by Calista Skye
Crixael was struck by how boring her perfection was to him.
"I'll take that under advisement," he said easily and wished she would leave. Were all Ethereals this... lifeless? He hadn't noticed it before.
"Mm," she said in a voice so smooth and sultry it could have melted gold. "I hear you are in disfavor with the queen."
He smirked despite his sudden worry. Disfavor? That sounded worse than the impression he had got from the queen. And if Diamsheba knew it, everyone did. "Am I not always in disfavor with someone?"
Diamsheba laughed, a sound like an array of perfect crystal bells being played by a robot. "Oh, you are often in disfavor with me, but I don't have to power to reduce you to dust."
He raised his eyebrows. 'Dust' was the word Ethereals used for everything that was not Ethereal, and it was the only way one Ethereal could insult another. She had used it obliquely, but still...
"I must be in worse disfavor than I thought."
"Perhaps," Diamsheba said, placing one hand on her bare throat in an exquisitely feminine flirting gesture that left him completely cold. "Or perhaps we feel that your attentions are better directed to women of your own kind. Are you of our kind still, Crixael?"
Her voice was that of a woman about to open her thighs for a lover, but the question was death unsheathed.
"I assume you are the queen's messenger," he said easily, avoiding the question. If he had been full human, he would have been breaking out in a cold sweat.
"Our Queen Benirsheba enjoys the meat of the aliens," Diamsheba said, ignoring his implied question but still confirming his assumption. "The big ones, I forget what we call that dust."
"The Vlon," Crixael said. Ethereals rarely bothered naming the things they encountered on their deadly voyages, because it would all be gone when they had passed anyway. So they sometimes borrowed names that others had come up with. "Yes, theirs is a sweet flesh. Especially when warm. Ripped straight from the living thing."
"How true for so much of the dust we harvest," the female purred. "Yes, warm and living is always best. Perhaps..." One of her fingers was at the corner of her mouth, and she looked at him like a toddler having done something naughty. Her yellow eyes glittered.
"I will of course procure some for our queen, that she may enjoy it while she considers the way we are to go," Crixael said, perfectly understanding the request. Acquiring food for another Ethereal was considered a humiliating task, a subordinate function that was heavy with significance for a species that could move through space and time with relative ease and thus get any kind of food effortlessly. Even being sent on a hunting expedition by the queen herself was a sign of bad trouble. And when it was done through a messenger and not in person, it was much worse. If he had been entirely human, Crixaeal might have started trembling in fear.
"Will you?" Diamsheba cooed. "Her Majesty will be so gratified! Possibly. Oh, dearest Crix: she has also decided to revoke another of your powers. I am forbidden from telling you which one. But our queen says that you might require a craft to travel now." She knitted her exquisite brow. "A craft? Yes, I think that was the word. Thankfully I will never need to learn what it means. But I suppose now you have to?"
He didn't reply, just turned away and stared at the planet with eyes that didn't see. This was getting serious. The queen had first taken some of his physical strength. And now she had taken away his ability to travel short distances through space almost instantly without occupying any of the physical space between the origin and the destination. That was one thing that most Ethereals needed at least some support from the royal powers to do, depending on the distance they wanted to go.
He was being sent on a humiliating errand. In a damn spaceship. Like he was dust.
It wasn't just that he was in Queen Benirsheba's disfavor. She was extremely angry with him. And it was all because of that Earthling princess. Who would be angry because of dust?
For that matter, who would love dust?
Perhaps he was dust himself. If it meant he could be with her, then he could live with that.
Maybe.
13
She would lose her sergeant's chevrons for the three days, and that suited her fine. She didn't want to have any kind of leadership responsibility here. It had taken her four months, one broken nose and two cracked ribs to get her real squad to respect her as their sarge. None of those injuries had been hers, but she was in no hurry to have to get herself into a position of authority in a penal battalion.
Nichole had been right – they were there to harass the Vlon on the planet and to carry out guerrilla attacks on them to soften them up and create confusion.
She was sent with a squad to attack a small Vlon base. All the space marines had heard of the Ethereal encounter, but none of them knew that she was at the center of it. But they all stared when she strapped her sword to the side of her battle suit.
Many Space Marines had iron swords in case the Ethereals came back, but hers was special. It had belonged to one of her father's warriors, and it had drunk the golden Ethereal blood alongside the blade of her father and mother. It was iron, but it had been carefully modified by a grateful alien species that her father had encountered, and it would form a special connection with any wielder who would prove to be of vital importance to the Braxian empire. It was a kind of a prophecy.
So far, it had not formed any connection with Dani. It was heavy and cumbersome, and while her brother Ter'Umion could easily wield it unaided, she needed the added strength of the exoskeleton to use it in earnest for more than a minute at a time before her forearms turned to a powerless mush.
Even so, she had practiced fighting with it alongside her father and brother growing up. She couldn't match their skills, but she was pretty sure she was better with the blade than any other Space Marine. That was why her division commander had allowed her to take it with her on missions whenever she wanted, which was never.
