by Mike Luoma
“You will die here today, Dolomay,” The Eldest of the Eldred says defiantly. “We will kill you. Or they will. But you will die.”
“Idle threats,” Dolomay dismisses the Eldred’s words.
“Promises.”
“Is this to be our final battle, then?” Dolomay asks him. “This is what it comes down to? We will die out in this remote backwater place? Far removed in space and time from my people’s once great empire? Die out here and it all ends in obscurity, is that it? And what am I to you now? Your great shame incarnate?!” Dolomay is nearly raving.
“You brought your forces here for victory, nothing less, correct? Certainly. You attack these
‘children’, these pale echoes, mere shadows of what we were. But they are not your enemy! They are at best weak imitations! Those who serve me can only wish to be like we super men of old!”
BEFORE I KILL HIM, I WILL DESTROY HIS WORLD!
“When I awoke, I wondered why any of you were still around, Servant!”
“You wondered? All races have prospered without the Ancient Enemy to keep us scared and pinned down on our planets!” the Eldest of the Eldred argues.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Dolomay says, shaking his head and smiling a deadly smile. “Your race has forgotten its humble origins. You are Servants! You were created and bred to serve us! You were also created with a built in obsolescence, built to be dependent upon us for your continued existence. Without us around, the Servants should have slowly dwindled and died out thousands of years ago! Why do you suppose you’re still around?
“You need me, you old fool!” Dolomay shouts at the Eldest of the Eldred. “If I hadn’t been around for all these years in stasis, you would’ve died out! Without me, you don’t even exist! I keep you alive! You never figured that out, did you? I am the REASON you EVEN EXIST!”
“Now who is the arrogant one?” the Eldest of the Eldred observes wryly.
“Arrogant?” Dolomay laughs. “Kill me, and your race’s reason for being will be gone. It’s biological. Your race is hardwired to mine! If I hadn’t been out there in suspended animation all these years, there would have been no Eldred!”
The Eldest of the Eldred stares mutely back at Dolomay.
“Without me, there is no you,” Dolomay says smiling an evil grin. “You’re seeing it now, aren’t you? You know it’s true!”
“You are the reason that we are alive? Is this what you are trying to say?” the Eldest of the Eldred says in disgust.
“It does not exactly thrill me, either,” Dolomay says. “I am doing what I can about it.”
As he finishes speaking, Dolomay springs up out of his chair, drawing the sword from its sheath as he flows up out of his seat, bringing it up as he rises and then down and across as he nears the Eldest of the Eldred, taking his head clean off with his one sweeping swing. Woah!
BC can’t help but react.
YOU IN HERE!
BC feels Dolomay’s awareness on him like a hot blast of sunlight. He sees Fiza through Dolomay’s eyes. She’s waking up, standing up at the same time.
“Ew…” she says, looking past Dolomay at the head and body on the floor. She looks back at Dolomay as BC looks through Dolomay’s eyes into Fiza’s… and suddenly he’s looking out of her eyes and into Dolomay’s dead eyes.
I’m in Fiza’s mind!?
bc? that you?
It feels wrong… HE’S in here, too!
BC feels Dolomay’s presence like greasy, slippery tentacles grasping at him and Fiza. He concentrates and dries the tentacles down to gnarly black branches that he then snaps, breaking Dolomay’s grasp.
Fiza and Dolomay have been staring eye to eye this whole time. Now Dolomay’s brow furrows, as he tries to figure out what just happened. He doesn’t break his gaze. BC tries to block him out. How are you, Fiza?
bc! he’s been controlling me! this… this isn’t me!
I know. It’s okay. I’m here now. Are you okay?
no, i’m anything but okay, bc! he’s been inside me, bc, completely violated me, mind and body!
BC feels the greasy tentacles reaching out again as they continue their stare down. He closes the doors on their wriggling forms and the ends shrivel down to nothing. keep him out of me, bc!
I will try, Fiza.
“Fiza?” Dolomay finally says aloud. “It’s strange. I cannot feel you.”
