Revolution, page 12
“Assuming they move slowly, plotting stellar motion well enough for future fleets, how long to get to where Ajax was?” da Silva asked. “Does that system even have a name?”
“It does not,” Addison smiled at him. “Nobody lives there and every ship and cell called it something different, in case they got penetrated. Way better to confuse spies.”
Rodrigo chuckled at that, seeing more of the real Addison who had been lurking behind the officer pressed into service.
“Time?”
“If we don’t hit anything, we ought to get there in a few days,” Addison said, turning to Carlos.
“My team will surprise you,” Carlos laughed. “They’re looking at this as a challenge, since a Vaadwig Pilot already did it. Don’t want her to show them up, you know.”
Rodrigo joined the laughter, but it still felt hollow to him.
Westphalia had stolen a march on him. On them.
Maybe on the Innruld.
What would happen when they knew where to fly their fleets to?
Thirty
Aileen
She had never set out to be a spy. Or a Command Officer, for that matter. Aileen had just wanted to solve her three-dimensional puzzles and fly cargo for a living.
They were a long ways from that ever happening again.
As it was, she’d assigned Lazarus to handle Cargomaster duties on Astral Jewel while she was gone, because he insisted that he couldn’t leave the ship under any circumstances. It wasn’t quite that bad, but the damned stork with the good fingernails could be almost as stubborn as her when he wanted to be.
Wasn’t worth the fight right now.
Alla Dunham had come and gone. Met the Humans and H’Brige and been about as utterly freaked out as Aileen had expected.
Now Aileen and Eha had to go talk to some people about rebellion.
Gowook was a nice world. They had landed in the southern hemisphere, in a medium-sized coastal metroplex. The populace was largely Churquen for the planet as a whole, but the city of Ersop was much more cosmopolitan, to the point that she didn’t particularly stand out as she and Eha walked and slithered along a simple concrete sidewalk in a nicer neighborhood.
Aileen wasn’t used to real weather, but at least it wasn’t raining right now, although the forecast said it was coming.
Listening to weather forecasts was just weird, and Aileen was trying not to obsess over it. Nothing ever changed on a station or a ship.
The ground floors around them were all shops or entrances to larger stores that might take up a whole city block. Everything was towers around her, four to ten stories tall, with residential in most of them and a few that were primarily dedicated to office space, for those businesses that actually needed everyone in the same room for meetings or something.
Not too many Yithadreph around, but more than say Qooph or Vaadwig, which was another reason she’d drawn this duty.
You couldn’t stand out as a spy. Or whatever the hell Aileen had gotten herself into now.
“You’re doing fine,” Eha offered as they approached one building, slipping through a door that led to the residential lifts, between a bodega and a scale salon.
Churquen worlds could be strange places.
“Feeling weird,” Aileen admitted.
She reached inside her jacket and touched the weapon Lazarus had insisted she carry. He called it a Manticore light laspistol. Probably was to a Human. Her hand could barely get around the grip, and the weight of the thing made her feel like she was walking off-balance.
“We’re almost there,” Eha reassured her.
Into the lobby, waiting for a lift. Aileen found herself studying the space. Nobody around. White tile floors that hadn’t been cleaned this year. Gray tiles to about shoulder high that might also be white if someone went at them with the right chemicals and enough patience. Wood above tiles that looked old enough to have dried completely out and started to rot.
If there was a better metaphor for Innruld Space, Aileen wasn’t sure she’d heard it so far.
A Tarni emerged when the lift doors opened, eyeing the two of them askance as he skittered sideways and around, heading for the back entrance. No words were exchanged, just looks, but the best Aileen could say to describe the man was furtive.
The whole city had that feel, come to think of it. Had it gotten worse in the last year, or was it always like this on the ground? In space, everyone was a little more something. Welcoming? Polite?
If the Innruld pissed off the merchants, they would just stop calling at a station. If enough of the merchants left, the populace had to go elsewhere to find jobs.
Maybe the masters of the galaxy didn’t have to pretend to be nice, down here on the ground?
Eha pressed a button and the doors closed. Up and then they were on the fifth floor, exiting and turning down a hallway.
If the lobby had been bad, this corridor was worse. Aileen could smell the despair. It tasted like rancid cooking grease that should have been recycled a month ago, mixed with a harsh ammonia or something that was used to clean around here.
The floor had originally been gray tile, but someone had covered it over with a laminate at some point. An orange and yellow flower design probably intended to brighten things up. Except that foot traffic had worn paths in the plastic, back down to the tile, leaving curled edges. The walls might have been painted white at some point, but Aileen assumed that enough beings just breathing could bring it down to that faded grungy color that might be a good mix of brown and gray and looked like a mustardy mold that had died of depression and ennui along the way.
Aileen didn’t think she’d made a noise, but Eha glanced back over a shoulder.
“Sorry,” Aileen said.
“I understand,” Eha replied. “This is a poorer sector, but that’s on purpose.”
