The Otherworld Rebellion (War of Alien Aggression #9) Page 14

"The beam went through it."

  "Sort of."

  "Was it just me," she said "or was the beam that came out the other side more powerful than the one I hit it with?" The Shediri moved to their consoles quickly and clacked enthusiastically at their data.

  "1.554 times the original energy input," said Bowles.

  Dana said, "That's not possible. We have laws of physics about that."

  "Like the Weirdlings, it's not from around here," said Ram. "It doesn't know."

  "Bowles?"

  "What are you looking at me for? I fix drive coils. The Shediri know more about field physics and dimensional slip that we do and they're baffled by this thing. The really fun part is how the output varies. It'll be stable for a few hours, then spike to ten times input and then go back to the same place. Spikes happen in the hours when we feed the dogs."

  "Whatever it is, are we sure it's truly Weirdling technology?

  "That's the only thing we're fairly sure of. They appeared often during the search for this thing. As you know, most of their arks were probably destroyed five million years ago when they tried to pass through the planet and failed. This device would have survived. We think it burrowed its way up through the crust of the planet over all that time. It might even be from the wreck of the very same ship that's partially visible on the southern continent."

  Dana Sellis knew next to nothing about the mystery in front of her, but the species that built this device had shown themselves to possess more power than Humanity had ever dreamed of wielding. If it had been constructed by the Weirdlings as a weapon, the real challenge would be using it without destroying themselves.

  Black Chamber of Auntie Kill's Hive

  The room Margo Devlin aka Matilda Witt called her 'Black Chamber' lay behind three sets of iris doors made of magnetite doped chitin. With the exception of the entrance through which they'd come, the space immediately surrounding the triple-hulled chamber had been filled with a ferric-fluid dampening layer. Inside that iron bath, cut off from the rest of the planet by counter-surveillance measures impenetrable by any known means, Dana Sellis and other the key conspirators of the Otherworld rebellion drank scotch spiced for twelve years in barrels made of the local, great-celled hardwoods that held up the forest canopies like pillars.

  The flavor of the seared wood wasn't anything like the stuff from Earth and the Scots wouldn't have recognized it, but even as she watched the sharp and unsubtle flavors of the planet's best liquor grimace the faces around her, she saw them glow with pride, too. The taste of the burnt wood and peat was strong, but their throats burned with the fruits of Otherworld.

  Only Hank Devlin looked unimpressed. Dana wondered if all the memories of all the fine liquor he'd drank in his last life haunted him when he tasted the local best. "This from New Madras?"

  Chun nodded. "I was still in prison when they started aging this one. They say our distilleries get better all the time."

  "I hope they're right," said Ram. "Damn spiteful of Staas Company to ban liquor imports."

  Ix, Hive Kill's Ambassador to War, already sat perched on one of three, Shediri seating mounds sipping the liquor from a vessel more suited to the shape of his chitin jaws. He held the flattened cup in his top two 'hands' while he tilted his head back and poured small dribbles between the mandibles and into his mouth. He'd draped his fifty-eight diminutive, millipede-like legs on either side of the mound and they rippled in waves, raising and lowering in sequence as he savored the human delicacy.

  "Do you approve, Mr. Ambassador?" said Dana as she seated herself on one of the hard couches nearby.

  Ix only tilted his head back, poured in a few more drops, and let out the same wet hiss of approval he'd have made if he'd just suffered through the taste of the bile the Shediri always pushed on guests.

  Ram sat next to her and set a matchbox computer on the low table in front of them. It projected a map of Otherworld and the system. The planet hovered a meter over the table so that she was looking up at it and its out of scale representations showing the ships in orbital space including Bofor's Station. Civilian, Legion, Staas Company, UNS, and Ekkai ships steamed across the breadth of the system on either side of Alcyone. The ships of Devlin's Privateers were hiding in the archipelago Grinder of the eighth planet's Trojans.

  The Company Cutters patrolling the lanes looked even more menacing when you could see just how many there were. They prowled in sharp-toothed schools.

