To Fall Among Vultures

by Scott Warren

  "They’re not alone," said Red, pointing out the opposite window.

  Victoria pressed her hands to the glass, ignoring the scandalized wheeze of the xeno whose personal space she’d doubtless violated. She whistled. "That’s the Twin Sister, she’s a carrier. Fighters, bombers, interceptors. We could park a dozen privateers in her hold. And she’s got two more escorts, that frigate and that missile boat next to it. No way this is a coincidence, there’s major fleet movement going on here."

  The magnetic train car lifted them too far from the ships for her retinal implants to identify any further vessels. Newly upgraded after a brush with vacuum had damaged the old ones, this model had tighter text display and the color count upped from grayscale to 256 colors in the photo display, which was a first. Relevant data about the Maeyar scrolled across her screen, downloaded directly from the Condor’s computers. Most of it she already knew. Most of it was reports she wrote. By the time the train reached the city center Victoria was up to speed on the new entries drafted since she last encountered the xenos, up to and including an attack on Pedres. Though details were sketchy, Ersis’ proximity to the Maeyar’s second most populous world almost guaranteed that the battlegroup she saw was en route.

  The Union Earth kept an embassy of sorts tucked away in the seventy-first level of a helical skyscraper just off the main concourse of the city. Slightly bigger than a broom closet, it was more of an officer’s lounge for privateer crew, with an on-staff cook and access to FTL comms without having to resort to public terminals. There was no official ambassador attached to the embassy, and the sign in Kossovoldt Standard upon leaving the gravity lift simply read "Union Earth Office" in plain lettering. Sitting in front of it was a bored-looking local counting down the minutes until shift end. It perked up when it spotted Victoria, consulting a small note.

  "Captain Marin, you have a visitor," it said in a passable English, albeit with more of an American accent. Clever, that. And only the second xeno she’d seen use a human language since she’d become a captain. "Senior Wing Officer Sothcide."

  Victoria leaned over to Red, "South-Side! The Maeyar J.O. we pulled out of the hot seat. Looks like he’s moved up in the world, went and got himself command of a fighter wing." She turned to the receptionist. "How long has he been here?’

  "Just a few minutes, Captain Marin. Captain Jones invited him in."

  Victoria grew silent, then pushed past the xeno without another word. Beyond the door was a small airlock, which cycled the atmosphere with a brief rush of wind. She removed the chilly oxygen bleed from her nostrils as the ambient air became a closer approximation of Earth’s 22% oxygen, a gas toxic to most of the life on Ersis.

  Not so to the Maeyar, and Victoria saw that Sothcide had removed the breathing apparatus from his long, dangling snout. Thin membranous flaps that reminded her of cuttlefish fluttered along the side of his narrow face and neck as he breathed oxygen-rich air like his own planet’s. Upon noticing her with his single central eye, the Maeyar pilot set down his coffee cup and stood, dark liquid still dripping from his tube-like mouth. Across from him, Captain Jones also smiled under a trimmed black beard, though the chill in his eyes could have hidden the Condor from the most advanced thermal sensors in the galaxy. He stood as well, clearing his throat to speak.

  Victoria’s scorn was less disguised as her upper lip curled back in disgust. "Shut your mouth, Jones, I can smell Director Sampson’s cock on your breath from here," she said in English. Color rose on Jones’ cheeks, his smile melted into unabashed scorn.

  "As I was just informing the Wing Officer," he announced in Kossovoldt, "The Privateer Corps takes a keen interest in Pedres. Whatever your operation, I’m sure we can find a mutually beneficial arrangement."

  Sothcide crossed to Victoria, gently squeezing her shoulder with his free hand. "And as I was just informing Captain Jones, I am here to speak to the captain that defeated the Springdawn."

  "Officer Sothcide, I’m sure we can all-"

  "He said out, pig-fucker. Hit the road, Jones, preferably from a great height after the major here throws you through the window. Won’t kill you in this gravity. Probably. But it’s your call."

