A few Kresh Attack Talons had been in orbit, along with individual Battle Fangs. As far as history showed, the Kresh had never needed unified space fleets in the Fenris System. Conceivably, Kresh had practiced such fleet maneuvers in the distant past, but Dagon Dar did not know.
I must rectify the lack of knowledge, or we must learn it if we never have.
In mute astonishment, the FIFTH watched swarms of Chirr violator-ships rise to do battle. They came in their thousands, these nuclear-pulse craft. The orbital laser platforms that should have annihilated them had been turned into disassembled molecules or floating hulks.
Dagon Dar hissed, bobbing his head. Attack Talons grouped together. Good. Compared to other species, Kresh could learn a lesson astonishingly fast. As a unit, the warships targeted enemy vessels. Heavy Kresh rays struck one pulse-ship after another, causing debris to shed like shavings from a totem carving. Often, the beams destroyed a pulse-ship with a spectacular blast.
Then the subterranean rays countered the daring group. The psi-shields persisted for seconds before one Attack Talon after another winked out of existence.
“At last,” Dagon Dar hissed, not because of Kresh losses, but now one of the true military craft entered the fray.
A large Kresh hammer-ship decelerated into near orbit, a cube-shaped deep-space vessel. They weren’t suited for atmospheric combat, but for gaining strategic control of a star system. The situation was obviously dire for the colossal craft to come this near a planet.
The hammer-ship launched hell burners. The massive torpedoes’ heat shields glowed red as they descended into the atmosphere. A titanic explosion annihilated a dozen Chirr pulse-ships. The same blast likely murdered millions on the planetary surface below. But those would mainly be Vomag deaths—soldiers, humans. They didn’t count in the larger scheme of things. One could always breed more of them.
Ah-ah, glorious, glorious indeed, he thought, as more hell burners ejected from the hammer-ship. Now the insects would learn to fear. Except . . . what was this? Chirr planetary beams struck the descending objects. Despite the bi-carb casing, hell burners actually broke apart without exploding. Then one of them ignited. Once again, a white-hot nova annihilated vainglorious Chirr. Yet even as that took place, other planetary beams chewed into the ultra-armor of the hammer-ship. Surely, the vessel couldn’t sustain such rays for long.
With a weary spirit, Dagon Dar saw he was right.
Almost majestically, the hammer-ship broke into drifting sections. Tiny armored pods jetted away, but it was too late. A red explosion within the pieces of the hammer-ship ensured that none of the Kresh military crew survived the vessel’s destruction.
Dagon Dar absorbed the data. Even a second hammer-ship dumping gravity waves—attempting to slide into near orbit—failed to lift his spirits. There was a reason for that. Dagon Dar always had a reason for everything.
Nuclear-pulse ships exited Heenhiss’s atmosphere, finally reaching orbital space. The Chirr lifters began to launch true spacecraft.
Dagon Dar subvocalized, creating a holo-board before him. He clicked his claws on holo-pads. Yes. This was depressing: an analysis of the new Chirr vessels. They boasted regular fusion drives. Had the insects used crashed Kresh vessels in the past as their models? He believed that probable.
The alien spaceships were incredibly small. Using swarming tactics, they moved en masse like insects onto the attack.
Dagon Dar slid his hind talons across the deck plates, inching closer to the main hologram. What would these tiny warships use as weaponry?
This is vital.
What would the Chirr mind conceive? What would Chirr technology allow?
Ah! Fusion-powered missiles slid from the outer hulls of these craft. The missiles zeroed in on the hammer-ship, the surviving Attack Talons, and scattered Battle Fangs.
The Chirr outnumbered the Kresh ships a thousand to one. Kresh beams reaped a bitter harvest. But it proved too little. One Chirr missile in one hundred reached its target, but that was enough.
Soon, no Kresh spacecraft orbited Heenhiss, not even the heavily armored hammer-ship.
Dagon Dar swallowed. The Chirr ships now began attacking the nearest space habitats. That was a crime against rationality. The Chirr destroyed Kresh homes, murdering a superior race.
