Avi opens the flaps of Kashier’s tent and screams so her voice carries across the camp. “Daddy! We have arrived as instructed!” Kashier is the Prime Emissary of the Barabba Tribe, his role is to make contacts across the many worlds the tribe visits, then send members out on missions. Avi was sent on her first mission a year ago and brought Tammy home. Ever since, while her peers have been going on subsequent missions and increasing their stats, she’s had to wait for her husband to undergo basic training in the assassin ways.

She wants everyone to know that she’s finally being sent on another mission.

Tammy walks in behind his wife, “g-good day, Prime Emissary Kashier. You summoned us?”

Kashier’s tent is a mess of chats, ledgers, maps, wanted posters, filing cabinets, language books and radios. The planet they’re on features 17 major criminal networks, three resistance groups, well over a hundred nationalist organizations, and the standard rivalries between gurant factions that show up on every world. Kashier needs to keep a handle on all of them, finding the best application for the Barabba Tribe’s assassins. The Barabba Tribe doesn’t just take these missions for profit, they believe they’re in an eternal war against the gurant species, and are therefore only interested in contracts against gurant targets. Their ideology, dictated by the Patriarch, prevents Kashier from taking contracts from gurant, even if it means killing other gurant.

A professional diplomat in his 50s, but his bone-tail genetics keep him looking like a handsome young man in his 20s. He has jet back hair, trimmed short and styled, with sharp, calculating ruby eyes. He’s currently sitting behind his curved wooden desk, with Emiri sitting on the table next to him, one leg crossed over the other.

“Samuel,” his stern voice instinctively makes the boy tense, and he softens his tone slightly. “I want to send you on your first mission. Are you up for it?”

Avi hooks her arm behind his neck, “we sure are! Anything you want, we can do it. Who do you want dead?”

Kashier keeps his gaze on his son-in-law.

“Y-yes sir.” He finally responds.

“Good. This isn’t an assassination mission, you’re still too young for it.”

Avi huffs.

“I’m sending you on a resource-collection mission, the goal is to fix your hunger issue.”

Tammy brightens while Avi scowls at being yet again reminded of her failure to feed her husband. Kashier taps on the map in front of him, prompting the two to approach. Avi’s head pokes over the edge of the table, while Tammy’s can’t, so she picks him up and sits him on her shoulders.

“50 miles to the south-east, there’s a rest stop. I’ll be giving you money in the local currency. Your mission is to reach this rest stop, buy food, and keep eating until you find something you can swallow.”

Emiri smiles, “from there, we’ll have an idea of what we can feed you.”

Avi starts swishing her tail wildly, and the wind blows some papers off a nearby table.

Tammy’s eyes light up, curiosity taking over as he analyzes the large map. “What’s the purpose of the rest stop?”

“Travelers stop there to rest.” Kashier taps one part of the map that features a massive city to the far east, then taps another city to the south. “It’s one of many points between these two mega cities. The gurant have at least 20 million people crammed in each, though on this world some mega cities reach over 100 million.”

“Why are the cities so big?” Tammy asks, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the top of Avi’s head.

Kashier smiles, but only a little. He’s heard how inquisitive Tammy can be when something peaks his interests, but this is the first time he’s been on the receiving end of his never-ending curiosity. “The gurant have many philosophies to keep order in their empire. This planet subscribes to the agglomeration theory, which states that their human slaves should be concentrated in large cities, with the urban districts heavily policed to keep order. There are thin strips of safe land, such as this road where the target rest stop is located, where supplies can travel between the cities. If any human is caught outside these corridors, they’re killed on sight.”

Tammy scratches his chin, “how do so many people eat?”

“Gurant lords operate large farming estates outside the cities to feed the populace, with the fields plowed by vast numbers of slaves. They sell this food to the people for immense profits, and in the event of rebellion they’ll halt these deliveries so the city’s food supply will run dry within two days.”

“Oooh! I was just about to ask what would happen if the people rebelled. So, what’s the point of the roads linking the cities?”

“As a further part of their paranoia, the gurant don’t let the cities be materially independent. Consider a tank.”

“A what?”

“A heavily armored vehicle of war.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“The factories in a city will not produce all the parts necessary to build a tank. Multiple cities will produce parts, then send those parts to yet another city for assembly, and then the assembled product will be sent to the correct destination without ammunition or fuel. As another example, cities that assemble firearms will not also manufacture bullets.”

