Rebellion of Stars (Starship Blackbeard Book 4) (2 page)

Epa Pim looked off into the distance. He couldn’t believe that she was even considering the question. Their Hroomlings would be dead now, murdered by the humans along with all the others trapped in the village.

Pez Rykan followed her gaze. It was a vast, intimidating stretch of open land. They wouldn’t cross in a night or even two. It would be several days exposed to the human helicopters. But they had to get across. There was jungle and swampland on the other side. Deep bush where the humans would never enter. But how would he cross?

Perhaps shelter could be found on those hills that dotted the plain. No, not hills. They were buildings, he realized. Temples, shrines, rail stations, and palaces. Hot Barsa had once been one of the most prosperous and populous planets in the Hroom Empire. Before the sugar. Before the endless cycles of war, truce, and more war.

He thought about the villages where he’d spent the last several years. A few huts on stilts, deep in the wilderness, any dry ground divided into tiny vegetable plots that were farmed for a few seasons until the soil was exhausted. Simple homes for a simple people. But before him was the evidence of a different past. When Hroom were masters of this world.

“Humans did this,” his mate said. She must have been thinking the same thing. “They brought our civilization to its knees.”

“There’s still a Hroom Empire.”

“At war with the humans again,” she pointed out. “How many planets will Albion devour this time? The death fleet failed, but not before inflicting a wound. Albion will be enraged. They will exact their vengeance.”

They’d only heard about the death fleet long after its defeat. Several weeks after the battle, the so-called jungle telegraph brought the news deep into the wilderness, passing from sugar slaves to escaped slaves in the bush. A cult to the death god, Lyam Kar, had attempted the atomic destruction of Albion. The humans had stopped all but one ship before it could reach its destination. That one had destroyed the capital city of York Town. But most of Albion was unscathed.

Epa Pim studied him. “Do you still think an accommodation can be found?”

“I never did,” he reminded her. “I only thought that wide-spread revolt would force the humans to stand down. But no, peace is impossible between our two species. Only a truce.”

“Even truce is accommodation.”

He thought about the burning village. “Force is what humans understand. And violence.”

“What about the death fleet?” she asked. “Had you known, would you have prayed to Lyam Kar for its success?”

Pez Rykan turned this question over. To kill humans was one thing, but to wish for the destruction of an entire planet was another entirely. And yet, looking out over the red plain ahead of him, with its ruins, wasn’t he witnessing the same thing, but done to his own people? An entire planet, its people dead, enslaved, or surviving in scattered enclaves—the evidence was in front of him.

“Yes,” he said. “If it would have ended the war, I would have exterminated the humans.”

#

They almost crossed the plain undetected. Another few hours, and they’d have been to the thick jungle on the other side. There were free Hroom settlements in those swamps and forests, and the wilderness stretched all the way to the mountain range, where it was said there were secret passageways to carry one through to the other side, ancient rail tunnels that cut straight through the heart of the mountains.

Dawn set the horizon on fire, and the mountains ahead looked like the mist-shrouded spine of some immense beast. Eight more miles, perhaps ten, and they’d be through the grasslands. Pez Rykan knew he should look for shelter, but the protective forest was so close that he pressed on over the worried noises of his exhausted people. Epa Pim stared at him, a hum in the back of her throat indicating uncertainty. He didn’t meet her gaze.

“Onward,” he urged. “We are close now. We—”

He stopped. A distant buzz reached his ears. At first, he thought he was mistaken, that it was just a scissor bee, circling overhead and looking for an unwary victim from which to bite off a chunk of flesh. But the buzzing soon changed into the familiar, lethal thumping.

“There!” someone yelled.

Pez Rykan turned to see a black shape to the southeast. Not a scissor bee or a stab hawk, but a human helicopter swooping toward them.

“Everyone down!” he yelled.

More than forty Hroom threw themselves to the ground. The grass was sharp and spiky here, and nearly knee high. They’d have been concealed from the ground—pouncers could lie in wait in grass this high until you were nearly upon them, then fly out with a terrible shriek and drag away the unwary. But Pez Rykan could only hope that the helicopter didn’t approach too closely or they’d be spotted from above.

