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The Galactic Trade Conference was a sight to behold. Cosmara - named after some kind of deity of the Lyranians - was one of the larger stations this species had to offer. It was a ball inside of four rings, five kilometres in diameter, supplied by six strong solar panels and the obligatory fusion reactors inside the stations core. It had moderately good shields for a station this size, but the armament was... eh, questionable.

Cosmara was mostly a trading hub. Not one of the more important ones, mind you. It was one of the three main hubs in the sector, which was good in a case of an emergency or other problems. But the main thing about it were the conference rooms in various sizes and its location with connecting six main trading routes and everything between it. Which was the purpose of a trading hub after all and didn't make it very special.

But right now it was holding the Galactic Trade Conference. It was a sight to behold and did attract a lot of attention, good, bad, neutral. High-ranking individuals of every species are always a good target for mischief, terror and disturbances. Blackmailing is a reliable way of shifting the currents to a desired side. Crops, fruits, materials, ships, entire crews... everything was regulated during the three galactic standard weeks, even military assignments, ship sizes, weaponry. Which meant that everyone had an interest in attending.

John Roland René Sullivan as the Undying One and Alira Børsheim as the Human Ambassador attended of course. Since Alira had not the same capabilities as John, he brought ten of his Einherjar with him. For protection, scouting and being the heavy hitters if needed. Hopefully not.

Three human warships - three destroyers - were waiting in position outside the rings on standby. They not only held the strongest weaponry humans could put onto a flying metal tube, but also sixty human Marines as well, so one hundred eighty fully trained, battle-hardened Marines were stationed in shifts on Cosmara as well.

Sven Jorgensson was one of them. Norwegian heritage, born on Hjem Hjemmefra, the Home from Home. He was tall, had muscles like every Marine and looked quite daunting to most of the other species. Which was quite the purpose of a Marine without his armour and weapons. He braided his beard and had sidecuts at both sides of his head, the rest of the hair braided into a long strand over his head to his back.

Not many tried to approach a human, especially not a human Marine sitting in the eating hall in his freetime clothes. Slim fit shirt - look at those muscles, by my name! -, tactical trousers with a lot of pockets and tactical boots. Even without his armour Sven was huge. His comrades from all over the galaxy looked identical but not the same in skin, hair, voice and eyes. Which confused a lot of species.

But not the Carabellans. In terms of height they sat between a human and an Anthraxian, around 2.3m/ 7'54''ft. They were of humanoid form, bipedal with four arms, one sligthly elongated head which ended in two horns with small antennas. Their eyes had the size of a human eye, but there were three of them, arranged into a triangle. Colours varied, but mostly black and brown, only a few had eyes in the colour spectrum of red, but that appeared to be a mutation depending on their surroundings. Their skin was a light to dark green, depending on the spot of skin (inner side of hands, thighs or arms). Their hands consists of four fingers, one thumb and three large main fingers with four joints on each of them.

The Carabellans were Death Worlders themselves, like Humanity. Monsters, volcanos, earthquakes; basically a larger version of Earth... Terra, sorry. They fought a desperate fight with only two larger cities and a lot of smaller clans and families around the globe against basically everything. They hunted and were hunted. According to their historians they fought with shields, spears and some kind of swords and reached a critical tech level a century ago. It had the same level as Humanity back in the day, so the Council was not too eager to get them involved. Well, tough luck, they found their way anyway and fought their bloody way into the stars.

The Council had no other choice as to befriend them with technological aid, access to the galaxy and even the Trade Conference. Humanity had heard stories about them and sent word that the Carabellans are to be aided. After a few years of grumbling negotations the Council accepted. Nobody wanted to get to war with the humans, not after they've defeated the Onians. Nobody really knew how and the Onians don't talk about it.

So nobody approached the humans, only in trading and aiding operations. Except for the Carabellans or rather, they haven't tried it, because the Galactic Trade Conference was the first official meeting and they haven't seen humans before. So it was an encounter for the ages as Chuthalla bumped into Sven who was choosing his dinner at the food distribution. That caused a grumble from Sven and a "Watch where you going!" warning, which didn't infuriated Chuthalla, but made her... uneasy. Irritated. Sven didn't even budge nor turn around. Normally people ran in fear before her, just because she was a Carabellan.

