“Exactly,” N7 said. “There is a strategic point to my words. If we succeed in breaking through the Lokhar Fifth Legion and dismantling the asteroid maze, we can remove the Altair Object.”
“Remove it to where?” Naga Gobo asked.
“I do not know,” N7 said. “Only Claath knows.”
“The Jelk will cheat us!” Naga Gobo shouted.
The others in the chamber muttered angrily, shifting about.
“No,” N7 said. “Shah Claath will pay you in iridium as bargained.”
Naga Gobo shook his head. “Why will he bother to pay us once he has the object in his sole possession?”
“Shah Claath ordered to me to tell you of a powerful reason why you can know he will pay,” N7 said. “If he fails to pay, you could always gain revenge on him by telling the members of the Jade League who took the object.”
“And thereby implicate ourselves,” Naga Gobo said. “No, no, if we did such a thing, the Starkiens would have to leave the quadrant and enter the Beyond.”
“There is no doubt that the consequences of your words would be dire for all,” N7 said. “Even so, you possess this knowledge as a bargaining tool. Shah Claath realizes this. He will pay as agreed.”
“The risks…” Naga Gobo said.
“I am to instruct you—”
“Instruct us?” Naga Gobo asked loudly. “An N-series mining android wishes to instruct me, the leader of the fleet? This is infamy!”
The other Starkiens hooted in outrage as they pounded the table with their fists. I felt as if I’d entered the African wilds of some Tarzan novel where great apes had gained higher intelligence and technology. To say the least, it was disconcerting.
N7 stood. I stood up behind him, ready to reach into my spacesuit and pull out the Bowie knife.
At our standing, the table-pounding stopped. The Starkiens took out their squat gun-tubes and pointed them at N7 and me.
“There must be a defect in my processing centers,” N7 said. “I spoke incorrectly. I meant to say inform you instead of saying the other, ill-chosen word.”
Naga Gobo wrinkled his snout, and slowly began to nod. “I accept your explanation. It is forgotten. Please, sit down, you and your beast.”
N7 sat and I did likewise.
Sullenly, the Starkiens holstered their weapons, a few muttering about us.
“Good,” Naga Gobo said. “Now what is it that Shah Claath wishes passed on to us?”
“Taking the Forerunner object and making it disappear will weaken the Lokhar position in the Jade League,” N7 said. “The Lokhar Fifth Legion will be destroyed or at least disgraced. The primary doctrine will suffer a critical blow and Lokhar theology will also suffer. The Forerunner theft might be enough to shatter the league into its component parts. Would that not benefit the Starkiens?”
“Indeed,” Naga Gobo said in an oily voice, as he brushed his mane like a vain model, although using his fingers. “Shah Claath’s guile runs deep. I am impressed.” He glanced at me. “And I begin to perceive why he uses untested beasts to make the main assault on the object.”
I was beginning to perceive too. If the members of the Jade League arrived later to find the Forerunner object missing and floating, dead Earthlings in its place…what would they do to the last humans? Would the Lokhars return to Earth in a religious fury to exterminate us in jihad? And was Naga Gobo even partly right in thinking Claath might have engineered the Lokhar attack upon Earth? In any case we would be the fall guys.
For the umpteenth time, it hit home how little I knew of the wider interstellar civilization. I’d thought we’d been a cipher in a slave-hunting scheme to make more profits for the Jelk. Now it sounded like something more ominous was going on. What was the Jade League? What were Forerunner objects anyway? What did that have to do with the Creator? And by Creator, did the aliens mean God, or their idea of one?
It was strange to think of aliens as religious and having religious wars, jihads or crusades. I’d always believed that uniquely human.
I looked at the holo image again. The Lokhar Fifth Legion apparently lived on the small asteroids and debris circling the silver-gleaming torus. How big was that thing?
“I know you Starkiens hate hearing my voice,” I said. “But what kind of spacecraft guards the Altair object?”
Naga Gobo stared at N7. “You possess a clever beast. It asks wise questions.”
“Yes,” N7 said.
“Perhaps you should leave it here for us,” Naga Gobo said.
