Dead Star Dockyards

343 Barbed Wire

The wildlife of Nectar had done a stellar job of staying - in Donovan's own terms - 'the fuck away' from the fledgling settlement up to this point. Some sightings were made during expeditions into the woods to survey logging areas, and the occasional gargantuan critter could be seen to curiously observe the goings on from the tree line at dusk, but aside from their unfortunate encounter with the 'Thunderbird' nobody had been close enough to interact with one. This was in no small part thanks to said animals' caution in approaching new things, however the efforts invested in securing the area against them could not be discounted.Steel wire had been shipped in by the mile, the usually mechanized process of manufacturing the 'barbed' prefix supplanted by an immense amount of manual labor by thousands of otherwise idle hands. Three meter tall steel pipes manufactured by Arc were staked into the ground in ten meter increments, leaving two meters above the ground for seven rungs of wire to be strung. It was recognized that the larger athletic creatures, such as the 'Rose Leopard' Donovan and Titanyana executed, would probably be able to vault or even push through the shoddy construction without much issue. Stopping them wasn't the point though.

Donovan's strategy with the barbed wire was two-fold. The first was obviously deterrence, relying on those curious enough to inspect the construct to rub up on the fence, cut themselves, and realize that maybe it wasn't worth crossing. The second was to create an opportunity for tracking.

Should the fauna of Nectar get any ideas and try to infiltrate the cordoned off regions by force or stumble somehow and snag themselves on the wire, rudimentary bells that had been attached to every other post would ring. Ideally this would alert any nearby Nekh, who's ears were sensitive enough to raise the alarm and organize a response. There was also the idea that the fence's posts, which had little attachment to the ground and were fairly weak in structure, could come loose or break if something tried to infiltrate by force. There was a serious potential for prospective intruders to get caught up in the barbed wire that way, Donovan just thought the odds of something being dumb enough to get into such a situation were incredibly low.

"How the fuck . . ." Which made the lifeless hulk before him that much more confusing.

"One of the sheep got close to the fence last night, milord. I think it tried to take it when I wasn't paying attention, maybe it didn't see the wire." Donovan only vaguely remembered the boy before him, a son one of the shepherds brought from the Sanctum. He wasn't sure where his father was, or why what looked like an eight year old had been left to watch the sheep all night alone. "It got the sheep, but it got stuck. If there wasn't a patrol it might have escaped."

Donovan inspected the corpse more closely, struggling to come up with an analogous Terran animal. He hadn't seen how it moved or stood, but it had a musculo-skeletal structure close to an alligator - short stocky legs and a long body meant to stay close to the ground - with a head closer in shape to a shark's, if a bit flatter and looking not at all like a shark. The tail, on the other hand, wasn't something he remembered seeing on any animal he knew of. It was long, very long, and almost cylindrical like that of a snake's body, but it didn't taper off as others would, maintaining a consistent diameter throughout. Instead there was a rather large mess of keratinous spaghetti at its end, like the spines of a stegosaurus but less organized. It's fur, long and shaggy, only covered what Donovan decided to call the upper body, and looked like it was infested with moss. Closer inspection revealed there to be no moss at all, just a collection of matted coats. 

The tail, neck, and arms were interesting, or at least their exteriors were. They didn't have fur but some sort of carapace, though it wasn't a scaly or chitinous makeup like he'd expect. The surface was slightly flaky, the outermost layers peeling off in pale brown chunks as he picked at it with a finger. It wasn't mud or dirt - which he'd been half expecting of an animal that dragged itself across the forest floor - but 

"Thank you, milord."

"For what?" Donovan wrested his attention from the specimen to address the child. He'd obviously been shaken by the attack, a creature the size of a hippo ambushed him and his herd in the middle of the night after all, but he was holding it together better than could be expected of someone his age.

"For . . . everything. The opportunity here, the animals, the fence." Donovan could tell he was on the verge of breaking. "It didn't keep him safe, but it let us avenge him."

"Where," Donovan sighed, looking at the bloodied husk laying near the creature's mouth. The fence hadn't managed to save the young shepherd's charge, but it sure as shit got even with it. "Where is your father?"

"M-my dad?" Tears welled up, and Donovan prepared to calm him down. He was getting used to it at this point, and he assumed the skill  would be very useful when he had children of his own. "H-he's over there."

