When the Stars Fade (The Gray Wars)

by Korenman, Adam

  “Alexander,”Jerry said.“We need to discuss options. They’ve started calling for an emergency parliamentary session on Earth. Jonah has planted the idea that there needs to be regime change.”

  Alexander ground his teeth.“I’m sad to say it, but I agree.”Jerry seemed shocked.“How can I trust Ambassador Jordan if all this is still going on under his watch? And what the hell is Gilroy thinking?”

  “He’s worried about the thousands of innocent bystanders between him and Jonah.”

  Alexander scoffed.“He’s worried about his job.”

  “Actually,”a voice said from behind.“I’m worried about yours.”Admiral Gilroy entered the room, shutting the door behind. He looked tired more than anything. His face was drawn and black bags hung under his eyes.“We should have struck first, sir. Now Jonah has popular support. Killing him would embolden their cause and only speed up the inevitable.”

  “And what is that?”Alexander spat out.

  Gilroy didn’t mind the attitude.“He wants to depose Jordan. Put up some stooge of his own. Kerrigan, most likely.”He sat down on the couch, grabbing the decanter of scotch from the coffee table and pouring a glass.“He wants to take Earth without firing a shot. Or at least any more shots.”

  That stopped Alexander’s thought process cold. The idea of losing the Homeworld in a peaceful election had never even crossed his mind. How could the people fall for it? Why didn’t they see Jonah for who he really was?“But how can he hope to pull it off?”

  Jerry paced the room.“He wouldn’t have to put up much of a fight. All he needs are the right pieces in place.”He turned, his hands moving frantically as he talked through the possibilities.“A few senators here, an under counsellor there. The armies wouldn’t know whom to swear loyalty to. By the end, the majority control will be in his favor, and anyone who resists will have the might of the Earth military against them.”He laughed.“It’s the Imperial War all over again.”

  Adeline gasped.“It can’t really be that easy, can it?”She withered under a sudden glare from both her boss and the High Chancellor.“I’m sorry to speak out of turn, but this seems at the edge of possibility.”

  “It happened before,”Jerry replied.“And history has a funny way of coming back around.”

  “The commanders should know better,”Gilroy said.“Soldiers are under orders of the Federate.”He downed his scotch.“We could stage a coup, put the planet under military control.”

  “And risk another world-wide rebellion?”Alexander rose, a sheen of sweat on his face.“He doesn’t even have to win. He just has to make sure we cause enough collateral damage to bring more people to his side. We’ll have the citizens of Earth wearing the red fist.”He squeezed his eyes shut and swore. Damn it. Stop thinking like a politician, asshole.“We need to take him out before he gains control of the American continent. Get him out of that tower and run our own smear campaign.”

  Jerry frowned at the comment.“Controlling America is not the same as controlling the planet. And even if he takes Earth, that’s only one chunk of one pillar of government.”

  The chief executive shook his head.“If we lose Earth, even for a moment, the sharks will smell blood. There will be a hundred groups like the Hammer trying to take control. We don’t have the military presence we used to, during the war. Not yet. By the time the dust settles, we’ll be looking at taking back the planet one continent at a time, with civilian deaths in the billions.”

  Adeline shifted on her feet, fighting the urge to speak up. Her resolved quickly gave away.“Sir, the Ambassador of Earth is just one man. He doesn’t rule with impunity any more than you do. We’ll still control the Planetary Congress, and Jonah hasn’t made any moves against the courts.”

  Admiral Gilroy rolled his eyes.“We lose the Ambassador slot, we lose Earth.”

  Alexander looked at the young woman as though seeing her for the first time.“Miss Quinn, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-six, sir.”

  The High Chancellor nodded knowingly.“Then don’t try to listen first. Each person in this room has decades of experience over you.”He placed his hands on her shoulders.“Jerry told me you were smart, and I can see that. But smart people often ignore one of life’s harsh truths.”

  Adeline trembled, her voice faint as she spoke.“And what is that, sir?”

  Alexander’s eyes burned with a sudden fire.“Monsters like Jonah don’t obey the laws we set. If he has control of one Pillar on Earth, he controls Earth. Simple as that. Within a few weeks, every judge and council member will be dead.”

