Alien Salute

by Charles Ingrid

  *Three o’clock, boss.*

  Jack pivoted wearily and laid down a spray of fire. The tingling at his left wrist told him power was ebbing. Not expended yet, but he was at his last stand. It might not have been so disastrous with seasoned troops, he told himself. Perhaps.

  A shuttle settled just out of his range, the land burned to obsidian glass, fused by previous landings.

  “All right,” Jack yelled. “Get on, quickly, that’s it, let’s go!” He watched the wave of soldiers making toward the shuttle, some running and others staggering, and a handful carrying comrades. He watched the horizon for a sign of incoming salvos, but the air was still and silent for now.

  The shuttle filled, labored to a takeoff and was gone.

  He took a deep breath. As long as he had power enough to fire and strength enough to stand, no one alive was going to be left behind. He no longer had any doubt that they had difficulty targeting him and when he returned, he would insist that norcite be glazed over every piece of armor in operation. If he returned.

  *Incoming,* Bogie whispered in his mind.

  “Hit the dirt, boys,” Jack screamed.

  The world splintered apart around him, but they missed the landing point, and another shuttle hesitantly hopped down.

  He could hear Lassaday’s guttural, “Hut, hut, let’s move your asses or the Thraks will have ‘em for you. Let’s go!”

  A glad noise shuddered through Jack. He had not known, until that moment, whether the sergeant was still alive. He got out, “You, too, sergeant, or I’ll have your balls in a sling.”

  “Commander! That you, by god?”

  “It is. And those were orders.”

  “Yessir!”

  Jack braced himself. “How many more out there, sarge?”

  “A hundred more, coming up the hillside. Let me stay out, commander… see if we can take some of… some of them with us. We’ve got room.”

  “No.”

  There was a flat silence on the com, then Lassaday said, “But, Jack… they’re human.”

  “No. Not as far as they’re concerned, Sarge. Now move it out!”

  “Yessir.” And this time, the belly of the shuttle muted the transmission and Jack knew the NCO had gone aboard the next to last shuttle out from this Thrakian hell.

  It was not the sergeant’s fault the new recruits had gone to pieces on their first mission.

  Nor even Jack’s.

  No amount of war intelligence had mentioned or could have prepared them for the sight of Klaktut.

  Jack had expected a sand planet, totally metamorphosed for the needs of the Warrior crèche. But Klaktut was not sand, except in those isolated nests. The rest of the planet was verdant, agraformed, domesticated. And humans were among the primary domesticated stock, facing the Knights dropped in for battle, staring as dumb-faced as any animal as the battle armor strode across their fields.

  But that hadn’t been the worst of it. As the fighting grew desperate and the Knights inexorably spiraled in to take out the major Warrior crèches, human flesh had formed the last ditch walls between the crèche and the invaders.

  Jack could not blame the boys who’d signed on for honor and glory when they broke at the sight.

  It filled his gorge also. He’d always been told the Thraks took no prisoners.

  It redoubled his determination to get every Knight off Klaktut alive that it was within his power to do.

  And, in the long run, only the retreat was a victory.

  Jack thought, swaying with exhaustion as he waited in the corridors of Congress, that he would not even be allowed to savor that. Perhaps he should have allowed Lassaday to bring back one of them so that the inquiry he faced would have some idea of the horror of those days.

  His stomach swam. He’d never made hyperdrive so fast, barely forty-eight hours after being docked with the shuttle. He’d slept the sleep of the dead in his armor. Luckier than some on board, who’d slept and not woken up… dying of their wounds, but at least not left behind to be buried in some alien soil.

  Or worse.

  It was naïve of him, he reflected, to expect to be commended for his efforts. With Washburn dead, a major source of support for the probationary war was gone. Still, he’d beaten back the Thrakian attacks. It was only their initial invasion on the League’s own turf that had gone sour.

  The Congressional aide touched his armored sleeve. “It’s time, commander.”

  He moved forward.

