by B. V. Larson
She ignored the humans gathering around her own cooling ship. Only the one with the bomb aboard opened. The other two sat silently. For all intents and purposes they seemed locked and dead. It was the first ship, the one piloted by the lone hest, that held her full attention. When a dozen or so humans were in range, she ordered the hest to open the rook’s hatch and let the ramp slide down and lock into place.
Milling uncertainly, the humans gathered. A few placed boots upon the ramp. That was good enough.
Now! she transmitted.
The hest’s ship exploded. The humans clustered nearby were killed immediately by the blast. Those farther away were gassed by the escaping noxious vapors that rolled away from the wreckage. The fumes had been bio-chemically formulated with great care by the Savant. The gas was harmless to her kind.
The power of the blast had been similarly modulated. It was powerful enough to destroy the airlocks that led into the landing bay. But it was not forceful enough to rupture the clamshell dome over the blastpan. She did not need to leak the base’s atmosphere out into the vacuum of space. She needed an incapacitated population of humans as raw materials, not frozen corpses orbiting Minerva.
Most of the humans who encircled her ship turned in alarm and ran toward the source of the explosion. Had she been capable of a smile, the Savant would have formed one now. As it was, her single lung breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. Things were moving smoothly, following her best-case scenarios.
When only a pair of humans remained at the foot of the second ship, she ordered the pilot to lower the ramp. The humans had withdrawn to a safe distance in case another explosion occurred. She had studied reports on human behavior from Garm, however. She waited, leaving the ramp down and silent. Curious creatures by nature, the humans simply had to investigate. They came near before a single minute had passed on the chronometer.
She satisfied their curiosity by ordering the pilot, who was the Boldo-creature, to appear at the top of the ramp. He still looked human, if somewhat oddly-shaped and unusually bulky. She had ordered the creature to keep his fronds and stalks retracted or hidden, floating behind his body.
With swinging strides, the Boldo-creature thumped down the ramp. At first, the greeting humans lowered their weapons in recognition and seemed relieved. But as he drew closer, his strangeness became increasingly self-evident. Their weapons rose again. When he lifted his own weapons, a hand-cannon in each gloved fist, they tried to fire. One got off a single, booming shot that staggered the Boldo-creature, but then he returned fire, blasting repeatedly at close range. Both humans soon fell to writhe on the bubble-crete. The Boldo-creature methodically popped the override on their faceplates as he went by. This ship, too, leaked gas. They gasped in the drifting narcotic vapors that now filled the landing bay. The gas had the added effect of preserving dying tissues for later consumption.
A team of seven shrades followed the Boldo-creature into the corridors beyond the airlocks. Their missions varied, but in most cases the tasks involved the release of more gas canisters at critical ventilation points in the station. With luck, many of the humans would be overcome without destructive combat. The Savant needed their bio-mass badly.
The last ship carried the Savant herself and the core of the Savant’s forces. She had managed to field a fire-team of three newborn killbeasts. She had seeded them back on Gamma Base, but they had not yet been viable when the single, wily human had made his attack and escaped. Gestated and birthed by the Kizzy-creature from the Savant’s bio-seeds, these three carried the best weapons available from Gamma Base. Each was armed with a laser carbine or a rattler and their own horn-bladed feet.
The killbeasts charged down the ramp of the last ship. They made very quick work of the knot of people left in the landing bay. The shocked humans barely had time to shout in surprise much less get off a volley before they were cut down.
So far, so good, thought the Savant. But her element of surprise would be wearing off quickly now, and unless she kept the initiative, the humans would soon regroup and counterattack. History had shown her they were much more dangerous when organized and comprehending of what they faced.
Something happened then. Something she should have foreseen, but her tactical inexperience hampered her. The clamshell dome over the second ship, the one the Boldo-creature had piloted, cracked open. Gases escaped into the hard vacuum of space. Two shrades were asphyxiated and frozen. Going stiff and losing the suction-grips of their lower pods, they were drawn up with the escaping atmosphere and drifted into space. The rest of the shrades, fortunately, had escaped into the corridors and waste-tubes of the Tyrolia. The Boldo-creature stumped back onto the scene. Having kept his magnetic boots on, he was firmly planted upon the flooring. He flipped the emergency override. The clamshell rolled slowly shut again and the landing bay repressurized.
Frantically, the Savant ordered her killbeasts to disable all controls to the landing bay her personal ship was in. They could not survive in vacuum for any length of time. Before the humans could play that trick twice, they must avoid further disaster.
She nodded to herself. The enemy had made their first move. She suspected there would be more setbacks. She went to check on the Kizzy-creature. Fantastically bloated now, her headless body was at least as wide and tall as it was long, even though she lay flat on her back. Inside the ballooning, gurgling, gestational tracts the next generation of offspring were almost ready to be born.
The Savant adjusted the Kizzy-creature’s feeding apparatus, which had become simplified by the removal of her head. An arrangement of tubes pumped nutrients directly into her digesters, while new lungs had been grown externally. These purple-pink organs shivered, inflating and contracting rhythmically. The Kizzy-creature’s own lungs had long since been collapsed by the tremendous weight of the offspring that squirmed in her swollen tracts.
