by David Adams
[“There were several answers postulated. Some were appeals to chance: that life is, simply, extraordinary. You and your planet were a mathematical oddity. Life was ten billion to one… or some other equally high number. Other answers were appeals to the idea that some unknowable quality of Earth made life happen there and nowhere else. There was discussion of technology levels, and radio wave propagation, and how your species had only been able to detect alien life for a very short period of time, so the signals of another world might not have reached you yet. But one theory was postulated which the article author correctly identified as… oh, how did he put it? Ah. Mildly terrifying. The idea that there exists a Great Filter. Some force which, at some point of a species development, some factor comes into play which kills them all off.”] Kest took a gentle breath through his nose. [“Captain, the Toralii Alliance are the Great Filter in this galaxy. When a species develops voidwarp technology, they are found, and that ability is removed from them. Or they are removed.”]
“You don’t have to be this way. You can spare these people.”
[“If I do, how will they learn? The fabric of the universe is delicate, Liao. It is weak. The voidwarp devices tear holes in it. They stress a part of our reality that even we barely understand.”] Fury grew in his voice, in a way she had never heard before. [“These creatures do not understand that if they meddle as they are, as your people did, it will result in the deaths of us all!”]
An idea leapt into her head, so unformed that she barely knew where it was going. “Let me talk to them. Let me approach these people as a representative of Earth. I can explain how my people—”
[“No.”]
She raised her voice over his. “I can explain how my people suffered and what your people will do to them if they don’t comply. If they don’t give up their technology.”
[“What will happen,”] Kest said, in a way that suggested he had anticipated the question and prepared an answer, [“is that this species will listen to you. The matter will be bought before their leaders, and the debates will start. Endless debates, spanning months, years, decades even. They will talk and talk and talk, and eventually, they will either decide to present a lie—claim to give up their notes and their prototypes but continue the research in secret—or they will continue openly. After all, these nice visitors sent down an ambassador and believe in diplomacy; surely they wouldn’t destroy a civilisation simply to prove some kind of point.”]
“It’s when the talking stops that the ground becomes fertile for fighting.” She clenched her prosthetic fist so hard, the metal creaked. “You said that to me. Those were your words.”
[“I absolutely did. Perhaps we can ask them about it. Communicator, translate and play their message.”]
A stilted, mechanical voice spoke without intonation, reverberating around the entire room. [“Generic greeting. Air creatures, we welcome you to our home. Long have we anticipated there may be others like us in the stars; we are pleased by your presence. Welcome. A landing area is being prepared for you on the equator of our world. Construction will take approximately five tides. Generic pleasantry. Transmit your needs, and we will accommodate them.]”
“Don’t,” Liao said. “They haven’t done anything. You don’t have to punish these people.”
[“I don’t want to. If there was some other way, some method we had not yet tried that had any success at all, I would gladly employ it. But the galaxy is in danger because of these creatures and the powerful voidwarp technology they are a breath away from developing. We cannot allow them to do this. It endangers our species. Our lives. The lives of our children.”]
“And what of their lives?”
Slowly, a smile crossed Kest’s face—the smile of someone who had, at long last, gotten what he wanted. [“Do you really believe that? That the Toralii people should willingly accept pain, loss, suffering so that others may live? So that your species may survive?”] He stepped closer to her, his tail lashing in the air. [“Do you truly believe what you said about democracy: that the inherent selfishness in most living things is unbecoming, that it is more noble to sacrifice yourself to serve the needs of another?”]
“I do.”
With a wave, the scene changed. A view of space replaced the blue world with its alien faces and strange pyramid structure. A dozen lights twinkled against the darkness. A circle appeared around each of them, along with a label in the Toralii script.
Three Kel-Voran assault ships were identified simply with numbers: seven Telvan Toralii cruisers, each given a long and complicated name. But it was the last two that sent her blood running cold.
