When the Queen returned her attention to the aliens sitting on low couches beneath her throne, she wasn’t surprised to find Major Arun McEwan was on his feet and facing her directly. He seemed angry.
She silently signaled for armed assistance.
“Your Majesty,” said McEwan. “I must ask for an explanation. Where are my people?”
“Precisely, Arun McEwan,” the Queen replied. “Where are your people?”
Palace guards emerged from the alcoves hidden in the walls of the audience chamber. Their guns were aimed at the humans.
“I care not whether this is happening under your direction or not,” the Queen told McEwan. “These… Wolves… as you call them, are servants of Saesh, the Great Destroyer. You have brought them to my world, and you will answer for any atrocities they commit.”
The Queen shivered as she prepared to issue a kill order. Each Littorane reflected a mix of the spiritual ideals epitomized by the gods and goddesses. She herself liked to think she reflected the supreme divinity, Idrezjine-Koobe. But she could not deny the pleasure she felt at destroying her opponents, of crushing their broken ideas or bodies into the mud, of channeling Saesh the Destroyer, the huge goddess with a body of void, and a heart made from the singularity of a black star.
But she did not feel pleasure at the prospect of this human’s execution. Instead, she felt fear that she would offend the Destroyer. What had the Listener Prime told her earlier that day?
“Who else could these humans be but representatives of the Destroyer, sent to deliver us from our chains?” the priest had said. “The gods are in alliance. It is a rare age that is so blessed.”
The human bowed. He looked more confident than he should. Perhaps he was not merely ignorant but stupid too. “Of course, Your Majesty. I expect nothing less. However, I have absolute confidence that if harm is, indeed, being done, it is to my entourage, not by them.”
The Queen hesitated. This odious creature was related to the monsters of the Year of Sorrows. She wanted him dead so badly. And yet… he did not fear her, because he believed his words to be true. Maybe the priest was right and these humans were indeed the instruments of the gods. The Listener Prime was a liar, but even liars spoke profound truths sometimes.
She ordered her guards to let the humans live. For now.
The main double doors to the chamber moved. They were carved from polished rock and took several servants to operate. They had eased open little more than a crack when the Listener Prime squeezed through and scurried up to the throne.
The priest did not bow in her presence as decorum required.
“I warned you this would happen if you consorted with the devils,” he screamed.
Was he actually addressing his Queen in this way? She lifted her gill flaps. He went too far. The senior priests would withdraw their support. But then he went still further. He pointed an accusing finger at the throne.
“But you wouldn’t listen to my counsel,” he raved. “Oh, no. You are too arrogant to need advice from your loyal priesthood. Now the consequences of your foolishness are being played out in a new Year of Sorrows. The blood of innocents is being spilled once again by alien monsters. And this time their blood is on your hands.”
— Chapter 07 —
Xin came awake. Not slowly or dreamily but quickly, her head insisting a little too quickly. Conscious of hard ground beneath her, she took in immediately that this was somewhere out in the open. She pushed herself up, and as she did so the world lurched disconcertingly for a second before righting itself. Her stomach, however, continued to roll and she had to fight back the urge to vomit, which a part of her mind said was intriguing, because the vomiting reflex was supposed to have been engineered out of Marines. There was a stale, sour taste in her mouth, but her mouth was otherwise clean.
Where was she? What the hell had happened? Even as the questions formed they were shoved to one side by more immediate concerns, as she took in more of her surroundings and realized that whatever had been done to her she wasn’t the only one affected. The unmoving forms of several dead or unconscious Wolves surrounded her. She scrambled toward the nearest and, in the process, put her hand on something… a gun; not the SA-71 carbine she was used to – this was a heavier, older model, but it was still recognizably a weapon designed for human hands. How did that get here? She hadn’t brought it; that much was certain. They were supposed to be on a diplomatic mission and had deliberately gone in unarmed. Now, apparently, she had a gun. In fact, they all did. Every single horizontal figure had a similar gun or a combat blade lying beside them.
She reached the nearest Marine and recognized Janna – another of Arun’s… distractions, but this was hardly the time to dwell on that. Thankfully Janna was very much alive – warm and breathing regularly – suggesting the others had only been rendered unconscious by whatever had been done to them. Xin ran through events in her mind, trying to make a connection between memory and her current situation.
Their delegation had been carefully selected, chosen to include Navy and Marine personnel, and a contingent of the younger Irregulars – or Wolves as they were universally known – those who had not been a part of the force that inflicted the atrocities. One of Xin’s responsibilities was to ensure the good behavior of these Wolves. No crimes had been pinned on them as individuals, which made them jolly nice berserkers, she was sure… but only until something pissed them off. Just below the surface, they were the same kind of nuts that had brutalized Beowulf’s crew and slaughtered the locals here three centuries ago.
Arun knew how to make her feel good, all right, not only insisting that berserkers be part of the delegation, but selecting Janna as part of the group.
