Renegade (3 page)

Erik made a dismissive face. “Oh they’ve been sick of this war for decades. It should have ended fifty years ago Dad, you know that.”

“Sure. But wars in space move slow.” They did. The logistics alone took an incredible time. Anyone could strike a system from space, but the deeper you went into enemy territory, the harder it became to get back alive. To hit deep into enemy space, you had to
capture
systems, not just skip over them. That took huge time, energy and resources. Doing it repeatedly, system after system, took decades. It wasn’t all high-energy combat and casualties, a lot of it was quite boring, months and years of preparations, skirmishes and reconnaissance, punctuated by huge explosions of terror and death. It took a very stubborn people to do it for a hundred and sixty one years. Until this surrender, it was thought that the tavalai were the most stubborn species in the Spiral. Now everyone knew better.

“Tavalai aren’t warriors, Dad,” Erik said tiredly. “Their organisation is incredible, I mean, if only we could run logistics like they do. But they’re bureaucrats. Their tech is good and they’re tough and stubborn as hell, but they just don’t go for the throat like warriors. They aren’t made that way. You know what I mean.”

“They aren’t prepared to risk everything to win,” Walker said sombrely.

“I used to hate them. When they hit Valinta and New Punjab, I wanted to rip them apart with my bare hands. But they hit military targets, they’re probably better at avoiding civvie casualties than we are.”

“The sard aren’t. Nor the kaal.”

Erik shrugged. “Sure, and we’re allied to the chah'nas, so who’s worse?”

Walker looked at him warily. “Son, you know I respect your opinions. God knows you’ve earned the right to hold them. But I wouldn’t be talking like that so loudly around here at the moment.”

“I know. I know.” It was the army infantry now out on parade. Army were the biggest branch of the United Forces. They occupied worlds, and pacified resistance. It took a lot of soldiers, a lot more than manning ships. But the technical requirements were also lower, and they used a lot more brute force than sharp finesse. Most marines didn’t think much of them. “I could kill sard all day and sleep fine. Hell, if we could repeat with the sard what we did to the krim, I’d be okay with that. The kaal… they’re not as bad, but I can’t lose much sleep over them either. It’s just these stupid fucking tavalai Dad. They had no business fighting us and for the last sixty years at least they knew it. But they were just too fucking stubborn for their own good, and now it’s cost tens of millions of us, and hundreds of millions of them. It just… pisses me off.”

He’d gone aboard at Larakilikal Station, to help secure the facilities. Tavalai had fought to the last woman and man, their armoured bodies sprawled and blasted in the steel hallways, where Fleet marines had dropped them. A few had lived longer, their helmets off, their funny, frog-like eyes bulging, trying to get water on their skin to help the secretion process in healing. Some clutched religious artefacts, and others slate screens with pictures of family. He’d given a live one some water, and it had gurgled a thank-you, and patted his hand with clammy fingers. Sard would pretend to be dead, then blow themselves up to take a few humans with them. Kaal would like to, but lacked the nerve. But it never occurred to tavalai. In a century and a half of war, only a small handful of human prisoners had ever reported poor treatment at their hands. On Tirapik, the world below Larakilikal Station, some captured human freighter crews had been found living on a grassy compound on a hill. They were well fed and healthy, and demanded that their tavalai captors should be treated similarly.

“And then I hear what the chah'nas have done to some tavalai in their battles,” he murmured. “And I wonder if we aren’t fighting the wrong people.”

“Now
that,
” said his father, “is something you should definitely keep to yourself. Come on, we should head back inside. I think your mother’s about to give a speech.”

Alice Debogande was indeed about to give a speech, and someone had even brought an elevation for her to stand on, and be seen above the crowd. That wasn’t all that had been brought in. Erik saw a pair of chah'nas towering by a wall, double arms crossed, in the coloured leathers that passed for formal wear among their kind. One of them saw Erik looking, and raised a glass in his direction — irony, because chah'nas metabolised alcohol so fast it was impossible to get them drunk on anything less than jet fuel. Four-eyed with a massive underbite and protruding lower tusks, there was nothing gentle about chah'nas to the human eye. Erik nodded back.