  Ram gestured to the trainee squadrons of Orbital Fighters stationed at the Legion base up the coast from New Madrid. They'd been displayed only as sets of numbers that hovered over the slowly spinning planet. "Sergeant Major Brace reports that all 10 squadrons are in their last two weeks of the training cycle. They're ready to go when he gives the order. That gives us 840 exo-atmo fighter craft specialized for orbital operations. Their power, maneuverability and inertial negation systems will give them the edge over anything else riding the lip of a gravity well."

  "What about the others," said Chun "What about all the Legion pilots and marines already out there fighting?"

  "We expect them to continue to follow orders and fight the Imperium on the long front. Nothing will change there." Ram said it with a certain finality. He didn't show the same doubt she'd seen sometimes over the long years of waiting. "Ground teams will seize critical infrastructure points from Staas Company on the surface and in orbit in a coordinated attack while the Legion's assault craft seize orbital superiority. Accompanied by Legion marines, skeleton crews of veteran sailors will ascend to the shipyards surrounding Bofor's Station in high orbit. We will overcome any local resistance from Staas Security forces. Then, we will, board and commandeer the destroyers built for the UN fleet before the Company can stop us. After they're short on Brandon's metal for coils and Cynium to penetrate Imperium shields, they'll have to listen to our demands. It will be the only profitable option left to them."

  Dana said, "I was just up there less than two hours ago. All the hardware is in place except for the railgun blocks. The reactors are lit. The Staas Company software packages are running until they're overwritten with our new version. Give me six or seven minutes for the flash and those ships are ready to fly. But we're going to need a distraction to draw the Company Cutters away from the shipyards. Last count has fourteen in system as well as almost twenty patrol boats. At any given moment, you can bet six are docked at Bofor's. Even if the Ekkai stay out of it and so does Hive Hrt'ee, we'll still need a distraction to steal those destroyers and actually get away with it."

  Ram said, "The Legion should be able to hold the space over Otherworld. The Company Cutters know they're no match for the orbital fighters. One the legion pilots launch, the company captains will have to fall back to a higher, less vulnerable position and wait for backup. If they actually understand what's happening and some idiot takes it upon himself to fire on the shipyards surrounding the station, then we'll have no choice but to engage them with stealthed ships placed in position to prevent such action."

  "They might not give you a choice about firing on them," she said.

  Hank sighed. "If they fire on the docks, we'll only have to hull one a few to drive the rest off until the operation is complete."

  "We're not going to hull anything," Ram said. "Staas Company is in this for the money. Fighting us is the most expensive option. Do this right, and we'll get what we need to negotiate without starting a war."

  "We'll have crews on standby waiting to outfit the destroyers with small-bore railgun blocks, a few particle beams, and the full-yield Shediri torpedoes that we've been able to stockpile," said Hank. "Our people are used to working on the run."

  "Those Legion squadrons and our heavy boarders are all Legion trainees at the end of the three month cycle. They've never fired a shot in anger. Can they actually hold the orbital space over this planet until we launch the destroyers from the shipyards?"

  "The Sergeant Major says when he gives the word, they'll launch, they'll fight, and they'll hold until
relieved. If I didn't believe him, we wouldn't be attempting this. His last message said he'll need eight hours from the time I tell him 'go' to push the last of the trusted software through the Legion's systems on Otherworld and overwrite all remote functionality. After that, there's no way Staas Company can stop us."

  Ix triple clacked and then whined and clicked at a rapid fire pace. "Interrogative: Have you ordered the Sergeant Major to proceed? Interrogative: Has the countdown begun?"

  "Not yet."

  "Why not?" said Hank. "What are you waiting for?"

  Dana knew the answer. Even she'd told Ram no good could come from talking to anyone sent by Balthus Pavic and 4SI. It didn't matter who Martin Samhain's father was or what failed rebellion he'd begun. That man had nothing to say that Ram Devlin needed to hear. She'd told him that, but Ram wouldn't listen.

