by Barry Kirwan
Ramires’ mind clouded, and he gave up on thinking about the never-ending war between Alicians and humans that had already consumed so much of his life, and thought instead about the one woman he cared for, the only person who had ever given him some respite, and happiness. He prayed he would see Sandy before the end.
Kat stared down at the Q’Roth carcass at her feet. “Vashta’s rifle works.”
Aramisk finished inspecting the second bubbling corpse and joined Kat. “Of course it works. You have to stop thinking Level Three. The higher intelligent races – and Vashta is Ossyrian, Level Eight – don’t brag or exaggerate.”
Kat hated lectures. “Whatever.”
Aramisk held a hand under Kat’s chin, the Mannekhi way of saying ‘listen to me’. It was aggressive, but Kat liked it, because with Aramisk it was often followed by a kiss, sometimes more.
But this time Aramisk’s demeanour was serious.
“Not ‘whatever’, Kat. It is never ‘whatever’. You humans must look deeper, seek understanding, or else you will remain at the bottom of the galactic heap.” She sighed and removed her hand.
“We Mannekhi are precise because we deal with higher Grid species.” She glanced down at the fizzing Q’Roth mass as the nannites turned its body into mush. “When higher races visit your world for the first time, they assess you quickly; culling and enslavement are never far off their agenda.” She met Kat’s eyes. “First impressions count in the galaxy; you have no idea.”
Kat knew of the Mannekhi’s ‘patronage’ by their Masters – not far short of enslavement – for tens of thousands of years. She lay a hand on Aramisk’s shoulder. “I’ll try.”
Kat touched her wristcom. “Micah, there’s been a development. She angled her wrist downwards, showing the two dead Q’Roth.
“So I see,” he said. “I’m checking sensors. No one else is around you, but they’ll be missed for sure. I want you to enter the city, Kat.”
“Aramisk can’t, her Mannekhi eyes –”
“Aramisk needs to stay with the Rapier, keep a target lock on the base of the tether.”
Kat turned to look at it, a hundred metres away, a cylinder of glistening metal as wide as a house sunk kilometres into the ground, rising impossibly straight, disappearing into the haze of blue sky above.
“Ramires and Ash?” she asked.
Micah’s voice sounded taut. “Captured. That’s why I’m sending you in. Plan D: recon only, Kat, nothing more, understood?”
“Sure,” she replied, a crooked smile playing across her lips as she caught Aramisk’s eye. Aramisk shook her head.
“I want open comms, Kat, and continuous cam-feed. And don’t forget the Spider, we need to locate it as well as the captives.”
“Okay, I just need a minute.” She broke the connection. Aramisk had her back to her. “Are you okay?” Kat asked.
Aramisk spoke but didn’t turn around. “Ash told me to leave you alone.”
Kat flared “He had no right –”
“But he is right, Katrina. Go find your wife and the others. Concentrate or you will perish here, dragging the rest of us down with you.”
Kat suddenly felt foolish; she’d been behaving like a teenager; it was her way of dealing with intense situations, always had been. Aramisk and Ash were right. Still, she’d developed feelings for Aramisk these past few weeks. Kat lowered her voice. “Let me see your eyes one more time, please.”
“When you return.” She walked away and left the clearing.
Kat watched her go, then walked to the camouflaged Rapier’s airlock, and stepped inside, putting down Vashta’s Q’Roth-killer rifle – she couldn’t very well walk into the city toting it. She picked up a set of stiletto blades and a single barrel device which she stuck in her pocket, and switched on the cam bracelet, as well as the mike, lodging the micro-earpiece in her left ear.
“Okay, Micah, I’m heading in.” Kat walked back out, half-expecting to see Aramisk there to wave her off, but she’d disappeared into the bushes.
“Fucking Level Six,” she muttered.
“What?” Micah said.
Kat broke into a trot. “Nothing,” she replied.
