by Mia R Kleve
* * *
Chapter 2
Jondar was almost caught up in a riot on the way back to his ship. At least a thousand Skeshu were screaming, throwing rocks, and setting fire to everything. The part he found ironic was that the Skeshu owned the planet, granted to them as Dusman servitors.
He would normally not have been intimidated by the likes of Skeshu. It’s hard to be afraid of a felinoid smaller than even the Altar’s short stature. Their four eyes and antenna were strange and the lack of body hair wasn’t something he usually noticed, since his insectile species didn’t have any, either.
When he turned the corner and was confronted by the riot, he immediately altered his course. The huge crowd was assaulting a merchant’s district, also operated by Skeshu. Since the race wasn’t a warrior race, the riot didn’t involve true combat, though it didn’t stop the clumsy employment of a few lasers on either side. But the disturbance was enough that he added several blocks to his trip.
Finally, he was back at the starport. The perimeter fence, once manned by the deadly squat Dusman warbots, was now abandoned. When the war ended and the belligerents fled, all the instruments of war either stopped or were stolen by various opportunists and combatants. A few of the warbots remained, though they were nothing more than shells. One lay near the gate, its chest open, wires wadded and dangling like the entrails of a fallen warrior.
Like the warbots, the starport was scattered with the fallen refuse of the war’s end. Thirty of the massive Dusman materiel transport ships were grounded twenty kilometers away. They’d arrived just before the end and never unloaded. Jondar knew there’d been fighting over the contents and wondered if his new “friend” Qorr had his horn into it.
Besides the transports, a hundred or more other ships were grounded. Many would never leave again. As he walked past, he took a different route than he had each time before. He was systematically noting the various ships’ conditions. Many were damaged, some horribly. Either on the way in or from continuous fighting over Feesta. The fighting had been going continuously for half a year when he’d arrived with his load.
He didn’t bother spending time looking at the hulks. The ones with moderate damage, though, he always took the excuse to spend an extra minute. He would slowly wander past the engineering support section and, if nobody was about, saunter over and touch the fill-point status select. This time it was a bulk transport, bigger and uglier than his. The status display was also uglier than his. Jondar left the other stranded ship behind and finished the walk to his own.
Grand Za had been his for ten years now. He’d used profits from a trading venture in the Tolo arm, far away from the war, and bought the ship. He’d made a good living until he’d been scooped up by a Dusman blockade and conscripted into service. The AI the Dusman had installed in his computer had carefully tabulated all the runs he’d made for the war. It didn’t add up to a fortune, but he’d be able to pay for repairs and some upgrades afterwards. Only, like every other AI he knew about, it was no longer working, and along with it went all those records.
It’s not like there are any Dusman anywhere about to pay me, anyway. One of the little native scavengers ran past and he kicked at it out of frustration. He missed, and it hissed at him as it fled. At least it was a sunny day. It almost made up for the ever-increasing putrid stench.
His ship was an Izlian design with modular configuration. It could be made bulbous with room for lots of cargo in space, then rearranged as it was now to land and take off more easily.
Grand Za squatted at the very edge of the starport, where he’d been ordered to land upon arrival. As a commandeered merchantman, he’d been carrying war materials. They’d loaded him two weeks ago with cases of ammunition and sent him here. He knew Feesta was a major battleground and wondered if this was his last mission. But when he’d come out of hyperspace, there was no battle, no Kahraman, and most importantly, no damned Dusman.
He used his Mesh to code into Grand Za and rode the little lift up to the crew deck, all the way in the nose. As a product of commerce and now war, she had an observation lounge just aft of the bridge. He got himself some food from his autochef which, thankfully, had been filled just before coming to Feesta, and went to the observation lounge to eat.
He didn’t know why he kept coming there to look at the scene, it wasn’t anything he would normally have considered view worthy. When he’d landed, there were a dozen Dusman fire-control bases only meters away, just outside the starport. He would have unloaded his munitions to them, except as he landed, they were leaving. It had almost looked like they were running. Only, the Dusman didn’t run. Ever. From anything.
