“Uh, guys…I’m not sure, actually. The Umans on Seome spoke often of the Coethi. They’re like tiny little bug-machines, gathered together into really big swarms and colonies, just cruising around the galaxy, making trouble. The Umans built the time twister—the wavemaker—just to fight them off. If I remember right, both the Umans and the Coethi could travel across time…they had their own versions of the Farpool. Possibly, that’s how they got here. I think we sort of have to tell the Tailless—the Umans of this time period—what they’re up against.”
The Kel’em argued this for many kilometers, and Chase had no idea where the roam was taking them. He could see little, save for the moving mass of silvery flesh all around him. The sound and the rush of the water and all the arguments, some of them quite heated, made him feel like he was trapped in a closet…like when his sister Joanna had stuffed him in coat closet when he was five and blocked the door shut. They both got a good spanking for that.
Likteek offered an idea. “If we inform the Tailless of this new danger, are we not then obligated to help them fight it?”
“No!” came a chorus of answers from somewhere in the rear.
The very idea caused no end of debate and argument and squabbles and quarrels.
By the time the roam was over and the procession had returned to the Metah’s quarters, a consensus had formed. Mokleeoh spoke to all.
“For the moment, it is agreed that we will say nothing to the Tailless about the nature of this new enemy. Kel’metah Chase has agreed to review all the relevant echopods for more information about the m’jeete. I will consult with the other metahs and present our position. From that, we’ll create a new strategy for handling this matter.”
There seemed to be broad unanimity about this course of action. Likteek and Chase returned to the lab to locate any echopods that seemed useful.
Not far from Mokleeoh’s quarters, two Ponkti had hidden themselves among a tangled bed of coral and seagrass, surrounded by a small herd of pal’penk cows. To nearby Omtorish, they seemed only bonded handlers, herding the small gathering to and from a nearby pen, resting for a spell while the animals munched placidly on the grass. But they were in fact, spies from the Ponkti Metah Lektereenah, sent into the Omtorish quarter to listen to the talk among the kelke, to catch the drift of what concerned the community.
One was a well-disguised tuk master, a protégé of Loptoheen himself. His name was Tarko. His fellow herder was a Ponkti midling, Karak, who had just completed his own Circling back on Seome when the time of the Great Emigration had come.
Tarak had good ears. “You heard Kuala’s songs from the far seas. Our brothers have found something, something useful, perhaps even new allies in these m’jeete. Now the Tailless attack them. The bastards want what the Ponkti have.”
“Then let them fight for it,” Karak boasted. Ponkti midlings were like that, all puff and bluff and show, until they had to learn the tuk. Then they calmed down and learned how to bend that restless energy to something useful. “We should show them what Ponkti do to spineless worms who savage our homes.”
“We will,” Tarko said. “We will. But Lektereenah wants useful intelligence first. You heard what I heard…Kel’metah Chase’s voice?”
“I did, tukmaster. The Omtorish want to keep this to themselves, leave the Tailless in the dark. They won’t fight with us. It’s up to Ponkti to seek revenge…make the Tailless pay for what they have done to Ponkel’te.”
“The Sk’ort will help us,” Tarko was sure. “Come on, let’s get back to the Metah…she needs to know what we heard. Kah, stupid Omtorish…they can’t roam without blabbing everything.”
Tarko and Karak then rounded up their small herd of pal’penk and headed off, toward the bubble curtains that defined the border of the Omtorish and Ponkti quarters.
Soon, once the Tailless had been taught a lesson, there would be no more ‘quarters’ separating the kels. Ponkti…and Skortish, too, if they behaved, would have a new home…in the far seas.
But first plans would have to be made to locate and destroy the Tailless base, the base from which the attack on Ponkel’te had been directed…a place the Tailless called…’Vladivostok’.
Kel’metah Chase knew none of this.
For several days, Ponkti and Skortish prodsmen and tu’kelke made their plans. The Ponkti metah, Lektereenah, convened a war council away from the settlement, in a small ravine several kilometers away. She named Loptoheen to head the special force that would teach the Tailless a serious lesson and set up a guard around Ponkel’te to protect what the Ponkti had discovered.
