Word was that the Navy was working on ways to give normal people the same abilities as warp pilots, at least when it came to mind-to-mind chatter. And they had already figured out a way to keep them out of the minds of flag officers. A couple idiots who’d tried to take a peek into the carrier task force’s commander had come back sorry and sore, and been unwilling to share any details, beyond telling everyone that they shouldn’t try it.
For the time being, though, only pilots had those special abilities. The whole thing fell under the heading of ‘FM Systems’ – Fucking Magic, in so many words.
Considering what they were going up against, they would need every last bit of magic they could get.
Interlude: Imperial Decisions
Primus-Four, Galactic Imperium, 167 AFC
Tenacious Quinta, Proxy of Six Billion, was, in her own fairly-accurate estimate, one of the twelve most powerful people in the Galactic Imperium. As a result, she was seldom thwarted, and when it happened, it usually involved one of the relative handful of sophonts who outranked her. The combination of factors made those occasions incredibly vexing.
“Is he serious?” she said, instructing her implants to display her true emotions when translating her words into something her interlocutor could understand. While only one language was spoken in the Imperium, each species had its own spoken version, due to biological limitations. That was but one of the many obstacles the One True Civilization had learned to overcome on its quest towards Unity.
Her own species, the Kreck, communicated through a combination of clicks and pheromone emissions few other beings could perceive, let alone understand. Her current visitor, a male called Tor-Netten, was a Dann, a species of mammalian bipeds who mostly made sounds by pushing air through their vocal cords and expelling it through their largest facial orifice. In addition to their inability to understand spoken Kreck, the Denn found their pheromones to be unbearably vile. The feeling, in Quinta’s case, was completely mutual. She loathed all endo-skeletal beings, particularly bipedal ones.
All paths can lead to Unity.
The Litany of the Imperium helped her set aside the unworthy hate-thought – expressing such out loud was punishable by a fine for someone of her rank, or by a lengthy stay in prison for a mere Voter – and wait for her guest’s answer.
“I am afraid Princeps Boma is unwavering in his decision, Giga-Proxy,” the overly-tall, offensively soft-skinned creature said. “Not only will the Triumvirate agree to accept the Wyrashat’s terms, but the One True Civilization has pledged to cede three additional planetary systems to the Wyrms by way of recompense for their cooperation in ongoing operations.”
The Denn prattled on, listing each system’s name, location and economic data. Quinta ignored the irrelevancies – her implants would record the information for later perusal – while she considered what to say next. Tor-Netten was her highest-placed agent in the Triumvirate, privy to the inner workings of the rulers of the Imperium. The disgusting biped had reached his lofty position through his ability to sexually stimulate the Princeps without interfering with his deliberations. The details involved were revolting to Kreck sensibilities; the Denn’s title, Kisser of the Supreme Arse, was bad enough.
All paths. Unity.
Some paths are highly unpalatable, she replied to herself.
“More importantly,” Tor-Netten added after the pointless litany was over, “the Princeps has convinced his counterparts to liquidate a full third of the Triumvirate’s holdings to help finance the war.”
“Insanity.”
Surrendering Imperium territory to a defeated foe was deplorable, not to mention a breach of centuries of precedent. But the Triumvirate had parted with its property only a handful of times since three warring polities had decided to become one, embarking on the ambitious path that would one day lead to the union of all Starfarers under the Triple Sunburst Sigil. Almost every Triumvirate since the founding had made its assets grow; the exceptions to that rule had happened during the One True Civilization’s darkest times.
Like every other polity, the Imperium relied on taxation to finance its vital services, but the Triumvirate’s vast holdings were a source of discretionary funds meant to be used for the betterment of all. When the leaders of the nation spent not merely their assets’ interest but also the actual principal, it was a portent of doom.
“The Masters of War have revised the conflict’s resource-allocation estimates yet again, Giga-Proxy,” the agent explained. “According to them, subduing the humans will cost nearly twice as much as the previous figures indicated.”
