Commander Russo Van Darren finished reading the report the rescued Beta wrote two weeks ago. It took this long to decipher as it was written in an ancient dead language nobody spoke anymore. At his request, his superiors let him have a copy of the translated version – he was the one after all who saved the emaciated little teen.

Russo thought back to that day. During the morning training drills, the alarms sounded in sector 213 warning of the incoming Zerg attack. They spilled out of one of the abandoned colossal crust mining shafts by the thousands. By the time Russo and his squadron got there, the Zerg slaughtered the populace of a nearby frontier town and began to establish a nest within a 12-kilometer radius of the shaft.

The army set up a perimeter using barrier generators like a well-oiled machine and got to its gruesome work of eliminating the enemy. The battle raged on for a week before the higher-ups issued an airstrike, dropping a bomb in the mining shaft to wipe out the Zerg reinforcements. The explosion shook the ground on the level of a scale 7 earthquake, but did its job superbly, collapsing the shaft and leaving a huge crater. All that was left was to kill the remaining Zerg. Without reinforcements the Zerg stood little chance, Russo and his comrades wiped them out in a day. Then, Russo, had the injured taken away for treatment, the dead retrieved, and ordered the still able-bodied soldiers in his regiment to finish off the hurt but still living Zerg.

Russo was the type who lead by example, so he too patrolled the battlefield in search of survivors both friendly and hostile. He approached the edge of the mining shaft. It would be bad if they let their guard down, only to find out too late that the Zerg still had a nasty surprise in their arsenal. It was a strategy they used often enough.

When he walked by a crack half-covered by a protruding boulder left by the explosion-caused earthquake, his mechabot’s sensors detected life signs of a Zerg from beneath it. Russo readied his psionic cleaver in a ready-to-strike battle stance and had his mecha bot emit a sound at a frequency Zergs used to call each other. After a couple of minutes, the boulder flipped over as a colossal Behemoth carrier emerged from underneath it. It looked severely burnt, and its wings appeared damaged as well. With a low growl, it sluggishly launched itself at Russo’s mecha bot, who sidestepped it and sliced down with his huge cleaver glowing with psychic energy to slay the ugly monster. The cleaver cut down the nasty creature almost severing it in half. As the Behemoth’s body collapsed with a thunderous rumble, Russo jumped up and put his mechabot’s weight behind his cleaver as he stabbed down at the thing’s temple to kill it with one swift move. Russo watched the lights go out in the monster’s many eyes, and leaped back to avoid the stomach acid spilling onto his mechabot’s feet. Though the machine he was piloting could even operate in outer space, it couldn’t resist the Zerg’s corrosive liquid.

He was just about to move on when the mechabot’s AI warned of another life sign. This time it was a human. Russo looked in the direction the AI pointed fully expecting one of his fellow soldiers in need of help, but instead, he saw a scantily dressed emaciated teenager covered in dried blood. The person wore black chokers on their neck signaling that they were an unmarked, unwed Omega. The skin-and-bones thin Omega sluggishly gazed up at the sky and tears started to stream down their hollow cheeks with an awed expression on their¹Okay, so in this story, there are 5 genders M/F Alpha, M/F Beta, and Omega, who are built all the same biologically. It's up to the individual Omega what they identify as, therefore the 'they/them pronoun. face as if the sky was the most beautiful thing they ever saw. They then slowly turned around in the metal container they were sitting in and looked at the cut open corpse of the Behemoth carrier.

Russo expected the Omega to scream frantically as they had very fragile psyches and got scared easily, but they just quietly stared at the dead monster in a daze.

There shouldn’t have been any civilian survivors in the area, the Zerg was very thorough. Russo activated the speaker system to ask what they were doing here in the middle of a battlefield where there was no place for Omega, but the teenager didn’t react to his words. He approached them and eventually they turned around and gazed up at his mecha bot before their head lolled back as they fainted.

Russo confirmed that there were no other life signs in the vicinity aside from those of his soldiers, and opened the cockpit and jumped down. He carefully walked up to the container the teenager sat in. Upon closer look, he saw that the Omega had many small wounds on their body, and the inside of the container was littered with a lot of bones and dark, bloody pieces of skin. The Omega had a makeshift shiv in one of their hands. They looked like a skeleton with skin on and they were barely breathing. They might have been beautiful once.

