I.K.S. Gorkon Book Three

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  With gravity out, Wirrk was still floating in the air of his bridge. Around him, his crew did the same. B’Etloj, to her credit, had managed to spear one of the bridge support struts with her d’k tahg and used it to lever herself back down toward her console.

  “The warp core has been ejected. Main power is fluctuating. Sir, we—”

  Then Wirrk saw nothing. The lights went out, and emergency illumination did not replace them.

  An explosion briefly lit the bridge as the aft gunnery consoles were destroyed. The heat burned Wirrk’s face, and he was barely able to duck the limbs of the bekks who staffed those positions as they flew past him.

  He once again thought back to Ty’Gokor and his wager with Klag. The last he had heard, the Gorkon had not yet engaged in battle, but Wirrk had faith that the son of M’Raq would find combat soon enough, thus enabling him to win their wager.

  I regret that I shall not be able to watch you drink your bloodwine, Captain.

  “I really don’t appreciate being awakened like this.”

  Yellek expunged a great deal of air out of her windpipes at Mal Donal’s tenth repetition of that particular phrase. He’d said it continuously since she came to his home sphere, explaining that she was under orders to escort Donal to the government sphere. They had taken a sky conveyance, Donal grumbling the entire time about how little he appreciated being awakened like this.

  Somehow, Yellek managed not to ask what way he would have appreciated being awakened.

  “And you don’t have any idea what this is about, soldier?”

  It was only the fourth time he had asked that. Yellek replied, “No, sir, I simply was ordered to escort you here.” In fact, she knew precisely what it was about, but besides escorting Donal, she was also ordered not to say anything about the aliens.

  Aliens. Yellek still had trouble wrapping her legs around the notion. She had believed what the clerics told her all her life: that the Elabrej were the only sentient life in the universe, that the Demiurges made them unique, and that Doane and Gidding watched over them and kept them safe.

  Except we’re not safe, are we? Three military space conveyances had been destroyed when the alien ship was captured, not to mention the explorer conveyance. Hundreds of lives had been lost. It was the highest body count in a hundred ungret s.

  I wonder what the seps will make of this, Yellek wondered as she parked the sky conveyance in the hangar sphere. While she approached, the conveyance was scanned thoroughly by security. If they had any reason to doubt that she was anyone other than Soldier Yellek or that her passenger was anyone other than Mal Donal, the sky conveyance would have been destroyed.

  Yellek opened the sky conveyance’s doors. “Please come with me, Mal Donal.”

  “I really don’t appreciate being awakened like this.”

  “So you’ve said, sir.” Yellek couldn’t bring the words back from her mouth, though she regretted them the instant they came out.

  “What did you say, soldier?” Donal’s forelegs and right midleg all waved in great annoyance.

  “Sir, I—”

  “I am a Mal, you non-strata buffoon, and I won’t have you—”

  “Harassing the troops again, Donal?”

  Yellek turned at the new voice, and was so stunned at who it was that it took her an extra half-engret to stand at attention, as was required when in the presence of the second oligarch.

  Donal waved his left hindleg toward the new arrival. “Brannik? What in Doane’s name is going on?”

  “Follow me,” the second oligarch said. He started moving down a corridor that Yellek would not have been able to traverse were she not in the presence of a Vor strata or someone of the rank of protector or higher. She did not question their going this way, though—she assumed that the aliens would be kept in this area, and she also had orders not to let Donal out of her sight. Although Vor Brannik had the authority to override those orders, he had not done so.

  “Brannik, you still haven’t answered my question.” Donal was now whining.

  “It’s a very long story, and one you’re not going to believe even though you’re going to see it for yourself.”

  Waving his midlegs, Donal said, “What are you going on about? Look, I don’t appreciate being awakened by—”

  “Donal, last night, seven military conveyances engaged a conveyance of unknown origin. Three of those conveyances were destroyed, but the alien conveyance was defeated, and we captured ten specimens. They’re being held in one of our facilities here.” Second Oligarch Vor Brannik placed one midleg on Donal’s torso. “You’re the best doctor we’ve got.”