Threading a pathway through the foliage towards the city’s outskirts, she began thinking about Antonia, who she’d not seen for two years. Images of happier times coursed through her head. Though her body had occasionally begged to differ in the past, Kat knew in her heart that she could only love one person at a time. Reaching the top of a hill, she glimpsed the central tower where Ramires and Ash had last been seen. She took one last look behind, toward the Rapier, the tether, and wherever her alien lover was hiding. Thanks for saving my sanity.
Kat launched herself down the other side, gathering speed with each long pace.
Ramires awoke with his head in Sandy’s lap. She stroked his hair.
“You didn’t kill the bitch then?” she said.
With an effort, grimacing from residual pains in his legs and right arm, he sat up. They were in some kind of glass-fronted cell. Antonia sat at the far end of the same narrow marble bench, watching him.
“How do you know?” he asked. His head cleared. “And how long have I been here?”
“Six guards brought you about an hour ago.” She gave him a smile. “An impressive escort given that you were lashed to a stretcher and unconscious.” Then her smile faded, and she filled him in on the failsafe chemical device implanted in all the captives, and the fifteen minute fuse if they left the compound or Louise died.
“That complicates matters,” Ramires said.
“Or simplifies them,” Sandy replied.
Ramires drew back. “I didn’t come all this way –”
“You’re a Sentinel. That’s why I fell in love with you.”
Ramires considered their options. The failsafe was unanticipated. None of their plans took it into account. And he and Ash – where was Ash? Being interrogated probably, or more likely mind-scanned, so they’d find out about Micah and Shiva soon enough. Louise had too much leverage now. The time-proven Sentinel solution to such a scenario was clear. Sandy was right.
“Why did she keep me alive?” he asked.
Sandy spoke to the floor. “She wants you to train the Alicians to be better fighters, so that they are ready when the war reaches Savange.”
He got to his feet. “Train the enemy? A Sentinel training Alicians? She… Louise is deranged! We’re not just blood enemies, our war goes back almost a thousand years.”
Sandy stood up. “And I don’t want her to have any hold over you. I know your DNA is practically hardwired to fight Alicians, and Louise is the sickest –” Sandy cut herself off, and turned away.
Ramires studied her a moment. Most people hated Louise because she’d sent one of the refugee ships into the heart of a sun, two thousand souls vaporised in an instant. But for Sandy, Louise had taken her prior lover, Vince. It was personal. One of Sandy’s traits was that she never forgave; it meant she had fewer friends than most, but from his point of view it made her the perfect partner for a Sentinel.
She turned back, laid her hands on his shoulders, and cleared her throat. “She can’t... mustn’t have a hold on you. It would destroy you, and me.” She bit her lip. “Do you… do you remember what you told me once, about… releasing angels? We have to show her we can’t be controlled like… like goats, being nourished until the day they slit our throats.”
His mouth opened, but no words came out. Though he’d considered it earlier, now, with her right in front of him… Ramires swallowed, then clasped her shoulders, pulling her close to him.
“Do it now,” she said. “I don’t want that bitch to control you, not for one second. Just make it quick.”
He inhaled the scent of her hair, felt the soft warm flesh of her cheek against his. He kissed her neck, felt the pulse in her carotid.
“Now,” she whispered.
His left hand moved to her neck, her body trembling against his. He closed his eyes and imagined t
hat his master Cheveyo was standing there. ‘Release this angel’, he’d say. Ramires took a deep breath, brought his other hand up to the back of her head. His hands shook. They’d never shaken before, not once in all those kills. He began to apply pressure, Sandy not resisting in the slightest.
Antonia collided with him, her elbow jabbing into his ribs with more power than he’d have given her credit for. Pushed aside, he let go of Sandy.
Antonia stood, red-faced, and howled at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She turned on Sandy, who stood like a statue. “Both of you. Stop this crap right now!”
Ramires took a step towards Antonia, raising his palms. In all the time he’d known her he’d never once heard her swear. Before he could speak, she shouted again, clenched fists shaking by her sides.
