Swords Above the Stars

by Roman Zlotnikov

  They ruled over all, and their mercy was sweet, but their anger was frightening. This time the slave castes were sent into battle against a race which was also capable of doing everything. This race was not only capable, but for many generations it had dared to defy the authority of the Powerful Ones.

  It was no wonder that disloyal thoughts began to show themselves even in the stupid heads of the lower castes. While there was a war, this was not dangerous. When thoughts arise in the minds of those who are fighting, they have no time to develop. There was no one to bring them back to their home worlds, because those who fought, as a rule, died sooner or later, and very rarely did any of them return home.

  However, a few turns ago during an Orange Trapezium Aala, it was decided that the demographic situation on many worlds, who supplied the lowest castes, and even other castes, required the return of individuals of reproductive age. At least for a few turns. The Aala of the Scarlet Princes was requested to assess the demographic situation, and reluctantly agreed to suspend the conquest and return the castes to their native worlds.

  Now the Orange Trapezium acknowledged that such a move had brought about more problems than benefits. Hundreds of worlds, practically all those from which the ships’ teams had been recruited were infected with heresy.

  There was no sign of outright rebellion yet, but cases of dissent and open defiance were already being demonstrated. On one of the worlds, several thousand of the caste of the Privileged Ones even had to undergo the pain of fleeing from the public, even though their aesthetic feelings violently protested against such rude and belittling behavior from the primitive masses.

  Cleaver listened with no less attention to the speeches that followed, but none of them made such an impression on him as the first one. The Scarlet Princes demanded that the Wildlings be declared as Lower Caste and demanded unity in the approval of this. A Turquoise One carefully avoided this topic and confirmed their desire to shift a substantial portion of the conquest battles onto the shoulders of the faithful Privileged Ones, as had been done before in an important base in one of the isolated enclaves of the Wildlings, so that even in case of failure, losses among the Powerful Ones could be limited in every possible way.

  No one doubted that failure was a possibility. This conquest was perhaps the most difficult of all time in the history of the Powerful Ones. The Purple One, however, gave two similar examples, where the Wildlings had time to settle on only a few planets. Finally, all the Trapezium completed their speeches. It was time to re-establish a new Scarlet wave. An Ancient from the Scarlet Trapezium returned to his place on the bench, and a Lawmaker went down to the Circle of Truth. Cleaver looked at the head of his former Trapezium and saw how much he had aged. Many from the Generation of Ancient Ones had already joined the Turquoise Trapezium, and Cleaver always considered the Lawmaker to be the embodiment of strength and wisdom.

  But now he looked like an image in bas-relief in a portal originally created prior to his complete destruction. This image was only here, in this world, in the ritual portal of the Hall of Exile and the Aala halls. It was not reproduced in the portals of the Aala halls of the Powerful Ones in other worlds. None of the subordinated castes would even consider the thought that a Powerful One could actually die.

  The Lawmaker moved to the center of the Hall.

  “Is it permitted for me to speak?”

  “Yes.”

  He adopted a posture of confidence and began to speak.

  “Our Trapezium has long pondered why there was a jump in the spread of lines of analysis and reality. We have come to the conclusion that this is due to an underestimation of the potential for cooperation between the Wildlings. All our Penetrators have analyzed individuals and only then synthesized the data in complex analysis. This approach, however, although it has never let us down before, might not work hypothetically ...” He paused, adopting a posture of extreme confidence in his statement, and said slowly. “For example, it would not have worked in relation to the Powerful Ones.”

  Once again, a deathly silence hung above the hall, just as after the speech by the Orange One. How could the Wildlings be compared with the Powerful Ones? However, the Lawmaker, by pulling in his claws further stressed that he was confident in what he was saying, and he concluded. “So, we created a Penetrator, who was capable of making a synthetic analysis when working with a group of Wildlings. We believe that the results of its analysis will be closest to the line of reality.” With these words he left the Circle of Truth.