“The m’jeete can be of great use to us. Nobody can take this away from us. Only the Sk’ort know of the secret and I can control Okeemah. Take your prodsmen and stunners and any equipment you need. Ponkel’te is our future, Loptoheen. Things will be different here on Urku. Here, the Ponkti will decide their own fate and live as we wish to live. No kels, and no Tailless can stop us.”
Loptoheen pulsed how determined and resolute Lektereenah was and so there was no use arguing. Ponkel’te was a long trip, in the far seas and the waters of Urku were strange and still mostly unknown to all Seomish. Then there were the Tailless themselves…creatures of Notwater who nonetheless seemed to take great umbrage whenever Seomish kelke tried to build anything in these cursed waters.
Loptoheen consulted with Yaktu tom, the Sk’ort chief prodsman, on weapons and tactics and who should be in the special force.
Yaktu was middle-aged, muscular, scarred with bruises and cuts from a lifetime of insults and challenges. Like all Skortish, he seemed at first glance slow and lazy but Loptoheen knew otherwise. What passed for indolence and indifference masked a keen mind and quick wits. No one trifled with Yaktu.
“Sk’ort will provide two kip’ts,” he announced. “Three prodsmen and three stunners will ride in them. One kip’t will stay at Ponkel’te, where we’ll assist you in guarding the camp, while our people build their own homes and the other kip’t will be part of your attack force…your muh’pul’te.”
This satisfied Loptoheen. “The Ponkti will bring three kip’ts, with five stunners and five prodsmen. Our kip’ts are bigger; we’ll carry prods, stunners, scentbulbs, mah’jeet sacs and even k’orpuh to use against the Tailless. We’ll work out the tactics on the way…the trip takes several mah…it’s a long way.”
Yaktu eyed the Metah and her court, and her privy councilor riding herd on the secretive gathering. “What about the others: the Omtorish, the Eepkostic, the Orketish? What do they know about this?”
Loptoheen sniffed. “They know enough. The Kel’metah Chase knows we’ve discovered the m’jeete and he knows of the Tailless attack on Ponkel’te. But the Omtorish are spineless. They want to talk with the Tailless, negotiate, roam in consort with them and smooth things over. Kah, it won’t work. Tailless are animals…no different from seamothers. They understand strength and force, determination and resolve. It’s always the same. When strength is called for, leave it to the Ponkti to do the job.”
Yaktu glared back at the aging tukmaster. “And the Sk’ort.”
“Indeed. Gather your men and gear and meet me in half a mah, other side of the mountain. We need to depart so that nobody else knows what’s happening. And keep your repeaters quiet, for once. They can’t be singing out everything they hear and see, not with this mission.”
Yaktu was uneasy. “Loptoheen…I don’t know…to interfere with repeaters…that isn’t done…under normal circumstances.”
“Who said these were normal circumstances? I’m sure both our Metahs will approve it. Now…go—”
Yaktu scooted off toward the Skortish quarter. For his part, Loptoheen was happy to let Lektereenah deal with the questions and concerns of the kel elders. Ponkti were used to following orders. The questions wouldn’t last long. The honor, indeed the very future, of the whole kel was at stake.
In the meantime, the tukmaster would select his men carefully and assemble their weapons and equipment. In many ways, Loptohee
n looked forward to the engagement. The Tailless were a perfect enemy; it was easy to hate them, since no one really understood creatures of Notwater. They were monsters, albeit with powerful weapons and a tendency to shoot first, but still soulless beasts. Even the seamothers had more honor than Tailless worms.
That gave Loptoheen an idea. Maybe there was a way to bring along a few seamother calves on the mission. Loptoheen stroked off toward Keenomsh’pont, deep in thought, mulling over the possibilities.
Seamothers were also creatures of Notwater. They could live below the sea and above it. And the Seomish had already used them to defeat the most recent Tailless attack on Keenomsh’pont.
It was an appealing idea, Loptoheen thought. A pair of seamothers stalking through the Tailless city like the beasts they were; even calves could do a lot of damage. Combine the terror that would produce, with Skortish and Ponkti prodsmen clanking about in mobilitors, spraying electric fire from their prods…Loptoheen almost smiled. He could taste the panic and fear of the worms already.
