The Alien Negotiator

Author's Notes:

Each episode in the "An Inhuman Love" series will be a stand-alone novelette, meant to be read and enjoyed in a single sitting. Expect a monster/human pairing in each episode, with all the juicy details included.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Date: 2954.93.45 Solar Standard, 5340.12.32 Galactic Standard

Planet: Frk'Tarlvr

Star System: Vendala

City: Platform F459VX

He didn't want this job. He really, really didn't. He needed money, sure, but he didn't need money this badly. The terms of his current life were clear, though: pay his bills, or stay stuck planet side, and get his organs farmed by that lizard freak Trekvar. And knowing a gecko, he'd eat half of them. But it might have been a better fate than playing guard duty for a princess.

Mark looked around his apartment. Fifteen feet long, five feet wide, eight feet tall. A metal box. A small, metal box. Once he got off the bed, it folded up against the wall, the disposable sheets automatically removed and replaced within the mysterious wall confines of the Tekra Max apartment building. Two hundred floors, each with a thousand apartments, sound proof so you couldn't hear the shit going on in your neighbor's equally depressing metal box. The metal foldout sink, toilet, bed, it was all colored dirty, stained steel, and the delightful smell of sterilizing chemicals managed to sneak in through the faucet and his new bed sheets, despite them still being locked behind the metal wall since he folded the bed away.

He looked in the mirror, and sighed. Beige skin, a little pale since Fuck'Tarl's sun didn't do much for human skin — couldn't get past the clouds, or the canopy of buildings and towers — plus some dark gruff and a shaved head. He could shave his face with the press of a button, but a shaved bald head and a few days worth of gruff was important for the whole imposing bodyguard motif. One eye was normal, dark blue, the other was cybernetic, and looked mostly the same until you got in close and saw the green lines that filled the iris. A big scar cut across that eye, eyebrow to cheek, legitimizing the need for the cybernetic eye, and painting a very obvious 'I'm a badass' sign on his head.

He didn't tell people he got the scar and lost the eye from a hover car accident. That wouldn't help get clients.

So he had the grizzly look, and he had the muscles to go with. Strong, big shoulders that bulged against his black bulletproof vest, biceps with a hint of vein fighting against the tight confines of the white t-shirt he wore underneath it. He wasn't tall, though. Actually, he was a bit short compared to most human males, but he made up for it with shoulder width and solid beef. Cause he had to make up for it, to get a god damn fucking client.

He looked down at his pants. Armor plating, sections of morasteel covering the front and back of each leg, silver against the black pants. Black boots with the same morasteel sections, just like his vest.

"You survive this fucking job, and you're out of this shithole." He reached out for his reflection, and rested his palm against it. Hard hands, calloused. Another way to add to the image of the badass bodyguard. They were calloused from all the weights he lifted, that he had to lift, so he could look dangerous, so he could do this job, so he could pay his fucking bills.

But not anymore. Back to the dream, just get back to the dream. Some day, he'd be back to the dream.

He looked at the slip in his hand.

Client: Valamakala Vatalalarama. Species: Pracalavala

Position: Bodyguard, eight required.

Danger Rating: Extreme.

Bodyguards like Mark weren't paid by the client, they were paid by the Vargenth company that outsourced them. They were paid based upon three things: whether the job was a success, the amount of time they'd been employed with the company, and the danger rating of the job.

Danger Rating Extreme was a suicide mission. Survival rates were typically half; sometimes more, sometimes less, but always a low enough number to come with a giant commission. He'd been with the company long enough and had earned a high enough rank, that this mission would make him a small fortune, enough to buy a runner ship, and get back to the dream. That's all that matters, think of the dream.

Why the fuck was he working as a bodyguard then? Dream didn't mean anything if he died before reaching it. He frowned at the mirror, and rubbed some water on his face, beads of it catching on his gruff. Because you're an idiot, Mark. Idiots take this sort of mission grade. Idiots and desperate people.

Was he desperate? Yes. Yes he was fucking desperate to get the fuck out of this shithole before it killed him, before some gecko ate his kidney, before some praca drained his bank account, before a million other things brought him to a screaming end.

