“Then your ways are too alien. If this is tribute—I do not see enslaving others as a tribute, or how it brings glory to me, Lord Anguhr, or even a species such as your own.”
Tantabor paused. He grew irritated. He suppressed it and bowed his head. “Perhaps, with respect great demon king, your master would understand.”
“I have seen no reason to bother him with this—this odd display.”
Tantabor allowed a hint of anger in his words. “Perhaps, if he and I spoke. Directly. May it please you both, of course.”
“If my Lord Anguhr so wishes. He has been here the whole time. The shade you so prize is his shadow.”
Tantabor looked up. His heavy jaw dropped. The sun’s glare obscured the monolith's zenith. It lowered and the black helmet was visible. So, too, were Anguhr’s burning eyes. Tantabor’s eyes grew large. He slid on his mount and his back hit the two spears shafts behind him. He collected his physical composure while staring up at the gigantic demon General, but his mouth remained agape even as he lowered his head to bow. Tantabor almost bolted from his seat when Anguhr’s voice boomed down.
“Free the captors.”
Tantabor thrust up his head in shock. “But, your, ah, immenseness—? You are a warlord, too!”
“Yes. I once worshiped war as you seem to worship vice.”
“But great Anguhr, you are a conqueror. Like me. And for Hell!”
“Yet, even as I made war for the Dark Urge, there was no subjugation of alien peoples.” Anguhr’s voice vibrated the grassland and the bones of everyone there. “There was battle. Then, destruction. That was no solace to the defeated worlds, but never was there humiliation for my benefit. If the enemy fought well, I respected that. You seek to gain my respect by forcing the degradation of others. Do you think my ego is so weak that I look upon that as tribute?”
Solok walked toward Tantabor’s captives. He paused to lean down and look at the head of the gigantipede mount. It recoiled into the grass.
“Uh, then, ah, what is war?” Tantabor asked and anxiously glanced at Solok.
The Field Master looked over the captives and slowly drew his sword. A wave of moving heads rolled through the crowd as some shrank back and others craned to see the demon’s next act.
There was a sound like distant thunder as Anguhr grumbled, and then answered Tantabor.
“Once war was conquest for an almighty being. Her power made Generals and hordes. She sent us to conquer all. And we did. Without question. What drove my fellow Generals was deference to power, and their own power from obedience. I was driven for a love of something I did not understand. When I did, I rebelled against Hell.”
“Impressive tale, mighty one. Are there, um, more of you? Is Hell—?” Tantabor’s voice rose on a slim hope crushed by quick thunder.
“No.”
Tantabor lowered his head, but not to bow. A thought pulled him down. Hell would obviously not be his ally. He had miscalculated. He was dead. The idea was displeasing. A sense of nausea rose from his large gut. He failed. But he would not die at the hands of demons or his own disgusted soldiers. He would goad Hell into killing all his own, men, his enemies, and finally the planet.
Spite was not victory, not supremacy, but it was the last thing Tantabor could control. He ran his hand along his harnessed arthropod as if to comfort it, but he reached for to a particular, smooth bolt head on the harness, then pressed it. The radio signal was more obvious to all demons than his activation of the hidden transceiver.
“You are powerful,” Tantabor looked up at the towering Anguhr. “You crushed enemies born in Hell. I cannot imagine such strength. But I was strong in other ways. I reanimated old and alien technology. I did find some allies from my transmissions off world. None that ever dethroned me. You did me some service in destroying a new enemy that might have done so. I take pleasure in crushing my enemies, however I can. I feel that sensation, now. Crushing something that thought itself powerful. Truthfully, does that not give you pleasure?”
Tantabor’s fighting instincts warned him of Solok’s motion, but he didn’t have the speed to do more than glance. Solok knew of his betrayal. The demon’s sword cleaved the warlord in half.
“It’s relative, I guess.” Solok said as the gigantipede bolted and scattered its rider’s parts to each side.
