First Contact

Chapter 940: The Setting Sun

Corporate wars. Then the Big C3. Then the 2PW.

Then picking up the pieces.

A part of me always felt that it was terribly ironic that picking up the pieces after the wars meant firing the main gun of a tank. - Most High Ekret, 1st Armored Scout Division, Atomic Hooves, 17 Post Shade Night

General (Four Star) of the Warsteel (Formerly Great Grand Most High) A'armo'o, Commander of the Atomic Hooves, sat down behind the desk and looked around his new office. It was luxurious, seating for several different species against the wall, two holotanks capable of displaying 480p upscaled to 720p, a dedicated nutriforge to produce snacks and drinks, a caf-machine that burbled and smelled so enticing while it was brewing, a projector and screen, lovely highly polished tile, and majestic furnishing.

He picked up his name-plate and buffed it.

GENERAL A'ARMO'O, COMMANDANT the name-plate read.

He took the time to get up and move around the office, looking at the walls.

His people, prior to the Terran Invasion and the BigC3, not to mention the Atrekna attack and the Second Precursor war, had sneered at nostalgia, memorabilia, and the like.

The beings of the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems had reintroduced the concept and A'armo'o had to admit that he appreciated it.

Here was a 2.5d holosnap, downgraded to 480p, of the fierce battle against the Precursors that had led to him meeting the legendary General Trucker before the Terran's death during the Assault on Heaven.

There was the 2.5d holosnap of himself pinning the Confederate Cluster of Gallantry on a lowly gunner for his herculean effort to save civilians during the fighting on the planet.

A'armo'o felt pride in that moment just viewing the holosnap.

A framed meme of his underling Ge'ermo'o looking suspiciously at his own hat which had a drawing of a lemur penis on the back, then looking suspiciously at the Terrans, and the last picture of A'armo'o laughing wildly.

But it was I, your superior, A'armo'o!

The memory made him smile.

Another picture of A'armo'o drinking stimfizz from a 40mm cannon shell with other officers of several different races.

Pictures of the last five years Galactic Standard.

The last 54 years of A'armo'o's life thanks to Atrekna time manipulation.

General A'armo'o shifted a picture slightly to straighten it.

It was of General P'Kank looking around to make sure nobody saw him as he put googly eyes upon his own representation featured in a mural.

He clopped back over to his seat and sat down, taking the time to straighten up the items on his blotter. He looked at the pad of simple writing pas, admiring the header.

"FROM THE DESK OF THE SCHOOL COMMANDANT" was on the top.

He knew that only a few short years Galactic Standard ago he would have been outraged to be put in the position he was now honored to take.

There was a knock at the door and A'armo'o looked up.

"Enter," he said.

The door opened to reveal a Hikken Staff Sergeant.

"General Ge'ermo'o here to see you, sir," the NCO said.

"Show him in," A'armo'o said.

General Ge'ermo'o's adaptive camouflage uniform was impeccably done, like always. He stopped in front of the desk and saluted using his right upper arm, his fingers and palm straight, his fingertips touching just above his forward facing right eye.

"Lieutenant General Ge'ermo'o, reporting as ordered," the other Lanaktallan said.

A'armo'o returned the salute, then stood up, holding out his hand. Ge'ermo'o shook it, then went over and sat down in the comfortable chair at A'armo'o's wave.

"You'll be leaving soon," A'armo'o said.

Ge'ermo'o nodded. "Yes, sir," he said. "I've been reassigned to the Confederate Armed Services, I am being deployed to Confederate Space to defend against hostile star nation encroachment."

A'armo'o tapped his fingers on the desk. "It will be strange to not have you by my side, loyal one," he said after a moment. "I had thought that the last few months as a school commandant would have shown you just how much you are needed here."

"It has, but I have been offered a Corps Sustainment Command, supporting Fifteen Corps's Eighteenth Tank Division," Ge'ermo'o said. "A new posting, a new unit."

Nodding thoughtfully A'armo'o tapped his fingers on the desk. "New unit, new people, Services wide draw?"

"Yes, sir," Ge'ermo'o said. "They believe it will be a year or more until we will be ready to deploy. Right now the force levels are at less than half of what our METL states is the minimum force levels. Our equipment is supposedly at nearly sixty percent, but I won't know until I gather an effective and reliable group of direct subordinates to order inspections down the line," Ge'ermo'o pointed at the caf-brewer. "May I?"

