Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  “Now imagine the Squids as white, and the rest of us are some other colour and try to imagine the attitude and judgement that would flow from them to and about us, only the difference isn’t the colour of our skin or eyes or hair but that we are newer in the universe than they are. Now think about this, who made FTL travel a reality? Who has done more to defeat and eliminate the Plague?

  “I’m not saying that all Squids are like that, but there are enough of them to poison the barrel we are all in, and that will only lead to the downfall of all of us if we continue to let them sabotage us and drive wedges between us. They have already done us damage in that way by fostering and supporting the idea that Mmrrreeowwn and Weasels can’t get along. Did you know the Weasels were almost wiped out in the events that led up to the Purge way back when? Why isn’t this mentioned in the histories? Why would the Mmrrreeowwn use up their ships and warriors to protect the Weasels if they weren’t friends?

  “Someone has corrupted the records, censored them and in effect, rewritten history; as near as I can tell, the only ones who benefitted from that were the Squids. The Mmrrreeowwn lost, the Weasels lost, and both client races of the Weasels lost. I don’t have definitive proof, but I have my suspicions. They were born out to a degree when the Squid president of the Confederation Council made his statements denigrating us. Why don’t you go and think about all of that and come back tomorrow? Hopefully, we will have news from Ginger and the boarding teams.”

  When he left, Rusty looked like he had a lot to think about. So did I.

  Late the next cycle Thermopylae returned, and Ginger commed be to tell me she was in my office. Elaine woke up as I was leaving, and I told her Ginger was back and needed to debrief right now. I asked her if she would like to sit in, but she declined as I thought she would. When I got to my office, I found Ginger was there along with Tuxedo, Silent and Winston. We were quickly joined by Elders One, Three and Four, as well as Jacky and Johnny. I suggested we move to the conference room next door since my office was too small for this many to be comfortable. When we were seated at the table, Ginger began.

  “Following the Warlord’s orders, I took Thermopylae and eight Swift Fangs to the vicinity of swarm three. I approached as close as I could before sending the Swift Fangs and their boarding parties out. Each ship carried a full platoon of warriors to the locations of the scouts I left as pickets keeping watch on the swarm as they continued towards Terra. I left four scouts when we withdrew from the fight, and when we arrived, there were six. I opted to send a Swift Fang to each picket location, and six boarding parties left their ships just out of detection range using manoeuvring packs to make their way to their targets, keeping two in reserve.

  “The boarding parties were timed to arrive at their targets simultaneously which they did. Their first action was to disable communications on their targets. One of the Swift Fangs was transmitting at that time. The teams waited until the transmission stopped, recording it while they waited. The teams then proceeded to destroy the antennae on all six vessels and disabled their propulsion at the same time.

  “At this point, none of the teams had been detected, and the platoons split with one squad going to the dorsal hatch and the other going to the ventral hatch where they breached and entered the ships. No resistance occurred on two of the vessels as the crew were all dead and it appeared that crews from the other pickets I had left had been killed and moved there as well.

  “There was light resistance at one of the remaining ships and heavy resistance at the other three. Regrettably, there were losses in the boarding parties, most of the crews on the three resisting ships were also killed. We returned with all of our dead as well as the enemy’s crews, both living and dead, and they are being held in spaces prepared for them. They are all methane breathers and Squids except for one, also a methane breather, but of a species, we have never before encountered.

  “Several of the dead are also of this unknown species. Necropsies are underway as we speak to try to learn as much of this species before we begin interrogation. All of the survivors are being held in solitary, and their implants have been neutralized. We have left them their ship suits, but without helmets, so they can use the reclamation and feeding facilities the suits provide.

  “It is my observation that the Squids are of the rebel faction and will be susceptible to the usual interrogation techniques used by the Squids. Unfortunately, we don’t have any Squids I would trust to perform the interrogations. This is the end of my report.”

  “Thank you, Ginger, if you would take a seat and remain I would like a report from the two Centurions,” I said.

  When both had made their reports and reseated themselves, I opened the room to questions. Each Elder had a few, mostly directed at Ginger but a few to Ewan and Thornfang, mostly concerning the state of their surviving warriors. They were being cared for by their comrades, and Med-Techs were being called to assist.

  When the elders were done, they stood and praised the bravery and competence of the warriors who had participated. After they had left, I asked Winston how his talks with the Squids on the moon had gone, he replied, “Very well, Ser. I didn’t even have to threaten them. They didn’t know much, but they did volunteer to interrogate any prisoners that our raiding party might take.

  “Since I had said nothing about a raiding party I acted dumb and Livid simply said, and I quote, ‘If Jase has any options at all he has already sent boarding parties and there are prisoners to talk to’ that is what he said Ser.”

  “Well, doesn’t that just tear it though. That bugger was smart enough to take what little you had to reveal just to question him, and he put everything together, almost like it happened while he watched. You didn’t happen to think ahead and bring those three little turds back with you, did you?”

