Human, page 2
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
“This might be the last throw for us,” Noa groused, watching the DSOs all put their hands on their weapons before the situation stabilized again, “and all we have is a lousy knave for a pivot bone.” He slid a high explosives grenade-disc from the dispenser on his chest-plate and tossed it to the DSO who’d escalated the situation.
“Tip for the dealer,” he quipped. The grenade was roughly the size of the usual gambling chip found in bone houses so it was mildly amusing. More importantly, the pending explosion should help cover the team’s withdrawal.
The grenade went off, spraying the café with bits of the cop as well as fragments of a sign advertising for new franchisees. Apparently, a new franchise was opening somewhere in the empire every thirteen minutes.
Noa, standing on the right of the group, was closest to the blast. “Dammit!” he yelled, slapping a hand over his cheek. “I’m alright,” he grumbled, turning to follow the team. “Just caught a fragment from that damn sign.”
Ethdu followed but walking backwards to cover the café. The grenade’s effect on the lightly armored officers was more than he expected but it wouldn’t last.
They descended the ramp to the next floor. Ethdu stepped off the incline, lowering his weapon as he moved around a support column. He was about to start sprinting for the top of the next ramp when a Quailu passed him, heading the other way.
Judging by his clothing, he was clearly not from the ruling Awilu class but he was still a Quailu and, therefore, above any petty dispute between intruders and the local natives of the security force.
The alien must have realized he was allowing his curiosity to show because he sniffed dismissively, turning his gaze away from the hurried Humans as he headed for the ramp.
Where at least eight DSOs, angry and disoriented, would soon be appearing with revenge on their minds.
Too late, the danger of the situation gelled for Ethdu. He turned to go after the Quailu but Abdu pushed past him, cursing like a cargo handler.
The older man stepped into a blocking position just as the Quailu rounded the column at the base of the ramp. He grunted in pain, stumbling but remaining on his feet as three rounds slammed into his armored back.
Abdu grabbed the now-protesting Quailu and forced him back around the corner of the column to safety. He sank to his knees as the angry alien stormed off.
Eth rushed to Abdu, pulling the older man’s arm over his shoulder and helping him to the next ramp but the rest of the team wasn’t advancing.
“We got a huge force of DSOs down there,” Olivdu warned.
Eth noticed she’d split up the team, three to one side of the ramp and four to the other. They only had to fire the occasional burst to keep the DSOs suppressed but they’d soon call in backup. An aerial unit would change the situation drastically.
“News of our presence would have been… filtering up the chain since… we got here,” Abdu wheezed, spitting up blood with every painful word. “Bound to have reached… someone who knows about the Chironian raid on Heimdall’s labs.”
“So they’ll know where we’re headed,” Ethdu finished angrily. He looked at his mentor. “How bad is it, Ab?”
“One of… my lungs… at least, so…” His eyes went wide, mouth open in a silent scream as he arched his back, nearly falling from his protégé’s grasp. “Suit just injected… stabilizing foam,” he whispered. “Hurts like buggery!”
Eth felt a cold chill down his spine. If the suit was injecting foam in a wound, it meant the injury was beyond Ab’s genetically enhanced healing abilities.
All of the combat slaves in their team were designed with strength, endurance and healing in mind. They could recover from wounds that would kill the average Human.
But there were limits.
“We can’t go back,” Noa said quietly in Eth’s ear, “and we can’t get to the labs.” He nodded over his shoulder. “So we need to hold this area long enough for me to crack my way in through that public node over there.”
Eth looked over to the node, twenty meters away in what looked like a dead end. It was open to the left, verging on a drop so high that you’d work your way through the entire seven stages of grief before you impacted the ground.
There were just enough planters scattered around the area to make it defensible. “You can get in through a public node?” he asked.
Noa nodded. “Take a lot longer than accessing a terminal in the labs but that option’s off the table, I’d say.”
Eth nodded at Ab, still hanging from his shoulder. “Help me get him over there and then get started. Oliv, start pulling back before the DSOs upstairs get over the shock of nearly killing a Quailu and come down to flank us. Take up positions behind those planters.”
It could be worse, Eth mused. Not by a lot, but it could be worse. Ab was out of commission for the duration and they’d lost their chance to smash into the lab and grab the data the ‘easy’ way but they still had a plan.
There wasn’t really a plan for exfiltration and it was a safe bet that the locals would call in air support on the Humans, exposed as they were on the open-air platform.
Sometimes your problems were just answers in disguise.
He would almost have laughed if not for the state his mentor was in. Ab was the closest thing to a parent Eth had ever known, closer than most Humans ever knew.
When every one of your kind came from a maturation tube, parenting was pretty much a lost art. Only intense assignments like combat and, especially, combat leadership led to the kind of close relationship that existed between Eth and his mentor.
Whistleblower
I t was a fashionable corner of the galaxy. The Grannazian stellar nursery was a common dropout point for dozens of shipping lanes. Customers actually paid more for the longer voyages that dropped from path-shaping and loitered here for a day or two.
Just the sort of place where you wouldn’t expect to die in a hastily planned government cover-up.
