Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  Kalder hoped that the stellarpath he had sent would be able to help him do something about that.

  As he approached his office, Kalder found the short stone corridor leading to the door was not entirely empty. One lobbyist slept on the floor, half naked and using his robes as a pillow to lie on. Another lobbyist, the tattooed man with the bald pate, stood up from where he sat slumped against the wall, and approached Kalder. “Senator? Senator! If I could just have a moment of your time—”

  Kalder held up a single hand as he swept past him. “I don’t have time to listen to your religious zealotry.”

  The man’s face had the look of insult. “Zealotry? Religious? I do not come bearing the false words of a god. I come to speak to you of d’Arhagen, he who commands Magonogon, the World Serpent who swallows the galaxy whole—”

  Kalder stepped inside his office and shut the door on the man’s innane babbling.

  The red-haired woman was sitting in a chair in front of his desk, wearing the gilded robes of a stellarpath and nursing a look of consternation. Julian was standing beside her, and looked up at his mentor as he entered.

  “Now, Miss Holdengard,” Kalder said, taking a seat in front of her. “What have you got for me?”

  Without saying a word, the stellarpath reached inside her jacket pocket and produced a holo-projector. With a wave, it produced a recording. What he saw there in that recording…

  If Kalder was still a man not in control of his emotions, he would have leapt from his seat, screaming and pumping his fists in the air, perhaps beating his chest as he wept tears of joy. But he was a Zeroist, stripped of his layers of base visceral feelings that caused such outbursts.

  He only raised an eyebrow, and quoted a long-dead teacher: “Look here at the light of truth, my students, and from the tunnel of despair, let it burn all the brighter.” He looked up at the woman. “You have brought the light of truth, and your rewards will be many. The undying reward of a thankful people.”

  “I was thinking five million dominions for reward,” Moira said. “In paper, preferably. But I’ll take a wave transfer.”

  : SDFA Lord Ishimoto

  With an effort, Lyokh fought to ignore the soreness in his muscles. He closed his eyes, trying to suppress the remembered screams. Dozens of faces floated in his vision, faces he would never see again, so many that it was impossible to fully absorb the notion that they were all dead. All of them.

  Dead.

  A bright flash caught his attention. A silent explosion out in the void. He opened his eyes.

  From the observation deck of Lord Ishimoto, last of the Cutlass-class starships, Lyokh received a commanding view of the theater of war. Or, rather, the end of it. Lord Ishimoto had had the dirty duty of leading the assault against Kennit 184c’s northern hemisphere. She was in low orbit, where she had been situated for four days, hammering one continent with its Pacifier beam in hopes of giving the ground troops half a chance of reaching their goal. No one had believed it was possible. Days ago, Lyokh and Lieutenant Lucerne had stood right here, looking out this same window and discussing just how impossible a task it would be for any of the twenty thousand troops to find the Queen of Mothers.

  “Needle in a haystack,” was how Lucerne had put it. Lucerne, who was now paste, and whose remains littered the surface of the planet and would surely be gathered up by the harvesters, mulched, and transformed into more drones.

  Lyokh tried not to think about that.

  Right now, Lord Ishimoto was laying down suppression fire, helping the other troop ships to beat a retreat. He watched the blue-green beam of the Pacifier shoot from beneath his feet, splitting the darkness of space in half and stabbing down at the smog-filled world. He couldn’t hear the beam’s blast, of course, but he felt the rumble of the deck each time it activated.

  Burn, you bastards, he thought, knowing that there wasn’t enough power in the universe to destroy an entire Brood hive.

  From this high up, the world appeared pink and gray, with long dashes of brown wasteland about the equator. There were rings of dust and space debris hovering above the planet, ancient satellites and dead alien spacecraft, the remnants of past civilizations that had thrown military might at the Brood, and been brought low. The hives and super-hives coated almost the entire surface of the world. There weren’t any oceans or lakes left—all water had been seized by the Brood and moved underground through giant networks of aquifers. The Brood guarded it jealously from all other forms of life. A smart plan, if Lyokh was being honest.

