The Fifth Civilization: A Novel

by Peter Bingham-Pankratz

  “Get your security men!” Roan yelled, turning back to Duvurn and the Colobus crew. “Get them out there now! And we need to hide!”

  “What is this?” Duvurn shouted, his cane flailing in the air in indignation.

  “Oh my God,” Kel said, now watching out the doorway. “They found us.”

  “Yes, they did.” Roan spread out his arms and herded everyone in the direction of the double doors of the dining room. “Now, now!” He prayed the Bauxen prince and his bodyguard would show at least some effort in the use of their legs. Roan banged the doors open and they rushed in on the servants still setting down silverware for the breakfast arrayed on the table.

  “Go, go!” Roan shouted to them, pointing to the kitchen and as far from the entrance doors as possible. “Kotarans are on the way!”

  At this, the Bauxen servants—more lithe than their master—bolted ahead of the group and sprinted into the kitchen without looking back. Roan, however, risked a look through the front doors to the front lawn. The ship roared as it passed overhead, and Roan could see what it had left behind: in the distance, making their way to the palace, were the unmistakable shapes of several Kotaran soldiers. The sharp zap of laser fire could be heard as Roan ducked into the kitchen and, supposedly, safety.

  ***

  At the command of makte, makte, makte! a horde of Kotaran commandos leapt from the open doors of the garbage scow and onto the plush grounds of the front lawn. There was nothing standing in their way but fountains and hedges. When the scow returned to the sky to make another pass over the palace, Grinek noticed Bauxens running back to safety inside the building. It was almost enough to make him laugh.

  “We’re going to squeeze them in a vice!” Grinek shouted, to no one in particular. The plan was to move in on Duvurn’s compound through both the front and back entrances so there was no hope for escape. Out the cockpit windows, he saw the backside of the palace and pointed past the pilot. “Set us down near that garden! Once we’ve all departed, keep circling the palace and make sure no one gets away.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Specialist Roh was leaning out of the craft’s open door, letting the wind blow his ears and watching the scene unfold meters below him. He eagerly cradled his scythe and his left leg tapped rapidly on the floor—a sign of anxiety to enter the fray. Grinek did his best to work his way from the cockpit to the departure bay where Roh stood.

  “I am joining you, Specialist. You and I will enter this battle together.”

  “Yes, Commander. Fox’Lo wills it.”

  “Of course he does. He has blessed you mightily, Roh.” Grinek despised using ghin speak, but if gave the man an inflated sense of his own abilities, all the better. It would make him more tenacious, less likely to make a mistake in the heat of battle.

  “If you find any Earthmen or the Nyden, try to take them alive,” Grinek told the soldiers assembling near the edge of the scow for insertion. “Any Bauxens you may kill.”

  The scow set down in the garden. Plants and flowers were cast to the wind from the exhaust, and what was once a rainbow of colors turned a dull brown. A fountain collapsed from the force of the exhaust, and water gushed on the soil, turning the ground to mud. Such were the conditions, however, that made great warriors—and each Kotaran that jumped off the ship relished the splash on his boots. Grinek and Roh were the last to jump off, running through the overturned greens toward the steps of the palace.

  The Bauxens let off one or two laser bolts, but these were answered by a shower of fire from the Kotarans. Some of the green idiots wanted to stay and fight. Grinek raised his rifle and raked the windows of the building, hoping that would scatter people inside. The air was now lousy with energy bursts and falling masonry from the palace. Ahead, the forward team was already climbing the steps and mowing down any Bauxen they saw. Diplomatic relations be damned, Grinek was sure he was going to get laurels for this action.

  ***

  Dead ends seemed to pop up everywhere. A freezer and a cooler were on the right, beyond the pots and trays and baskets of the kitchen. They weren’t the places you wanted to be when a Kotarans were chasing you. Kel directed them back around, and they went left, hoping to find an exit from the kitchen, perhaps to a secret passage. All that met them was a grime-coated sink where vegetables were soaking.

