Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (10 page)

“I was a young man when the Merkiaari attacked us. I was just a soldier... a warrior, one among many thousands on my planet. There was no Alliance then. We didn’t need it. Earth’s many colonies had won their independence many centuries in the past. Like your ancestors, we fought battles between ourselves, but mostly, the colonies were at peace. We traded with each other, and even when at war we had rules. Looking back, those wars seem like play fighting to me now.”

Burgton shook his head, his eyes distant. “Then came the Merki,” he said in a harsh voice. “And the peace was shattered. Everything was panic and chaos. No one knew what was happening. We sent ships to talk to the invaders, but none returned. We lost worlds in the Border Zone to the Merki while our leaders dithered and talked. What shall we do, they cried. We must make them talk to us. More ships were lost trying.

“Worlds fought back and slowed the Merkiaari, mine did, others as well, but we didn’t fight smart. We didn’t join together. Finally, the obvious became clear to those in high places. I say obvious, because those of us actually fighting and dying knew it long before. The Merki would never stop. They had to
be stopped
, not talked into stopping. They couldn’t... can’t be talked to. The homeworld of man, Earth, stepped up and took control. Even then there was mistrust and many used the situation to gain political advantage.”

Burgton gave each of the Shan a hard stare, aware that Kazim’s camera was glued to him. “The Alliance was born, and each member world donated ships and warriors to fight as one against the Merki. Soldiers like me were recruited and changed forever to fight that war in the desperate years of the slow retreat. We lost many millions of soldiers on worlds under alien suns far from home. Thousands of ships died at the heart of nuclear fires, in solar systems that meant nothing to their crews except the Merki were there and wanted them. Slowly we retreated, forced back and back, but then one day, a day like any other, something amazing happened. We started winning and it was the Merki who retreated. Decades of fighting saw the Merkiaari defeated. Defeated like here, but not destroyed. They’re still out there, readying themselves. Building more ships, breeding more troops, getting stronger, getting ready to come back and kill us all.”

Burgton lifted his glass and drank his water. An alert flashed on his display, and surprised, he took note of it. The water was high in minerals. He dismissed the flashing datum.

“At the end of the war, the Alliance faced exactly the same situation as you face here, but where you have two worlds to reconstruct, the Alliance had more than eighty. At that time, those eighty comprised almost half of the Alliance. The Council chose not to pursue the Merkiaari beyond our pre-war borders, and turned its attention to reconstruction. As you have. That decision allowed the Alliance to regain strength, but also allowed the Merki menace to remain a threat. The Merkiaari have regained its strength as well, and now here we are two hundred years on reaping the rewards of the Council’s decision.”

Burgton turned to catch Jutka’s eye. “What you do here will have far reaching consequences. Remember that. If you decide to retreat to your homeworld, abandon your only colony world, abandon your dreams of expansion as the Alliance did back then, your descendants will curse your names.” Burgton said coldly, ignoring the shocked indrawn breaths. They needed shaking up. “When the Merki return and your younglings or their younglings fight for their lives or hide under the mountains as you so recently did, what do you think they will say of your choices made here today?”

Jutka spoke up. “What would you have us do? We have no ships or the ability to make them. Even if we did, we must defend our worlds not scatter ourselves among the stars.”

Burgton nodded. “Your words are familiar to me. I heard them spoken often by councillors back then. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. I don’t have all the answers, I wish I did, but I do know that hiding upon any single world is not the answer. It’s not sound strategically, it’s not sound tactically come to that, it’s just not safe for any race or species to put all their eggs—cubs in this instance—in one basket.”

The entire room erupted in murmurs and questions. Jutka was no longer smiling at Burgton. Maybe she had expected a different argument. He didn’t care. He would make her see what was needed, or he would go directly to Kajetan herself.

