by Barry Kirwan
The main hazard was Qorall’s doomsday weapon, the galaxy-breaker. The Hohash stationed in the galactic core had confirmed that Qorall has passed through the centre a year earlier, and left something there. No doubt a device for triggering a super white hole, one that would feed on the boundless energy there and trigger an explosive force with so much harmful radiation it would wipe out all life before spinning depleted stars and incinerated worlds into the inter-galactic void. If it ignited, she would have to abandon the galaxy, leaving most species behind; there would be insufficient time to build new ships capable of inter-galactic travel.
The Spiders were ready, their small ships cocooned within the depths of her own. She ordered the Hohash into position. Ukrull and Jen arrived, joining the fifty other Ranger scout-ships and the remaining Tla Beth vessels. Hellera commanded the armada forward, to Hell’s End, where Qorall awaited.
Louise stayed perfectly still. One of the Q’Roth High Guard stood by her side with his mid-claw lightly closed around her throat. She avoided gulping; any sign of weakness might trigger a nervous twitch and end all her plans. The High Guard were taller than normal warrior Q’Roth, reaching four metres, and rarely left the Queen’s side. Louise had learned that there were two types of Queen; those who journeyed out into the galaxy and set up hives, and the homeworld-based High Queen, supreme leader of all Q’Roth tribes. She was the one Louise had dared ask to see. But as soon as she had landed on the northern ice cap of the Q’Roth home planet, Korakkara, her ship had been impounded. Louise had been stripped and decontaminated, and made to stand naked for two hours with her neck on the line.
Losing Savange had been a cruel blow. She could blame Micah, but Qorall had been unnecessarily brutal, and Micah had actually saved the last Alicians from oblivion. The Queen had not sent reinforcements when Micah’s ship had first attacked, nor had there been any offer of help with the Alician refugees. Louise knew how it went with the big players: no empathy, certainly no clemency; you stayed on their chessboard only as long as you were useful. After that, you were in the way, and not for long. Luckily she had sent a message prior to arrival, otherwise her ship would have been blown to pieces before it reached orbit.
She felt cold. One of her calf muscles began to tighten, as if it might cramp. She breathed deeper, willing her muscles to relax, so she could remain still – after all, the guard hadn’t moved a millimetre, and Louise was sure she was being watched for any sign of weakness, at which she might be killed; they had the tech to extract the deal offered by Qorall from her dying mind, at least they thought they did.
At last she heard a rhythmic thumping sound, compounded by a dragging, scraping noise, like a horse dragging a sack of rocks along the floor. She’d never seen the High Queen; few had. She was brown, and there was a pungent smell like rotting fruit that caught in Louise’s nostrils. But it was the Queen’s girth that surprised Louise, the swollen ribbed belly that rippled with internal movement. Not eggs, that was for sure. Louise lifted her gaze instead to the Queen’s head, an inverted triangle tapering to a sturdy neck. At the other end was a lizard tail with mace-like clumps at its end. They looked lethal, and although the Queen’s movements seemed sluggish, Louise had no doubt this five-metre Q’Roth could react with lightning speed.
The Queen took up a standing position between two metal pillars, leaning on them with her upper claws. That was when Louise noticed something else, ultra-thin folds of skin tucked away below her armoured shoulder blades, stretching down behind her belly. So, the legend was true.
“State your proposal,” the Queen said, each Q’Roth syllable razor-sharp.
The claw around Louise’s throat loosened, allowing her to speak clearly.
“Level Sixteen Nchkani tech and weaponry in exchange for tactical support in the battle to be fought at Hell’s End. After victory, the Q’Roth will be upgraded six Levels and become overlords in this galaxy.”
The Queen’s belly stirred, something writhing inside. Louise tried not to stare, and waited for the response to her proposal.
“Qorall’s recode strategy is failing. The tide will turn. The Orbs have all been destroyed by the Machines.” Her triangular head leaned forward, her six eyes flared. “He is losing.”
