The Expanding Universe 4: Space Adventure, Alien Contact, & Military Science Fiction (Science Fiction Anthology)

by Craig Martelle

  “You’re no Leonidas.”

  “Actually, I am.”

  “If you’re a lion, you’re in a cage right now.”

  Straker shrugged, smiling.

  Lazarus sighed. “What made you think you had a chance?”

  “We had advantages.”

  “Such as?”

  Straker stared at the unlit smokestick in his fingers for a moment. “I’m not going to give up Breaker secrets, so I’ll list the ones you already know. We had the only sane AI in human space, inhabiting the most advanced warship ever built. We had friends and resources all over the Republic, people who owed us. We had bleeding-edge alien-derived biotech in our bodies that made us supermen. Better biotech than your Hok here, and it doesn’t turn us into slaves like them.”

  “Why don’t you have that advanced biotech in you now? You might have avoided capture.”

  Straker shrugged once more, saying nothing.

  “I presume you don’t want it falling into our hands, hmm? Arrogant, to go visiting that Sachsen planet in such a weakened state.”

  Straker turned his eyes away as if embarrassed.

  “No matter,” said Lazarus with a satisfied smile. “Back to the Breakers. You think you could’ve fomented yet another revolution. Why didn’t you try?”

  “I chose not to. I’ve become less naively idealistic in my old age. I finally realized humanity could never be liberated from itself. Not by force, anyway. Every free society in history turns corrupt and births tyranny. Then it collapses, convulses, and rises from the ashes to start the cycle over again. I couldn’t stop that from happening—not without becoming a tyrant and trying to divert that cycle.”

  “So you, what? Just dropped out? Gave up on all this moral posturing to do what you were made for—fight wars?”

  “You’re right—that’s what I was made for, genetically engineered for, born for. Can’t blame a man for the way he’s made. Only for his choices afterward.” Straker grinned. “Like you, Lazarus. You were cloned and trained to be a thug and a murderer, a secret policeman and a torturer. You chose to embrace that. I don’t take it personally anymore.”

  Lazarus smiled. “Thank you. But you see, governments need people like you and me—as long as we know our places. I do, and I’m happy in my role. I provide stability and order, which is enough for the sheep. But you, you didn’t know your place. You rebelled and overthrew. You won, but foolishly did not purge your opponents from the political classes. You never cleaned house.”

  “I’m not going to murder people for what they might do.”

  “All very noble, but stupid. Did you really think your enemies would let you run around loose, to overthrow them again when the whim took you?”

  Straker showed his teeth in triumph. “So you admit we could’ve liberated the Republic again.”

  “I admit you had a miniscule chance to stage another coup, and politicians don’t like chances. They like sure things. My brother clones advised against provoking you, but the Senate didn’t listen, the Directorate acted, and the Supreme Judiciary didn’t stop them.” Lazarus shrugged. “And here we are.”

  Straker eyed the alert Hok. “Yeah. Why are we here anyway, on a ship instead of on Sachsen where I was captured? Why am I not in a triple-secure planetary facility with a thousand guards?”

  “On Sachsen? We have no such facilities on the edge of the frontier, and I know you have friends there. The nearest internal security complex is on Blackburn—and incidentally, much farther from your Breakers in case of a rescue attempt.”

  “Perfectly logical and well-reasoned—like all you Lazaruses. Or is it Lazari? I’ll just call you lizards.”

  “Discourtesy won’t help you, Mister Straker. You’re in this for the long haul. You really should curry my favor.”

  “Never gonna happen. Get on with your interrogation.”

  “I will, eventually. Interrogation isn’t an event, after all. It’s a process. A process I enjoy, every minute of it. A process I will prolong, for I’m in no hurry. We’ll get to know each other very, very well.” Lazarus stood, grinding out his smokestick on the deck. “Return him to his cell.”