ALIEN THREAT: Human cruiser, class IV - “Madrid”
ALIEN THREAT: Human cruiser, class IV - “Tehran”
The Tehran. James’s ship.
[“We found the rest of your fleet. They are some distance away, currently preparing for some kind of attack. Probably, as you may imagine, on Zar’krun. Unfortunately for them, our Forerunner probe detected them before they could jump. A full third of our naval assets for this sector of space have been tasked with observing these ships; our force comprises almost fifty cruiser-class vessels. More than a match for your offering. Further, your ships are a long way from a voidwarp position—hours at best, possibly more—and in that time, every single one of these Telvan, the Kel-Voran pirates, and two thirds of your indigenous ships will be destroyed. With your allies vanquished and the bulk of your fleet in ruins, Velsharn will be crushed handedly, probably by the very same fleet we are observing now. At a word, you and your comrades downstairs will be all that is left of your species.”]
Helpless. She felt utterly helpless. “What do you want from me? Why did you show me some other species, some other people, before my own?”
[“Because,”] Kest said, the weight of his words heavy upon her, [“I want you to understand the choices we make. It is easy to sit back and tell oneself you would do the right thing if you were given a choice, and an entirely different thing indeed to make that choice.”] He waved his hand one way, and the image of the water world returned, full of fearful alien faces. He swung it the other way, and the walls around her showed the fleet.
[“Choose.”] Kest’s ears flicked forward. [“One of these groups must live; one must die.”]
Bitterness clung to her throat. She knew the hypocrisy, knew that if she chose to save the fleet, to save James, she would be ridiculed throughout history. Melissa Liao the hypocrite. The liar. The fraud. “You seriously want me to—”
[“Yes. Your people’s lives or strangers’ lives. Make your decision.”]
“I’ll cooperate,” Liao said, desperation creeping in. “I’ll talk to you. Instruct my men to talk to you, as well. We’ll give you the information you seek—whatever it is you want.”
[“All we needed, truly, was the location of your fleet. As you can see, we no longer require that. You have no bargaining power here, Captain Liao.”] Kest’s eyes narrowed. [“Choose.”]
“You’ve proven your point. Really. You have. I get it. The Toralii have to make terrible decisions every day—”
[“Choose.”]
“And they cannot be held accountable for that choice, as it is merely self-preservation—”
[“Choose.”]
“No!” The words came out in a fury. “You’re not doing this to prove some kind of point to me, to educate me about the realities of your situation—you’re not doing it to punish me or torture me or extract information from me! You’re doing it because you feel guilty about what you’ve done and want absolution.” She ground her teeth together, articulating each word slowly and carefully. “Let me talk to the aliens. Give me one of your fancy translation devices. I can convince them. If I can’t—blow them up. Secondly, put me in touch with the fleet. I can convince them to call off whatever attack they are planning. There is no need for further bloodshed.” She took a deep breath, trying both to calm herself and give the appearance of calm. “Once they have withdrawn, you have my fu
ll and total cooperation. I swear to you.”
[“You cannot negotiate your way out of this one, Captain Liao. You must choose. The lives of strangers or your own people. Now.”]
Something about the way Kest was talking, and acting, pulled her out of her righteous fury over an impossible choice that she had, in truth, already made—the easiest decision she’d ever made. James’s life had to be saved. Humans couldn’t survive without the fleet to protect them. These strangers she didn’t even know existed only moments ago would have to die. She knew the answer as well as Kest did.
But… she couldn’t choose. She physically couldn’t. It wouldn’t matter.
“This screen,” Liao said, the horrible truth dawning on her. “We’re watching it through a Toralii Cruiser, yes? From orbit?”
[“That is correct.”]
“And… this world. This ocean world with strange lifeforms on it. It’s not in the same system as New Evarel, is it?”
Kest’s confused squint told her everything she needed to know. [“Of course not.”]
“And this is live? This is happening right now?”
[“Yes it is. Of course it is.”]
No, it wasn’t.