“Which in turn were triple the initial estimate Princeps Boma presented to the Proxy Council,” Quinta noted. “A six-fold increase, and we have barely begun to fight.”
“Much of the initial outlay was passed on to our allies, the Nasstah Union and the Lhan Arkh Congress.”
“And the Nasstah surrendered after one disastrous campaign, and the Lhan Arkh will need to be bailed out after losing four entire fleets in quick succession.”
Anger was an alien emotion to the Kreck, but she was feeling a near-frantic urge to inflict violence on everything around her that could be nothing else. Repressing it took some effort, and it filled the chamber with pheromone emissions that drove Tor-Netten into a coughing fit. The sight of the soft-skinned, disgusting biped’s reaction to her secretions almost pushed her over the edge.
Bipeds! Their bodily structure was inherently unstable; they had to make a continuous effort to remain standing, and their walking motions resembled more a controlled fall than anything a sensibly-designed creature did. Always on the verge of toppling over, it was no wonder they could not find value in stillness or balance but needed to constantly stir things up. Repellent creatures, and the Denn’s leader was the worst of them all.
Humans were bipeds as well. That was something to keep in mind, if only to vent her aggressiveness in their direction.
“I suppose predicted losses will also be commensurably greater,” she pointed out.
“Indeed, Giga-Proxy. Our victory at Drakul System resulted in thirty percent more casualties than anticipated even in the most pessimistic forecasts. And only a small fraction of the enemy force was comprised of humans. Once we enter their space and face their main fleets, our victories will prove to be far more expensive. It is the Princeps intention to do so only when truly overwhelming forces are put in place. A great deal of progress has been made in the effort to gain the assistance of other Starfarer polities. Many civilized peoples cannot fully commit themselves to the conflict but may provide aid. This will require the Imperium to make concessions to them, the costs of which cannot be easily measured.”
“Costs in treasure and blood. Costs in political bribery to Non-Unity outsiders. In both cases, costs that cannot be borne for long.”
The spy made a gesture of agreement before continuing. “As an aside, it pleases me to report that an operation aimed at killing the enemy’s War Masters was recently carried out. Its success is likely to reduce the final costs involved in removing Humans from the galaxy.”
“Insanity,” Quinta repeated. Killing leaders was never a good idea. It could inspire all kinds of wrong-thought among others, leading to the targeting of those whose breeding and status placed in leadership roles. People like herself, in other words.
“I…” the agent began to say before freezing in mid-word. He was in some form of distress, if his bulging single-faceted eyes and sudden loss of skin color were any indication. Before Quinta could do or say anything, Tor-Netten went into convulsions for several seconds before collapsing in a heap on the ground, as bipeds were wont to do. A proper six-legged creature like a Kreck would have simply settled down and died with some semblance of dignity, she thought amidst the shock at the sudden demise of her spy.
Just as the corpse stopped moving, the door to the private chamber – the highly-secure and shielded door – slid open as casually as the entrance of a public establishment. Through it entered P
rinceps Jan-Boma, First Among the Denn and senior member of the Triumvirate.
Kreck expressed panic by fully extending their sensory antennae and freezing in place, in a last-ditch attempt to find a means of escape certain death. Quinta didn’t succumb to the base emotion, however, and deliberately lowered her body in the proper form of obeisance one of her rank conferred upon the most powerful being in the Imperium. If these were to be her last moments, she would at least live through them with the proper deportment.
“My dear Giga-Proxy,” the Princeps began to say, then paused as his olfactory organs – a pair of short pseudo-digits placed over his mouth – recoiled in disgust. “My apologies. It appears that the traitor Tor-Netten voided himself as he died. I’m sure the stench is even more unpleasant to someone with your refined senses.”
So it was. Denn expelled a great deal of water along with their wastes, and the resulting swampy smell had the same effect on her chemical receptors as a continuous ringing sound would to a Denn’s ears. Quinta set her discomfort aside as readily as the fear she still felt. She was a Giga-Proxy, trusted by six billion sophonts to speak and act on their behalf, and she would go to her death without losing control over her base impulses.
