Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  “You speak as if I’m not in the room, Hossel.”

  “You might as well not be,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, your usefulness was over half a century ago.” He looked around the room at his fellow senators. “Go on, condemn my words.”

  “I don’t condemn them,” Kalder said. “On the contrary, you know me, and you know that I prefer blatant honesty over—”

  “Your motives are plain! Kalder the Dreaded! The would-be Imperator, yes?”

  “I no more seek the mantle of Imperator than I seek to poke a Brood and call it names.”

  Again, not meant as a joke. And yet, again, it received chuckles all around. Such laughter, if annoying, was to be expected, for it was this atmosphere of tension and aggression, occasionally eased with a joke or jape, that typified these proceedings. Kalder found the ritual tiresome.

  Plainly, Hossel had taken the laughter as somehow mocking him. It was evident by the color rising in his cheeks.

  “Then what do you seek?” asked Sasin Gorin. Theoretically, the woman was still the senator of the Osaka System. However, the Brood’s presence along two main trade routes had pretty much sealed off any entry or exit for ten years now. So, as it stood, she was little more than the overseer of the historical records of what had once been Osaka, a keeper of a great civilization’s fading legacy, a senator without a people. “If you won’t lie about anything, then tell me that. What do you seek, Senator Kalder?”

  “I seek unity,” he said. This not-joke received even more laughter around the table. Kalder decided clarification might be in order. “For true, I would see a Renaissance. A reconnection to the old. Call it not an Age of Discovery, but of Rediscovery. Falling back on what worked before, not what we hope works, yet not becoming trapped by past mistakes.”

  He looked at them all in turn.

  “But we cannot just fall back to the Sol System and wait for untold centuries,” he went on. “We cannot become isolated like the Grennal, and pray that we are forever untouched by the Brood menace. We cannot rely on hope like that.”

  “You’re sounding like a Harbinger now,” Hossel snorted. “Condemning hope before it has had a chance to spring. I, for one, still have hope for it.”

  “So, if I’m clear on your position, Senator Hossel, you’re hoping that hope works?” More laughter. Kalder would never be able to fully understand why others felt laughter so necessary. It only hurt the negotiations, the laughter making opponents assume that they had been “stung” and defeated by the other’s honest words. It made things cumbersomely adversarial.

  Hossel reddened, and his face was shorn of any attempt to hide his pure disgust. But before he could speak in anger, Kalder addressed the group as a whole.

  “My august senators, it’s quite possible that you have all mistaken me. It’s all right, it would not be the first time. Some of you mistake my coldness for indifference. One does not necessarily entail the other. Yes, I am strict. Yes, I yearn to detach myself completely from worldly matters. As a Zeroist, I am cold, but not indifferent. On the contrary, I have goals like any man. Those goals are to see the Republic unified, and I feel the answer to all our troubles resides in the Scrolls.

  “Unity matters to me, senators. It matters. I believe mankind, unified, can eventually destroy the Brood plague. But I do not believe it for any romantic reasons. I believe it for the simplest and most practical of reasons: People joined together behind a single purpose is more powerful than a group of disparate wafes. I shouldn’t have to remind anyone here of the example made by many sticks joined together.

  “Senators,” he said rising, “I can neither beg nor demand your support. But you are the Liberty Arm, and you above any other governing party hold the people’s hearts. At least, you once did. And you may again. And even if this endeavor fails, you have an out.” He raised his hands, making the offer. “It’s all Kalder’s fault. Blame him.”

  Silence fell across the room. Though they may hate him, they knew his word was iron. If he said he would take the fall, he would take the fall. A rare offer for any politician in a jam.

  “So if you wish to take this opportunity with me, then you will conduct yourselves in the manner I have asked, or I will know why.”