  “Isn’t there some secret way out of here?” Duvurn cried, in English, to the lead servant, obviously unfamiliar with the place that prepared all his meals.

  “No! I thought all we wanted to do was hide!” The servant was jerking his head around in a panic, looking for anywhere to conceal the group from the inevitable carnage. David, too, appeared to be a panic, his motions jumpy and his feathers swishing about. His head was glowing green.

  Weapons weren’t going to save them: Roan had kept a Kotaran pistol tucked in his jacket, but other than that, only one of Duvurn’s bodyguards wielded a bulky energy rifle. None of these were going to stand up for long against military-grade Kotaran weaponry.

  Kel and Roan had the idea simultaneously, and in other circumstances they might have assumed that great minds and kindred spirits think alike. Each grabbed a tray from a shelf reserved for pastries or other oven foods and handed them out. Their process was factory-assembly quick, and soon everyone was wielding a tray, horizontally or vertically, whichever way they fancied.

  “Shields,” Roan said, the only explanation needed. He then retraced his steps through the kitchen, leaving the others to frantically follow him in the hopes that he knew what he was doing.

  “You can’t expect us to use these!” Duvurn screamed. He grabbed a tray, which he struggled to hold in his stubby hands. It was almost as tall as he was.

  “Then grab a steak knife,” Roan suggested, now entering the dining room. “Kotaran bolts don’t go so well against steel. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Look, they’re better than nothing, which is what we have.” Enough talk. Either the Kotarans were inside or they soon would be, and there was no sense dying in a room of pots and pans.

  ***

  Grinek and his men burst into the rotunda. There was much to admire in the palace, including the amphibians in the columns that reminded him of the life in the rivers of Degmorra. His reverie shattered when Roh blasted his rifle toward the other end of the rotunda. Before taking cover behind a column, Grinek noticed a group of Earthmen and Bauxens exiting some lavish doors, holding up shields. How had they managed to obtain such weapons? The attackers opened up with return fire and then Grinek heard the sounds of feet heading up the staircase. Grinek leapt out from his cover and charged toward the exact center of the room.

  A Bauxen lay on the ground, clutching what appeared to be nothing more than a food tray with a hole in it. Grinek approached him and sneered. He kicked the being, which moved and gave a very weak cough—the Bauxen was obviously dying. Roh and the others appeared alongside Grinek, and one soldier bent down to loot the body.

  “Leave the carcass,” Grinek said. “It’s more terrifying that way.” Then he looked up the staircase. The Earthmen wanted to get to someplace up there, and Grinek hoped it wasn’t an exit. If only someone had thought to get a layout of the complex. Oh well. It was of little consequence now.

  “Follow them,” he commanded some soldiers, who immediately snarled and charged up the stairs. Grinek knew he was exposed standing in the middle of this expansive rotunda, but he relished every second of danger.

  ***

  One of the servants died immediately; there was nothing they could do for him. Most of the Kotaran energy bolts were deflected or blocked by the food trays, though, and it was extremely difficult to hold onto the superheated metal as they ran up the stairs. Kel and Roan dropped theirs behind them, instead focusing on running to safety on the second floor. The Bauxens and David kept the trays until they reached the landing—their thicker skin could better handle hot metal—and then threw the makeshift shields to the ground, where they clanged down the stairs.

  “There
’s a secure vault in that bedroom!” Duvurn said, pointing and panting, looking as though a heart attack would fell him at any moment. His bodyguard, dedicated to protecting the Prince no matter the risk or price, stood behind him and volleyed shots down the stairs and into the rotunda. Despite that, the Kotarans began advancing up the stairs.

  Roan decided he would do the same—as Kel herded David and the Bauxens into the bedroom, Roan made his way to the balcony edge and fired at the Kotarans with his pistol. Just like the Yuko Mall back on Earth, he was again being chased on a spiral walkway. Even his firefights were repeats.

