by B. V. Larson
“See these cables at the base of this clam-shell thing? That has to be made of polymers, maybe with a metal core. I’ll look for an outlet.”
Nervously, she stood in my shadow studying the beach area while I grunted and strained.
At last, the shell’s lid broke suction and opened with a dramatic slurp. Inside, I found something I just hadn’t been expecting. It was a mama-squid. She was huge, at least as big as any four male squids I’d ever seen. She was all tucked in there like a tick in a dog’s ear.
Before I could do much of anything, a tentacle snaked out and wrapped itself around my midsection. I knew right off I was in trouble. I’d once seen a squid queen pop Carlos’ eyeballs right out just by squeezing him.
My right arm and my rifle were pinned to my side. Whether that was by accident or by design, I wasn’t sure, but I was sure that I was being hoisted up effortlessly into the air by an angry she-squid.
“Take my gun!” I shouted, fumbling out my pistol with my free hand and dropping it.
Turov darted in and snatched up the gun. She fired it immediately, singeing the tentacle, but that only seemed to make it squeeze me harder. I could feel a few ribs starting to give way already.
“Do something!” I demanded with a wheeze. “My breastplate won’t hold!”
Galina was a naturally tricky woman when she was in a tight spot. She ran up, reached into the clam-shell thingy and grabbed a slippery egg. Inside, a tiny baby squid wriggled.
She put the pistol to the egg she still held on to, meaningfully holding it up so the mama-squid could see it. Some of the queen’s eyes now tracked me while others tracked Galina. Straining to crane my neck around enough to see Galina, I noted another tentacle snaking up behind her.
“Look out,” I gasped. “Behind you.”
Galina wasn’t the motherly sort. She fired her pistol into the mass of eggs, burning a hole through a half-dozen of them. Then she put her pistol back to the one in her hands.
The squid queen made an angry sound. It was somewhere between a hiss and a fart, but she’d gotten the message. Her tentacles retreated from Galina.
“Okay,” I said, “she’s easing up on my ribs. Use your tapper. We’ve all got their language stored in our software now. Turn on the translator.”
Turov did so, and we heard a tirade of bizarre curses.
“—egg-stealer! Beast-of-the-sands! Disgusting dry-thing!”
“Shut up,” Galina said. “We’re humans, and we’re here to negotiate.”
“Negotiate? You offend us with that word.”
It was about when she used the word “us” that I noticed something: other clam-shells had yawned open all around us. Each held a queen and her brood. Apparently, these eggs started off in the protective embrace of their mothers, but were eventually taken down into the central pool to incubate until hatching.
“Don’t you want to save your young?” Turov asked.
“We will. You will be expunged. We’ve already alerted the guardians.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Hey,” I called to Galina, “tell her to put me down.”
Turov did so. Soon I was standing on the sand and rubbing my sore ribs. It felt good just to be able to take a full breath again. I thanked my lucky stars I was an officer these days. I’d been issued a tough breastplate that came with the rank. With only light armor, I’d have been dead within seconds.
“Here are our terms,” Turov said. “We demand that you call off your attack on Earth, and that you throw off the yoke of Wur and declare neutrality with us!”
Bubbling air erupted once more from the moist folds of the creature. I knew this one from experience. The squid-queen was laughing.
“You are almost amusing, despite your evil. Can you possibly believe threatening one of my offspring will motivate me to do anything? My offspring have proudly died by the thousands in battle.”
Galina cocked her head.
“Why do you serve the Wur, then?” she asked. “If you don’t care about your children, why not destroy the dome that sits oppressively over us right now?”
“I hope you survive what’s coming,” the queen said malevolently. “I must see you boiled in ink. I will donate from my own fluids to aid with the ceremony. You should feel honored that I hate you this much, egg-stealer.”
Galina’s mouth opened again, but I could tell from the look on her face she wasn’t going to say anything helpful.
“Hold on, Imperator,” I said. “Let me have a shot.”
Reluctantly, Galina shut up. That wasn’t in her nature, so I really appreciated her newfound sense of cooperation.
“Lady-squid,” I said, addressing the queen, “we don’t have to threaten one another. We can help each other. We’re sorry about your offspring, but we were attacked and reacted the way predators always do when they’re injured.”
The queen squirmed, regarding me. “What is this?” she said. “Which of you is in charge?”
“I am,” Turov said.
“Then why is your slave offending my auditory organs by speaking to me? Is this a fresh variety of insult?”
“No, no, hold on,” I said, holding up my hands.
The squid looked alarmed, rearing up a bit and throwing her own tentacles high. I realized that lifting limbs might be construed as a prelude to an attack by some species, so I put my hands back down at my sides again. The squid then relaxed a little.
“I’m Imperator Turov’s surrogate, her spokesperson.”
“Ah, a slave with a special purpose. I comprehend.”
“Let me explain the nature of our offer,” I said, “we hate the Wur. You hate the Wur. We would like to break their hold over your kind. We could help you cast them off and make you free again.”
“That isn’t logical,” she said, “and therefore, it must be a trick of some kind.”
“Uh… why?”