The Toralii used the Forerunner network to transmit messages between star systems, but in order to do so, they had to jump away and relay a recording. There was no way to transmit a live message. The recording was hours old, and Kest knew she had a child. In fact, he knew her name. And her father’s name… or last name at least. Stupid, telling him that! It would be easy for Kest to talk to the others and work it out. The names of the fleet Captains was not privileged information. They wouldn’t know…
Oh, Kest was good. He was good. He had played her like a fiddle.
“Show me the aliens.”
The screen flickered and changed. The world of blue with its huge pyramid came back.
[“You may watch them die, if you wish.”]
“No, I won’t. I choose to save them.” Liao folded her hands in front of her defiantly. “Blow up the fleet instead.”
Kest stared at her, his felinoid eyes enlarging in shock. [“You… you would condemn your species to oblivion to save these strangers? Captain Grégoire is aboard the Tehran. You do understand this, yes?”]
“I know.” She waved her prosthetic hand towards the walls. “Go ahead. Do it.”
He shuffled uncomfortably, tail twitching. [“You would condemn the father of your child to death?”]
“Yup.” She stared at the aliens, surrounded by bright-blue oceans. “So go ahead. Save them. Call them up and tell then Captain Melissa Liao has intervened on their behalf. That fountain of compassion. That blind idiot who let herself get played by the oldest game in the book: good cop, bad cop. Except the powers that be have realised that it’s not working, so you gotta switch roles. You gotta be the bad guy now. Well, guess what: I don’t buy it. This recording is old. Ancient, even. You showed it to me because you knew I would sacrifice them to save James. There’s only one way this ends. So go ahead. Show me.”
Kest considered for a moment. Liao could see the gears turning over in his head. The planning. The strategy. Deciding how he would work the situation.
Behind him, a bright lance of white descended from the sky, blasting that pyramid into a billion pieces and sending a powerful tsunami away from it, a wall of water fifty metres high, roiling and boiling. Massive clouds of steam rose into the planet’s upper atmosphere.
The pyramid, blackened and charred, was blasted down to a crater, which slowly filled with scalding water. In moments, there was nothing left but a thin ring of debris, a roughly square artificial atoll surrounded by steam clouds.
“I’m guessing,” Liao said, staring at the ruined semi-aquatic city, hating every word as it came out of her mouth, “that the recording of the fleet was hours old, at least?”
[“Of course.”] Kest’s tone was full of a darkness she had not ever heard out of his mouth before. The mask dropped, the false kindness, the gentle manipulation—all of it was stripped away. The only thing that remained was a palpable, sociopathic manipulation that, when she looked at him, chilled her down to her feet. [“Captain Liao, you know as well as I do that they are already dead.”]
ACT III
CHAPTER IX
It Will End In Screaming
*****
Communications Room
Zar’krun
“THEY AREN’T DEAD.”
SO BOLDLY stated, the words held little confidence behind them. Liao leaned back on her heels, tilting her head up, trying to project as much strength as she could muster. “You were bluffing. Just like how you said the fish-aliens were alive and I had to choose if they lived or died.”
[“Do you think I would lie to you?”] Kest’s face was a cold, emotionless mask. [“About this? This recording is no forgery. This ship providing the recording is the Seth’vaardun, The Herald of a Thousand Cuts. It is the flagship of the entire Toralii Alliance. Its crews are the best, its weapons are the best, and its support fleet has been tasked with protecting New Evarel for nearly two hundred years. These are our best units. They guard our homes; they guard this planet. If you think this is faked…”] He laughed helplessly. [“You are in for a painful education.”]
“I think you’d lie to me about anything. Small, petty men will take whatever power they can find. Goes the same for alien pieces of shit, too, I wager. You wanna yank my chain.”
[“You did compare yourself to a dog.”] Kest didn’t seem affected by her insult, rather amused. [“But this isn’t your day. I will confess my amusement. You stand here and use such words on me after everything that has happened. Fire Gods, you are brave.”] He clicked his tongue, teeth running over his sharp feline teeth. [“Courage, I suspect, drawn from your ancestors.”]
