Descent of the Maw

by Erin MacMichael

  “I’ll take this subject up again with the Andaran council when we meet next week,” Dieter stated tightly as he reached out to collect several crystalline points from the holo pad in front of him. “Unless there’s anything else pressing, we’ll adjourn for the day.”

  Magnus blew out a breath and turned a vexed look to Alasdair while the high councilors rose from their seats and headed for the door. Asta stood up from her chair beside Al and stepped around to place her hands on each of their shoulders. “Nice try, boys. Let’s go.”

  Pushing up from the table, they turned to find Miros waiting with his hands on his hips. “There will be another day,” he said wearily. “We’ll make sure of it.”

  Magnus nodded reluctantly. “At least I’ll get my ship fixed,” he grumbled. “Xiangting and his team are pulling their hair out trying to get the front quarter put back together from that last hit we took. I can’t imagine the conniption he’d throw if he was told he couldn’t get any more parts.”

  “Come on, lunch is on me,” the admiral said with a nod to the three captains. “Lita said she’d meet us if we got out early.”

  “I don’t want to eat with that woman,” Alasdair whined as the group headed for the door. “Your wife is mean.”

  “I’ll tell her you said that,” Miros grinned. “She told me you and Magnus were the ones who were always causing problems at the academy.”

  “It was aaall of them,” Asta groaned, shaking her head wearily. “Three hellions in one class is more than any instructor should have to put up with. It’s easier fighting Drahks.”

  As the party moved out into the busy corridor, Magnus turned his head and was startled to see Councilor van der Meer leaning against the wall, waiting to catch his eye.

  “Captain, do you have a moment?”

  Magnus came to a halt and glanced at Miros who had turned with the others, his gray eyes widening in surprise at the man’s soft request. The admiral sent him a quick nod of encouragement and waited a few paces away with the other two captains to see what transpired with the Andaran high councilor.

  Dieter shifted his gaze to the three fleet officers as he stood away from the wall. “If I’m interrupting, then perhaps another—”

  “Not at all, Councilor,” Magnus assured him smoothly, giving his full attention to the most influential political leader on the planet. “Go on without me, Miros,” he called out. “I’ll catch you another time.”

  As the footsteps of his friends trailed off down the hall, Magnus studied the quiet man standing in front of him. Dieter’s loosely-tied hair, dark clothing with open vest and rolled-up sleeves gave him an air of casual grace which Magnus found infinitely more approachable than the stiff, arrogant suits of his father’s circles.

  The blond man’s pale blue eyes appraised him with equal calculation before he tipped his head toward the wide corridor leading off into the central suites of departmental offices. “Walk with me, Magnus.”

  Matching his gait to the shorter man, Magnus slipped his hands into his jacket and walked beside Dieter in companionable silence. Sensing the subtle signs of agitation in the councilor over their heated debate, he thought it prudent to give the man all the room he needed to express whatever was on his mind.

  “I just wanted you to know that I find it very difficult … to deny you anything,” the councilor began, his voice taut with distress. “If it were up to me, I’d give the fleet every last penny in our collective budgets. I spent months arguing in your favor and it was extremely painful to watch your faces today when I had to tell you no.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect in there, Dieter.”

  “I understand, Magnus, neither did I. You’re a passionate man and I admire that. I personally agree with every single thing you said.”

  “They’re coming, Dieter. It’s not a matter of if, but when.”

  “I know,” the councilor grimaced. “That’s the part people just don’t want to think about. Their memories evaporate into what they can see right now, today. They don’t remember the trading partners we had just a few short decades ago, not to mention the huge Pleiadian family we had once—our own people!”

  “The Drahkian horror isn’t real to them,” Magnus commented sourly.

  “And I just don’t understand that,” Dieter stated incredulously. “The refugees we’ve given homes to have shared some pretty gruesome accounts, like the Schedarans out in the deserts of 1st Shade who were nearly wiped out.”

  “That’s the problem,” Magnus complained. “They’re just stories, something awful that happened to somebody else. Most Tarsians, like my father, don’t see the value in sending help outside of Alcyone.”