  As the Hok moved toward him, Straker struck the tip of the smokestick to life as he surged to his feet. He flicked the lit stick unerringly at the second guard’s eye as he dealt with the first. With his manacled hands he slapped the first guard’s stun prod aside. Straker’s left hand and arm went numb. Simultaneously, he extended the fingers of his right hand to rake at the same Hok’s face. The thick nails of his curled index and middle finger scored the creature’s pebbled skin, leaving two distinct blood trails.

  Straker wasn’t sure which got him, the other Hok’s stun goad or Lazarus triggering the pain-belt he wore. Either way, he woke up in his cell with a headache—and a smile, as he stuck his middle finger in his mouth and scraped beneath his nail with his teeth, while carefully avoiding his index finger.

  The taste of blood and raw Hok flesh revolted him, so he focused on anticipating the result. The Hok—the name corrupted from HOC, Human Organic Commando—bore an older, uglier form of biotech than the kind the Breakers used. The Hok’s microscopic parasite conferred strength, speed, rapid healing, tough skin—and eventually stole the user’s free will, making him the perfect military slave.

  Fortunately, the advantages began within hours, while the enslaving would take days. Straker had a window before he was turned into a suggestible Hok, unable to resist orders.

  He lay back on the hard bunk, feeling the thrum of sidespace engines carrying the ship to Blackburn. From what he’d seen, the vessel was small, a fast passenger sloop with room for a dozen or so. He’d noted only four Hok and the Lazarus clone. Odds were there was a pilot, maybe a copilot or engineer, but nobody else.

  Once the ship arrived and he was transferred to a prison facility, his chances of escape would drop precipitously. The Inquisitor had to know that, had to know letting Straker out of his cell was a risk, yet he did it anyway. If the Lazarus clones had a weakness, it was overconfidence and, oddly, a certain kind of hedonism. They lived like acetics, but indulged themselves in their own specific, cruel pleasures.

  Straker was counting on it.

  Without a chrono, Straker had no idea how long he was out, or what schedule the Lazarus would employ. Sleep deprivation was a standard technique, and they’d try to wake him up at the worst part of his sleep cycle as revealed by the biometric sensors in the pain-belt he wore. Still, some sleep was better than none.

  He closed his eyes, and woke to a prod in his ribs. After several jolts of pain to soften him up, the four Hok beat him with their fists, mostly blows to the body. The punches seemed calculated, delivered without emotion. The Hok biotech robbed them of anger.

  Straker imagined he could feel the Hok parasite growing in his tissues, and he saw his fate in their faces.

  The Hok with the damage to his cheek seemed hesitant. Straker would never have noticed but for the fact he was looking for it. The man’s eyes—for that’s what the creature once was, a man—seemed a little more self-aware.

  Straker covered up, took the blows, and was cautiously pleased.

  They dragged him down the main passageway past the interrogation room and into the sloop’s small cargo bay. Most of its contents lay against the walls, strapped down by nets. In a cleared space in the center stood a large case over one meter on a side, the kind needing a loader, or at least four strong people, to handle in full gravity.

  This one was clipped to the ringbolts in the deck, and the Hok gave it a wide berth. They lifted Straker to his feet to face Inquisitor Lazarus once again.

  “You seem to be moving more slowly than before, Mister Straker.”

  “I can take a beating.”

  “I thought you should be reminded of your vulnerability. Your mortality. Your lack of supporting biotech.”

  That Lazarus was engaging in repartee, rather than asking questions, told Straker the Inquisitor was indulging himself again, toy
ing with his prisoner like a cat with a mouse. Straker decided to play along, buying time to recover. “I’m aware of my mortality. I just don’t focus on it as much as you do.”

  “Most narcissists preserve self above all else,” Lazarus said.

  “The fact I don’t care that much about myself should tell you I’m not a narcissist.”

  “What else would you call someone who thinks he can repeatedly overthrow the governments of all humanity?”

  “They were human governments, but sorry, they lacked humanity.”

  The Lazarus tipped an imaginary hat. “Points for the wordplay, but those governments were better than most, measured against history. In the final account, did your actions improve the lives of that humanity you claim to serve?”

