Aum-La leaned back in her chair, enjoying the crackle of her spine as she closed her eyes with a sigh.

  She had been on this ramshackle station for nearly a year at this point, and it was just now starting to be improved. The air quality was better nowadays, and the station had both Drafritti and Kojynn crawling all over it like lice on a Kafya.

  Aum-La had been hoping to go back down to Earth in order to teach again, but it appeared it was not to be; The Kafya and other races that would be arriving were not “allowed” to go down to Earth proper, as their racial leaders feared that the students “wouldn’t come back” if they spent too much time planetside.

  The Skalathir woman hummed out a laugh through her draconic nostrils, trailing a clawed finger down the blue scales of her cheek.

  That was, after all, the plan.

  The Kafya were easy, but she had to leave the Pwah to Mr. Radishow; There was just too much royal politicking to deal with, and she had her hands full with everything else.

  Like lesson plans.

  “All I have to do is lay down the groundwork for their curiosity.” Aum-La said to herself as she leaned back forward, fluffing out her thick sweater as she resettled herself in her large chair. “And the rest takes care of itself.”

  A small knock at her open door caught her attention, and Aum-La closed several files on her data-slate before speaking up. “Come in!”

  “Miss La.” A Kojynn male intoned as he ducked his carved mask of a head, all four of his arms behind his back respectively. “I have news of your new classroom.”

  “Oh?” Aum-La asked brightly, standing up from her desk and sliding her data-slate into her belt keeper.

  The Kojynn smiled, carrying it into his eyes for easier viewing along with a small sprawl of digital lines along the bottom of the mask. “It is ready, and fully renovated.”

  “Wonderful!” Aum-La said happily, clapping her hands together a few times with a jangle of her wealth rings. Skalathir wore their wealth openly, forming it into segmented rings of gold and platinum worn around the wrists, forearms, and shoulders.

  Aum-La quite liked the Kojynn; They were a smart, subtle race that desired privacy above anything else. Their attachment to Humanity came from their timely arrival and successful defense of two Kojynn home worlds, having lost three other planets while simply outfitting Humanity for war.

  Kojynni, as they were sometimes called, had skin the color of powders, ranging from light blue all the way to a seaside gray. Their eyes were bright and vibrant, nearly shining out of their carved masks and holding much of their emotion. Due to their culture of keeping their face covered, their masks held small lines of flashing lights, helping those around them understand if they were smiling or frowning, though a mask turned off usually meant the Kojynn did not want to be spoken to at all.

  Their masks were used to display a Kojynn’s personality, carved, fabricated, and etched to show the spirit of whom hid underneath it. Some Kojynn decorated their masks with symbols of their profession, such as etchings of blazing starship engines, or weaving stalks of grains. Other Kojynn preferred simpler things, such as carvings of their favorite animals or casts of their preferred heraldry.

  One of the mechanics on the station was well known for having food items on his mask, as the man was a big eater and had an entire new mask made to show his love of noodles. In terms of biology, their privacy went deeper, as not even medical textbooks showed the face of a Kojynn, and only Humans or their A.I. were allowed to perform medicine on their race.

  This was due to the Kojynn only trusting Humans with their secrets, something that chafed the IDC horribly. This included wounded Kojynn going light years out of their way to see a Human doctor, and a slew of Human medical professionals starting out their careers in Kojynn space.

  They were a muscular, robust, handsome peoples much like the Skalathir, though they still held an elegance and grace that the draconic peoples could not, despite their extra set of arms. The only real part of the face that everyone got to see were their ears; Low hanging, long, and round tipped, their heavily grooved ears moved with an uncanny amount of mobility, assisting the hidden face with communicating to those around them.

  It was how she knew the Kojynn male at her door was pleased with himself, his ears laying relaxed and curved towards his shoulders.

  “Would you like us to assist you in moving your things?” He asked, gesturing with a pair of hands to her little teaching area.

  Aum-La nodded, smiling brightly as she gathered her desk things. “Of course! I have to give you guys some things to do after all.”

  “We are still surprised you were able to lift that desk by yourself.” He replied, chuckling inside his mask as he snapped two pairs of fingers at the workers down the hall. “Sha shimby!”

  Aum-La rolled her eyes inwardly; Everyone here treated her like she was some dainty wall flower, as if ignoring that her old duty was to forge war armor. It was bad enough the male Humans on the station always tried to spot her in the gym, and it was a rarity that she or the other Skalathir on board ever had to fill their own water bottles.

  “Silly Humans…” Aum-La whispered to herself, sliding past the Kojynn filing into the room and heading down the hallway to her new classroom.

  Humans, for whatever reason, could not get enough of the Skalathir. Whereas a particularly homely Skalathir would have trouble finding a mate, they would be all the churr on Earth, having to beat off Humans with a stick for just a moment’s peace. Previously, before her teaching went full time, Aum-La had been researching the possible reasons behind this fascination.

  So far she had only gone as deep as she had time to, unraveling a web of truth and fiction revolving around Humans and a perhaps ancient war against massive scaled beasts. Around the 21st century the apparent rage turned into… lust, judging by ancient “interweb” archives.

  They were eyebrow raising, and gave a lot of ugly Skalathir back home the kind of hope only Humans could.

  That was no longer her goal though, as a few meetings with the like minded Mr. Radishow had put her on a new course of action, one that she believed in as fully as many others who sought a… new horizon.