  No applause this time. He heard dimly, as he moved forward, a muttering that followed him like a hungry and discontented mongrel nipping at his heels. He moved to where another aide, a young lady who would not meet his eyes, indicated he should sit.

  No podium. No telecast audience. As he sat and looked across the chamber, he saw Pepys and Baadluster standing in the visitors’ gallery, where they talked as if unaware he had entered.

  A man stood. He had hair of silver and skin as dark as the void. When he stood, the room quieted.

  “Tell us, commander, in your own words, what happened.”

  As he was still hoarse, Jack moved the mike sensors a little closer, and then he began to speak.

  He told the truth. He did not play for sympathy or support. He thought, perhaps, that they ought to know that in war there would be winners and losers. But when he finished, when they had asked their myriad of questions, he realized that he was wrong.

  It showed in their faces. They no more understood defeat than they had really understood his victory.

  Jack swallowed painfully and hoped for an end to the questioning. He watched as Pepys took a seat on the dais.

  “Thank you, Commander Storm. I yield the floor to Emperor Pepys of the Triad Throne, our noted ally and warlord.”

  Pepys stood. Jack was aware that there was movement to the rear of him, in the audience room doorway behind the dais, where he had originally waited months ago to make his appeal to the joint session. A cool breeze touched the back of his neck. His muscles stiffened. He winded a scent on the breeze, a smell of old enemies, and wished that he’d had time to take his armor off, or at least cleanse it of its stench.

  “We can be thankful,” Pepys said, “for Commander Storm’s skillful handling of the retreat. We can be thankful, as well, for his quick assessment of the situation. As few lives were lost as possible. As for the invasion itself,” and Pepys bowed his head,

  “I will bear the hubris. It is mine and mine alone. And because it is, it is fitting that I am here today.”

  In a fog of exhaustion, Jack wondered what it was Pepys was leading up to. Why should he apologize for an offensive maneuver that could have, if successful, put a major dent in the Thrakian war effort?

  “It is well, in these days of nearly instantaneous communication, that more sensible heads than mine prevail. While Commander Storm has been in transit to Columbia, a major decision has been discussed and reached. Congressmen and representatives, ladies and gentlemen. The past few days you have all seen and discussed the evidence that there is another aggressor in our space.”

  Jack lifted his head. By god, he had told them! Jack would have liked to have heard what was said, certain that he had not had all the evidence.

  “I did not, therefore, refuse to discuss alternatives when first contacted by Queen Tricatada. I brought my reservations here and tabled them in these sacred halls where not only laws are made and upheld, but differences are met and melded. Because we kept open minds, we learned of the Ash-Farel, the ancient enemy of the Thraks, and the peril that faces us all.”

  The hair prickled at the nape of Jack’s neck. He took a deep breath, and readied to turn in his chair as he heard footsteps behind him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. It is not only my wisdom but your own which has led us to this landmark moment. May I present our new allies and their representatives—Queen Tricatada, her warlord General Guthul who will become supreme commander of our allied forces, and the new second in command to Commander Storm, Admiral K’rok!”<
br />
  As Jack staggered to his feet and stood, facing the Thrakian contingent, the huge Milot soldier stepped forward slightly and gathered him, armor and all, in an immense, furry, and smelly hug.

  “I be glad to see you, Knight Jack,” the Milot traitor grinned. “Now you be saluting General Guthul and I be saluting you!”

  Chapter 29

  The giant Milot dropped Jack back to the dais and stepped back, saluting smartly as he did so. The scent he had winded had not been his imagination and it threatened to overwhelm him now.

  At Jack’s back, the Congressional session had gotten to its feet, applauding. The sound was ironic to his ears; how many months ago had it been for him?

  Behind K’rok, General Guthul stood, his mask horrific and dignified, and Jack had no doubt it was stylized with all the nuances of meaning a Thrakian war commander could arrange. Behind them, a lesser Thraks stood and Jack recognized the implants in the soft wattle of throat exposed by an inferior mask. An interpreter.

  He then looked to the Thrakian queen. He’d never seen one before, nor any Thraks he could identify as female, though there must be many as the Thraks were incredibly prolific.

