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KWhite

Long fingers moving methodically over the familiar comp terminal, the Commander was using this unexpected free moment to write a letter home.
All the troubles and problems of conscience that he as a Commander had to keep from his men, were delivered on His wives.
But the problem was still there, and still as hard as they had known it would be to deal with.

The knock at the cubicle's door was expected, acknowledged.
Setting His official face on, bronze skin glowing slightly in luminescence as a junior came into his presence, the Commander swiveled to face the young lieutenant, white wings held tight to his back in the cramped quarters.

"Rest, sit"

All ten fingers steepled against Both thumbs below the long chin that marked their race as the lieutenant moved to obey. The sullen look over his face quietly registered, considered.
Eyes and form that humans might call angelic if seen on a foggy night, faced and drank in the blue green jewel that held the cause of such deep turmoil.

Could he blame the lieutenant?
Could any of them?
These thoughts blanced in his mind by the single chilling counterpoint.
By all the dark of space, could any of them not!?

Speaking slowly, forcefully, as is the manner of all the long lived races, his voice a soft mellifluous tone.
"You are aware of why you are here?"

Races and physiognomy may differ throughout the Galaxy, but fear is universally recognized, alonside its partner shame.
The junior officer's skin paled in submission, even as the Commanders own regalia flared a soft superiority.

"That was a question" A snap suddenly sharp in the tone at the lack of response.
Long fingers picking up and balancing a stylus as the Commander awaited a reply.
That reply stunned him, an outburst of dismay from the youngling that should have surprised. That it did not showed the true nature of this mission.

"But they are innocent!" The cry burst from a throat, and the emotion within anguish was His opwn as well.

"yes, but they are Human!"

"Must the child pay the sins of the father"

The official face set in stone. He could not allow any hint, not a single breath of a weakening in his resolve.
None

"They were thought to be a myth, they were KNOWN to be long extinct."
Pounding His voice into the shuddering conscience of the junior

"They are hunters and cannot be civilized. Search your mind for the memories."

Turning back, His words slower and more bitter as he watches the small globe before Him, the sun of this system rising over The Atlantic.

"They nearly brought the galaxy to extinction before"

Speaking in hard clipped tones unusual for them.

"All of the Galaxy Jen'raat"

Those all too large eyes which were as normal as.....Mom and Ptaek pie to him, softened a bit as the youngster hung his head. It was too much to accept.
Theirs was a peaceful race.
As it had turned out over the last untold millennia, The successful races were the Long Lived.
He was himself just reaching His prime at 800 cycles, and expected to live twice that again.
Slow and thoughtful, the races traded with another, shared scientific reseach, and tried to keep a bit of an upper hand in the trade department.
Unlike the popular view held on the planet he was observing, the galaxy was a very dull place.
A funny thing about the long lived, they do not do war well.

Another fact that had become apparent over the millennia.

The long lived were at the mercy of those species which did do war.

Oh, they never lasted. Most achieved Evolution through Stupidity before ever leaving their own atmosphere or were integrated into the Galactic commonwealth after a bit of fuss.

Their were many ways to increase lifespan.
The long lived races took the long view as did most races that could see the obvious advantages.
This species, they were ...different.
He had been in orbit here behind their moon with a crew of 200 for over 150 cycles.

It had been pure coincidence that they had been found. Holograms of thier species were required material in any good Space Academy. Everyone in space knew what they had looked like, but no one would have given you odds on meeting one.
Not even a gamble-lusting Tojaun trying to win enough to secure mating rights.

It had been universally accepted that they had been wiped out.

According to all that had been remembered, recorded, the Hyoom-An had come screaming out of the farthest edge of the Galaxy.
Within mere decades they had bred themselves throughout the known worlds and were looking for more. Violence and red war was the impression left, and that after so long.

Cantankerous but inspiring, then violent and overbearing.
The wars had been memorable and bloody.
The Hyoom-An remained a bedtime story to frighten the really bad children.
He was here to make sure it stayed that way.

All, He had been through all that they knew of themselves, which was not much, their own creation myths were confused but seemed to indicate this was not the planet they originated from.
Apparently, some had gotten away.

Alexander, Genghis Khan, Custer and Pyrrhus. The Spartans and Hitler.
The more he had learned in these last years, the more fear had crawled over his spine. The report he had sent back could only point out one thing.
Although "Love" was a concept in their world, the Hyoom-An could not change.
And they were developing space flight.