“How may I serve you, Your Supreme Benevolence?” she asked without deigning to mention either the killing or the chemical secretions of its victim.
“I must confess to eavesdropping on your conversation with my treacherous arse-kisser,” Boma said. He sat down on a different chair, well away from the oozing corpse. “I was not amused by having our councils spied upon, even by someone as respected as yourself. Perhaps especially by someone of your rank, since you should have known better. Some things must be left to the Triumvirate.”
“You are of course correct, Your Supreme Benevolence. I have erred, and crave your forgiveness,” Quinta said meekly, feeling a spark of hope.
He wants something from me.
A Princeps had too many demands on his time to waste it on someone guilty of spying on the Triumvirate’s secret meetings. This whole display – activating the kill-switch on the unfaithful servant, and the follow-up personal appearance – was meant to intimidate her into submission. The Proxy Council had no control over foreign affairs, but the ongoing conflict was making harsh demands on Voters from all walks of life. Without the full support of the Proxies who spoke for the Voter class, the Imperium would not be able to continue waging this insane war.
Threatening her life wouldn’t change her mind, either. Everything Tor-Netten had told her before his untimely demise still stood: the Triumvirate was leading the One True Civilization to disaster and financial ruin. And over what? Fear of a minor civilization, a fear based on ancient legends and religious beliefs? Absurd!
Quinta relished her power and prestige. As a Giga-Proxy, she influenced the lives of all those who entrusted her to that role, and many more besides them. Her wealth and power effectively set her above the law, provided she was adequately discreet. But along with that power came an equally great responsibility. Her Voters supported her only as long as she acted on their behalf – or at least appeared to do so. Lose their confidence, and it would all come crashing down. It wasn’t quite that simple, of course – power, once delegated, was not easily or quickly retrieved – but if she failed her people, she would eventually pay the price. And beyond the merely practical, she was committed to the welfare of the Imperium, not least because it was irrevocably bound to her own.
“I live to serve the Unity, Your Supreme Benevolence,” she said.
“That is all I ask. I will try to be brief and explain my case. You do know that I have an uncommonly-high warp rating, do you not, Giga-Proxy?”
“I do.”
One could not rule the premier Starfarer polity without the ability to travel between stars. A mere three percent of the citizenship of the Imperium could endure faster-than-light travel at all; a mere fifth of those had the requisite mental affinities needed to navigate the otherworldly space commonly known as the Chaos Lanes or the Twisting Void. Boma was among the most gifted of that elite, someone who suffered minimum discomfort while undergoing warp transit. One might say he had an almost human-like tolerance to the mind-rending energies of the Void.
“It is well-known that while traversing the Chaos Lanes, one can catch glimpses of times and places beyond our own,” the Princeps went on.
“So it is said,” Quinta said, with a lot less certainty. The Imperium’s Chaotic Space experts were deeply divided on that question. The prevailing consensus was that any such input consisted of random waking dreams, but a vocal minority claimed that traversing the Void could instill some degree of extrasensory perception. While warp navigators liked to convey a sense of mysticism around them, their eccentricities were largely dismissed by right-thinking beings as signs of psychological instability. Many Starfarer legends spoke of ‘warp savants’ whose prophecies had influenced entire civilizations, only to be unmasked as mere charlatans or babbling maniacs. The moral of those stories was simple: never surrender logic to the whims of superstition.
“Would it surprise you to know I have had visions of the future, Mega-Proxy?”
“It would, Your Supreme Benevolence.”
The rumors are true. The Denn Princeps is a madman.
“I was very young at the time,” Boma explained. “The Chief Navigator of my father’s star-yacht suffered a seizure while in transition. The co-pilots were able to complete the jump, but we were stranded in the Chaos Lanes for an uncommonly long time. The six-hour trip became an eighteen-hour nightmare, and we had not been sedated for such a lengthy jaunt. Several crewmembers and passengers died; many others were driven insane.”
