Humans

by A. G. Claymore

  Who, in retrospect, was probably correct in theory, if not in execution.

  Mishak frowned.

  At least with regard to the votes.

  “You did this without my permission,” he told his fleet-captain. “I cannot allow my officers to take liberties with my name.” Gods! Did any of them survive? I think I saw the Bastard Blade path out…

  Rimush stood formally, arms to the side, hands open and facing his lord. “I am ready to face the consequences, lord.” Sadness and pride warred within his heart as he waited for the shot.

  Mishak wanted to be angry with Rimush. How many of his trusted Humans had died in this betrayal? Ultimately, it was Mishak who’d betrayed his loyal warriors. It was his own fleet-captain who’d done this and Mishak was responsible for the actions of everyone who served him.

  But he’d been through too much with Rimush and he’d done it out of a sincere desire to save his lord from his own folly.

  And Mishak wasn’t entirely certain Rimush was wrong.

  He sighed, looking down at the pistol. He reversed the grip and held it out.

  The gratitude from Rimush was hard to take but Mishak kept his own feelings under a tight lock. He forced himself to watch impassively as the fleet-captain placed the muzzle against his right temporal plate and pulled the trigger.

  Several of the bridge crew were spattered with the senior officer’s brains and blood. Though their disgust was palpable, they stayed at their posts.

  “Fleet Captain Rimush,” the computer voice announced, “is deceased. All lockouts under his voiceprint are now released.”

  “Fleet-wide! All ships ceasefire immediately!” Mishak ordered. A glance at the central holo told him there was probably nothing left to stop firing at but he had to try. What a fornicating mess this has turned into.

  He wanted to leave the bridge; work out his anger. Can’t leave Rimush in charge of the fleet if his brains are all over the bridge, can you?

  “I thought I taught you better than this,” Sandrak sneered.

  “Keep talking, you old goat.” Mishak turned slowly to look at his father. “There’s no law saying I need to give you that small pension. We could find out how you like begging shelter from obscure relatives.”

  He grinned bitterly. “You see? You’ve taught me well enough to know a person’s pressure points!”

  Lying Low

  In Orbit at Babilim Station

  Eth stared at the holo. The station was so huge that, from standard orbital altitude, the horizon looked nearly flat.

  He felt like they’d already landed on the surface. “Nobody comes to this side?”

  Meesh’s holographic form shook its head. “Nothing we heard indicated any activity after about ten-thousand clicks from the main city on the other side. Just look at the size of the place. It would take weeks to get around to this side of the station by ground transport, even assuming you could find functioning hyper-loop lines that reached the whole way.”

  Eth sighed, feeling the heaviness that had been ambushing him at random intervals, when time allowed or reminders intruded.

  They’d lost four corvettes and eight scouts; most of that to supposedly ‘friendly’ forces.

  Somehow, in the space of a year, he’d gone from being the second in command of a small unit where he’d known every name to leading a large force where he lamented the deaths of people he couldn’t name to save his own life. Is this what ‘success’ feels like?

  “We have a theory to test,” he declared, “before we can set up shop here.” He turned to face ‘holo’ Meesh who was nodding, opening his mouth to volunteer.

  “I’ll take a scout down myself,” he told him, quickly and finally. He waved his hand in a chopping motion. “I’m going,” he insisted.

  He turned to the nav station, where Hendy was standing next to the helmsman. “And, no, I don’t think it wise to ‘take a good pilot along’ for what’s essentially a test of whether our stealth will get us past the station’s defenses, so don’t even think of volunteering!”

  “Volunteer?” Hendy raised an eyebrow. “For an almost certain-death mission?” He chuckled, strolling over to Eth. “I’ll just stay up here and take over my new ship if you happen to get yourself fried.” He leaned in closer.

  “You don’t need to do penance for anything, old friend,” Hendy added quietly, “but go ahead and risk your neck if it feels like the thing to do.”

  Eth’s shoulders slumped a fraction. “Is it that obvious?”

  Hendy gave a tiny shrug. “You realize we were all grown as combat slaves, right?” He kept his voice low. “We’ve been getting away with some outrageous shenanigans. The fates were bound to catch up with us and kill off a few hundred of our people at some point.”

  “Doesn’t make them any less dead,” Eth countered.

  “That’s true,” Hendy agreed equably, “but they still accomplished ten times more than they were grown for before our lord betrayed them. Not much more a person can ask for in the HQE…”

  With that, he strolled back to his station.

  Eth sighed again and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was between the pilot and co-pilot seats of Bastard Blade’s scout-ship. He turned to the crewman who he’d positioned in the engineering space with orders to keep an eye on the cockpit.

  “Thanks,” he told the man, realizing he didn’t know his name. “Get back to the Blade. I’ll take her down alone.”

  He watched the man leave. One more person that won’t die today over my decisions, he thought. He strapped into the pilot’s seat and initiated the separation sequence.

  Nothing to say, old man?

  “Nothing that needs saying…”

  The coolant umbilicals separated and dissolved into a block of nanites next to the opening in the hull, which was already closing. He caught a faint whiff of whatever fluid Noa was currently using as a heat transfer medium.