  The Hall of Exile always remained unchanged, and frozen Wildlings were brought inside along with a capsule containing the Penetrator. The Wildlings were injected back to life and thrown onto the stone floor of the Circle of Truth. Several Purple Ones appeared and attempted to reactivate the Penetrator. When Cleaver saw the size of the capsule holding the Penetrator, he automatically folded his wings in a posture of reverence, thinking what a huge amount of effort it had taken for such a miracle!

  When the Wildlings started to move around on the stone floor, the ends of his wings slapped together, expressing excitement and impatience. It was not quite a well-mannered posture, so he immediately crossed his claws in a posture of apology and remorse, but no one paid him any attention. The restorative injection reawakened the Wildlings fast enough, but The Penetrator conducted his work in a manner that could be described as painful.

  Cleaver knew from his time in the Purple Trapezium that this was not absolutely necessary, but such was the tradition. Also, it was the desire of the majority, which he considered himself to be part of. There were several dozen Wildlings of both sexes. One of them finally began to move his fingers, and sharply jerking his back into an arch, inhaled into his lungs. After a moment he sat up, opened his eyes, and looked around him blankly. Moments later he regained his senses, looked around again, and muttered to himself in amazement.

  “Oh, mein Gott! They are so colorful!”

  The Powerful Ones understood the languages of all kinds of beings that they had met along the way, so they understood everything that was said. The sound of rustling wings swept through the Hall, vibrating slightly in a gesture of pleasure. Cleaver turned his head and stared at the Lawmaker, but he sat motionless.

  The Wildlings were gradually waking up. The pit of the Circle of Truth resounded to surprised exclamations in different languages, moans, lamentations, and cries. Cleaver shook his wing claws disdainfully. The Wildlings behaved as Inferiors. How could anybody from the Privileged Ones even consider them to be the equals of the Powerful Ones?

  Finally, they were all awake. Harmony, who had been standing by a capsule, caught a glance from the Lawmaker and opened the membrane. The Wildling’s faces were frozen in amazement, and then a scream of terror filled the dome of the Hall. The Penetrator stepped out of the capsule.

  Cleaver leaned back again. His eyes looked around and halted upon the Lawmaker. He sat impassive as a statue, but his wing and elbow claws trembled on the verge of a posture of immense disgust. Cleaver momentarily folded up his knee claws and flattened his ears in a posture of astonishment, but then silently turned back to the pit.

  The Penetrator threw all its tentacles from the capsule and deployed them to their full length, moving them over the stone floor and trying to reach the Wildlings who were shying away from them. Steam rose from the sphincter on its back. It was not yet fully alert, but it was clear that this time the Purple Ones had outdone themselves. Finally, the now fully alert Penetrator slowly extended its wiggling tentacles.

  The Wildlings still jumped around pushing the tentacles off their arms, screaming occasionally when the tentacles touched their bodies. The Penetrator spent some time assessing the reaction and the rate of agitation, and then abruptly threw its tentacles forward, forcing them into the bodies of the Wildlings.

  Even more loud screams were heard above the Circle of Truth. Some of the Wildlings tried to chew off a tentacle with their teeth and howled in pain. Small spines on the tentacles penetrated de
eply into their mouths and tongues, causing absolute agony to their bodies.

  One of them, driven mad by pain, rushed to one of the other victims who had been penetrated, trying to either pull out the tentacle which had hardened like a spear, or maybe even thrust it in deeper to end the torment.

  But the Penetrator had not finished its research. For a few minutes, the Wildlings who were controlled by an alien will were fighting each other, mating, crying, and humiliating each other, while the Penetrator continued to read the information from their agitated brains.

  Finally, the first phase was over. A fragile silence reigned over the pit of the Circle of Truth. Cleaver looked around the room. The Powerful Ones were adopting postures of excitement, pleasure, and anticipation. He again looked toward the Lawmaker, but he sat defiantly facing away from the scene.

  The Penetrator moved on to the second phase.