  Did they even know the natural life span of a Thraks?

  She stood, a brilliant and deep cobalt blue, irridescent wings coiled at her back, her body a pearshape meant for breeding. Her mask was streaked with color, although Jack could not tell if all the streaks were natural coloration or if some were cosmetic. Her height topped that of Guthul, making her a phenomenon even among Thraks.

  She carried a scent, too, a dark and musky scent that stirred Jack for a moment until he realized he was responding to it. She stared at him, her faceted eyes like sapphire jewels, distinctly feminine—and totally alien. She trilled something and the interpreter stood forward.

  “My queen says you have been a worthy adversary and now she hopes you will be an equally brilliant ally.”

  Jack inclined his head. He had been so worthy an adversary, he had scared the Thraks into suggesting alliance—and Pepys had been backhanded enough to accept! He closed his lips on any reply he might have made. He—all of them—had been betrayed. There was no answer he could think of to make to that. K’rok put an arm about him and drew him around to face the Congressional audience.

  Quietly, in his ear, K’rok said, “My sorrows, Jack. This be a bad way to conquer an enemy.”

  Jack straightened in his armor. He put on a smile and answered back, out of the corner of his mouth, “I’m not done fighting yet.”

  Lassaday rubbed the dome of his bald head in frustration. “A week of alliance, ser, and them bugs have done everything but move into my bed! They’ve got more out of Pepys and the DC than if they’d beat the pants off us!”

  Jack overlooked the parade grounds from the bridge, listening to his chief NCO vent his frustration. Lassaday was right. Not only were the Thraks back in the chief star lanes, and the inner planet trade lanes, but they were in the fleet and now Jack was expecting his first Thraks battalion to join the Knights. They were infiltrating with greater success than if they had conquered.

  He didn’t like it any better than Lassaday. Worse, it had been kept from public knowledge. Amber knew something troubled him, but had been unable to nag, wheedle, or even seduce it out of him. Pepys and the Dominion Congress planned to make a public announcement in another week, when all facets of the alliance had been sealed.

  But Jack worried at it as if trying to get at the marrow. He knew of no fleet officers invited aboard the Thrakian vessels—the atmosphere and dietary demands “too complex” to allow that interchange. Thraks were more adaptable, they’d been told.

  Nor had Jack had any of his officers assigned to League Warrior crèches. Again, humans were not compatible with Thrakian conditions. But he was expecting two dozen Thraks, hand-picked by Guthul himself, to arrive in less than forty-eight hours. Modified suits were to be molded to them and they were to be trained, if possible. When Jack thought of all the raw recruits and wounded Knights killed by dead man circuits to avoid just such an eventuality, his gut clenched.

  Lassaday said, “Sir? Sir?”

  “I’m sorry, Sarge, what was that?”

  “I said, ser, that we’ve isolated that wing of the barracks like you told us.”

  Jack smiled at that. Amber had provided him with jammers, but she had nearly burst from the effort of trying to find out why. The Thraks would be unable to broadcast information unless they used official channels. He had no control over that, but he knew Pepys. The emperor might have sold out, but he had no intention of going around bare-ass naked in front of the Thraks. Pepys would be manipulating the official channels. Jack nodded. “We may have to have guests, but nothing says we have to make them welcome.”

  Lassaday saluted smartly and said, “I didn’t hear that, ser!”

  “On your way, sergeant.”

  Lassaday brushed past Amber and Colin on the way down. Sensing trouble from the purpose in the Walker’s stride, Jack left the observation railing and went into the privacy booth.

  Colin followed him in, Amber on his heels. She gave Jack a worried look and sat down in the corner to watch for intruders.

  “To what do I owe this visit? Rawlins let you in again?” There was no point in telling Colin he’d breached some heavy security. The man had eyes and he’d probably seen for himself. If he hadn’t, there was little doubt in Jack’s mind that Amber had pointed it out to him. She sat now, with a faintly guilty look on her face, and he wondered if she’d disliked compromising him. He hoped so.