  “Tell me,”Jerry said.“How could he hold on to it? We would take Earth back within a few years, and with far fewer lives lost.”He watched the High Chancellor cross the room, oblivious to his words.“Damn it, Alexander. We don’t have to think of this as all or nothing. We can give him a little slack and then reel him in.”

  “A fractured civilization will invite its own ruin,”Alexander said, turning to face the room. No one spoke for a long while as those words resonated.

  “Who said that?”Gilroy asked.

  “Norton.”Alexander walked to the TV and turned up the volume.“The first Emperor of America.”

  The anchor, a square-jawed man with tightly combed hair, continued reading from the teleprompter.“No word yet on Ambassador Jordan’s take on the proposed meeting, but rumor has it that Arnold Rothsburg, CEO of Galactic Media and Chairman of the Earth Defense Committee might call for a vote of no confidence in the two term counsellor.”

  Alexander shut off the set. He turned to face the two men, his face no longer weak but determined.“Jonah wants a fight. No matter how he starts this, he’ll look for blood before its finished.”He turned to Jerry.“I need to know how that crazy doctor-friend of yours is doing.”

  * * * * *

  Josh opened his eyes and immediately regretted the decision. Pain racked his body, keeping him locked to the bed. He moved his head slowly in each direction, every inch accompanied by painful clicks. The lights were dimmed in the room, but seemed unbearable all the same. Even his skin hurt, as though it were suddenly too tight or too sensitive to the air around it. His mouth tasted of metal and cotton.

  He could hear groaning coming from the beds around him, but didn’t dare try to sit up. When he went to speak, his parched lips burned and his throat seized. He coughed, and it felt like his lungs were bursting. A nurse appeared suddenly, putting gentle pressure on his chest that nonetheless felt like fire. Tears streamed down his face, running toward the back of his head. Something must have gone wrong, he thought. The procedure backfired, or a complication from the injection. Maybe he was having an allergic reaction.

  “Please,”a voice said.“Don’t try to move.”Markov’s face materialized a foot away, his mouth covered by a mask.“You have been in recovery for some time, and your body needs to rest. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”He pulled a sponge from a cup by the bed and stuck the corner in Josh’s mouth, letting the soldier sip eagerly.

  Josh swallowed enough water to wet his tongue.“How long have I been out?”Josh asked.

  Markov shrugged.“Almost five weeks.”

  Josh struggled to move, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest, but pain and the steady hands of the nursing staff kept him on the table. A needle jabbed into his arm, and he could feel the chemicals surge into his body. Almost immediately the pain eased, replaced by a sensation of warmth and peace.

  “I know it must be a shock,”Markov said. He sounded truly sympathetic.“There were some necessary adjustments that needed to be made during the operation. The nanomachines needed to...restructure things so that you would be a more durable host. The process was intense and painful. We had most of you in medically-induced comas for the duration. The others came to after 72 hours.”

  Josh fought through a wave of fatigue, his words slurring together.“What did you do to me?”

  “Nothing,”Markov said, though he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.“We injected th
e nanomachines. They reacted differently than we had expected, attacking your bone structure and white blood cells. It was amazing to watch.”A nurse glared at the doctor.“What I mean is, we allowed the machines to make small but significant changes to your anatomy. Your bones were covered in a diamond whisker formation using the carbon from your own body. We pumped in nutrients as fast as they were used.

  “Also your organic tissue was covered in a webbing, some sort of bio-mechanical membrane the robots designed. We were as surprised as anyone by the development, but it seems designed to protect your organs from traumatic rupture. That, combined with a similar process done to your dermal layer, will make you sufficiently harder to kill.”He touched Josh’s arm with a gloved hand, causing the soldier to wince.“It feels normal, Lieutenant. Like regular skin.”

  “Why do my eyes hurt so much?”

  Markov motioned for a nurse to dim the lights more.“Your retinas and lenses were shaved and altered. Your vision should be remarkably improved, though we won’t know to what extent until the tests are finished.”

