Stars & Empire 2: 10 More Galactic Tales (Stars & Empire Box Set Collection)

by Jay Allan

  “What…are…you…going…to…do…with…me?” It was hard to speak, but Jake forced out the words, slowly, hoarsely.

  “Nothing, Colonel Taylor. Or at least I intend no harm to you. I merely wish to converse with you.”

  He speaks my language; he knows my name, Jake thought…did I speak when I was unconscious? What did I tell him?

  “Allow me to introduce myself, Colonel.” The voice was moving, coming closer. “I am T’arza. At least that is my appellation closest to what you would call a name.” He was moving around, positioning himself in front of Taylor. “May I call you Jake?”

  “Call me whatever you want.” Taylor’s voice was becoming stronger, clearer. “I’m your prisoner.”

  He could feel the movement, his captor coming closer. It wasn’t a Machine moving toward him, he could tell that much. But it wasn’t human either. Taylor had never been this close to one of the Tegeri. He felt the urge to lunge, to attack his enemy. Here was one of the leaders, the masterminds who’d ordered the attacks on the human colonies…the ones who started 40 years of bloody war. He was a meter away from one of the worst, most depraved monsters a man had ever faced…and he had no strength, no chance to avenge the thousands of dead.

  “You are certainly not my prisoner, Jake. At least not in a conventional sense.” The being moved into Jake’s view. He – it? – was taller than a man, with paler skin and longer, thinner appendages. It was humanoid, certainly, different from a man only in superficial aspects.

  “It is true that you are confined here, however that is a temporary situation. I only wish to communicate with you for a time…to provide you with information. Then you will be released.” T’arza paused, observing Taylor’s reactions. “And I assure you that I have no intention of harming you.”

  “Am I supposed to believe that?” Taylor’s voice was angry, his suspicion obvious. He pulled himself up, facing his captor. His stomach did a flop, but he was able to control the nausea. “You clearly know who I am. You targeted me for some reason.” Taylor’s mind was still fuzzy, but he was beginning to put things together. “The intercept…” Taylor’s expression betrayed his incredulity. “You staged the entire thing…lured us into this attack.” The shock was clear in his voice. “Just to capture me?” Taylor could feel the room beginning to spin. He groaned and fell back.

  “The effects of the neural stun weapon are temporary, but as you have experienced, they can be quite debilitating until they pass. I have administered a drug to counteract the worst symptoms. However, I am unfamiliar with the specifics of human pharmacology, and I have therefore been conservative regarding dosage. Please refrain from any abrupt movements until your disequilibrium has passed. I do not wish to see you injure yourself.”

  T’arza watched as Taylor tried again to rise, ignoring his request. “I assure you, Jake. No harm will come to you here.” T’arza paused. “My compliments to your deductive capabilities. To answer your previous question, yes, we intentionally allowed your people to intercept the location of this facility.” Another pause. “Your forces are temporarily disordered, and they have pulled back. But we do not have the strength to defeat them here. We have essentially given up our primary planetary base of operations – and all hope of ultimately holding Erastus - to arrange this meeting.” T’arza hesitated yet again, not wanting to overload Taylor. “I trust this lends credence to the importance of what I have to say to you.”

  Taylor opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find any words. Everything T’arza said made perfect sense. Yet Jake couldn’t quite accept it all.

  The Tegeri saw he had Taylor’s attention. “My people did not build the Portals. We call those who did the First Ones, though we know little more about them than you do.” T’arza paused briefly. “We evolved on our own world, as humanity did upon Earth. One day, we discovered a Portal.”

  Taylor was silent, listening to T’arza’s words. He still regarded the alien with anger and fear, though his companion’s conduct and demeanor were so calm, so rational…the intensity of those emotions began to fade.

  “It is obvious, even by cursory visual inspection, that our races share some genetic link. Perhaps those who created the Portals also sowed the seeds of both of our peoples. Or, possibly, there is some other connection between our races, long in the distant past. We cannot know. But in a universe of almost infinite diversity, we are far more alike than not. Shockingly so. Would you not agree?”

