Return to Krell

The Bugs didn't stop, even as they were dying they still fought tooth and nail, almost as if they had no consideration for their own safety. The Krell moved on, leaving a cloud of sand and alien fluids in their wake as they advanced through the coral, dismembered limbs floating slowly to the seabed as they twitched reflexively.

They leapt over a rise, falling slowly to the ground in the water, and Rahee spotted their target. It was the building that they had seen from above, a Broker installation made up of silver boxes and glass tubes. He felt for the canister that was hanging from his belt, ensuring that it hadn't been torn off during the scuffle. It was still there.

The canister contained a nerve agent that was deadly to the Bugs, engineered by the Brokers with the intent of wiping them out. Their destination was one of many water purifying stations scattered around the planet's oceans. When the Brokers had colonized this world, they had erected these installations to make the local waters more hospitable, releasing essential nutrients and elements into the water in order to change its chemical composition and to make it more suitable for Broker habitation. It was a kind of terraforming in a sense. Now they were going to repurpose those machines, swapping out the cocktail for a poison that would be dispersed through the water, saturating the area and killing the Bugs in their hives.

There was no danger to the Krell, or so they had been told, because the reptiles held their breath underwater rather than filtering oxygen through gills. Rahee could still hear the dull thud of battle and gunfire as the other teams moved on their objectives, the sound carried great distances underwater. He loosed a resonating call and urged his comrades forward. There was no time to lose, they had to accomplish their task before they ran out of air. The more fighting they had to do, the more oxygen they would expend, limiting their dive time.

They reached the door to the installation, the facility itself partially buried in natural coral formations that had been encouraged to grow around it, and one of Rahee's kin entered the code that would grant them access. There was damage to the exterior of the building and blast marks scarred the door, the Bugs had obviously attempted to gain entry at some point. Fortunately Broker building materials were made of stern stuff and their efforts had been resisted.

There was a whoosh as the door slid back, along with a rush of stale water. This place had been sealed up since the Brokers had evacuated the colony some seasons prior. This was one of their prized core colonies, those closest to the Broker home planet, and with the help of the Krell the aquatic aliens were slowly gaining back the ground that they had ceded to the invaders.

Broker society was highly automated and the aliens were slow to reproduce, which meant that there were often only a few thousand individuals per planet. Even with all of their combat drones and their remotely piloted ships, it just wasn't enough to hold off the Bugs. But now they had an army of Krell millions strong, the metal eggs of the Brokers able to rival the Betelgeusian Queens in their production of fresh soldiers.

They flooded into the facility, checking rooms as they went. It didn't look like the Bugs had succeeded in gaining entry, but one could never be too sure. The insects could be crafty and ruthlessly intelligent when they needed to be.

Rahee located the control room, the massive water purifier working silently on one wall of the large space. It looked like a giant glass cylinder, dozens of pipes snaking to and from it, vanishing into the walls and ceiling. He could see liquid inside, bubbling as canisters in recesses along its control panel injected their contents into the stream. His team covered him as he tapped at the buttons, just as he had been instructed by his handlers. He didn't know how the machine worked or any of the more technical aspects of its operation, but they had taught him just enough to be able to switch out the canisters. There was a hiss as one of the cylindrical containers ejected from its recess, and Rahee quickly pulled it free, inserting the replacement. He returned his hands to the console and entered in the command that would begin the process, watching as a light on the canister began to blink in confirmation. The toxin was colorless, but it was currently being injected into the purifier, and soon the waters for miles around would be contaminated with it.

Their task now complete, the Krell moved out of the facility, Rahee hearing the rapport of gunfire as those at the head of the pack warded off another Bug attack. Once they were in the open water again, they turned their snouts towards the surface, leaping from the seabed and propelling themselves upwards with their powerful tails. They were chased by a few stray plasma bolts, but the Bugs had been decimated by the torpedo attack, and now they were starting to succumb to the spreading toxin.

