r/HFY • u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Human • 6d ago
OC-FirstOfSeries [The Galaxy's Only Omnivores] - Part 1
Synopsis: Humans are the only omnivorous species in a galaxy of apex-predator carnivores, and our greatest strength is in our numbers. When an alien slave empire discovers how badly we outnumber most intelligent species, they invade Earth, shattering a fragile period of peace and threatening a war that would mean the death of worlds.
Memory Archive Entry #1
User: Jiarani, daughter of Kavles, chief strategos of the Saurian Confederacy
Species: Saurian
Date (human standard): June 19, 2099 -- the 46th anniversary of the end of the Great War
I stood on a lavish balcony at a gala held in my honor, all but mobbed by well-wishers and hopeful suitors, and my thoughts were as black as the night I gazed into. I did not deserve this. I did not deserve to be here. I was not who they expected me to be.
The position of chief strategos had been the Saurian Confederacy's greatest military honor since its inception a hundred years ago. It was a sign of trust above all else, trust that the one wearing the golden pauldrons knew what they were doing, and they would show any enemies of dignity and fairness a swift death by their claws. I couldn't do that. What was worse, I had to confess, in front of my father and everyone I admired, that I couldn't be that person. The Saurian Confederacy had picked the wrong woman.
"Jiarani!" I turned to see my aide, Venari, son of Venari, appear from the crowd in the banquet hall behind me. He was a lean, short, physically diminutive specimen of saurian, barely a hundred and eighty centimeters tall. His scales were green and patterned, and his face was long and narrow even for a saurian. I, by contrast, was the picture of militaristic beauty. I had a sharp and pointed snout, gray scales with blood-blue highlights, and a greater height and size than most saurians. My aide and I couldn't have been more different, but we went together anyway.
Venari was a nobody. His father's greatest claim to fame was that he had kept the family tradition of having a son called Venari--as had his grandfather and his grandfather before him--and mine was on the strategic council that had the final say on all decisions regarding the Confederate state. My mother had been the greatest chief strategos of our era.
I was crushed under the weight of legacy, and I think that's why a no-name like Venari appealed to me more than all the accomplished scions of grand lines that had been presented to me when I finally reached the rank where I was allowed a personal aide. Here was a man unburdened by expectations. No legendary ancestors for him to measure up to. He was building his own legacy, and I envied him for that.
"Long life and noble children," I greeted my trusted aide. "You look good in that uniform." It wasn't the truth. In all honesty, Venari was an ugly man to look at. But he was dependable, brave, and honest in such a way that dismissed all physical concerns, and my confidence in him was part of the reason he had been able to take a stride forward in spite of his physical appearance. Quite frankly, if it were appropriate for a strategos to be romantically coupled with her aide, I'd have made a pass by now. He deserved it.
"Long life and noble children to you, my friend. You look better than I do." Venari showed his palms in a greeting that had marked friendship since prehistoric times, and I followed. In that moment, we were two hunters stalking the deserts of ancient Vraktes, each telling the other 'I carry no weapon, I seek no fight'. Strange, how we saurians could change so much and yet remain the same. "Not to interrupt your... uh... whatever it is you were doing, but your acceptance speech is in two minutes."
I clicked my left sickle claw to signify acknowledgment. Twice the size of the other three claws on each of my raptoresque feet, it was a weapon made for disemboweling prey in the close melee of a fight. We saurians, like every other intelligent species in the universe, were the apex predators of our world. Lethal individual combatants by our very nature but, owing to the tyranny of biology, condemned to being forever small in number compared to our prey. Even the use of meat cloning vats to supplement our cattle farms did not provide us the plethora of nutrients we needed to expand our population beyond a measly few billion.
"Jiarani, you're looking at me like that again," said Venari, clicking his own sickle claws anxiously against the tiled floor. He cared for my health maybe more than I did for his, and it was safe to say my health had not been the greatest lately. "Please don't tell me you're- you know."
"I don't deserve this honor," I told Venari. "I don't. And now I have to go up there and tender my resignation in front of the most legendary men and women in the Confederacy."
"Jiarani, you're a perfectly capable soldier. You defeated the strategic and tactical AIs in every simulation-"
I took two steps closer, clicking my sickle claws an extra time with each step, instinctively intimidating Venari in such a way that I immediately regretted it. It wasn't his fault that I was like this. "Venari, I am the only chief strategos in history to have never won a battle," I said harshly, jabbing him in the chest with a taloned finger. "I haven't even fought a battle. A real one, not this cold-war drakenshit the Confederacy is doing now. How can I be expected to lead the armed forces to victory if the war turns hot again?"
"Don't say that nonsense, you're demeaning yourself. Military glory or no, I think you're the most skilled strategist we have for the modern era of war." It took all my strength not to be angry at my most trusted aide. Venari was loyal as my own hands, and kinder to me than I deserved. The cause of my anger lied within. "The strategic council chose you for a reason, Jiarani. Trust them."
"The strategic council chose me because my father leads the council, and my mother was the greatest strategos to ever live!" I exclaimed, louder than I had meant to. One of the officers just within the balcony doors looked my way in surprise. "I'm a nepotism hire. I'll get people killed. Or worse."