Donovan's stomach sunk like it had been filled with lead. There wasn't anyone else in this tent, or at least there wasn't to be. Large as this creature was it was fairly flat aside from the clump at the tail, so he could see over it. Sure, the tent itself was something erected in a hustle to keep the corpse from the eyes of a thunderbird, so there were some spare sheets scattered here and there, but he would have noticed the undulations in such fabrics as a person underneath breathed. Of course, that only applied if the person hiding was breathing.

The damage was much worse than Donovan envisioned. The face was unharmed, but the same could not be said for the abdomen. It had been flattened, caved in by some immense force striking him directly in the chest, bruising on the body inspiring an image of a pulverized ribcage and ruptured organs. The tunic, which had probably been peeled back by the patrol to assess the damage, was torn and punctured so much it looked like a range target, minute amounts of blood staining those holes correlating to broken skin in a gruesome summary of the most lethal portions of the blow.

"He, he,  he charged at it to save the sheep, a-and it hit him with the tail!" The boy shook in place, doing everything he could to stop himself from breaking down.

"Hey, hey hey hey." Donovan quickly rubbed his hand over the face to close they eyes before covering the body and closing in to give the boy a hug, bending to a knee to ensure his comfort. He wanted to say 'it's okay', but there wasn't anything 'okay' about this situation. "You'll be alright, okay? If you need to cry, then you can cry."

"B-but daddy says a man shouldn't cry." The words struck at Donovan, and he wasn't sure why.

"He . . .  he was right. Men shouldn't cry."

"So I can't cry. Because d-daddy wouldn't want me to cry." The snivels grew in frequency as tears streamed down his cheeks. Try as he might to hold back, the little boy was fighting a losing battle. "He w-wouldn't want his lit-little man to c-cry."

"That . . ." Donovan was trying to figure out what to say to this little soldier before he lost completely. Something to make him think letting loose would be acceptable. "I think your father would want you to cry for him, if only for now, and then never again. I think every father would want their son to cry for them, to mourn their passing with tears, even if it's only once in your life. I think he'd want to know you cared for him, alright?"

"B-but I'm a man now. M-men shouldn't cry. They shouldn't-" He was turning red from the strain of his fruitless endeavor. No amount of flexing his facial muscles could stop his tear ducts. Fortunately, his words gave Donovan an idea.

"You aren't a man yet, kid." It might hurt his pride, but this was the only thing Donovan could think of to break the tension in the boy's mind. "And you won't be for a while. You are his 'little' man, and that 'little' is important, you hear?" The shaking stopped, or maybe slowed would be a better description. "You are still a boy, a man in training. You'll become one, with time you'll be just as much a man as your father, but not now. Not . Men don't cry, but they need to know what it's like to cry, just like every man needs to know what it's like lose even if they can't ever give up, you understand? Every man has been a boy at one point in their lives, it's just the way things are. I was a boy once, the men outside were boys once, even your father was a boy at one point, and I'm sure each of them have cried. So cry, cry all that you can, if only this once and never again, understand?"

Donovan delivered this message with a softness he wasn't used to, and he felt a little worried it might come off more like an order than advice. He wasn't even sure this was the right advice either. His 'father' wasn't someone he looked up to, and by the time he met Doctor Helmsguard he was past the stage of crying. In fact, he couldn't remember crying at any point in his life, not even when he saw Sol 'die' aboard the Oberlux.

"I-I hundershtand." Donovan loosened his grip on the boy upon seeing this, patting him on the shoulder before guiding him over to the body. He didn't dare initiate the unveiling. That honor would be left to the boy, though he did guide his hand to the corner. The tears dropping to the grass told Donovan he'd had some success, but the lack of any sobbing meant the boy was still holding on.

"Are you ready?" He shifted around to the other side, hand still on the kid's shoulder. He made eye contact once he grabbed  hold of the opposite corner. As damaged as the body was, Donovan felt it important to show proper respect to the deceased. This might be the last time the kid got to be with his father, and he wouldn't dare sully it with improper courtesy. "Will you want to be alone with him?"

