The Best Defense (near-future HFY) - One Giant Leap 19: Cry Havoc
Deputy Journeyman Harpa Gen
Date: 15.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Librarian Survey Ship Curious Observer, transiting unregulated space
“Four spans to contact.” Sinak’s tense but calm voice was clearly audible over Harpa’s auditory implant.
They of course had not had time to slow the rotation of the ship in order to maneuver better, though that no doubt helped as much as it harmed. The artificial gravity well that kept the ship “falling” through space would no doubt result in an ever-increasing spiral as the Spacer pilot attempted to evade their pursuers. Inside the ship, of course, most beings could not detect the subtle shifts in the gravity field, since everything “fell” into the gravity field at the same rate. Only long experience — and standing as far away from the field generator as one could while still being aboard the Curious Observer — allowed Harpa to feel the subtle shifts as the gravity drive warred with the rotational effect.
“Fastened here we are, Jessica.” Subject Eight — Harpa directed his combat implant to change the designation to “Pete” — pointed up. “Doubt I those entering any better will be. Worse probably.”
“Why not?” Subject Five inclined his head to one side. “The enemy of my enemy in all totality.”
Pete shook his head. “An enemy’s enemy is my enemy’s enemy, without increase or decrease.”
Subject One touched his hands together. “I greatly appreciate that reference!”
“Where break will they?” Pete asked Harpa.
Harpa idly wondered what reference it was, but there was certainly wisdom in the statement Pete had made. “There are three outer hatches,” he told the human. There were of course some access hatches on the outer hull, but there was little threat of an unregulated raider coming in that way while the ship was still spinning. Not only would it be extremely difficult to attach, the cargo hatches in the stern were far more likely to contain valuables the raiders would require. “One is here. Another is blocked by the landing craft. Therefore, the most likely entry is in the third cargo bay, especially since the lights there are off. It is clearly unoccupied.”
“Indeed, certain, the lights are disabled there.” Subject Nine, “Jessica,” had body language clearly at odds with the level tone the simplistic first-run translation algorithm gave her. Despite their physiological differences, and excepting their facial-twistings, it was astonishing how similar human and prangalian body language were to each other.
“That is regulation,” answered Nna. “Operational areas must be illuminated while in use.”
“Everything you do is through ministry?” Subject Six was still on the floor, clearly still injured, but still not as injured as she should have been.
“Affirmation. It would be otherwise impossible to maintain interstellar cohesion.”
“I am retrieving my weapon now, Pete.” Harpa knew he needed to move quickly, but forced himself to move carefully to his weapon. He did not wish to startle the humans. The primitives seemed excitable. “I have to move quickly. My weapon is still locked from unregulated access. It will take some time to restore it.”
“Obtained,” Pete replied. He turned his head to look at Jessica, then returned his gaze to Harpa. “What transpires if enter us they will?”
“They will take whatever valuables they can find.” Harpa entered in the long re-authorization sequence. Reactivating a weapon after its gene-lock detected an unregulated user, even with the ability to synchronize with his combat implant, was an annoying process. “Then kill all who will not make a valuable slave.”
“Merely to interpret, all us in danger are?”
Of course. It only made sense for the human soldier to wonder if his people might have more opportunity at the manipulators of the raiders. Harpa felt certain that more than one of Nna’s eyes were on him right now, wondering what Harpa would tell the human. Considering that Pete had responded with that phrase about the enemy of one’s enemy, it would make pragmatic sense to exaggerate the threat, to imply that only the benevolence of the Hegemony would keep them safe.
But Harpa did not care for such manipulation, and so answered plainly. “You less than us. Some of yours may well become valuable slaves.”
Jessica twisted her face. “Affirmation, comfort is not present.”
“Negative.” Pete nodded at Subject Ten, the human who had helped Pete subdue Harpa. Ten nodded back, and Pete met Harpa’s eyes. “Come help I will.”
Harpa felt his spines rise in shock. The human hadn’t even negotiated. Was there a hidden motive? Did the human expect to overpower him? Perhaps betray them to the raiders in exchange for a better status in the slave market?
But the Farmer could not deny the benefit. These humans were astonishingly resilient and skilled. Perhaps . . . “What of that one?” he asked, indicating Subject Ten. The other human had been at least as effective, possibly more so.
“Not a soldier am I,” Ten announced. “Stay here I will and on things I shall keep an ocular organ.”
