“You breached protocol,” Guillermo said, pointedly not using the alien’s titles and honorifics. Heather knew the Kreck liked to play verbal dominance games and had to be reminded who was the boss early and often. All the Imperium’s founding races did: over three millennia of coexistence, the different species had come to adopt the same arrogant culture, a rarity in the galaxy, where there were usually a couple of distinct civilizations even within a given species. “This was supposed to be a brush-pass and a brief face-to-face meeting as a show of good faith. By leading us here, you have put us all at risk.”
“My apologies once again. I believe you will find my reasons to provide sufficient excuses for my behavior.” The alien’s body language and ‘tone’ – as interpreted by Heather’s imp – were contrite enough. “First things first, of course. Decimus, you may leave now.”
“As you wish, My Proxy.”
“Here is the information I was to convey to you, and quite a bit more,” the Kreck female said after the servant had left. An imp-to-imp burst transmission sent Guillermo some fifteen petabytes of information, protected by heavy encryption. Heather watched the data dump through her imp; they’d been expecting a copy of the Imperium’s latest economic figures, which Honest Septima’s position in the Ministry of Wealth gave her access to. Whatever was in those files was a good thousand times bigger than the simple report they’d been expecting.
“In addition to the Ministry of Wealth report, I have given you the minutes of the last six conferences between the Giga-Proxy Council and the Imperial Troika,” Honest Septima went on. “They include the meeting in which the decision to make war on humanity was made. At that conference, a detailed report of the Imperium’s capabilities was presented by the Troika. That is also included in the report.”
Heather fought to stay impassive; Guillermo went pale but also managed to maintain a poker face. Their minor contact – so minor that her original recruiter had handed her off to two relatively junior agents without a second thought – had just handed them the keys to the Galactic Imperium.
“That… that is very impressive,” Hamilton said. “The data will have to be analyzed and verified, but if it proves to be accurate… How did you come upon this information, may I ask?”
“To answer your question, I must first ask one of my own, distinguished human spy. Do you know how I came to be forced into your service?”
“Yes,” Guillermo said, not bothering to hide the contempt in his voice. Both he and Heather had been briefed on exactly what kind of person their agent was.
Honest Septima was a pervert by the mores of both the Scarab species and the Imperium at large. Her secret vice was rather unpleasant: infant cannibalism, an atavistic behavior that had once been common among the Kreck thousands of years ago. Despite millennia of cultural and psychological conditioning against the practice, a small minority among the species still felt the urge to feast upon hatchlings, although they usually dealt with it through therapy or chemically-altered food substitutes. Honest Septima had used her power and influence to satisfy her hungers, paying a criminal gang to provide her with Kreck newborn. An American trader had somehow stumbled upon the secret – Heather didn’t know the details, but they apparently involved gambling, murder and assorted mayhem – and he in turn had sold the information to the CIA.
Spies betrayed their countries and species for numerous reasons. Money was a common motivation, of course. There were also people acting out of spite, turning traitor because they’d been overlooked for promotions or otherwise slighted. Some even lashed out of twisted patriotism, after deciding their nation was headed in the wrong direction. And then there was blackmail. The Imperium’s penalty for child cannibalism was death, preceded by a lengthy ‘scourging’ process involving the stimulation of the convict’s pain receptors in assorted ways. The US had Septima over the proverbial barrel. Heather found the whole thing disgusting, but intelligence work forced you to deal with some of the worst people in the known universe, human or otherwise.
“I know that if humanity is destroyed, I will not survive it by very long,” Honest Septima went on. “If you lose the war, I expect my… proclivities will come to light, either when the Imperium seizes all your data or when you decide to reveal any damaging information you have on its leadership, which regrettably includes me. Thus, I felt I had to provide you with some vital information, in the hopes that you may be able to forestall your downfall.”
“I see,” Hamilton said.
