He hissed and reared up, finger-tentacles flailing wide as if in preparation to grapple and strike. It was, she knew, the worst possible insult she could have given from a xenopsychological view. Salik pity was not based upon any sense of compa.s.sion, unlike the kind of pity found in most of the other sentient races. Pity was not gentle regret, in their lexicon.
No, the Salik lived for the hunt and the kill. They valued the tough, the difficult, and the dangerous as their most worthy opponents. Pity, to the Salik way of thinking, was what one felt for a foe who was discovered to be unexpectedly weak. Pity was a disgusted dismissal on top of disgusted regret for any effort wasted upon their unexpectedly pathetic target.
In a twist of irony, Ia meant it purely in the Human sense, yet his reaction in the Salik sense was the one she needed. Hissing at her again, he backed up and dismissed the very idea with a curling spiral of one tentacle-hand. Rage widened his pupils and his leg muscles flexed beneath the fitted material of his species-equivalent of a p-suit, as if preparing to leap. Recovering after a moment, he hissed again, this time in satisfaction.
"Yyyessss...It isss said in your ffiless that hhew hhhunt yyour opponnents psssychollogically. Hhew are a mmmore cunning ffoe thannn I exsspected," the captain observed smugly.
Ia gave him a sardonic look. "Eat me."
A strange sound gurgled out of his throat. Salik laughter. "Ssssuch a prize iss nnot for me. Hhhew are meant for genneralss, Hhewman."
"Good. I look forward to it." Ia knew their conversation was drawing the attention of the other captives. "I have a few things I want to say to them before I die."
"Hhhhow bravve the bite you will be," he mocked, pop-pop-popping in lip-smacked mockery.
"How starved for a decent meal you will be," she mocked back. "I"m glad you know your shallow rank."
He almost reared up again at that, but subsided. "Hhhew will nnnot provoke mme."
Turning, he left, smacking his lips occasionally to the right or the left as he pa.s.sed the rows of cages. Shuffling back to her former position, Ia rested against the bars. She had pa.s.sed his test. Ia couldn"t be anything but calm despite the gravity of her situation; she had trained herself long and hard to suppress and set aside her fears so that she could act in the right moment and the right way without hesitation. Such calm was unnatural, however, and had called into doubt her worthiness of being Salik prey.
Now the captain had no doubt of her prize-value, and would report as such, permitting her to be pa.s.sed along. Now she would be in the right moment to be able to do things in the right way. Now she could relax in truth, awaiting the transfer to the hypership that would jump them down to the Salik homeworld unseen by Blockade forces.
...I wish I could have seen the surface of their homeworld. We named ours after the dirt and the ground upon which we walked. They named their world Fountain, and decorated it with a million gorgeous waterworks. What a real pity it will all be laid to waste, soon.
The medical techs continued their scan of the various prisoners through their cages. The K"katta in the cage behind her chittered something, then fell silent again. The Solarican to her right rumbled and spoke.
"Is it wise to prrovoke them, meioa?" he asked her.
"I"m not afraid, if that"s what you mean. I really wish I could rescue you," Ia replied, glancing his way. "All I can wish you is a swift death, and maybe the chance to break free and take some of them with you."
He huffed in mirthless laughter. "You mean, alll I can hope is to give them a ma.s.sive hairrrball when I die."
Ia chuckled. It was gallows humor at best, but it was funny. "Whereas I, ungrateful guest that I am, forgot to bring my very own bottle of fllk dipping sauce. How "tasteless" of me."
Caught off guard, he sneezed in laughter, lips pursed in the smile of his kind. Grinning, she rested her head against the bars, enjoying the rare bout of mirth, until it faded with a sigh. Closing her eyes, Ia returned her mind to the timestreams, making sure she knew all of the steps to be taken in the days ahead.
There was another blank spot coming, one in the banquet hall itself. One which worried her, though she knew there was a high probability that she"d achieve her objectives-most of the good potential-probable stream paths led out of the mist, of the ones she had marked as necessary to achieve. The more she probed at it, however, the more it felt like that capital ship had felt, like a headache from too much noise. What that meant, she didn"t yet know, which meant she had to be ready for almost anything.
I just hope whatever it is that"s generating these mistbubbles is something I can deal with. This banquet is too important for me to fail.
CHAPTER 19.
Yes, I actually did pity the Salik, back when I was in the Navy. By their own arrogance, their own pride, their own species-centric blindness, they condemned themselves. One way or another, they were bent on a course of self-destruction. Those races who do understand and value cooperation between each other"s kinds are stronger because of our cooperation. Stronger because of our diversity, though the Salik looked upon it as species impurity.
