Assault Troopers

by Vaughn Heppner

  After three jumps, we met the Starkiens, the contractors who would pilot the frigates and corvettes to take us into the Altair system.

  I had no idea what Claath had told them about us. My introduction to the Starkiens came a few days later aboard one of their vessels.

  N7 entered our training area and told me to accompany him to the meeting.

  “Now?” I asked.

  My maniple practiced hand-to-hand combat on the mats, with my secondmen prowling around to make sure no one became too angry.

  “It is time,” N7 said. Like before, he wore cyber-armor and carried a sidearm. He looked like the perfect choirboy with artificially fair features, trusting eyes and smooth, bio-plastic skin. He had the stamp of perfection: not of a Nietzsche superman but of the ultimate butt-kissing underling.

  “Do I need to wear my bio-suit?” I asked.

  “Negative,” N7 said.

  “Let me shower first.”

  “Come now,” N7 said. “It is an order.”

  I’d fought several practice rounds with several of my soldiers and my shirt was sweaty, while a welt showed on my left cheek because one of the boys had almost pinned me.

  “Sure, boss,” I said. “And if my stench offends the Starkiens, then what?”

  “The Starkiens are under Jelk command,” N7 said. “Your odor or lack thereof is meaningless.”

  “Negative,” I said. “I’m the Earth rep and I’m showering and shaving. Gotta look presentable, you know. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be with you.”

  “I have given you an order,” N7 said.

  “That’s right. And I’m complying with the order…after I take a shower.”

  The android drew his sidearm, pointing the barrel at my face so I could see inside the pitted orifice. This gun had been used plenty of times, which I found interesting.

  I grinned, and made a show of looking around the crowded chamber. My maniple of troopers had already stopped practicing, most of them lying on the mats and breathing heavily. They now stood to their feet and glowered at N7.

  “Hey, how about that,” I said. “If you shoot me, these mercenaries will tear you to pieces.”

  “I do not fear destruction,” N7 said.

  “Bully for you,” I said. “That makes you a fool and a liability.”

  N7 stepped closer so the barrel bumped against my forehead.

  “A good soldier fears death,” I told him. “The fear helps motivate the soldier to action and thereby keeps him alive to fight again another day.”

  “Fear is akin to cowardice,” N7 said. “Cowardice is against the laws of androids.”

  “You want to obey Claath’s orders, is that right?” I asked, deciding on a different tack.

  “I do obey. Now you must obey.”

  “Right,” I said. “If you’re torn to pieces—destroyed—you will not have obeyed Claath’s order to go to the Starkien meeting. You will have made those orders impossible. I, too, will be missing. In fact, our arguing with each other is eating up time. I’m going to shower and then I’ll be right with you.”

  For the first time since he’d entered the chamber, N7’s head swiveled as he surveyed my maniple of troopers inching toward him.

  Abruptly, he holstered his sidearm, folded his plastic arms across his chest and half turned away from me.

  I hadn’t liked the barrel pressed against my forehead and I hadn’t been sure which way N7 would jump. Maybe it had been foolish pushing him so far, but I had my reasons for wanting to be presentable to the Starkiens. I’d also just gained more credibility in the eyes of my men, and showed them what kind of human-haters the androids were.

  “Good choice, chief,” I told him. “Rollo, finish the exercises. Then use your best judgment. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” With that, I jogged for the nearest shower. I didn’t want to keep the android waiting.

  ***

  I wore a jumpsuit uniform, my Bowie knife and a spacesuit with the helmet hanging on the back near my neck. I rode beside N7 in a shuttle he piloted.

  Behind us drifted seven Jelk battlejumpers, ugly, utilitarian vessels. Our shuttle was a speck compared to them. Below swirled an orange gas giant maybe one hundred thousand kilometers away. Outlined against the gas giant drifted a hundred or so shark-shaped spacecraft. They looked deadly, but what did I know about space battle? Precious little was the answer.

  Much farther away, about half the size of the moon as seen from Earth, blazed this system’s sun. How far were we from the solar system? Three jumps away, I knew, but what did that mean?

