08

Violation

John and Janet both rushed over to the Tau Cetians guarding a group of survivors. As soon as he fetched Janet, John had taken her straight there without any further explanation, and she apparently didn't need one. He already knew the overview of the incident, but didn't ask for details. Now, he and Janet would no doubt get the full story.

Circled by seven Tau Cetian guards, including the same one that had arrested Jason Mensar three days earlier, were three people, two of them men, all in varying states of undress, and differing states of emotion including anger. To one side of this group, two more guards stood beside two women, both clearly survivors, both injured, also in differing states of dress.

"Let's have that report," John requested of the guards in their native language. He would translate for Janet as the explanation was given to him.

"We found these five people in the end room off of the north octagon spike, east side," the female guard told John, in her capacity as spokesperson for the group. "Three were in the process of attacking the two standing over there," she added, gesturing to the two women to one side. John did not immediately translate for Janet, instead, prompting the guard to continue.

The three miscreants being held in the ring of guards were being accused of accosting the two women before attempting to rape them both. The noise being made was caught by some nearby humans and a Tau Cetian guard with exceptional hearing, and the nine guards now present had descended upon the assailants with extreme prejudice. John asked the guards to take the assailants to a sealed room until shelter leadership could deal with them, and as they were being led away, John explained the situation to Janet, whose reaction was understandably explosive. John attempted to calm her down.

"Don't tell me to fuckin' calm down," Janet shouted back, her stance combative, her skin flushed with fury. "Those three pigs can't be allowed to get away with fucking those two women against their will. Do you have any idea what that does to a person?"

John shook his head. "We gotta do this right," he told her. "For now, they need to be held apart from everyone else. We can get Davidson to handle questioning them, and he'll know the way to punish their crimes."

"What about those two women?" Janet asked, her tone rising, her breathing rapid. "They just… They…"

As part of his medical training for this mission, John had only a basic understanding of psychological trauma, but he knew the obvious signs of PTSD when he saw them. Slowly, quietly, he tried reassurance. "They'll get all the help they need," he told her. "And if you want it, so will you."

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," she snapped defensively in reply.

"I'm just sayin', is all," John replied gently, making no move to approach Janet. "Anyone who needs help with dealing with what happened is going to get it, those two included," he added, deliberately not referencing her this time.

It was clear now, that Janet was in a state of denial over the extent of the psychological damage whatever had happened in her past had caused. This was well beyond his pay-grade. It was also causing her distress. John could see what was happening as her breathing did not slow, her face turned even paler than it already was, and she looked ready to fight or run. John was therefore extremely relieved when a tired-looking and red-eyed Helen turned a corner and saw what was going on. The medical expert quickly approached as she saw and heard them.

"Is everything OK?" She ashed, looking quickly between the other two. John was reluctant to discuss the situation, given that Helen looked like she had been crying very recently, but her expectant look prompted him to continue.

"There was an incident earlier," he started to explain. "Everyone involved is being held for questioning, but there are two women who will need someone to talk to them for…"

"For?" Helen prompted.

John sighed heavily before answering, but before he could, Janet jumped in. "Two guys and a bitch cornered those two girls and were apparently about to fuck them senseless." Her tone was incendiary, and her fists were clenching and unclenching.

To John's relief, Helen was well aware of this behaviour, as she quickly said to him "Take off John, I'll catch up with you later" in a low, urgent tone, her expression holding an entreaty he understood. John nodded quickly and walked in the direction the guards walked the prisoners in. He didn't hear what was said, although he did hear Janet's raised voice for a moment, but it seemed Helen had managed to defuse the situation.

One of the doors opened as John approached the end of the corridor, and the female Tau Cetian guard he had been talking with over the last few days stepped out, her expression grim.

"What's their status?" John asked her in Tau Cetian.

"Both females have injuries to their arms, legs and face. I should leave the details to a medic, but they're really distressed," she told John, letting out a melancholy sigh, looking downwards and off into the distance. "Our presence doesn't help."

John supposed not, given the survivors as a group were small, frail and jittery, compared to the tall, well-defined and in some cases bulky Tau Cetians, who all carried an air of self assurance that the survivors sorely lacked. "I guess we can only be patient with them while we sort it all out," he told her. It occurred to him at that moment that he had never asked this woman her name, nor any of the other Tau Cetians currently in the complex. "I keep meaning to ask, but what's your name?"

The sideways glance she gave him held a hint of amusement. "Mephecia."

John was curious about the naming convention that the Tau Cetians used, but never found a good time to ask anyone about it. "Does it mean anything?"