  “I turned over power to the civilians. That showed my good will. They screwed it up again, not me.”

  The Lazarus examined his fingernails with an air of longsuffering superiority. “They always do. Your error was in trying to change the course of a mighty river. None of us is able to do that.”

  “Some do. I did.”

  “You did nothing.”

  “I ended a war between two human empires, a war that raged for hundreds of years. I liberated nearly a trillion alien-enslaved humans. I destroyed another alien race bent on our genocide.”

  “And yet we’re back to square one. Do you think the average citizen is better off, or worse?”

  Straker made a sound of exasperation. “You’re a messenger of despair. I’m tired of your bullshit. Why are we here in this cargo bay?”

  The Inquisitor gestured at the case. “I want to know about this.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  The Lazarus nodded, and one of the Hok slugged Straker in the ribs, just where it hurt the most. “I need answers.”

  Straker allowed himself to gasp. Letting the interrogator think he was hurting more than he was could be an advantage. “Why don’t you just scan it?”

  “We don’t have deep scan equipment aboard. What we can see makes me think it’s booby-trapped.”

  “Maybe it’s a bomb. Maybe I can detonate it even from here—with a voice command, possibly?”

  The Lazarus twitched his lips. “One thing you aren’t, Straker, is suicidal. Besides, why would you be conveying a bomb to someone on Sachsen? No, there’s something important in there, protected by sophisticated systems, I’m sure. I need to know what it is.”

  “No.”

  When Lazarus nodded a third time, Straker slid out of the way of the Hok’s punch, just enough to take the power out of it.

  The Hok said nothing, did nothing different in response. Straker counted on it. Hok took no initiative unless they were instructed to do so. If the Lazarus hadn’t specifically told the Hok to rectify a missed punch, or report everything out of the ordinary, they would let some things pass—like an ineffective blow.

  “Is this really the hill you want to die on, Straker?” the Lazarus said. “We’ll find out what’s in there eventually.”

  “Then why beat it out of me?” Straker chuckled, spat on the deck. “I know. It’ll be a feather in your cap if you arrive with the information—if you provide it rather than the facility torturers.”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s a good enough reason I won’t be telling you.”

  The Lazarus growled in his throat. “Put him in his cell and beat him to injury level two, no more.”

  The Hok acknowledged, and then dragged Straker away to his cell. He didn’t resist the beating except to cover up and try to minimize it. He’d been beaten before, and far worse, before he’d ever had the advantage of biotech. He’d been genetically engineered to take it—to be a soldier, a mechsuiter, an aggressive combat officer.

  And, according to several covert agents, to be a disrupting force.

  Straker chuckled to himself. Can’t blame a man for the way he was made. Only for his choices afterward.

  When the Hok left, he unfolded his body and tested it. Nothing broken. The Hok were experts, no doubt having beaten many prisoners before.

  He found packaged rations in a niche. He ate and drank and rested. There was no point in worrying about drugs. The Lazarus would drug him if he wanted to. The most important thing was to give his body—and the Hok parasite multiplying inside him—fuel to heal him and to make him strong, stronger than they expected.

  To be ready if something broke his way.

  He slept.

  When he awoke, a Hok was in the cell with him. The one with the fading scars on his roughened face.

  “What?” Straker said after a moment of both staring. His heart beat faster, hoping.

  The Hok furrowed his brows.

  Straker sat up on the bunk. “Go on. Speak.”

  “You…do not…command me.”

  “Does anyone?”

  The Hok seemed to struggle with the question. His eyes darted left and right before slamming a fist into the bulkhead next to him. He spun and left the cell.

  Straker could have tried to take him while the Hok’s back was turned, but the time wasn’t right yet.

  Let the Hok’s wounds heal. Let the others forget.

  Straker slept.

  Again, he was awoken from a deep sleep of nightmare. In his dream, he fought and fought against multiple clones of Lazarus, but his blows had no effect.