  Kalder was aware that last part sounded like a threat, even if he had meant it only in the most practical sense. Hossel, ever quick to anger, had taken it as the last time he would be placed into a corner by the Zeroist. They had a long history—lots of filibusters aimed at Hossel, of course, and quite a few refusals to meet in Small Council, but most notably a finance scandal which led to a trial that had Kalder called to the witness stand. Kalder was used as a character witness by the prosecution, and his description of Hossel’s bilious behavior, coupled with the Zeroist’s usual blank expression, had generated laughter in the courtroom. Back then, Hossel had seemed furious, almost surprised, to hear Kalder speak so openly and honestly about him. What had he expected Kalder the Dreaded to do? Lie?

  Hossel turned a bizarre shade of puce and spat on Kalder’s face, and turned towards a rear exit door, calling over his shoulder, “You’ve gone too far this time, Kalder! You cannot just bully us all forever! You’ve become far too credulous of prophecies and Scrolls! You are a threat!”

  So, as he left the conference room, feeling optimistic about the effect his words had had on the prejudices and pride of the other Liberators, Kalder tempered all hopes by remembering the warnings of the Harbingers. Extremists and narrow-minded alarmists the lot of them, quick to surrender—it was what defined them, after all—but even a fool had the ability to drop a nugget of wisdom from time to time.

  Surrender hope, he thought. Like a soldier in a trench. Realize that you are already dead, surrender to that fact, and there’s nothing you cannot do.

  The holotab in Kalder’s pocket chimed as he moved into a corridor leading to the Hallowed Library, stepping over a rusting bot that reached out to him beseechingly from a puddle that nearly swallowed it. He thumbed the holotab on. Julian’s face hovered in front of his. “Yes?”

  “They’re reaching out to soft allies now, sir.”

  His protégé didn’t need to specify. The gauche Senator Hossel and a few of the others would already be calling on some of their supporters and soft allies across the aisle. “Did Kalder make you the same offer?” they would be asking. “What did the Dreaded say to you?” their soft allies would ask back. Lots of whispers, Liberators and Corporatists maneuvering the conversation in such a way as to find out what the other knew without divulging too much themselves.

  At least I’ve got them all working together, he thought. Even if it is just to find a way to finally destroy me.

  “Hossel?” he asked. For no others really mattered. Once, decades ago, Hossel had been a Corporatist. He only switched sides because the demographics had changed drastically in the system he represented. Hossel still had old friends along the Corporate Arm, though, and his new friends in the Liberty Arm were extremely loyal because they appreciated the fresh money he had injected into their party—the Liberators had been aching for nearly a century.

  Thinking on it, Kalder felt that Hossel had a lot going for him as far as influence, and he would be an unstoppable political force if he wasn’t constitutionally incapable of controlling his temper and admitting when he was beaten.

  “Yes, sir,” Julian said. “Hossel is at the forefront. He’s already contacted Pennick’s people.” The apprentice waited a beat. “That could undermine everything we’ve worked for.”

  “It could, but it isn’t likely.”

  “Sir?”

  “Hossel and Pennick have a history. They fought a great deal when they were in the same Arm, particularly when Hossel switched over to the Liberators’ side. If there’s one thing you may count on when it comes to the Corporate Arm, it’s their long memory.”

  Four dull-eyed women and two cyber-augmented children in tattered clothes were slumped at a doorway leading to the stairs, their hands and bowls out,
silently asking for mercy. Kalder tossed them a few dominions—in truth, it only helped to unburden him of wealth, which was also a long-term goal of his. Let them, who remained unwashed and desperate, relish the money while they could. Perhaps they would live long enough to find inner truth themselves.

  As he walked, Kalder sensed a dip in gravity, then a shift, which caused mild nausea for a moment. Another upset in Monarch’s paragravity generators—the diamagnetic forces could not be generated without sufficient cryogenics, and he happened to know that supplies were running low.

  “You’re sure he’ll refuse Hossel based strictly on vengeance?” Julian sounded like he wanted total assurance. If he didn’t have it, he would begin machinations of his own, the sort that he would not tell his mentor about, all in the name of protecting Kalder against his enemies.

  “There are no certainties in life,” Kalder reminded his apprentice. “But there are the habits of certain creatures. Look closely, and you’ll see the patterns. The patterns are the only knowledge men like you and I care about. All else is component to the patterns.”

