The Ashes Of Worlds

by The Ashes of Worlds (v5. 0) [lit]

  Diente’s heart sank. In General Lanyan’s previous attack here and his rescue of the few surviving colonists, his soldiers had inflicted a great deal of damage. Diente had reviewed the images recorded by combat suitcams. Now, though, he saw no signs of damage whatsoever. Not a mark. Everything had not only been repaired but greatly expanded.

  Assailed by an overwhelming sense of dread, for just a moment he was tempted to abort the mission, to return to Earth and ask the Chairman to reconsider his approach. But Chairman Wenceslas was not a man to reconsider; he saw it as a sign of weakness to change his mind once he had made a decision.

  The shuttle descended toward the heart of the hive complex. Everything he did and said was being automatically recorded and uploaded to the Manta above. Unfortunately, since the EDF no longer had access to instantaneous telink communication via green priests, Diente had no way to maintain a direct line to the Hansa. He had insisted that log drones be launched back to Earth hourly once the mission began. That way at least someone would have a record.

  On its landing approach, the diplomatic craft came in unchallenged, though Diente expected swarms of insect ships to rise up and intercept him. He thought the Klikiss would sound an alarm and rush out to destroy his ship, or at least demand to know his intentions. The translation system was ready.

  But as far as he could tell, the Klikiss merely ignored the intrusion. He did not understand these creatures at all.

  The shuttle set down in a powdery white clearing near the center of the enormous hive city. The Admiral closed his eyes for two seconds, pictured his wife and children, and remembered why he was here.

  Swallowing his instinctive revulsion, Diente stood at the hatch, straightened his uniform, and opened the hatch to taste the bitter air of Pym. Each breath felt choked with a caustic dust. His eyes began to burn, but he marched down the ramp and onto the cracked alkaline ground. Per his instructions, the honor guard followed several steps behind him.

  The Klikiss were a riot of different shapes and forms, all of them covered with hard body armor; some were ponderous workers and diggers while others looked designed for combat and mayhem. He couldn’t tell if they were curious, or hungry.

  Diente tried to identify one creature that might be a spokesman. He activated the Ildiran translator from a transmitter box at his hip. “I am a human. You have encountered us before. We mean you no harm.” He allowed a moment for the translation device to process the words. “The Terran Hanseatic League has no quarrel with the Klikiss.”

  With hissing, clacking sounds, four of the ominous-looking warriors stepped closer. Behind them towered two larger creatures, gigantic forms whose shells were striped with black and silver. They clicked and whistled, but Diente received no translation from the device, although it appeared to be functioning properly.

  “Can you understand me?” He gathered his courage and continued. “There is no need for conflict between our races.” He waited; again no answer, but more bugs crowded toward the shuttle. The guards behind him muttered nervously. “If there has been any trespass, it was inadvertent. In the interest of cooperation between our races, we offer to withdraw from any former Klikiss worlds.”

  The warrior insects raised their sharp limbs. The EDF soldiers unslung their weapons and held them defensively. Diente did not feel he was getting through to the Klikiss. “Please, this is an overture of peace.”

  Without warning, large ground-based artillery tubes belched fire from the tops of hollow turrets in the hive city. Enormous energy projectiles rolled upward like solidified comets and slammed into the Manta that cruised low overhead.

  “Stop!” Diente shouted.

  “Holy shit!” Screaming in terror and fury, the twenty-eight guards opened fire on the nearby Klikiss, mowing them down.

  Above them, the Manta was ripped open, its engines destroyed. Huge chunks of flaming debris fell out of the sky like meteors, before the hulk itself hurtled downward. It crashed into the outskirts of the hive city and erupted in a huge fireball that flattened half a kilometer of the insect structures. The Klikiss didn’t seem to care.

  “There is no need for this!” Diente shouted into the translator. He glanced at the Klikiss translation device and came to the sick conclusion that the hive mind didn’t understand the very concept of peacemaking or negotiation. The Klikiss had no interest in coexisting with another species.

