by Lance Berry
Because Tholin of Augara had come and delivered Calvorian justice to Veltalas VIII.
He stepped boldly across the charred, cracked, fragile ground…stepping over and in some cases upon the bones and corpses of the men, women and children that had died in the orbital bombardments. His great dreadnought flagship the Necrosis hung in a casual, low orbit; this vessel having been the primary one to rain down an unflinching, nearly constant hailstorm of masers—beams of conjoined matter/antimatter lasers—upon the planet’s cities for nearly twelve hours straight.
After the first ten minutes, the A’sh’le’lei ruling council contacted Tholin’s ship and begged him to cease the attack, surrendering completely.
“You will never understand obedience if you do not fear reprisal,” Tholin answered. He then rejected their request, and the bombardment continued. For twelve hours, the six other vessels that had accompanied the Necrosis—standard battlecruisers, each of them half the size of Tholin’s ship—laid waste to the majority of oceans, lakes, wildlife and forests.
Their ships had categorized and identified every type of major animal and plant life on Veltalas VIII days before their arrival, and specialized plasma bombs were developed and then dropped upon the planet in exacting locations—breaking the ecosystem’s chain for certain species in such a way as to eradicate their genome from the planet. Within three generations, the A’sh’le’lei would die out completely, if they did not receive constant and permanent ‘aid’ from the Alliance.
Mountaintops were sheared off or blasted into rubble. Less than five percent of grass remained anywhere. Birds no longer sang. Watally—beautiful creatures resembling an Earth antelope but with fur like a cat’s—could no longer be found.
Almost all buildings were leveled, with the exception of the ruling council’s; a permanent reminder of their hubris. Statues and monuments were broken by ground troops, and the females, regardless of age, were currently in the process of being separated from the men for tagging and later distribution to Calvorian troops in need of…R&R.
And so it was that Tholin now heedlessly crunched the skull of a lifeless A’sh’le’lei child beneath his boot heel as he ascended a makeshift stage in the center of the once-glorious town square. Dozens of troops stood in proud formation on either side of the stage, their laser rifles at the ready. About a dozen feet from the stage in front of Tholin, the former ruling council’s leader, Vevol, rested on his knees with his hands shackled behind his back. His face was bruised a light pink on one cheek, where a soldier had struck him with the butt of a gun, blemishing his eggplant-colored face. Tears ran from his nearly obsidian eyes and stringy, blooded hair matted against the pink. To Vevol’s left and right likewise kneeled four council members total, all shackled in similar fashion.
Skimmers flew proudly overhead in formation as they made routine patrols for straggling, unsupervised citizens on the ground. They were under orders to fire warning shots only to keep such stragglers in place until troops could arrive to remand them. The pilots knew the price they would pay for an unordered kill without General Tholin’s permission.
Tholin was just over six feet tall. He had greenish-yellow eyes and dirty blondish hair which tousled loose upon his bronze shoulders like a lion’s mane. He was broad in shoulder, and while the podium set upon the stage had been made deliberately shorter in order to bestow upon him a grander appearance, he didn’t actually need it. He was an imposing enough figure, and couldn’t recollect the last time any being on any world had stood face-to-face with him and sought to defy him on any level.
He grunted with deep satisfaction as he surveyed his work.
He then looked at Vevol and the council members.
“Defiance equals death,” he said clearly in a deep voice which sounded quite like stone rubbing against stone. “That is the way of the Alliance. Servitude and obedience equals life.
That is the way of the Alliance. All enemies of the Calvorian Alliance must die.”
He focused his gaze solely upon Vevol, who until now had not dared to level eyes at him. Tholin’s eyes narrowed. “Look up into the face of one of the millions of your Calvorian masters, Vevol. You are now so ordered.”
Vevol raised his head, which shook due to the uncontrollable sobs that wracked his body. He looked up cautiously, afraid to meet Tholin’s stare…yet more terrified of what punishment would come if he looked away.
Tholin drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He seemed to be readying himself. “Tell me now, and seal the fate of your people or save them. Do you consider yourself an enemy of the Alliance?”
Vevol started to answer, but only incomprehensible sobs came out. He could think of nothing but his wife, and whether it would be genetically possible for her to accept and nurture Calvorian seed within her womb. His defiance had cost his world so much…
“No, Lord Tholin,” he said finally, astonished he could even find the strength to speak. “I do not consider myself an enemy of the Alliance. I never will. No one here ever will again.”
Tholin nodded, and wished not for the first time that his own species possessed the proper facial muscles that would permit him to smile. He had seen other species do so, and always felt that a smile would lend a nice touch of irony at times such as this. Instead, he had to settle for nodding. “Then you have learned your lesson. Very good. Your people are spared.