  Setting sail for that horizon started with the young, and no one could open eyes like a teacher.

  Aum-La arrived in her new classroom with a bright smile, looking around at the two hundred, leveled seats that all focused down to a central point; Her desk was large and reinforced, which was good since she had broken three of the damned things since she arrived, with the entire back wall being taken up by a large qua-quid display.

  Qua-quid screens were all the rage with Humans since they were flexible and provided lossless color, while also being able to display a three dimensional projection if being used for wargames or tactical overlays on command ships.

  Aum-La just needed them to show pictures and videos, and stepped down the shallow steps towards her desk.

  She was halfway through arranging her new desk when a knock sounded at her new door, in which she pushed a button that sat near a drawer. The door slid open, revealing Mrs. Seeder.

  “Ah, Mrs. Seeder!” Aum-La called out, standing out of respect and closing her four eyes as she bowed her head.

  Mrs. Seeder blew a raspberry, flicking her right hand at the wrist as she stepped down towards Aum-La. “Oh come now, enough of the missis business, we’re at the same stage of our lives!”

  “Ah, yes.” Aum-La murmured, running a hand down her horn in an apologetic gesture. “I always see the gray hair and get confused…”

  Mrs. Seeder was a stung Human, but instead of vibrant colors like most stung Humans, she was instead bereft of any and all color. She had the tan skin of the middle continents of course, but her eyes and hair were pale gray, like that of a dreary, rainy day.

  “I have your students, and I am quite happy you chose to do one large class.” Mrs. Seeder called out, wiggling a data-slate in her hand as she gamely trotted down the steps. “I hope you are ready for tomorrow.”

  Aum-La shrugged. “Another day in class is just another day, and these students all being new allows me to reuse lesson plans.”

  “Well Ms. La, you will have quite a spread of new students.” Mrs. Seeder said, tapping along her data-slate. “Twenty seven Skalathir, twenty three Kojynn, fifty two Lilgara, twenty eight Drafritti, thirty five Pwah, and thirty five Kafya.”

  Aum-La raised her head, having stopped mid pull of a drawer. “Thirty five Kafya?”

  “Yes, I know you were expecting less, but there have been… shall we say, citizens making a ‘run for it’ with smugglers.” Mrs. Seeder said with a grin. “It appears that the Elder Councils of the Kafya are being troubled by Human and Kojynn smugglers that always seem to be able to find renegades quite easily…”

  Aum-La rolled her four eyes playfully. “How awful, however will they manage…”

  The two shared a brief moment of laughter, but Aum-La tapped her data-slate to Mrs. Seeder’s and pulled the list. She scrolled down towards the Kafya, and one name in particular caught her interest.

  “Tyllia Rhidi…” Aum-La whispered, tapping her nail on the name so the student profile pulled up.

  “Ah yes, one of the few actual visa students you have.” Mrs. Seeder replied, clipping her data-slate back on her belt. “Her mother and father are quite connected, secured her a student visa to study Human ‘fashion’ after her tenure on the reception station.”

  Aum-La listened with squinted eyes as she double tapped the profile, and the picture of a bright limoncello furred Kafya came onto the screen, her lilac eyes shining with eagerness. “Studying fashion, you say?”

  “According to the visa.” Mrs. Seeder replied. “There are also a few minor royals in the Pwah group, but I don't see them being much trouble.”

  “I see…” Aum-La murmured, pondering to herself if she had been given a boon, or a live hand grenade when it came to Tyllia. “Well, I’m sure it will be fine. Is the IDC council still badgering the Human delegation?”

  Mrs. Seeder snorted in reply, tapping at her data-slate.

  “That bad?” Aum-La asked.

  “It’s like they are mad they are no longer winning the popularity contest.” Mrs. Seeder said darkly, putting her hands on her hips with a huff. “Honestly, they can’t be angry that our way of life is popular amongst some of their race. The Lilgara and Kojynni don’t even care, but one royal goes rogue and joins our military…”

  Aum-La let out a trilling laugh. “Ah yes, the rogue prince really did kick a hornet’s nest when he did that. He had surgeons change his face and everything.”

  “He caused even more of a stir when he entered into Human service.” Mrs. Seeder replied. “It was viewed as turning his back on the Pwah royals. They’ve asked nine times for the prince to be returned, or for Humans to allow the Pwah to ‘retrieve’ their rogue royal, but are always told no.”

  Aum-La shrugged her shoulders as she sat back in her strong seat. “I’m honestly not sure why they are surprised, they should have known what was going to happen after the Skalathir Planetary Councils panicked from the sudden dip in loyalty among their scholars and workers.”

  The conversation continued on for a little while more, but Aum-La was given a respite; She had her brand new class tomorrow, and she needed to figure out what plan she wanted to start with.

  After bidding Mrs. Sneeder goodbye and choosing the plan that would best fit a bunch of new arrivals, she buttoned up her desk, double checked her files on the Qua-quid screen, then set off down the hallway towards her living quarters. These too were under the docket for refurbishment, but she didn’t mind the rather spartan layout.

  She had less on the long travel to Earth, and didn’t really need much anyway. She didn’t have a mate or lover, which left the large bed more than enough to sleep in. She ate at the food ring within the station, did her laundry at the washery, and really only needed the room to sleep.