  Winston was smiling and said, “Well they did volunteer Ser and I’d rather they breathe that swill they call air than any of us. They are sitting outside under guard.”

  “Well done,” I said. “Put our three friends in a Faraday cage so they can’t ‘accidentally’ communicate with anyone for the night. Lets everyone get rested up, and we will continue this in the morning when we are fresh.”

  33

  THE NEXT MORNING THE INTERROGATION of the Squids and their alien helper began. They had been stripped of their ship-suits and hoods placed over their heads, preventing any light from entering their eyes. Each was placed in a separate sealed cell of the brig. Each cell was filled with a methane mix that was slightly different from normal, it wasn’t harmful but would cause a small degree of discomfort. Each cell was also shielded electrically, preventing the use of their implants.

  The unknown alien was scanned five ways to Sunday to gather as much information about it as we could. We were able to ascertain it was biologically dimorphic and was a male representative of its species. That it was bipedal was obvious even when still in its ship-suit. Our scans told us he could tolerate a non-methane atmosphere for short periods, at least a deca if provided a breathing apparatus containing its normal atmospheric mix.

  Its body was covered with a thick rubbery skin with a silicone-like feel and appearance, and chemical analysis of skin scrapings confirmed a high content of siloxane, a mix of silicon and oxygen. The skin was such a good insulator we wondered how it got rid of excess heat until we discovered it was essentially cold blooded and thrived in temperatures below 0 degrees centigrade. Our fabrication shop cobbled a suit together that would help the Droumb remain cool while we questioned him.

  Our scans showed an assortment of organs of similar function but vastly different shape, size and construction compared to Terran, Weasel or Mmrrreeowwn but unfortunately no information on what it ate or drank. We had to disassemble the ship-suit it had been wearing to determine that. From the analysis of its food supply and scat, we determined it could subsist on the same foods as Squids so feeding it wouldn’t be an issue.

  It had a skull that was oversized compared to any of us. The scans reve
aled it contained two brains, much like our Squid friends. They also showed us complex structures that performed as hearing organs, Eyes with a structure strikingly similar to ours and an organ in its central airway that we interpreted to be the equivalent of a larynx. Necropsies on its dead companions confirmed our suspicions. It also confirmed that the species was cannibalistic, the analysis of his food supply was cross compared to the tissue of his mates, they were identical.

  I thought to myself, “So he can see like us and has ears and a voice-box like us so we should be able to understand him if he speaks, given enough samples of speech in reference to actions and objects much like we had done with the lynxes and cats. Feeding it shouldn’t be a problem for a while if its dead buddies don’t start to rot.”

  Piotr Baer was as close as we had to a xenobiologist so we sent a couple of warriors to escort him to our detention area to see if he could get the creature to communicate with us. In the meantime, we began interrogating the Squids. It didn’t take long to for them to start blabbing. Squids tend to be high on arrogance, and after we got them talking, we couldn’t get them to shut up long enough to ask questions.

  Over the course of nearly two decas of their incessant spew of colours, patterns and gestures we were able to determine they were part of the rebel faction and had been working in collaboration with their Plague drones for thousands of kilocycles. They kept themselves in stasis most of the time only waking up every so often to take the pulse of what was transpiring in the Plague fleet and applying corrections when required. Several of them had woken up about a hundred cycles ago and discovered their drones had failed to rouse their masters when they got in over their heads.

  That was a relief to me—the drones weren’t getting smarter, after all, they were just under better leadership. Of course, this was presenting a new challenge we hadn’t developed any strategy of tactic to deal with, but some of what they threatened us with gave me a germ of an idea.

  I stepped out of the interrogation room, hit the decontamination chamber and after drying off contacted Ewan McFarrel. I asked, “Ewan, did your teams bring any other items back with you besides the Squids?”

  “Yes, Ser, we brought their Swift Fang type ships back with us as well. I believe they are still aboard Thermopylae. Would you like me to send a group to get them? We can put them in Hangar One, Port, which is empty right now.”

  “Yes, please do,” I replied, “and let me know when they are aboard.”

  Turning to the brig observation window, I signalled Silent and Winston that I wanted to talk to them privately. Silent had the rest of the interrogators exit the cells and go through decontamination before assembling in a conference room off the passageway leading from the brig.

  When all were assembled, I thanked them for their work and told them there would be more to do, but it might take a cycle or two to get everything ready. Silent gave them downtime and asked they report for regular duties next cycle unless told otherwise by either me or Winston. When the interrogators left, I said Silent and Winston, “When Ewan’s teams were about to capture the scouts, one of the ships was transmitting. Now we don’t know if they were talking amongst themselves or to someone else, but given how far they were from the swarm I’m betting they were talking amongst themselves.

  “Ewan knows which ship was transmitting at the time and we know which ships each of our detainees was on at the time of capture. I suspect that on the log tapes of each of the four ships with Squids on board we will find an ongoing conversation that I want us all to listen to before we try to talk to the Squids again. We also know their two-legged buddy has an implant and I’d bet there is a record of his part in any conversation. I want you two to figure out a way to get the implant or at least its recordings out of our live guest. I’m going to the morgue and get the implants from all of the deaders. Let’s reconvene in a deca and see if we can unscramble what was being said.”