A clamor of metal creaks and clanks echoed from Tantabor’s army as its officers decided to either attack the giant and the demon or salute them. They ran. A horrific battle cry came from all directions as Anguhr’s horde took to flight from the edges of the grassy basin. Higher up, several particle beams fired by Proxis slashed down from space and cut through the blue sky. They intercepted nuclear-tipped missiles fired by Tantabor’s signal.
“Lord Anguhr—!” Solok began.
“The report from Proxis.” Anguhr said. “The missiles are destroyed. As is Tantabor’s spacecraft. I will deal with the other assault.”
“Apologies for killing the warlord, Destroyer.” Solok saluted Anguhr and blood slid down his sword. “By rights, he was yours. I hope you are not offended.”
Anguhr leapt over the scattering army. He landed and caused a tremor. At the basin edge, he tore free an entire bank of the massive pipeworks and thrust it overhead as metal fragments, rock, and earth flew out and rained down.
Solok watched the epic display. “I do hope you are not offended, Lord.”
The other assault mentioned by Anguhr made its dramatic entry. The ground began to shake from below. Kaekus soldiers were thrown into the air as several, gigantic centipede-like beasts dwarfing Tantabor’s mount erupted from the grassland.
If the juvenile that served as both ride and spy was a gigantipede, these adults were titanipedes. Each was over ten times as massive as the mounted beast, and as long as Anguhr was tall. All were shockingly colorful. Bands of bright reds and vivid orange were slashed by black. The elaborate stripes covered their body plates and flowed into tighter bands across each of their spike legs. Their wide heads bore more heavy spines than antennae. Their stripes would make the proudest tigers, should they still exist, quite jealous.
Many colorful markings were suddenly obscured by smashing pipes and metal housings as Anguhr used his sudden, massive bludgeon. He attacked the titanipede expeditionary force that had stowed away on a previous, mercy ship whose crew was very glad to see them leave, and then decided another planet needed their mercy even more than Kaekus.
The titanipedes aided a planet's indigenous, intelligent population so long as the natives were controlled through fear of the titanipedes, or by war among themselves. Meanwhile, the giant, tunneling creatures scouted for exploitable resources, consumed what they needed, and eventually consumed the indigenous, intelligent population.
Along with scents, the striking colors and patterns denoted individuals and rank. However, their chain of command was snapped and smashed beneath Anguhr's boots. The survivors opted for a massed attack. They sprang close in and bit into Anguhr's armor to slow his crushing assault. Their commander leapt for his face.
Anguhr grabbed the spikes and jaws launched at his head. He yanked the titanipede from the ground and hurled it high overhead. A line of demons formed a single, whirling helix around the hurtling beast to avoid crossfire and then blasted the bright pattern and creature apart. Another tremor rocked the basin as Anguhr stomped his foot on another, chitinous giant and shook off its compatriots. He detached the black sword from his back and began slicing apart any that defied being crushed.
As the epic carnage continued in the background, Solok took his sword tip and carefully and calmly cut away the bonds of the captives. Several had fallen down, but found the strength to stand as the ground quaked while Anguhr and his horde destroyed another alien invader, once allied with the now bifurcated warlord.
One brave female massaged her bloody wrists and dared to speak to Solok. “Can you heal us?”
“No. That is a thing I cannot do. But I imagine you, and perhaps your planet can do that. In
time.”
CHAPTER FORTEEN
Myra lurched in her seat. Niko glanced across the hovercraft’s cockpit to apologize for his lapse in piloting, but the shock went unmentioned. Myra concentrated on files streamed across a screen before her. An outside flash hit the forward portals as another fragment flared in the black sky and lit the equally dark terrain. Myra continued to read.
Hell, or one of its iconic ships, had liberated Tectus from a collective, alien invasion fleet. Pieces of destroyed ships rained as meteors. At a site away from the Hull, there was no threat from such an impact. The Sword Wing had survived Hell’s attack and escaped. Now it hovered in Tectus’ dark skies. If any eyes looked up, the warship was so vast the lights denoting its triangular sections were visible as bright lines against black even from the surface. Its shield kept falling debris at bay. Its commander compelled Tectus’ leaders to come beneath it.
