"Wait," Alice said, the pressure of so much elation renewed the weight on her mind, and instead of clarifying what he was saying, she had to concentrate on blocking, of shutting her empathy down. It took all her concentration.
"We can celebrate that, but not for long. At the end of this meeting you must begin organizing travel for the civilians you watch over. We've learned that no one on Nuaji is safe. Before the end of the month the Edxi will have brood ships in orbit. They'll will launch their young onto the surface. Once they hatch, they will hunt, and most of us will not survive." He nodded at someone in the orchestra pit in front of the stage and they activated an old hologram projector. An old clip even Alice recognized of two people rushing down a hallway with rifles, crewmen from a ship lost to Edxi years and years ago, ran into a horrific foe. Only a few rounds were fired before they were cut and torn to pieces by razor sharp arms and merciless hands. The Edxi wasn't clearly visible, but the carnage was undeniable.
Fear, disappointment, and anger bashed at Alice's brain and she did her best to weather it, clenching her teeth. Peter pressed on. "That is what they do, the Edxi. They take humans apart and devour them. Brood ships will bring hundreds of thousands of them here."
"We fight!" someone from the audience shouted.
"We'll kill them!" added another.
"So, we fight them instead of leaving," Peter said. "What does that look like? Captain?"
Alice steeled herself, forced her mind to close itself off and managed to clear her head enough to reply. What she told them would have to be clear, easy to understand and easier to believe. "If two brood ships come, then there will be over a hundred thousand eggs on the ground in a matter of hours. If there are more, then it could be half a million. Those aren't the eggs you have to worry about. A sort of guardian parasite that attacks humans and controls them by digging into the back of a host's neck so it can take over their nervous system will come first. The first of your people, the ones who go to destroy the Edxi eggs will face those, and then they'll end up fighting each other, because thousands of them will get taken over by that parasite. Then the eggs will hatch. It'll happen a few hours, maybe a couple days after they make landfall. A third to half of your people will be killed before the week is out. Then, if you're lucky, the people they were trying to protect will find places they can wall off." Even with her sense nearly muted, she could feel the outrage and fear her words were evoking. Instead of softening her language, she pressed on harder. These people had to believe her. "Most of those safe places will fail in the following two or three weeks, I've seen how easy it is for hungry Edxi to break through barricades made of armour grade metal. There will only be a tenth of you left by the end of the first month. Some will die when they're caught looking for food, others will survive by eating the few kills they make but eventually get caught by a swarm while they're trying to hunt. The Edxi young will track them back to the holes they were hiding in and kill their families. I've seen it myself."
"We haven't!" shouted a tall, bearded fellow who abandoned his seat in the front row. "How can we believe you? Maybe you want this world for your fleet! You just lost your home." He was filled with indignation and fear.
"Haven Fleet doesn't conquer, we disrupt, and we assist when we can," Alice shouted back. His surprise was shortly followed by anger, and she interrupted him, pushing through the pressure of the empathic wave coming off the crowd with anger of her own. Watching this objector, this idiot step forward and infect the audience with fear made her furious. "Stay here! I don't have time for little people who think you can fight the whole universe and win! You're just the kind of stupid, blind believer who would pick up a twenty-year-old gun and run into the woods to break eggs. A parasite will take you and the next time your children see you, you'll be a bleeding, half-dead thing that's breaking the barricades to their home down so the Edxi can eat them! There is one way to survive this: run!"
The fear in the room was rising, the crowd was taking her seriously, but there were still a few standouts who were too proud, too angry. One of them, a woman who looked wealthy, too well dressed for the gathering surged to her feet. "You brought them here! The Edxi followed her here after they couldn't get their world!"
"Look at this stupid asshole!" Alice raged in return. "For the cost of the jewellery she's wearing she could feed everyone here for a week! Of course you don't want to leave, but the Edxi don't care about how much money you have. You're a slow, plump meal for just one of them. Sell all that crap you're wearing and buy a fast ship, fill it with people who need to get away. That's what matters. I came here looking for people who we could work with, discovered that the Edxi are on their way, and I'm trying to help you."
