The Turquoise Queen, page 13
part #1 of Coalition Series
In the throne room, they continued to observe the invasion's progress. With local networks under their control, a secure line could be maintained. The screen now showed the feed of a shoulder mounted camera. The image from this simpler device, unlike the one installed on the ship's bridge, was two dimensional. It was the admiral's own point of view, as he blasted open the doors to the local regent's room.
Inside, the Raiac in loose crimson robes put up the appearance of defiance, but it was clear he was afraid. The Sencris, both present and watching from afar, immediately focused on the ornate gun in his hand. For a tense moment, they thought he would go for a last act of defiance. It would have been unfortunate. Martyrs are a serious inconvenience for any occupation force.
But he put the gun down and surrendered, an acid verbal remark his only attempt at resistance. In both throne rooms, there was visible relief.
Underwater, in Sirpratl's other capital city, a similar scene unfolded. Through the camera, the Rageris saw a captain of his navy come face to face with another ruler, who also stood alone. In near total darkness, amidst an architecture minimalist to the extreme. But the camera also transmitted ultrasound, the Sencris' primary means of perceiving reality, so to them it was clear as day.
This time, behind an unlocked door, swam a slender, naked, serpentine creature, a full meter longer than a Sencris. His body was covered in lustrous, pitch black dermal plates, with bioluminescent spots running its length. The irises of his eyes glowed too, above a mouth filled with sharp, unmistakably predatory teeth.
There was no fear there. They didn't even need a manual to tell them that. The Tcheerazeen, even in defeat, remained confident. His first reaction, upon seeing the invaders, was to raise his upper lip a bit, revealing the front row of his inward curved needles. A smirk.
"Ah, a glorious pulse this is! The Sencris Empire has come to lift us from our ignorant ways, into civilization." The ultrasound had a foreign pitch, but was still audible to the Sencris. "I salute you, and happily surrender control of this world's oceans to your wisdom."
After that, he extended a hand towards the enemy captain. The fingers, three lengthy ones plus two opposables, were nearly as long as the Sencris' forearm. They were the only part of his body where exoskeleton gave way to soft skin. With their tips, he brushed the captain's shoulder. His kind's equivalent of a handshake.
Had he seen that in person, admiral Dagedriom would have remembered his suspicions. The Tcheerazeen governor's confidence, the sarcastic tone of his surrender. It pointed to something foul. But he had not seen it. He had tended to the surface dwellers' subjugation instead. So all he had seen was the Raiac regent's fear, his timid attempt at defiance. Instead of reviving his suspicions, this scene had put them to rest.
Later, both Sencris officers returned to their ships. At that, all agreed to interrupt the live transmission. It had been going, nearly uninterrupted, for a full day and night. And while the Sencris vigil and sleep cycle is longer than most, all in the throne room figured they could use some rest. Anyway, with the battle over and the locals, so far, behaving peacefully, nothing meaningful was likely to happen. The Ree disbanded and Flameridrail retired to his private quarters.
A few hours later, an aide came to wake him. His presence was requested. When he arrived in the throne room, the seven Ree heads were already waiting. In the screen, now a three-dimensional view of the bridge again, the admiral informed him they were ready to commence the next phase.
There were several orbital facilities around Sirpratl. Until that day, they had cared for the planet's defenders and numerous civilian ships, tending the wounds and basic necessities of frigates, freighters and their crews alike. This infrastructure was one of the factors that made this star system so valuable. It could be used as a staging area for further incursions into Sharizinar Alliance space. So the next phase was to take possession of these facilities.
The camera switched to an external view, the same shown in the bridge's circular screen. It extended over the walls of the throne room, obscuring the golden murals all around. Two Dreadnoughts could be seen in the distance, approaching a large space station. Its main body was made up of two dark, bulky cylinders, arranged in a cross. One spun and had large, inward-facing habitat domes attached to each tip. Long, metallic docking arms protruded from the other at regular intervals.
A tactical overlay was shown above the live footage. A series of technical diagrams informing the emperor that, above all of Sirpratl, his ships were approaching facilities similar to that one.
"Wait," Flameridrail said, without raising his voice. On the screen, Dagedriom and his officers turned to face him. "Tell all dreadnoughts to halt their approach."
The admiral relayed the order, without question. Right away, The lights from their massive engines went dark.
"Admiral, have your boarding parties use corvettes instead," the emperor continued. He'd had time to sleep on the matter, to ponder it better. The excitement of victory had faded, while reasonable suspicion had grown. The Alliance forces' retreat had been too well coordinated to be an impulsive act of cowardice, he'd concluded. It had been planned in advance, which meant it was part of a strategy. There could still be danger ahead, hidden inside those harmless-looking orbital facilities.
"I understand, your eminence." Dagedriom nodded with enthusiasm as he passed every coming instruction along to his underlings. He remembered his own concerns, dimmed though they were by the Raiac regent's behavior, and was overjoyed to see that his sovereign agreed with him.
"Before the fleet docks, I want every corner of those stations searched for hidden explosives and traps. Tear them apart if you have to," the Rageris concluded. Behind his back, he heard whispers from the seven Ree heads. They seemed to approve of his caution.
