Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle

by Mark E. Cooper

  Murmurs of agreement filled the room.

  Burgton raised a hand and achieved quiet. “As I said before, I know there are going to be challenges, but all journeys must begin with a first step. Your first step must be deciding to make the journey. Only then, can you plan how to make it. You will have help no matter what you decide. Kajetan has bound your people to mine by joining the Alliance, but wouldn’t you rather join us as equals—as a star spanning culture?”

  Everyone flicked ears or nodded in the Human manner. That was something. Now for his offer, Burgton decided. He wondered what would happen when Kazim’s recording reached Admiral Kuzov.

  “Elder Jutka invited me to your meeting as a courtesy. I have no power over your deliberations. I actually came to visit a friend and make her an offer, but I wonder if perhaps it might be of interest to you as well?”

  Jutka stirred. “You speak of The Blind Hunter’s plight?”

  Burgton nodded. “One of my people,” he gestured to Gina, “made a promise to Shima to repair her sight. I’m here to uphold that pledge. To do this, Shima must journey far from home, all the way to my home where she will have new eyes grown, or if that proves impossible, she will have biomech replacements fitted. She will become one of a handful of Shan ever to leave your system, joining the select group headed by Tei’Varyk and the brave crew of Naktlon.

  “I make the following offer to you, not as a representative of the Alliance, but as a representative of my own planet, Snakeholme. I’m offering to allow Shan to immigrate to my world, and set up a colony there. I will provide transportation along with Shima on Grafton, and will provide all necessary materials to allow the colony to flourish. In exchange I ask only that your people honour our laws and defend the planet should that ever be necessary... it won’t be. Snakeholme is my regiment’s home base, and its defence comes second only to the defence of the Alliance itself.”

  “You are inviting us to join the viper clan?” Jutka asked and the excitement died down to hear the answer.

  Burgton didn’t need James’ warning look. “You call my regiment a clan—the viper clan. We are not a clan of any sort, or a caste. We are a specialised military unit. My men and I have been enhanced to better fight Merkiaari. I’m not offering your people enhancement, only a home with us on Snakeholme. Think of this as your first new colony outside your home system—a safe place for younglings to grow up. Another basket for your eggs if you will.”

  No one spoke for the longest time, but inevitably politics raised its ugly head. It started when one of the traditionalists spoke up to reiterate his position regarding Child of Harmony’s reconstruction, as if the last fifteen minutes had not occurred. Burgton sagged. His offer had fallen upon deaf ears. They would go on debating for the rest of the day and achieve nothing.

  It made him feel sad and his age. He was so very tired of people making the same mistakes over and over. Human or Shan, it made no difference. He was so tired of the same senseless excuses.

  * * *

  6 ~ The Blind Hunter

  Zuleika, Child of Harmony, Shan System

  Shima sat quietly in the centre of her contemplation grove. She preferred sitting on the rocks next to the pool and facing east into the sun. She couldn’t see it any more, her long feared blindness had finally come to pass, but she could at least feel its warmth on her face and remember it. The grove was at the rear of the house she had lived in with her father and her sib before the war, and it had suffered no ill effects from the conflict. Much of the city had burned in the early days of the Merkiaari invasion, and later during its liberation, many districts had been bombed by the Humans to flush the aliens out, but random chance had spared her district. It was on the opposite side to the line of march that the Merki had chosen from the port and took no damage, then later, Tei’Burgton’s tactical plan had used the blasted zones of the city as entry points and her district was spared again.

  Tei’Burgton’s plan had made perfect sense to her when he had explained it to James. She had been there and translated for the other resistance team leaders. The Merkiaari had been softened up by artillery and the bombing preceding it to give the vipers the advantage. It had worked and the Merki in Zuleika had been wiped out in a few cycles of intense fighting. She looked back proudly on those times. Fighting side by side with James and later with Gina burned brightly in her memory. A good thing, as her life had burned down to embers now. Like the last glowing coals in a dying campfire, her time was over.

