“How can we justify the deaths of all those people?” Dekker defended, hoping a different plan would present itself. Planetary bombardment would certainly do the job—but so many people were still alive below.
“Justify them like you did at Osix?” Dekker couldn’t identify the source of the comment over the argument that wouldn’t show signs of easing.
“What is the status of the containment field?” Dekker queried.
“Unlikely,” the captain of the Stalwart said flatly. “The MEA is impotent. Something must be done to protect the other districts.”
“The MEA promised a cure!” a squelchy reply reminded. Nobody gave the claim any credibility; it went ignored.
“And can you live with ordering all those deaths?” the Gallant asked the Stalwart.
“Something must be done to protect the rest of life, even it means making the hard decisions. But I’m not ready yet, no, the captain admitted.”
“What options remain?” Dekker asked.
“There are none!” the Pugilist’s captain bellowed. “Who’s with me?”
“I’ll do it,” replied the Hammer as the class D moved into position, exposing a gunnery flank to the run parallel with the planetary surface.
“I’m with you,” replied the captains of the Maccabee and the Bastion.
Gallant’s captain screamed a warning into his communicator, “If you fire you’ll be declaring war upon the citizens of Earth. Screw the Mother Earth Aggregate—Earth is my home! I’m past requesting weapons permissions or clearances. If you fire, I’ll pull the trigger on you myself.”
The three rogue ships continued moving into position. They didn’t break silence while the Gallant moved to intercept; Gallant would never get close enough to block the capital ships’ fire.
“Their weapons systems are charged to max potential,” Shaw informed Dekker from his station. Dekker bit his lip tightly. The tension demanded action, but either choice was damnable.
Gallant’s captain issued one final warning. “Captains, do not do this!” A moment of silence, then the ultimatum. “All weaponized ships, if these rebels open fire, you are directed to fire upon them immediately or I will consider you as complicit in their treason! I assure you of your destruction as well!”
Five seconds stretched out, each more tense than the previous. The radio silence added to the anxiety—the rebels refused communication. The tension suddenly broke as the Hammer, Maccabee, and Bastion began raining destruction down upon the surface.
The entire scene erupted in chaos as the MEA ships began firing upon each other. Shields flashed and an electric crackle buzzed through the void. Supporters of the three rebels moved into position to shield them from the heavy guns of the MEA capital ships while returning fire with their smaller defensive guns. The primary rebels focused entirely upon the surface, directing all energy there, even as their hulls shook and buckled. Chunks of metal skin boiled and tore free as atmosphere violently vented.
Panicked voices flooded the communications waves. The Gallant’s captain screamed threats over the comm and led the charge, gaining enough angle to flank the rebels. Bringing the full force under his command to bear, his guns tore through hull and carling, eviscerating each vessel in turn as they refused to give their shields more energy—instead focusing on their task, bombarding the planet with supercharged death and martyring themselves in the process.
The last ship broke apart and stopped firing. It’s halves fell to the forces of gravity and each twisted as they fell, flickering and burning as the oxygen spewed into the nothingness. “Stand down! Stand down!” the Gallant’s captain yelled as his peers fired on the rebels’ supporters. “There is no need for more destruction!”
Dekker stood on his command deck and merely observed. His voice eluded him; he could only watch. Scanners pushed through the blackened atmosphere below. The entire continent was gone, completely slagged. Oceanic waters rushed in to fill the broken hole in the planet; seawater evaporated into cloud as they splashed against the superheated rock and billowed into the burned sky.
The growing silence became increasingly uncomfortable; the navy sent Salvation query after query. “Orders?” Shaw asked.
Dekker sighed. “No orders.” He keyed in a sequence on his console and activated the Doc Johnson’s cloaking device.
The Salvation shimmered slightly and the lights flickered once. Then, the massive warship disappeared.
***
“What!” The Pheema flew into a rage as he reviewed the report just hours after returning to his office in New Babylon. “They destroyed an entire continent!” His security team swept the room quickly before his top security aid gave him the details of the report.