On purpose? Why the hell would the Innruld intentionally depress the homeworld of one of the largest, most productive species in Innruld Space?
Oh, right. Revolution. Better to keep them poor and shackled. Less time to make political demands if just putting food on the table was hard enough.
They turned a corner and went down a back hallway. Eha stopped and knocked on a particular door and they waited.
Aileen hadn’t seen anyone else since she entered the lift.
Just entropy.
Eha knocked again on the door. Nothing complicated or fancy. Couple of raps to get the attention of those people inside and let them know that they had visitors.
It was probably just Aileen’s imagination that she heard guns come out of holsters and safeties turn off.
Sound of someone approaching the door. Peephole got dark, light, and then dark again. She wondered if someone had stood to the side and covered it with a thumb against someone else shooting.
The corridor, hells the whole building, had that sort of a feel to it.
Long pause, like they were being inspected, in spite of being expected.
Or maybe because of it. High-stakes poker, as Oluchi would have called it.
Bolts started clearing on the other side of the door. More than even this neighborhood suggested necessary.
Finally, it opened and a Kreeghal woman eyed them, then stepped back into the hallway beyond, gesturing them to pass. Eha led. Aileen gave the Kreeghal some stinkeye, but that was just professional courtesy. She was feeling rude and unruly right now.
The inside was a world apart from the other idea of the apartment’s hatch. Door. Whatever.
Someone had painted in here. Bright pastels that immediately lifted her spirits and suggested hope. There were ever plants in pots, which was weird, but helped. Like walking through a jungle.
They emerged into a clearing. Or a living room. Something. Less plants. More space. People in chairs and on a couch.
Alla Dunham was there. The Kreeghal stood by the door. Deeper in were two new Churquen males and…son of a bitch?
Aileen was going for the pistol when Alla flared up and waved both hands to distract her.
“He’s with us,” Alla said loud enough to get her attention.
Him? Really? An Innruld?
Aileen studied the man. Growled, but stopped short of doing anything, realizing that there was a reason the Kreeghal woman had followed so close. Aileen could smell her perfume and glanced over.
Yup, about to get tackled.
She gave the woman a sickly smile and blew out a breath.
Aileen turned back to the Innruld and studied him. Tall, lean, pretty. Middle-aged, give or take. Perfect blond hair long and pulled back into a tail but not a braid.
Well-enough dressed, but she wasn’t used to Innruld not in uniform. You found a few as merchants on stations, but usually as overseers and assholes in charge.
This one was dressed like an office worker. Did Innruld have companies without any other species employed? Weird.
He had flinched at her reaction. He flinched now at her disdain, but gave her a weak, understanding smile.
“Aileen Enjehn, this is Turkan Volan,” Alla introduced them. “He’s with us.”
Aileen wanted to inquire if everyone here was insane, but that much was obvious. They were all rebels, after all.
She nodded to the man, specifically not grumbling at him.
“Turkan, this is Eha, my daughter,” Alla continued.
Eha had the grace to slither close enough touch the man. Wasn’t a coil, but they rarely did that with bipeds. Too easy to knock them over.
“Sit,” Alla commanded, so Aileen did.
The nameless Kreeghal woman sat close enough to tackle her if Aileen got feisty, not that she blamed anyone.
Eha surprised the hells out of her by turning this way and smiling.
“I don’t understand anything military, so Aileen, could you explain to everyone what you’ve done?” Eha asked.
Aileen fought hard and managed to keep her ears from going back flat. She drew another breath and held it for a second.
“So we found a new sentient species in deep space,” Aileen said. “Long story with a lot of details and mixed outcomes of adventures, but they’ve sent help into Innruld Space. Not much, but they didn’t need to send much.”
“Why is that, Aileen?” Alla asked carefully.
She already knew the truth, so this was for the benefit of the others.
“Human technological sophistication is greater than Innruld,” Aileen replied simply. “Significantly.”
“How significantly?” Turkan asked, his pale face whiter now.
“The main Human warship could blow up Zhoonarrim Station without breaking a sweat,” Aileen said. “It’s hidden in deep space right now, and we stole a small Security Barc, modified it as camouflage, and are flying around in it so we could get here to talk to you folks.”
She expected the Innruld to pass out from the news. That was about the only point farther down the scale he could go. Instead, he flushed, almost with excitement.
Really? An Innruld?
Turkan turned to Alla with an excited smile.
“You could actually do it?” he asked her.
“We believe so,” Alla nodded. “But there is a problem.”
“Which one?” Turkan laughed. “I have notebooks of potential problems we’ve tried to plan for.”
“The Humans hold it in their hands to break the Innruld,” Alla said. “Shatter their power so suddenly and so completely that Innruld Space as we know it collapses into chaos overnight.”
Yup, back to pale.
He turned those pretty eyes on Aileen now, and she couldn’t help but smile at him: mouth, whiskers, AND ears.
“You said destroy Zhoonarrim Station?” he asked. “That wasn’t a euphemism?”
“That’s one shot with the big gun,” Aileen said happily. “Chop the damned thing in half like a diamond cutter.”
