by Reg Franklin
Stragdoc sat in a chair opposite the creature. “You’re talkative already.” Normally, it took hours of psychic probing and torture to get the alien to speak a few words. During one early session, he had forced English vocabulary and syntax into the creature’s head. It’s vocal organs were not properly designed for English, but Stragdoc didn’t care. They could understand each other, that was all that mattered.
+I decided to oblige you, if only so that I may regain my hood.+ It nodded towards a crumpled heap in a corner. Analysis had shown it was a sort of aide in photoreceptivity.
Scout teams had found the alien lurking on one of Numenor’s moons. Of course, they didn’t remember it. Officially, an unknown virus had affected their minds, wiping out the past twelve months of their experiences. Officially.
“So. Where do we begin, then?” Stragdoc softened his smile. “Let’s start with your species.”
+I am of the Prelt.+
Stragdoc nodded. “Excellent. And I am of the Alphites.” A little quid pro quo might go a long way. “What is your name? What do I call you?”
The alien’s eyes dimmed slightly. +You lack the vocal apparatus to speak it. If you require a way to identify me, you may call me Codex.+
“Fascinating choice.” Stragdoc murmured.
+And by what name are you identified?+
“You may call me Emperor.”
+Emperor? An arrogant appellation.+
“Perhaps. But it is mine. I earned it.” He snapped at the alien.
+Very well. Emperor.+ Was that a sneer in the alien’s voice? +What other knowledge do you desire?+
“Why were you on the second moon of this world?”
+Mindful life had not been on this world for five Prelt generations. Suddenly mindful life appears. Curiosity about you Alphites brought me here.+
“Five generations doesn’t seem like much time.” Stragdoc granted.
Codex cocked its head. +Truly? Alphites must be a long lived race then.+
“So far...I fail to understand.” Stragdoc felt confused, a rare event. “Why? How long is a Prelt generation?”
Now he was certain that Codex was smirking at him. +A thousand revolutions of this world around the star is a single generation of my people.+
Stragdoc fought to keep a poker face. One Numenorean year was slightly shorter than an Earth year, perhaps three hundred twenty days, but that still meant that the Prelt were almost absurdly long lived.
+My hood?+ The alien’s question drew Stragdoc’s attention back. Thinking for a moment, he caused the garment to sail towards its owner.
“I will have more questions soon.” He watched the Prelt fasten the “hood” back around its head, the end result causing Codex to resemble the ace of spades.
Codex’s orange eyes brightened once his hood was back in place. +Of course. I thank you, Emperor.+
Stragdoc nodded and left the chamber. Today had been very productive. And it wasn't yet dinner time.
3.
Chris straightened his uniform as the smaller vessel docked with his flagship. Not that he was trying to impress his guest, but she was, in his opinion, one of the true heroes of the Battle of the Talon, even if her name was not included in the official records. So, respect was due to her.
The odd ship he’d last seen during that battle had a name stencilled on the side now, Nadezhda. Looked Russian, but according to their last conversation, she was NorthAm. A lady of mysteries, as usual.
The Nadezhda completed docking, and Chris saluted as the side hatch opened. However, the figure that emerged was not the statuesque woman he was used to; rather she was a battered, bloody mess that staggered out, eyes wild with panic.
“Ashpool?” Chris was stunned.
So was she, as she collapsed, breathing shallowly.
---
“Sir, I don’t know what you expect me to do for this woman if you won’t allow me to treat her!”
The ship’s doctor, Allan Halsey, was frustrated beyond belief. He’d been summoned to the docks to recover a casualty, and had been immediately instructed by the Admiral that no blood was to be drawn from her, no invasive tests of any kind were to be performed, that she was simply to be made comfortable.
As such a nurse had begun gently swabbing the blood from her features with a warm cloth...and was promptly ordered to ensure that the cloth was to be incinerated afterwards.
The Admiral was now leaning against a bulkhead in sickbay, gnawing a thumbnail as he watched the patient. “Believe me, doctor, you can’t do anything for her that she can’t do herself.”
Halsey threw up his hands in exasperation. “Oh I am sure of that! I am sure she is a world-class physician, but I highly doubt-”
The comm sounded. “Admiral, I know you said no communications, but the civilian government is very insistent about speaking to you now, sir.”
He sighed. “Doctor, clear the room.”
“No! This is my patient, and-”
The good doctor suddenly found himself grabbed by the lapels. “Doctor. Leave. Now.”
Halsey glared at the Admiral as he slunk away.
Alone, Chris sighed and keyed open a comm screen. He had a feeling he knew just who in the government was trying to reach him.
