War Against the White Knights Read online

  For once, Arun did what he was supposed to, sheltering behind his living shield of Marines. In a firefight like this, he wouldn’t last an instant if caught in the open.

  The firefight was over in seconds. Two more Hardits were dead, floating up the corridor against the microgravity, pushed by the momentum of the railgun darts that had ended their existence.

  Romulus was unconscious, blood spooling from his head where a savage blow had caught him.

  “We need to get deeper into the ship,” Arun told Pioretti. He was about to add: ‘and out of this comms blackout’, but slammed his jaw shut instead. The sergeant didn’t need a jabbering officer to tell him how to do his job.

  Pioretti said nothing. The Marines were locked in formation but did not move.

  “Let’s grab Romulus and head forward in case there are more behind us,” said Arun, but before he’d even finished speaking the savage truth caught up with him and he knew there would be no reply. He’d lost Spreese too.

  The situation was finally revealed. Hardit commandos disabled their stealth systems and slid into his perception. Twenty of them filling the tube both forward and aft of his position.

  Training and instinct cut in. Arun raised his pistol.

  The Hardits rushed at him.

  He fired, aiming at the nearest commando’s visor.

  The Hardit dropped its weapon and clutched at its eyes, but its comrades were almost upon him.

  Arun snapped a shot at another target, but his plasma burst was easily absorbed by the commando’s armor. Before he could get off another shot, Hardit arms reached from behind him, and his pistol was wrenched painfully from his grip.

  Arun cursed himself for his stupidity. He should never have shot at them. He should have turned his weapon on himself. Now he was a prisoner of the Hardits. Now he was a liability.

  He barely had time to see the Hardits collecting their dead – and Romulus too – before they placed a black hood over his head. Instantly, he felt isolated. No light, no sound penetrated that hood, and all he could smell was stale sweat. It was bound, and towed on a leash. Then he did hear something: the hum of a power source within the hood’s fabric. Then he knew nothing at all.

  — CHAPTER 16 —

  Tremayne closed her eyes and attempted to sink into the alien music, a mental exercise that required great concentration but was slowly becoming easier after long practice.

  With time on her hands since the trial that still defined her life – despite taking place twenty years earlier – and no human to share it with since then, she had covered her isolation with solitary pursuits. As a Marine she would spend off-duty time chewing the fat with her buddies, embellishing the most unlikely scuttlebutt for re-transmission, playing Scendence, and drilling, drilling, drilling until she was a honed combat machine. Now those holes in her life were stuffed with reading, sketching, and music, although these new pursuits rattled inside cavernous gaps they could never fill.

  Her only friend was Pedro, the old Trog whom Arun was too important or too busy to see anymore. She had assumed Pedro would be glad to spend time with any human, since aliens were his preoccupation. In the early years, though, Pedro had demanded hard payment of Tremayne for his time. He had insisted she tell every detail of her friendship with McEwan.

  Their lengthy conversations had proved cathartic. She broke free not only of McEwan but of her entire youth and the pain buried there. When, one day, Pedro called her Tremayne rather than Springer, the iron vice around her heart finally cracked, and she knew she had moved on.

  It was Pedro who had encouraged her to try music produced by non-human minds, and Tremayne had come to find that the most rewarding and the most challenging kind. The music currently flooding her cabin on Lance of Freedom was not a recording but a musical algorithm given to her by the Khallenes. She recognized recurring leitmotifs and structure, but this fractal music never exactly repeated itself. The Khallenes themselves told her that the sounds of their music were nothing more than a background framework to carry the essence of their music: the silence. That was her challenge for today: to enjoy the sounds and then step beyond them to immerse herself in the silence.

  To other human ears, Khallene music was a mix of haunting melodies and atonal hammering that threatened to shatter your teeth. But Tremayne was used to this now. She embraced all the sounds without judgement, simply accepting them for what they were until they rolled past her without touching her soul.

