Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  “Main to all suites, I’m seeing striations that look like laserfire or PBC damage. Confirm?”

  “This is Suite Three. Affirmative, we’re seeing clear oxidation marks. She’s been hit. Badly. And often. Somebody really banged her up.”

  “Any idea who she is?”

  “Beckinger-class,” he said. Named after the man who had first studied Isoshi military vessels. “Its markings are not showing up in our registry, though.”

  “Comms? We getting a hailing signal?”

  “Negative, Main. No hails. No transponder, either. She’s keeping dark. Hatfield just messaged us, said to maintain our posture. They’re going to try to make an approach and hail her, see if she needs—”

  The channel was blasted by ear-piercing whistles and static. Sensor screens jumped. When it all resolved, Kaipalla was looking at the alarms sounding the arrival of the huge vessel that had materialized at the 18491e’s equator. There was a flash of light too quick to register, and readings of quantum distortions unlike anything Kaipalla had ever seen. His people were screaming about the vessel that was coming right at them.

  A broodling. Not even a mile long. It was ten thousand miles behind them but coming up fast. It moved silently, its cephaloi minors extended, groping silently at the space all around it.

  Kaipalla did not let his awe take hold of him. He had been in this situation before, had fled the Brood too many times to count, and he and his team knew exactly what actions to take. His hands raced over the controls, and the alarm sounded for everyone to brace for heavy maneuvering.

  The broodling was moving so fast that, within seconds, it was coming up behind them to swallow them whole.

  “Hatfield says to engage as needed and break away!” called the comms station. “She needs time to break out of the system herself! She says more broodlings are moving in-system!”

  A second before Urushtagok banked hard to get out of the broodling’s path, Kaipalla’s chair squeezed tight around him, filling with cushioning gel while the walls of his command suite inflated with Rescue Foam. Needles entered his arm to inject him with vapasamimine, a cocktail of stimulants, blood thinners, and blood vessel reinforcers that prevented aneurysms. Absolutely essential for high-g maneuvering outside of the arti-grav of starships.

  “Ablative shields forward!” Kaipalla screamed, knuckles turning white as he gripped the controls. “Plasmetics full strength!”

  Usually used for enduring entry through a planet’s atmosphere, the interlocking armor plates along Urushtagok’s wings, head, and body came apart slightly, and extended, tilting in the direction of the oncoming attack. A low-level translucent plasmetic bubble formed around the greatwyrm. This all happened in less than a second, and just in time.

  The broodling spat fire at them. Particle beams smashed against the greatwyrm’s plasmetic bubble, while the guass rounds shattered upon impact on the compristeel tiles. Urushtagok jinked first left, then right, then up and down, coiling and uncoiling, putting Kaipalla and his crew through the heaviest of turns as he tried to avoid the constant assault.

  “All guns ignite! Fire, fire, fire!”

  It did no good. It never did any good to fight the Brood’s ships. Whatever they were, whatever they were made of, they barely responded to attack. All one could hope to do was stall them.

  Even as Urushtagok and his flock unleashed a salvo of missiles and railgun-propelled rounds, the broodling moved towards them, barely slowing. Its miles-long tentacles tried to snatch them out of the void, and it managed to smash through one of the hatchlings, annihilating it. But Urushtagok was too experienced, and that experience synergized with the course suggestions he got from Kaipalla. Moving half out of instinct, half out of obedience to his Tamer’s will, Urushtagok averted disaster from one breath to the next. The greatwyrm had experience, yes, but Kaipalla had the sensors.

  Out of nowhere, a high-yield particle beam smashed into the broodling’s side, causing an explosion that rippled outwards in a white ball with a three-mile radius. That came from the Isoshi ship. Doubtless, they had been embroiled in some unseen war with the Brood in this system, probably on a similar kind of survey as Hatfield’s, and ambushed by a wily broodling.

  But we never picked up on their battle, not until the Isoshi appeared before us, Kaipalla thought.