She wanted to answer, but he just grabbed a huge pot of watered juice with a cup and standard-sized tray, loaded it with a lot of various food and, without a glance back, marched to a table next to the windows; six chairs were free and he dumped his tray and the cup on the table. Chuthalla heard him. His steps were heavy, like he would weight as much as her. She could also smell him, which was not unpleasant, but confusing.

What was that? It looked like a Lyranian, but...so much different. It had no fear, it didn't even look at her. Still confused she ordered a hearty meal, grabbed some strong juice as well and decided to follow that creature, placed herself at the other end of the table so she had a good look, her large leather bag by the side of her chair.

The creature looked up. It wasn't scared, maybe slightly interested? Irritated? Confused? Not quite sure what of it, but it didn't seem to recognise her or the species she was from. Still no sign of fear, it just raised something above its eyes and continued to gobble up the meal in front of it. Chuthalla did the same a bit slower, to take her time for observations. The thing in front of her glanced from time to time in her direction, but not as it would have been prey.

No, this was the same glance she would have had if she was on the hunt. This was a hunter. This was not an ordinary being. If she thought about it, it was basically a smaller version of a Simiiforc with a lot of less hair. Which was... not a good thing mostly. A challenge maybe?

It wore some kind of green-grey fabric, woven extremely tight from what she could see. The fabric for the legs looked sturdy enough for combat, the... whatever that thing had at the end of its feet was made out of some kind of shiny leather. It had a lot of muscles from what she could tell, but no armour, no chitin-plates, nothing. Maybe the muscles were hard enough to protect it? She couldn't tell.

With her two lower arms she started to clean her own armour plates, which were her armour and a part of her clothes at the same time. And neatly detachable. With the slightly stronger upper arms she ate and drank while the other being finished its meal first and started to look on a small tablet, got annoyed really fast, did a strange noise with its mouth and looked at her, the blue eyes had a hard look in them.

"Okay, what the hell are you, who are you and what do you want?" it asked her directly which caught her off-guard. She didn't know if it was her translator or its, but its voice was deep, clear and has a certain tone of careful aggression in it. Or maybe defense?

"Chuthalla." she answered.

"Hu? Is that your name or the name of your species?"

"My name. Wait, you don't know what I am?"

"I wouldn't ask otherwise." It wrinkled its forehead. "So you have no idea who are what I am? Why did you bump into me?"

"That was not on purpose." she grumbled. "Normally people tend to step away from me."

"Yeah? Tough luck, lady. Chuthalla." She heard how he pronounced her name, which was next to perfect, before the translator spat it out. "The name's Sven. Jorgensson. But that isn't answering what you are. Never seen anything like you."

"No?" She stretched out all of her four arms and grinned. "I am a Carabellan."

"Ooooh, you are the new ones!" His - Chuthalla decided it was a male - face lit right up. As he was excited? Happy?

"The new ones?"

"Yes, we were told that Carabellans would be at the Trade Conference and we shouldn't engage with you, but that is a happy coincidence."

"Why not?"

"Political reasons, I believe." He mustered her from head to belly, because he couldn't see her lower body and legs. "You aren't so ugly as I had pictured a Carabellan."

"I take that as a compliment, hairless Simiiforc."

"You should." He grinned and showed a lot of white bone in his mouth. Teeth, like hers. "As I take it as a compliment that you called me a giant ape."

"What is an ape?" Chuthalla felt a pleasant tingle in her upper body and her spine. That was interesting. But what did he said about political things? Was that a First Contact scenario? Probably for both species. They weren't introduced officially, at least not in a senate hearing.

"Hm, a Simiiforc just not as intelligent as them."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Eh, sometimes." He did a strange movement with his arm joints. "Most of the time they just want to be left alone and if they have contact with humans, it is either dangerous or cuddly. Depends on the situation."

"You cuddle with Simiiforcs?"