“Strange,” she says quietly. Finally, Dolomay breaks his gaze and shifts his attention.
“Clean this up!” Dolomay orders the first mate, pointing at the corpse of the Eldest of the Eldred with the tip of his sword.
keep him out of me, bc!
I’m trying!
i see a gun i can reach… keep him out for me, bc! let me do this!
Fiza casually saunters over to the “throne” and plops back down on her cushion at its feet, easing a handgun off the throne and down beneath her as she lays down.
he didn’t see me.
Dolomay walks back over to his chair and sits down next to Fiza.
keep him out of me, bc!
Dolomay leans over Fiza.
“Why can’t I feel you, Fiza?” he asks.
“Feel this,” she says, and she brings the handgun up into Dolomay’s face at point blank range. She pulls the trigger.
BANG!
BC feels her adrenaline rush, her fear, her sense of freedom, her elation. He sees through Fiza’s eyes one last time, sees the hole in Dolomay’s forehead just above his two now truly dead eyes, sees the bits of brain and the blood splashed across the wall behind him, sees the rest of the crew on the bridge now dazed, out of it and confused.
Dolomay had gathered the strands of their minds together into his own. With his death, each strand has snapped back, stunning them. This boomerang effect has left the bridge crew incapacitated. BC snaps back! No easy awakening through the still calm silent sea this time, BC is jolted awake and alert on the bridge of the command and control ship.
“Minute to spare,” Chang says as BC opens his eyes and stands up.
“Huh?” BC feels a little dazed himself.
“You were under for fourteen minutes.”
“Oh. Uh-huh. What’s happening?” BC asks.
Dolomay’s dead! Fiza just killed him!
“That stray smudge merged with, must have boarded a blue blip, blew it up afterwards. Huh, now that’s strange. Something’s happening with that ship… we’re starting to get a fix on it. The Eldred must be, too, they’re starting to surround it.”
“Strategy screen,” BC calls the tactical display up. Dolomay’s ship shifts from smudge to a small blue blip as BC finds it on the display. A small dark blue blip surrounded by a sea of light blue blips as the Eldred close in.
“Their shields are down,” Chang reports.
“Get me an open channel!” BC commands.
“Go ahead.”
“Dolomay is dead! This is Bernard Campion! You do not need to fire on that ship! Dolomay is dead! Dolomay’s dead,” BC tells everyone listening.
“How do you know?” an Eldred voice ask.
“Yeah, how do you know?” Chang echoes the alien.
“I’ve seen it. We have a way of seeing into their ships. I saw it happen over there, on their ship,”
BC explains. He tries to convince them. “Please, do not fire! Dolomay is dead, I saw Fi…”
BC stops. The massed Eldred ships have simultaneously opened fire on Dolomay’s ship.
“Visual!” BC commands. A viewscreen pops up just in time for BC to see the steady focused fire of the Eldred ships have its desired effect. Dolomay’s ship explodes in a billowing, cloudy surge of red, orange and blue.
Fiza!
“The Eldred are firing! I guess that means this fight isn’t over,” BC says, sadness and anger coloring his tone. “Fire at will! I repeat, fire at will. All Eldred ships are targets, all of Dolomay’s remaining ships are also now viable targets! Fire at will! I repeat – fire at will!”
B
C calls for the tactical display.
“Strategy screen.”
BC stares as SAIF ships take out more of the light blue blips. Dolomay’s ships drop their shields as SAIF ships approach, turning into solid dark blue blips on the screen.
“Dolomay’s remaining ships are surrendering,” Chang reports to BC.
“Arrest the crews. They’ll have to stand trial for their crimes. They’ll have to learn how to be human again.”
It won’t be easy figuring out how much was them and how much was the touch of Dolomay.
How much did the devil make them do it? How much did they dance with the devil of their own free will?
“Confiscate the ships. If we can spare the pilots, fly Dolomay’s ships back to the shipyards. We’ll see if we can use them against the Eldred.”
“Sir? The Eldred are no longer putting up much of a fight. We’re getting reports that indicate many of their ships are now fighting with shields completely lowered.”
