Humans

by A. G. Claymore

  The smile from the holographic Quailu sent shivers up his spine. “You will see for yourself in just a moment.”

  “We’re picking up an encrypted signal!” the tactical officer yelled, already keyed up by the atmosphere of fear on the bridge.

  “Another fleet?” Apsu demanded.

  “No, lord. It’s coming from within our own formation but...” He looked up at Apsu. “Lord, there’s nothing there! The signal appears to be coming from no source!”

  “How can…” Apsu trailed off, mouth hanging open in cold shock as the main tactical holo showed sudden chaos in his fleet. Damage reports were flooding his display and then suddenly going gray as if the ships were no longer reporting.

  “We’re under attack!” The tactical officer seemed to think that screaming the blatantly obvious would help matters.

  It didn’t.

  Apsu, already unsettled by Mishak and shocked by the sudden influx of battle damage reports, froze up. He was rooted to the spot on the deck, his breathing coming in shallow, rapid gasps and his face was cold with sweat.

  His mind screamed at him as he watched his ships go dark, and they went quickly. The entire time between the start of the assault and its apparent end must have been only a few heartbeats but the shock held him as his tactical interface updated.

  Every ship – every single ship – had been struck simultaneously and the weapons had done horrific damage. They seemed to explode with incredible force, vaporizing anything that got in their way. Most ships were left with very little structure to hold the fore and aft sections together.

  A small part of the hull and underlying structure surrounding the impact managed to escape the highly directional blasts. They were little more than salvageable nanites and engines but only in the ships where the engineering sections weren’t hit.

  Most of the ships no longer had engines or, for that matter, engineering sections.

  “I don’t believe it!” the tactical officer blurted out, at least capable of speaking. “I think we have only three frigates left that can still answer to their helms! I can’t even tell who fired at us!”

  Three frigates. Apsu had come here with sixty-three cruisers and one-hundred-twenty-two frigates and now he had his own cruiser and three damaged but serviceable frigates.

  The calls started coming in now. The fleet-wide channel was inundated with panicked voices screaming for help.

  “The enemy are firing again,” tactical said. “The ships in this universe have launched missiles,” he elaborated.

  Apsu noted the reference to multiverse-combat but didn’t bother to correct it. He was already overloaded by the sudden savagery unleashed on his forces and had little inclination to spare for such foolishness. He frowned.

  Is it truly foolishness? Perhaps that moron, Ilgi, was right after all. Maybe Mishak had gotten his hands on something that let his ships slip between universes.

  He shook his head, trying to force it back to the immediate problem. “Countermeasures,” he snapped.

  “They’re active, lord, but we’re not the target.”

  “Then who…”

  The screaming voices were disappearing from the fleet-wide feed. It was somehow more horrifying for Apsu to watch as the missiles slowly sought out each of his remaining ships. Even the crippled vessels were being annihilated, the crews killed and he was helpless to stop it.

  It was, he admitted to himself, the same thing he’d done to the Noorian defenders. Now he was on the receiving end.

  The last of the transmitted voices went silent, except for one.

  “Do you yield?” Mishak demanded.

  Yield? Apsu’s mind rebelled but what sense was there in fighting when his massive fleet had been wiped out in the blink of an eye? He should surrender now and concentrate on getting back to his own throne-world to start rebuilding his forces.

  It would mean crushing taxes, perhaps even an emergency annexation of several corporations, but he had to replace his losses.

  And do what? Would they just end up destroyed? He couldn’t begin to explain how Mishak had done this.

  He realized that, even if he couldn’t defend against Mishak, he would definitely need to defend himself against his neighbors. His defensive fleets were only ever intended to fight delaying actions while the main fleet was brought in.

  Once news of this defeat got out, powerful neighboring lords would see the chance to seize a system or two and elevate themselves to elector status. They’d be more than willing to throw their fleets at him in order to enter the inner circle of power.

  And he’d be out.

  There was no choice. “I yield,” he snapped.

