Mantidian was the smallest planet in the entire Illio Azur system, arguably more of a moon by most standards. It was almost entirely barren of life, barely fit to sustain an ecosystem, and yet, it was here where the insect-like species Acro belonged to grew and evolved to be large enough to rival most other sentient beings in the system…and eat them.
By the time humans arrived, it wasn’t unusual for a curious landing party to go missing, making it a planet-wide No Man’s Land. Everyone assumed the creatures living there to be mindless beasts, until one day, a family on a road trip found themselves way off course and without gas right on the planet’s orbit. When they crashed, they expected a lot of things, all of them horrible, but what they did not expect was for a large blue beetle to approach them and help them fix their ship.
It didn't take long after that for most of the other races to open communications and learn that, for a while now, the Mantidians had been sentient and had started to develop as a society. They had complex structures, language, and even some advanced technology! Turns out, they had stopped trying to eat most people that ended up on their homeworld and instead learned from them. We would have noticed it sooner, if not for the evil reputation they had developed for so long.
Of course, most were still naturally wary of them, and it was true they had not completely removed their baser instincts to eat and impregnate every living thing they came across; Acro was ample proof of that. But most were genuinely trying to change and developed many systems to control their urges, such as switching to specially made cloned meat and attending recreational holographic rooms where they could cut loose now and then.
All this and more they had done in the hopes of integrating into the larger galactic society, but many still distrusted them, few employed them, and the majority still shunned them. Lily was one of the rare humans who had looked past all that and given the red Mantidian in her crew a place to work. But even so, she was not completely at ease when they landed at the Mantidian spaceport and saw every shape and type of bug creature possible coming and going in every direction.
“You guys are gonna love it here, we have a whole floor on the colony just for meat!” said Acro from the front seat of the transport they were riding. Leon merely groaned in response. “Hey, you eat meat too, you lousy hypocrite!”
“We do not gorge ourselves with our prey!" barked Leon. "In fact, we do not eat prey because we are not wild animals! Not anymore,” he added quietly with some self-awareness.
“Enough," said Lily, growing weary of their back and forth. “I’m sure we’ll all enjoy a nice bowl of some cooked nonsentient cloned meat when it’s all over, just remember why we're here people.”
“Yes, yes, we’ll see the code breaker first, I’m just enjoying this! I’ve never had hummies I could bring back home before!" Acro giggled excitedly like they were bringing a stray cat home for the first time.
“Don’t you mean friends?” asked Astor.
“You wish! Ah, look! There it is!” exclaimed Acro excitedly.
They pointed excitedly at the large dark semi-circle growing on the horizon. Lily had thought it was a solar eclipse at first, but as they drew closer, she could tell it was an enormous dome seemingly made of the very red earth around them. It was big enough that Lily thought it could contain a whole city within it, and then she realized that was probably the case.
“Colony forty-seven! I didn’t realize how much I missed the old dirtball. I was born here you know?”
In less than an hour, they reached the base of the immense structure and found a large entrance teeming with Mantidians of every size, color, and shape you could imagine. They exited the transport and walked through the large archway carved into the rock itself. Inside, there was a city all right, but one, unlike any Lily had ever seen. The big dome had large levels stemming from the circular walls, one on top of another like you'd see in a bee hive. They each had several thin bridges connecting to a huge spire at the center of it all. Although they were pretty far from it, Lily could see several elevators going up and down through the spire, and clearly how they accessed each floor if they didn't have wings.
The whole thing was indeed constructed out of the reddish rock that conformed most of the planet’s surface, build around them much like an ant colony. The place was illuminated by countless floodlights coming down from the curved roof, and upon closer inspection, Lily noticed the lights came from actual Mantidians. Some resembling fireflies with bright bottoms hanging comfortably from corded hammocks, their rears pointed down to cast a light upon the whole place.
“They take shifts for that, right?” asked Lily, unable to count how many covered the entire dome.
“Oh, yeah, every 8 hours I think," responded Acro as they made their way toward the spire.
As they ventured deeper inside, the place began to look more and more like a mall and less like a supersized hive. The Mantidians had certainly embraced the outside culture and technology, mounting all sorts of businesses and stores along the central path they walked. Clothing stores in particular, which was funny, since most of them only wore one or two pieces of clothing at most.
“Humans! Hey! Come and get your ‘I Love Bug People!’ shirt! Only 5 Shines! We also have ‘I Survived Mantidian And All I Got Was This Stupid Piece Of Fabric For My Thorax!’ too!” shouted one of the vendors, a large green caterpillar-looking bug wearing such a shirt.
They had tiny shops for everything, from funny-looking human-shaped chocolates with filling that Lily hoped was strawberry, to a weapon store with a collection of fine blades that could make any collector weep. She herself looked at the pair of laser-edged daggers on display with a covetous eye.
As much as seeing a new place enthralled Lily, she was on a mission, and together they resisted exploring every inch of the main floor and reached the elevators without interruption. Acro had identified the location given to Emma as a small electronics store on the twenty-fifth level.