He was right. “Admiral, the John Alex is not some pleasure yacht you can just take for a spin whenever you feel like it.” Representative Kelly Young, senior member of the Governing Council (NorthAm seat) snapped. Young and Chris were frequently adversaries, Young arguing that military costs were spiralling out of control, while Chris repeatedly defended the necessity of a strong defensive position should the Alphite threat return. Chris didn't quite despise the man...but it was hard to find anything to like about him either.
“Of course it isn't. But it's hardly a paperweight either.” Chris deadpanned. “I was rendezvousing an agent returning from a scouting mission.” The half-truth was simple. Far simpler than “I’m meeting a hero of the Battle of the Talon who I last saw over a century ago. Oh and she's at least as old as Paul Stragdoc, probably just as powerful, and I really don't know anything about her.”
Young glared daggers at Chris. “And, pray tell, what has this agent reported?”
“She's injured and unconscious at the moment Mr. Young. Once she's recovered enough to make a report, rest assured that I will forward the pertinent details to the Council. John Alex out.” Chris snapped the screen off and sighed. “Bloody prat.”
“Sure sounds like it.”
Chris spun around, Ashpool’s eyes were still closed, but there was an unmistakable smirk on her lips.
“That was quick. I expected you to be out for at least another day.” He admitted, walking to her bedside. “How are you, Ashpool?”
Her eyes opened slightly. “My head aches, I’m pretty sure I’ve a half-dozen cracked ribs, and my right arm’s busted, but other than those, I’m peachy.”
“What the hell happened to you, Ashpool?”
“Jennifer.”
“What?”
“Jennifer. Safyo. Might as well use my actual name, St. George.”
Chris smiled. “Okay, Jennifer. But I still want to know, what happened? You look like you were in a wrestling match with a construction drone.”
“That bad, huh?” She sat up with a grimace, then scowled at a nearby reflection. “Damn. You weren't kidding.”
“What happened?”
Ashpool...Jennifer...turned back to him, and the look on her face was haunting. “We’re not alone out here.”
Chris’s expression hardened. “They're coming, aren't they?”
“Probably.” She nodded. “But that's not who I mean.”
---
“I was on my way back, anyway. Thought you deserved to know what he's been up to for the past century.” She was limping back to the docking bay, Chris in tow. She paused. “Damn this itch.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just wish bones mending wasn't so uncomfortable.” Her ribs had mended relatively
quickly upon her return to consciousness, the arm was still knitting. There wasn't much pain, just the damnable itch. “He’s been a busy little beaver. Got a small fleet now besides the Red Talon. Training the strongest of his people to be psionic weapons of mass destruction, spies, generals.”
“Terrific.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d say another decade before you’d have to really worry about Paul coming back. But things aren't normal anymore.” She led the way towards the Nadezhda. “Has anyone been aboard my ship?”
Chris shook his head. “I sealed the docking bay just after they rushed you to the infirmary. Nobody can get in, even you.”
She gave him a withering glance, and reached into the locking mechanism with her mind, popping the hatch open. “Yeah, might want to work on that.”
Chris shrugged. “Show off.”
“Anyway, I was coming back when I picked up a signal. Small planetoid about six light days from here. So I thought I’d have a peek. Curiosity, cat, satisfaction, you know how it goes. Watch your head.”
She led him through the Nadezhda to an aft storage area. “Yeah, I suppose I do know a little something about that.” Chris admitted. “What did you find?”
“A small ship. Maybe only as long as twenty feet, a quarter of that in diameter. Thought it was an unexploded torpedo of some kind at first, until I saw the popped hatch on it.”
Walking more steadily now, Jennifer put a trembling hand on a storage case. “That's when it attacked. I didn't get a great look at it. I remember the smell, like bad fish and rotten eggs. The sound it made, screams like nothing I’ve ever heard, and quite frankly, never want to hear again. It backhanded me, must've flown a good fifty feet away from its ship. That’s how I broke the bones. Lucky it wasn't my stupid neck. It charged while I was down, I managed a telekinetic blast, got a piece of it. Grabbed what fell and ran for my ship.”
She looked over her shoulder. “That's all I really remember. But the coordinates are stored on my computer. You can look if you really want to.” She threw open the case and looked away quickly. “I think it's a leg.”
Chris gaped at the bone white tentacle that flopped out in a haze of supercooled air. Then the smell hit him and it was all he could do not to vomit.
Jennifer telekinetically rolled the tentacle back into the box and shut it quickly. “I touched its mind, St. George. The hate I felt from it made it clear that if that one made it back to its people, they'll hunt us all down.”
Gagging from the rotting stench that was far worse than the woman had described, Chris looked at her through watery eyes. “You sure?”
She sat down heavily. “Even if I hadn't touched its thoughts for an instant,” she shuddered “The hate in its eyes, St. George. I’ve only seen that kind of hate once before. In his eyes, and I know why he hates me. This thing ran on hate and anger because that's all it knows.”
Chris nodded. “Get the coordinates. We’ll take a look.”