  Josh found it harder to stay awake. He drifted, feeling the sedatives pull him down into the soft bed.“What do I do now?”

  “Rest,”Markov said.“It will be a few days before you’re up on your feet. After that, we’ll start training you to walk again.”

  “And after that?”

  Markov pulled down his mask and grinned.“We’ll see if you can fly.”

  - VII -

  The Marvos Void lived up to its name. It lacked a functioning star, so it couldn’t be considered a true system. It had no major heavenly bodies, and the largest object inside its radius barely crossed the threshold into being a real asteroid. With only a vast, dark nebulae and an endless ion storm coursing through the gravitational well, the Void was the perfect hiding place for those who did not wish to be found. For almost a thousand years, since the first sentient creature discovered the disparate zone, Marvos was just the spawning grounds of the Celestial Whales. Now, in what was known to the Nangolani as the Great Dying Age, the hidden passage was their only refuge.

  Sitting at his terminal, Domin Hanweh Shodon read the report. Pain gripped his chest as each word echoed in his mind. He didn’t want to believe it could be true. With each sentence, he begged for another solution to present itself. Some other reality in which he could exist. His strong hands nearly shattered the information block before he finally set it on his desk. Rising to his full height, he crossed his large room.

  Commanding the capital cruiser Barennon had its perks. He was afforded a luxurious suite, attentive aides, and a handsome compensation. None of that mattered, however, when your entire species existed on a few hundred flying cities. Their economy was a sad joke, crippled by inflation and a thriving black market. Most of the refugee fleet was in horrific disrepair, with vessels towing derelicts in long chains at the back of the pack. These broken civilian vessels had become floating homes for the lucky few to have survived the invasion.

  It had been a short fight, when the Boxti had darkened the skies over Nangol. But even before then it could not have been said that the Nangolani were at peace. A trade dispute between two different planets had caused a small skirmish to break out between private security firms. Growing unrest between the Nangol Embassy and the visiting Furlish species had led to a stalemate in a week-long negotiation. A new religious movement had begun to eat away at the followers of the Ambra Dowan, which in turn meant increasing pressure on the Imperial Court to impose restrictions on the spread of the breakaway cult. Had the invasion been postponed only a few more years, the Nangolani may have completed the Boxti’s work themselves.

  Nangoli lifespans were almost four times that of humans, so Hanweh and most members of the armada remembered the arrival of the alien race. It had not seemed to be a day out of the ordinary. Nangol sat in the center of a highly populated sector of the Milky Way, and the arrival of foreign dignitaries was only regarded with mild interest by the peaceful people of the emerald planet. Anduin na’Lanus had been a Baron of the Flight Line, overseer for the entire Nangolani fleet. He served as a trusted advisor to the then-Emperor Kor Branan. For almost three hundred years, Branan had struggled to unite the Nangolani after a vicious war against the Cthanul. The sudden cessation of hostilities had been treated as fortune and never truly investigated. Such an oversight was just one of the many that ended in the destruction of their home planet.

  Within moments of arrival, the Boxti began a massive deployment of forces. Cities were bombed into submission, some destroyed outright as object lessons for the survivors. Ground troops—shock soldiers from the conquered species, and mostly thralls at that—stormed the capitals of the ten continents and executed all leadership. It took four weeks, but the entirety of Nangol succumbed to the relentless onslaught. With the Boxti boot firmly placed on their throats, the gray men and women had no choice but surrender.

  But Anduin rose to the occasion. With Branan’s head on a spike and most of the ruling class either underground or interred, the Baron gathered a small group of dedicated soldiers and took the fight to the Boxti. Using guerrilla tactics, Anduin and his followers destroyed key Boxti fortresses and bought valuable time for a daring escape. Thousands of ships snuck out during the conflict, saving millions of lives and building an army hell bent on vengeance. The armada, sufficiently supplied, fled the system with the Boxti close behind. Their planet was lost, but they might stand a chance at taking it back with the help of the other allied species. When the Nangolani reached their neighbors, however, they found the burning embers of civilizations in place of friends.

