Revengers

by Alex Kings

  “Laodicean, shield,” he said.

  The shield went back up.

  “Mero?”

  Mero leaned out of cover, fired, then fell back. “They're coming back to work on it,” he said.

  “Bloodline,” Rurthk growled. “Suth, how long?”

  “The system is … difficult,” said Suth.

  “It's going to get a whole lot more difficult when they fill this room with bullets,” Rurthk snapped.

  “Captain Rurthk,” said Urru, changing cover to sit beside him. “While they are busy with the machine, you and your crew have a chance to escape. I can defend Suth while he works. We will only need to survive long enough for him to release the poison.

  Rurthk stared at her. “You want to sacrifice yourself?” he said.

  “No,” said Urru. “Before we left, the queen told me that if someone needs to sacrifice themselves to complete the mission, I should do so and allow you to escape.”

  “That's … very nice of her,” said Rurthk. “But I think I'll stay.” He hesitated. “Just out of interest, did the queen say what you should do if we can complete the mission, but only if I die?”

  “In that case, I am to complete the mission. Your life has secondary importance.”

  Rurthk nodded. “Well, at least she has her priorities in order. I was starting to worry she'd gone soft.”

  “Hey, Cap,” said Mero, pausing to fire down the corridor, “stop flirting by proxy and get ready. They're moving

  “You know what I've just realised?” Eloise said, reloading. “We are idiots.”

  “You only just figured that out?” said Rurthk.

  “Olivia, have you used that canister of poison yet?” Eloise said.

  “Oh, uh, no.”

  “Give it here.”

  “Oh,” said Rurthk, eyes widening. “We are idiots.”

  Olivia rolled the canister over to Eloise.

  In the corridor outside, Glaber shouted. Then there was a rumbling. Rurthk saw the small tank moving into view.

  “Anyone who hadn't got a mask on, do it now,” said Eloise. She quickly unscrewed the canister. Gas whined out. “Laodicean, when I throw this, drop the shield and make sure it lands somewhere useful.”

  “Understood,” said Laodicean.

  The tank came to a halt outside the door. It was a block of thick armour with a few sapphiroid windows, two Gatling guns side-by-side, large-calibre muzzle, and what looked worrying like a flamethrower. The gatling guns began to spin.

  “Now!” shouted Eloise, throwing the canister.

  At the same time, the guns roared into life. Rurthk dropped into cover. The machine was at his back; he could feel it vibrating against his back as the bullets chewed through it.

  The canister sailed overhead, where it was caught by Laodicean's effector fields. He sent it above the path of the bullets and dropped it directly in front of the guns.

  There was a sudden, sharp bang as the canister exploded. It was audible even through the sound of the guns. Rurthk saw bits of the canister come flying back into the room. One of the Glaber outside cried out. The guns continued to fire.

  Did we get them? thought Rurthk. There was no way any of them could check.

  The guns stopped suddenly as the Glaber succumbed to the gas. Rurthk waited. Hears ears were ringing. Beside him, Urru leaned out, her rifle ready.

  “Looks clear,” she said.

  Rurthk leaned out of cover. The tank's guns clacked as they cooled. He could see a dead Glaber lying in front of them. The gas was colourless, but given how much pressure the canister was under, it had probably filled the entire corridor within seconds of exploding.

  “It won't clear them for long,” he said. “And the moment they start putting masks on, we're in trouble.”

  “It's okay,” Olivia said. “We're just about to do it …”

  Suth pulled a lever down on one of the pipes.

  Chapter 45: Happy?

  Rurthk headed out cautiously into the corridors. Dead Glaber were scattered on the floor next to the corridor. Instinctively he checked his mask, making sure the seal was tight.

  The “tank” was still sitting there. Its armour covered three sides, but there was an opening behind for two Glaber to operate the weapons. It might come in useful, but right now, Rurthk had no easy way of moving it.

  He summoned his team out into the corridor, and as a team they began to explore the ship.

