by John Ringo
"And yours?" the Himmit sneered. "If you wanted a ship capable of protecting the Posleen once they were free of Earth then you should have contracted for something else. Perhaps a scout-smuggler to take them all the way to their destination."
"You could have done that, could you? Funny you never mentioned that."
"Did you ask?"
Ship Arganaza'al
A bright red and orange and yellow cloud of Hell-in-space appeared behind the Posleen escape ship. Esstwo, manning the defensive gunnery station, snarled his satisfaction at destroying one of the accursed humans' anti-matter weapons. These were more deadly than the kinetics, if they managed to hit or even get close. However, they were easier to keep from hitting or getting close by destroying prematurely the containment fields that kept their anti-matter from joining with normal matter and becoming a cosmic catastrophe before it was intended to.
Despite that success, Esstwo's claws worked furiously, trying to stave off and defeat the swarm of human missiles, a mix of anti-matter and kinetics, that pursued the ship relentlessly. Of the two classes of targets, the KEW were the more to be feared. They gave little trace, hardly showed up on the sensors until it was almost too late, and were not particularly vulnerable to countermeasures.
"Demon shit!" the Esstwo exclaimed, his claws a blur over his defense systems panel. The Posleen exhaled, saying, "I nearly missed that one." In a rear view screen, a KEW rapidly expanded into a cloud of plasma as massed charged particle beams, supplemented by a streams of smaller KEWs emanating from the ship, sliced into it. Two more KEWs, hard on the heels of the first, closed on the Posleen ship.
"Too close for comfort," Tulo'stenaloor said, imperturbably. "Essthree, how long until jump?"
"Do you care where we jump to?" the grizzled Posleen asked.
"I can take one of those projectiles!" Esstwo shouted. "The other is going to hit!" Lowering his view back to his screen, Esstwo muttered, "Bastard humans have gotten better at this shit."
Tulo glanced up at the battle tracking view screen. "Don't. Care. A. Bit," he said to the Essthree, still working the helm.
"Fourteen beats, then."
"Do it. Anywhere that doesn't leave us as a cloud in space."
"That's not something I can guarantee," Essthree answered. "We might end up too close to a planet or star. I was in the middle of calculations when the humans jumped us."
"Fine, then. Anything that doesn't carry the certainty of becoming a cloud in space. Which the fucking humans' weapons do."
Essthree nodded. Closing his eyes, whispering a prayer to the spirits of ancestors in whom he didn't really believe, he touched a claw to a panel.
Tulo kept his eyes fixed on the screen showing the oncoming KEWs fast closing from behind. He saw still the ghost fleet they were abandoning, the pursuing human cruisers, the streams of plasma and little defensive KEWs emanating from the ship under the direction of the Esstwo, and the planet and stars of the Diess system. One of those KEWs was being chopped up, hopefully into pieces small enough for the ship to survive an impact with them. The other, solid and deadly, closed relentlessly.
Three more, and then another three, KEWs leapt from the human cruisers. Of the closer two, one began to break up, its component metal shattering and the pieces venting off a mix of uranium and iron gas. The other seemed certain to strike, so close was it, when . . .
Himmit Ship Surreptitious Stalker
On the view screen of the Himmit ship's bridge, a multi-colored nightmare of a space-time distortion appeared, blocking the view of the Posleen Ark.
"It appears they've outrun . . . out-somethinged, anyway, their pursuers," the Himmit announced.
"No thanks to you."
The Himmit captain merely shrugged and answered, "A contract's a contract."
Light Cruiser Suharto
"Your contract shall be voided!" Panggabean hissed, kicking the prostrate XO in the ribs. "You shall be court-martialed, disgraced and spaced!" he added, stomping on the unfortunate creature's head. Pending over, no mean feat for so weighty a man, Panggabean applied his riding crop—which was not, after all, functionless—to the XO's neck and shoulders. "Your children shall be sold as back passage whores, the girls and the boys!"
The CruRon had pursued the Posleen ship to and through the distortion caused by its jump, all the time flinging missiles forward. The Admiral fretted over the expense, of course. The cost of the ordnance would come from funds he considered his own. But to be cheated of his prize by the incompetence of the exec—never mind that Panggabean had spaced the XO's predecessor for excessive zeal and initiative . . . it was simply intolerable. Nor would it be tolerated.
"Moira," Panggabean ordered the captain, "assemble a court-martial. Have it find this miscreant guilty. Then have him spaced."
Ship Arganaza'al
Transitspace—"subspace," the humans would have said—was strange. There were no stars visible, but only a diffuse glow leaking in from an adjacent reality. Of landmarks and navigational aids there were none, or none, at least, that the Posleen had ever been able to identify. Oh, the glow was not everywhere equally diffuse. There were bright spots and bands, rivers of light and glowing pseudo-particles. Yet none of these stayed constant. The rivers flowed back into the nothingness from whence they had come. The bright spots went dark, the bands shifted shape to become lines of spots that then drifted off into individuality. There was a theory, so far unproven, that the spots and bands and rivers were in fact the constructs of the individual ships and the energies they expended. If so, it meant that not only was navigation while in Transitspace impossible, it would always be impossible.
