Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (6 page)

The Shan finished their consultation, and together bowed to Burgton. Tei’Slavik spoke first.

“We would be honoured to be chosen to accompany you. It is an extreme honour you offer us. We are not worthy of a tenth part of it. Your worlds are much discussed among our people. To see them... it is a
great honour!
”

Burgton blinked. Oh god damn, they thought he meant for them to accompany him back to the Alliance! He had meant for them to join him while here in the Shan system. Alli was grinning at him openly now, and he had to agree that it was sort of funny. His machinations had lead to this. Tei’Xanthe was speaking and Burgton quickly focused on his words. His unease faded a little as the import of Xanthe’s words sank in.

“... very great honour, but we must take your proposal to the elders. This decision is far above us. I am sure Kajetan will request Tei’Varyk and other worthies attend and advise her. Pleased I am to convey your words to her regarding Admiral Kuzov and your suggestion for a new liaison. I am most certain she will appoint a warrior this very day.”

Burgton nodded, still trying to think. Kajetan would send a warrior to Kuzov, he had no doubt. That pinched off one possible disaster. The matter of one or both of these Shan joining Alli on
Victorious
wasn’t his concern, and he dismissed it from his thoughts, but a Shan of any stripe assigned long term to him? That had possibilities. It would surely help his understanding, but it meant breaking a cardinal rule of his. No one landed on Snakeholme but vipers or those working for the regiment and already resident there. No one! In fact, no outsider even knew where it was. It had been a terrible risk when he’d had Snakeholme’s existence erased from Alliance records, but had allowed one entry to remain for drone communications. That entry, by presidential seal, was cloaked and hidden from everyone except the President and First Space Lord, but even such dire measures left him uneasy. Data, no matter how secured, could be compromised, but a means of communication with the Alliance and Admiral Rawlins in particular was a necessity.

“Sirs?” a young crew woman said as she approached. “If you would take your seats aboard the shuttle?”

Burgton nodded and gestured to the Shan to precede him before turning to Meyers. “Well, we seem to have saved the day for Kuzov.”

Meyers snorted. “I did all right out of it. I think I’ll be hosting those two on
Victorious
very soon.”

“You don’t think one will be given to me?”

“Doubt it, George. Xanthe’s English isn’t the best, and Slavik seems attached to him... his aide maybe? I think you’ll get a couple of Shan, but I’m betting they will be infantry fighters.”

Burgton nodded. Made sense to him, and he might even have fought beside them. Still, considering their choice of liaisons for Kuzov, he would wager the elders would still send at least one healer caste. They were very interested in how Humans thought, not just in the way they fought Merki. He shook Meyers’ hand, and followed the Shan into the shuttle.

* * *

Merki Lander, Ruins of Shoshon, Harmony

First Claw Karnak snarled wordlessly. His cleansing was a failure. From the moment the Human vermin arrived and attacked his ships, he had been beset by incompetence and defeat on all sides. The only victories to his name were ones where he had taken personal command. They were something to be proud of, but they would never be known. Besides, even if the news did somehow leave the system and reach the Warlord what good would such small victories be when the scale of this disaster finally came out? His life was forfeit whether he survived this battle or not, and it would be not. He knew that. He tried not to let that awareness betray his fear to the others. Dying bravely was all he had left. The knowledge threatened to turn his bowels to water, and he suspected his shield bearer knew it. Zuark was a warrior beyond compare. A friend and companion of that thrice cursed Valjoth, the current First Claw of the Host. How he hated them both.

Valjoth, always it was Valjoth. He wished... there was much that he wished, but it was all for nothing now. There was nothing left but to die. He could do nothing about Valjoth. He feared his defeat and his shame could be used to bring down the Warlord, and Valjoth was waiting. Who else would ascend the throne? Who else could? Certainly none from his batch could be relied upon now that he had failed so badly. All of them might suffer his fate, tainted with his shame.

He closed his eyes, listening to yet another report of disaster. In one way, it would be a relief to die. Get it over with. His body like so many of his troops would never reach the recycle vats to nourish the next generation, so why put off the inevitable? Only for pride did any fight on. And for vengeance. To kill and kill and kill until they could kill no more. It was the Merkiaari creed.

His eyes flew open when he registered the latest outrage. “What!” he roared. “You dare report such losses to me?”

Zuark Sheild Bearer watched his lord in silence. It was a shield bearer’s duty to protect and aid his lord, but he had been forbidden to give council after the last time he disagreed with his lord’s orders—a shameful situation to impose upon any shield bearer, and an extreme insult to one of Zuark’s quality. He was spawned among Usk’s batch, Valjoth’s own shield bearer. He watched in silence, condemning his lord with his pitiless eyes full of wrath unvoiced.

“Destroy them now!” Karnak roared.

“Lord,” Rintuk protested. “It is too late. They mass within weapon’s range of this very ship. We cannot attack them and prevail.”

Karnak knew that of course. Rintuk’s report made it obvious to everyone. The only choice was defence. It infuriated him. The discovery of his last landing ship by the lone Human scout had turned into a disaster as so much else had during this cleansing when Rintuk’s troopers had failed to run him down.

Zuark’s wrath finally boiled over. “Lord, Rintuk is right—”

“Silence fool!” Karnak snarled. “Rintuk is an incompetent vermin spawn. He should—”

“Lord, forgive me for saying this,” Zuark said obviously not caring one way or the other. “But the Warlord will surely order the High Marshalls to send First Claw Valjoth here—”

Karnak snapped his jaws closed strangling on his rage. Oh Zuark didn’t just say that name; he didn’t dare raise that name within his hearing!

“Valjoth... always it is Valjoth!” Karnak moved in the blink of an eye, and Zuark staggered back in shock. He fell to the deck, his blood pumping from his torn throat.