  Silent and Winston quickly got up and left. Before the hatch closed, I overheard Winston say, “I like the way he thinks, I understand why he is Warlord.”

  I commed Rusty and asked him to meet me at the morgue. When I got there, Rusty had already gathered up all of the implants from both the Squids and the Gollums as I was starting to call the bipedal methane breathers. They are grey, big headed and resembled the character from the Lord of the Rings movies. The one we are holding I’m calling Smeagol. The crafty, deranged look on his face was close.

  We took the implants back to Rusty’s lab and had Tuxedo join us. We cleaned the body goo off the implants and thoroughly dried them before placing them in vacuum chambers with waldos that we could use to disassemble them. After Rusty showed us how, we each got to work tearing them apart and retrieving the memory cells, carefully labelling them, so we knew which body and ship they came from. Once all that was done, Rusty began the real work of trying to get the information each contained out in a readable form.

  The Squid implants were straight forward since they were built to the same specs as ours. When we got to the alien ones it was a little trickier but Rusty is good at this kind of puzzle, actually great and not just good. He was able to pull the data off them as well after a few false starts, and we soon had the conversations inserted in chronological order. I commed Winston and asked if he had gotten anywhere with the alien’s implant, and he replied, “It was a bit of a job, Ser. The little turd resisted a bit, so we cut his atmosphere down until he passed out and were able to use a modified Squid retrieval code to get it to dump its contents to our recorder. We are just finishing up the same with our Squid friends and can have the whole lot up to you in a few centas.”

  “Good job, Winston. Tell Silent thanks from me too.”

  Thirty centas later, we were listening to a string of conversations and discovered a few of the dead Squids were not from the rebel Squid faction at all. They were representatives of the Confederation Council’s president and a few of his cronies and they convicted themselves of treason with their own speech. They had sent FTL module plans, Manuals and production methods and specs to the rebels who in turn were to pass the information back to their forces in swarm three. They had begun transmitting starting with the manuals but weren’t able to confirm receipt when our warriors had intervened. The ship that had the friendlies on it was the one that fought back so hard that all of them had been killed.

  That was a good thing for them because they were going to miss the pleasure of taking a walk in space without a suit. It wasn’t going to save the Council president or his buddies or any others that we rooted out. While I generally don’t like the idea of execution, these circumstances made it almost mandatory given there was no safe place to imprison them and we had neither the time nor interest in a trial. It is wartime, all of the vessels and Arks are under martial law.

  I sent orders to the Mmrrreeowwn Cohorts on Mother of Vengeance to take and hold the ship while I made arrangements to take the Confederation president and his staff into custody. This was easier than I thought, they had just come from the Squid Ark ship and were taken as they disembarked their shuttle. By the next cycle, I had all of them aboard Mother of Glory, including the officers of Mother of Vengeance. To my surprise, I received a delegation from the Squid Ark escorting their leadership in ship-suits that had just a capsule on the bottom instead of the usual ten tentacles leaving the Squids within no way to move about on their own. I laughed when I saw this, I’d been wondering how to disable a creature that had no bones. I’d been thinking of sewing their tentacles together. Sometimes the answer to a problem is straightforward.

  It took the Squid delegation a few cycles, and when it was all said and done all of the Squids participating in the treasonous acts were found guilty and sentenced to termination. The delegation took care of that chore as well. I was pleased my participation was limited to observer and final judge. As Warlord, I had to give final approval to the death sentences.

  The Squids also dropped another bombshell; since they felt they were no longer t
rusted or allowed on any of our vessels they were moving their Ark, Mother of Righteous Anger, their largest mothership, and one of their supply Arks out past Neptune and into the Kuiper Belt. I looked at the delegates and said, “That is perfectly fine by me. If you decide to rejoin us, you may do so, but we will not ask.” I moved to stand with the Elders.

  Elder Three took me aside and said, “However, you may feel about this in your soul you must carry out the wishes of the Squid delegation. They speak with the voice of their people, their people demand this stain on their honour must be removed.”

  “I understand, I intended to carry this out with or without the Squids approval. I’m only thankful that this high-and-mighty bunch is really no more civilized than any of the rest of us—a point I will make to them every time I’m braced by their arrogance.”

  Later that cycle, I boarded a Squid shuttle with the prisoners and the Squid delegation to see the sentence carried out. The shuttle slowly backed away from Mother of Glory and came to a stop where several cameras were recording the event and broadcasting the proceedings to all Squid ships. The Confederation Council had originally asked that it be broadcast to all ships, but I declined saying, “This is not a cycle to be celebrated nor an event that is necessary for all to see. It is enough that it is being sent to the Squid population as a reminder that they are not superior and they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us and will be held equally accountable for their actions.”