  “Blade, this is Your Wakeup Call, umbilicals are retracted and ECM is spooled up.” He pressed the final command icon. “Separating now.”

  He moved away from the hull, but only a few meters, giving time for the corvette to close up the hatch cover that hid the docking ring when there was no scout-ship attached.

  Then he moved a hundred meters off and began to rotate the small craft. “Blade, Wakeup Call, how do I look?”

  “Wakeup, Blade, Wish I could tell you,” Hendy replied, “but we can’t see you. Looks like I’m not getting a shiny new corvette to command any time today. Good luck, going to comms blackout now.”

  Eth reached up and locked out his auto-transmit functions. The last thing he needed, while sneaking past Babilim Station’s vicious security system, was an accidental transmission broadcasting his presence.

  “This will work,” he told himself. He tilted his head a little. “This will probably work.” He set a course for the large crater they’d identified from orbital surveys. It stood the best chance of having useful industrial equipment in its cargo handlers.

  And it allowed some room to grow.

  It would also give them better security. It was never more than a matter of time before one of their own tried selling their secrets but it had still stung Eth when Memnon told them about the traitor.

  That, of course, was why Memnon had told him, though he almost certainly regretted it. The Quailu had been alarmed by Eth’s subsequent mental incursion and he’d said nothing more until he’d been returned to his own ship.

  Memnon had failed to capitalize on the knowledge he’d bought, but that didn’t mean it could be safely ignored. They had been betrayed by one of their own people. That would be much harder to do with the last two hundred twenty-six of their people gathered here on Babilim.

  Admittedly, the market for such secrets had taken a recent nosedive. Mishak’s forces obviously had no trouble coming up with a way to track the stealthy ships, seeing as they knew exactly what they were searching for.

  And Eth suspected the path-drive spool-up had bee
n an attempt to prevent his Nergalihm from jumping aboard the bridges of the attacking vessels. He didn’t know if it would work, but some tests would have to be made at the earliest opportunity.

  He nearly jumped out of his skin at the chime of a second-level alarm. It was just the emissions management system, letting him know he had more than a day of stealth at the current speed.

  The crater, looming up around his field of vision told him he’d need far less time than that.

  It worked! Their stealth technology was able to slip past the security system! He frowned. Or the system is inoperable in this region. Either way, they could use this location as their base of operations.

  He settled the small craft inside what looked like the markings for a landing pad and shut down. When he stepped outside, his HUD told him the air was breathable, if slightly higher in nitrogen than he was used to.

  The crater’s far edge was at least thirty kilometers away, faded slightly by the intervening air. It wasn’t even noticeable from orbit.

  He retracted his helmet and took a breath, surprised at the pedestrian scent of old dust. Nothing has moved here for thousands of years, he reminded himself.

  Anything that might off-gas had finished doing so a long time ago.

  “It’s a gloomy place, isn’t it?” Scylla asked, smiling serenely across the massive chasm.

  Eth’s eyes widened slightly as he realized she was standing there, but a part of him had known she was about to transpose herself down to join him. “Should you be out of sick bay?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “Just needed fluids and electrolytes. The doc had no excuse to keep me after the last set of scans.”

  Gleb had connected with her at the time of his death. She’d sensed him, as though he were drifting on a sea, only he’d been swept away by the current before she could reach out…

  A crewman had found her curled up in a ball by the serving line in the mess hall, unable to stand.

  “You’re sure you don’t…” Eth trailed off, sensing her preoccupation.

  She smiled, something he wasn’t used to seeing, and then nodded in confirmation. He tore his gaze away from her as the lighting came on, a warm, slightly-yellow wave of brightness that flowed away from them in both directions. The light raced around the rim of the crater drawing a line between the station and the horizon.

  Below, in the depths, harsher lights came on to illuminate the cargo zones. Massive machines lurched into motion for the first time in millennia, but then they slowed to a halt.

  “Best to leave everything where it is until we have time to review the cargo manifests,” Scylla murmured.

  Eth wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to the station itself. He reached out to touch her shoulder, waiting until she looked at him. “While you’re communing with the station, can you do anything about the security system in this zone? I’d hate to lose anyone just because the hull coating got scratched off by debris in that last battle.”

  She nodded. “I’ll check.”

  He walked to the edge of the landing platform, looking down to the cargo complex. The tops of the gantries were more than a kilometer below him and he had no idea how deep they ran.

  The smells of lubricating fluid and ozone wafted up from the brief flurry of activity they’d caused. He smiled.

  It’s not home until it makes its smells known to you…’

  “You can start bringing ships down,” Scylla said. “And I’ve found the place you wanted… for the traitor…”

  Eth looked back, but only far enough to catch her in his peripheral vision. He was mostly looking at a stack of cargo containers that lay to his left. “How far is it?”

  “Just far enough, I’d say.” There was no grimace on her face but it made itself known in her voice. “Once those things get a taste for Humans, you don’t want them anywhere near here!”

  A foggy, glowing blue trail appeared above the floor, leading back into a bank of structures.