  Mishak turned to say something that the pick-ups didn’t catch. He looked back. “Stand ready to receive a boarding party.”

  The party was led by an ensign, a deliberate slight to Apsu’s status as an elector. “The ship is yours,” Apsu declared stiffly, feeling the shame of his crew, the disdain of this young enemy officer.

  “I know,” he replied flippantly, waving two of his party toward the rear of the bridge. The ensign simply stood there, four more of the boarders at his back, saying nothing as his men left through the aft hatch that led to the main companionway.

  Apsu fidgeted without noticing it. He glanced around helplessly, uncomfortable in the silence. Whatever new humiliation was in store, he wished they’d simply get on with it. “What do you intend to do with us?” he finally demanded.

  The ensign looked at him for a long moment. “Well, firstly, I intend to tell you that you should remain silent unless directly addressed. The ship, after all, is mine, is it not?”

  Apsu couldn’t believe his ears! He was an elector, a prince of the realm! Victorious or not, this young buck had no right to address him in this fashion!

  The ensign leaned forward. “You were directly addressed,” he offered helpfully. “You may answer, if you wish.”

  It was finally too much and Apsu exploded. “You insolent little gnat!” he yelled. “Your conduct reflects poorly on your master and, rest assured, I shall see to it that the empire learns of your disgraceful treatment of an elector!”

  “That would be a neat trick,” the youngster said obscurely, his back to Apsu now. He picked up a mug from the communications station, gave its contents a sniff and then took a drink.

  “Lord,” the tactical officer called quietly from behind him.

  “Not now,” Apsu snapped, too busy wondering about the ensign’s comment to bother with his bridge crew. What did he mean by that? Why would it be any kind of trick, complaining about his behavior to an elector?

  He could feel a clear sense of consternation from his tactical officer but he steadfastly ignored it. Who cared about tactical considerations on a ship they no longer controlled, anyway?

  The two members of the boarding party who’d gone running off aft reappeared, breathing heavily.

  “All done?” the ensign inquired brightly. “Good!” he enthused in response to their affirmation. “Well…” He waved the mug in a vague gesture. “… My lord, you can have your ship back.” He drained the mug and handed it to the befuddled communications officer.

  “Have it back?” Apsu had assumed he’d be transferred to the Dibbarra as a prisoner, if he were to be left alive.

  “Well, we certainly don’t want it, do we?” the ensign replied. “Don’t really need another cruiser and, frankly, there are too many of your lot aboard her. Best we just cut you loose, at this point. Come along, lads.” This last was to his boarding party. “Galley staff are serving billeche tonight and we don’t want to miss out!”

  “Oh!” He stopped in the portal that joined his shuttle to Apsu’s cruiser. “My lord bids me to tell you that you’re welcome to follow us, though, if you’d rather not watch, he understands that as well. The important thing is that you can’t remain here. Noori is now under his protection.”

  “Watch… Watch what?” Apsu demanded.

  “He’s sending out couriers to
inform your neighbors that you no longer have your fleet. He’s also letting each know that he’s telling all of them. I suspect there’s going to be a mad rush to snap up your holdings.”

  The ensign’s focus drifted for a moment, as if he were searching his memory to see if he’d missed anything. He looked back at Apsu and offered a cheerful wave. “Happy paths, my lord!”

  He passed through the opening and the portal flowed shut.

  Things were far more desperate than Apsu could ever have imagined. There would be no time to rebuild his forces, not even time to consolidate his planetary defense detachments, not if all nine of his systems would be under attack at the same time! He needed to do something but what?

  “What’s the status of the enemy fleet?” he demanded, hoping to jump-start his mind.

  “I was trying to tell you, lord,” tactical replied. “We’re blind. Those two boarders must have destroyed our comms suites. We don’t even have backups. Our database is wiped as well.”

  “The database…” They don’t want us reviewing recordings of the attack! Apsu forced himself to shelve that consideration for later. Right now, there was only one sensible course of action. “Lay in a path for Kells.”