  The melody in the hidden silence called to her.

  Suddenly a harsh tone skewered her – a comm ping set to ultra-high priority. The music switched itself off automatically.

  “What now?” she snapped, already guessing who would be sending her such a high priority message. Sure enough, her comm system identified the caller as the Khallenes, who set all their messages to maximum priority, no matter how inane they seemed to her.

  With a gesture, Tremayne accepted the call and transferred it to the array of smartscreens plastered across one bulkhead.

  A multicolored Mobius strip stared back at her, forever chasing its tail along bewildering angles. This was the abstract representation the mudsuckers had chosen for themselves. The Khallenes, on the other hand, would not only see Tremayne’s face but be studying her every micro-gesture. They could read human body language as well as any AI specialized for that purpose, but to take the next step and grasp what that human wanted was beyond them. They were caring, social creatures with individuals of their own kind, but with other species they possessed the empathy of a lump of lead. She swore that if a Khallene with a fire extinguisher stood beside a burning human, the alien would watch, fascinated, as the human died in agony. The idea of extinguishing the fire would never occur to them.

  “Hey, Springer! You busy?”

  She sighed, pissed off both because she could never make the Khallenes understand she now preferred to be called Tremayne, and because trying to explain she was off-duty and entitled to some relaxation was also beyond their comprehension – or so they preferred her to believe. “Nothing that can’t wait,” she said. “How may I assist?”

  “We want Romulus assigned to us for medical analysis. We need to deep scan him.”

  “Oh-kay. Is he sick or injured?”

  “No, he’s healthy.”

  “I am unfamiliar with this ‘deep scan’. Can you tell me what it is and how long it will take?”

  “No.”

  No. Conversation with the Khallenes was tricky at best, but Tremayne was more adept than any other human. Her gut said the current communication difficulty was rooted in the subtle identity of what lay behind that Mobius strip. Sometimes it claimed to be the combined essence of several Khallene individuals, and at other times it would describe itself as nothing more than dumb software.

  She tried again. “If I were talking with a Khallene technician who intends to carry out this deep scan, would she be able to explain the nature and duration of the procedure?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And would she be willing to explain them?”

  “I should think so.”

  “But you are not.”

  “Correct.”

  “Please speculate. I understand your statements may be inaccurate, but in this circumstance a degree of inaccuracy may be tolerated.”

  “No problem.”

  Tremayne punched the air in triumph. Yeah, still got it.

  “Deep scan is a term I made up,” explained the mind behind the strip. “Basically, they’ll use every tool they’ve got to dissect Romulus and put him back together again as good as new. Could take hours or days. Don’t know until they try. The poor guy will probably sting a little after, but even his girlfriend won’t be able to tell the difference because we’ll take extra care to make sure we put all his bits back in the right order.”

  “Thank you, that’s very helpful. But you’ll have to give me a more tangible reason for wanting Romulus if I’m going to convince his CO to hand him over.”

&
nbsp; The Mobius strip took on a crimson hue. It was blushing. “It’s not my fault. They made me promise not to say, but, they’ve been trying to hack your comm tech for years. Very impressive your tech is. Highly desirable to the mudsuckers who built me. It’s not to steal your secrets, you understand, just to learn. Always they lust for new ways to do things, and… for you to leave such shiny tech on open display was such a tease. Please don’t be angry.”

  “I am not angry. I am bewildered. You already know our comm tech. Your Khallene engineers enhanced it, gave us the design we’re using to speak to each other right now.”

  “Not that comm tech. I mean the nano-scale broadcasters hidden in your blood.”

  An icy chill crawled up Tremayne’s back.

  “Springer? Are you okay? You don’t look well.”

  “Do… do I have these broadcasters in my blood?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “How many humans do?”

  “They’ve spotted 212, mostly senior commanders.”

  “And Romulus has this?”

  “Look, Springer, maybe this is me interpreting your words the wrong way – you alien humans are pretty unfathomable, and all that – but you don’t seem to know about this comm tech.”