  “That will show you where to go,” she murmured, already forgetting about the path’s grisly purpose. “You should take the time to talk to this place. It’s really incredible!”

  Later, he thought, looking at the wispy path. Before that could happen, one more Human had to die under his watch.

  Jay groaned. He rolled over, keeping his eyes closed. He brought a hand up to hold his forehead.

  He knew Hela had used her abilities to knock him out. He had seen her coming toward him and he’d known it was all over.

  He had also known, even as he approached Memnon, that the Quailu would betray him in a heartbeat, even if just for the amusement it would afford. Still, Jay had sold out his fellow Humans. Whether it had been for the money or just for the rush it afforded, he didn’t know.

  It was in his nature, beyond that, he couldn’t say.

  The headache was worse than any he’d ever known. Bitch must have nearly killed me! Still, he could hardly blame her. He even disgusted himself.

  He jerked his head aside, dislodging his hand as a blade of grass went up his nose.

  Grass?

  He opened his eyes, slowly, fighting against the searing pain of the light. He lay there, on his side, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the… forest meadow?

  A small furry creature was sitting up on its little haunches, several meters away, looking at him. It let out warbling squeaks as it angled its head back and forth, examining him from various angles.

  He realized the sounds from the creature were part of a larger conversation. The steady, throbbing flow of noise that he’d thought to be a side effect of his incapacitation was actually thousands of the small creatures calling back and forth.

  He stared at the small animal, loathing its calm, complacent cuteness. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and his right hand closed on a rock. “Beat it!” he shouted, tossing the rock at it.

  It scampered out of the way, not looking at all complacent as it bared its teeth and hissed. It looked past Jay, to his right, and, just as Jay was wondering what it saw, he felt teeth sink into his left forearm.

  “Fornication!” He spun around on his buttocks, aiming a kick at another of the small animals but it dodged easily, leaping back nearly two meters in one jump. It landed, filled its little lungs and emitted a piercing shriek from its bloody mouth.

  The bite was alarming enough but what made Jay’s blood run cold was the sudden, oppressive wall of silence.

  He scrambled to his feet, noticing the sea of faces that looked up at him from the grass. The adrenaline was coursing now. He spun, desperately looking for a way out of this place.

  There were walls all around him but he was far from all of them. It was hard to evaluate scale without any context but the fact that the nearest structures appeared washed out by the intervening atmosphere told him he’d never make it.

  He began running for a nearby tree without any conscious decision. He leapt for the lower branches and clambered up.

  He looked back down, sucking in a shuddering breath at the sight of the pursuit. His eyes grew wide. Why does it smell like dung up here?

  He looked up. Gods!

  The damned things nested in the trees. Dozens of them fell on him, biting, scrambling to get a secure purchase with surprisingly long claws. He screamed but sharp claws sliced his lower lip and a furry head inserted into his mouth, taking a chunk of his tongue.

  He lost his grip and fell from the tree, crushing several of the little bastards when he hit the ground. It was no comfort to Jay, who could feel teeth grating on his ribs.

  One bite to his neck struck the same artery that Hela had pinched off to capture him. Ironic, he thought, his life pulsing out of his neck, that the same attack from such an insignificant creature…

  Heavy is the Head

  The Dibbarra, Kish Orbit

  Tashmitum stopped outside the door to the suite she shared with Mishak. She took a deep breath and composed herself before stepping forward.

  The
door slid out of the way and she entered their sitting room. She could hear Mishak in the bedchamber, feel his mind as he gazed out the portal at the graceful curve of Kish’s dayside.

  She moved to the chamber door, stepping over the ruins of the coffee table and skirting shards from several coffee mugs on her way.

  She came to a stop beside him and looked out the window, saying nothing. It was a beautiful planet, though a bit heavy on desert and tropical climates for a Quailu’s liking. There were at least fifty million newly freed Humans down there.

  “What will they think of us?” Mishak asked, picking up her train of thought. “Eth and his team were heroes to the Humans on Kish. We’ve had no end of volunteers wanting to serve on our ships, but now…”

  He sighed heavily. “It’s not right!”

  “Welcome to the imperial family,” she told him wearily. “Ruling the HQE isn’t about doing what’s right. It’s about managing the wrongs, choosing the least terrible option.”

  “And turning on Eth, who’d never shown the slightest hint of disloyalty, was the least terrible option?”

  “We’ll never know,” she admitted, “but we’ll never have to know now. You have to admit, Rimush’s reasons were plausible, even if he did take them to a logical extreme. Would we be able to arrange a peaceful transition if the electors are worried about the power the Humans give you?”

  “The Varangians give your father a similar power.”

  “And incorporating them in their current role, rather than as ordinary subjects nearly destroyed the empire,” she pointed out. “I’m not sure we could have done it again, not when it means two very powerful tools at our disposal.”

  He shook his head, ever so slightly. “That powerful tool is now our enemy. I don’t think we ended up with the least terrible option this time.”

  “They were severely weakened,” she replied, not bothering to hide her regret. “I doubt they’ll recover for a few generations, especially if they don’t have access to Kish to replenish their losses…”