Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Fueled By hatred

I've seen something about humans, something that I cannot unsee.

It haunts me.

Have you ever noticed that humans are a weird paradox of strength and weakness? They are built soft and sort of squishy, but there is no argument, that humans are one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy, and one of the hardest to kill. To continue this paradox, an adult human is nearly impossible to defeat, but a human infant may just die for no reason.

Humans were born on a death planet, they are without the protection of fur or an egg (humans have live birth). Because of their physical structure, human women cannot support an infant with a fully developed cortical structure. For this reason humans are born practically blind, and completely helpless, and they will remain so for many years. It takes almost two decades for the human brain to develop to full maturity.

For this reason, human children are extremely vulnerable.

However, this weakness has allowed nature to compensate the infant's weakness by increasing the protective instincts of parent human, and most adult humans even if they are not parents.

Human adults have been known to, lift objects more than twice their weight, leap into freezing water, fight off large animals and walk through fire for their offspring.

They have even been known to kill.

In fact, they will brutally rip apart members of their own species in order to protect their young.

If you don't want to take my word for it, just ask a human. They have no problem admitting this to you. I guarantee if you ask them they will say and I quote, "If someone hurt my kids, I will destroy them." Some of you may say this is just hyperbole and, depending on the situation, it might be, but I also guarantee there are times in which this is under exaggerated.

Total destruction cannot begin to fathom what a human will do to you.

They will unmake you.

***

Three separate ships and three crews had come together to investigate the tip. One crew was Human, one ship was Rundi, and one ship was Drev. Each crew had at least one human on board, and the human crew had one nonhuman.

Krill had never seen such a diverse group coming together and working with each other. Massive Drev stood tall above their human and Rundi counterparts. One human even rode easily on the back of a Drev serving as a second pair of eyes plasma rifle poised over the massive creature's shoulder.

All in all there were three strike teams one from each ship and about seven people on each team. Captain Vir headed one of the teams having more tactical experience than many of the people on his crew, Krill had been added to the team for his medical experience. He stayed at the back of the group behind the more experienced field operatives.

He was happy to stay right where he was.

Captain Vir took point as the three groups fanned out in a relatively triangular formation.

They were investigating a couple of things. Number 1 was a small issue and included the problem of improper IGFDA certification on food packing. Products coming out of this factory were improperly labeled without all the requisite ingredient labels. Issue 2 there had been a rash of missing person's reported in this area, and it was unknown where they could be located. The factory was the only conceivable place large enough to house that sort of thing, and number 3, the factory was run by known members of the Prodigium race's mob, so this was as good a place as any to start.

They spread out from their established pattern and made their way in a large circle around the building. The Rundi took the docking bay, the Drev took the front entrance, and the Humans entered through the side doors. They moved swiftly and silently clearing rooms before silently moving on keeping in quiet contact with the two other teams. The building was laid out in increasingly smaller squares, so eventually, the group of them met up at the second-to-last square towards the center. All they had seen so far was storage areas, docking bays and packing plants.