Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (46 page)

“Ha yourself, my lord,” Kylar said and clutched him tightly with her legs. “Now what First Claw of the Host?”

“Err...” Valjoth said uncertainly as he tested his strength against hers. Force—no matter what tradition dictated—was not the only way to victory. Cunning had its place. “How about this?” He thrust himself hard inside her.

“Ah!” she groaned as he pounded into her. “A most unusual tactic my lord... but I fail to see... Ah!” she gasped as her pleasure reached its height.

Valjoth roared at his release, but he didn’t allow the sensation to distract him from his goal. Kylar was in the throes of passion still and he took full advantage. He threw his weight to one side and rolled out of her weakened grasp. They lay panting side by side.

“You really
are
different,” Kylar gasped.

Valjoth gnashed his fangs in laughter. “Everyone says that.” They did, but they didn’t mean it as a compliment.

He wasn’t well thought of in some circles because he was descended from batches that had been, some said, foolishly and hastily created in the aftermath of the failed Human cleansing. The panic back then had led to corner cutting. Batches were quickened with poorly tested and thought out changes because the warlord of the day had feared the Humans were coming to cleanse the Merkiaari from the galaxy, and to be fair everyone thought the same way. It made perfect sense. Had the situation been reversed, Valjoth knew his people would have done exactly that to the Humans. It was what they had been trying to do after all. No one expected Humans to show such weakness when they were in the ascendant, but it had happened and they did not come. It took decades for his people to finally believe what had happened, and that Humans had not come because they couldn’t or more baffling still, didn’t want to. By that time many batches had been quickened and the changes were well and truly in the Merkiaari gene pool. Those changes based upon fear of Humans and the need to match them, had led to Valjoth’s own... ah, strangeness? Uniqueness. He preferred uniqueness to other less complimentary things said of him. Certainly more pleasant than
‘that over educated runt’
a little harsh, he wasn’t physically smaller or weaker than the average male. Another thing often said was
‘that slurry from the bottom of the vat’
and that was just plain mean. He had challenged and killed the male who said that within his hearing, he had to or be thought weak, but he knew others said it. He was careful never to officially hear it, or he would be fighting challenges every other day.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

The hatch alarm sounded again, this time more insistently. Usk must be leaning on the vermin spawned thing. Valjoth climbed to his feet not bothering to dress and fisted the hatch release.

“WHAT?!” he roared at the top of his lungs.

Usk stood in the gale of Valjoth’s roar and did not flinch. “Sorry for the intrusion lord, but there was a priority message with orders for you.”

“What orders?” Valjoth said snatching the tablet from Usk’s grasp in irritation. The moment he read who the communication was from, he calmed down. “In!” he commanded and sealed the hatch behind the shield bearer. “You know Zeng Kylar do you not?” he said distractedly as he read.

Usk stared at the exhausted female where she lay upon the deck. “We’ve met a time or two.”

Kylar gnashed her teeth in laughter. “I remember that. I’d just finished with the vermin... what were they called again?”

“Parcae,” Valjoth said absently still reading.

“That was it,” Kylar agreed. “They made me very excited I seem to recall.”

Usk nodded eagerly.

Valjoth scowled. “I should have known that he would fail the test.”

“Who?” Kylar asked, finally recovering enough to rise.

Usk watched in fascination as she stretched and shook her fur into order.

“Karnak. He allowed the vermin to best him both in space and upon the ground. I should have sent—” he broke off as he read further. “So, the Humans intervened in his cleansing. Things become clearer.”

Usk pulled his attention away from Kylar and her grooming. “Ruark was with him.”

“For all the good it did,” Valjoth said in disgust. “The warlord orders me to attend him at the palace. I think he might be revaluating our plans for the Human cleansing.”

“The poor excuses for puling females he surrounds himself with wouldn’t let him,” Usk turned to the enormous Kylar where she towered over him. “No offence meant.”

Kylar laughed. “None taken.”