“To elaborate, even though I am but a minor Proxy, I discovered some time ago that one of the Giga-Proxies of the Imperium shares my regrettable vices. And much like your fellow spies snared me, I too came with an arrangement with said individual. He now provides me with information in return for my discretion.”
Whatever works, I suppose, Heather thought. Their agent had in turn recruited an even bigger fish, apparently.
“I trust you will find the information useful.”
“I’m sure we will. And you will be suitably compensated, of course.”
Blackmail was the stick; discreetly-paid bribes provided a consolation carrot.
“Do the records explain why the Imperium chose to go to war with the US?” Heather asked. The data would be read and interpreted by a team of analysts back on Earth, but getting a little personal info couldn’t hurt.
The Kreck made a crossed-pincer negative gesture. “The official explanation is that the Lhan Arkh and Nasstah surrendered several star systems to the Imperium to secure the alliance. This has prompted some Proxies to protest we are being used as ‘mercenaries’ by those polities. Those protests, as you will see in the reports, were ignored. The official explanation is rumored to be a pretext, however. The territorial concessions were actually the Imperium’s demand to join the war. The real reason has not been divulged to the public.”
“And do you know what it is?”
“This is only gossip, and you won’t find it in the files I gave you. But it appears that a faction among the Dann, led by Princeps Boma, is responsible for the war. Their alleged reasons are… strange.”
The Dann were a humanoid Class Two species, who, like the rest of the Imperium, had had very little direct contact with humanity.
“Boma’s faction apparently believes you humans are some sort of demonic force. It’s a… religious conviction,” Septima said. Her antennae’s movement revealed her emotions: a mixture of wonder and contempt. The Imperium had abandoned such ‘superstitions’ long ago, replacing them with a mixture of rational thought and a tradition of obedience – bordering in worship – to the nation-state itself. To refer to any motivation as ‘religious’ was very close to calling it insane.
“Boma is a scholar of sorts,” she continued. “When humans revealed their incredible ability to withstand warp space, he spent decades delving into the records of the ancients. It was, as you must know, a monumental task.”
Both intelligence officers nodded. Thousands of civilizations had existed in the outer arms of the Milky Way Galaxy for at least a billion years. The average lifespan of a Starfarer polity was five thousand years, give or take an order of magnitude During that time, it would spread from a few dozen to a few thousand worlds before their inevitable end: Transcendence for those that advanced to the next level of existence, abandoned their colonies and left for parts unknown, or Oblivion for those who died out through decadence, genocide or other catastrophes. There usually weren’t more than thirty major Starfaring polities around at any given time: the current number was below twenty. The total number of known Starfarer nations was about ten thousand, spanning a billion years.
Nobody had complete records of the history of the galaxy. The amount of information any Starfarer nation would generate over its millennia of existence was enormous: multiply that by ten thousand, and throw in changes in information storage systems, losses due to war, Transcendence or accident, along with the unfortunate habit of victors to rewrite history to suit their needs, and what you g
ot was a massive mess of contradictory accounts, legends, a multitude of translation errors, and deliberate misinformation. Parsing through it was pretty much impossible, and most people never bothered to even try. Just trying to grasp the current affairs of the galaxy was enough of an ordeal.
“Humans are not exactly unique, you see,” Septima said. “There have been at least a dozen similarly endowed species, according to Boma’s research. The problem is, there aren’t any detailed records about them, for one simple reason: their appearance coincided with major upheavals in the galaxy. Upheavals that led to the destruction of almost every civilization that existed during those times. It goes beyond mere political disruption, however. There are always species that do not play well with the rest. The Horde, for example, and to some degree our worthy allies, the Lhan Arkh. But the beings in those stories, those warp-demons, they are worse than those miscreants. They bring forth supernatural entities, supposedly. Monsters and such. Apparently it became customary that any species that showed such traits be quickly exterminated before it could become a threat.”
Heather and Guillermo exchanged a glance but remained silent.
