Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  Some of the Spiral’s inter-species relations were a great secret, but it was well known that many Spiral species, including tavalai, parren and chah’nas had all given support to the croma in those battles, despite having no proper relationship with them. Those had mostly been shipments of advanced materials and technologies, Erik had been told in the Academy, in the brief history class that had skimmed over it. Various Spiral species had glimpsed whatever the croma were fighting on the far side of their territory, and been alarmed enough to send help. Since then the croma’s sideways expansion had met little objection from anyone. The Croma Wall, it had come to be known, and it was in no one’s interest to see the wall fail.

  “Captain,” said Second Lieutenant Leralani on coms from the pilot’s seat — yet another translated tavalai voice. Erik figured that they’d survived it with Tif, and would find a way to manage here. The rank, of course, was temporary, but essential if the tavalai were going to function as a part of Phoenix crew. “Ro’Gana ahead.”

  An image flashed on the sidescreen — an expanse of cityscape clustered about some mountains, small from this altitude but growing larger every second. “Looks like it could be a few million at least,” said Erik.

  “Captain, there is a lot of airtraffic in the vicinity,” said Ensign Tamalin from the nose-seat — Leralani’s weapons officer. “Dozens of smaller towns, some small cities further out. This is a well-populated world.”

  The shuttle had been directed to land at the major complex in the mountains central to Ro’Gana, and now fell steeply from reentry, beginning to buffet once more as they entered the thicker part of the atmosphere. The feeling was different from a human assault shuttle — the tavalai shuttle was about the same size, with capacity for two tavalai platoons of twenty each — a Dramata, such pairings were called. But tavalai shuttles had more armour and firepower, sacrificing mobility, and handling like a brick in atmosphere.

  A glance at Scan showed Erik that Makimakala’s shuttle was descending a hundred kilometres to their rear. A nervous anticipation gripped him, unlike anything he’d felt before. He’d been so wrapped up in Phoenix’s problems, procedural matters and the vague yet terribly important nature of the mission, that he hadn’t had a chance yet to truly contemplate what they were all about to do.

  Croma didn’t like strangers. For all that Spiral species had sent them assistance over the millennia to confront the terror that lurked beyond their wall, the crews of those ships were never invited to stop over — simply to drop off their cargo and leave immediately. Everyone knew that covert contacts with some non-human species occurred away from any publicity, but the one Intel officer Erik had spoken to who claimed knowledge on the topic had insisted that even those contacts were minimal. Croma liked to be left alone, and for most of their fifteen thousand years in the Spiral, they had been. And now Makimakala, from one of the most shadowy tavalai security institutions, had found them a croma clan who not only agreed to meet them, but invited them down to their main city in full view of the general population. Whatever was going on, Erik was prepared to bet that the deepynine attack on Mylor Station, with its biotech implications pointing great, threatening fingers at the reeh, had alarmed the croma enough to get them involved. Doubtless that had been the incentive that Jarush had been pursuing as well, before Styx had flown her shuttle into a wall.

  Atmospheric turbulence thundered and bounced over the mountains, then cleared as the shuttle — GR-1, she’d been rechristened — cut in retros to ease the angle of descent. A flurry of cloud, then the city of Ro’Gana stretched out below, flanked by great slopes and high peaks. The city itself was high, a plateau at four thousand metres, enough for altitude sickness on a one-G world, but Do’Ran’s sea-level atmosphere was one-point-three human atmospheres, so Erik reckoned four thousand metres would be close to perfect.

  Ro’Gana looked amazing, with tall towers of steel and glass like a modern human city, fading to lower structures, many dark like stone and all surrounded by a maze of visible transport systems, big rail and obvious roads and flyovers. A haze of airtraffic buzzed over it all, some of those vehicles much larger than the others, like queen bees among the workers. Either larger capacity transports, Erik thought, or that croma size-difference he’d heard about. Those really big ones would need entirely different vehicles.

  “Stan?” he said, relying on coms above the howl of engine noise even at this range. Tavalai assault shuttles were no more designed for passenger comfort than the human variety. “What causes the croma size difference? Is it race or gender?”