Until now.
Crixael or not, great lover and unexpectedly gentle soul or not; if the Ethereals were coming, she wanted to be sure she could fight back. She couldn't imagine that all of them were like him. And she had not gotten the impression that he was their king.
The transport let them off and hovered back one kilometer, to be well away from any action. They hefted their multiguns and looked around.
"Worst planet ever," another marine said next to her as they walked closer to the Vlon camp. "Mud and tough gravity. You'd think the major picked it on purpose."
Dani had noticed the higher gravity, but wearing their exoskeletons, it didn't matter. And she knew from experience that a short stay on a planet like that, just walking around camp after missions would firm up her butt muscles like nothing else could. She would look great in jeans when she returned. Well, as great as she ever would. Her hourglass shape had the lower part just fine. In huge excess, even. But the upper part...
"How long you here for?" she asked, not really interested. "I'm Smith, by the way."
"Singh. Six months. One down, five to go. You?"
"Three days."
Singh turned his head to look at her. "Yeah? What, did you look at your commander's dog the wrong way?"
"Disrespected a colonel during combat."
Singh frowned. "You're here for Disrespect?"
She just shrugged. "And which heinous crime did you commit?"
Singh looked away. "The big C. Apparently we're required to just run alone into a cluster of giant cockroaches with three rounds left in the gun."
Dani nodded. Cowardice during battle usually ended in a summary dishonorable discharge and years in a military prison, so the committee sentencing Singh must have agreed that the order was unreasonable.
They got close enough to see the large aliens, and they had to shut up.
"Ready," their sergeant said. "Fire only on my command."
Whatever, Dani thought. Let's just get this over with.
14
One part of him had hoped that the queen had bl
uffed and that she hadn't actually taken away his ability to travel easily, the important translocation power. And he had tried. But no. She had really done it. Not completely; some of it was his own and could not be cancelled. But enough to make travelling unaided harder than it should be.
The spaceship he'd chosen for the errand was large and comfortable enough, and he could probably bring her back ten or fifteen of the huge Vlon. But just having to pilot a thing like this was ridiculously inefficient.
He knew where to go and the ship would handle the navigation. It was probably a very good and advanced ship, one they had 'borrowed' from some super intelligent species they had then gone on to eat and nuke out of existence.
Probably it had been given to them in the hope that they would spare the giver. That was usually how it went. And the giver always lived to regret it. Lived for far too long for his own liking.
It was a big planet with an atmosphere, and there would be enough Vlon there to choose from. He would try to placate his powerful queen with some very young and tender ones, preferably only days old. He was uncertain how Vlon procreated, but he was sure he could find some. The planet was crawling with them.
The brown disk that was the planet filled his viewscreen, and he began looking for places to land.
Suddenly the whole cockpit was ablaze with warning lights and alarms. He briefly saw a shadow pass close to the ship, and then a white fireball filled his vision and the whole spaceship jerked violently. There was a sound as of concrete being ripped apart, and the controls became unresponsive in his hands. It was suddenly very quiet inside the spaceship, and he knew he was plummeting towards the surface.
The whole ship had gone dead around him, and he desperately hit every control he could see. The huge viewscreen flickered and went dark, and the interior of the ship turned pitch black.
Now there was a sound – a rapidly increasing cacophony of air rushing past the hull of the dead ship as it fell towards its death.
Crixael took his hands off the unresponsive controls and shook his head in disbelief. Of all the ways to go...
Without his translocation ability, there was nothing he could do to save himself.
He leaned back in the seat, placed his hands behind his neck and waited for the end. At least it would be quick.
15
The first patrol was over, and they had harassed the Vlon just enough to be able to say that the mission was accomplished. That was fine with Dani. The aliens were a little too creepy.
There was no alcohol served to Penal Battalion soldiers, but they toasted in sugared fruit juice and pretended.
"Those aliens totally make my skin crawl," Singh said and gulped down the sweet juice. "They're like cockroaches, just much smarter. I heard they took out a whole platoon today, in the polar regions."
"They're pretty tough," Dani agreed. "And it seems like when you take out one, six more appear in its place. I heard they tried to nuke them once, but it just didn't affect them that much."
"Just like cockroaches," Singh repeated. "They're the only species that will survive a nuclear war. Hey, maybe that's what happened to these things. They started as ordinary roaches, and then there was a nuclear war on their planet, and they were the only ones that survived. So they took over and grew huge and super smart."
Dani nodded. That was an idea that she happened to know that Space Force had been working with ever since they met the Vlon the first time. Their similarity to cockroaches was too obvious to ignore.
"Could be. It doesn't really matter that much, I guess. They're pushing us back everywhere."
A marine named Duffy nodded wisely. "And now the Ethereals are on the way back, too. I'd say we have our work cut out for us."
"You know," Singh said thoughtfully, "these Vlon are bad and all. But at least they're real. Those Ethereals... I mean, they sound more like ghosts than anything else. Ghosts that like to eat human babies. Alive."
