And I seem to be their guest, she thought, moving to one of the walls, to see it reacting to her approach.
The wall pulled back, not in the metallic ‘petal’ way that the Imperial Coalition used, but instead as if it were drawing into itself, organically diminishing and growing smaller as she advanced.
“This is bio tech,” Cassandra whispered. But it was an order of biological technology that she had never seen before. These weren’t custom-made viruses or prosthetic implants. This was a full living organism and building, all melded into one.
If that impressed her, then what was to happen next would leave her speechless. Cassandra Milan walked into a grotto. Or a garden, she thought a little dreamily.
It looked like some kind of corridor, in the sense that it was narrower than it was long. It was also crowded, the walls heavy and verdant with strange plant-like growths whose stamens and extended flower-parts glowed with bioluminescence. She didn’t recognize even one of the plants, although many of them were suggestive of others that she had seen in various worlds throughout the Coalition. But all of these leaves and petals, fronds and flowers, were wrong somehow to her human eyes. The leaves were too fleshy, more suggestive of animal tongues than plant-life. Or stranger yet, some of the flowers appeared made out of the same whitish coral rock, but they appeared to have grown out of their host plants. There was also nowhere that she could see that one plant clearly ended and another began, like they were grafted onto, and out of, each other.
There was light at the end of the grotto, and Cassandra pushed her way through the undergrowth and emerged in what could only be described as a temple.
The oval space was large—a cavern, with more of these strange plants on every conceivable wall and ceiling. Only the floor was smooth and bare, and it held in its center a giant cathedral shape of bone or coral.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered in awe.
It was again white, but a hard crystal-white, with points and brackets that were approaching translucence, and it was far bigger than the Mercury Blade, which meant that this cavern had to be huge, according to the agent’s reckoning. Like a vast growth of coral brackets, the thing sat in the center of the room, and Cassandra watched as several figures moved across the floor toward it.
The Q’Lot were disturbingly normal after the strangeness of their technology, all apart from their heads, which swept back into miniature brackets of coral. At first, she thought that they were bipedal, humanoid, until she saw the extra pair of smaller praying-mantis arms clutched across their chests like devout monks. They wore deep ochre robes, flowing from their heads and with an extra pair of sleeves for their torso arms, and they moved sedately and gracefully toward the largest temple of bracket-coral.
What are they doing? she wondered as she watched the figures—each must have been at least seven or eight feet, if she had her perspective right—approach the large crystal form and reach up to slowly caress or depress certain ‘tines’ of the coral. This seemed to have some effect on the larger structure itself, as light pulled up and down its plant body, filling it with radiance.
And then, the crystal-coral tree started to move.
Cassandra watched as some of the outgrowing tentacles, once looking as solid as the crystal they mimicked, started to unfold and move aside, forming a kind of opening for the delegation of aliens.
“Dammit! I can’t see what they’re doing,” Cassandra hissed to herself or to Argyle Trent behind her, she wasn’t sure which, as she moved deeper into the cavern to get a better look.
Something was coming out of the crystal temple-tree toward them. It shone with the same radiance as the rest of the tree. The branches moved aside to let it lower toward the standing Q’Lot, losing its brilliance as it came, until Cassandra could finally see just what it was.
A person. Or, more specifically, another Q’Lot, a little smaller and hunched compared to the others. It had no robes, but it was too bright and too far away for Cassandra to make out any more of the creature’s strange plant-animal physiognomy as it was presented to its fellows like a babe being presented to their parents after birth.
Maybe that is just what I am looking at, she thought in awe. The nearest Q’Lot produced one of the same tan-ochre robes that it itself wore, to draw it around the new Q’Lot’s shoulders protectively as there was an audible tock as the crystal tree detached from the smaller being. The House Archival Agent heard a sound, like a gasp but in a much higher register, like a bird’s, and the Q’Lot was falling forward into the arms of its waiting fellows, who appeared pleased with the result.
“What just happened? What have I witnessed?” she said again, still staring at the strange reunion. The new Q’Lot was smaller than the others, and its head-brackets were less profuse, but it appeared to already hold whatever strange conversations they could between each other. Within just a few short seconds, it was even walking on its own.
Crunch. There was a rustle and slight intake of breath behind her, and Cassandra spun around, her agent’s training kicking in as she reached for her hip weapon—only to find that she had none.
Standing behind them was another of the robe-wearing, bracket-headed Q’Lot, and up this close, it looked even taller than it did from afar. The creature had a mouth that stretched across the smaller, lower part of the thing’s white face, and two tiny eye holes from which glittered dark orbs. Cassandra, a member of House Archival and used to reading and analyzing every possible situation around her, had no idea what the thing was thinking. She couldn’t read any trace of emotion in its alien visage.
It gestured over her shoulder, toward the crystal tree.
“I guess you want me to go there,” she said, not completely sure if that was indeed what he wanted.
Cassandra considered her options: I have no idea if I am on board a ship or on a home world, or some other colony. I have no idea how to escape, or even if I would be able to fly any Q’Lot vessel I came across. She might not even be able to recognize a Q’Lot vessel she ran into, given all this weird architecture.