The sallow, skinny man spoke with a slight lisp. “While scanning for those frequencies that you gave us, we discovered a hidden communication to the three rebel ships. Origin is unknown, but it was definitely of Mechnar design; one needed to be specifically looking for it in order to detect it.”
“So those ships weren’t really ours,” The Pheema hissed. “Perhaps the withered sister speaks to her child after all?” he asked the two elderly women who accompanied him.
The Pheema paced the length of his office. “Analyze our data,” he barked. “I want definitive proof before I act. I believe this is the last piece of evidence that the Right hand no longer knows what the Left Hand is doing. The Council will be satisfied with this, I assume? Will I finally be allowed to put him down?”
The two ladies nodded their heads silently. The Pheema grinned at his masters’ orders. It came none too soon for the alien diplomat; Austicon would finally die.
Dekker’s Dozen #009
DNIET Disaster
The comm crackled. Static broke into Dekker’s solitude.
Salvation hung in complete blackness within the shadow of Earth’s moon. Beyond, a steady influx of MEA ships had brought a decent force to muster near the planet—all defensible ships had been called home, it seemed. The lunar umbra provided a good vantage point for whatever might happen next.
Inside the command room, Dekker brooded in deep thought. He’d sat still long enough that the automatic lighting had switched off due to inactivity. The comm crackled again.
“This is Captain Johns of the Gallant. I’m trying to contact Dekker; I hope you’re still in this system, somewhere. Please contact me.” A long pause followed; this hadn’t been Johns’ first appeal. “I have disturbing information—something you will want to hear. I believe the three rebel ships that destroyed District Three were… under coercion.”
Dekker turned his head and looked at the communication console; the lights shimmered on. He squinted as the illumination bit his eyes.
So many factors had interwoven through this mystery that the mental fatigue had begun eating away at his fortitude. He needed more minds working on it, and Nibbs had suddenly vanished: possibly an indication of yet another problem linked to the Red Tree.
***
Nibbs’ vision cleared to a mild haze. The fever ravaging his body would not relent; but more menacing was a foreign voice that whispered inside his mind. It contended with his will for control of their body.
The investigator’s dry, cracked lips threatened to split again as he croaked a guttural scream. His blurred vision gazed downward and Nibbs saw his chest. A network of veins like root tendrils bulged darkly; they wormed their pattern just beneath his skin. The wound on his abdomen looked vicious. Its ragged edges had blackened and Nibbs wondered how long he’d been unconscious.
The persistent, usurping voice was more than some hallucination caused by the infection in his body. Nibbs struggled to stand, but something anchored his feet and arms. He glanced back; the elder zombies who had captured him stood as statues, moored to the center of the Verdant Seven’s circle.
Relaxing, Nibbs nearly collapsed. His vision split, doubled, and then reformed momentarily, fixed on the horrible item before him. Lying before the trunk of the red-leaved arbolean leader was
the DNIET weapon the investigators had encountered at the research facility.
In the dawning terror of that, Nibbs found enough strength to stave off the next mental barrage. He had to stay strong; he had to escape and warn the Dozen!
Through the symbiont’s connection, Nibbs could understand the Arbolean communication. As a maddening migraine gripped his head, he saw one of the elder apothecium drones retrieve the DNIET unit. Nibbs could hear the resonant voice in his mind, like a menacing breath. Install this within the Child of Destruction and call down Ragnarock; summon the Valkyries, they will rip through our enemies’ ships like submerged reef on choppy sea.
***
“An informant sent us this wealth of information,” Rita told her supervisor. As a broadcast personality, she had very little power in the stories that ran. Truthfully, she’d had very little interest in them up until now. The job had been a paycheck; her pretty face and charisma had been the doorway to a comfortable life. Life had just gotten much more interesting, however, and the entire galaxy seemed to erupt in chaos overnight. Curiosity had suddenly gotten the better of her, that is, as long as she could report the chaos from the security of their New Babylon broadcast center.