Port of Vladivostok, Russian Federation
August 20, 2115
0735 hours
The port of Vladivostok was thick with fog and the sound of ship’s horns when the Ponkti-Skortish special force entered the outer bay, the Zolotoy Rog. There were six kip’ts in all, with one towing two large mesh enclosures, each holding one somewhat rambunctious seamother calf. The force maneuvered along the seabed of the port to avoid all the surface traffic and probed ahead until they came to a set of bridge pilings, sunk in concrete caissons near a rocky bank, that sloped up to the surface.
Here, Yaktu’s troops unleashed the seamothers and prodded them away. Honking and bellowing, curious about their strange surroundings, the puk’lek bounded eagerly toward the surface, breaching the bay waters in an explosion of foam and froth, just landward of the mainland side of the huge Russkiy Bridge.
The ferry Belyayev was passing just beneath the main span of the bridge when passengers along the portside railing witnessed the sudden appearance of the seamothers.
Shouts erupted immediately.
“My God…Holy Father…Morskiye zmei…sea serpents!”
“Look at that…get back! Get back!”
The beasts had surfaced just off a wharf where the ferry was heading for a landing. There were two. One after another, the creatures climbed the wharf pilings and stood for a few moments at the ferry landing, nosing around, sniffing, tasting things. One seamother careened into the pavilion where scores of passengers awaited the ferry, knocking the slate roof off the structure. Panicked passengers fled in all directions, enraging the other seamother.
Both beasts stalked off the wharf, crashed through some fencing, toppled statues of Alexander the Great and headed between two warehouses and a customs house, for Alexandrovsky Street beyond, with its vast Archangelsk Square, statuary gardens and harborfront promenade.
While the seamothers rampaged across the harbor area, Skortish and Ponkti kip’ts gathered beneath the same wharves, now empty of any traffic as the Belyayev had already turned about and sped at high speed back to her point of departure. The Skortish prodsmen, led by Yaktu, were first to emerge, followed quickly by several squads of Ponkti, led by Loptoheen himself. One after another, the prodsmen lit off their mobilitors, rose to the surface and landed upright on the pilings under propulsor power.
Spotted by a squad of harbor police, the Skortish were first to react.
“Stunners…open fire!” commanded Yaktu.
The entire wharf area was bathed in a blinding white light, followed by the concussive BOOMS! of sound grenades. Windows and lamps shattered. The sound and light pulses scattered the harbor police and created an opening for the Ponkti to advance.
Under Loptoheen, a squad of Ponkti prodsmen waddled toward the same gap the seamothers had taken. Kasmik, Telspo and Potop each emerged into the open, paused momentarily to get their bearings, pulsing vainly up and down the street for targets, then under the tukmaster’s direction, they split apart and crossed Alexandrovsky heading into the statuary garden.
Half a kilometer west of them, a small concrete cube of a building housed the armory. Inside, Major Alexander Desyanov was running a briefing of the 59th Battalion, 55th Naval Infantry Division. Assignments were being handed out and duty rosters completed for the next month. The coastal troops had harbor patrol, port security and public protection duties throughout this section of Vladivostok. The ‘Black Berets’ were a proud and illustrious outfit, having recently honored centuries of glorious war dead in an elaborate public ceremony at the statuary garden and a parade up and down the promenade.
Before Major Desyanov could launch into a well-rehearsed and (he hoped) rousing closing speech to the troops, someone shouted from the back. Completely ignoring bearing and protocol, men streamed to the windows, gesturing and shouting at something outside.
Desyanov was momentarily nonplussed by the breach of discipline and thought to shout orders to his men to return to their seats but the sudden intensity of their reaction gave him pause. He went to the windows.
There down the street, just coming nicely into view around the corner of the old Admiralty building was one of the seamothers, looking for all the world like a dinosaur had somehow come to life from the front gallery of the natural history museum downtown.
Desyanov swallowed hard, blinking in the sunlight even now trying to burn through early morning mists.
What in the name of Peter the Great—
But it was when the Major of Coastal Troops saw the first Ponkti prodsmen waddling along behind the beast, weapons at the ready, discharging their prods at unsuspecting pedestrians and curious shopkeepers opening their shop doors, that something clicked inside…a lifetime of soldier training and amphibious exercises and tactical drills and academy training. The soldier inside Desyanov burst to the surface and orders escaped his lips in rapid-fire fashion.