“Put me on the fleet com, Chang.”
“You’re on.”
“All ships, new orders. Dolomay’s ships have surrendered. Their ships and crews are being taken care of as I speak. The Eldred seem to be standing down as well. Your new orders are to only fire when fired upon. I repeat, we will now only return fire. Only fire when fired upon. Keep your shields up, but do not fire unless provoked. Command out.”
“BC?” Anita is on the com. “What’s happening over there? Did you have to go over?”
“Dolomay is dead, Anita!” BC tells her. “And the Eldred seem to be backing down and losing their will to fight. That may be because Dolomay killed the Eldest of the Eldred. Before Fiza shot him.”
“Fiza? Fiza shot Dolomay? Dead?” Anita asks, incredulous.
“Dead! Right in the middle of the forehead.”
“Great,” Anita jokes, “so now Fiza’s a hero?”
“Fiza’s dead, Anita,” BC says solemnly to throw it back in her face as he gets a little mad at Anita’s flippancy. “The Eldred destroyed the ship, even after I told them Dolomay had already been killed. They blew her up.”
“I’m… I’m sorry BC. I know she was an old ‘friend’ of yours.”
“Thank you, Anita.”
Now I feel guilty for getting mad, dammit!
“Well, it’s good news about Dolomay. And the Eldred too, huh, maybe?” Anita says.
“We’ll see.”
“Keep me informed, BC,” she asks him.
“I will,” he says, ending the call.
“The Eldred are retreating, sir!” Chang informs him.
“Follow them! Lock onto their Transpace signals and follow them back to their bases. Let’s make sure they aren’t going to come roaring right back at us!”
Tracking systems developed by the Project allow the Solar Alliance Interplanetary Forces to track the Eldred back to their nearest military base.
The first report comes back in about twenty minutes.
“They’ve definitely got reserves! There are a couple more thousand ships here!”
“Take them out,” BC orders. “As many as you can!”
Two SAIF squadrons of six ships apiece swoop in to attack the Eldred advance base. Surprisingly, the Eldred fleet offers only token resistance. They put up little fight as the SAIF ships streak through strafing their base and sweeping through their fleet.
BC watches relayed information on his strategy screen, watching the SAIF ship’s blips mow through the light blue blips representing the Eldred ships.
What’s happened to the Eldred? Is what Dolomay told the Eldest of the Eldred true? Were they somehow biologically attuned to him? Did that make them aggressive? And now that he’s gone…
Could be true, I guess. Something about them has definitely changed. They lost the Eldest. That could be it.
Before, they were attacking us as if we would become the Ancient Enemy. Now they’re holding back. Hardly defending themselves!
Did Dolomay represent the potential for us to become what he was? To become the Ancient Enemy? Now that he’s gone… maybe that potential is gone, too. The SAIF ships are able to do massive damage without losing a ship out of the dozen. The base is wiped out with little resistance. A few remaining Eldred ships retreat again.
“The Eldred base has been neutralized,” Chang tells BC.
“Good. We haven’t found any other staging areas, any other Eldred bases?”
“Not so far, sir. All the ships we followed retreated to the same base.”
BC orders one of the squadrons to follow the current retreat and trace those ships back to whatever deeper base they are fleeing. He tells the other squadron to hold the ruins of the base they’ve just taken out and eliminate any stragglers. He sees no reason to risk reprisals or any changes of alien
“heart” from the Eldred.
If they even have hearts…
Damn. I feel bad for some reason. Guilty.
Why should I feel guilty about wiping them out? They were trying to wipe us out, after all. Keep wiping them out, even when they stop fighting back? Have they really stopped?
They seem to have, for now.
We don’t know that they’ll stay “dormant”.
“SAIF squadron Blue reporting contact with retreating Eldred fleet,” Chang reports. “They’re reporting no resistance, Prime Representative, sir.”
“Tell them to open fire,” BC orders. “Sweep the fleet. If they get into any trouble, fall back, don’t risk getting hit. Tell the ships to watch each other. I don’t want to lose anyone to friendly fire!”
