The Black Sheep (A Learning Experience Book 3) (10 page)

A red icon flared up in front of him.  “Horace is down,” Hilde said.  “Mike is dead.”

Max shuddered.  The aliens couldn’t win, could they?  He had no idea how many Druavroks were already dead, but it looked as though thousands had impaled themselves on the human position.  More icons flashed up in front of him, warning of incoming fire; his suit snapped off bursts of point defence automatically, even as KEWs slammed down from orbit, obliterating the heavy weapons before they could be repositioned.  The Druavroks were piling up their bodies in front of the human position, some smouldering as if they were on the verge of catching fire.  And yet they were
still
coming.  How many of them
were
there?

He started as a Druavrok hurled himself over the pile of bodies and came right at him.  The suit’s tactical programs switched to primary mode and lashed out with staggering power, hitting the alien so hard he literally disintegrated.  Max felt sick as the marines began to fall back, launching tiny spreads of antipersonnel missiles and mines as they moved.  And
still
the enemy kept coming.  They were losing hundreds of lives to the minefield alone - they projected forcefields that cut through the enemy like monofilament knives - but they refused to stop.

“Stay low,” Hilde warned.  “Incoming KEWs.”

The ground shook, as though it had been struck with the hammer of God.  Max looked up, just in time to see the skyscraper topple and fall to the ground.  He stared in horror - how many people had been in the building when it had fallen?  A skyscraper could hold thousands of souls.  Shockwaves ran through the city - he couldn't help thinking of earthquakes from the disaster movies he’d watched as a child, movies that had taught him how unpredictable life on Earth could be - and, for the first time, the alien charge seemed to falter.  The marines held their line, shot down the final set of aliens and waited, grimly, as the fighting came to an end.

“They seem to have lost their momentum,” Hilde commented.  “Follow me.”

Max nodded, not trusting himself to speak, as Hilde dropped to her hands and knees and crawled over to where one of the marines was lying, a nasty scorch-mark covering his chest.  Another was lying nearby, his suit so badly damaged that survival seemed impossible; the plasma blast that had stuck him would have burned through the armour and turned the marine into charcoal before he had a chance to bail out.  Max shuddered, feeling sick again, then turned to look as Hilde carefully opened the first marine’s suit and looked inside.  The marine’s chest was a blackened ruin ...

“The nanites will keep it under control, I think,” Hilde said.  Her voice was very composed, although she had to know it could have been
her
who’d taken the hit.  “They’ve placed his brain in suspension, but he’ll need to have most of his body regrown.  I think, for him, the war is over.”

“I’m sorry,” Max said, unsure what he
should
say.  The marine had done his duty, jumping down into the maelstrom surrounding Amstar, and died doing it.  His name would be remembered, but for what?  “I’ll make sure he’s mentioned ...”

“See that you do,” Hilde said.  She closed the suit and stood.  “There’s a shuttle flight being readied now, Max.  The reinforcements will set up a base camp here until we know who we can trust.  You’ll stay here as we secure the perimeter.”

“I understand,” Max said.  The marines wouldn't want a half-trained reporter accompanying them as they poked further out from the LZ.  There was too great a danger of accidentally shooting someone on the same side.  “What ... is this always what it’s like?”

“No,” Hilde admitted.  “Normally, we’re boarding starships or carrying out defence duty on Earth.  This” - she waved her hand at the piles of alien bodies - “is something new.  The old sweats talked about drug-addled fanatics, but ... I never really believed them.  What sort of idiot would
do
that to themselves?”

Max nodded.  There was no shortage of drugs that could boost a person’s combat ability, but they tended to come with nasty downsides.  They were addictive and, in the long run, degraded the user’s natural reactions.  Eventually, they even caused brain damage.

“Maybe they were just desperate,” he said, after a moment.  The Druavroks had been trying to commit genocide.  They’d have to wonder if their former victims would try to return the favour.  “They lost control of the high orbitals.  Their commanders had to know they’d lose the war.”

“Maybe,” Hilde agreed.  “Or maybe they’re just nasty bastards.”

Chapter Nine

Independent reports from Kurdistan confirm that the Kurdish People’s Militia has seized Sunni territory and has been carrying out a program of ethnic cleansing and genocide.  All Sunni Muslims have been ordered to leave, taking only what they can carry on their backs, or face death.  The KPM stated, in the wake of the engagement, that the Kurds would no longer allow the Sunnis to threaten their existence ...

-Solar News Network, Year 54

“They must be mad,” Griffin said.

“Not mad,” Doctor Carr said.  “But
very
angry.”