  Aum-La showered, slathered on her moisturizers, then pulled on a baggy pair of sweatpants and looped the saddle-strap of the waistband over her thick, draconic tail. She pulled on a tank top, slipped on her station slippers, then reclined in bed with a cup of tea.

  With nothing else to really do, she picked up her data-slate, holding it in one hand while sipping on her tea; Caravan tea was her current favorite, as it reminded her of the forge, of heat, and burning metal.

  Since her hands were large, she could operate the data-slate with one hand, scrolling down until she found the flaming icon of the application she was after: Fire Light.

  Fire Light was a dating app of sorts that catered to all beings, though it was over eighty percent Human.

  Aum-La took a sip of her tea, and started scrolling through the long list of Human men that had found her profile that day.

  Her little profile picture was one of her at her old forge in her smithing apron, muscles rippling as she wielded a gravity hammer in order to pound scale-steel flat and thin. To her lack of surprise, she had the usual greetings: “What’s up dragon-mommy?”, “You’re tipping my scales!”, “Are you seeking a knight to vanquish you?”, and so on.

  The more she read, the less she wanted to keep doing it. She was not exactly fine with being lonely, but she wanted to have more than mere physical attraction. To Aum-La, the brief moments she had coupled with male Humans had been comparable to a fuel fire; Bright, passionate, but brief and unfulfilling.

  It did not fill her large heart with radiating comfort, it didn’t make it thrum with passion, it just… took the edge off, if just for a moment. Aum-La thought back to her most recent coupling, taking into her bed a rather tall Human with shortly shaved hair and the muscles only a welder could have.

  He had been thorough, but there wasn’t any… lingering warmth. He had done his duty, sure, and she had gotten what she had been after, but it felt like she had a side salad for dinner when she had the hunger for an entire meal.

  Aum-La sighed unhappily, resting the tip of her draconic nose on the edge of her cup, closing one set of eyes as she looked down at the data-slate.

  She was lonely. An absurd thing to say for a Skalathir in Human space, but it was true.

  She had spent months upon months reading Human romances, falling in a near obsessive love with finding a being of flesh and blood that could make her feel the same way those pages did. Aum-La had been, and still was, fascinated by the idea of someone who saw her from within, not just the strong muscles, curvy hips, and large chest that nearly all Skalathir were blessed with.

  Her good friend Alakaza was down in Georgia somewhere and was always tempting her with a visit, but the red-scaled Skalathir had been dabbling in so much Human flesh that she needed near weekly check ups. Alakaza was one of the few Skalathir females to have a small harem of Human males, something that Aum-La found deeply distasteful… if not disgusting.

  She felt bad enough as it was, taking a Human partner every month or so just to cure the boredom for a little while, but having a stable of the hairy beasts nearly made her stomach turn. Aum-La wanted something special, and real, not a gaggle of fancies to pass.

  Aum-La sadly sighed out as she came to the final message, just a slog of come-ons and corny pick-up lines, and she tossed her data-slate down onto her bedside table.

  She sat there on her bed, laying against her pillows as she stared up at the metal ceiling of her quarters; She had been lonely as an armor forger too, the male Skalathir finding her too honest, too blunt, too wordy. Human males didn’t care if she was mean directly to their faces, it didn’t stop them from trying to climb the mountains and play amongst the peaks, as Alakaza had once put it.

  Aum-La took the final sip from her cup and set it down beside her data-slate, wriggling her shoulders back and forth to sink further down into the little nest of pillows.

  Who would she want, anyway? The daring Human bad boy of dark moods? A gallant that opens the door for her and treats her as a queen? A rough and tumble country boy who farms all day and then comes later in the night to plant seed…

  She giggled at the last one; She had gotten into the more naughty novels favored by female Humans, and had found them quite entertaining. Humans in general told good stories, something that very few in the galaxy could actually manage. She ran her blue-scaled hands up and down her pale blue belly in thought, thinking back to one archetype she always found herself hounding after in books.

  The easy-going veteran.

  Aum-La smiled to herself as she laced her fingers together, remembering the many novels she had read involving such a type. They were hard, like her, blunt, honest, but weren’t so hard headed. So rigid.

  She just hoped she found one before her scales started to fray. Life was long for a Skalathir, but she was not the young age of forty anymore…

  Her sleep was a blink, a closing of eyes in the darkness, then opening them back to the darkness when her alarm went off.

  She didn’t feel rested at all, just wrapped up in warm blankets when another warm body was needed.

  Aum-La sighed and unfurled herself from her bed, grunting in annoyance as she slipped her tank top back over her exposed breasts; Human clothes of this type were really only made for male Humans, and while there were very little issues with female clothing, tank tops proved troublesome bedwear for a heavy chested Skalathir.

  Her alarm going off at 0700 meant she had an hour and a half before the class showed up, so she indulged herself in one of the lesser-appreciated Human food items; Oatmeal.

  Aum-La preferred hers with chocolate chips and cashews, enjoying it with a tall measure of black coffee. She had tried many foods of Earth, and was always surprised how it both tasted good, and offered her no distress of the organs. Eating Kafya nutritional bars had always made her feel painfully bloated, and Pwah grains gave her dreadful headaches.

  The same could not be said of Earth; She could drink a gallon of milk, eat a bowl of grains, then pound down four protein bars all without even a passive gurgle from her stomach. She enjoyed coffee most of all, though she loved the lighter roasts for their more delicate nature. The first week she had been aboard the station, she alone had drank thirty seven gallons of coffee, guzzling it down while working with her students.

