[ OT ] Writing Workshop # 50 : Conflict - Man vs. Man

Homo homini lupus est. 
 
 Tactician Sorkin Volg heard the saying and knew its meaning. However, the larger allegory evaded him. Factory P-14 in the Uradin system was a class IH world, and wolves, like all other wildlife, remained a vague, almost mythical concept scattered through his genetic memory and educational holorotes. 
 
 One thing he knew for certain - wolves howled and bit people. By all means then, the EXAn officer that writhed in his grasp, was a wolf. And he, Sorkin Volg, was not entirely human, so it made everything especially complicated. The officer clawed at Volg's forearm and howled obscenities in that drawling, yet high-pitched accent that unik tended to warp into around the Extrasolar Alliance territories. 
 
 `` Focus. I need to know where the cargo went'', Volg stated and squeezed the EXAn's throat tighter to a rising warning beep from the officer's life support system. He kept the smaller man shoved against the deck's wall, high enough for his enemy's legs to jitter and beat the empty air as he choked the life out of him. 
 
 In response, a glob of bloody saliva was flung into his face. The EXAn took advantage of Volg's peeled back helmet and grinned madly, watching the slime slide down the gedder's cheek. 
 
 `` Fucking vat-rat! You go to hell, you! Gobshit cunt, you! Go eat rad-dust, mutant scum, you!'' 
 
 EXAns were no less xenophobic than the Gossians, or the denizens of the United Interstellar Confederacy, that was nothing new for Volg. The creature before him was a product of space age humanity, pampered by technology to the point of total atrophy. EXAns loved their closed-sys hubs on eden worlds, and came into the vacuum unprepared, wrapped into ridiculous technology that tried desperately - and often failed, like now - to keep them adequate to the perils of space. 
 
 `` Vat-rat'', Volg murmured. `` Hm. So in your eyes, I'm less of man because I'm a colonist?'' 
 
 `` No man at all, you! Not even born, vat-rat! Shitty product, you! Why, I, Riley Smith, I'd rather die than speak with a fucking gedder, you! ``, the EXAn tried to twist his head and bite onto Volg's fingers. 
 
 Gedder. Genetically EDited. Volg winced at the slang. The universe threw that swear word at the colonists at every opportunity, but none of them ever really felt the necessary shame they were supposed to. Quite the contrary. Indeed, if officer Riley Smith was edited himself, he would n't have to hide in an exoskeleton frame just to step on the surface of Eridan Station, and his life support system would n't break down, wailing about imminent demise from a simple skirmish. It did n't take a Tactician to analyze that. 
 
 `` I presume you'd rather die, then?'' 
 
 `` Presume my ass, you!'' 
 
 Tactician Sorkin Volg came to two conclusions during the exchange. One, that he could track the cargo without the EXAn's help and intercept the arms shipment before the Gossian fanatics laid their hands on it. And the other, that the ancient Romans got it all wrong. 
 
 The sound of the officer's neck breaking was drowned out by the life support going haywire, lights flashing blue and red against his slack face from the small comm's display on the exosuit. Slowly, Volg stepped away, feeling as empty and detached from the notion of humanity as ever. There was a dampness to his skin, and he wiped the side of his face, clearing the dead man's spit away. Every death marked their inevitable and widening division. 
 
 He vaguely remembered what the wolves looked like in the holorotes. They seemed to be noble creatures, for all their rage and bloodthirst. No, the Romans were definitely wrong. 
 
 Lupus lupo homo est, they should've said. 
 
 
 
 