Griffin looked down at the body on the examination table.  Perhaps it was latent xenophobia, but he couldn't help feeling that the Druavrok didn't
look
very nice.  It was impossible to believe they didn't eat meat - they had the sharp teeth of predators - and their claws suggested they were used to fighting hand-to-hand. 
Humanity
hadn't evolved such natural weapons; indeed, even spears and clubs hadn’t always been enough to even the odds against tigers or lions.  It had been the ability to think, and plan, and
cooperate
that had made humanity the dominant race on Earth.

The Druavrok was a head shorter than him, his mouth crammed with sharp teeth and his skin hard as leather.  The dark insect-like eyes looked unpleasant, even in death; it was impossible to read the creature’s expression, but he had a feeling it regarded them all as prey.  There were faint reddish markings, like tattoos, on its green skin.  He had a nasty feeling the creature had used the blood of his victims to paint his scales.

“I’ve only done a basic scan, but several things are clear,” Shari said.  “First, on average, the Druavroks are stronger and faster than the average unenhanced human - deadlier too, given that they have those claws.  I’m not sure if they’re
naturally
as sharp as our friend’s claws” - she nodded to the body - “but they can slice though human skin as if it were made of paper, while their scales are tougher than human skin.  However, like many other races with tough outer coatings, their ability to heal after their skin
is
cut seems limited.  A small cut may mean a long period of healing.”

“Or they might bleed to death,” Griffin said.

“Maybe,” Shari said.  “I think they’d understand the value of bandages, though.”

She shrugged.  “Second, based on my scans, they
do
have a strong reaction when they’re frightened or angry,” she added.  “Their brain releases a chemical into their bloodstream which supercharges their reactions, at - I suspect - the cost of some of their rationality.  Human wave charges may be the only way they can function when their blood is up, although it’s impossible to be sure without studying a live one.  My best guess is that the genocide is fuelled, at least in part, by an
emotional
reaction against other races.  They may also be testing their freedom now the Tokomak are gone.”

“You make them sound like naughty children,” Griffin said.

“The principle is the same,” Shari said.  “Children grow up under rules set by their parents, not ones they accepted for themselves.  They tend to rebel against their parents, as they reach adulthood, or settle into an unhealthy dependency even into their middle-aged years.  The Tokomak were the parents, everyone else were the children ...”

She shrugged.  “The pattern has been seen on Earth, time and time again, long before we knew about non-human life.  Giving a state independence without the state having major teething problems afterwards was never easy.”

Griffin nodded.  “Are they a
rational
race?”

“I would have said they are fairly compatible to us, on the intelligence scale,” Shari said, tapping the Druavrok’s head.  “But then, most races reach a certain level and just
stop
.  They don’t have any pressing need for more brainpower when they have tools they can use to boost their abilities.  I can't tell you anything for certain about their social structure, but I would guess, based on what I’ve seen here, that they spend a lot of time struggling for dominance over one another.  And then perhaps over everyone else.”

“Brilliant,” Griffin said, sardonically.

“Quite,” Shari agreed.  “There’s a strong possibility that rational negotiations with them will be impossible, Commander.  They may not be able to grasp the idea of peaceful co-existence or submission to another power.  I have no idea how the Tokomak managed to keep them in line.  They must have known the squadron outgunned them and
still
they fought.”

Griffin nodded, curtly.  It was a worrying sign.  On one hand, destroying a chunk of the Druavrok Navy - whatever they called it - without serious losses was not to be dismissed, particularly as he was sure there would be further encounters, but on the other hand it indicated a fanaticism that chilled him to the bone.  And then, the brief reports from the marines - he hadn't had the time to access a full sensory - had stated that the Druavroks had launched mass human wave-style attacks against the marines, clearly trying to drown the marines in dead bodies.  They'd come too close to overrunning the marines and grinding them into the dust.

He looked back at the body and shivered.  “What else can you tell me about this guy?”

“He’s definitely a male, I believe,” Shari said.  “The penis is retractable, sir; it fits between his legs and only emerges when mating begins.  I did wonder if they might be functional hermaphrodites, but there’s no sign of anything other than a penis and organs that serve the same purpose as our testicles.  I’m planning to go through the other bodies that were brought up to the ship in the hopes of finding a female; hopefully, I’ll know more about their mating cycle afterwards.”

Griffin frowned.  “How
do
they mate?”

“It’s hard to be sure without a female to compare against the male,” Shari said.  “My best guess is that they can mate in several different ways, like humans, but I could be wrong.  There’s just too much sexual variation among the Galactics ...”

“Yeah,” Griffin said. 

The Academy had covered the hundreds of different variations in some detail, the tutors pointing out that sex was one of the easiest ways to get in trouble on an alien world.  There were races that mated constantly, races that had mating seasons; races that had intelligent males and unintelligent females or vice versa; races that had elaborate codes that covered every last aspect of the mating rituals, races that thought nothing of doing it wherever and whenever they pleased ... like humans, in some ways.  The Solar Union didn't give a damn what its citizens did, as long as it was done between consenting adults in private.  Adapting the laws to suit aliens with entirely different biological systems had been a major headache when the first immigrants arrived from outside the Sol System.

