“Well, I’ll be,” I said, pushing out of my chair. “Would you look at the time! Mandy, I’ll let you know if we don’t get killed, okay? Later.”
I flashed Toño in my head. Judas of Iscariot, if you're not at the ship by the time I get there, I'm leaving you behind.
That bad, eh? flashed in my head instantaneously. I suspected as much. I'm leaning on Wrath as we speak.
Too bad. I'd have run the whole way there if you weren't.
How long have I known you?
TWENTY-FIVE
“Havibibo, you run when you should fight. You disgrace us in the eyes of the pairs who serve us. There can be no greater shame. All the Faxel of Berrill will laugh when our name is spoken. A fleet commander cannot also be a coward.”
“Your rashness is why I alone command the war fleet. If we are defeated by the scum of Oowaoa again, that will be the disgrace. We cannot plan vengeance for fifteen million turns and let it slip away like water between our digits because we rushed foolishly into an action.”
Kelldrek bent her torso halfway to the floor and paced around her other half. She moved as the predator she was. Her teeth bared to join her perpetually exposed fangs, created a frightening, bone-chilling expression. Anyone other than her other half would rightly fear for their lives.
Havibibo had known her since they were pups. Yes, he'd felt the rip of her bite, but mostly during play or sex. She would never attack him with an intent to kill. At least he thought not.
“My scientists,” she said, “are analyzing the barrier shields the Deavoriath now fabricate.” She wiped drool from the corner of her mouth. She always salivated when her second acted like a savage beast. Her blood was not the separate from her ancient ancestors. It was quick to boil, especially when her other half acted with such fury. Evolving to walk upright and create an advanced civilization had done nothing to blunt her passion. It was good to be a Faxel!
He shook his head to clear his focus. “To attack when we cannot even hit them with our weapons is foolhardy. This is a mission of conquest and revenge, not suicide.”
“You played slap-paw with the universe's worst scum. Let us attack them with the madness that is ours!”
“Answer me this, then, Kelldrek. Where were the other Deavoriath cubes? I saw but one.”
“It was alone. So? It should have been our first prize of thousands. The rest are no doubt hiding, willing to sacrifice that cube to learn our new technologies.”
“That, my claw, was Wrath. They would sacrifice that cube?”
“Perhaps it is as outmoded as your cowardice. Maybe they are as willing to lose their old vehicle as I am to lose our frightened, old leader.” She feigned a helping hand in his direction. “Would you like me to help you piss, second? If you're afraid to step into that dark corner, I will hold your dick for you.”
Hormones, rage, and passion flooded Havibibo's brain. He kept reminding himself he was a commander in wartime. He could not waste hours in violent, narcotic sex with his second. That must wait. “Call the pod-leads to group in the main convocation room. Everyone must be there in ten clicks.”
“Action! I may collapse on my side and eat my own guts.”
“Mock me at great risk, second. Though you are dearest to me, you also serve your commander. Do not mistake my tolerance in private as permission to overstep your boundaries.”
She flashed her full set of teeth again but said nothing. She bowed and left their quarters.
Ten clicks later, fifteen men and women sat around a serpentine table. The design allowed everyone to face each other. Small rodent-like creatures scurried in panic on the top but were prevented from escape by a rounded edge. Refreshments could not be enjoyed if they leaped from the table to hide.
Havibibo scratched his enormous claws loudly on the metal, calling the meeting to order. “I will have your reports,” he said, advancing his hungry gaze from one aide to the next. “If your progress proves to be insufficient, I will rip you to pieces and cast your flesh into the cold of deep space.” He scanned them all again, before he snapped, “Grell, start!”
Grell Thom-Gahacken was the expedition's chief scientist. He was the oldest in the company by a large margin. Faxel rarely survived to his age, let alone served a useful purpose. All of his contemporaries were either dust or excrement, having either died or been eaten. That he survived spoke of his talent and, more specifically, of his viciousness. Both were legendary. Grell had been on every voyage Havibibo had ever taken. There was no love between them, but each knew the other's drive and loyalty to be exemplary. That was, in the end, superior to friendship, which was rare among the Faxel.