He had to agree with the Elders.
But He did not have to like it.
Rodin and the Taj Mahal, Democracy and a willingness to help. The loss of all they could have been , the need to bring about that loss, that was what had made a young lieutenant attempt to warn the most dangerous species ever known.

Shaking His own thoughts out of that strangely angelic seeming head, silvery hair floating like a halo in the low gravity, he modulated his voice, the skin pigments easing into colors of conciliation, tones of reason.

"It is a difficult thing, but it will be done...soon. you must think of all the galaxy. They have much to answer for, this species."
Looking his subordinate in the eyes, that long gaze demanding the other meet it.
"Would you offer your throat to the beast? your childrens?"

The other shok again and sat, the crisis playing in anguish over His face as He sobbed?
"NO! YES! I do not... no"
His sobs eased, but the voice was broken.
The Species of the Galaxy were all pacifist. No other way made logical sense.
But even a pacifist sees the logic in striking first if the only other option is extinction.

Placing that long warm brown arm about the junior, noting the sudden appearance of two ships which slowly blocked the view of that blue and green jewel, turning the other away as he also thankfully turned, not yet ready to see that..
"We have no choice, they are marauders, and we are sheep"

Walking the young lietenant to the crew area where he would be sedated, the Commander calmly explained why the Councils of over a thousand species had voted to act first, just once.
Humans had so much, he had observed so long.
None of the older races could keep pace with them. They moved too quickly for the Long Lived Species to compete. Can you blame the sheep for trampling the wolf pup when it is found?

His walk took him to the the observation deck that was his alone as the Commander.
Knuckles whitening around a bar of golden alloy, tears streamed down His face as the pictures of the last century rolled through a mind horrified at the necessity.

They had achieved Space flight. Their sciences were already starting that documented meteoric rise seen before.
Advances that the long lived made in centuries seemed to come from them in days. He shuddered thinking that he had watched them develop the nuclear sciences to this level in the short span of time that he had been watching.
Less actually..
His own species, one of the eldest, had needed thousands of years.
But they could not or would not live in peace.
It had been a risk, playing with fire, He knew that when he had accepted the job.
But it had to be looked at, had they changed? They must be studied.

The Species now living had nearly all developed some form of racial memory.

All races have their bad guys.
His and many others were the Humans.

The galaxy had not been large enough for them. They had come with smiles and with furor, flashing across the galaxy, breeding and taking like...Locusts.

It was thought that all of them had been killed so long ago.
it had cost billions upon billions of the long lived, the histories tell a grim tale of surprise and the salvation of the whole galaxy by a sudden twist of fortune.
He cried as the Planet crushers worked, happy that he had ordered the whole crew sedated during this.
One cannot study a species over so many cycles without learning of them.
But they could not behave. Did not seem to play well with others.
As tarnished as his soul would be, the Long Lived must also survive.
Even if they had to strike first.
Following instructions to the letter, He watched until a new asteroid belt was circling the sun known as Sol, scanned and scanned looking for any trace of the species known now as Human. Life was no longer to be found in this quadrant of the Galaxy.
The few treasures saved were stowed and the Computer would bring the ship home. To a place where the soul could be healed, that too had been preprogrammed.
As The drugs took effect, The silence where all the data of a species gone had lived was overwhelming.
Yet the Commander would heal.
Around the gleaming ship that screamed through nothing the universe continued its slow roll indifferent to the questions that troubled the sleep of an Angel.

Kelly White

 

AndieBear

That's crazy. How did you get the idea of a story from an alien's point of veiw? That was a great story! Kinda disapointing that they blew us up in he end though, but I never really looked at in that way. Crazy!

Thanks for sharing!!

__________________
Ten people who speak, make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

KWhite

TheCleric

Yeah that was really interesting. It took me two reads to understand cause im slow but when i got it i liked it

Kelly you certainly have a gifted writers mind, which you have proven many times, keep them coming!

Cleric

KWhite

Seems damned appropriate...
Bump

 

Herb Ninja

Really cool story KWhite, I looked at it for just a second when I entered the thread and thought, thats too long its not gonna be worth reading, and so I read it, and I never looked back. Nice work.

__________________
Ron Paul for the Long Haul

KWhite

Thank you.

Very much.

Kelly