  “No, it’s age,” said Romki in his earpieces. “Some of them live a long time. Only the high ranking ones, strangely enough.”

  “So any croma who lives long enough will eventually become enormous?”

  “Yes, there’s some speculation in the writing that they’re functionally immortal, though I find that difficult to believe. Their mortality takes the form of never ceasing to grow — eventually they just get too big to function and the body collapses.”

  “But only the high-ranking ones live to that age?”

  “Yes, the writings seem quite clear that the only huge croma are high-ranking croma… and logically, they can’t give high rank to every old croma, high rank is only achieved by a tiny percentage of the population. There’s further speculation that croma practice euthanasia for all older croma to save them the physical discomforts of old age and great size, though some other scholars speculate that the euthanasia is involuntary and cruel. Some others suggest that there are genetic treatments or drugs croma can take to elongate their lifespan, and that these treatments are denied to all but the highest-ranking. The truth is that no one really knows — no one’s ever spent a long enough period amongst them to find out.”

  “Well I wouldn’t recommend asking them,” Erik cautioned him. “We’re not here on an anthropology expedition, we’ve more important business.”

  “Never fear, Captain. I intend to observe quietly.”

  Erik watched GR-1’s pilot feed, seeing what appeared to be a landing clearance arrive on the main nav, and a very obvious highlight appear in the center of the great, fortress structure atop Ro’Gana’s most prominent mountaintop. Ensign Tamalin observed no evidence of hostile targeting or tracking, and there were no obvious military vehicles in the sky to escort them in. As they angled in for landing in an enormous courtyard between colossal towers and mountain peaks, Trace contacted Erik’s coms from her command seat in the rear.

  “They seem very relaxed for a people who don’t like aliens,” she observed.

  “Stan says he doesn’t think they’re xenophobic,” Erik replied. “They’re just not prone to wild enthusiasms about making friends like some humans are.”

  “I was warned to expect a warrior culture,” Trace replied. “True warrior cultures don’t need constant threats, only insecure and frightened people need to wave their guns in everyone’s face. These guys seem confident. We’re going to be confident right back at them. Respectful and non-threatening, but confident.”

  GR-1 came down in a howl of thrust, dust and sand from the great plateau courtyard swirling around them in sheets, blocking all surrounding view. Trace gave commands and the marines dismounted swiftly from the rear — the tavalai Garudan Platoon first (as the Dramata had been renamed) then Trace with Command Squad. Erik and Romki followed, smelling alien air in their nostrils, and finding it crisp and pleasant. Erik wore light armour, all that the croma had allowed them to bring, though the injunction against anything heavier had not been harsh, just suggestive. Erik and Trace had both agreed that full armour in what was supposed to be a friendly meeting was not a good look, but that a full platoon was preferable if only because everything anyone read about the croma suggested a people impressed by power, and requiring its display for even simple introductions.

  Erik walked down the ramp, welcoming the extra weight in his legs and squinting at the warm sunlight on his face. The mist of raised dust from the landing dri
fted and settled, revealing a scene that was almost… archaic. This was no modern landing pad, just a simple steel platform overlooking the landed shuttle, some refuelling tanks on wheels and some night lights on the ground. The pads themselves were a cobbled together mix of stone, pavings and cement, looking rather like some ancient do-it-yourself job only half completed, scorched by the fire of many shuttle landings.

  Beyond the ragged edge of the pavings was grass and conifer-like trees lining an unpaved road to a far wall in which was inlaid an enormous, ancient door. These walls were the base of a cliff, Erik saw, turning about to consider the huge, looming peak that these stone walls ascended to eventually become. It stood high in the clear blue sky, a swirl of snow spiralling off the tip as the wind caught it.

  Away from the cliff and the landing pad build at its base, this high-altitude place opened into a mountain meadow, green grass full of wildflowers about a distant lake. Beyond it rose another sheer wall of rock, ascending to another, opposing peak. This landing pad was on the edge of a small oasis nestled between the peaks. High on the sides of those ascending peaks, Erik could see structures in the stone — walls, small towers and balconies from which the view would doubtless be extraordinary.

