r/HFY • u/5783-penman • 14h ago
OC-Series What now?
Somehow, Major Joshua Chamberlain wasn’t surprised when Captain Lev Dobrinski appeared in his doorway. His chief assistant had a sixth sense for when things were going just wrong enough to add fuel to the fire.
And the fire was just barely contained as it was.
Chamberlain looked up and immediately noticed two things. Dobrinski was sweating. He was also pale.
The Terran Intelligence Division frowned on both. Recruits were expected to be able to work deep undercover if necessary, and involuntary responses could be lethal. The TID were precisely what the name suggested. They gathered information, monitored communications. Occasionally tapped the communications to make monitoring easier. Bugging a location wasn’t unheard of.
You know, all the things that governments take great offense to if they find out they’re being done to them, but are just part of the game if they’re the ones doing them. So every government employed such departments, and they all pretended not to.
In such situations, sweating got you caught. When dealing with species whose vision encompassed more of the spectrum than a man’s, being slightly more pale was a giveaway. So the TID trained its people not to do either.
But as Chamberlain looked, there was no doubt. Dobrinski wasn’t glowing or perspiring. There was no light sheen on his skin. There was, however, a drop of sweat running from his temple towards his jaw. And he looked like he had either seen a ghost or been drained of more blood than a person should be allowed to donate at once.
Chamberlain braced himself. “Yes?”
Dobrinski swallowed. Then he swallowed again. “Sir? We have a problem.”
That was no surprise. Problems were what the TID dealt with most of the time. The Terran government stood outside the Council, though with some intermingled worlds. Borders in space were tricky things, especially when some planets were uninhabitable to some but perfectly welcoming to others. So humanity had established colonies on planets the neighbors didn’t seem to want.
When found, the response was surprise, but also a kind of grudging respect. Cordial relations were maintained.
“What sort of problem, captain?” Chamberlain asked.
“The latest intercept,” Dobrinski said, holding out an encrypted data pad. “It’s from the Inner Council.”
That got Chamberlain’s attention. That source was very well protected. Revelation of its existence could trigger an immediate war, so communications were limited to when it was too critical to wait for other means. Anything from the Inner Council got everyone’s attention, provided they were cleared to know there even was an Inner Council.
Chamberlain took the data pad and began reading. “What am I looking for?” he asked. Sometimes that allowed him to get past the bureaucratic density a little faster.
He found it as Dobrinski answered. “Subspecies?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. At least two.”
Chamberlain was named for one of his ancestors, one who had led men in a critical battle in a war some centuries ago. He was fuzzy on the details, but knew it was well before humanity began to explore the stars. Now, Chamberlain wondered whether his namesake had ever suspected what had just come into focus.
“Let me get this straight. The Inner Council was just briefed on two subspecies of human, neither of whom we knew about?”
“That appears to be the case,” Dobrinski said. “And they appear to be substantiating some of humanity’s oldest myths.”
Chamberlain kept reading. One of the subspecies appeared to match stories of vampires. Not the oldest versions, the ones where vampires were shambling corpses looking for blood, but the ones that emerged later. Intelligence intact. Willing to wait centuries to achieve goals. Wanting to remain hidden, because they knew humanity feared — and outnumbered — them.
That would have been enough to turn this ordinary Thursday into a headache. What came next was just as bad. The others responded to lunar cycles, becoming bestial and much, much more powerful. Given that most inhabitable worlds had more than one moon, and that full moons on a new planet could be hard to predict without extensive observation, that was very bad news.
“Sir, let me point out that they said ‘at least two.’ The werewolf legend you are probably thinking of is not the only potential shapeshifter in human lore. It could be big cats, wolves, or any number of other species. We just don’t know.”
Chamberlain closed his eyes for a moment and wished he was anywhere else. His quarters. A resort on Terran ground. A jail cell, perhaps.
“So, what do we know?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice steady, but not yet sweating.
“Not much. We can assume both are confirmed. The Inner Council isn’t alerted without substantial evidence. But we can’t ask for that evidence without raising alarms about our sources of information.”
“I know that,” Chamberlain growled, the first slip of his discipline. “Do we have any idea about numbers?”
“Not precisely,” Dobrinski hedged. “But if two have been spotted we have to assume they’re more common than we would like to think.”
Chamberlain paused. He hoped it looked like deep thought rather than having absolutely no idea what came next, which is what it felt like.
“They said some are known to prefer heavily tinted screens or wear sunglasses. Can we run that through our surveillance systems and identify potential suspects?”
“I’ll have it done, sir,” Dobrinski replied.
“Check our ships’ schedules, too. Post information about timing of full moons at locations with shore leave. See if anyone changes their schedule in response. It won’t prove anything, but might give us leads.”
“Understood, sir. Anything else?” Dobrinski asked. He was nothing if not thorough.
“Not for now,” Chamberlain replied. “Keep me posted. Dismissed.”
Dobrinski turned smartly and walked out of the office. Chamberlain sighed.
“At LEAST two,” he muttered. “Maybe more.”
Then a chill ran down his spine. No. Not that. The repercussions could be catastrophic for everyone if that came into play.
“Let’s pray they don’t find out about the Sidhe,” he thought.
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