by Craig Allen
Jericho wrinkled his nose. “What in the name of God is that?”
“Kali,” Cody said. “The whole planet smells like that.”
When the steam cleared, a shape emerged from the pod. Cody recognized the claw instantly as that of a toad. When a second claw emerged, even Jericho took a step back.
Cody forced himself to stand his ground instead of running to the other end of the ship as his instincts demanded. Twenty marines had their rifles pointing at the emerging creature. The only reason more marines hadn’t taken a bead on the creature was that they didn’t have a clear line of sight.
The toad emerged completely from the escape pod, standing about two and a half meters at the shoulder and wearing no clothing of any kind. If the human atmosphere on the deck bothered it, it didn’t give any indication. A pink hairlike growth covered its back, just like a typical toad—with one exception. Its central arm was missing, as before, but Cody could see it wasn’t bitten or cut off. The creature had simply never had one. In addition, the metallic strips that normally crossed the front of a toad’s head, which allowed it to sense magnetism, were also missing.
The creature swiveled its head around for a moment. One marine, a buck private, jumped when the creature looked his way. The toad regarded the man briefly then lowered its massive body to the deck, folding its legs underneath itself, almost like a cat. It sat that way, the tip of its nose, if it could be called that, resting on the deck. Only then did Cody notice a spotted pattern on the creature’s underside.
“My God.” Cody narrowed his eyes at the creature. “Reggie?”
The toad lifted and tilted its head. Cody had always wondered if Reggie knew his own name. Apparently so.
Jericho chuckled. “This is the leader of the toads? The… What is his title?”
“Provider.” Cody didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “I don’t know what happened to him, but I believe so.”
Jericho regarded Reggie as if he were in a petri dish. “Dr. Brenner, what do you suggest we do with it?”
Cody had no clue. He understood the fliers well enough, but the toads were typically violent, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. The creature before him, though, didn’t act like a toad. It seemed more like a draft animal.
Finally, Cody answered. “We should put him somewhere he can breathe air similar to his own, Admiral.”
“Good idea.” Jericho summoned Petty Officer Hastings. “I know just the place.”
~~~
A brig was an unfortunate necessity in the military. Wherever people gathered, there would be prisons.
Cody wasn’t allowed to watch the transfer of the toad to the brig, ostensibly because of some regulation in case the toad escaped during the exchange. That didn’t make sense to Cody, who had been there in the docking bay when Reggie crawled out of his escape pod.
The cell where Reggie was kept was huge, easily three times the size of any of the other cells. Cody couldn’t fathom why they would need a cell so large, unless they had prepared it for this creature by removing the walls to make one large cell. Cody also wondered how they had placed the toad in the cell, unless the transparent wall between Reggie and Cody was also a door.
Reggie wandered back and forth like a trapped animal, which he was. He bumped his head gently against the transparency a few times then struck it so hard the deck plates rattled. The marines nearby brought their rifles to the ready. Sonja stood just behind Cody, her rifle in hand.
“Stand down.”
The marines lowered their weapons at Jericho’s command. Reggie remained unmoving after having tested the transparency between him and the marines. If Reggie was disturbed by the marines’ actions, Cody couldn’t tell.
“Do we have everything set up?”
A crewman near a console spoke. “Aye, sir.”
“Good,” Jericho said. “Well, Ambassador, see what our guest has to say.”
Sonja touched the small of his back, and Cody winked at her as surreptitiously as he could manage.
The toad’s ungainly eyes, easily as big as Cody’s hand, focused on him. Cody started to clear his throat then realized the toad might misinterpret the sound. The toads understood English, as did most species on Kali. In fact, the toads had learned it directly from the survivors of the UEAF Kali years before, but mistranslation was always a possibility.
“Reggie, can you understand me?”
Reggie tilted his head.
“There is a viewer on the wall.” Cody pointed toward the left, where a holodisplay had been set up, showing the entire alphabet, just like the handheld viewers many of Kali’s denizens were familiar with, only larger. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
For a moment, the creature did nothing. Cody was about to ask again when the toad shuffled over to the holodisplay, lifted a forearm, and entered text. The results appeared on another holodisplay hovering outside the transparency.
Cannot see.
“We could make the lights brighter,” Cody said.
Dark yes. Light no.
Cody shook his head then realized the toad might not understand that human motion. “What is it you can’t see?”
The beasts as they fly. The machines that howl. The speech of the tribe. The voice of the world. Gone.
The creature bowed his head.
“You can’t sense magnetic waves any longer.” Though Reggie probably didn’t know what that meant, Cody didn’t know how to explain.
“Makes sense,” Jericho said. “If they can’t sense magnetic waves, they aren’t affected by technology like other species.”
Cody continued. “What happened to your central arm?”