  He stopped beside Trace and Second Lieutenant Karajin, looking about as their marines moved to form a loose, unthreatening defensive formation about the shuttle. “Croma like walls and fortresses,” said Erik, nodding slowly as he took in the scene, and the hot shuttle engines pinged in the cool mountain air. “I think this is a display to impress us.”

  “It’s working,” Trace acknowledged. It was a rare admission from her, and Erik glanced at her. She wore her helmet off, hooked to the back of her light armour, a cap in its place. She looked as though she was pleased she’d come. She loved mountains, having grown up with them on Sugauli, and learned to climb on them like an insect up a wall. A distant shriek grew in the air above, and Trace glanced. “Here comes Captain Pram.”

  Karajin said something in Togiri. “Will be many tavalai here,” Erik’s earpiece translated. “Croma could be confused. They were expecting to meet humans.”

  “We’re here on behalf of every threatened people in the Spiral,” Erik replied. “Everyone has a stake in this. Let’s hope the croma understand the concept.”

  Makimakala’s shuttle landed in a deafening howl of engines and a curtain of raised dust, then settled as karasai deployed from the back, similarly armed and armoured. Erik walked to greet Captain Pram, who shook Erik and Trace’s hands in turn, looking behind in mild astonishment at Garudan Platoon deployed about GR-1.

  “You brought your new tavalai,” he observed in his perfect, gravelly English.

  “We brought Phoenix marines,” Erik corrected him. “Pretty place, yes?”

  “Hell on the eyes,” said Pram, and Erik looked to see if he was joking. Pram produced some eyedrops, squinting, and deposited several into each large, amphibious eye. He blinked rapidly, putting the eyedrops away, and peered at the meadow and mountains through a flicker of translucent third eyelids. “But yes, when one’s eyes are not dry like sand, quite pretty.”

  “I’m sorry you’d prefer a swamp,” Erik teased. “For me and for Major Thakur, this feels a little like home.”

  “One day when this is all concluded,” said Pram, “I will take you both to see the marshlands on Delagomira. There are more recorded species of bird, fish, plants and flowers in that one marshland delta than on any one of your most prized worlds in entirety.”

  “And swarms of biting insects, no doubt.”

  “I believe it’s called an ecosystem,” Pram said drily. “Human skin is fragile.”

  Erik grinned. Then the door in the sheer wall down the unpaved road between trees gave a loud clank, then a grind. The grin faded. “Nice and easy, people,” Trace said calmly into her microphone. “Remember, we are friendly, but strong.”

  “I expect they will attempt some form of ritual intimidation,” Romki added on coms from back by GR-1. “The Major is correct — do not flinch or retreat, but do not threaten either. We are guests here. Our role is to respect croma strength, that is all.”

  Both doors swung open, more than five metres tall and solid with steel and wood. From within, great shadows emerged in two rows. Croma, marching in a rank-and-file shuffle, like a quick-step in slow motion. They were huge, almost terrifying at first glance. Three metres tall, Erik reckoned, and they carried great staves like spears, but far thicker and with decorative steel clubs on one end, clearly intended to be swung hard at other croma in combat. Erik would have expected a blade of some sort on that pole, but a closer look at the croma showed why blades were a waste of time.

  The croma wore panelled leather pants of some tough, tanned hide, but above that were topless. Their massive shoulders bore natural armourplate, leather skin hardened with age to become interlocking shell plates, flexing along upper arms and chest. Their heads were bull-like, ears protruding between gaps in the helmet-shell that came down along the great brow ridge, behind which ferocious eyes glared with dark power. The rank lengthened as more followed the first out of the door until there were twenty marching down the road, larger and larger with each step closer, grunting and roaring in ceremonial unison. Not a human or tavalai spoke, but only stared.