My blood ran cold. Is this why Claath had wanted me to come? Yet something troubled me. I’d come to listen and learn. So why was Naga Gobo upset if I understood? Why had I been included otherwise?
“This creature is the killer among killers,” N7 was saying. “The Earthbeasts hate the Lokhars. Once their champion tells the others how the Fifth Legion guards the artifact, the others will war with even bitterer ferocity.”
“It spoke of space battle,” Naga Gobo said. “Does it realize—?”
“May I add a word of caution?” N7 asked quickly.
Naga Gobo seemed to consider this. “Yes, please do.”
“It is best not to speak of space battle in the Earthbeast’s presence,” N7 said, “but only how we will deploy against the final barrier.”
“You will lead the assault-troopers?” Naga Gobo asked.
“I will direct them, yes,” N7 said.
I studied the back of the android’s head. This didn’t seem like the same model as the one who had spoken about me to Claath yesterday. Had N7 already received some of those modifications he’d been wanting?
I dropped that line of thinking as Naga Gobo adjusted the holo image yet again.
I began to gain an understanding of what we would be doing, Rollo, Dmitri, Ella, I and the others. This was a mass assault, and we would have to work through the maze of shifting, orbiting rock and blocs of sand circling the artifact, all while facing emplaced strongpoints and an entire legion of Lokhar space soldiers.
This was going to be a bloody fight over a holy object to the religious soldiers guarding it. That didn’t sound easy, or good for us.
I listened as Naga Gobo went over his strategy and tactics for deploying and giving us enough firepower to take out the Lokhar Fifth Legion. Suddenly, twenty-three thousand Earthers didn’t seem like enough.
How long were we supposed to survive out in space? Beasts; they thought of us as fighting beasts. Did one care how many running dogs it would take to clear a minefield? Some generals would gladly pay the butcher’s bill with other men’s lives. But what if the general was an alien who used animals to do the fighting? Our wellbeing wouldn’t matter to him.
I studied the holo image. There had to be a better way than how Naga Gobo was planning to do this. I wish I’d brought a pencil and paper to take notes. Even better, I’d liked to have a recorder and to take pictures of the holo image and the torus-shaped object.
I concentrated, willing myself to remember as much as I could. We Earthers would have to have our own strategy session. For a while now, I’d begun to believe I was getting things under control. I was wrong, possibly dead wrong, and I couldn’t back out now or Claath would lift the freighters off Earth and empty the living cargos into space.
This was bad, really bad.
-14-
Fortunately, N7 took me with him when he left the Starkien ship. We returned to the Jelk battlejumper and I hurried into the mercenary area of the vessel.
“This is what it looks like,” I said. With a pencil and paper I sketched the Forerunner artifact for the others.
Rollo, Dmitri and Ella sat around a cafeteria table with me. We ate broccoli, beans and beef. The others leaned over their plates to stare at the drawing. I’d been telling them about the Starkien meeting. After penciling the donut-shaped artifact, I began tapping the paper, putting dots around it.
“Those are the shielding asteroids?” Rollo asked.
“Asteroids and clouds of sand,” I sai
d.
Rollo shook his head to indicate he didn’t understand. I’d seen similar shakes for many years. It was more a quick twitch of the head, almost like a tic, with his lips pressed together firmly.
“The Starkien leader—Naga Gobo—said each asteroid and sand cluster circles or fully orbits the object every fifteen minutes,” I said. “The continuous maze helps to keep unwarranted vessels from getting too near the artifact.”
“The asteroids and sand clouds are going to make it hard to get to the torus,” Rollo said.
“That’s right,” I said. “I was told—or N7 was told—that the Lokhar pilot single ships through the maze. There’s a coded passageway through this mess, a strict procedure to follow. Supposedly, the Lokhar Fifth Legion pilots are the only ones who can penetrate the orbital maze, taking someone to the inner space around the artifact.”
“Why would anyone go to such trouble to do all this?” Ella Timoshenko asked. “What does the object do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I do know it has religious significance.”
Ella, who studied my drawing, looked up sharply at me. She had changed like the rest of us—bulked up muscles and neuro-fibers—but she still had pretty features.
