In Evil Times

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Don’t act so astonished. I can’t wait to get away from Mother and the latest doctor who’s taken her fancy. This one will probably last. He agrees with her assessment that I’m at death’s door and then compliments her on being so brave and holding up so well under the stress of a sick child.”

  “Ouch. So, I take it you’re not planning on following Julieta, Tanis and Izzara’s example.”

  “No. I’m going to make it and then spend five blissful years somewhere far away from here.”

  Mercedes hugged her. What a sight we must make, she thought. Me a giantess and this tiny fairy princess. “I’ll just be a shuttle hop away and you can call me anytime for advice or encouragement.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  They parted and Mercedes moved through the crowd to join Boho. It was their last night. She ought to be at his side for part of it. She had already decided they would make love tonight. Perhaps it would work like sympathetic magic. She was ovulating so perhaps this time she would get pregnant. Boho was busy charming a circle of women ranging in age from the teens to grandmothers. Mercedes paused to appreciate his skill. Cousin Musa appeared at her elbow.

  “Mercedes.”

  “Cousin.”

  Musa was Great-Aunt Patricia’s son and he was a bit older than the Emperor. Where her father tended to pack flesh on his tall frame, Musa was equally as tall, but very spare. He had a fringe of grey hair just above his ears, and the light from the chandelier made his bald pate shine. The only real resemblance between the men was the shape of their eyes and their arching eyebrows.

  “You must be bereft losing your dashing husband.”

  “We all do our duty, cousin.”

  “True… as best we can.”

  “Good of you to be concerned, cousin, but completely unnecessary. I’m quite certain we won’t have to disrupt the course of either yours or Mihalis’s life with the tedium of the throne,” Mercedes snapped.

  Musa tsked. “I’m quite shocked. The military give you that sharp tongue, Mercedes? That can drive a husband away.”

  “No, I was being polite. If I were to use military speak, cousin, I’d have said… fuck off.”

  Her heart was pounding and there was an aching knot in her stomach as she walked away. She was angry with him, angry with herself for becoming angry. The only consolation was that they were within the walls of the palace so the exchange wasn’t going to end up on the news. Once she reached the other side of the room she put her back to the wall, surveyed the crowd and realized she had not a single friend or confidant present. It was a lowering thought.

  22

  THE MONSTERS AMONG US

  He knew better than to read the latest postings out of O-Trell, but Tracy couldn’t help himself. He’d already endured the news that both Mercedes and Boho had been promoted to captain two years before. Today he learned that Cullen had been given command of a state-of-the-art frigate, the S.L.S.S. Lord Nelson, while Tracy still languished as a captain-lieutenant. After his initial tour aboard the Triunfo he had been posted to the S.L.S.S. Preble. The ship was an aged attack transport ferrying fusileros to lend aid during natural disasters and occasionally apply the boot to strikers and malcontents. Once in a great while there might be a riot or a half-hearted rebellion from disgruntled Hidden World colonists or alien workers but mostly it was dull work.

  I clearly hitched my wagon to the wrong horse, Tracy thought as he left his small cabin heading for the bridge. Sukarno had been a terrific teacher and role model, but as another untitled, former scholarship student he didn’t have the pull to get Tracy promoted. De Vilbiss would probably have gotten around to exerting some influence on Tracy’s behalf, but an untimely heart attack had taken him out of active service.

  I probably should have slept with him. The bitter thought didn’t bring much comfort and he couldn’t maintain the anger toward his former captain, because after two years serving under Captain Caballero Carl Reginald Carson, Tracy was missing de Vilbiss. The man might have violated regulations by forcing an enlisted man into a sexual liaison but he had been extremely competent.

  Carson was a lazy bastard who treated O-Trell like a hammock. As the sixth son of a baronet he was one of those noble parasites that Tracy especially despised. It sometimes seemed the lower the title or placement in a family the more that individual brayed and sprayed around their family connections. Carson didn’t condescend to Tracy the way many had. Instead he let him do all the work aboard the ship while he stayed drunk in his cabin with whatever joy girl he’d picked up at their last port of call. The arrival of the Preble meant an all-expenses-paid trip for some whore to a different planet.

