“No worries about that, Grand Admiral,” Sara said sweetly. “I’m rather enjoying our conversation.”
“That would be a first. The Elif usually find talking with me an unpleasant experience,” he said dryly.
She smiled. “I would suspect that most of the time you talk with the Elif, it is not after they’ve helped you out. Me and my ship have done you a service, and I feel that you are an honorable,” she almost said ‘man’, but changed it at the last second, “commander. You would not attack your saviors.”
A rumbling laugh came through the speakers. “Saviors? You seem to be under the impression that without us, you would have prevailed, little Elif. Need I remind you that it was our cannons that ripped these Vitas from the sky, while you sat there helpless?”
Sara muted the grand admiral, and began giving orders. “Cora, I’m going to need cloak in a second. Connors, start us on an evasive pattern of maneuvers as soon as we drop off their sensors.” She turned back to the monitor and unmuted the channel. “Grand Admiral, I am fully aware of what has taken place over the last hour, but I get the feeling you do not. Have you fully read what we did during the battle? If you have, let me ask you a question: have you ever seen an Elif ship do the things in that report? Have you ever seen a ship design like the Raven before?” she said, stalling for time. She really needed those amplifiers to be up and running.
There was a long pause as the grand admiral considered the situation. Time stretched to the point that Sara began to get nervous, but right before she gave the orders to cloak, he came back on the line.
“I assume that you are about to tell me you are not Elif. What, then? Human?” he laughed, and Sara knew she had him.
“Mezner give me visuals. Cora and Connors, execute maneuvers,” she ordered, leaning forward with a smile on her face.
32
The view screen switched from the intimidating view of the Teifen armada to the bridge of their flagship. A tall, handsome Teifen stood in the center of the bridge, his head down as he looked over the report the Raven had sent. He seemed to be oblivious to the fact that visuals had been restored, but when the crew of his ship began to gasp in surprise, he quickly looked up.
The Grand Admiral was the spitting image of the classic devil. He had red skin with small horns on his forehead that blended with his slicked back, jet black hair. His eyes were red and capped with thin, expressive eyebrows.
It took him a second to register why his people were gasping, then his eyes widened, and he lowered his tablet.
“Humans? What trickery is this?” he demanded.
“Grand Admiral, their ship just dropped off our scans,” a large male Teifen with curling horns reported in near panic.
The admiral turned to the crewman. “Find them! Bring shields up to full.”
“Grand Admiral, I apologize. I am Sara Sonders, Captain of the Raven, and my first priority is to protect my people. We are still here, and I want nothing more than for us to talk. I give my word, we will not attack unless attacked first.” She wore a slight smirk on her face. She realized she shouldn’t be smirking, but seeing the devil surprised like he that was pretty satisfying. “I need you to look at that report closely. The damage potential the Vitas have is far beyond anything we have ever seen in this galaxy. My ship and I were barely able to keep up with them.”
Admiral Bok glanced down at the tablet in his hands, then back at the viewing screen. He was adapting well to the fact that he was speaking to a human, but his crew was still in shock.
“Captain, I must admit, when I first glanced at this, I thought the numbers were fabricated to make you look better than you were. I wanted to talk to the Elif captain who was so brash, he would lie about his actions to me. But now I must wonder if it is a different lie. How is it that there are humans roaming around the galaxy, and we are unaware of your path of destruction?”
“I assume you were under the command of the governor in this region?” Sara asked, tilting her head quizzically.
Bok became tight-lipped, and a look of disapproval came over his face before he gave a nod. “I am. What do you know of him?”
It seems the Grand Admiral doesn’t like his leader all that much, she noted before continuing, “I know that he was a right bastard, and tried to exterminate my people. I defended my planet, so he was not successful and died in his attempt.” Her eyes became hard.
She had no idea what was happening in the Teifen ranks with the disappearance of their governor. To tell the truth, she had not even considered that they might believe he was still alive. It wasn’t like there were any survivors from the battle to report back. There were survivors from the escape pods, but they were being kept in suspended animation as POWs.
From the Teifen’s perspective, their governor had gone off with the remainder of the fleet, and had not come back. Maybe they thought he was still out there.
Sara considered her next move. She needed to keep the Teifen from attacking, but more importantly, she needed to make them understand the threat the Vitas posed. This new enemy was more than either of their races could handle, and it needed to be addressed before Vitas ships came swarming through the Milky Way and it was too late.
She took a calming breath then turned back to the troubled Admiral Bok. “Grand Admiral, I see that you are having a difficult time believing me about the demise of your governor. I would like to make clear what happened, so that you have no illusions that we are as capable as I say we are and, in turn, see what that means about the Vitas.”
She turned to Mezner. “Ensign, send a recording of the final confrontation between us and the governor’s dreadnought. Begin the file after we warped in.”
Grimms’ eyes went wide for just a second, but he gave Sara a nod. It was the right call.
“Sending the file now, ma’am,” Mezner said.
“Grand Admiral, please view the file. We will wait,” Sara said, casually taking a step back and picking Alister up as she sat in her captain’s chair.
