Cain's Crusaders

by T. R. Harris

  When he stood and rounded the side of the truck, Arieel came running up to meet him. They both then turned their heads to the towering form of the spacecraft soaring over them, and through the forward viewport, could see a whole crowd of scared Armplanese looking down at them. Their mouths were all moving rapidly, yet no sound could be heard through the thick shield of the viewport glass.

  Adam and Arieel looked up at them with expressions of annoyance. It would be simpler if they would just surrender. Sure, they’d still die, but it would save Adam and Arieel the trouble of trying to flush them all out.

  Adam looked down at Arieel. “Any suggestions?”

  “I could turn off the air supply, but that would take too much time for them to die.” And then her eyes lit up. “Or I could leak chlorine gas into the air system.” Her gaze went blank as she stared off into the distance. “Yes, there is a series of bypasses I can reroute the gas through.”

  “Can you flush it out then before we go aboard?”

  “Very easily, especially with the vessel still on the surface of the planet.”

  Adam was amazed at the cavalier attitude the tiny alien took to mass killing. Despite all their apparent differences, maybe Humans and Formilians were both cut from the same cloth?

  Ten minutes later the deed was done. Arieel opened every hatch and vent she could find and forced a new supply of fresh air to circulate throughout the starship. Another ten minutes passed before they felt confident enough to enter.

  Even with the new air the smell was almost unbearable. Like nearly all creatures, most of the Armplanese had defecated when they died. Their deaths were still too recent for the scent of dead bodies to spread throughout the ship, but the smell of alien shit was disgusting enough.

  It took Adam another thirty minutes to round up all the twenty dead bodies and store them in a section of the ship’s landing bay. He didn’t want to leave any of them lying around outside, that would have immediately alerted others to the fact that the Armplanese security ship had been taken. Once they reached space, Adam would dump the bodies … an event made even more urgent by the overpowering stench permeating the vessel.

  They lifted off on chemical drive, but within thirty seconds, Adam engaged a shallow gravity well while still within the atmosphere. The hull heated up quickly, yet no damage was caused before reaching the coldness of space.

  Adam set them on a course toward Formil, yet not directly at it. With all the willy-nilly movement of ships between here and Formil, a vessel on a straight-line course for the planet might stand out. He would steer slightly to the right of the system, toward another system not too far away, and then change course once they got closer. If they could maintain their anonymity for even a couple of days, then they just might be able to slip through.

  There biggest problem came with just the time required for a ship of this classification to transit the distance. No matter what Adam and Arieel could do, they couldn’t change the laws of physics. Without any more diversions, they would arrive at Formil with only three hours to spare.

  Chapter 15

  “I hate this fucking planet!” Furkril heard one of the Humans say. A pair of the near-hairless creatures was standing around the corner from him, looking out at his family’s Number 39 Dung-Pit, a vast expanse of bubbling black and green goo that was just on the verge of cultivation. Furkril was sure the Humans had some rules against expressing themselves in such a manner while on another world, but he was sure they didn’t even know he was there.

  Even so, overhearing the undisguised feelings by the alien did help to fortify what the other alien had been telling him for some time: The Humans hate the Jusepi tribe and will massacre them at the first moment they feel justified.

  These particular Humans were part of a settlement delegation that had come to meet with Furkril to discuss a land-use proposal. His series of dung-pits were the largest in this hemisphere and of extreme value to the Jusepi. Yet even with their round spaceships, capable of transiting the entire planet in a matter of minutes, these aliens still felt the need to infringe on his land and his livelihood.

  Furkril flicked his ears in a sign of pleasure. He would make them wait a little longer. He was fully aware that the Humans found the fragrance of the pit to be offensive – another odd thing about these creatures. So he would let them stand outside, enveloped in the strong, sweet scent of the massive pit, just to cause them a few more moments of discomfort.

  Just then it occurred to him that these foreign creatures probably would not like the taste of his people’s most-prized delicacy, either. His ears pressed back against the sides of his head, an anger building up inside.

  How have these things come to attain such technology and such power, he asked himself silently, when they cannot even appreciate the finer things life has to offer? If the events do come to past, then they will deserve all they receive.

  When he could delay no longer, Furkril came around the corner, making his presence known.

  Both Humans turned towards him and began the curious dance with their mouths that he had seen them do on almost every prior occasion. At first they would stretch out their mouths, exposing their smallish, dull-ended teeth. But then they would immediately pull in with their lips and cover their teeth again, as if they were ashamed of them. The initial reaction seemed to be the most-genuine, with the re-covering of their teeth the thing that caused them concern. Furkril was at a loss as to the meaning of the expression.

  If Furkril believed the Jusepi and Human races had a future together, he would have paid more attention or tried to understand their habits a little better. Yet by all indications, such endeavors would not be necessary.

  Furkril was part of a major underground movement working closely with the other aliens to bring about the removal of the Humans from his home planet of Duelux, as well as from the entire region between here and the Outer Nebulae. The task wouldn’t be easy, and certainly not possible simply by the Jusepi alone. Yet the silver creatures had already provided his people with many ships and weapons, all effectively now hidden away and waiting for the time of revolt.