They refused Buran’s offer of transport. Instead, one of Tectus’ five operational hovercrafts received a fresh power pack. With no ceremony, Niko and Myra sped off to contest the fate of their world against a power greater than all nations of their former homeworld, combined.
Myra had survived the invasion and Hell’s attack. She pushed aside the thought that she and Niko could be speeding to their doom. They brought no weapons. There was no point. Their arms were courage and determination. Yet, Myra felt odd and slightly nauseous at another thought rolling in her mind. She half-hoped Hell would return.
Myra crammed data as she never had as a student to prepare for the meeting with the alien leader. Among the raw news of the invasion were images of the horde General when he stood a distance from New Poledoris. All he did was stare. He was a giant who had fought another, flaming-red giant and won. Giants were creatures of myth and media. Then two fought and devastated a valley near their city built around a colony ship. Myra’s culture understood aliens as odd creatures in lonely ships, not war fleets. Plus, each one was never larger than the tallest person on Poledoris or Tectus, never aggressive, and typically aloof. Those ideas proved to be the myths. Real life was suddenly bizarre.
Also strange was the General’s form. He appeared male-like and dissimilar to his demons. He was far closer to her form and the sole species of intelligent Poledorians, at least after the Septemals had died out long ago. What would the captain of this immense ship look like? Was it life at all, or an intellect risen out of from complex codes, or built from exponential tiers of integrated logic gates? Its kind had presumably built the warship overhead that made the Hull appear as a mere lifeboat. Myra hoped that seeming bit of logic held up.
As they came to the coordinates, a column of light obscured blurred figures within it. Myra mused that at least they were not giants. Niko slowed and stopped the hovercraft. Myra noticed the engine wine as it died and the craft sank to the ground. Niko flicked the toggle to pop the hatch. He said nothing, but stared. Myra took a breath. She released her harness buckle and left her seat for the opening hatch.
Myra stepped down from the hovercraft and onto soil. She considered that even after a generation born on the planet, they still might be the first to make footprints at the location. Yet colonial life had already taken root. As their eyes adjusted from the hovercraft’s cabin light to the dim surface, she saw the reddish soil glowed, faintly.
Myra allowed herself to smile as she recalled a new myth created for Tectus children about their world. On its travels, the lone planet orbited a friendly sun. As Tectus left, the sun scattered some of its light across the planet as a gift for its dark journey rolling through deep space. In time, the sprinkled light drifted to the surface as glowing dust. Now, in some spots, it still radiated from the surface, not the sky.
Children smiled along with the tale. Survival science was woven through their schooling and childhood stories. They knew the sun’s dust was truly bioluminescent bacteria engineered and released to fixate nitrogen into the soil and give light. Other forms of bacteria gathered water from the thin atmosphere as frost. However, unlike the parents and children, the luciferin-bearing microbes lived where they wanted and took a course of colonization all their own. The bacteria evolved. Some shed the light-producing genes and now competed with luminescent species.
The original colonists fled a bright, verdant world with oceans and a gold-hued sun. They arrived on a barren, dark world adrift between stars. To transition from a living world and become engineers of life’s genesis on a barren planet took significant psychological adjustment.
People born on living natural worlds accepted ecology, even if they only sensed it as background noise. Farms, far from shore or landlocked cities, offered more amplified sounds of animals and weather. The dense and occasionally deafening clamor of urban centers held a different rhythm. Either civil or wild, they were the sounds of life. On Tectus, silence had ruled absolute. The new atmosphere that carried sounds was artificial, yet little noise intruded the sterile calm.
Myra led the way toward the column of light. Even its brightness seemed aimed at humbling their efforts to persist under her boots. The only sound was their footfall over dust older than some stars. Geologically, Tectus was a smooth ball of accreted matter over a perfect sphere of mysterious origin and enigmatic energies. There were few exceptions to its terrain, with one recently noted by Niko. Terraforming this world was an act of hope and a focus for survival.