As the squad moved into clearer and more shallow waters, Rahee saw other groups of Krell all around him, having accomplished their respective objectives. Casualties seemed light, that was good. The shimmering surface of the ocean came into view, beams of sunlight penetrating the waves, and finally Rahree emerged into the air. He sucked in a deep breath, filling his lungs. He let himself float, taking a moment to rest his burning muscles as his comrades surfaced around him.

Almost immediately the shining Broker ships descended from the sky, moving faster than their mass should have allowed and stopping with such abruptness that any crew inside would have been liquefied. There were no crew of course, these were drone ships, controlled by Brokers who were hidden safely in orbit.

The ships flew down low, their troop bays open as they submerged themselves in the water, just deep enough that the Krell could climb inside. Rahee swam, powering through the surf as a sense of urgency overcame him. He hoped that none of the Krell had been injured, or were lagging behind, because the troop carriers would not make a second pass. If they weren't onboard when the ships took off, then they wouldn't be going home.

He made it into the bay, the sterile walls somehow comforting, his fellow Krell jostling for room as they helped their kin into the ship. The second that they were full to capacity and the final passenger's tail had cleared the hole, the ships began to rise, tilting slightly to vent the seawater that had flooded their interiors. As they ascended the hole in the hull began to seal, closing like a wound that was knitting before Rahee's eyes, until all sense of motion and speed vanished along with their view of the ocean below.

There was relief among the troops, the sense of a job well done, but Rahee knew that it would not be long before they were deployed to some other lost colony. This planet was just one of many stepping stones on the path to the final goal, pushing the Bugs out of Broker space.

The ride back to the mothership was fast, and when the troop bay was once again open to the light, they were inside the vessel's cavernous hangar. Rahee stepped out, feeling the metal deck beneath his leathery feet, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the artificial glare. Everything that the Brokers made looked the same, their ships and their buildings, their armor and their weapons. Matte white or silver, completely featureless, shifting and bending to take new shapes as needed. It was like living flesh, but cold and hard like metal. The hangar was large enough to fit a hundred of the dropships comfortably, and Rahee could see them all around him as they disgorged their troops, some far enough away that they were scarcely the width of his finger. The far wall of the giant cube in which they found themselves was open to space, black night peppered with stars visible beyond the force field that held in the atmosphere, allowing only solid objects to pass through.

He shook himself, saltwater pouring from his back, and began to remove his uncomfortable armor. It was never long before the giant motherships jumped away, moving on to their next destination with mechanical efficiency.

The sound of metal on metal reached his ears, and he looked up to see a Broker making its way towards his squad. He straightened, the Krell forming a line ready for inspection. The alien would take a head count, and then put in an order for the geneticists to grow more soldiers as needed.

Rahee had never seen a Broker before, at least not in the flesh. They wore powered exoskeletons in order to walk around on land, pressurized suits that protected their frail bodies. The torso was silver and blocky, just like all of their technology, featureless save for a series of lenses and sensors that jutted from its smooth surface. It was suspended on two robotic legs, skeletal and functional, while four segmented tentacles protruded from the sides. They looked like steel cables, each one tipped with a grasping claw or some kind of tool or miscellaneous attachment.

It came to a stop in front of them, the lenses twisting and focusing as they stood to attention.

"No casualties, that is good," it hissed through an unseen speaker. The Brokers could speak Krell, at least well enough to make themselves understood. Their speech lacked artistry, but like many things that they did, it served its purpose and nothing more.

"Where to next?" One of the older Krell asked, his dark scutes shining under the artificial light. He was tall, perhaps eight or nine seasons old. It took the swamp-born longer to grow than those who were hatched from the metal eggs. Rahee was already far larger, as were many of his artificially spawned kin, so big now that it was becoming difficult to outfit them and even the dropships were beginning to have trouble carrying them. The spurt of growth that had seen him attain adulthood in a few short months showed no sign of slowing.