  Taylor looked at T’arza, but he didn’t respond. After a few seconds he nodded silently, grudgingly. It was a minute gesture, barely perceptible, though it did not go unnoticed.

  “There are crucial differences, however. By whatever accidents of time and evolution, my race achieved a state of technological advancement several millennia before yours. Perhaps this was by design of those who came before, or maybe it was nothing more than some infinitesimal difference in our environments. Or simply random variation. Several thousand years is but an instant in the context of the evolution of our species. I do not know the answer. Clearly, my people are more advanced than yours in many ways…yet equally obviously, we are slowing losing the war. Indeed, we have much in common with each other, yet we differ in some ways too.”

  T’arza looked down at Taylor as he spoke. The alien had two eyes, not unlike human ones, but deeper, more three dimensional on close view. “My brethren – the Tegeri, as you call us - are fiercely independent, so much so that we do not fully understand the ways in which humans can form large monolithic groups. Like armies. We cannot defeat you at war, because you are far more suited to sacrificing your individualism and accepting orders without question. Indeed, my people would likely have destroyed each other long ago, however, while we cherish our own freedom, we lack the will to take it from others, to impose our way of thinking on those around us. Thus did we peacefully exist for centuries before your people came through the Portal.”

  T’arza’s tone changed for the first time, as if he was trying to be careful in what he said to avoid offending Taylor. “Your people, on the contrary, are extremely susceptible to suggestion and driven to impose their will on others. Indeed, it is the primary reason we severed contact so long ago. Your people were known to mine long before you ventured to a Portal world. My race spent centuries on your planet, mentoring your ancestors, teaching them.” T’arza spoke hauntingly, as if from personal memory. “We sought nothing in return, but the ancient humans began to regard us as gods, seeking out our favor in their own conflicts. We came to form the basis of many of your ancient religions, though through no effort or desire of our own.”

  T’arza paused. His tone was hard to discern, but Taylor thought he detected something there. Sadness, perhaps.

  “Soon, some among your people began to use us to seek to control others. They waged wars in our names, and exhorted men to murder other men under pretense of appeasing us.”

  Taylor sat quietly and listened. He was skeptical, his mind unwilling to accept what this enemy was telling him. But he couldn’t bring himself to discount what T’arza was saying either. It felt somehow…true.

  “So we left your world, fearing the damage we might cause to your then-primitive forefathers. We resolved to guard the Portals and wait for your people to mature…and to join us.” He stopped speaking for a few seconds, giving Jake a chance to consider what he had been told.

  “Indeed, we needed your race to step through the Portals. My people are a dying race. It has been many centuries since any have been born among us. We have never been able to determine the cause of this…perhaps we were only meant to exist for a certain time…or some ancient research of ours unleashed something terrible upon us. We are long-lived, vastly more so than your kind. Yet humanity shall outlast us.”

  Taylor found himself almost hypnotized, lost in what T’arza was telling him. His fear of the alien was draining away…and his hatred as well, leaving only confusion. The being speaking to him was so rational, so empathic. So different from most of the people
Jake knew. His doubts began to crumble.

  “We waited for your people to come, to take up the mantle as guardians of the Portals. But we saw what was happening on your Earth. Again and again, your people allowed evil, inferior men and women to lead them. They submitted themselves to be ruled by those unfit for such authority. They surrendered their judgment, their self-determination.” T’arza looked at Jake unwaveringly as he spoke. “We began to despair, to fear that humanity would never mature, that we would have none fit to whom we could pass control of the Portals. We debated intervention, but we could not truly grasp the motivating factors of your behavior…nor could we discern any way to prevent it, save using force and imposing our own will on humanity. This is an option that has always been repugnant to us.”

  Taylor pulled himself up, propping his back against the cushions so he could look directly at T’arza as he spoke. The headache was subsiding, and he was becoming more and more focused on what he was hearing.