  Chunks of masonry catapulted from pillars and sprayed the rotunda. He recognized the red bolts of a Kotaran pistol. Damn them, they must have captured one from a Kotaran. Perhaps the shooter was Nicholas Roan himself, and if so, all the better. Even though Grinek wanted to personally kill the man, the execrable Earthman might very well die in a firefight. That would be agreeable, too. All that mattered was the planet coordinates and the Colobus crew probably had it loaded onto some kind of device.

  “Commander! Commander!” It was the cry of one of Grinek’s men, and the firing from above stopped when the call came. Two soldiers appeared, carrying an Earthman into the rotunda and throwing him to the floor before Grinek and Roh.

  “We caught one alive, just as you requested,” one soldier said. The captive was pale-skinned and disheveled, bloodied all over, and he was wearing what could have been sleepwear. His gibbering and shaking were the classic signs of a frightened Earthman. What an ineffectual outcome of evolution their race was. When a Kotaran experienced fear—a rare sight indeed, if he was a credit to his race—he sweated while his ears and tail flapped, but he was otherwise in control of his emotions and body.

  “Earthman, you will tell me what I want to know,” Grinek spat, and this encouraged the man to look up at the commander.

  “P-please don’t kill me,” the man murmured. “I’m just a crewman on the freighter. A mechanic.”

  Roh let off a cluck of disapproval. Grinek raised an eyebrow at his subordinate. In Kotaran, he asked Roh, “Is this man telling the truth, Specialist?”

  “He was my guard while I was imprisoned on the freighter. I do not remember him with fondness. And I believe I overheard him talking about killing a Kotaran.”

  Grinek looked back down at the man. His face had settled on Grinek’s boots, and the commander grabbed his small head by the cheeks and brought it up to look into Grinek’s eyes. “You are lying! You killed Kotarans on your ship. You are bloodthirsty for alien blood.”

  “No! I swear.”

  “Yes! If you want to live, you tell me why your ship was on a course into deep space. What were you looking for? Where?”

  ***

  Roan and the Bauxen bodyguard fired some shots to end the Kotaran advance up the staircase, but both stopped when there was commotion below. Clutching the pistol close to his body, Roan worked his way to the marble railing and looked down below. He hoped he hadn’t seen what he thought he saw, but it was unmistakably true: one of the Kotarans, muscly and angular but a little shorter than the others, was holding a human in the center of the rotunda.

  The human was the mechanic, Jasper.

  It was clear where this was going. The Kotaran, who was perhaps the leader of the group, was saying something to Jasper. Roan did not believe the two would be talking very long.

  Roan put the alien in his crosshairs. He just needed a clean shot without the crewman in the way. As he did, he realized that even at this distance he recognized the Kotaran. This one, Roan believed, stood out among all the others.

  ***

  Now the Earthman was crying. Oddly, the tears running down Grinek’s hands felt like sweat. So unlike a Kotaran. From what he understood of emotions on Earth, tears were only caused by pain, but this man had not been harmed. Yet.

  “Answer me!”

  “L-life. Something about the origins of life. Some planet past Bauxa, out beyond Nydaya. I-I can’t remember all the details. It was a month ago when they told us.”

  “Do you know where this planet is? Do you have its coordinates?”

  The man appeared confused. “N-no.” He tried to sniff, to stop the tears, but it wasn’t working. Grinek finally let the man’s head go, his claws having turned the man’s cheeks red.

  “Was your knowledge of this planet related to you by some file, something on a computer? Or did someone tell you this?”

  “It…it…was shown to us all. It was on a holopad. Roan, Nick Roan’s holopad.” The human had just given up more information than was asked of him, even though Grinek more or less knew what he’d relayed. So, the information about the mysterious planet was true. Aaron Vertulfo was, in fact, on the right track. How Grinek wanted to see Vorjos’ foolish face when they reached the planet in question. This captured man had only enhanced that desire.

  Grinek looked to the balcony at the top of the staircase. The people he wanted were up there, and he hoped he had the leverage he needed.

