bottom of her mug for stray droplets as she finished the last of her drink. "I have not had much time to dwell on thoughts of my home, but yes, I do miss it in some ways. Humans are a very visual people, tactile, but scent is our primary sense. We communicate with one another through pheromones, it is our language, even serving in lieu of maps and writing. Although I have learned to communicate through speech, I still consider it my mother tongue. Everything and everyone has its own smell, immediately recognizable, and some of those scents can be...compelling in their own way. When one is hungry, the sweet scent of a Replete with a crop full of honey is almost irresistible, one has to make a conscious effort to avoid following the pheromone trail to the feeding chamber in a trance. It is so vivid, visceral, you can taste it on the air. The smells here are unfamiliar, confused. It makes me feel...disorientated, in a way."

"I hadn't considered that," Harry said, "I guess I'd be pretty off-kilter too if someone put a blindfold on me and told me that I had to feel my way around from now on."

"It is not quite so debilitating," she added, "but the metaphor is apt."

"What about me?" he asked jokingly, "what do I smell like?"

Her pink eyes lingered on him for a moment, her feathery antennae twitching, the silence lingering until he began to fear that he had committed some kind of faux-pas in her culture. She snapped out of it after a few moments, batting her lashes at him and returning her gaze to her cup.

"Like a human," she replied, quickly changing the subject. "I would dearly like to visit Earth one day and see the things that you describe for myself. Jarilo is my home, it is where I feel most at ease, and yet I carry the genes of someone who was born there. Surely that makes it as much my ancestral home as wherever it was that my species originated from?"

"I suppose so," Harry replied. "My ancestry is Irish and German, but I've never felt any desire to visit those countries. I suppose alien planets have a much stronger allure."

"Did you mean what you said when you told me that I would never be allowed to set foot there?" she asked, Harry rubbing the back of his neck as he struggled to come up with an answer.

"I mean...kind of, yeah. I was being a bit of an ass, I admit, I know that you're different from the other Bugs now. But still, unless you guys really knock it out of the park with this Coalition thing, I don't see it happenin'."

"Then we will have to knock it out of the park," she replied.

CHAPTER 8: OPEN-HANDED

Moralez and the two agents made their way downspin, heading in the direction of the residential quarter, where the ambassadors were housed. The interview with the Broker hadn't been too productive, but it had given him reason enough to doubt that they had been involved. There was no motive that Moralez could pin on them for sabotaging the meeting, at least none that wasn't so secretive and convoluted as to be absurd. Perhaps it would be a good idea to pick up the end of that thread again if their subsequent investigations produced no results. As a great detective once said; if you eliminate the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

"Are you sure you want to skip over the Krell and the Araxie?" Boyd asked as he walked beside him, the artificial breeze rustling the leaves of the trees as they passed by a row of planters. "I agree that the Valbarans can't have had the time or the contacts to organize something like this, but why not the others?"

"The Araxie have no motive," Moralez replied. "They haven't even been members of the Coalition for a year, and their troops have never served against the Betelgeusians."

"I concur with the Chief," Lorza added. "The Araxie do not have much political power on Borealis, they have been cozying up to the Elysians for protection from the Rask, and Ambassador Elysiedde made a good case for his defense."

"I suppose you guys know all about what's going on with the factions on Borealis?" Moralez asked.

"Da, it is our job to know," the Polar replied.

"We have a listening station at the planet's pole," Boyd added with a conspiratorial grin. "A little favor granted to us by the Polars who used to inhabit the region. It trawls the planet's comms and sends anything juicy to UNNI."

"Isn't that classified or something?" Moralez asked skeptically. "Why would you tell me about that, but refuse to spill any beans on the Brokers?"

"It's a well-known secret," Boyd replied with a shrug, "not exactly airtight. If the allied factions know about it, then they don't pay it much mind. I suppose they figure that if the UNN operates their comms satellites, then we'll have access to all of their data regardless."

"The situation on Borealis is volatile," Lorza continued. "Both the Rask and Elysian territories seek to expand their influence. Elysia through alliances and somewhat aggressive diplomacy, Rask through military conquest. We Polars elected to leave the planet entirely, and our population now resides in Siberia on Earth. The Araxie sought to remain hidden in their dense jungle, as they have for centuries, but Rask incursions forced them to come out of hiding and seek assistance from the Coalition."