  The XO and the lieutenant-commander were clearly just marking time. One until his retirement and the other until his next rotation would move him to a new ship. Tracy had briefly proposed that they report Carson to the Admiralty and gotten incredulous looks and very quick refusals. Apparently a way not to advance in O-Trell was to make waves or enemies.

  As for Tracy, he was getting a lot of time down various gravity wells. Carson’s slackness had affected the fusileros as well. Most of the competent officers had managed to get transferred or resign along with their competent sergeants. They were understaffed and the sergeants they did have were shiftless and surly. The result being that Tracy often found himself leading a squad on planetary missions.

  They were now en route to a planet whose recently appointed governor had sent out an urgent call for troops. Alien issues apparently, and some kind of rebellion among the few humans on the planet as well. The world, renamed Dragonfly because of the elliptical rings that surrounded it, had been a Cara’ot supply base, but some sort of bureaucratic screw-up within the Department of Planetary Affairs had left the alien world without proper human authority.

  Until now. And now that authority was screaming his ass off for help five weeks after he’d taken up his post.

  Tracy had been on the computer trying to figure out what kind of problems could have possibly arisen on an unprepossessing planet with little to recommend it apart from the pretty rings and its location. As for the provincial governor—Caballero Royce Epps had been a parliament backbencher of low title whose one flash of fame had been his attempt to offer legislation that would have banned aliens from owning businesses. An attempt which resoundingly failed, but had made Epps the darling of the most conservative press outlets and leader of the Human First movement. Which made his appointment to govern a Cara’ot world seem a blunder on the part of the Planetary Governance Department. Since Dragonfly had belonged to the Cara’ot, Tracy had asked Donnel to see what he could discover.

  His batBEM caught him before he could climb the ladder to the bridge. Over the years Tracy had learned to read the nuanced expressions on Donnel’s round, four-eyed face. “What?” he asked, his heart sinking.

  “You should call for a flagship,” Donnel said.

  “Why? There’s a bunch of Cara’ot traders and a handful of humans.”

  “You need an admiral. Preferably one with a direct line to the palace.”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “I can’t say more.”

  “But you know something.”

  “Be careful, sir,” the alien said. Tracy reacted. His mouthy batBEM didn’t often call him “sir”. Donnel went skittering off so quickly that his three legs were almost a blur. He suddenly stopped and spun like a grotesque top to face Tracy. “I think I know you.”

  “After ten years you better,” Tracy growled.

  “Just… just be the human I think you are.”

  Donnel vanished around a corner. Tracy shook his head and climbed up the ladder to the bridge.

  * * *

  “Go, go, go!” Orders from the shuttle pilot who was hovering some fifteen feet off the ground.

  Tracy hugged his rifle and jumped, letting his knees and the servo mechanisms in his battle armor take the shock of his landing. He felt the concussion through the soles of his feet as the n
ine other men in his squad joined him. Three shuttles had been sent to the governor’s residence, where rioters were assailing the gates held off by a small number of fusileros. Tracy’s shuttle had been deploying troops in a warehouse district, dropping off the other three squads. Tracy was reminded of the Greek myth of dragon’s teeth and how if planted they would grow into armed warriors.

  The night sky was cut with the fire of tracer rounds. His helmet dampened the sound of gunfire and of screams. Off to his left a couple of buildings were engulfed in flames.

  He could hear reports over his helmet radio. “Coming under heavy fire from an apartment building.” “Snipers on the roof.” “Barricade on the street.” Major Lord William Hu, commander of the fusileros, snapped back orders. “Fire at will. Take out all resistance. If they won’t surrender drop the building!”