"No, with apes. Less teeth."

"Ah." She smiled which resulted in a similar gesture on Svens side. Good, similar reactions ease the interaction. "I've heard you and the Nemeians come along quite nicely."

"You could say that. They love Terra and their smaller brethren. It was not a huge change for us and them and people love cuddles, so it was quite easy to adapt. It brought a lot of challenges, but we managed."

"What kind of challenges?"

"Air conditioning is a topic. Our normal equipment is outfitted for skin and hair of cats, dogs, humans. But Nemeians have quite different hair, so the filtration system had to be a lot more resiliant. Barbiers had to change their business models, had to train their employees and such things. Not to mention Nemeian-sized cat beds if they didn't want to sleep with their human if they have one."

"Is that a thing?"

"It is a lot more often than one might think." He did a cough. "My sister has a Nemeian partner. She is autistic, so the poor creature is groomed twice or thrice a day by her. Including all kinds of braids and clippers."

"They don't like it?"

"Quite the contrary. It is only the long time of not moving which is kinda unnerving."

Chuthalla chuckled, took a huge sip from the strong juice. "That sounds adorable. From what I heard it sounds not so deadly as I was expecting it."

"Oh, believe me, Nemeians are quite dangerous. They just chose not to be that way towards humans as long as they can avoid it. As they learned our history, they chose to be on our side. Literally sometimes."

"Why? Do you rebuild your cities on active volcanoes or what?"

"Uh, yes. They are a rare touristic attraction."

Chuthalla gulped and felt a tingle of surprise and fear in her back. "Wait, what? You...do build your cities on active volcanos?"

"Uh, they haven't done it in a bit, so yes. We like to swim near a super volcano, which is quite pleasant."

"You..." She rubbed her temples with her lower arms. "Swimming near a super volcano... not a surprise your world is declared a Death World as well as ours."

Sven chuckled. "Terra is declared a Death World?" He thought about it for a second or two. "It is making sense. Dozens of climate zones, dragons who will eat you, bipedal rabbits with enough muscles to yeet you into space, japanese honey bees, badgers... eh, fair, can get behind it. - What about yours?"

"Oh, large cats. Six legs, as big as me or bigger. Volcanos, thunderstorms, acid lakes, sub-terranean cave systems filled with all kinds of dangerous animals and plants, long nights and short days..." She made a waving gesture with her right arms. "Sometimes even poisonous rain. We have two large cities where most of us live. But there are also roaming clans outside of them. They think the city-dweller are weak for hiding behind huge walls."

"And what are you?"

"Both." She grinned again. "I was part of a roaming clan, but we got ambushed by another family. I moved into the city, got picked up and swore my vengeance. Because of my resiliance they sent me with the fleet."

"Oh, you are here because of the Conference?"

"Ha, no." She refilled her drink and made a questioning gesture towards him. Frowning he looked into his cup, slid it over and got it back refilled. "I've heard of it and was curious what all the fuzz was about. I'm in no political position nor do I have relationships into politics."

"That sounds like a warning or a hint that it is no use to kidnap or blackmail you." He took a sip, looked surprised into his cup and nodded. "But fret not, I'm just a Marine on his shore leave and we have a conversation. Probably one of the first between our species."

"Shore leave?"

"Free time. An old description for it."

"Ah. And you aren't nervous?"

"A bit maybe?" Sven stretched, something made a small plopp. "We had trainings regarding Carabellans. But actually sitting in front one of them is... quite daunting, to be honest. You aren't as bad as I imagined you would be."

"I take that as a compliment, Human Sven."

"Just Sven is enough."

"Good, Sven then. I wonder, can you speak our language? Are your vocal chords capable of producing the right sounds for it?"

"Hm, have tried it. It is doable, but the vowels and some of your lower sounds are quite difficult." As to proof it he made a few sounds which were roughly translated to No, I'm your father, which was a strange thing to say, but made him happy to a degree. She rustled with her hair on her head.

"Horrible accent, sorry."

