by Barry Kirwan
* * *
Serena mentally filed away the notes on the Genned girl’s fighting prowess and resilience. She had actually been impressed: another ten years of training and they would have become formidable opponents. Sister Esma would want a full report later.
This one, though, the way he moved, incredible, always out of reach of the Q’Roth’s deadly claws and serrated legs; she herself would not like to go up against a Q’Roth warrior. And he had cut down the first warrior, caught it by surprise – unheard of! She’d missed that manoeuvre, distracted by the girl, but would find out how exactly he had pulled it off from the Raptor’s allcam replay later. He had the nanosword, but Sister Esma had forewarned the Q’Roth, and each had a truly expensive and rare Shrike, a hyper-dense lance, its regenerative blade capable of blocking such a weapon. The Q’Roth howled with rage and frustration as the man ducked and dodged, but she saw sweat pouring off the human’s forehead; the Q’Roth had more stamina, and would prevail.
She spoke to her comms piece around her neck. “How goes it?”
“We have thirty, bringing them out now.”
Serena kept the gun in her hand, just in case. She heard something new, and a belt device around her waist confirmed it with three sharp pinpricks, their location and intensity on her waist telling her the direction and distance of inbounds. She whirled around and fired three times in less than a second, sending three bodies crashing into the dust at the edges of the plaza. Serena always hit the heart. She spoke again. “Number Four, how’s the Dome?”
“Neutralised. We are securing the second batch into the Raptor now.”
Sixty, that was all they could carry. But Casteur, the Alician Chief Medical Advisor, had said fifty would be enough. She walked to the aft of the Raptor, then spoke in Q’Roth to the warrior, raising her weapon at the blurring fight. “Move aside so I can shoot him.”
The Q’Roth growled, refusing to move out of her line of fire, instead increasing the fury of his attacks, driving Ramires backwards. Your choice. She lowered the weapon, and stood in the shade of the aft rampway into the Raptor and tapped at a control panel. Her waistband started pricking her from all directions. Too bad, she thought, glancing at the Q’Roth. Collateral. She hit a button and a green arch-shaped corridor flashed out from the Raptor’s rear entrance to the Monofaith steps, just as the four Alicians and two Q’Roth herded the thirty people down the steps. Red spots crackled on the forcefield near her body as newly arrived militia fired continuously from the edge of the plaza, trying to break through. She didn’t move, instead glancing to her left, where the Q’Roth had knocked down Ramires and was trying to kill him, stamping down with his legs like a scorpion, but that man, who in the galaxy was he? And then it came to her. A Sentinel, maybe the last one alive. She considered how Sister Esma would prize him, and for a millisecond thought about taking down the barrier to capture him, but no, too risky.
“Come on!” she shouted as her compatriots hustled the people, wide-eyed and fearful, past her into the caged section in the Raptor’s belly. It would be tight, it was meant for twenty. She smiled as they filed past, downtrodden, defeated, angry, confused. Genetic material, that’s all you are, but you will cure us. She tapped a control and the corridor sealed at the other end and began retracting, even as militia advanced, still firing. The last two to board were the Q’Roth warriors, who hesitated, looking to their colleague.
She spoke clearly in Largyl Six, the official Q’Roth language. “We leave now. He stays. You don’t.” Her eyes fixed on their slits until they boarded.
The ramp closed and the ship swiftly rose amongst a sound like stones pelting their hull; more fire from the militia, of no consequence given the Raptor’s shielding.
Serena stood in front of the cage bars, staring at the humans until the noise abated. “My name is Serena. You are prisoners, but we will not harm you.” Murmurings grew, things were said, shouted. She ignored it all, waited, and searched among them to see who were the strong ones, the ones who watched carefully, saying nothing. It quietened down. “You are coming back to our homeworld. We need some of your genetic material.” Another outpouring of anger, more insults, still Serena held her breezy smile. A Q’Roth informed her in Largyl Six that both ships were aloft now and out of harm’s way. She didn’t nod acknowledgement, but addressed the caged crowd again. “We will treat you well. You will live out your lives as a small community of sixty people, isolated but in good conditions. Once a month we will extract genetic material, that is all. You will not be permitted children. If you rebel, we will induce coma and take what we need from your limp, unconscious bodies. It is your choice.”