4.
“Rise, please.” Praxus Truk stood from his kneel to the warm smile of Empress Callixta. “A pleasure to meet you, Lord Truk.”
“The pleasure is certainly mine, your majesty.” Praxus returned the smile. “Lord, though? Hardly.”
“Yes, actually.” The Emperor strode into the receiving chamber, perching himself upon a raised throne. “Praxus, you are without a doubt the most skilled of my students. You are first among equals, and will have command over your fellows. Thus, a title to reflect that authority.”
“My lord.” Praxus bent his knee again.
“Oh, get up. Enough grovelling.” The Emperor chuckled. “At any rate, I did not request your presence here merely to give you further accolades.” His easy smile vanished and his expression darkened. “There are those out there who seek to destroy what we have here, you know.”
“Our Earth-based cousins, my lord?”
“Yes.” Stragdoc drew out the word into a hiss. “I offered them the opportunity to be like us, and they spat in my face, exiled us to space. We tried to go home, and we ended up here. Further banished from the ancestral home.”
Praxus nodded. “What would you have me do, my Emperor?”
“Find the seditious elements and cut them out. If there are homo sapiens here, I want them dealt with, permanently.”
“Not that we expect to find any.” The Empress added, laying her hand upon her husband’s. “Simply a precaution, you understand?”
Praxus felt concerned. He had no interest in seeing the Neuromancers, what he viewed as an honourable order, become a Gestapo-like entity. But the humans were a threat to their people…
“I shall consider it, your highnesses.” Praxus equivocated.
“Very well. But please decide quickly, before they have a chance to entrench themselves in our glorious society.” The Emperor pronounced. Dismissing Praxus with a gesture, he and Callixta privately conferred.
-He seems to want to believe that we are better than this.
-Perhaps. But what other solution can we choose? Callixta frowned.
Deep in his own thoughts, Stragdoc considered the matter. Perhaps it was time to...adjust his pupils.
---
Kelly Young glared at the reports detailing the John Alex’s flight plan. St. George was leaving the solar system, supposedly to follow up on this “scouting report” that he had received.
Young didn't believe a word of it.
Young was slightly paranoid, a fact he was well aware of, and since his appointment to the Governing Council he had developed deep concerns about the Fleet Admiral. He’d studied St. George’s background, from the murder of his father onward, deeply concerned that the man’s longevity could make him a threat to current global stability. So he had introduced the motion to relocate the majority of the fleet to Jupiter.
From that point, with the Admiral on Europa, it had been relatively simple to quietly strip him of any real power on Earth. The man was a war hero, but the past century of peace did not need to be shattered by an old soldier seeking to reclaim past glory.
Which was what made the communique from the Alex’s Chief Medical Officer so concerning. He’d intercepted a nurse on her way to destroy a bloodstained cloth, and countermanded the Admiral’s orders regarding its destruction. Then, he’d analyzed the blood.
The markers were there. St. George was harbouring an Alphite agent. And now he had taken the flagship out on an unauthorized mission.
Young ground his teeth as he commanded his own ship be made ready. St. George had to be stopped before he could ally himself with the enemies of humanity.
5.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Chris asked, as a small force of his troops combed the planetoid Jennifer had indicated.
“It's definitely the right rock...maybe I’m mistaken as to which part of it I was on?” She conceded. “I did take a pretty solid blow to the head.”
“No, I think it's merely hiding.” Doctor Jonathan West, normally a scientific advisor on Europa but brought along on this expedition, piped up excitedly. He pointed at a splash of orangish fluid. “I do believe that might be blood.”
“Looks like you got it pretty good.” Chris commented as West and his assistants catalogued the find and began taking samples.
“All I did was sever a leg. One out of at least eight.” She grimaced. “And I don't know how I did that, considering telekinesis is a blunt force, nothing sharp to it.”
“Perhaps it shares traits in common with our own geckos on Earth?” West piped up. “How they break off their tails…” Chris saw him frown at the device he was scanning the blood with.
“What?”
“Ah, miss, you said you fought this creature about 3 days ago?”
Jennifer frowned now. “About that I suppose, why?”
“Well, you see, this blood is still relatively fresh, there’s no major clotting, maybe only a few hours at most, but then again, this is a totally foreign biology.”
Jennifer's mind raced. “
Oh, damn.”
With that, all hell commenced breaking loose.
Three of the aliens burst out of the ground around the small group of scientists and soldiers, screaming furiously.
Not wasting time, Jennifer mentally hoisted a nearby rock and hurled it at the closest one to her, shattering a portion of its bony crest. Chris unholstered his sidearm, pumping an explosive round into the, on a human at least, location of its heart. Orange blood spread over its torso, as it issued a new scream and impossibly lunged for him with a basketball sized wound in its chest.