With a groan, he grabbed his rifle, and stepped out of the apartment box. The stained metal didn't end with his home, but continued through the halls of the massive apartment complex. People sat around, talking, chatting, drinking, injecting heroin and poora into their veins. A few of them glanced his way, but when they noticed the body armor and rifle, they backed off. If he'd been anyone else, they'd have looked for a cheap mugging. Sometimes they tried anyway.

How many of these punks had he killed in self defense in the past ten years? Seven? Eight? Not like anyone on Fuck'Tarl cared. No one on this damn planet cared about anything, except for credits.

What a wonderful life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I hear this praca is a pretty attractive stickwoman," one of the grunts said.

Mark rolled his eyes, and waited.

Him and six other grunts, all standing around on the street, near an escort stinger-class transport vehicle, parked. High tech, heavily armored, with two praca inside in the front seats. They wore fancy armor, silver colored, with sleek lines combining everything into flowing shapes. Nine feet tall and skinny as fuck. Stickmen. And, like the cannon fodder bodyguards they'd hired, they were wearing helmets with masks.

Mark analyzed his colleagues. Mostly humans, one gecko, and one dermite — a walking talking beetle — were the sad group of them. They didn't look sad; hell, they looked professional. But the truth of the matter was that Vargenth wasn't military. Bodyguards ranked up based on how many missions they completed, and the client's evaluation. And Vargenth accepted anyone who could carry a gun. You got paid based on how high your rank was, which was a borderline useless metric; lots of people failed upwards. The ones who managed to get a lot of missions done with high evaluations quickly moved onto private sector work for mega corporations, or were taken in by government branches, like military or special ops.

No one with any real skill stayed a bodyguard, not on this planet, which meant his partners in this stupidity were unreliable at best. Hell, he was unreliable. He was good at the job, but not special ops grade, not suicide mission grade. He was one of the people that failed upwards, failed upwards enough times that he'd managed to stumble onto what things would keep him from getting killed; not enough skill to justify this desperate attempt at a good paycheck, though.

He didn't know the ranks of the other guards, and they didn't know his. If they found out he was GR Alpha, they'd probably start asking him questions, hoping he could get them through this alive. Fuck them, just survive the mission. Survive this one mission and keep the fucking stickwoman alive. Then you'll have enough money to move on, get out of this hell hole, and live a life of moderate peace, moderate quiet, and get to see the stars again.

God, he missed the stars.

"You said she will be attractive?" the dermite said, voice gravely to the point Mark doubted dermites had vocal cords at all, but rock grinders.

One of the human bodyguards looked at him, only mouth and jaw exposed from under his helmet, but it was enough to see the disgust.

"You into soft skins, dermite?" the man said.

"Accurate." No one could see the dermite's features with how his armor of metal plates covered him, head to toe, but everyone knew what a beetle looked like.

One of the other guards came over, rifle across her chest in each hand. "Got a friend who says she's fucked a dermite. Says it's like fucking a couple of really huge, hard dildos, like solid plastic sorta hard."

The dermite chuckled, a deep, clicking sound. "Yes. Accurate."

"... wait, couple?" the other guy said.

"Yes. Accurate."

Everyone broke into laughter. Mark knew that laughter, nervous laughter, the sort of laughter soldiers did before a drop or raid. He didn't like that laughter. But it was better than quiet nervousness, where everyone would eventually snap and become a liability. Ideally, everyone would be quiet and relaxed, saving mental energy for the mission. Rookies.

Fuck, he was going to die on this mission, protecting some fucking stickwoman princess. If the bullets started flying, the others were going to panic, and the two praca escorts weren't going to do a damn to keep him or them alive. But, if he didn't stick his head out, he might come out of this still breathing; not that hiding behind the corpses of his colleagues was his idea of doing his job well, but it was better than dying.

It didn't used to be like that. He used to try and work with his colleagues, keep them alive. It never worked. Fucking Fuck'Tarl had turned him into a bitter fucking asshole.

The two praca stepped out of the vehicle. So damn tall, and skinny. Their torsos were more or less human shaped, but smaller, thinner, and their legs and arms were much longer. The details of their features were hidden in the armor, but he knew they had similar hands and feet to their arms and legs: long and thin. They had long, thin tails too, prehensile, but hidden inside the armor; made sense, with how delicate those tails were.