"Why? Why would such a powerful fleet with big guns and ships need us? I don't believe it!" the first objector shouted.
"I have time to help you, but I don't have time for idiots. If you want to stay, if you're too dense to understand that there is no hope for you if you stick around, then there's nothing I can do for you. It's Darwinism in action and you deserve what you get!" That was too far, Alice knew it the moment the words were in the air, and the surge of outrage verified it. A headache was starting to squeeze her mind like a tightening ring.
"Wait! Haven Fleet is here to help us leave!" Peter shouted, stepping to the very edge of the stage with his arms raised. "They have a list of safe worlds for us to quietly send our people to, and when their fleet arrives, they will help get whoever remains off the planet before the Edxi arrive. We must be quiet, we must keep this secret for as long as we can, or there may be Order of Eden intervention."
The crowd quieted by the time he finished talking. The pain in Alice's head didn't abate. Her so-called gift was out of control, she could feel the whole audience at once, it was like her mind was drowning.
With the audience mostly back under control, Peter went on. "They are making me one of their leaders, offering weapons and equipment to warriors who want to join them. There is a place for everyone, and until then…" He opened the case holding the Hull Buster and held the explosive up so everyone could see the heavy, dark canister. "They are giving us a hundred of these so we can break open the prisons, destroy Order of Eden installations, and take our revenge against the government officials who betrayed us. There are guns and armour suits here already, enough for a couple small cells, with more to come, much more. By the time the Order realizes that we are abandoning this place, many of the enemies we've had since this occupation started will be dead. It is time to plan quickly, to act faster, then leave this world so we can continue the fight out there and make a new home for ourselves once we find refuge far from here, where the Order can't reach us. Haven Fleet promises all of that, and as their newest leader, I can tell you that it will be done. We will have our revenge, then we will have our freedom!"
Alice only had a moment to be surprised at how quickly the fearful, angry crowd was turned by Peter before she felt surrounded by intense blood lust mingled with hope for the future before she fell flat on her back. Yawen was there a moment later, picking her up and carrying her from the stage. Through a haze of pain, she looked at her friend and muttered; "I screwed this up, didn't I?"
"You did great," Yawen said, looking worried, feeling alarmed. "The ship is coming, just hang on Alice, just…"
The pain wouldn't stop, it felt like her heart was beating in the middle of her head and it was crowding her grey matter more with every beat until her eyes rolled into the back of her head and all sensation stopped.
Fifteen
Aftermath
* * *
Yawen's report, which was mostly a recording of Alice appearing on stage with Peter, concluded. The common area in Jake's quarters was left in half-light as a silent moment passed. "I've never seen anyone that angry before," Minh-Chu said quietly. "I've seen people face their worst enemies, go into war with a furious heart, and the madness of hate take complete hold. I've even lost my mind a couple times myself when I was adrift. None o
f that compares to what Alice was showing that gathering. Where does that come from?"
"Abuse," Alaka said, sadness weighing his voice down. "Not from family, I'm sure. When one of my people go feral, it most often comes from long term mistreatment or imprisonment. That's why there were no prisons during the darker periods of my people's history. We killed the worst of our criminals, keeping them confined was too risky. Perhaps this is Alice's breaking point. From the little I know of her, she wouldn't abandon diplomacy this way, even in anger."
"She's an empath," Agameg said from his seat across from Alaka. "Alice has been through trauma few people can understand, her personality must have been modified every time she transitioned from one body, one shape to the next and she probably has a lot of hidden damage. How many times has she had to face hopelessness alone? My people have a kind of empath's gift when we're in the same pool. We can't help but share our emotions, and if we're there long enough, we learn each other's histories. If there's old trauma buried within us, it comes to the surface eventually. If we're surrounded by a community that stands against us, it's like they're poisoning the water. We turn our stored trauma outward so we can counter our rancid surroundings by making it worse for the people poisoning us. It's a self-destructive reflex that rarely works. That's why some of us end up like me, an outcast. My poison killed members of the tribe, and I barely survived."