Somebody tried to throw something at her through the bars, a dagger. She didn’t flinch, calculating in an instant that it would narrowly miss her head. The Q’Roth warrior behind her caught it in mid air, and advanced. She stilled him with a flat palm. Silence followed, and as one all the humans stared at her. “Is there a leader amongst you?” Even as she said it, she gazed at an auburn-haired woman, in her early forties she judged, who moved toward the edge of the bars, the others parting before her, chin held high. Such poise, someone I can deal with.
“What is your name?”
“Antonia.”
“Well, Antonia, calm your people, we have a long voyage ahead of us.”
“What of Esperantia? What of the others?”
Serena’s smile stayed in place. “We have all that we need.”
Antonia’s eyes drilled into hers.
Good, she can smell a lie. Serena raised an eyebrow, and Antonia said nothing more, her lips tight. Perfect – political acumen, too – she cares for the others, doesn’t want to panic them, possibly wants to bide their time so they can escape.
Another, blonder woman, a little older, pushed her way to the front and stood next to Antonia, scowling as she spoke. “If you turn your back, bitch, even for a second –”
“That won’t happen. We’ll talk again soon. I’m afraid all of you must sleep now.” She touched a control and the entire cage shimmered, all the people inside frozen in stasis. Serena made her way to the cockpit and took the rear command chair. She tapped the console. “Sister Esma, two Raptors en route, sixty humans, one Q’Roth left behind presumed dead by now – the humans have some basic nano-weaponry.” There was no oral acknowledgement, simply a message ‘received’. Serena didn’t need gratitude or appreciation. She had gotten the job done, even if the loss of five Raptors had been well outside predictions. But the lack of a personal response from Sister Esma, a rebuke even, made her wonder if something else had happened back on the Crucible. Serena knew she would find out soon enough, and so leant back against the hull, and smiled. She had never seen a planet-cutter in action, and was looking forward to it.
* * *
Blake sprinted across the plaza, overtaking the militia, as the human cargo was herded into the Raptor, but he was headed for Ramires. He couldn’t bear to see another comrade cut down, and the man was already on the ground dodging pounding Q’Roth feet for his life. Blake ran full pelt toward the fizzing energy shield, gambling that it would retract before he collided with it and was vaporised. It did. As soon as it was out of the way he saw Ramires pinned down by one of the Q’Roth’s legs, the warrior’s head leant back in a roar of victory, an upper leg raised high for the kill, its body lit up by red pulse fire from militia, none of which affected it. Blake, still running, raised the halberd’s shortened shaft in his right hand then hurled it tomahawk-style at the Q’Roth’s back. The effort tripped him but as he crashed down into the dust he heard a spinning sound and a crunch choking off the Q’Roth’s howl. Blake skidded to a stop and dared to look up. The halberd’s hilt was sticking out of the warrior’s back, the tall Q’Roth wavering, blue blood spurting from the fissure in his spine. The drone of the Raptor taking off was accompanied by a sirocco of dust, and then a boom rang out around the plaza as it shot upwards.
When the dust settled, the warrior was on the ground, twitching.
Vasquez hurried over to Ramires, Blake too. Ramires was in bad shape, but he pointed to the nano-sword hilt a few metres away. Blake retrieved it and passed it to him. Vasquez supported the wounded Sentinel while other militia gathered round, accompanied by people pouring out from the churches, and trios of youngblood warriors. Ramires took the sword and hobbled over to the dying Q’Roth, refusing further assistance from Vasquez. He knelt on its chest, ignoring the blue blood bubbling from its gash of a mouth. Ramires activated the nanoblade, and placed the point on the creature’s neck.
“Bring Virginia here.”
People around stared at Ramires and then at Blake. He nodded to two militiamen who fetched her body. Blood and sweat stained Ramires cheeks, and tears joined them, a few lodging in his matted moustache, one or two falling onto the Q’Roth’s blue-black heaving ribcage. Ramires breathed in laboured rasps. Blake and Vasquez took Virginia’s limp frame and held her close to Ramires, guessing what he wanted to do.
