The First One's Free

by TS Hottle

  “Are we sure this deed was nullified before my challenge?”

  “I am more than sure.” This voice was female. And familiar.

  Tishla, dressed almost like a female Warrior but stopping just shy of usurping the garb of the Warrior Caste, emerged from the entrance opposite where Brac had entered. She carried a sword.

  Lattus Kai’s sword.

  “I am Lattus Tishla. I agreed to become Lattus Kai’s concubine and bear him a child in exchange for my honors in genetics.” She turned to the dais, crossed her left arm across her chest, and bowed to the Sovereign. “Our Master, if it pleases Thee, the conditions for my Freedom and my obligation to Master Kai have both been met. By giving me to…” She pointed at the hologram of Marq Katergarus. “… That and sending me with him to the entity known as the Compact, I have been Freed. However, before this happened, Kai knelt with me every day.” She smiled. “Several times a day he tasted me when my fertility peaked. As a result, he sent me away pregnant. I carry his twins.”

  For the first time since he was a squire undergoing his first trials to become a Warrior, Laral Jorl felt real fear. “How do we know the hew-maan Katergarus did not get her pregnant?”

  The translator had barely finished repeating Laral’s words when the hew-maans groaned. One even shouted, “Seriously? They don’t teach biology on your planet?” That, in turn, caused a ripple of laughter from the Gelt side of the room.

  Unfortunately, it also brought a couple of laughs from the dais.

  The Sovereign rapped on the table before him. “Silence.” He repeated this in the hew-maan language. “General Laral, as you can see, there have been some changes on Hanar in your brief time at Cyal. The surviving humans here have been integrated into this world. You are not only in the custody of the House of Lattus but of these aliens themselves. Who told you this world was not a legal colony under our laws or the humans’?”

  Laral pointed to Katergarus’s hologram. “That one. He assured us that…”

  “Both you and Lattus Kai have been exceedingly stupid. Kai I can understand. He was given a water-logged acidic bath for his first possession, and the Lattus family does not have the expertise nor the inclination to create a mining colony. However, you, General, knew better. You took the word of an alien whose species we were barely aware of only three turns ago, and instigated a military operation. Hence, if Lady Tishla, the true heir to the House of Lattus, is willing, We will place this planet under her protection. You will cede ten thousand troops of her choosing to serve as this protectorate’s defense…”

  “Protectorate? Those people were conquered. We should have exterminated the-…” He stopped when the translator said the hew-maan word for “exterminated.” Were it not for the Warriors ringing the room between the crowds and Laral, Tishla, and Brac, the hew-maans might have charged him.

  “Lady Tishla,” said the Sovereign. “The choice is yours. You may continue your challenge against General Laral, or you may agree to cede Hanar and Cyal to him.”

  “I press my challenge, my Sovereign.”

  “You expect me to carve up this child, this pregnant child, with a boy’s knife?” asked Laral. “I’d win my challenge only to become a pariah.”

  “Maybe you should quit lusting after your friends’ concubines,” said Brac.

  “Silence,” said the Sovereign. “General, your challenge against Lattus Kai has been lawfully contested by his heir.”

  “She is property!”

  “Not under the laws of indenture. Now, accept Lady Tishla’s challenge, or forfeit all your holdings.”

  Laral felt himself deflate, his shoulders and head sagging. “I accept the challenge.” He looked up and glared at Tishla. “It will be a pleasure to butcher you, little girl.”

  “Lady Tishla,” said Hereesh, an admiral who once served as Laral’s squire, “the laws of the Warrior Caste do not allow General Laral to do battle with a pregnant woman. Do you have a champion to stand in your place?”

  “I have selected,” said Tishla, “and he has consented. I choose Laral Umish.”

  “My oldest son?” Laral hated everyone in the room.

  *****

  Laral returned to the dwelling where they had held him to find it dark. The place disgusted him, a hew-maan dwelling. He refused to say, even silently, the name of the Tianese properly. He could still smell their stench everywhere in the “house.”