They had talked to the crystal tree by touching it, she thought. Was it the same way that we use computers? She wondered if everything around her, every plant and flower and rock-like structure was, in fact, a living computer. It would certainly be a lot of processing power altogether, she thought.
She moved forward on the blank white ground, aware of the plants that waved slightly at her approach, and even their bioluminescence seemed to glow and fade as she moved near them. Behind her trod the heavy, stuttering, and misshapen steps of Argyle Trent, and behind him came the tall Q’Lot.
The crystal tree swept up higher and higher above them, dominating their view. Cassandra could now make out tiny veins of light that swept through the branches and brackets like the firing of neurons. This is the hub. The CPU. The processor, she thought as she stepped onto the raised dais, the other Q’Lot awaiting their arrival.
“Er…hi?” Cassandra said nervously as she looked up, and then up some more at the tall, strange creatures. All previous House Archival training at misdirection, intelligence gathering, and diplomacy went out the window. For all she knew, she was going to insult them just having to breathe oxygen as much as saying the wrong thing.
No human had ever done this…well, and lived to tell anyone about it, anyway, she thought. She was actually making first contact with them, the most mysterious species in the entire Galaxy!
The Q’Lot continued to stare at her, softly turning their tendrilled heads from one side to the next, as if scenting the air in her direction. For a terrifying moment, Cassandra actually thought that they might be able to sense her thoughts.
And then one of them stepped forward, the smaller Q’Lot which had been attached, and held, inside the crystal tree. It wasn’t like its fellows. It was hunched over, slightly, and the two folded mantis arms over its chest looked withered and crippled. It took a few steps forward toward Cassandra, and the other tall, elegant Q’Lot made even wilder gestur
es to it, as if in worry? Panic?
And then the hobbled, newly-arrived Q’Lot opened its mouth, and it spoke.
“I have been returned to my people,” it said, and although Cassandra was sure that she could hear the high-pitched, clashing hoots of a bird-like language in her ears, she was surprised that she could understand the words that arrived in her mind.
“Others come back too. Shoals—” Galaxies, Cassandra heard the word translate in her mind. “—have seasons. Cycles. And with them comes the predators… The Valyien have found a way back.”
7
Ko Herg
“I thought the war chief said that we were free to go!” Eliard spat at the Duergar shapes as they coalesced around them. His leg was still bleeding from earlier, and they hadn’t even had a chance to bandage Irie’s hand yet. But it didn’t look like the Duergar in front of them was interested in mercy.
They were large, for their kind, and even though they had alien forms, Eliard could still recognize the statures of trained warriors. They wore rough canvas robes like a monk’s, rough and heavy so that they obscured their bodies—apart from their fists—and with hoods high over their shovel-like heads. Only the glint of starlight on their cracked tusks and in their predatory eyes remained.
“Just like a human,” one of the thugs growled. “Weak. You beg when you could fight.” There was the hum of charge, and from the folds of his robes, he produced a Duergar energy weapon, looking like a short spear but which crackled with white and blue energy. In response, Eliard flicked his forearm, and the Device rippled and shook, its blue-scale sheaths changing and arranging to form into the devastating gun.
“You really wanna dance with us?” Eliard pointed the weapon straight at the lead Duergar. He figured that they must have seen the effect it’d had in the arena. They must have known that it was more powerful than their energy blades.
“Gah!” The lead Duergar snapped his wrist as he dove to one side, his robes flaring behind him as the energy weapon shot out its accumulated energy straight at the captain.
THOOM! Eliard fired as he too jumped to one side. As well as having the Device to his advantage, he also prided himself that he was a pretty good sharpshooter. Still, he only managed to score a grunt of pain from his moving opponent as it winged him across the shoulder.
“Hyah!” Irie jumped and rolled as another of the energy weapons fired at her, but she rolled toward one of the three Duergar, popping up with her good hand striking out to connect with the creature’s instep. There was a grunt of pain as the Duergar fell and rolled, and Irie was bouncing up to her feet once again and reaching for his energy weapon—
FZT! The first Duergar, the speaker, fired from his crouch at Eliard, burning the dirt and narrowly missing him as the captain spun, raised the Device, and—
“Ach!” Fire burned across his shoulder as the third of the Duergar combatants shot the captain. A glancing blow perhaps, but still enough to send him rolling head over heels. He felt the Armcore encounter suit react, hardening its fibers to form a protective shell over the blast on his shoulder, but he still felt raw and scalded underneath.
What was worse, the blow had given his prime attacker time to leap toward him, landing a kick across Eliard’s chest. Once again, the suit reacted to harden under the impact, so instead of breaking ribs, it merely bruised them as Eliard hit the dirt again.
There are too many of them. They’re too big— his battered mind had a moment to think, before he reached up to bat the descending energy blade out of the way and try to get a decent angle with the Device. There were none, as the two Duergar had closed around him and resorted to their brute strength to wrestle his dangerous weapon out of their way.
