Scales of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  Maxwell nodded.

  ‘I will give you one of my daughters to carry your colonists to nearby stars until you have your own dragons,’ the Empress said. ‘And as we already agreed, the reproductive assimilation will be severely curtailed. Marque?’

  A star map of the Earth neighbourhood appeared around us. A boundary was illuminated, enclosing at least a hundred nearby red dwarf stars.

  ‘These red dwarfs aren’t ideal for your species, so if you like we can convert them to yellow stars similar to your own,’ the Empress said. ‘We can build planets around them if there aren’t any there already. There are no restrictions on population growth and expansion inside your own district, so you’ll be able to create a stellar community in no time.’

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Maxwell said under her breath.

  ‘Did I miss anything?’ the Empress said.

  ‘Soulstones,’ Terrclick said.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Maxwell said, more loudly. ‘Seriously? Immortality for all of humanity?’

  Our team whispered to each other behind us, unable to restrain their excitement.

  ‘Absolutely,’ the Empress said. ‘We will fit them on you after you’ve done the mandatory awareness training of the repercussions of effective immortality on you as a species. There are some side effects.’

  ‘I’m sure there are,’ Maxwell said wryly. She spoke side-on to me. ‘Are you sensing any duplicity from them, Choumali?’

  I hesitated, then said, ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘It’s an offer in good faith?’

  I hesitated again. The entire future of humanity could rest on my answer to this question.

  ‘Shiumo said that only dragons and dragonscales could be fitted with soulstones,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps she was mistaken or you misunderstood her –’ the Empress began.

  ‘No,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘Shiumo lied. She never told us about being dragonstruck – mind control – even though we suspected that it was happening. She vehemently denied it the whole time she was with us.’

  The Empress watched me with her deep sapphire eyes.

  Maxwell’s emotions darkened.

  ‘I couldn’t tell that she was lying,’ I said. ‘And I’m not sensing any duplicity right now. When it comes to dragons, I obviously can’t tell the difference between truth and lies. They’ve been lying to us right from the start, Ambassador, it’s been one deceit after another. I hesitate to trust them now.’

  ‘Everything I’ve told you is the truth,’ the Empress said. ‘You’re the only ones who can handle the pepper weapons. We need you.’

  ‘Again, it sounds like she’s telling the truth, but I can’t be sure,’ I said to Maxwell.

  Maxwell linked her hands behind her back and looked down. ‘Let me think about it,’ she said. ‘I need to liaise with my superiors back on Earth. Give us some time.’

  ‘Very well.’ The Empress rose, removed her robe, and returned to dragon form. ‘Take all the time you need. Marque, return them to their quarters in Shiumo’s tower. Ambassador, perhaps you would like Marque to show you around Sky City and introduce you to other member species.’

  ‘Speak to the member species,’ Terrclick said. ‘They will tell you whether the offer is made in good faith.’

  The Empress focused her brilliant blue eyes on Maxwell. ‘I hope you can help us, Charles, because your skills can save millions of lives.’

  She nodded to the rest of us, then said, ‘Show them to their guest quarters, Captain.’

  Captain Shudo waddled towards us and stretched out a furry arm. ‘This way.’ When we were some distance from the Empress, he said to Maxwell, ‘I hope you take the Empress up on her offer, ma’am. We dragonscales always inherit the peaceful nature of our dragon parents. Having a warlike species in charge of this project would be hugely beneficial.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call us warlike,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘You have been at war since the start of your known history,’ Marque said. ‘There has never been a time when Earth has been free of armed conflict. You’re one of the most warlike species we’ve ever encountered.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re perfect,’ the captain said. ‘So steeped in war that it never occurred to you to use a less wasteful method of culling your excess population of violently territorial young males. Every couple of generations you throw them against each other until very few are left.’

  ‘That’s not what we –’ Maxwell began, then smiled wryly. ‘I guess that’s what it looks like from the outside.’