Tammy nods. “And-“ the boy goes on to ask a dozen more questions about agglomeration theory, and Kashier answers each in turn. He enjoys having such an inquisitive son-in-law and silently detests how bored Avi looks as she rests her chin on the table and continually sighs and groans with each question, follow-up question, and side tangent. Emiri is bored too, but she’s allowed to be due to her position in the tribe.

After a while, another bone-tail sticks his head in the tent and sees that the Prime Emissary is still busy, “oh, sorry,” he pulls back out.

“That’s my next appointment,” Kashier says, “so I’ll have to cut this off here. Any last questions about your mission?”

“Nope! I think that covers it,” Tammy says with a bright smile. “Make our way over, buy food, figure out what I can eat.”

Kashier leans forward on the table, looking straight at Avi, making her grip Tammy’s thighs tighter as he sits on her shoulders. “Avi, keep your tail hidden. I’m intentionally sending you to a farther rest stop than necessary. If your race is revealed, you need to kill the witnesses. If you don’t, there’s a risk the information could reach a gurant, and they’ll figure out that a bone-tail camp is in this forest.”

Avi gulps, and silently nods, accepting the responsibility.

“It’s 50 miles to your destination. Walk ten miles a day and you’ll get there within five. Spend two days trying various foods, spend five days getting back. This is a reasonable schedule for you two. Accounting for slight delays, I’ll give you 13 days. If you don’t return by then, I’ll assume you’re dead. That would mean the tribe’s general location in this forest is compromised, and we’ll be moving locations. If you’re not dead, do not return to the tribe. Go east, circle around city 17,” he taps the northern city, “then once you’re sure you’re not being pursued, head north. We’ll find you eventually.”

The pair salute, “yes, sir!” Tammy yells.

“Yes, daddy!” Avi speaks slightly after Tammy, just to make sure her father hears her.

Emiri perks up, “and remember to have fun! Even if you find a food you like, keep eating so we can figure out a variety of dishes for you.”

The pair spend the rest of the day getting ready to head out, then spend their last night in camp. They leave early the next morning.

****

Avi, wanting to impress her tribe, convinces Tammy to keep to a grueling pace of 12.5 miles a day, thus reaching the rest stop in four days rather than five.

Tammy, wanting to impress Avi, goes along with it and doesn’t ask his wife to carry him even after his feet blister and his joints start aching. He pushes through the exhaustion, accepting injections of nutrition, calories, and adrenaline to keep pace. He knows that she could easily go even farther on her own and doesn’t want to hold her back.

As the sun begins to set on the fourth day, the pair see bright white lights glimmering through the dense forest.

They tun to each other, smile, then rush to the edge of the treeline.

What sits before them is a large complex of buildings circling a tall artificial hill, and a road running from the south-west to the north-east. From where they’re sitting, the road runs parallel to them

The circular hill reaches about 15 meters high, with a plateau on the top, and cliffs that jut down at an almost 90-degree angle. Wooden braces and trees line the dirt cliff for stability, ensuring heavy rain doesn’t cause a landslide.

There are two roads running parallel, each has four lanes, but one heads left while the other goes right. About a mile from the rest stop, each road begins a steady incline until they pass over the top of the plateau. Both roads have off and on ramps that split off shortly after the road begins to rise, and these ramps follow raised embankments that lead into and out of the rest stop. The roads linking the mega cities are perfectly straight. The gurant didn’t bend the highways to fit the landscape, they bent the landscape to their will, paving over swamps, or cutting deep valleys through mountains. On the sides of the roads are guard rails and lampposts, casting bright white lights onto every square foot of asphalt.

Situated around the base of the hill are buildings. Plain grey, concrete buildings with white lights illuminating every foot of territory. There are motels, gas stations, grocery stores, some entertainment buildings, and a small palace for the gurant tasked with ruling the rest stop. The palace, set on the right side between the two raised roads, features a spire five meters taller than the landfill, ensuring no truck or lightpost rises higher than the gurant’s residence. The only color in this area are signs promoting the various businesses, though all signs are written in a language that neither of the young assassins can read.

Surrounding the complex of buildings are parking lots full of trucks, busses, and a few armored vehicles for the military. Once more, tall lampposts are situated everywhere in the vast concrete field, ensuring the only shadows are placed between the cargo holds of each truck. Separating the parking lot from the forest is a single, electrified chain fence with barbed wire on the top and concrete on the bottom. The fence circles the rest stop and extends about half the length of the on and off ramps.