"Been told worse than that." He grinned again. "So you are just a traveler among the stars, happening to be at the Galactic Trade Conference just out of curiosity? And thought you bumb into me? Mind you, I don't believe in coincidence."

"Me neither. I would have ignored you if you weren't shouting at me. Nobody shouts at me, which was a surprise. A pleasant one, I say."

"Would say too, yes."

That again brought a lot of heat from her spine into her upper body. Damn, that was cute.

"So" she finished her meal "I see that you are tall. But humans don't have armour? Plates? Some kind of defenses?"

"Not in the natural sense, no. But" he cocked his head to one side "that is not much of a hinderance. I can see three, four, five ways to dismantle your armour and bring you down in a matter of seconds if I want you alive. Eight, maybe nine, if I want you dead. The way you looked at me before indicates that you did it as well and saw at least seven ways to do the same, right?"

"You are dangerous."

"Never said I was harmless."

"No." She laughed. "You never said you were harmless. The funny thing is, that others don't think you are harmless either. They go out of your way and your brethren." With one hand she pointed at the food distributor where other humans got their food as well. They were smaller and not as muscular as Sven, but other species went out of their way as well or kept their distance. Except for the Nemeians, they chatted with the humans like friends. Which they were.

"Ah, crew." Sven nodded. Highly trained specialists as well. "Anyway, I lost my train of thought. So you were following me because I shouted at you. Is that a normal way of getting to know each other between Carabellans?"

"Ha, no." Chuthalla refilled her cup, the mug was nearly empty. "You made me curious, as I said. Would you run away now if I would bumb into you?"

"Still a no. You are a tall one, but you are not as scary as you think. The Voidwalkers are a bit more uncanny, but you seem... reasonable. And pretty to a degree, at least from my point of view."

"Pretty?" Again this warm flutter in her upper body. "What makes you say that?"

"My brain, I guess?"

"And what" said a different voice behind Sven "did we say about First Contact Scenarios, Marine?"

"Sir!" Sven jumped from his chair like a spring under pressure got loose. He made another strange gesture to his temple with his hand. "It was not my intention, Sir! She approached me and it would not be hospitable if I would be not professional about it!"

"Pft." chuckled the other being which was not a man and the other man grinned as well.

"At ease, Marine. I jest, I saw the cameras. Please, sit again and relax, for the love of Odin."

"Yes, Sir!" Sven relaxed a bit, but not much. The other man had ruffled brown-grey hair, his blue eyes clear like water. He was a bit smaller than Sven, but not much. The other being appeared to be a woman and Chuthalla gulped. That was the Human Ambassador and... oh, the other one was the Undying One? No wonder Sven reacted the way he did.

"That is true." She pointed at Sven. "We bumbed into each other and since he didn't run away like he had seen a supernova I was curious."

"Hm, I see." He and Alira now sat between Sven and her. Both had a tray full of food, John with more exotic choices than Alira. "As said, we saw a lot on the camera feed. Fret not, we were at a meeting with the representatives of the Carabellans an hour ago." He winked at Sven, who was relaxing a bit more.

"And what gives us the honour of your esteemed presence, Sir and Ma'am?" he asked stiffly.

"Pish posh." Alira laughed, a pleasant sound in Chuthallas ear. "We were hungry and curious. What did you think? That we wanted to exalt the stakes just for the fun of it?"

"Uh..."

"No sense of humour, those Marines." Her laugh was surprisingly melodical. "I jest. We just wanted to eat something and why not meet with one of our Marines and the new ones?"

"Sven said that as well." Chuthalla mentioned it with a frown. "That the Carabellans are the new ones. You are not afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Of us?"

"Why should we?"

"Because we come from a Death World, have three eyes, four arms, are taller than you..."

"And we fought Dragons on Terra." John chuckled. "As Sven said, he saw at least nine ways to kill you, I see twelve. We are not afraid. Curious might be the better word for it."

Apparently her mouth stood a bit open because Alira smiled and gulped down some strange gelee with dark brown bread. "Don't get us wrong, there might be humans who are afraid of you or Carabellans. There are people who are afraid of cats or spiders or the dark. Since we met the Voidwalkers we are just not so easily surprised anymore."