I"ve always pitied them. Always felt sorry for them, knowing what I knew. Neither did I hate them for clinging so stubbornly to their nature and their beliefs; I just felt sorry for them. And I"ll point out how I went out of my way to try to warn them, even as I did what I had to do. The rest...well, they were the ones who were choosing to go to war.
Good or bad, right or wrong, all of us must live with the consequences of our choices.
~Ia AUGUST 27, 2495 T.S.
BANQUET HALL OF THE GRAND COMMANDERS.
SALLHA.
They chained her up about a third of the way back from the dais holding the highest-ranked members of the top bra.s.s. Everything else she had done would have earned her a frame at the back of the room, but blowing up a capital ship as she had, well...she was up here. Ia wasn"t "worthy" enough to be their most prized meal, a fellow Human who would be set free in a contemptuous gesture of superiority to "fight" for survival against their Grand High General, but she was worthy enough to be here. That was the important part.
She did her best to ignore the swerving eyes and licking, smacking lips of the Salik generals nearest her while the others were brought into the hall and chained into the eating frames. They hissed and burbled in quiet little comments, studying her limbs hungrily, but none of them uncurled a tentacle-hand her way. No one would eat any of the prisoners until the Grand High General-the actual term in Sallhash was difficult to translate-had caught and taken the first bite out of his prey.
Instead, she filled the time by closing her eyes against the vision-straining hues of the blue green light shining down from the great gla.s.s globe overhead. Turning her attention inward and up, Ia focused on the locks of the manacles holding her arms straight up, her feet barely touching the floor. Some of the others struggled, some sobbed or hissed, and a few chittered. Announcements of each captor"s "crimes" against the Salik gurgled through the hall, inducing temporary lulls in the aliens" various incidental conversations. The noise of nearly a thousand nostril-flaps whistling and all those lips smacking followed each introduction, since the Salik had no hands to clap in applause like some of the other races.
The headache came back as the first psychic captive was led into the chamber. Wincing slightly-the pain wasn"t serious, but it was noticeable-Ia peered over her shoulder, trying to find the source of the annoyance. The Solarican being carried into the room, wrists and ankles tied to a pole like some sort of primitive tribal sacrifice, had a strange contraption strapped to her head. It was connected via cables to a heavy box being wheeled by a Salik guard behind her. Warily, Ia probed toward the box electrokinetically. Her headache immediately increased.
That"s very strange...That"s a machine! How is a machine able to give me a psi-induced headache?
She probed warily, precognitively, dipping just far enough into the timestreams to see the fog spreading outward as an aura-overlay on the real world. Specifically, from the crown-thing on the alien"s head, not from the box, though the box and its cables did radiate a bit of mist-glow uncertainty. So...if they"ve put this thing on her head, and I know from when we get out of this that she"s a Seer, their term for someone with psychic abilities...then the machine is generating some sort of...of psychic-ability dampening field?
That made sense. That made a horrible lot of sense. It also made sense as to why blowing up a capital ship armed with one of those things placed her so close to the dais, rather than at the back of the room for all her other crimes against the Salik nation. The generation of that much psi-nullifying energy, enough to block her abilities, would have indeed required the resources of a capital ship. By comparison, this little machine was a mere nuisance.
Until they brought in the second psi, and a third, and a fourth. Each machine ramped up her headache and spread another patch of fog into her mental awareness of the large underground hall. Quickly, before the fields grew too pervasive, Ia wrapped her hands around the chains holding her up and unlatched the manacles at wrists and ankles. She carefully held still, not wanting anyone to realize she was free, but unlocked herself subtly all the same.
One of the machines pa.s.sed close by her eating frame. Carefully craning her head, Ia studied it. The head-thing was firmly strapped onto the crested skull of the priest-caste Tla.s.sian. The machine had the usual sucker-controlled b.u.t.tons, smooth and seamless, and very difficult to pull up on telekinetically. By its very nature, the machine itself would no doubt block any electrokinetic attempts to interfere with it, and probably- -Aha! It"s plugged in! That"s how they can fit on all the different skull caps, for different alien head configurations. The machines are the same, but the helmets are interchangeable, and it"s the helms that cause the radiation effect. Biting her lip to keep from crowing, Ia focused on her pain to clear the joy out of her nerves. Pleasure could be just as distracting as fear, and the next few minutes would be vital. Mindful of her loosened manacles, she looked around the chamber, identifying the exact placement of each of the anti-psi machines and the sockets for their suppression helmets.