  Shudo led us out of the audience hall and back onto the breezeway. Marque didn’t follow us.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell us the Empress was right and you’re choking,’ the captain said to it.

  Marque didn’t reply.

  ‘Delightful,’ the captain said. ‘Give it a minute to reroute the processing. We need it to carry us up to the top of the tower.’

  ‘I made the mistake of creating the equivalent of … an email box for you,’ Marque said. ‘Standard procedure when a new species arrives on Dragonhome. Everyone just saw your interaction with the Empress and wants to talk to you about it.’

  ‘How many requests for them to fight the cats?’ Shudo said.

  ‘Ninety-four billion. Ninety-five. Hold on, I really need to reroute some processing into orbit.’ It was silent a moment. ‘All right, I have it under control. The Empress was right: this change has repercussions throughout the Empire. It’s gone completely wild out there – everyone on the planet wants to make an appointment with you. Well done, humans. For a small, primitive, blind and relatively dimwitted race, you’ve done yourselves proud.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Maxwell said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘Ignore it when it’s being rude like that,’ Shudo said. ‘It’s embarrassed about its failure to think ahead.’

  ‘This gives you an idea of how major this is for the rest of the Empire,’ Marque said. ‘It’s a really big thing, guys.’

  ‘Please say yes, Ambassador,’ the captain said. ‘This way.’

  37

  Back in our quarters, Maxwell sank onto one of the couches. ‘I need to send a message to Earth.’

  ‘Of course,’ Marque said. ‘Give it to me, and I’ll pass it to the scales network to be folded to your people.’

  Maxwell pulled out her tablet, and thought for a moment. Then she swiftly tapped out a message. After five minutes, she stopped and read it through.

  ‘That’s it. Can you send it for me?’

  ‘I’ve passed it to the scales transmission control room,’ Marque said. ‘It’s being sent to one of the dragons to fold to your command centre. The name on the top is the recipient?’

  ‘Correct,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘The first few characters don’t seem to make sense.’

  ‘That’s the confirmation code to identify me,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘I see. All right, it’s sent.’

  Maxwell rose and went to the window to look out. I stood next to her. The space elevator platform behind the Palace complex was a flat grey area with multiple cables around its edge, each the size of a large pillar.

  ‘Do you think they’ll say yes?’ I asked her.

  ‘I don’t know, Choumali. Frankly, the whole thing sounds too good to be true.’

  ‘I have a response for you,’ Marque said.

  ‘Already?’ Maxwell sounded suspicious. ‘That was too quick.’

  ‘Shiumo is on Earth, and relayed for me,’ Marque said. ‘She’s trying to talk to Richard.’

  ‘Unsuccessfully?’ I said.

  ‘The message is on your tablet,’ Marque said, ignoring me. ‘It starts with a code that Secretary Park said to copy exactly.’

  Maxwell went to the coffee table where she’d left her tablet, picked it up and read the message. Her face went grim.

  ‘What does it say, ma’am?’ one of the guards said.

  Maxwell read the message aloud. ‘You’re the one on the ground, Charlie. You’re more
informed than anyone here. Make the decision, and we’ll support you.’ She tossed the tablet onto the table. ‘Thank you very much, Brian. I will never forgive you for this.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose we should talk to some citizens of the Empire. But the ones I really want to talk to are those who’ve chosen not to be a part of it.’

  There was a tapping at the window and we looked up. The Empress and the three Terrclicks were floating on the other side of the transparent wall.

  ‘May I come in?’ the Empress said.

  Maxwell nodded for her to enter, and the wall disappeared. She floated through and landed softly on the floor.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to you privately,’ she said.

  Maxwell gestured towards the guards. ‘Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of my team.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean them; I mean the Empire. Put us on private, Marque.’

  ‘Done,’ Marque said.

  ‘I couldn’t talk about this until Parliament gave me permission,’ the Empress said. ‘It’s a highly classified piece of information that will change the entire power dynamic of these negotiations.’

  ‘In your favour,’ Terrclick said.

  ‘What is it?’ Maxwell said.