  With a loud crack the skin on its sides broke apart, opening up jaws. At the same time, the stupor left the Wildlings. They twitched around, most jumped to their feet and tried to run as far away as possible from the slime-filled gaping jaws, but each step intensified the pain from the tentacles implanted inside of them.

  This was also one of the tests. The pain forced them to move. If they didn’t move, then the pain gradually increased. One step away from the penetrator caused the pain to rapidly increase, and a step closer towards the jaws caused it to weaken, but only for a second, then it grew again, and to weaken it again for a moment they had to move towards the open jaws.

  The Wildings were moving down their final journey. They passed down it very quickly, and the Penetrator swallowed them, and proceeded with a detailed study of the DNA chain.

  It analyzed the data received, at the same time reworking a lot of facts for the final delivery of all the information. It was simple because Wildlings consisted mainly of water. Some of them, unable to step away, stubbornly stood on wobbly legs, then fell to their knees no longer able to stand, and began their path to doom on all fours. Some tried to rip out their own throats or tongues to die earlier, but the Penetrator kept track on these attempts and deprived their hand muscles of strength, only leaving the Wildlings with enough strength to take another step towards their disgusting final resting place.

  It lasted quite a long time, but finally the last one disappeared into the penetrator’s stomach.

  For a few moments all was quiet, then the sphincter on the penetrator’s back opened up and started to release steam. It soon filled the dome and hung over the heads of the Powerful Ones like a giant mushroom cloud, emanating from several appendages growing out of the Penetrator’s back.

  Moments later, the cloud began to slowly turn red. the steam was filled with special bacteria capable of changing its color to scarlet. The Powerful Ones froze. Before now, no single species had filled the volume of the hall with a scarlet cloud by more than a third. The last assessment of the Wildings had come close to this result.

  It was believed that only the Powerful Ones could produce a scarlet cloud large enough to fill more than half the hall, but, of course, no one would ever have wasted Powerful Ones in such an experiment.

  Finally, the sphincter on the Penetrator’s back closed. For a third time there was a deathly silence in the Hall of Exile. The rapidly dissipating scarlet cloud had filled more than two-thirds of the dome.

  On the opposite side of the Hall an Ancient One from the Scarlet Trapezium rose. His wings and claws were stacked in a posture of extreme denial. He pierced the Lawmaker with a look and said loudly. “I do not believe you.”

  A rustling sound swept the hall. Never before had an Ancient One from one Trapezium publicly stated that an Ancient One from another Trapezium was not Worthy of Trust. The wings and claws of those present moved around frantically; moving from postures of astonishment, indignation, bewilderment, and approval. Meanwhile the Scarlet One continued.

  “I will not believe that any Wildlings ...”

  However, he was not able to finish. A gong over the door announced the arrival of a messenger. Once again, the Hall froze in astonishment. A messenger interrupting an Aala meant that there was something very important, which would inevitably require the urgent consideration of the Aala, but a messenger to a full Aala.

  The Scarlet One interrupted his speech and motioned for the door to be opened. A member of the Orange trapezium entered. He charged down the steps, because nobody was allowed to use their wings in the Hall of Exile, bowed before the Ancient One, and relayed his message. The Ancient One’s wings shot up in a posture of astonishment, and the claws on his wings adopted a posture of disbelief and fear. He stood up, walked heavily down to the Circle of Truth and his voice uttered the ritual phrase. “Is it permitted for me to speak?”

  “Yes,” said the Scarlet One.

  The Orange One paused for a moment, as if not daring to utter what the messenger had told him.

  “Powerful Ones,” he said finally. “A stagnation within the caste of the Privileged Ones has denied us Trust.”

  Everybody waited in silence. In light of everything that had happened here, this news was not so stunning.

  “This was done by the Privileged Ones from the fleet based at the border of the Wildlings settlements.”

  That was serious. Before now, they had always been able to identify all stagnations, preventing fermentation within the minds of those in the fleet. Judging by the fact that the Orange One did not sit down, that was not all. Cleaver felt a chill in his chest. The Orange One paused and finished off in a dead voice. “They have given Trust to the Wildlings and recognized them as their new Powerful Ones.”