Louise raised her voice. “Kalaran is dead. Hellera alone cannot defeat Qorall. The Tla Beth are few, the Rangers inconsequential. The recoding was a ruse, an experiment, nothing more. When Hellera is defeated, and you have Nchkani ships, Qorall will rule this galaxy the traditional way, a strong hierarchy, with the Q’Roth keeping everyone else in their place.”
“Why us?”
“Despite considerable losses during the war, your Q’Roth warriors have time and time again proven their worth, often against Level Nine or even Level Ten species with far superior technology. Q’Roth resilience and tactical ingenuity are both legendary and feared.”
The Queen didn’t seem convinced. Louise remembered something else she had told Qorall about the Q’Roth. “You are also the species whose character is most like his own.” She could go further, that the Q’Roth and Qorall were both defined by malice, and an unquenchable thirst for aggression, in Qorall’s case forged through aeons of bitterness and a need for revenge, and for Q’Roth intentionally bred into them by the Tla Beth, and ultimately the Kalarash. What goes around, comes around.
“Tell me of the galaxy-destroyer.”
“All I can tell you is that it exists, and it is located in the galactic core. A super white hole will ignite, and will burn its way through this galaxy, devouring all star systems.”
“At the speed of light. We are very far from the core. It will not reach here for thousands of years. Why should we care now?”
Louise had asked the same question, though Qorall had inflicted severe pain in exchange for an answer. She’d barely grasped the math.
“Transpace carriers, subspace harmonics. Shockwaves, ripple effects. I already forwarded the simulation to your fleet Admiral in orbit. The galaxy will be gone in a year.” And the Alicians along with it. Qorall had to be stopped, but if no one was up to it, he had to be helped in order to avoid his terrible endgame, equivalent to tossing the entire chessboard into the fire. There was a third way, of course, but she dared not even reflect on it in front of the Queen.
Something moved violently inside the Queen’s belly, a savage kick. The Queen’s head rolled back a moment as she emitted a hissing sound, then pitched forward again. There was a splitting noise emanating from the Queen’s loins. Louise tried not to watch as something dark and gelatinous began to emerge from between the Queen’s lower legs. She was giving birth.
“Why you?”
The question took Louise aback, but she knew she had to answer immediately, even as a body slumped to the floor, twitching inside a transparent sack. She saw a mustard-coloured claw stretch the interior of the sheath and pierce it.
“I am but a messenger. I proved useful to Qorall before, and I am part-Q’Roth.” Louise left out the fact that this switching of allegiances was her idea.
The Queen paid no attention to the hatchling. Louise wondered what it was. There was something different about it. Louise felt a shiver run down her spine. Hatchlings needed to feed almost immediately. The guardian’s claw was still around her throat, and she had no weapons.
“The Nchkani fleet is destroyed,” the Queen said, a nonchalance in her tone, as if the interview was boring, irrelevant, coming to a close, and the real purpose of Louise’s presence about to be revealed. The hatchling, yellowish in colour, tried to get to its feet, and slipped in its own amniotic fluid. Its claws looked sharper than usual.
Louise watched the hatchling. It had a longer belly than a warrior, and was taller than normal, its mid-legs also longer, more spindly. With a gasp, Louise realised it was a Queen. No one – even Q’Roth she had worked with – knew where the Queens came from, the assumption being that they hatched from eggs like all other Q’Roth. The Queen who had given birth to this one must be special, and possibly v
ery, very old. The new Queen stood awkwardly on its six legs, and faced Louise. It staggered a step towards her. The mother leaned forward, eager to watch her offspring take its first feed.
“The Nchkani had a secret process they called Resurrection,” Louise said. “I can bring back the Nchkani ships, give you a fleet of them. Today. In your system.” She glanced at the new-born. “Or not.”
The claw tightened around her throat, almost choking her.
The Queen lurched forward from the pillars and landed right in front of Louise, pounding into the floor, making it shake. Her left mid-leg grabbed the hatchling at the neck, holding it in place. It acquiesced, and became docile.
“If you are lying, I will extract your mind before my new-born feeds on your carcass, and leave you in a torture loop for millennia. You will drown in your screams for eternity.”
