“I will show you in a way that your minds can understand.”
The reddish glow had been dimming, and finally died to black. Pinpricks of light flared to life on the walls, the domed ceiling, and the floor at their feet. The lights kept blinking on until they numbered in the thousands, and he realized he was looking at a star chart. How it was organized, he didn’t understand. So far as he could see, the map organization had nothing to do with jump points, nor was it arranged toward either the galactic center or the rim. Some lights were bright, some barely visible, some clustered, and some standing on their own, but though he turned about and looked at them from different angles, he couldn’t get oriented.
Some of the stars were red, yellow, or green, but this didn’t seem to have anything to do with their size or type. Instead, they were gathered in clusters. A string of red lights gathered in a line that stretched from the floor, up the wall, and halfway across the ceiling. Yellow stars surrounded this in a series of nodes, and most of the rest were green, roughly ninety percent of the total. Standing apart was a starfish-shaped grouping of stars that radiated out from a central hub, these ones glowing blue.
“Civilizations?” he asked. “Enemies, planets you’ve reduced?”
Al-Harthi moved until she stood beneath the blue starfish. “This must be humanity. Lines that radiate out from Earth because of the Great Migration.”
“That is the diseased zone,” the Adjudicator said. “It will never be truly cleansed.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe you’re the disease?” Fontaine said. “That you’re the ones spreading through the sector, infecting healthy civilizations and destroying them?”
“You misunderstand. The blue stars are not humans. This is the human race, over here.” The Adjudicator pointed to one of the yellow nodes. He pointed to another, which touched where the first one bulged out. “And this is the Hroom. And this line here comprises the insectoid worlds.”
He gestured along the red line. It was eight or ten times as long as both the Hroom and the human clusters put together.
“So you see, the humans are a fairly minor problem compared to the insectoids. But that verminous race is contained. Dying. That red line was once as wide as it now is long, some fourteen thousand of your years ago. We’d have reduced them all by now, but the humans were spreading, which is why we removed ourselves from the insectoid contamination zone to face your threat first.”
Fontaine stared as he thought of the thousands of worlds the insectoid race must have commanded, a hive-like, starfaring civilization. What if the Adjudicators hadn’t arrived to burn out the insectoid systems? Would the creatures have colonized Earth several thousand years ago, when human technology was too primitive to resist? He imagined them landing starships among the ancient Babylonians to disgorge their egg-laying queens.
“Yes, slave, you understand,” the Lord of Lords said. “We were protecting Earth. Not only humans, but the other forms of life that lived there. Once Earth civilization has been reduced, when it can no longer spread, that non-human life can once again thrive. We will reduce your people, prevent them from rising, and allow your planets to be pure and holy once more.”
“What about the Cavlee?” Al-Harthi asked. “Where are they?”
It pointed to an indistinct zone of green stars. “Here were their worlds. As you see, they are purified. Healthy, replenished. The handful of surviving Cavlee retreated to a stone age existence, and there they will remain.”
“The diseased zone,” Fontaine said, and moved beneath the blue starfish shape. “If these stars weren’t human controlled, who colonized them?”
“The star systems of my ancestors. Twenty-seven inhabited worlds. The most contaminated zone of all. Even before the judgment, these planets were poisoned with radiation. Their seas had turned to acid. The air could not be breathed, except through purifiers. Some worlds had been abandoned altogether because the climate had left them burned to desert or covered in ice.”
“Wait,” Al-Harthi said. “You judged your own civilization?”
“Some few thousand of us had withdrawn to purify ourselves, to repent of our crimes. We realized we could only survive in a sterile environment. An asteroid, a space ship. A planet without an atmosphere. No living world, never again. Unfortunately, there were others who didn’t agree. Billions of them.”
Fontaine stared at him. “And you . . . what?”
