Well, that explains why these tangos haven’t used their super-tech to conquer the galaxy, Lisbeth realized. It might also be the reason why they were all batshit crazy.
“You cannot comprehend the true extent of our damnation,” the Scholar went on. There was real emotion in his expression and his voice. “Once, we roamed among this arm of the galaxy and ruled a vast empire. This used to be a place of repose, what you would call a vacation spot. Now it is our personal hell. We will never Transcend. Nothing we do matters. All we can do is try to stave off ennui from one day to the next, except nothing we do keeps it at bay for long. We have tried every experience imaginable from the perspective of a thousand different species. And nothing has made a difference.”
Cry me a river, Lisbeth thought. From what little she knew about the Elder Races, they didn’t hand down punishments without a good reason. Whatever the Snowflakes had done had been bad enough to justify wiping out most of them and condemning the survivors to life in prison.
The Scholar whined on: “Do you know we no longer remember what we once looked like? The one shape we forbid ourselves is our original one. ‘Regressive Morphing’ is our one sin. To ensure we would not commit it, we destroyed all visual records of who we once were. We can be anything we want, except ourselves.”
Having the alien asshole confide in her was worrisome. She suspected he’d shared his fee-fees with her was because he knew she’d never get the chance to tell anybody about them.
“But that does not matter,” the Tah-Leen said after regaining his composure. The fake smile returned to his face. “I believe you can become the solution to our dilemma. Previous human visitors turned out to be a disappointment; even warp navigators could only sense the Corpse-Ship’s essence but not access its records. My hope is that a warp fighter will do better. When the Hierophant suggested we invite a new batch of humans to participate in one of our games, I realized this was a unique opportunity. Some research led me to you. I used the Kirosha incident as a pretext to bring you here; the Hierophant loves that sort of military drama, and your name is but one of many, easily overlooked.”
Great. It’s my fault we’re here, Lisbeth thought.
“The Seeker backed me up, much to my surprise. I believe he has a scheme of his own, but that will not matter once you have the weapon at my disposal. He will be rather surprised when I have you snuff out all seventeen versions of him.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t much care. Being used as an assassin had very little appeal, especially since there was only one way to make sure the Scholar wasn’t implicated in the killings.
“I can see that you are not eager to do as I ask,” the Scholar said. “What if I told you your American delegation was brought here simply to provide us with a few days of entertainment? That none of you are meant to leave Xanadu? That the Tah-Leen do not care about the affairs of some jumped-up monkeys or their enemies? You and the Lhan Arkh are here solely to amuse us. We will play our games until every last one of you until is used up or becomes too unresponsive for our needs, and then we’ll dispose of you like so much refuse. Would that motivate you to kill a few of us?”
“Sure. Except that you’ll kill me and everyone else anyway.”
“Not necessarily. I might want to keep you around as my personal enforcer. And to ensure your cooperation, I’m prepared to allow your fellow Americans to depart in peace, at least those still alive when you learn how to use the Corpse-Ship as I see fit. If you wish to live, your only option is to rely on my mercy, for the rest of my people have none. Will you do as I say, Lisbeth Zhang?”
No choice. She nodded.
* * *
They came out of warp like a swarm of locust, sixty Corpse-Ships, their black bones gleaming in the reflected light of the system’s yellow star. Their target was the fifth planet from the sun, a green world, lush with life, surrounded by orbital installations and a large defending fleet that scrambled to meet the unexpected threat.
It wasn’t much of a battle. The Corpse-Ships were surrounded by near-impregnable auras that absorbed direct hits from main guns and swarms of missiles with minimal damage. Their return fire was devastating: the Warp Marauders’ weapons created tiny singularities that mundane shields and armor could not withstand. Direct hits turned dreadnoughts into scrap and swallowed lesser vessels entirely, sucking them into their event horizon. It didn’t take long before every ship and orbital fortress and planetary defense base was gone. A new wave of warp emergences followed and brought forth bloated mobile bases the size of small moons, carrying the workers and machines that would plunder the planet, stripping it of every useful resource.
Before the looting began, an offering was necessary, however. Half the planet’s survivors were herded into open spaces by their conquerors, a process that took months and killed a full tenth of the captives along the way. Enough survived to watch in unbearable horror as holes in the fabric of reality burst open over their heads. The chosen victims were sucked into the swirling vortices by the thousands; the roar of the warp gates was drowned out by the terrified screaming of millions of sophonts. The Warplings waiting on the other side consumed their bodies, minds and souls.
The Kraxans watched the spectacle without concern or regret. After centuries of making deals with the things that dwelt in the Starless Ways, they had lost all empathy for anyone not of their kind. Their constant exposure to those entities was changing them physically as well. Scars and tumors marred their flesh; some were growing new limbs and organs out of their torsos and heads. The unseen changes were, if anything, far worse. Dealing with demons was transforming them into creatures beyond the bounds of physical reality.
And they didn’t care.