Veltalas VIII is now a protectorate of the Calvorian Alliance.”
“Thank you, My Lord…”
And with that last utterance, and perhaps from the relief of all the stress he had been carrying for the worry of his people, Vevol’s heart gave out and he fell over, dead.
Several of the Calvorian soldiers chuckled or laughed outright. “Silence,” Tholin ordered, and they fell silent instantly. He turned to the captain of the guard. “Take the council members to the intake center. Have them tagged as laborers. I will expect a report on all other proceedings promptly.”
The captain of the guard acknowledged the order and bowed respectfully. As he and his troops moved out, Tholin turned and was about to descend from the stage, but found his first officer, Commander Naddar, waiting for him with an expectant look upon his face. Tholin and Naddar had been allies for nearly forty years, from the time the former had saved the younger one’s life in a street brawl in one of the poorer city-sectors of their home world. Tholin trusted Naddar implicitly, and knew that of any soldier in the Alliance, his was the only word in which the general could ever truly place faith.
Tholin descended the stage to face his ally. “What is it,
Commander?”
“Daveed K’istensohn has resurfaced.”
Tholin’s eyes widened at the mention of the name, and a low growl…part anger, part anticipation…rumbled deeply within his throat.
“Where?”
“System five-seven-one. He has led a raid upon our newest installation, my ally. The humans have reclaimed that world.
Our troops are prisoners!”
Tholin tilted his head quizzically. “They allowed themselves to be taken alive?” He said this sentence with bile in his throat.
To fall in combat was one thing, but to allow oneself to be captured…and by a lowly human—!
“He is Daveed K’istensohn,” Naddar said mockingly. He had been first officer aboard the Necrosis for nearly twelve years, and knew of Christenson’s renown within their own empire…even aboard their own ship, following their defeat by the Horizon. It stung Naddar bitterly, and he had once threatened with immediate death any crew member who dared to say the human’s name in his presence. “Those cowards probably soiled themselves and then kneeled in it as supplication to him!”
Tholin couldn’t help but laugh lightly at the suggestion. “Do you really place so little faith in our forces, and so much in him?” He turned away, his long fur coat swaying with each step as he began to head back toward their shuttle. “Come. We will set the Necrosis to find him, and when we do—“
“Aava ha
s said The Seven have ordered us to stay here. We are to make certain this world is secure.”
Tholin stopped and spun around to face him, the bones and shattered ground crunching beneath his feet as he did.
“What—?!”
Naddar sneered in disgust, tears of anger threatening to push their way to the surface as he nodded slowly, bitterly. He then glanced off at a clearing beneath some burning trees in the distance, and pointed his chin in that direction. Tholin briefly looked at the mobilizing troops behind them, which had begun moving off with the shackled council members. Vevol’s body lay still and forgotten near the makeshift stage. The troops were used to Tholin and his first officer moving off to converse in private once a planetary campaign was won, and the general knew they would pay them no mind. So they walked off together to stand only a few feet away from the grey trees with the burning branches. J’husq’a, Tholin believed was once the name of this particular breed.
“I tell you now, my brother,” Naddar said angrily through gritted teeth, “what you and I should do is take the Necrosis to our home world and demand to see the faces of those decrepit, useless—”
Naddar glanced down in surprise at the hand which wrapped tightly around his upper arm, then in concern at the eyes which narrowed with a seething darkness within. “I know where you are going with this, Naddar. For both our sakes, I tell you now to never broach this subject again. The Seven have eyes and ears everywhere, as you well know. If they even had a hint as to what you were thinking, let alone if you said it aloud, we would both be dead within an hour.”
Calvorians couldn’t smile, but they could frown…and the younger officer did so deeply. “You are descended from the first and greatest of the Great Warlords, Tholin. If the people were to ever listen to anyone who dared defy The Seven, it would be you!”
“Don’t you think they know that? Why do you think that for all my victories, all my power, I am still in a position to take orders from Vice Admirals?”
Naddar exhaled heavily. He considered the questions posed and nodded sadly. “Because if ever you did rise up against them, there must be someone between you and they, who is loyal to them.”
“Yes. They have seen to it that until the day I die, my power will only be so great. There is nothing I can do to hurt them.
They have planned for my arrival, even before I was born.”
Naddar shook his head sadly and looked away at the ground. After a moment, he raised his eyes to stare into the branches of one of the burning trees. “So what of David Christenson?” He said, taking deliberate care to pronounce the name in its proper human tongue.