  Before the war she had been a gardener, an agricultural geneticist, and had enjoyed her work at the Centre for Agricultural Research. There she had worked upon new variants of food crops with her colleagues, and expanded their knowledge of genetics. It was an expanding field; a relatively new one within her caste of scientists and engineers. She had followed her father into the caste, but her interests did not lean toward engineering as his had done. Her mother had also been an engineer, and had worked with her mate researching and designing new technologies. Shima sometimes wondered if her mother would have understood the choices she had made in her life. She hoped so. Choices were a thing of the past now. She had none left to make. Her life had narrowed down to waking and sleeping... all of it the same, all of it in darkness.

  Shima took a deep breath and chuffed, expelling the air in a low groaning roar. It was a quiet expression of despair. She held in the more violent and scream-like roar she wanted to voice. It would feel so good to roar her challenge to the world. Good but pointless. Who was there to answer it? Back in primitive times, someone in her position would have left the clan to wander the wilds and challenge the wild things to a last glorious hunt, or seek out an old rival for one last battle. She would have travelled to an enemy village perhaps, and roared her battle cry like the time in the wilderness when she had fought Merki in the dark to rescue Merrick’s family, but now in modern times she was trapped and cared for like a youngling. Held prisoner by love in a life she loathed by her sib and her sib’s mate. Chailen and Sharn lived with her and cared for her, when they should have been on their own cementing their bond with lovemaking and the siring of cubs. She was a burden to them; she felt it no matter their rejection of such notions.

  The situation was all kinds of wrong.

  Shima remembered how proud she had been when Chailen mated Sharn deep within the protective environs of Kachina Twelve. The war had raged above them, but deep within the keep protected by the mountain’s bones, an age-old ceremony had taken place reaffirming life and Shan traditions. Kazim had been there with her, forced to leave his camera switched off and uncomfortably aware of how unusual his presence was. Mating ceremonies were private affairs for family only, but he wasn’t the only stranger there. Chailen had insisted James should come too, and to make their number harmonious had also invited Brenda—his mate. That had embarrassed Shima because using the harmonies as an excuse to invite Brenda suggested Kazim was there as Shima’s mate, which he was not. Sharn’s parents and sibs hadn’t seemed to mind the break with custom. They were delighted to meet Humans, and everyone knew Kazim. He was famous because of the broadcasts. Kazim had filmed the Merki invasion and Shima’s escape from Zuleika. His work documenting the war had assured his future would be bright.

  Shima wondered what he would do now the fighting was done. He hadn’t decided as far as she knew. She had asked him during a brief visit a few cycles ago, but he had been far more interested in her life and desires. She knew he worried for her, but there was nothing he or any Shan could do for her. Kazim had left with her question unanswered.

  The war was over; Kazim must find something else to do just as millions of others must. The fighting had raged for almost two orbits... what did Humans call an orbit? A year, that was it. The fighting had been brutal on Child of Harmony, but on Harmony—the homeworld—it had been devastating. Child of Harmony was a colony world with millions of people making their homes here, but homeworld numbered its population in the billions. The Merkiaari had smashed every population c
entre in an effort to kill Shan quickly and efficiently. Millions had died in the first moments, and millions more each cycle thereafter until the landings. Only then, could her people fight back and defend those left alive. No one knew how many had died altogether, but the number was high. A billion dead, two? Such numbers were too huge to wrap her mind around. Shima knew that estimates would be wildly low on homeworld because her people had lived in large cities and most of them had been hammered into nothing but holes in the ground. As a percentage, her guess would be close to 40% dead on homeworld. A terrible number to be sure, but without the Human fleet’s intervention it would have been much worse. The Shan would have become extinct.