  That brought up the riddle of where the Isoshi and the broodling had been conducting their fight. This kind of thing had happened before, and there were theories on that. Some in PI believed that a certain unknown faction of Isoshi had discovered a way to travel by means of quantum tunneling, swimming through a slipstream between universes, inside the interstitial tissue that divided dimensions. This theoretical in-between zone was known to humans as “bulk space,” but some referred to it as the Midway, and it was thought that if the Isoshi could go there, so could the Brood.

  However it had happened, it was now unfolding in front of Kaipalla and his flock. And now, tiny drone fighters were spilling out of the belly of the broodling. Like little gray sperms dropped into the void, they came swimming out to meet Urushtagok while the broodling sailed over their heads and advanced on the Isoshi ship.

  “All units, free to engage,” Kaipalla said. “Select your targets and deal with them one at a time. Use shared targeting to overlap and create crossfire opportunities.”

  He heard only scratchy replies. They were being jammed.

  Kaipalla repeated his message, this time using Republican Armed Forces Brevity Code, as well as tightbeams to the sensor suites on the hatchlings, to make sure his flock understood.

  “Okay, Urushtagok, boyo,” Kaipalla said, setting up the targets ahead of him. “Here…we…go.”

  Before they even collided with the swarm of drones, Urushtagok’s railguns took out three of them. A missile took out a fourth. A fifth was destroyed when it collided with Urushtagok’s massive starboardside wing. Six and seven were snatched up by his fore and aft claws, respectively. Victim number eight was clipped by his jaws, escaped, and was smashed by his tail as he flew by. Ten, eleven, and twelve were taken out by dorsal turrets. Thirten was grabbed by Urushtagok’s massive bony jaws and flung into one of the broodling’s tentacles, and exploded on impact. Urushtagok collided with one ship that was almost as large as he was. He clung to it with his claws, wrapped himself around it like a python squeezing its prey, and caused it to split in half.

  All the while, particle beams lanced across the vacuum and bounced off his plasmetic aura, and large-caliber rounds hammered his armor.

  The broodling took hits from the Hatfield thousands of miles away, but it did no good. It advanced on the Isoshi ship, seemingly not noticing the massive power being brought to bear against it. The Republic had an understanding with most Isoshi governments, as per the Galactic Security and Partnership Deal, they had an obligation to aid one another if possible. Hardly anyone ever honored it past a certain point, though—usually, a bit of fire was laid down while everyone ran for dear life.

  Indeed, the Hatfield was already doing that. Having laid down fire from its Pacifier, it was now turning to leave the system. The Hatfield tightbeamed coords for a rendezvous, and Kaipalla was already turning Urushtagok out of the fields of dogfighting and getting away from the planet.

  They retreated, watching the firefight between the Isoshi and the Brood become smaller and smaller. Before long, it was a mere fight between fireflies.

  An hour later, they had rendezvoused with the Hatfield. All wyrms were safely aboard the hangar bay, and the bay was flooded with atmo. Kaipalla sat in his chair for a second, looking at the list of casualties. They had lost the hatchling Kota, and that would not be an easy replacement. A veteran wyrm, with a veteran crew. No, not easy to replace at all.

  He felt a moment of queasiness. They had just entered the FTL bubble, and were on their way safely away from the Darvishtapotyx System.

  Kaipalla stepped out of the Tamer House and used the extended ablative flaps as steps. By the time he had hopped off of Urus
htagok’s back, a deck officer was rushing towards him, pale-faced and wide-eyed.

  “Did you see it?” he breathed.

  Kaipalla nodded, pulling off his helmet, grateful for the tactical HUD to be out of his vision finally. “It was a single broodling, advancing on the Isoshi ship. Are they still fighting? Do the sensors show—?”

  “No, I mean, did you see it?!”

  Kaipalla pulled up short. “What on earth are you so excited about? It was the same as it always is. They came at us with their standard Resadin-style deployment, and we—”

  “I’m not talking about the fucking Brood, Lieutenant. Did you see that fucking wyrm?”

  Kaipalla shook his head. “Deck Officer, you need to explain yourself. I’ve just lost a hatchling and some damn good men, and we were being jammed out there, so whatever you saw, we didn’t see. So start making some goddamn sense.”