  “Those are the pirate ships?” I asked, pointing at the shark-shaped vessels.

  “That is the Starkien contract fleet,” N7 said.

  “There are a lot of them.”

  N7 ignored the comment.

  I glanced at him sidelong. Something had been bothering me for some time. Why had the Jelk made the androids based on humans from Earth? Had that occurred on a whim? Or was there a significant reason for it?

  “How old are you, N7?” I asked.

  He surprised me by answering. “Five standard years,” he said.

  “How long is a standard year compared to an Earth year?” I asked.

  “I am six and half Earth years old,” he said.

  “You’re young.”

  “No. I have survived three times the average timespan of an N-series android.”

  “Oh,” I said. I wondered why his kind lived such short lives. So I asked him.

  N7 took his time answering, finally saying, “We are mining androids.”

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “The N-series are normally used to mine high-gravity planets or work the extractors of particularly massive gas giants.”

  “Why did Claath change you and the others to a military model?” I asked.

  “One does not question a Jelk directive.”

  “No, I suppose not,” I said. “You were given battle upgrades, I presume.”

  “Of course,” N7 said.

  “Five standard years, huh? So…you’re born as adults?”

  N7 glanced at me with his expressionless eyes. “Why do you ask these questions?”

  “Just passing the time,” I said. And figuring out what makes you androids tick.

  He glanced at me again. “I do not believe you, Firstman Creed. You are a clever beast and you—”

  “Hey,” I said, grabbing an arm. “Let’s get one thing straight. Claath gets to call me a beast because he gave Earth the freighters.” And because I’m going to drag him by the throat until I rub all his flesh down to the bones. “You, on the other hand, can call me a man.”

  N7 stared into my eyes, and said, “Beast.”

  Don’t do it, Creed. You gotta use Mr. Plastic-man. One, two, three… I grinned ruefully. “Sure, you hate my guts. I get it. And you’re jealous of the real humans. Maybe I can’t blame you. I—”

  “Desist,” he said. “Your guile will not succeed on me. You are the android-killer. We know you, Firstman Creed. No android will succumb to your cleverness again.”

  “Is that groupthink?” I asked. “You androids all think as a team?”

  “You are witnessing a survival mechanism built into all androids of the N-series,” he said. “Once we comprehend a danger, we remember it and act accordingly. We grow.”

  “You grow, huh? That’s great. So what about these Starkiens? What can you tell me about them?”

  “You and I are attending a strategy session,” N7 said. “There, we shall plan the assault tactics.”

  I raised my eyebrows. The Starkiens interested me. I knew absolutely nothing about them except that they were pirates—at least by Claath’s reckoning. What’s more, they were hirable contractors. I suspected Claath would give them a cut of the take from the Altair Object. It seemed to imply the Starkiens wouldn’t care if others knew they’d done this. Claath, on the other hand, didn’t want anyone to know about his or the corporation’s involvement. Why would that interest me? Maybe
humanity would need to hire a few contractors someday. I had plans, but I knew nothing about the interstellar situation. Here was a chance to learn more.

  Well, I take back that I didn’t know anything. I knew a few things. The Lokhars fought the corporation. The Jelk lived for profits and I would make every jack tar of them pay for what had happened to my beloved world.

  N7 and I traveled the rest of the way in silence, docked beside the largest of the shark-shaped vessels—it was the size of a city block—and waited as reverberating clangs and clanks told of heavy machines operating around us.

  Finally, N7 rose and donned his helmet. I did likewise. We exited the shuttle and soon floated weightlessly down extremely narrow corridors. The bulkheads seemed to close in around us and the corridors turned much too sharply at times. I noticed fist-sized portholes along the bottom of the wall like giant mouse holes. I had no idea what they were for.

  At last, without any guards or Starkiens in sight, we reached a small entrance. It opened, and N7 and I had to duck to enter a wide and far too low of a chamber filled with creatures.