  Hanweh had been a young Maminoduring the evacuation; just a fighter pilot trying to protect escaping ships. The gravity of the situation hadn’t dawned on him until the refugee fleet left JohGal thousands of lightyears behind. Now, standing in his room, he thought back to the night the Baron had become an Emperor. The elder Nangol touched his right to his throat, remembering the oath he’d sworn so long ago. As the memories flooded in, his hand began to shake. Hanweh realized that, in the course of their retreat, his leader had changed.

  Years on the run had made Anduin cold and calculating. Only a year into the pursuit, the Emperor began making dire sacrifices in the name of preserving the whole. If a ship failed to join the armada before the scheduled time of a jump, it was left behind for the Boxti. Worse still, they found no help on their journey. Only the burning wreckages of civilizations long destroyed. Each planet they encountered, each smoldering system, dashed their hopes further and further. And so, with the eyes of his people upon him, Anduin thought of a way to save the Nangolani. No matter the cost.

  Looking at the report from the Historian, the Emperor had found a way.

  - VIII -

  Ray couldn’t help but stare. After all, sitting next to him at the console was a real live alien. It was one thing to see them on TV, but up close they were something else entirely. He knew it was a girl, even without being told. The long black hair clued him in, as did the feminine curve to her body. It was a curiosity, the similarities she bore with a human. He’d seen the X-rays done after first contact; they’d been posted live on the Net. Their skeletal structure was nearly identical. Sitting this close, Ray could make out the lithe swell of her hips and the slightly larger mounds on her chest. The anatomical similarities baffled the science team. Even her face was almost a normal size, compared at least to her male counterparts. Ray had, of course, received a firm and blunt briefing on how to conduct himself during the course of his work with the Nangolani. He’d found it funny when the officer in charge had mentioned the strict fraternization policy. Now, seated only feet away from another species, he was somewhat put off by the thoughts that danced in his head.

  The appointment had been unexpected, to say the least. After all, it had been the OCM, not Ray, that had identified the threat over Luna and alerted the fleet. TSI had been grateful nonetheless and promoted Ray to full Associate. Now he helped research the Boxti threa
t, starting by going through the hours of video taken during the initial assault at the moon, multiplied by hundreds of different ships and cameras. Several Nangolani scientists had been attached to the team to aid in the investigation. After much cajoling, the human administration had lent the senior alien liaison, Mara, to the group.

  She’d been welcomed in immediately. Unlike the other Nangolani, Mara enjoyed the attention she received from the scientists and researchers. She fielded questions with ease, asking more than a few of her own in return. After a few days, she’d adopted human clothing—carefully tailored—so as to better fit in with the rest of the associates. The alien scientist went out of her way to blend, and succeeded at each turn. Most importantly, her grasp of English was second-to-none. Many of the aliens relied on her for translation, and no one from TSI had mastered any of the forty-one Nangoli dialects.

  Mara also enjoyed the security. As of late, being a Nangolani in public was asking for trouble. More and more demonstrations against“the Grays”cropped up every day. Dozens of her brethren had been beaten or killed out of baseless hatred. And that monster the news called Hans Von Braun held public and violent executions in South America daily. At least in Europe, more specifically in England, xenophobia was at a minimum.

  Ray leaned on his hand, watching the screen. It was already into the fourth hour of his shift, and his eyes were dry and bloodshot. It reminded him of orientation with TSI, when he’d watched almost ten hours of training videos before ever getting a chance to enter the lab. Granted he’d been allowed to drink himself stupid after each session, a luxury not afforded in the dry government facility. This particular image came from one of the gun cameras mounted on the Valley Forge. The long range optic had an unobstructed view of the battlefield, and the footage was remarkable. Already Ray and his team had begun to deconstruct the tactics of the alien Navy.

  Or at least, they had been. When they’d added the reels taken from the battle over Tallus, several glaring inconsistencies arose. First and foremost, the alien shields were not present once during the initial contact. Their tactics were almost completely different in the two engagements. At Luna, there had been a swarm mentality, with the ships focusing in one direction at a time. At Tallus, squadrons took up sectors of fire and obliterated with extreme prejudice. The weapon systems used in each battle seemed vastly different in strength.