Not knowing what to do, he had sat in Grand Za for a day and wondered what horrors were coming, what was frightening enough to scare away the iron spine of the Republic. Kilometers away stood an unknown number of what had made the Dusman so powerful; Raknar. They had stood ever since, unmoving. Nobody dared go near the living embodiment of their power. A couple of them could keep an entire unruly planet under control, dozens could reduce it to ashes. But when the Dusman fled, they left their machines behind.
The reason there were so many was just at the edge of his viewing range. About 100 kilometers away, on the horizon, were the Canavar. The Kahraman had come to take Feesta from the Dusman, and with them came their own monster war machines. The living embodiment of their genomancers’ prowess. The very technology the Kahraman had shared with the Dusman to uplift lower species had been turned to bring nightmare monsters to life as the two races ripped and tore at each other in an ever-tightening dance of destruction.
“We don’t even know why they were fighting,” Jondar said in wonder. Yet, fight they had, for almost a century. A proxy war that led to skirmishes, which led to fighting over resources and the very worlds their servitors held for them, and eventually all-out war. While the warrior servitor races cherished the chance to prove their worth, nobody had thought the Dusman and Kahraman would deign to battle each other in person. Oh, how wrong they were. Once they started, it quickly escalated.
When the first planet was destroyed, it was a shock which reverberated through the entire galaxy. Maybe death on such scale would end the war? Instead it only emboldened them. One dead planet turned to ten, twenty, a hundred. For a time, this was the news almost daily over the citizens of the galaxy’s Mesh. Another world dead. Panic began to spread.
Now there were only Raknar frozen in place and decaying Canavar. Thankfully, the latter were a hundred kilometers away. At least he couldn’t smell them inside his ship. How many thousand-tons of decaying flesh were out there? On this sunny day Jondar could see the sky along the horizon was darkened by carrion birds. They would be feasting for a year or more, he guessed.
Jondar and his people had prayed it would all end before their race joined the ranks of the extinct. Only now it was over, so what came next? If Feesta was any indication, a servitor world unable to feed itself, peace would be worse than war. At least in war, the belligerents kept their servitors fed.
His ship shuddered, and Jondar felt the icy fingers of panic: They were back! Only he realized the reverberation passing through the air wasn’t more war machines, rather it was a ship arriving. How strange such an event should come as a surprise. Feesta’s starport once had a hundred ships a day landing and taking off. But this was the first to land in a week, and one had taken off only yesterday.
He searched the sky with his eyes until he found it; a bright spot almost lost against the blue-white sun. The ship gradually descended on its hydrogen-fuel engines under good control. Jondar was most worried a ship would burn in like a meteor, like a crippled freighter had not long after Jondar landed. Luckily for all, considering the size of the mushroom cloud and the shockwave he’d felt, it had impacted hundreds of kilometers away. As a spacer, he’d said a prayer for the poor souls while wondering what had happened to cause such a previously unthinkable tragedy.
Eventually, the ship descended low enough for hi
m to make out details. It was no bigger than a large shuttle, or maybe a corvette? If the latter, it was the first military ship he’d seen since the evacuation. Another few seconds and he was sure. The sleek shape with four outriggers holding blazing engines said it was a corvette, though he’d never seen that specific design.
Jondar used his Mesh for a minute, trying to tease out a correlation on the design. After sending a dozen inquiries to the city’s AI and getting no response, he abandoned the effort.
“I need to dust off my programming training and see if I can work on the ship’s computer.” Other ship captains had removed their ships’ dependencies on AI, bringing them back to a simpler working order. He was loath to give up the automation. It had been the AI which allowed a single person to operate a ship the size of Grand Za. Only, without the AI to handle all the necessary tasks, what would happen if something went wrong?
