by Shawn Jones
“Shall we go, Miku?”
Miku looked at the case he had been packing. He wouldn’t need it now. Leaving it on the table, he walked to the door.
--
The wolves were never far ahead of their companions, but they were ahead of them. What that meant for the Marines was they had to aim high. With targets that averaged almost three meters, the same height at the taller CONDORS, that wasn’t a problem. What was a problem was that the enemy had weapons that, while not effective against the CONDORS, was effective against the FALCON-like armor worn by the wolves. While the animals’ smaller profile helped, as did their speed and agility, wolves were still going down. But then, so were H’uumans and Tapons. Finally, the wolfpacks were ordered to the rear. If Lex needed them in tighter areas, he would call them up again.
Jane Munroe was upright now and running full speed. As she charged enemy lines, her ten-meter form first brought shock, then terror, to the apes. They had been told that General Addison was light years away, yet there he was in front of them. Like Addison himself just a few hours before, they had no idea anyone else could be in the giant suit of armor.
On another continent, the H’uumans were moving across the landscape like a wildfire. Behind them, the grass was still somewhat green, but it was trampled and the land was barren except for the bodies and debris that marked their passing.
Cort watched the destruction from his medical bed, seeing the battle through ships’ cameras and the suits of his Marines. Kim’s vid was always active, as was Captain Munroe’s, but the other screens rotated as he monitored all aspects of the action below him. The doctors monitoring the transfusion of his synthetics noticed a spike in his heart rate and blood pressure when the vid of Munroe’s HUD began flashing. “She’s got him!” Cort yelled over the combat channel, “Form up on Munroe!”
--
We are almost there, Little Warrior.
“I heaw the booms, Bazal.”
That’s how you know we are there.
Dalek looked through the bars of his cage at the two apes who were watching him. “My Poppa is hewe. He’s gonna be mad at you.”
The two said nothing, just staring at the boy, with drool pooling beneath their chins. Their heads were turned to the right and the left side of their faces were drooping and limp. Before they became quiet, they had jammed the doors closed and piled furniture in front of them. There was pounding outside the doors, but the two had done the job well.
Outside the building where Dalek was being held, Che stood with his security team. Dozens of thin arms were trying to break into the building where the human prince was held, none able to figure out why they were held at bay by their allies. Miku was dead, and the planet was lost. He had been commanded to stall the invaders as long as possible. Clearly they know the boy is here. We must have missed a tracker. I will have to make note of that in my reports. How do I stall them?
His line of thought was interrupted as the top of a great mechanical suit came into view. Three times as high as its companions, the suit stopped and was immediately surrounded by federation fighters. One stepped forward with beasts by its sides. Addison? No, too small. This one is a female. The beasts. Wolf? Yes, they are called wolves. But the female. She will be easier to manipulate.
--
“Hold your fire!” Lex ordered. The Marines and H’uumans surrounded the building where Dalek was being held. “Safe your weapons and heel your wolves.”
As the wolves moved to stand beside their handlers, Kim took a step forward with Coke and Bane at her sides. Bane was barely controllable, and if a single H’uuman or Marine had moved, the wolf would have attacked the Tapon warriors. “You have my son,” Kim said.
Lex said, “Okay, Marines, blades only. No prisoners.” As one, the CONDORs drew their swords. Lex knew the wolves would not be held back, so he added, “Check your targets and cut high. The wolves will be in there with you.”
Che stepped forward and spoke, “We would like to discuss the terms of our surrender.”
Before Lex could speak, Kim said, “You are not going to be allowed to surrender. You are all going to die.”
“You must be General Addison’s mate. If we are to die, then so shall your son.”
Cort had been watching the exchange and commed Captain Munroe. After taking over the HAWC speakers, he said, “I don’t think so.”
Munroe stepped forward and walked to the one story structure while Cort spoke.
Kim looked sharply at the HAWC, then saw Cort’s image in his medical bed. When she realized what he had done, she turned back to Che.
She said, “My son is safe. You are not.”
Munroe’s HAWC stepped forward.
Che stared and listened as the giant crushed his comrades beneath its massive boots.
--
“I heaw Poppa, Bazal!” Dalek yelled happily.
To Cort, Bazal thought, That was a good idea, Cortland.
I should have thought of it sooner. I can see him on Jane’s sensors. Tell him to move away from the back of the cage.
You thought of it when you needed to. Then to Dalek, he thought, Little Warrior, move to the front of the cage. Your Poppa is about to open the wall.
Dalek move to the door of the cage and turned to see the back wall crumble as the gauntlets of the HAWC opened a great rent in the building. He screamed “Poppa!” as the structure of the cage was lifted from around him by one large hand. He ran to the other fist as it opened and jumped into its palm. “I knew you wewe coming! Bazal told me!”
Jane lifted the boy gently and turned to walk back through the mass of dumbstruck Tapon fighters. As soon as she was behind the line of Marines and H’uumans, the Kalashnikov shuttle landed. Coke joined both Kim and Dalek as they boarded and the Marines shouted, “Oohrah!” Bane remained on the planet. Once the shuttle was airborne, Cort spoke through Munroe’s comm one more time. “Kill them all.”