  She also gained a rather odd addiction to yogurt, something she always ate at lunch with fresh fruit.

  With her breakfast finished, she took off her bed clothes and looked at herself in the mirror, turning on her draconic heel and toe to look at herself; She had lost some muscle weight since she wasn’t forging every day for weeks on end, and she still held her figure well. But, her butt had gotten a little larger despite the tuck at her waist, and that made her furrow her brows.

  Large posteriors were seen as a mark of the “lazy”, as the Skalathir must have been sitting down too much, not moving around while working in the forges or the shipyards. Aum-La ran her hands down her scale-smooth cheeks, clicking her tongue as she gave her rump a wobble with her fists.

  “Damn it all…” Aum-La muttered angrily, as she had been nearly nine inches smaller when she had first arrived. “I’m going to have to go to the gym more… at least now we have an all female one.”

  With an angry stomp of feet she ripped a pair of jeans off their hanger and slipped them on, though there was a little more tugging and pulling than she would have liked; She had been buying pants woven with spandex due to her bulky leg muscles, and they were starting to become quite bothersome in terms of pulling them over her haunches.

  She grabbed another sweater, a scarf, her favorite foot wrappings, and stepped out her quarter’s door.

  Much like the Kafya, Skalathir feet were not conducive to normal footwear; Kafya were able to wear “paw boots”, but the Skalathir had to settle with foot rappings made of leather and wool. They were still comfortable, and needingly warm in these cold station environments, but they were not nearly as convenient.

  The station, First Horizon, was always chilly, but that was a side effect of just floating in space; Its blue-flash star battery generated a ton of heat to power the station and its magnetic field, as well as power an artificial gravity well so they didn’t have to float everywhere, but some of that heat was passed around to try and keep the station warm. It barely kept the station at sixty seven UAA degrees, but it was better than nothing.

  The gravity was always the first thing students bitched about anyway; First Horizon was set at Earth gravity, while nearly all stations in the IDC functioned at maybe half of that.

  Aum-La found her new classroom, walked down to her desk, and sat down into it, tapping along a small pad. After ten minutes there was the chirrup of a delivery drone, the multi-armed automaton trundling down the stairs on its six wheels.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Good morning!” It trilled out with its electronic voice, pulling a vanilla latte from its heated compartment. “Vanilla latte for Aum-La!”

  Aum-La smiled at the little thing, taking the cup. “Thank you.”

  “Have fun with the new students!” It chirped out again, trundling back up the steps with rapid clunks before drifting around her open door to the hallway.

  “Oh, it’s one of the artificial beings!” Came a voice from the hallway, Aum-La looking up as she blew on the open spout of her large coffee drink.

  “Good morning!”

  “Good morning!” An apparently giggling crowd of students said, likely fresh off the shuttles that morning and having just gotten their birthings.

  “I must away!” The delivery drone called out dramatically, likely holding its arms to its chassis if Aum-La had to guess; The A.I. beings did love having fun. “There are quests to be done! Packages fetched! The hungry, fed!”

  The giggling and chatter continued as the drone likely sped off down the hallway, and the students turned the corner into the classroom. The first two, a pair of Pwah, halted in the doorway when they got their first look at Aum-La sipping on her coffee.

  “Whoa! A Skalathir!” The female yelled out, then actually pointed at Aum-La. “She’s huge!”

  Aum-La narrowed her eyes, staring right into the eyes of the Pwah, then activated her special little oddity. Some Skalathir, like Aum-La, were born with a niche gift of empacussive kinesis, or the ability to focus in on the nerves of other entities and cause them to fire.

  The female Pwah stumbled backwards like she had been stung, clutching the side of her head with a pained squeeze of the eyes. “Ow! What the fuck was that?!”

  “Rather advanced English acquisition…” Aum-La murmured to herself as the female Pwah rubbed at her head, looking around as if she was about to spot a turret that had hit her with a shock round.

  Aum-La raised her voice, leaning back in her chair. “With a quickness, please! Come inside and find a seat, there is much to go over.”

  The students filed in, looking around with wide eyes. A slew of these students were clearly fresh off the shuttles, likely having been cramming English language courses the entire way here and prattling off in it to get accustomed. English was, to many races, just above grunting and hooting in order to communicate, with even the Lilgara being able to pick it up within days and master it within weeks.

  The IDC was not enjoying how popular it was becoming, either.

  Aum-La spotted one of the Kafya that she had been waiting on, the bright yellow one that she had been reading about the day before.

  “She looks just like her sister…” Aum-La murmured, watching the yellow furred Kafya happily chat with a red Kafyan male walking along with her.

  When all were settled, Aum-La rose from her seat. “Good morning, and welcome to your introductory and supplementary learning courses to Earth and Humans. I am aware that many of you have not done one of these before, but that is due to the nature of Humans, and their planet. For instance,” Aum-La pointed to a female Pwah in front of her, one she knew was clearly a royal, “Do the Pwah keep planets in their natural state? Predators roaming free, food chain under the hands of its natural self?”

  “Well, no.” The Pwah replied, linking her fingers together and setting her hands on top of her shared desk top. “Once a planet is taken, we eradicate predators, nuisance animals, and automate pollination for maximized crop growth and zero risk to livestock.”