Gone with the voice of the world.
“Who did this to you?”
Reggie shuffled his feet, pounding at the deck hard enough to vibrate his entire cell.
The ruler of all did this. It takes and gives nothing.
“The red reeds.”
Reggie shuddered.
It made us. It hurt us. Want to see but can’t. Lights and shadows hurt. Too much. Hate light. Want to see.
Cody almost felt sorry for Reggie, stuck in a body with senses he didn’t understand. “Why did the reeds do this to you?”
The one you call Provider.
“Provider is dead.”
He is dead but his ways live and I never provided for my people.
“I don’t understand. Provider was your leader. He was one of you. Why would he have done this to you?”
Provider let the Reed in before he who makes the laws ordered his death. Provider gave us to the Reed to change.
He who made the laws was Admiral Rodriguez. He was also the one who had Provider killed, as an example to the other denizens of Kali. As distasteful as that had been, it was the only way to reach the toads. They respected violence and those who meted it out.
“Provider made an agreement with the reeds?” Cody asked.
Reggie clapped his hind legs as he typed.
Give us weapons. Give us howling machines that fly. Give us what the tender ones brought. Provider ask and then give us to the Reed.
Cody pinched his eyebrows together. There it was again: the Reed—singular, not plural. “You mean the reeds. You were given over to all the reeds. Or is just one of them responsible?”
Reggie didn’t respond.
Cody pressed on. “Why would Provider hurt his own people? Your people survived without technology for so long. You don’t need it to survive.”
Provider saw more than all people. Saw the tender ones from the stars. He would go to them, take them as food, and leave the Reed behind forever to be free.
By people, Reggie meant his own kind. To the toads, those that weren’t like them were food, including humans.
Cody pressed on. “You wanted to escape your world?”
Nothing good here. Our kind and food-kind disappear. Come back different. No choice.
Jericho laughed humorlessly. “The red reeds are using them as their pla
ythings. I can’t blame them for wanting to leave.”
Cody couldn’t blame them either. “Our hopper disappeared when we were on the planet, along with our people, just after you visited.”
Reggie’s front claw trembled as he entered a message.
Tried to warn you away. Did not listen.
“And we should have,” Cody said. “But how did they disappear?”
The Reed carries people far and fast through the ground. Cannot breathe while traveling, but cannot die. Ground open, the Reed take what it wishes, and then gone again. Reappear far away. Or not at all.
Cody remembered Rodriguez explaining how the ground opened up. “Did you circle the island of the fliers with hoppers?”
At first, Reggie twisted his head side to side. He started typing before Cody could explain himself.
The Reed force us to circle island and keep the dead eaters in one place.
“Why?” Cody asked. “They are no threat to you or anyone.”
The Reed force us and we do. It destroys anyone who harms flying dead eaters and we not know why.
“Then why attack the island?” Cody asked. “You could have injured the fliers.”
The Reed see your people there and want you destroyed but we cannot hurt fliers so we invade island.
“The reeds could snatch the fliers off their islands at any time.” Jericho clicked his tongue. “I should’ve seen that. Why are the fliers so special?”
They are weak and deserve to die but we let live because of the Reed. Some cannot resist and hurt dead eaters anyway. The Reed destroy them. Those that wish to live must let the weak dead eaters live.
That explained what Cody had seen on the island. The toad that attacked the young fliers was killed by his own people, and the pod that killed three escaping fliers was probably shot down by his own people.
Reggie pounded his head against the transparency again, making the entire cell vibrate. Cody had been told nothing could breach the transparency short of weaponry, but he braced himself anyway.
Provider try to fool leader of all. Provider gone but agreement stays. The Reed take us. Change us. The Reed say it is now Provider. We belong to it. And you too if you stay.
Cody put his hand to his head. The toads weren’t at fault, nor was any creature down there. Nuking the surface of the planet was pointless. The problem went deeper, literally.
“You’re slaves, aren’t you?” Jericho stood centimeters away from the altered toad. “That’s why you attack us, isn’t it? Because the reeds forced you.”
Reggie stared at Jericho with his unnaturally large eyes. He flailed his claws, not trying to tear down a wall. He looked as if he wanted to tear apart something only he could see. Finally, he calmed down.
Cannot see.
Jericho’s face tightened. “I want five marines here at all times. If that thing gets out of its cage, kill it.”
The toad didn’t react to Jericho’s orders.
A klaxon sounded, followed by the comm chiming. “Admiral, we have a contact. Looks like a Kali vessel.”
“On my way.” Jericho frowned. “I suppose our ambassador should be there as well in case we make contact.”
“I agree, Admiral,” Cody said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
Jericho frowned. “It seems as if trouble is all we have these days.”