  The Alliance had sent Tei’Burgton and the vipers to fight the Merkiaari, but it hadn’t left things all to him. It had dispatched Fifth Fleet together with huge numbers of ground troops, and that had been decisive. The Merkiaari were doomed at that point, though they knew it not. The fighting had taken time; Merkiaari did not surrender, ever, but the end result had no longer been in doubt. Both worlds were free of Merki taint now. The entire system was clean.

  Shima stood. She had been sitting for segs and her legs needed exercise. She wished she could run, but although the harmonies gave her some sense of the world around her, she could only sense live things. She couldn’t run in the city; she would be under the first car that crossed her path. Not a form of suicide that appealed. Besides, if she started running she didn’t think she could make herself stop.

  Shima huffed a long breath out in a pained sigh as blood rushed into numbed legs. She couldn’t run from herself.

  Her blindness forced Shima to live within the harmonies all the time if she wanted to function even at her current limited level, and it had caused an unexpected side effect. Her gifts had always been strong, but constant use had honed her skill to a fine edge. The harmonies could only reveal living things such as animals and people. That had always been true for everyone, but Shima had found that she could discern individual plants now as well. Before going blind, she had only the vaguest sense of life from them, like a background to the more vivid colours of other people or the animals she hunted with her father. She had never thought to try for more, never needed to separate that background into individual sources, but her blindness had forced her to use everything she had to make life bearable.

  The plants bordering the paths allowed her to navigate the grove, like a ground car used street lighting at night to follow the road. In her head, she followed a ribbon devoid of life that in the world was a narrow gravel and shell covered path that crunched pleasantly under foot. The harmonies let her “see” the plants Chailen had planted for her along the path. They were her guide. Shima was grateful, truly she was, but she grieved the need to vandalise her grove. The placement of the guide plants clashed with the natural harmony she had striven to maintain here. They stood out, they had to, but that meant they were not in harmony with her grove. The entire point of a contemplation grove was harmony, and her blindness had blighted hers.

  Shima chuffed her distress, her useless eyes burned hot with the need to cry, but she forced them not to. The Blind Hunter they named her, thinking to honour her deeds not knowing then or now how she hated the title. All of her life she had feared her growing blindness, hated the weakness that made her a cripple among Shan, and they had labelled her with it as if it were nothing. Labelled her and thought they were honouring her.

  Shima paused and took a huge steadying breath. Forced her thoughts away from the anguish and toward other things. She dropped onto four legs, suddenly feeling the need to stretch. She reached forward as far as she could with her forelegs and dug her claws into the gravel enjoying the texture of the shell and gravel mix she had chosen when they bought the house. She lowered the front half of her body, but kept her rear legs straight forcing her spine to bow the wrong way. She groaned in pleasure as her joints popped, and her tail flexed straining straight out from her. Shima straightened up and then shook out her pelt before continuing her walk, this time staying on four feet.

  Shima used the guide plants and the barren ribbon of nothing between them to wander. She walked the path, circling her gardens and the grove at its heart, and then turned aside on a whim to submerge herself into the trees and shrubs she had cultivated to please the harmonies. She avoided the few winding paths she had laid out to help maintain the garden and chose bare earth to walk upon. The trees surrounded her in peace and silence. As a general rule, the few avian species native to Child of Harmony avoided built up areas. They were rarely seen in the towns and cities, even in the parks they were few. Here, she was utterly alone and without thought, she fell into the familiar rhythm of the silent stalk. Her father’s skills were hers. He had taught her everything he knew and she was an apt pupil. She could have been deaf for all the sound she made now. The silence was complete.

  The harmonies showed her she was alone. No people, no animals of any kind, no predators, no prey. The garden was barren, like her life. Shima chuffed, the low groan-like roar of a wounded Shan, not even aware she was doing it now. How long she moved through the garden she did not know; segs certainly, but finally she returned to her starting point. She stopped at the edge of her contemplation pool, and dipped her head into the cool water for a drink and to cool her face. She held her breath for as long as she could, wishing she could hold it forever and let it all be over, but the harmonies interrupted her stupidity.