Including you, Quinta thought.
“I saw the future of the galaxy, written in blood. I saw that the Humans would bring doom to us all, although at first I didn’t know who those creatures were, only that they were very Denn-like, except for their short and motionless proboscis. I couldn’t have named them, you see, because I had my vision many centuries before Earth’s First Contact. In fact, it took a long time before I understood the import of what I had been shown.”
“That is a remarkable tale, Your Supreme Benevolence,” Quinta said.
“And hard to believe, yes. But once Sol System and its Human inhabitants were discovered, I finally recognized the threat. In a surprisingly short amount of time, those creatures have amassed a degree of influence totally out of proportion to their numbers. Did you know that human pilots now help move nearly five percent of all civilian trade between stars? Despite comprising a fraction of a percent of the population of the galaxy?”
“That is due to the species’ surprisingly high warp tolerance, I believe.”
“They are very amenable to the Twisting Void, yes. They can handle its horrors with surprising ease. I believe you have ventured through the Chaos Lanes only sparingly, Giga-Proxy.”
“You are correct, My Princeps.”
Quinta’s warp tolerance was barely adequate to allow her to travel between stars, and she found the experience profoundly disturbing. For the most part, she was content living in Primus System, the capital of the Imperium, which had been designed to house its rulers quite comfortably. Three of Primus’ five inhabitable worlds had been transformed to accommodate its three primary species. Primus-One was perfectly suited for the Kreck, Primus-Two had been transformed into a close replica of the Denn homeworld, and Primus-Three served the needs of the amphibian Obans equally well. The remaining worlds were compromises of sort, not ideal for any species but within everybody’s preferred ranges of atmosphere, gravity and luminosity: uncomfortable but tolerable for all, in other words. She rarely left Primus-One’s confines, and hated it whenever she was forced to do so. This visit to Primus-Four, the seat of the Triumvirate, was proving to be no exception.
“Your aversion to warp travel is understandable. The Chaos Lanes are a necessary evil, but they are indeed evil. They can change those who expose themselves to
it for too long. The legends are true. The Void can turn sophonts into monsters. And humans are well along on that path.
“I have something to show you, Giga-Proxy,” Boma went on. “For the time being, this information is restricted to a very select few. Not even your spy was privy to it. Will you do me the courtesy to examine it before you consider my request for your support?”
“I live to serve the Imperium and the Unity,” she repeated, which was truthful enough, if not what the Princeps wanted to hear.
“Then watch, Quinta, and learn.”
The images that flooded her senses came from a direct transmission from the Princeps, a beamed upload that couldn’t be intercepted by normal means. She saw what appeared to be a partial endoskeleton from some species she couldn’t recognize, painted black and fused to some device. A warp aperture appeared behind whatever that was, and swallowed it hole, leaving behind the darkness of deep space.
More imagery followed, telemetry from ships’ sensor systems. In every scene, the skeleton that was also a ship jumped in and out of real space, appearing close enough to other vessels that its small size became apparent, and destroyed them with some form of enhanced graviton beam she’d never seen before. Quinta was not well-versed in military matters, so she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing, but the tiny vessel – or vessels, although she only saw on them at a time, and it never seemed to be destroyed – annihilated dozens of enemy warships with contemptible ease.
“What am I seeing, Your Supreme Benevolence? Is it a new human starship?”
“No, Giga-Proxy. Something far worse. An artifact from the past, but also a glimpse of a possible future. If we allow it to come to pass.”
The small ship was incredibly deadly – assuming the footage was real, of course. Her implants identified its prey as Lhan Arkh warships. While Quinta felt nothing but contempt for the ugly aliens and their so-called Congress, their fleet was rather respectable. If the Lhan Arkh could fall prey to the likes of that flying skeleton, so could the One True Civilization.
In Dread Silence (Warp Marine Corps Book 4) Page 8