  Soon, they found a couple of Glaber who had heard what had happened and had put gas masks on just in time. Urru shot them down. But otherwise, the death was uniform. Bodies were everywhere. Commanding Glaber lay slumped over plans for killing the queen. They hadn't been doing this even while the Rurthk and his crew had taken over environmental controls. Elsewhere Glaber had died while moving out another tank, or handing out weapons.

  Rurthk felt his chest swell with pride. He glanced at Eloise, who was occupied with looking for any survivors who might attack. He knew she wouldn't approve of this sort of reaction.

  They quickly found a control centre, a dimly lit dome filled with wall terminals. Several sections of the ship were calling with increasing urgency. Suth made sure the leaders' section of the hive ship was sealed. They didn't want any nasty surprises.

  “I can dump the poison and replace it with clean air,” he said.

  “Leave it for the moment,” said Rurthk. “If anyone wants to come here and challenge us, I want the opportunity to let them breath the air.

  Suth nodded.

  “Can you disable the weapons from here?” Rurthk asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Do it.”

  Suth ran his hands across the input bristles. He leaned forward to the output to sniff it, then realised he had still had a mask on and called up a visual display instead. “Done,” he said.

  Rurthk went to check the crew roster and find the leaders of Hive Knife. As he expected, the queen was among them.

  “Time for an expedition,” he said.

  They split up into groups. Mero, Eloise, Olivia and Laodicean went to check the rest of the section and make sure there were no survivors lying in wait.

  Rurthk took his two Glaber allies. First they checked on the Knife queen. She was, as expected, dead. This wouldn't destroy the hive. In time, one of the hive's females would become a new queen.

  Next, Rurthk went to find the leader of Hive Knife. He was in his quarters, dead. They dragged him to the control centre.

  On the way they met up with the others.

  “It's clean,” said Eloise. “No survivors.”

  “Good,” said Rurthk. “Time to issue a statement, then.”

  They positioned the dead Glaber on a chair in front of a communications console. Rurthk stood beside him.

  “I want a live audiovisual transmission to the entire ship,” he told Suth.

  Suth nodded and ran his fingers through the console's bristles. “Ready,” he said.

  “Do it,” said Rurthk.

  Suth brushed the console.

  Rurthk glared in silence at the camera for a couple of seconds to let the image sink in. “Glaber of Hive Knife,” he said in a commanding voice. “I have killed your leaders. I have killed your queen.” To drive home the point, he took his knife, sank in into the leader's neck, and then grabbed the body and threw it against the screen. The leader collapsed out of sight of the viewers.

  It was all about the theatre.

  “You have been conquered in the name of Hive Life. You will serve its queen. Submit, or I will destroy your hive and your ship. Send your reply quickly.”

  He looked at Suth and nodded. Suth killed the transmission.

  Mero laughed and clapped. “This is more fun than I ever thought I'd have on a Glaber ship,” he said.

  “Let's hope they're smart,” said Rurthk, slumping into the chair.

  Right now he could imagine the Glaber in the rest of the ship, arguing, panicking, fighting, looking for the highest ranked among them. They could easily
decide to try and fight, even if the situation was hopeless.

  “Send a bulkwave message to the queen,” he ordered Suth. “Tell her we're ready to meet at the rendezvous.”

  The console uttered a guttural growl.

  “Local call incoming,” said Suth.

  “Put it through,” said Rurthk.

  The screen showed a view of a corridor, with vines hanging from the ceiling and insects floating in about. In the background, a severely injured Glaber bleeding from a bite-wound to his shoulder, looked balefully at the camera. He was leaning against a few others. In the foreground, there was another Glaber with blood on his teeth. Evidently, they had had a frank discussion about how to respond.

  The Glaber in the foreground nodded. “We acknowledge your dominance,” he said. “And pledge ourselves to Hive Life and its leaders.”

  *

  The Life queen's hunter and its new prize, the much larger hive ship, met in interstellar space. It was only then that Rurthk cleared the atmosphere in the hive ship's inner section.