  Gravity took hold in the chamber, almost catching me by surprise. N7 knelt before a large, kidney-shaped table and took off his helmet. I took off mine too and an animal stench hit me like a sucker punch. It was worse than a barn, more like some monkey exhibit at a zoo where the attendants had forgotten to clean the cages. I had to work from holding my nose or making a face. Couldn’t androids smell?

  The Starkiens were the size of baboons and looked as furry and as ugly. They sported long canines at the end of their snouts and most had manes like a lion or a dominant male baboon. Each wore a harness of straps and buckles over their furry, smelly bodies and they drank from silver-colored teacups, or what looked like teacups. It was a disconcerting image to see them stretch their lips past those fangs and take dainty sips.

  I counted fourteen Starkiens in the low-ceilinged chamber. I sat down, sitting cross-legged, refusing to kneel as N7 did. The ceiling loomed a mere inch above our heads now. If we’d remained standing, we would have had to stoop the entire time. I wondered if the Starkiens had chosen this room for a reason. Was it a tactic or joke on their part to make bigger creatures kneel?

  The heaviest Starkien must have weighed sixty, maybe seventy pounds. There were computer screens along the walls, controls and a big holo image in the center of the kidney-shaped table. None of the Starkiens sat on chairs, but squatted as you’d expect baboon-like creatures to do.

  Why did they smell so bad? Their fur looked sleek and smooth, as if it was well groomed, not like some matted offal. I breathed through my mouth, almost gagging several times.

  “Greetings, N7,” the biggest Starkien said. He had white or gray streaks in his fur, and his muzzle was more wrinkled than any others present.

  “Greetings, Naga Gobo,” N7 said.

  “That’s his name?” I whispered.

  “Naga is his name,” N7 whispered back to me. “Gobo is his rank. It means lord of ships.”

  “Got it,” I whispered.

  “Is there trouble?” Naga Gobo asked. He’d keenly watched our exchange. “Your beast seems restless. Will he heel to your command?”

  “He is well,” N7 said.

  “I can speak for myself,” I said. Who were these horribly smelling aliens that they figured they could call me a beast? They were the creatures.

  Their reaction surprised me. All fourteen Starkiens drew weapons from their harnesses and aimed short, ugly tubes at me.

  “Tell your fighting beast to heel,” Naga Gobo said. “The Jelk assured us the creature could comprehend commands and would not run amok among us.”

  “Have you taken a good look at N7?” I said. I couldn’t believe this. Why did all the aliens think we were beasts? “Do you see any differences between the two of us?”

  The Starkiens watched me through narrowed eyes. None of the weapon-tubes wavered or moved away.

  “You may put up your slugthrowers,” N7 said. “Shah Claath has given you his word. The Earthbeast will remain calm in your presence.”

  “You should have already taught your animal to know its place in front of its betters,” Naga Gobo said.

  I swallowed my retorts. These were aliens. Stench had nothing to do with their abilities and scientific knowledge. Yeah. Maybe this was why Claath had wanted me to come. Maybe the Jelk wished me to understand my place in the interstellar community. To the Starkiens, I was a beast. To the Jelk and the Lokhars, I was a beast, a wild thing to use and possibly tame for combat. It was time to absorb the reality of the situation. The fact that we on Earth would have considered the Starkiens as animals wasn’t lost on me.

  It went even deeper, though. To the interstellar crowd, Earthers were the bottom of the heap. Fighting beasts—did other star-faring races use creatures to fight their wars? Yes…hadn’t Claath’s idea been to capture several hundred million humans to fight as slave creatures among the stars?

  The more I learned, the less I liked it. Even if we could free ourselves from under the Jelk thumb, how would the rest of the interstellar races treat us?

  Wait and learn, I told myself. See what this Forerunner object is supposed to be anyway. Maybe it’s something you can use.

  The strategy session quickly became interesting. Naga Gobo adjusted some controls below the tabletop and a fast-spinning, A-class star appeared in the holo image. It was the star Altair, and it rotated quickly enough to make it an oblong sun with a flattened top and bottom.

  Planets appeared in bright blue around Altair. The first four were Mars-like planets, while the next two were gas giants, two supersized Jupiter-like monsters. Between the gas giants was a thicker-than-normal asteroid belt.