~~~
Cody followed Jericho onto the main bridge, identical to the Washington’s. On the main viewing globe in the center of the bridge was the planet Kali. Hovering over the planet was a space vessel.
A man rose from the command chair. “Admiral, the unknown vessel has taken up position over the planet’s north pole.”
“Very good, Captain,” Jericho said. “Let’s get a closer look.”
The image zoomed in on the ship. A readout under the image gave the ship an eighty percent chance of being a Kali battle cruiser. Cody blinked. Only eighty percent?
A lieutenant at a sensor station frowned at his board for a moment. “Sir, the vessel is the same design, but she’s been modified.”
A schematic of the original UEAF Kali appeared next to the ship on the viewing globe.
“They’ve added some features,” the lieutenant said. “More graser ports. More torpedo tubes. It’s crude, sir.”
“But I’m sure it’s effective,” Jericho said. “How did she arrive?”
“Unknown, Admiral,” the captain said. “She appeared on gravimetrics without any warning.”
Jericho squinted at the image. “How’d they—”
The comms officer called out. “Sir, we have an incoming comm signal.”
The captain faced the comms officer. “From the ship?”
“Yes, sir, but I believe it is being relayed from the planet.”
“Patch it through,” the captain said.
A chime sounded, then a woman spoke over the open channel. “Leave this system. It and the cluster belong to me.”
Cody’s jaw dropped. He leaned closer to Jericho. “Admiral, that’s Private Ann Salyard.”
Jericho glanced at Cody, his mouth open. He regained his composure at once. “This is Admiral Thomas Jericho of the United Earth Armed Forces. Identify yourself.”
No answer. Jericho was about to ask again when the sensor officer shouted.
“Contact! We have—Jesus, we have twenty different contacts, at least.”
“What?” Jericho stepped closer to the viewing globe. “Show me.”
The image of the single vessel vanished and was replaced with a tactical display full of green icons, which Cody assumed represented the fleet. The reason he surmised that was because surrounding the green icons were a great many red icons.
Twenty was a lowball number. Every part of Cody clenched up. They were surrounded, and if things got violent, no one would get out unscathed. The red icons surrounded the entire fleet, and a number of them appeared inside the fleet itself. The closest was a thousand kilometers away from the Tokugawa. In space, that was spitball distance.
“What in God’s name…?” Jericho stood at the edge of the viewing globe as more icons appeared. “Why were they not detected until now?”
“Unknown, sir.” The lieutenant frowned. “The only gravimetric reading I had other than natural ones was that ship hovering over the pole. Now this.”
More red indicators than green were present on the globe.
Jericho set his jaw. “I assume they are all Kali-type vessels.”
“Aye, sir,” the lieutenant responded. “All of them are configured in the same way as the ship hovering over the northern pole.”
“Sir,” the communications officer said. “The fleet is requesting instructions. Some of those ships are within graser range of ours.”
Jericho crossed his arms. “Battle stations. But do not fire unless fired upon.”
The captain relayed the instructions to his own crew while the communications officer did the same to the fleet. On the tactical display, a few green icons maneuvered closer to each other, but the red icons maintained position. Cody was hardly an expert on tactics, but even he could see a losing side. Sheer numbers played a huge role in any battle, and the Admiral’s fleet was outnumbered, not to mention surrounded.
Ann’s voice returned, the tone flat. “Leave this system. It and the cluster belong to me. You have two hours.”
With that, the red icons on the tactical display vanished one by one. In seconds, they were gone, even the red icon over the pole where the first ship had appeared was gone.
“What happened?” Jericho circled the viewing globe. “Report.”
“No gravimetric readings, sir,” the sensor officer said. “Nothing on lidar, radar…” The lieutenant lifted his fist as if to pound his console but then lowered it. “Sir, I know how this sounds, but they’re simply gone.”
Jericho’s lips flattened. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
Cody’s blood chilled. Saving the planet had become a moot point. The planet could take care of itself. What
Admiral Rodriguez had feared had come to pass. The denizens of Kali were a direct threat to the UET worlds.
Chapter Twenty-one
Cody walked down the passageway in a state of confusion. Things had snowballed so badly he had no idea how the fleet would resist. If he’d let Admiral Rodriguez nuke the planet as he’d planned, they might not be in their position. Then again, the fliers would be dead as well as other species that were at the mercy of those further up the planetary food chain.
Speaking of which, he had given up trying to contact the fliers. They hadn’t responded on any channel the humans had set up for them. The globular cluster wasn’t an issue. The bridge sat bypassed it when it opened a wormhole. The fliers were likely in hiding or gone. Cody prayed the former was true. Even if they could contact the fliers, though, he had no idea how he or any humans could help them. They were on their own for the foreseeable future.