“Who’s that?” he asked his father. Chah'nas were usually as bored with human social life as human parades. Most were direct to the point of rudeness, their social graces only saved by an abrasive yet undeniable sense of humour.

“E’tu’kas,” said Walker, standing at his side. “One of the new ambassadors.” On Homeworld, there were several. One to the Spacer Congress, one to the Worlder Congress, and one to Homeworld itself, plus all their staff. Then all the military attaches, and
their
staff. It had occasionally been remarked to chah'nas that they should sort out exactly who was in charge, and give that person a title. The chah'nas reply, with appropriate humour, was ‘look who’s talking’.

Being accused of multiplicity by the chah'nas was ironic indeed. Chah'nas had dozens of castes, the purpose of which left most humans baffled. Together they made a maze of ascending qualifications and specialities that chah'nas would spend their lives navigating and climbing. What
was
certain was chah'nas used genetic engineering to differentiate specialities among themselves, like animal breeders selectively isolating desirable traits. They did not try for species purity, but rather species complexity through caste competitiveness — which meant they tried to strengthen castes against each other in endless competition, as though to improve their species like some giant professional sporting league. Certainly the chah'nas loved their sports to a degree that even humans found unhealthy. Most were violent. Erik had tried explaining golf to several, and been met with gales of laughter.

Against an opposite wall, Erik glimpsed the big, wide ears of a kuhsi… then a glimpse of the face, a short muzzle too canine to be feline, but too feline to be canine. A flat, wide head, made wider by those amazing ears that went far more sideways than upwards. They weren’t as tall as chah'nas, usually a touch shorter than humans, and so didn’t stand out in crowds… until you saw the ears.

Kuhsi were humanity’s contribution to species uplift — they’d been found near human space, on the verge of their own FTL flight, and so humans had hurried them on a little, needing all the friends they could get. Certainly the kuhsi had been pleased to be ‘discovered’ by humans and not krim, and humans had been good with them — letting them have their space, not interfering with local politics, giving them useful tech without asking anything but friendship in return. And kuhsi had reciprocated, not so much as to participate in humanity’s latest war, but to offer moral and trading support, and even a few irregular volunteers.

“Friends,” said Erik’s mother above the crowd. She wore a red gown, her hair pulled back to a tasteful braid. One hundred and two years old, middle aged by the current human standard, though she barely looked it. Only a few crinkles about the eyes, which she could have vanished with treatments, yet kept for ‘character purposes’. When you were one of the regularly voted ‘ten most powerful’ people alive, she’d told him once, you had to have a few wrinkles or they wouldn’t take you seriously.

Now she smiled at them all. In all honesty, Erik didn’t think she was a particularly great smiler. He’d seen her real smiles, and they were small, honest, private affairs. A careful amusement, well guarded and never abused. This was a big, ‘I love you all so much’ smile… and sometimes, when you knew someone this well, you just couldn’t buy it, because you knew it was false. He didn’t doubt that a lot of the others present also knew. The difference was that they didn’t care.

“This truly is a fortuitous day,” she said through that big smile. “It has brought my beloved son Erik back to me.” Now the smile turned to him. Erik forced one of his own, all eyes temporarily upon him. “And it has brought a celebration of victory. A final victory, we hope, for all humankind, and for our valued allies.”

She raised a glass at the chah'nas, who raised one back. Then at the kuhsi… Erik guessed he must be an ambassador of some sort also. A glass raised back. Hopefully the big-eared ambassador wouldn’t drink too much — unlike chah'nas, kuhsi
did
get drunk, often alarmingly so.

“I’m sure our non-human guests are aware that it is customary on such grand occasions for the head of a family, or an institution, to recall the Great Journey. As I am both head of institution
and
of family — sorry darling,” with a glance at her husband by Erik’s side.

“No she’s right,” Walker conceded to the room, who laughed obligingly.

