“I tried, Branco.” Sun howled at the universe for taking him away within moments of realizing how much he meant to her. She threw curses around her quarters in a dozen languages. Then she locked down her tantrum and did something about his situation.
She pinged the chief medical officer.
“Go for DiMassi.”
“We’re returning to base. Going home to Tau-Rietzke.”
“I know. Wonderful news.”
Sun forced herself to smile as if the news was indeed good. The others deserved to enjoy this moment. “It is indeed, Doctor. I imagine there will be the mother of all parties.”
“Yes…What is it you’re concerned about, Major?”
“Branco. I want him revived. He fought for this victory, too. I want him to enjoy the party to the fullest, even if…” Sun swallowed hard. “Even if it kills him.”
DiMassi mumbled something but clearly wasn’t sure how to reply.
“Will it?” Sun asked. “Will it kill him?”
“Probably not. Major, if we revive him, I give Branco three months to live. If we keep him under, maybe a year or two. But you have to understand, I’m guessing wildly. If we wake him for the party, he might not last the night. Or he could last another year. But I am sure of two things. The last time we revived him and then put him back into hibernation, it almost killed him. So, if Branco wakes up, he stays revived until the end. The other thing I’m sure of is that he will last longer if he has a reason to fight hard for his life. I can’t give him that reason, Major. Can you?”
“I love him, Doctor. Hell, I’ll give him so many reasons to live, he’ll outlast all of us.”
DiMassi laughed. Sun admired her for that. Despite all the shattered bodies she’d tried, and often failed, to save, Decima DiMassi had never lost her deep belly laugh. “I think you’ve made the right decision, Major. We’ll wake Branco in time for the party. First round’s on me.”
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-One
Pride in Destruction. In Orbit about Myndiblehush, Goltar Prison World.
It had been a week since that hideous nine-legged monster had loomed over Hashgesh, neurotoxic slime dripping from its fangs and hatred burning in its band of eyes, fueled, in Betty’s case, by obvious insanity.
Since—to his immense surprise—Hashgesh was still alive, he couldn’t afford to dwell any longer on those nightmare memories of Betty. He had a responsibility to his personnel.
He extended pseudopods to pick up the slate he’d kept inside his shell and used the ability the Goltar had granted them to his access own ship’s systems. He was going to pierce his captors’ lies and get to the truth of the fate that awaited them.
The Goltar themselves said the captive mercs would be housed at a “luxury waiting facility.” They even claimed they would pay their captives standard merc rates for doing nothing.
But something didn’t ring true. The Goltar had been out of circulation in the Union for a very long time. Even so, surely, they must realize their lies sounded far too good to be true. The idea was ridiculous. The Goltar were clearly feeding them sweetened lies to keep their captives pliable while they were marched to the slave pens, or execution chambers.
Hashgesh used the slate to access an external camera view and observe their position in parking orbit around this prison world. The orbitals were heavily armed and military ships overflowed at their docks. For a destination the Goltar described as almost a luxury vacation resort, it was very heavily guarded.
According to the local map, more warships were being parked at nearby Lagrange points. Most of this modest armada weren’t Goltar ships at all, but the mercenary vessels the Goltar fleet had captured.
Strangest of all for Hashgesh, was that he was aboard his own flagship, the Pride in Destruction. Perhaps the Goltar intended to ransom the ships as well as the personnel. It was certainly a very strange form of internment.
* * *
Hashgesh descended to the waiting facility on the last shuttle, the Zuul having been processed a few days earlier.
He shuddered to think what “processing” entailed.
His Bakulu personnel, cocooned in their transportation slings in the shuttle’s hold, had kept a dignified silence during the descent. Hashgesh had ordered them to prepare for anything and give no outward sign of resistance. Quietly, they would uncover the secrets of the Goltar setup. They would extend cautious pseudopods to any survivors of previous captures with a view to making a joint escape.
Some of his juniors had protested. After all, ransom was commonplace in the mercenary world. Dead captives brought no ransom, so the best strategy was to sit tight while the Goltar thought their lives still had a credit value, and hope company headquarters would pay the ransom fee. But Hashgesh would have none of that. This wasn’t a standard ransom. The Goltar were up to something else here.
Once the shuttle landed, they were escorted into a large geodesic dome.
He’d only caught a brief glimpse of the dome’s surroundings, but it appeared to be in the middle of a barren desert. Doubtless the zone around was mined and patrolled. But when he entered the main space at the center of the dome, Hashgesh began to doubt.
The noise hit him first. Excited shouting. Animated conversation. Laughter and shrieks. And from several races. Then the warm humidity washed over him, scented with the odor of a multitude of races, and laced with smells of fine foods and beverages. Only then did he start believing what his eyes were showing him.
Captive mercs were splashing around a heated pool surrounded on one side by a miniature patch of woodland and decking on the other. Mercs lounged there, gorging themselves, engaged in conversation and gameplaying. A trio of Bakulu were barreling through the water like torpedoes, keeping in perfect parallel formation. He recognized the shell adornments and realized with a shock that they were his people. A Selroth was shouting angrily at the trio for disturbing her swim.
It really was like a luxury vacation resort.