“It is Boma’s alleged conclusion that warp hyper-capable species are a plague that must be exterminated early in their development. The current alliance is meant to stamp humanity out.”
“And what do you think, Proxy?” Heather asked.
“I think a few fragmentary records are meaningless: none of them are less than a hundred thousand years old, and all are woefully incomplete. The last such upheaval happened nearly a million years in the past. The Princeps and his followers are being foolish, that is what I think. Boma is over a thousand years old, one of the lucky few who has evaded death that long, and at that age certain mental peculiarities begin to show themselves.”
“Would the rest of the Imperium go along with a madman’s crusade?” Guillermo said. “Maybe spreading this information could change things.”
Another negative gesture. “Whatever Boma’s reasoning, he has convinced the Troika. The Proxy Assemblies cannot countermand the three Principes, and in any case they have been convinced, bribed or intimidated into acquiescing. Only a severe reversal in the course of the war would induce them to reconsider.”
“Guess we’ll have to kick the Imperium’s ass, then,” Guillermo said glibly.
Heather wished she could feel so confident. So far, there had only been a few skirmishes with Imperium ships; they were ponderously massing their forces, mostly on the Wyrms’ borders. The US Third Fleet had been sent to buttress Earth’s only ally in the war so far. The reports their agent had just handed them would reveal just how bad the odds facing them really were, but everybody already knew they were horrible. The Imperium by itself outweighed the Wyrashat and US combined. Throw in the other two members of the Tripartite Galactic Alliance into the mix and things went from bad to impossible.
At least we know more, Heather thought. She would make sure Guillermo added Septima’s rumors to the rest of the data. Amazing how gossip learned from a perverted traitor might end up affecting the fate of nations.
Knowledge might not help much in this case, though. Knowing you were hopelessly outnumbered only meant you went into the fight with no expectation of victory.
Eight
Groom Base, Star System 3490, 165 AFC
“FNG-4, front and center!”
Call sign namings had been a long-held tradition among small craft pilots, and Tenth Squadron was going to carry it on. The main difference here was that everyone except the squadron commander – Lieutenant Colonel Jessup a.k.a. Jester – was a Fucking New Guy/Gal, and they were all getting a call sign tonight.
You didn’t give yourself a handle; that was up to the rest of the pilots. The results would likely be hilarious; learning to live with them could be a bit of an ordeal.
FNG Number Four – Lieutenant Mark Giovanni – stepped back into the room. They’d appropriated one of the base’s briefing rooms for the ceremony. Each pilot was forced to wait outside while the rest of the squadron deliberated. Alcohol was being consumed in copious quantities, adding to the solemnity of the occasion.
“Do you have any suggestions, FNG-4?” Captain Jaime Van Allen – now forever known as Belter – asked, slurring his words a little bit.
“I was hoping for Marksman,” Giovanni said hopefully.
“I bet you were. What say you?” Belter asked the rest of the squadron. Boos and catcalls filled the room. “Sorry, Number Four. After careful deliberation, your call sign has been deemed to be… drum roll, please…” Everybody pounded on their tables. “Goober!”
“Goober?”
“Get used to it, Goober. FNG-Number Five, step out of the room, please.”
That was Lisbeth’s number. She dutiful walked out into the corridor. The door to the briefing room shut off the laughter and shouting on the other side, leaving her alone in the sudden quiet.
It was all official. Twenty-five squadrons were rated to fly missions. Two hundred and fifty plots, about a hundred and fifty from previous classes, the rest from Lisbeth’s own band of volunteers. The two-hundred-plus candidates that had started out with her had been pruned down to less than half that number. Five of the washouts had been fatalities; six more were no longer fit for service, or much of anything else, at least until the shrinks figured out how to put their minds back together. And now the rest were heading out into harm’s way, where they would find out what pesky little details the simulations and training had missed. Testing new weapons technology by using it in combat rarely went off as expected, and there were very few good surprises.
