by Tony Peak
Piles of coils lay near the walls in the next corridor. Jelly slithered from several conduits as the coils writhed and melded with the jelly. Heads, torsos, and arms formed in the transparent green substance. Through such skin, Kivita made out translucent organs pumping with machinelike precision.
Coils and jelly morphed from the walls behind them and formed into Sarrhdtuu warriors. These possessed a carapace-like armor over their jelly torsos and heads. Each wore a cylinder on its left wrist and wielded a curved blade.
Kivita gulped, remembering what the Juxj Star had shown her of these warriors.
“I am ready to see Zhhl now,” Shekelor told one of the warriors.
“You brought a second Savant and two Ascali,” a Sarrhdtuu said, its words ending with a thick lisp.
“The other Savant is a gift; the Ascali are mine,” Shekelor said. “They are gagged.”
As one, the Sarrhdtuu walked on their coils with intricate steps. Shekelor motioned for the pirates to follow them deeper into the ship.
Kivita blinked and shook her head. The whispers inside her mind rose in pitch.
The corridor led into a slanted chamber ringed with hundreds of oval, transparent tubes. Mist sprayed into the air at regular intervals from wall vents, while a warbling hum resounded throughout. Kivita choked on the damp, rotten stench.
The tubes made her heart skip a beat.
Each held a Kith, human, or a green-rigged figure, all more Sarrhdtuu than human. Some tubes housed cracked white exoskeletons. A few contained tall figures in yellow Rectifier uniforms. Below the tubes, Aldaakian polyarmor, Kith claws, and Ascali hides clung to jelly-covered racks.
“Atrocious,” Navon muttered.
Cheseia and Zhara retched at the smell, but the pirates were unaffected.
Shekelor motioned to his followers. “Eight of you, two per captive. Follow me.” They walked to a circular platform. As soon as all stepped onto it, organic stalks lifted it into the air. Kivita’s head tingled and her temples burned.
“I feel it, too,” Navon whispered.
Rising higher, Kivita gasped at the view. The chamber extended throughout most of Juxj, curving into alcoves and rounding against bulkheads. Thousands of tubes contained occupants from all over the Cetturo Arm: brawny Sutarans, thin Tahe, tall and reedy Naxans. All had undergone Sarrhdtuu Transmutation, with coils, olive flesh, and purple stares. Sarrhdtuu warriors morphed and slithered along aisles between the tubes.
Coils extended from the walls and pulled out some of the tube occupants. Lathered in green slime, the victims gurgled or tittered, their eyes glazed over. One man had transparent flesh like a Sarrhdtuu. His heart and lungs pumped and compressed, engorging his arteries with yellow-green liquid.
Kivita fought down vomit and shared a look with Navon. Cheseia and Zhara clung to each other.
The platform stopped its ascent. Green jelly poured over it while large coils wriggled up from the underside. Eyes slid right between Kivita’s feet toward a growing shape. Her stomach churned and chill bumps popped along her skin. The Sarrhdtuu’s sheer alienness disturbed Kivita in ways she hadn’t felt before. Seeing them unearthed fears she’d never imagined, like something buried within the collective human memory.
“I have delivered her to you, Zhhl, as promised.” Shekelor stepped aside. The other pirates scooted back from Kivita and her friends.
The jelly, coils, and organs coalesced into a twenty-foot-tall Sarrhdtuu. A crescent shaped, six-eyed cranium with a puckered mouth, along with a sleek torso and two humanoid arms, sat atop twelve gray-green coils.
“Child of Narbas,” Zhhl said in a sibilant voice. “I have waited long. The Vim’s signal must be returned.”
“Why? You’re not their friend. You’re not mine, either.” Her heart throbbed with furious abandon, contrasting her level tone.
“They abandoned you, Child of Narbas. They abandoned Children of Meh Sat, Children of Khaasis, Children of Revelas, and Children of Frevyx. You owe them nothing.” Zhhl’s coils rippled on either side of Kivita.
“The Vim still exist, then?” Kivita said.
Zhhl’s head opened in three puckered mouths. Each made a gurgling, then a droning, noise. “Cradle after Cradle was seeded to offset the Sarrhdtuu. Your minds, your thoughts, your voices honed to control us. We will be slaves to the Vim no longer.”