  What a joke, calling this a house. It barely qualified as a peasant’s shack. And yet these hew-maans had clung to them so fiercely, Brac and Tishla gave some of them back. What was that little whore up to?

  A knock came, and a hew-maan guard entered, escorted by a Gelt enforcer. “This,” the hew-maan said, not even bothering to attempt the Mother Tongue, “came for you on the last transport.” He held up a small device and rubbed his thumb across the surface of it. The back of Laral’s hand tingled indicating a new message received by the chip in his wrist. “Whoever sent the message also sent you a package.”

  Laral gazed at the hew-maan, bile rising in his throat. After I refute the claim, I’m going to make sure an accident happens to you vermin on your “safe passage” to Metis, the Sovereign be damned.

  The Gelt enforcer handed him a small box. The enforcer crossed his fists over his chest and bowed. “Sire.”

  Not even “My Lord.” Laral decided he would kidnap Tishla when all this died down and put her to her proper use. In the meantime, Laral returned the salute, not even making eye contact with the hew-maan. “Dismissed.”

  When the guards left, Laral fingered the back of his hand, expected the nano-tattoo to render a text or a video message there. Instead, the lights darkened in the house’s main room as a cone of light appeared from the holo projector. The image of Umish appeared within.

  “Father,” he said. “By now you know I have agreed to stand in Lady Tishla’s place. I have sent this message to tell you why.”

  Looking into Umish’s face was like looking a mirror of his younger self. Like Umish, Laral once shaved off all his hair. He also had sported the facial tattoos of the Sovereign’s Elite. Having them removed upon attaining his Third Degree in the Warrior Caste had been a rite of passage. Would Umish survive long enough to undergo the process?

  “I have seen the original agreement you made with Lattus Kai,” said Umish. “You agreed to accept Essenar as payment for the worlds now known as Hanar and Cyal. The contracts were binding, and breaking them is a Blood Crime.”

  They were not. Umish had a lot to learn about the real rules between Castes. If he survived tomorrow…

  “You have brought shame upon the family and the Caste,” said Umish, now snarling like a young Warrior hunting his prey. “To allow you to live without answering for it is to allow our shame to continue. So, father, before The Sovereign, before Council, either I will kill you in honorable combat, or I will deny you an heir.”

  Tishla would pay for killing Laral’s son, using his very own hand as the weapon.

  “There is, however, an alternative, father. You will find it in the package I’ve sent along. Until we meet in combat, farewell.” Umish did not even salute before the hologram faded.

  Laral opened the package sent along with the hologram. Inside lay a shock pistol, a common sidearm among some of the Realm’s lesser troops. It was an odd weapon, even for the Gelt. One shot would be nonlethal, but successive shots in short order became more powerful. On Gelt Warriors, three or four shots would rupture most of the internal organs. Unless…

  Suicide stories among conscripts and peasant troops frequently featured someone putting a cold shock pistol into one’s mouth and firing. The contained energy, even at nonlethal levels, would cause the brain to swell up and explode the skull. Laral had never seen it, but he knew some of the stories were true.

  A slip of the fibrous paper the hew-maans favored lay at the bottom of the box. Someone had written a note in a clumsy attempt at the written version of the Mother Tongue.

  Laral,


  I cannot imagine what you must be going through. Tomorrow, you will either be dead or a pariah, having murdered your own son over a silly pregnant girl. I can’t imagine how you will face your Sovereign if you survive. So I got you something that might help.

  When I brought you the original tuber, I said only the first one was free. That’s just good business among my people. However, there are exceptions. Please accept this gift. I heard this was your favorite model.

  Marq Katergarus

  Laral examined the shock pistol. It had a full charge.

  They found his headless body the next morning.

  *****

  Douglas Best, chief of staff to the First Minister of Jefivah, watched as the parade marched through Capitol Square. Most of the participants were Marilynists. Most of the floats had Blessed Mother themes. A few protestors had taken up station here and there along the route, various Abrahamists complaining about the Marilynists’ use of the title “Blessed Mother” for their goddess, a few atheists complaining about religion in general. Unlike the riots that followed the Compact’s threat to shut down the new colonies, these protests resembled outdoor parties for sporting events.