Harpa was starting to doubt that the translation program was entirely to blame. The humans’ language seemed disturbing. “Affirmation,” he said out loud. “I accept help.”
“They are not combat specialists,” Nna objected. “In what capacity will you render aid, Subject Eight?”
“Condemnation absolute.” Pete’s face twisted disturbingly wide, showing teeth with obvious yet surprisingly delicate-looking fangs. “Excelling am I compared to a soldier. Aquatic am I, and unregulated raiders my natural prey are.”
Harpa, Nna, and Kolkant all looked at each other in equal amounts of confusion.
“Aquatic?” Harpa asked.
“Perhaps there is some error in translation,” Kolcant suggested.
Nna rolled a single eye. “The Ink’issh language is unusually nuanced. Regardless, regulation is clear. Prisoners shall not have weaponry.”
“Then make him a non-prisoner.”
Everyone — even the humans — turned in surprise. Subject Six rose to her feet, unsteady with the after-effects of the electrical pulse. She attempted to smooth her form-fitting garment, and seemed distracted by the scorch mark directly below her chest-mounds.
“Nonsensical,” Nna declared after a moment.
“Said you that you do all by ministry?” Six gave them a face-grimace. “Worked I did in the amalgamated assembly. Husband mine is a chosen assembly-being. Know I do how ministry works. Even ministry of [not-of-my-planetary-norms] cannot be so different. Described us you did as not only prisoners, but prisoners with no rank. Two designations separate, confirmed? No-rank means no-rights. Change designation his.”
Nna blinked all but two of his eyes, slowly. “It is . . . not that simple.”
There was a sound, more felt through the deck than heard with the ear. Harpa had heard it many times, and did not need the announcement from Sinak that came next. “Raider craft has contacted the hull.”
“No, Deputy Supervisor Nna. It is very simple.” Harpa eyed his weapon, which was almost finished re-initializing. “Do you acknowledge that I am the senior close-combat specialist on this ship? That this gives me the authority to requisition security drones?”
“Correct. However, we have no more security drones until these flight systems are repaired.”
“Apologies nonexistent,” Subject Eleven muttered, flexing his uncovered feet.
Harpa nodded. “But regulation also states I may take command of all effective combat specialists, so long as their rank is below mine.”
“This individual has no rank. That could be interpreted as applicable, but I am unfamiliar with the nuances of combat regulation.”
“I am willing to find out. Librarian Deputy Supervisor Nna Tss, I officially requisition the combat specialist being designated Subject Eight. I will complete the datawork later, if we survive. If we do not, then to the void with it.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Tinan Shont
Date: 15.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Transport Pod 2 of acquisition ship Blood of Our Ancestors
“Magnetic grapples are moving us to position.”
Tinan managed not to snap at his dutiful subordinate, Ptol Var, though it was mainly because the whiplash from the successful grapple had left him breathless in the first place. True, the green-skinned midar was from a higher-gravity world and suffered less strain from the sudden change in acceleration, but by the void, she should have known it would be redundant information! It wasn’t like that sensation of an entire herd of lak sitting on his chest could be anything else.
Instead, he carefully paced his breathing and asked, “How . . . how far from the hatch?”
“Very close this time. Minimal adjustment needed. Pod One should have the hatch bypassed or cut through shortly.”
Tinan grunted his acknowledgement. He hated boarding ships that were still spinning. Even if all three grapples struck the hull and managed to magnetize through the target’s electroweak shield, the cables never reeled in fast enough to avoid the boarding pod getting flung around like a child’s toy on a string. And that did not include a target continuing to perform evasive maneuvers in the hope of causing one or more cables to detach.
Fortunately, the grapples were the only part of this leaky bucket that didn’t have any problems. And at least the fact that their target was still spinning meant they hadn’t been prepared for a long chase. The crew needed an easy target like this; morale had been low, and resupply out on the fringes of the Domination and the Hegemony alike was difficult. Maybe even grab some slaves — fitting, considering how the Hegemony looked down on people like Tinan and his crew. Not that the Domination was any better, but at least they had promised a significant bounty on an intact capture. Considering the wealth of equipment a Librarian survey ship should have, they might even come ahead for this entire trip. Which was good, since their ship wasn’t in much better shape than this boarding pod.
Or in this case, both boarding pods.
