by Scott Warren
"Sothcide, I—" Victoria began. But the Xeno cut her off with a slash of his hand.
"Is this what it means to make pacts with humans? Betrayal, sabotage, and the murder of two billion Maeyar families?"
Victoria shook her head, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I didn’t mean for any of this."
"Spare me, Human Victoria," said Sothcide. "This was no chance interdiction. Was this planned from the start? Were your Union Earth forces already dispatched by the time we set off from Ersis? I came to you for help because I believed your people of similar spirit to mine. I believed you to be the Samaritans of your story. Now you willingly commit the very sin we have spent half a millennium trying to absolve, and I see that you are not the beggar by the road. You are no Samaritans. By enlisting your aid we have fallen among robbers. And there is no one coming to dress our wounds with oil and wine."
Victoria opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Over the transmission she could hear the hum of the interceptor’s powerful engines and the radio transmissions of the dying Pedres defense fleet. She wanted to apologize, wanted to shift responsibility to Jones and Sampson and those assholes in the Union Earth government that had decided to sully humanity’s reputation just to test out some shiny new toys. But she couldn’t.
"What happens next?" asked Victoria.
Sothcide slumped in his cockpit. Righteous anger could only carry a body so far through the numbing shock of personal loss he had experienced at the destruction of the Twin Sister.
"Next? If I am not executed as a traitor for my role in the fall of Pedres, or exiled for abandoning my post then I will be assigned a new command. Likely under Arda, if she survives. She is now the senior wing commander for Maeyar’s defensive fleet. And someday, stars willing, I will return with her and repay humanity with the same brand of kindness that you have shown us. One day humanity will answer for this betrayal, as we answered for ours. And I will be there to see it."
"For what it’s worth," said Victoria, "I thought we were better than this. I thought we could be the good guys, but we’re the same squabbling backstabbing creatures we’ve always been."
The communication signal was overcome with static as Sothcide’s ship carried him around the orbit of the planet, away from the battle and beyond line of sight. Victoria watched the feed degrade, until the screen flashed a no signal alert and the communication window closed permanently. Victoria dropped back into her command couch, and her tearstained face fell into her open hands.
Epilogue
The airlock of the Yangtze opened, and Victoria stepped aboard with Red Calhoun and the dozen Gavisari pulled from the remains of the Oracle. It smelled of fresh paint. Naval ships always smelled of fresh paint. Overhead lighting ringed the corridor, and not for the first time Victoria cursed under her breath the bright halos the scotch had decided to leave with her when it left. Red had found her half passed out fifteen minutes before they were set to dock, shoved her in a cold shower and practically dragged her to the airlock.
The Gavisari survivors gathered behind her lumbered and milled. Occasionally one would reach up looking for a handhold that wasn’t there, then warble or mutter something in Kosso before continuing. They weren’t happy finding out that Victoria would suffer no repercussions for her marines storming their ship, and was in fact being lauded as a hero by the Gavisar High Command. But all in all, they were just grateful to have survived the exodus. Victoria would turn them over officially to Raksava’s high priest aboard the Yangtze, to formalize the agreement between the Union Earth and the Children of Gavisar.
A parade detail waited on the other side of the threshold, six enlisted led by a saluting chief petty officer and an ensign.
"Condor, arriving," the ensign belted out into the ship-wide announcement circuit, next to a ship’s bell which he rang twice.
"Fuck off butterbar," Victoria grumbled, and pushed her way past and off the quarterdeck. "Main briefing room, yeah?
"Umm, yes ma’am. This way please."
"I know the goddamn way," she shouted over her shoulder, then winced as twisting her head straight renewed the throbbing in her head and the retort reminded her how dry her mouth had become. The last time she’d been in it she gave a lecture to the Union Earth officers on just how fucked they were if they actually had to go to war. Luckily the briefing room, which doubled as a ceremony room as it was the only compartment aside from the galley that could comfortably house a sizable portion of the crew, was only a few minutes from where she was. Doubly lucky, it did not require the coordination necessary to climb or descend a deck ladder to access.
