FieryKathy

  We flew close over the treetops towards the camp our allies had set up. It was definitely Itami trying to show off a little but he was good enough of a pilot to make it seem more risky than it actually was. So much so that a couple of the marines and I decided to just sit down at the edge of the open doors, with our legs dangling outside. Of course we were still magnetically attached to the floor though. We weren’t that reckless. Even though Warrant Officer Itami was a very skilled pilot, some sudden turbulence could still shake the shuttle enough to throw one of us out.

  In any case, when we got above the settlement, Itami gained some more altitude for a moment so we could get a very nice view out of the doors of the settlement down below. It surprised me how big it had gotten. We dropped a couple of prefab buildings down with them but those were only good for about a sixth of the buildings we saw below. The rest had been built with a mixture of natural resources and ptes produced by the synthesizers, but from the looks of it, the engineering looked superb. Very clearly a mixture of both the Dokazuuk and Human construction methods. A bit of a HumDok fusion as you would.

  Once we had circled the settlement twice, Itami set us down right outside of the perimeter of the base, on a small deforested patch of nd, presumably prepared for further expansions. The team of marines and I quickly dismounted after which we helped the scientist disembark as well. At the same time the second shuttle nded behind ours.

  Within two minutes we were all out of the shuttles and I commanded our pilots to shut off the engines for now so we didn’t waste any energy unnecessarily. By that time, the first of our ‘colonists’ had also walked over to come and welcome us.

  “Commander.” A couple of the human colonists saluted me as I stepped towards them. Of course I saluted them back.

  “At ease.” I smiled and lowered my salute, which they did too in response. “How has life been here since we left? Not too many issues I hope.”

  “Rather good, Commander. Weather has been good. Crops have been growing. It’s actually been rather boring, in a good way.” The Corporal replied.

  “We saw that the settlement has expanded quite a bit.”

  “It has, but the pnning committee can tell you more about that than we can. We mostly do security.” The weapons they were carrying looked well-maintained.

  “Hasn’t been too necessary I suppose.”

  They shook their heads. “We exist for the same reason you came down with weapons too, Commander. Better have security and not need it rather than the other way around.”

  “Well said.” I smiled and looked past the little security detail. “Could you bring me to the pnning committee you talked about?”

  “We can.” The Corporal nodded. “Although the main driving force of the committee is not present at the moment, I heard they have been called back but it might take them another fifteen minutes before they get back.”

  “Is it Jacky perhaps?” I asked.

  “It is, Commander. The Dokazuuk know their stuff when it comes to building things. Would be crazy not to elect him to lead the committee. Of course there’s some humans in the committee too, but most of the pnning is organized by Jacky and his compatriots.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  The couple of security guards guided us to one of the central buildings of the settlement. On the way there we met a couple of both human and Dokazuuk colonists, and one colonist in particur that was a lot smaller than the others. A Dokazuuk baby from what I could tell being held by its parents.

  “Wait a minute… This is new.” I halted in my tracks immediately. The parents beckoned me to hold their child. “Can I?”

  “Of course, you are the hero who saved our people!” They said in the Dokazuuk nguage.

  “They said…”

  “I understood.” I smiled at my would-be transtor and then received the baby into my arms after quickly slinging my gun on my back. “I’m actually rather fluent in their nguage now. Took me a while though.”

  The Corporal nodded happily.

  “Hey there, little one, what’s your name?” I spoke in Dokazuuk and looked down at the swaddled child in my arms.

  “We named her Lauren.” One of the parents replied proudly in a somewhat broken, yet perfectly clear to understand English.

  I looked up in shock. “No, you didn’t…”

  “Yes we did.” The parent replied. “As said before, you saved our people.”

  “I wasn’t the only one…”

  “Human names in general have become somewhat popur with the Dokazuuk popution.” The Corporal expined.

  “Wait, you mean to tell me there’s more children?”

  “We are getting to seven now, I think.” One of the other soldiers replied. “This was the fifth child, wasn’t she?”

  The parents nodded.

  “Oh damn.”

  “We don’t carry our babies as long as you humans do.”

  “Apparently not.” I smiled and looked back down at the baby. It used one of its four small hands to py with the palm of my free hand.

  “Can we take a picture to show our daughter when she gets older?”

  “Of course, of course. Go ahead.” I smiled and waited while they fetched their modified holo stick and took a picture of me and the child.

  “Thank you. We will treasure this.”

  “I think you should treasure this one more than the picture.” I winked and carefully handed the child back to her parents.

  We said goodbye as I couldn’t linger for too long. I wasn’t here purely for leisure after all.

  We arrived in the Pnning Committee building which was, very much to my liking, air-conditioned. There the security team left us to continue patrolling for a little bit longer, at least until they would be called back to hear my general briefing of the colony.

  While we were waiting on Jacky and his team to come back I perused over the holographic pns they had for the settlement. It was an impressively ambitious pn that they had id out; it even had concepts for a park with fountains already. Very much something I wasn’t expecting. I did notice from the pns that there had been quite a bit of shuffling about, mostly to make sure that they didn’t touch the natural beauty of the pnet and to keep its ecological integrity.

  “Commander, my friend!” I recognized Jacky’s voice immediately as he walked towards me, arms spread wide to give me a huge hug that only a Dokazuuk could manage.

  “Jacky! How have you been doing?” I left the pnning table for a moment to embrace the hug he was going to give me, returning it in kind of course.

  “We have been very good.” He stated matter of factly. “As you can see, we have not stayed idle after you left.”

  “No, I’m really impressed. This is a lot more than what I expected, even though we haven’t been away for too long. I even met one of your new compatriots.”

  “Ah! We are already paving the way for a new generation. They are important for our future.”

  I nodded. “And you are taking care of the pnet they are going to live on as well.” I beckoned towards the pnning table.

  “Of course. This world is clearly special, we don’t want to despoil it. Your officers have told us many things about the mistakes you have made on your home pnet. We do not want to repeat them.”

  I chuckled. “Well, I suppose we do serve as a pretty good cautionary tale, although I must say that we have definitely tried to turn it around in recent years. I hope one day you can come to visit our pnet too.”

  Jacky nodded and used one of his free arms to beckon some people who were still standing near the entrance of the room. “This is the rest of the Pnning Committee. Most importantly Ensign Jambers, it is her who tries to keep us on track to avoid mistakes being made.”

  I saluted the Ensign as she walked forward towards me. She saluted me back. “I’m sorry for ignoring you all by the door there.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Commander. It was a heartfelt reunion. We couldn’t just intervene.”

  “Things have been going well I see.”

  “Couldn’t have gone any better, Commander.” The Ensign continued. “The colboration between our two species of course had its friction at times, but thanks to Jacky those differences in opinion were all ironed out very quickly.”

  “I think it is very admirable what everyone here has managed to achieve together. I think this will go down in the history books as a remarkably good start of a human, or better said, cross cultural colonization effort. And I truly mean that. I was worried to ‘dump’ you all on this pnet in such a short notice, but it seems you all have truly managed to make something from the presented opportunity.” The entire thing had put me in a very good mood. If only everything would go as good as this project…

  FieryKathy