* * *
Lisbeth tried to blink the vision away but the hideous aliens kept haunting her. The Marauders had originally been Class Two bipeds with surprisingly human-like features. By the time they’d dug up the Pathfinders’ corpses and used some sort of nanotech deviltry to turn them into warp vessels, they’d become a pack of freaks, each sporting a different set of deformities. Their looks matched their minds; just about every positive emotion and impulse had been leeched out of them Towards the end, they had hated themselves almost as much as they hated everyone else.
She had to take a break.
With a grunt of effort, Lisbeth pulled herself from the pilot’s chair. It was shaped like a motorcycle’s seat, meant to be used while reclining forward. It wasn’t very uncomfortable by itself, but staying in one position for what felt like days had left her feeling stiff and sore. The physical discomfort was nothing compared to the sheer torture involved in accessing the undead ship’s telepathic user interface. The system didn’t use grav-waves; it worked just like warp-induced visions. None of the VR baffles in her imp had done a thing to protect her from experiencing what the Marauders had seen, done and felt. Every time she connected to the ship, she all but became one of them. It was nearly unbearable.
The only reason she hadn’t dropped dead or completely lost her mind was the steadying presence of the dead Path Master who lived on inside the Corpse-Ship. Lisbeth had learned little from the slumbering or comatose creature, but even the second-hand information she’d gleaned from its Marauder owners had been illuminating. The Pathfinders been twisted into something monstrous despite their ability to access warp space. Their ability to access the Starless Path – their name for w-space – had gone beyond anything humans or Kraxans had achieved, and they’d done so without damning themselves.
That discovery was worth all the mental torture. At first, she’d been convinced that humanity was doomed to follow in the Marauders’ footsteps. There was an alternative, however; the Pathfinders had found it. If she figured out how they’d gotten there, there was still hope for her fellow humans. All she had to do was survive and spread the word.
Lisbeth Zhang, Visionary and Missionary, she thought. If she wasn’t so tired she’d start laughing hysterically.
Lis
beth groped blindly for one of the sipping bottles the Scholar had left for her. She couldn’t look around; her eyes were still seeing images of the Marauders and their ritual sacrifices. From previous experiences, she knew it would take her anywhere from a minute to an hour to recover. After a few false tries, she found the container and greedily drank the flat-tasting water. At least the Snowflake and his robotic servants were keeping her fed, although the source of her rations had creeped her out.
The water bottles and barely-edible rations weren’t from the Brunhild; they’d been labelled as belonging to the SS Mirabella, a Columbian-flagged civilian freighter that according to her imp had gone missing some fifty years ago. By now she had a good idea of what happened to its crew. The Tah-Leen were as bad as the Marauders, and they didn’t even have the excuse of having been driven insane by warp exposure; they’d managed that entirely on their own.
Her vision eventually cleared enough to find a fifty-year-old protein chew. Time hadn’t improved its flavor one bit, but it was still edible. Just as she was done with it and thinking about having a second one, the Scholar’s face appeared in front of her. The imp projection still bore the features of the long-dead Marine pilot, but the fake smile was nowhere to be seen. The alien scowled at her.
“Malingering again, I see,” he said. “I want a progress report.”
“I have reached the ship’s memory banks,” Lisbeth said. “The Marauders didn’t use normal data storage, but you already knew that. Looks like most of their files have been damaged or lost over time, but there is still a lot left. I’m trying to sift through it, but it’s going to take a while. These guys went for full virtual reality downloads, and I haven’t been able to skim through them. And their search engine plain sucks. I’m working on it.”
“I am glad your mind can access the information,” the Tah-Leen said. “That means I’m not wasting my time with you. You need to hurry, however. A second day of games is at hand, and it is unlikely your fellow Marines will survive. After they are gone, the rest of you will be taken and used for our more theatrical productions; there is no telling how long those games will last. The Hierophant is in an evil mood, and he might terminate the chosen victims faster than is customary. If you wish to save any of them, you will have to hurry.”
“If they’re all dead or being tortured, you won’t get anything out of me,” Lisbeth warned him. “And I need proof of life. Let me make a call.”
“The Seeker will monitor any such calls. If he discovers what we are doing here, I will be ruined. Perhaps even killed.”
“I won’t mention you. Does this Seeker guy even know you picked me up?”
“No. I took great pains in concealing my identity. And I made sure a few of my peers also collected their own prizes. And I assure you, every other human they chose would envy your fate, were they in any condition to do so.”
“They’re dead, you mean. You’ve been killing people all along.”
“A few of them are, yes. The others wish they were Many of the Unique Individuals that make up the Special Community have lost any traces of self-control, I’m afraid. We’re all so dreadfully bored, you see. Not to mention we are philosophically reluctant to restrain our impulses. To deny any of our needs and desires is to deny ourselves.”
Lisbeth didn’t know what to say to that.
“So go ahead, Lisbeth Zhang. Make your call, but I will be listening in, At the first hint of betrayal, I will make sure that whoever you contacted doesn’t live to tell any tales.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
A moment later, her imp’s communications’ system was restored. She called Heather.
“Are you okay, Major?” the spy said as soon as they made visual contact.
“Could be better. Just checking on things.”
“We have five dead marines, and a dozen missing civilians, including one confirmed fatality. We are prisoners of the Tah-Leen.”