In his dry, raspy voice, Grell spoke with firmness and confidence. “I have much to report. My review of the enemy's weapons reveals them to be the same gamma-ray lasers of antiquity. The intensity is a bit greater, the focus improved, but they are essentially unchanged.”
“How is it,” Havibibo asked, slamming a paw to the tabletop, “that the great and mighty Deavoriath have remained so static?”
Grell shrugged. “You must ask that of them, not me.” Never take possession of a problem that is, by right, someone else's. “I can only report on my observations.”
“And you observed their new shield wall?” Havibibo asked with a harsh challenge.
“I did,” replied Grell. “Most interesting projection.”
“I care nothing for interesting phenomenon,” howled Kelldrek. “I don't even care what it is. I wish only to defeat it. Tell us you know now, or I will pounce on you before you finish your latest feeble excuse.”
Grell looked to Havibibo. It was critical to his survival that Kelldrek had less than her second's full support. Damn the woman! She was the perfect foil to Havibibo's thoughtful ways. Two halves of a perfect whole. Damn them both!
“As to the nature of the force field, I can't say,” Grell finally said. “It may actually be a set point in space-time spread by them at will.”
“If that were the case,” asked Havibibo as he absently preened a claw, “can it be breached?”
“So far, no,” was his cautious response.
“I know that, old beast!” replied Havibibo. “I was the one pressing the 'FIRE' button. Can we hit them through the shield?”
“I doubt it,” Grell said, looking down.
“So,” said Kelldrek spitefully, “we should what, surrender? Go home and raise crops? They have the perfect weapon, so eons of waiting and preparation should be cast into the mud? Maybe the Deavoriath will be uncharacteristically kind and make slaves, not rugs, out of us?” she hissed dangerously.
“Not a perfect weapon, just a perfect defense,” Grell said.
“And the difference, as you see it?” asked Havibibo with his best take at passivity.
“We can lay siege. An impenetrable wall can always be trumped with a sufficient siege.”
“Alright,” Havibibo said. “The only weakness in your plan is that it might be challenging to lay siege to a craft that bends space and can travel anywhere instantly. Hmm?”
“I was thinking of their home world, perhaps colonies. Obviously the cubes are too mobile.”
“As we are faced with a cube and have no idea where their settlements might be, you have told me nothing. You have no usable input.” He leaned in Grell's direction. “Were that all you had to offer, I should not wish to be you.” It was his turn to hiss.
“The plasma weapons were useless,” said Grell, “but the gravity wave impacts were promising.”
“The plasma blasters were not useless,” said Kelldrek. “They were worse than that. They were turned to effective weapons against us.”
“A bit random to be called a weapon,” replied Grell, by way of defense.
“Tell that to the families of those burned up in the six craft we lost,” responded Kelldrek.
“This bickering is pointless,” said Havibibo, raising a paw. “Grell, what do you counsel us to do for our next attack on the cube?”
“That
we not attack the cube next.”
All eyes snapped to look at the old cat.
“I have not come all this way, after all those generations, to bump chests once with the enemy and give up.” His pointed his exposed claws at the others in the room. “They have not come all this way to concede defeat as quickly as they can shit! That we chanced first on Wrath is a good omen. I swear it by the Quadrad. It must be destroyed.”
A lesser pod leader spoke up. “Don't forget Wrath will pounce on us sooner than later. Even if we chose to ignore him, he would seek us out.”
“His position,” began a younger sub-leader, “is weak.” The woman puckered her lips and raised her paws, then tilted side to side quickly. It was a mocking gesture. “You can't hit me, but I have no courage. I run like a prasma and eat rotten leaves. I will harm no one, unless I run over them in reckless retreat.”
“Once he has seen all we have to offer, he may hold his best weapons in reserve,” speculated another officer.