  Scores of EMP bombs were being launched from Second Fleet and detonating inside the atmosphere in washes of white and green light. They were attempting to weaken the planetwide power grid in order to disrupt Brood radio chatter, with mixed results. The Brood broadcast across radio channels very little, and had some other means of communication that Primacy Intelligence had never figured out, but had theorized that the enemy used extra-dimensional transmissions.

  Lyokh yawned. He felt wasted. It could be difficult keeping up with circadian rhythms on a starship, no matter how long one traveled on them. He rubbed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was glad to see the wyrm flocks returning. It meant the battle was truly over.

  Wave after wave of wyrms were being brought up on troop ships, clutching to the side of the carriers. And once they were in space, they expanded their wings and dorsals. Borne on solar winds, their wings had been augmented with thin layers of aluminum coating on a plasteel sheet, with billions of solar cells embedded beneath the scales to store captured energy and redirect it across the body, allowing them to change direction. Thrusters along their ribs changed their speed.

  No less than sixty hatchlings flew around the fleet, far more dexterously than the ships themselves could, their long tails coiling when they slowed down, then elongating as they sprang forward, increasing speed. They spread their armored wings, providing cover from any Brood ships that might try to harass the fleet.

  One dragonship, Ecclesiastes, was leaving orbit. Its engines flared blue-white as Nuerthanc, the greatwyrm that was attached to it, folded its wings in tight, covering nearly the entire red-starred Sigil of the Republic on the ship’s gunmetal hull. It clutched close to the spine of the ship, the bulk of its squamous black body coiling around almost the entire length of the ship, its tail climbing the conning tower, each of its compristeel-reinforced scales providing extra protection to the ship.

  In the distance, just over the curve of the planet’s dark side, Lyokh could see three broodlings. Massive, three-mile-long starships, believed to be living vessels, armed with hundreds of lasers, particle beams, and point-defense cannons. Second Fleet had been playing a game of hit-and-run with the broodlings the whole time Lyokh and his people had been planetside.

  Lyokh sighed, and ran his fingers absentmindedly over the thing in his right hand. He looked down at it. The scroll held a fascination for him. Even in the techno-organic corridors of the hive, it had stuck out as alien. It should not have been there. It was from elsewhere, he was sure of it. The scroll was seemingly made out of some kind of ceramics, but far too strong. He had already beaten it against walls, but it had not even cracked. It was a strange reminder of the truly alien, of the not-quite-knowable nature of the universe.

  As much as it fascinated him, it could not hold his attention for long. The screams of his comrades intruded on his thoughts. So many deaths…so many screams…

  The wall…

  He gripped the metal balustrade in front of him, and closed his eyes. But he still could not shut it out. On the back of his eyelids, he saw a maelstrom of blood and guts, and rolling maggots, and octopus-things and husks and more maggots. It was all he saw when he shut his eyes.

  His hands trembled. He felt naked without his armor. Currently, his STACsuit was being washed clean by the armigers belowdeck.

  It hadn’t been the first time he had encountered the Brood, but it had been the first time he had been that close to a hive world.

&n
bsp; Lyokh sighed heavily, and opened his eyes again. Forced himself to watch the end of it. It seemed impossible that he had survived. It seemed impossible that anyone could.

  Yet, here he was.

  He had slept a whole day. As had Heeten and the others, or so he had heard. His dreams had been a tortured mess, a tangle of half remembered things snatching at his ankles, wild shapes leaping out of the darkness, the screams of his battle-brothers. He had heard gnashing teeth, and chittering mouths, all thirsting for blood. The battle had left a residue in his mind that he could not scrape off, even in his sleep. Part of him had expected to wake up and find that the Brood had destroyed Lord Ishimoto, as well.

  It had been four days since his rescue, and he still wasn’t sure it had been real.

