Darkness Beyond (Light of Terra: a Duchy of Terra series Book 1)

by Glynn Stewart

  Cawl had earned a reputation as one of the Theocracy’s better tacticians in several short and sharp wars with species that had discovered interstellar travel before the Kanzi found them. They hadn’t been even fights, but Cawl had concluded them with a deadly efficiency that had probably saved lives on both sides.

  He’d then solidified his reputation in a punitive campaign against one of the Kanzi Clans that had overstepped its boundaries. The Clans were only semi-independent—in many ways, the Duchy of Terra had more independence than a Kanzi Clan—and one had pushed too far.

  Shairon Cawl had commanded properly-escorted battleships where the Clan only had cruisers, but he’d had a tenth of their hulls and a fifth of their tonnage. He’d crushed them in sixty days, before his reinforcements even had a chance to arrive.

  Somehow, that both did and didn’t contradict the calmly confident little blue alien in front of her.

  “It is in the interests of both of our masters to see those responsible for these atrocities taught the error of their ways,” Harriet told him. “I would be doing less than my full duty were I not to hear what you have to say.”

  “That is His Light speaking, not your people’s anger,” Cawl replied. “Come, Fleet Lord. I have laid in refreshments that will be safe for both you and your Tosumi guards. There is no point in us having our discussions standing around in the shuttle bay, after all.”

  Harriet inclined her head in acceptance. She had very little enthusiasm for anything to do with the Kanzi version of a god, but there was no point in being rude.

  Cawl led the way deeper into the ship, dismissing his own guards while allowing Harriet’s to accompany her. Despite his limp, cane and mechanical walking aid, he still managed to move surprisingly quickly.

  She was still moderating her pace so as not to accidentally charge ahead of him and couldn’t help studying him from the corner of her eye. For that level of disability, combined with the scarring on his face, he had been very badly injured at some point.

  Eventually, he led her into a conference room of sufficient size to hold an organizational meeting for an entire convoy. It showed clear signs of being rapidly redecorated to a less-austere level than its original standard, with scuff marks on the floor where a table had been pulled out and a new one dragged in.

  Whoever had done the redecorating job had done amazing work. The table was clearly undersized for the room, but it was a rich dark red wood unlike anything Harriet had ever seen before, with the stylized flame of the Kanzi Theocracy inlaid into it in gold and silver.

  Blue hangings, with the same gold-and-silver flame stitched into them, had been hung around the room, and a sideboard of the same red wood had been added with a carafe of some dark blue liquid and multiple glasses.

  Without asking, Harriet’s Tosumi bodyguards pulled the hangings back to make sure there were no concealed assassins or doorways. Once that was confirmed, the birdlike aliens pulled back to the door.

  “Your guards may remain if they wish,” Cawl told her as he stumped over to the sideboard. “I have few secrets of my own at this stage in my life, and no secrets of my government’s that I would unveil to you that I would not unveil to them.”

  Harriet snorted and gestured for the Marines to rest at ease. Cawl seemed likeable enough for a slaving, mass-murdering smurf, but she wasn’t going to trust him, either.

  “Please have a seat, Fleet Lord,” he told her, offering her one of the glasses of blue liquid. “The drink is pila fruit juice. It is not an intoxicant and is safe for your race, though I suggest you check it with your scanners.”

  Her communicator contained a tiny sensor for exactly that purpose. Like the translator earbuds she was wearing, that kind of scanner was ubiquitous in galactic society.

  The juice checked out, as did the small tray of cookies that the Fleet Master delivered to the table before taking his own seat. As a bonus, the scanner would also detect almost all poisons, so Harriet took a careful sip of the juice.

  For the first time since learning the Kanzi Theocracy existed, Harriet truly regretted the tensions between them and the Imperium. The flavor that danced across her tongue was softly sweet with notes she’d never tasted before. In the absence of the continuing cold war, it would have been one hell of an export, at least to humans.

  Of course, it was also grown by slaves. She couldn’t forget that.