The strangest thing though, was their bone masks that hid their eyes and mouths; hidden inside their helmets on the two escorts, but everyone knew what praca looked like. They ran the damn planet. Their helmets had to be unique shaped to fit the bone layer, a Y shape visor to match the Y shape bone mask that they sensed through.

It was hard to trust someone if you could never look them in the eye. He knew they had two eyes and a mouth, supposedly not all that different from human eyes and mouths, by alien standards at least, forever hidden behind the irremovable bone mask. It didn't make trusting them any easier.

One of the passenger doors opened, and out-stepped the princess herself. Unlike her companions, she wasn't wearing body armor, instead wearing long black boots that reached up to her skinny thighs. Like all praca boots, they fit their feet like gloves, showing how the stick people walked around on feet not too dissimilar to their hands. She wore a reflective, partly see-through dress, showing off her cleavage and small breasts, her thin waist, and her curvy hips. On her shoulders she wore a black jacket, similar to the boots, reaching her elbows before exposing how the dress became sleeves that reached her wrists. Black gloves, too, as if she was afraid to get any of the planet's grime on her fingers.

It's your planet, you stupid stick. If it's too dirty to touch, try fixing it. She even walked like she was royalty. For fuck's sake.

A slender neck rose to a smooth head, all very human shaped. The praca never had hair, but the bone mask did have antennae-like protrusions at the forehead, kinda filling in for that role. Her skin was tinted light blue, almost gray, like most pracas, and the bone layer of her face covered her eyes and mouth completely with its large Y shape.

Probably the most noticeable feature of the praca, was how their eyes, hidden behind the bone mask, glowed. Whatever kind of light it was that their eyes emitted, it went through the mask enough for other people to see them. And right now they were glowing maroon. No idea what that meant.

"Vargenth bodyguards," she said. "I am Valamakala Vatalalarama, but you may call me Vala." Her voice was soft and lovely, and there was a subtle whistle behind her words and after them, as if someone was playing a flute in her throat. "I will do everything in my power to insure these negotiations go smoothly, but, as you know, Merka R56 Industries engages in predatory business tactics. This has included direct assaults, and there have been fatalities."

The PR speak almost had Mark gagging. Merka killed people by the droves, if it got them a better business position. Everyone who signed onto the mission knew the risks, too, so the PR speak was wasted. Maybe she was trying to paint herself in a better light, so they'd feel compelled to die to save her life. Yeah right.

"I'm Cody," one of the guards said.

"Erica."

"Mark," he said. Might as well get it over with.

"Danver."

"Clarance."

"Tallia."

"Mitch."

"Drvrtertvrt."

The group of them looked at the dermite, and laughed. More of that same, nervous laughter.

He laughed too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Merka was going to kill them all.

Why'd he leave Earth? Should have stayed on Earth, stayed where the government made the laws, and enforced them. On Fuck'Tarl, there were no laws, and the corporations had free run of the planet. They had 'police', in the sense that they had security staff that patrolled all of their buildings, enforcing guidelines and keeping peace, because it meant they kept making profits off saps like him. It also meant any corporation with enough weight could kill this praca princess he was supposed to protect if they decided to send her employers a message.

It was like animals, ravenous, endlessly ravenous, trying to come to a truce over territory. One mistake, one false step, one moment of exposing the neck, and one animal was going to take a chomp out of the other, go for the kill.

De-fucking-lightful.

The front door, nothing but black-tinted morasteel sliding apart. Mark gulped, and stepped in ahead of the group, with the beetle beside him, and the three pracas behind him. The building was typical company HQ material, with lots of high tech gadgetry and clean walls of dark metal, shining with the TFR lighting. Hallways, lots of hallways. No secretaries or anything like that, no civilians sitting around desks with AR or holo setups, just hallways with scanning tech, cameras and whatnot. If there was any weaponry waiting to pop out of holes in the walls, his scanners didn't pick it up, but that didn't mean it wasn't there, just that it was well hidden.

"Calm your stance," the princess said, to him apparently, when he looked back. Hard to tell where her glowing eyes were looking, with the bone mask hiding pupils and whatnot, but her head was pointed at him. Fucking bone mask.

"I'm sorry?"

