by Tim C Taylor
“Let’s see if I can free your memories by other means,” she said.
They dragged me along corridors and up stairs to areas of the White House complex that were more familiar than the torture cells – all the way back to the gilded cage of my room.
I didn’t resist as they rolled back my sleeve and stuck my exposed wrist inside the drawer beneath my dresser mirror and rubbed it against a waxy patch inside.
Why would I resist? None of this made any sense.
Then I was blinking furiously as my mind came out of hiding. When my vision stopped flickering, and I looked out on a room of Hardits watching me, everything made perfect sense.
Of course, you understand even better than me. You were in this from the start, weren’t you, Shepherdess?
Well, here’s what you don’t know. What Tawfiq revealed to me – to the real me – and what you need to tell the Legion. Tell them time is running out.
Time.
I may only be a dumb human to you, but even I’m beginning to understand – here at the end when it no longer matters – that time is more flexible, more… mutable than I’d ever suspected.
And yet sometimes time can be real simple. Dumb, human simple. Right now, we don’t have enough of it, and that’s what you need to tell the Legion.
Tawfiq’s insane, but she’s not stupid. Nor is she weak. She explained that we have ten days left. If we don’t defeat her by then, it will all be over.
Tawfiq will become a goddess.
— Chapter 18 —
Arun McEwan
Arun’s dreams hardened.
For uncountable years he had drifted through the dream void but now he imagined cold and heat, of metal pressed against his neck, of feathery fingers stroking his face.
He imagined opening his eyes, but he must still be dreaming because he saw only swirling primeval mists.
Then he perceived a solidity forming within the vapors – dark finger-like protuberances, except these were too narrow, too long, and too finely segmented to be fingers.
A fan whirred and the mist began to clear.
Reality hardened all around.
A Trog of the scribe life-mode was flicking its antennae over him. He was inside a cryogenic pod, but it was thawing. He was coming alive.
He couldn’t remember this small resuscitation chamber, but that was nothing to worry about. And the Trogs… why weren’t they human techs?
Arun couldn’t remember that either, but a half-functioning memory told him he shouldn’t be surprised.
Then the mystery of the Trogs disappeared from his mind when he caught motion about ten feet away on the opposite wall of the chamber.
A gleaming jewel was climbing out of another cryo pod. Springer. The whorls and triskelia of her Wolf scales dripped with cryo-slime, burnishing her naked body as she plopped onto the damp floor.
Smiling, he enjoyed the slight of her slithering as helplessly as a newborn, drinking up the sight of her gradually reacquainting herself with her limbs until she waved cheerfully at him.
A low growl escaped his lips, and he knew for sure that this was not a dream because he always woke from cryo feeling seriously randy – the longer the sleep the more powerful the effect.
And he was so horny that it hurt. A lot. How long have I been under?
Springer somehow slithered up to sit on her shapely butt, facing him.
And smiled.
She was happy to see him – that was all – but the erotic charge that punched down Arun’s optic nerve to see that woman smile was so powerful that his vision flooded with red, and he had to fight to keep consciousness.
A terrifying thought sobered him a little. Male Marines suffered statistically higher rates of resuscitation attrition than females. Was this why? Were their bodies overwhelmed by uncontrollable lust?
But he couldn’t die.
Not with Springer so close.
Even the idea of her name carried enough charge of pleasure to lash his brain with electrical overload.
How frakking long had he slept?
He’d known that information before he went under. Give it time, he told himself. Don’t die, and it will come back to you.
But even with his eyes clamped shut, Arun’s mind was flailed by images of Springer glistening, Springer smiling with those dimples half-hidden beneath her scales, of her beside him on a Celtic hillside, the curve of her hip picked out by silvery moonlight…
Chirp… brrp… chirp… brrp…
What the frakk? An alert sounded behind him. From the shelf inside the pod used to store a Marine’s AI.
But…
Arun touched the port at his neck and knew Barney was inside him, though still too drowsy to talk.
