The Hegemony controlled almost a thousand suns. All had received the attention of the host and cleansing fleets in their time. Some had been fully cleansed when it was decided the vermin natives were of no value, some had not been destroyed utterly for various reasons, and those races had become clients—slaves used to supply the Hegemony with things it needed. Merkiaari couldn’t be expected to farm, or build their own ships after all.
He sneered, remembering the warlord saying those words when he challenged the notion. It wasn’t as if he wanted his people enslaved, no matter what his enemies said of him. He just wanted to replace all the vermin living in this system, this one vital system, with Merkiaari bred for the task. How was it different breeding special batches for such work, when they did it all the time to crew his ships? He wasn’t mad. He didn’t want to replace the Hegemony’s entire supply of vermin workers. It made perfect sense to keep those races alive for useful work, but safely removed far from here.
Vermin had their uses; Humans however were a different matter. They were a threat. Threats were never allowed to prosper. A full cleansing was mandated, but the warlord had refused to send one. Slave rebellions sometimes happened and new races were discovered. Those kept the host occupied at least, but the real threat was left unchallenged.
It was intolerable.
Valjoth looked at the tablet again. “The warlord requests my presence,” he said again. “I suppose we have to go...” he glanced at Kylar where she preened for Usk, grooming her fur. “Tomorrow.”
Usk grinned and left.
“Now then,” Valjoth said. “Where were we—oof?” he gasped as Kylar threw him to the deck and pounced atop him.
“About here I think,” she said and bit him, trying for a decent grip upon his neck with her fangs.
“Oh yes...” he gasped. “Now I remember.”
Approaching the palace, Planet Kiar, Kiar system.
Valjoth didn’t like visiting the homeworld. Not because he was invariably being summoned to meetings he felt were wastes of his time, or trying to persuade the warlord that this or that thing needed to be done. No, it wasn’t only that. It was how out of place he felt there. He shouldn’t feel that way. He didn’t think Usk did or anyone else he knew, but Kiar just felt wrong. He preferred the decks of Blood Drinker beneath his feet, or the dirt of an alien world. Anywhere else really.
He didn’t like the city. He didn’t like the way vermin populated it, living and working as if they had a right to be there. He didn’t like the way the vermin surrounded the heart of the Merkiaari—the inner city where the Hegemon, the full bloods, and the warlord dwelled—and he didn’t like how vulnerable his entire species was to a rebellion here of all places.
He had put down rebellions on other worlds and knew the causes of them. Homeworld was at just as much risk as any of those places, but with far deadlier consequences to his people. If he could, he would cleanse homeworld of vermin, and it was that proposition among others that had led to his long absence from the palace.
The palace was an ancient pile, Valjoth thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought it, and linked it with the staid and slow thinking that went on within. Really, how surprising was it that the warlord failed to embrace new ideas and ways of doing things, when he lived within the palace and never left it? It was so large it might as well be a city within a city, but city-like or not, those living within were insulated from the real Hegemony and the thousand suns comprising it.
With Usk at his shoulder he presented himself at the outer gates to the inner city. Those towering metal walls and armoured doors kept everything at a safe distance. It would take Blood Drinker’s main battery, an assault ship and the most powerful in the host, to dent it. Not that anyone with half a brain would bother. The gates were as useless as the warlord they were meant to protect. All they really did was isolate the Hegemon from those the blood ruled. If he wanted to assault the palace, he would simply drop a rock on it and go on about his day.
He growled low imagining it. It would be very satisfying, but only briefly. Useless ditherers the Hegemon and the full bloods might be in his opinion, especially in their use of him and the host, but the ruling class were important to their race. Only they could procreate. It was an uncomfortable and embarrassing truth, but the blood bred new generations the way... well, the way vermin did—like farm animals rutting and squeezing out pups. Disgusting. It wasn’t even their fault and he had room within himself to feel sorry for them. Some of them. Valjoth had spoken of it with Usk and even some of the more enlightened among the blood, and knew it wasn’t their preference. Full blood females often chose to decant their pups as soon as possible, to at least emulate the rest of the race, but artificial wombs were only vaguely similar to the vats where he and 99% of their people were formed.
It was the way the makers, the cursed Kiar, had made them. A safety measure built into their slave’s genes to prevent Merkiaari ever turning against them. Well that hadn’t worked out for them. They really should have known better, using their own genetic material to create a sub species bigger and stronger than themselves. What did they expect would happen when they introduced a new and better predator into their own ecology? The fools.
Foolish or not, their knowledge of genetic engineering was beyond good. It was magic, and the blood’s gene splicers had never found a way to remove the self destruct that the makers had built into Merkiaari ova. Only full blood females were able to produce viable offspring, and their pups were full blood only if they bred with full blood males. It meant the blood were sequestered and pampered, for good reasons no doubt, but it made them useless for real work. Fighting? The idea was laughable even if any could be risked. The blood’s gene pool was just barely viable due to genetic diversity. It wouldn’t take many losses amongst them to spell their entire race’s demise.