"Of course," A'armo'o said.

Ge'ermo'o went and poured himself a cup of stimcaf before moving over and sitting down.

"Unified Military Forces never built new units, my entire career. The idea of the Confederacy entrusting me with building a force the size of a COSCOM unit is startling, but I look forward to the challenge."

"It does sound exciting," A'armo'o admitted.

"I will be able to put to work the many lessons I learned as not only your subordinate, not only an officer of the Great Herd, but as General NoDra'ak's liaison and the head of maintenance for V Corps toward the end of the Two-Pee-Double-Ewe," Ge'ermo'o said. "It is a challenge I shall relish."

"Did you know that you have a certain leeway when selecting your officers to fill your immediate command structure?" A'armo'o asked.

Ge'ermo'o leaned back slightly, shifting slightly and A'armo'o knew it was to take pressure off of his lower left shoulder joint. "Yes, but I feel, since this is a unit formation, that I should allow random chance to give me all new officers, force me to learn to deal with the other more war-like species of the Confederacy as well as learn to work with what I have."

"An excellent plan," A'armo'o said. He waved in the general direction of the multitude of 2.5d holopics on the wall. "We have come very far since we heard 'HEAVY METAL IS HERE!' roar out across a system we were fighting a losing battle in."

Ge'ermo'o chuckled. "Indeed, Grand Great Most High, we have."

They sat, reminiscing and making small talk for a few minutes.

"I'm sure you have much to do in preparation," A'armo'o said.

Ge'ermo'o finished his cup of stimcaf and set the cup down. "Indeed I do," he stood up. "By your leave, General."

"Dismissed, old friend," A'armo'o said.

He watched as Ge'ermo'o left, then swiveled his chair around to look out the window.

He was all the way of the sixth floor of the eight story building, at the corner office.

Beyond the thick smartglass was his command. A sprawling affair, where beings just graduated from basic training or reclassifying Military Occupational Specialties gathered to be trained. There were classrooms, simulators, chow halls, gyms, motor pools, parade grounds, barracks, and much much more.

He had been placed as the Commandant of all of it, under the command of the Base Commander, another four star General.

But his command was something special.

He stood up, going over and getting a cup of stimcaf, then walked back and sat down, staring out the window.

It was a grave responsibility. He knew that any being sufficiently skilled and experienced to be named Commandant would understand the gravity and importance of the academy.

But to him it meant something else.

The name said it all.

A Confederate Army Armor School.

The Manual G. Trucker Armor Academy.

-----

The nurse stopped in front of him, her shoes silent on the floor.

"General?" she asked.

Ekret looked up. "Yes?"

The nurse looked at the dataslate in her hands. "If you would follow me."

Ekret nodded, getting up. He wiped his sweaty palms on the legs of his pants as he did so, trying not to show any nervousness. A few of the other troops in the waiting room looked up, but for the most part they paid attention to their comlinks, their dataslates, or one of the mags they'd picked up off the table to read the articles.

The nurse led him, silently, through the double doors.

Ekret felt a little amusement at the fact that the massive medical center, the post hospital, seemed to wipe away all rank except for when a being was addressed.

Everyone was equal under the eyes of Medical Services.

The nurse led him to a room where she hooked up two monitor clips and took his vitals, recording them on her dataslate as well as well as recording it on the monitors and writing it down on paper/plas sheets on a clipboard.

He had lost a quarter inch in height and 10 pounds. His cybernetic left leg kept going out of synch due to nervous system degradation due to age. No heart murmur, despite the fact he was dead center of when his species began to suffer heart problems.

The nurse told him to stay put and left.

Ekret sighed and waited, leaning back on the examination table and staring up at the tile.

His face ached slightly and his shoulders had the weird numb tingling he'd been getting since Reklak.Ektru-8 when he'd ran the TC's tribarrel so long he'd torn up his rotator cuffs.

Finally the door opened and the doctor came in.

Ekret felt his eyebrows raise.

It was a Terran. Broad chested, wide chin, wide shoulders, heavy with muscle.

"General Ekret?" the Terran asked.

"Yes," Ekret replied.