  Tracy checked his heads-up display. Their target was a warehouse near the edge of the city. He raised his hand and made a fist. “Let’s go, double time.”

  He led his men down a street. Gunfire erupted from behind a barricade formed from crashed flitters and furniture. The squad scattered and returned fire. One of the fusileros fired a grenade into the barricade. It tore apart, sending pieces of flitter, broken chairs and bodies flying. Tracy was startled to see how many women had been manning the barrier, as well as men and a number of aliens. Judging by the variety of disturbing shapes they were Cara’ot.

  “Shit, is the war starting again?” one of the soldiers muttered.

  “Let’s hope not,” Tracy replied. “Let’s go.”

  He led them at a jog down the street. Their boots crunched over the remains of the barricade. Around him he heard sobs and screams, cries of pain. He blinked to turn off night vision and thermal for a clear look. A woman held her belly. Glistening viscera were spilling from the wound and her hands were red with blood. Tracy hesitated. There was a medic in his squad, but his own men might need his services. He set his jaw and went past the suffering woman. Maybe she would live until this was over and they could render aid.

  They reached their target, a large warehouse with no windows. Tracy sent a tiny drone flitting over the roof. It sent back images of eight skylights, but they weren’t clear glass. He didn’t want to burn through the doors until he had some idea what was inside so he directed the drone toward a ventilation shaft. It dropped about three feet then hit an obstruction of wadded packing material and steel wool. The people inside weren’t fools. Tracy pulled the drone back and turned to his comms man.

  “Plant an MoR on the wall. See what it can show us.”

  The corporal saluted, crouched and duckwalked up to the wall. His communications array bounced lightly on his back. He slapped a sensor on the wall and sent the data back to Tracy’s helmet. The device was incredibly sensitive. It registered not only movement, but breathing and even heartbeats. Particularly when the hearts were beating this fast.

  “Shit, there are eighty-three people in there,” Tracy muttered. He considered the nine other men in his squad.

  His sergeant looked over. “Wait for reinforcements?”

  Tracy considered. He could already imagine Major Hu screaming, calling him a pussy. “Use the lance on the wall. Once we’ve got a hole, lob in some stun grenades. That should help them calm down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It didn’t take long to execute. The thermite lances had a limited lifespan, burning through their fuel relatively quickly, but they were easily able to cut through the metal and concrete that formed the building. Anybody who was too close when the lances cut through was going to have a bad day, but he couldn’t worry about that. They needed to neutralize the structure.

  Metal slumped and concrete cracked and they had their opening. They tossed in grenades. Their battle armor damped the sound and flash. Tracy gave the go signal and the squad rushed through the opening.

  Despite the skylights it was dim in the interior. Shelves and crates had been piled in front of the doors. More boxes had been arranged to form a sort of fort. The defenders had been clever about surveillance drones but had never considered that their attackers might eschew the doors. He and his men charged the fort scattering boxes. There were a few muzzle flashes; his fusileros returned fire just as Tracy realized what he was seeing.

  Children. The majority of the people inside the makeshift fort were little kids. He was no expert, but they looked to be between three and six. They were also not human. They all had luxurious curling multi-colored hair, tufted ears pricked up through the curls, and they had furry tails in the same mix of colors as their hair. The faces were elfin with sharply pointed chins and high cheekbones. The children stared at them, terror writ large in big eyes with slits like a cat’s and jewel-like colors—green, gold and blue.

  “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” he bellowed at his troops.

  There were a handful of human adults who were mostly women. There was one Cara’ot among them. The Cara’ot was roughly bipedal in shape with a head in the right place. He… she… it had taken a bullet to said head and was dead. One of the men was bleeding from a wound to the chest.

  “Weapons down!” he ordered the defenders. Most of the guns clattered to the floor. A man and one of the women hesitated.

  “Are you going to kill us?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, if you don’t drop your guns,” Tracy answered.

  “Are you going to kill our kids?” the woman asked.

  “What?” Tracy tried to process that. “No.”