A trio of corvettes flew out from the hangar of each dreadnought. Each, in turn, carried a small crew of technicians and a complement of lancers. The feed switched to a camera mounted on the nose of one of those smaller craft, as it approached the enemy space station and maneuvered to dock. Upon closer inspection, they could see the complicated array of mechanical appendages that dotted the station's central cylinder. Perched along the docks, a small army of robots and drones stood ready to mend even the most serious damage to a parked vessel. All of that machinery was eerily still.
A moment after the coupling maneuver was done, the feed switched again, to an armor-mounted camera. This time it was on the shoulder of one of the warships' security officers, a muscular middle-aged woman with teal spots on her light coppery scales. She led a boarding party, thirty strong, all clad in armored encounter suits.
It was a Raiac installation. Every other light fixture, evenly spaced along the low ceiling, had a handmade metal adornment hung around it. Crude depictions of fauna and flora, no two alike. Inexpertly made by the crew in their spare time, it seemed, in an attempt to make the cold military interior feel more like home. The soldiers could only see them with their sonars, though. It was completely dark.
Though there was a residual atmosphere onboard, all systems, including life support, had been turned off. Not that it made any difference. For the Sencris, the environment would have been uninhabitable regardless.
The security officer gave a hand sign. One by one, the soldiers turned off their rows of little mechanical paws, switching to thruster locomotion. To them, zero gravity, while not ideal, felt more natural than walking.
The boarding party carried on, silent but for the occasional, faint bursts of directional thrusters. They had not encountered any resistance yet, but this could be an ambush. They were careful, keeping in formation and alert all along.
At the end of a meticulous scouring, it seemed their caution was not justified. The place was deserted. All Raiacs and Tcheerazeen were gone. The soldiers on the other stations told them as much.
In the Throne Room, back in the homeworld, the Rageris continued to observe the progress of his troops. He had a lot hanging on the success of this first movement, so he remained skeptical that all had, indeed, gone as planned. For the first moments, as the soldiers braved the empty, dark corridors, he'd kept half expecting something terrible to happen. He did not know what exactly, he'd just feared. A squad of heavily armed hostiles leaping out of their hiding place. A fleet of frigates transiting into orbit, perhaps. Or, most likely of all, some concealed trap, left by the system's defenders, being sprung.
Then none of that happened. After it became clear they were alone, the security officer summoned her chief technician. He had been following her, in the back of the group, safe from harm. He had studied the enemy's technology in great detail, so as to be able to operate it with speed and efficiency. She told him to get to it.
His work crew spent the next few hours checking circuit panels for malicious modifications. They X-rayed bulkheads for hidden bombs, plucked open the corridor linings because the bombs might be designed to evade detection, and so on. The sun set and rose again over Sirpratl's capital, and neither the Rageris nor the technicians working for him were satisfied that there was nothing to be found. So they recharged their encounter suits and went outside, to examine the repair robots perched on the station's hull. Those were clean as well.
Then, by the end of the next day of searching, it turned out they had been right all along. Not an explosive, it turned out. Instead, the Raiac saboteurs had, before leaving, swapped a single tile on the main fusion reactor's chamber lining. When it went online, the new, much frailer material would have crumbled under the strain, causing a catastrophic containment breach that could've destroyed the whole facility.
The chief technician made a point of presenting his findings to Flameridrail in person. He displayed the faulty tile to the camera with pride, explaining how much damage it could have done. The same sabotage was soon discovered in every single station in orbit, and fixed. Deeply relieved, the monarch was quick to congratulate his underling.
With the threat defused, a sort of routine settled in, as the work that followed began to feel technical and dull. Slow, not all at once, the Ree representatives left the throne room, not to return again. Each congratulated Flameridrail profusely on their way out. But they were not interested in what came next. The Rageris, however, kept watching.
After days spent on empty, dark corridors, the security officer made her way to a control room, which had been determined to be the facility's power distribution center, and summoned the technicians again.
Gloom did not bother her much. Lack of water, now that was a major inconvenience. Not just because she couldn't breathe or swim in air. Sound propagated differently through air, throwing off her sonar organ. Her helmet contained systems designed to compensate for that, but it was still a nuisance.
The chief technician was rotund for a Sencris, though still fit enough to meet army standards. Very young, with even more teal spots than his leader, and very shiny. He approached the controls, describing his every gesture in unnecessary detail, as he yanked cables, plugged them back in different sockets, pushed buttons. Then he explained why he thought some action hadn't worked, and what he would attempt next.
After this short narration, he went silent of a sudden, and a soft hum filled the air as the generator went on again. Some expert button pushing later, the corridor lights went on. Around every other one, tiny metallic branches and flying animals glinted.
On top of the console he had been working on, there was a crude statuette of a Shabchrun, a burly animal with a large concave shell over its body. Made of clay, sculpted by a child from the look of it. As they inspected workplaces, they found many such mementos of home and family. The crew had left in a hurry after all, they concluded.
The technician didn't bother to reactivate life support. He still needed to stop the habitat domes' spinning, as the artificial gravity did more harm than good for his kind. A perk of being waterborne was that space felt a tiny bit less hostile than it did to land species. As for life support, air and vacuum were equally toxic, so there was no point.