This would not be that much different from playing the wall harp back home. A little harder thanks to the fog, but not by too much. Confident she knew of each plug"s placement, Ia relaxed. Instead of wrapping her mind around a dozen or so picks, she wrapped them instead around the base of each wire. The strain of holding on to them in spite of the fields" dampening qualities was about as bad as the strain of holding herself up by her chains without moving. Bearable, but not something she"d care to do forever. She closed her eyes and rested as much as she could, given the two problems at hand, balancing tension with what would look to her captors like resignation.
An extra-long speech in Sallhash warned her that the parade of prisoner-meals was coming to an end. Opening her eyes, she watched the Salik guards carry in yet another pole-bound prisoner. This one was their last prisoner, the greatest enemy the frogtop.u.s.s.es had managed to get their slimy tentacles around.
The naked, struggling, grey-haired and grim-faced woman was none other than the long-missing Admiral Jenka Viega, former Fleet Commander of the Blockade. Viega had been presumed killed while traveling on an OTL courier over four months ago. Despite her long captivity, she looked as if she had kept her middle-aged body fit and her spirit strong, judging by the curses she flung in Spanish and the flexing of her muscles against her bonds.
Her fighting spirit seemed to rouse some of the other captives. Several strained against their bonds, craning their necks to look at the woman. Breathing deep, readying herself, Ia watched as the admiral was set on the platform and her ankles were unbound. Ia knew the older woman was just waiting for her wrists to be freed before she intended to lash out, and hopefully take down the Grand High General before she died. Ia didn"t intend to give the older woman that chance.
"Excuse me, meioas!" she called out, tightening her gut to project her voice over the hubbub in the hall.
Ia let go of the chains, freeing her hands from their restraints, kicking her legs to shake off the ankle cuffs binding her feet to the floor. The Salik around her hissed in surprise, too stunned by her sudden escape to move. Without hesitation, Ia turned her drop into a bound, striding quickly straight for the main platform. Hisses followed her progress, with some of the aliens rising from their cushion-seats.
Given that Sallha"s gravity was barely.71Gs Standard, Ia reached the platform in mere moments. The Grand High General hissed and gurgled at her approach, no doubt something about personally eating the guards who hadn"t secured her chains. She spoke again as he started to raise one set of tentacles in her direction.
"I hope you don"t mind, General, but I went to a lot of trouble and expense to attend this little party. I am here to try to save your lives," Ia told him firmly, letting her volume echo her statement off the ceiling and walls.
Her words arrested him in mid-command. Curling his digits, he licked his lips. "Hhheww...wish to sssave our livvesss?"
Silence fell. Those Salik who had risen sank back onto their seats. Once again, alien psychology was now on her side, playing into her hands. With such a bold, bold statement, Ia had proven herself worthy in their eyes to face up to their leader...though perhaps not yet worthy of being eaten by him.
Chin up, shoulders level, Ia returned the taller alien"s gaze calmly. "Yes. I do wish to save you. I am here to give you Deep Warnings, as your people put it. If you insist on going to war with us in the next few years, your entire race will perish. Generals, workers, males, females, tadpole-children and kraken-crones, all of them will vanish from the future of this galaxy. Knowing that will happen, I could not in good conscience remain silent, thus I arranged to be captured and brought here.
"You will perish to the last sc.r.a.p of your species" existence," Ia stated, holding his swivel-eyed gaze. "Your rivers will run dry, your lakes will lie still, your waterworks will cease to drip, and the roar of your oceans will be silenced forever, if you go to war in the next few years. You have my Prophetic Stamp on that."
The Grand High General snorted. He wheezed through his nostril-flaps, eyes flicking this way and that before refocusing on Ia"s face. "Hhheww are misstakenn, Hhhuman. We go to war in the nexst fffew hoursss!"
Ia ignored the alien version of laughter gusting through the hall. Instead, she yanked on the plugs of every machine within her grasp. If their headaches were anything like hers, the sudden cessation of pain in the other psychics" brains would force them to take a few moments to recover. Prepared for it, Ia ignored the backlashing ache in her own head. Focusing while the Salik around her mocked her words in babbles and hisses, she shifted her mind to target every single weapon being carried by the ten guards on the platform, followed by every manacle within range. It would strain her abilities, and she would have to unlock the whole room in a series of waves, but it was the best she could do.
She knew the Grand High General was permitting her to speak as a show of power over such insolent prey. She needed that arrogance, because she had to try to warn them, to salve the burning of her own conscience before taking up the burdens of her coming duties. When the laughter-wheezing finally died down, Ia spoke again.