  Jones looked at the coffee mess where his own security detail was eyeing the bulk of Major Calhoun, weighing loyalty with self-preservation. He shrugged at his captain, who uttered a disgusted sound. "Have it your way, Victoria. I’ll see you in the sky," he said. He pushed past Red, his security nodding to the major as he passed. Marines were their own breed.

  After the airlock cycled behind him Victoria let her breath out, feeling muscles unwind she hadn’t realized she clenched. Jones was a plastic-smiled pushover, but only when he had dirt between his toes. In space the man was a hooded cobra, quick and deadly. Sothcide slurped more coffee as he watched her relax.

  "Not marriage material, I take it, Human Victoria? Tell me, what is a ‘pig’?"

  Victoria collapsed onto the white leather couch, putting her boots up onto the ottoman while Red went to investigate the coffee. "An Earth animal, small, fat, and very tasty when fried. But they have a reputation for uncleanliness, so much so that a few human cultures refuse to eat them. They spend their days rolling in mud, snorting and snuffing and screeching at their own ugliness."

  Sothcide’s eye spun as he considered this. "To fuck one would then be loud, messy, and altogether impractical, I imagine. A colorful colloquialism. My culture has a similar one, though it requires some knowledge of Maeyar local dialects."

  "We’re practically cousins."

  Sothcide took the seat opposite her, settling in as best he could to a chair never designed to accommodate his alien physiology. "It’s not the only similarity our people share. I met with one of the human captains of your fleet, and upon my asking he offered, free of any cost, a paper version of your religious text. Though I am given to understand there are almost as many religions among the humans as there are stars in the galaxy, this one had a story that was of particular interest to me. Are you familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan?"

  "Intimately. Catholic school. The Maeyar have a similar story?"

  The frills on the sides of his long, narrow face fluttered. Victoria knew it was ascent before her retinal implants chimed in. She remained quiet as he continued.

  "The storms in Malvis, the northern reaches of my homeland, are said to have once been even more fierce than today. It was during such a storm that a woman became lost along the road to pilgrimage and sought shelter within a nearby community. Rather than offer aid, those of the village robbed her, and beat her terribly as they chased her back into the storm. For two days she wandered, filthy, starving, and ill from exposure. On the third day, she collapsed upon the road, unable to move any further.

  "Two textile merchants passed, and she begged them to let her ride their draft kanua. A beast similar in purpose to your ox, I believe. ‘There will be no room for the cloth, and if you lay upon it you will soil it and we will not be able to sell it,’ they said. And they left her in the road.

  "Next she saw two men from her own village, and these too she begged for aid. ‘Brothers,’ she said, ‘Help me along the path. I need only the strength of your arms.’

  "But they felt great shame to look upon her, pretended they did not know her, and they left her in the road.

  "Finally a beggar crossed her, dressed in rags and limping on a rod made from the stalk of a river frond. He lifted the woman, and leaning on her as much as she upon him, he brought her to a shack he made from discarded scraps, and returned her to health with a stew of wild roots. He asked nothing for his kindness. In time, her strength returned and she completed her pilgrimage. At the conclusion of her journey, she returned and she married the beggar, for he had already acted as a husband to her."

  Victoria cast a glance at Red as the parable hung in the air. "You’re right," she said. "In a strange, endearingly misogynistic sort of way it is like the story of the Good Samaritan. This is about our last meeting, the tim
e I pulled you off that burning frigate."

  "Indeed it is, Captain Marin. But it is bigger than that. As the woman married the beggar, so too does this commonality of spirit marry my people to yours. There are few among the stars to show such compassion outside the bounds of their own peoples. When you found me I had been passed by twice by my own kind and left for dead, to be scuttled into stardust by one predator or another. Even the Maeyar seem to have lost this tenet of compassion, its warmth slipped away into the cold voids between the stars and the space behind space. Care and mercy have as little meaning there as time and distance."

  Sothcide pulled a silk handkerchief from his uniform pocket to dab at the coffee dripping from his proboscis, flourishing the square of yellow cloth in his long fingers.

  "Behold, Human Victoria, the fruit of our peoples’ union. The softest of organic fibers, grown from worms I am told, though I believe it to be jests. The Maeyar cannot get enough of it to satisfy demand and fashion."