  “Excellent English.” Aum-La remarked, and the Pwah smiled smugly to herself as Aum-La continued on. “The same is said of all members of the IDC; All intelligent races clear a planet of problems regarding its natural state. They are made into highly controlled bio-spheres, planets only in name.”

  Aum-La tapped on her data-slate, turning on the Qua-quid screen on the wall with a soft hum of power. “Humans are the direct opposite.”

  The screen filled with images of Earth’s natural predators; Bears, lions, cougars, sharks, tigers, eagles, wolves, foxes, the entire spread a colorful mass of fangs and claws. Aum-La then tapped the slate to pull up the plethora of animals that lived on earth, ranging from the common yellow wasp to the massive moose.

  “Humans believe in leaving things in their natural states, as much as they can manage. Their forests are still wild, their jungles deep, and are filled with the same animals that called it home even a thousand years ago.” Aum-La remarked, gesturing widely to the screen. “Even now, if you go down to Earth and decide to go on a hike, you will see signs warning of wild predators that will be amongst you. If you swim in the ocean, you swim in the same waters as whales, sharks, barracuda, and large finned rays that glide in the currents. As you walk through their green prairies, you will be stepping amongst foxes, coyotes, hares, badgers, and deer alike. Earth is still wild, still raw, a planet that still bares its fangs.”

  A male Drafritti nodded to their partner, the two sharing soundless words as a nearby male Lilgara raised his clawed hand.

  “Miss La?” He asked, his hood flaring with the question. “Why do they keep their predators?”

  Aum-La smiled. “Because it is the way nature desired it to be. Humans do not see themselves as above nature but as another cog in it. Their planet made them, crafted them, fed them, and they seek to keep their planet the same as it was during their evolution. A Human takes an extreme interest in their planet of birth, almost treating it as a larger parent.”

  She tapped at her data-slate, pulling up a picture of another planet. “This is ‘Goldilocks’, a planet currently under colonisation by Humans as their first, true secondary planet. This planet had been cleared by the Pwah as an act of friendship, but do you know what the Humans did after the Pwah scrubbed it clean?”

  There was silence in response for Aum-La, and she nodded.

  “They filled it.” Aum-La said, pulling up more images of Goldilocks. The Qua-quid screen filled with the images of bees probing at alien flowers, imported deer and elk grazing on high mountainsides, and wolves stalking through bushes of red and yellow flowers.

  “They brought life back to the planet. Hundreds of millions of bees were imported, hundreds of thousands of deer, elk, goat, moose, wolves, foxes, hawks, falcons, chickens and cows, they injected life back into the planet. This was only after they searched far and wide for anything still alive and native to Goldilocks, only discovering a small handful of native species that need to still be nurtured.” Aum-La said, pulling up an image of a Human nursing a ramalok pup, a canine species that had a small horn on their nose and shaggy fur the color of the deep wood. “The ‘bothersome’ plant species were replaced with Earthen species, oak trees and maples growing rapidly along with the stocks of animals. Earthen fish now swim in waters not of their native spawning grounds, breathing nature back into a planet that had been scrubbed clean. As Goldilocks is the same gravity of Earth, and also why the Pwah did not want it, it is now being heralded as a second Earth, a second home to grow Humans.”

  A green male Kafya raised his hand, his ears perked. “But I thought the Humans were… you know, war-like and all that. Why do they bother with fostering and safekeeping their planets? The Ur stripped entire worlds clean of resources, so what’s stopping the Humans?”

  “Humans have a keen love and respect of life.” Aum-La replied without delay, nodding to the Kafya so he would put his paw-hand down. “One thing I have found, and use constantly, is the ‘spider test’. What percentage of a race would crush, or spare, a spider.”

  Aum-La pulled up her charts quickly, requiring a few more taps on her data-slate to find the file. “I had conducted this study a while back during my early years of teaching. I took a hundred students of every race, and presented them with an Earthen spider, one by one, with a cup and piece of paper also sitting on the table.”

  The file slowly scrolled through images or videos of Kafya, Pwah, Lilara, Kojynn, and Drafritti either smashing or running away from the spiders, with a particularly long video of a brown female Kafya screaming and shimmying up a pipe to avoid the hairy, eight legged creature.

  “No one attempted to move the spider. They either destroyed the spider or ran from it, as our cultures have been taught to remove lesser beings that cause issues, or ones that are not becoming of our happiness.” Aum-La explained, rolling her hand in front of her as she spoke. “I conducted this test with beetles and mantis, pictured above.”

  At the sight of the mantis, many of the students drew back with wide eyes, but Aum-La expected that.

  “To my lack of surprise, the same results occurred.” She said, prepping her next set of files. “Do you want to know what Humans did?”

  Silence once again answered her, so she pulled up fifteen videos. She let them play without comment, watching along with the students as all the Humans took the cup, placed it over the spider, beetle, or mantis, slid the paper under, and carried the insect from the room.

  “You may think this is because Humans are used to their insects, something I considered, so I did the experiment again with the uvash-kan beetle.” Aum-La said, pointing to the twelve legged, horned, and pincered creature that was the uvash-kan beetle. “We all know these little terrors; Flesh eating beetles that are a bothersome creature on ships, as they feed on other pests that make their homes aboard. They grow up to three inches in length, have pincers that can cut flesh, et cetera, we all know why we don’t like the uvash-kan beetle.”