Navon grumbled. Cheseia held on to Zhara, her russet eyes filled with tension.
“Slaves? But . . . but there’s a Sarrhdtuu colony three thousand light years away! The Vim didn’t attack it. You destroyed Meh Sat, Khaasis, and other worlds. You destroyed entire stars! You’ve used the Inheritors to terrorize the Cetturo Arm. You . . . you even had my mother executed. Goddamn you. What about that?” Tears dimmed Kivita’s vision.
Zhhl’s mouths puckered into one. “The Juxj Star shows you the past, Child of Narbas. That colony was a Vim beneficiary before our freedom. The Vim hated us for our emancipation, and hid their knowledge in rocks and crystals. They contained us in deep space with light and sound. They trapped us with thoughts from lesser creatures. No longer. Cradles will either serve us or be eliminated. Arcuri chose correctly; thus the Inheritors still live.”
“You were right about us, Kivita,” Navon breathed. “May the Solars preserve us, you were right.”
Shekelor frowned. “You have her, Zhhl. Where is Byelor?”
Kivita stepped toward Zhhl. “Then why send the Vim a message, huh? I’ve seen how you tried to force other Savants to serve you. To use the Juxj Star.” She wiped her eyes with trembling fingers. The burning in her temples grew.
“You will open their Portal. You will transmit the reply Terredyn Narbas refused to, but you will cut out the Vim’s heart, as they created you to do to us.” Zhhl rose on all twelve coils.
Kivita glowered up at Zhhl. “I won’t—”
“Produce the Juxj Star!” Zhhl’s voice shook the entire chamber, and Kivita stumbled to her knees. Even Shekelor backed away.
“Is this all you want? To force us to be like you?” Kivita pointed at the tubes.
“We ruled until the Vim penetrated us with you parasites and made us slaves,” Zhhl replied with mucus-dripped words. “You can never be like us. Your biomass adds to our vessels. Nothing more.”
Shekelor’s frown deepened as he maneuvered behind the Ascali twins. “What of my son? Where is his holding tube? It is not where I saw it last time!”
“Byelor is safe, Shekelor Thal. Remain content.” Zhhl’s eyes formed into one giant purple ocular organ.
“Show me!” Shekelor yelled.
Two Sarrhdtuu warriors dripped from the ceiling and flanked Shekelor.
“First the Juxj Star,” Zhhl said.
Kivita touched the bulge on her left hip; nothing else mattered now. She hoped Sar would escape and live to appreciate what she’d attempted in her final moments. She thought of her father, her mother. Separated by centuries and light years, both had given her what she needed for this single act.
Cheseia and Zhara nodded in encouragement.
Peace fell over Navon’s countenance. “Use the gem, as only you can.”
Kivita smiled at him though a tear ran down her cheek. “Damn. Some queen I turned out to be.”
“I would have followed no other,” Navon said.
Zhhl’s coils opened her envirosuit and yanked out the Juxj Star. It glowed a fierce red. More whispers and musical notes dug into her thoughts. As Kivita stood and resealed her suit, the whispers in her mind became screams. Her knees slammed into the platform as a million psyches touched her own.
“Open the Vim Portal!” Zhhl shouted in a voice so large it seemed to envelope the entire cosmos.
• • •
Sar aimed both pistols at the corner, while Bredine pulled him behind her. The declining gravity made him float several feet off the floor, with Bredine cl
imbing one-handed along girders, his belt looped into hers. Seul clomped along in her magnetized polyboots, still clutching her chest. Murmurs floated to Sar’s cold ears as surviving Inheritors waited just out of pistol shot.
The temperature on Luccan’s Wish had dropped in a manner of seconds after Fanged Pauper flew away. All of them had sealed their helmet vents and activated oxygen supplies; Bredine had salvaged an Aldaakian helmet. Debris from the Aldaakian cruiser floated past the airlock, along with dozens of albino bodies in gray-blue uniforms.
“Kael? Please answer me.” Seul’s voice cracked with emotion. “Kael?”
As Bredine neared the airlock, Sar acted on impulse.
“I’ll stop shooting if you do,” Sar called out. “Might as well freeze with dignity. Then we’ll all be the same. No Inheritor; no Thede.”