  “The niceties are all well and good, Fleet Master, but we are not here to make friends,” Harriet told him. “What do you know about these attackers?”

  Cawl’s responding snort reminded her of nothing so much as a kitten’s offended mewp.

  “You may not be here to make friends, Fleet Lord Tanaka, but I feel it is my duty to provide a counterpoint to the rather harsh image of my species I know your people have acquired,” he told her. “We have a thousand other reasons to be here, but His Light demands that I at least make the attempt.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him, wondering if he would catch the skeptical gesture, and he responding with a chuckling purr that was very clear in the emotions it conveyed.

  “I will deny neither my people’s reputation nor the actions that led to it,” he said. “But remember that those you have met do not define all of my species, please.”

  He sighed.

  “And I must beg of you not to judge us by this newest branch of my people you have encountered.”

  “The Taljzi,” Harriet hazarded. That was the name the Mesharom had used. “Kanzi with ceremonial mutilations and brands, and a genocidal impulse towards everyone?”

  Cawl blinked once. That was the extent to which he displayed his surprise, but it was enough for Harriet to pick up on it.

  “The Taljzi,” he agreed. “The ‘minds of God.’ I would have other names for them myself, but I cannot deny that is the name they gave themselves.”

  “Who are they?” Harriet demanded. “We know they were a faction in your civil war, but not much more than that.”

  “They are heretics,” Cawl stated. “Understand me, Fleet Lord: for all that our faith may seem a monolith from the outside, we tolerate many sects and differences of opinion within that structure. There are many disagreements of just what many of the commandments of God mean, and many arguments. There are reformers who would change how the Kanzi interact with each other, with other races, with the galaxy. These are tolerated, to a point.

  “It is difficult to earn the title heretic,” he concluded. “So, the Taljzi had gathered the governments of entire worlds, entire sectors, to their banner before they became so clearly lost that the High Priestess of the time proscribed them.”

  “And so you had a civil war,” Harriet said.

  “And so we fought them. And we fought the A!Tol. And the A!Tol gutted the Taljzi home systems…and we finished the job.”

  Cawl shook his head.

  “From what you say, you have recovered bodies or video of them. We have little of the same, but enough to know who we face. They are the Taljzi and they have burned five of our worlds, Fleet Lord. Ten million dead.

  “They have come from nothing to destroy everything…and I would have said this was impossible.”

  Harriet took a few moments to process what Cawl was telling her, quietly sipping the fruit juice as she marshaled her thoughts. If the Kanzi had lost five worlds, their neat line through space hadn’t covered everything. They already knew there’d been two fleets—destruction of more Kanzi systems suggested a third.

  How many ships and soldiers did these people have?

  “You understand, Fleet Master, that it is obviously not impossible,” she finally said. “Clearly, they have set up a new territory somewhere beyond both of our Rimward borders and have now decided it is time to strike back.”

  “That is clear, yes,” he agreed. “And yet…” He sighed. “Let me show you something, Fleet Lord.”

  He placed a small holographic projector on the table and tapped a command. The image of a Kanzi with pale blue fur appeared above
the screen. Scars had been burnt into her face and breasts, swirling patterns that were wide enough that the fur had never regrown, and she wore only a black leather kilt and a harness with a steel dagger pinned to her left shoulder.

  “I took the liberty of translating the recording, as the dialect she is speaking is both archaic and not one the Imperium would be familiar with,” Cawl noted. “I will provide you the original so you can validate it.

  “This was transmitted to every ship and city in the Kanda System. One ship, a fast courier vessel, managed to escape.” He grimaced. “I suspect, now, that she was permitted to escape.”

  The recording started.

  “I am the First Return of the Mind of God,” the Kanzi said harshly. “You who cast us out and denied the will of the divine have now been judged. The unending legions of the holy will drive you from the worlds and stars you have falsely claimed, and you will share the fate of the false children.