He looked again and counted the races. He saw Zuul, Bakulu, MinSha, Lumar, Maki, and more. No Veetanho, though. No Goka. Nor Tortantula or Flatar. Some of those missing races had provided marines in his flotilla.
“Commodore.”
He whipped his three eyestalks around to stare at the individual who had spoken.
“I know what you’re going to say, Lausquoo,” he snapped at the captain of his flagship. “You think the Goltar are telling the truth.”
“You have to accept; they’ve spoken truly so far.”
“Really?” Hashgesh moved to one of their Goltar escorts and waved a pseudopod at it. Hopefully not too aggressively. “I have a question.”
The Goltar peered at him through its deep eye socket. “You may ask anything, Commodore Hashgesh.”
“Why are there no Tortantula and Flatar here?”
“Would you enjoy a swim with a squad of hungry Tortantula, Commodore? The Tortantula and Flatar guests are enjoying a venue customized for their pleasure. They are safe and well treated but kept separate from other species. If you wish to be transferred to the Tortantula facility, I could arrange it.”
“No.” Hashgesh could smell Betty’s hot breath from that terrifying moment in CIC. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“I get it,” said the Goltar. “You’re a tough shell to crack. This is too good to be true, right? Nobody does anything like this without expecting something in return. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Well, I’m right, aren’t I?”
“In a way. There is a price we expect you to pay, though it’s not a heavy one. We merely wish to demonstrate to our friends in the Mercenary Guild that the conflict between the Veetanho and the Goltar is a matter between us alone, and we regret the inconvenience to our friends from the other races who have had the misfortune to accept contracts from the Veetanho.”
Hashgesh took a recount of the races he could see enjoying their stay. “So, the Bakulu, the Zuul, and the others here. We are all your frie
nds?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Even the Selroth?”
The Goltar snapped its red beak angrily. Hashgesh had looked up everything he could find about the Goltar on the way here. It hadn’t been much, but he’d read hints of a rivalry between the two water-dwelling species.
“The Selroth are our…guests,” the Goltar said with obvious reluctance.
“Sir,” said Captain Lausquoo. “Don’t spoil this for anyone else. I mean, have you checked your yack?”
Hashgesh whipped an eyestalk around at the captain. “Explain.”
“We’ve just been paid. As soon as we came in. It’s…a lot of credits.”
“Call it a welcome bonus,” said the Goltar.
“The Veetanho and the Goka,” said Hashgesh, “including my marines. Were they paid a welcome bonus?”
The Goltar’s beak darkened from crimson to deep maroon. “They are not our friends.”
“Where are they now? Murdered?”
“Genocide would be illegal,” said the Goltar darkly. It declined to elaborate.
Hashgesh felt bad about Major Zhiflwt and the Goka marines who’d served in his flotilla. Worse than the guilt of his betrayal was the fear of how the Goka would view him if the true story ever got out. He needed to get his version of events out first.
“One last question,” he said hurriedly, sensing his subordinates were about to abandon him and race to join their comrades in the pool. “Can we communicate with home?”
“Yes. In fact, we request that you record messages of how much you are enjoying your stay here. It is important you reassure your guild representatives that we are treating members of your race as honored guests until the unfortunate conflict between us and the Veetanho has been resolved. We are friends of the Bakulu. You may place your trust in the Goltar.”
“The guild. That’s it! You’re making a move on the Guild Inner Council. You want allies to support your coup. That’s what this is all about.”
The Goltar regarded him in silence while Hashgesh’s subordinates finally fled to the pool and the other attractions.
“Of late, we have studied the Humans closely,” said the Goltar enigmatically. “They are ill disciplined but should not be underestimated. They have a saying: War is the continuation of politics by other means. As always with Humans, they are insightful but not quite right. It is more accurate to say that politics is the continuation of war by other means…as the Veetanho will soon discover.”
Hashgesh didn’t believe the Veetanho would yield control of the Mercenary Guild as easily as this Goltar imagined. But for the time being, he decided, with one eyestalk watching his people drop into the water, he was happy to accept that his part in their war was over.
* * * * *
PART 2:
BETTY’S BITCHES
Chapter Twenty-Two
Station 5, Beta-Caerelis System, Spine Nebula
Blue fussed at the silver buttons of her navy greatcoat while she observed the huge orbital station in the shuttle’s main Tri-V. The last time she had come here, she’d arrived on the station wearing a bigger version of this coat, one she’d borrowed from its owner as a memento. Maybe she would find him here. It had only been a few years ago, but it felt like an age.
There was something else that hadn’t happened in a long time.
“It’s been a while since someone else flew me,” she told the Goltar pilot sitting beside her—if settling atop a cushioned punchbag could be called sitting. “You’re not a bad pilot, Gloriana, except for one glaring fault.”
The alien opened her beak to snap it shut angrily, but she thought better and stopped herself. “My skills are faultless, but I understand you well enough now, Captain Blue, to understand the hidden meaning in your words. You are about to state yet again your objection to our current destination. You wish us to return to Tau-Rietzke. I also wish to be on Tau-Rietzke. Unfortunately, the galaxy doesn’t owe either of us favors. It requires us to be here. You will shortly learn why.”