His eyes strayed to the distant resting place of the crashed transport and silently wondered. Meanwhile, the corvette slowed to a near stop, lowered its insect-like legs, and landed perfectly about halfway between Grand Za and the now-worthless starport facilities. “If you’re hoping for supplies, you will be sadly disappointed.”
The new ship was too far away to see what race its occupants might have been. A disabled bulk freighter and a cruiser which had burned after landing were between him and it. Jondar considered going out to investigate, but the encounter with Qorr was too fresh in his mind. Instead, he finished his meal and went back to the bridge.
He dug out some chips on programming and loaded them into his Mesh. He studied for maybe an hour, enough time to remember how difficult programming was, before giving up and turning in for the night. Tomorrow was another day.
* * *
Chapter 3
Jondar wandered by the corvette three times in the intervening week. He’d gotten no closer than a dozen meters before noticing the ship had a bevy of small automated anti-personnel laser turrets which not only appeared operational, but which actively tracked him as he approached. Nothing said “mind your own business” better than a megawatt of coherent light. He got the message and kept clear.
The ship was in excellent condition. In fact, it looked new. The anti-personnel turrets weren’t its only weapons either. He was sure it sported a centrally mounted missile rack and probably a spinal-mount weapon of some kind, but standing on the ground staring at it didn’t provide enough details to be sure. What he did know was that the ship probably had F11.
In town, he ran into another ship captain who’d been stuck on Feesta longer. His ship was a blockade runner, equipped with hyperspace shunts, which specialized in getting behind enemy lines. A simian race, Bugitar were common as spacers and were well-known as amoral tricksters. He’d gotten caught by the Dusman trying to smuggle in assets to the Kahraman. They’d put a lockout on his ship’s hyperspace generator. Unlike every other AI which up and died during the Failing, and might have unlocked the ship, whatever they’d done to his ship had stayed done.
“You see that corvette?” the captain, Greep, asked. Like most simian races, he was constantly in motion and covered in hair. His long arms were always moving, grabbing stuff, twitching, scratching. It was like watching a broken bot spasming around.
“Yeah, it landed a few days ago,” Jondar said. He’d run into Greep outside one of the little bazaars which had sprung up around the starport. Shipmasters desperate for parts traded with locals desperate for food. Unlike the old days, everyone appeared armed these days. Since the riot, he’d noticed any Skeshu he encountered were armed more often than not. The city was feeling more and more unsafe. Jondar had traded his little laser derringer for a proper pistol and two extra magazines. He never thought he’d miss peacekeepers.
“Have you seen the corvette’s master?” Greep asked, clearly hoping Jondar could provide information.
“No. Have you?”
“No,” he admitted. “The ship is beautiful. I could have made mountains of coin with such a craft!”
“You said you did make mountains of coin,” Jondar reminded him.
“Yeah, but now who’s going to pay my vouchers?” They walked along the edge of the bazaar, not so much walking together as both going in the same direction. “Oh, did you hear K’ka is back?”
“No,” Jondar said, now genuinely interested. K’ka was a well-known and -liked Caroon trader who’d been stuck like the rest of them. There wasn’t a ship in space those days who hadn’t been low on F11. The majority of it went to the warring factions. They often paid in the precious fuel, allowing just enough out to keep you going, but not enough to let you look for other work. K’ka had left Feesta two weeks ago, saying he had enough F11 to make it to an outpost he’d heard about. When he hadn’t returned, they figured the Caroon trader had made it. “Where is he?”
“Still in space,” Greep said. “His reactor is in emergency mode.”
“He didn’t find the outpost?”
“Oh, he said he found it, only it was shot to hell and looted. It shook him, so he came back here. Said this place is better. Only, the trip took 170 hours each way!”
“No! Again?” Of all the stories he’d heard, the one about hyperspace travel being wrecked was the most disturbing. Sure, only the Dusman could access the fabled “Short Hop”; a quick 72-hour transit. Rumor had it, they possessed a way to make instantaneous travel, though it was as big a legend as the Arsenals. Faster hyperspace travel, though, was a fact.