  Best wished he could enjoy the parade with the same detachment he had watching Settlers’ Day parades and welcomes for various notables. Unfortunately, each Marilynist group in the parade turned and saluted him as “the Prophet.” He tolerated the title, but he would never accept it.

  “I heard you turned down the governorship of Marilyn,” said the Grand Dimaj, standing up on the platform with Best as a guest of the First Minister. “You could have been set for life.”

  “To govern a desert,” said Best, “for a faith I don’t believe in? I don’t think so. Besides, your method of baptism requires me to cheat on my wife.”

  “Too bad,” said the Grand Dimaj. “Because those people down there believe in you.”

  Best grinned. “Most of them are going to Marilyn. Let them create myths about me. It’s what they really want anyway.”

  “Your loss.”

  “But not yours.”

  The Grand Dimaj simply stared back at Best with arched brows.

  “I know you asked for the governorship of Marilyn,” said Best. “I can’t say that I approve. It’ll make Marilyn a virtual theocracy. But these are your people. They won’t listen to a secular governor, not even me.”

  “You’re too cynical, Douglas.” The Dimaj moved away.

  Best hoped it was the last time he would have to speak to the charlatan. He doubted it was.

  As the parade ended, Best’s palm tingled. He looked down to see a secured text message from Jefivah’s militia commander. He leaned in toward Myrna Gillorn and said, “There’s a projection drive ship trying to land at the spaceport. It’s from Amargosa The captain demands contact with the government. Apparently, something has happened there.”

  “That’s a Mars colony, isn’t it?” asked Myrna.

  “Last I heard.”

  “Go. Be my representative. Find out what’s going on. I’ll send a hyperpacket to Mars as soon as I have your report.”

  Best nodded to one of the body guards and started his way off the platform.

  *****

  Black marks from energy blasts had pockmarked the ship at some point before arriving at Jefivah. Miraculously, the two projectors at either end of the ship appeared intact. They had to be. The ship could not have generated its own wormhole otherwise.

  Best arrived just as it landed. Some of its thrusters were firing sporadically, causing the ship to wobble as it descended to the tarmac. Soldiers and medics swarmed the vessel as it came to rest, while ground crews rushed emergency debarkation gear into place.

  Those who came off the ship, escorted by medics or one or two soldiers, had a glazed, faraway look in their eyes. Best noticed the entire aft of the ship had been blackened despite the trailing projector dish remaining intact and metallic white. He guessed that the energy that kept the wormhole from collapsing behind the ship blew off any carbonization. But what, he wondered, would blacken so much of a ship’s hull like that?

  Only one person coming off the vessel did not have that distant look in his eyes. He was doing his best to look as stunned as his counterparts, but Best recognized that infuriating smile despite the wearer’s best efforts to hide it. Luxhomme’s mouth did display it, but those eyes of his did. What did you do? Best asked silently.

  Luxhomme looked around the terminal as a soldier escorted him inside. He feigned surprise – or maybe he truly was surprised – when he spotted Best. “Douglas.”

  He rushed over to Best only to be stopped by one of the First Minister’s body guards assigned to her chief of staff.

  “It’s okay,” said Best. “I want to talk to him anyway.”

  “Alone,” said Luxhomme. “Trust me. You want to talk to me alone.”

  Best whispered something to the soldier before dismissing him. When the agent asked if Best was sure, he said, “Stay right outside. If this takes longer than five minutes, both of you come inside.” He grabbed Luxhomme by the arm and led him to a room off the boarding gate. Once they were alone, he said, “What happened on Amargosa?”

  Luxhomme’s stupid smile still lurked in his eyes. “Last night… I guess it was night here, too. Anyway, Amargosa’s hypergate exploded.”

  “Hypergates don’t explode,” said Best. “Especially primitive ones like colonial gates.”