Crewmembers gave her a wide berth, also skirting the Gavisari filing behind her. The tripod footsteps sounded unsettling with their asymmetrical three-legged gait on the steel decking. The arrhythmic tapping was somehow making her queasiness worse. Too much more and she’d have to find the nearest head. But she was spared the experience when they came upon the entrance to the briefing room.
Nominally filled with folding chairs for the various divisions and crews attending award ceremonies, pre-horizon jump briefings, and general military training, a large segmented conference table had been assembled. Admiral Chadha stood at the head, having traded his battle dress for a more formal set of dress blues with gold-trimmed epaulets. A slew of brass stood to his left, and a trio of Gavisari to his right, one festooned in similar cloth wrappings as the holy man she’d pulled off the Oracle, if more elaborate.
Jones was also present, and in his disheveled uniform, he looked as haggard and out of place as Victoria. He was sulking. Despite the victory, he had not taken well to being outsmarted and outmaneuvered by her. Nor the fact that she had somehow gained a majority of the credit for the events taking place. Only Red’s hand wrapped around the hem of her coveralls at the shoulder kept her from launching across the table and landing a fist in his lopsided gob, which would really give him something to frown about.
"Ah, Victoria. Please come in, we were just discussing the formalization customs with the Gavisari delegation. I see you’ve brought the crew of the Oracle."
"What’s left of them," said Victoria. Hushed gasps and a look of warning from the admiral brought some small color to her cheeks. She didn’t want to be here, wanted no part of the credit for the butchering of Pedres. Being scandalized by remarking upon the death of a handful seemed laughable. Everyone seemed to be ignoring the fact that they’d been complicit in the Bulwark’s assault and bombardment of the planet before the battle was even truly over. Even if Gavisar had lost the battle, they would have rendered the surface uninhabitable for the millions still living there. Union Earth had participated in the extermination of a lawfully recognized civilian population. Xeno or not, the Maeyar were a sovereign power.
"Peace, Human Victoria," said the bedazzled Gavisari beside Chadha. It lifted a single forelimb, unfurling its curled hook glistening with enamel and invited her closer. "I am Jessad. I speak for the Admiral Raksava. For obvious reasons, he must stay aboard the Bulwark. Pockets of resistance yet hold in the shipyards around the second planet, shipyards critical in repairing the Homeworld Defense Fleet. And the Maeyar darkspace vectors must be girded.
Victoria took a seat, pointedly as far from Jones as was possible. "Is it still the Homeworld Defense Fleet without a home?"
"Pedres is our home now. I know you witnessed the reality of Gavisar, and returned to deliver us. You have seen that the Kossovoldt have reclaimed the planet for their own ends. This was the only path forward, and now our people can forge it together."
The only forging was the events of whatever peace treaty they cooked up. How much of it did Jessad know was bullshit? Or whatever they had instead of bulls. Union Earth had played both sides, backed two horses with a pair of Privateers at odds. By rights, the Gavisari should be blowing her from the sky.
"We need only your provisions to complete the treaty."
"Excuse me?" said Victoria, leaning forward in her chair.
&nb
sp; Admiral Chadha looked somewhat nervous, his fingers kneading the podium from which he presided. "There was not time to inform you, Victoria. The Gavisari are an individually meritocratic society. They recognize that you fall under higher authority, but request that your personal mark is left on any lasting accord."
"What are the existing tenets?"
The Gavisari holy man pressed a sheet of paper across the table. "A summary," he said. "It outlines a mutual defense agreement that includes five of your Zumwalt Class artillery vessels remaining here to bolster the Homeworld Defense Fleet during the reclamation."
Personal. Her ass, she knew exactly what personal requests the Union Earth would expect her to make. Salvage rights, Gavisari missile, and point defense tech. Maeyar fusion reactors, inertial dampeners, and lasers.