Russo carefully removed the shiv from the youth’s hand and lifted them out of the container. They were so light, that Russo barely even felt their weight. Russo hugged the Omega to himself and found that the other stank badly. He frowned and jumped back up into the cockpit of his mecha bot.

Russo let his troops know that he found an injured civilian and was heading back to base to get them to safety for treatment. He ordered his second-in-command to take charge and finish the cleanup work.

He arrived at the medical ward after an hour. He handed the teen over to the doctors who were surprised to see a civilian in the military hospital. As the youth was in a dire state, the doctors didn’t ask many questions. Russo asked them to keep him posted on the Omega’s situation and went to make his reports to the higher-ups.

A couple of days later the hospital notified him that the youth has woken up. The doctor explained their state of health to Russo.

“He is very weak. It’s clear that he was in a state of prolonged starvation for a long time. His injuries are nothing serious, but a lot of them will leave scars, especially the acid burns on his palms, back, and calf. He has a mild fever from his infected wounds. It seems like he is a victim of illegal flesh molding judging by the pair of wings growing from his back. We haven’t removed them as he wouldn’t survive the surgery being so weak. Our tests have confirmed that he carries several dormant non-lethal STDs, he is being treated for them now with the appropriate medicines. Furthermore, we also found out that he is a Beta and deaf – though whether that’s due to an injury, illness, or him being born this way is unknown. For now, he needs a lot of rest. We started him on a diet to help him regain a healthy weight.”

“Wait, he is a Beta? Not an Omega?”

“Yes, that’s correct, commander.”

“But the way he looked… I mean, he looked like a sex worker. He even wore the choker.”

“Oh, that he might be. Our tests have shown that he was either a prostitute or was abused sexually. Anyhow, it’s clear that he has had a lot of sex for a long time, probably from his early childhood.”

“How come he isn’t an Omega then?”

“It’s not like having lots of sex is exclusive to Omega.”

“Oh…”

“Yep, Beta can be prostitutes too.”

“…Can he communicate?” asked Russo, eager to change the topic.

“He cannot. We called an interpreter, but he doesn’t seem to understand sign language. He is also illiterate. Poor thing, he must have had such a harsh life! We gave him a holopad to draw on, to let us know if there is something he needs.” After a brief pause, the doctor added with mirth. “He draws very well. You can go in if you’d like, you have half an hour.”

Russo nodded and went in. The boy – the Beta, he now knew – was sketching something on the holopad. Russo knocked on the door frame, but the youth didn’t react. Right. He couldn’t hear him. Slightly embarrassed by his own stupidity, Russo approached the boy and gently tapped his foot. He flinched startled and looked up at Russo wearily.

Russo lifted his hands to show he wasn’t an enemy, smiled gently, and waved at the boy to greet him. The Beta tentatively waved back and just stared at Russo without blinking.

Russo was slightly taken aback by his eyes. They were a striking blue color that especially stood out on his dark brown face. His gaze was hollow and bleak as if he had already seen the worst the world could offer. He was wearing a hospital gown that hung on his thin skeletal body like a sack. He was sitting up, with his back supported by huge pillows. The wings on his back stuck out at the sides slightly, their black and blue feathers dull in color and matted. His arms had intravenous needles attached to them, supplying him with a nutrient-rich liquid.

Russo spoke sign language. He faced the boy and slowly and articulately talked to him while using his hands too. He asked how he was doing and what his name was.

The boy just stared blankly, then turned back to his holopad and continued his sketching. From time to time he looked up at Russo as if to check he was still there.

They sat in silence but Russo didn’t feel awkward. He figured he would spend that 30 minutes with the boy even if they couldn’t talk to each other. At one point he noticed that the boy licked his chapped lips, his pink tongue sticking out a bit, so Russo handed him a glass of juice with a straw that was stationed on a shelf.

The boy looked at him with alarm before carefully taking the juice and drinking from it. He must have found it delicious because he smacked his lips and his cheeks flushed a little bit. He nodded at Russo and lifted his glass in a ‘Cheers!’ gesture.