Burgton went on, “As for the immediate situation here on Child of Harmony. It’s obvious that the reconstruction must go ahead. If for no other reason than the change in season, you must get power back on in the cities. The weather has turned. It’s not that cold yet, but winter is coming. Unless you plan upon everyone spending years in the keeps, you need to rebuild your power plants and water pumping stations.

“In the long term, you should explore and colonise nearby worlds. You need to do that and increase your population base rapidly. I know there are difficulties to overcome, but think on this: the Alliance found you while surveying worlds in this direction. What do you think the plans for those worlds are?”

Silence.

Burgton smiled a little as understanding slowly circled the room. Jutka was looking at him strangely, and he realised that this was the argument she had probably expected him to use in the first place. He didn’t laugh, but nodded to her instead.

“If you don’t take those worlds, or claim the habitable ones at least,” Burgton went on. “I assure you that in a few years my people will. We’re expanding too slowly in my opinion, as I told you, but we are expanding.”

Tei’Varyk had a faraway look in his eyes, but then he focused upon Burgton. “Before the war I spoke with Captain Colgan about this very thing. I expressed my wish to explore the stars and rebuild the Great Harmony out there. You do not know how much I want what you describe, General Burgton, but how can we explore and claim new worlds when we cannot even scrape together enough lift capacity to even reach orbit here without your help?”

Murmurs of agreement filled the room.

Burgton raised a hand and achieved quiet. “As I said before, I know there are going to be challenges, but all journeys must begin with a first step. Your first step must be deciding to make the journey. Only then, can you plan how to make it. You will have help no matter what you decide. Kajetan has bound your people to mine by joining the Alliance, but wouldn’t you rather join us as equals—as a star spanning culture?”

Everyone flicked ears or nodded in the Human manner. That was something. Now for his offer, Burgton decided. He wondered what would happen when Kazim’s recording reached Admiral Kuzov.

“Elder Jutka invited me to your meeting as a courtesy. I have no power over your deliberations. I actually came to visit a friend and make her an offer, but I wonder if perhaps it might be of interest to you as well?”

Jutka stirred. “You speak of The Blind Hunter’s plight?”

Burgton nodded. “One of my people,” he gestured to Gina, “made a promise to Shima to repair her sight. I’m here to uphold that pledge. To do this, Shima must journey far from home, all the way to my home where she will have new eyes grown, or if that proves impossible, she will have biomech replacements fitted. She will become one of a handful of Shan ever to leave your system, joining the select group headed by Tei’Varyk and the brave crew of
Naktlon
.

“I make the following offer to you, not as a representative of the Alliance, but as a representative of my own planet, Snakeholme. I’m offering to allow Shan to immigrate to my world, and set up a colony there. I will provide transportation along with Shima on
Grafton
, and will provide all necessary materials to allow the colony to flourish. In exchange I ask only that your people honour our laws and defend the planet should that ever be necessary... it won’t be. Snakeholme is my regiment’s home base, and its defence comes second only to the defence of the Alliance itself.”

“You are inviting us to join the viper clan?” Jutka asked and the excitement died down to hear the answer.

Burgton didn’t need James’ warning look. “You call my regiment a clan—the viper clan. We are not a clan of any sort, or a caste. We are a specialised military unit. My men and I have been enhanced to better fight Merkiaari. I’m not offering your people enhancement, only a home with us on Snakeholme. Think of this as your first new colony outside your home system—a safe place for younglings to grow up. Another basket for your eggs if you will.”

No one spoke for the longest time, but inevitably politics raised its ugly head. It started when one of the traditionalists spoke up to reiterate his position regarding Child of Harmony’s reconstruction, as if the last fifteen minutes had not occurred. Burgton sagged. His offer had fallen upon deaf ears. They would go on debating for the rest of the day and achieve nothing.

It made him feel sad and his age. He was so very tired of people making the same mistakes over and over. Human or Shan, it made no difference. He was so tired of the same senseless excuses.