  Aum-La played the videos, watching along as Humans tilted their heads at the beetle, wiggled their finger at it so it reared up and clacked its pincers at them, then just… observed the beetle for a moment. “They are curious. They do not run, they do not kill it, they just want to understand what it is.”

  The Humans on the video then grabbed the cup, scooped up the beetle, then put the paper on top before moving it back outside where the handlers were waiting in hiding.

  “Just the same as their own.” Aum-La said with a smile. “Over ninety percent of Humans would spare an insect such as a spider, even if they have a phobia of the creature. They understand the benefits of most creatures, and are a well of compassion in the desert of our modern, known galaxy.”

  Aum-La always liked this part; Everyone only saw Humans as these monsters, beasts for hire that destroy the other monsters that bother the IDC.

  She had more to show them, but that came after the questions.

  “But…” A male Pwah stammered out, looking around at the other students who sat beside him. “Miss La… Humans?”

  Aum-La chuckled, she really did enjoy the “first contact face” new students had. Civilians were the same way when other teachers taught more brief courses, but it was always the best out of the younger generations.

  “Yes, out of the mean, scary Humans. The Humans, who on the Jendella Impact Scale are a thirteen out of fifteen despite being neither insectoid, cyborg, swarm, or hive mind. Humans, who when pushed to the very edge of their limits, beat their invading enemies to death with their own bare hands and museum artifacts. Humans, who despite only just coming off of their Resurrection Directive, launched out once again in defense of the innocent and destroyed a threat that casted a shadow over the entire Inner Dolcir Coalition.” Aum-La smiled at them all as they stared at her, lowering the tone of her voice as she pointed up at the female Human escorting a spider from her home. “Humans, who despite eradicating one star race and rendering another a footnote in history, will still place a cup over a spider, and take it to the bushes outside.”

  “But… I’ve seen recordings of things they did during the war…” A pink male Kafya murmured, looking up at the recording of a Human child scooping a massive tarantula onto a sweeping pan. “The R.I.S. Battalions that just… pulled people apart! I’ve seen the landing recordings of Humans sweeping through Ur like someone was pouring a bucket of water on cut grass!”

  Aum-La nodded. “Yes, it is usually a bit of a shock for way-worlders. You are shown the recordings, you hear all the prattling about how scary Humans are, you build this image up in your head. No one tells you the nuance to our kind boogymen, these hairless, scaleless brutes that can cleave a world in half but then halt their armored cars to help children across the road.”

  “This is by far the most confusing and hardest thing to understand about Humans.” Aum-La intoned, pressing play on a large video file. It played along, showing Humans rescuing animals, running to help those of the Confederation who were in need of it, planting back saplings lost during a ship-impact on the planet Connocord, the doctors who put all their energy in learning not one, but seven different forms of biology and anatomy. “Their depth. The learning curve to Humans dwarfs others, even when combined. They have immense strength, what appears to be a deep well of rage, the ability to do things that others cannot, all while having just as much compassion, love, and attachment. For instance, there are Drafritti here in this classroom.”

  Aum-La gestured around her to the scattered black, gray, pink, and gold Drafritti. “They don’t even have to take these classes, they do so to avoid special attention. Do you not?”

  “We’r instr’acted to.” A male gray Drafritti replied, all of them nodding their heads along with him.

  “Why?” Aum-La asked, already smiling as all the Drafritti giggled to each other.

  The gray male rolled his eyes. “Avay’d gatt’n spoil’t…”

  “The Humans treat Drafritti like they are Human themselves, taking them whole parcel.” Aum-La said, smoothing down the belly of her sweater and half lidding her eyes. “Same for anyone whom they take a liking to. Many of we Skalathir enjoy the same rights as Humans, same as the Drafritti… and same as a few others down below on Earth in the military.”

  Aum-La flicked her four, half lidded eyes towards a particular yellow Kafya, and saw with some satisfaction that the Kafya’s ears perked up at the last of her words.

  I see… Aum-La thought to herself as she tapped on her data-slate. Someone is wondering how their sister is doing…

  “To better understand how deep Humans go, we’ll start with their history.” Aum-La said, starting into the first leg of the history section. “We will touch on their early years and move through quite steadily, but we will spend more time on their war of survival against the Pactless, and how it fueled their war fever during their actions against the Ur.”

  —

  Rhidi stared down at the search bar of her data-slate, the moon beaming in through the barracks windows.

  “Resurrection Dire|”

  Did she really want to know? She hadn’t learned about it during her classes when she first arrived, but Shorsey had said it as if it were an open secret. The thought had been bugging her all day, rolling around in her head like a stuck song, and she had been trying to sleep for nearly two hours now without success.

  Rhidi chewed on her lip as she glanced out through the windows at the pale stars, then went back to tapping with her padded fingers.

  “Resurrection Directive - Search?...”

  Rhidi tapped the button for the pad to execute her search, and a single link appeared on her results.

  “Resurrection Directive: Humanity’s Honored Fallen”

  Then something odd began to happen, as the link went dead and a small symbol appeared next to it. The symbol changed a few times, but in just a few breaths the symbol went away, and the link changed.

  “Resurrection Directive: Humanity’s Honored Fallen (Alien Version)”

  “Alien version?” Rhidi muttered to herself in a whisper, tapping on the link. The link opened up onto her data-slate as an audio file, and she quickly retrieved her inner-ear buds from her pants pocket, slipping them into her tall Kafyan ears.