"You are returning home," the Broker replied. There was a muttering amongst the ranks, Rahee looking to his kin for validation. Home? But the war was not yet won.

"But Benefactor," the elder continued, "were we not instructed to take an outlying colony after the battle here was done?"

"That mission has been canceled," the alien replied in its tinny, rasping voice. "Another mothership will handle that task. The swamp-born are to form their own line and proceed to debriefing, they will be transferred to another ship and reassigned. Those hatched from the metal eggs are to proceed to the barracks and await processing, you are being returned to the homeworld."

"Then...the war is over?" Rahee asked, his kin awaiting the Broker's answer with bated breath.

"For you the war is over, we no longer have need of you. You will be returned to your home planet."

The homeworld? Rahee had few memories of it. He knew that he had been born there at some point, he had hatched from his metal egg in one of the swamps, and he had rapidly grown to maturity. When he was large enough to hold a weapon, he had been plucked squealing from the stagnant waters and sent off to a Broker training facility to learn what was necessary for war. The older Krell spoke fondly of it, but it had never been much of a home to him, no moreso than the featureless rooms that he had been raised in or the firing ranges that he had trained at.

The Krell exchanged glances, some relieved and hopeful, others concerned. For the older Krell, going home was the culmination of all of their efforts over the seasons, they would have welcomed it. For the rest, it was an upset. They would be removed from the environments that were familiar to them, and thrust into a world that they had never truly known. What would Rahee do without war? What else was there? More importantly, why was their campaign to retake the Broker colonies being cut short? As with everything, the Brokers never revealed more than was necessary.

"Have we displeased you?" He asked, the Broker turning its many lenses on him.

"No. You have simply become too large to feed and transport."

The Brokers had done something to Rahee and his kin, changed them in some way that was beyond Krell ability to understand. They had wanted soldiers quickly, faster than the Krell could naturally reproduce. Rahee had been one of the first batch. But they were already larger than their elders, their growth showing no sign of stopping. Had the Brokers made a mistake? Perhaps they were not as omnipotent as they seemed...

***

Lena listened intently as Sleethe relayed the scholar's story to her. He told tales of his battles and his interactions with the Brokers, along with hints of genetic manipulation that was far outside the understanding of the Krell but well within human experience. He had been returned to Krell once he became too large to be deployed into combat, the Brokers simply discarding the oversized reptiles back on the homeworld and growing a new clutch to replace them. They had made no effort to treat the condition that they had inadvertently created, the Krell born from these 'metal eggs' continuing to grow at an alarming rate. She had assumed that this was a natural part of the Krell life cycle, but apparently not. While growing to this size was perhaps in the realm of possibility for a Krell conceived through natural means, a combination of their natural propensity for size and the genetic meddling of the Brokers had accelerated that growth tenfold.

"Did you hear any more about the war after they returned you to Krell?" Lena asked, "do you know what happened between then and now?"

The scholar seemed pensive for a moment, then replied, Sleethe translating as the sound waves rocked her.

"One day they stop," he said.

"They just stopped? What do you mean? They clearly didn't win the war, we're still fighting it to this day. The Betelgeusians still occupy contested systems and they still mount incursions into Coalition space."

"Scholar says they stop," Sleethe explained. "Scholar's kin said they reached Benefactor colony, then they stop. Leave under control of Bugs."

"They pulled back? They fought for hundreds of years to drive the Betelgeusians off their core colonies, expended all of this effort, and then one day they just stopped? How can that be?"

"It happen maybe one season ago, a little more," Sleethe relayed. "Scholar does not know why."

That didn't make any sense. Leaving even one planet under Bug control would put all neighboring systems in jeopardy. Whenever a new Betelgeusian queen was birthed, she immediately headed off-planet with a small support fleet and sought out a new system where she could start a colony of her own. Why would the Brokers pull back?