‘Gotcha.” Among other things, being designated a prisoner meant her primary duty was to escape. “Anything we can do?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m glad you are okay. Take care, Heather.”
“You too.”
The call ended, and her imp was blocked once again.
“I hope that satisfies you,” the Scholar told her. “I expect you to resume your work as soon as possible.”
“If you let me have three hours of sleep, I’ll be in better shape to get things done.”
“You may have two.”
She shrugged. “As you wish.”
Lisbeth made herself comfortable in the narrow confines where she’d been trapped for two days. She dreaded the idea of crawling back into the memories of the Marauders and their Pathfinder slave. But hopefully her call to Heather would…
“Lisbeth?”
The mental voice was Heather’s, but the connection wasn’t coming from her imp. The spy was using her new gadget to reach her via t-waves.
“I’m here.”
“Hold one.”
Lisbeth’s perspective shifted. The Corpse-Ship’s cockpit was gone, and she was sitting in a plush armchair in a cozy living room, sipping tea while Heather did the same from across a coffee table. She could smell the tea, feel the cushioned surface under her butt, and breathe air that wasn’t canned and flat like what she’d been inhaling inside the Tah-Leen station. Lisbeth took a sip of the tea. It was hot, almost hot enough to burn her lips and tongue, but the taste was almost orgasmic after days subsisting on boiled water and emergency rations well past their expiration date.
“You’ve got the whole visualization deal down,” she said. “This is way better than my mental sanctuary. Guess you took my lessons and ran with them.” She sipped the tea again. “This is better than the best VR simulation I’ve been in. They never get the tastes and smells right.”
“Probably a good thing, or people would starve to death playing Advanced Second Life,” Heather said. “But let’s get down to business. I don’t know how long I can keep this up. So brief me on what’s been happening on your end, and I’ll do the same.”
Lisbeth did, leaving out how nasty the experience had been for her. No time for feelz.
“I haven’t found what the Scholar is looking for yet, but it won’t be long, now that I’ve figured out how to search the Marauders’ records. I lied to him about that, by the way, just to buy more time. Whatever it is he wants, it can be used to kill Tah-Leen.”
“Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting,” Heather said. “But it gives us a real chance to get out of this mess alive.”
“Are you sure they can’t listen in on this?” Lisbeth asked when Heather was done with her own briefing. “If either the Seeker or the Scholar finds out about our conversation, we’re all dead. Or any other Snowflake for that matter.”
“They can’t. This tachyon-messaging system actually opens a microscopic warp link between people. Only someone like a warp navigator or fighter pilot would be able to even sense its existence, let alone receive a call.”
“Good. Did you know the Tah-Leen aren’t warp-rated at all?”
“All of them?” Heather asked. At Lisbeth’s nod, she continued. “An important data point. Keep looking for the Scholar’s weapon. And when you find it…”
Lisbeth’s grin matched Heather’s; it was a look that would have unnerved the two Snowflakes who thought they could control them.
Ten
“No choice. Leave them, except for one squad; four ‘cats for scouting and two we’ll keep use as pack mules.”
“Leave them, sir?” First Lieutenant Verdi asked, the disbelief in his voice bordering on the insubordinate. The commander of Fourth (Mobile Infantry) Platoon clearly wasn’t happy about the idea of abandoning his Hellcats. “But…”
“No resupply, Lieutenant. Mobile Infantry Units’ power packs are supposedly good for thirty-six hours of operations. The reality is, they barely last twenty-four unless all they do is stand around with their shields down. We have enough
spare power packs to keep them going for more than another day at best, but those packs could also keep our area field generators going a lot longer. We are on hour eighteen of this operation, with no end in sight. Even worse, the MIUs are ammo hogs. We only brought one actual combat load, which will last for one fight at best. Better to have four to six ‘cats able to fight than sixteen going bingo power at the worst possible moment.”
“There goes my command,” Verdi said bitterly. “I’ll be running a short squad of ‘cats and a squad of light infantry.”
Fromm didn’t dignify that with an answer.
“Take the best of the bunch, remove anything remotely useful from the discards, and redistribute it among the infantry,” he ordered instead, then decided he might as well clarify the situation. “The MIUs are great when working with battalion-level logistics, but that doesn’t apply here. Those spare power packs will keep the rest of the company running for a while longer. That could make all the difference in the world.”
Verdi nodded. He might be just going along with his CO, but Fromm hoped he got it. Fourth Platoon’s commander wasn’t a bad officer, but he was too focused on his unit rather than on the big picture, and that didn’t bode well for his career down the line. An officer needed to keep the primary mission firmly in mind, even if it meant sacrificing the assets directly under him. And they were all going to make sacrifices
Even after overloading everyone for the initial exercise, their logistics sucked. The infantry had drained their personal power packs during the previous day’s hard marching and fighting. They had camped out for the night in full armor with most systems running, standard procedure while operating in hostile territory, which had drained even more power. Fortunately, the Tah-Leen had left them alone that night.
Advance to Contact (Warp Marine Corps Book 3) Page 18