  Yellek knew that Brannik was lying. Donal was an adequate doctor, but he also had high-level clearance. The oligarchs have to be real careful who they trust with this. Especially if the clerics start waving their legs around.

  The doctor was laughing. “Brannik, is this some kind of joke? Really, I understand that you government types like to—”

  “Mal Donal, this is not a joke. Four hundred Elabrej have died at the hands of these aliens over the past few digret s. I need you to examine them, and I need you to do it right now. If you can’t, I’ll put you in prison for treason and find another doctor. Am I making myself clear?”

  Donal’s midlegs were waving so fast Yellek feared they would come off. “Are you mad? There’s no such thing as aliens! The very idea—”

  They turned a corner while Donal was ranting. They arrived at a small sphere with a large window. Donal’s words cut off at the sight of what was on the other side of the window.

  Yellek was glad nobody was really paying any attention to her, because her own reaction was very unmilitary. Protector Yer Terris would have my legs for standing a post in this state.

  But she couldn’t help it. Standing in that sphere were ten of the most peculiar beings Yellek had ever seen.

  They had four legs rather than the usual six: hindlegs and midlegs only, and they seemed to use the hindlegs only for ambulation. They had no windpipe, no nasal slits, elongated torsos, an odd protuberance on top of those torsos, and only half the expected number of fingers at the end of each leg. They also had ridges all over their persons.

  The protuberance was especially peculiar. It had one of those ridges, some odd openings, only one of which Yellek recognized as a mouth—and that only because it had teeth—the others of which were a mystery to her. The protuberances also had some kind of stringy substance atop it. Their bodies were, in fact, covered in the string, though the bulk of it was on the protuberance.

  Not all of them had the same body type. Yellek assumed that they were the differences between male and female, though she admitted she was making a very big assumption there.

  “Doane’s limbs.” That was Donal, whose own mouth hung open stupidly, making Yellek feel better about her own reaction. “What are those?”

  Brannik again put a midleg on Donal’s torso. “That’s what we need you to find out. There could be more of these—these things out there, and they’re obviously hostile and out to kill us all. The oligarchs need you to find out what they are, what they can do, and how we can destroy them all. Can you do that?”

  Another burst of air came from Donal’s windpipe. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really. Get to work. Soldier Yellek has been assigned to you—if you need anything, ask her.”

  Just what I’ve always wanted, to be at the beck and call of an arrogant fool.

  She dismissed her own thought as unworthy of her position. I’m a soldier, I do what I’m told. Besides, would I rather have been assigned to one of those conveyances that these alien monstrosities destroyed?

  Yellek found she couldn’t even look at the creatures. I swear by Doane’s limbs, I will do whatever needs to be done to keep you despicable things from murdering any more Elabrej.

  Second Oligarch Vor Brannik had taken to simply ignoring Fourth Oligarch Vor Mitol. He found that things moved more smoothly that way. They each sat in their respective h
ammocks in the meeting sphere. Normally such meetings of the oligarchs happened at the beginning of each day. Now, however, an emergency session had been called in the dead of night. While they waited for Mal Donal to finish his preliminary examinations of the aliens, the oligarchs would discuss what their options were.

  “All right, what’s next?” he asked.

  Before any of the other oligarchs could move on to the next order of business, however, Mitol felt the need to keep talking. “This just isn’t possible. Aliens from beyond our skies attacking us—it’s like we’re characters in a piece of fiction. A piece of very bad fiction.”

  “Mitol—” Brannik started, but the fourth oligarch refused to lower his legs.

  “This is just a ploy by the military—you know that, don’t you? They wanted to equip their conveyances with those horrendous weapons of theirs before they were done testing so they could use them on the seps. So they created this ridiculous—”

  “Mitol, it’s not a hoax.”