“All beings seek mastery. All species of intellect wish to dominate, consume or eradicate their competitors. Therefore, you cannot possibly want to help us.”
“But it’s in our best interest to help you,” I argued. “We’re a smaller power than the Cephalopod Kingdom. We’re also smaller than the Wur. If we can free you from the Wur, we both gain.”
“At last I see your thinking. You are clever for such a tiny food-creature. You wish to embroil two of your betters in a conflict. With luck, one or both will be destroyed.”
“Well, hold on—” I began, but the squid-queen wasn’t listening.
“My initial assumption was therefore correct,” she continued. “Your goal is our destruction, but you wish to accomplish this in a clever way. Even so, your offer is tempting, but impossible.”
“Why impossible?” Galina demanded. “We’d both gain.”
A tentacle tip rose, and it pointed toward the walls of the chamber. Down these walls came dark shapes.
It took me a second to recognize them. They were spiders like the one’s I’d met up with on Death World. They crept rapidly down the arched walls and spread out stealthily on the sands.
When it comes to quick action, I’m the man you want to have at your side. Instead of shooting at the spiders or the squids, I grabbed the teleport suit from where it was bundled at my waist and began to shake it out. By the time I had an arm and a leg in the suit. I dropped to one knee and began tugging at the power-lead that snaked into the clam-shell.
“Tell them to stop!” Galina shouted, aiming her gun at the queen.
The queen eyed her with several orbs at once. “You are a cretin. You do not understand us. I’m not in charge here. I rule nothing. My masters have sent their servants.”
“You mean the spiders? The spiders are in charge? Maybe I should talk to them.”
Again, the queen made a farting sound. “Be my guest.”
My suit was charging by now, but I had to hold the cord up and keep the lead shoved into my power-pack to force the connection. It wasn’t quite fitting right despite the fact it was supposed to wor
k as a universal connector.
“Come on, hurry,” I said, waving to Galina. “We can’t fight a hundred spiders.”
Galina climbed into the teleport suit awkwardly while I held it open with one hand.
“Interesting,” said the queen. “You mate in your final moments. This must be some kind of feral instinct of lower-ordered species. It won’t do any good. If you do produce offspring, I will simply torment the creatures to death.”
Galina snarled and tossed the egg she held in her hands into the air. The queen reached up and snatched it down again.
Those eyes were filled with an even greater malevolence when she’d recovered her egg and turned them back down to regard us.
Fortunately, the suit was charged enough to make the jump.
“Faceplates!” I shouted.
Galina reached up and slammed both of ours down. I took out the Galactic Key, reaching right across her field of vision with it, to touch the dial on the teleport suit. Her hand slipped out to grab at it, but in that moment I twisted the dial to take us home.
The next instant we were flying through a nameless void, blind and torn apart into our constituent molecules.
I had to wonder if she was still trying to take the key from me in that endless expanse of darkness.
-51-
We reached Central minutes later, but it felt like an eternity had passed.
The second we got there with the slimy fluid on our suit dripping off in steamy glops, Galina began to struggle with me.
She was doing two things at once, in my estimation. She was trying to wriggle out of our shared suit and take the key from my hand.
Normally, when I have an attractive young lady wrestling with me in close quarters, I’m a happy camper. But today, I was annoyed. I had my fingers wrapped tightly around the key, and I wasn’t letting go of it for anything.
“McGill, you promised!”
“Hold on,” I said, “we’ve got company.”
She turned her head to follow my gaze. The room was chock-full of people. It looked like Graves had brought down the entire teleportation tech team. Lisa was there, and she looked disgusted. Graves look amused but a little annoyed, too.
“Perhaps we should leave and let you two have the room to yourselves,” he commented.
“Centurion Graves, I want you to arrest this man!” Turov said.
“Hmm,” he said. “I’m not sure how that will play, Imperator. You’re still under investigation.”
“What? Nagata gave me authority. He—”
Graves was shaking his head. “No, he didn’t. We found him dead on the floor in his office, and after checking over the body, guess what we found? That wasn’t Nagata at all. It was Claver doing his illusion trick.”
Turov shut up at last. Her hands had been wrapped around my wrist in a hopeless struggle to take the key out of my grip, but now she let go. She climbed out of the teleport suit and turned to face Graves fully.
“What are you saying, Centurion? Is this more of Drusus’ rebellious scheming?”
“Hardly—not unless you think he helped Claver take over,” Graves replied. “I have to hand it to McGill, here. I don’t know how you spotted him, but you shot him down before he could do any permanent damage to our defense efforts.”
Turov climbed out of my suit and stood in the open. People looked at the black jelly-like material that still dribbled off her in alarm.
“So this is how it’s going to be?” she asked. “You’re creating another crisis of leadership. Do you accept my rank and my authority or not, Graves? Have you received any orders to depose me?”
“That’s not the point. Your reinstatement wasn’t sanctioned by an actual officer.”
“Where is Drusus then?” she demanded. “Why isn’t he here?”
“Because he was shot in your absence. He’s dead in his cell. Investigators are going over the scene now.”
“Really?” Turov asked. “How tragic. What about the other high-ranking Hegemony officers?”