Tammy wipes some sweat from his brow, takes a deep breath to fill his chest to capacity, then lets it all out. “How… how the heck do we get through this?!” He slumps against a tree, then slides until he’s sitting on his leg, with his right shoulder pressed against the bark. “We need to make sure we’re not seen…”

“No, daddy just said my tail can’t be seen.” She crosses her arms and walks to the other side of the tree, leaning against the trunk. “I brought a large poncho for that reason; I’ll just tie my tail around my waist.”

“Yes, but that’s just for when we’re… actually in there. How do we get in there?”

“…I melt the fence with some acid?”

Tammy shakes his sweaty head. “That would tell them that someone came from this forest. Which is illegal. They might not realize it’s a tribe of bone-tails out there, but that doesn’t matter. For all they know it could be something like… a simple bandit clan. But so long as they send soldiers into the forest, the specifics don’t matter. If they’re looking for ‘someone’, and they find Barabba, it’s bad. We can’t leave any sign that there was infiltration.”

“…” Avi circles around the tree and looks down at him, “what?”

He looks up, “hm?”

“That was… how’d you figure all that out? Haha! My husband sure is a smartie!”

Tammy’s eyes widen, then he blushes and looks away, “wh-what? Me? Smart? Hehheh,” he can’t hide his smile. “No, I just, you know, that was all just stuff I learned through talking to your father during the briefing a few days ago.” He finally manages to compose his smile and returns his eyes to Avi. “Remember? You were there.”

“Of course I don’t remember, I stopped paying attention,” she rubs her chin. “…when someone said a big word that I didn’t know.”

“…You mean agglomeration? That was right at the beginning!”

“The beginning? It felt like that conversation had already been going on for an hour. But whatever,” she drops to a crouch so their eyes are level, “if you talked about all this with Daddy, did he tell you how we should infiltrate?”

“Well… no, I didn’t realize there would be a fence.”

Avi shakes her head like an amused big sister, “you we’re talking for that long, but you never thought to ask how we should actually do our job?”

“W-well you didn’t either!” Tammy pouts. “And you’re older, and more experienced.”

She scratches her cheek, “ehh… more experienced? I’ve only gone on one mission before, and it… well, you saw how it went. But nevermind, what the heck did you talk about?”

“Like… economics. How agglomeration theory works, transport routes, military stuff too. I was also interested in his network of contacts, and I asked a little about the gurant power structure and factions and… stuff.”

“But nothing relevant.”

“Not… well, it was relevant to me since I enjoyed the discussion with your father.”

“He’s your father now too.”

Tammy smiles a little.

Avi ruffles her partner’s damp hair, “you’re cute, but kind of an airhead sometimes. Anyway, I’d say you’re plenty smart. You took daddy’s vague orders and realized it meant we couldn’t break down the fence!” She proudly jumps to her feet and leans her back against the tree, looking at the rest stop. “So, using that big brain of yours… how are we supposed to get in?”

Tammy struggles to his feet, then stands at her side. “We have to make sure we don’t leave any trace of obvious infiltration.”

“Hm!” Avi excitedly swishes her tail, slapping the trunk behind her and rustling a nearby bush. “I don’t know how to do that!”

“Uhhh,” Tammy gulps and focuses his eyes, biting the tip of his thumb as he mumbles to himself. “We could… try and find where the fence is already broken? Break it so it looks like it’s natural wear and tear? We could head further down the road and try to hijack someone, but no, those cars are going to fast. Jump onto the road and walk, pretending we walked all this way? No, that wouldn’t really be realistic for two kids. Hmm,” the idea of walking peaks his interests, and he looks at the off and onramps. “Ooh, I’m making this too complicated. We just need to jump on the road when nobody’s looking and rush into the rest stop. It’s not even that late, but there’s already far more vehicles entering the rest stop rather than leaving. Once it’s fully night, pretty much nobody will be leaving, so we can sneak in via the onramps.” He smiles and pulls his thumb away from his teeth, “there! I think that’s a pretty good idea!”

“Yeah!” Avi gives a thumbs up. “I agree! So, what’s the plan?”

Tammy looks at her for a moment. Didn’t he just say the plan? “We wait until it’s deeper in night, then sneak in from the onramp. There won’t be anyone leaving in the dead of night, so it should be fine.”