“To the gun lockers!” he barked. “Repel the intruders! Assemble at the front door…we’ll work out the formation!”
In the back room of the armory, the gun lockers were sprung open and dozens of OTS-19 assault rifles and Vena 120-mm mortars were distributed, their handlers sprinting across the briefing room to the front entrance. Someone unlocked a suitcase containing Orel 7, an autonomous robotic drone, which was handed off to her launch and ops crew, along with the Berkut-2, ground patrolbots. Powered up and quickly checked out, the autonomous sentries were checked for full magazines and oriented to follow the troops to their rally point at the door. They clanked off behind the tide of rushing men, now programmed to confront any threat their algorithms recognized. No one took time to wonder how their algorithms would react to the seamothers.
Desyanov deployed his first squads to cover both sides of Alexandrovsky Street.
“Use the shops!” he told them. “Use the doors, canopies and signs for cover. Advance a few meters at a time. Don’t silhouette yourself…watch your shadows.” All proper urban combat tactics the Battalion had practiced as recently as two months before.
But the Russian marines were unprepared for what came next.
At a signal from Loptoheen, who led the Ponkti barely twenty meters behind one of the seamothers, Kasmik released the first of the mah’jeet sacs. The toxic bloom of deadly micro-organisms burst out of containment and was caught up in breezes coming up from the harbor, swelling rapidly into a faintly iridescent cloud that drifted along the street and soon enveloped Desyanov’s forward patrols.
Men crumpled almost immediately, clutching at their throats, their rifles clattering to the street as they twisted and pitched heavily to the ground, slowly stung and asphyxiated by the organisms. Those still twitching when the Ponkti approached were quickly dispatched by bursts of electric prods, while more blinders were lit off ahead of the Ponkti advance.
To add to the confusion, Loptoheen ordered scentbulbs to be set off. Telspo and Potop did the honors, one on each side of the street. The bulbs were opened and a powerful
stench soon permeated the lower end of Alexandrovsky Street.
Remaining marines of the 59th stopped their advance immediately, not bothering to set up their mortars and crumpled to the pavement, choking, coughing and vomiting as the overpowering odors clung to everything and thickened in the breezes.
Major Desyanov watched from the armory in horror as his men, all well trained and dedicated marines, were cut down piecemeal by the intruders. Those not shocked into unconsciousness by the prods, asphyxiated into convulsions by the mah’jeet and incapacitated by the scentbulbs were forced to retreat back up the street, eventually taking cover inside a bank at the turn onto Gogol Street.
Desyanov ducked back inside the armory and hustled to the phone room. Division had to know about this. Gerasimov had to send more troops, more weapons, APCs, amphib tanks, more of everything.
Vladivostok was under assault by something unearthly, something from a child’s nightmare, something they had no defenses for.
The Major swallowed hard, finding no saliva in his throat at all, as he rang up Division headquarters.
At the other end of Alexandrovsky Street, indeed throughout the harbor area of Vladivostok, the results of the Ponkti and Skortish advance created similar results. The scenario was much the same in every direction, along all the streets radiating outward from Archangelsk Square. Seamothers took the lead as four-legged shock troops, sweeping the streets of all early resistance, followed up by stunner and blinder volleys to lay down a deadly field of force and light that seemed impermeable to all human sensors. Unlucky pedestrians, shop keepers, early morning customers, ferry passengers, and occasional policemen unfortunate enough to be caught in the advance were knocked flat by mah’jeet swarms or otherwise convulsed by strong toxins and incapacitating agents from Skortish scentbulbs.
A spreading wave of death, dismemberment and terror surged outward and there seemed nothing able to stop the onslaught.
Six thousand kilometers away, in a second-story studio in downtown Honolulu, Solnet newsdrone operator Karen Michell blinked at her board, seeing alerts and alarms and warning messages pop up on her board from every direction. Solnet maintained a small fleet of newsdrones all over the world, autonomous uavs circling across the globe at stratospheric altitudes, sniffing for emissions and signals of any type that might indicate trouble, or at least something newsworthy.
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