"Calm your stance. Your human body language is blatant and loud. They will know you are anxious."

"Good for them." He shrugged off her bullshit, and kept walking. His posture was irrelevant. What was relevant was the body armor, the weapons; good posture and a calming stance didn't mean shit when the bullets started flying.

But, a hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he turned to look up at the damn stickwoman. Nine feet tall wasn't that intimidating when he was sure she'd crack in half from a stiff breeze. And from so close, he couldn't help but look her up and down a little more closely. He couldn't ignore the fancy black jacket and reflective dress that exposed a lot of her chest, or ignore the shape of her body, thin waist and flat stomach. Pretty, for a praca. Which of course made it easier to hate her guts.

"Calm yourself or I will report your ineptitude to your employers."

And she loved to add to that growing mountain of reasons to hate her worthless innards.

"Fine." He shrugged hard enough to dislodge her long-fingered grip, and got back to walking. Calm down, stop being anxious, don't worry about Merka R56 putting a bullet through your torso. Yeah, ok, he'd get right on that.

And of course, the princess grumbled. A praca grumble sounded like a purr from a quiet, but dying high-pitched motor. Off putting, to say the least.

The hallway eventually came to a living entity, a delightful change from the unending walls of lifelessness. A gecko sat behind what was probably quartglass, wearing heavy layers of fabric that fell over each other like rain on shingles. Couldn't see what their hands were doing, behind a display monitor that reached end to end of its desk. But, knowing gecko, they probably had a gun or two or three behind it, waiting to draw. Not that they'd be able to shoot him through the quartglass, but he fully expected some sort of ambush possibility to exist.

Vala walked up to the glass, beside Mark, and made a small bow of the head. "Greetings. I am Valamakala Vatalalarama, from Taralavra Industries. I've come to speak with Kalara Vatalrmlara."

The gecko nodded, and looked down at their monitor, one hand tapping away at the digital interface, the other reaching up to pick at their teeth with a claw.

"Yes, Taralavra Industries." The lizard-face fucker chuckled. Guy or girl, Mark couldn't tell, no one could at face value, so they always just referred to geckos as 'they'. Or 'it', depending on how mean they felt like being. "Go right ahead. The CEO is expecting you."

Vala nodded again, and as they started walking, smacked Mark upside the back of the head with her hand. Subtle, quick, and from an angle the gecko didn't notice. The rest of the group did though, and they chuckled. Guess he wasn't being relaxed enough.

Getting a smack in the back of his helmet wasn't going to make him any more relaxed. It did put him deep into the hate spectrum for this fucking praca princess though. Christ he hated her. Every word she said got under his skin. The way she walked beside him, standing tall, strutting, when she should be behind him and being protected, was like metal scraping vacalk siding. He had to protect her, but ten minutes into this mission and he wanted to make sure she died in it.

Remember the stars, Mark. Remember the stars.

They continued along, thud thud of heavy, armored boots against the hard metal of the floor. No music. They passed some doors, each locked down, and showing off some imposing barriers, solid walls of morasteel. Knowing Merka R56, they were performing research on chemicals, or testing new weaponry. Not like any of that shit was illegal on Frk'Tarlvr. Illegal on other planets, sure, but all was fair game here, including killing a negotiator and her bodyguards.

The door to the CEO's office was blatant. The hallway opened up into a room, with ten geckos, six humans, and two beetles standing around, many behind work platforms with monitors in front of them. Fingers tapping, almost silent against the digital interfaces, they glanced up at the entering troupe, before they returned to their work, whatever that was. Every one of them was in armor though, with rifles on their backs, and helmets disengaged to hide inside their armors' necks and backs. Ready to go at a moment's notice then, lovely.

Vala kept walking, as if they didn't exist. Ballsy, confident, or just really full of herself. Latter, probably the latter.

Ahead of them was a dual glass door. Quartglass probably, lined with black metal he didn't recognize. Something fancy, imposing, made to look cool while providing structural integrity. The sort of room where you could look into the next room, see the target, and wave. Beyond the glass was an enormous desk, some sort of wood, probably from an extinct plant from a different planet. Behind the desk sat another praca, wearing an elegant reflective suite, small spots of shining purple mixed with greens. Fucking pracas loved to dress shiny.