  “Yes, sir.” The hazy, humid corridors caused Julian’s face to appear wavy and smoky as he considered something else. “What if Hossel just goes to someone else in the Corporate Arm?”

  Kalder gave a short shake of the head, ducking beneath a slumped compristeel doorframe, its door unable to close, the lights on the access panel were dim and dead. “By the time he shifts tactics, all the announcements will have been made. Cenagul’s downfall, Pennick’s rise, the shift from the Corporate Arm. He’ll see which way the tide is turning and fall in line. If all goes well, he and his friends will take credit.”

  “And if all goes badly?”

  Kalder might have snorted. “Success knows many fathers, but failure is an orphan. If all this falls apart, they’ll all shun the Bill, say they had nothing to do with it, and that they were strong-armed into Kalder’s mad Crusade.”

  Julian nodded thoughtfully. “And perhaps Hossel will abstain from the whole affair if he can’t get support?” he said, seeing where all this was going.

  “Precisely. Either way, he’ll resort to his usual tactic—hiding behind his façade of disinterest.” Like a child, Hossel had a tendency in defeat of grabbing the ball everyone was playing with, walking away and saying he didn’t feel like playing.

  “I sense the winds are right to release our statement?” Julian fished.

  “You sense correctly,” Kalder said.

  “I’ll let it trickle down through the usual venues. Perhaps it will scare up some support from independents who have so far refrained from—” Julian looked abruptly to his left.

  “What is it?”

  “The Brood attack,” he said. “More details are coming in.”

  “A new one?”

  “Yes, sir. Apologies. You were in the meeting.”

  “Where?”

  “Muqin.”

  Kalder searched his memory. He knew the place vaguely. A planet in a remote star system called Chang-xi, somewhere on the fringes of the Scutum Arm. “Total annihilation, I assume?”

  “Yes, sir. A space station called Salvation was also consumed. Early reports have fifty or sixty thousand people surviving, all of them either incoming or outgoing flights that were poised for a quick exit. Refugees are headed here.” Julian sighed. “It’s about to get very crowded on Monarch.”

  “And the Brood are taking up residence in that system?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have any drones been sent to monitor the Brood now stationed there?”

  “None yet, sir. And no Naval forces have been deployed, either.”

  And they won’t be, Kalder thought. We scarcely have the resources for the Phanes campaign, and we certainly won’t have them once my Bill starts to gain momentum and people see which way the tide is moving.

  Of course, the Bill was only stage one of his overall strategy. Right now he was poised to gain a relatively large military detachment, with the long-term goal being a humanity that has gotten safely snuggled inside the Sol System with exploratory missions sent outward to conduct research on the Strangers and the Scrolls that their Worshippers left behind—

  “I will serve you,” a voice said, cutting into his thoughts. Kalder glanced up at the owner of the strange, gravelly voice. A bot, a full head taller than he, detached itself from a rock wall, where it had been ensconced in shadow. A TRX series: “Trix” people called them. Meant as private security for wealthy professionals. Lean and spindly, made of a mixture of black bronzite, dektyte, and compristeel, it loomed over Kalder like a cloud and with only one of its three orange-glowing eyes functioning. That one eye bore into him, imploringly, insistently. The bot was damp all over and its arms and head were covered in a thin, mossy film.

  “I will serve you,” the Trix repeated.

  Kalder moved on without giving it a second glance. “This may work to our advantage,” he said to Julian, getting back to business.

  His apprentice nodded. “I was just thinking the same. We should make a statement that outlines how this attack on Muqin underscores what you’ve been saying all along.”

  “Yes, but when you write it up, make no emotional appeal—discuss only the number of lives lost, the inevitability of the Brood. Do not include any human interest stories, no talk of heroism, no brave pilots who got a few survivors out at the last second. We must set an example that this isn’t about opportunism, but cold logic. Only the math matters.”