"Yes," Mephecia smiled slightly. She then proceeded to explain the way that each Tau Cetian name was constructed. For each person born from two parents, a name is made by combining the names of both parents for the child. The way these names are combined is up to the parents, but definite rules existed depending on the biology of the child. Females always had names ending with a Tau Cetian equivalent of a vowel. Males did not. Most names were constructed to be three or four syllables. Often, a person could be traced back to parents in their locality just from their name alone, although such crude genealogy techniques were obsolete and had been for as long as Mephicia knew.

The conversation was an interesting diversion, but Helen's approach brought both of them back to the reason John came by. Helen's expression was contemplative.

"I've spoken with Janet about the situation," Helen told John in English, her tone quietly contemplative. "This has hit a little too close to home for her."

"Any idea what it was?" John asked, without thinking.

Helen shook her head, her lips compressing in a thin line. "Sorry John, I can't discuss that with you." Switching to Tau Cetian, she asked "How are the victims?"

John was painfully reminded of the efforts of Caitlin as their linguist on the mission, before she and Adam had lost their lives. He swallowed the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him, and nodded to Mephicia, who gave a brief overview.

"I'll give them a full examination," Helen told them, turning to Mephicia. "It may be less distressing for them if I examine each of them myself, but if you could have someone stand by to step in, it would be helpful if there is a panic."

"Yes," Mephicia nodded, then added "apologies, I do not know how to address you."

"Helen is fine," was the cordial reply.

"Yes Helen."

John was slightly amused at that brief exchange.

Davidson rounded the corner at that moment, his expression almost murderous. "How are the victims?"

Helen explained, adding that she was about to examine them herself.

"I'll sit that one out," Davidson replied. "They're frightened enough as it is," he then turned to Mephicia. "Now, where are the assailants?"

The blazing inferno of the sun was in his voice right then.

* * *

Tau Cetian vessel Kl'Deesius, orbiting the moon.

Miradima had recently finished a lengthy conversation with the Klankharis Fleet Commander about the transition of the Earth refugees from the Earth's moon to Tau Ceti 5's innermost habitable moon. Multiple flotilla of fleet transports were on their way from the Fleet Arm shipyards in the Lagrange point between Tau Ceti and Tau Ceti 6, each capable of safely moving over ten thousand passengers from Sol to Tau Ceti. They were not fast ships, with a maximum jump range of half a light year and a recharge time of six hours, it would take about a week for them to get to Earth orbit, and another week to transport everyone back to Tau Ceti.

The Kl'Deesius would be ready to travel back with them at that point, once stability testing was complete on the FTL drive that had recently been damaged during their skirmish over the lunar colony.

Along with these transports, a Tau Cetian terraforming detachment had been launched from the Scientific Analysis Directorate. There was a ten kilometer long BioLauncher ship, the largest movable space-going vessel the Klankharis Realm built and launched. Identical vessels were responsible for terraforming Tau Ceti 5a, 4 and 6b, as well as a number of Klankharis based worlds in nearby star systems. BioLauncher vessels had a very limited crew, a docking port for crew access, a massive launch array for all of the launch-able terraforming equipment, and large docking bay on the back to replenish the BioLauncher, usually only needed for large planets, or in this case, for atmospheric reconfiguration following a severe radiation or toxin release.

Given the size of the BioLauncher, it would take a month to get here. The urgent nature of its mission required it to begin operations as soon as it entered Earth orbit.

Also, given the threat that the Possessors posed to the region now that they had revealed themselves, the terraforming detachment did not include the standard science vessel and fast resupply cargo handler it would have. Instead, the detachment replaced the handler with a Fleet Arm military version capable of operating under combat conditions, the science vessel was replaced with a Fleet Arm deep infiltration vessel that simultaneously had stealth characteristics and a whole array of passive and active sensors capable of exceeding the science vessels' specifications, and the detachment included a pair of Klankharis Fleet Arm frigates of the same specification as the Kl'Deesius.

Miradima was relieved. The reappearance of their ancient enemy had traumatized her, both because of the recent vision warning her of their presence on Earth, and the resulting imagery she had needed to witness of one of her security officers being bodily possessed on the surface while the Tau Ceti crew searched for survivors. Knowing their enemy had re-appeared and were trying to invade the planets in the region again was an insult to the millions of Klankharis people who had given their lives fighting them off the last time they had invaded the region.

Klankharis history was rather short, at least the recorded, verifiable part of it. The Realm governance had records going back almost four thousand years, with some spotty information going back about eight to nine thousand. Everything before that point in time was conspicuously absent, and no evidence existed on Klankharis Prime (the third planet in the Tau Ceti system) of any people or their technology existing longer than nine thousand years ago.