"Well, let's take a look at a few things, shall we?" the doctor said. He held out a fingertip scanner that had a small slot at the bottom. "If you would."

Ekret put his finger in and felt the slight sting of a needle flickering out and taking a blood sample.

The Terran set it down, tapping the datapad so a hologram came up.

"Well, first of all, we should decide: Good news or bad news?" the doctor asked.

"Bad news," Ekret said. "Let's get it over with."

"A being after my own heart," the Doctor said, smiling with startlingly white teeth. "The bad news is, you've already had longevity treatments, which were based off of the Unified Council's biometrics for the Hikken species. That treatment put some challenges into our job."

"Challenges?" Ekret asked, wishing he had a ration tube to chew on.

"Unified Council longetivity treatments for anyone not a Lanaktallan were, well, far be it for me to criticize my fellow genetic therapy physicians, but they were substandard at best," the Terran said. He shook his head then looked up with another sudden smile. "The good news is, the manhattanproject to sequence, decrypt, and fully understand your people's genetic code has borne enough fruit that there is a new longevity therapy available to you."

The Terran's face got serious. "However, there's a very real difficulty with your case, General."

"Which is?" Ekret braced himself.

"You've been routinely hopped up on Confed antirad treatments and that's adjusted your genetics. Unfortunately, Confed genetic treatments undid some, but not all, of the Unified Council genetic modifications done to your species under the process of gentling your people," the Doctor said.

"I understand," Ekret said, his hands curling into fists as he tensed.

The Doctor smiled again. "However, you are getting treatment at a Confederate Military Medical Center, and we've become accustomed, over the last few years, of dealing with individual genetic recovery issues," he tapped the dataslate, causing a hologram of a DNA strand to appear above it. "It required a bit of personal touch by a lab technician, but we're going to be able to apply a longevity therapy to you."

Ekret gave a whoosh as he exhaled a breath he wasn't aware he had been holding as the Doctor had spoke. His hands relaxed as the Doctor tapped the DNA helix hologram.

"After multiple reviews, including by the Clone Worlds Consortium Genetic Council, it has been determined there is a course of action that the Confederacy must approach, when it comes to non-Lanaktallan members of the Unified Civilized Council, when it comes to genetic repair and longevity treatments," the Doctor said.

Ekret tensed again.

The Doctor turned and looked at Ekret. "The best and most effective treatment that we can offer has a side effect that might be welcome in civilian life, but as a military service member, will require separation from service or transfer to a non-combat role with a bar to deployment."

Ekret swallowed, all manner of horror and mutation coming to mind. "What is it?"

The Doctor touched the hologram, lighting up sections. "It's fairly simple. You will undergo a single injection of genetic repair nanites. Over the course of thirty days they repair or replace every single cell in your body, every genetic, from primordial strands on up," he shook his head. "You will on forty-five days of convalescent leave, during which you will need to report to your Troop Medical Clinic every two days."

Ekret remembered the treatments for advanced radiation poisoning he had received, how the medical regimen had left him screaming in pain, sweating and writhing as the nanite had corrected all of the radiation damage in only hours.

He wiped his palms on the legs of his pants.

"Your hair will fall out, leaving you completely denuded," the Doctor said, touching part of the DNA helix. Your hair will grow back in, roughly to the length you keep it at and military standard, by the three week mark. You will notice significant changes to your fur as the follicles are replaced. Your fur will be thicker, more luxurious, better coloration, more robust and able to withstand damage," the Doctor turned back and smiled. "Of course, during your bald phase is when your entire epidermis will be replaced."

Ekret swallowed and nodded. His muscles ached in remembered pain.

"At the end, well, you will have to undergo a Skills Qualification Test as well as a complete physical, mental, and emotional stability check," the Doctor said.

Ekret frowned. "In case it doesn't work?"

"No," the Doctor gave a low chuckle and for a moment Ekret felt his hackles rise up. "It will because the treatment did work," he said. "Confederate laws of Informed Consent mandate that you understand this next part."

Ekret just nodded, swallowing.

It was going to hurt and had a low survivability rate, he knew it.

"The treatment will return you to just post adolescent physical condition," the Doctor said. "You'll still have you memories, but your thought processes, emotional processing, physical condition, will all be just post-adolescent phase. You will lose muscle memory and ingrained reflexes."