  A drawling male voice began to play in her ears, and Rhidi slowly raised her head enough to peek at the firewatch table, making sure they were still poking along at their own data-slates; Despite being fully soldiers, their Drill Sergeants were still in command, and that still meant firewatches.

  “Good evening, or whatever time of day it may be.” The male voice said, an accent from the obviously more cowboyish region of the UAA main states. “One way or another, you have been given access to the unedited, abridged explanation of the Resurrection Directive. You may have heard my voice before in an earlier version, a far more sanitized and easier to stomach edition of the Resurrection Directive’s history.”

  Rhidi perked up her ears to this, wondering if that was why her loading bar was being so odd. She kept a steady eye on the firewatch desk as the voice continued on in her ears.

  “After the war with the Pactless, and during the evaluations of recovery, the favored weapon of the Pactless had provided a major headache. It was a gas-pellet weapon that caused many Humans to succumb to a coma. We later learned after contact with the Kojynn that this was a harvesting weapon that caused cardiac arrest in living entities, as the Pactless fed off of nearly all sentient beings and did not want to risk ruining their possible meal. It was not formulated for a being as tough as Humans, it seemed, so it only put us into a deep sleep. Despite our rapid advancements in medical technology after the war, we could not rouse these victims of the harvesting guns, all of them relying on round the clock care. This became crushingly expensive, as hundreds of thousands of Humans had fallen victim to this state.”

  Rhidi tried to imagine that, hundreds of thousands of people requiring manual feeding, cleaning, changing, wiping, bathing… it made her heart hurt.

  “This compounded the issue of repopulating as well, as hundreds of thousands of Humans were not able to assist in child creation, birthing, and rearing, all while taking away resources better spent on the future of Humankind. This required a hard choice, one not made lightly, and we set forth under the charges of the Resurrection Directive.”

  Rhidi saw one of the troopers on firewatch stand up, and she quickly rolled down onto the cold tile floor, leaving her pillow under her blankets as a body-shaped lump.

  “Under the Resurrection Directive, we began harvesting our fellow Humans. You may not know it yet, but Human females only have a set number of eggs they have through their lives, and Human male sperm lose effectiveness over time. With many of the elderly and young perishing during the war, that left over ninety percent of victims to the harvesting pellets in their prime breeding age.”

  Rhidi did not like the usage of the word “harvest”, and frowned as she watched the firewatchman walk to the bathroom.

  “It was not an easy decision to make, but between the amount of time and materials it took to keep our fallen brethren alive, they risked crippling an already shaky recovery. Using recovered technology from our war with the Pactless and our own medical expertise, we created Gaia’s Bundle, an artificial womb that would carry a Human child from the third week of creation, all the way to term. Genetic material was taken from the coma-stricken victims; First we started by harvesting the wombs and eggs from the fallen women, then harvesting the testicles from the fallen men. It was still far too difficult to create a child purely inside the Gaia’s Bundles… so we had to make do with starting them out in the recovered wombs.”

  Rhidi felt her stomach tighten at the thought of having her womb stolen from her body and used to grow children. Even to her, a highly advanced race of the stars, she could barely wrap her mind around such a thing.

  “We were not proud of what we had to do, but it was a very… tense time, after the war. We had been invaded, and decimated, looking into the sky with a worried brow each time a star streaked overhead. We began creating suits of combat armor, forging war ships… and creating life. First we kept close track of names and familial lineages, marking every sperm cluster and every egg with a distinct digital tag that told of their original source. Once an egg was impregnated, it was kept safe and growing within a womb kept in stasis, fed enriched blood through a complicated system in order to keep it alive.”

  Rhidi felt her stomach turn, as she could not help but imagine long racks of wombs tapped and coiled with tubes, all being kept alive for the sole purpose of allowing life to grow.

  “At times, these wombs would sustain three to five fetuses, and each womb could only provide the starting days for a hundred or so future children. When the womb could no longer be kept alive, it was buried with full military honors alongside its body, which was kept in cold storage. The same was said of the testicles, as they would eventually empty, and each tombstone is marked with the children each harvested body produced. Once a fetus had grown enough to be safely moved to a Gaia’s Bundle, it was then enclosed within the artificial womb and allowed to grow. These were kept at the perfect temperature and fed a pure source of food, allowing the fetus to grow into a fully formed child. At the peak of the Resurrection Directive’s operations, birthing facilities were churning out three hundred children per day, flooding the world with the future of Humanity. Families were tasked with raising these children, naturally, and these children carried on with themselves a legacy born from the dead, the resurrection of familial lines and the genetic material of those who would have never met.”

  Rhidi blinked down at her data-slate as the audio file played; What would it have been like, being a child of two long dead people. Your parents would be victims of an alien invasion, never knowing each other, never having the happy memories of meeting, a marriage, the classic growth of being a creation of love.

  In all regards, these children of the dead and damned were created out of need, not love, not… affection. The Kafya were not going to be finishing in first place when it came to that regard, but the parents still met, still talked, were able to share the bond of genetic origin to genetic future.