  If the Humans only knew that the giant metal hangars housing these new weapons of war were sunk far into the depths of his own dung-pits, he would have received immense joy simply from the observation of their expressions. It would be priceless to behold.

  “Merchant Furkril, was the time of the meeting misunderstood? I thought it was to be surument-nine … I mean earlier?”

  Even with the translators the Humans had brought, Furkril was amazed how often the Humans could butcher his beautiful language. Time on his planet was measured in sirumons, not suruments, whatever that was? It was just one more of the mounting frustrations he had with the Human invaders.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Gordon, but my duties are great and my attention important. We can begin the discussion now,” Furkril said, his ears flicking in staged-enjoyment at his interaction with the scrawny aliens.

  “Very good, but can we please go inside?” the Human asked, while looking back out at the gigantic dung-pit, stretching all the way to the horizon and beyond. “It’s a little too warm for us out here. I hope you understand.”

  “More than you realize, Mr. Gordon,” said Furkril, his ears now moving back somewhat and beginning to undulate. “Follow me.”

  I will tolerate these creatures only so much longer, Furkril declared to himself. These other aliens – these beings called the Klin – appear to stepping up their arming of the Jusepi. They say they know the intentions of the Humans. I truly hope so, and that their increased activity is because the time is drawing near for revolt.

  For Furkril, revolt could not come soon enough.

  Langril Nomar Polimic was embarrassed, and as such, it also made him angry. He looked at the emotionless expression of Pleabaen Velsum on the CW screen before him and cursed the silent thoughts he knew the Klin was thinking.

  They had failed to kill Nigel McCarthy, and not only that, but the small Kracori
fleet of eight ships had been utterly destroyed. Now McCarthy would seek revenge for the attempt on his life. Now he would surely reveal the location of Elision to the Humans and the rest of the galaxy.

  “Have you any indication that the Humans know, Velsum?” Polimic asked. The Klin still had spies on the Human homeworld of Earth. They would know the moment anything was learned.

  “Nothing yet,” the Klin leader replied, “which is strange. We do know that Nigel McCarthy survived unscathed and has only now departed Uniss-3. We have no information regarding his destination.”

  “We must try again, while also accelerating your timetable with the Jusepi. We have begun to move a small advance force into the region of the Arm outside the Human system, but we cannot risk going further. As you have indicated, the Humans are quite well-established now in their own neighborhood. Detection would be catastrophic and alert the Humans as to our intentions.”

  “I understand the seriousness of the situation, Langril Polimic, but you have to realize the Jusepi have had little time to prepare for a war with the Humans. It would not serve our combined purpose if the war turned out to be a mere skirmish for the Human beasts.”

  Polimic knew the Pleabaen was correct. Even though the Jusepi represented the only viable counterforce to the Humans in the Far Arm, they had only recently been introduced to the galaxy at large.

  Technologically, the Jusepi had actually been ahead of the Humans for most of their history. Approximately seventy years ago, they had discovered the secret of the gravity drive, even though on a more primitive scale than the Expansion. As a result, their starships ended up being gigantic vessels many miles long, necessary to accommodate the massive generators required to create even modest singularities. Within these behemoth interstellar transport stations, the Jusepi had placed dozens of smaller, traditionally-powered shuttles. The Jusepi had expanded out to the nearby star systems using these gigantic transports, but once within a system, the colonists would shuttle to the various new worlds by chemical drives.

  Even now, the Jusepi did not possess very many interstellar warcraft capable of military maneuvers, at least none of their own manufacture. Over the past five years, they had managed to secure nearly one hundred aging warships from the Humans and others on the fringe of the Expansion, even if they were of inferior design. If left to their own means, the Humans would make short work of the Jusepi in an actual conflict.

  The Humans had discovered the planet Duelux five years earlier by following the colonization routes to the Jusepi’s homeworld. Showing little regard for the cultural and social impact of their arrival, the Humans had simply landed on the planet and announced their existence. The tribes recoiled slightly from the tiny creatures, even though the Jusepi themselves had already colonized eight other worlds and were therefore very familiar with the concept of alien life.

  Of these colony worlds, only three had intelligent life, yet none that would qualify as advanced. Two of these races now served as very efficient laborers in the Jusepi mines on their homeworlds. The third was reserved as food, with the rarity of such commanding very high prices in the restaurants and dwellings frequented and owned by the wealthiest of the Jusepi tribes.

  In their fervent rush to establish their own Expansion within the Far Arm, the Humans considered little about the civilizations they contacted. Polimic had learned that a number of their new colonies had consisted of basic stone-age cultures that were suddenly thrust into a modern, spacefaring community, ill-prepared for what they found.

  Once discovered, the Humans were relentless in their exploitation of these more-primitive cultures. The demand for colonies and for commerce was so great on the Earth that entire worlds were converted to gigantic resource centers, stripped of precious minerals, lumber and even physical labor. Although the Humans refused to use the term, the wages paid, and the conditions under which the natives toiled, would hardly rise above the level of ‘slave.’ Granted, each individual being was free to come and go as they pleased, but the dramatic changes in their societies had forced many to follow precisely all Human dictates.