  Chailen was in the garden and heading her way. Shima pulled her head out of the water and shook. The water flew from her, and she pushed herself up onto two legs to meet her sib.

  “We have visitors, Shima. Won’t you please come inside to greet them?” Chailen said softly, almost begging her sib to agree.

  Shima wished Chailen would not beg; it made her feel very bad. Couldn’t her sib understand that her garden was all she had left? Could she not realise that without eyes, all she had left were the harmony given gifts that allowed her to sense her living surroundings? If she went inside, she would drown in darkness. She sighed. She didn’t have the strength or will to explain again. Her shoulders slumped.

  “Yes, Chailen,” she said flatly.

  Shima couldn’t see her sib’s expression, but the harmonies showed her the emotions behind it. Chailen’s aura had dimmed and slowed its usually energetic motion, and the colours edged toward the darker tones of unhappiness. It made her feel worse knowing she was the cause.

  “I’m sorry, my sib. I’m so very sorry.”

  “Don’t,” Chailen said sounding close to tears. “This isn’t your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing about this is your fault.”

  Shima flicked her ears in agreement for Chailen’s sake, but one thing about this was her fault; at least one and that was the way she had allowed herself to linger on, dragging Chailen and her mate down with her.

  Chailen took her left arm and pulled Shima toward the house. “You haven’t asked who has come to visit,” she said trying to sound cheerful.

  Shima’s tail rose and gestured a shrug before she could prevent it. She didn’t say that whoever it was didn’t make any difference to her. Instead, she tried to put a little interest into her voice.

  “Just distracted, my sib. Who has come calling?”

  “Can you not sense them from here?” Chailen teased, and squeezed Shima’s arm. “Sharn is very impressed.”

  Impressed was he? That meant the visitors were important. She hadn’t tried to sense anything beyond the garden for a long time now. The house and garden were her life, and she had tried to pretend that the rest of the world did not exist. In a way, it didn’t if she couldn’t see it. She could reach out with the harmonies and “see” who her visitors were right now if she wished. Assuming they had met before she would recognise them. Everyone was unique in the harmonies.

  “I haven’t tried,” Shima admitted. “Should I do anything?”

  “You look fine, though I can tell you were on four feet recently and not on the path.
Perhaps a quick wash of hands?”

  “If you think it best,” Shima said, her brief foray of pretending interest already failing. “A quick wash first then.”

  Shima allowed Chailen to lead her into the dark.

  Once inside and thoroughly helpless, Shima decided that if she had to come inside, and it was obvious that she did, she might as well use it to advantage. She would allow Chailen to do her up right, a full and proper grooming to please and not shame her before guests. That way, Shima reasoned, Chailen and Sharn would be pleased, the important guests would not be scandalised, and she could probably get away with hiding in her garden for a few cycles afterward without Chailen making her come inside.

  Satisfied with her new goal, Shima asked Chailen to help with her grooming in the shower room. Chailen sounded pleased. It was pathetically easy to please Chailen these days, and Shima vowed she would remember to let her sib do things for her more often, even when all she really wanted was to be left alone.

  Mindful of waiting visitors, Shima washed quickly so that Chailen could go to work on her pelt with the dryer. It was an old battery powered thing that before the recent war would have been relegated to a forgotten corner, but now had become a treasure. The city was still without electricity, and any battery-powered tech was worth much because of that. Sharn had proudly gifted his mate with it after trading with a clever male who made a living modifying such things to work with a solar cell for recharging. The hot air and brush parting her fur felt wonderful to Shima. She could try to repay her sib the favour in kind. She didn’t need eyes to groom her sib, by touch would work as if they were younglings again.

  “This is wonderful,” Shima said facing into the hot blast of air. She closed her useless eyes and let her ear tufts blow back. “Amazing how a proper wash can makes things feel better.”