Russ flipped through the photos and information. “You’re sure it’s not from those same hacktivists responsible for the recent piratical takeover? There could be legal problems if we use this stuff and it turns out they’re the source.”
“Come on, Russ. They went offline when those orbital ships burned through the entire continent. Those hackers were obviously based out of District Three when it all went down. They’ve got to be all dead.”
Russ tapped his fingers against the file. “Alright. If the other networks are all at the edge, we might as well step over the line first. It’s been a long time since anyone’s done any actual real reporting. Run with it, but hang back on anything that makes The Pheema look bad. Jerusalem may or may not be involved in the things like your snitch claims, but everyone needs a scapegoat, so let’s leave that door open.”
***
The Pheema, head Krenzin religious leader and Chief Magnate of the MEA, stood in a meeting of the only persons on the planet who wielded more power than he. For nearly an hour, now, this inquiry had raged and he had every intention of stripping his enemy of all power—even ripping out the arbolean seed that empowered him, and the alien felt certain the Verdant Seven would support him.
Holding a fistful of data from the destruction of District Three, he pointed a talon at Prognon Austicon. “This was all your doing! I know it, and this time I have proof!” he accused the Left Hand.
Austicon stood opposed to his counterpart and shrugged placidly. He feigned ignorance. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, do you?” He turned to his silent psy-nar general, Leviathan, and sent him a mental command that only the psychic would receive.
The black-clad Leviathan stood statuesque, scanning the faces and minds of The Pheema’s aides. They included a handful of security guards and a collection of elderly women—avatars of the Arbolean council and descendants of the ancient Dodona cultists. Leviathan shook his head.
“I thought not.” Austicon’s ruse fell apart when he grinned wickedly. “Then again, maybe I do know what you mean.” The Left Hand stepped in and grasped the Right by his wrist.
Leviathan sprang into action, his blade danced through the air. Shots from the security team flew wide as the psy-nar assassin ducked, rolled, severed, and stabbed. Within two seconds only the wide eyed Krenzin official still stood, towering over the bodies of guards, aides, and elderly women.
The Pheema grimaced as Prognon Austicon’s tight grip manacled the Chief Magnate’s wrists behind his lithe frame. He winced against from the assassin’s hot breath. “What do you plan to accomplish here? You can’t go against the entire Arbolean council!”
“Oh, but I can!” Austicon drew a wicked, twisted knife in his free hand. “You see, it is my time now. Forget the Verdant Seven, they are a joke, a council of impotence—cultists communing with six ambitious pieces of kindling. Upon those trees I will build the funeral pyre of all mankind!”
“You’re mad, Austicon! This plan has been in the works for millennia!”
“And you’re too shortsighted! As are the arboleans and all other mortal things! You cannot see how I transcend these all. I am a god incarnate, a vengeful deity of death and destruction, imprisoned for centuries and released so those ambitious fools could attach themselves to me! I am the god of wrath! And now, thanks to the barren dissenter, I will impose my will! I become Baal Dione, the true architect of this whole ruse!”
“But the plan! It’s perfect!” The Pheema stammered. “We will enslave the humans and bend them to our own will! The arboleans will transcend!”
Austicon glared at him. “And your drones will become the next step to evolve the arbolean race? You’ll give them the freedom to uproot—to provide every arbolean beyond the council with sentience and tethered mobility? And what about that percentage of immune humanity? There will always be a resistance!”
The Pheema bartered as if his life depended on it. It did. “Those are the ones reserved for mechnar units!”
“A pool which will never be large enough! You know that mechnar hybrid implants don’t work on the apothecium infected population.” Austicon plunged the blade between the two bones of his enemy’s collar.
Shrieking, The Pheema shuddered with pain. “There isn’t enough room for two predators in this food chain!”