“Excellent, I agree.” She raises her fist, “let’s go!”

“N-no, we have to wait until night.”

“Let’s wait!”

Tammy raises his fist, “let’s wait!”

The two stay in the forest for another two hours. They chat about small, inconsequential things, and Tammy nearly falls asleep due to the time and sudden rest after so much marching. Once the sun finally disappears over the horizon, and the rest stop’s bright white light flush out all the stars, the pair get up, Tammy doing so reluctantly. The circle around the glowing rest stop, climb up the embankment past the last segment of fence, then jump onto the onramp. With no cars leaving, they’re free to rush down and enter the rest stop without issue. At this point, if anyone asks how they got here, they can simply lie and say they rode a bus.

They’re both wearing large, adult-sized, olive-green ponchos, with a fold at the front left shoulder and a tall collar. For Tammy, the fabric reaches his ankles, but for Avi it reaches her knees. Her tail is coiled around her waist.

Avi leads the way as they approach what looks to be a motel.

“Let’s find a room!”

“No, we have to go to the reception desk and purchase a room for the night.”

“Huh? How do you know?”

“The High Lore Keeper told me.”

“That old man did?”

“Yeah, it was part of a broader lesson about survival in the Gurant Empire, how things work in real life and all that.”

Avi purses her lips. “Oh. You got lessons on that. How nice.”

Tammy stops walking, “y-you didn’t?”

Avi spins on her heel with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Who, me? Nooo, of course not. No training at all, no instructions. I like to think I’m just such a natural at everything that nobody felt the need to tell me anything.”

“O-oh.” Tammy feels the need to ask if she had fallen asleep or zoned out during such lessons, but he’s mature enough to not ask questions he knows the answer to. “Well, um, let’s go get us a room key.”

It takes a bit of thinking to find the door that leads to the reception desk, but they eventually enter. It’s a dirty, grungy room that clearly hasn’t seen any maintenance in years. Behind the main concrete desk is a shotgun proudly displayed on the back wall, and there are no doubt more guns hidden underneath. The receptionist is a short, balding, greasy man with a pungent smell, and he’s leaning back on a chair, eyeing the two as a radio plays on his desk. To the right of his pot belly is a prominent holster and pistol.

“Hello,” Tammy speaks amicably, approaching the desk. He can’t look over the edge, so Avi hugs his waist from behind and lifts him up so he can rest his elbows on the counter. “We would like to purchase a room.”

“[You don’t purchase a room, you rent one.]” The man’s voice is raspy, like he’s smoked cigarettes most of his life. He’s speaking an alien language, one of the more common ones from the two cities that are linked by the road outside. Tammy’s low-level psychic powers translate the receptionist’s words for himself, but this translation doesn’t extend to Avi, and because the radio doesn’t have a soul, whatever’s playing isn’t translated either.

“Ah, sorry. We would like to rent one.”

Avi frowns, “Tammy? What the heck is this guy saying? You can understand him?” Tammy’s powers also don’t translate his wife’s words for the receptionist.

“Uh-,” he presses his lips together as a pit grows in his stomach. Tammy can turn his power on and off, but it takes about seven seconds of intense concentration, which would look suspicious. If he speaks to Avi, the man will understand his speech. If Avi responds and the man doesn’t understand her, isn’t that suspicious too? How can Avi understand when Tammy seemingly speaks the man’s language, but she doesn’t respond in the same language? Clearly, Tammy thinks, the man would piece together that he’s a psychic, and therefore he’d realize that they’re assassins, and then he’d obviously go and snitch to the gurant about how the Barabba Tribe is hiding in the forest and needs to be destroyed. He looks down at her, “shabatagra… mosu nur garaa-…garaaara three.” His skin turns a little pale. He has to hope that fake, nonsense gibberish isn’t translated.

“…What?”

The man snaps his fingers, “[hey, boy. Over there. Talk with her later.]”

“Y-yes! Sorry, sir.” He reaches under his poncho and takes out his pouch of money.

“H-hey, what’s he saying?” Avi shakes him a little.

Tammy looks back at her, “kra-ralgrath!” He turns back to the man, “uh, sorry. She’s not as accustomed to… talking to people.”

“[I don’t care,]” he says plainly. “[One night is 13.]”

Avi frowns, “hey. What’s he saying?”