Louise had heard of this process, reserved for traitors and those who fled from battle; one reason the Q’Roth warriors were so disciplined and ready to die rather than suffer defeat.
The claw eased off a little so Louise could speak. “I never bluff. I carry the re-genesis material on my ship, but it needs my codes, cross-correlated with sixteen random memory fragments.” You won’t get all of them by postmortem memory extraction, and you’ll have nothing. “The sixth planet in this system will serve for re-genesis purposes.”
The Queen lowered her head close to Louise’s face, her six eye-slits waxing the colour of congealed blood. Then she lifted away again, shepherding the infant Queen to Louise’s left. Louise heard the sound of feet. She tried to see, but could barely turn. Three chained, naked Alicians came into view, a male and two females. They had not been treated well. She recognised the male, Astara, the commander of the space station that had been tethered to Savange. These three must have been aboard the Q’Roth warship that escaped when Micah attacked the station. Astara’s eyes locked onto hers.
“Ustraxia,” she said. It was the name of a place from Alician history, a famous battlefield. Astara and the others stared a moment, then one by one nodded to Louise.
The Queen released her child who pounced on the trio. They did not defend themselves, nor resist, understanding Louise’s command. The young Queen fed on them one after the other, its mouth clamping onto the top of Astara’s skull first, sucking the life force out of him. The two women waited their turn. There were no screams. Louise watched till the last was taken. Her remaining human hand trembled, and Louise found she couldn’t stop it, until the last was dead. The new-born Queen tilted its head back, and Alician blood sprayed from its mouth as it roared, its bellow echoing throughout the chamber. It departed.
The Queen returned her focus to Louise. “You have twelve hours. If you attempt to jump out of system, we will track you down, as well as your Alician refugees, and feed on you all.”
“You will have your ships,” Louise said. “I will go with your fleet to Hell’s End.”
The Queen raised herself and strode out of the chamber, her belly dragging on the floor as before. The guardian released Louise.
She walked to the three corpses and stood over them. She had never been religious – Alicians weren’t, believing there was nothing afterwards – but she began to intone the Alician death ritual, then said it aloud, then louder, until it echoed around the chamber.
Aboard her vessel, she stared first at the harmless-looking doughnut-shaped object in the holding bay, the gift sent to her by Qorall himself, then at the holo of the dwarf planet below, originally an asteroid enlarged by the Q’Roth, who had used a process of accretion over decades, building a planet from a former asteroid belt; easier to mine that way. Six thousand Q’Roth, more or less, worked on this factory-planet rich in ores and complex alloys. The Queen hadn’t warned them or given them time to evacuate, knowing that the resurrection process would require organic material. Louise had scanned the entire system prior to arrival, and this one had a 97% fit for the re-genesis requirements. She touched a control and the doughnut dropped from her ship down towards the planet.
The doughnut exploded at low orbit, sending a shimmering aurora around the planet. Rain the colour of rust fell all the way to ground level, nano-harvesters that broke down everything they touched, the Q’Roth included. She’d never seen Q’Roth warriors overwhelmed before, and wondered if they screamed in bewilderment as the bio-mechanised acids dissolved their flesh. Many raced to their ships but were unable to break through the aurora locking the planet down, their frantic calls for help unanswered. There was a time when Louise might have been impressed by the Queen’s ruthlessness, her commitment to purpose, but not today.
She quit the bridge and headed to her quarters, and took a long shower to wash the three Alicians’ blood from her feet. She sat naked on the floor, cold water drizzling over her, as she pondered her next move. She thought about the place she’d mentioned to Astara and the others: Ustraxia, the battlefield five hundred years earlier on Earth where Alessia herself had been overcome. It had been a ploy to make the Sentinels complacent, and fifty years later the Alicians had risen up and gained the upper hand, crushing all but a few of the Sentinels. Louise had invoked this name to persuade Astara and the two women that this was a worthy sacrifice, that their deaths would help Louise turn things around later.