"Incursions?" Moralez asked, "wouldn't any hostile actions against their neighbors violate their agreements with the UNN?"

"They would," she replied, "the matter is being investigated. If it is found that the Rask violated the treaty that they signed, then there will be severe consequences. Probably not expulsion from the organization, but certainly sanctions of some form."

"I get what you're saying," Moralez continued, pausing to let a column of marching Marines pass them by. "If the Araxie were going to be assassinating anyone, it would be the Rask. As for the Krell, we all know that they wouldn't even swat a fly if they could avoid it."

"What if the Krell think that they're avoiding future deaths by preventing the Bugs from joining the Coalition?" Boyd suggested, "protective instincts and all that?"

"I can't imagine that being the case," Moralez replied with a shake of his head. "Not with all their talk of families and circles. They seemed quite happy to have another member species back at the meeting, they voted in favor."

"Besides, how would they organize a scheme like this?" Boyd chuckled. "They're not exactly renowned for their communication skills. Shoot big fire stick at shiny bug, me pay you with wood charm on rope!"

Lorza began to lick her palm, Boyd dodging out of range and covering his head with his hands protectively.

"Don't you dare, you oversized housecat!"

"Do not belittle other species, malish."

"Will you two can it?" Moralez complained, "we're supposed to be doing a job here."

The two agents fell into line, sharing angry glances as the trio continued on their way. As they reached the end of the military quarter, near the recreation center, Moralez noticed a group of people who stood out in the crowd. It was only thanks to the subtle curvature of the torus that he could see over the heads of the throngs in front of him, able to pick out black armor in unusual configurations, and the polymer housings of their prosthetic limbs. They were SWAR, no doubt about it. These must be some of the men that Murphy had brought with him to the station at the behest of Admiral Vos.

There were three of them, Moralez watching them step off the street and head for the recreation center's door. Of course, where else would military men go to relax on the station?

Lorza had noticed them too, her senses were many times more sensitive than his own, and she spared him a concerned look.

"I know what you are thinking, Security Chief," she said ominously. "But these men are not to be trifled with."

"What's that?" Boyd asked. "Did you see someone?"

"It's about lunchtime," Moralez said, keeping his gaze fixed on the men as they entered the bar. "Why don't you two go get something to eat, and we'll meet up again in an hour or so?"

"I would advise against that, Security Chief," Lorza replied. "As we say in Russia, do not poke the bear..."

"Besides," Boyd added, "Vos told us to keep tabs on you."

"The Admiral wanted you to report my activities to him, am I right? Well, if I'm talking to the SWAR guys, they'll do your job for you. Or do you think that they won't report everything that I say to them straight to Murphy?"

"He does have a point," Lorza said, glancing down at Boyd.

"And I suppose it's entirely coincidental that you're agreeing with him when food is involved?" Boyd complained. "You don't need any more food, you're so wide that you can barely fit through most of the doors on the station. You ate four full English breakfasts this morning. Four!"

"I need the calories, malish," she shot back. "I am a very appropriate weight for my species. If you will make fun of my size, then I shall make fun of yours, little bean sprout. If your height were proportionate to your ego, you would be banging your head on the roof of the torus."

"Oh, very clever. Well you're so fat that...hey, where's the Chief?"

The two of them paused their arguing to look around, but Moralez had already vanished into the crowd.

***

The familiar smell of cigarette smoke rose to Moralez's nose as he stepped through the automatic door to the recreation center, the ceiling fans creating swirling vortexes in the haze as they spun lazily. It was midday, and so there weren't many people at the bar, leaving most of the booths and tables vacant. Even so, the low murmur of conversations blended together, creating a background noise that kept things from becoming too quiet.

The three special forces soldiers were easy enough to pick out. They were huddled around a circular table, drinks clutched in their prosthetic hands and e-cigarettes between their lips. This was one of few places on the station where smoking was permitted, so it was no surprise that there was always a cloud of smog no matter the time of day.