Valjoth nodded. “I think you might be wrong this time. The warlord is old. He remembers the chaos years. Fear of the Humans is a personal thing for him, not something read about in a history text.”

Usk remained uncomfortably silent. Valjoth looked up from the tablet. “Oh don’t worry about her, Usk. She knows my thoughts as well as you do, and I swept this cabin just a short while ago.”

Usk sighed in relief. It was his job to sweep for listening devices, but Valjoth hadn’t allowed it before Kylar arrived. Too eager was another failing he was sometimes labelled with, though strangely the females didn’t seem to mind.

“Why do you think he’ll listen when he didn’t before?”

“Because of this,” Valjoth waved the tablet. “He hasn’t ordered me to send ships to rescue Karnak. I think he’s written the Shan vermin and the entire cleansing force off.”

“That’s a lot to read into a summons to the palace, my lord.”

Valjoth shrugged. He supposed it was, but he had a feeling he was right. It had been more than a year ago when he was last at the palace, and he had to admit that was his fault. He had been a little forceful with his opinions last time he was there. The warlord had actually activated the shield on his throne against him, fearing attack. He would never be foolish enough to attack the warlord. Well, not with witnesses present at any rate. He was old and long passed his prime, but he hadn’t been a bad ruler.

The Hegemony was stable and strong, and the last rebellion had been dealt with swiftly and efficiently. It was just that he failed to expand their dominion toward Human controlled space, or anywhere but in the opposite direction! He feared the Humans. Even that was understandable to a degree—they were a powerful foe, and a fitting challenge. No, it was that he was so obvious about it!

The Hegemony controlled almost a thousand suns. All had received the attention of the host and cleansing fleets in their time. Some had been fully cleansed when it was decided the vermin natives were of no value, some had not been destroyed utterly for various reasons, and those races had become clients—slaves used to supply the Hegemony with things it needed. Merkiaari couldn’t be expected to farm, or build their own ships after all.

He sneered, remembering the warlord saying those words when he challenged the notion. It wasn’t as if he wanted his people enslaved, no matter what his enemies said of him. He just wanted to replace all the vermin living in this system, this one vital system, with Merkiaari bred for the task. How was it different breeding special batches for such work, when they did it all the time to crew his ships? He wasn’t mad. He didn’t want to replace the Hegemony’s entire supply of vermin workers. It made perfect sense to keep those races alive for useful work, but safely removed far from here.

Vermin had their uses; Humans however were a different matter. They were a threat. Threats were never allowed to prosper. A full cleansing was mandated, but the warlord had refused to send one. Slave rebellions sometimes happened and new races were discovered. Those kept the host occupied at least, but the real threat was left unchallenged.

It was intolerable.

Valjoth looked at the tablet again. “The warlord requests my presence,” he said again. “I suppose we have to go...” he glanced at Kylar where she preened for Usk, grooming her fur. “Tomorrow.”

Usk grinned and left.

“Now then,” Valjoth said. “Where were we—oof?” he gasped as Kylar threw him to the deck and pounced atop him.

“About here I think,” she said and bit him, trying for a decent grip upon his neck with her fangs.

“Oh yes...” he gasped. “Now I remember.”

Approaching the palace, Planet Kiar, Kiar system.

Valjoth didn’t like visiting the homeworld. Not because he was invariably being summoned to meetings he felt were wastes of his time, or trying to persuade the warlord that this or that thing needed to be done. No, it wasn’t only that. It was how out of place he felt there. He shouldn’t feel that way. He didn’t think Usk did or anyone else he knew, but Kiar just felt wrong. He preferred the decks of
Blood Drinker
beneath his feet, or the dirt of an alien world. Anywhere else really.

He didn’t like the city. He didn’t like the way vermin populated it, living and working as if they had a right to be there. He didn’t like the way the vermin surrounded the heart of the Merkiaari—the inner city where the Hegamon, the full bloods, and the warlord dwelled—and he didn’t like how vulnerable his entire species was to a rebellion here of all places.