“You’ve heard that the aliens call it a Forerunner artifact?” I asked.
All three of them nodded.
“Well,” I said, “they believe the First Ones built it.”
“That’s sounds intriguing,” Ella said. “Who are the First Ones?”
“I’m going to assume the names have a meaning,” I said. “First Ones sound like the first ones in space.”
“Reasonable,” Ella said.
“Forerunner likely means—”
“Ah, yes, yes, of course,” Ella said, interrupting me. The scientist loved these kinds of puzzles. “Forerunner likely means the object or artifact is a precursor to those presently in control of the space lanes.”
“And you say the aliens worship those things?” Rollo asked.
“I’m not clear on that,” I said. “The Starkiens didn’t let me ask too many questions. Like I told you before, when they call us beasts they mean exactly that. Would you explain something complicated to a dog?”
“Not unless the dog’s name was Lassie or Rin Tin Tin,” Rollo said.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’m thinking the object or artifact is more like the bones of a saint to a Catholic. But even that isn’t exactly right. The artifact isn’t living, or at least to the best of my knowledge it isn’t alive. Apparently, the Lokhars and other Jade League members venerate it like a relic because in some manner that I don’t understand yet, it represents the Creator to them.”
“Creator?” Ella asked. “Do you mean as in God or Allah?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Preposterous!” Ella said indignantly. “These are intelligent beings with the science of star travel. They cannot possibly believe in God.”
I wondered how highly Ella would think of the Starkiens if she’d smelled them. I didn’t ask, but I said, “I believe God exists and I’m intelligent.”
Ella gave me a quizzical glance. “You are serious? You believe in the old fables, in Bronze Age myths?”
“Of course he does,” Dmitri said. “And they’re not myths.”
Ella gave the Cossack a glance. It told me they’d had this discussion before.
I decided not to debate my beliefs with her right there. We had more pressing matters to thrash through.
With my pencil, I indicated the paper. “This is deadly serious stuff. The Lokhars, maybe every member of the Jade League, thinks of the Altair system as holy ground. I’m guessing that the closer one gets to the Forerunner artifact, the holier the space becomes. The Lokhar Fifth Legion took a religious oath to defend the object as if it was their home planet.”
Rollo grinned savagely. “You’re saying that if we can take this object from them, that they’ll feel it deep in their guts?”
“No,” I said. “If we take it, they won’t feel a thing.”
“But you just told us—” Rollo said.
“They won’t feel anything because for us to take it from them they’re all going to have to be dead,” I said.
“Oh,” Rollo said.
“Yes!” Dmitri said. “Good. We kill them all. I agree.”
I nodded, grinning at him, and kept explaining. “From the way the Starkiens and N7 spoke about them, the Fifth Legion is an elite outfit. I’m guessing that makes them pretty tough.”
“This is absurd,” Ella said. “The aliens possess spacecraft, science far in advance of us. They cannot continue to hold to these ancient superstitions.”
“I know,” I said, speaking before Dmitri did. “I find the universe we’re in to be highly confusing, too. Absolutely smelly baboons called me a beast and religious zealots guarding holy sites in space practiced genocide against Earth. My point to telling you all this is to let you know that we’re going to be in for a stiff battle, and I don’t like the odds.”
“There’s more?” Rollo asked.
“Just what we’ve been saying to each other these past few weeks,” I said. “We lack proper battlefield organization. We’re divided into maniples, but don’t have any higher organizations so we can attack with coordination.”
“It is clear that the Jelk do not trust us,” Ella said.
“Yeah,” I said. “And that distrust is going to get us killed.”
“What do you suggest we do about it?” Rollo asked.
“I don’t know what else we can do,” I said. “I suppose just fight like hell and win. The Starkien battle-plan is simple to the point of obviousness. They’re going to mass all around the object and offload us as closely as possible to the orbiting asteroids. The androids will pilot the assault ships, taking us the final distance. N7 doesn’t plan on landing on the small orbiting objects. That means we’re going to have to use the sleds to get near enough and then to use our thruster-packs to land and take the fight to the Lokhars.”
