“The new batches.”
Usk nodded. “Oh that.”
“That,” Valjoth agreed. “Discipline problems seems to be a side-effect of greater intelligence in the new batches. They’re better fighters for it, but harder to control.”
“You’ve never had that problem.”
“I’m different,” Valjoth said sarcastically. “You know how well thought of I am. They probably consider me near enough the same as the new troops anyway. I don’t consider that an insult. They’re superior fighters.”
Usk nodded.
“More security here is a good thing, but I don’t like what it says about my chances of getting more of the new troops anytime soon. That display at the gate has to mean the warlord fears our own troops more than the vermin.”
Usk grunted. “I don’t see that as likely, my lord, and besides, the vermin are controlled.”
“True, but then they were supposedly controlled on Parcae weren’t they?”
Usk nodded.
The vermin called Parcae were the last client race to rebel. Valjoth had been bored and decided to put the rebellion down personally by leading the cleansing fleet. Despite the controls, the Parcae had succeeded in arming themselves and killing most of the Merkiaari population of their planet, and had been in the process of fortifying it when he arrived. It was quite an impressive attempt, but of course it failed. Still, he could admire them for trying and succeeding as well as they had. They had no chance in the long term of course. His ships meant he controlled the system the moment he arrived. The Parcae had nothing to combat him with in space.
The point though was not lost on him. If the vermin were determined enough and got it into their heads to rebel, discipline collars and DNA checkpoints would not stop them from killing their masters. That was why he felt homeworld was a special case. It should be vermin free. That was the only way to ensure safety here. He wasn’t a fool. He didn’t propose the eradication of all vermin in the Hegemony, but on Kiar? Absolutely yes.
“Fearing our own is not a good trend, my lord,” Usk said.
“No, definitely not. We need a new warlord, and that’s not going to happen soon.”
“He’s old.”
“But robust,” Valjoth said. “No sign of him failing that I’ve seen. Not in fighting form of course, but he doesn’t need to be.”
Usk nodded.
The Hegamon usually chose a warlord from among the previous warlord’s marshals, but not always. Warlords chose their marshals personally, and were meant to be the best planners and administrators in the Hegemony, but more often than not they were just comrades or batch mates of the warlord. He had to live with them every day after all. Why wouldn’t he choose marshals he liked?
Problems occurred when the marshals were inept. The bloods serving within the Hegamon had no experience of the outside to guide their choice of a new warlord, and so chose warlords like Horak. That was one reason Valjoth always made himself available to them. Not because he wanted the throne, it would bore him senseless, but because he wanted a good warlord to serve. If the Hegamon wanted to ask his advice about things outside its experience, he was willing. He was certainly more qualified to advise them than a warlord who hadn’t been off planet in almost a century.
The car pulled up smoothly at the main entrance to the palace. The driver, a Lamarian, did not get out but simply waited for his passengers to disembark. They were the most common type of vermin used in the Hegemony and the safest. They were discovered and pacified during the reign of the Kiar and predated the creation of the Merkiaari. They were one of the oldest vermin species in the Hegemony and made for good reliable workers—quiet and pacifistic. They had never rebelled. He didn’t trust them one bit.
Valjoth and Usk climbed out of the car, and it drove away. They were met at the doors by Zakarji, a full blood and member of the Hegamon. It surprised Valjoth that she would deign to meet him this way. A friend, even a full blood friend, might be expected to greet him personally, but not a member of the Hegamon itself. He had a few full blood friends, but Zakarji was not one of them.
“Welcome to the palace First Claw Valjoth,” Zakarji said.
“Thank you. You honour me with a personal welcome. Why is that?”
Usk shifted uneasily.
Zakarji flashed fangs in a sudden grin. “Direct. I was warned about you.”
“I find that if I want to know something the quickest way is to ask someone with answers.”
“A risky policy around here,” Zakarji said. “Asking questions reveals ignorance.”
“Ignorance can be remedied, stupidity cannot.”
Zakarji eyes flashed. “You would do well to curb your insolence.”
“But then I wouldn’t be me and I’d be far less useful to you.”
Zakarji studied him for a long moment. She was short for a female, even a female of the blood, but she topped him by half a head. A female his height would be considered tiny, even defective by today’s standards. She glared down at him, but then surprised him again by grinning.
“As I said, I was warned, but I didn’t realise just how different you would be. I can make allowances.”
“Don’t do that, I won’t know how to react.”
“I doubt that,” Zakarji said. “You seem more than capable to me.”
Valjoth grinned.
“I’m here to greet you because we want to discuss something with you before your meeting with Horak.”
Horak was the warlord’s name, his batch name, before he became warlord. Only a full blood would use it or think to now he sat the throne.
“Care to reveal who with and the topic?” Valjoth asked, but he guessed the Hegamon wanted to discuss the Shan shambles.
“No.”
Valjoth shrugged at Usk as Zakarji walked back into the palace as if certain he would follow like one of her vermin servitors. It annoyed him that she was, of course, right.