  “I don’t. Now answer my question.”

  “We spotted unidentified nanotechnology in his blood when Romulus spent time in the infirmary after the Hardit attack you call the Third Battle of Khallini, but his setup was not the same as the other 212 individuals. Romulus was something different, which is why we never connected him.”

  “I still don’t understand. Why do you want Romulus so badly? Why now?”

  “Because as of three minutes ago Romulus acquired the same intoxicatingly new comm tech as the others, and used it to begin broadcasting a message.”

  “To whom? What does it say?”

  “Unknown on both counts.”

  Suddenly the deck rumbled and the general address system wailed through a piercing three-tone alarm. General Quarters!

  All over Lance of Freedom, Marines and sailors were rushing to their posts. Not Tremayne, though. Ever since she had been booted out of the Marines, she was a non-combatant. Her General Quarters station was her cabin, where she was supposed to keep out of the way.

  Text describing the situation scrolled across every display on the ship, including Tremayne’s cabin.

  “I can’t see,” complained the Khallene contact. “What’s it say?”

  “We’ve been boarded,” Tremayne replied. “Marines have been killed. General McEwan is missing.”

  Tremayne shook her head in disbelief. “Please tell me this is a coincidence,” she whispered. They had come so close to victory in this war of liberation. Should have known it wouldn’t be easy.

  “Ahh… not sure if you’re being rhetorical,” said the Khallene. “If not then I decline. All 212 with the tech just initiated high-bandwidth communications simultaneously. The datasphere’s lighting up like there’s a supernova in every CIC and bridge team. I can see General McEwan very clearly.”

  “McEwan? Where? Show me.”

  “I can’t show you a visual of McEwan, because he is hidden behind some highly unusual stealth technology, but I can trace the emanations from his blood. Look, here he is…”

  The Khallene construct brought up a tactical map showing McEwan just outside Lance of Freedom, and moving away fast.

  Tremayne brought up a comm link to her superior, Ambassador Sandure, but cut it dead before he answered. C’mon, Tremayne. Use your brain!

  “Does Ambassador Sandure have this tech in his blood?” she asked.

  “Affirmative.”

  Frakk! Even Del-Marie is compromised. “Who is the most senior officer onboard who does not carry this tech?”

  “Lieutenant-General Xin Lee.”

  Oh, it just had to be her. The Universe is wetting itself laughing at me.

  While she tried to raise Xin, Tremayne asked the Khallene representative to transfer a list of individuals carrying this tech – a list of the people who could not be trusted. It was pretty clear that they had identified the security breach.

  To her relief, Xin answered her call.

  “Make it snappy, Tremayne,” Xin sneered. “Kind of busy.”

  Tremayne hesitated. The voice transmission was encrypted but from what the Khallenes had let on, their security had been blown wide open. She’d have to choose her words with great care.

  “I’ve been thinking about Scendence,” she said. “Last games we played, I was in Moscow Express and you were in Team Ultimate Victory. Let’s combine teams. And to start us off, I’ve an idea for our Deception-Planning player. I know where there’s a good one floating around in the vicinity. We can grab him if we’re quick enough.”

  Xin said nothing. She didn’t shout and she didn’t cut off the link, which meant she was thinking over the cryptic words. Lieutenant-General Lee had a great many faults as far as Tremayne was concerned, but stupidity was not one of them.

  C’mon, Xin. Work it out!

  “Meet me in the tertiary hanger,” said Xin, and cut the link.

  Tremayne bolted out of her cabin on her way to meet the woman who had destroyed the old Springer’s life and parked herself on what Springer had thought of as her territory. Together they were going to haul Arun’s ass out of the fire, almost like old times – except for the mound of bitterness she carried around with her that was so massive, it could trap an atmosphere in its gravity well.