“During all this maneuvering,” Ella said, “the Lokhar domes will undoubtedly be firing on us.”
“Yeah, undoubtedly,” I echoed.
“Our paymasters expect us to engage in hand-to-hand combat?” Rollo asked.
“Surface fighting,” I said. “The Starkiens will match their velocity to the orbiting objects. They’ll use beams and missiles to soften up the domes—”
“None of this makes sense,” Ella said. “Why not just blast the shielding asteroids and debris with massive nuclear bombs and heavy beams, clearing the way for transporters?”
“I managed to get N7 to ask the Starkiens that,” I said. “You won’t like the answer.”
“More Bronze Age nonsense?” Ella asked.
In outrage, Dmitri slapped the table.
“The Starkiens don’t want to risk damaging the artifact,” I said, shaking my head at the Cossack. “From what I can gather, the contractors are outcasts, at least to the Jade League members. I don’t know if the Starkiens buy into the Creator belief, but they don’t want the league members to hunt them down in religious fury. Therefore, they’re going to use us to take out the Lokhar Fifth Legion. In that way, the Starkiens, and the Jelk, too, I’d imagine, don’t have to worry about bombs or beams hitting and possibly marring the Forerunner artifact. I have the feeling these objects are priceless.”
“Like an ancient Ming vase?” Ella asked, leaning back in her chair as she stroked her chin.
“Sure,” I said.
“I have question,” Dmitri said.
I studied the blocky man before nodding.
“What are Lokhars like?” Dmitri asked. “I’ve been wondering about that for long time already.”
“Good question,” I said. “I tried to ask the Starkiens and N7, too, but everyone ignored me about it.”
“That does not make sense,” Dmitri said. “They should tell us. We need knowledge of the enemy so we can plan better. So we can kill all the Lokhars.”
>
I shrugged. “It might be redundant to say this, but how would you tell a pack of hunting dogs about bears? You wouldn’t.”
“We are not dogs,” Dmitri said.
“Yeah,” I said, and for a moment, my anger against the aliens smoldered.
“We are men,” Dmitri said, as he slapped his chest.
“We must adjust ourselves to the facts,” Ella said. “We must view reality as it is and plan accordingly. That is the only rational response to our situation.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say,” I told them. “You wouldn’t tell dogs how to attack bears. You’d bring the dogs to the hunt and let them loose. That’s what the aliens are doing with us.”
“Yes,” Ella said, nodding. “That is a poetical way to describe it, but accurate. These aliens believe us to be inferior to them,. Yet the more I learn of these space races, the less I like them or understand their thought processes. I find myself growing disillusioned with them.”
“I have another question,” Dmitri asked.
“Shoot,” I said.
The Cossack cocked his head, looking befuddled at me.
“That means go ahead and ask,” I said.
“Ah,” Dmitri said. “Here is question. How many Lokhars are in a legion?”
“Yeah, I’d like to know that too,” I said.
“They would not tell you that, either?” Dmitri asked.
“We’ll know tomorrow,” I said, standing, pushing the drawing toward them. “That’s the end of the briefing. You know enough now to tell others. I don’t think Claath or N7 intends to give us mercenaries a briefing. So we’re it. Copy the drawing, show as many others as you can and tell them what you know and to pass it on. I’ll do the same thing and hopefully by tomorrow everyone will have an idea of what to do.”
Ella asked a few more questions. Then we split up to go tell the others what to expect. It was precious little, but the truth was we were lucky to even know that much.
***
Tomorrow came all too soon. We ate in a packed cafeteria, heard an android give us boarding instructions over a loudspeaker and marched to our designated areas. There, we donned our bio-suits, boots and helmets. My maniple along with others hurried down a large corridor and entered a monstrous hangar bay. There must have been fifty assault ships parked here. Each could carry two hundred troopers or ten maniples altogether. Soon enough, we filed aboard assault ship six. Inside, we settled oxygen tank and thruster packs onto our backs. Only then did androids hand us our laser rifles and a sling-sack each of pulse grenades.
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