  “We bring you the divine will of the Mind of God. Kneel and you will die quickly. Challenge His will and you will die painfully.”

  She smiled, baring canines that had clearly been sharpened.

  “Please, challenge Him. I will enjoy instructing your worlds with fire.”

  The image froze.

  “That was it,” Cawl told her, his voice edged with a hiss under the translated speech. “That is all that our lost kin said to us before they started bombarding worlds and murdering innocents.”

  “That doesn’t leave much interpretation, does it?” Harriet asked. “Am I to presume that the ‘false children’ are…”

  This time, Cawl definitely hissed. It was a wordless expression of anger and disgust.

  “What my High Priestess would call ‘lesser children,’ yes,” he confirmed carefully after a moment to regain his composure. “Non-Kanzi who bear the form of the divine. Like yourself.”

  What his High Priestess would call lesser children? Harriet noted the evasion and wondered just what the being she was sharing drinks with would call her. Now was not the time for that question.

  “So, if they are here, why do you say this is impossible?” she finally asked.

  “Because the proscription was complete,” he replied. There was a low growling hiss underlying his words. “Those who did not forswear their heresy and accept sterilization were put to the sword and the flame. Our Church does not proclaim heresy lightly…and applies the full penalties allowed to Her Holiness even more rarely.”

  “You killed them all.”

  Harriet’s words hung in the conference room for a long time before Cawl bowed his head.

  “Yes. It was before my time, but I had ancestors who served in those fleets,” he told her. “I will claim no innocence. My own campaigns against our rebels in this time have been informed by that war—the sooner I ended the conflicts, the safer those who challenged His Will were from that level of retribution.”

  “Clearly, some escaped,” Harriet pointed out after the silence grew unbearable.

  “We have gone over all of our files and we believe we have identified the group that escaped,” Cawl told her. “But it makes no sense. Perhaps as many as ten ships, at most twenty thousand Taljzi, escaped the proscription. I would accept that they survived, that they founded a colony…but to field fleets of battleships with more advanced technology than the Theocracy after a mere few hundred orbits?”

  He shook his head.

  “It makes no sense.”

  “It also isn’t important,” Harriet pointed out. She was beginning to have an idea of what had happened now, but she wasn’t going to tell Cawl about the clones and the evidence of some kind of Precursor facility in Taljzi hands.

  “No,” he agreed. “I know where their fleet went from here, Fleet Lord Tanaka. They will not find their next destination defenseless…but I fear that Fleet Master Oska may fail and Alstroda will fall.”

  “Shouldn’t you be there, then?” Harriet asked.

  Cawl grimaced.

  “I can’t make it in time,” he confessed. “They lured me out of position, but Oska should have arrived at Alstroda with four more squadrons of capital ships before they get there. I cannot warn her, though, and I fear for my people.”

  “What do you want, Fleet Master?” Harriet asked.

  “I have a limited ability to communicate with Her Holiness,” he pointed out. “I have broad authority to negotiate on behalf of the Theocracy. I wish to negotiate a temporary pact of nonaggression and agreement of mutual support against the Taljzi.

  “I do not know how they grew their strength or where they hide, but I fear this is only the First Return and that more fleets are coming. My nation cannot stand against them while yours sharpens its knife against our back.”

  “I can’t negotiate that,” Harriet replied. It wasn’t entirely true, but there were limits.

  “Yes, you can,” he said with another chuckling purr. “You can’t sign a final agreement, but you and I can agree on at least the principle of nonaggression until we fully understand the threat.”

  “There are concessions my government will demand for that,” she warned him.

  “I know,” Cawl agreed. “That is above my level. It is my duty to make sure my nation can fight this war.”

  “I have to consult with my superiors,” Harriet told him. The Kanzi had to be aware that she could do so, so it wasn’t like she was giving up any great secrets. She smiled grimly as she thought that.