He shook his head.  About the only
real
taboo among the Galactics was interracial sex, although he’d been told there was an underground subculture where different races met and mated in secrecy.  He’d never understood why - it wasn't as if a human and a Druavrok could produce a child - but the Tokomak had set the rule.  Maybe they’d looked upon the prospect - the impossible prospect - of hybrids and shuddered in horror.  Or maybe they’d just been jerks.  A race that could deny others the prospect of immortality wouldn’t have qualms about banning interracial sex, if only to prevent their subjects from realising they had something in common ...

“Let me know what you find, when you find something,” he said.  “What if their females are unintelligent?”

“I’d argue it was the
males
who were unintelligent, based on this sample,” Shari said, mischievously.  “But I can't say anything for sure yet, sir.”

“I understand,” Griffin said.  “Do they pose a
biological
threat to us?”

“I doubt it,” Shari said.  “Their biochemistry isn’t
that
different from ours, Commander, but I haven't found anything to suggest their diseases can make the jump into our bodies or vice versa.  A couple of the
known
pan-species diseases may pose a threat, but our nanites can handle those before they turn deadly.  I’d be surprised if Amstar wasn't already used to handling such threats.”

Griffin nodded.  Very few diseases could make the jump from humanity to an alien race or vice versa, but those that
could
were incredibly dangerous.  The Tokomak, however, had crafted the first set of medical nanites to
prevent
cross-species disease outbreaks.  Hell,
disease
was rarely a problem in the Solar Union.  Most children had genetic modifications spliced into them from birth that kicked their immune systems into overdrive.  The only real danger was a genetically-modified disease configured to defeat an adjusted immune system and spread through the body and
nanites
could handle that.

“They might try for a genetically-modified disease,” Shari added, “but they’d be asking for retaliation in kind.”

“They’re already practicing genocide,” Griffin pointed out.  “Doesn't
that
ask for retaliation in kind?”

He nodded politely to the doctor, then turned and made his way back to the captain’s office, checking his implant’s inbox on the way. 
Jackie Fisher
had taken very little damage in the conflict, thankfully; the handful of burned-out shield generators had been replaced already, while boarding parties had been dispatched to the industrial nodes before the Druavroks could try to destroy them.  The crews, surprisingly,
weren't
Druavroks.  They’d been taken prisoner when the Druavroks occupied the system, their families dumped into POW camps and promised safety, as long as the skilled workmen served their new masters.  It was odd - the Druavroks seemed to combine a cold-blooded mindset with a hot-blooded desire to exterminate everyone - but
that
hardly mattered.  What
did
matter was that Captain Stuart had committed them to an endless war with a savage lizard-like race bent on exterminating everyone else.

The Captain’s hatch opened as he approached, revealing Captain Ryman and Ensign Howard, who saluted hastily.  Griffin returned the salute - the young officer had a long way to go, but at least he was on the right path - and stepped past him, into the office.  Captain Stuart was sitting on her sofa, looking up at the holographic chart of the sector.  The boarding parties, thankfully, had been able to recover enough data to fill in the blanks.  But almost none of it painted an encouraging picture.

“Captain,” he said, as the hatch hissed closed behind him.  “The doctor finished her examination of the first alien corpse.”

“Very good,” Hoshiko said.  She sounded as though she was distracted by some greater thought.  “I’ve just appointed Captain Ryman as ambassador-at-large to Amstar, with orders to make connections with as many alien groups as possible.”

Griffin blinked in surprise.  “Is that legal?”

“It depends how you read the passages in my authorisation,” Hoshiko said.  She smiled with genuine amusement.  “I’m authorised to appoint deputies who can serve in my place, if necessary, although I have to countersign everything they do before it becomes legal.  He has the contacts we need to start making connections, so I gave him the authority and a broad range of instructions.”

“I think those passages refer to your military subordinates,” Griffin sighed.  He'd have to go through the authorisations himself, just to see if her interpretation held water.  It would probably depend on her success - or lack of it.  “
Not
to a random civilian we just happened to encounter.”

“He isn’t exactly a random civilian,” Hoshiko pointed out.  She leaned back in her sofa, then indicated the chair facing her.  “He does have a roving commission from intelligence as well as a position in the naval reserve.”

Griffin sat down.  “Do you think he’ll make progress?”

“I hope do,” Hoshiko said.  She cocked her head, sending a command to the room’s processor.  The holographic star chart vanished, to be replaced by an image of the industrial stations orbiting Amstar or scattered throughout the system.  “There’s a considerable amount of industrial potential here.  The civilian fabbers could start turning out war material within hours, if we crack their limiter codes. 
That
shouldn't be too hard.”