  Naga Gobo continued to manipulate the controls, bringing the asteroid belt up close and then picking a small area of it and zooming in. Soon enough, a silvery torus appeared. As the zoom continued, the torus grew, and so did a veritable host of orbiting rocks and sandy debris around it.

  “The Altair Object,” Naga Gobo declared.

  The Starkiens around the conference table began to stir and lean toward the holo image. I’d been getting used to the smell. It worsened as they moved, and I endured, waiting for the sharpness of the stench to weaken again or for me to get used to it. Several of creatures got twitchy fingers, some of them opening and closing their baboon-like hands. It made the Starkiens seem like thieves eager to grab the object and dash out of the room with it.

  They’re contract pirates indeed, I thought to myself. It’s a wonder Claath trusts them at all.

  “The file is old,” Naga Gobo said, indicating the holo image. “But I was assured it is an original and contains trusted data. Notice the gun emplacements to the right.”

  The holo image zoomed again, focusing on one of the small asteroids circling the object. My eyes widened. It seemed like a regular, rocky asteroid, but the surface held several black-matted structures, looking like octagonal bio-domes.

  “The firing domes are of Lokhar design,” N7 noted.

  Naga Gobo nodded. “The Lokhar Fifth Legion is far from home, but it’s said that each legionary has sworn an oath to the Jade League to protect the Forerunner artifact as if it was their home planet.”

  Questions bubbled on the tip of my tongue, but I kept my mouth shut. I listened and tried to learn.

  “The Jade League has declared the Altair system sacred to the Creator,” Naga Gobo said. “Every member of the league has signed a compact in agreement with the theocratic principle. If we attempt this mission and are found out…the league members will increase their efforts to annihilate the Starkiens.”

  I turned away from the holo image to look at Naga Gobo. “Let me get this straight,” I said. “We’re making the attack on holy ground, or in holy space?”

  Naga Gobo growled angrily. “Why must your beast utter speech at me? It is offensive and insulting. The creature should speak to you, not to us.”

  “The Lokhars attacked their home planet,” N7
said. “Until then, the Earthbeasts knew nothing about civilization.”

  Naga Gobo sniffed in an exaggerated manner. “This is true?”

  “The Lokhars used thermonuclear warheads on their main urban centers,” N7 said gravely, “and laced the atmosphere with level five bio-terminators.”

  “Barbaric,” Naga Gobo grunted.

  “Before their awaking several months ago, the Earthbeasts believed themselves cultured and highly civilized,” N7 said, “even though they continued to practice similar genocidal tactics upon each other.”

  Once again, Naga Gobo sniffed exaggeratedly.

  “The Earthbeasts desire revenge upon the Lokhars,” N7 added.

  “I realize this and do not need an android explaining the obvious,” Naga Gobo said.

  N7 dipped his head as if apologizing.

  “Shah Claath is cunning,” Naga Gobo told the assembled.

  The other Starkiens nodded, with their lips pulling back to reveal their fangs. I’d swear it was a Starkien grin or smile of appreciation.

  “Yes,” Naga Gobo said, “It is possible Claath engineered the event in order to gain these fiercely motivated battle-creatures. However, if he did so, the Lokhar took the bait too well and killed too many humans.”

  N7 glanced at me, but I kept my features impassive. This was an idea I’d have to explore.

  “The Lokhar Empire grows with the passing of each year,” Naga Gobo said. “They have become first in the Jade League and they desire a holy war against the Jelk Corporation.”

  “I realize that you have spoken with Shah Claath,” N7 said. “You are aware of the importance of the Forerunner artifacts to the league. The Lokhars particularly venerate each artifact and the star system where it resides. They believe the First Ones built the objects.”

  “I am aware of Lokhar primary doctrine,” Naga Gobo said. “I’m surprised an N-series android should speak of such things.”

  “Shah Claath instructed me—”

  Naga Gobo held up one of his hands. “This is a strategy session. Let us stick to the issue and not become sidetracked.”