“Clean that up,” Karnak said coldly and flicked blood off his claws onto the deck. It was the last thing Zuark heard before sliding into the dark. “Prepare to receive the vermin. We will kill until this ship’s decks run with rivers of blood.”

Enthusiastic growls and gnashing of fangs met the announcement as was expected of them, but none doubted they would die long before sunset on this vermin cursed world. Karnak pretended not to notice the sidelong glances, and their pretended sincerity. They had all long since made peace with the fact they would become a mere footnote of history in a far larger war. A war fought without them.

Valjoth would be the one hailed as conqueror, the rewards his and quite possibly the throne one day. The blood would surely choose him. He was the best choice. He hated that, but it was true and their people needed the best if they were to prevail over the Humans. Karnak’s hatred suddenly died within his heart as he made his own peace with his fate. Yes, Valjoth would conquer. He hoped the vicious bastard brought the entire host here to punish the vermin of this world. He would be avenged though he doubted Valjoth would see it that way or care.

Karnak wondered again if the news of the Human intervention had reached Kiar—the home system—yet. How would Valjoth react to the knowledge he had been pre-empted? Karnak would never know, but he hoped it sent Valjoth into a rage so that he might come here all the more quickly. It would be good to destroy such a large force of Humans as a prelude to the final destruction of the vermin alliance of worlds.

The new batches of troops had proven themselves here. Their enhanced intelligence made them harder to control, true, but it made them especially effective against vermin using unconventional tactics. The thrice-cursed Humans personified unconventional. The new troops were the future, he knew. He could foresee a time when the breeding programs switched entirely to the new model rather than three batches in ten as now.

All of his remaining troops were the new type. Didn’t that say something about them? When the only survivors were all from one batch, a wise commander took note. He wished he might inform Valjoth somehow. Probably unnecessary anyway. Like Usk and Zuark, Valjoth descended from batches based upon changes made in the breeding programs after the failed Human cleansing. That particular type of vermin were pernicious and hard to eradicate. A fitting challenge, but extremely dangerous. He knew that only too well. There hadn’t been that many Humans in the system when they turned his victory into a humiliating defeat. That had changed with a larger force arriving to reinforce the original scouting element. He assumed it was a scouting force he had faced on the other habitable world based upon the reports of its size. It was preposterous how hard they had hit his troops with such a puny force, but he couldn’t argue with the disastrous result. The Human vermin might be as terrible a foe as the Makers had been.

His fur ruffled at the thought.

His people had rebelled and defeated their creators who had shaped and enslaved them millennia ago, and they had vowed never to be subjugated again. They no longer fought and died as slaves. They were the masters now. Let the vermin serve them or die.

Vermin extinction was of course his preference. He was firmly on the side of the total cleansing of the galaxy as any right thinking Merkiaari should be, and he strongly disapproved of the current policy of increasing the number of client races in the Hegemony. Not that the Warlord would care what he thought of course. But how many was enough? They risked making the same mistakes that the cursed Kiar had made by over reaching. Greed for more worlds, more resources, more client races to build and make things, while the Merkiaari did what the Kiar had bred them to do.

Fight and kill.

Perhaps that was why the new troops were so important, he mused. It wasn’t the first time he had considered the notion. Zuark often said... well, he used to say their people needed to build things for themselves. Perhaps even breed their own builders and makers of things. A heretical thought, but were not ship engineers only a small step from that notion already? They were Merkiaari that did not fight; at least, they did not fight in the usual sense. Ships were weapons and they used and maintained the equipment aboard them. They killed vermin in space, or the ships did. In his eyes, ship crews were just another type of fighter. Perhaps he should not have killed Zuark earlier. He would have liked to discuss this revelation with him.

Perhaps such breeding programs were the future of his people. If so, he didn’t want to see it. Not that he had the choice. He couldn’t imagine what Merkiaari makers and builders would be like. Perhaps they would look like the vermin here or on other worlds that he had helped cleanse. The thought was horrible. He could use the new troops, even admire them for their prowess as fighters, but although they looked the same as he, they were already different enough to feel alien to him. They thought different thoughts, and often did things contrary to his understanding and training. They weren’t vermin, but they weren’t truly Merkiaari to him either. His people were evolving at a rapid rate into something he didn’t truly understand. Good then that he would be dead soon. Let Valjoth deal with the consequences of the Warlord’s orders.

He settled himself in the command couch and closed his eyes again. He wished the vermin would hurry up and attack so he might kill something. He shouldn’t have killed Zuark. He wished he hadn’t. They would have fought shoulder to shoulder in his last battle as tradition said they should. Now he would die with no shield bearer by his side. Another mistake.

“Lord, the vermin come,” Rintuk reported.

Karnak opened his eyes and bared his fangs. “Good.”

* * *

The ruins of Shoshon, Harmony

“... hold what you got!” the anonymous voice said over the comm.

Gina glanced at Hiller from the safety of their OP, and he shrugged. He didn’t have any better idea than she did about what was going on within the downed Merki ship. Hiller’s visor was up, as was Gina’s as they listened to the action via helmet comm, and she could see his frown as he tried to make sense of the orders. She had a schematic of the Merkiaari ship up on her internal display. The General had ordered everyone to update their data on this class of ship this morning at the briefing. She used it now as she attempted to place where in the ship the current front line was.

“Sounds hot in there,” Gina muttered.

“Yeah well, better them than us,” Hiller said callously and Gina frowned at him. “Come on, Gina. Jung is right this time. We’ve bled enough.”

She shifted uncomfortably. It was true that the regiment had bled and bled and bled for the Shan in this campaign and the preceding one, but vipers were made for killing Merki. Jung’s people would do their best; they
were
doing it right now, but they couldn’t match Merki one on one. Lives were being unnecessarily lost in there.