"And when are you surprised?"

"If a mountain could talk."

"That would surprise me as well."

"See?" Alira nodded. "We are not so different."

"Yummy." mumbled John at her side while devouring Frexonian Gelee. "What is that? Nice texture and flavour."

"Entrails." said Chuthalla smiling. John looked up. "Entrails from worms on an ice planet."

"Oh, really?" He looked at the purple-white gelee with the icing and continued. "Yummy."

"You didn't look at the distribution what you were getting?"

"No." Alira sighed. "He thought it was a good idea to try as many food from around the galaxy as possible, so he got a full tray of specialities." She gave Chuthalla a shrug. "Humans. We try to eat everything. For fun, for taste, texture and to determine if it is edible or digestable."

"Everything?" Alira shrugged and Chuthalla was speechless for a moment. That sounded like she would describe her own species. "Do you also eat {capsaicin}?"

"Like chili peppers? Of course, they add flavour. Some of us can't stand capsaicin, but that is all about genetics."

"Amazing..." whispered Chuthalla and felt a warm tickle on her face. Now she wanted to know. "How... I may have a question."

"You might get an answer."

"How did you defeat the Anthraxians? They are taller than you, stronger than you, they had the more advanced weaponry and technology..." She cleared her tray with a few scrapes. "Or so I read."

"True." John answered this time, tasted a thing which looked like a molten rock and nodded. "Interesting taste. - Okay, uhm, the Anthraxians were outfitted a lot better than humanity back in the day. Lasers, plasma, shields, pinchers as personal defense weapons, larger pinchers for everything else." He made a small flick with his wrist and an Anthraxian hovered as a small projection over the desk.

"What the..." She scattered back in her chair. "How...?"

"Eh, just a projection." he assured and made a nod to the Anthraxian. "You just see what I see. Nanoparticles and such. - So, you see the Anthraxian? That is a standard human as well" a projection of a human Marine appeared before the Anthraxian "and this is their center of gravity."

A small line with a ball appeared and centered itself right beneath the head of the Anthraxian, who loomed a bit over the human Marine.

"See." John moved the line a bit and the Anthraxian did it as well. It stumbled and tried to keep its balance on its two feet. It didn't seem too natural, but Chuthalla could follow. "Their center of gravity is a bit in front of them, so they try to get their mass forward. But if you shoot them with SWAT bullets, which we did..."

"Wait wait, what?"

"What?"

"What are those?"

"Ah, SWAT bullets? Special weapons ammunition. Non-lethal, but pack a serious punch. Basically squishy stones." Chuthalla nodded and John continued. "If you shoot them with SWAT bullets, they don't break their armour plates, instead they push the Anthraxian back. We are talking six hundred rounds per minute with our standard issue rifle, so a lot of bullets in a very, very short time. And those things push them back and then..."

The projection of the beetle-like Anthraxian got hit by a stream of bullets, pouncing at their armour plates and their center of gravity got pushed back as well. It took only two seconds, maybe less, to bring the huge enemy to fall onto their back where they were helpless.

"And that is how we defeated the Anthraxian ship in a couple of minutes." The projection vanished with another flick of his wrist and he smiled like he had seen another really delicious thing on his tray. "And by the time we had the negotiations with the Anthraxians on their home planet, we had made a massive leap forward. And then we met the Lyranians and showed them that we were not an easy foe as the Anthraxians or Nemeians."

"You showed them." said Alira. "We were on the ground, still shaken from a laser barrage nobody had seen coming."

"True. It was close." admitted the Undying One while nodding and crunching down this thing which appeared to be a molten rock. "Interesting still. What is that?"

"A beetle." answered Chuthalla. "A dead one, but it is one of the {fire beetles} on Hujnughragha."

"Oh, this fire planet." John nodded, took a closer look and then the dead beetle vanished inside his mouth. "That explains the smokey flavour. Like a good old Highland whiskey."

Chuthalla refilled her cup one last time, then the big pot was empty. She took a long look to Sven who was sitting with crossed arms on his chair, looking like he awaits an attack.