Ramires took her dead hand and placed her fingers around the hilt. He looked up, addressing everyone, his voice carrying around the entire plaza. “This is for you, Virginia. This is your kill,” he said, and thrust the blade down, and then with an anguished cry cleaved the warrior’s head in two.
The militia, the youngbloods, and everyone around began stomping their feet in unison. It grew until it echoed off all the churches. Blake and Vasquez took Virginia’s body and handed her to several youngbloods, who lifted her high and took her away.
Blake helped Ramires to his feet, and the stomping died down. The three men leant on each other, and Blake quietly spoke what they were all thinking. “It isn’t over.”
Chapter Nineteen
Crucible
Genaspa saw that all were ready. Six team leaders along with their wings of forty-nine Shrell males and females. The teams waited at six equidistant points around the edges of the Quintara system comprising Esperia, its sun, two smaller barren planets and an asteroid belt. She gave the signal, and the run began. Genaspa watched Nasjana’s wing as it broke formation, splitting into ten packs. Nasjana led her four husbands on a direct intercept toward Esperia, while four other packs headed laterally in the four directions of the outer-spherical compass. Those packs would circumscribe the Quintara sector, creating an outer shell of poisoned space, preventing any ship from fast entry or escape, and shattering any ship traversing the sector via Transpace. The density of micro-rifts inside the shell would be highest around the inhabited world Esperia, as demanded by Qorall, and requested by Hellera. Despite the environmental harm, Genaspa’s wingtips twitched with pride; it was satisfying to watch her teams in action.
The remaining packs coiled inwards from the perimeter in a fanning helix pattern, into the Quintaran sector, criss-crossing its inner space with trip-wire sub-spatial fractures, invisible ruts that would derail anything travelling at light or a decent sub-light speed.
Genaspa knew that Qorall, and Hellera for that matter, both wanted this sector locked down, presumably for different reasons, given that they were blood enemies. By the time the run was over, this area would become a general travel hazard, to be avoided at all costs, lighthouse-marked for Level Six and above.
In the longer term, a thousand years or so, the damage would affect the sun itself, which would slip into red dwarf state without going nova, and its three planets would lose orbital cohesion because of the ensuing gravity shifts. By a slow process of attrition due to the subspace rifts, the planets would disintegrate, until all that would be left would be asteroids and dust. The sub-space damage would remain an open wound. An unpleasant frisson traced down her wing edges. As soon as this was over, she would demand the release of the Shrell captives held by Qorall in the Syntaran sector.
Extending her sense ridges Genaspa felt Nasjana’s efforts as she drove her husbands onwards. The males tried to resist, as they had been trained, the push-pull tension of acceleration against the brakes causing subspace around them to vibrate. Nasjana’s team made the first incision like a sharp hook in the curtain of space. The resultant ripping etched barbed scars in the subspace fabric behind them as they spiralled towards Esperia.
Genaspa watched the trail, knowing that mixed in with it was the males’ life essence. The run would bleed them of energy. They would end as husks, before dissipating, dissolving into the sea of sub-space.
From a strategic point of view Genaspa knew she should stay at the outer edge to supervise, waiting for the run to be completed and for her females to return before the voyage home. Shrell rarely concerned themselves with the trials and tribulations of other species, preferring to live in isolation except when called upon by the Tla Beth or Rangers for their services. But this time felt different. The sacrifice would be significant today, and she wanted to know what was so important on Esperia that it should be entombed and doomed to eventual annihilation. She signalled to her team-leaders that she was joining the fray.
* * *
“Fire,” Xenic commanded.
Kilaney, in his former capacity as commander of a Q’Roth battle cruiser, had been on the receiving end of Mannekhi whip-arcs often enough. But he had never seen them from their point of origin aboard a Mannekhi Spiker. Purple fire boiled into a plume at the end of three spikes then whiplashed towards the Crucible ten kilometres away. He flinched as the pulse beams pounded the enemy ship, knowing the savage punch it would deliver as well as the high-energy radiation, knocking the occupants off their legs then incinerating them wherever the beams could penetrate the hull.