“I don’t want to hear it, Ramires, whatever you’re going to say.” She pointed to the glass wall. “They must be… pissing themselves laughing at us.” Her voice quavered. “We’re giving them quite a show, don’t you think?”
Sandy reached out for one of Antonia’s wrists. Antonia slapped her hand away.
“Antonia,” Ramires said, “You don’t understand –”
“And I don’t ever want to. You’re a warrior, the last and best one alive so I’ve heard. Well, prove it to me. Damned well fight them. Find another way.”
Ramires glanced from Antonia to the glass wall, then back to Sandy, who stood bolt upright, but was trembling. He gently put his arms around her.
Antonia moved back to where she’d been sitting earlier, drew her knees up to her chest, and locked her arms around them, eyes glaring at the glass wall.
Ramires brushed a lock of Sandy’s blonde fringe out of her eyes, and spoke softly, nodding his head towards Antonia. “Is she normally like this?”
Sandy tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat. She buried her head in his shoulder.
A while later Ramires walked across to Antonia.
Without looking up, she addressed him, anger in her voice. “We’re being monitored, you know.”
“Then sing,” he said, “sing loudly.”
She glared at him once, then complied, something in Russian, from what he could tell. He bent forward and whispered into her ear that Kat had come for her. Antonia’s voice cracked and descended into a cough.
He wondered if he could find another way, wondering if Micah had moved to Plan F yet, in which case it would all be over soon.
Ramires heard heavy, booted footsteps. Ten armed guards arrived. They fired at him point blank through the glass wall and he buckled onto the ground, fizzing blue arcs of electricity dancing over his body. Amidst shouts of abuse and hammering fists from both women, the guards disengaged the glass door and took him from the cell, binding his hands and feet with mag-cuffs. As he was dragged away, he saw Antonia on the ground, her lip split. She met his eyes, defiant, and he recalled her words.
Half an hour later, Ramires was shoved through a doorway into a circular pit with high walls. He landed roughly on a sandstone floor, tasting dust, and was nearly deafened by angry jeers from spectators above. The cuffs around his wrists and ankles opened and fell to the floor. He brushed himself off as he got up, and kicked them aside. He stared upwards at the faces peering down at him over metal railings.
The door opened again and three young men sauntered in, muscular, tattooed, brimming with bravado, each brandishing two curved knives. They were greeted by cheers. The door closed.
Eight seconds later they were on the floor, one dead, the other two wracked by spasms as blood spurted from slashed throats. The crowd hushed.
“Lesson number one,” Ramires shouted to the audience above. “If you want them to survive long enough to learn anything, don’t give them weapons.”
Scanning a sea of hostile faces, he found the one he was searching for: Louise. It wasn’t too hard. She was the only one smiling. And then he saw someone sitting next to her. Their eyes locked in recognition, one Sentinel to another.
In Kalaran’s judgment there was no such thing as a good day to die. And yet here he was, about to challenge Qorall, one-on-one. As a Kalarash, he felt responsible; when they’d first come across Qorall, he had been an outsider from a backwater sector of the universe, Level Eighteen, an incredible find, a prodigy. They’d taken him in, and Kalaran and the others had helped him advance. Only Hellera had urged caution, but she’d been over-ruled. That had already cost them their home galaxy, and although there were plenty of galaxies around, Kalaran wasn’t going to let it happen again. Even so, it wasn’t easy after two billion years of sentience to contemplate one’s own demise. It wasn’t simply about ego, either; how do you sacrifice for the higher good when you are the higher good?
His plan had been running in the background for millennia. He had been the only one of the seven remaining Kalarash that had developed a contingency plan in case Qorall had survived the last war, the others believing him dead. Unfortunately, Qorall’s onslaught had been far more vicious than anticipated, with many new weapons, and a base that seemed impregnable. High stakes required bold moves, and Kalaran accepted that at the end of the day, the Kalarash weren’t Gods, weren’t permanent fixtures in the universe, they were just players in the game who had a limited time like everyone else, just longer than most. Still, it was difficult to make his final move knowing he wouldn’t be there to see how the game ended.
