Cath

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light’s hide flashed by way of agreement. Now they were in a more confined space, he was feeling a lot more comfortable. He hadn’t always been like that; just since waking up from his medically induced coma.

“We have a group competition track, or you can compete separately. Quadrumvir rules are in effect - so four rounds, first round is growing a companion structure based on flora introduced by one of the four…err…organic species.”

They evidently hadn’t banked on any Utaysi showing up to this event.

“Points are given for growth rate, style, form and sustainability.”

There was raucous laughter from somewhere behind the official, and they turned to check everything was alright before continuing.

“You are quite well composed for the group track, having one of every species in your group, save the Tindrel. I believe there is a single Tindrel here who was looking for a team, if you wished?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The atmosphere inside the cavernous space was jovial, with the air of a reunion of old friends rather than a serious tournament. Light guessed the competitors were the ones wearing grey hessian robes covered in pockets that overflowed with gardening tools. Loose crowds of people gathered around them, some eating colourful vegetable produce and drinking thick broth from cut-out Namib shells. A ramshackle old hut with an open front appeared to be selling these refreshments and more.

A portly, scruffy Tekeri with some bald patches approached them holding an antiquated holopad.

“Well met. Are you looking to compete or spectate? We still have some spots available; the first round is in twenty minutes.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Ruknar pointed with one hand, the other clasping the strap of a red knapsack slung on her back.

“In there.” Across a wide expanse of exotic meadow, nestled in the middle of a copse of trees lay a huge shrub some two hundred metres wide and thirty high. Its leaves shone a dark purple that verged on black, contrasting with delicate white flowers.

“The ground underneath is artificially fertilised to allow hyper growth.” She continued, eyes rolled back slightly to access her neural lace.

“I don’t know… It looks prickly, kinda dangerous. Perhaps we should eat?” Light was still wearing his conical party hat and coil blower.

“Come on…I’ll protect you from the big bad plant.” Ruk teased, squeezing what equated to the QV’s cheek in a playful gesture. The squeal of megaphones and increased pulse of music wafting from across the park drew her gaze.

“If not, I’ll have to drag you into the mosh pit instead.”

Light flinched at the sound, and his watery eye darted around in its casing.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light stopped demolishing the poor cake for a moment to ponder Senjen’s statement. His mouthparts pursed mid-gulp, giving the QV a goofy, dumbfounded look in ensemble with his bulging eyes.

“I suppose It's been so long I’ve just…adapted. But yes, it has been hard to manage on FGC alms. Sorry Ruk.” Light shot a look at the Tekeri, who sat calmly and ramrod straight. She shrugged nonchalantly.

Light returned to his cake as Jess & Senjen sparred, smartly moving it out of the way of the Utaysi’s body as he slammed into the table. When he finally finished breaking apart the last layer and gobbling it down he met eyes with Ruknar again. She raised both ‘hand’ and contorted the three claws on each into a particular shape that Light recognised.

She’d first made it almost two years ago. Light was not long out of emergency surgery to rebuild his broken body after a vicious gun battle and car chase had taken their toll. He’d spent four fraught days immersed in a specialised intensive care vat. The gel inside could work wonders over time, but his internal bleeding was so serious that he had to be be operated on immediately. A journeyman QV surgeon was tracked down and brought in to do the job, assisted by a synthetic intelligence.

When his life was no longer hanging in the balance and a long road of recovery wended ahead, Light was transferred to a specialist QV ward managed by the For Good Cause Foundation. They were a Tekeri non-profit medical aid and technology organisation that worked in some of the most impoverished and dangerous places in the galaxy. Apparently, Korit qualified as both of those things.

Ruknar was one of the junior doctors assigned to Light’s ward. On her first day there, she surveyed him in his vat from the corridor. He was struggling weakly against the robotic arms that were trying to feed him fronds of a sea kelp. It was a well-known delicacy for QV and had been widely cultivated. His skin shades were all over the place, flashing the colours of the very sick and confused.

“Stop! He wants crustaceans, not kelp. Get him some shellfish.” Ruknar ordered.

“How can you tell?” The synth monitoring his room asked her.

“You see how the cilia structure on his anterior appendage doubles back on itself…in an ‘S’ shape? Thats how they hold shellfish to crack them against rocks. He can’t communicate normally, so he’s mimicking how he’d hold one. Like a child would.”

Rukner watched Light greedily eat the crustacean flesh gently scooped into his flaccid mouthparts, talons crossed in front of her. When Light was done, she noticed his head move and eyes strain to look at her. Ripples of calming blue crossed his scarred hide. The Tekeri held her hands up and recreated the S-grip as best she could, pressing it against the gel. Light did the same.

“It doesn’t cost much to enter, and there is a prize for the winner.” Ruknar paraphrased from the invitation.

“There is no chance. People win contests for a living on Korit.” Light huffed dismissively.

“Then we can watch them at work instead? Or…” Ruk was querying her AI assistant for other events in the area.

“There’s a solidarity benefit festival in Kwe-Lungo park to…protest the Vermilion Consortium’s depreciation of cross-species support within the Ecumene project.” She paraphrased, before looking seriously at people’s reactions. Light looked blankly back at her.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

"Well alright then, thank you! Would anyone else like some? No? OK, your loss.” Light only gave a cursory amount of time for intervention before shoving almost the whole cake into his mouth. What followed next was an unpleasant show of teeth and half masticated fish. QV were not tidy or hygienic eaters, and often saved bits of flesh inside their suits for later.