  His hindlegs waving back and forth, Mitol’s voice seemed to be coming as much out of his windpipe as his mouth. “Of course it’s a hoax, Brannik! This is the military’s dream come true! Instead of constantly being stalled on appropriations, now they have a tailor-made mandate to spend as much money as they want on defense, and never mind where the money’s supposed to come from.”

  Brannik let air out of his windpipe. This is going worse than I expected. “Mitol, I know it isn’t a hoax—you know how I know that?”

  “How?”

  “I’ve seen the aliens. We’ve got them. Mal Donal is examining them right now.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “If you want, I’ll take you to see them.”

  First Oligarch Vor Jorg finally spoke. “No, you won’t, because Mitol is finished wasting our time.” Before Mitol could reply to this, Jorg continued. “You’re right, Mitol, this is a dream come true, but not in the way you think. The seps have been constantly crying that we tax them mercilessly, that we line our own money pouches while letting the people of the hegemony go to rot. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard as much of that as I can stand from people who think nothing of committing seditious acts, and of stealing from their betters, and of releasing legitimately held prisoners. Now that these aliens have come, we can show them exactly whose welfare we’re concerned with.”

  “First Oligarch, this—” Mitol started, but this time Brannik interrupted him, which gave the second oligarch a certain pleasure.

  “Mitol, it was the space center that first saw this, not the military. They’re the ones who came to us with the report that Vor Ellis’s conveyance was destroyed by these aliens, complete with images from Vor Ellis herself.” Brannik placed his hindlegs down on the floor as a show of resolve. “These aliens are real, Mitol. And the sooner you wrap your legs around that, the sooner we can move on and deal with it.”

  Before Mitol could reply, the door parted to reveal one of the soldiers. Brannik could never keep track of their names. “Oligarchs, Mal Donal has finished his preliminary report. May he enter?”

  “Absolutely,” First Oligarch Jorg said. “Escort him inside.”

  Waving her left foreleg in acknowledgment, the soldier disappeared for a moment, then came back with Donal.

  The doctor’s legs all hung limply at his side. I guess he was able to wrap his legs around the problem eventually.

  “Amazing,” he was muttering.

  “Mal Donal,” Brannik said, “what have you learned?”

  “Truly amazing.”

  “Mal Donal!”

  “What?” The doctor’s legs started to perk up. “I’m sorry, I just—yes, I—I have a report to give.” He removed a recorder from his pouch with his left midleg. “The first thing I’d like to explain is how they are like us.”

  “They’re not like us at all.” Brannik was revolted by the very notion. They were disgusting, malformed creatures, and Brannik couldn’t believe they had anything in common with the Elabrej.

  “Actually, they are in a few ways. For one thing, they respirate similarly to us—they inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. They have a skeletal structure augmented by muscles and flesh, just like us, even if it’s arranged differently. They seem to be divided into male and female, like us, and their genitalia seems to be arranged in roughly the same manner—although the females have odd growths on their torsos whose purpose I’ve yet to determine. Still, in very general terms, they are carbon-based life, like us.”

  Jorg waved his left midleg. “Get to the part where they’re not like us.”

  “Well, First Oligarch, there’s the obvious way in which their bodies are shaped. They are stunted, having only two useful legs. Their midlegs are too weak to support their weight, and they have no forelegs at all. My guess is that their midlegs have atrophied from lack of use. Honestly, First Oligarch, I have no idea how these creatures could possibly have evolved. They violate every known tenet of survival.”

  “In what way?” Jorg asked.

  Brannik let out air through his windpipe. “How is this relevant?”

  Jorg folded his midlegs together. “I believe what Mal Donal is about to tell us is how they are weak.”

  Then Brannik understood. We have to know our enemy’s strengths—but their weaknesses are important, too.

  Peering at his recorder, Donal said, “The most interesting thing is that odd growth atop their torsos where their forelegs should be. Not only does this growth contain their mouths, but I did a variety of scans only to discover that they keep their craniums there, as well as their primary olfactory passages.”