  16

  Chamber of the Queen

  Samhain thought he was on his way to see Ram Devlin. He didn't expect a detour, but when they led him through a series of iris doors framed in increasingly ornate carvings, he figured out who was behind the last set before it opened and revealed her seated upon her throne. A dozen of her meter-high ladies in waiting pattered to the edge and peered down at him, creatures like the engineer bugs but with more arms and a swollen lower body.

  The royal chamber of Auntie Kill was small, but Auntie Kill was the smallest queen to ever lead a Shediri hive. The almost two-meter-tall, Human leader of the Sons of Kesik raised herself from the carved mound on which she rested, opened her arms to Samhain and smiled with a warmth and humanity not altogether insincere.

  Her bands of ceremonial armor glinted up and down her nakedness in the Human-spectrum light coming from the panels that hovered above. "You are Mr. Martin Samhain. And I am Auntie Kill. I only want a word before you speak with Ram Devlin."

  "Is that wh-"

  "Do you know who I was before I became queen of this hive?"

  "You were Margo Devlin, Ram Devlin's wife. And now, you're Auntie Kill?"

  "The name translates well among the warrior monks despite its crude ring in our tongue." She raised her arms high and turned to show herself to him. "Does it shock you to see a Human in this role? They see it as reinventing a new kind of Hive, one where bloodline doesn't determine leadership."

  Samhain shifted his weight. "If you can't do what a queen does for them biologically, then what are you to them? And what are they to you?"

  "For me, they are a way to extend my will, my power, and my awareness beyond what one woman could otherwise know. For them, I'm their leader and primary strategist. There is much I can't do for them, however. Their queen was the Hive Regent Kesik and she was murdered. I can't host that great bacterial soup from which a hive drinks like Kesik did. It binds the hive mind together you know. Without it, they're changing. Over the last decades the Sons of dead queen Kesik have become increasingly individualistic. We represent an evolution, as does Otherworld."

  "I don't understand."

  "Please, you're an anthropologist. I think you do understand quite exactly what I mean. Other planets have natives that evolved there. They feel it gives them claim. The natives are long dead here. The flora and fauna of this planet are largely invasive species brought by visitors from other worlds over millions of years. What survived has found equilibrium. We are all natives of Otherworld now. Human, Shediri, Weirdling, Ekkai, Welk....any who come belong on this planet. That's what makes us different than Earth or any of its allies."

  "I don't want to see a war destroy you."

  "This planet and its independence is the next step in the social evolution of more than one species. We must survive for the larger good and under current conditions established by Staas Company and the Secretary General's Office, what we have built here will perish. This is by design. While the symbolism of a shared world proved useful to enhance the cohesiveness of the tri-party alliance between Earth, Shediri, and Ekkai for the first few years of the larger war against the Imperium, the plan was always to strangle us over a period of decades until Otherworld is seen as a failed experiment and becomes nothing but a military base and a prison colony. We refuse to allow that to happen. This choice isn't a matter of whim or some flight of idealistic fancy. It's a matter of survival. I want you to note the distinction. Take that thought with you when you visit my ex-husband."

  Black Chamber

  In a section with a flat floor, where he smelled spicy human food, the Stripeys pushed Samhain through a series of winking iris doors until he found himself in a small, deathly quiet chamber facing a man he recognized immediately. It had been years since any image had been recorded of the man. Two decades of hard living had clawed canyons and tracks on his face, but the shape of it hadn't changed. Pieces had been burned away on one side, gouged out on the other, and he'd been left in the sun a decade to long, but there was no mistaking Commodore Ram Devlin

  Devlin stood from the hard couch on which he'd sat. The company jumper and dungarees he wore hung off him. Without realizing it, Samhain had imagined Commodore Devlin, Governor Devlin, hero of the 2164 War and the leader of the Otherworld rebellion, to be as tall as his own father had seemed when Samhain was a boy, but the man before him was a little on the short side. Ram Devlin held a glass of scotch in one hand and chopsticks in the other. He gestured at a plate of colorful red noodles on the table in front of him. "The noodles are good. Try the noodles."

  "I'm not hungry," Samhain lied.

  "Then sit. I have questions. Is that a sketchbook?"

  "It is."