With a hiss of triumph, Dagon Dar witnessed a unified Kresh squadron swinging around the planet. Ah, now, now, there would begin a proper annihilation of the nest aliens. These Kresh ships moved fast, with ultimate precision, murdering many individuals within the enemy swarms.
The Chirr had done damage, but—
A weird, sad cry issued from Dagon Dar’s fanged jaws.
The Kresh spaceships began to drift in different vectors from each other. They no longer moved like a school of razor fins. It seemed as if the Battle Fangs and hammer-ships simply stopped functioning rationally.
Was there a nefarious Chirr tactic at work to produce such a result?
Dagon Dar turned away and his long tail whipped back and forth. This was a disaster of epic proportions.
In silence, he faced the hologram. He was the ultimate rationalist. He observed reality with true clarity.
I must catalog the Chirr vessels while I have this opportunity. Anything else is a sin against logic.
The Chirr possessed nuclear-pulse-bomb motherships. They had small swarming craft. Another species might call them fighters. No, they were perhaps bombers, larger than mere fighters. Even so, there were larger Chirr spaceships of an odd, polygon design. Those hadn’t launched missiles or fired rays of any kind.
No. That is an imprecise thought. I did not observe them firing any beams. Could the Chirr have used psionics? Our Bo Taw project mind shields that can stop beams for a time. Maybe the Chirr have found an offensive, perhaps even mechanical, mind weapon.
Dagon Dar clicked his claws together. He remembered reading a report on the Kresh-Earth ship fight. The Bo Taw had used mind control on the Earthers. Could the Chirr have used something analogous on the Kresh vessels?
He brought up a larger image of a polygon-shaped craft. It had fantastic arrays of antennae. Those must help project something. The question was: What?
“FIFTH,” a Kresh comm expert said over the speakers. “I have an incoming message from the FIRST of our Race.”
“Relay it at once,” Dagon Dar said, cocking his head.
A smoothly rational voice began to speak over the comm. It was indeed the FIRST. Dagon Dar would recognize her voice anywhere. She spoke with serenity and modulated perfection.
“Dagon Dar FIFTH, Majestic Interrogator,” the FIRST said, “I will not attempt a dialogue with you. The simple reason is that I do not believe I will live long enough for your message to reach me. Thus, I will give you my final monologue. I charge you to accept it as my will and political testament for our Race.”
“Done,” Dagon Dar said.
“Alas,” the FIRST said, “the Chirr have caught us by surprise. It was a brilliant ploy, and they have carried it through with their customary brutality.”
Dagon Dar’s tail swished in agitation.
“I will assume you have acquired footage of the carnage. You will have seen their tactics and seen how we attempted to defeat them with inferior force. The Chirr have reached space, but they continued to act in their customary manner—except in one particular way. I wish to address this facet in my monologue.
“First, it must be obvious to you, Dagon Dar, that you alone of the Innermost Circle will have survived this sneak attack. The others are dead, slain by the Chirr. That means you will have been elevated to FIRST. You are now the most superior. With the destruction around Heenhiss, no Kresh will come close to your intelligence and breadth of knowledge. You must guard your person with care. You must continue to expand the Codex of All Knowledge. Once we have pierced the mysteries of life, we shall find th
e Creator and present Him with our codex as a gift of love for His benevolence.”
“To His benevolence,” Dagon Dar recited the ancient creed.
“I charge you to guard our Race, Dagon Dar. We are the ultimate in Creation. We alone of all species love logic and rational thought. We perceive as none of the inferior races can hope to emulate.”
“You speak truth,” Dagon Dar whispered.
“That is why this attack is monstrously vile. Yes, I suppose one could suggest a thesis: the Chirr strive for life as every race attempts. I reject that out of hand. They have survival instincts, but they lack perception. Thus, they are inferior to us.”
Dagon Dar paused thoughtfully. This present attack: might it suggest a superior intellect? Survivability might be the ultimate test of a race’s utility. It would make for an interesting thesis. Then he realized that he would no longer compete against his equals, but against rough Kresh of the lower ranks. He had no need of a rarefied thesis.