“No,” said Havibibo, “this is war. In war, you kill if the opportunity presents itself. If Wrath could have destroyed more of our ships, he most certainly would have.”
“So,” asked Kelldrek, “it's a standoff? A child's toy jammed?” She now mocked everyone present.
“If it were, a stalemate,” Havibibo replied, “I would throw everything at them at once and die well. But I refuse to accept that we have failed.” He sniffed the air, an ancient habit from his carnivorous ancestors. “I order a search for a colony. If we can seize one, we may learn more of their mysterious defense screen. At the very least, we will taste Deavoriath blood in our mouths again.”
“No!” screamed his second. “No, no, no. We must destroy Wrath. We know where he is, and he is the most deserving of killing. And if the Quadrad grants it to be Yibitriander himself at the helm, I will rip his heart out with my fangs!”
“I have made an order, and all will work to accomplish it. The discussion has ended. Go, and may the blood of Irirdaz be in you,” said Havibibo with finality.
As his commanders filed out, however, several quiet, anonymous hisses were heard. A challenge to his control was a serious matter. Someone needed to be shredded, but it had to wait.
TWENTY-SIX
“Yes,” said General Tao, “the battle was brief, but a sound strategy presents itself as a consequence.”
“We're here to speak and listen,” replied Sapale. “Please go on.”
His hands moved in the air with energy and force. He was really into war. “Wrath faced them, inflicted mild damage, and escaped unharmed. I feel that constitutes a major victory.”
“Not dying is different than winning,” I responded.
“But,” Tao went on, “don't you see? If you harass them in a guerrilla-type attacks, you could deplete them, slowly but surely. They brought a large but finite number of ships.”
Not a very sexy battle plan. “I imagine they'd eventually develop a counter-strategy that would neutralize my actions. That's a key tenant of military history.”
“If they do,” Tao said, “then you stop the attacks. Another feature of my approach is that they cannot menace us if they are swatting at you like a flying insect.”
Maybe. “They could try to set up a defensive perimeter around Azsuram while attacking on the ground,” I countered.
“Then we're screwed,” said JJ.
“Not necessarily,” responded a very sober Tao. “The reason we fight wars, boy, is because victory does not care which side is favored to win. Chance favors the bold and the prepared.”
“Plus,” Sapale said, “if they attack us, they attack us. We'll defend our homes as best we can regardless of our chances. History is ripe with stories of smaller forces defeating larger ones.”
“It is also riper,” Tao said, “with records of larger forces winning. But,” he looked around the small group present, “it matters more how one dies than that one dies. We will account well for ourselves, I can promise that much.”
“I prefer,” I said, “to do something rather than nothing. I vote I attack the Berrillian fleet. I have no problem trying a hit-and-run strategy. If the situation changes, so can our plans.”
“If,” said Tao, staring at me like I was an interesting but otherwise inconsequential artifact, “for example, you are destroyed.”
“I guess that would trigger a reassessment, now wouldn't it?” I smiled like I didn't resent him saying that in front of my family. “I'll leave first thing in the morning.”
“I see no strategic advantage in delay,” was Tao's pissy response.
“Well,” I replied, “when you're the boss of me, I'll have to listen, won't I?”
“We're here to plan the best defense of our settlement,” said Sapale. “If General Tao believes it's best for you to leave now, I think you should go now.”
In spite of the setting, I cupped her cheek. “I've lived longer than most of you combined. I know better than anyone how precious life is.” In spite of the fact that Tao was right, I added, “I'll leave at first light. I think fate can cut me that much slack.” She caught my hand between her shoulder and face and smiled like the sun rising over the best day ever lived.
Zero-dark-thirty found me standing outside the cube. Sapale and the older children were there to see me off. Our conversation, minimal as it was, resembled anyone else's at such a time, I suspect. We talked of tomorrow, though we doubted it would greet all of us. We confirmed upcoming dates, though we knew those times were not promised to any of us. And we confessed our undying, unending love for one another, which was the only guaranteed thing we spoke of. I've left a lot of people, but I've never done it with so much trepidation, uncertainty, and reluctance than I did then, leaving my only true family that sad morning. Immortality meant nothing if it was a solitary experience. It was, I knew with steely certainty, something to dread.