  “Well, this one did,” said Luxhomme. “And since Amargosa has only the one gate, it’s been effectively cut off from the rest of humanity.”

  Best realized the same thing had happened to the Metisian colony of Gilead a few weeks earlier, weeks during which Luxhomme had managed to get Mars’s delegate to the Compact General Assembly recalled. “What were you doing on a Mars colony?”

  “Discussing with the governor the possibility of allowing JunoCorp to improve its crop yields. The loss of Gilead has already put a big dent in the Compact’s food supply.”

  Best frowned. Earth and some of the older core worlds, even Jefivah, had vertical farms in the cities and kelp ranges in some of their oceans to stave off a famine. Even so, it still left the more pressing question unanswered. “Why is your ship blasted all to hell?”

  “Alien race,” said Luxhomme. “Primates like us. Gray-skinned, though not like the Grays. More like us, maybe taller, or so I’ve heard. They started prowling the countryside and burning farms. They dropped a nuke on Lansdorp, the capital. My guess is they were throwing sand in the colony’s eyes so they couldn’t fight back.”

  Just like with Gilead, or some had speculated anyway. Two colonies in one month. Had war come to the Compact? And would the core worlds realize it before it was too late?

  Of course they couldn’t fight back, thought Best. When Jefivah, a full member of the Compact, had to beg and plead for military resources, there was no way even the colonies of the wealthier worlds would be protected. It was simple. Colonists did not vote, which made them disposable in the face of an alien threat. “This wouldn’t have been a laser fusion device, would it?”

  Luxhomme shrugged, once again betraying the falseness of the gesture with his eyes. “Douglas, how would I know? I barely got off that planet alive. If the ship I was on wasn’t hardened for deep space, the mushroom cloud would have destroyed it.”

  “I see.”

  Luxhomme clapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Douglas. There’s a silver lining in this tragedy.”

  “Oh?”

  “With two major food-producing colonies out of commission, the Compact will have to turn to newer colonies. Such as Marilyn.”

  Best suddenly felt cold. “You know this because Juno is handling the crop customizations for Marilyn, Gallifrey, and Baritaria.”

  “I know that any prosperity on Marilyn will be attributed to the prophet who made the Marilynists’ new homeworld possible.” Now Luxhomme let that stupid little smile of his bloom. “How’s it feel to be a hero, Douglas?”

&nbs
p; Best did not bother to explain to his body guards why he had punched Luxhomme in the jaw.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First off, I must thank the incredibly talented Stacy Robinson for editing this novella and helping me find logical points to divide it into chapters. Stacy wasn’t used to working in science fiction, but she is now Tishla’s biggest fan and the reason a Tishla novella is in the works.

  I also must thank Jennette Marie Powell for advice on creating the covers. I could pay for editing or cover art, but not both. Jen, who’s been a solid friend for more years than either of us will admit, gave me great guidance. So while the first episode cover wasn’t spectacular, she got me moving in the direction for the covers that followed. And Jen is responsible for the great covers that adorn all but two of the Jim Winter novels and collections and the brains behind the concept I used for Gypsy’s Kiss. Thank you, Jen. You are, as our friend Athena says, amaze-balls!

  THANK YOU FOR READING THE FIRST ONE’S FREE!

  The First One’s Free is the debut of The Compact Universe Series created by TS Hottle. You can find out more about this series by following his blog at http://tshottle.com

  You can also sign up for his newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bn4Gm9

  LIKE IT? REVIEW IT AT http://tshottle.com/tfof_full

  G

  IMME SHELTER

  Gimme Shelter is second novella of The Compact Universe and moves the action to Amargosa, an agrarian colony that finds itself on the frontlines of a war the Compact is unaware it’s fighting.

  Meet JT Austin, the spoiled teenage son of a CEO and an admiral. When JT’s parents decide to send him to military school, he decides to run away to Tian, humanity’s cultural homeworld. Instead, he winds up stranded on Amargosa under the suspicion of a local constable and in the sights of his lovely daughter.