“Signal Pod One not to make adjustments until after we detach,” Tinan warned. “I don’t want their eagerness for plunder to cause us to spiral out.”
“Compliance.”
Tinan allowed himself an ear-flick of pleasure. For some reason, the Librarian ship only had one planetary landing craft; but whatever the reason, it meant two hatches in easy reach. Normally, two boarding pods would simply get in each other’s way, their grappling cables getting hopelessly mixed up and preventing them from achieving a hard seal against the target’s hull. But the shipmaster of Blood of Our Ancestors was a canny one, and the expensive modifications to the pods to allow them to connect together to share one pod’s reinforced cables might yet prove profitable.
If the Librarians decided to leave two doors open, the Blood would walk through both.
Lance Corporal Peter Baines
Date: Definitely AWOL by now
Location: Someplace insane
Pete was now utterly certain that if he made it back to Earth, he’d have to explain himself before a court martial. The US military had certain rules on how service members would behave while a prisoner of war, and while the rules Pete remembered didn’t quite cover being the only military personnel in a group of civilians abducted by aliens, they were pretty clear on what happened to service members who actively volunteered to aid the enemy.
To be fair, if he was reading the reptilian’s body language correctly, Harpa was possibly having similar thoughts. Whatever bureaucratic bullshit he’d been spouting before leading Pete out of the cargo bay, it certainly didn’t cover handing an official prisoner a weapon. But he did it anyway, which definitely told Pete something about the threat they faced.
“Hey, did you take some bullets out of this?” Pete asked, holding up one of his magazines. It had been full the last time he’d seen it. Now there were five bullets missing.
Holding his 1911 was the first time any of this felt real. It was an heirloom piece, an actual Browning, manufactured for the First World War. It fit his hand like a glove — which was impressive, since it also fit his sister’s itty-bitty hand just as well. No other gun he’d ever held was like that, and it had meant a lot when his father gifted it to him the first time he came home on leave after getting sworn in as a Marine. He’d had to leave it at home, of course — the Corps didn’t allow for personal sidearms in general — but he’d shot a lot of practice rounds through it over the years. It might be a hundred and ten year old gun, but it was as smooth as butter.
Pete had really worried that the aliens had messed with his gun. He’d only had it on him because there had been reports of feral hogs in the area, so when he’d taken a walk to clear his head after finding out — the hard way — that his girlfriend hadn’t waited for him, he’d grabbed it and two spare mags, just in case.
“Negative,” Harpa grunted. Most of the alien’s speech seemed to be grunts to Pete’s ear, but he seemed to be getting the hang of the weird grammar the translator was using. He carefully watched Pete’s movements as the latter checked the gun was in working order. “Librarians, possibly. Said something they about tests regarding.”
“Great, alien eggheads messing with perfection.”
“Know nothing they of war-use.” If he were human, Harpa’s gesture would be an emphatic nod. Did that mean the same thing for his species?
What was his species, anyway? Hell, were they even different species? Pete had only seen three of them so far, and they looked completely different, but who knew how biology worked out in space? Butterflies and caterpillars didn’t look like the same species, either.
And what was with this “guild” setup, anyway?
“So, you and these . . . ‘librarians’ aren’t part of the same guild?” Pete asked, slipping his gun into its appendix holster.
The alien’s spine-fringe raised slightly, which was definitely not a gesture that translated to human norms. “Obvious,” Harpa tapped his own clothing.
Pete frowned. He’d noticed Harpa and the alien doctor, Kolcant, were wearing something like jumpsuits. They were very different, though. Did the patterns and colors mean something? Harpa’s was predominantly red, with layers of black and brown thrown in. Kolcan’ts had been mostly shades of green and white. The spider-rock-crab thing, Nna, didn’t have clothing, but there was a yellow harness-like thing.
“Time grows not.” Harpa didn’t seem interested in elaborating. “This way.”
“Cry havoc,” Pete answered, shrugging and hurrying along behind him. Then, in response to Harpa’s look over one shoulder, “Never mind. It’s an idiom. Well, from a play. ‘Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war.'”
“Dogs?”
“An animal. Furry. Very loyal.” Pete had noticed that Harpa was keeping his statements short, and whether it was from a desire not to tax the translator or because he was mentally prepping for a fight, Pete tried to match it. “They’re pets. You know pets?”
“Yes. War pets?”