  The resentment in the young captain’s voice made the councilor looked up. “Geir Talrésian is one of thousands of voices around Andara and the rest of the planet who fund the budgets. I’ve had no choice but to listen to their wishes and make some hard decisions I personally don’t agree with.”

  “I know, Dieter. You straddle the line as it is.”

  “Trade, commerce, the arts have been the lifeblood of Tarsian culture for millennia,” the high councilor went on. “We’ve never been militaristic—it goes against the grain of just about everyone on Tarsus.”

  “I’m not either,” Magnus declared fervently. “I’m not a killer—none of us are. Taking lives is not something I do lightly. We’ve destroyed thousands of men and animals in Merope. How many of them had a choice in being there? We don’t know anything about the Drahks or what makes them such violent bastards, but I doubt they’ll stop and let me ask them.”

  Dieter came to a halt in the busy hallway just outside of the entrance to his offices, slipping his hands into his pockets while he looked thoughtfully up at the young officer. “What made you decide to join the fleet, Magnus?”

  The tall man sighed and ran a hand up through his dark hair. “Well, let’s see, I guess it started with my obsession for unusual artifacts from all over the galaxy. I’ve collected ever since I was a kid.”

  “Really? Interesting hobby,” Dieter noted with surprise.

  “Yeah. I wanted to go into archeology, but my dad threw a fit, so I majored in business to keep the peace,” he glowered bitterly. “That didn’t stop me from going on summer digs or buying more pieces. In Merope, I hooked up with this trader from somewhere out in the Aswan Belt, a crusty old codger who’d been through more places than I could imagine. He told me stories of hideous things he’d seen, places he’d narrowly escaped from, and of course, somehow it always led back to the Drahks. When I saw the naked fear in his eyes, it really scared me and I began talking to anyone who’d seen them. The reactions were always the same—sheer terror. That’s what people here on Tarsus are missing—they haven’t looked into the face of the reptile.” Magnus shook his dark head and pulled in a rapid breath before he went on. “They’re vicious, barbaric, the stuff of nightmares. The more I heard, the more I realized I had to do something about it, so I applied to the academy in spite of my dad’s objections. Now I’ve fought them myself, lost good friends, watched entire worlds swallowed up, and they’re threatening the lives of people I care deeply about.”

  “That’s right, you know the Malawis,” the councilor remarked softly.

  Magnus nodded soberly. “Yeah. I can’t stand the thought of losing them and it’s beyond horrific to think of the beasts ever taking over here, Dieter. Life as we know it would die a brutal death.”

  The high councilor’s astute eyes assessed him for several long minutes. “I’m with you, Magnus. I’ve watched all the reports too many times to count. We won’t give up and we won’t wait until the Drahks are beating down our portals. We’ve got to keep searching for a way to counter their technology. I’m sure we can convince our people to loosen their purse strings if we can pour their money into something that works against the Drahks.”

  “Wow, thank you, Dieter. I’ll sleep a little better tonight knowing you’re behind us.” Magnus extended his hand to the blond
man who reached out and grasped it firmly.

  “Thank you, Magnus, for your relentless dedication.” With a tip of his head, the Andaran high councilor turned and disappeared into his suite of offices.

  With a considerably lighter heart, Magnus made his way back through the corridors of the Great Hall complex. He was still completely perplexed at the blindness of Tarsian leaders to the real threat the Drahks posed and irked that they were making survival difficult for everyone fighting in Merope, but just knowing that the intelligent high councilor was hard at work on the predicament was heartening and he was certain Miros would feel the same.

  Pushing out the nearest exit, Magnus passed through the grounds of the Great Hall and turned onto the wide, tree-lined walkway leading down past the academy campus to Fleet Headquarters, the Portal Center, and the vast landing fields beyond. At this time of day, the sidewalks were thick with fleet personnel, cadets and instructors, as well as parties of diplomats, travelers, and merchants who had business in the Great Hall.

  After passing through a teeming square with a sparkling fountain, he was about to veer off onto a sidewalk leading to one of the entrances to headquarters when his ears picked up a distant voice urgently calling his name. He turned and searched the crowds in front of the entrance to the Portal Center, a wide smile spreading across his face when he recognized the lean, blue-gray skinned man in a well-worn brown overcoat hurrying in his direction.

