I’ve been a Heartbreaker for fiffteen years, ever since I first emigrated to Europa. I remember watching the news reports when I was a kid. The Chinese landings. Cracking through the ice. The oceans below. It was life! It was intelligent! And some of it, we learned, was angry. Never forget, they started killing us first, the Balaenoptera chaoticus. First blood belongs to the Chaos Whale.
As much as the other races are subservient, the Chaos Whales are vain and domineering. They’ve been kings of their world for millennia. Then we arrived and shattered their worldview.
Unlike the other marine mammals, the Chaos Whale feeds off the the hydrothermal vents that pock-mark the crust of Europa. They can stay down there for decades. We don’t have submersibles that can withstand the pressure. We have to wait for them to come to us.
Their skin is impregnable and dense. Bullets, harpoons, explosives? Won’t scratch them. Short of poisoning the water or mini-nukes – something we’ve only done twice, at untold cost to the ambient life – there’s only one way to take them down: intravenously.
We wait for the beast’s attack, then rumble the water to disorient it, and I get launched at the dorsal fold. Once I’ve drilled my way in I crawl to the nearest arterial vessel. Their deep, rhythmic pulse only pumps blood once every nine seconds. I get to the heart, deploy my batteries, and then the hard work begins. It takes hours. When I finish, I sleep. I always have such fantastic dreams. I’m still asleep when they cut me out.
People ask if I feel sorry for the aliens I’ve killed. “No,” I reply. “I’m a Heartbreaker. You don’t want your heart to get broken, don’t fall in love.” And then I laugh.
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