"...So. You will not change your mind? Even knowing that it guarantees the destruction of all of your people, and all your worlds, leaving you nothing more than a fading, pitied memory?"
He uncurled a tentacle at her, wiggling the tip in admonition. "There isss nothing hhew can do to usss. We are mighty! And hhhyouuu are prey."
Holding up one finger upright toward him-the Human gesture was ironically similar to the Salik version of please wait-Ia looked over her shoulder at Admiral Viega. "For the record, sir, I did try to warn them. I honestly tried. Please stand witness to this, in the coming years?"
Viega frowned in puzzlement. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted. Not by the scornful whistle-laugh of the head of the Salik military and his fellows, but by another set of sounds. The clanking and locking of every door around them, sealing them into this room. Hard on the heels of that came other sound.
Stunner pistols flew out of holsters and pop-popped out of suckered grips. They flew into suddenly freed fingers as manacles snapped and clattered. Solaricans roared, K"kattas chattered, and Gatsugi keened, some flushing rage-violet, others staying a sickly yellow-fear. Salik leaped up high and slammed down on their freed meals from overhead-only to find themselves batted off-target by Ia"s mind, and more, aided by the other psis in the room. All of this took energy, some of which she siphoned from the crystal still encircling her leg, softening it so it could flow up her shin.
"Hhhheewww!" the Grand High General hissed, crouching in preparation to spring onto Ia. "Hhheww did thissss!"
Humans screamed, in rage and in pain-and the shadows in the room danced abruptly under the billowing pillars of bright yellow red fire that erupted. The other psis were rousing and fighting back. Chaos now ruled the hall. "Hhhew willll die!"
He leaped at her. Liquid crystal darted up from her leg to her fist, hardening just in time for her to punch him in the mouth. Not in time to stop the force of his pounce, but enough to break his sharpened teeth and thrust him, mouth and body, off to the side. Landing hard on her back, Ia grunted and rolled, using the momentum of her fall to haul her heels over her head.
Shoving back to her feet, she reshaped the blob cupping her fingers. She knew this banquet was being recorded and broadcast, and spat out one of the few words she knew she could p.r.o.nounce in Sallhash. "Pthaachsz!"
Toothless.
Pupils dilating wide at the insult, the Grand High General spat blood from his mouth and reared up to leap at her again. Ia swung back her sword in preparation for a coup de grace.
"Lieutenant!"
The warning came too late. Weight struck her from behind. Teeth clamped into her left shoulder in aching, piercing, concentration-shaking pain. Clenching her jaw, Ia swung anyway, beheading the leader of the Salik forces. His body, caught midleap, knocked into hers, staggering her back into the Salik general literally trying to chew off her arm.
Stunnerfire washed over both of them. Ia squeaked as his jaws locked tighter, body sagging in electrostatic-induced slumber. Gasping against the pain, she slashed awkwardly over her right shoulder, hooking her wrist as hard as she could to make sure the monofractal edge cut through his skull without cutting into her own flesh. Scuffling forward as his body sagged, she aimed a second, even more awkward strike. It swept from behind her head, severing most of his body from his face. A third twist let her cut off the last bit of flesh holding his body to his jaws. That freed her just in time to turn and slash, gutting the next Salik.
Whirling to face the rest, she found them slumped unconscious on the dais. The Fleet Admiral spun around as well, facing into the bloodied crowd. A frustrated growl escaped her. "I can"t hit them without...Gaaah! Why can"t this be a laser?"
There wasn"t time for subtlety. What Ia needed was a hundred small shards, and the nearest source was the great globe of the light-fixture overhead. It was a magnificent piece, stained and shaped to replicate the many islands and seas of Sallha. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder but wincing in regret for the chandelier"s loss, Ia flung her telekinetic might at the great globe from two sides, like two giant, invisible hands bashing together.
Gla.s.s crashed and fell. She caught most of it, the larger, sharper chunks, and sent them flying through the air like oversized harp picks. Instead of plucking strings, however, she plucked out throats. It was a sickening symphony of spattering, splattering red. Bodies fell, and the sounds of combat faded. Drawing in a deep breath, she shouted to catch the attention of the survivors.
"Listen up!" Heads turned her way. "We have two minutes to grab all the survivors and get the h.e.l.l out of here before the Salik send in their reinforcements! Search for survivors-you know what"ll happen if they get left behind! Find people, and move toward that door!"