  Each had to weigh half a ton, Erik thought incredulously. Heavy-world beings, born in one-point-four gravities and built accordingly. Kaal were heavy worlders too, and humans had fought many hard battles against them in the Triumvirate War, but croma made kaal look cute and fluffy. As they drew closer, the size became even more impressive. Erik judged he came up to the bottom of the leader’s sternum, if that. Some of that incredible natural armour was decorated with sharp horns that flared from the shoulders, or made frightening spikes off the elbow from the forearm, at the perfect height to skewer a human skull like a melon. Whether those spikes were natural or artificial, Erik could not guess. Certainly they were not just cosmetic. There was no mistaking what kind of people these croma were, nor what their ornamentations were designed for.

  It took Private Arime to finally give voice to what everyone was thinking, human and tavalai alike. “Holy fucking shitballs,” he said on coms. God knew what the tavalai’s translators made of it.

  The croma formation halted before Erik, Trace and Pram with a roar and stamp, raising another cloud of dust. They were four metres away, and Erik still had to tilt his head to look up at them. He couldn’t help the accelerated heart rate, nor the faint sheen of sweat on his brow, despite the cool air. He wondered if even Trace felt it. How many shots with a high-powered rifle would it take to bring down a croma warrior this size?

  The roar of sound from landing pad speakers nearly made him jump — a thunder of drums and a shriek of some other, electric instruments. The noise was nearly deafening. The lead croma stepped forward, swung his massive polearm through some fast twirls, with an audible swishing noise like a giant propellor blade cutting the air. The rhythm hit a crescendo, and the croma thrashed several times, and stamped, then drove his pole arm into the dirt before him and stood there, glaring defiantly at some point above Erik’s head. Like a wall in the form of a sentient being.

  Silence followed. “Major,” Arime added. “If I’m any more respectful I’ll need a change of pants.”

  Erik glanced briefly at Trace, and saw her amusement. Arime had served with her for many years, and knew her very well to be making remarks like that in serious situations without fear of hard punishments. Trace was all about what worked, and if humour improved morale, so be it. Erik got an idea, took a step forward and gave the enormous croma a bow with a flourish, one hand down, the other up behind him like a courtier from some ancient historical movie. The croma’s eyes flicked down within that natural helmet ridge, and saw him. Erik’s bow was unthreatening, and unafraid. I see you, he said. You look good. But big deal.

  The croma snorted, ears flicking. He stood aside, and there behind him approached a much smaller croma, this one
barely a shade over two metres. This croma was fully dressed, the same leather pants beneath a long leather coat that looked to have multiple layers, each of a different colour, sewn and bolted with steel studs into elaborate patterns from the ridged shoulders down to the feet-sweeping hem. Erik had once fancied himself a sharp dresser, something that he could not deny had attracted him to Fleet and its snazzy blue parade uniforms. Once he’d actually joined Fleet, he’d confronted the reality of Fleet life where such uniforms were rarely worn, and lost much of his fashion consciousness in the daily grind of dull jumpsuit blues. But now, looking at that coat with its broad shoulders and steel-bolted ornamentation, he wanted one.

  The ‘small’ croma stopped before them. The head armour was far less developed, just a soft leathery guard that broadened its nose and made its eyes seem nearly as wide-spaced as a tavalai’s. Those dark eyes were far less intimidating than its enormous comrades’, soft with lashes, like some humanoid cow. The big, flat nose had steel loops through it. Clearly the croma had a taste for aggressive decoration.

  The croma spoke, a few snuffling grunts. Luckily, Makimakala had provided the translator program. “Human,” it said. “Tavalai. You are hungry. You will eat. Come.”

  The croma turned, gave a gesture to follow that was unmistakable in any culture, and began walking back up the path. “Command Squad, Garudan Platoon,” said Trace. “Look after the ship, and be nice to our hosts. If you’re lucky they might bring you some food as well. Stan, you coming?”

  As Romki hurried across to join them, Erik, Trace, Pram and Naki followed the smaller croma up the path and through the honour guard of walking, club-wielding, armoured walls.