They had come down atop the roof of a building that appeared to float on the sea, just offshore of an island. Waves washed against its walls and water surged between this and a host of similar structures, although the one chosen for their landing was by far the largest. The impression of floating was, Xin knew, false. The buildings extended down below the sea, their foundations firmly anchored in the bedrock below. A semi-sunken city built by an amphibious race around a substantial coral atoll. An achievement that provided stark reminder, were such needed, that their hosts should not be underestimated. Even a cursory study of the information Beowulf had gathered since arriving in system showed there to be a complex society here, one whose political structure they had barely begun to comprehend. The principal thing Xin brought away from the hastily organized briefing prior to departure was that state and religion were equally important here, and the leaders of both were to be treated with courtesy and deference.
Deference? She was a Marine for frakk’s sake. But this was an ever-changing galaxy and she would play her part, and in the process remind Arun Destiny-head McEwan what she was made of.
The delegation had exited the shuttle in smart order, eager to impress the Littoranes that they were disciplined and as far removed from the rabid killers that had inflicted past atrocities as it was possible to be.
At any given time heavy cloud cover cloaked much of the planet’s surface – to be expected given the amount of open water on Shepherd-Nurture 4 – but not here, not today. Clear blue skies welcomed them. Judging by the number of storm fronts they had detected from orbit, though, Xin knew that the local weather had a darker side. The buildings seemed too fragile, too delicate to withstand all that nature might hurl at them, yet clearly they could.
A party of Littoranes had awaited them, stepping forward as they descended the shuttle’s ramp. Seen in the flesh, they struck Xin as less bizarre than in the images she had viewed back on Beowulf. It was easy to see how a semi-aquatic race would feel at home on a world like this.
One of the Littoranes stood to the fore. Xin couldn’t tell if this was a male or a female, but the matter was instantly cleared up. “Welcome. I am Lady Kandalyz.”
As she spoke, the Littorane’s neck gills opened and closed disconcertingly. Xin wondered if this was an affectat
ion or a genuine part of respiration.
They were ushered swiftly inside, to where a large glass construct rose higher even than their landing stage. Kandalyz concentrated on Arun, leaving Xin trailing with the other humans in the delegation. Littoranes flanked them, and though the natives offered no overt threat and didn’t appear to be armed, Xin would still have felt a whole lot better with the familiar feel of a carbine in her hand.
“Yes, the capital is deliberately situated in a temperate zone…” she heard Kandalyz say.
Seriously? They were talking about the weather? She supposed it passed the time until the real negotiating could begin.
Inside, the buildings lost their sense of fragility, at least this one did. The corridor was clearly intended to impress, with broad polished columns that looked to be carved from single pieces of rock, veins of minerals running through them to spectacular effect, and a high vaulted ceiling made of glass or something similarly transparent, which gave an impressive sense of space; though the blue of the sky seemed oddly muted, and Xin guessed there were filters involved, perhaps something necessary to prevent amphibious skin from drying out too rapidly. She knew the Littoranes were nominally friendly, potential allies even, but that didn’t stop her taking an interest in any possible weakness, just in case.
Xin left Del and Arun to observe the diplomatic fluff of exchanging meaningless small talk via software translators, while she took the opportunity to study their hosts, trying to understand how they moved. It might prove useful if it came to a fight. The Littoranes had stubby legs on a tubular body that ended in a long and muscular tail. Quadrupeds they might be, but she noted the way the front quarter of the body could be raised, allowing use of the front two limbs. It was a posture that probably made more sense underwater, and Xin was convinced this was the stance they would use to fire weapons.
After refreshments consisting of flavored water in hollow tubes of coral (a welcome thirst quencher) and delicately scented roasted crustaceans served in polished shells (diplomatic idiocy because the humans didn’t possess the right enzymes to digest the local food), the party split up. Arun, Furn, and Del-Marie continued on to parley with Lady Kandalyz and the Littorane Queen.
The composition of the negotiating team had surprised her. Del-Marie she could understand – he had the gift of the gab – but why include one of the freaks? Clearly for reasons she wasn’t privy to, which stung in itself. The more she came to know ‘Major McEwan’ the more she wondered what she had ever seen in him in the first place. Since they liberated him from cryo, Arun had barely said a word to her, and she certainly wasn’t about to go chasing after him.
With the diplomats off being diplomatic, the rest of their party was divided into Navy, Marines, and Wolves, each given the tour by one of the Listeners, or priests. The Littoranes had insisted Xin must stay with the other Marines, but she’d snuck back into her group of young Wolves. The Listener looking after the Wolves didn’t seem to notice, probably because he was so busy giving his long-winded speech about what an honor it was to meet a new race. He led them into a less formal antechamber… And that was all Xin could remember until waking up here, on what was presumably an island, to judge by the amount of visible sea.
Gas, it had to be. Or was it the water they’d been served? Frakking effective stuff, whatever it was.
Xin took hold of Janna’s shoulders and shook her. “Janna!” No response, so she tried again, lifting the slighter woman’s shoulders off the ground and shaking more vigorously. “Come on, soldier, wake up!” Still nothing.
Taking a deep breath, Xin slapped her on the face – no satisfaction in doing that… – and when that brought no results she slapped her again, harder.