  Colin sat down, folding his brilliant blue robes about him. Today, his miners’ jumpsuit was a faded charcoal. To Jack it brought the grayness of Lasertown to mind. He had not thought of Lasertown much—it was as if the months of shanghai and enforced servitude had been pushed out of memory—but K’rok had brought it all back as if it had been yesterday. The Thraks had invaded the dead moon mining colony to take over the norcite mining operation as well as a Walker dig site. What he, Colin, and K’rok had seen embedded in the dead moon’s surface before its destruction by Thrakian agents defied description to this day. Colin stayed silent, watching Jack’s eyes, as though sharing in the same memories. He waited respectfully for another moment before speaking.

  “We have a history together, you and I.”

  Jack smiled. “You must have some problem to start dredging all that up.”

  Colin smiled, too, a crooked expression that belied the age of a man edging past his prime. “It was a place to start.”

  “Why don’t you start with what’s bothering you?” Jack gazed out over the parade grounds. “My time here is short.”

  “What’s going on? The base is locked down, and so is the city. I’ve been told by a few of my aides that the spaceport is all but impossible to get in or out of. Have we been beaten and nobody told us yet?”

  Amber stirred. She put her chin up and pushed a wave of tawny blonde hair back off her shoulders. “He won’t tell you. If he won’t tell me, he won’t tell you.”

  Jack wondered briefly why she hadn’t used her psychic sensitivity to ferret out his secrets, but said to Colin, “No, but we might as well have been.”

  “I know some of it. I’ve been saying eulogies all week. The Knights took a beating. Almost half of them didn’t come back.”

  Amber gasped. Jack looked at her. She hadn’t known. He made a diffident gesture, not denying what Colin had said.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “You should be asking your old friend Pepys.”

  Colin snorted. “Pepys is as much an enemy as a friend. I had hoped never to say the same of you!”

  “I can’t tell you,” Jack said, “officially.” He made a movement that Amber understood. She got up and quickly checked the room’s security screening. He waited until she was satisfied and sat back down.

  “We didn’t get beat in the war. We lost a battle, yes, badly, yes. But we didn’t get beaten. We were sold out.”
r />   “What?”

  Jack said bitterly, “It appears to be a trademark of Pepys. At any rate, we’d hurt the Thraks badly enough that they came to him with a suggestion of an alliance.”

  “An alliance?”

  “Against the unknown aggressor.”

  As Amber made a noise of triumph, Colin appeared to deflate and sagged back in his seat. He put both hands to his face briefly, an eternal gesture of grief. It was touchingly effective.

  Then he lowered his hands. “I should have known.” He got to his feet and began to pace about the privacy booth. “I should have known.”

  “How could you? I didn’t begin piecing bits together until after it had been done.” And Jack told them about the disastrous drop on Klaktuk, and ended with the Thrakian League triumvirate’s appearance before the Dominion Congress.

  Amber had gone ashen. Colin stopped pacing, his tired face alert, as if he dared the years to slow him now.

  “I never thought Pepys had that kind of nerve.”

  “He may not have any choice. You said we had history together. Well, so do K’rok and I, at Lasertown.”

  “He took over the mines. He used the Milot berserker to keep you laborers in line.” That was Amber, her voice high and unsteady.

  “More than that. He was as intensely interested in the Walker dig site as the Thraks were. He told me that, in his years as an officer after Milos had been conquered, he’d come to the notion that the Sand Wars began because a bigger, nastier enemy than the Thraks was pushing them out of their traditional breeding grounds. That they swept through our worlds because they were running from an enemy they couldn’t beat. He was convinced an artifact from that enemy might be found on the moon.”

  “We found nothing,” Colin said, “but the body of a beast.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. K’rok disappeared while the site was being destroyed. I don’t know what else he might have found or where he might have gone. I thought he might have been destroyed, too. But the Thraks gave their enemy a name: the Ash-Farel.”

  “So K’rok was right.”

  “I think so. He’s been made my subordinate officer. He’ll be my second in charge of the Dominion Knights.”