The Doctor tapped the dataslate and the DNA helix vanished.

"Full maturity for your species is 19 standard years," the Doctor said. "You'll be nineteen again, give or take a year or so, depending on personal puberty progression. This means that your life will be starting over again."

Ekret nodded, wondering what the bad side was.

"However, and this is the big one, you will not be able to accept any future longevity treatments. Getting another one in a hundred or so years means that you will suffer neural tissue overwrite or worse," the Doctor fixed him with a stern gaze. "You get to have your youth back, but if another, better treatment comes along, I would not advise taking it unless you want to die and have someone else take your place, with only some of your memories and none of your personality traits. You will cease to exist," the Doctor said.

Ekret nodded. "I understand."

"However, according to my reading of your DNA, you have approximately four months before you will require a pacemaker. Six months after that, a replacement. Fifteen months after that you will suffer a massive stroke and aortic rupture and will die in less than nine seconds. Your heart has taken a lot of damage and the clone tissue is starting to deviate from your natural heart tissue due to telomere length. If I'm correct," he gave another stern, authoritarian gaze. "And I am, you will suffer a heart attack in exactly one hundred six days, ten hours from now. You can mark that on your smart watch."

Ekret blinked. He was used to genetic physicians talking about maybes and possiblies.

"I would recommend my treatment. No other longevity treatment is statistically likely in the time you have left. There is a slight statistical chance that another longetivity treatment, compatible with this one, will be developed later," the Doctor said. "According to my projections, taking into account environmental contaminates and carcinogen exposures, you will live to be one hundred sixty-two years, eight months, four days after the treatment is complete."

The Doctor picked up the dataslate, swiping through the data.

"Confederate Military Regulations demands that I give you seventy-two hours before I accept your decision, and you have thirty days to make a decision before your window closes," the Doctor said.

"And if I accept?" Ekret asked, firmly believing he'd have to start a major gene therapy process.

"Report to your Troop Medical Clinic, sit through the bad cartoon, listen to doctors that might as well be talking about wizardry, and accept a single shot into your left buttock. Go on convalescent leave, stay in your quarters, follow all instructions," the Doctor said.

Ekret sat and thought for a moment.

He couldn't process it.

He'd be 19 again. Younger even then he was when he had finished the Officer's Training Course and been assigned to be a tank commander.

"I will need to consider it," he said.

"If you turn it down, I would recommend getting a cardiac replacement. Type-VIII synthcardium should do it, as well as an arterial plaque removal, followed by a cerebral circulation system flush. That will give you another two years of life," the Doctor said.

Ekret just nodded it.

The Doctor stared at him. "I am Terran," he said.

Ekret nodded, his mouth dry.

"I, more than anyone else, understand the concept of a "life well lived" should you refuse treatment. You have led an impressive life, with honors and accolades to make any being envious," he said. "The loss of your homeworld to the Atrekna, that fact that two thirds of the Hikken people lay dead, the rest of you scattered, may make you feel that you owe something, but I understand that part of you that feels you have done enough for your people, for the galaxy," he said.

His eyes were glowing amber.

"I will not attempt to force you or cajole you to take this treatment," he said.

Ekret swallowed with a dry tongue, nodding.

"However," the Terran said. He reached out and picked up the dataslate and tapped a few icons before handing it to Ekret.

Ekret looked down.

The Doctor had logged Ekret into PopTop, a dating/casual sex app, with a profile that Ekret didn't know he had, and had moved to the Hikken section.

Nearly a dozen profile splashes were visible. All of comely female Hikken.

The top of the section read "Drank from the Fountain of Youth" and Ekret knew he was looking at female Hikken who had taken the same treatment that was being offered to him.

"Life is sweet," the Doctor said. "I think, General,"

Ekret looked up.

"You need them. One of them. Maybe a few dozen to slake the thirst you didn't know you have, just as they need you," the Doctor said.

Ekret couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You have spent your entire time in the military," the Doctor said. "Maybe, just maybe, you should stop living for others."

The doctor leaned forward.

"And live for yourself."

Ekret blinked.

"On that, I have other patients," the Doctor said. He stood up.

Ekret watched him leave, stunned to silence.

The datapad beeped and he looked down.

He had four new matches.