  With continuous fire from their weapons, his guards massacred hundreds of bugs. But they were in a nest of millions.

  Tears streamed down the Admiral’s face as Klikiss warriors marched forward. Diente doubted that Chairman Wenceslas would ever realize the extent of his folly here. At least, though, there would be no further reason to hold his family hostage.

  He felt an odd sense of release, maybe even a feeling of relief, as the tension of these past months reached a culmination. He drew his sidearm and faced the oncoming insects. Yes, at least his family would be free.

  53

  Orli Covitz

  At Osquivel, many storage domes, laboratory complexes, and admin centers were scarred and blasted from the recent EDF depredations. Busy Roamer workers flew about in construction pods rebuilding domes, sealing habitats, and linking damaged structures together.

  On her way through the shipyard complexes to the new lab chamber Kotto Okiah had set up, Orli stumbled upon the Governess compy UR, whom she remembered from Llaro. UR had been courageous in defending the Llaro children from Klikiss attacks, losing her left arm to a vicious insect scout. Once the Llaro refugees had returned to Osquivel, Roamer engineers had not taken long to find a donor arm from a previously decommissioned compy. The colors of the polymer skin did not match — the new arm was blue and orange, in contrast to the more sedate indigo and gray of the Governess compy’s body — but UR seemed quite pleased with it.

  The compy was surrounded by students ranging in age from five to nine. On the coated stone floor, she had spread a colorful mat divided into squares overprinted with a lush yet confusing pattern of writhing snakes — vipers, cobras, pythons — meshed with a spray of arrows that flew in various directions. The snakes and arrows connected squares on the game board. While UR gave calm advice on strategy, the children threw dice and moved their pieces.

  “What are you doing?” Orli asked.

  “I am teaching the children,” UR said.

  “Looks like you’re playing a game.”

  “I am teaching the children to play the game. It is an ancient Hindu game called Leela, or Snakes and Arrows, thousands of years old. The grid has seventy-two squares, each named for a state of being. When the player rolls, the die is guided by his or her karma. If the die takes you to a square with an arrow, you ascend to a higher plane. If you fall on a square with a serpent, you slide down.”

  One boy shouted as he landed on a particularly good square.

  “So . . . it has nothing to do with the Klikiss? Or the EDF?”

  “Snakes and Arrows deals with all aspects of life in a metaphorical sense,” UR said. “Would you like to play, Orli Covitz?”

  “Not right now.” The idea of the battered compy speaking of karma, states of being, and planes of existence was too unsettling for her. “I’m helping Kotto Okiah and Mr. Steinman. We’re working on ways to defend the Confederation against . . . well, against everything.”

  In his new laboratory, Kotto activated one documentation screen after another. Mr. Steinman lifted a flat metal case of tools and slid it onto a chest-high shelf that was bracketed to the wall. “Sure, but who’s the real enemy? The EDF attacked Golgen and Osquivel. The faeros attacked Theroc. The Klikiss attacked Llaro. The Klikiss robots are still out there. Which one do we concentrate on?”

  Kotto stared at a data projection, then blanked it. “Do I have to pick one in particular?”

  Following him, Steinman activated the same screen and jotted down a file name. KR and GU circulated, cleaning, organizing, arranging the new lab; Orli had noticed that the clutter created by the two men k
ept the compies quite busy. DD was also there, eager to make himself useful.

  Orli spoke up. “I pick the Klikiss. After Llaro — and Relleker — we need to stop the subhives from expanding.”

  Kotto scratched his curly hair. “It would be easier to do that if I had a specimen to study. I don’t know enough about them.”

  Orli pulled up a chair and folded her legs beneath her in a comfortable position. “Well, Mr. Steinman and I have some firsthand experience.”

  “As do I,” DD said. “We have considerable data to share.”

  Kotto brightened. “Then maybe I won’t be working in the dark, after all. Give me a starting point.”

  Orli thought for a minute. “The Klikiss have songs and music. They communicate with intricate melodies as well as pheromones. When I played my synthesizer strips and bombarded the bugs with my songs, it seemed to shut down the thoughts of the hive mind.” She didn’t think the specific tune mattered, only that the music had to be different from anything they had heard before.