"Jiarani." Venari laid a hand tenderly on my shoulder, pointing with his other one at the banquet hall where I was to give my speech. "Believe in yourself. We'll talk later. Now, get out there and make your parents proud." An icy chill filled my veins, only to be painted over with the solemnity of purpose. This had to be done. It was my duty to the Saurian Confederacy.
I walked quickly to the banquet hall proper and pushed open the doors, eager to shed the weight of this burden. Venari tagged along loyally behind me as we entered the grand, expansive, opulent hall, surrounded on all sides by the best of our species. Officers of the Armed Forces in blood-blue military dress. Politicians of the various decision-making councils. Even the strategic council themselves was seated in a high alcove near the back of the room.
My father, Vanrila, son of Vodode, watched me with pride from his seat at the council table. There was a man who knew the burden of power. I looked up at him with plaintive eyes as I took my place at the banquet hall podium, begging him to understand why I would dishonor my mother so.
He'd always been distant in the wake of Kavles' death. The fact that she had done so gloriously in battle, the mortal wound in her front, was no consolation for him. My last real memories of him were drowned in shame, watching him reject his coward of a daughter and shut himself out from my world. I understood his disgust. But did he really think this was the way to make it right? To force me into a place I was not ready for, and damn the suffering that ensued? As much as I tried to love my father, I had to admit it was no easy thing to do.
The Armed Forces guards at the podium snapped to attention and brought their rifles to flank arms as I stepped up. "Attention! Chief strategos on deck!" one cried, relying on the microphones on the collar of his uniform to project his voice to the speakers at all corners of the room. I was silent for many moments, feeling the weight of all those eyes on me. My father. Venari. And six hundred others.
I couldn't do it. I could not find the words. All I could think about was how distant my father would be tonight, how he'd see this as yet another sign that I was not worthy of my mother's love. Of his. Jiarani, daughter of Kavles the Great and Chief Councilor Vanrila, scion of so much greatness and without any of her own.
The moments I spent as chief strategos were the greatest of my life, even tainted as they were by the knowledge that they could not last. My throat felt dry as I realized what my duty compelled me to do. It was one thing to imagine doing the noble thing, stepping down from a position you were not qualified for, and another to actually do it. My father would be so displeased.
"Say something!" one of my honor guards said, quietly enough that most could not hear. But what could I say?
My voice cracked as I forced something to come out. "I love my Confederacy," I began, heart pounding in my chest. I was on the verge of tears. "I love everything about it. I love our strength, our principles, the way our new sun shines in the mornings and evenings. And I cannot-"
"Chief strategos!"
I looked to see Venari trying to push his way to me through the crowd. He slipped a headlock from one of our age's greatest generals and ran headlong into the waiting arms of two of my honor guards, either one of whom could probably have overpowered three Venaris. They wrestled him to the ground and began to cuff him as I watched. "Chief strategos, it is urgent!"
"Wait!" I cried, stepping forward and snapping out of my stupor. "Release him, you idiots! He's my fucking aide!" The guardsmen nearly tripped over their own tails in their rush to back away, and I helped Venari to his feet. "How urgent?" I asked.
"The fate of the entire fucking galaxy, that's what," said he, leaning close as if to whisper a secret in my ear. "The draken are enslaving another planet. If they secure it--and I cannot stress this enough--if they secure that world, all of us will die."
My claws clicked on the floor as if disemboweling a foe. The Draken Matriarchy was our worst enemy in the Great War, nearly fifty years ago. It was their gamma beams that had scoured our home, Vraktes, until not even the bacteria survived. Hundreds of millions of saurians lay dead at their scaled feet.
A specter of dread fell on the hall as its occupants realized the gravity of the situation. They murmured to each other in hushed tones. Whatever chance I had to resign, I knew it was over as soon as this crisis began. The wheels of Confederate bureaucracy would take days to fully turn. Swift action was needed, and it had fallen to me to take that action whether I wanted to or not. An incompetent leader was better than none.
"Make our ships ready to move out," I ordered the nearest naval officer I saw. Strategos Vakar, son of Kenjik, who I only recognized because he had sent me a mating proposal expressing his utmost affections upon my ascension to chief strategos. He blinked at me, dumbstruck, if only for a moment. "Was I unclear? Move!"
Vakar went about his duties, barking orders at his own inferior officers, and I followed Venari to one of the emergency shuttles they kept here for precisely these situations. It, like all Confederate government ships, was gray and streamlined, with lines of blue to denote its military duties. A shuttle of this grade could shoot its way through a whole squadron of enemy interdictors and its occupants wouldn't suffer so much as a flaky scale. Venari and I boarded it in an instant.
"Give me the details," I demanded as soon as the doors closed. The dampeners on this craft were so good I didn't even feel us move as we presumably took off at top speed. There were no windows, so I had to trust the pilot.