“I saw adverts for a horticulture speed run tournament on the way over here. That could be a fun, non-destructive pasttime?” Ruknar offered from a conposed sitting position on the floor. Her voice was croakier today.

“I am happy to do whatever is most appealing to the group.” Light slurped.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light reacted with genuine surprise, drawing into himself. But he quickly recovered quickly upon smelling the eclectic whiff emanating from the cake Jess held, approaching and investigating it with a manipular.

“What a pleasant surprise. Hello…greetings! What a delicious treat.” He patted the Human affectionately on the top of her head. Ruknar the Tekeri approached, and they ‘fist’ bumped warmly. She produced a gold conical party hat and a coiled party blower from the folds of her feathers and offered it to him. Light accepted with a whimsical shiver, sticking the hat on top of his gel and sticking the blower in near his eye. It unfurled with a comical noise before recurling.

“This is very kind of you to come. Thank you. I didn’t want to be a bother; I know how much I’ve asked of you already.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light returned the embrace. Delicately at first, then vigorously as a fresh wave of relief washed over him. Senjen was a rare exception to his hard-learned suspicion of strangers, tempered through their exploits over the last two years. Light was naturally more tactile with the robot now, which was a relief for him. QV had little regard for personal space on account of their vestigial instinct to shoal in defense against predators.

He patted Senjen’s head and shivered by way of bashful laughter. “That won’t be necessary. There is much work waiting for us.” When the Utaysi insisted, he pondered it for a moment, drifting free.

“Well…It's been a long time since I’ve gone on a proper hunt.” QV had a strong prey drive when it came to smaller sea creatures. When they began to depopulate the oceans on their homeworlds, conservation areas were established in rich ecological zones to maintain food stocks. The concept had transferred to wherever significant QV populations settled. Groups or individuals could pay for a certain amount of time within the enclosure, keeping or eating whatever they could catch.

“But it is so expensive here, and I still tire easier than before...” They began moving together out of the hospital.

“We could go for Sthrirad and talk about old times just as readily. What do you think?” Sthrirad was a gaseous entity that produced psychedelic effects when inhaled. The Tindrel had a more permanent symbiosis with it, but were happy to introduce it to the other species as a temporary mood enhancer.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light didn’t reply directly for a few moments. But his skin told an experienced interpreter the story of dumbfounded shock mixed with a complex palette of relief and excitement running through the QV’s head.

“The doctors say it is no longer detectable in the last place it could be found - my arm. They say I am in remission…and, uh…need to send samples every few weeks for a year before my next check up.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The medics floated over with two of the hover-stretchers. The young brown one took Light gently out of Senjen’s grasp and secured him to a stretcher while calling for a healing vat. The vehicle they’d arrived in was an all-rounder designed to give first aid to every known species as well as mechanoids. But in order to save Light’s life, they’d need a specialised QV ambulance. It contained a large mass of gel that had miraculous healing capabilities and not much else. It couldn’t even move by itself. Thankfully one was nearby, so they just needed to keep him alive for a few minutes. The young medic plugged three nodes into the pliant gel and connected them to a medical sac which another small droid had dropped off.

The senior medic deftly examined Senjen wearing a pair of thick AR goggles, spraying conductive foam in a few spots throughout his midsection. After a short time, security personnel sidled over to ask some questions. They were polite but insistent. Firstly, were they both alright? Secondly, would Senjen be alright to surrender his firearms temporarily? Then they began asking about where they’d been, who they interacted with and who that man was who fled the scene. Many units of the security forces had to buy and maintain their own equipment, so no two individuals looked the same in uniform. The only unifying feature was the symbol of Korit’s civilian administration which adorned their headpieces and breastplates.

Eventually, the medic shooed them back a little and took Senjen to the ambulance, where they plugged him into the vehicle’s power plant to keep him stable and connected him up to further diagnostic tools. The grey-feathered Tekeri gently asked whether they might have both of their credit chips on file. The security forces also wanted to see their identification and ship's log.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The dead droid sailed inertly away from the truck at some pace before engulfing the street in a fiery explosion. A Korit security vehicle with a blazing siren and flashing red and blue lights which rounded the corner just before had to swerve to avoid it.

The gunship had the all clear now - there were no operators left on the scene. They were all that remained. But before they could fire, a large metal bolt thudded into the top of their craft. Four claws clamped down on the roof, and strobing waves of energy crackled across its hull. Its headlights flickered and died, as did the thrusters. The cannon stopped spinning as it tilted to one side while floating towards them at speed.

Two figures fled from the cockpit, zooming away with help from thruster packs. The flyer promptly exploded, bathing Light’s suit and Senjen’s protruding parts in a second of raging heat.

“Heat warning! Suit integrity critical!”

And then it subsided, and the attack was finally over.

More emergency vehicles began showing up out of the sky in every direction. An ambulance wailed to a stop a safe distance from the truck. Light was barely conscious, but could sense the logo on the side of the vehicle as it was in relief. Four interlinking sets of Tekeri talons in the shape of a cross, above the slogan ‘For Good Cause’. The cabin doors opened and two Tekeri in the yellow scrubs of paramedics emerged; one young and one old. Hover-stretchers began unfurling from the back to follow as they approached the truck.

“Let go, I’ve got to get her out of here! This will be all over the news, best I disappear!” The boss pushed away from Senjen, making to grab his daughter and head for the closest shop front. The cabin, and Light's suit covering most of the doorway had thankfully sheltered them from the worst of the fire.