The top floors were all residential, explained Acro. They had installed living condos for all the Mantidinas, although some still preferred to live “old school”, which apparently included burrowing in the earth itself instead of a two-bedroom apartment. The bottom ones were commerce, with a booming economy for entrepreneurs who had started mounting all kinds of businesses throughout the many colonies on the planet. Mantidians were crazy about everything they could own and embraced consumerism like no other race.
Lily could see there was no shortage of options when they stepped out on their floor, but Acro led them towards the back, behind a used electronics store where a smaller one was practically hidden. The sign outside read “Taro’s Wires and Fires! We Hack, We Fix and We Make Electronics!", and inside was a green Mantis-like giant bug that could have been Acro's sibling, down to the same mechanical arms and chest plate.
“Taro! You big green spawn of a bitch!” yelled Acro as he stepped through the glass door into a cramped space with shelves upon shelves of all manner of devices in all possible states of repairs.
“We’re both from the same Queen, genius!” Taro yelled back, seemingly with no offense taken.
“True enough,” replied Acro with equal merriment, and motioned them to join them inside the store. “Guys! This is Taro, my fifty-seventh cousin, once removed."
Unable to help herself, Lily asked: “Once what’s removed?”
“How about Astor’s leg!” said Acro, pointing at Astor as they both bent over backward with laughter.
“Yeah, I am sure of it now. This is hell,” said Leon, looking at the pair with something between horror and disgust.
Astor ignored them, pretty much used to such jokes from Acro by now, and instead stepped forward to look around the shelves, each displaying many of the different body implants the Mantidians used. He stopped when he spotted a yellow cybernetic eye that stared back at him with a faint mechanical sound.
“How much for this one?” asked Astor.
“Ah, you have a ‘good eye’, young man,” said Taro, coming to his side. “I made that one myself, same as all the other pieces you see here. Acro and I developed a lot of the prosthetic technology for our people years ago.”
Astor smiled, patting his cybernetic leg. “Yeah, the good doctor provided me with this one right here. I had no idea they had help invent them though.”
“Oh, yes, we both longed to do new things," said Taro casually. "But we both realized we would need more than our natural bodies to do so. We were not made to do much more than eat and reproduce, so, in order to go beyond that, we had to get creative.”
Taro moved back behind the counter as he held the cybernetic eye in his metal hand, looking at it as affectionately as a robin would to her egg.
“Taro and I had always been fascinated with human culture, we watched their shows and learned a lot from the HPA online network, but it wasn’t until an actual Doctor came to study us that I saw a chance for more. I learned most of what I know from him, and I used that knowledge to help Taro here construct these,” they said, snapping his fingers to illustrate.
“At first it was just for us, so we could pursue what we loved," continued Acro. "But it turns out a lot of us wanted to do that. Before we knew it, there was a whole demand for them and that’s how this business got started.”
“Wait, you mean you’re rich?” asked Leon, incredulous.
“It means I have a bank account somewhere with a retirement plan,” replied Acro smugly.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Emma, pulling out the data stick from her chest piece. “But are you the codebreaker, Mister…I mean, not mister…um…”
“Just Taro will do, and yes, I am,” said Taro, accepting the stick and inserting it into the main holo-computer. They typed away swiftly with perfect control of their artificial human fingers.
“So, you’re with the Coalition huh? Yeah, they’re a good client, always got work, and always pay on time. Mind you, I don’t need the money, code breaking is just a hobby at this point, but you never what you’re going to…” Taro seemed to have frozen mid-sentence, their large red eyes fixed on the indecipherable code in front of them.
“You have any idea what this is?” they asked quietly.
“No, the man carrying it just said it was vital information for the HPA,” replied Emma.
“I’ll say! This contains a list of every single member of the HPA! Their names, their addresses, it's all here!” said Taro with a nervous laugh as everyone went quiet for a moment as understanding went unspoken through them.
“There’s only one reason why a paramilitary rebel force would want a database of the enemy,” said Lily with concern, eyeing Emma sideways, who looked slightly abashed as she understood her meaning.
“Assassination,” said Astor, finishing her thought.
“The Coalition doesn't have that kind of manpower...but their top officers...probably," conceded Emma.
Lily knew the hard reality of groups like the HPA from experience. They would accomplish their goals no matter how unscrupulous the method is, why should the Coalition be any different? They may fight for a better cause, but one could argue they had to resort to such tactics even more given their disadvantage.
Emma had clearly gotten her hand dirty before in that fight, so she didn't seem too bothered by the idea, which Lily could understand. The determination and even rage she saw in the young fish girl was one born out of hatred and loss. She could guess what the HPA might have taken from her.
“Taro, how long will it take you to decode all the files?” inquired Lily.
“Probably another hour, maybe two at most.”
“In that case, let us get something to eat. Acro, you mentioned a meat floor, do they have human food as well?”
“You mean for humans or made of humans? Either way, yes.”
“Do they have Korean?”
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