For the first time ever, Louise considered that perhaps the Q’Roth were now their enemies, too. At the least, the Queen could no longer be trusted. The Alicians had outlived their usefulness to her; she could order her soldiers to cull all humans and Alicians left alive, and in so doing clean up her chessboard. Louise had fought alongside many Q’Roth warriors over the years, and found them to be honourable warriors; she respected them. But at the end of the day they did their Queen’s bidding.
But did it matter to her? Unlike her mentor Sister Esma, Louise had never been that interested in Alician history, instead playing the renegade. But now she’d come back into the fold, and felt kinship with her fellow Alicians. With something of a shock, she realised she had found a cause other than her own survival. The image of the three Alicians being killed, their broken corpses on the floor, kept coming back to her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way… but then she could. Vince.
Louise had refused over the years to think about it, about him. They’d died together back on Esperia, courtesy of Micah. When her clone had awoken afterwards, she’d wept and raged in equal measure. She’d always seen Vince as her last chance at going back to any kind of normal existence. With him gone, she’d run around the galaxy for almost two decades, fuelled by cold anger. She closed her eyes, recalling times back on Earth – nothing remotely romantic, Vince hadn’t been the type – but still, they’d looked out for each other, and that meant… She dared to think it, to let it surface: they’d cared about each other. She drew her thighs close to her chest, rested her brow on her knees, and recalled all their missions together, one by one, it made her smile.
She sat up, her head against the wall, the cold water numbing her back, and wondered what Vince would think of her choices over the years, all the bad things she’d done, knowing what his reply would have been. He’d have looked at her with those ice blue eyes, and said, “Louise, it only matters what you do next.” She bit her lip, then whispered into the shower’s drizzle. “I miss you.” She started to shiver, and drew her arms around her shins.
Reluctantly, the other person who mattered in her life, if only as counterpoint, came into her mind. Micah. Since Vince’s death she’d wanted nothing more than to watch the light fade from Micah’s dying eyes. It was no longer important. For the first time they had a common enemy. She switched off the shower and towelled herself brusquely. Not having eaten for some time, she headed to the galley.
When she returned to the Bridge, the entire planet was coated in thick metallic mush that quivered as shapes swirled beneath the surface. Precisely two hours before the Queen’s deadline, the first ship emerged, looking like a mechanical fish rising from a swamp. At first she coul
dn’t see the trademark Nchkani spines, but as the ship climbed into orbit, slipping unhindered through the aurora, the black and white spines flexed outwards from its hull.
A Q’Roth Battlestar approached to intercept the Nchkani vessel. Louise let the vessel fire its full arsenal of weapons, none of which had any effect. She thought about instructing the commander to abandon ship, but knew it would do no good. Q’Roth tested everything through blood.
She instructed the Nchkani vessel to attack. A light-sphere riddled with electric blue arcs spat out from one of the spines and chased after the Battlestar, which tried to evade and fire at it, to no avail. The sphere engulfed the Q’Roth warship as the arcs dissected it into small chunks, as if the ship had been squeezed through a sieve. Individual Q’Roth warriors flailing in space were boiled alive inside the sphere. Eventually the sphere collapsed to a small ball, and returned to the Nchkani vessel, nourishing it.
The Nchkani had been brilliant. At Level Sixteen, they were few in number, but long ago had moved away from having dockyards to build ships, and had developed the re-genesis process, able to manufacture a fleet in a less than a day. And when they fought in battle and won, they recycled the enemy’s energy and raw materials, rather than allowing their own resources to become depleted. From a war logistics point of view, it was pure genius.
And yet they were dead, gone, after who-knew-how many million years of existence.
The Queen contacted Louise. “How many more ships will we have, and when?”
“One hundred and eighty. By tomorrow. I will transmit command codes for all the others except this one, which I will command. They each need only one commander, no other crew are necessary. We should proceed straightaway to Hell’s End. Qorall is waiting, and Hellera is on her way.”
The Queen didn’t acknowledge.
Louise watched the second ship emerge, then another. She wondered where Ash and the Alician refugees were by now, not missing the cruel irony of events, now that Alician society had suffered the same fate they had inflicted on humanity.