The attack came. But slightly different as he would have imagined.

"Sven?" John turned to him, which cause the man to straighten his back. "Oh for the sake of the gods, please, be at ease. You are not on duty and I'm just me."

"You are the Undying One."

"No, I am John. Can you call me that?"

"Yes, Sir."

"No."

"Yes...John."

"Thank you." He sighed. "It catched my eye beforehand, but it is getting on my nerves right now."

"Sir...John?"

"Oh, Sir John, I like that." He chuckled. "No, you uh... have a mistake in your braid."

"Uh, what?" Sven looked down and sweared. "How could I..."

"Let me." John got on one knee and laughed. "Alira, love, woud you care to do the honour?"

"To do what?"

"Well, Sven here may be inclined to tell his friends that the Undying One braided his beard. They won't believe him."

"Oh, take pictures." She made the same pleasant chuckle as before and got a small portable picture capture device from somewhere. John made a face as he was angry and pointed at the misbraided beard. The device clicked, Alira nodded and the man started to untangle the oiled strands. Sven sat as still as he probably could, Chuthalla saw him still breathing.

"That smells good." John smelled his fingers. "Almond, vanilla, a bit of lemon... oh, I know this brand. If you wanna have a lifetime discount, just hit me up."

"Really, S... John?"

"Of course. I am a John of my words." He made a noise. "Forget it, I just hooked you up. And done. The discount, I mean."

"That fast?"

"I am John and the Undying One, I sure am fast." He grinned, put the small tie back into the fixed braid and nodded, made a grin, a thumbs-up, the picture device clicked and John got up. "See, now you are pretty again." Something chirped. "Ah, and there are your pictures. Have fun with them."

"Thank you, John. That might be the best day of my life to this day." Sven took a look at his tablet and he grinned. That was... Chuthalla didn't know what it was, but it raised a question. Well, not quite, it brought her back to her question she was about to ask a few minutes ago.

"How do you think you can defeat me? Or a Carabellan in general?"

"Hm, I could tell you that." John kissed his wife on the cheek. "But what about... a friendly banter? A combat between new-found friends? Non-lethal of course. You against Sven since you both are already acquainted."

"Non-lethal?" She smacked with her lips. Normally a duel was to the death, at least between Carabellans. "Fair. I don't want to kill the very first human I've ever met."

Sven nodded with a laugh. "Alright, if it is fine with you, I'm down for it. Never fought someone with four arms, that could get interesting."

John smiled as he did the arrangements for the fight. He had spoken with the stations quartermaster and was allowed to use one of the training halls for their fight. Chuthalla had specified a few weapons from her species which she brought with her luggage. John had done the same for Sven and cleared a circle of twenty five meters. He had marked the circles borders with sandbags. Might be a bit outdated, but at least nobody got hurt because of metal or something.

He took a quick glance over the weapons Chuthalla brought and then lined up the weapons they thought would be good to use on a desk. Nunchaku, special forces batons, training swords, wooden bokutō formed like a katana and a wakizashi, brass knuckles and a quarterstaff.

"What do you recommend?" Sven got rid of his shirt, boots and socks, then tried out the Nunchuck and the quarterstaff.

"Me?" John smiled and shook his head. "I don't recommend any weapon to you because you are the trained expert. You are the combat expert and despite my years of experience and knowledge I can only give advise on how to beat her. I mean, she has four arms, so you need to keep track of them."

"She has four arms, is taller than me, her muscles are as dense as mine, her armour has a few weak points, her arms at the joints and her legs appear to be sturdy as well." Sven took the special forces batons, rotated them around the grip and nodded. "That will do."

"Remember, it is a non-lethal combat situation. Don't break her no quarter, but don't inflict any serious injury or kill her. Otherwise do your thing."

"Understood." Sven nodded again, swang the batons around so that they aligned with his arms and climbed over the sandbags into the makeshift duel ring. Chuthalla just stepped over them, in each of her four hands a staff.