Russo, glad that he liked the drink, smiled at him again.

When the time was up, a nurse came to notify them. Russo got up and nodded at the boy, but before he could go out, he heard the teen snap his fingers at him rapidly. Russo figured he wanted him to wait a bit, so he did. The youth quickly finished what he was working on, and handed Russo the holopad.

“For me?” Russo gestured at himself. The boy nodded like a little chicken.

Russo looked at the holopad. There weren’t just drawings on it, but also rows of neat handwritten text too. Russo couldn’t read the text, he has never seen letters and words like these before. The drawings next to the writing were like those of a storyboard, illustrating a series of events. Though they were just quick, hurried sketches they were still incredibly lifelike. There were also separate drawings of animals, Zerg, people, and buildings that grasped the essence and feel of their subjects accurately.

Russo understood that this must have been the boy’s story. The youth surely understood that Russo wanted to know what happened to him, how he ended up on the battlefield, and if he had any relevant information on the Zerg, so he wrote and drew this document to tell his story in the only way he could.

The boy glared meaningfully at Russo. Russo tucked the holopad inside his pocket and nodded at the boy with a firm expression. Then he saluted and left.

When he got back to the base he was stationed, he immediately called for someone in the decoding department. He ordered them to come up with a way to translate the text as soon as possible.

Now, two weeks later, he finally learned the boy’s story. As heartbreaking as it was, it also contained valuable information about new types of Zerg as well as it confirmed the fact that the vile creatures must have a nest deep in the planet’s crust, and that’s how they managed to surprise the humans this time. Though they managed to beat them back barely and destroyed the shaft with a bomb, the likeliness of there being surviving Zerg cells was high.

The container’s material that could resist the Zerg’s acid also had to be recovered and analyzed as it could give humans a significant edge in future battles. It may even make the Zerg’s complete defeat possible, enabling mankind to finally win the war. Russo called for an urgent meeting to discuss countermeasures with his superiors and fellow commanders.

The demolished area around the now collapsed mining shaft came under the control of the military completely. There was a monument erected nearby to pay respects to the fallen soldiers and civilians.

The public was outraged that such a huge loss of life was allowed to happen so close to the capital system of the Interstellar Human Federation. The relatives of the victims and the few survivors called for blood. Everyone was eager to blame somebody ignoring the fact that if not for the efforts of the army the entire planet of Gamma Centauri Prime could have been wiped out.

The media circled the various bases and headquarters like sharks that had a taste for blood. People gathered to admonish the army’s current way of doing things (mostly by egging) and urged the leaders of the Federation, the planet’s government, and the grand marshals for a policy change. These actions seriously hindered the work of the soldiers, so another perimeter was erected to keep the furious civilians from getting in the way, as well as the local government promptly issued martial law and a curfew to better maintain public order.

The Beta was eventually transferred to a civilian hospital. Russo visited the teen almost every day, he watched over his recovery whenever he could. As per the boy’s request, he took it upon himself to teach the youth to sign, read and write. Now that an alphabet was established based on the boy’s writing, Russo could compare it to the central language that was the most widely spoken in the Federation, making teaching him a lot easier.

The boy slowly recovered over several months. Gone was that gaunt skeleton that had seemingly lost all hope, and in his place was a slender and pretty youth whose skin shone with a healthy glow. He had shiny, curly black locks, and velvety chocolate brown skin that made his sky-blue eyes all the more piercing, which matched the blue-green feathers of his wings perfectly. His full, dark-pink lips were especially eye-catching. Russo wished he could see him smile.

Russo enjoyed being around him and talking to him. When the boy finally learned enough to be able to hold simple conversations he was overjoyed. Today, they walked in the meadows of the hospital’s gardens. Taking regular walks was part of the boy’s rehabilitation and Russo would accompany him whenever he could.

It was afternoon, and the yellow star-shaped leaves of the marshmaple trees²Marshmellow + maple = marshmaple. This tree secrets sap that can be made into a syrup that tastes like roasted marshmallows. Now imagine pouring this on pancakes.... filtered the harsh sunlight.