  The blows that woke him were all too real, this time to soles of his feet, with prods. The pain was excruciating, recalling his first capture and imprisonment that began the sequence of events which made him the Liberator. He could take it then, and he could take it now—better now. He felt stronger, despite the beatings. The familiar heady sensation of being supercharged by the combination of genes and biotech, as if every other creature within reach were fragile and vulnerable, was returning.

  He quashed the familiar temptation to simply attack his enemies. The Hok were fast, tough and alert. He could certainly take one or two, but not four at a time. The ship might have a lockdown system, knockout gas, or other defenses. The Lazarus clone himself was a formidable opponent, and would be armed.

  No, the time to move wasn’t yet.

  But the clock was ticking.

  Again they shackled him, dragged him to the interrogation room. This time they fastened the chains to new crysteel rings set in the deck. He surreptitiously tested his strength against the manacles.

  No chance. Not even with his full enhanced strength.

  Lazarus didn’t offer him a smokestick this time. He did, however, place a plastic cup of lukewarm caff within Straker’s reach, and then sipped his own steaming cup before lighting his smokestick. “Relax, Captain Straker. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Straker shifted his bare, swollen feet on the cold deck. “Do you ever talk straight? Or is that impossible for your kind?”

  Lazarus’ shrug was subtle, an easily missed tilt of one shoulder. “As you said, a man is subject to his own nature.”

  “You know, I did get straight answers out of one of your brother clones. I had to threaten removal of body parts to do it…but I know it’s possible.”

  “We’re nothing if not pragmatic, Straker. I wish you were more so. It will go much easier on you if you tell me now what I need to know.”

  “The box?”

  “And your mission.”

  Straker merely stared. From the corner of his eye he noticed one of the Hok shifting slightly on his feet. For a Hok, that was fidgeting. It heartened him.

  “You have a child, don’t you?” Lazarus said. “Katrine?”

  Straker nodded. Actually, he and Carla had two, but he wasn’t going to give Lazarus free information. What he would do is keep Lazarus talking, talking, talking—something all the Inquistors loved to do—to buy time.

  Tick tock.

  “Don’t you want to return to your wife and daughter?” Lazarus asked.

  “Not if it means betraying my people.”

  “You already betrayed your people, Straker.”


  “You’re sure working hard to convince me of that…but you never will.”

  “What I can do is work toward reuniting you with your family.”

  Straker sipped his caff and winced at the taste. “Go fuck yourself.”

  “An epithetical phrase more appropriate to aliens than humans, don’t you think?” Lazarus waved as if brushing away concerns. “But no matter. You’re in custody, and will remain so until the day you die. The only way you see your family and friends again is if they join you in that custody. I could make sure it’s pleasant. No cages, no bars, no chains, just you and them and a ranch on some sparsely populated planet. Many would call that Paradise.”

  Straker chuckled. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven?”

  “I give the Devil his due.”

  “I could have reigned in Heaven—the heavens, anyway, Lazarus—but I gave it a pass. I’ll give this a pass too. I’d never ask my friends or family to give up their liberty for comfort, and I’d certainly never place them in your blood-drenched hands.”

  “How poetic. You do know how to warm a literate man’s heart.” Lazarus’ words seemed more genuine than sarcastic.

  Straker merely stared, not responding.

  Lazarus stared back.

  It became a contest. Seconds stretched to tens. Eventually Lazarus blinked, and then Straker allowed himself to do so, but still he remained silent.

  The Inquisitor finally couldn’t stand the silence and resumed his patter. Straker, having won the staring duel, decided to play along. He provided scintillating conversation. All the lizards loved the sound of their own voices, loved to match wits with their prisoners, relishing their power and the upper hand. This time, Straker tried to make his captor happy—to play his game, give him his fun. He also hinted that he was considering taking Lazarus’ offer, and he faked a slight despair.

  The session ended ten hours later without a beating. The Hok carried Straker back to his cell and left him there, manacled. He wondered if this was an oversight or a new order. Either way, the chains were a problem, but one he couldn’t solve for now.

  He ate, and he slept.

  A hand on his shoulder awakened him. “Straker.”