He had put down rebellions on other worlds and knew the causes of them. Homeworld was at just as much risk as any of those places, but with far deadlier consequences to his people. If he could, he would cleanse homeworld of vermin, and it was that proposition among others that had led to his long absence from the palace.

The palace was an ancient pile, Valjoth thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought it, and linked it with the staid and slow thinking that went on within. Really, how surprising was it that the warlord failed to embrace new ideas and ways of doing things, when he lived within the palace and never left it? It was so large it might as well be a city within a city, but city-like or not, those living within were insulated from the real Hegemony and the thousand suns comprising it.

With Usk at his shoulder he presented himself at the outer gates to the inner city. Those towering metal walls and armoured doors kept everything at a safe distance. It would take
Blood Drinker’s
main battery, an assault ship and the most powerful in the host, to dent it. Not that anyone with half a brain would bother. The gates were as useless as the warlord they were meant to protect. All they really did was isolate the Hegamon from those the blood ruled. If he wanted to assault the palace, he would simply drop a rock on it and go on about his day.

He growled low imagining it. It would be very satisfying, but only briefly. Useless ditherers the Hegamon and the full bloods might be in his opinion, especially in their use of him and the host, but the ruling class were important to their race. Only they could procreate. It was an uncomfortable and embarrassing truth, but the blood bred new generations the way... well, the way vermin did—like farm animals rutting and squeezing out pups. Disgusting. It wasn’t even their fault and he had room within himself to feel sorry for them. Some of them. Valjoth had spoken of it with Usk and even some of the more enlightened among the blood, and knew it wasn’t their preference. Full blood females often chose to decant their pups as soon as possible, to at least emulate the rest of the race, but artificial wombs were only vaguely similar to the vats where he and 99% of their people were formed.

It was the way the makers, the cursed Kiar, had made them. A safety measure built into their slave’s genes to prevent Merkiaari ever turning against them. Well that hadn’t worked out for them. They really should have known better, using their own genetic material to create a sub species bigger and stronger than themselves. What did they expect would happen when they introduced a new and better predator into their own ecology? The fools.

Foolish or not, their knowledge of genetic engineering was beyond good. It was magic, and the blood’s gene splicers had never found a way to remove the self destruct that the makers had built into Merkiaari ova. Only full blood females were able to produce viable offspring, and their pups were full blood only if they bred with full blood males. It meant the blood were sequestered and pampered, for good reasons no doubt, but it made them useless for real work. Fighting? The idea was laughable even if any could be risked. The blood’s gene pool was just barely viable due to genetic diversity. It wouldn’t take many losses amongst them to spell their entire race’s demise.

Cloning had been tried to increase full blood numbers but it always resulted in barren mules, both male and female. The Kiar again. Every so often experiments were tried in the hope that sufficient genetic drift had occurred to invalidate the self destruct within full blooded female ova, but all had come to nothing. New technologies among the vermin sometimes advanced understanding, but none had yet solved the issue. Valjoth sometimes wondered whether they had missed or lost the answer they sought when they cleansed vermin planets. The thought was uncomfortable, but he’d had a worse one. What if the Humans had the answer or could produce one? The thought was horrifying because he knew their fate and he was about to become the instrument of it. He couldn’t change it and wouldn’t if he could. They were a terrible threat. He could so easily imagine a fleet of Human ships arriving in this system. One missile hitting the palace would end the Merkiaari forever. It would take a few centuries until the last batch died of old age, but it would be over for the Merkiaari as a species the moment the missile arrived.

The palace and the city were holdovers of the Kiar. Ancient and lasting. One thing the Kiar did well was build. It was the only thing even Merkiaari could admire about their one time masters. What they built worked, and never stopped working. Valjoth frowned as he realised that could be applied to his people as well. Were they not still fighting and bringing new systems into the Hegemony just as they had done for the Kiar? Merkiaari weren’t builders and makers. That’s what vermin were for.