Lena wracked her brain, trying to think of any historical events that might have happened around that time. A season was roughly twenty five years, and that coincided with several events in human history. First contact with the Betelgeusians, where the hostile aliens had destroyed a colony ship that had been bound for a habitable planet in the Betelgeuse system, from which the aliens got their name. Contact with the Brokers and the Krell, and humanity's subsequent entry in the Coalition. The building of the Pinwheel space station...

This information was another puzzle piece, that was for sure, but she didn't yet have a clear view of the whole picture.

"What was it like coming back to a planet that you had barely known?" She asked. "Was it difficult to adapt to the native lifestyle?"

She listened as he told the story of how he had been practically abandoned on the planet along with his kin, all those who were now too large to serve the Brokers. They had been dropped outside a village with nothing more than the scutes on their backs, left to their own devices as they attempted to navigate the unfamiliar environment. Fortunately the Krell were a kind and charitable people. The villagers took the strangers in, but quickly found that these oversized Krell lacked even the most basic skills required for survival. They had to be taught as if they were hatchlings. How to hunt and fish, how to navigate the swamps and lakes, the minutia of Krell life had needed to be instilled them.

It had taken years by the sound of it, but eventually a modicum of normalcy had been achieved. In time the genetically engineered Krell were able to take up a place in society, and the social damage that the Brokers had done to them had been largely repaired. Over the seasons however, they had continued to grow. After a couple of hundred years, the long-lived reptiles had grown to such a monumental size that they could no longer live in the villages. They couldn't fit inside the houses and temples, they couldn't hunt where the normal Krell hunted, the structure of the village could not longer support their weight.

They had become exiles in a sense, forced out of populated areas not through the hate or fear of their kin, but rather because of their sheer size. Now they lived in the marshes and lakes, eating whatever they could catch in order to fuel their enormous nutritional requirements. Like many of the older Krell, Rahee had taken up the mantle of scholar. His job in the community was now to be a receptacle for knowledge.

The scholar's ability to recall the events of his past so precisely led Lena to believe that the species might have memories that far outclassed those of humans. Perhaps that was why they were able to operate advanced equipment and how they always showed up where they were needed without having to be constantly reminded. A photographic memory might go some way towards explaining how an alien from a planet that had not yet discovered electricity could field strip a railgun after being shown only once. After all, who needed books or computers when you could simply ask someone who had an infallible memory?

Lena wasn't sure what to say. She wanted to apologize on behalf of the Brokers, to express her sorrow for how Rahee had been brought into the world, and how he and his people had been treated. Yet he didn't seem unhappy. He was no leper, no freak. He had found a niche in Krell society that suited him, and he remained a valued member of their community. He was clearly healthy, somehow finding enough food to sustain himself. Did it matter that his mobility was limited, when the favorite pastime of the Krell seemed to be lounging and basking?

When he was done with his tale, she thanked him for his time, and it seemed that Rahee had no further expectations of her. He rumbled a fare ye well, and then lumbered off back into the marsh, returning to his hunting spot to wait for another careless deer to pass by. It was like watching a scaly island sinking into the water, the fifty foot alien able to submerge himself almost completely in the bog.

"Well Sleethe, that was...certainly enlightening. I came here to learn about the Krell, but your history is to intertwined with that of the Brokers that it's practically impossible to separate the two. Let's get back to the village, I want to see if my weather drone has come down yet."

***

It was very late by the time they returned to the Krell village, and Lena was exhausted by the day's events. Her eyes were itchy and she was having trouble staying focused, her longing for the comfort of a sleeping pit growing as she trekked through the mud. She made for the drone's landing pad, having kept it clear of debris so that the drone could locate it when it was ready to deliver its payload. About three days had passed since she had sent the weather balloon up into the stratosphere in order to take measurements of the planet's weather, and perhaps to locate landmarks or other interesting geographical features from the sky. It should have been back by now. But as the white hexagon came into view, she noted that there was no drone.