First Contact

Chapter 227: (Hesstla)

The big robot hurtled into the store, sliding, tearing up tile and plascrete with its claws as it slid to a stop in front of Dambree and her siblings. Tow big tubes attacked to belts popped up out of its back and a hazy curtain of dim light appeared in front of it. The flier jerked back, raising its tentacles, the feeling of malevolent glee vanishing and turning into something that tasted bitter, like ash, on Dambree's tongue.

It roared, opening its jaws and vomiting out greenish fire. The two tubes on the back roared, brass casings flying free, as solid shafts of light connected the new robot to the flier. The flier began jerking, explosions across the front. The lenses and the spotlights shattered, the tentacles blew free, and the flier blew backwards as fire gouted out of the top.

"SIMBA IS HERE!" the new robot repeated over the roar of BRRRRRRRT!

A port opened up on the back left leg and a tube dropped out. The big four legged robot gave a roar of triumph and bounded away, disappearing through the glass and into the night.

The tube made an odd noise. Almost like 'mew' to Dambree's shocked ears. She turned from staring out at the night and looked at the tube in time to see it grow a head and four legs, a tail popping up. It was like the big black one, only smaller and made of shiny metal like durachrome. Little whiskers popped out near its nose as it moved over to Dambree, who pulled her feet back at the touch of the little robot's whiskers.

Her siblings were crying, holding their ears, as the little shiny robot moved next to the them and began rubbing itself against their ankles as it moved back and forth, rubbing against them all. After a moment Tru giggled.

"It tickles," she laughed. She picked up the candybar and began chewing on it.

Dambree watched as the little robot moved up to her legs and began licking the scrapes and scratches, leaving behind what looked like shiny saliva. The scratches hurt for a second, then tickled and went numb.

'mew mew mew' the little robot said. It gave itself a shake and seemed to grow fur, looking like a munskra, a little furry pet that many of the wealthier Hesstlin had. It moved into Tru's lap and began making a rumbling noise.

That was fine. Dambree wasn't afraid of it any more. She'd always liked robots, and she'd just been saved by a big robot that had left the little one behind.

Dambree got up slowly, looking around for what she was after.

The shelf with the dataslates had been knocked over, most of the dataslates shattered when they had hit the floor. She found one that still had power and turned it on, tucking it into the waistband of her modesty wrap as she looked around again. She found the shirt-printer but the power was gone, the screen shattered, and the liquid plas leaking out of the side to form a puddle on the floor that was sticky as she nudged it with a toe.

"SIMBA IS HERE!" echoed through the night. Repeated from several other directions.

"We need to get moving," Dambree told her siblings.

"Can I take the mewmew?" Tru asked.

Dambree smiled and nodded. She liked the mewmew. She'd always liked little robots and she liked the mewmew most of all. "Sure. Grab some nibbles, a sippy, and lets go," Dambree told them. She came over and picked up Punee, moving back to the car.

Her siblings followed her, Tru holding the mewmew, which was loose in her arms like it wasn't solid, forming a U on her arms, the front and back legs nearly dragging on the ground as it continued to rumble.

Dambree tucked Punee back into her wadded shirt, which smelled like baby mess, popping the tab on another milky and waiting for it to warm up. When it was warm she gave it to Punee and made sure the baby was curled up on her side, sucking on the bottle. Tru and Elu got in, sitting on the floorboards, munching on their nibbles. The mewmew curled up with Punee, still making the rumbling noise.

Dambree unhooked the charging cable, ignored the flashing of "PLEASE PAY INSIDE", got in the car, and turned it on. She looked around, wondering where they were.

After a moment she realized it didn't matter where they were, they just had to go somewhere. In the fields the way she had came and to the right there were fliers sweeping the grain fields with searchlights only to be hit with lights that Dambree knew now were guns from the backs of those fast and aggressive robots.

She put it in forward and pulled out onto the dirt road, driving slowly through the darkness. Lights were still streaking down from the sky. Sometimes the object exploded, making more light falling, sometimes the light stopped and Dambree wondered if the object had vanished or stopped burning, other times the object got much brighter before dropping below the horizon or the level of the grain.

The car was still moving, the engine still whining, and she reached out and grabbed a bottle from the case she had put next to her.

She knew her mother and father wouldn't have approved as she popped the top open and took a long drink.

The carbonated alcohol drink was cool and fizzy as she gulped down half the bottle.

The dirt road wound through the grain fields, the only sound was distant explosions, the rumbling of the mewmew, and eventually soft snoring from her siblings.