  Lyokh looked back down at the scroll in his hand, and felt a fresh, salty tear run down his cheek. He almost collapsed into sobs, but he managed to hold himself together. He reminded himself that all of Man was doomed anyway, and that it didn’t matter if Lucerne and the others had died four days ago, or a hundred years from now.

  Man was doomed. That was that.

  In a strange and surprising way, it helped to be fatalistic. Surrendering to the inevitable had its perks. The philosophy was sound. It was…cathartic. It helped to know that it was all for naught. It had that feeling that only the truly religious felt in their hearts, where they gave over all agency and meaning to the universe, or to some unknowable intelligence or menace.

  Of course, he had heard that such thoughts had a way of breeding a misanthropic mind, which in turn made one susceptible to what the Harbingers preached. It was a step towards oblivion, he knew. A step towards surrendering to the Brood. Like what happened to the Queen of Mothers.

  But that would never happen to him. He would fight to the end, as he had planetside. And he would do so without mourning, because it made no difference. Today, tomorrow, the Fall of Man was coming.

  And yet…the tears. They were evidence of something, weren’t they? As was the rage he felt inside the hive, when flinging himself at the unknowable enemy. Unconsciously, he squeezed the scroll in his fist until his knuckles turned white. He was quivering, just thinking about the screams…

  A hand on his shoulder made him start, and his hand went reflexively for the sword that wasn’t there. Lyokh wasn’t in his STACsuit, he was in a polymer mesh body-glove, and the hand touching him wasn’t a Brood drone, but a much friendlier face.

  “Reyes,” he said, half smiling. He put the screams of the fallen from his mind, and saluted the Wyrm Master.

  “Doyen,” Reyes said, with a wink.

  Just seeing the man temporarily dispelled all thoughts of horror that Lyokh had been turning over. Reyes was resplendent in his uniform of onyx-black fatigues, with the Wyrm Tamers’ red-winged pendant on his right breast, and a cape of red faux scales draped over his left side. Down his right arm was the massive Gauntlet of Handling, an outmoded tool once used to stun small wyrmlings and keep them from thrashing about and killing their Tamers. Now the gauntlet was only ceremonial.

  Lyokh almost saluted, then stood there awkwardly, and finally reached out to embrace his old friend. They laughed, and smacked each other on the back companionably, and when they came apart, Lyokh said, “Thanks for getting us out of there.”

  “Hey, somebody had to pry you out,” he joked. “How else am I supposed to get that five hundred doms you owe me?”

  Lyokh smiled grimly. “You’re never letting that go, are you?”

  “You know me. I don’t let anything go.” Reyes’s face turned serious. “Neither do you, apparently. Damn good to see you alive, Lyokh. I was sorry to hear about…everyone.”

  Everyone. Not just Lucerne, or Egleston, or Breshdt. Everyone. Reyes might have been talking about not just Gold Wing, but all of mankind. Lyokh nodded, and cast a look out at the fleet mobilizing.

  Reyes followed his gaze. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  “It is, sir.”

  “We’re going to make it out of here. I’ve just received word from the Visquain that all escape vectors have been cleared. We’re good to go.”

  “Now if we could just find an escape vector to take us away from this whole god-forsaken galaxy.” Lyokh had meant to keep that to himself, but realized he had mumbled it, just loud enough that it was audible.

  “There’s still a chance,” Reyes said. “We may be able to clear a path to the Galaxy Key in the Centaur System.”

  Lyokh nodded noncommittally.

  Reyes pointed at the scroll. “Is that it?”

  Lyokh looked at it. “Yes.”

  “You know, you really should turn that over to PI. They’ll probably take it eventually, anyway.”

  He nodded. “It was weird down there, Commander. This scroll…it was sitting in a temple. On a shrine. Not like anything the Brood have ever put together. It’s like the whole structure…it didn’t belong there.”

  Reyes didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so he changed the subject. “I have to ask. Any signs of the Knights of Sol?”