  “You’re not the governor’s troops?” the man asked.

  “No, we’re off the Preble.” The couple exchanged glances, hands convulsing on the stocks of their rifles. “You’re running out of time,” Tracy warned. They disarmed. Tracy gestured toward the man with the sucking chest wound. “Take care of that,” he ordered his medic.

  Guth didn’t bother to salute. Just unlimbered his med kit and knelt at the man’s side.

  Tracy grabbed another of the men, who winced as his armored hand exerted too much pressure on his arm. “Now tell me what’s going on. These kids are Cara’ot, right?”

  “No,” the woman said. “Well, sort of. They’re human and Cara’ot.”

  “Oh… shit.” He paced a tight circle. “You’ve been breaking the genetic laws.” The couple just exchanged glances. Suddenly Tracy could see it all. “You fucking morons thought you were off the beaten track enough to get away with it. Then the League assigns a governor who finds out what you’ve been up to.” He wanted to rub his suddenly aching temples but the helmet kept him from applying that small relief.

  “And he ordered the children killed.” The woman’s voice was harsh with both grief and rage.

  The research Tracy had done before their arrival gave him the rest of the horrible picture. Maybe Governor Epps hadn’t just been garnering points with the conservative press with his legislative initiative. Maybe he actually was a true believer in the intrinsic superiority of humans and the vileness of aliens.

  What Tracy did know was this was a problem way above his pay grade. He chinned his radio to call to Captain Carson, then hesitated. He’d have to report to his superior officer, but relying on Carson to do jack or shit was another matter.

  He made the call and delivered his report. There was a long pause that had nothing to do with the time lag between the planet and the ship in orbit. “Well,” Carson finally said. “That’s going to be a shit storm. I need to think on this.”

  “Captain, might I respectfully suggest that you get down to the residence. Declare martial law. Take control of the planet,” Tracy said. He hoped he sounded respectful.

  “That’s a rather extreme reaction, Lieutenant, don’t you think?”

  “At least have the governor call back his security forces. Otherwise there’s going to be a confrontation.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  The connection broke. Tracy considered. A bearded older man hesitantly approached. “Sir, can we tend to the children? They have ver
y sensitive hearing and I’m worried about the effect the grenades might have had.”

  “Yes, of course. Guth,” Tracy called to his medic. “When you’re done there render whatever aid is needed.” The man hesitated briefly then nodded.

  Tracy sent five of his team to guard the hole in the wall. The other three he put on the barricaded front door. He then moved on to the children. A number of them had blood staining the hair at the base of their ears. One little girl with a riot of black, red and gold curls toddled to him, stopped and stared up into his face then wrapped her arms around his armored leg and pressed her cheek against his thigh. Conflicting emotions twitched through him. Disgust. Fascination. Confusion. For a brief second he felt the muscles in his leg tighten as he prepared to kick her loose. He fought it down and let her cling to him.

  He wished they hadn’t killed the Cara’ot. The creature would have been able to tell Tracy if his theory about the kids was correct. A human woman walked past and he caught her arm. “So whose idea was it to go with kittens?”

  “Saw that did you?”

  “I’d have to be fucking blind not to,” Tracy replied.

  “It was a joint decision.” She reached down and stroked the little girl’s curls. “We considered having them be indistinguishable from humans without a genetic test, but we wanted to foster the idea of sharing and compatibility.” She shrugged. “So we went with something we thought would be appealing and non-threatening.” Her face twisted and she fought back tears. “Guess that didn’t work out.”

  The child clinging to his leg looked up. Her eyes were gold, swimming with green flecks. “I’m hungry,” she lisped.

  He dug a ration bar out of a pocket on his armor. That caused a stir among the conscious children. “Distribute your rations,” he called to his squad. “We need to get these kids fed.”

  Helmeted heads cocked and turned. Tracy could read the reactions.

  “We’re going to need rations if we’re down here for long,” one of the fusileros said.