  “Nicholas Roan!” Grinek roared, shoving his pistol at the crewman’s head so that those on the balcony could see. He hoped Roan was sufficiently shocked that his name was known to a Kotaran. How he would have loved to say he had spent weeks studying its syllables.

  “I have a crewman here,” Grinek tried in his best English. He once again looked at the Earthman at his side, wheezing and weeping. He looked like every other human Grinek had ever seen.

  “He dies if you do not surrender!” Grinek bellowed. The captive squirmed a little, and Grinek’s tail whacked the man and threw him to the floor. Grinek thrust the pistol barrel against the man’s skull. From his dealings with the Grisholdan separatists on Kotara, Grinek had learned that a pistol aimed at a friend or family member’s head was always the best negotiating tool. Pleasure enveloped Grinek’s body. This was going to be even more satisfying than putting down that revolt.

  ***

  The kanga knew his name. The fact struck Roan like a bolt, but he knew the Kotarans had many resources. He had to focus on the matter at hand. Jasper held hostage in the rotunda. The Kotarans inching their way up the stairs. The short distance to the bedroom.

  He looked to the bedroom first. Kel was there. Motioning him to the doorway, silently saying his name. Hiding was looking like the only viable option right now. He still had his gun trained on the scene below, but knew that once the shooting started, the Kotarans on the stairs would charge.

  “Bodyguard,” Roan said in a low voice, enough so that the trembling Bauxen at the railing could hear him. The alien’s rifle was erratically shaking, so much so that the being could probably not get a clear shot. “Run to the bedroom. Now.” The guy didn’t speak English or something, because he didn’t move, so Roan pointed, and the bodyguard immediately did as he was asked and ran to the door.

  ***

  Talking was pointless. The captive had the air of being resigned to his fate and was therefore useless as something to bargain with. Briefly, Grinek considered asking the man to pray if he had any sort of divine beliefs—he hadn’t seen an Earthman do so before, at least outside of anthropological recordings. But that might offend Roh, disparaging religion at a key moment in their quest. So instead he decided to count.

  “You have five seconds to surrender,” Grinek yelled up at the balcony. “Five!” he said, and then he paused to think of what the next number would be in English—

  ***

  Roan had the Kotaran in his sights. He fired.

  ***

  One shot grazed Grinek’s leg and he howled in pain. Roh and the other men let loose their fire on the balcony above, and surely there was no way the Earthman could have survived such a barrage. Grinek clutched his calf, thankful the bolt had missed his tail, but he could not mask his rage at Roan’s arrogance. To think that he could determine when negotiations could end! To think that he could end a firefight!

  Grinek saw his men scramble to the top of the staircase, where the marble railing had crumb
led under the energy fire. His men looked around and conversed, and then came to the balcony.

  “Are they there?” Roh shouted up.

  “No, sir!” came the reply. “No one’s here! Looks like they retreated to a safe room!”

  Godsdamn them.

  Grinek heard whimpering below him. He remembered the Earthman on the floor, a sign of his failure at negotiation. The man was useless now. With one swift motion, Grinek brought his pistol to the prisoner’s head and fired. With a hiss and a flash of red light, the Earthman’s body disintegrated before he could even scream. All that remained was a black scorch mark on the floor.

  “Must have left my pistol on the high setting!” Grinek joked, and that elicited a roar of teeth clacking from the men. The Commander then pointed to the top of the balcony, the frivolity now over with. “You know what to do. Get up there and get these filthy beings out of there.” The rotunda thundered from the boots on the staircase.

  Chapter 25

  Six against two-dozen Kotarans. The odds weren’t good.

  Duvurn slapped his hand against a button tacked to the wall. With a mechanical clang the wallpaper swung open. Even royalty had to plan for any eventuality. What was a considerably cramped space in the bedroom became suffocating as six of them clamored into a small, bare safe room furnished only with benches. Once they were all in, Duvurn cranked a lever and the door whirred shut. There was the satisfying sound of a lock, but the room was pitch black.

  There came a thud and the lights flickered on. Duvurn had pounded his fist against a control panel.