  "Maybe later you'll show me the sketch that led to the artifact."

  Samhain didn't say anything to that, hoping the request would simply evaporate. After he sat on the couch opposite Devlin with the table between them, the flick of his eyes to Devlin's glass revealed what he really wanted. "This is a New Madras Scotch," said Devlin as he rose and stepped to the spare table serving as a platform for three bottles and glasses. "This one is aged five years. The wood of the local trees, the mutations of the grain, and the spectrum it gets all produce a unique flavor." The splash of it in the glass was loud. "It's good to let some air in it at first. You'll see what I mean."

  He stood to receive the glass as Devlin returned and remained standing as Ram Devlin watched to see his reaction. "I'm no connoisseur," he said as he brought the glass closer to his lips.

  "Lucky you."

  He swirled the pale caramel liquid. Its surface swelled with body and it beaded on the polished inside of the glass. The turpentine notes hit his nose first and curdled the line of his lips.

  "Swirl it a few more seconds. Let it react with the air." He did, and after a last bloom of turpenoid aroma, it was gone. "It's a volatile acid in the local wood that produces that smell. It evaporates quickly. See what flavor it left behind."

  It left a taste like burned chilli. "It's good?"

  Devlin raised his glass to the compliment. "We both know you're being kind. The flavor is only slightly better than the bile the Shediri force each other to drink. But... it won't make you blind, Staas Company didn't get a penny from its making or sale, and it's strong."

  "I'll be asking you for another shortly."

  "That's not a problem," said Devlin as he sat down on the couch opposite Samhain again. "But I want to know about Houston. Balthus Pavic sent you to me because of who your father was. You're a message of some kind and I want to hear it."

  "I don't understand what I'm supposed to tell you."

  "Tell me about the Houston rebellion. All I know is what I read, the official version they wanted us to hear. But you were there."

  "I was ten."

  "You were there, you know the truth about what happened. That's why Pavic sent you to tell me. That's what I want to know. It's no secret apparently what's about to happen on Otherworld. The last time anyone attempted to rebel against authority was in Houston in 2152. I know the story Staas Company and the NAU government told, the one in the history books. I want to know the other story
- the truth."

  Scilla wanted him inside Ram Devlin's mind. This, he thought was his chance to make up for handing them the artifact. This was his chance to avert the coming war. "I'll make you a deal, Mr. Devlin. I'll tell you what you want to know if you let me sketch your portrait while we talk."

  Devlin looked confused. For a moment Samhain thought maybe Scilla had been wrong; maybe some people do say no. "Can I sit and drink my scotch?" said Devlin.

  "Of course. Just try to put your hand back in the same place after you drink." Samhain opened to a random page and smoothed it flat with the heel of his hand. It trembled with fear. Always fear at the beginning, he thought.

  "What are you doing?" said Devlin as Samhain closed one eye and extended his arm with the pencil held vertically. He placed the point over the top of Devlin's head and held his thumb to appear as if under the man's chin.

  "I'm measuring your head." He kept his thumb in position and his arm extended as he turned the pencil horizontally and measured the width of Devlin's shoulders. "I'm using it as a unit of measurement to get the rest of your proportions right. When I get round to your face, I'd use something smaller, maybe, like the apparent vertical length of your nose or the distance from lips to between the eyes." He turned the pencil to match the cant of Devlin's head and acknowledged the angle with a faint stroke, doing the same for the bend at which Devlin held his neck and the line of his shoulders.

  "Tell me what the NAU government and Staas Company didn't want us to know."

  "How much do you know about Houston? I mean the Houston of 2152."

  Ram Devlin surprised him then. "Right after the War of the Americas... I spent my share of time in the ruins of Detroit, watching the fog over the blast crater there. I know what life is like in the rubble."

  Samhain nodded as he interrogated Devlin with his eye and sketched in the shapes of the major shadows he saw. First, he addressed the folds of the worn company jumper before observing the light and shadows of Devlin's face. The light from above and to his right cast gouges under his brow and cheekbones. The more scared side of his face was entirely in shadow, lit only with bounce-light.