"Ghosts with fangs," Duffy agreed. "Just total nightmares all over. I never thought I'd say this. I mean, as a marine and everything. Hey, I'm not scared of anything. But those things I'd really like not to have to meet face to face."
There was a general murmur of agreement. Even Space Marines that were tough or stupid enough to get themselves sent to a penal battalion feared the Ethereals.
Dani hid a smile behind her glass. If only they knew...
Sergeant Avrukevich, their squad leader, entered the mess hall and came over, a little more urgency in his step than usual. "Suit up, lock and load," he said. "Blockade guards shot down something that crashed. Sixty clicks away. Probably an alien ship. Someone's got to check it out. And guess what? We're it!"
- - -
It was nighttime, and the glow from the downed craft was visible long before they got there. It was a whitish glow close to the wreck that broke down into all colors of the rainbow further out. The beauty of it just made it look badly broken. But deadly at the same time.
Dani grabbed her sword a little harder. The Ethereals only used spaceships for their long treks between the stars, because they could travel pretty impressive distances in-system without the use of any ships at all. But what else could it be? The Vlon moved through space in swarms, like flies or locusts, helped by some ability or technology that Space Force was working flat out to deconstruct and understand.
It could be another species altogether. One that might or might not be friendly.
Because that was just what Space Force needed right now – another enemy.
They walked in silence, their multiguns ready to fire at the slightest movement. Their geiger counters weren't registering much radiation from the wreck, and the sentry ship they could see circling the site a thousand feet up would warn them if there was any activity on or around the site. But still they were all apprehensive.
They got the the edge of the crater and looked down into it.
"That is... insane," someone said over the radio. "I never thought those things ever existed."
"Just a flying saucer," Sergeant Avrukevich replied. "Known since the beginning of time. But yeah. I don't think they're supposed to exist. Not for real."
Dani wanted to scratch her head. That was a flying saucer they were looking at. A smooth, round disk about a hundred and fifty feet across and twenty feet thick at its widest point. Most people had never seen one before.
But she had.
Refugees from an alien species that had been eradicated by the Ethereals had arrived in Braxian space shortly after the terrible aliens had been defeated, long before Dani was born. They had flown a saucer just like that one, and when King Ator'aq's troops had finally figured out how to open it, everyone inside were discovered to have been dead for years.
So probably this crashed saucer wasn't sent from that alien species. But it did mean that there was a connection to the Ethereals. It was not unknown for an intelligent species to plead with the Ethereals to be on their way and leave them alone, and to try to bribe them into leaving with exotic technology and the things they treasured the most. Apparently the Ethereals would always accept the gifts. And then they would always destroy the givers anyway.
The light the saucer radiated out into the night sky came from a breach in the hull right along the middle. It looked like it had cracked. It was remarkable that that was all the damage it had sustained, because the crash had been hard enough to dig a huge crater down through both mud, sand and hard bedrock.
"Look first, then shoot," Avrukevich said. "Just know what you're shooting at. That's all I ask."
They stood and looked at it for several minutes. There was no movement and no sound. No smell, either. Just light.
"Okay," the sergeant said. "Someone has to look inside that thing. Volunteers?"
"Here," Dani said without really thinking. Her instincts said that it should be her. "I'll do it."
"Smith it is," Avrukevich said, obviously relieved. "The biggest, baddest ass in the battalion, so that don't surprise me. Okay, Smithy, go."
>
She made her way down the slope. The multigun was set to metal projectiles, and she made sure not to aim the gun at the opening to the saucer. Kienle made a lot of sense to her – they always met aliens with their guns first. Maybe that was why they were always at war.
A conveniently placed rock let her climb onto the saucer's hull. It felt like metal, but at the same time it was obvious that it wasn't. It made no sound as she walked on it with her heavy combat boots, and she jumped once to see if it would flex or boom. Nothing.
White light flowed out of the crack, and she crouched down to look inside, still making sure to point her gun away from it. The visual sensor in her helmet reduced the contrast so the light didn't blind her.
She couldn't make any sense of the inside of the spaceship. It looked white and clean, but there was nothing she recognized.
She crawled closer to the crack and stuck her head down. Immediately the visor in her helmet only showed static.
She straightened again, and the image came back.
"... she go?" she heard Avrukevich say, a worried tinge in his voice. He would be following her helmet camera image in his own helmet.
"Right here," she said. "Seems like something in there interrupts the feed. I can't see anything. I'll leave it outside."
Before Avrukevich could protest, she took the helmet off and stuck her head back in. The brightness in there wasn't any worse than she could handle.
There was someone in there. She saw a leg and a hand. And some black fabric.
Her hand went to her sword and she dropped down inside the saucer. The gravity was much lighter there, and every movement seemed easier and more effortless.
She looked around quickly. She didn't know what everything was, but it sure looked roomier than it did from the outside. And there was room to swing her sword. If that would turn out to be necessary.