  “Jindo!” Magnus shouted as he rushed forward to meet his old friend, clapping the thin Aswani’s shoulders in happy greeting. “I was just talking about you! What a bizarre coincidence.”

  Jindo Jin Sahn bobbed his head several times in his customary manner, his pale yellow eyes darting nervously at the people passing by. “Don’t ya tell me tings like dat, Magnoos,” the trader admonished in his own peculiar sing-songy version of Mothertongue. “Bad luck, bad luck it is.”

  “Just as superstitious as ever, you old goat. What brings you to Tarsus?”

  The Aswani bobbed his head again, his thin wisps of pale hair fluttering in the air. “You, Magnoos boy, you be my business.”

  “What, you have something for me?”

  “Oh, yassss, indeed I do.”

  Instead of the usual gleam in his eyes over the prospect of scalping Magnus for a good chunk of change, the trader’s mouth twitched and he looked up at the Tarsian captain with an odd sobriety.

  Magnus crossed his arms and cocked his head. “Well?”

  “Not here,” Jindo fretted softly, “Too many eyes.”

  “Alright, come on, we’ll find a place in the Portal Center where we can sit down and talk.”

  Jindo nodded and turned to walk beside him as they headed toward the doors of Krii’s busy hub of commerce and transport. The trader’s characteristic swagger and stream of storytelling was strangely missing and Magnus wondered what could possibly have gotten under the crusty old swindler’s skin.

  Navigating through the packed public areas filled with travelers and baggage, Magnus steered them down a side hallway to one of his favorite eateries where they were ushered to a semi-private booth near the side wall. After placing an order for two meals, Magnus clasped his hands in front of him and raised a questioning brow. “So spill the beans, Jindo. What’s bothering you? I’ve never seen you like this.”

  The Aswani shoved his hand down into a deep pocket and pulled out a wad of surprisingly clean cloth. Holding it gingerly with one hand, he lifted the edges with great deliberation, careful not to touch the item within with his fingers, and held it out toward Magnus.

  “Take it,” Jindo rasped, his yellow eyes boring into Magnus with pleading insistence.

  Magnus held out one hand and Jindo dropped the shiny object into his palm, whisking the cloth away to stash it once again in the depths of his tattered coat.

  “Now I done what he tol’ me. He can’t be comin’ afta me again,” the trader muttered feverishly, staring at the delicate gold construct laying in the Tarsian’s hand.

  Magnus picked up the finely crafted piece with his fingers so he could examine it more closely. The outer shell of heavy gold wires formed a perfectly balanced octahedron, perhaps an inch in length along each edge, while the intricate network of interior wires cradled what appeared to be a tiny faceted red stone.

  “What is it?” he asked, mesmerized by the look and feel of the strange object in his hand.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” the Aswani replied with a tense shake of his head.

  “How much?”

  Jindo raised wide, fearful eyes and shook his head vehemently. “No money, Magnoos boy. He tol’ me it be for you. Made me swear to put it right in your hand. I be done wif da damn ting now.”

  Magnus curled his fingers around the warm gold and tucked it into his palm, strangely comforted just by holding it, and looked up quizzically at the nervous trader. “Cut the cryptic crap, Jindo, and just tell me who gave this to you.”

  The Aswani glanced around the crowded restaurant before turning his eyes back to Magnus. “Tall man like you, dark cloak, scaaary eyes dat burn right troo you, dey do. He be one of dem mages, I tell you Magnoos boy, mus be,” he proclaimed with a conspiratorial nod.

  “A mage,” Magnus repeated flatly. “Like the Tahni?”

  “I dunno, but maybe yes, like dem,” Jindo nodded.

  “Jindo, they disappeared a thousand years ago,” Magnus sighed with mild exasperation. Alcyoni’s seventh planet of Ti’uan had vanished from the heavens with its entire population of Tahni mystics over a Tarsian millennium ago, surviving only in history books and Pleiadian legend.

  “Ok, maybe not a mage den, but he give me da creeps, Magnoos boy, ever since dat day he tol’ me—” the trader broke off his words and glanced away from Magnus with a guilty twist to his mouth.