  The queen sent teams of soldiers into the hive ship, to crush any remaining doubts about their position. The soldier's put some of the queen's Glaber in control of the hive ship, and escorted Rurthk and his team back to the shuttle.

  “There you go,” Rurthk said to Mero, as the shuttle pulled away from the hive ship. “It didn't get blown up. Happy?”

  “Tremendously,” said Mero, grinning, bringing the shuttle back towards the Outsider.

  Chapter 46: Gifts

  The queen lay on her plate. She was alone except for Rurthk, who sat on the floor opposite her, considering his cup of blood.

  “You know,” said the Life queen, “it is quite common for a queen to receive gifts. Tributes from her people, from potential suitors, or just as a tradition from the real leaders of the hive.”

  Rurthk smiled. “I know,” he said. “When I was very young, before my hive was destroyed, I took part in a mission to steal a Varanid's gun as a gift for my queen.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “Oh, yes. I fired a few shots. I didn't my queen, of course. The team leader presented it.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, come to think of it, I never saw my hive's queen in the flesh.”

  The queen was silent, letting him reminisce.

  “Anyway,” he said, looking up. “What was it you were saying?”

  “I have been reading some histories,” the queen said. “Gifts are quite common. But the gift of an entire hive? Almost unknown. In fact, the only references I could find were in the sagas. Hundreds of years old. Before the first Albascene Was. Before the humans had even appeared on the scene.” She looked at him and grinned. “This may well be the greatest gift among the Glaber in our lifetime.”

  Rurthk nodded thoughtfully. Then he drained half his cup in one go. “Be careful,” he said. “Histories miss out a lot of things. I've always tried to stay out of them, myself.”

  The queen laughed. “That is looking less and less likely,” she said, and took a drink of her own blood. “Anyway, we are free of Hive Knife. I've been thinking of taking their ship and putting them here. It would be safer … but I am coming to like this place.”

  “It's nice to have somewhere to feel at home,” said Rurthk.

  “But we are not completely safe yet,” said the queen. “We know too much about Vihan Yvredi and the Blanks. They want us gone, and if Hive Knife is no longer capable, they will find some other way. We will not be safe until they have been destroyed.”

  “Oh?” said Rurthk.

  “What I am saying is, you and I may have a common cause.”

  Rurthk smiled slightly. “Would you like to help us destroy Vihan Yvredi? An army of Glaber would certainly be useful.”

  “I will lend whatever help I can,” the queen said happily.

  They laughed, and finished their drinks.

  “One thing I wanted to ask,” said Rurthk, “Did you know the Glaber have monopole cannons?

  “I wouldn't say knew.” The queen rolled how carved-fungus cup around in her talons. “Hive Bellicose never had any access to monopole cannons. And I wasn't in in particularly high-ranking position there. But … I heard rumours.”

  “Rumours?” said Rurthk.

  “Oh, you know. After the War of the Ancients, we were all very sensitive about not being given monopole cannons. Everyone else did, except the Albascene – and they were on the losing side. We knew that any of the other powers could easily conquer us if they wanted to. So when you start hearing things like 'We can defend ourselves now', and 'We're not as weak as we look', and 'Hive Whatever have picked up a few secrets from the Varanids', the conclusion is pretty obvious.”

  “I suppose so,” said Rurthk. “It might have better if the others had known. They we might've avoided this damned war.”

  “The most impressive thing is that we managed not to destroy ourselves. Do you know how it would have been in the old days? The first hive to get their hands on a weapon like that would have immediately gone and conquered the rest of the Glaber hives. But this time … it looks like the main alliance of hives decided to share the technology, keep the balance of power, and defend the Glaber against external threats.”

  Rurthk scratched his chin. “You're right,” he said.

  “Maybe we'll get an actual Glaber nation.”

  “I wouldn't go that far,” said Rurthk. “Besides, we've got this war in the way at the moment.”