When she was sure they were all asleep she pulled off in a wide spot, leaving the car idling as she got out. She threw the empty bottle of fizzbrew into the grain, sat on the front of the car, put her face in her hands, and cried.

She felt the furry body of the mewmew wind around her ankles and sat down in the dirt. She felt stupid. Out in the dark, in a car that used to belong to a boyfriend who got his brains sucked out by a giant robot, no shirt, no brassiere, no pants, no shoes, no wallet. She petting the rumbling mewmew as it rubbed itself against her shins.

The dataslate she'd pushed into the waistband of her panties made a pinging noise. Curious, she slid it out and looked at it. It shouldn't have been unlocked or activated since she hadn't run it through the register, but the screen was on.

A triangular head, with triangle ears, big eyes, and whiskers, all made of code, looked at her.

mewmew appeared on the slate at the same time as the mewmew made the noise she had named it after.

She looked down. "Are you doing that?"

The mewmew head had sparkles and ribbons spray form behind it on the screen.

PATIENT ONE: FEMALE HESSTLIN, 14 YEARS OF AGE, MINOR LACERATIONS AND CONTUSIONS, SEVERE CONTUSION (RIGHT SHOULDER), DAMAGED CARTILAGE (RIGHT SHOULDER), BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL 0.017%

PATIENT TWO: FEMALE HESSTLIN, 9 YEARS OF AGE, MINOR LACERATIONS AND CONTUSIONS, MINOR SCALP SWELLING

PATIENT THREE: MALE HESSTLIN, 11 YEARS OF AGE, MINOR LACERATIONS AND CONTUSIONS

PATIENT FOUR: FEMALE HESSTLIN, 7 MONTHS OF AGE, GAS AND MINOR DIAPER RASH, RUNNY NOSE FROM POLLEN INHALATION, THREE TEETH EXITING GUMLINE

END MEDICAL REPORT

She blinked at the information, then looked at the mewmew again, tapping the screen. "You did this? You're... a doctor?"

The mewmew on the screen had a nurse's hat fall from offscreen onto its head and a thermometer appear in its mouth.

"A.. a nurse?" Dambree asked.

The mewmew on the dataslate had a green checkmark appear in each eye.

"I don't know what to do," Dambree said, hoping the little robot had an idea.

A picture of a flier and a stilter appeared on the slate with a small cartoon car driving away really fast.

"Run away? That's your suggestion?" Dambree said, shaking her head. "Well, I guess I'm getting that right."

The mewmew head reappeared on the dataslate, the eyes replaced with cartoon beating hearts.

The streaks of light and fire were raining down on the fields again, some of them brightening up. Some of them were shooting at each other.

An aircraft went by really low, low enough that the thruster-wash ruffled her fur. She could see the Terran Space Force logo of a hand crushing a planet on the wings. It was followed by a half dozen, all of them moving so fast that she barely heard them before they went by.

The dataslate had an image of the car driving, leaving behind a cloud of dust.

"You're probably right, mewmew," Dambree said. She picked up the mewmew and went back to the car, setting the mewmew down then getting in right afterwards. She sighed, picking up the heavy pistol and putting it in her lap before putting the car in forward and pressing on the pedal.

She began driving through the darkness, any intersections taking the ones that led her away from the falling lights and the burning grain. She could see the red from where the grain fields were catching on fire, where the fighting was still going.

The road suddenly intersected with a paved road with the induction coils and she stared at the black plascrete for a long time. Cars were going by, slowly moving to the right and left, each of them fleeing toward where the others had fled. Some cars had baggage on top of them, some had broken windows. She could see car windows with children's faces pressed against them. See where some doors had been torn off. In the middle median people were walking, two lines, each walking the other direction. She could see people crying, see kids holding onto parents, see children walking alone.

Dambree had no idea what lay in either direction.

Across the street were more fields.

She moved the car out, ignoring the people slamming on their brakes and honking their horns, moving slowly across the first lane and into the shoulder. People turned to stare as she moved up the median and waited.

The line paused and she moved slowly through it.

"Everyone looks so hopeless, mewmew," she said softly.

The crowd screamed as another pair of aircraft whipped by, their noseguns hammering, back the way Dambree had come from. Some people ran into traffic. Horns honked and cars swerved, one car hitting several of the people walking. People began screaming as another flight of aircraft screamed by overhead, several of them firing off missiles that went hypersonic within meters, the loud ka-RACK echoing through the night.