Tholin placed a hand on his ally’s shoulder and followed his gaze toward the burning leaves that fell from the branches and turned to ash before they touched ground. “He will come to us, when the time is right. That is simply the way of things.”
Chapter 27
The planet which the Horizon and its sister ships liberated from the Calvorians was considered to be more firmly secured upon the arrival of another forty Heavy Cruisers, which reinforced the protective barrier of ships already patrolling the planet’s immediate space.
Aboard the Hawking, Mara had completely healed from the wounds she acquired during her engagement on the planet.
The dermal sealant blended perfectly to her DNA and had become real skin, leaving no scars whatsoever. She kept busy during the down time by hitting the gym, reading, going to dinner with Nikki Tamamura to discuss her and James Stubbs’ wedding plans, and listening to music. Communications were limited to ship-to-ship only, with no signals out-system, since they were in a recent area of engagement and com-lanes could not fully be considered free of possible interception. She couldn’t contact anyone outside of the immediate vicinity, including her family—whom she wouldn’t have contacted anyway, except to talk to Peter. She and her father had only a handful of moderately polite conversations in the years since she had graduated from Deveraux, and for some reason Sara— who had recently enrolled at a military academy in North Carolina—had chosen to inherit their father’s unexplained animosity and spoke to her only when absolutely necessary.
She never even called to wish her elder sister birthday greetings. The only one in the Elliot family who was more than civil was Peter, who was now eleven and still full of love for his older sister.
On the second day of the fleet’s down time, Mara received a wonderfully unexpected vid-call from Missy King, who had moved up in rank aboard the Delaware to become a junior-grade lieutenant within her security chief’s primary squad. It turned out the Delaware was one of the HC’s that had recently joined the divisions assigned to watch over the secured planet, and Missy was hoping the two of them could get together. Mara assured her they would, but just to be certain, she got permission from Captain Stubbs to take a DFC over to Missy’s ship.
Soon enough, Mara’s DFC touched down in the Delaware’s launch bay. After signing the intake manifest with the bay’s flight deck officer, she headed for the main egress door out to the central corridor. She didn’t get a foot out the door before a familiar face shot forward, a great big grin in place.
“BOO!” Missy yelled, actually managing to startle Mara.
The two women laughed, and Missy threw her arms around her old friend in a loving embrace, which Mara eagerly returned.
“Ohhh, I couldn’t wait to see you! I had to come down to the bay to greet you,” Missy said joyfully.
“It’s good to see you, honey,” Mara replied, and the two shared a peck on the cheek before heading out together to the main corridor, arms around each others’ waists. They chatted all the way to the mess hall on deck twenty-nine, where they sat for hours, catching up on recent events in their lives and reminiscing about good times long past.
“So, moved up to the security detail. Congratulations again,” Mara said just before she took another swig of the synthetic beer she had ordered. Missy had long since taken her ponytails out and now wore her hair long and straight, just down to her shoulders. She still looked as lovely as ever, and she seemed to carry a new sense of maturity with her, which had obviously been acquired through time on the battlefield.
Missy took a sip from her own synthetic ale and tapped the silver rank pin placed just above her heart with her finger.
“After the scuffle on Outpost three-seven-two, Captain Ipena and security chief Franklin both said I deserved it,” she said proudly.
“I read about that in one of the morning declassified reports,” Mara remarked. “Pretty brutal engagement, from what I heard.”
“Yeah. For ground troops and Cruisers. We lost a lot of good people in that engagement. But fuck it, at the end of the day, we routed the Calvorians, and that’s what counts.” She sighed lightly, a forlorn look briefly dimming her eyes before she raised her glass. “To the lost.”
“To the lost,” Mara echoed. They clinked glasses and took another swig. Missy’s drink caught in her throat however, and she slapped her glass down on the counter. She shook her head slowly back and forth, an attempt to clear her windpipe as Mara looked at her worriedly. “Are you alright?”
“Hello, Mara.”
The lilting English accent was unmistakable, and a smile instantly brightened Mara’s countenance—first, because she knew whom it was standing behind her. Second, because now she understood why Missy had choked on her drink—an image Mara had actually pictured in her head a few times, if such a moment as this one ever occurred.
“Hello, David,” Mara said easily, and turned partway to look up into Captain Christenson’s smiling face. “Do you and your friend mind if I join you?” the captain asked.
Mara glanced over at Missy, who was patting her chest and coughing as her throat finally began to clear. “You don’t mind, do you, Missy?” Mara asked, still smiling in amusement. She was fully aware that most chatter in the mess had ceased at the entrance of Christenson, and many were the eyes upon the trio.