At last, a reaction: the other woman groaned, but then went back to being stubbornly unconscious.
Xin gave up. Janna and the others were clearly going to come around in their own sweet time. For now, she was on her own. The only explanation she could think of for being awake so much ahead of the rest of her unit was because of their different physiologies. The treacherous Littoranes must have designed the gas to be effective on the humans they were familiar with, the berserker Wolves, rather than the newer model Xin represented. The weapons too must date from that time, from three hundred years ago. The combat knife hadn’t changed much, but the gun…
She picked up the one that had been beside her when she came round. It felt cumbersome, the balance a little off, but the trigger and magazine were where they ought to be and the gun was loaded. It felt good to have a weapon in her hand again, even an unfamiliar one. Now all she had to do was find some Littoranes and show them what a modern human Marine could do.
The implications didn’t escape her. It didn’t take a genius to work out that she and her unit were being set up. To leave them unconscious, with loaded weapons, what else could it be? Those responsible couldn’t have expected her to come to so quickly, though, and therein lay her advantage.
For a moment she hesitated, torn between seeing what was beyond the rise to her left and being cautious, waiting for the others to come round and provide back up. Caution be damned! If she waited any longer, any advantage would be wasted.
As she stomped over the loose sand, her anger mounted. Use her, would they, set her up to take a fall…?
Arming her had been a mistake, one the Littoranes would come to regret.
Dry sand wasn’t the easiest surface to walk on, especially going uphill and when a degree of caution was called for. As she approached the crest of the dune she heard noises from the other side. Voices, but not human ones: Littoranes, but different somehow, softer and higher pitched. Whatever it was her unit was supposed to take the fall for, it was happening just over this rise. Xin dropped to her stomach and crawled, using elbows, toes and knees to push her body along the sand, gun cradled on her forearms.
Cautiously, she peered over the top, and what she saw sent a chill down her spine.
— Chapter 08 —
The Queen was so stunned by the Listener Prime’s accusation that it took a long, frozen moment before she noticed the hesitation of the guards. They knew instinctively what her mind was too horrified to acknowledge. A coup was playing out in front of their eyes.
If she did not fight back, she would be dead by nightfall.
“How dare you?” She raised her head high and glared at the priest. “What gives you the right to speak in such a way that you swipe your tail across centuries of etiquette?”
“The truth,” thundered the Listener Prime. “Truth gives me the right.”
He turned to the commander of the guard detachment. “Decurion, bring up a live satellite feed of Black Island. Let us witness with our own eyes the slaughter that is underway.”
The Decurion looked at her Queen for confirmation.
“Your slander can wait,” said the Queen to the priest. “Decurion, in my name, order all available rapid response units to Black Island. Only once they have reported shall you bring us visual confirmation of what has transpired there.”
“I have already ordered response teams to the island,” said the priest in a tone of utter contempt. “Unlike you, my priorities are never in question. The will of the gods comes first. The well-being of the people second. By comparison, my own ambitions are as ephemeral as a crashing wave.”
The Decurion spoke into the comm jewel in her collar, then reported, “I can confirm rapid response units are on their way. I have commanded that two surveillance satellites and one stratosphere balloon target Black Island. The first will come on stream in approximately two minutes.”
Three of the audience chamber’s wall murals now revealed themselves to be display screens. They showed transmission metadata but no pictures, not while the equipment acquired its new target.
The Queen returned to the prone position on her throne. Outwardly serene, in fact she was attempting to contact allies outside the chamber to fight the coup. But she could not; her transmissions were being jammed.
She glanced at her guards, trying to weigh their loyalties. If she ordered them to arrest the priest, would they obey? It was impossible to say for certain.
The priest must have arrived at the same conclusion, or he would have ordered her arrest. The very idea made her quiver with outrage, but she kept her outward composure.
There was nothing to be done but wait.
The pictures from Black Island would determine her fate.
— Chapter 09 —
Below her position at the crest of the dune, Xin saw children, Littorane young. A hundred or more at a quick estimate, huddled together, corralled by nine adults who hemmed them in on all sides.
The children were fascinating, similar to the adults but underdeveloped, and not just because they were smaller: the tail was little more than a stub, and if the gills were present at all they were far less prominent.
The children were responsible for the noise she had heard. They were whimpering, softly. No words as far as Xin could tell, just an inchoate sound. She guessed it was something instinctive, pitched to stimulate paternal or maternal responses in adult Littoranes. If so, it wasn’t working. The briefing on Beowulf had said the young were raised on land to keep them safe from ocean predators, but that had only made them targets for adults of their own kind.
All this Xin took in at a glance. It was the adults who commanded her attention. They were dressed similarly to the priest that had led them to be gassed – which she guessed settled their allegiance – and, more importantly, they were armed. Each carried a gun identical to her own.
So that was the plan. A massacre to mirror past atrocities, with her unit framed as the culprits. And by the look of things she had arrived in the nick of time. The adults were clearly in position and were raising their guns; not with any confidence, it had to be said, but with clear intent.
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