No. On that path lies arrogance and dull rationality. I owe to the Race to continue to strive for excellence. If nothing else, I must begin to model perfection for those below me.
“These things are likely self-evident to you,” the FIRST said. “We are attempting a mass evacuation of the Heenhiss gravitational system, but it will fail. The Chirr loathe us. They attack with the accumulated bitterness of generations. This is their hour in the sun. My calculations show a seventy-eight percent chance of total Heenhiss annihilation of us. I have already alerted the Kresh forces around Glegan. The Chirr will undoubtedly send their fleet there. Perhaps the Glegan Chirr are ready to launch another fleet. You will have to decide on the optimum course of action, Dagon Dar. It is possible the survival of our Race rests with your intellect.”
Yes, he could see that.
“I will not counsel you on your course,” the FIRST said. “Rather, I will tell you a secret. It is unfathomable in scope, and you may reject my thesis out of hand. I accept the possibility, and I believe that if you do reject this thought, your probability of survival will shrink by half.”
Dagon Dar swished his tail. The FIRST had always been insufferably sure of her ideas. Yet here she died and he lived. Survivability was everything.
“Attend my words,” she said. “The Chirr vessels approach my habitat and I will not live much longer.”
She paused before starting on a new track. “There is a strange anomaly in the Fenris System, Dagon Dar. The humans came to us long ago in their colony vessel. It proved to be a great boon to our Race. The humans make wonderful slaves. Now, another colonizing vessel from Earth has crossed the depths of space to reach Fenris. So, too, have cyborgs attacked our system. The Chirr lived here and we, too, reached the star system many, many cycles ago. My question is this, Dagon Dar. Why have several spacefaring races congregated here? Is it chance that has brought this about?
“I reject such simplistic thinking. I am FIRST. I am Kresh. Reason and logic are my finest tools. I have concluded that some other agency is at work among us, drawing us here in some subtle fashion beneath our cognizance. Yes, each species lusts for Heenhiss and Glegan. Yet I believe the odds of each of us arriving here points elsewhere for the reason. I suspect that you must discover the agency at work. If you do not, it is possible that we will continue to be pawns in a process we do not understand or even conceive.
“That is my legacy to you, Dagon Dar. I will transmit my findings to your craft. You have little time, I believe. The forces working against us—”
The message ended abruptly. It left Dagon Dar staring at the holo-globe of Heenhiss. It also meant the FIRST hadn’t transmitted her findings.
Two colossal thoughts invaded his thinking. One, the Chirr had won a space victory around Heenhiss and brought devastating loss to the Kresh. Two, it was possible a great mystery surrounded the Fenris System. Could the former FIRST have been correct? Or was it more likely that her unhinged thinking had caused a lapse in Kresh security to allow the insects this monumental success?
It was time to think furiously and reach a working conclusion.
What is the correct course of action? I must discover one before it is too late.
7
Klane tossed on his pallet as he dreamed. It felt like the time he’d left his body and went traveling through the Fenris System. He knew his soul, spirit, whatever made his self-identity, remained within his physical form. Yet he saw . . .
Is this the future or is this now?
A squat vessel, a beaten cargo hauler—no, this was an ice hauler. The ship traveled the run to Jassac’s outer asteroid belt going to the edge of the star system to bring space ice to the moon. Once at Jassac, heavy rockets would lower the iceberg to a planetary convertor. The machines devoured the ice, feeding water into the atmosphere as vapor. In this way, the Kresh thickened Jassac’s life belt around the surface.
In his sleep, Klane kicked off his covers. He needed to know . . . to know . . .
He groaned. Something operated deep within his subconscious. He hardly knew it was there. From time to time, he sensed unease. This feeling had been building lately. It seemed as if his mind . . . his mind . . .
The sensation lessened. It almost felt as if the intruding thought recognized his awareness of it and ducked lower, waiting.
After a time, the dream, vision, farseeing, solidified once more. Yes. This was like his . . . understanding of Timor Malik.