Then what was in the…?
He reached around and drew out a cube that fitted snugly into his palm.
It was the size and weight of a ration cube. A terrible hunger struck him, knocking the edges off his lust, but ration cubes didn’t trill like that.
Chirp… brrp… chirp… brrp…
He gave the cube an exploratory lick… He’d tasted worse, but it wasn’t food.
Springer spoke. Either her words were unintelligible or his hearing was still rebooting, because he got only gibberish. Was she telling him something vital about this cube?
The trilling ceased, to be replaced by confusing words.
“Hello. Hello, do you copy? Who are you? Speak now!”
“Unnghh,” said Arun, because he remembered. This was a communication cube. It had come from Greyhart.
“Say again,” said the voice.
“Unnghh,” Arun repeated helpfully.
“I can make no sense of you, human. Speak with my liaison.”
“Frnngk yuhh!”
“Hello,” said a human voice. Male. Young but even in his semi-lucid state, Arun sensed this man had experienced a great deal in a short life. “My name is Lance Scipio, and I am an officer in the Human Legion. Do you copy?”
“Scipooh?”
“Yes, Scipio. Look, I can hear in your voice that you understand me. I just can’t follow a frakking word you’re saying. Take your time and then speak slowly. Imagine you’re speaking with a crècheling who–”
“Scipio?”
“Yes.”
“Year?”
“Say again.”
“Year? What year? Now! Xin? Grace? Answer me! Indiya mission.”
“Oh, perfect!” Lance said to whoever else was at his location. “The man’s either coming out of cryo or is deranged. Either way, it could be hours before I get any sense out of him.”
He replied to Arun. “Depends on your calendar. It’s 2739 in the Terran Common Era. It’s 577 years since the Vancouver Accession Treaty, 174 years since the wars started, and 298 since I’m reliably informed I started a line of Lancelings with a cute Spacer tech called Aura.”
Barney woke. Arun’s power of speech came back online milliseconds later.
“You can cut the crècheling drent now, Scipio. State your rank and unit.”
This Scipio person hesitated, clearly reluctant to supply information that should come automatically. What was the man playing at? “We are the Rakasa Expeditionary Fleet,” he said, still refusing to offer his rank.
“Idiots!” snapped a woman’s voice. “Give that here.”
That voice… it couldn’t be, could it? Memories of his time as a cadet flooded through Arun’s mind. A young Springer featured heavily in them, all dimples and wild auburn hair in a face that hadn’t yet burned in a Hardit’s plasma blast. The flesh, blood, and scaly edition was standing in front of him, arms crossed and head tilted as if trying to hear something she couldn’t quite make out.
“General McEwan, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised to hear your voice.”
“Nhlappo?” said Springer incredulously.
“Nor yours, Phaedra Tremayne. Your voice has changed but it can only be you. I assume you two have finally figured out that you’re soulmates. It must be like
old times in Detroit.”
“Never mind that,” said Arun. “We’ve a lot to tell you. Where are you?”
“About twenty hours away from Earth. Brought a fleet with me. You remember Leading Spacer Magnetizer?”
“No… oh, you mean Tizer. One of Indiya’s… bunch.”
“You’d best ask him about the capabilities of this fleet. He built them. Where do you need us?”
Back in 2601, Tirunesh Nhlappo had slipped back to Tranquility-4 to take command of the defenses against a surprise Hardit attack. When the fighting turned nuclear, comms were fried. No one ever heard from Nhlappo or Tranquility-4 again. Everyone assumed it had been overrun by the New Order. And now, after nearly 150 years, she had turned up at the right time and place to aid in the liberation of Earth…
Arun felt as if he were a puzzle piece being slotted into a pre-ordained place – the same as Nhlappo, Scipio, Xin, Grace and all the other pieces. It was not a pleasant feeling.
“You’ve met him, haven’t you?” Arun said in a whisper.