Curling residual blue energy arcs fizzed down the Crucible’s long fuselage, but they had not yet inflicted serious damage. He itched to destroy the ship, but Crucibles were very tough by design. Their shielding was far heavier than any normal warship. It had to be to withstand the tremendous energy forces executed by their crust-dissolving tendrils, as well as the frequent hailstorm of rocks and magma spewed out into space by any planet on which a Crucible operated. Kilaney racked his brains for a way to get past its defences.
He caught the eye of the female Mannekhi Fentra, who was manning weapons, and pointed. “Aim for the fifth juncture back from the main front housing.”
She stared at him.
“Do it,” Xenic instructed.
Kilaney wondered why the Crucible didn’t return fire. They had standard weapons, though usually an escort destroyer as well. Then it hit him. “They’re going to jump,” he said.
“Keep firing,” Xenic instructed. “Track them, Siltern.”
Sure enough, just as the purple beams lashed out again, the Crucible vanished.
“Siltern?”
But Kilaney had already guessed where it was headed.
“They are closing on the planet, Sir, near the larger of Esperia’s two moons.”
Kilaney was impressed – in-system jumps were very tricky, and this one had been spectacularly precise. “There are more than Q’Roth aboard that vessel,” he said, glancing to Xenic.
The tall, black-haired, red-suited commander nodded. “Bring us about. Prepare to –”
“Sir, wait,” Fentra shouted, there’s something…”
Kilaney looked over to her, saw her eyes go wide, just before she leapt in front of him. He had no time to brace himself. Suddenly he was flung forward, and flew with alarming speed toward the viewscreen a few metres away. Fentra arrived first. He pummelled into her, unable to do anything except knock the wind out of her, his temple striking a glancing blow on hers. There were thuds as more crewmembers hit the wall. He gathered his breath, and pushed himself into a standing position, trying to help Fentra recover. Others around him groaned, though no one looked seriously hurt. All of them rubbed their left temples where his head had connected with Fentra’s.
He supported her in his arms, but as she recovered she shoved him away, glaring. “Get off me, Jorann. As soon as that bloodworm inside you is dead –”
“Enough, Fentra,” Xenic said from somewhere behind them. “Stations everyone. Siltern, what just
happened?”
Siltern regained his post and pored over his console. “We hit a tripwire of some sort… oh no!”
Xenic waited.
Siltern called over to Fentra, who had regained her post. “Check the Nara-wavelength.”
Xenic pursed his lips, then walked over to Fentra’s station and stared over her shoulder. “Shrell,” he said, and all the crew turned as one to him.
Kilaney spoke up. “That’s impossible. Why would they –”
Xenic addressed him. “It does not matter. We Mannekhi have prior experience with the Shrell. After the Yenshra’ta rebellion the Tla Beth ordered Shrell to poison two sectors of our space.” Xenic hung his head for a moment. “It is a terrible punishment to endure, a lesson that worsens through successive generations.”
The way Fentra looked up at her commander at that point told Kilaney that Xenic’s ancestors had personal experience, and Xenic himself had been scarred by it. It also told him that Fentra and Xenic were perhaps more than colleagues. But the captain collected himself and returned to his command chair.
“Siltern, is it a full run?”
Siltern tapped his console and a holomap of the sector appeared. Kilaney saw gossamer threads slowly coiling inwards from an outer ball of spider-web lines. It was as beautiful as it was deadly. He knew they’d been lucky: the Mannekhi vessel had been moving slowly when they had struck one of the space-furrows. The Crucible had been luckier still, having jumped just in time.
Xenic asked what Kilaney was thinking. “Is there a safe window through?”
Siltern nodded. “Micro-jumps, but we have to be quick. I can get us close but we’ll be delayed.”
Fentra broke in. “We’ll never get out. We should leave while we still can. We don’t owe this system anything. I’d rather die fighting for our own people.”
Xenic walked to Siltern’s station and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Plot it,” he said. He turned to face the rest of his crew, as he pointed to one of the screens showing Esperia. “Helgothora, the Eleventh Tribe.”