If the Marines and their wolves were merciless in their slaughter of the Tapons who had stolen a human child, the H’uumans were sadistic in their destruction. The Marines slaughtered wholesale, but the insects seemed to take pleasure in each limb they severed, and each drop of yellow Tapon blood they spilled fueled their fury.
Lex spoke to Cort saying, “They are unreal, sir. What you did to them on Government World was nothing compared to the brutality I am seeing here.”
“Good. I think the bastards could have taken Kim and I would have let them surrender. But not a child. Not my child.”
“No one doubts that, sir. Every single one of us, from both species, agree with you.”
“The CG is not going to be happy, but I’m going to ask H’uum to formally join us. Not as allies, as members of our federation.”
“They have earned it today, sir. And fuck the CG. Like you said, they aren’t here.”
--
Bazal, what did you do?
What do you mean, Cortland?
The two that were guarding Dalek. They were fucked up.
I had to be sure they were harmless.
But that isn’t your way, Bazal. They looked like they had suffered strokes.
And peace is not your way, God of War, yet you still strive for it. I protected Dalek. I made sure they would not harm him.
You know I appreciate that you did what you did, Bazal, I just don’t want you to change who you are.
You changed me long ago, Cortland. But do not worry, together we are bringing balance.
I must go, Speral is here. Thank you, Bazal.
Listen to her, I think her plan will work.
“Hello, Speral. Are you here to tell me that story?”
“In a sense, part of it, Cortland. Will you ask your doctors to join us?”
Once the doctors were in the room, Speral said, “I should have thought of this sooner, but my people have tried for ages to forget the part of our past that the Tapon occupied. I am here about my poison.”
“Your poison?” Cort asked.
“Ye
s. Our poison is adaptive, and its formula is passed on from generation to generation. Once we come into physical contact with a being, our system creates a poison that is fatal to that species.”
“Okay.” Cort was aware of the nature of Speral’s poison, but didn’t want to divulge that Bazal had told him about years before, so he let her tell the story in her own way.
The doctors around the bed listened intently to the evolutionary history of the Nill. When she finished, a young H’uuman doctor clicked, “After the attack on Solitude, won’t your poison kill General Addison?”
“That is possible, doctor. But if you do not try, will he not die anyway?” Speral replied.
Bryn Wales was an expert on veterinary disease. Since humans no longer suffered from even the once-common cold thanks to biosynthetic additives to their blood, epidemiology was considered a dead science for humans. But most animals still had to deal with ailments, so when General Addison was infected by the Tapon disease, she was called from her work as an animal scientist to try and save the man’s life.
“Wait a moment,” she said, “are you saying that if you touch something, you develop a way to kill it?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Speral said.
Bryn said, “I can easily filter out some of the infectious organism in the General’s blood so that you can touch it. How long would it take you to generate this poison of yours?”
“A few hours, perhaps.”
“If you can give me some of your poison, I can program the synthetics we are giving General Addison to resist the poison. I may even be able to counteract it. At the same time, I will separate some of the infection for you to touch.”
The others could see Doctor Wales’ mind working in overdrive. She said, “but I have to have some of your poison first, Speral. How can I get a sample?”
Speral handed the woman a water glass. A single spine on Speral’s back stood erect. When she flexed it, its barb began to drip. After they collected several milliliters of the clear, viscous, liquid, Bryn covered the glass and rushed from the room.
A little while later, Dalek partially opened Cort’s door, and poked his head through the opening. When he saw Cort, he slammed his hand against the wall, and the door fully opened.
“Poppa!” he screamed as he ran for his father’s bed and scrambled into a chair so he could climb onto his Cort’s chest. “Ewww! You awe stinky! Why awe you in bed?”
“I am tired and sweaty from chasing you, Buddy,” Cort lied as he wrapped his free arm around his son. He saw Kim in the door, and even though her eyes were bloodshot and red, she was clearly happy.
“Why is thewe a hose in that awm, Poppa?”
“The doctors are fixing me because I hurt myself. But tell me about what happened to you.”
“They gave me lots of fwuit. But I wanted bacon. And it was bowwing, but Bazal talked to me a lot. He was fun.”
“Bazal wanted to make sure that you weren’t lonely.”
--
“You look worse than me, Doctor Wales,” Cort said the next morning.
“I’ve, we’ve, Speral and I, have been up all night. It will work. She has produced enough poison to kill the infection, and I have been able to filter out the pathogens that would be fatal to you. You will probably be incredibly sick for a while, but you are going to be okay.”
Cort thought about what the doctor said. “Okay, get started. Will this immunize me against Speral’s poison?”
“Not just Speral’s, sir. That of her entire species. I plan on coding the synthetics for the poison after you are better.”
“Hold off on that. I want Speral to be able to defend herself against us. You know what happened on Solitude.”
“I had not considered that, sir.”
“Keep it between us for now, Doctor. Just you and me, alright?”
“Yes, sir. In the meantime, I will see what I can come up with for her.”
“That would be good. If you can somehow separate her poison from the other Nill, I’ll approve it.”
“Yes, sir. But even with just her spines, she will still be formidable. Did you see what she did with her back? She should be paralyzed!”