  “Laying in a path for Kells,” the helmsman confirmed.

  Get home, he thought, pilfer the entire treasury and evacuate the family. He’d have to come to terms with his downfall when time permitted but, if he acted quickly, he could come to terms with it from a position of comfort and not as a penniless beggar émigré.

  “I understand,” Tashmitum told Mishak.

  “I’m not sure you do,” he countered. “I hadn’t planned to take such extreme measures against Apsu. I let myself be goaded into it. My whole life, I’ve despised my father for his viciousness and, now, in my attempt to beat him, I’m becoming him.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “You’re afraid that you might be turning into him. You were ruthless, yes, but no awilu would have acted otherwise in your place, not if they wished to be taken seriously.

  “Apsu laughed at the idea of your vengeance. Now the entire empire will shudder at the results. If you wish to join me on the throne, you can’t deny the value of an example like this and you can’t shrink from employing ruthlessness when it’s needed.”

  “An emperor who fears his own power never rules for long,” Mishak said, quoting one of Marduk’s numerous lessons.

  “The fact that you’re conscious of your father’s flaws only makes it less likely that you’re going to become him,” she insisted.

  “But I didn’t do it out of cold calculation,” he countered. “I let anger force my hand. I let my father force my hand, even if it wasn’t what he expected.”

  “Then we’re very lucky it worked out for us,” she admitted, stepping closer. “Next time,” she continued, tapping the side of his head, “do your thinking with this.” She lowered the hand and he hissed at the sudden, cupping pressure.

  “Never let this take the lead.”

  They both looked toward the door of their quarters as a door chime sounded. “Enter,” Tashmitum replied, stepping away from Mishak.

  The hatch slid aside to reveal Fleet Captain Rimush. “Apsu’s family have been retrieved from Kells,” he said as he entered. “We’ll hand them over to his care.” He tilted his head, sensing Mishak’s consternation but not understanding it.

  “After hostiles arrive, of course,” Mishak corrected.

  “Indeed lord,” Rimush replied, allowing a note of mild reproof at being told how to chew grass. “A large fleet of hostiles is already here.”

  Mishak sat up, opening a holo-display. He selected the tactical menu and saw that a fleet of roughly forty ships had arrived. It wasn’t overwhelming force on the scale employed by Apsu at Noori but it would do against the small planetary defense detachment orbiting Kells.

  “Gilbennu,” Mishak said flatly.

  “He might be of use to us,” she suggested.

  “I did tell him this opportunity existed,” Mishak agreed, “but gratitude has a short half-life. He’ll make himself into an elector today, but he’ll emphasise his own efforts here over ours at Noori. The fact that he wouldn’t have dared to try this if Apsu still had his huge battle fleet is something he’d rather forget about as soon as possible.”

  “So we should burnish our own role as much as possible,” Tashmitum said. “This has all happened so quickly…”

  “He wouldn’t have had time to arrange for a Varangian presence to authenticate his claim,” Mishak said. “You’re suggesting that we stay?”

  “Yes, long enough for the Varangians to come. Once they’re here, no other lords would dare interfere.”

  “That takes care of Kells,” Rimush said, “but Apsu had other systems…”

  “And if one or more of them happen to be enough to grant a vote to the lord taking it,” Tashmitum replied, “we can look at assisting them as well. No sense in fighting for every two-system minor lord who feels like rolling the dice.”

  “It’s been a good day’s work, I suppose,” Mishak said. “Thanks to the data we took before frying Apsu’s data-core, I know where my brother’s still using the same hiding-place between atrocities.”

  “You’re thinking of confronting him?”

  “Soon, but only when we’re ready.”

  Who Do We Have Here?

  The Sar Ili, pathing.

  Gleb picked up his pace, then he caught himself and slowed down again. No sense in acting different than the other Humans on this ship, especially now.