Tammy purses his lips, “I-I…” He thinks for a second. How can he lower the man’s suspicion? This is a disaster! What did everyone back at the tribe tell him? How can he get out of this? One of the most important pieces of advice is to play into people’s greed, and a great way to do that is to pretend to be a sucker. He pushes the pouch forward, “S-sorry, sir. I don’t know what 13 is. My father told me this is a lot of money, so can you take 13 out?”

The man raises his eyebrows as he perks up in his seat.

“Your father?” Avi’s face lights up, “ha! You’re not calling him Prime Emissary anymore! Or Father-in-law! Have you accepted that he’s your dad now too?” She starts spinning with joy, forcing Tammy to try and twist his spine and neck as he continues the conversation.

The receptionist smiles and leans forward, rooting through the pouch of money.

Tammy clears his throat and looks down at Avi, “uh, uh, kamigar salari.”

Avi pouts and sets him down, look down at him, her hands on his shoulders. “Tammy. What the heck are you saying? Why are you sweating so much? Use your words.”

His eyes round, he quietly shakes his head. Rapid, quick movements left and right.

Avi narrows her brow, “is he threatening you?”

Tammy raises an eyebrow, then his face droops. Meanwhile, the receptionist is absentmindedly counting far more than 13. Tammy turns his head to look back to the man, then returns to Avi. “T-tshaga mi.” He shakes his head again.

But the fact that Tammy isn’t speaking is all the confirmation Avi needs. Her face tightens, and she pushes Tammy to the side.

“[Alright boy, I took out 13.]” He actually took out 30. “[You got room 15. Second floor, third room down.]” He sets the key on the edge of the desk.

Tammy thinks fast and hops on Avi’s back, hugging her tightly. She brings her hands back to grab his thighs “Y-yes, sir! Thank you for the room. We’ll be on our way after the successful payment.”

Avi frowns, “successful payment?”

“Heh, heh,” Tammy gulps and puts out his hand, “I’ll just take the pouch back.”

The gears in Avi’s head turn, and she steps forward so Tammy can grab it and the key.

“[Yeah, sure, get out.]”

“Yes sir. We’ll be leaving now.”

“[Just go.]”

Avi takes the hint and leaves the reception room. “Wha-“

Tammy puts a hand over her mouth and waits for the door to close. “Second floor, third room.”

She thinks for a moment, then climbs the steps and heads to the third room. Tammy promptly uses his other hand to unlock the door, and they slip inside.

The room has a single bed on the right wall and a window with a thick curtain. No carpet, no other furniture, the blankets have been stolen from the bed, leaving only a dirty mattress.

A heavy sigh releases all the tension from Tammy’s small body, and he rests his chin on the top of Avi’s head. “What a mess…”

“What the heck happened?!” Avi shouts.

Tammy turns his head so his cheek rests on her hair. “I was talking to the guy.”

Avi walks to the bed, “but he was speaking gibberish. And then half the time, you were too.”

“My psychic powers automatically translate languages. That was how I could talk to you when we first met, despite not knowing lergic at the time.”

“Oh, right. We’ve only been in the tribe since then, so I forgot.” She turns her back to the bed and dumps him off, letting him flop onto the mattress. “So you were… turning it off, and that’s why you were talking nonsense?”

“No, I was talking nonsense intentionally. Just random sounds. My powers don’t translate languages for others, so you and he couldn’t understand each other. It wouldn’t make sense for you to understand me, but not him, so I was… trying to make it seem like I knew two languages.”

“Oh!” Avi jumps onto her stomach next to Tammy. “That didn’t come across at all.”

“I didn’t think it would be an issue, sorry,” Tammy huffs. “I think I should do the talking with normal people.”

“Sure,” Avi rolls to her back, closer to Tammy so their shoulders are touching. “Sounds like a plan. You be the talker, and I’ll be the muscle! Ready to murder anyone that gets too close.”

“We’re only supposed to kill people they learn you’re a bone-tail.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she reaches down and holds Tammy’s hand. “So, wanna go get food?”

He thinks for a moment. “I think… I’d rather sleep for now. The marching, the infiltrating, dealing with that guy, I’m tired and worried about messing up because of it.” He reaches over and pulls up his sleeve.

Avi nods and gently punctures his vein, injecting the proper nutrition for the day to tide him over. But the burning pit of hunger doesn’t leave his gut.