“Yessir,” Chang says sharply.
Sounds like Chang might not agree with my methods. So be it. Some will always argue with what has to be done. I can only hope it’s the right decision. Seems right to me. We do what we have to do.
“Blue squadron reports little resistance, but again massive retreating by the Eldred from the field of battle.”
“Find out where they’re going. Watch a few ships, see if they’ll change it up and try fleeing to multiple targets. It’s not likely given their track record, but we’ll see.”
“Yessir.”
Blue squadron harries the Eldred back two more Transpace jumps before finally losing them. BC
doesn’t want to risk losing blue squadron, so he orders them back to help the other SAIF group finish mopping up around the first base the Eldred jumped to.
Dolomay’s five remaining ships are all flown in to the shipyards. Their surviving crews are put on ships heading back to Earth so they can face justice at home.
With the fight winding down, BC asks Chang to take the command and control ship back to Ceres Central.
“Looks like we might have won this one,” BC observes. “At least for now.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
BC meets Anita for dinner back on Ceres Central a week after the battle with the Eldred and Dolomay, when things finally calm down long enough for each of them to take a break. BC has traveled throughout the solar system during the week, even back and forth to Cat’s Eye, as the new Solar Alliance takes stock of itself after the battles.
BC doesn’t say much through the meal.
“You’re preoccupied by something, aren’t you?” Anita presses him, finally, over dessert.
“Am I? Do I seem distant? I’m sorry,” he apologizes.
“Yeah you do. S’okay.” She laughs. “We did just fight a war.”
BC sighs.
“Come on. Give it up,” she says, trying to coax him into talking about it.
“I’m… conflicted, I guess,” he says, “of two minds. Divided between wondering if we did the right thing by following the Eldred back to their bases and wiping out their fleet…”
He trails off.
“And?” she prods.
“…and wondering if we somehow blew the chance to find our way back to Eldray. Strike back in a more meaningful way.”
Anita shakes her head.
“And here I thought you were worrying ove
r wiping out the Eldred ships because you thought we were being too brutal. Instead, you’re worried you’ve missed our chance to find their presumably civilian homeworld, to hit their civilian population? Jeesh, BC, you’re more brutal than I thought!”
“There are military targets and ships on and around Eldray. I’m not looking for the wholesale slaughter of Eldred ‘civilians’ as you’re calling them,” he tries to defend himself.
“Of course not,” she answers him with a light touch of sarcasm in her voice. “There’s nothing remotely like revenge on your mind right now, is there? Justice and Defense only, right? Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord!” she jokes.
“Getting biblical on me?” BC asks.
“What?”
“Never mind. Nothing. But, if god works through man, then why couldn’t we be the instruments of His Divine Vengeance?”
She stares across the table at him. BC feels as if she’s x-raying his head to see if he means all the shit he’s spouting.
“Spoken like a true Assassin for the Vatican,” she says, finally, chiding him but breaking the silence. “Isn’t that a little Old Testament for you, BC?”
“Old testament. Old job. Old me, really,” BC insists. “It’s only been a couple of years, but it feels like that was a lifetime ago. I’ve gone from wanting to kill you to falling in love with you!”
What the fuck did I just say?!
Anita seems to be having trouble breathing.
“What did you just say?” she manages, past her shock.
“Did I just say that out loud?” BC asks her. Anita nods. “I guess it’s true. I think I am in love with you, Anita.”
“That’s not exactly what you said the first time,” she says, calling him out. “There was no ‘think’
in there before,” she points out.
“I’m sorry,” BC apologizes. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to, it just came out…”
BC’s protests are abruptly cut off as Anita leans across the table and kisses him hard. She finally pulls back.
“Don’t be afraid to say it, BC!” she says, looking him eye to eye, in close. “You’re not scaring me away.”
That’s it, too, isn’t it? Fear! I’m afraid to love for fear it will run away. Afraid to love because I’m afraid to lose it. How fucked up is that?