“It took time. Hundreds of years, in fact. First, we had to build our fleet in secret, to manufacture our warriors. To take prisoners and make them devotees to the cause. The unrepentant of our race launched a counterattack that nearly wiped us out. Most of my clan was killed in the fighting, my blood relatives exterminated.”
So some of the Adjudicators did have a sex. Including this one. It was, or had been, the offspring of others like itself, and was apparently old enough to remember the beginning of the entire enterprise. The time when the Adjudicators had risen in judgment against their own people and launched a war of extermination and enslavement in response to overpopulation and environmental catastrophe. How long had this been going on, anyway?”
Al-Harthi must have been wondering the same thing. “But you said you’ve been fighting the insectoids for thousands of years.”
“They were widespread. They do not capitulate easily.”
“When did all of this . . . when?”
“We are not the first creators, if that’s what you’re wondering,” the Lord of Lords said. “Not the ones who designed the leviathans. But they would have blessed our enterprise. Their creations are elegant and devastating and sanctified.”
“But what about you?” Fontaine asked. “Were you really present when your people . . .?”
“I myself am not as old as you might think . . . not truly. Several of your lifetimes, I believe. The rest of the time I spend in stasis, waiting to be called up. These periods of sleep may last hundreds of years. It is only in times of great trials that those of my kind are awakened. Were awakened. Now there is only me, plus my creations. My armies and my devotees. The rest are dead.”
Al-Harthi shot Fontaine a glance, and there was a glint of horrified wonder in her expression. He forced himself to turn back to the gray, shriveled face in front of him.
This creature, this so-called Lord of Lords, was apparently the last of its kind. It and its cohorts had created an artificial version of themselves to exterminate their own race for supposedly environmental reasons, but Fontaine guessed the true reason was nothing more than self-hatred and nihilism. That accomplished, they’d set out to sterilize thousands of other star systems of intelligent life.
And now, the rest of its kind gone, it felt compelled to explain itself, its motives and history, to a pair of enslaved humans.
My God, the creature is lonely.
“Some races are resilient,” the Adjudicator said. “Some are numerous and widespread. Some are intelligent and cunning. Others seem to know their guilt and lift their heads to show their throats when we appear. Some civilizations are proud, but tired—their creative spark has long been extinguished before we arrive. Some fight like lions, bold but stupid.”
An image of a large, fanged animal with a lithe, cat-like body and the long muzzle of a wolf flickered in Fontaine’s mind. The “lion.” Some intelligent race, reduced.
“And then there are humans,” it said.
“How are we different?” Al-Harthi asked.
“The last time I was in this sector your people had mastered fire, but not yet tamed the grains and livestock that would enable you to spread. Humans lived in scattered hunting bands and small fishing villages. The nearby star systems remained pure and unsullied. Life existed in all its beauty and variety, and impure sentient creatures had not yet despoiled these natural environments.
“But it was clear that this time was coming, not only for your kind, but along the galactic rim in the direction of the nascent Hroom people. The Hroom were behind you in brain development at the t
ime, but less warlike and more cooperative. Either one of you might have risen, or perhaps neither. We prepared to return, to snuff out this potential contamination should it spread. But with the discovery of the vast insectoid infestation, we were occupied for millennia. By the time we returned, it was too late. Greater judgment was needed. A final adjudication.”
“But how are humans different?” Al-Harthi pressed.
Fontaine guessed at the answer. Humans fought like lions, but were neither stupid nor likely to submit. Human history was filled with desperate last stands, with victories against overwhelming odds. With civilizations overrun by powerful enemies, only to see the losers continue fighting, sometimes for generations, until they regained their freedom. The Adjudicators had not yet subjugated Earth itself, and word had it that the colonies on the far side of the frontier, centered around Albion, were resisting as well.
“That is why I have called you,” it said. This was no answer to Al-Harthi’s question. “You will help me destroy the humans once and for all.”
“With a small cargo ship?” Fontaine asked.