  “When the recovered reproductive elements ran dry, and all were buried with ceremony beside their origin Human, the Resurrection Directive had produced well over three hundred million children in the United States alone, all born from the genetic material of the long dead and passed. Numbers varied country to country, of course, though the numbers became a little muddled as Canada and the United States combined themselves into a mega-nation. These children carried with them the names of their parents in a dual hyphen, so that neither dead parent would be forgotten. When the last fully grown child had left the last occupied Gaia’s Bundle, the Resurrection Directive was shut down in its current state. Now, around the time you are listening to this and are likely mortified, we have perfected not only the Gaia’s Bundle, but also know how to make a womb last four times as long. Even now, as you listen, organ donors who die at the proper age are harvested and kept under medical freezing, with sperm and eggs not only collected from the dead, but also from the living. Any member of the UAA military is harvested for genetic resurrection if required, and their bloodline survival is included within their health insurance. During processing male Humans will provide multiple donations of sperm, while female Humans have roughly twenty to thirty eggs harvested. These are all kept in perfect stasis within the medical catacombs of the Resurrection Directive headquarters.”

  Rhidi placed a hand to her lower stomach, then looked down at herself as the firewatchman went back to his seat.

  Were they supposed to harvest her ovum? She didn’t remember them offering to, let alone remembering any kind of procedure… but the idea did peak her interest; They could preserve her.

  The idea had never occurred to her at all; She could die in the military, and she had never given a child in any shape or form. If she were to die on a drop or have an accident… her genetic line stopped right there at the end of her dead feet.

  “Currently the Resurrection Directive is only used for the long term care of children born from deceased military personnel, and is currently winding down from their production of children from the war against the Ur. Gaia’s Bundles are used in hospitals when required, such as early births, but no resurrections have occured at the same scale as the Pactless invasion. You are likely quite turned off by the idea of using the body parts of the dead to create children, but you must understand that we did not do this lightly. If we had not, we surely would not have had the manpower to assist the IDC in their war against the Ur, and the lack of manpower would have further delayed our assistance. The one thing you must learn, above all else, is the drive we Humans have to achieve victory. ‘Victory at any cost’ is not merely a saying, but a mentality that we adhere to, even in the darkest of nights or brightest of days. We would not blame you if your ideas or fancies about us changed after just hearing this little bit, but we appreciate your understanding if you can allow us to have it. If you have heard enough you can end the recording here, but if you wish to understand more of our philosophies, continue with the recording. There will be a ten second moment of silence for you to consider your options.”

  Rhidi tapped on her tablet, speeding past the moment of silence with a sway of her tail.

  “If you are hearing this, it means you have a desire to know more.” The voice said, clearly pleased. “Before you ask, yes, we can keep the ovum and other genetic material of the other races of the stars, you just have to file the appropriate paperwork. Our fastidious adherence to the Resurrection Directive is not out of pure desire, but a need to keep life safe. It would not be fair for a soldier to fall in battle and risk never creating a child of their genetic code, the same as it would have been for the victims of the Pactless weapons. We do this for all creatures, from wolves to mice, as we strive to keep nature moving, safe, and continuing. We do not clone, as we like to keep things as natural as possible, allowing things to grow as they would within their mother’s womb. We do not put down these Gaia’s Bundle born children as not being proper, or normal, but they are revered as survivors, as a beacon of the enduring Human spirit to live on despite what the stars may throw at us. Let us begin on how the process is done, and we can move on to how long genetic material can survive in the medical catacombs…”

  —

  “Everyone got your paperwork?” Rhidi called out without looking up from her clipboard, still scribbling down in the English language.

  A chorus of Kafya voices rang in the affirmative, some of them more nervous than the others.

  “Do you think this is really needed, Rhidi?” Imridit asked as she held her paper filled clipboard in quivering hands, her pink furred tail shaking as it protruded out of her black grunge jeans. “We could always just, you know, not do it.”

  Rhidi signed the last line, and was rather enjoying writing things down on paper with a pen. She stood up, slapping the side of her jeans with her free hand. “Yes, we’re doing it, all of us.”

  “The females have the harder part of this.” Shaksho said with a flick of his green furred ears, smoothing down the front of his crisp gray shirt. “We males just have to put ourself into a machine and it does the entire thing for us.”

  Oin grimaced. “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to how they retrieve our ovum…”

  “Would you all rather die and never get to pass on your genetic line?” Rhidi asked them aloud as she handed her clipboard to a nearby attendant.

  Shaksho turned and looked at the males, while Rhidi looked at the females, and there was a long stretch of silence that came in answer.

  “That’s that then.” Shaksho said, nudging Rhidi with his elbow. “Did they tell you how I got Hohrlihl?”

  Rhidi rolled her eyes. “I have to admit getting the highest bowling score kinda pales in comparison to what I did, but I suppose if it works, it works.”

  “Hey, it was impressive.” Shaksho answered with a grin. “I even figured out how to curve the ball.

  “How impressive indeed.” Rhidi said dryly, then clapped her hands. “Alright Khominiri, on your feet, time to let the Humans play crane games with our wombs.”

  Shaksho clapped his hands as well. “Hohrworan! Time to get jerked off by a robot!”

  “Do you have to say jerked off by a robot?” An orange male Kafya said as he stood, his face a mask of disgust. “Honestly it’s weird enough knowing what lays beyond those doors…”

  “Not as weird as knowing an A.I. is going to be doing it.” Shaksho said with a wink, then belly laughed as all the male Kafya hissed or made audible noises of revulsion.

  Oin blinked at that, then looked at Rhidi as she walked past the yellow Kafya. “Suddenly, I prefer our position.”

  “You should.” Rhidi replied with a smirk. “I know for a fact that the male Humans lied to Shaksho about the robots…”