  Kotto was already deep in thought. “I could develop a kind of random melody generator. Maybe if we played it at sufficient volume in the right place, we could paralyze the creatures.”

  “There, we have a new project to sink our teeth into.” Steinman rubbed his hands together. “And the Klikiss annoy me even more than General Lanyan does.”

  54

  Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain

  An unannounced ship arrived at Earth, causing a flurry of alarms and consternation. A Roamer ship.

  Deputy Cain studied the traces projected on the Chairman’s deskscreen. “No ID beacon, no explanation, just a small flyer with a passenger capacity of five. It’s not a cargo ship or a military vessel.”

  “The ship can’t possibly be a threat, but I want to know what the hell he thinks he’s doing here.”

  Finally a transmission came from the Roamer craft. In an uninflected voice, the pilot said, “We are on a peaceful mission that concerns a matter of mutual survival.”

  The Chairman looked at Cain as if he should instantly have an answer. “They could be Roamer deserters,” Cain suggested. “If so, they could provide valuable information about the Confederation. Valuable enough for us to talk to them at least.”

  “Nevertheless, we should prepare to shoot it down, just in case.” The Chairman took charge of the communication console himself. “Roamer ship, I am sending you coordinates for landing. We will have Remoras prepared to destroy you if you take any threatening action.”

  “We are not a threat,” said the calm, androgynous voice.

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Chairman Wenceslas ordered the entire Whisper Palace landing square cleared and then surrounded. Captain McCammon hurriedly marched out with a large group of royal guards.

  The small ship came down without deviating a centimeter from the imposed path. The vessel’s design had a weird grace and functionality, unlike anything Cain had ever seen; the Chairman merely commented how ugly it was.

  At a signal from McCammon, the guards stood ready. The ship locked down its landing pads; the rectangular hatch disengaged and slid open.

  Instead of a man in a gaudy Roamer jumpsuit, as Cain expected, a chrome-and-green compy stepped out. “We mean no harm.”

  A second compy appeared behind the first, similar in size and design but with a bronze and copper body. “I am PD, and this is QT. We are compy representatives.”

  Everyone kept their distance. The compies stood at the bottom of the ramp and waited to be acknowledged. Finally Cain called, “Who else is aboard your ship? Who’s the pilot?”

  “We both have pilot programming,” said QT. “There are no humans aboard our ship.”

  Standing back with a scowl on his face, Chairman Wenceslas gestured for the guards to advance. “Conduct a full search. Check for weapons, listening devices, tracking beacons. They’ve got to have something up their sleeves.”

  “We have no sleeves,” said PD. The Chairman ignored him.

  “Where did you get a Roamer ship?” Cain asked, taking a step closer.

  “From a fuel depot called Barrymore’s Rock,” QT said.

  PD added, “Once the depot was destroyed, the former Roamer inhabitants no longer needed their ships. We thought they might be useful.” Neither compy explained further.

  A squad of technicians crowded into the small Roamer vessel with scanners, but they found nothing. “It’s just a stripped-down ship, sir. The life support doesn’t even seem to be functioning.”

  “We do not require life support,” said QT. Guards surrounded the pair of compies, who looked ludicrously harmless.

  Studying the two small robots, the ship, the whole tableau, Cain was convinced that they were worried about the wrong thing. “I don’t believe the danger is aboard that ship. It’s in what these compies have to say.”

  The Chairman slowly nodded. “I believe you’re right, Mr. Cain.”

  Cain turned to the compies. “Why are you here?”

  “We have a message and a proposal for Chairman Basil Wenceslas of the Terran Hanseatic League,” said QT.

  The Chairman looked down at them. “Who sent you?”

  “We were once the personal compies of Admiral Wu-Lin of the Grid 3 battle group,” said PD. “Now we serve the Klikiss robots.”

  Though Cain remained silent, many other listeners responded with cries of outrage. Even the Chairman’s face reddened. He worked his jaw. “And why would the treacherous robots ask you to come here to speak to me?”