There was a lot of fear among the other Quailu passengers. Allamu could feel it despite his remote location in the ship’s gardens. He lurched forward, tripping on an exposed root and falling on top of Z’zedthenu’s thorax.
He scrambled off the insectoid’s leathery, chitinous plates in revulsion – not the best timing for a stomach already unsettled by the sudden shift in their vessel’s motion.
If Z’zedthenu had been discomfited by the emergency dropout from path-shaping, he wouldn’t show it on his… face and his species didn’t appear to have emotions in the normal sense. Allamu, like all Quailu, was strongly empathic but the Zeartekka were a blank slate to him.
He wasn’t the only Quailu to feel it was like dealing with a living corpse.
“What was that?” Allamu looked away from the insectoid with a shudder, feeling the guilt at his revulsion but unable to do anything about it.
“We’ve stopped shaping path,” Z’zedthenu rattled in reply.
Allamu could feel consternation and fear filtering down from the bridge crew now, passing through the Quailu passengers like the flow of a river, intensifying the existing mood. He looked back to Z’zedthenu, a new worry replacing his dislike for insectoids. “This was not done by the crew. They’re as confused as the rest of us. We’re nowhere near Goodhaven-7 and the express isn’t supposed to stop at Grannazian.”
Z’zedthenu turned his dull black, multifaceted gaze toward the shielding above. He sprang to his feet with unnatural speed.
They had agreed to meet in the ship’s ‘night garden’, a small collection of nocturnal plant-life from around the empire. It was a four-hundred-square-meter area recessed into the ship’s upper surface and the atmosphere was held in by energy shielding.
Allamu had arranged to meet the rogue intelligence officer before their arrival at Goodhaven 7 in the hopes of getting a head start on all the other news-shapers who’d be waiting there. It might have turned his career around.
What he wanted and what he got were rarely related. At best, the two concepts might be described as mildly antagonistic acquaintances.
Still, this felt worse than usual. The fear filtering down from the bridge was intensifying. He took a step back, leg muscles tensing.
The insectoid officer pointed upward. “There,” he rattled. “Do you see the disruption in the star-field? They blur at the edges and N’Cheb 419 is entirely missing. It should be at the center of that dark patch.”
Allamu crouched in alarm as the Zeartekka emitted a loud, deeper rattling noise. He realized it was laughter and came back to a full standing posture.
“They have a sense of drama,” the imperial officer croaked, “blocking any view of my home-world before they make their next move.” He turned his unreadable face back to Allamu. “There can be no doubt. They came for us. This is the only vessel currently underway from Throne World to Goodhaven 7. If they learned of my plans to meet the press, this ship is my most likely choice of transportation.”
“They came for you,” Allamu corrected. “I’m nobody to them, unless I can publish whatever it is you wish to reveal.” He brushed the dead leaves from his tunic. “You should give me whatever information you have while you still can,” he urged, waving a hand up at the distortion. “Once they have you in custody, the secrets you carry will disappear.”
The laugh startled him again.
“You misunderstand the situation, Allamu.” Z’zedthenu waggled his head to accentuate his amusement. “I said they’ve come for us – all of us.” He spread his upper forearms to indicate the ship that carried them. “They will leave no evidence. They never leave evidence and twelve thousand passengers telling of a covert team boarding this ship and carrying away an imperial officer would certainly count as evidence.”
Allamu stared, his skin crawling. His mouth moved but no sound came out. He tried again but his mind was already dangerously distracted by the fear flowing through the ship. He looked up as the insectoid gestured toward the menacing shadow in the stars.
A haze of glittering points had appeared but they weren’t stars. They were moving, separating into even more tiny points of brilliant danger.
“An anti-ship spread,” the officer said, chittering meditatively.
“No!” Allamu blurted, his mouth taking matters into its own… lips... Then his brain valiantly tried to take control again. “They wouldn’t wipe out an entire passenger liner just to stop one person.”
Z’zedthenu tilted his head back a few degrees. “And who is better suited to know what they’re capable of, an imperial intelligence officer or a second-rate news-shaper?”
Allamu felt rage building and he encouraged it as a preferable alternative to gut-churning fear. This creature from a subject species dared to insult a Quailu? It might hold an officer’s commission and exercise the devolved authority of the Quailu Emperor himself, but that was no excuse for such insolence!
He cast about for a suitable rejoinder, wanting to put this arrogant bug in its place.
“They will fail, of course,” the officer rattled calmly. “I’ve already prepared for this eventuality.”
Allamu’s sense of anger evaporated in an instant. “You have?” He looked around the garden, sure he’d spot a pre-arranged escape craft of some sort.
Of course, this was why the Zeartekka had chosen the night garden for their meeting. They would escape together, thumbing their noses, or whatever the Zeartekka thumbed, at their attackers. The relief was swamping out the fear he still felt from the crew.
“I’ve stored the evidence on multiple public-access nodes,” the insectoid said. “When this ship is destroyed, their communications link with my office on Throne World will expire. The dead-man signal that I’ve piggy-backed on their beacon will cease and every news-shaper in the empire will receive the data.”