"Do you mind if I ask what turned your people against you?" Alaka asked. "If you don't want to share, I understand."
"No, it was a long time ago," Agameg said. "My life mate and several of my siblings were killed when Suno Corporation claimed our lake. I ran while they were churned into their machines, as the person you might call mayor ordered. The regret I felt about that turned to anger, and I argued with the Mayor endlessly. The frustration I felt eventually poisoned the water around me, and the community turned against me. When I was confronted by the survivors, I shared the biological mass where my anger was gathering deep in my body with them, making the water around me so toxic that it was lethal to three younger members. Pure anger was rare with my clutch, almost unheard of, so it was difficult to process for them, and for me. I was exiled. Years later, after I knew much more about the dry universe, I joined the Samson crew and started to heal. I see some of the toxicity in Alice, and I can understand the provocation she's reacting to."
"Quan has almost exactly the same opinion," Jake said, trying to put his astonishment at Agameg Price finally sharing the story of his departure from his home waters. As his Captain, he pretended to know the reason why Agameg wasn't with his people, but he'd never actually heard the story. What made it more enlightening was that Suno Corporation had been acquired by Regent Galactic over two years ago, and they were wholly controlled by the Order of Eden. "Quan's coming aboard in a few minutes. He's already seen this. In his opinion, Alice was being overwhelmed by the audience. An empath can be negatively affected by too much emotion and they'll often lash out emotionally. Just like Agameg said; it's a reflex, a self-defence mechanism that comes up before the mind takes damage. Human empaths aren't like Nafalli, who retreat, so he says."
"I've only known one Nafalli empath, but that's true as far as I know," Alaka agreed. "If any of my people are overwhelmed by emotion, we retreat to someone we trust, a whole family if we're lucky. If there's no one like that nearby, we find a way to be alone so we can recover in peace. That goes for most of my people, not just empaths."
"And if one of your people can't find that peace, if they're cornered, they turn to rage," Minh-Chu said.
"Yes, there's nothing more dangerous," Alaka agreed quietly.
"A lot of humanity is the same," Minh-Chu said. "If we get hurt, we retreat too. Sometimes we say something we regret first, but often, we go to our opposite corners for a while, if we're mature enough. The Valents can be a little different, though. If their nose is put out of joint, they tend to strike back without holding anything back. I'm afraid your daughter takes after you, Jake. You have Peter putting her in a difficult spot on one hand, and a whole audience hitting her with bad vibes on the other. Not that I disagree with what she's saying, but I see someone in a corner lashing out."
"I'd like to think I've grown a little," Jake said. "But I have to admit, whether it's an enemy captain or a bounty that wouldn't go down easy, I sometimes lost my cool. It was always ugly."
"Like the bounty on Immeran Five who you delivered without hands?" Agameg asked, cocking his head.
"He got my gun and put a hole in my suit," Jake said, remembering the career kidnapper, Boolan San.
"Put a hole in you, too," Agameg added. "I remember what you said; 'the wound will heal, but I made this suit by hand.'"
"I really need to hear more stories from your Samson days," Minh-Chu said as Alaka's long snout bobbed up and down in agreement.
"Sometime. Getting back on track," Jake said, clearing his throat. "Alice made a promise she couldn't back up. That's as good as a lie, so Peter, this leader, multiplied the promises she did make in front of his leadership."
"His leadership?" Alaka asked.