Cloning had been tried to increase full blood numbers but it always resulted in barren mules, both male and female. The Kiar again. Every so often experiments were tried in the hope that sufficient genetic drift had occurred to invalidate the self destruct within full blooded female ova, but all had come to nothing. New technologies among the vermin sometimes advanced understanding, but none had yet solved the issue. Valjoth sometimes wondered whether they had missed or lost the answer they sought when they cleansed vermin planets. The thought was uncomfortable, but he’d had a worse one. What if the Humans had the answer or could produce one? The thought was horrifying because he knew their fate and he was about to become the instrument of it. He couldn’t change it and wouldn’t if he could. They were a terrible threat. He could so easily imagine a fleet of Human ships arriving in this system. One missile hitting the palace would end the Merkiaari forever. It would take a few centuries until the last batch died of old age, but it would be over for the Merkiaari as a species the moment the missile arrived.
The palace and the city were holdovers of the Kiar. Ancient and lasting. One thing the Kiar did well was build. It was the only thing even Merkiaari could admire about their one time masters. What they built worked, and never stopped working. Valjoth frowned as he realised that could be applied to his people as well. Were they not still fighting and bringing new systems into the Hegemony just as they had done for the Kiar? Merkiaari weren’t builders and makers. That’s what vermin were for.
Valjoth frowned up at the gates towering high into the air. No, his people weren’t builders. They were destroyers descended from the enforcers that the Kiar had relied upon to fight their wars and protect them. Only the bloods avoided that legacy, and they were enslaved by their biology instead. Not something anyone would call a bargain.
The small portal in the gate swung open allowing access. The main gates were never opened, and Valjoth wondered if they even could be after so long unused, but then they were Kiar made. Of course they would work, but the approach and entrance to the palace was always by foot. Vehicles of any kind were prohibited from approaching, and anything flying within the interdiction zone a
round and over the palace would be shot down. The inner city had formidable defences. The curtain walls around it were made of the same metal used to build ships, and they had shields and weapons built into them. He had witnessed yearly tests and knew the inner city was safe from conventional attack, but it wasn’t conventional attack he worried about. Unconventional thinking was another thing he was derided for. Unconventional by Merkiaari standards at any rate.
Valjoth saw it otherwise.
He wasn’t First Claw of the Host for nothing. He knew his job and that was one of many reasons to both admire and fear the Humans. There had been other vermin worth studying, and he had done so, but it was the Humans that had inspired so many changes in his people. The newest batches were a case in point. They were far superior to older batches, both physically and mentally, but they would never have been quickened if not for the Humans. The breeding programs had been unchanged for a thousand years before the failed Human cleansing. Essentially left as the cursed Kiar had designed them, his people had prospered, but the changes were necessary despite the haste in which they were implemented. Side effects were hardly surprising and didn’t overly concern him. They did concern the Hegemon however, but regardless, they needed to be convinced to switch from three in ten batches to full production of the new types. Valjoth didn’t expect to get such a concession today, but perhaps an increase to five or six in ten wouldn’t be out of the question now that the Humans had taken a hand in Merkiaari affairs again. He could play upon the warlord’s fear of Humans, and use him to make the case to the Hegemon for an increase.
Valjoth and Usk stopped just inside the gate as weapons were levelled at them. He didn’t roll his eyes or show any other emotion as he was scanned for weapons—none were allowed to be brought into the inner city—and scanned for identity. He wasn’t surprised that the guards were of the older type. Tried and true and zero instability. They were fine for such tasks as gate guarding and security, but he wouldn’t like to put them up against the Humans again. It was troops like these who had fought in the failed cleansing two centuries ago.
“My lord, if you would submit?” a guard said indicating the security station with one hand.
“Of course,” Valjoth said. The scan had already proven his identity, but he approved of the extra precautions even while wondering about it.
Vermin within the inner city and those entering were required to pass DNA scans, not Merkiaari. None among their own people would harm anyone living here, but regardless of reasons the test was not harmful. He stabbed his thumb on the sharp spike provided for that purpose, and let his blood enter the receptacle. The machine tested his DNA and signalled the operator that he was indeed who he claimed to be. Usk submitted to the test unasked.
Weapons were lowered and Valjoth was led to a car to take him to the palace.
Once inside and on the move, Usk turned to Valjoth. “What was that? Intentional insult or something else?”
“Not insult I think, paranoia.”
“Paranoia?”
“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 Hegemon 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 Hegemon 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 Hegemon 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 Hegemon. 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 Hegemon 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 toda
y’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 Hegemon 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 Hegemon seated behind a long barren table all staring hard eyed at him. Six Merkiaari, seven including Zakarji, comprised the Hegemon—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 Hegemon 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.
Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3 Page 114