The marvelously efficient arrangement brought pleasure and calm to the Savant. She had done an excellent job with this creature. Who would have thought the human females could be utilized so effectively as biological factories, as stand-ins for a Parent? Looking at the marvelous Kizzy-creature, she wanted more of them. Many more.
She felt confident that somehow the cold idiocies of fate would favor her species this time. The Imperium would triumph in the Kale system. She knew it.
#
About ten hours after the initial assault, Nicu rejoined the Vlax forces. He had crawled near the front lines and had determined the humans had a strong defensive position. Strong enough, he felt, that he was probably safer with them than wandering the tubes solo and perhaps running into an alien.
Everyone who had not been laid low by the gas or killed outright had a laser carbine now. They had emptied the armory. A few carried rattlers loaded with low-velocity encapsulated-mercury rounds that wouldn’t puncture the metal skin of the base.
Nicu popped up beside Loiza at the secondary barricade. This one was constructed of flipped over tables from the distribution centers. Its protection value was largely psychological. Out in the hallways beyond the public mall were forward groups of armed Vlax. Those forward squads were the bait, as far as Nicu could tell.
“Form a half-circle facing each main entrance,” said Loiza, whispering in her suit microphone. “If they get past the pickets and come for the mall, they will be bunched up at those entrances. When they come in from one of the corridors, we can hit them all at once.”
“Good plan,” said Nicu with an encouraging smile.
Loiza stared at him. Recognition flared. “You!” she said, reaching for him. Somehow, Nicu eluded her grasp. She made several attempts, but each time her gloves closed on nothing. Nicu was not an easy man to lay hands upon. She pulled out her hand-cannon and aimed it at him.
“I’ve got important information about the enemy, Commander!” said Nicu. His words were confident, but his voice nearly squeaked in everyone’s helmet intercoms.
“What did you bring down here? What are these things, Nicu?�
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Nicu saw a familiar light in her eyes. Why did everyone he met, at some point, want to kill him?
“I told you, back on Gamma—we had problems. We left, but I guess the others, the ones on the others ships—were infected.”
This time, when she stepped close enough to grab him, Nicu’s escape was blocked. Another, larger Vlax had loomed up behind Nicu and when he dodged away he bounced into the man’s thick chest.
Loiza’s hand-cannon was in his faceplate. Everyone kept their helmets down and their faceplates locked now, as the air had gone bad.
“So, you knew. You brought these things here, and you knew they would kill us.”
“No! No, no, no!” said Nicu, shaking his head within the helmet so rapidly that his individual flying hairs were pulled out when they caught at the seams. “We were fine. We were the survivors. We got to the ships and fled. I thought everyone else was normal. Like me. I didn’t know there was anything bad on those other ships.”
She stared at him. The black hole of oblivion, nearly two centimeters in diameter, eyed him from the business end of her hand-cannon. He was not sure which of these dark eyes he faced was more merciless.
The big man behind Nicu put heavy gloves on him, one on each shoulder. Another man now joined the first.
“Then why didn’t you tell us?” asked Loiza.
Nicu’s hands flipped up in a shrugging gesture. “You would have said I was crazy. I thought we were fine. I thought we could land and explain it all.”
Loiza shook her head. “No. No, you lie. When you came down, you told me not to let the others out of their ships. You knew what was on board those rooks.”
“I only figured it out as I was coming down. I saw the things at the controls. I looked at the vid feeds. There wasn’t time to warn you, we were in the middle of the landing sequence.”
Loiza nodded. For a fraction of a second, Nicu dared think he was in the clear.
“I have decided,” said Loiza. “You must die. For the good of all Vlax. We have lost too many souls today. You cannot survive this day to perform more treacheries. Perhaps, even you are infected somehow.”
The heavy hands on his shoulders became crushing weights. More hands pulled the gun from his holster. “No, wait! You are making a mistake, Loiza!”
“Space him,” she said to the men who held him.
Nicu was lifted from his feet and dragged backwards. Several men had him now. “Wait. I know all about them. I can tell you how to kill them.”
Loiza lifted her hand indicating the others should stop. They brought him back to her.
“Half my people are dead or gassed already, Nicu. The Tyrolia is dying. The Vlax are dying. Tell me what you know, to save your people.”
Shivering, Nicu felt the men ease their grips, but only a fraction. He told Loiza then. He told her about the shrades. He told her about Boldo, or what he had become. He told her about the things the squid-like creature had done to Kizzy. He told her how he had killed a shrade and Kizzy.
Loiza listened at length, nodding occasionally. “I had suspected to hear a story like yours. It is insane, but I believe most of it. And I know, I think, where these things are from.”
“Where?”
“The Nexus.”
Nicu looked at her, baffled. “The Nexus?”
“You perhaps have not been examining Nexus Net News. It’s mostly propaganda, of course, but there are useful tidbits. Some years ago, Garm was in a rebellious state. They killed their Nexus appointed Governor and elected their own. After a time, they were mysteriously attacked by creatures like these. They came out of nowhere, out of space. They moved very quickly, and looked like a strange variety of animals, but they were intelligent. Half the population of Garm was killed. Now the people of Garm are quiet, peaceful. Obedient.”