  ‘Remember that we need you desperately, and we don’t want to see you harmed,’ the Empress said. ‘Will you let me fold you to my ship, Ambassador, and share some information that will change everything? You can bring your guards with their pepper bombs.’

  ‘I thought nobody was allowed to fold within orbital distance of Dragonhome,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘This will be the first time a dragon has folded here in over a thousand years,’ the Empress said. ‘That shows you how extremely important this is to us. Please come.’

  ‘Very well,’ Maxwell said.

  She waved the soldiers and UN guards closer, and we all clustered around the Empress, who folded us up to her ship.

  The interior was shining white with silver accents, and a transparent top half like Shiumo’s ship, but much smaller. The Empress disappeared, and reappeared on the nose of the ship; and the dragon planet, with its network of orbital tunnels and stations, vanished.

  Space reappeared around us, and we all stared in shock. We weren’t far from a star that filled up half the sky – a red dwarf. There was another glowing object next to the star; it was shaped like a vertical many-legged starfish, made up of thousands of glowing dots that were black around the edges and glowed brilliant white in the centre.

  The Empress folded her ship so we were between the red star and the starfish-shaped object. The change in perception gave us an idea of the size of the glowing object: it was at least half the size of the red dwarf star.

  The ship folded again so we were directly in front of the starfish-shaped object, and close enough to see a hundred of the dots at the end of one arm. Each dot was dark at the edges and bright in the centre, and the light emanating from them merged together.

  The Empress moved the ship closer again, so one of the glowing dots filled our vision.

  Ambassador Maxwell took a step back. The glowing dot was a cat cruiser, bigger than any we’d seen before.

  ‘How big is that thing?’ she said.

  ‘Four kilometres long,’ Marque said.

  ‘Good lord. And how many of them are there?’

  The Empress moved her ship back so we could see the entire formation again.

  ‘Sixty-four thousand,’ Marque said. ‘The cats are so confident of their strength that they make no effort to hide themselves.’

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Maxwell said under her breath. ‘And this is when you tell me they’re headed for your home planet?’

  The Empress appeared in the gallery next to us. ‘Only member planets of the Empire know about this, but we’ve already started to evacuate. As I said, we dragons don’t fight; we run.’

  I spoke quietly to Maxwell. ‘If we joined forces with the cats, we could help them conquer the dragons. Our pepper bombs are just as effective on both species.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said, watching the cat ships. She glanced at the Empress, then back at the fleet.

  ‘We’re putting a great deal of trust in you by showing you this,’ the Empress said. ‘You could destroy us all if you joined forces with the cats.’

  ‘Both species are lying genocidal assholes,’ Maxwell said, almost to herself. ‘You dragons use mind control and sexual slavery to commit reproductive genocide on other species.’

  ‘I know. We agree to stop if you’ll help us,’ the Empress said softly.

  ‘The cats just use straight-up genocide, killing everything in their path, and kidnapping children to torture and murder.’ Maxwell glanced at me. ‘Including their own children if they feel like it.’ She turned back to the cat fleet. ‘Both of us have children who are threatened by the cats, Choumali. You have Oliver, and I have Veronica.’

  ‘You were ready to kill Veronica to protect Earth,’ I said.

  ‘I knew damn well that wouldn’t work. I was just trying to scare her.’ She sighed. ‘The dragons are assholes, but the cats are worse.’

  ‘Not by much,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ She muttered under her breath: ‘Sixty-four thousand ships full of these bastards. Do we even have enough soldiers on Earth to deal with this?’ She shook her head. ‘It would take us some time to be able to launch a surprise attack. We’ve only recently started to rebuild our population after the last war, and here I am committing us to another one. A much bigger war.’

  ‘We can’t attack the cats until they’re out of warp,’ the Empress said. ‘We have to wait until they reach their target.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Thirteen of your years. Once they reach Dragonhome, they will exterminate all of us. If we evacuate Dragonhome, they will follow us to our new location. They will not rest until every dragon in existence is dead and our soulstones crushed; and they’ve killed all our spouses and every generation of our children. Even if we evacuate Dragonhome, they will not stop until every planet that has a dragonscales on it has been destroyed. And we don’t have enough dragons to evacuate every planet.’