  “How odd,” one of the oligarchs said.

  “Indeed it is.” Donal was speaking now with the enthusiasm of a scientist, which suited Brannik as long as he stayed on topic. “It’s very impractical—their brains are located on the top of their bodies instead of being centrally located. True, they have a bony ridge that protects them, but it still leaves them appallingly vulnerable, especially given how hampered their movements are with only two usable legs. Plus they have limited dexterity, with only five fingers per leg instead of the usual ten. Honestly, I don’t see how they could have built anything, with their bodies designed like that. In point of fact, I don’t see how they survived long enough to attain sentience. Any decent predator would have done them in centuries ago.”

  “I’m more interested in what can do them in now, Mal Donal,” Jorg said gently.

  “Of course, First Oligarch.” Donal pressed a control on his reader. “You said you were looking for weaknesses—well, I have one that will stun you. This, more than anything, leads me to believe that these aliens are weak creatures that will be easy for us to swat like insects: they have no vision worth mentioning.”

  Third Oligarch Vor Anset waved her hindlegs. “You mean they can’t see?”

  “Well, I suppose, if you stretch the definition, they can. It took me quite some time to figure it out. I could find no evidence of optic nerves anywhere in their bodies except on two of the holes in the brain pouch.”

  Jorg puffed briefly through his windpipe. “Brain pouch?”

  “Sorry, First Oligarch, that is the name I have given to the torsal growth.”

  “Of course, Mal Donal. Please, go on.”

  Donal consulted his reader for a moment. “The holes seemed unusually sensitive to light. Eventually, through trial and error, I was able to determine that the holes in their brain pouches were their only method of sight. First Oligarch, Oligarchs—these creatures can only see whatever’s directly before those two holes.”

  Brannik waved his forelegs. “That’s insane.”

  “It’s true.”

  “How can they possibly function while only seeing—what, five percent of what’s around them?”

  Donal checked his reader. “My readings indicate that it’s more like twenty percent, but that’s still eighty percent of their environment that they are unable to visualize. One thing I will credit them with�
��their other senses do compensate to some degree. Their olfactory and aural senses are much greater than ours.”

  “What about language?” Anset asked.

  “Grunts and growls.” Donal waved a hindleg. “I suppose it makes sense to them, since they seem to be conversing. Oh, one other thing—they were wearing some kind of armor. We removed it, of course. One of the military people examined them, and they told the soldier escorting me that each of them carried several items that have been identified as weapons.”

  Naturally, Brannik thought.

  Jorg asked, “What does that tell you, Mal Donal?”

  “They are a violent people, First Oligarch.”

  “That, we already knew,” Brannik said. “We saw what they did to Vor Ellis’s conveyance, not to mention three military ones.”

  Donal said, “Still, they show very few signs of intelligence. I suspect that they are only dull-witted animals. During my testing, they committed several violent acts against their prison. There’s been no direct interaction with any Elabrej, and I would suggest that remain the case. These savages would probably cause a great deal of damage if left unchecked.”

  Brannik started to wonder if bringing the doctor in was such a good idea. “Mal Donal, these aren’t animals. They built spacefaring conveyances.”

  “Do you have any proof of that?” Donal asked archly. “All we know is that they operated spacefaring conveyances. My theory is that another species keeps them as slaves of some kind, gives them basic instruction on how to operate machinery and tools, and then sends them out as cannon fodder. It’s the only explanation that makes sense—there’s simply no way beings like this could possibly have survived and evolved without outside help from a superior species like the Elabrej. Their evolutionary weaknesses are legion. I believe that they can be easily defeated simply by using complex strategies against them. I doubt they have the cunning for that.”

  Jorg folded his forelegs over his midlegs. “These are just preliminary tests, you said?”

  “Yes, First Oligarch, and I will conduct more, of course, but I do believe that my basic premise is right. These aliens are weak, they are vulnerable, they are stupid, and they will be easily defeated should any more darken our skies.”