Rumors of the possessors invading Klankharis Prime, the only naturally developed habitable world in the Tau Ceti system, were widespread, and provisional support for this belief existed in historical record fragments at approximately six thousand years into the past. It was rumored that Klankharis Prime had been invaded, the populace enslaved or possessed, and after hundreds of years a resistance forced all possessed people off world either by destroying their ability to reach the surface, or killing them and their hosts.

It was rumored that the well-documented Klankharii ability to sense the presence of an invading Possessor force began developing at this time, aided by genetic manipulation techniques that had been lost to what happened next. It would be many millennia before gene sequencing would be re-discovered, and Earth had gifted the techniques to the Klankharii when they gave them their entire medical database.

As a response to the failure of the Possessor invasion, the Possessors began bombarding the planet with weapons from orbit. Usually the weapons were mass based, which was devastating to the environment and the mass was readily available from the nearby asteroid field, so required little effort or logistical planning to deploy. The survivors escaped in a haphazard flotilla of barely-functional vessels, which sustained them as they departed for other worlds. This was before faster-than-light propulsion was discovered, so the remaining ships had to travel near-relativistic speeds. If not for cold sleep technology and antimatter reactors, their journey would not have made it past the outer system boundary before the crew had died of old age or the ships had lost power and ran out of fuel.

Eighty-six ships left Tau Cetian space, hundreds more were bombarded as they tried to launch from the surface and from low orbit.

Only seventy-eight of them successfully reached enough of a fraction of light speed that time was dilated.

For hundreds of years, the survivors traveled from one system to another, sometimes losing ships, finding either uninhabitable world, worlds with hostile populations, or worlds already possessed by their enemy. The details were sketchy, because there was little documentation from those days, but each encounter with worlds occupied by the Possessors resulted in combat losses. After over eight hundred years of relativistic travel around the surrounding systems, there were thirty-five ships left, none of them combat-capable.

Forty-eight hundred years before today, the group split. Miradima thought it was bizarre that they would do so, but twenty-four ships decided to head back to Tau Ceti, the reasons for which were not really known.

The other eleven ships decided to set a course elsewhere in the galaxy. Who knows what happened to those ships?

Twenty-three ships finally made it back across the heliopause of Tau Ceti, expecting to go out in one last fight or to entomb themselves on their home planet.

They didn't expect to find Tau Ceti empty of the possessor threat, nor Klankharis Prime to be habitable again (albeit at the time, barely).

At that point in history, their resettlement formed the cornerstone of the current Klankharis Realm. Resettlement took place extremely slowly, at first. Settlements were all subterranean, initially utilizing natural caverns, then building out into artificial caverns once the populace had reinstituted their technology. Much of their civilization was devoted to researching new ways to hide from the Possessor threat, develop countermeasures for their possession ability, and strengthen their armor and weapons technology. During this time, FTL drives were developed along with gravitational field manipulation, molecular manipulation, matter-energy conversion, and all kinds of related technological advancements surrounding these discoveries.

Two thousand years ago, the Possessors re-invaded the Klankharis homeworld.

This time, they were unsuccessful.

Despite sending thousands of those organic ships of theirs, unleashing hell on the planet and the defences in orbit, the now extensive Klankharis fleet was more versatile, and had far greater numbers. FTL jumping ships also provided an advantage in tactical maneuvrability.

It made all the difference.

After successfully repelling hundreds of Possessor attacks, including a highly intense assault at the last moment, the Klankharis military sent out scouts to search for other Possessor-infested worlds, mark them, and eventually send vessels to purge them out of the systems they were found in.

It was a long campaign, spanning close to two thousand years. Even today, there were ships commissioned by the Fleet Arm, whose sole purpose was to seek out Possessor infestations in the region and report their presence to Klankharis Prime.

"Commander," a call came in from her Sub Commander. "Urgent contact from the lunar complex."

"Pass it through," Miradima ordered, and waited a beat for the communication to be switched over. "Command here."

"Mira," Davidson's voice over the communication system was slightly more tense than usual. "Sorry if you're busy with anything, but I need to talk with you about an incident in the shelter population."

Davidson wouldn't be bothering anyone about this if it were merely an isolated problem. "Should I come to you?"

"Or I could come up to the ship," Davidson suggested.

Miradima thought for a moment. "No, it would be best for me to come to you. If it's an incident down there, I can get a better idea by being there."

A short pause, before Davidson answered her. "Alright," he replied. "I've taken a room in the shelter that is cleared for your transport. I'm in it now."

"I'll be there momentarily," Miradima told him before tapping her control to cancel the communication link. "Tactical, lock on to the comm tab of Davidson in the lunar complex and get his room layout. I want a transport of myself to that location immediately."

"Layout obtained. A space is available."

"Transport."

It took no more than a second, and Miradima's body was deconstructed in a blast of yellow light, leaving no trace she was there a few seconds before.