  The two compies answered in perfectly synchronized unison. “Our master Sirix wishes to discuss forming an alliance against our mutual enemy, the Klikiss.”

  “Why the hell should we believe you?” McCammon growled. “Those black robots turned our Soldier compies against us, massacred the EDF, destroyed the bulk of our space fleet.”

  QT said, “The return of the Klikiss race forced Sirix to take actions that he now regrets. We acted out of desperation, only to protect ourselves.”

  Cain frowned. The explanation seemed too convenient. Sirix couldn’t have known about the return of the original Klikiss until well after the black robots had seized the EDF ships. “Remember, we’re still waiting for word from Admiral Diente about his negotiation mission. By now, we may already have an alliance with the Klikiss.”

  To his surprise and dismay, Cain saw a look of deep concentration on Basil’s face. “That doesn’t mean we can’t open a dialog with the black robots, does it? We should keep our options open.”

  Captain McCammon looked at him as if he had gone insane, but the Chairman cut off any comments with a hand raised like a hatchet blade poised to strike. He turned to the compies. “This is a most unusual and unexpected offer, and you must accept my healthy skepticism.” Wheels were obviously turning in his mind. “But alliances have changed many times in Earth’s past, and I won’t turn down an opportunity until I learn more about it.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Explain yourselves further.”

  55

  Patrick Fitzpatrick III

  As the Gypsy flew off bearing a message from King Peter, Patrick could hardly believe he was actually going back to visit his grandmother. Voluntarily. He remarked on the impossible turns his life had taken.

  “Some people just start out going in the wrong direction,” Zhett teased. “You were so spun around you didn’t even know you had a Guiding Star, much less where to look for it.”

  “That’s not how my grandmother will see it.” His lackluster parents were living in obscurity away from Earth, but since the Battleaxe had believed in him and wooed them to let her take him under her wing, Patrick had been raised in the upper crust of Earth society. Frankly, he had grown up to be a spoiled and ungrateful little snot. If the Battleaxe had ever suspected he would one day run off to join the Roamers, she might have drowned him at birth.

  And now he had to convince her to leave the Hansa and endorse the Confederation government. Patrick prayed she would a
t least give him two minutes to explain himself. After all, the King had chosen Patrick to be one of the most important ambassadors in the Spiral Arm.

  “My grandmother is a smart and sensible woman,” he had told King Peter when he responded to the original request. “She can’t be blind to what Chairman Wenceslas is doing, but she won’t take drastic action for purely altruistic reasons. However, she may jump at the chance to be important again. She hates being retired.”

  “Use your discretion, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Promise her anything you think is reasonable in order to secure her cooperation. She can pave the way for Earth to join the Confederation.”

  “I’ll flatter her, call on her patriotism . . . but she’ll make up her own mind,” Patrick said.

  Once they had packed, refueled, and said their farewells to Del Kellum and the skyminers on Golgen, Zhett piloted the Gypsy. Although the space yacht’s systems were state-of-the-art, she still complained about the inefficient and non-intuitive setup. “We should have taken a Roamer ship.”

  “But this yacht was owned by the former Hansa Chairman. It’s got access codes and pass routines that’ll let us slip through Earth security without raising any alarms. Nothing trumps that.” He frowned to himself. “Besides, I did promise to bring this ship back after I . . . borrowed it.”

  He sounded more confident than he felt, and he knew that Zhett could see through him. “I bet your grandmother’s not as big a monster as you make her out to be, Fitzie.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “You two should get along just fine. You have a lot in common.”

  She punched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t pretend for a minute you meant that as a compliment.”

  Upon reaching Earth, he transmitted the stored authorization identifiers from Maureen’s private log. As they approached what he had once called home, Patrick took over the controls and flew the Gypsy over the Rocky Mountains, zeroing in on the former Chairman’s private mansion. He landed on an empty pad outside the house, hoping his grandmother wasn’t in the middle of some diplomatic reception or cocktail party with wealthy industrialists.