As she began petting the black cat, she realized she must look like a villain from an old TV show, slowly stroking her cat with a tight smile on her face.
Eh, fuck it. Bok never watched Inspector Gadget. I can look all villain-y if I want too; he won’t get the reference. I hope.
The grand admiral played the video on their main viewing screen, and his entire bridge crew was riveted the moment it began. Mezner put up a small window at the bottom corner of their own screen and mirrored the file’s playback, so they could see what the Teifen were seeing.
The video picked up after the dreadnought warped away from the battle around Earth, so there was no indication of where the Sol System was. The dreadnought was in bad shape. Crackling sparks danced in the open holes that had been blasted in its hull. It was obvious that the ship was not functioning at any sort of battle-ready capacity, but it still filled the sky with its massive size.
The view was from the Raven. After a few seconds, it zoomed in on a lone figure streaking through the open space between ships: it was Sara in her armor, with Alister on her shoulder.
Sara watched the version of herself in the vid stop above the spine of the dreadnought and extend her hands towards the hull of the ship. Then she began to rip a giant hole in the spine of the city ship, using spells of immense power.
The Teifen watching gasped in shock, some even making what she thought might be religious warding symbols, not unlike the sign of the cross a Catholic would perform. That piqued her curiosity.
She had heard nothing of their religion, so to see them performing warding symbols was fascinating. She decided to look into that aspect of Teifen culture when she had the time; it may give her a clue about how to deal with them in the future.
The vid continued, but Sara stopped paying attention. She had watched it several times in the weeks since as a reminder of what she was capable of.
Instead, she pulled up the damage report and began to monitor how far along the nanobots were. Cora, watching
the events on the bridge like always, beeped into her twin’s comm.
Sara connected Grimms to the conversation before answering. “How are we doing, Cora?”
“Five minutes until the amplifiers are repaired. Good call on giving them a fifteen-minute video,” she said mischievously.
Sara had to smile. “Thanks. I figured why not kill two birds with one stone?” She lowered her voice. “What do you think of the grand admiral?”
There was a quiet moment as Cora considered her words. Grimms walked over and, lifting Nyx from his chair, sat down, and placed the fox on his lap. Nyx, for her part, settled into his lap like it was her favorite place in the world. Considering Cora’s feelings toward the commander, it probably was.
The vid was showing the Raven swooping around to pluck the troops from the gaping hole in the belly of the dreadnought when Cora finally spoke up.
“I get the feeling that Bok is not of the same mindset as his governor was. It’s the small things, like the fact that he abandoned the Elif system to try and protect his people here, and the look he gave when you first asked if he was under the governor’s command. He did not look pleased at that notion.”
Grimms cleared his throat. “I agree with Cora. I have been going over the reports they sent us in preparation of the mission to take back Effrit and Suttri. Once the governor left, there were only ground troops in the Elif system, and it was several hours before this fleet arrived to contain the situation. From the few reports that got out of Effrit during that time, the attackers became much less aggressive in their tactics, some reports even suggesting that the Teifen were pulling back to already occupied locations. When we warped into the system, the scans showed that there were far less casualties than we estimated, and hardly any structures had been taken out beyond the initial attack.”
Sara glanced at the screen; the vid had progressed to the point where the passengers were disembarking from the Raven. She paid close attention to Bok’s face when the captives came into view. She didn’t know if it was her mind playing tricks on her out of hope, but it looked as if the captain and several of the crew were disgusted at the ravaged state of the Elif being ushered to safety.
“Two minutes ‘til amplifiers are fully functional,” Cora reported.
“I think we need to change the narrative of this war,” Sara mused, absentmindedly stroking Alister.
“How so?” her sister asked.
“I’m becoming more and more convinced that the Teifen are not what the Elif would have us believe. Time and again, the actions of a few high-level Teifen are touted as the intent of their entire race, but what if it is just the governors and other Teifen higher-ups that crave war and domination? There have been numerous examples of human governments that were officially bastards, but the people under those governments were no different than you or me.”
Grimms shifted in his seat and frowned. “True, but we can’t make decisions for our entire race.”
Sara bit her lip. That was exactly what she was hoping to do. She needed to implement some kind of ceasefire until the Vitas were taken care of, or the humans, Elif, and Teifen would all be wiped out.
The Teifen had been managing the Galvox for thousands of years, but now it seemed their enemy had an ace up their sleeve: an alien super-being.
Sara came to a decision. She was First Mage. Her priority was the protection of humanity, no matter what that brought down on her. She was already in hot water over the incident at the Elif embassy; this would make that look like a drop in the ocean.
But if it works…
33
“The amplifiers are online. I’m starting repairs to the hull and other systems,” Cora reported after two minutes of silence.
Sara gave a nod and, moving Alister to the seat, she stood, taking her place in the command ring. She didn’t power it up, however. Instead, she waited for the vid to finish and for Grand Admiral Bok to process what he was seeing.