Donovan did not know what it was like to lose family. Even Doctor Helmsguard, the person closest to a father figure in his life, wasn't  someone he formed that type of emotional bond with. Doctor Helmsguard probably wanted it that way, to spare Donovan from the torment amidst the billion other challenges he'd be saddled with, but he couldn't help but feel something had been lost in exchange, something important. Right now he could only do what he thought was needed, an imitation of someone much wiser and attuned to the nature of man than he.

"Mhm."

"Alright." At least this facade was effective. "I'll pull it back with you whenever you are ready, just give me the word."

No response, but not because Donovan had been ignored. The kid was just trying not to collapse until he was ready, trying to make himself presentable to his father. Evidently he was clinging to the words of his father. After a few minutes spent steadying his breathing and sniffling back snot, he looked up at Donovan. It was enough to communicate that one word would break this carefully gathered composure.

"Ready?" A nod. "Alright. Three, two, one . . ."

Donovan closed his eyes as the fabric was pulled back, not to tear his eyes from the body but from the boy. Even if his words managed to ease the tension, it was evident the boy still believed crying was shameful. This was a mercy towards him, an appeasement of his preadolescent ego, a deception of the mind. If nobody was there to see him cry, did he really cry? Who was to say? Donovan certainly couldn't, but he could try to enforce the ambiguity of the question in the boy's mind, so he slowly got up and shuffled his way towards the entrance of the tent, opening his eyes once past the huddled mass.

The kid needed privacy, and Donovan was all too willing to provide.

- - - - -

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning Seppard." Donovan had been maintaining his vigil in front of the tent for a few minutes by the time Seppard arrived in his staff car, quietly erasing the sobs coming from within as soon as they touched his ears. "Kayes."

"I came out here as soon as I heard but-"

"I get up an hour earlier than you do. Don't sweat it." Seppard did good work. He left things to be desired at times, but only because Donovan desired perfection. If nothing else he'd developed the presence of mind to understand his standards were not entirely achievable. Kayes on the other hand . . . well Seppard was using him as best he could, but his skillset wasn't well suited for the work that needed doing. The occasional ground survey was the best he could ask of him, but he also had a duty to educate Cayzi.

"Thank you, um, shall we head inside to take a look? I brought Kayes along because I thought he could help."

"Yeah, uh, we should probably wait a few minutes." He wasn't sure how long the kid needed, but there was no doubt he'd be audible from the entrance. Donovan couldn't stomach having the kid pressured to finish his grieving prematurely because he thought he was in the way. "I'm sure there are other things we can talk about."

"Nothing we can't discuss while examining the carcass, I'm certain." He produced a cannister from his pouch. It was similar to a thermos, but used an insulatory material instead of a vacuum. Better durability for the weight, but at a slightly worse efficiency. "Tea?"

"No, thank you. I'm already awake." It was a polite way of saying 'that level of caffeine won't do shit'. 

"Very well. Should we, uh, go inside then?"

"Uuh," Donovan paused for a moment, waiting for his confirmation, "not yet."

"Is there something going on in there?" Kayes raised an eyebrow.

"Sorta. Nothing you two should concern yourselves with."

"Well if it's nothing to concern ourselves with, then it's nothing I'm concerned about." Kayes holstered his tea cannister, cap full of the amber liquid in hand. "Let's get a move on so we can return to our scheduled activities."

"Nah, we can wait." Donovan stepped into his path. Donovan wasn't the biggest fan of subtle ques like this, but he really wished Seppard would pick up on it. If nothing else, Kayes seemed to be getting the idea.

". . . well, I can understand if you want to escape the smell for a bit, but the rest of us have work to-"

"Listen to me." Donovan stepped forward into Seppard, grabbing the administrator's collar and splashing some of the tea onto his own shirt  in the process. Donovan didn't mind the scalding though, he'd experienced much worse many times over. "We can wait."

The surroundings fell silent, the groups of men on watch around the tent and working to fix the fence having their attention grabbed by the sudden display of force. Kayes and Seppard were particularly taken aback, neither having expected this sort of response from an otherwise urgent man. The silence played into Donovan's hands though, the gentle sounds of emotional distress filtering through the opening just loudly enough for the newcomers to parse.

"I, uh, suppose there are a few things that need to be addressed."

"Personally, I'd like to know what the next survey goal."