  “Told you what?” Magnus snapped, irritated at the man’s peculiar evasiveness.

  Jindo started to speak, but was interrupted by the arrival of two heaping plates of aromatic noodles. Magnus slipped the small golden object into the inner pocket of his jacket where he could feel it resting next to his chest and picked up his utensils, digging into his food with gusto.

  “He tol’ me about you.”

  Magnus stopped mid-chew and glanced over at the thin man who sat watching him with a kind of leery speculation. “Go on,” he mumbled around a mouthful of savory vegetables.

  “Way back in Pemba I be doin’ my business round da west market, and I walk past dis man in a dirty cloak sittin’ to da side of a shop and he points, see, and tells me I should go talk to dat boyo wif da black hair. I tink dis man be a beggar and maybe he hear you wantin’ to buy da good stuff, you know, sniffin’ a young guy wif money—”

  “Yeah, yeah, easy mark, I know,” Magnus cut in while focusing on slurping a glob of wet noodles into his mouth.

  “Well, I be excited to have dat tip, see, so I give him some money and he looks up at me wif dem eyes, first brown, den dey flash all violet and burnin’. Creepy, boyo.” The trader shivered and looked down at his untouched plate.

  “Eat, will you?” Magnus prodded, waving his sticks at Jindo’s food.

  “Dat man find me again, Magnoos boy,” the trader hissed fearfully as he picked up his own sticks and rested his hand on the table. “Two days ago in Kortera!”

  The captain looked up at the mention of the capital city on far-off Unakiri in the Rasalhag system. Jindo’s penchant for swindling and exaggeration made it easy to dismiss targeting an off-world kid by market people or a pair of strange eyes, but it was highly unlikely that a beggar would have the means to track the trader down across star systems.

  “Das right, it be weird, boyo. I be makin’ a deal wif dis woman outside a warehouse and I turn and dat man be standin’ behind me. Folk don’t mess wif guys in cloaks, so I run, see, but he comes afta me and grabs my coat, pushes me into dis alley up against da wall. Dis time his whole face under da hood changes—white skin, white hair, violet eyes.”

  “Let me gues
s—burning eyes, right?”

  “Yaasssss, right in my face, Magnoos.” Jindo swallowed loudly as his sticks fell limply against the table. “I be real scared, boyo, real scared.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “Well, he um, he says my name, my whole name, in dat same quiet kind of voice as before in Pemba. Sends a jolt up me just to hear.”

  “That’s pretty dangerous, Jindo.”

  “He says yours, too, boyo! Dat man knows ‘zakly who you be, you watch it.”

  “That is a bit creepy,” Magnus agreed, but somehow the notion didn’t have the same disturbing effect on him as it had on the wily old trader.

  “He shoves dis white clof in my hand and says, ‘Don’t you be openin’ dis, Jindo Jin Sahn. You go straight to Tarsus and put dis ting into Magnoos Talrayseen’s hand or I be findin’ ya again.”

  Magnus smiled to himself, starting to get a pretty good picture of Jindo’s terrifying encounter with the stranger on Unakiri. “So of course you opened it.”

  The Aswani shrugged briefly. “I just takes a peek at it after da man be gone and it burns me, burns my fingers, it does. Dat ting be bad news, Magnoos.”

  “I’ll deal with it. Did he say anything else?”

  The trader bobbed his head several times. “Yas, yas. After he lets me go, he stands back. I tink he be goin’, but he says real quiet, ‘You ask dat Tarsian if he hear all da talk about da T’nari League.’”

  Magnus’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “What? What League?”

  The Aswani sat forward, his nervous demeanor transforming mercurially into lathered excitement. “Boyo, der be talk all over de portal centers an’ markets where I be tradin’ about dis big group banded togedder out der fightin’ dem fuckin’ Drahks!”

  Magnus dropped his hand to the table as his eyes widened in surprise. “You’re kidding. Who are they?”

  “Der be many rumors I hear, Magnoos boy,” Jindo replied with a knowing nod, falling into the old storytelling mode Magnus remembered from many past encounters with the Aswani trader. “Folk say dem T’nari people be everywhere.”