The sound grew louder. A shadow passed over, the monstrous roar of a propeller churning the air directly above, and Pez Rykan’s body went limp, some ancient Hroom instinct for playing dead. And then it was past, and he drew in a deep breath. But before he could relax, the sound changed. The helicopter was banking around.

“We’ve been spotted!” Epa Pim cried.

Hroom staggered to their feet and scattered. Pez Rykan roared for them to stop, and most did. A few, civilians from the village, ignored his command and waded through the grass, trying to flee.

The rest he organized as best he could. Hroom males and females put assault rifles to their shoulders as the human craft reappeared. Pez Rykan ordered them to shoot. Gunfire lashed at the sky and forced the helicopter to swerve. A snout-like cannon on its nose fired as it did so. Bullets chewed up the ground. Hroom cried out and fell.

The helicopter circled around for another attack. Pez Rykan led about a dozen Hroom to a flanking point, where they crouched in the grass, while Epa Pim kept the main body massed, their guns facing forward to take the enemy head-on. It roared toward them.

Gunfire blasted at it from the front and side. Pez Rykan expected the cannon. Instead, light flared on the helicopter’s underbelly. A missile raced toward the main group of Hroom. There was a flash of light, and then a hammer blow struck Pez Rykan in the chest and threw him to the ground. He got up, ears ringing.

The helicopter was hovering almost directly ahead of him. Now its cannon had started up again and was pouring fire on the site of the missile blast. The grass caught fire.

Pez Rykan lifted his rifle and fired at the helicopter. Other Hroom were rising around him, and they too, began to shoot. Bullets pinged off the side of the helicopter. Too late, it seemed to notice this small but determined knot of resisters and began to swing around. But it was listing now. The engine was smoking. Pez Rykan and his companions continued to fire.

The helicopter spun in a crazy circle, bleeding smoke. For a moment, it looked as though it would right itself, but then it lurched, staggering like an eater on a sugar swoon, and fell. It hit the ground with a crunching blow. The propeller threw up clods of dirt and grass. Pez Rykan braced himself for an explosion, but none came.

He ran through the smoldering grass, looking for survivors of the missile strike, and above all, his mate. There were dead and dying Hroom all around. At last, he found Epa Pim. When he saw her, he drew short, his legs turning to mud beneath him.

Amidst the carnage, her face was untouched somehow. Epa Pim’s beautiful round eyes stared straight ahead. The smooth skin on her face and her long, graceful neck were untouched. Below that, all was a ruin. Burned and bloody, the clothing scorched completely off, her torso and legs nearly melted together into a mass of char. The smell of her roasted flesh hung in the air.

Pain clawed up in Pez Rykan’s chest. A hundred memories seemed to flash through his mind at once. He turned away, unable to bear it, knowing he would call out in anguish. And yet, how could he do such a thing when every one of the surviving Hroom had suffered equal or greater losses?

“The flying machine,” someone said. “There may be survivors. If they call for help, more humans will come.”

#

There were two survivors on board the crashed helicopter. One was a human, the pilot. She was badly injured. She was pinned in the cockpit, her leg shattered. Her face was pale, but she didn’t cry out, and her eyes weren’t leaking in that strange way that sometimes happened to humans when they were in great pain. As Pez Rykan drew his sidearm, she eyed him calmly.

“Mercy, please.” Her voice was quiet, with a slight tremble.

“After what you did at the village, you deserve no mercy,” he said. “But I will give you some, anyway.”

There was no saving this human female. She could not be extracted from the cockpit. There was nobody in his group of survivors who understood human anatomy. It was indeed a mercy what he would do now. He pressed the barrel of his pistol to her head. She closed her eyes.

I hold you no hatred. But you are my enemy, and either you will die or I will. If I could pull the trigger on your entire race, I would do so.
 

He said none of this. It was such a black thought that he wouldn’t have dared voice it.

Instead, he told the woman, “If you have gods, let them do with your soul what they will.”

He pulled the trigger.

The other survivor presented a problem. A Hroom. A
free
Hroom. His skin was deep purple, not the faded pink of an eater. No slave, this one. He worked willingly with the humans. Pez Rykan had known of such Hroom. They served as marines, as pilots in the Royal Navy. They lived and walked among humans.