“Then this solemn retelling shall fall to me,” Alice continued. “In the name of all that has been so that all may yet come, as we build the glorious future, amen.”“Amen,” echoed the crowd. There was no shortage of Destinos symbols among those gathered, the circle-and-crescent in earrings, pendants or on ties, the crescent rising behind the circle like a sunrise upon a planetary horizon, and pierced by a single line rising up to infinity. Many of the Debogande family’s charities were Destinos charities. More a Spacer religion than a Worlder one, it was a statement of identity through faith for many Spacers, not to mention a networking opportunity through such institutions.

“Once upon a time,” Alice began, “there was a race of people called humans. We lived upon a beautiful planet called Earth, and it had supported us as a species for more than three million years. Eventually we evolved to venture from our homeworld, but no sooner had we learned how to do so than our efforts were noticed, because faster-than-light travel is detectable far and wide. Humans learned that we were directly alongside the territory of a powerful race called the krim.

“We hoped that the krim could be our friends, but the krim were an evil and brutal race, who lived only to inflict pain on others. Krim invaded our beautiful world, and ravaged the resources of our solar system. In desperation the humans called out to the other civilised peoples of the galaxy, whom they had only just learned to also exist. Humans fought bravely to save their homeworld, but they did not have the technology to match the krim spacecraft and weapons.

“But the galactic peoples were run by a greedy race called the tavalai. They and their allies cared for nothing but their own peace and happiness. The krim were powerful, and the tavalai agreed that each people should be allowed to do whatever they chose in their own area of space. The human area of space was deemed to be krim space, and so the krim could do as they pleased, while the tavalai counted their money, and congratulated themselves on being such a peaceful and civilised people, that they avoided such trouble with the krim.”

Alice read this line from her visual with scorn, and there were grim chuckles from the audience. Human-tavalai bad blood was old indeed… though nowhere near as old as that between chah'nas and tavalai.

“Meanwhile the krim slaughtered the brave humans in their thousands. But one of the galactic peoples did listen. One honourable people did not think that it was right that the krim could rape and pillage a world that was not theirs. These brave people took it upon themselves to defy the Tavalai Confederation, and smuggle arms and modern technology to the embattled humans.”

Alice raised her glass again to the chah'nas. “Our friends, the great Chah'nas Continuum. Long may you prosper.” Loud assent from the crowd, and glasses were raised and sipped from. The chah'nas looked pleased.

“With their new weapons, the humans fought back against the krim, and began to do damage. Humans left their home system and struck against the krim in the krim’s own territory, now having the ships to do that. This caused the krim great consternation. For two hundred years did humans fight this guerrilla war from and around their occupied system, while the chah'nas argued the case for humanity with the Tavalai Confederacy.”

She was taking liberties, Erik knew, by calling it that. There had been no Tavalai Confederacy — most species in the Spiral called it the First Free Age, and the tavalai claimed not to have been in charge of it at all. It had been the first equal time, they said, when all the sentient races could do as they pleased without having to answer to one powerful overlord. And to some extent, they were right. But allowing freedom of action had allowed the krim to make war on humanity without consequence. And for that, humanity would never forgive or forget.

“Finally the Tavalai Confederacy agreed to intervene. But instead of demanding that the krim leave humanity’s home system, they sent a force of peacekeepers, to keep the
peace
between humans and krim.” Again, the sarcasm was dripping. Old and often repeated history though it was, Erik could feel his blood boil at the telling. “But they found, of course, that there was no peace to keep. Humanity did not want peace with the krim — they wanted justice, and the krim to leave Earth, and Sol System, and all humanity alone forever. But the tavalai thought to make a deal between us, thereby to legitimise the krim occupation.

“This the humans could never accept, and so a new war began, the war between humans and the tavalai peacekeepers. Soon the tavalai tired of fighting these brave freedom fighters in a distant corner of the galaxy, and returned to their own worlds. The krim took this admission of tavalai defeat as an opportunity to end humans once and for all, free from tavalai interference forever. They destroyed the human home, the beautiful Mother Earth, and left none upon its surface alive. Humanity was cast adrift, a people without a home, and with no purpose left for living. No purpose, that was, except revenge.