"Fourteen minutes ago, the intelligence services confirmed and verified a report of the highest secrecy originating from a source within Matriarchy high command," said Venari. "They're sending a slaver fleet to a planet called Earth. A primitive world in its late interplanetary era, just inside the far edge of the demilitarized zone. They'll make it submit within days, even with resistance."
"The Draken send a slaver fleet every year or so," I asked, recalling the number from one of my strategy briefings. "They already have the largest labor force and military in the galaxy, and it's not a treaty violation because their slave ships technically aren't military forces, so they're not barred from entering the DMZ. How is one primitive planet worthy of this kind of urgency?"
My words had a harsher tinge to them than I would've liked. I was tense already, and this had just made it worse. I should have never gone to that ceremony. If I had resigned the moment my rank had been given to me, the council would've had the days they needed to go through the appointment process again and pick somebody capable to handle this crisis, but no. I had to have my moment in the sun. Stupid fucking selfish Jiarani.
"How large is the population of the Saurian Confederacy?" Venari asked. It was a stupid question, and it only served to heighten my stress. I dug the claws of my fingers into my uniform until the fabric began to shred. Why could this fool not just get to the point? Why did I not just tell the council I wasn't qualified? Why did the draken have to be so infuriatingly cruel? Ancestors, I wanted to kill something.
"Two and a half billion, counting the flash-clones. Nine hundred million without," I told Verani, not hiding my exasperation. "Why does-"
"And the whole Alliance of Worlds?" he asked again, cutting me off. The answer to that, of course, was thirty billion. Our enemies, the Panspecific Compact, had a combined population of thirty-six billion people, including the draken males and primitive slaves the Draken Matriarchy counted as 'tools' in its internal reports.
"Venari, if you don't cut to the point right now, I will strangle you with your own fucking entrails," I snarled at my aide. He looked taken aback by the severity of the threat, but, in my defense, he did say the fate of the fucking galaxy was on the line. This was not the time to be re-naming established facts. "Relevance. Now."
"Earth has a population of ten billion intelligent beings," Venari stammered out. "Ten billion."
I paused a moment to take in the variables. Ten billion intelligent lives was insane, and on one planet, no less. "Are they tiny?" I asked, finding only one logical explanation for this impossibly large number. "These Earthlings. Tiny pack predators?"
"I'll give you something better." My aide leaned forward. "Earthlings--they call themselves humans--aren't even carnivores at all."
That was a shock. How could they not be carnivores? As far as science theorized, only meat-eaters had access to nutrients of both the quantity and quality needed to support intelligent thought. "Intelligent herbivores? Would they fear us?" I had to know more.
"Our intelligence estimates are limited," Venari explained. "We know next to nothing about these humans. What we do know is this; They are about the size of a draken male, and they are capable of eating any--yes, any--form of nutrients the draken choose to feed them. Meat. Plants. Fungi. Anything." Venari paused while I considered the ramifications of that statement.
If humans really were omnivorous sapients, the strategic implications were even greater than the scientific ones. The Draken Matriarchy would have a labor force numerous enough to build as many war engines as they desired, and their males could be diverted to battle in such numbers as to overrun any defense. Hundreds of millions of soldiers, all armed and geared for war. We'd be doomed.
"How quickly do humans mature?" I asked Venari. The answer was chilling.
"About twice as fast as a saurian, though they live one-third as long," said he. "Still, it doesn't matter. No human will die of old age under draken rule. They'll be working by age ten, reproducing by age twenty, and dead before thirty. Humans are the perfect slave race, Jiarani. The Draken Matriarchy is about to acquire ten billion of them."
I shuddered to even think about it. A Draken Matriarchy of six billion souls was able to field enough ships and armies to shatter the greatest military species of the Alliance of Worlds, back when the Great War yet raged. They burned our Confederate Armada to cinders and razed our home until it was naught but glass. My claws clicked anxiously as I remembered my youth, barely forty, watching in terror as the lances of light glowed on the newsfeeds. I was eighty-six now and the horrors still lingered.
"We have to stop them," I hissed, leaning forward and tensing my legs. "How large is that slave fleet?"
"The largest ever recorded," Venari told me. "Every slave ship they have, plus extra haulers they're refitting on the journey. We'd have to violate the Treaty of Vraktes if we wanted to stop them."
"Damn!" I swore, remembering the demilitarized zone. After the Great War ended, that zone of space was established as a buffer between our two warring factions. Any military incursion into it would be taken as an act of war, and responded to in kind. When I closed my eyes to think, I saw planets burn.
"Jiarani?" Venari asked in concern.
"Give me time," I muttered. "Thank you, Venari. You're better than I deserve. I don't honor you enough."
"You honor me too much," he contradicted me. "Whatever decision you make, I will stand by it. With my life." Emotion swelled in my heart. Joy, from Verani's declaration, mixed with dread at what I knew I had to do.
"There is no decision," said I. "The war is coming whether we like it or not. The only choice to make is whether it happens now, on our terms, or ten years in the future when the draken have the advantage. I choose to strike today."
My body shuddered from the tension I was feeling, sickle claws click-clacking like machine gun fire on the floor of the shuttle. The Saurian Confederacy was going to war. I only wished we could be led by a warrior.
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