“But…” Allamu stared at the creature in shock. He shook his head. There was no escape pod? Damn all insectoids to the corpse ripper! “That’s your fornicating plan?” he screamed. “They kill us and you call it a victory?”
That haughty look again. “My spirit will return to our queen,” he rattled. “I will be reborn.”
“It’ll have a long damned trip ahead of it,” Allamu yelled, “getting released all the way out here…”
“Distance is of no importance when you are freed from your corporeal…”
The sub-munitions swirled in an evasive pattern as they approached but the two people in the night-garden never noticed the intricate dance. Allamu screamed in incoherent rage as he launched himself at Z’zedthenu, wrapping his hands around the narrow neck.
He was still trying, ineffectually, to strangle the insectoid when the weapons vaporized the ship and its inhabitants.
Op Center
S ir, we have a signal coming in. Matching the code-pairs now.”
Marduk sat up in his chair, waving off a med-tech and his stimulant injector. He wouldn’t need it after all, not when they were finally about to learn how the operation had gone. He only used stims in emergencies.
He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. When you served as Chief-of-Staff to Tir Uttur, the four hundred twenty-ninth emperor of the Uttur restoration, every day brought new emergencies.
This latest one, brought about by one of the emperor’s more pedestrian imagined emergencies, was all too real. If they’d managed to stop the traitor while he still represented a single threat-vector, then the real emergency would be over and Marduk could return to dealing with the demons under the emperor’s bed.
“Pairs match,” the comm-tech confirmed, his positive feelings preceding his next announcement. “The captain of the Nightsider reports his mission is accomplished.”
Marduk let out his breath. The traitor was eliminated. He’d still have to pay a visit to the intercept group. Some fool had allowed an insectoid analyst to access an intelligence compartment containing intercept-data on the Zeartekka hive-worlds.
They made excellent analysts, but there would never be an insectoid who placed empire before the hive. Whoever had cleared the traitor to work on Project Wardrobe would soon be coming down with an acute case of decapitation.
“Send the packet.” He turned to the media officer. “We want it fully embedded in the public nodes before nightfall.”
“Sir…” The com-tech’s head tilted to the side as he stared at his displays. “We’re getting an inbound packet.” He leaned in slightly. “Open-source origin. It’s working its way through the scrubbers now.”
Intrigued, Marduk got out of his seat and walked over to get a better view of the com-tech’s screen. This operations center, deep beneath the imperial palace, was widely rumored to exist but few knew how to route a message directly to the access points that stood guard over all communications with the outside world.
Confusion .
“Sir, it’s from the target !”
Marduk drew back so far he had to shift his left foot to avoid falling over. A flow of data scrolled past his eyes, proof that the emperor had not only been using the intercept group to spy on prominent nobles, he’d also shown no qualms about using the information to keep them all fighting amongst themselves.
It revealed an emperor, already advanced in years and degraded in health, seeing enemies in every ally. It showed him as a leader who felt insecure in his position and unsure of the succession.
If this data were released, the succession would be up for grabs. Many of the nobles being manipulated by the emperor were electors and they would not look kindly on his interference.
The Holy Quailu Empire was an elective monarchy. Twenty-six nobles currently held elector status and few of them would remain willing to vote for Tashmitum, the emperor’s daughter, if they knew what her father was doing to them.
Marduk fumed, his anger causing the com-tech to hunch down over his controls. He was certain Z’zedthenu was dead but, perhaps, he had a co-conspirator or an arrangement to send this message if he’d died.
A holo image of the traitor appeared and Marduk felt the usual revulsion, though it was mild. Somehow, the Zeartekka were less unsettling on holo. No species was readable in a holo recording.
“I am, or was , an intelligence officer in his majesty’s service,” the image croaked. “If you are watching this, I am almost certainly dead at the hands of our government. The data accompanying this transmission proves that our monarch has been using military assets to spy on leading members of the Awilu class as well as the royal persons of the Zeartekka Hive. I have doubtless been killed in an attempt to prevent the release of this information.
“I have programmed this release server to search for a media-shaping packet from the palace. It will mention some deplorable incident, most likely a terrorist attack that explains the event in which I will be, or was, killed.”
Oblivious to what else might be said, Marduk reached out to grasp the com-tech’s shoulder. “Was this sent anywhere other than here?”
Hopelessness .
“Everywhere…” The tech quailed at the waves of anger washing over him.
Marduk wheeled on the media officer. “The packet went out?”
“It’s already into the tertiary repeaters,” the officer shrugged. “There’s no pulling it back now.”
Marduk’s shoulders slumped. It was ironic that the emperor’s illegal spying program had been unnecessary but, in being discovered, created a need it could no longer fulfill. The great houses would take measures to prevent further surveillance and they would use the incident to justify a wide range of aggressive actions.
He’d argued against it from the start. He’d watched his childhood friend grow increasingly paranoid over the years and he’d managed to prevent any number of ill-advised schemes but he’d failed to stop Project Wardrobe.
The emperor was becoming increasingly reclusive. He’d long ago replaced the palace staff with non-Quailu personnel. It had been portrayed as an imperial effort to reach out – to be more inclusive toward the ruled species. In reality, the native peoples of the subject worlds were brought in because of their inability to read his emotions.