She pointed with her sword, and seared a line of electricity across the upper edge of its metal frame. Those who were still on their feet scrambled to look for survivors. Fire still crackled and seared, spouting up from the bodies of the fallen Salik off to one side of the huge hall. Ia stabbed for the pyrokinetic"s mind with her own; now was not the time to let him go rogue. As it was, he was perilously close to self-combustion, with the very air around his naked frame showing wisps of smoke.
(Control yourself, Michaels! Lock down your gifts; we don"t have time for you to burn down their world just yet!) Out loud, Ia added more orders to the rest. "Tllaanva, Ssthikit, grab one of those d.a.m.n anti-psi boxes, and keep your helmets with you," she ordered a pair of priest-caste Tla.s.sians. They flattened their spiked crests in dismay, but moved as she asked. Ia addressed the other psis. "Everyone, keep your helmets! We need to know what those things are and how they"re made-move it, people! One minute."
"I trust you know what you"re doing, Lieutenant Ia?" Admiral Viega muttered, following Ia as she moved across the blood-slicked platform toward the stunned bodies of the high generals. "Because unless you can pull off an even bigger miracle than this..."
Ia slashed through the spines and throats of the sleeping generals, making absolutely sure each one was dead. She didn"t bother to ask how the admiral knew her name. The reputation that had earned her a place at this banquet had been earned among her fellow Terrans, and earned long before the four months that Viega had been missing.
"Trust me, sir," she muttered, teeth clenching as the swiping of her right arm shifted her left shoulder painfully. "I know exactly how to get us out of here-done. Move it, Admiral!"
Turning away from the last of the bodies, she sprinted off the dais, heading for the indicated doors. Running wasn"t easy, not with her left arm clenched across her bare ribs, though turning her sword into a bracelet helped free her good arm for balance. Overturned end tables and scattered cushions were the least of their hazards; broken gla.s.s mingled with bloodied bodies, most of them Salik but not all. Ia detoured toward a stunner-slumbering body trapped between two throat-gouged enemies.
Heaving the unconscious Gatsugi out of the pile with her good arm, she dragged him as far as two of the Solaricans, a pair who looked like they were about to turn catatonic with shock at the gore and death surrounding them, and dropped him at their feet.
"You two, carry him. Don"t let him die here," she ordered.
They flicked their ears back at that thought and quickly stooped, heaving the alien into a carrying position. One was missing half her tail, the other bore Salik teeth marks on his arms and shoulder, his body-fur streaked and matted with blood, but they picked up the unconscious Gatsugi without hesitation.
"The doorr is lllocked!" one of the other felinoids called out. "We"re trrapped in here!"
"No, we"re not!" Ia called back, freeing another sleeping, injured Alliance member from the blood and gore strewn across the floor. Viega quickly took over, directing a pair of muzzled Tla.s.sian warrior-castes to grab and lift the curled-up K"katta. "The door is still locked because I locked it. There are fifteen guards piled up behind it, and we need to be ready before it"s opened."
"How can we be ready for something like that?" one of the other Humans demanded. "We"re naked, some of us can barely walk, most of us are bleeding, and only a few of us have weapons!"
"I"ll be ready for it," Ia promised him. "I"m going to open the door, kill the guards, and then we"re going to run about half a klick. Do not let anyone get left behind-don"t touch that!" she added as one of her fellow Humans reached for the segment of head and jaws still clinging to her left shoulder. "One of his teeth is right next to my brachial artery. Pull it out and you"ll kill me. I"d rather not die today-get that Solarican!"
Pointing off to the side, she gestured for two of the survivors to grab the dazed felinoid standing alone amid a pile of throat-gouged bodies. Not waiting to see them comply, she carefully shifted the bracelet off her wrist and over to her left hand, then curled her arm up at the elbow just enough for her needs. The movements shifted the teeth jammed into her shoulder, but they were necessary. Subtly spinning the glob of crysium in her grip, she nodded at the Tla.s.sian by the door.
"Ready? Open it in three...two...one...!"
The lock snapped open with an audible clack. Startled, the Tla.s.sian grabbed the edge of the door and heaved. So did Ia, but with her mind instead of her muscles. The spinning glob of crysium snapped up and out in a shield, catching the laserfire aimed their way, glowing brightly where the laser from their weapons struck the nearly transparent pink material.
Everyone flinched back, except for Ia. Her attention was spent on absorbing that energy, preventing the thin shield from overloading. The only place to store it, however, was inside herself. The strands of her white hair started to rise away from her face, triggered by the conversion of photonic to kinetic to electric energy.
"Dios mio," she heard Viega mutter. "What in G.o.d"s Name is that stuff?"