Blue wasn’t convinced. These Goltar had hidden in the dark places of the Union for millennia. Subterfuge and secrecy had become more than just a necessity, they had become a habit. No, more than that. Secrecy and deception had possessed them until they had become the core of their identity. She resolved never to play Goltar at a game of truth or bluff.
Their destination wasn’t one of the main entry ports to the station, but to Blunt Justice, the Goltar drone carrier moored at one of its largest docking hoops.
Blue only had eyes for the enormous Station 5. As an independent political entity, and the main trading and diplomatic hub connecting the Spine Nebula with the rest of the Union, the orbital was home for nearly two million citizens. Hundreds of thousands of visitors and contractors would also be living in the haphazard collection of modules that had sprouted out from its original boxy shape. Three huge parallel blades known as vanes descended from its central hub, each home to over half a million people.
She supposed the station needed to be big. It orbited Beta-Caerelis 6, a shattered world whose bleached bones still bore the deep wounds of a war so distant that the mangled debris from warships and their crews had formed a glittering ring system around the neighboring world of Beta-Caerelis 5. All the worlds of the Beta-Caerelis system had died in that war. And since dead worlds were unable to sustain the orbital, Station 5 contained its own farms and fisheries and a policy of self-sufficiency.
Of all places, why here, Gloriana?
The universe was forever casually tossing around minor coincidences. Blue wasn’t the sort to see destiny and symbolism in such randomness. She left that nonsense to poets, populist politicians, junkies, and the Jeha, who were forever telling her that the universe was a pattern with purpose, a symphony of creation that Humans were too deaf to hear.
In such matters, Blue regarded herself as a realist. The person whose philosophy she most admired was Venix, Gloriana’s spy whom Blue had come to appreciate, during the course of the Raknar job, as a loyal friend. Venix hadn’t survived that campaign, but his favorite Zuparti saying had stayed with Blue. What you don’t understand will surely kill you.
At first, she had dismissed that as typical Zuparti paranoia. But Blue had learned a lot about how the galaxy really worked since then, and there was a worrying amount she still didn’t understand. Why weren’t they on Tau-Rietzke? Why was Gloriana shuttling her in person when surely whatever meeting she’d arranged could have been conducted via pinplants?
But the question that was eating away at her so much that she could almost imagine whiskers twitching on her snout—just as Venix’s used to—was why here? To the infinitesimally small proportion of people in the wider galaxy who knew of its existence, Station 5 was the gateway from the Tolo Arm of the galaxy into the flyover irrelevance that was the Spine Nebula. To Blue, Station 5 was far more. This was where the Midnight Sun Free Company had been born; where Blue had taken on their first mission against impossible odds and delivered it with panache.
Venix hadn’t believed in coincidence.
Sometimes, neither did she.
Not big ones, anyway. And this was a whopper.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
Blunt Justice, in Dock at Station 5.
Blue shrugged a query at Gloriana, but the alien made a cutting gesture with a pair of tentacle tips through the water and pinlinked a message to remain calm and respectful toward this exalted individual.
Fine, if that’s how you want to play it.
The other Goltar in the water-filled meeting space—the admiral Blue assumed she’d been shuttled here to meet—had made no attempt to acknowledge her arrival, it had just stared at her from behind the deep bony sockets over its eyes.
Some meeting this was turning out to be.
Blue swam closer until she was inches away from the Goltar jerk. She stared right back at it through her rebreather mask.
It made no reaction.
“Okay, that�
�s enough, Admiral Squidward. Petting time at the Human zoo is over, and I demand answers. Why aren’t we at Tau-Rietzke? Or Earth, for that matter? My mercs fought for you. Most of them died for you. They deserve answers.”
The Goltar turned to face Gloriana. “I see what you mean. It is instructive to experience this individual in the flesh.”
“I asked you a damned question,” Blue demanded.
“Captain Blue is angry with you,” Gloriana told the other Goltar. “You should respect that.”
The admiral made a circling gesture with a pair of tentacles. “Forgive me, Captain. I have never met a humanoid in person. Cultural misunderstanding is inevitable, but I assure you I mean no disrespect or insult. Indeed, I hold great admiration for you.”
“And I,” Blue told it, “hold great admiration for the questions I just asked you.”
“You shall have your answers,” said Gloriana. “But I shall first remind you that while your mercs, as you describe my employees, have been fighting for the Goltar cause, they have most of all been fighting for money. My money.”
“They fought for Earth…and, yes, and money.” Blue sighed, trying not to think of how many had not only fought but died, too, whatever their motivation. “The humanoid portion of the company is a dwindling band. Either release them and become a fully Goltar company or treat them properly. By that I mean recruit replacements. Respect those who survived your war by allowing a visit to Earth for those who desire one.”
“Now, that raises a very important question,” said the other Goltar. “By the way, you are misinformed, Captain. My name is not Admiral Squidward, it is Grand Admiral Aru-Zzat, and I hold the military portfolio on behalf of the High Council of my people.”
“So, you’re the head honcho, the big cheese, the giant squid, the commander-in-chief?”
Endless Night (The Guild Wars Book 3) Page 11