"Oh, hello there." smiled John as he was reminded of an enemy in one of his favourite franchises. That could be fun.

He flipped a hovering camera into the area where he connected it with him and Alira via the RRCT tech to get a more cinematic view of the entire duel. And to get rid of their HUDs in their field of views. They haven't figured out a reliable way to filter out their HUD in their recordings (which are their memories), so he and Ali had to rely on workarounds. In this case a hovering camera.

The next thing he did was to broadcast. Alira smiled at him and through their shared connection he felt her love and sent it back to her. An eternity together. Slowly a lot of viewers trickled in as more and more people read the notification that John Sullivan has gotten online on their favourite streaming platform. At first only a few thousand, then a few hundred thousand, then millions and millions more.

Title of the stream? That was an easy one: Human versus the new ones! Non-lethal combat!

It got re-casted on thousands of channels, then casted into the non-human network and then into the galactic network. As expected. Every species could and probably would recieve this.

[You know this is going to get viral?] asked Alira through her connected lines, he felt her amusement.

[Of course, love. I'm counting on it.] he answered with a smile. [It is not that I want to humour our fellow humans, but I want to instill fear into the hearts of our enemies. Again. This is the most perfect opportunity I could even have asked for. And sorry I didn't consulted with you or Valeria, but I think it is doing us more good than bad.]

Alira shrugged. She was the Human Ambassador after all, she would attend to the politics with Valeria if needed. There will be a lot of discussions, but now they had a thing to do.

"Okay, friends!" John held up both arms, looked around. Nearly every species was there, except for the Voidwalkers and the Sylphids, they had to attend to different things and the Voidwalkers were not welcome in the space of the Galactic Council.

They looked at him, the camera whirred through the air, capturing the audience and the two fighters. "This is a non-lethal combat!" Some Boooooh were to hear, but that was it. "It is a friendly duel because both claimed to have their way around the other just by a friendly discussion. - To our right we have Chuthalla of the Carabellans, the new ones!"

The audience cheered and Chuthalla, who got rid of her clothes and her bag and only stood with her partial armour in front of Sven, waved with two hands in different directions.

"And to our left" John pointed at Sven "we have one of the human Marines, Sven Jorgensson." People screamed and whistled, while Sven hold up one arm to greet them. His muscles were well defined in a healthy way like John had expected it from one of the Marines. He noticed two knot-pattern on his upper arms and Sven got into position, a cold glare in his eyes.

"Alright, folks." John continued. "The battle is over once one of the combatants is unconcious or yields. Blood doesn't count as a winning condition." He looked around, made sure everything was running smoothly and clapped into his hands. "Begin."

What happened after that word was an interesting sight to behold. None of them charged, both got into position. Chuthalla stretched out her upper arms to protect her sides, the lower arms were aimed forwards for an attack or defense.

Sven on the other hand held the batons the way he did before, the sleek, elongated corpus at his lower arms. He ducked, arms and batons raised, trying to present as less surface as possible. Which was not much since he was a lot smaller than Chuthalla. She only had to aim and punch and hit where ever she wanted. In theory.

Sven tested her reach and her reactions. He moved slowly around the circle, trying to figure out her movements. She did the same, was more curious for what he was doing next.

Two hunters in a circle. Two hunters hunting each other. Two hunters. Sven made his move way earlier and John smiled a bit. Sven ducked under her first hit from her lower arm, with the batons he parried her upper arms and the sticks she was wielding. But he got hit by the stick in her second lower arm which caused a red-flaming burn on his lower rips.

But Sven didn't flinch. He just grinned, jumped back and charged again, spun himself around and initiated the next attack with a kick against the region where her lower arms connected with the body, approximately where the ribcage of a human ended. She didn't budge as well but had to defend herself against a few more kicks to her upper body region before Sven started to kick against her legs.

Then Chuthalla started to attack as well and Sven... he charged again instead of defending himself. He knocked three of the sticks away and rammed her with his shoulder. She had to catch herself with a step back, got in position again and awaited the next attack.

After five or six minutes John sighed. "Marine!"