Huge transports pinching coin used the slow routes, 170 hours and only a thousand light years each trip. If you weren’t in any hurry. Everyone else went with the 120-hour, five to ten thousand-light year trips. The rich or desperate got the 100-hour, twenty-five thousand-light year route. You could get those as part of a deal hauling for the Dusman, too. Only now, rumor said it was 170 hours or nothing.
“What did the stargate operators say?”
“He said there are only Sumatozou in the gates now, and they offered no explanation or apology.”
“Are they trying to extort coin?”
“K’ka said no attempt was made. The fee was unchanged—250 RC.”
“I heard someone say they went 15,000 light years in 170 hours,” a passing captain said. He was a Maki, looking a little like Greep. The Maki had been Dusman servitors, though.
“Ridiculous,” Greep snorted. “Go find a Dusman backside to clean.”
The Maki made a rude gesture and moved off, but Jondar wondered if it were true. Then he remembered K’ka again. “How is K’ka going to land?” His ship was a big, fat bulk freighter, impossible to land without lots of power.
“He can’t,” Greep said. “No F11, no fusion power, no landing. He’s been begging anyone who’ll talk to him for enough to land. None of us have enough to help, though.”
Jondar nodded. A few minutes later Greep saw something of interest and left Jondar to wander on his own. The hour was early still, but with more of the Skeshu going armed, he didn’t want to be in town after dark. It also wasn’t impossible for a desperate spacer to try and break into Grand Za. Unlike the mystery corvette, he didn’t have fancy anti-personnel lasers, just a lock.
As luck would have it, or unluck as the case might be, Jondar once again ran into a riot. The Skeshu were involved, of course. There were 100 times more of them than any other race on the planet, even with the recent combat on Feesta. However, this time they weren’t fighting their own people and businesses, instead they were venting their fury against a group of Altok. The little furred mammalians were servitors of the Kahraman and had been left behind when the latter fled, same as the Dusman.
The Altok had wandered in days after the evacuation and promptly begun stealing anything they could lay their hands on. They always ran in groups, and, when confronted, they turned violent much faster than the more pacifistic Skeshu would. The Kahraman had used the Altok as grunt labor, and as shock troops in extremis. Without a moderating leadership, the Altok were showing their lack of civility.
Jondar had heard a rumor a few days earlier: the Altok were running out of things to steal and were resorting to praying on the Skeshu as a food supply.
When he came upon the riot it served as immediate confirmation of the rumor. A few hundred Skeshu had caught a small band of Altok and were publicly executing them. The reason was obvious. Jondar had Skeshu loaded into his Mesh permanently and they were screaming “Murderers” and “Cannibals.” The latter wasn’t accurate, but he supposed it didn’t matter. It certainly didn’t to the Altok which were being placed against a wall and lasered one at a time. At least until a small horde of their fellow furry mammals made the scene.
“Oh shit,” Jondar said. He’d guessed there were around 200 to 250 Skeshu executing maybe 25 Altok. The Altok reinforcements numbered in the hundreds as well, and many of them were armed with little ballistic hand weapons.
He ran for it.
Running turned out to be the wrong thing to do; it made him look guilty. The native Skeshu knew he was not involved in anything; they’d seen him around a lot. The Altok didn’t know, didn’t care, and, in fact, probably guessed he had something valuable. He did; his miserable life.
Among his people it was considered in poor taste to drop on all six and walk. Young did it to run and play all the time, their exoskeletons having not completely hardened in places. He didn’t care, he hit the ground and hauled chiton.
He hadn’t gone 20 meters before the first projectile bounced off the ground next to him. He sped up as best he could. Running on all six wasn’t as easy as when he was a little grub; his legs were adapted to walking upright. He wasn’t going as fast as he’d thought he would. Faster than on two legs, just not fast enough. His eyes were situated high on his head to allow nearly 360-degree vision when in such a position, and he could clearly see the accursed Altok gaining on him, chittering and whooping in their mammalian babble.