“Sometimes. They’re descended from pack predators. My kind of warrior is compared to them.”
“Aquatic war pets?”
Pete chuckled. “Nah. Not quite. We’re called Devil Dogs.”
There was a hitch in Harpa’s step, and the alien turned his head to look at Pete. The reptilian’s expressions seemed very similar to a human’s, but Pete wasn’t sure how to read this one. Belatedly, he remembered the aliens had outlawed religion or something; what did “devil” even translate to in their language?
But after only a moment, Harpa looked to the side, like he was listening to something; then he continued down the passageway, faster this time. “Come. Breached almost, door is.”
“How do you know?” Pete followed Harpa through a twisting passage; he’d expected there to be long, open hallways like on Star Trek or Babylon 5, but the alien ship seemed laid out a bit more like the US ships he was familiar with — that is, a confusing mess, where access was only as wide as needed, and was laid out as an afterthought to where ship systems had to be located.
It wasn’t even a particularly alien kind of layout, or at least not to someone who’d already had the good fortune to be confused by human warships. The lettering on the pipes looked like some kind of weird Ancient Space Egyptian, sure, but the pipes themselves were . . . pipes. The bulkheads and hatches looked like bulkheads and hatches. There were no crystals or random glowing lights like Hollywood always put in. Somehow, that familiarity made it more alien, not less.
Plus, there was the damn gravity. It was noticeable enough back in their makeshift prison, but it was worse now that he was actually trying to get somewhere. Harpa was clearly used to it, but Pete had no idea if that meant the alien was from a lower-gravity world or if it was just something they did on ships. The reptilian was shorter than him, anyway, and when Pete had tackled him he’d noticed how massively solid the alien was; weren’t low-gravity aliens supposed to be tall and thin? Pete, meanwhile, kept making bigger strides than was wise, and he wasn’t touching the deck when he expected to. He had to almost shuffle along in order to not trip over his own feet.
“Pilot communication. Implant.” Harpa tapped the side of his skull.
“Implant?” Pete frowned. “What, in your brain?”
“Brain, yes. Ear. Eye. Both was, then injured. Right eye new. Implant for new assignment awaits.”
“How many implants do you have?”
Harpa was silent for a few seconds, then twitched the the hair-like frill on his neck. “Forget I do. Agent of Orbital Combat I am.”
“What does that mean?”
“Aquatic soldiers yours, on world yours, are considered dangerous?”
“Yeah. You could say that.”
“Agents of Orbital Combat capable of more.”
“How do you know that?”
“Primitive you are.” Harpa looked over his shoulder. “Insult I do not. Fact only.”
Pete thought about that. It sounded like Harpa wasn’t just an alien, but an alien cyborg. There were no flashy external components, though. What was the extent of his upgrades?
“You forgot one thing,” Pete pointed out as they entered a larger corridor that looked like the one outside the room he and the other humans had been held in.
“What that?” Harpa started inputting a code into the door panel.
“I already beat you.”
Harpa turned his head to look at Pete, who expected bluster, maybe an excuse. I wasn’t ready or some other bullshit. Instead, Harpa just nodded once, then turned back to the keypad. “Interesting it is.”
Tinan Shont
Date: 15.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Transport Pod 2 of acquisition ship Blood of Our Ancestors
“Contact with hatch,” Ptol Var reported. “Hard seal . . . now.”
“Good.” Tinan checked his weapon. It was always faster when they could take advantage of a standard airlock, rather than create a soft-seal against the hull and cut through. “How long to subvert the security program?”
“None.”
“You are done already?”
“No. But there are no active security measures on this cargo hatch. Power has been completely disabled.”
“What?” Tinan awkwardly slid closer; the pod was only so large, and the other members of the crew had crowded by the airlock, eager for the spoils of their raid. He had to shove a new farian recruit out of the way, and ignored the outcast’s posturing. “There is power to this cargo bay. The lights are activated. According to regulation, that means there are people inside. Why would they disable the hatch?”
“Probably some new void-spawned regulation from a Spacer data-pusher that has never operated a ship,” Ptol answered. “It disables the interior access, after all. But exterior access . . . ” She finished connecting a power cable to a portable heavy-use battery pack. “There.”
Tinan grunted. “Good. All raids should be this convenient. Let us go, free-beings. Take only the best as slaves. Kill the rest.”