"Yes, Sir?" Sven totally forgot to call him John instead of Sir.

"Stop playing with her!"

"Aye, Sir!"

Chuthalla looked in Johns direction and then again to Sven, who had a smirk on his face and attacked again. This time he was faster than before, charging to her side, deflecting blows against his head and shoulders and slapped her left lower arm away before his blow struck the joint and the arm was useless, the stick clattering to the ground.

The Carabellan groaned, kicked herself and hit Sven multiple times, before the Marine was going serious mode. He dodged the grabbing attack, kicked her against the knees and then struck right into the middle of her chest.

Chuthalla gasped, stared at him with a disbelief like he would have told her that space was hot and then collapsed.

"I said non-lethal!" bellowed John, as he saw the damage which was projected into his view as Sven hit Chuthalla. Sarah projected the damaged areas into his view and he slided underneath Chuthalla who collapsed into his arms.

She was dead. Sven had hit through her armour and the fatal blow crushed the protective bones and the heart and lungs underneath. In addition splinters of bones had punctured these vital organs, blood was filling them.

"I... that was non-lethal..." Sven didn't seem to understand what he had done wrong, utter confusion on his face.

"Yes, to us!" John sighed. "This isn't going to be pretty... Heilung." he commanded.

"Heilungsmodus aktiv." said Sarah, golden light streamed out of his hands into the foreign woman. He controlled the stream of golden light, navigating through the organs, removing splinters, pushing the blood into the vessels, repairing flesh, tissue and muscles.

"Ok, and now..." John snapped his fingers, firing small energy balls through the woman, started heart and brain like he would kickstart a car and the Carabellan gasps for air, her three huge eyes rolling around, trying to focus.

"What...what..." She looked at Sven and then at John, her head in his lap.

"Hey, love." grinnend John. "Welcome back in the world of the living. You were dead for less than one minute. Hopefully your gods or deities or whatnot isn't too disappointed that I brought you back."

"No, I...you killed me?" She looked at Sven and got up, John started to float around and got on his feet as well.

"Yeah, sorry." Sven took both batons in one hand and pointed at his chest. "This attack isn't lethal to us and since you have a protective armour around your organs, I assumed it would soak up most of my energy."

"It normally does." Chuthalla ran a finger over her chest and shivered. Then she smiled at Sven. "I think we should do more of this... non-lethal combat."

John winked at Alira, who turned the camera at her face and spoke into it, ended the stream with their thanks and cut off the broadcast.

"What {the hell} is going on here?" asked someone with a voice like they would be screaming. The translator didn't picked up the tone entirely, but it was clear that they weren't amused.

"Chathar!" John opened his arms in a greeting. "We had a little non-lethal banter which is now finished."

"I saw that. You killed one of our soldiers and expect no consequences?"

"Why should there be any consequences except for a few bruises?" John looked at Chuthalla. "Well, not for her anyways since I healed her."

Chuthalla stepped forward and talked to Chathar in their language so fast that John couldn't understand a word. That means he had to build a cache for that. Wow. Better safe than sorry so he saved everything they were saying for later analysis.

"Wait." He frowned. "Soldier? I thought Chuthalla was here because she was curious?"

"I'm standing right here." The Carabellan smiled. "Yes, but we are all soldiers in the end."

"Hu, interesting... and what now?"

"Chuthalla wants to go on an assignment with your Human Soldier Sven."

"What?" exclaimed Sven, Alira and John and then Alira took over. She started to talk with Chathar while Chuthalla clothed herself again and stood next to Sven, who was still sweating a bit, his muscles defined and gleaming a bit.

After a while John came back with Alira, both smiling and looking very pleased with themselves.

"Well, Sven, you got yourself and your group an assignment."

Sven looked like he was shot and Chuthalla made a victorious move with her arms.

[Oh, this is going to be very, very good. See the hormon scales? They do like each other and if this is going to take off like I had calculated, we and the Carabellans might be as good friends as we are with the Nemeians. How is the VOD of the broadcast?]

Alira smiled and he felt her warmth through their connection. [As you said: it is going viral.]