  “We created the beings you call ‘the Machines’ to replace us, to maintain the structure of our civilization as we dwindled. We had hoped they might become our free-willed successors but, alas, we were never able to achieve what we sought. They are little better than slaves, though it was never our intention to make them as such. We had the technology to create them, but not the knowledge or power to instill in them the spark of true life. We were never able to give them truly independent thought nor make them self-replicating, like a natural species. Every one of them that exists was manufactured. Every attempt at creating a reproductive capability in them has failed.”

  “So the Machines were not purpose built as soldiers?” Taylor finally spoke. His instinct still told him to doubt what T’arza told him, but the alien’s words seemed so genuine, his skepticism was fading.

  “Indeed, no.” T’arza’s tone changed again, sounding as though the very topic was distasteful. “My people are morally repulsed by the idea of creating a race of slave soldiers. The entities you call ‘Machines’ were intended to replace us when the last of us dies out, not to serve us in wars of conquest.” He paused for a few seconds before cautiously continuing. “When the conflict with your people began, we had little choice but to employ them in a defensive role.” T’arza’s expressions were not easily readable, but Jake recognized sadness passing again over the alien’s face. “My people are now far too few to wage a war of this size and duration. We were compelled to manufacture more of the Machines to defend the Portal worlds.

  Taylor sat and listened. Again, the facts supported everything he was being told. The Machines fought competently, nothing more. He had no doubt that T’arza’s race was capable of building better warriors if they so wished…if their ethical constraints would allow it.

  He closed his eyes, trying to organize his thoughts. He couldn’t reconcile this gentle, intelligent alien with the atrocities committed on the first Portal worlds. With the savage race that turned man’s first contact into a bloody crusade. “But why did you attack the first colonies?” Taylor’s voice was strained, tense. “We didn’t come to attack…we came to settle, to explore.” Anger was creeping back into his tone, as the scenes from the early colonies ran through his mind. The Machines, slaughtering men, women…children. Burning down the tiny new villages. “And the Machines killed them…they killed them all.” Taylor was practically screaming as he looked right at T’arza. “Why?” It was a cry of anger and a plea for understanding.

  T’arza’s expression changed again, though Taylor couldn’t read the emotions behind it this time. “I do not know if you are ready to accept the truth, Jake Taylor, but I am about to provide it to you.” He paused. “I fear you will find it…unsettling.”

  “What truth?” Taylor was angry, but confusion was once again supplanting rage.

  “My people are not responsible for the acts that started this war.”

  Taylor was incredulous. “You murdered unarmed civilians! You massacred every human being that set foot on those worlds!” Taylor was shaking. “What did you expect us to do?”

  “We murdered no one.” T’arza spoke calmly. “The entities you call the ‘Machines’ murdered no one.”

  Jake stared back, his mouth open but silent.

  “The events you describe, the horrors inflicted on your initial colonists…that was the work of other humans, Jake, not of my people.”

  Taylor felt a new rush of anger. “That is a lie! I saw it…I saw it all on the videos.”

  “I understand this is a profoundly disturbing revelation for you, Jake, however it is completely factual.” T’arza hesitated, giving Taylor a few seconds to collect himself. “When humans at last came to the world you call New Earth, my people rejoiced. At last, we thought, the humans have found the Portals and come to join us. We had long considered your people, not as our children exactly, but akin to younger siblings. We welcomed your colonists, and we sent emissaries to greet them. We brought gifts, and we sought to share our knowledge of the Portals.”

  T’arza spoke slowly, with reverent respect for what he was saying. “Your colonists welcomed us. We were familiar with humans, and we had little difficulty communicating. Your ancient languages were still familiar to us, and your modern ones were simple to learn.”

  There was definite sadness in the Tegeri’s commentary. It wasn’t so much a tone of voice as an overall demeanor, almost a feeling. But Jake was convinced that the alien was speaking of something he thought of as a terrible tragedy.