  “What I can do, right now, is use one of my destroyers that is scouting Alstroda to warn this…Fleet Master Oska, was it?” she continued. Somehow, she wasn’t worried about admitting to the violation of Kanzi borders with a scouting flotilla while Cawl had an entire battle fleet in Imperial space.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Morgan watched on the screen as Bellerophon slid into formation with her sister ships. Herakles and Perseus were barely out of the yards, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to find that they still had work crews aboard.

  From what she understood of their orders, Vice Admiral Rolfson was concentrating their S-HSM armed ships into a single formation. A full squadron of Thunderstorm-Ds had taken up formation around the three battleships.

  Unless Morgan was badly off on her estimates, that meant Seventy-Seventh Fleet had every S-HSM armed capital ship in existence and half of the escorts. That was assuming that no one else had an equivalent weapon, but the Mesharom’s response suggested that was unlikely.

  The weirdest part to the whole situation, though, rested roughly three hundred thousand kilometers to Bellerophon’s starboard flank. That was where the Kanzi formation began, with their own neat ranks of starships.

  This was the closest she’d ever been to a Kanzi ship of any kind, and she studied the vessels with fascination. The Kanzi went for a blocky inverse U-shape as their base hull, spreading their defensive weapons apart much as the A!Tol did but without the fragile—and hard-to-armor—swooping nacelles humanity’s overlords went in for.

  It ended up with a cruder-looking ship, but Morgan wasn’t inclined to be fooled. The Kanzi didn’t have hyperfold communicators, hyperfold cannons, or hyperspace missiles—but they’d rolled out their own active laser-defense systems, a new generation of shields, and even faster missiles over the last fifteen years.

  Intelligence suggested that the Kanzi were definitely behind the curve versus the Imperium, but they were determinedly advancing their tech to close the gap. The Kanzi battleships nearby were no equal to Bellerophon, but the super-battleships could probably give her a run for her money.

  Assuming, of course, that they knew all of the new ship’s tricks.

  Morgan smiled coldly. The first Kanzi super-battleship to tangle with her baby was not going to know those tricks—and was going to have a very bad day.

  “Lieutenant Commander Casimir, a moment of your time, please?”

  It was never a good sign, however confident you were in your recent work, when the Captain asked for a moment of your time. Morgan swa
llowed and looked up at Captain Vong with a forced cheery smile.

  “Of course, sir. How can I help you?”

  “Step into my office with me, please.”

  Hiding another nervous swallow, Morgan followed Captain Vong into his office. His wallscreens showed much the same data as she’d been viewing on her own console, with rows upon rows of Terran, A!Tol and Kanzi warships.

  “Mind-boggling, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “Commander Casimir, I wanted to get a feel for how the younger officers feel about this situation.”

  “Sir?” she blinked confusedly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Vong sighed.

  “Commander, I fought the Kanzi,” he reminded her. “I held the role you do now when a Kanzi fleet tried to assault Earth, and I saw a lot of my friends die aboard warships pressed into action against an enemy we knew wanted to enslave us.

  “I had friends who were caught up in the kidnappings on Earth that were intended to be sold to the Kanzi, too.” He shook his head. “Duchess Bond saved them from that. That’s why I volunteered for the Militia the day it was announced.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand, sir,” Morgan said carefully.

  “Morgan, every officer in this Militia—hell, in the Imperial Navy, too—has been trained and prepared for war with the Kanzi. The older officers, however, like myself—like Vice Admirals Rolfson and Tidikat—we’ve fought the Kanzi. I was at Asimov when the Clans showed up to try and take slaves and ran into our battle squadron.”

  He shook his head again.

  “The smurfs are slavers, murderers and scum—and even the fact that these Taljzi have burned millions of them doesn’t exactly make me weep for them. I don’t hate them, not really, but the thought of working with them makes my skin crawl.”

  “And you want to know if the officers who haven’t fought them feel that way?” Morgan asked carefully.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “This…alliance, or whatever it ends up being, may decide whether or not our remaining colonies out here survive. I won’t—I can’t—let my own prejudices get in the way of that.”