"That audience was filled with cell leaders, there's anywhere between a dozen and a hundred people under each of them. That puts their numbers in the high thousands, maybe tens of thousands. I'm sure Peter's announcements pissed her off, and the audience made things a lot worse. Theodore says her vitals are good, and he doesn't detect more brain damage, but it's been four hours and she hasn't regained consciousness. We're taking care of that by leaving as soon as Quan gets here. He'll help Alice if she'll let him, if not, I'm going to bring him along for any negotiations I have to take on myself."
"What about the promises Peter inflated?" Alaka asked.
"That's why we're bringing the Pelican. It's probably full of bugs, and the crew are two thirds trainees, but it's our first hangar ship with room for fifty thousand beds. There's room for two thousand crew, but it's running with a little over two hundred. How would you like that command for this trip, Alaka?"
"I would enjoy that opportunity over my most recent mission," he replied.
Minh-Chu looked to Jake, an eyebrow raised.
"He was sent to Lelauren, one of the nearby neutral systems in the sector to talk to the leadership there."
"My diplomacy was perfect, and they were polite, but they want no part of this war. Half of what they have is made by the Order's companies, and they're making too much profit from the conflict thanks to rare raw material exports," Alaka explained, his nose twitching. "That's not what they told me, though. They said they didn't want to risk the security of their solar system. They were trying to scan everything we had the whole time we were there, and offered generous terms for samples of our technology, though. One of them even threatened to take our ship, but they relented when my entire team cloaked and hacked into their main communications system."
"Of their ship?" asked Agameg.
"No, their interplanetary military network. We were in Reed Square when we cloaked, standing beside half their ministers. They relented immediately and apologized, especially after we deactivated their planetary defences."
"I knew you'd do things my way," Jake said with a smile. "That's why I sent you out there. Intelligence wanted a military team to handle that diplomatic mission because the Lelaurenites respect strength. They want to talk again, by the way."
"I would rather command the Pelican, if you don't mind," Alaka said.
"That's going to be a thankless task filled with bug smashing and double shifts."
"If it gives me a break from two-faced diplomats like the Lelaurenites, then I'd command two Pelicans."
"Then that's your command until we're finished here, congratulations," Jake said.
"Who will talk to the Lelaurenites?" Minh-Chu asked.
"Remmy. It's on his way," Jake replied. "I'm looking forward to his report."
"So, getting back to the Pelican; as I understand it that ship is a huge hangar with big shield generators, a cloak and a quad d
rive system. It's not exactly nimble or tested though, so tell me we're not going to be its only cover. " Minh-Chu asked.
"The Rassaaga is coming with us, and all your fighters are being replaced by the Seventh Generation Models."
Minh-Chu sighed with a satisfied smile. "It's about time."
"I'm guessing they're an upgrade?" Alaka asked.
"In every way. Every part of them are self-repairing. Their weaponry, shields, power plants, pilot interfaces and everything else is several generations ahead of the fighters we're using now. They look the same, but they also have a cloaking system, a new grabber device and a tiny quad drive. There are other details, but these ships are going to protect my pilots much better. The Order is in for a surprise."
"I can't wait to see one," Agameg said. "Their development has been such a secret that I still can't get a look at the schematics."
"Hopefully we can get the Pelican along with all the spare bunks we're setting up in the Rassaaga and the Merciless filled up with exiles from Nuaji without firing a shot."
"But that's as likely as the galaxy reversing its spin because someone steals the last cookie in the galley," Minh-Chu said.
"Right," Jake sighed. "I want something to be clear before we dedicate ourselves to helping the people on Nuaji. I've looked everything over again, and my report is going to stay the same. She made one mistake: she made a big promise she couldn't keep to get her foot in the door and buy herself time so she could keep negotiations going. I still think Peter was the only person she could approach to get in touch with the largest resistance in that solar system. I believe it would have been a mistake to approach the government there. I'm also agreeing that the solar system she's acting in is the best candidate for liberation, and that it'll embarrass the Order more than any other target, especially if we take out extra objectives there. Does anyone disagree?"
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 13 Page 13