The Vomag soldier fought for his life on Heenhiss. What Klane saw now took place far from the second planet, in the distant outer asteroid belt. Here, ice objects drifted in eternal night. The Fenris asteroid belt contained the farthest bodies of the star system.
Klane’s awareness entered the battered ice hauler. Five crewmembers lived in miserably tight quarters. Three slept while two worked in the pilot module.
Senior Darcy Foxe ran the hauler, and she quarreled with Jick, a troublesome sex addict. Of course, Jick lusted especially after Darcy’s long legs. The little man yearned to run his hands up and down her thighs. He wanted to tear off her spacer uniform and make her perform lewd acts with him.
Darcy piloted the hauler onto a dirty snowball. As the hauler settled onto the ice, Jick floated to her chair and put a hand on the back of her neck.
Darcy reacted with startling speed, almost as if she’d been prepared for his unwanted caress. She turned and slapped the back of Jick’s hand with a prickle-pad. Such a weapon was illegal to own. The longest prickle broke the skin.
Jick yanked his wounded hand against his thin chest. “What have you done?” he cried. “Look at this. You’ve drawn blood.”
Darcy laughed. She was sick of his advances and his coy touches and brushes against her side. She had hoped to refrain from doing anything extreme, but his final caress had pushed her over the edge.
“Look, look!” Jick cried, showing her the back of his hand. A spot of blood welled there.
Now Darcy twisted the knife, as it were. She smiled sweetly and told him, “The prickle was coated with poison. I infected you, Jick.”
“What?” he cried in a shrill voice. “This is outrageous!”
“How many times have I told you to keep your hands to yourself?”
“You but joked with me!”
“No, Jick. I meant what I said. Now you are infected.”
“I’ll report you!” he shouted.
“Oh. Well, I suppose I’ll have to keep the antidote to myself then. I’ll let the poison work through you as a toxin. I hope you survive long enough to make your report.”
Jick blinked at her with his overly long eyelashes. “Darcy, you’ll let me die?”
She scowled, angry with herself. She should just let him believe that, but it wasn’t in her. Still, she could let him hang for a while in order to terrify him. “No, I’m not a murderer. Nothing of the kind will happen. But I fear I must tell you that the toxin will
make your member shrivel.”
“What?” Jick shouted.
Darcy nodded. She lied. She hadn’t coated the pricks with poison because she didn’t have any. The sentinels would have detected her carrying poison aboard the hauler. Because of the poison, they would have marked her for elimination. The Kresh were strict concerning spacer protocol aboard a hauler.
“Darcy, darling,” Jick said. “Have mercy on me. Give me the antidote.”
She shook her head. “You’ve been a nuisance the entire trip. Now, you’ll have to change your ways. Remember, it will shrivel and you will never enjoy a woman again. It’s possible if the antidote isn’t given in time that you’ll contract testicular cancer.”
Jick wailed in despair. “Don’t you understand? I can’t help myself. Your body draws me, calls to me. Have mercy on me, Darcy. Give me the antidote and lie beside me so my sorrows will drain away.”
“If you keep talking like that, I’ll double the toxins.”
Anger soaked into Jick’s eyes. He studied the screen. It showed some of the asteroid’s surface and then a profusion of stars. “Perhaps we should unload the engines onto the ice,” he said in a sulky tone.
“Murdering me won’t solve your problem,” Darcy said. “Remember, if I die, you’ll never find the antidote.”
Jick began to breathe harder. Finally, he pointed a quivering finger at her. “Witch! You scheme with malice against me. You flaunt your body throughout the ship, gliding sinuously here and there so my mind seethes with desire. Now, I learn that you’re vile and conniving. I thought you but tested me, to find the strength of my passion. Instead, like a fox, you torment me. I hate you, Darcy. I will now call down a curse upon you to—”
Darcy held up a hand. “Have a care, Jick. If you curse me, I’ll summon the others for an inquiry. It’s possible we’ll space you.”
Alien Wars Page 4