“The danger was obvious to us all,” it continued. “A sector filled with unspoiled habitable planets. Two species on either end with the potential to destroy their own worlds and reach for the stars. Nothing was left to chance. Seeds were planted in every system. A final defense to be raised when times grew desperate enough. You will be the ones to call forth the destruction, and the entire sector will be cleansed with holy fire.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tolvern maneuvered Blackbeard into position in orbit above Persia. The planet’s largest continent rolled across the viewscreen, with the brown and red desert at its heart dominating. From orbit, mountain ranges looked like swept piles of sand, with ridges and valleys that stretched for five thousand miles from the thin strips of green along the western coast to the shallow, aquamarine seas east and south.
Tens of thousands of workers had descended on a site in the heart of the desert wasteland in the past few weeks, where they’d frantically planted portable nuclear reactors, installed mobile missile bays, and stashed as many wrecks, heavy metals, and fissionables as they could gather. The idea was to turn the site into an enormous banquet of the star leviathan’s favorite foods.
They merely had to free it from its enslavement and it should hurl itself at the site to feast. Once it devoured what the humans left, it should find the old uranium and thorium deposits beneath, with enough material to keep it sated for decades. Theoretically.
The orbital fortress lay fifteen degrees of latitude to the south and several degrees to the west of the trap. From this distance, the fort looked like little more than a pebble, but it was the size of a mountain, and would present a target in and of itself. Persian settlers had dragged the asteroid into orbit roughly a century after the initial colonization, when their growing size and sophistication made them turn their sights back to the stars. The population of the planet was a fraction of what it had been a few years earlier, but its inclusion into the growing human-Hroom alliance had brought them new tech. The fortress now bristled with cannons and missile emplacements.
Citadel eased into position a few hundred miles to the north of Blackbeard, along with a host of light cruisers, corvettes, star wolves, and other support vessels. Void Queen approached about thirty minutes later, also accompanied by numerous ships, and Vargus called Tolvern’s bridge as she arrived. Her tone was excited, and her face animated.
“You were right. That Terran had great information in his skull. We dug it out—some of it, anyway—and it’s better than we could have hoped.”
Vargus explained how Dr. Willis had stimulated memory centers of Fontaine’s brain, and the man had recalled an amazing conversation with the leader of the entire genocidal race of Adjudicators. The creature had even explained the motive for attacking humanity. They were holy zealots, all right, some sort of environmental purists who saw intelligent live as a spreading contamination. Incredibly, they’d begun their wars of extermination against their own home worlds, and only set out to reduce other civilizations once they’d destroyed their own.
But what had Vargus really worked up was the news that there was apparently only one of the original enemies left. One. The rest were genetically engineered specimens grown in labs, warriors constructed to carry out the judgment visited by the original creators.
“If we can find this thing, kill it,” Vargus said, “we might end the whole war. The others will have no purpose, no leader.”
Tolvern wasn’t convinced. Supposedly the creature that called itself the Lord of Lords could sleep for centuries before it was awakened to meet unexpected challenges. Why wouldn’t the genetically engineered Adjudicators simply carry on the fight after its death in the same way they did when their master was asleep?
“Maybe,” Vargus said when Tolvern had laid out her argument. “But surely decapitating the enemy command would pay dividends, any way you looked at it.”
“No arguments with that. Any idea where this thing might be found?”
“I’m hoping on one of the Heaven’s Gate bases, if we can ever break in there. Fontaine was working on a thriving colony built into an asteroid, which would match several of the enemy positions we discovered during our raid.”
“Then we merely have to defeat the leviathan, thrash these star fortresses, and return in overwhelming force,” Tolvern said. “Then methodically destroy the enemy base and hope it’s the only one.”
This brought a wry smile from Vargus. “All right, so it’s not necessarily a game changer, but I can see the enemy now. I know what motivates him. I know why.”
“Is there anything else inside that man’s head?”