“Indeed,” Austicon spat. He yanked down hard on the knife handle, breaking The Pheema’s collarbone. “That is why I’m going to kill the Verdant Seven! You think this war is over the bodies of men, who gets to use them for husks or shells for implantation. You misunderstand. You always have. This is not a war over the bodies of humanity, but for their souls!”
The Pheema whimpered with pain. “You’re insane. You’ve lost it!”
“No!” Austicon’s eyes challenged, more maniacal than ever before. “I’ve lived since before the dawn of time! The hearts of men are capable of anything; they are imprinted with the blueprints of the great divine machine within their very genetic material! You could never cage such a thing; they would throw you off and usurp you—adapt into some new form! And always there is the other threat from within their midst!”
“What other threat?” tears of pain crawled down the Pheema’s furry face. “Let us face it together!” He assumed the desperate posture of a person making promises he could never keep. “The arboleans can help you! Ragnarock is a powerful weapon unlike any other!”
“I already have my super-weapon, I also have a DNIET!”
The Pheema’s face went even paler.
Austicon laughed as he recognized the surprise. “You did not know that there were two, did you? Only this weapon can deal a heavy enough blow to humanity to wound my enemy, the other threat.”
“What threat!”
“I am the god of vengeance—I seek to kill the God of mercy, the very one who spawned creation, the one whose machinations power the universe itself and whose fate is tied these humans! One can destroy the bodies of men, but their souls will endure unless I wipe out the entire population—kill them all and silence the ones who carry knowledge of the ineffable names!”
“And your mechnar units?” he gambled desperately. “With no humanity, you will limit your army.”
“You should worry about you.” Austicon ripped the blade out, and then stabbed him again. Again. Again. Over and again. The Pheema’s shrieks soon died as the Chief Magnate collapsed in a pool of his thin, Krenzin blood.
Austicon stood over the dead and cackled with a low, guttural and otherworldly laugh. Leviathan stepped over the bodies and silently lorded over the kill.
“My friend,” Austicon stated, speaking to the spirit deep within the psy-nar unit, “You have been with me since the fall of our ethereal race, taking new forms through the years, but now, we finally reach the end of days! Let us activ
ate the DNIET weapon and destroy this system before we savagely deflower the red tree.
Smiling, Prognon Austicon took The Pheema’s limp hand in his own. Dipping a forefinger in blood, he drew an archaic Star of David symbol upon the stone floor. He laid the dead hand next to the mark.
As the two assassins departed, an elderly woman dragged herself across the chamber floor, leaving a trail of her own blood in her wake. Her breaths came in ragged gasps as her wounds spurted.
She pulled herself up to the window. Trembling, grasping a thin, yew wand she divined for the proper wind. Dropping a handful of beech leaves into the current, she poured all her thoughts, emotions, and energy into the act. Her masters, the arboleans, had to know of Austicon’s plans.
She collapsed, quite sure that her message had been sent. With a shudder and a final groan, her eyes rolled back in her skull and she bled her last.
***
Dekker respectfully stood as Captain Johns entered the conference room they’d borrowed on Darkside Station. Doc Johnson and Fryberger stood at the edge of the room, observing the parley and fidgeting nervously.
An older man, Johns’ hair was shot through with gray and his years of service had cragged his face with jagged lines. After a few brief formalities, Johns leveled with him. “There’s not much left of the MEA military after these last few decades of vulture-picking by the politicians. We’re bringing most everything back home for the time being. And this comes directly in contradiction to our orders. As far as the actual navy goes, I’m the one giving commands, now.”
“And what about the outposts, settlements, and trade routes the navy is supposed to protect?”
“Protect from what? The only real threats are here at Earth. The only thing we do out there is delegate; even if some kind of military threat did surface, most warships are equipped at only forty percent of their weapons capacity or less after the legislators started meddling. Most of the colonies have already been stripped clean and search efforts prove futile. The populations have either disappeared or lay dead in the streets. I ordered the same thing you did: our men picked up whatever survivors we could find and guarantee were safe, and cut our losses.”
The Last Watchmen Page 20