* * *

Zuleika, Child of Harmony, Shan System

Shima sat quietly in the centre of her contemplation grove. She preferred sitting on the rocks next to the pool and facing east into the sun. She couldn’t see it any more, her long feared blindness had finally come to pass, but she could at least feel its warmth on her face and remember it. The grove was at the rear of the house she had lived in with her father and her sib before the war, and it had suffered no ill effects from the conflict. Much of the city had burned in the early days of the Merkiaari invasion, and later during its liberation, many districts had been bombed by the Humans to flush the aliens out, but random chance had spared her district. It was on the opposite side to the line of march that the Merki had chosen from the port and took no damage, then later, Tei’Burgton’s tactical plan had used the blasted zones of the city as entry points and her district was spared again.

Tei’Burgton’s plan had made perfect sense to her when he had explained it to James. She had been there and translated for the other resistance team leaders. The Merkiaari had been softened up by artillery and the bombing preceding it to give the vipers the advantage. It had worked and the Merki in Zuleika had been wiped out in a few cycles of intense fighting. She looked back proudly on those times. Fighting side by side with James and later with Gina burned brightly in her memory. A good thing, as her life had burned down to embers now. Like the last glowing coals in a dying campfire, her time was over.

Before the war she had been a gardener, an agricultural geneticist, and had enjoyed her work at the Centre for Agricultural Research. There she had worked upon new variants of food crops with her colleagues, and expanded their knowledge of genetics. It was an expanding field; a relatively new one within her caste of scientists and engineers. She had followed her father into the caste, but her interests did not lean toward engineering as his had done. Her mother had also been an engineer, and had worked with her mate researching and designing new technologies. Shima sometimes wondered if her mother would have understood the choices she had made in her life. She hoped so. Choices were a thing of the past now. She had none left to make. Her life had narrowed down to waking and sleeping... all of it the same, all of it in darkness.

Shima took a deep breath and chuffed, expelling the air in a low groaning roar. It was a quiet expression of despair. She held in the more violent and scream-like roar she wanted to voice. It would feel so good to roar her challenge to the world. Good but pointless. Who was there to answer it? Back in primitive times, someone in her position would have left the clan to wander the wilds and challenge the wild things to a last glorious hunt, or seek out an old rival for one last battle. She would have travelled to an enemy village perhaps, and roared her battle cry like the time in the wilderness when she had fought Merki in the dark to rescue Merrick’s family, but now in modern times she was trapped and cared for like a youngling. Held prisoner by love in a life she loathed by her sib and her sib’s mate. Chailen and Sharn lived with her and cared for her, when they should have been on their own cementing their bond with lovemaking and the siring of cubs. She was a burden to them; she felt it no matter their rejection of such notions.

The situation was all kinds of wrong.

Shima remembered how proud she had been when Chailen mated Sharn deep within the protective environs of Kachina Twelve. The war had raged above them, but deep within the keep protected by the mountain’s bones, an age-old ceremony had taken place reaffirming life and Shan traditions. Kazim had been there with her, forced to leave his camera switched off and uncomfortably aware of how unusual his presence was. Mating ceremonies were private affairs for family only, but he wasn’t the only stranger there. Chailen had insisted James should come too, and to make their number harmonious had also invited Brenda—his mate. That had embarrassed Shima because using the harmonies as an excuse to invite Brenda suggested Kazim was there as Shima’s mate, which he was not. Sharn’s parents and sibs hadn’t seemed to mind the break with custom. They were delighted to meet Humans, and everyone knew Kazim. He was famous because of the broadcasts. Kazim had filmed the Merki invasion and Shima’s escape from Zuleika. His work documenting the war had assured his future would be bright.

Shima wondered what he would do now the fighting was done. He hadn’t decided as far as she knew. She had asked him during a brief visit a few cycles ago, but he had been far more interested in her life and desires. She knew he worried for her, but there was nothing he or any Shan could do for her. Kazim had left with her question unanswered.