"I want the bombings to stop. I want all Maeyar citizens still on Pedres or onboard ships in the system given a chance to withdraw and evacuate using whatever unarmed cargo and transport ships remain on the planet or in orbit."
Victoria heard Red stiffen behind her. Jones almost retched. Admiral Chadha looked stern, but she could see the tiny corners of a smile creeping out from behind his gray mustache.
Jessad drew up to his full, considerable height. "Human Victoria, you must know what you are asking. The Maeyar would have had us dead to the last child. We were told you would want total salvage authority, weapon schematics, shipyard access."
Victoria held up her hand. "If you want to repay humanity’s contribution to your continued existence and the presence of our defensive Union Earth naval assets, that’s my price. Feel free to toss in salvage and tech too. But there is no need for the continued butchery of civilians. Get the Maeyar survivors off of Pedres."
The priest looked at his fellows gathered around the table. "I will need to confer with the Admiral. The remaining ships necessary for such an evacuation were part of his plan for the Reclamation of Pedres."
Victoria chuffed. "Do you speak for him or not? Maybe we ought to put these talks on hold until Raksava is less occupied."
The Gavisari muttered in a low, guttural Kosso Common. Jessad reached for the paper, crossing out the expected provisions and scribbling Victoria’s new ones at the bottom. Those hook hands were surprisingly dexterous. Victoria supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. The Gavisari managed to build space ships with them. Considerably better space ships than humans could. And they’d done it in caves, after being pushed to the brink of extinction. Union Earth would still get their salvage. There was so much debris between Pedres and Juna that the Gavisari couldn’t pay them to haul it out as fast as the tripods would like. They might lose out on the most choice bits, but it was worth reclaiming whatever shred of humanity she could. That was the real salvage.
Jones stood so violently that it tipped his chair back. He cast a dark look Victoria’s way, then stormed from the briefing room. Victoria allowed herself a small smile, her headache seemed to be clearing.
"I also want cohabitation on the planet the Maeyar staked out between here and Gavisar," said Victoria.
Now Chadha frowned. "I’m afraid such a request would rightly have to come from the Department of State and Colony. Victoria lacks such authority to direct colonization efforts. This cluster of stars is awkwardly placed with our current horizon limitations."
Jessad scribbled more. "Regardless, we welcome such cooperation. Now that the children of Gavisar are free to expand, one of Raksava’s hopes for this alliance was such an effort for a joint colony. Humanity has more than proven their dedication to our cause. I look forward to presiding over such an event personally, should you wish it."
The Gavisari hesitated. Chadha’s smile returned, this time with effort made to suppress it.
"Is there a problem?" asked Victoria.
"Typically," said Jessad, "among the Children, an accord such as this is ratified with . . . the joining of two bodies, and the fruit of that union."
Victoria blushed at very few things. The suggestion of copulation with a two-meter alien amorphous tripod turned out to be one of them.
"With that in mind," Jessad hurriedly continued, "I think on this occasion it is permissible to indulge in the human method of marking a written contract with your verbal identification."
"You’re goddamned right it is," said Victoria Marin.
Defeat.
That word spread through the light-speed channels across the worlds of the Maeyar before the battered and broken fleet emerged from the darkspace passageways to the homeworld systems. It raced beyond the Maeyar borders, to those who looked upon their resources with covetous eyes. Pedres had fallen. With the second largest Maeyar world proven to be so vulnerable, what outpost, or colony for that matter, was safe? So much of the fleet had been committed and lost in its defense, it would take years if not decades to undo the damage the Union Earth and the Children of Gavisar inflicted. All the while, the rich mineral assets in the Pedres system, and those harder to reach stars accessed by its avenues would be exploited by their enemies.