Rhii and Basheev hid behind a bolted supply crate on his left, staring at him as if he were mad.
A male voice laughed with harsh heaves. “I’m still an Inheritor even after death. The Vim has prepared a place for me in the Core. You’ll float in the void for eternity, you piece of shit. We’re wise to the poison you Thedes spread.”
“Hope you’re wise to a bullet, too,” Sar murmured.
Bredine pulled him right up against the transparent airlock. “Redryll? Leave them be. Frevyx avoiding space trash. Hmm.”
Sar jerked around as his customized trawler weaved between pieces of Aldaakian hull. Small chunks and bodies still connected with it, spinning into space from the ship’s movement. Corpses banged against the airlock, their white-within-blue stares accusing Sar of some unnamed trespass.
Seul closed her eyes and turned away from the scene. “Kael, please . . . ? This is Jaah, requesting pickup.”
“Kivita is still sending,” Bredine said.
The hum of magnetizing airlocks echoed in the cold bay as the soldiers around the corner shuffled and murmured. Frevyx waited mere feet away, promising hope and freedom.
“Stars burning red, Sar, they will pick us off!” Basheev cried. “Hand me a gun!”
Bredine tossed Rhii one of her pistols. The weapon floated end over end in the low-G. Basheev snatched it as Rhii pulled him back behind the crate.
“Kael?” Seul mashed buttons on her arm panel.
Despite his wounds and anxiety over Kivita, Sar kept the pistols steady. Killing his enemies no longer fed his vengeance; killing them meant his friends might live a little longer. With death so near, the simple rationale of survival provided strange comfort.
“Keep me straight,” Sar said.
The airlock whooshed open. Eight Inheritors floated around the corner, pistols raised. Sar squeezed both triggers again and again. Basheev also fired. Shots struck the airlock around Sar. One grazed Bredine’s right hand, and she drifted off toward Seul. Two Inheritors floated, heads hanging down.
Light flooded the airlock bay, forcing the Inheritors to cover their eyes. Firing ceased.
“Captain Jaah?” a male Aldaakian voice came over Sar’s helmet speakers.
“Kael!” Seul cried out.
An Aldaakian assault shuttle hovered near the airlock adjacent to the one Frevyx had just magnetized with. Bright lamps along its nose dimmed. Its airlock already stood open, with two Shock Troopers aiming beam rifles just inside.
“Seul, we’ll cover you if you help us,” Sar called into his mic.
A shot cracked the airlock behind him.
“I’m with you.” Seul hurried toward the second airlock. Two shots whizzed near her, and one scraped her left shoulder. Three shots slammed inside the Aldaakian shuttle.
Sar emptied his left pistol. An Inheritor screamed, holding his shattered abdomen.
“Kivita . . .” Bredine staggered and bumped into the airlock. The chamber’s remaining atmosphere screeched through the cracks in it.
Hands grabbed the back of Sar’s ruined envirosuit and pulled him and Bredine into Frevyx’s airlock. Jandeel smiled down at him, then took Bredine’s other pistol and covered the others.
Sar kept firing while Jandeel pushed Rhii and Basheev through the airlock hatch. Two more Inheritors jerked and floated back from the impacts. A Thede man aboard Frevyx cried out as a shot tore through his left side; then his corpse blocked the airlock. Three more shots burst through the man’s chest.
All lights in the airlock bay went out as Sar shoved aside the floating dead man and yanked Rhii and Basheev inside. Jandeel pulled Bredine aboard, then slammed the lever while shots struck Frevyx’s closing airlock hatch.
Jandeel rushed into the bridge as several Thedes helped Sar and the others to the bench. Sar blinked, studying their faces. Humans, Ascali, a couple of Aldaakians. Some he knew; some he didn’t. At least three dozen stood in the airlock chamber, with more in the rest of the ship. They murmured thanks, shook his hand, kissed his cheeks.
“Lots of cargo here, Jandeel,” Sar called, as Rhii bandaged his leg with blue medical tape. Gasping, he leaned against the bulkhead. Frevyx throbbed with engine thrust.
“I managed to save fifty-eight altogether, from Airlocks Three, Five, and Six,” Jandeel called back from the bridge. “I have most of our datacores, too.”