Work crews would be called to fill the corridors with water later. This wouldn't be viable in an Earthling facility for instance, the technician explained. But Sharizinar Alliance technology, like this, was made to be switched between Raiac and Tcheerazeen use.
Next, they carefully inspected the station's repair centers. Robots and other mechanisms all seemed to be in perfect order. No signs of further sabotage. After another full day of intense work, they had the place running as it had been a tide before, when it was still a thriving Sharizinar Alliance port.
The emperor kept watching, though his eyes were becoming heavy from sleep deprivation and tedium. On occasion, he switched the camera feed to one of the other orbital facilities, to demand an update from whoever was in charge. The reports were all the same. Powered down systems, personal objects scattered about, work left unfinished.
Finally satisfied that the invasion had been successful, the Rageris bid his subordinates farewell. He left the rest of the job, the boring part of it, in their capable hands.
A few of the Dreadnoughts had sustained minor damage from their brief skirmish with the orbital cannons. Nothing serious. They had decided to use the commandeered facilities to conduct repairs. A good test of their capabilities, the admiral announced before turning off the communicator. He received no protest from his master back home.
Flameridrail was awoken by the sound of his own title, shouted. He didn't know how long he'd slept. It was his aide, summoning him back to the throne room, with urgency stamped on his face. He hurried along the Cathedral's corridors. When he arrived, none of the Ree were there yet. As if his limbs had gained a mind of their own, the emperor reached for the controls to the gates and locked himself in, not quite knowing why he'd done it.
He turned to the screen. On it was the same installation from before, with two dreadnoughts docked. Then, silent in the vacuum of space, a flash of white light, blinding, all-encompassing. He screamed. An involuntary, desperate reflex. Even though he knew this was a replay. It had already happened, there was nothing that could be done. He screamed.
In the footage, the shockwave struck one warship, then the next. The first had its shields up. It drifted sideways, ripped from its dock. Its entire hull was ablaze with iridescent fire, yet unharmed.
The second, however, had been undergoing minor repairs. Nothing urgent, more of a test. Yet this required defenses to be turned off. Its golden metal, resilient though it may be, peeled back like tinfoil, and burned. Then another, and another. Synchronized, in the same instant, every space station around Sirpratl went up in nuclear fire.
All the Sencris technicians' scrutiny had succeeded in disarming one trap, yet failed to detect another. A stray line of code, planted so deep in the facilities' control systems that no amount of digging would've been sufficient to unearth it.
Their power generators, it turned out, had been rigged to detonate on their own. Not immediately after reactivation, no. That would have been too obvious, and would have caused minimal damage to the invaders. Not even an hour or a day after take over, no. The delay had been calculated so that there would already be ships docked and undergoing repairs when they went off.
The emperor screamed, powerless to stop his precious ships from being blasted open by the Sirpratleen colonists' much-delayed vengeance. Fire filled the screen before him. Images from one station, then another, a montage of his finest troops being massacred. It sunk in then, the villainy of it all. He had accompanied every step of the take over process. He'd seen the decorations on the light fixtures, the mementos of loved ones. Those had been left behind by design. The regent's fear too. All had been to fool the Sencris into thinking they had won, that their enemies had fled in a hurry.
Then that final touch, the faulty lining tiles in the reactor chambers. A decoy, to make the Sencris believe they had uncovered the sabotage, to make them feel clever and let their guard down.
The only careless, unplanned sign of treachery had been the Tcheerazeen president's confident smirk. Yet both the Rageris and his officers had failed to pick that up.
The enemy's plan had worked perfectly. Flameridrail screamed again, out of pure rage. The Ree was not there to judge him. He was alone, locked inside his throne room. Free to be spontaneous, to admit he had been fooled, and cry about it.
As the destruction died down, fear overcame the Rageris. He would have to explain this monumental failure to them. That was what the forty-nine priests who had elected him would call this, a monumental failure.
He took a deep breath. As the status reports came in, he willed himself into calming down. "This is a minor setback," he yelled to the murals. "None of the Dreadnoughts have actually been destroyed. We will retreat to a friendly fortress, conduct the necessary repairs, then press on." When he finished this brief speech to the heroes of old, he was calm and confident again.
Yes, the emperor convinced himself, this was an act of desperation. Erchtria, Shiredveeari, the Sharizinar Alliance. They knew themselves weak, so they resorted to dirty tactics. They had spent their cheap trick. It would not work again.
Walking Ahead of the Tide
The Earthling sipped her drink. Vodka, crushed limes and sugar. Similar to the violet and vodka found on Illuminated Ocean, but this was the original mix. That other drink was an adaptation, made with similar enough local ingredients, in order to give tourists a taste of home. She was surprised at how similar limes and violet stalks tasted. Light-years apart. One grew in shallow water and was more or less an animal. The other grew on dry land and was a plant. And they tasted almost the same.
She wore a green suit. The ambient temperature was kept at a precise twenty degrees Celsius. Humidity too. It was supposed to be pleasant for her species, but she found it too chilly and dry.