They stopped under one of the trees to sit on a bench as the boy got a bit tired.

Russo turned to face him to ask something that was on his mind for a while now.

[Sorry, I never asked, what is your name?]

[Didn’t I write it on the report?] The boy asked back with a raise of his eyebrows.

[No, you didn’t.]

The youth blinked his long eyelashes in puzzlement. Seeing him silent, Russo hurriedly added.

[You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.]

The boy signed without hesitation. [My name is Soma. You pronounce it like this.]

“Soma.”³Sho-ma. With English pronunciation symbols: ʃɔːmɒ He said out loud.

This was the first time Russo heard him speak. His voice made him blush a little and he felt like he just received a huge honor.

“Soma,” Russo repeated.

[I’m just going to assume you said that correctly.] Soma joked.

[My name is Russo. Russo Van Darren.]

[I know that.]

Russo felt his ears burn for a moment. He was glad that Soma turned away for a moment so he could hide his embarrassment.

‘Soma is truly considerate!’ Russo thought as he felt his heart pitter-patter. He felt the boy tap him on his shoulder to get his attention, so he turned to him again.

[Your name sign shall be red with an R. Be honored.]

[I am, thank you!] Russo smiled at him brightly. [What’s your name sign?]

[Bird with an S.]

[That’s cool!] Russo signed Soma’s name sign a few times, then he remember that he didn’t just want to ask the boy for his name.

[What are you going to do? You are going to be released soon from the hospital.]

[I don’t know. I guess I will need a place to stay and get a job. Maybe they are hiring whores at the refugee center.] Soma said with dry sarcasm.

Russo felt his fists clench at the thought of Soma selling himself again. The very idea left a bitter taste in his mouth. He quickly made his own offer.

[Or you could move in with me until you get your bearings. Once you have enough money you could have your own place. What do you think?]

[Why, do you want me to service you exclusively? How much are you offering?] Soma quipped.

Russo paled then blushed fiercely. He wanted to say something, his mouth gaped and closed as he repeatedly lifted and put down his hands. S-service? Service who? Him? How? What?

Soma grinned at him wryly.

[Relax, I’m just pulling your leg. You are changing color like a chameleon.]

Russo felt his face heat up, his skin the color of boiled crab. He buried his face in his palms.

“Don’t tease me!” he complained. He felt a poke at his side, and he looked up at Soma.

[I didn’t get that, but if you are serious and you are sure I’m not going to be a bother, then I will gladly move in with you.] He said seriously.

[You are definitely not going to be a bother! You are welcome to stay for as long as you like!] Russo beamed at Soma.

[You sure recover quickly.]

[Oi!]

[I promise I will earn my keep. I will do chores or something. And pay rent once I get a job.]

[There’s no need for paying rent, just make yourself at home.]

[Thank you. What kind of jobs do you think I should apply to?]

[What kind of skills do you have?]

[Well, I can hunt meerrats, take apart and fix up things. I think I’m rather skilled at interior design…]

[You also draw very well.]

[Right. Oh! I suck cock pretty good too!]

[That last one’s unnecessary!] Russo retorted with a red face.

[But you’re so much fun to troll…] Soma teased him with glee. [Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask – what happened to that container? The one you found me in.]

[We recovered it from the battlefield after realizing its value. I’m sorry, but I can’t give it back to you just yet. The material it’s made from needs to be studied.]

Soma stared at him dejectedly. [I… understand.]

[It really is an amazing material! And don’t worry, I will protect you in its stead!] Russo tried to cheer him up and reassure him, that he would be okay even if Soma didn’t have the container. But the boy just looked away with sad eyes seemingly done with the conversation. Russo felt like his heart was in a vice grip. He tried to think of something to say to get the teen’s spirits up, but Soma stood up.

[I’m tired. I’ll go back to my room. See you tomorrow.]With that, he walked away.

Russo watched his retreating figure, as his shoulders slumped and his wings drooped. Russo sighed. He wished he could give the boy back his container, but there was nothing he could do. The fate of humanity depended on the reproduction of the metal it was made of. After a while, he left as well. He still had reports to write.