  Besides, he added to himself, the people will make it an emotional topic all by themselves. I must set a standard and be above it.

  “Have the statement ready within the hour,” Kalder said.

  “Do you want me to run it past you before—”

  “No. I trust your judgment. Just get it done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you spoken to Miss Holdengard?” asked Kalder.

  “Yes, sir. She made a report about what she found in Zhirinovsky and I spread it to our people at Primacy Intelligence. They found it interesting.”

  “Perfect. With any luck, PI will leak some of it to the Liberators and Corporatists. And what about the course? Has Miss Holdengard charted one yet?”

  “She’s prepped a path that she thinks will work. It’s a bit circuitous, but she says she’s confident the path will keep you clear of any Brood patrols, and away from any other hostile systems.”

  “Excellent. Tell her to stand by. We may have a contingent from Second Fleet as early as next week. If she asks for a steeper commission, try to haggle her down, but make sure you keep her on.”

  Julian arched an inquisitive brow. “Is it really that important to keep her on, sir? Assuming you get a contingent from Second Fleet, won’t they have their own navigators?”

  “Navigators, yes, but no one from the Pathfinder Collegiate,” he said. “How many explorers did we send in search of the Zhirinovsky Plinth, Julian?”

  “Eleven, sir.”

  “And how many returned?”

  “Just Moira, sir.”

  “I rest my case. We keep her on.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll make the offer known to her.”

  With that, Julian signed off and Kalder stepped through Hall Gamma, crossing over into Hall Beta and moving into the Forum Minor. As he walked past the acrobats performing in front of a stall for small change, he received a bit of feedback from the public. A number of them said, “There you go, Dreaded One! Good for you!” Someone offered him a free bowl of fungus-grown soup. “Take it,” the stall’s proprietor said, “if only to let me say that Kalder ate here.” A couple of people touched thumb to forefinger and ring finger, pointing their index and pinky at him, hissing curses.

  Kalder accepted both the praise and the scorn with equanimity. His focus was on the holotab, and the fresh updates from Muqin scrolling in front of his eyes.

  The Brood. Such a singular opponent. Kalder hesitated to use the word “enemy” when describing them, for that implied
an emotional connection to the creatures, a rivalry. But that was impossible. The Brood no more hated Kalder than Kalder hated the vacuum. This wasn’t a conflict born of emotion, as he saw it, but of wits and strategy. The Brood were indifferent. At least, Kalder believed so. If that was true, then he held a degree of respect for them, and it meant no emotional appeal would work, only cold tactics.

  Of course, it was always possible that the Brood had an agenda. They did tend to target human- and xeno-occupied space, after all. They appeared in systems deprived of human activity, too, but that could just be them thinking ahead, keeping all intelligent life from spreading to territories where they might find fresh resources.

  They were an opponent, Kalder settled. Like a savant staring across at you from the other side of a chessboard. And as with any opponent, it helped to know their mind.

  Billions dead, said the stories that came pouring in. Reports indicate there was no warning. To which Kalder had to think, Is there ever? Vids of Brood attacks down through the centuries were used to accentuate the narrative, giving it the quality of a tale. Long, jellyfish-looking harvesters gliding across worlds, scooping up humans and xenos alike, devouring them. Giant, miles-long starships that looked like veined eggs, cutting through space and looming over worlds, bombarding them relentlessly for days.

  Some poet named Arpool had said desperate words while fleeing, and his words were being shared all over social media. He was a young man with long blonde haire and a carefully trimmed beard. With tears in his eyes, he had faced a camera and said: “This is our end. All life ends here. Chased like ants, unable to make sense of the giants that continually kick over our anthills.”

  Kalder scrolled on down, kept reading.

  Witnesses say it happened suddenly. “No time to do anything besides run,” said one freighter pilot who narrowly escaped the destruction.

  Three million tons of kordhite, a semi-rare ore used in various electronics in quantum computers, would no longer be exported to the rest of the galaxy due to the destruction of Muqin. There were other sources of the ore, but this loss continued the long, slow erosion of the Republic.