Finally, I shook JJ's hand and gave Sapale the biggest kiss I had ever smacked. I called for a portal, and Wrath opened to swallow me. Not one to linger, I immediately commanded him to take me to within firing distance of the fucking Berrillian fleet. The view screen went gray and my stomach flip-flopped. Seconds later, I saw the black patches in the sky obscuring the distant stars that betrayed the position of my enemy.
I'd editorialized a lot about war in the past. I'd done war a lot, and I'd done it better than most. I not only hate war, but the toleration of the concept of war by ostensibly rational, civilized minds. I detested that war ever existed or was allowed to continue. If one's own were attacked, fighting back had traditionally been the only logical option. Fuck that shit. Find another way. Better yet, avoid having to find a better way by acting to make war unnecessary.
Central to my philosophy was the immutable stupidity, greed, and lust for war that permeated the minds of dubious leaders. Whether it was Earth, Kaljax, or even the god-like Deavoriath from Oowaoa, old men in charge wanted war. They wanted war more than they wanted a beautiful woman. War had always been and always would be their heroin, better than every orgasm they ever had, combined into one single, paralyzing jolt. War had been their holy grail, with one condition. They wanted war, demanded war, and begged war of others, as long as they had nothing personal at stake, like their own asses.
The aspect of war I hated most was that I was about to fight in one again. I closed my mind to any humanity I might have once possessed. I justified to myself, yet again, that I needed to defend those I'd left behind, those both mortally threatened and unable to defend themselves. I fucking hated war. Even the one I was entering so consciously, the one brought on us by a ruthless, blood-thirsty pack of lunatics. Oh well, they wanted war. Their biggest mistake was declaring one that involved me. Those sorry bastards were gonna pay for that mistake dearly. I assumed the wars of my past had already cost me my soul. Never fuck with a perfect killing machine that had nothing personal to lose and was fighting for the only things he valued in the universe.
“Form, we are holding at one hundred thousand ki
lometers,” Manly interrupted again, “what are your orders?”
“Huh? Oh yeah.” Hell of a time to get lost in thought. “I want to test the relative effectiveness of lasers versus rail cannons. At will, fire an equal spread of each to as many vessels as possible. You can drop the membrane completely with the first volley until someone drops into real space. At that point, raise it fully and alert me.”
“By your command.” I swear I heard anticipation and excitement in his voice. Great. I was facing long odds and depending on a homicidal nut job.
A few seconds later, Wrath spoke. “Eight ships destroyed. Two with lasers, five with rail cannon, one by flying debris. Remaining fleet has dropped out of warp space and is forming a defensive circle. Membrane up. I await further orders.”
“Al,” I called out, “do you concur?”
“Yes, Captain. Rail cannon appears to be more effective at collapsing the warp bubbles. We targeted one hundred thirty-seven vessels and destroyed eight.”
Crap, that was only a five percent kill rate. Not nearly good enough. Still, over time.
“Al, assuming one skirmish daily with equivalent results, when would I destroy their last ship?”
“We were able to target around twenty percent of their ships with a five percent kill ratio. I’d estimate half a year.”
Well, there were worse ways to spend six months than blowing up those who badly needed killing.
“Wrath, target remaining craft with pulse-interrupted-membrane rail balls. Full membrane with return fire.”
“Two thousand shots fired before they returned fire. Moderate damage to twelve vessels. None destroyed. Most rail balls were destroyed in flight, a few deflected. Deflected balls account for one kill.”
“Fire an equal number of laser shots and report.”
“Two vessels hit, serious damage likely. One confirmed kill. Their gravity waves continue to deflect the beams efficiently, if sloppily.”
The Forever Fight: The Forever Series Book 3 Page 18