His ship held the full spectrum of weapons, from molecular scramblers and subspace mines to dark-energy disruptors and star-imploders, but when fighting an equal, the small stuff didn’t count. Both his and Qorall’s ships had vastly resilient immune systems capable of identifying and rejecting invasive organics. It came down to who hit the hardest and the smartest. And in Kalaran’s case, just how much he was willing to sacrifice.
His ship punched into the system where the Xera homeworld was in the process of resurrection. Qorall had flooded the sector with liquid space rendering it a ghostly green. Four of Kalaran’s allies – Ukrull, Pierre, Jen and Dimitri – remained in play. He vowed to get them out before the battle got too hot. He trimmed his ship’s shields and drives to adapt to the liquid space properties that would otherwise leach power from his weapons.
Six Level Sixteen Nchkani vessels took up position at the outer edge of the system. Kalaran held a tinge of admiration for their design, there was a certain panache about them – obsidian ovoids festooned with feather-like spines, each holding a dizzying arsenal. But the Nchkani were only Level Sixteen, and did not yet possess the ability to manipulate gravity, unlike the Tla Beth, whom they aimed to replace if Qorall won.
It was never easy to kill a species he’d helped evolve over millions of years, but the Kalarash always squashed rebellions, one of their few rules. He dispatched a gravity weapon Qorall knew well enough but was unheard of in this galaxy, a Hell-Class weapon he’d not used for aeons, and had once argued should be banned. But the rules of war were bound only by three factors: the laws of physics, ingenuity and sheer force of will. He had to send a message. Besides, the weapon had a side-effect that fitted his plan. Kalaran watched, knowing any Nchkani caught by it were already dead, their short ten thousand year lifespans about to be snuffed out.
The net, a purple veil, fluoresced through space as it sped toward the ships. Three of the captains had the sense to jump their ships out of the system. The other three separated but were sucked back together. As the net closed around them, first their spines crumbled, melting like wax, then the hulls cracked apart, spilling their occupants into a gravity gradient that pulverised them. A torrent of explosions erupted in a spasmodic and futile fit of rage, then all three ships melded into a ball, becoming smaller, harder, silent; a uniform brown speck that flashed crimson, a stunning bloom of what humans called Hawking radiation, before collapsing into a pin-prick black micro-singularity.
A communiqué arrived from Qorall. That was unexpected. It said
on, his progeny.
Not going to happen.
He considered the field laid out between him and Qorall: the gaping black hole; Qorall’s asteroid ship hovering just above its event horizon; the Machine planet; and the red dwarf sun, all set in a jade haze. Nothing else around, the nearest star system well out of harm’s way in one direction, and in the other, the shimmering galactic barrier. Ukrull’s ship, the Ice Pick, was missing. Kalaran extended his senses and found the subspatial trace signature that told him the ship was no more. He tried to see beneath the planetary shield the resurrected Xera had erected, but could not penetrate it. Interesting. A solitary Hohash drifted nearby. Kalaran pinged it with an info-burst, and it shot towards the shielded planet. As it reached the barrier, it morphed into subspace to slip through, but was blocked. That was also unexpected, definitely on the wrong side of ‘interesting’. He signalled it to wait there.
Hellera contacted him from the other side of the galaxy, her ship inside the nebula sheltering the Tla Beth homeworld. Accessing her sensors he saw dark worms and Nchkani ships swarm.
“I should be there, with you, Kalaran. Together we stand a better chance.”
“If the Tla Beth fall, other species will surrender to Qorall. And if you come here and we lose, Qorall will be unstoppable. Once he conquers this galaxy, he’ll go after the rest of the Kalarash.”
Several nanoseconds slipped past, a long pause for Hellera. “These humans. You still believe they are important.”
“A catalyst for the Spiders.”
“I’ve been in their heads; chaos and conflict.”
“Sometimes they’re happy for a fleeting moment.”
“An illusory and pathetic state we abandoned a billion years ago, with good reason.”