Sar patted Rhii’s shoulder and limped into the bridge. “They took Kiv and Navon. Cheseia, too.”
Jandeel pushed on the manuals. “Fanged Pauper blasted from Airlock Eight and flew toward the Sarrhdtuu ship. Arcuri’s Glory has pulled back from the planet.”
“Sarrhdtuu ship?” Cold sweat ran down Sar’s neck.
Jandeel just looked at him, his lips set in a grim line.
“Navon would want us to leave him, but to hell if I will,” Sar said. “Fly toward that Sarrhdtuu bucket.”
“We must save these people, the datacores! We are all that remains of the Thedes.” Jandeel’s voice quavered. “Even though Kivita is . . . We have no choice.”
“Let me have the helm. Going to try something.” Sar grunted. “A queen? She’ll never stop reminding me of it.”
Jandeel stalled the engine and eased himself into the seat. “Neither will I. They blasted apart that Aldaakian cruiser, so what can we do?”
“We have to try something. I won’t give up Kiv just because they have more guns than we do. Tell everybody back there to hang on.” Sar unsnapped his helmet and pushed the manuals forward.
“Sar, this is Jaah,” Seul said over the console speaker. “Do you suppose three assault shuttles are enough to take on that Inheritor battleship?”
Jandeel gaped.
Sar smirked. “It’ll have to be.”
Frevyx sped toward the Sarrhdtuu battleship.
36
Seul slumped back into her seat as they flew away from the Thede ship. That ruffian Shekelor had sliced through both cryoports above her breasts. Though her polyarmor’s inner liner had prevented her from bleeding to death, Seul still gasped and ached. Her fellow Troopers regarded her with hollow stares.
“Kael, power up the beamers. Deactivate gravity, and route all power to the engines. I don’t know what Sar has planned, but we’ll support him as best we—”
Kael wasn’t moving. He didn’t blink.
“Kael?” Cold terror dug into her heart. “Kael!”
A black, pulp-filled hole smoked in Kael’s left side.
Seul jerked back, unable to breathe. The Inheritor soldiers had landed a few shots inside. . . .
“Captain Jaah?” the navigator said. The other Troopers on board watched her with solemn stares.
The coldness enveloped her heart, freezing the hopes and dreams she’d had. The future she’d wanted with Kael, finding her daughter, becoming a family—all gone.
Moisture leaked down her cheeks as she caressed Kael’s chin. So handsome. Had he known she loved him? Damn everything to the void, had he? Why hadn’t she spent more time with him, touched him more, told him of her f
eelings?
“Captain?”
Cryoports screeching open and closed, Seul rounded on the navigator. “What?”
They all continued staring at her. So what if she was crying? To the void with protocol and emotional inhibitors! For Aldaakian Shock Troopers, tears displayed weakness, lack of self-control, and a dozen other negative things. Not anymore. These tears were for Kael.
“Captain, what are your orders?” the navigator said. “Aldaar is gone. Commander Vuul is dead. You are our only commanding officer.”
Seul grunted. Commander of what? What could they possibly do now? Three little shuttles? All her fellow Troopers, Vuul, Qaan . . . Kael. All dead for nothing. The savage fighting on the Thede ship, and—
The image of the dead Aldaakian boy floating on the Thede vessel entered her thoughts. Her jaw tightened, and then her cryoports clicked once and relaxed. The ache of her wounds became a dull throb at the back of her consciousness.
“We are all that stands between our enemies and our people in Aldaakian Space.” Seul grimaced, her chest cryoports jamming shut. “We’ll not survive. But we can avenge Aldaar and our fallen comrades. I told Sar Redryll we’d help him. Aldaakians keep their word.”
“Captain Jaah, a strong signal is emitting from the Sarrhdtuu ship,” the navigator said.
Seul thought of Kivita, and what the Sarrhdtuu must be doing to her. The sight of Frevyx, though, emboldened her. One trawler against a Sarrhdtuu vessel? Her people had always been outnumbered, but never broken.
“What is your name?” Seul asked the navigator. No more formal, impersonal military interaction. She wanted to know who would be dying with her.
“Taak, Captain.”
“How well can you pilot this craft?”
Taak sat up straighter in her chair. “As well as you require, Captain Jaah.”