  — CHAPTER 17 —

  “I hesitate, and I do not understand why, Sub-Leader Taniss.” Tawfiq Woomer-Calix, the supreme leader of the Hardit New Order twitched her tail as she fought against the temptation to order her pilot to turn the hidden shuttlecraft around and return to Taniss and the main fleet. “Is this indecision, Taniss? Cowardice, perhaps? I am not used to such vacillation.”

  “Be reassured, Supreme Leader. As you say, your indecision is uncharacteristic. The root cause is your revulsion.”

  Tawfiq growled. This all smelled wrong. On this matter, she didn’t trust her own judgement. Still less did she trust the foreseer – the being the humans would call a Night Hummer – who had suggested she initiate this course of events, but Taniss she did trust to speak naked truths, untarnished by sycophancy or politics. And even the foreseer’s advice had been apt, so far.

  “Consider,” continued Taniss, “the humans will soon find themselves blocked. Without our help, they will eventually withdraw from this star system, unharmed. Far better to let all of our enemies butcher each other until they are weakened. We are not as strong as we appear.”

  The arguments were familiar, but hearing her trusted subordinate speak them was the reassurance Tawfiq needed. What she was about to initiate could harm the New Order significantly, but the destruction of humanity was a decades-long project that demanded she display the kind of patience characteristic of a foreseer. For now, there was only one human who needed to be destroyed without delay – that pustule of stinking excrement whom she had numbered slave 106, but who now called himself a general.

  “Very well, Taniss. Send the transmission to the humans. Let the game commence. They are so ignorant, I doubt they will understand it anyway. Tawfiq out.”

  Tawfiq ground her jaws together, but the deed was done, and the unsettling thought came to her again that the course of events she had been directing for decades had gained yet another slug of momentum. She scratched behind her ears, as if dislodging ticks, but she couldn’t shift the nagging doubt that said events were directing her, and not the other way around.

  Too late now, she told herself, we are committed.

  She willed her arms to rest comfortably on her thighs, and managed to ignore the phantom itch behind her ears because there was a matter to attend that would be a welcome distraction.

  She opened a secure comm link to the interrogation compartment of the commando ship. “I shall meet the prisoner in ten minutes,” she informed the janissary who answ
ered. “I want him conscious enough to appreciate my complete victory over him and his rabble. That is all he needs to do. His life expectancy extends for a maximum of five minutes after he encounters me, so for the prisoner to be dying when I meet him would be pleasantly efficient.”

  Tawfiq flicked her long tongue around her lips, eagerly anticipating the final encounter with the upstart, 106.

  The itch behind her ears had disappeared.

  — CHAPTER 18 —

  Tremayne swallowed her impatience while Xin read over the data she had shared using a secure data slug passed directly into the universal port of the Lieutenant-General’s battlesuit. They were in the tertiary hanger, an area of Lance of Freedom she had never visited before. The main two hangers were given over to the X-Boat fighters and fighter-bombers that represented the light carrier’s principle means of aggression. Behind the iconic X-Boats, the primary and secondary hangars both housed less glamorous craft: transports, shuttles, and the plethora of auxiliary ships that could mine for raw materials in asteroid and Kuiper belts, and also refine them in situ before transporting the results back to the resource-hungry fleet.

  The tertiary hanger housed everything else: garbage scows, short haul ammo carriers, tugs, and mobile platforms for space-worthy equipment crates used by the teams who maintained the huge spacecraft’s exterior.

  “I see,” said Xin, “you did well to come to me, Deputy Ambassador. I choose to believe in the accuracy of the location tracker your mudsucker friends are feeding me, which is telling me they haven’t taken Arun far. Our opponents could be feeding us a false trail, of course, but if they are, Arun is already lost to us. I know you’re in a hurry to rush after your old friend, but I would rather wait to acquire the best pilot in the fleet before flying out blind, even though he’s no longer a Navy pilot. Officially. Luckily, Dock has given me just such a pilot. The Wing Commander owes me a few favors, you see.”