  Lyokh shook his head. “Nah. No sign. Everything that goes into that place gets…swallowed.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Lyokh shrugged. “Got lucky.”

  “You sure that’s all it was?”

  He didn’t respond to that.

  Reyes looked like he was about to say something else, but just then a chime sounded from his wristpad. He tapped it, activating his imtech. The implant technology that most Wyrm Masters used allowed them to see the heads-up displays of all the wyrms in their fleet. The lenses in Reyes’s eyes would be popping up with interactive screens only he could see. Reyes waved his hands in the air, acknowledging updates, reorganizing overlapping screens. “This is Commander Reyes, go with your message,” he said.

  A male voice spoke from his wristpad. “Our flocks are gathered, sir.”

  “How many did we lose this time?”

  “Just two, sir. One in the northern hemisphere theater, the other in the southern.”

  “And the Tamers of those wyrms?”

  “All souls lost, sir,” came the grim report.

  Reyes received it with the equanimity of a man hearing that his laundry would be delayed. Though, Lyokh suspected it was just a façade, for he knew his friend well enough to know that inside, the loss of even one wyrm was heartbreaking, and the loss of wyrm pilots meant days of melancholy stewing. There were small, telltale signs of other recent heartbreaks. The five-o’clock shadow on the Reyes’s face, for instance, never would have flown past the man’s notice years ago. But then, he had been a different person back then. They all had. “Understood. Are all wyrms back in their nests?”

  “They are, sir,” said the voice.

  “Then begin de-armament, and get me a casualty report within the hour. Tell Captain Summers and his people to get some rest, we could all use it. The after-action review will commence tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred Zulu.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Reyes waved his hand, and the transmission ended. He and Lyokh sat in silence for a while before Reyes finally turned to him and said, “I’ve looked at the footage from your HUD, you did great work down there.” Reyes smiled briefly, but then a cloud fell over his features. “Bad bit of business with the Queen of Mothers, though.”

  Lyokh’s own good humor died, and he adopted a solemn look. “Yes, sir. Bad bit of business.”

  “But you did what had to be done. We were committed to this thing for a few more hours, but when you…provided the mercy to her, it was time to head out. Who knows how many more soldiers would have died in this war if you hadn’t reached her when you did?”

  Lyokh nodded solemnly. “And…her remains?”

  “Primacy Intel has her body, her husk, whatever you call it,” Reyes said, waving a gloved hand dismissively. “It’s being seen to. I wouldn’t worry about it right now. Right now, I’ve got some people you need to meet with.”

  “Shit. Debriefing time alread
y, eh? Or is it my psych eval?”

  “We’ll get to all that, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  Reyes smiled gamely, and Lyokh tilted his head inquisitively.

  “Come on. There’s some people that will be glad to see you awake. They’ve been asking about you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Damn, you’re a killjoy. Come on, doyen, live a little.”

  “I’ve already lived too much,” Lyokh said.

  Reyes didn’t laugh at that. It wasn’t a joke. He wrapped an arm around Lyokh’s shoulders, and led him off the observation deck. Lyokh took one last look at the assemblage of Second Fleet. There were two Katana-class interdictors maneuvering to the tail end of their flotilla, extending their graviton guns to deploy a Le Sage shadow in their wake. Slight as they were, the combined gravitational disturbances of Le Sage shadows would prevent the broodlings from giving chase.

  On the way out, Lyokh handed the scroll to one of the ship’s many service bots, and told it to deliver the scroll back to his billet. He didn’t want to think about it anymore today.

  LORD ISHIMTO STARTED banking away from the planet, leaving the awful nightmare of Kennit behind.

  The starships of Second Fleet began to form up, each one’s firepower buttressing the other. The ones with damaged shields hugged close to those that still had theirs intact. Twenty-seven ships clustered together, the two minesweepers out front, taking care of the camouflaged explosives that the Brood so loved to litter in the space around their hive worlds.