  "Yeah, I’ve got some silk undies. Pretty great stuff."

  "Your coffee, too, has become a luxury, a cup of this size worth more than its volume in engine coolant. And in return, the Union Earth asks only alloys, silicas, and minerals widely available in asteroids across our holdings, safely away from trafficked darkspace lanes. But all trade with the Union Earth comes through Pedres. A planet which, as you likely surmised by our presence here, is under attack."

  Vick leaned forward. "An attack that threatens any trade. But Scarves and dark roast are not a formal defense alliance. Union Earth won’t want to be involved. If anything, they’ll call a halt to excursions until it blows over," said Victoria as she accepted a mug from Red. How long had it been since she had spiked coffee? Bourbon woke her up better than caffeine. "Nor, and I don’t divulge this information lightly, is our fleet in a position to fight an interstellar war. If you’re looking for front-line allies, we’re not in a position to help, despite whatever Jones tried to promise you."

  Sothcide stood, holding a single slender finger before him, his lone eye fixed on her. It was black, speckled and dotted with luminous flecks like a star map. "One ship, Victoria, the right ship, can make all the difference. I have seen how you can brush between the waves of radar, hide the heat of your engines and walk across space. Even our smallest fighters burn like stars in the infrared. Details are slim. We know who, and how many. But the Condor could discover the true nature of this invasion. The why."

  Victoria sat back on the white leather and considered. Helping the Maeyar defend Pedres could cement their alliance. Or it could earn humanity a powerful enemy. In either event, it could get the Vultures killed and the wreckage of the Condor scattered to scrap above an alien planet.

  But it could effect change in the landscape of the Orion Spur. Humanity tenuously clung to a half-dozen worlds with expeditionary colonies on a few more. The largest after Earth was a colony of just over a half-million. All were vulnerable. An ally like the Maeyar would ease defenses on a wide front, and open up at least two more scouted systems, and maybe even cohabitation. Few enough xenos needed oxygen atmospheres. And there would be xenotech. Where there was fighting, salvage always followed.

  "South-Side, this isn’t a call I can make on my own. My officers deserve a say in this kind of commitment. When do you leave?"

  "Two standard days and nights."

  Considering the possibility, Victoria stood to escort the Maeyar wing officer out through the airlock. The Condor was in fighting shape, and two days refit would patch up a few scars they’d earned in the months since they’d put human space in the rear viewscreen.

  Once the rush of air died down enough to speak again, Sothcide turned to her, hands brushing the sides of her shoulders again.

  "Thank you, Captain Marin. For the coffee and for meeting with me. I hope you will see your way to joining our battlegroup as we leave for Pedres."

  Victoria grinned. "I’ll see you when I see you, Wing Officer Sothcide. And I won’t tell your wife that you were putting the moves on me."

  The frilly wisps at the sides of his head fluttered again. Laughter, this time, accompanied by a burbling whistle from his proboscis. "Captain, it was her idea to send me here. I may command the fighters in her bay, but the light of my horizon holds the reins of the Twin Sister."

  Chapter 3 - Wheelhouse

  Victoria reluctantly turned away from the wardroom liquor cabinet to face her assembled senior officers. Carillo, Calhoun, Wong, Avery, Prescott, and Doc Whipple. She could count on one hand the number of times the seven of them had assembled in the wheelhouse, and truth be told she was surprised they all managed to fit at the same time. Poor Huian Wong looked crushed between the muscled arm of Red Calhoun and the tree-stump build of Davis Prescott.

  Six officers, six tumblers, and one for herself. The magnets in the base snapped to the tabletop as she set them down and filled each with a small measure. Having explained the Maeyar request, the occupants of the wardroom displayed anything from unease to illness. Though that might be due to the lingering stink of the Vautan. She could hear the atmosphere cyclers running full-blast through the bulkhead behind her head.

  "Don’t everyone speak up at once," she said.

  Avery was the first to reach for his glass, sighing as he looked at the geometric pattern etched into the shatterproof clear polymer. "This crew followed you to the Malagath Frontier, Vick. You know we’d follow you into hell."