Lisbeth knew all those things, but they didn’t seem to matter. It was time. She wanted to go into warp space knowing the enemy waited at the other end.
The door opened.
“FNG-Number Five, front and center!”
She went back inside.
“Do you have any suggestions, FNG-5?”
“Nope.”
“Good answer. It is our considered opinion that from now on, you will be known as, drum roll, please…”
Lamia? I’m getting call-signed after mythological half-woman, half snake thingie?
“Lamia!”
The rest of the squadron thought her shocked expression was prompted by her call sign, rather than her knowing what it was before they said it.
Parthenon-Three, 165 AFC
“Who are those people in the big cars, Grampa?”
“Marines. Motorized platoon,” Morris Jensen said, all but spitting the words in distaste. He scratched his close-cropped, mostly-white hair, feeling old. He looked it, too. Even well-to-do farmers had better uses for their money than spending it on the full rejuv package; his innards were mostly in good working order, but his face was wrinkled and weathered, and his joints ached whenever he pushed himself too hard. Keeping your internal organs from the ravages of time was expensive enough, unless you were rich or served multiple tours of duty in the armed forces. He’d never been wealthy, and his (unpaid) membership in the local militia was as close as he ever wanted to get to the military. He’d done his time in hell, and he was done with it.
“Marines. Like you used to be, right?” Jensen’s granddaughter asked. Mariah Jensen was eleven, and was intently watching the advancing vehicles from the front porch of the farmhouse. There were few surprises around this neck of the woods, and the floating IFVs driving past his property were definitely a new sight.
“Yes, Mar. Like I used to be.”
Like I never want to be again. Once a Marine, always a Marine, they said, but he was all too glad to be a former jarhead.
His time in the Corps hadn’t been a happy time. Twenty-five years. Fourteen deployments. He’d seen too many of his buddies die. That had been the war against the Horde, and those fuckers played rough. His company had taken two hundred percent casualties in three years, hunting down guerrillas in Hawkins-Two. Sure, most of the dead had been boots who hadn’t known what they were doing,
but not all of them. When your number came up, even the most experienced grunts couldn’t hold out on the reaper.
The sight of the sleek graviton-propelled fighting vehicles brought back memories. Back in his day, grav engines were too expensive to waste on ground-pounders, so his outfit had made do with ground-effect hover vehicles, but the basic lines were similar enough. Small turret on top, two side box launchers, bow and coax machineguns. The newer versions would be tougher and faster than the ones that’d carried him through fetid alien jungles, looking for insurgents to kill, but he bet the enemy would know just how to take them out. The enemy always did.
His gloves began to melt in the flames, the skin and flesh beneath blistering, but he didn’t let go of Jim’s limp form. He pulled him out of the burning wreck before he realized most of his friend’s lower torso had been left behind. He’d burned his hands to the bone hauling out half a corpse.
Morris shook his head. Goddammit. He was in the Volunteer militia and spent a weekend a month in uniform, but those uniforms didn’t trigger the bad memories. He hadn’t thought about Jim’s death in decades, even while playing war with his fellow Volunteers. But all it took was the Corps coming to town, and he was back in the jungle, the hideously appetizing smell of burning human flesh filling his nostrils. No sleep for him tonight. When he found himself back in the Suck, the only way he could bear to go to bed was after he’d downed a fifth of whiskey, maybe two. And he couldn’t do that now, not with his granddaughter under his roof and him the only one left to take care of her. So no sleep for him; he’d just lie there in the dark staring at nothing. Goddammit to Hell.
He spat as the four-vehicle formation sped past his fields. Harvest was already in, but even if it weren’t, those fancy anti-gravity personnel carriers wouldn’t have disturbed the crops.
For the time being, that was. The Marines wouldn’t be on Parthenon-Three if some damn big disturbances weren’t on their way here.
“Those tanks are big,” Mariah said. “Bigger then a combine!”
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 45