  “We spoke with your colonial leaders. As with all human social groupings, there was an obvious and rigid administrative hierarchy in play.”

  Taylor winced slightly, feeling a little defensive hearing T’arza characterize human behavior. He didn’t disagree with anything the Tegeri was saying, but he still didn’t like hearing it.

  T’arza could see that Taylor was uncomfortable. “I do not mean to say anything that may offend you, Jake. I am not judging human behavioral norms, simply describing them.” He looked silently at Taylor.

  Jake nodded his head. “Please go on. I am not offended.” Taylor was lying, but T’arza had his attention. He wanted to hear the rest of the story.

  “We told your settlers about the true extent of the Portal network…something humans have still not discovered. It is vast, and it leads to many places in the universe…to wonders you can only imagine.”

  Taylor was staring back, waiting for T’arza to continue. He didn’t know what the alien was going to say, but he was starting to see shreds of it come together in his mind. He tried not to guess, to let his imagination run ahead of the facts. But he couldn’t ignore the pit in his stomach.

  “Then they came.” Taylor could feel the ominous tone in what T’arza was telling him. “Soldiers, fully-armed and ready for battle. They attacked us and killed many before we fled. We tried to communicate, to tell them we had come peacefully, but they ignored all our entreaties.” T’arza hesitated before continuing. “After we withdrew, we watched in horror as the soldiers turned their weapons on the villages.” The Tegeri’s mannerisms were different from human norms, but Taylor could tell how upsetting this was for the alien.

  “Soldiers, what kind of soldiers?” Taylor felt his doubts again. What troops, he thought, could have attacked the Tegeri? There were colonies from seven different nations on those first two worlds, and all were destroyed.

  “They came through the Portal. They destroyed the settlements, burning them to the ground. They pursued the few survivors, shooting them down as they fled. They murdered them all, even the children. My people watched in shock, in horror. Our race has had no live young born in uncounted centuries, and even in our oldest memories, children held a special place in our civilization. To see human soldiers butchering the colonial children was something none of my people will forget.”

  Taylor’s mind was racing, wondering whether to believe what he was being told. Could it really have been some human force? Why, he wondered…what reason would other humans have for attack
ing the settlements?

  The answer was forming in his head, slowly, hazily. It was something so terrible, so inconceivable, that his mind fought it desperately, not wanting to face it.

  “Indeed, Jake…what I tell you is true. The attackers were humans, and they came through the Portal from Earth.” T’arza was speaking, but Taylor was too consumed with his own thoughts to listen fully. The alien’s voice sounded far off now, a distant whisper.

  “What of the videos?” Taylor’s voice was desperate, trying to think of any way to argue against what he had already begun to believe. “They showed us videos of the massacres.”

  “Any videos you saw were false, Jake.” T’arza waved his hand and a screen on the wall flickered to life. “They had many dead Machines to model, and creating false video is a simple feat.” He waved his hand a second time. “This is the true image of what happened that day.”

  The screen showed a small village, nestled in an idyllic valley. New Earth was a beautiful world, not a hell like Erastus. There were fields and forests…and deep blue rivers crisscrossing the landscape. But there was something wrong in the image Taylor was watching. Columns of smoke rose from the small cluster of buildings, and people were running, screaming…trying to escape the fiery death raining down on their tiny community.

  There were soldiers attacking the town. They wore bluish-gray fatigues with black body armor. Those are pre-Consolidation UN troops, Taylor realized. He was sick to his stomach watching the soldiers bombarding the town, raking the peaceful hamlet with mortars and hyper-velocity rounds.

  Small units detached from the main forces, pursuing the colonists who escaped the village. The terrified civilians ran for a nearby wood, but they were mowed down by automatic weapons fire. Not one of them made it 100 meters from the dying village. Taylor watched them die. He saw a child, no more than 5 or 6 years old, stumbling, fleeing…holding his own severed arm in his hand.