Her parents were dead. They had been on Earth when it was scoured. “If my parents are anywhere, they are cheering me on. They approve of what I do every step of the way. Can you say the same about yours?”
[“I didn’t say your parents. We did an analysis of your DNA. You’re a distant relative of one Genghis Khan.”]
A totally meaningless insult. “Lots of Asians were. A lot of them. Something like ten percent. I’m not special—good or bad—because of who one of my distant ancestors was. They aren’t me.”
Kest paced back and forth, his tail lashing behind him. [“Perhaps, or perhaps not. I do wonder. How does it feel having a rapist’s blood flowing through your veins? That you, as one of the few survivors of Earth, carry his biological makeup to the stars?”]
“As well as it feels to have a murderer’s flowing through yours, I suppose. Except I didn’t kill anyone.”
[“Oh, of course not, Captain Melissa Liao, the Butcher of Kor’Vakkar. De facto leader of the Humans who have bought such worry and calamity to our people. You’re completely different from this Genghis Khan.”]
Worry and calamity? The Toralii attacked Earth first! Liao curled back her upper lip, but that was playing his game. She took in a deep breath then slowly, gently let it out. “Kest, you aren’t here for the… whatever the hell society are you?”
He made a soft, curious sound in the back of his throat that sounded like the chirp a young cat might make when picked up unexpectedly. [“No.”] He locked eyes on her, affixing her with a deep, unwavering stare. [“My reports do go through them, but I am not a civilian. I am from the Intelligence division. My purpose is to befriend you, to encourage you to release information willingly.”]
“You’d tell me that upfront? That makes me less likely to trust you.”
[“But you already don’t trust me. Especially not after… everything I just showed you. So I lose nothing by the admission.”]
She had to concede that. “Fair point. So,” Liao said, folding her hands. “Tell me about Humans.”
[“We have learnt much, especially on how to manipulate you.”] He flicked his eyes to the wall. [“And also how to destroy you.”]
Humanity wasn
’t done yet. “When I get out of here, I’m going to find some way of making you pay for what you did. Everything you did.”
A smile danced on his face. [“Repay me for my honesty? The kindnesses I gave to you?”]
“Kindnesses you used to try and buy me.” She felt her gut clench. Admitting it hurt. “And I let you do it, all because I was too… distracted. Too focused on the good commandant to realise that she was just there to make you look good.”
[“Of course she was. Our studies have found that honesty in the role of befriending a prisoner is, ultimately, more effective—but it requires teamwork. It requires an enemy for the person to rally against. You had to perceive me as honest, which implies that I would tell you the truth, even when it isn’t something you want to hear.”]
“Making your actual lies more believable?”
He smiled a smile that seemed totally genuine. [“Now you’re beginning to understand me. But, rest assured, I have little cause to lie at this time—I’ve found it generally ineffective—but yes. That is the purpose of the upfront honesty.”] Kest paused, running his hand over his ears in a way Liao found distinctly feline. [“It’s a shame, really. I would have thought the Butcher of Kor’Vakkar to be much more cunning and able to resist such manipulations.”]
“You’re trying to make me mad.”
[“By using the title the one named Sunkret called you? Hardly. I have much easier ways of angering you. I simply choose not to. Anger is not my way.”]
“No, of course not,” Liao said, bitterly. “Yours is dialogue. Yours is negotiation.” She folded her arms, drumming her metal fingers against her flesh. “I noticed you haven’t sent me back to my cell yet, Kest. You’re the kind of person—and I use that term as loosely as possible—who does nothing by accident. Why am I still here?”
[“I want to talk to you,”] Kest said, simply. [“That has always been my goal. To speak to you, to understand you, to know you. To find out as much as I can about the species who chased me from my beautiful, peaceful home to atone for the sins of others.”]