“Most likely, but we had to stop. Fontaine was too tired to continue, and Willis said he was hemorrhaging from all the poking around.” Vargus shook her head. “That probably sounds more serious than it is. Point is, we couldn’t keep going without risking his life. The head ghoul was sending them off on a mission to set something horrible in motion. Maybe it’s the leviathan.”
“Hopefully just the leviathan, and not something else. The devil you know, and all that. But you still don’t know if you can trust Fontaine?”
“Not yet, no. We have no idea how he got himself into command of a Terran warship, and the crew of Scorpion doesn’t know, either. They knew he’d once had a brain implant—a few others did, as well—but he refused to talk about it.”
“Refused, or couldn’t speak the words?”
Vargus nodded. “Exactly. We’ll find out. But not before the battle.” She cleared her throat. “They say a subspace came from Drake. Care to share?”
“Came about an hour ago. He’s returned to Nebuchadnezzar with Inferno, the First Wolves, and the rest of his task force. General Bailyna Tyn is close on his heels, approaching from Xerxes, and she’s got a new force of sloops.”
A good number of them, in fact. The Hroom were coming through for the Alliance, their yards more active than they’d been in generations. There had been a good deal of suspicion and even outright hostility throughout the Royal Navy when Drake first began to coordinate with Albion’s traditional enemy.
Nobody could forget the nuclear strike of the Hroom death cult on York Town, or look at the millions of newly freed Hroom slaves without worrying about the aliens taking revenge as their civilization recovered from its long torpor. Most of the Hroom decline had been caused by Albion’s expansion, the slave lords, and their vast sugar plantations. Surely they would harbor resentment for what had been done to them.
But the aliens had proven the most reliable partner of the Alliance. They were steadier than the fractious Scandian worlds or the semi-lawless Ladino colonies. The Singaporeans and Persians were willing, but crippled by years of warfare.
“There’s only one way in and out of this system,” Vargus said, “which means that Drake and the general will either help us pin down the enemy or they’ll join us in death. If this fleet goes, the en
tire Alliance dies with it.”
“Then it all comes down to whether or not we can defeat a star leviathan.”
“Right.” Vargus gave a curt nod. “Signing off now, and awaiting your orders.”
The two women ended the call, and Tolvern returned to organizing for the approaching battle. A quick glance at the latest scans showed McGowan’s task force bringing in the rear of her assembling fleet, two hours out, and the enemy a few hours behind them.
McGowan’s work laying a minefield had paid dividends. At the cost of minor damage to a pair of destroyers while skirmishing with dragoons, he’d delayed the enemy more than six hours as the leviathan ate the minefield Peerless and the rest laid down. Void Queen had held in a support position long enough to prevent a more aggressive charge from the dragoons, and all fighting had been at distance.
The enemy was past the minefield now. Nothing stood in the way of the leviathan and the enemy fleet escorting it, and nothing seemed likely to deflect them from a final assault on the Alliance armada and the human planet.
Tolvern kept the desert missile base below her and the orbital fortress to one side while she arranged the rest of her incoming fleet. A large force of sloops, destroyers, and torpedo boats positioned themselves in orbit around the moon, nearly two hundred thousand miles from the battlefield. They hid a handful of war junks, whose job it was to scan the battlefield with their superior sensor arrays while waiting for a chance to swoop in against enemy star fortresses with armor-softening energy beams.
Tolvern hoped this large, but relatively soft force of ships orbiting the moon would present a juicy target to enemy dragoons. Get the dragoons out of the way so they couldn’t harass Svensen’s star wolf attack. But at the same time, she couldn’t leave them to be pulverized, so she ordered McGowan’s force of cruisers, corvettes, and destroyers to position themselves as reinforcements.
The enemy had got a good look at Peerless already, and corvettes had torched them in battle on more than one occasion. Tolvern hoped that the dragoons would shy away from a full-out confrontation once McGowan charged in with his reserves. Scare off the dragoons, and keep them out of the battle entirely until Svensen had landed his forces on the leviathan.
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