  7

  Yv burst into the control room at the very moment that Sandra wearily sat back in the command chair and said, in a lifeless voice. “That’s it then. Our only hope is that they will not be able to get here in the next twenty minutes.”

  When Yv slipped through the open door, all heads turned toward him, and he saw the horror and hopelessness in their eyes suddenly flushed with desperate hope.

  “Where is Tera?” Sandra cried out.

  Yv jumped over to her, glanced at the screen, where the flashing numbers indicated how fast the engines were accelerating.

  “At the moment, she is hopefully in a safe place, but I would not pin my hopes on it being so for long,” he growled. “So, will the engines explode in about twenty minutes?” He turned to the officers and yelled. “Well, why are you just sat there on your asses? Stubborn Bull’s corvette is hanging in space six miles from the battleship, at three hundred green vector.”

  Sandra raised her head and stared at him in astonishment. This had totally slipped from her mind. She frantically grabbed the microphone, but Yv caught her hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Informing everyone who is still alive that they still have hope.”

  Yv thought for a moment. Of course, the corvette was not a battleship, and Stubborn Bull could take on board no more than a couple of hundred from the several thousands of the people on the battleship, but how many could reach the access points or breaks in the hull when there were hundreds of Kazgarot on board?

  He removed his hand.

  Sandra held the microphone to her lips. “Anyone who can hear me, break through to green sector. One of the don’s corvettes is hanging six miles from the battleship. Anyone who makes it there will be taken on board. I repeat ...”

  But Yv snatched the microphone from her. “It’s time to leave.”

  Sandra stubbornly shook her head and nodded in the direction of the officers huddled at the doorway, who did not dare to leave without their commander, and she said. “Lead them out, but I will not go.” She smiled wearily. “You must know the tradition. A captain does not leave a sinking ship.”

  Yv did not ponder for long. When Sandra turned away, he pulled out his dagger, smacked its handle on her temple, and throwing her limp body over his shoulder he muttered to himself, “Tradition or no tradition, Whiskered Mug would cut o
ff my ears if he knew I had left you behind.”

  The lady officers took such a defiant insult to Admiral Sandra’s formidable authority in silence.

  They passed through four decks without incident. From time to time, the bulkheads beside them shook. The Kazgarot could scent people in some sections and were trying to breach the bulkheads.

  Finally, Yv and his female companions made it to the compartments of the outer levels. He had left Tera and a few surviving Space Marines in a huge hangar full of boarding shuttles, commanding them to barricade themselves in one of the shuttles.

  He cherished the hope that the Kazgarot would not wander into the hangar, and that even if they did wander in, they wouldn’t be able to smell Tera through the shuttle’s thick hull. Of course, he would have sent her to the corvette with great pleasure, but Tera would not even let him suggest such a thing and told him so. Yv just cursed himself mentally, thinking that she should have gone with him to the control room.

  They reached the door of the hangar. When Yv, adjusting Sandra’s body, who was hanging senseless over his left shoulder, reached for the keypad to open the door there was a tremendous blast from inside. Almost simultaneously, the roar of a shuttle craft engine starting could be heard. Yv froze momentarily, then he hit some buttons on the keypad, and without looking back he threw Sandra’s body into the crowd behind him, and jumped forward, already going into battle mode. The hangar was a terrible sight.

  Almost all the boarding shuttles had been ripped apart and thrown against the far wall. The scorched carcasses of two Kazgarot lay against the wall.

  Yv did not waste a second and ran straight to the shuttle, which was stuck in the entrance to the landing bay. Finding himself at the crumpled access hatch, he drew his sword and began to hack at the metal, not even believing that the melted entrance hatch could be opened. To his surprise, it took only four blows to cut out a rectangular opening. When he threw away the wreckage of the hatch, the rest of them ran up to the shuttle. Yv nodded and ordered them to stay back and he slipped inside. He found Tera immediately.