“Captain!” Just a little way away, Irie was having about the same luck as she fought just one of the Duergar, with only her fists and feet. The mechanic was not trained the same way that the captain had been, and neither of them had the elite martial training of either Val Pathok or Cassandra Mila, but Irie was determined not to die. She punched her opponent strongly across the face and heard the satisfying crack as one of his tusks dislodged inside the great jaw.
But such things were commonplace for a Duergar, and in return, the robed oaf merely headbutted the smaller woman with the great pebble-scale dome of their head.
“Agh!” She fell back, blinking and staggering, and the Duergar she was fighting rose with a triumphant grin.
But where Irie might not be as mighty or as fast as others, she made up for with sheer grit. In her hands, she held the stolen energy-blade weapon of the Duergar, dropped in the fight, and she squeezed the trigger handle as the Duergar’s small eyes widened.
FZT! The shot was point blank, burning through the Duergar’s robes and sending the large form flying backwards. Irie turned around hurriedly to try and help the captain, only to see that she was already too late. Someone else had gotten there first.
The captain was struggling to his feet, and around him were the two bodies of his attackers. One with a smoking chest, and the other with a large blade sticking out of his back.
“Captain, did you do that?” Irie hissed quickly.
“No, he did.” Eliard nodded to the new arrival, a smaller Duergar dressed in rugged leathers and a coarse battle harness, holding a heavy laser rifle in his hands.
“Come on, no time,” this new Duergar said to them, and Eliard thought that he might be younger than many they had seen so far. His scales were not to pronounced or as heavy as the others, and his eyes were a shocking pale green, like the first flush of new growth in spring. “I’m a friend. We have to get you two out of here,” their savior said, beckoning them to follow as he ran into the night.
“Who are you?” Eliard breathed, his chest burning from the effort, and not just the running but the pummeling that he had taken from the others.
“Never mind who I am, you should be asking who they were,” the younger Duergar said. He still only had the nubs of horns along his forehead, and his tusks were not the large tiger-like teeth of the larger Duergar, but were still rounded, and only barely showed past scaled lips.
But the most obvious difference between this Duergar and any of the others that they had fought was the fact that he wore clothes that did not seem to declare him to be a warrior, or one of Pathok Ma’s chosen. His battle-harness was clearly home-made—an X of leather straps wound and padded over the shoulders and at the hips, cinched tight with buckles and ties. His breeches were also made of a durable, dark material and were covered in utility pockets.
And then there was the fact that he didn’t seem to have half as many weapons as most Duergar I’ve seen. The captain noted only a simple belt knife, a good one for skinning or spearing meat or cutting cord, not an enemy’s throat, and of course the heavy rifle. All the other Duergar that either Eliard or Irie had seen were only too happy to proudly display their energy blades, lances, swords, axes, and a variety of blasters about their person.
“Those that attacked you? They’re called the Chief’s Watch,” their companion said, his broad chest rising and falling like a bellows as he peered around the corner of a stone building and down a slowly descending cobbled street. They could all hear the sounds of shouts and the occasional harsh laughter, but that didn’t seem to bother their guide. Maybe the sound of violence is normal for a Duergar city, the captain thought.
“They’re another reason why the war chief must fall,” their guide said heavily, and as he did so, the captain saw him touch his neck, where there hung from a string what looked to be exactly like a Duergar tooth, the captain saw with a little distaste.
“So, I figure that you’re not a fan of War Chief Pathok Ma?” he said as he caught his breath.
“No. And I’m not the only one, either. There are a lot of us who think that he’s lost sight of the old ways.” Their guide nodded and took off across the moonlit cobbles as Eliard and Irie followed him to the next darkened alley. Then they stopped and paused once again.
“You
know Val?” Irie asked the questions this time, as Eliard was still limping and hissing in pain from his earlier injury.
“No. But my father Herg Lah did. He fought beside him at the Chenga Pass,” the young Duergar said, casting a wary look at his followers. “There are many who think that your gunner is a hero.”
“Really? That’s not quite the impression that we got at the War Chief’s Hall…” Eliard muttered.
“No, you wouldn’t. The chief has packed it full of warriors as bloodthirsty as he is,” the guide said.
“But I thought that you Duergar, if you excuse me…” the captain said, before the dark look from their guide instantly shut him up.
“Not all,” he said heavily. “There are some of us who want to honor the old ways, but who also want to join the Imperial Coalition of home worlds. We Duergar have been treated as little more than savages by everyone, and before that, we were slaves to the Valyien,” he said, his vivid green eyes shining with passionate intensity. “And war chiefs like Pathok Ma only help spread that illusion, that we’re brutes. That we can’t think, engineer, negotiate, trade.”
The captain was fairly stunned by this turn of events. He had to think that even after all of the years of flying with Val, he had been one of the people to think that about the Durish people. What an idiot I have been, he thought, and not for the first time, and not only about this. He had known Val to pilot the Mercury, as well as to step in to help with repairs. Perhaps he’s not great at the negotiation bit though, remembering the many occasions when Val successfully closed a pirate deal with a heavy fist to the face of their opposite negotiators. But it got the job done, he had to admit.
Insurrection Page 7