There. That was the color of Innruld White she had been expecting.
He even gulped, which made her whole week better.
“I appreciate that you and I might have slightly different opinions on the topic,” he began, searching carefully for the words. “What about the innocents aboard a station like that? Not everyone there will be deserving of such a cruel fate, however much my cousins might be.”
“That’s why we stole a smaller ship,” Aileen said. “So we could sail around and not have to kill every Security Barc and Pyramid we met. Most of the Pyramids don’t have any guiltless aboard.”
“Granted,” he nodded.
Then he surprised her and turned to the other two Churquen. They sat close together like brothers, but didn’t have any sort of match to their scale patterns, so she didn’t think they were related. Best friends?
“Do we launch the Ark?” he asked them.
“We think it might be premature at this moment,” Eha suddenly spoke up, which was good because Aileen was lost. “But we think that the extended organization needs to be prepared for such an outcome.”
“Ark?” Aileen asked anyway.
Turkan fixed her with those bluish-gold orbs.
“In that moment when the Innruld lose control, there is a plan to collect a set of vessels with enough colonists to start a new civilization outside Innruld control,” he said in a hard tone. “I and my kind are not welcome on those ships, but part of my contribution to the cause has been access to the databanks necessary to plan.”
Aileen touched Eha’s hand to get her attention.
“Vilga’s Stand?” she asked.
Nobody else in the room would appreciate the meaning.
Eha nodded and Aileen felt her ears go back in spite of anything she could do to stop them.
“Does Lazarus know?” Aileen pressed.
“Not in so many words,” Eha said. “But conceptually he is aware of that as an option. It is a known system, inhabitable, with allies we believe we can trust over the long term. The alternative was any of a number of other systems that people like Addison have surveyed over the decades, but they are less valuable, because each represents sailing into the darkness and rebuilding our entire civilization almost from scratch.”
Aileen blew out another heavy breath, wondering if this was going to become a habit.
“What about Westphalia?” Aileen asked. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire?”
“Risk,” Alla said. “All things bring risk, but the rewards might be worth it. Certainly the Species would fight Westphalia even more savagely than the Innruld, having had a taste of freedom.”
“Shit.” Aileen didn’t seem to have any better way to sum it up.
“Indeed,” Eha smiled.
The next question she wanted to ask was derailed by the Kreeghal woman suddenly standing.
“We have a potential alert,” she announced in a hard, quiet voice. “Innruld security vehicles are pouring out of several stations around the city. They appear to be centralizing here.”
Aileen studied the woman and realized that those three eyes were staring hard at her. And she had a small comm piece tucked into one of those pointy ears to listen.
The Kreeghal wasn’t quite as tall as Aileen, but outweighed her by a bunch. Long arms and short leg on a biped. Hair like a Human but all over her body, rather than something like fur.s
Tough. Hard. Aileen would settle for shooting the woman, rather than trying to wrestle. She’d lose that match quickly.
“Are we betrayed?” Alla asked the room.
Aileen noted a lot of panic on the faces around her. Less so on Eha and the Kreeghal, but she seemed to be the only one taking it in stride.
But then, in the back of her mind, she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“How soon until they get here?” Aileen snapped at the Kreeghal. She didn’t even know the woman’s name, but now was not the time, especially if some of them ended up in jail by sunset.
“Two minutes,” she replied.
“Not long enough to do more than walk out the front door into their hands,” Aileen mused.
She reached into her jacket and grabbed the Manticore with one hand and her comm with the other.
Aileen keyed the system as people around her started to stand and mill around. Galumphs waiting for the rancher.
“Astral Jewel,” a deep, careful voice replied.
Lazarus, rather than Kuei. That was good.
“I have an emergency,” she said simply. “Three minutes to catastrophe.”
“Get to the roof,” Lazarus said.
“Acknowledged,” Aileen said, turning to Eha and smiling as she pocketed the comm. “You heard the man.”
“What’s going on?” Turkan demanded.
“I’ve got help coming,” Aileen said, nodding the Kreeghal woman to get to the door and open it so they could flee.
“What can your friends do against a security patrol?” Turkan challenged.
Aileen smiled up at the even-taller-stork. She laughed.
“Give you a taste of Human violence,” Aileen said.
The others didn’t understand what that meant. Not even Eha, although she’d been with them at Zhoonarrim when Lazarus lifted a damned filing cabinet and put it into place with only his back muscles.
Aileen waited for the rest to get out ahead of her. Now was not the time for someone to panic and try to cut a deal with the Innruld. This smelled like a setup, but she didn’t know enough to cast aspersions.
But she also knew Lazarus was about to move heaven and earth.
Ersop was just going to be the first to taste his wrath.
Thirty-One
Lazarus
Lazarus threw himself into the command chair of Astral Jewel. It fit Aileen, but he had also put in everything necessary to adjust it back to his size. Kuei and Cormac had been waiting, but he hadn’t told them what they were waiting for.