  The officer stiffened, then produced his holotab and waved his hand over it, projecting a screen. He pulled up fuzzy-looking sat images, zoomed in on one. “We got this twenty minutes ago, just as you reached high orbit around the planet.” He turned the image to face Kaipalla. “It came out of nowhere, just like the Isoshi ship, just like the broodling. You’re telling me you didn’t see this?”

  Kaipalla took the holotab out of the deck officer’s hands. He looked at the image. Up at the deck officer. Back at the image. “What the hell is this?”

  The deck officer shook his head. “It appeared literally a second before we left the system,” he said. “The sats we placed in orbit around the planet picked it up, and relayed the image.”

  “This…this doesn’t make any sense. There must be something wrong with the image…”

  “It’s not just the image. Look at the data readout. The MeV, the bremsstrahlung, the mass readings. Just look at the mass!”

  He looked at the readings, all right.

  ANOMALY MASS: 0.011 Earths

  ANOMALY SURFACE GRAVITY: 0.1649 g

  ANOMALY MEAN DENSITY: 0.592 x Earth

  The data reads like the information on a small planet.

  “This can’t be right.” Kaipalla’s mind kept coming back to that. The object…whatever it was…it beggared belief. It was floating in space, hovering around 18491e, looming over both the broodling and the Isoshi ship, in multiple coiled tails. It was red, scaly, and rippling with muscle and bony protrutions. Its head was an eyeless maw, partially opened, with many sets of teeth that the ship’s Diogenes had measured to be miles wide.

  What Kaipalla was looking at was a wyrm. One with enough mass to have strong surface gravity. One that eclipsed 18491e’s moon. One that would have rivaled Earth’s moon.

  By all the laws of physics, evolution, and organic life, what he saw was impossible.

  : SDFA Lord Ishimoto

  Kalder sat at the table in the middle of the War Room. The Visquain, who had operated inside of this room in their capacity as War Council throughout the campaign, were sitting with him. General Quoden maintained the seat at the end of the table, and was regarding him with the curiosity of a man at a zoo, looking at an animal that was normally very dangerous in its natural habitat, but whose cage had created an artificial distance. Away from Asteroid Monarch, Kalder was not so powerful, but Quoden could clearly appreciate, and even fear, the instincts and skills that were woven into him.

  Our uniforms create the artificial distance, Kalder mused. It was a thought that might find its way into his meditations, or even his writings.

  “You have done well out here, General,” said Kalder. “All of you have. It is a victory that is already ringing out through the media, reaching every world, every station. There isn’t any doubt. A well-executed campaign.”

  Quoden nodded. “It’s kind of you to say, Senator. And might I also extend congratulations as well as thanks, for without the Brotherhood I’m not sure the victory would have been so swift.”

  There would have been no victory at all, Kalder thought, but didn’t dare say. He had been a military man once, and remembered quite well how the terms defeat and compromise were discouraged from one’s vocabulary. So let Quoden and the others vocalize how they could have done it without any help. They all knew the truth. And they would respect Kalder all the more if he never mentioned it.

  They sat quietly for a moment, everyone trying to think of what to say while they waited for the new arrivals.

  They had just won a great victory, to be sure, but they had also lost two ships and many platoons, totaling more than four thousand dead, never mind the wounded. Four thousand people who had been alive just weeks ago. Four thousand less human souls in the galaxy. A sobering thought.

  “How was your flight?” asked Rear Admiral Vickers.

  If Kalder still laughed, he would have just then. It was such a normal course for a conversation to go. How was your flight? And asked just at the tail end of a bloody campaign. If one didn’t know better, Vickers might have seemed like she had no idea a war had even happened. And yet, oblivion awaited them all, and they knew it, so a question as simple as that, which swept all death and suffering under the rug with four one-syllable words, was a prosaic yet poignant reminder of just how complete the Fall of Man was. We are all doomed, but how was your flight?

  “It was satisfactory,” Kalder replied. “How goes your cleanup efforts?”

  Advance Colonel Rikken waved a hand, made some gestures in the air, and conjured up a 3D map over the table. It was a red-and-blue criss-crossing matrix of levels—the blue was Vastill’s main districts, the red were those corridors not yet secured. There was a lot of red, but then, there was a lot of Vastill.