The wait was excruciating, now that she had made up her mind. But she took the time to observe the Teifen crew’s reaction to what they were witnessing. Granted, most of the exciting stuff had taken place inside the dreadnought, but seeing the Raven dismantling the Vitas’s largest and most formidable ship was effective enough.
The final minute of the vid was playing, in which Sara, Boon, Baxter, and Gonders were shrouded in a shield bubble, shooting out of the gaping hole Sara had ripped into the dreadnought. This was the most important part of the video, in Sara’s mind. This was the show of power that would either make the Teifen understand, or drive them to attack. She was betting that there was little love lost over their governor’s demise.
The blue sphere of Aether quickly expanded from the dreadnought’s hull. Growing rapidly, it consumed everything it touched. When it looked like the sphere was about to overtake Sara and the others, it stopped, hovering for a second before it collapsed at an incredible rate.
Sara felt like there should have been a thunderclap to accompany the visual. Too bad there’s no sound in space.
The sphere winked out of existence, leaving nothing but empty space in its wake. The dreadnought was gone, sucked into the Aether as if it had never existed at all.
She watched the flicker of a smile cross Grand Admiral Bok’s face, then he focused on her as the video ended. He was quiet as he studied her with stern eyes.
Sara, for her part, kept her face blank, but not hostile. She knew the Raven had some advantage, now that her systems were repaired, but the Teifen fleet was still large enough that they could overwhelm her if they tried.
The Teifen bridge crew was pale, or what passed for pale, with their motley colors of skin. Some even stared off in shock and wonder at the power displayed.
Sara decided she would take the lead in this negotiation. She cocked her head at that thought. I suppose that’s what this is now. A negotiation. She took a breath as she organized her approach. “Grand Admiral Bok, you seem to be an individual of considerable words and actions. You obviously care for your people more than the conquests of your empire, as witnessed by your abandonment of Effrit. I applaud that sort of thinking, because it is similar to my own. No government’s conquest outweighs the safety of its people.”
The admiral gave a curt nod. “I agree.”
“You have seen what we are capable of. This small ship was able to dominate and ultimately destroy a dreadnought. I have no illusions that your entire fleet could not destroy us, but at what cost? Not to mention that there are more ships just like ours back home that would take up the fight in our absence.
“Luckily, that scenario can be avoided completely. We have no quarrel with you. Not personally. The Elif have,” she shrugged slightly, “shall we say, misled us. But we have an agreement with them, and we stand by our word. I would like to make an agreement with you, as well, Grand Admiral. If you would be willing.”
Bok took a step back as she finished, lowering himself into his captain’s chair and crossing his leg, as if he were settling in for a friendly conversation. His face was neutral, but Sara felt like relief was etched into his expression as well.
He’s going to make a deal. Sara smiled.
“For generations, we Teifen have been taught that humans were monsters, that they would come and force compliance at the end of a rifle barrel. Ours was a peace made from fear of retaliation. If a society had a different set of morals than their human overlords, they were forced to abandon them and conform, and if they did not, they were punished.
“Billions died of starvation when trade was cut off from planets that had angered their human rulers. Cultures were wiped out when their religious practices were not seen as moral or in line with human beliefs. There was a whole galaxy to explore and travel across, but we were not free. We were subjects of a race that held us in check with fear.”
Shit. It sounds like we were right bastards. No wonder they tried to exterminate us.
Bok continued. “We were forced to take action. There were a group of Tei
fen that decided they could not be kept under the yoke of human oppression, and they fought back. They organized into twenty clans, but were not strong enough on their own to obtain the freedom we Teifen desired. Humanity systematically obliterated the clans ‘til there were only ten left. Those ten joined together and became the empire we have today. Together, they were able to fight humanity to a stalemate.
“But that wasn’t good enough. We needed to be free of you. Do you know the only way to be forever free from an attacker?” he asked, tilting his head in question.
This was not going the way Sara had hoped. “You need to eliminate them,” she conceded.
“Correct. We asked the Elif to help. They were scared, and wholly under humanity’s thumb. However, there was a small group who decided to help. They joined us, and created a pathogen that would destroy humanity wherever it touched them in the galaxy. So we did what we thought best and used it. It worked better than we could have dreamed; we were free,” he said, looking down into his lap. He folded his hands and looked Sara in the eye. “For a time, anyway.”
Sara was now enthralled in the conversation. This was more information on ancient humans than anyone in recent history had heard before. At least, that any humans had heard.
“What do you mean by ‘for a time’?” she asked.
He gave a quick, sad smile. “Do you understand what it takes to kill a whole race of people?”
Sara considered that and nodded. “Unfortunately, I think I do. There is a philosopher from my world that gave our people a warning. He said, ‘beware when fighting monsters that you do not become the monster yourself’, or something close to it. He was speaking of art and culture at the time, but I think it applies here.”
Bok nodded in assent. “An apt saying. And one, I believe, that underlines my thinking on this matter. Those ten clan leaders, who later became the governors of the empire, were transformed into the monsters your philosopher warned of. We shrugged off one form of oppression for another, a worse form of oppression. A self-imposed oppression.”
Harbinger Page 15
