Broken World: Liars

Broken World: Liars (Chapter 1)

Historical Account of Ilfeq, Crewman of the Xlnfrag in charge of integrating the human soldiers into the ship and crew

I was brought on that vessel as a problem solver. When members of the crew had a disagreement, I would be called upon to calm them down. It was that simple. I was good at it. In eight cycles, there have only been seventeen fights that escalated before I could calm them down. Considering our crew consisted of some eight thousand individuals, I would call that a job well done. I am, of course, not saying that to impress anyone. Rather I tell you about my success so you understand how sure of my abilities I was. Perhaps, that will explain my failures.

It was a decade after we had made contact with the humans. Their world was primitive, but you will have learned that in school. They had a feudal system in place: There was a central administration, but it was weak, with little to no control over the different countries. Membership wasn't even mandatory, and armed conflicts between members were frequent. In spite of their political underdevelopment, the humans had evidently managed to send several of their own to space (to be precise: to their moon), so they had legally reached contact level.

The diplomats that reached out to them were shocked. The human race was, evolutionary speaking, in its early phases. Out of the eight sapient species, they were the only one that had a set lifespan. They hadn't even made the effort to know the depths of their own oceans before they had shot their first vessels into space.

I'm sorry. It is unnecessary for me to tell you all of this. What I really want to talk about is how the downfall of the Xlnfrag came to pass.

As a joint mission of the militaries of three of their countries, some two thousand humans had been granted access to our ship. We, ourselves, welcomed the opportunity. Obviously, the human race was young and foolish compared to ours, so we would gladly teach them and welcome them into the confederacy once they had proven themselves worthy. For this, admittedly experimental, mission to work, the command over the humans was given to a Captain Darling. The translators tell me his name is something they call a spouse, so the humans would make jokes occasionally. The Item'qar, on the other hand, were under the command of General Huylrq. The ship, however, was commanded by Captain Ishiim, and obviously everyone had to obey his orders. You see, the situation was weird. Really weird. And I was given the task of negotiating in conflicts on the ship as I had always been, only now that included conflicts between humans and conflicts between humans and Item'qar.

You will have noticed two ways in which the Terrans are different from us: They have mates, and they mock their superiors. For me, too, these things caused some confusion, but the humans seem to get by rather formidably in spite of them.

Enough of this nonsense. Let me tell you about how this great ship, the Xlnfrag, came to be doomed:

We were all really excited. No one aboard had ever seen a human, at least not in person. Sure, there were pictures and visuals, but the real thing is completely different, I assure you. So it came to pass that everyone who didn't absolutely have to be on post was assembled in the ships inner doc, where the ferry would release its cargo of humans.

The ramp lowered down. And then we heard them. They marched in near perfect rhythm, creating a sound so haunting, we ended up recording it later in order to use it to destabilize enemy morale. There were three groups, one large one with about half the humans, and two smaller ones with some six hundred and four hundred respectively. I assumed that they were marching according to their nationality, and later I was told that I assumed correctly. One of them yelled something, the translator interpreted it as "Careful [65%]", and they all raised their right hands to their heads in perfect unison. Then, after another command, one of the humans left rank. He walked towards us and spoke, and by the prophets in the sky, I tell you, he spoke Qar! He had a rather strong accent, of course, but it was very much comprehensible.