Pez Rykan’s fighters had dragged the free Hroom to their chief and now held him up when his body went limp. A fire burned behind them, consuming the corpses of the dead.

“What shall we do with him?” someone asked.

“Prepare a platform,” Pez Rykan said. “A field temple.”

“To which god?”

Pez Rykan stared at the prisoner, whose skin flushed so deeply purple now that it appeared black. Firelight flickered off his eyes, which had rolled over, as if he were asleep.

“To Lyam Kar,” Pez Rykan said. “The god of death will have his sacrifice.”

Chapter Three

Starship Blackbeard – Four months after the atomic destruction of York Town by the Hroom death fleet

The Barsa system was swarming with loyalist forces, but Captain Drake didn’t disguise his presence as he brought
Blackbeard
and her task force through the jump point. He wanted a fight and swore he would get one. Two hours after the jump, he seized one of Lord Malthorne’s sugar galleons, dumped the cargo into the void, and sent the prize back through the jump point.

A day later, with loyalist forces scurrying to intercept him, he sent Jess Tolvern out with HMS
Philistine
. Accompanied by a pair of torpedo boats, Tolvern’s destroyer bombarded a small navy outpost on the farthest, coldest world in the system. The loyalists fought back tenaciously, repelling multiple attacks. Within forty-eight hours, two of Malthorne’s cruisers, supported by torpedo boats and missile frigates, arrived to relieve the outpost. Tolvern fled for her life.

She cloaked
Philistine
as soon as she’d escaped, making as if wounded and running for the jump point on the farthest reaches of the Barsa system. That was another feint. Drake gave her new orders, and sent her barreling toward the inner worlds.

To hide her true movements, Drake further split his forces, sending off his mercenary frigates and sloops to harass the shipping lanes. They were pirates, and it was a task they knew too well. Soon, all merchant traffic in the system was flying under heavy escort. Two more loyalist cruisers jumped into the system to put an end to the threat.

Drake took
Blackbeard
and attacked another galleon. He knocked out its engines, then fought a brief, but furious battle against her escorting torpedo boat. The loyalist ship was led by an able commander and struck a blow against
Blackbeard
’s armor at the helm, but the torpedo boat was no match for the heavy cruiser’s main guns. A broadside from
Blackbeard
tore the torpedo boat in two and vented her gasses into the void. The galleon it was escorting surrendered. He looted its cargo and let it go.

And then Drake went quiet. He cloaked, accelerated to top speed, and reversed course for the far side of the Barsa system. Ten days later, fifteen days after arriving in the Barsa system, he arrived at the rendezvous point.
Blackbeard
was alone while Drake’s forces spread havoc elsewhere to disguise his true mission.

He’d come to rendezvous with Nigel Rutherford and his cruiser, HMS
Vigilant
. Where was he?

Drake stood at the viewscreen, looking anxiously at the gray-green planet beneath them. It was the outermost of the rocky inner worlds and girdled with the remains of a small moon. The belt of debris kept them disguised from prying eyes.

But after three trips around the planet, it was clear that
Vigilant
and Rutherford were not waiting in orbit. Drake turned to Smythe, his tech officer. “Can you run a sweep?”

They’d taken instrument damage during the fight with the torpedo boat, and some of the systems had been offline while tech and engineering performed repairs.

“I can run anything you want,” Smythe said. “But the long-range stuff isn’t shielded yet. We’ll give up our position if we go long.”

“In that case, keep the search close. Five million miles. No, keep it under three.”

“Yes, sir.”

Twelve hours later, Drake was on the verge of sending Tolvern a subspace to warn her away from Hot Barsa until he sent further orders. There would be no attack on the sugar world without Rutherford.

But then came a coded subspace from Rutherford. It was short; it took a good deal of energy to open a temporary wormhole wide enough to send through a packet of data.

On our way. 22:30. Ready weapons. We may have company.
 

Drake glanced at the time on the console—19:18. Two hours and change. He re-read the message, then told Manx to get the defense grid computer up and called Barker in engineering to warn him.