Valjoth and Usk caught Zakarji and together they made their way through the busy palace corridors. Lamarian servitors hurried about their duties, while visitors to the palace strolled about on their way to meetings. There were full bloods everywhere of course. Most were bureaucrats of one kind or another. Their jobs to oversee the actual governance of the thousand star systems of the Hegemony, making sure things were sent to the right place, or made, or traded from one world to another. It made his head ache thinking about the millions of little details they found to occupy themselves with. Really, his job was complicated enough and all he needed was ships, fuel, ammunition, and troops. Usually those things arrived without a need for him to take a personal interest in them. He wouldn’t want it any other way.
Zakarji stopped at a door and signalled for admittance. The door slid aside and she entered first. Valjoth followed with Usk at his back but stopped just inside when he was confronted by the entire Hegamon seated behind a long barren table all staring hard eyed at him. Six Merkiaari, seven including Zakarji, comprised the Hegamon—the ultimate authority ruling the thousand suns. He had rarely met more than two together. Never all seven, and didn’t know all of them even by sight. He took the opportunity to memorise faces. There were five females and two males, though that was purely happenstance. There had been years where the mix was reversed or the Hegamon was all female or all male. He didn’t know how they chose replacement members, and doubted anyone not of the blood cared. He didn’t. What he did care about was the reason they were meeting with him in person and not giving their orders through the warlord and his marshals. That’s what they were for after all. The warlord was their interface with the Hegemony at large and the host in particular. A less respectful person might call the warlord their figurehead and be right.
The door slid shut and locked behind Usk.
Valjoth glanced back, not liking the locked door but unable to voice it. No one but Usk would care to listen to his protests or opinions. Besides, it wasn’t as if he had been locked in with line troops fresh from a cleansing and still raging.
He was in no danger, no physical danger. He turned back to find Zakarji had taken her place in the last empty seat. The centre position.
Valjoth straightened to his full height and approached the table. “You honour me with your... ah summons?” He hadn’t actually been summoned by them. The warlord had done the summoning. He wondered if the warlord even knew he was here in the palace, or knew that he was supposed to have sent a summons. “How may I serve the Hegamon?”
“By listening to our will,” Zakarji responded. “Horak insisted over your objections to give the Shan cleansing to Karnak. The cleansing failed... again.”
“The warlord felt—”
Zakarji cut him off. “Do not defend him. He is no longer a concern...”
Valjoth stiffened. No longer a concern?
“...for the position are being considered.”
“Not me!” he burst out in alarm.
To be trapped in this suffocating pile would end him. He thought of Blood Drinker given to another, of never leaving this hateful city, of never again ripping apart vermin or overseeing a cleansing fleet. Sitting the throne, just a figurehead with nothing to fight was horrifying.
Zakarji glared at the interruption, but the other members of the Hegamon revealed fangs, grinning at his outburst or laughing. She waited for the hilarity to fade before continuing.
“The throne is not your concern, or who sits upon it. That task is not in your future, I assure you.”
His shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank the blood for that,” he whispered and stiffened when he realised he had said it aloud.
Zakarji glared lasers beams. “Yes, you may thank us. Karnak and the Shan cleansing fleet are lost. We will waste no more resources upon them at this time.”
“We must not allow the Humans to continue their expansion,” he said carefully. Not exactly contradicting her, but his message was clear. “We must at the least block them or slow them.”
“Your opinions regarding the Humans are well known among us, Valjoth,” one of the males said and the other nodded. “As are your other ideas.”
“Other ideas?”
“Your liking for the new troop types and unconventional tactics,” Zakarji said. “Perhaps you hope for more oddities like yourself to be quickened to keep you company?”
He winced. That was spiteful of her. “Call me mad, but I have a feeling you don’t like me.” He grinned at her glare. “I like the new types because they’re superior fighters. I like unconventional tactics as you call them, because casualties are lowered and they win battles faster. We all know what will happen if we fight the Humans the traditional way.”
“Unfortunately true, but the side-effects are not yet fully understood. Do not ask us to change our decision regarding the breeding programme.”
“But—”
“Do not!”
“I must. Three batches in ten are not enough for my purposes.”
Zakarji’s glare faded a little. “Three in ten are more than sufficient for ours.”
Then they were not going to deploy the host as he wished, against the Humans. The Kiar cursed fools! They must not allow Humans to continue expansion, certainly not in their current direction. If they couldn’t be cleansed from the galaxy entirely, they had to be either controlled or turned aside. His thoughts raced ahead along paths he had considered before but abandoned in favour of the plan he had thought they would approve. The Hegamon knew them all, as they had been proposed and abandoned by the warlord long since.
“I don’t understand what you wish of me,” Valjoth said, but he was starting to think he might be dusting off old plans and revising them. “Are you deploying the host or not?”
“Not all of it.”
Well of course not all of it! The host was vast; it had to be to hold a thousand star systems. Even here in the home system it was vastly bigger than any of his old plans required. When he considered things as they now apparently stood, he would need to take only half of the fleet in the Kiar system to begin.
“That’s understood,” he said. “My mission is...?”