--
Two days after the planet had been sterilized and five after the battle began, the Mare’s Leg and the Kalashnikov arrived in orbit over Tapon. Addison and his family were transferred to the Mare’s Leg and began the long journey back home. The other ship lifted the Marines and wolves from the planet and put techs on the surface to begin pouring over the computers and maps they found in the surviving buildings. They didn’t have a lot of work to do.
Seven
Solitude
“They have seven other planets, situated in the systems marked on the map, as well as various bases in those systems. According to messages we recovered from their computers, there is a new plan in place to recapture the Nill homeworld, but that plan was not shared with Tapon for operational security reasons. Once we arrived in system, they were ordered to delay us a much as possible by resisting us, and then dragging out negotiations to buy them time.”
Captain Kate Williams was a lieutenant when she first met Cortland Addison. Then, she had gone planetside during a sneak attack on a Cuplan world to retrieve intelligence for the war effort. She was now a Captain, well on her way to Major, and oversaw technical intelligence operations for the Marines. She continued, saying, “We also know that they cannot detect us anymore than we can detect them. Because of that, I have dispatched seven pairs of Derringer-class reconnaissance ships to their other systems to gather any information they can. The ships will alternate warping to a safe distance to transmit their intel.”
Cort asked, “Why do they have to warp? Why can’t they jump?”
Williams looked down, not wanting to embarrass Cort. JJ rescued the captain when she replied, “We’ve lost the Transition Core, sir.”
Cort sighed. The war inside his body, between drugs, synthetics, infectious weapons, and poisons, had taken their toll on his faculties. “Of course. I’m sorry, Captain.”
“You have been through a lot, sir. Frankly, if what I have heard about the infection is true, I am surprised you are in this meeting at all.”
Sighing again, Cort said, “Thank you for that, Captain. Can we use the H’uuman ships for intel gathering?”
Williams said, “As soon as I found out about you normalizing relations with them, I had some of my people start looking into how to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, the Tapons are able to detect the tachyon jump tech used by the H’uuman ships. So unless they jump outside the target system’s heliosphere, there will be a detectable gamma burst. I also expect the apes to figure that out and put listening posts at the extremes of their systems.”
JJ held her hand to her ear in a motion that everyone in the Ares Federation had come to recognize as an incoming comm. “Jones here.” A minute later she said, “Just a moment.” Looking to Addison, she added “Lap and Brbk are here, demanding to see you. Should I allow them to land?”
Cort held his hand up. Bazal, Lap and Brbk are here. Do you want to be a part of this?
Yes. This is the beginning of the end for the Collaboration, Cortland.
They have to adapt, or it could be. Should we come there, or do you want to bring a flight here?
This area will be less combative. You should join me here.
Okay. We’ll be there as soon as we can.
Lowering his hand, Cort said, “Have their shuttle land at the Isthmus, and the three of us will meet them there. Who is the highest ranking H’uuman on planet right now?”
Williams said, “The secondary Weela is here, as well as a vagabond queen. Her name is Snirl, I believe.”
“Have them join us as well,” Cort said. Looking down at himself, he added, “I need to make myself presentable, so I’ll meet you at the flight pad. I want both of you there to keep me on my toes. Message my flexpad if I mess up. And we do not mention the Tapon plans to take the Nill homeworld unless I decide to.
They don’t get to use our Marines when they need us and cast us to the side when they don’t think they do.”
“What about your promise to make the Tapon extinct, sir?” JJ asked.
“I am still going to do that. I just may delay it a bit.”
As JJ left the office, she thought about his words. He said ‘I am still going to do that.’ It’s not a political decision. It is personal for him. I cannot argue his reasoning, and I will follow that man to the gates of hell, but it may be a slippery slope. I need to talk to Kim and Bazal.
The Isthmus
“Chairman Lap, how are you?” Cort asked.
“We must speak, General. You have overstepped your authority,” Lap answered.
“No niceties. Okay, we’ll get right to it, then.” After pointing them to the cabin, Cort turned to the centipod and said, “Do you feel the same, Brbk?”
The buzz of the centipod took longer for Cort’s earpiece to translate than the languages of most species did, but a second later, the humans heard, “My feelings are not relevant, General Addison. I am here on behalf of the Collaborative Government.”
“You are on my planet, Brbk. I would like to know your opinion.”
“Very well, Brbk buzzed. “I feel the Collaboration is overreacting. Your actions are in line with what we should expect of a lower species, especially a warrior race. It is unfortunate that the Nill have decided to leave the Collaboration, but as their Transition Core is no longer usable, their benefit to us is minimal at best. However, severing the necessary trade agreements will be costly and time consuming. But as I said previously, I am here on behalf of the Collaborative Government, and as such, our collective position is somewhat different than my own.”
As they entered the building, Bazal moved to greet the party. Lap clicked at him, “You have been missing from our council for too long, Bazal. You must return with us after the meeting.”
“I am needed here, Lap. I shall remain.”
Kim surprised Cort by entering the room with a tray of refreshments. “Would you like some sweetwater, Lap? It is from the honey we produce here on Solitude.”