The missiles hit fliers that had been sneaking through the darkness, illuminating them. Four exploded, but there was over a score more. They all hit their searchlights, the wide lenses glittering, all of them with at least one blue globe, their tentacles snaking out and graspers snapping.

The crowd and the drivers panicked.

Dambree was almost through the crowd when a car swerved, plowing into the crowd, slamming into the back passenger side of the car, spinning it slightly. She looked over to see a screaming male Hesstlin pinned between her car and the front of the other car.

Someone grabbed at her, trying to yank her out. She looked over and saw a male, grabbing her arm with one hand and the steering wheel with the other. His eyes were wild, panicked.

"JUST GIVE ME THE CAR, YOU LITTLE BITCH!" he screamed.

The first of the fliers had reached the highway, tentacles ripping people out of the windows, out of the tops of the cars. Some rushed forward on stuttering thrusters, reaching out and grabbing the fleeing members of the screaming crowd.

"No! GET OFF!" Dambree said, pulling back at the waist.

"GET OUT!" the male screamed, yanking her hard. Something popped in her elbow and fiery pain went up her arm. Other people in the crowd were reaching into the car, trying to grab at her, grabbing at her supplies in the back, trying to grab the steering wheel. All she could see were howling mouths, wide eyes, and grasping hands.

Dambree grabbed the pistol, holding it out at the male grabbing onto her, who was being joined by two more, even more coming up behind them.

"You don't have the..." the male started to sneer, reaching for the pistol.

Dambree pressed the firing stud.

The pistol gave a loud WHAK!, the recoil hurting her wrist, the mag-coils flaring with orange light for a second.

She didn't notice any of that.

The man's upper body exploded into scraps of flesh that sprayed the people behind him. One arm sailed into the air, trailing blood, the other arm spun away. The male behind him that was reaching for Dambree went down with his entire chest blown out.

The mewmew jumped up and fired little sparkling fireworks that poured red smoke from them out of its mouth, out through the window, and into the crowd. People started coughing, moving back from the smoke, but others didn't care and rushed into it.

She swept the pistol around, firing twice in front of her at the people rocking the front of her car, even as she stomped on the accelerator. The round grazed a female trying to pry the hood up, tearing off her arm. The other one took the mag-ac round to the stomach and was blown in half, blood and gore showering around him. The round kept going, killing one or two people behind them, injuring others.

The car lurched forward, bumping over people in the way. One screamed and went under the front, but Dambree didn't care. She managed to get the car across the street and into the grain field, bounding into the ruts, leaving the crowd and the highway behind.

She was crying again, the pistol in her lap, her arm dangling by her side, driving with one hand. Her forearm and hand tingled numbly and her elbow felt like it was broken. She couldn't believe she had done that. Her mind kept replaying the way the one holding onto her had exploded into shreds.

The mewmew climbed up on her lap and nuzzled her arm. After a moment it went numb around the elbow, the fiery pain going away. A few moments later she felt its little legs wrap tight around her biceps and then around her forearm. She slowed the car and looked down just in time to see the mewmew somehow lengthen.

Her elbow gave a loud pop and feeling came back.

The mewmew jumped back on her lap.

She started crying as she slowly moved through the field, the grain rattling and whipping the bottom of the car.

It wasn't fair. Why did the Slorpys have to attack? Why did they have to kill her boyfriend, her parents, all those people? Why couldn't they have just left her and her people alone?

She was snuffling as the sun slowly rose.

She was getting more and more tired. The stimfizzes weren't helping, even though she chugged two. Her limbs were heavy with exhaustion, her eyes felt gritty, and her ears were drooping.

The sun had just cleared the horizon when the car suddenly left the grain and slowly whirred onto a carefully manicured lawn.

In front of her was a two story house, big and sprawling. Farm machinery was scattered around, there was clothing gently waving in the breeze, hung from suspended lines. The house was painted blue with white edges.

She could see the holes in the roof and the broken windows from the Slorpys.

This should be safe. They've already been here, she thought to herself, carefully steering the car around to the front.

"Stay here," she told her siblings, who responded by snoring.

She got out of the car slowly, picking up the pistol, which felt much heavier in her hand, and walked toward the door.

She wasn't sure if she was hoping there was grownups in it or not.

So far, my luck hasn't been too good, she thought to herself as she walked up the porch, trying to be quiet.

She pulled open the screen door, bracing it with one bare foot, then turned the handle on the door. It opened up, revealing a dark and shadowed front room. She moved inside the house.

The doors slowly swung shut behind her and closed.