“Redirection. We want the Humans’ attention turned aside. Our research suggests that trying to block them will not work. It would draw them; encourage attacks or a build up of defences in the blocked sector. That would not be in our interests. You agree?”
He didn’t show his disdain at their research, because he knew very well it was his own research they were quoting. No one else he knew of studied vermin the way he did. Blocking the Human advance in an obvious way would indeed have the effect she mentioned. Humans were very inquisitive. They were a lot like the Parcae or the Shintarn in that way. Always poking into things, wanting to know why this and why that. They were builders and makers like most of the vermin his people had encountered. Very much like the cursed Kiar in their cleverness, and that made them too dangerous to live. Blocking them would have them poking around trying to see why they were being blocked. Before he knew it, he would have scouts behind his lines sniffing about.
He couldn’t have that.
The answer was an old set of ideas he’d had a few years ago. They were still good; he’d always liked them for their sneaky Human style tactics. Attack an outlying system, let word leak out—something a Merkiaari mind found hard to understand because it invited attack by reinforcements—and then fade away before they arrived. Then do it again in another outlying system. It would drive any commander to distraction, and should draw more and more attention and ships to the sector. The hard part was doing it on a timeline that made the Humans chase but not catch them.
Retreating and avoiding battle was not part of the Merkiaari creed. Having invited reinforcements in, the standard response would be to stand and fight until one or both sides were destroyed, but the advantage of retreat couldn’t be underestimated in his opinion. The sneaky stinking Humans had done it to his people too many times to count, and had pulled them into battles that gave them the advantage. He had studied all those battles, refought them in his head many times, and knew how they had beaten his people. Well, he would do it to them but in an even sneakier and outright unfair way. He would cheat as much as he possibly could. They deserved it. He would make his battles as dishonest as possible, showing the Humans one thing but hitting them with something else. It would be a suitable vengeance for his people’s last defeat at their hands.
He realised the Hegamon were still waiting. “Agreed, and I’ve just the thing in mind to achieve our... your goal.”
The more he thought about it the more excited he became. This was going to be fun. Harder perhaps than a massive cleansing, which had its joys but hardly any room for the unconventional tactics he preferred. Overwhelming force had its place, but it had little room for finesse. This way was more of a challenge.
He would need good commanders who could be relied upon to keep their heads and follow a plan to a proper timeline. That was going to be one of his biggest problems. There weren’t many he trusted that far.
“Good,” Zakarji said. “You may make your plans as you see fit. Do not reveal them or anything of this meeting to Horak. Your meeting with him is about our refusal to change the breeding program. Make the appropriate outraged noises and then leave. You will never have to deal with him again. We want your plan, including all appropriate force levels and supply details, before us for evaluation as soon as possible. Allowing the Humans or this new vermin they are apparently interested in to spread further toward Hegemony space is unacceptable.”
He agreed there, and nodded, but he wouldn’t be planning an attack anywhere close to the Shan. Oh no, much too obvious. Besides that, it would draw more Human ships into the system, not turn them aside.
He considered targets. There were so many to choose from, and some were very tempting indeed, but they weren’t outlying systems and he had to discipline himself not to bite.
“By your leave?”
His answer was the door lock disengaging. He turned and found Usk staring wide-eyed. The expressio
n nearly made him roar with laughter. He kept it in and headed for the door. Usk joined him a moment later, and the door slid closed. He heard the lock engage again, and glanced at the door before striding away. He wondered what they were talking about that required a locked door this time.
“What do you think of that?” Valjoth said.
“I think the warlo... Horak is out, and a new warlord will be enthroned within the day,” Usk said.
“Oh that, yes, but I meant the other thing.”
Usk blinked uncertainly. “I don’t understand, lord.”
“Neither do I, and that’s part of the problem.” He grinned at Usk’s pained expression.
“Don’t do that!” Usk whined. “Your twisty thoughts hurt my head. Can’t you stay a straight course for one conversation?”
“Well, let’s see... by the way, to me a straight course is like a twisty one to you. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it feels wrong and—”
“Lord, you’re doing it again!”
Valjoth laughed. “All right, Usk. I meant the way Zakarji spoke for the Hegamon. I wonder which one was truly speaking to me. They weren’t her words, not all of them.”
“Does it matter? They are the Hegamon.”
“I suppose not, but it would be nice to know who to put a face to when I receive their instructions.” He shrugged. “Zakarji will do for now, but I wish I had names at least for the others.”
“They are the Hegamon,” Usk said again. “What other name do you need?”
Valjoth shrugged again, but Usk had a point. The Hegamon spoke with one voice always, so what if the seven had their own voices and opinions voiced only amongst themselves behind locked doors. So what? He castigated himself for letting himself think like Usk for a moment. He could tell Usk so what. The Hegamon might speak with one voice to the outside, but among themselves they would argue and debate decisions. If he knew who the driving force behind those decisions was, he might be able to predict what they would be and more importantly, he would have a better chance of knowing how to make them agree with him when the need arose.
He shrugged again, deciding not to explain himself. “No matter.”
Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle Page 35