That is to say, navigation was impossible except insofar as one had set to emerge in a rough patch of real space before entering transitspace. Essthree had been making those settings, something that always had to be done and finessed right up to the moment of the jump under the Posleen technique of "tunneling" through space, right up until Tulo'stenaloor had said, "Do it." At that point, he'd initiated the jump without really knowing where the final destination would be.
He could hope, at least, that it wouldn't be at the center of a star. That would be a flashy way to go, of course, (indeed some called it "finding the light at the end of the tunnel") but the Essthree had never been one for excessive flashiness.
They also had the option of cutting their jump short. But since the general area of their intended emergence was at least relatively free of stars and planets, and almost assuredly free of human-crewed Federation starships, and they couldn't really know the makeup of the area around which they might emerge if they cut the jump short, it was arguably better to see the thing through.
"Still," Golo observed, in the mess compartment reserved for Tulo and his closest twelve followers, "it's a lot like having a death sentence imposed, with a certain date of execution but a beheading blade that might or might not be sharp."
"You paint the most charming pictures, Goloswin," said
Binastarion. "Isn't he just the life of the party, AS?"
"Indeed, Lord," the machine replied from its perch on the kessentai's chest. "And if I were not destined to be turned to plasma at the same time as all the rest of you—if you are—I'd be more charmed still."
"You'll come back, O Bucket of Bolts," Binastarion said. "Abat colonies never die."
Brasingala kept silent through the banter, his muzzle down in his food bucket. He was, in fact, scared witless. Not that the thought of his own demise troubled him overmuch. But there was a threat to his lord, Tulo'stenaloor, that he was simply incapable of dealing with. This was unique in the bodyguard's experience. He'd faced the metal threshkreen without fear. He'd blasted apart the humans' tanks, at least some of the earlier models, without a tremble. He'd even, and on more than one occasion, pushed his chief to the ground and covered his body with his own when the humans' unstoppable "artillery" came in to search the ground with clouds of hot, razor sharp, shards. Brasingala had the scars to show.
&n
bsp; But in space?
In space I am helpless. We will either come out of transitspace without problem . . . or we will emerge too close to substantial matter and disintegrate . . . or we will emerge near a human fleet that will rend us to thresh. And I can do nothing.
Suddenly, Brasingala withdrew his muzzle from the food bucket and pushed it toward the center of the circle of kessentai. "Anyone wants it, go ahead," he said. "I've lost my appetite."
Brasingala had lost his appetite. In a different mess deck, one reserved for some of the newly acquired kessentai, Finba'anaga had an appetite he could not quench, a thirst he could not even begin to slake.
The others were gone now, off about whatever business they'd been assigned aboard ship. Finba'anaga, on the other hand, had duties a human might have called "mess boy" or "KP."
Using the Posleen shipboard equivalent of a mop and bucket, though in this case it was more of a auxiliary-propelled collector and demolecularizer, a humming CdM, the god-king was tasked with cleaning up the mess left by the mass of cosslain and a few normals driven into the hibernation chambers before the ship had departed Diess. It was a job for a normal, or a not very bright cosslain. And yet—near ultimate indignity!—it had fallen to him.
The shame of it all, the god-king mentally moaned. And still there's nothing I can do. I am the lowest of the low, I who was born to ride among the stars and crush worlds beneath my claws. Reduced to this, reduced to mere janitorial work.
Finba'anaga stopped manipulating the cleaning tool briefly to inspect the floor upon which he worked. He snarled to see a stain deep set into the hull that the collector and demolecularizer had failed to clean. Making the Posleen equivalent of a tsk, a sort of throaty growl with a cough added, the kessentai shuffled over to a small storage bin and removed a container of a kind of solvent. This he poured onto the stain, then waited for a few scores of beats while the stuff fizzed.
On the other hand, at least that kessenalt by another name, Goloswin, has stopped riding me all the time. I suppose there's some correlation between that and the fact that I learned to work more carefully.
As the fizzing diminished, then stopped altogether, Finba'anaga once again ran the CdM unit over the stained patch. As the unit's hum rose, the stain began to disappear.
And that is perhaps how I shall get out of the position I find myself in.
Finba'anaga redoubled his efforts to clean the galley spotless.
"There's one of the new kessentai I'd like to recommend to you, Tulo," Goloswin said. "Started off slow but seems to be really getting into the spirit of things now."
Tulo turned his great head, half closed one eye, leaving the other wide open and staring at Goloswin. It was the Posleen equivalent of a human raised eyebrow.
"Who and what and why?" he asked.
"Name's Finba'anaga. Tests high for brightness, according to Binastarion—yes, I checked—and, while he had some issues early on, he's taken to his duties, even the more degrading ones, with a considerable will."
"You want to promote him, then? To what?"
"Well . . . that cosslain I tested the new suit on is of, at best, limited utility. Besides that, we're better off with it doling out the rations. But I could use a new assistant. I'm trying to expand—to grow—that lump of Himmit metal we got, you see."