Sothcide heard reports of skirmishes on the rimward edge of the territories. Pirates, opportunists, warbands probing for weakness. With almost a third of the Maeyar’s warships destroyed or disabled beyond repair, the remainder would be spread too thin to manage their most remote holdings. There would be a pullback. Thousands more would be evacuated, or left to the mercy of the stars. That was, to die.
Once back aboard the Vitacuus, Arda said nothing about his excursion during the battle. Such a lapse in discipline was tantamount to desertion, but Jalith was an old friend of Arda’s, and she could not, or would not, fault him for his actions. Instead, he sat in the council chamber as the high command conferred upon the present situation of the fleet.
"Pedres is a black hole. Any response we send, we send to their deaths. Especially with those new human ships skulking in the system. We simply do not have the forces to send without leaving the homeworld inadequately defended and risking the loss of critical fleet assets."
The Wing Admiral spoke for the rimward theater, even now forced to withdraw in defense of Pedres. Arda now stood his equal, promoted into the upward vacuum left by Yadus’ death. The loss of four command carriers had left a planet-sized hole in the fleet command hierarchy that had seen a slew of automatic advancements realized. Some deserving, others less so.
"Agreed," said Arda. "By now Gavisar has entrenched themselves deep underground, and radiation prevents recolonization for several decades. Throwing loss after loss only diminishes us further. I propose a course to demonstrate our strength, a statement to Maeyar fleet power. The humans have made us look weak before our enemies. They played and betrayed us, all so they could pick the bones of our war and steal our advancements for themselves."
Sothcide did not contribute to the debate. Still numb, he wished for the simple escape of sleep and intoxicants.
"These humans hide. They hide their ships because they are weak, they hide their worlds because they are afraid and because they are few. Those five ships notwithstanding, their fleet cannot stand and fight. A small force dispatched with the objective of locating and destroying their holdings would show the Bridge our resolve."
The admirals nodded. A small battlegroup could do untold damage to a primitive race such as the humans. If their worlds could be located. "The Vitacuus sustained minimal damage at Pedres, did it not?"
"It did," said Arda.
"And here in this room with me are the two foremost experts on human customs and tactics?"
"I think that’s fair to say."
The leading wing admiral turned to Sothcide. "Wing officer, what say you?"
The admiral had to repeat his question before Sothcide realized he was being addressed. He quickly recounted the conversation in his head, realizing the implication of what they were suggesting.
"The humans are as ghosts. To believe you know them is to believe you can court death. But I have courted death before, and will do so again. Hunt them all down."
> "How do you hunt ghosts?" asked the admiral.
Sothcide considered. "The humans are not without enemies. Tell me, in your travels have you encountered the Grah’lhin?"
In the skies above a barren world, Ea dreamed. She dreamed of the past, the worlds she had visited and the ether through which she swam. She dreamed of creation and destruction, the rise and fall of civilizations across countless worlds. Ea dreamed of the first meeting of the Dirregaunt and the Malagath, between the twin suns of Yon and Appali. Would that she could dream of the future—what would she see? The ashes of a war ravaged between the hunters and the scholars? Or the darkness claimed by their covenant’s pursuit? Or perhaps even one of the lesser empires rising to usurp them? Someday, perhaps soon or perhaps in another hundred thousand years, someone would surpass the Kossovoldt. No one could see the future, but one did not need to pierce the veil of time to see that the younger races were becoming more than they had before.
If only they knew how little they knew. If only they could learn how little they learned. Perhaps it was a mistake to allow the Malagath and the Dirregaunt to grow and flourish in those early years, but such things were not for Ea to judge and no longer within her control. Her task was deciding what to do next, and by now the news of her presence spread to waiting ears. Though the Most Wayward Children and the Unveiled Children did not recognize the significance of such an event, others had longer memories and even now Ea dreamed of the forces amassing to answer her call.
I am ready.
Ea awoke.
The children must be protected, even if doing so required some die that the rest might live. The children must not break the line of the Kossovoldt.
"It goes without saying, Victoria, that the Union Earth will not be pleased with your decision."