  Yes, the Human Empire was growing, and so far no race that had been contacted could withstand their expansion – at least none on their own.

  The Klin had been studying the Jusepi since before the Humans had been selected as their surrogates for the coming Juirean war. They were large beings, coming from a world with gravity only about ten-percent less than Earth’s. They were covered in soft fur and walked upright, even though they still maintained a longish tail for balance, as well as essentially a third arm. The Jusepi were also coordinated and quick-reflexed, adept at the use of weapons and physical combat.

  Although not a true match to the fighting skills or strength of the much-shorter Humans, the Jusepi did rate as a Prime-D on the Klin scale, along with the Humans and Kracori. With just a little help, they would provide the Kracori with just the distraction they needed against the Humans.

  What happened to the Jusepi after that was none of their concern.

  “Langril Polimic,” Velsum was saying, “we have been developing an event that should help prompt the Jusepi masses to rise up against the Humans. It will be spectacular and tragic event that should cause the death of thousands of tribe members. The Humans will claim innocence, yet the evidence will be overwhelming.

  “Once the uprising begins, we’ve made arrangements for the Jusepi to have access to over one hundred warships at the local Human military base. With some luck, they should be able to commandeer these vessels, forming the core of their rebellion fleet. When added to the older ships they have been able to acquire to date, the Jusepi should have over two hundred ships to send against the Humans.

  “On Earth, there will be a segment of the Human society who will side with the Jusepi, fully convinced that it was indeed the Humans who caused the tragedy. Again with luck, this movement will delay the Human’s response to the revolt until confusion ensues. Once the Klin-supplied ships appear within the Jusepi fleet, we want the Humans to believe they are of Jusepi origin, and not Klin. The Human fleets will be required to leave the region of Earth and proceed to Duelux. This will free up the space around the Human world for your attack.”

  “The plan sounds reasonable, Pleabaen,” Polimic stated. “But will two hundred ships be adequate to initially counter the Human response?”

  “Not in straight combat. But these ships will be used to raid Human settlements within the region, causing civilian casualties. The damage will be widespread, requiring an inordinate number of Human ships to respond.” And then the Klin actually smiled. “It will be chaotic for many months within the tiny Human Empire. If there is one thing we have recently learned regarding the Humans, it is that they will either wait too long before acting, or else they will overreact to a situation. Seldom is the Human response equal to the situation. They are extremely emotional and impulsive beings.”

  Polimic knew that the Klin classified the Humans and the Kracori as equals in ability and in traits, so what Velsum was saying about the Humans was also directed at the Kracori. But he would let this go. The Klin were very good at manipulation. Their plan with the Jusepi would take place basically as designed, with enough latitude figured in for the unexpected.

  So even if McCarthy was to reveal the location of the Kracori homeworld to the Humans, the tiny pink beings would be so involved in quelling the Jusepi uprising that they would have little time nor resources to send against Elision.

  And then the Kracori would strike, ending the Human problem once and for all. After that, all the Kracori would be concerned with would be the Klin….

  Chapter 16

  Over the next six days, Adam and his stolen ship were able to evade most of the other traffic saturating the space leading to Formil. This task became much harder the closer they got to Arieel’s homeworld, as the hunters began to congregate nearby in a last-ditch attempt to collect the bounty.

  Adam’s plan to plot a less-direct route to Formil had
paid off. They had only been challenged twice, and both times the military transponder aboard the ship gave them clearance.

  They were fortunate that the transponder code had not been reported as stolen. By this time, he was sure the theft had been discovered, but fortunately communications between the more backwards Siyvelan system and the rest of the Coalition was not that sophisticated.

  But now the situation would get dicey. Adam was now steering a direct course for Formil, requiring him to enter the mass of ships now filling the system. The Formilians would be checking all ships, looking for assassins or others with evil intent. This was their Speaker that all these beings had come hunting. They were out to kill the Supreme Celebrant of their religion, their embodiment of the living-god.

  To that end, the Formilians were taking the situation very seriously.

  In most cases, this would be welcome news for Adam and Arieel however the temptation of thirty-million credits was complicating the matter. Adam had thought about contacting Convor as they neared the planet, seeking a safe zone to bring her in, yet he decided he couldn’t trust anyone beyond the High Celebrant himself. Others may be listening.

  The bounty McCarthy was offering could also be earned not with the killing of Arieel, but simply by preventing her from reaching the Temple by the time of the Rites Ceremony. She wouldn’t even have to die for the conspirator to earn a planetary fortune. This made Adam’s task grow in difficulty the closer the time came for the ceremony, an event now only eight hours away.

  It would take all of Adam’s ingenuity, as well as Arieel powers to pull this off – even if her powers were artificially created.

  The planet Formil was now solidly in view of Adam’s stolen spaceship. The Formilians had restricted the landing of all craft for the next twelve hours without special clearance from the Order.