As the altered species of bacteria proved, building an ecology on Tectus was a difficult and uncertain endeavor. The affront Myra felt was deeper than enmity toward invaders seizing land. It was a desecration of all the labor to make life for the future and culture of their species. Remaking Tectus was also an act of love for all current children and unseen generations entrusted with a world recreated in their image. The reappeared invaders could shatter it all.
As they neared, the light column dimmed. A squad of soldiers stood behind Buran. Each soldier appeared armed with two metallic, squared shafts with handles and levers held like spears at their sides in each set of arms. The squared shafts extended above the unit members visored helmets and terminated in either tongs or rows of blunt bayonets. Myra thought they were weapons like the rifle she used. The soldiers’ rigid formation stepped back onto unlit ground as the light dimmed.
Buran remained visible at the center of a bright disk on the surface. He appeared unarmed, but wore two, small satchels hung from his shoulders that rested near his hips. They were thin, but could hold discreet weapons or even lunch.
Of all the aliens Myra had seen, lately, Buran troubled her the most. She put revulsion aside and tried to remain curious. Her unease was not from his six-limbed form, but the stare of orange-tinted eyes. They held an iris hue similar to the demon’s eyes. Buran’s eyes were doubled in number, and did not blink. It was unsettling.
Myra glanced down. The aliens wore robe-like uniforms circled beneath their two sets of arms by an angled, metallic belt. Their bodies were similar to the large, exoskeletal bird snatchers that had lived in hot forests on Poledoris. She could see short, thin fur wrapped Buran’s exposed head, limbs, and masses more like a fruit-scavenging tree racer. Yet, his kind were different from them, too, with no fluffy tail. The idea of a fluffy anything on this alien leader was a sudden, comical thought. Myra suppressed audible laughter. She had been under stress, so an outburst would be natural. But she wondered how this alien beast with a vast warship would interpret it.
Judging from their uniforms, the aliens appeared to like angles, even on fabrics, that ended in pointed tips. Myra mused from the light and this reoccurring pattern that their god might be a triangular prism. Then the doubled set of eyes caught her mind again. Buran still hadn’t blinked.
Myra and Niko stopped at the edge of the light disk.
“Veraltalo!” Buran said and gave a slight nod.
“What?” Myra asked.
“Ahstune,” Buran replied and raised his left, five-fingered hand to wiggle fur near his ear.
“Welcome, all.” He continue
d.
“We need welcome to our own world?” Myra said and looked at Niko who returned her gaze with wide eyes and shrugged.
“Ah, now I see our translators are synchronous. Good.” Buran smiled. His flexed cheeks rolled up and partially closed his lower eyes.
“I bid you a personal welcome,” Buran’s smile eased and all his unblinking eyes focused on Myra and Niko. “And, though your kind has settled a small part of the planet’s surface, I will show you it is not truly your world. Neither is it mine. I will show you, truthfully, this is no planet at all.”
Myra and Niko stared back at Buran’s doubled eyes. Both knew Tectus was an odd world and several theories swirled in their heads for its origin and odd energies. Their culture silenced radical ideas that the planet was a lost ship. Psychologically, it was easier to think their new home was an odd rock influenced by stranger areas of space it had passed through. Their resources were limited. Theories were easier to gather than geologic facts. Myra took a slight breath of the dusty air to speak. Niko suddenly spoke with a clear tone of defiance.
“We want to know our people are safe. You came here to conquer us, now you come here to be friends? How are we to believe anything you say? We want assurances of our people’s safety!”
“Granted,” Buran smiled. “If you trust me to permit your city’s freedom. Then, it is so.”
Niko and Myra glanced at each other with questioning glances.
“You trust facts?” Buran asked.
He gave a palms-up gesture Niko and Myra understood as a soliciting shrug, even with the use of all four of his arms.
“Your city is not shattered,” Buran continued. “I would not need to speak to you to kill you. All of you.”
“Then—” Niko halted. “Then why invade? Why—? What do you want?”
As Niko spoke, Buran touched his hand near his ear again as if to make sure Niko’s halting phrases were not an awkward translation. He studied Niko’s body and relaxed all his arms, and then folded his lower ones to his sides.
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