“Years ago?”
“It takes time, even for alien monsters, to travel between the stars.”
“Oh, I see,” said Nicu. And he did see. Anyone traveling to Garm would take years to arrive. Also due to the distance, people in the Kale system only heard of events on Garm and the other outlying worlds of the cluster years after they had occurred.
“So, you think the Nexus released these monsters to stop a rebellion on Garm? And now they have done the same to us?” Nicu asked.
“Yes. They are angry because we destroyed one of their bases in the Alpha asteroid belt. They seek revenge.”
Nicu understood clearly. The plan was diabolical. “And the Nexus can pretend it was all a disaster. Not their doing.”
Loiza nodded and stared at Nicu. Her rage was gone, but her gaze was still dangerous. “Your brain works better than most. But your heart is dark, Nicu. It is rotten.”
“I know it, Loiza. It is my greatest sorrow.”
“Today, it is my sorrow. My only regret is that I dare not blow your brains out right here.”
“Ah,” said Nicu, uncertain as to where this statement left him. “I have killed two of these monsters. I have fought the greatest Nexus weapons. I want to stand with you.”
Loiza stared at him for a long second. She shook her head. “You would run. Somehow, you would run,” she said.
“I would like to volunteer for the worst duty,” said Nicu proudly. “I will stand on the front lines with the men in the hallways.”
She finally nodded. “I will take you with me instead.”
“With you?”
“We are about to attack the aliens in their landing bays. We will drive them from the Tyrolia and back into space. You will lead. You will be our scout.”
Nicu swallowed. He nodded his head, but could not bring himself to speak audibly.
#
Both sides became defensive and the struggle went on for days. Loiza had made forays, trying to engage the aliens. They proved elusive and appeared weak. She decided to push them back to the area of the blastpans. She gathered her troops for a big attack. She figured they were not as all-powerful as she had believed at first. After all, how many of them could have fit aboard just three rooks? No more than thirty or so if they didn’t have troop pods attached, and one of them had exploded upon landing. She could overwhelm twenty to thirty aliens, fast or not, with her hundreds.
So on the third day, when all had been quiet along the corridors that had become a no-man’s land, a place where nothing moved without being fired upon, she made her push. She ordered sixty troops forward on three lines of attack, moving through three corridors at once. She needed to spread out her attack so that her superior numbers could overwhelm the enemy. She could not let them bottle her up in a narrow line.
She took another force of twenty troops behind the second group. They would press ahead, force their way in if the others were stopped.
At first, they met no resistance. A few shadows moved, and her men lifted their carbines to fire splatting laser-bolts after them. But nothing stood and fought. Her people’s spirits rose. They should have done this earlier! They had been cowed by these monsters who were now going to be taught a lesson about the ferocity of the Vlax Romani!
They reached the final corridor that led to the ring of blastpans and landing bays. When their corridor teed off into two others, each of which led into one of the landing bays, fire erupted from both sides. Men were cut down in seconds. First three, then five dropped. They scrambled back into the corridor they had come from. They returned fire, but found no targets. Whatever had hit them, the enemy had vanished.
They proceeded with greater caution after that. Nothing happened until they approached the nearest airlock that led into a landing bay. The ceiling bulged then, right in their midst, as did the floor. Strange creatures, things like the ones Nicu had described, sprang up among them. Like snakes, these monsters wrapped themselves around legs and worked up to abdomens and finally heaving chests. Screams were cut off, turning into choked, gasping cries. Ribs popped in rippling sounds like the tearing seams of fabric. Everyone was screaming and struggling. Hand-cannons boomed, but as often as
not hit human flesh.
Into the midst of this chaos, at either end of the corridor they were in, more of the elusive snipers appeared and peppered them with laser fire. This time, however, some of the Vlax were ready for such a move. They returned fire. One rattler splattered two killbeasts with mercury rounds. They were torn apart and the rest of the aliens retreated. But the damage had been done. By the time they had destroyed all the shrades in their midst, fully half the Vlax group had been killed.
Loiza withdrew with her forces to the public mall. Of the original forty she had led, only twenty remained standing. The second returning group had fared no better. The third group never returned at all, save for one man. Some argued with her they should go out and search for the third team, but she refused. The Vlax would fight here until relief arrived from the outer bases, then they would abandon the Tyrolia.
She ordered the one survivor from the vanished group brought to her.
#
Nicu reluctantly answered Loiza’s summons. He tried to strike a martial pose. He was, after all, a heroic survivor.
“You?” demanded Loiza, realizing whose narrow-shouldered frame filled out that spacer suit.
“Yes, I made it back. Things went—poorly.”
“Report in full, Nicu. Weren’t you on point with that team? Weren’t you supposed to be guiding them?”
Nicu made an easy gesture. “There was some, ah, confusion in that regard.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not all the troops saw fit to follow my lead. We became separated.”
Loiza was pacing now. He could see the anger in each of her stalking steps. He had to choose his words with care.
She nodded. “What is that slime on your suit?”