“Greyhart? Yeah. Nothing in my life has scared me more than that man and what he represents. He appeared mid-journey and frakked with our engines, speeding them up so we would turn up to your party on time. On time? Gave us this comm cube too, which has just activated for the first time, and by sounds of it right on script for the moment you wake from cryo. I’m a frakking puppet, General. I want to cut my strings.”
“You and me both, Tirunesh. He is human, though. At least, I think he is, and that means we’re on the same side against the Hardits for now. We’ll deal with Greyhart once we’ve rid ourselves of Tawfiq.”
“Tawfiq? She’s here? Good. I’ve a score or two to settle with her.”
The sound of a scuffle came over the communication device.
“I do not care to indulge in social small talk,” said a Jotun through an electronic translator. “We have the business of war to attend to. Do you confirm you are General McEwan and in command of Legion forces here?”
“I am McEwan… but in operational control? No. Officially, I’m probably dead. Again. But I am the strategic leader, or will be once we’ve kicked Tawfiq down to hell. Who are you?”
“What chaotic madness are you playing at there?” boomed the Jotun. “I am Field Marshal Marchewka of the Human Legion, and I know I am in command.”
“A field marshal, eh? Interesting, considering I’ve never heard of you or of that rank. Where do you come from and who awarded you that interesting title?”
“I was based at Tranquility-4, at the location you called Beta City. As for my promotion, I awarded myself that rank. We had millions of Marines in a fight for control of the planet. There was no other viable candidate to lead.”
“And you consider yourself an officer of the Human Legion?”
“I have pledged allegiance to the cause. Freedom shall be won.”
“Good. Because that means you report to me. As far as you’re concerned, Marchewka, I am the Human Legion. That goes for you too, Colonel Nhlappo, or whatever rank you’ve been using recently. If you aren’t prepared to accept my orders, you can turn your fancy ships around and head back to this Rakasa place. I will not tolerate any more splits.”
“Any more?” queried Nhlappo. “Lee Xin took off, didn’t she?”
Arun hadn’t seen Nhlappo since the 26th century. Had the fate of his marriage and alliance with Xin been so obvious even then? “She did,” he replied, “but we are reunited for the final battle. And you? Are you with me?”
All Arun could hear from the other end of the link was labored Jotun breathing. Marchewka made a weird noise in his throat as if gargling gravel, and then spoke awkwardly with his own voice.
“The Rakasa Fleet is under your command, General McEwan. What are your orders?”
A wave of alarm swept over the scribe revival techs.
Arun half wondered how he could tell not just the scribes’ anxiety, but that they were frantically urging someone outside the cryo chamber to stay the hell away.
The Jotun field marshal was bellowing out of the comm cube, but Arun’s mind wasn’t yet up to multitasking. He sensed a threat looming and hadn’t room to think of anything else.
Ten seconds later, with the scribes leaping around in agitation, he heard heavy footfalls approach from the passageway outside.
Ten seconds after that, a brute of a Trog filled the entrance, a second huge Trog resting its front legs on the first one so it could poke its armored head into the resuscitation chamber.
Two pairs of antennae pushed through gaps in their head armor and painted the shape of cones in the air as they scanned the room.
Arun didn’t know what he was seeing, but he sure didn’t like it.
In their many cultural liaison meetings back when Arun was a cadet, Pedro had described the complex lifecycle stages of his race. These brutes in the doorway had never featured in those stories. They were a new life-mode.
Their massive heads sloped up like glacis armor into an enormous crest that rippled up to a frilly edge. Two curved horns protruded over deeply recessed eyes on heads that bore no resemblance to the smaller scribes, who were jumping up and down in front of the newcomers. In fact, their heads reminded Arun of armored snow plows that could be affixed to a tank
The unidentified Trogs burst into motion, scattering the scribes and charging at Springer.
Pulling himself out of his pod as fast as he could, Arun looked on in absolute horror as the lead Trog tried to gore his Celtic goddess with its horns.