  ‘Change to two-legged form,’ Maxwell said without looking away from the cat fleet.

  The Empress changed into the same tall black female form from earlier.

  Maxwell turned to her and put out her hand. ‘You have a deal, Empress. Restrict the creation of dragonscales, stop the forced assimilation of other species, and we’ll drive the cats out for you. I only hope they don’t find a way to resist the pepper bombs before we’re finished.’

  ‘So do I.’ The Empress shook Maxwell’s hand. ‘I give you my word of honour that we will fulfil our part of the bargain.’

  She turned to the rest of us. ‘Thank you, humans. You just saved the lives of billions. Let’s head back and tell the rest of the Empire.’

  38

  Six months after our agreement with the dragons, I took David and Oliver for a long-overdue visit to my mother. My small vehicle soared over the new farmland at the base of the Welsh mountains, the train line a grey mark slicing through the blooming green fields of potato crops. David and Oliver swooped through the air alongside my vehicle, carried by Marque, and the sound of their laughter lifted my spirits.

  The capsule made a gentle landing, and I stepped out onto the rough gravel drive leading to my mother’s transportable temporary residence in the middle of her farm. It was a plain steel box with windows set into the side, larger than her old cottage up on the mountain.

  Oliver and David landed next to me, still laughing, then raced each other to the door, shouting ‘Nanna!’

  The door opened and my mother was there: tiny and thin, but glowing with good health, her eyes bright beneath her red soulstone. The boys embraced her, and she lit up. She ruffled David’s hair and kissed Oliver on the cheek.

  I went to her, hugging her too.

  ‘My little family,’ she said, and her eyes sparkled with tears.
‘Come in. We have a long six months worth of news to catch up on.’

  She led us into the rectangular living room where her original battered couch stood, and gestured for us to sit.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ David said. ‘He said he’d be here.’

  ‘He’s in town collecting some steel for his latest work. He’ll be back later today,’ Mum said. She stood in the middle of the room with her arms crossed. ‘Before any of you get the wrong idea, Richard Alto’s here.’

  I stared at her, then couldn’t contain my smile at the thought of two wonderful people who I cared for dearly finding happiness with each other, especially after both had lost so much.

  ‘Woot,’ David said softly.

  Mum scowled at him and shook her head. ‘Not like that. Richard’s heart is broken. He really loved that stupid dragon. He spent years with her without realising that she was invading other species. She’d always make some excuse to leave him on the ship when she did the really nasty stuff. He’s beating himself up because he believes he should have known.’

  I scowled back. ‘He’s right.’

  She gestured dismissively with one hand. ‘It’s part of being dragonstruck – they can’t see or think clearly.’ She studied me. ‘You should know that, Jian. You were really lucky.’

  I looked down. ‘I know.’

  ‘Anyway, Richard’s here trying to work through it. He spends most of his time helping me change from growing apricots to growing potatoes.’

  ‘You’re growing potatoes?’ Oliver said, excited. ‘What sort?’ He grinned. ‘Fresh potatoes straight out of the ground. Damn!’

  ‘Of course I am,’ Mum said. ‘Earth’s the only place they grow, and they’re worth a fortune. Everybody on the planet’s growing potatoes.’

  ‘Can we go see Richard?’ David said.

  ‘Sure. Tell him to come in – lunch is nearly ready.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said with mock severity and saluted her, then followed the boys out.

  The land was flat and her parcel was small enough that Richard was visible some distance away, next to the few remaining apricot trees. The boys took off running towards him, and I followed at a more sedate pace. Richard was shirtless, wearing a plain pair of khaki pants and a battered straw hat that my mother had made for herself many years ago. He was muscular and tanned, and the sheen of sweat on his dark skin glowed as he struggled to uproot an apricot tree.