  "Huh uh. You think I jammed you in here like a pack of sardines for a bunch of ‘Aye Ma’ams’? You’re Union Earth Privateer officers, not by luck or by accident, and before too long some of you will be sitting in my seat."

  Victoria sat with a thump, as if to drive the point home. "This isn’t some salvage run or unknowingly pulling a prince from the fire. This is declaring sides in an interstellar war. We came out here to lay low after we dragged the Dirregaunt through Taru and Pilum Forel. Too many eyes are on the Condor, and not just State and Colony’s."

  "It’s not some random xeno bugger either," said Red. "I think he’d have done the same for us that you did for him, and that’s not something you can say for most of the buggers out here. I don’t think we owe it to him, but I figure he’s one we want to owe us."

  "I’m against it," said Huian Wong flatly. Victoria’s navigation officer was the daughter of the Secretary of State and Colony. The girl showed iron guts for being a politician’s daughter. Honesty was what Victoria had asked for, and honesty was something Huian had in ready supply.

  "We don’t have the right to speak for the Union Earth and decide which side of this war should win. That’s an S&C directive, not a Privateer one. Plus, the Maeyar are vying to be vassals of the Malagath. Not knowing the nature of this invasion could mean a Dirregaunt or Kossovoldt proxy war is underway."

  Assuming their itty bitty Condor was able to affect the outcome. A pretty big assumption. The Big Three angle was one Victoria hadn’t considered.

  "The right, maybe not. But the authority?" said Doc Whipple. "A privateer captain has almost unilateral authority beyond human space. Besides, we get a message to S&C and they’ll fuss and bicker until the Maeyar are long gone. Vick is right, we need a decision now and only a privateer captain has the weight to swing."

  Carillo shrugged. "Authority is granted to those who have the judgment to use it, as well as the judgment not to. No one in this room doubts your judgment, Vick. No other captain could have led us through the things you have. If you judge this intervention necessary, then I am behind you."

  "Can we afford not to?" asked Avery. "No doubt this mission carries risk, but the potential for a formal defense alliance is clear. That means tech, trade, intel, protection, maybe even cohabitation. Opportunities like that don’t come cheap. Or frequently. The Maeyar are hundreds of years ahead of us, if they shared surplus defense equipment that was two hundred years old it would still put almost anything in our fleet to shame."

  One officer had yet to speak. Victoria looked at her new chief e
ngineer, idly rolling his tumbler between sausage fingers and watching the amber liquid slosh within. Davis Prescott was the only officer at the table who did not yet call himself a Vulture, having stepped in to fill a hole in the roster left by the death of Yuri Denisov, a good friend to many of the faces in the room. Such an action was not easily forgiven by some, despite his playing no hand in Yuri’s death.

  "Davis?"

  He looked up at her, small eyes deep beneath a heavy brow. His wide jaw offered a slight frown, canted as though only half his face held issue with her proposal. "I been over every inch of this vessel, Captain. She is many things. Strong, fast, and quiet as death in the night. But she ain’t a warship, and saving for the Major’s men, your crew ain’t soldiers. You put this ship on the front line, one of those two is like to break. Now I don’t know you like these folks do. Maybe that’s why I can’t bring myself to agree with your chosen course. But I will abide."

  Victoria nodded. Five for, two against and with good reason. In all honesty, she had debated sending an FTL databurst to Earth to brief them on the situation. But Doc Whipple was right, they wouldn’t receive an answer in time. It would take weeks just to determine who had the authority to declare war on the Maeyar’s enemies on behalf of humanity. And the last time she’d deferred to the UE, they ordered her to hand the Malagath First Prince over to the Dirregaunt. An illegal order, as it turned out, all record of which was expunged. This was a Union Earth Privateer matter, the Vultures would be the ones putting their lives on the line.

  "You’re right, Davis. This isn’t a warship, but none of our warships can play on the same field as the bastards out here. Not even close. We can, and the Orion Spur needs to see humanity as more than scavengers and cab drivers, or as soon as Earth or Ithaca or any of the other colonies get found, humanity is going to be scoured out of the galaxy because there’s not a single xeno we know of that we could beat fleet to fleet."