  They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Rurthk refilled both their cups, and then went for a cabinet set into the wall and took out a tray filled with strips of bright-pink fermented meat. He sniffed it appreciatively. This stuff could knock out Mero from across the room, he thought, and laughed at the image as he carried it back to the queen.

  The queen skewered strips of meat with her razor-sharp claws, dangled them in front of her face, and snapped them up appreciatively. “Let me ask you something,” she said when she had finished.. “When you conquered the Hive Knife ship, you could have put yourself as its leader. According to my reading, a hundred years ago, a hiveless Glaber did just that. Why didn't you?”

  “It didn't occur to me.” Rurthk shrugged.

  “Come, now,” the queen chided gently.

  Before replying, Rurthk chewed his way through some more meat, and drank some more blood. “Okay,” he admitted. “It did occur to me. But I don't want to command a hive. If nothing else, I'd be in danger of having my throat bitten open by ambitious Glaber. There's be no companionship. And I already have a ship of my own, and it suits me perfectly.”

  “Perfectly?” said the queen.

  “As good as somebody like me could hope for,” said Rurthk.

  The queen nodded, skewering another strip of meat. “I have no idea what you've been through,” she said. “But, if we manage to somehow defeat Vihan Yvredi, you will always be welcome here.”

  Rurthk looked at her.

  “As a full member of Hive Life,” said the queen. “As my companion. You have done more than enough to earn your place here. You helped found this hive.”

  Rurthk opened his mouth, then closed it again. He swallowed. After a moment, he turned to look at his cup. “Why did you have to do that?” he said. “I thought I would always be an exile. Made my life a lot easier. Now here you are offering me everything I've secretly wished for and ruining everything.” He laughed.

  “Of course, we would maintain a full relationship with the Outsider. I would not presume to drag you away from your friends.”

  Rurthk nodded. “The truth is … I don't know.” He looked up. “Tell you what. Let's destroy the most powerful criminal gang in the galaxy first. Then we can worry about the difficult stuff.”

  “Deal,” said the queen. “Now, if you check the back of that cabinet there, you'll find I have a few oceanic beetlesnakes, fermented in their exoskeletons.” She saw Rurthk's expression and nodded with a sly grin. “If there's any occasion that deserves breaking them out, it's this
one.”

  Chapter 47: Blindness

  Laodicean found himself longing for open water. The aquatic spaces of the GEA headquarters, of his home on Tethya, or just a Tethyan ship. He wanted to be able to jet forward and glide and swim, to be able to stretch out his tentacles without risk of bumping into anything. He had never thought himself particularly active. His office was his second home. He liked to think, study data, draw conclusions. But there he wasn't confined to this tiny globe of water.

  Of course, nanotech systems kept his water as clean and fresh as open ocean. But it was the constriction that bothered him. He wondered how the Albascene managed to live in their suits for most of their lives.

  Then, of course, there was his injury. He was still blind in one eye. Used to being able to see in every direction at once, the gap in his vision bothered him. It wasn't a practical difficulty – he could always turn around – but it was a constant source of irritation.

  But he was glad of these discomforts. He clung to them, focused on them, because he didn't want to get comfortable. And because they distracted him from thinking about Illipa, remembering the last he'd seen of her, being shot by Blanks, thinking about how if he had been less stubborn and just listened to her, she might still be alive.

  When he wasn't revelling in his discomfort, he worked

  Where had Vihan Yvredi hidden the scientists? Where could they have gone?

  The Life queen had shared all the telescope feeds her ship had recorded from around Bloodspray and other stars. Laodicean pored through it, cross-referenced it with the Outsider's records, checked the data Yilva had given them, looked up maps of the battlefront from the newscasts, and plotted possible course trajectories.

  When, after several days, he had eliminated most of the Glaber territories as potential destinations, he called Yilva on the bulkwave and shared what he had. She went through it and gave him some information of her own. He looked through it all again.

  There were still tens of worlds. They didn't have the resources to check each one individually.