Graves shook his head. “The ones on this continent died here at Central. There are plenty who died in the field fighting the enemy’s advance, but they were lower ranked than you—tribunes only. Mostly Varus people have been revived since then. Drusus thought we could defend Central better than a pack of hog bureaucrats.”
Turov laughed bitterly. “Of course. Let me translate: he didn’t want any challenge to his authority. Well, without any other superior officers at hand, Primus Winslade is your current commander. Where is he?”
Graves lifted his chin and looked at her coldly. “I had him arrested. He’s my prime suspect in the murder of Drusus.”
“What! I never thought I’d see this day! How could you take up arms against your commanders, Graves? You were always the reliable one.”
“There’s a difference between reliability and playing the fool.”
Turov looked around the assembled group. They were obviously hostile but conflicted. Would they really back a mere Centurion against a high-ranking officer? It was a confusing situation.
“I see,” she said, “you must make your decision then. I’ve done nothing that I didn’t think was in the best interests of Earth, whether you agree with my choices or not. Either accept me as your rightful commander, or execute me now.”
She stood with her head thrown back. I had to admit, she did have guts when it came right down to it.
Graves looked uncomfortable with his position. I could tell he’d never wanted to have to make such a call.
What he did next surprised me. He turned to face me and asked me a question.
“McGill, you’ve been hanging around Imperator Turov for a long time. What’s your opinion on this? What have you been doing—aiding in Earth’s defense or trying to subvert the chain of command here at Central?”
“Uh…” I said, trying to think.
To be honest, I thought it was a little of both. But that kind of answer wouldn’t make anyone happy. Whatever I said, I had to make it firm and final.
When I started to speak at last, I went with my heart.
“An army without a leader is in a terrible spot,” I said. “We’re dying out there on the battlefield. In my opinion, we only have a day or two left before we lose this war. And how are we spending our final moments? Huddling in Central like a bunker, waiting for the enemy to crush us.”
I had everyone’s attention now. They were all looking at me, listening. I’d half expected some scoffing, but I didn’t get any. They knew the truth of my words.
“We’re all on the same side,” I said. “We’re just not in agreement as to how to go about things. Turov, I think, honestly thought we couldn’t win this battle. She sought to negotiate the best possible end to the conflict at hand.”
She nodded. She was approving of my words—but I could tell she was also worried about what I’d say next.
I tried not to think about the weight of the situation. I tried to keep my mind clear. These people needed to be brought together, and sometimes a little old-fashioned horse-sense could do that.
“Listen,” I said, “let’s drop the investigations and accusations. If we live longer than a week, we can delve into all of that later. We need Turov and Drusus both—”
Graves shook his head. “We can’t get Drusus back. At least, we haven’t found a backup yet. He was deleted as well as shot. The intention was to perm him.”
“Winslade…” I said, gritting my teeth. Then, I took a deep breath. “Okay. It has to be Turov then. It’s either that or we pull out some hog who will probably do nothing effective anyway. What do you say, Graves? We can’t trust her fully, but we must have a leader.”
Galina looked a little shocked. I think she’d figured she was as good as dead. Slowly, a smile crept over her face despite the fact she was trying to contain her joy.
“Very well, then!” Turov said in a commanding tone. “Let’s retire to—”
“Hold on,” Graves said. “I want to know where you two ha
ve been. Your latest adventure was unsanctioned.”
Tapping at my arm, I flashed the video over to Graves. He looked it over, fast-forwarding the part where we were swimming through squid-eggs for half an hour.
“Interesting,” he said, “these teleport waypoints don’t make any sense to me, but in another way, they do. How can this help us, McGill? What if we sent in a team to wipe out those squid queens? Could we cripple them?”
“No,” I said firmly, “I don’t think so. What we have to do is get the Wur to capitulate to us, or take away the hold they have over the squids.”
“How the hell are we going to do that?”
“Well sir,” I said, “I have a plan that might do the trick.”
Everyone looked at me with a strange new light in their eyes. They needed hope, and I’d just given it to them.
As soon as I’d said those words, however, I regretted them. They were a lie. I had no idea what to do next.
But a man like me knows the first rule of being a liar. The insurmountable, overriding truth about all lies: Once you’d aired them, you were stuck with them. You had to back them up and never, never admit you were full of grade-A bullshit.
“Okay,” Graves said, to everyone’s relief. “Turov is in charge again. On paper, that won’t be a problem. But let me warn you, Imperator. I’m watching you. We all are. Any attempts to surrender to the enemy before this war is finished will be viewed as treason. Every allegation against you will be remembered in that moment.”
Galina licked her red lips and gave him a tight smile. Then she inclined her head to me and to the crowd.
“Excellent,” she said. “Now that this unfortunate misunderstanding is behind us, we’ll move forward with our defensive efforts. I will be taking over Nagata’s office and his quarters—Drusus’ spider-hole is unsuitable.”
She went on like that for a time, ordering people around. They hopped up and hustled. I could tell they weren’t overjoyed to be listening to her, but they needed a leader and they needed orders. Now, at least, they had them both.
When she was finished handing out tasks to pretty much everyone in the room, she turned to me and cocked her head. She studied me for a full second before coming to some kind of internal decision.