Tulo relaxed the half-closed eye and thought upon it. We have to find a way to integrate these newcomers. And Golo's right about the potential uses of that metal. Still, he's a better judge of machinery that of beings. I don't know . . .
"Fine," Tulo agreed at last. "We'll call it an experiment. You can take the newcomer under your chin and try to integrate him. I want a report on him not less frequently than ever other ship's day. At least for now, I do.
"Oh, and keep me posted on progress with that Himmit metal, too."
Goloswin nodded. "I think it's the right thing to do, Tulo. Really."
"Let us hope."
Freedom! Finba'anaga thought, so exultantly that he half missed Goloswin's question.
"Excuse me, Lord?" the newcomer asked.
"I asked, 'What is your skill set?'"
Posleen, be they normals or cosslain or kessentai, were born with certain skills, the result of serious genetic tinkering sometime in the lost past. These, particularly among the normals and cosslain, usually manifested themselves in some form without prompting. A normal born to be a farmer, for example, and finding itself on a new planet, would automatically start gathering seeds from the local plants, even as it began preparing fields for more usual Posleen crops. Miner-born Posleen would begin prospecting for useful ores without the need ever to tell them to. A builder normal, or more usually a group of them, would begin constructing a pyramidal palace for their god-king at the first sign of sufficient security to justify the effort. Indeed, it was generally necessary to tell them not to, if there was some other task requiring their attention.
Kessentai were a bit different. For them, their skill sets rarely manifested themselves until there was a need.
"I don't really know," Finba answered. "I've got all the usual things a kessentai should have, I think. I can use a boma blade, drive a tenar, aim a railgun or shotgun or high velocity missile or plasma cannon. I can tell my normals and cosslain to follow me."
"Not very useful, under the circumstances," Goloswin observed, drily. "Let's try this: what doesn't interest you in the slightest?"
Finba thought upon that. "Well . . . this ship. I've no urge to understand how to sail it. I've been curious what drives it, though. But, of course, I haven't been allowed anywhere near the engines."
"We can fix that. What else, that you're either interested in or oblivious to?"
"I'm curious how the forges work," Finba answered.
"That will have to wait until we land. We took nothing from any of the other ghost ships that wasn't already processed. And the forge is in storage. It would be very inconvenient to dig it out. What else?"
The new kessentai blew recycled air through his lips, causing them to ripple. "Ummm . . . I don't care about building pyramids . . . or any building, actually. I'm interested in breeding with normals—"
"We're all interested in that, young Finba," Golo said with a smile. "Keep going."
"I'm interested in the net, and how it resolves questions of edas, and hierarchy, and prioritization. I'm not particularly interested in history . . . well, just a bit.
"That's all that comes the mind, for now, Lord."
Golo nodded deeply. "It's a start. The rest we'll figure out as time passes and opportunity comes. So . . . let us take ourselves to the engine room. Perhaps we may learn something there."
Chapter Ten
Children too are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.
—Psalms 127:3, New American Bible
Anno Domini 2020
Lago di Traiano,
Ostia, Italy
A trio of grat buzzed overhead in search of abat. No one paid the creatures any mind.
"Think there are any fish in that lake, Dad?" Frederico asked, excitedly.
Behind the trio of Posleen, Guanamarioch, his "wife," and the boy, some humans unloaded their gear from the helicopter that had brought them down from the airport. Atop the pile of personal belongings—Boyd hadn't been able to say how long they'd be gone and so Guano had packed heavy—sat a single cage that rocked to and fro as if under its own power.
The humans' every motion and expression said, "And good riddance, too." The helicopter's rotor was still turning, the engines in a whining idle. This was a measure of just how desperately the human crew wanted to be away from their alien passengers.
Guano looked over the greenish tinged, nasty, polluted lake, in fact the remnants of the harbor ordered built by the Emperor Trajan, almost two thousand years before, and said, "I don't know son. But I'll bet if there are they'd be mighty tasty. Why don't you and your mother go get your fishing pole and check it out."
Guano reached out to stroke the co
sslain's head and gave his mate a look that meant, Guard our child, Querida, while I go ahead and find out what this is all about.
The cosslain lifted her muzzle to run it under Guano's chin and along his neck. Of course. I love you.
Sally—flesh and blood Sally—knew the Posleen would be coming aboard soon. That's why she'd left the ship at the first sound of the helicopter's rotors, to walk the edge of the ancient harbor alone.
This wasn't as easy as it sounded. With the reduction of the human population, and the elimination of the Posleen who would have grazed trim the edges of the hexagonal lake, weeds and bracken and all manner of plant life had grown up around the edges. She had to fight her way forward for nearly every step.
In a way, that was better. The thorns that gouged her flesh and the sharp edges of leaf bladed grass that sometimes slashed at her calves kept her mind from the misery of her existence. Better still, they gave her something she could destroy with a perfectly clear conscience. The soul of the warship was never too far beneath the conscious mind of the woman.