  He’d gotten into the database on the Sar Ili, but he’d found little more than scraps. Sandrak was far more careful with information than Memnon. In the end, he’d resorted to bugging the elector’s quarters and ready room.

  What he’d learned had seemed so out of character for Sandrak that Gleb had suspected the bugs had been found and they were feeding him a false line. He’d come to see the sense of it, though, in the light of the Quailu’s overall ambitions.

  Now he just had to get off the ship and he’d need to reach the shuttle-bay before the ship dropped out of path. A courier was set to depart as soon as they restored normalcy and Gleb intended to be aboard.

  He walked past the large, open cargo-doors of the bay and turned left into a corridor running just aft of the large hangar. He slipped in through a small door that opened onto the hangar just behind a stack of water-cubes.

  Unfortunately, a junior petty officer was there, checking the levels in the cubes. He noticed Gleb and, oddly, seemed familiar with the Human.

  “Not yet!” the Quailu hissed angrily. “I told you I need to talk to my superior. We can’t just jump the chain of command, no matter how interesting your information is!”

  “My information?” Gleb blurted. “What the hells…”

  “Enough!” The Quailu drew his weapon. “It’s much easier for me to just hand you over for…”

  … Gleb was in agony. It felt like he’d been beaten for several hours. He winced at a fresh stab of pain in his abdomen and tried to put his hand over the area, only to find he couldn’t move his arm.

  He opened his eyes and looked around. The Quailu petty officer was gone. Come to think of it, so was the shuttle bay.

  He was stretched out by his arms and legs, X fashion, in an interrogation cell.

  “Oh!” he said simply, as if to say fair enough, I feel as if I’ve been beaten because… I’ve been beaten.

  But how long had this been going on? It certainly felt like the beating hadn’t been rushed and, yet, he couldn’t remember any of it. One advantage of these shifting personalities, I suppose. I don’t have to put up with the worst of the pain.

  It must have been a standard Quailu interrogation; apply generous amounts of pain while repeating the questions, over and over. Their empathic senses could do a better job of sorting out the lies from the truth if you were busy trying to manage your agony.

  Gleb frowned. What did I… the other I …tell them? What does he
even know? If the other Gleb knew what the original Gleb knew, the results of this interrogation might have disastrous consequences for the Humans.

  His thoughts were interrupted by loud footsteps. At least two sets.

  “So this is the culprit?” a deep voice asked, its owner moving to stand in front of Gleb.

  Sandrak… Gleb made a conscious effort to still his thoughts. Even so, a shiver ran down his spine as he realized how bad this situation was. No harm done, though, as his surprise was an entirely normal thing, given the circumstances. Whatever other Gleb may have given up, he’d be damned if he gave them more than his fear.

  “He doesn’t seem like much,” Sandrak observed. “He gave you what you needed?”

  “Indeed, lord,” another voice answered from behind. “These Humans have no control. Their minds are an open book, even without torture.”

  Gleb could sense the interrogator’s disdain. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever felt in his life. They’d taken away his under-armor suit before hanging him up in here but it was the lack of his abilities that really made him feel naked.

  “We’ll be dropping out at Ashurapol soon.” Sandrak turned to leave. “Make sure you space him before we go into orbit. The Ashurapolitians get fussy about space-junk interfering with their weather satellites.”

  Gleb closed his mind, leaving only a thin veneer of fear for the two Quailu to pick up. He knew the interrogator’s EVA armor wasn’t going to fit him – the Quailu facial structure was far too different to adapt to a Human – but his weapon would work just fine.

  The door hissed closed behind Sandrak. “Come on, you little turd,” the interrogator said darkly. “Time to fly!” The restraints opened and Gleb tumbled to the decking.

  All the bruises, cuts and cracked ribs that his mind had managed to put on the back burner suddenly forced their way to the forefront, screaming for attention. Gleb joined them, shrieking in agony.

  The deep rumbling chuckle brought his focus back. He followed the sound, wormed his way into the Quailu’s mind and went for the cranial artery.