  “As you see, it proceeds,” Rikken said. “But we don’t have nearly enough to scour all sublevels, all of the rings of blocks. What’s left of the city guard and constables is being mobilized, and citizens are being deputized every hour to shore up their numbers. Pilots are being given priority in recruitment efforts, since they can fly some of Vastill’s Hero Hawks—that’s what they call their search-and-rescue shuttles, which were covered in mothballs when we found them because they rarely ever see use.”

  “How have you been coordinating with Widden’s government with the High Priestess incapacitated?” asked Kalder.

  Brigadier Chang-shu answered, “We’ve got liaisons working closely with the thaneship. The Wardeness oversees a system of thanes that was put in place by her forebears. They are elected officials of each district, who petition the Wardeness on the people’s behalf.”

  Kalder nodded. “I’m aware of the thaneship. They’ve all been cooperative so far?”

  “They have.”

  “That’s good. We may hit snags with them soon, though. Because of her return, you see.”

  General Quoden shook his head. “Why because of her return?”

  “Well, because the Zane family—the Zanus, that is—began a legacy of dictatorship long ago. They merged religion with state, and overthrew their rivals centuries ago. But about three hundred years ago, there was a rebel uprising. The lower class rioted in the streets and demanded to be heard by the High Priestess’s great-grandfather, who was Warden at the time. Eventually, the rebellions were suppressed and a compromise was reached between the upper and lower class. The thanes are a result of that compromise, representing the voice of the people.”

  Kalder shrugged.

  “But she’s had control over the thanes through her daughters, who once formed the main instrument of her control over the thanes, but now are all dead. Though taught to be conniving witches, it was all for their betterment—at least, that’s how the High Priestess saw it decades ago when she instigated the augmented-cloning initiatives that bore these girls. They were taught to undermine their mother if possible, if only to keep her sharp, while at the same time keeping the thanes in line. It was a game which pleased Mahl.

  Vickers shook her head. “I still fail to see how this will create conflict between us.”

  “It’s old meets new, you see. The High Priest
ess herself is a dictator. A dictator in the midst of a powerful, if slow-building, democratic revolution. The era of her reign is a queer one. Dictators and democracies don’t mix. Her daughters are no longer around to keep the thanes in line. Her thanes probably all wish her dead, but can’t say it because there are still enough people who adore her, and believe she represents Mahl’s will. She can’t just abolish the thaneship, either, not without making it seem as though she does not care for her people. Trust me, things will slow down and cooperation will become more difficult to attain once she returns to full power.”

  Quoden nodded slowly, coming to the realization. “We will be dealing with two governments, the thanes and the ones loyal to her, and they will be in conflict.”

  “Yes,” Kalder said. “And her recent, ah, malady may make them see her as weak, ripe for undermining. The thanes may try to gum up the works on purpose, if only to let the public see her failing.” He raised a lecturing finger. “But, this is good news for us. Bcause everyone down below surely knows that, without the Republic, all of Phanes would have been lost. They need the Republic, and if the Republic shows favoritism to High Priestess Zane, then they need her, too.”

  “Which means she will be more likely to do whatever we ask.”

  “Yes, but you would be wise not to think of her as a pushover. Just because we have the edge here doesn’t mean she’s out of her depth. Remember, the woman and her family have kept control over an entire planet for centuries, without need of our help until now. You don’t achieve that without some skill of leadership and influence.”

  “How would you suggest we proceed?” asked Chang-shu.

  Kalder looked at him. “She’s on her way up?”

  “Yes. Her shuttle is arriving as we speak.”

  “Then let her wait on you. Do not bring her here to meet in your War Room, or in any official capacity, not just yet. Let her wait, so that she sees your time is precious, and her time is less so. It will sting, but it need only be a reminder when negotiations commence, during which time you grant her almost anything she says. After some hemming and hawing, of course. We mustn’t appear too eager to indulge a religiously political leader. Once we’re done here, I’ll speak to her privately, make the formal greeting between state officials.”