Springer rolled, and the horns missed her by inches, shattering floor tiles and digging a furrow into the stone below.
In their eagerness to kill her, the two Trogs now got in each other’s way in the confinement of the small chamber. They stomped with their legs at their prey who dodged the worst of the blows but couldn’t break away.
Springer was strong, and her beautiful scales also provided a tough layer of armor. But beneath these Trogs built for war, she didn’t stand a chance.
Arun screamed in rage and threw himself at Springer’s attackers.
— Chapter 19 —
Governor Romulus
Beneath the ruins of the White House
So there I was, back in the personal chambers of the Governor of Earth, the familiar human stink of my room accented by the smell of my own fear and blood.
Tawfiq watched me intently as my memories reassembled themselves, her upper eye narrowing to a slit even though she’d been blind in that orb for years.
I was the Voice of The Resistance, a role I had performed under the direction of others; a lie as dark as the notion that it was I who ruled the Earth.
I didn’t. My role was to be the betrayer of humanity.
I’d refused the chance to escape a hero on Tawfiq’s shuttle, preferring to return to my reviled status as governor, because I might still be useful as a spy inside the White House.
At least, that was what I had told myself.
Tawfiq had suckered me from the start, light years away, in space near the White Knight homeworld. Stand here next to this officer, Romulus. Say these words to this chief engineer, Romulus. Leave this package where we tell you. Do these simple things and Janna won’t be hurt. We’ll be gone out-system soon, anyway, and none of your human comrades need ever know what you did.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew her orders weren’t as innocent as they appeared, but I went along with Tawfiq’s lies at first because I was too cowardly to risk Janna’s life. Before long, she had trapped me in my own treachery. Even before she brought me to Earth, I was implicit in murder. And then… my crimes were entirely explicit. I remember that astronomer who’d accidently discovered a Legion attack, and a hundred like him.
I’m no hero. Now that my mind is back in a single piece, I realize the true reason why I didn’t escape on that shuttle was because I know I don’t deserve a chance at redemption.
I despise myself, but there is one person I hate more.
And as my
spirit was hit by the curse of remembering, Tawfiq was pressing her scarred snout up against mine, smelling every last drop of my self-loathing while my arms and legs were pinned by her guards.
I pulled myself out of their grip with all my strength to gain enough height to bring my forehead cracking down on Tawfiq’s.
She dodged my head butt, though she was too slow to avoid me spitting in her eyes.
If there was symbolism in the way bloodied human spittle coated Tawfiq’s evil yellow eyes, blinding her, then her guards interpreted it differently from me. I saw it as a sign of human resistance, but to them it was a sign that I was in urgent need of being beaten to death.
To my surprise, after the first flurry of blows, Tawfiq signaled them to cease.
“I require the human’s head to remain recognizable. And his body is already tenderized. I do not want my meat to be overly bruised.”
Tawfiq’s words hit me harder than the cudgels of my guards. Many times she’d threatened to kill me, but to eat me…?
“Yes, that’s right,” she sneered. “Even you must have heard rumors of children snatched in the night by monsters. The monsters are Nernailner Nyrotaps – hunting wolves, if you like. Initially, we only hunted for sport, and to snatch infants to swell the ranks of Faithful, but then we learned something unexpected about the tender young of your species. Something delicious.”
I didn’t need the long tongue licking around her chops, or the satisfied noise in her throat to grasp Tawfiq’s meaning.
“My apotheosis is only days away,” she told me. “My ascent to the ranks of the divine will come with the birth of a new race of super warriors. My New Corps has ample weapons and equipment, but in the first few weeks, feeding these millions of hungry new mouths will be a challenge, one for which I have kept wild humans alive for all these years. They shall become food. And you, my dear Romulus, will be eaten first. By me.”
— Chapter 20 —
Arun McEwan
The Nest
Resuscitation played cruel tricks with memories.