War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War (17 page)

The light above them intensified. Not only did it get brighter, but it acquired what he could only describe as a feeling of physical weight. It felt as if it was pressing down on them with force, as if it could knock them down to their knees. Then, suddenly, it seemed as if some kind of resistance had been breached because the physical weight of it that strangely material energy lifted from his shoulders, but now, it was inside his helmet and inside his skull. It was behind his eyes.

The voice that spoke came from between his own ears and it was his own voice, hijacked, stolen, used as a sock-puppet. It wasn’t communication like Ram knew. It was more like a thought forced through his mind in his own words: "Who is in charge?"

He heard Dana's voice and Biko's say the words too over local suit comms. It was in their heads as well. The thing like a pygmy star at the center of this ship, was no mere reactor or power plant. It was the passenger. They all stared up at it now with rigid limbs as if on the threshold of some kind of fit. Half his muscles were clenched as if he was holding a live wire.

"Who is in charge?" it demanded again. Ram resisted letting it drag the thought from his mind, but he heard the others over local suit comms.

They said, "Ram Devlin."

Dana's and Biko's bodies relaxed as they were released from whatever had held them. They fell to their knees as the light worked its way deeper into Ram’s head. It boomed at him in Harry Cozen's stolen voice. "Why do you refuse to communicate with me? Are you afraid I'll hear you plotting to kill me?"

Something analogous to a darting wind snatched the thought from Ram like it was a handkerchief in a hurricane. "Yes."

"Do you
know why you are here?" That thing like a wind blew through Ram’s mind and left him half-shattered and hyperventilating, thrashing in the light from above that held him prisoner. "You
don’t
know. Harry Cozen knew. Now, you will understand. I am the entity you will address as Thrall. I represent the Ortani Imperium, an order spanning galaxies and aeons. The species you call the Squidies fought for us. They helped maintain our order in this region. For this, the Imperium shared technologies with them and gave them dominion here...dominion which you have more than resisted. You killed them. Nearly all of them. You are a young species with primitive tools, but rarely if ever has the Imperium witnessed a species so technologically advanced by its own means display such barbarism. That is the reason I now offer Humanity the chance to fill the role the Squidies filled in service of the Ortani. Humanity will be more than a slave race. You will be allied with the greatest empire ever known. For enforcing our will with your military prowess we will make you mighty and many species will serve you. They will pay tribute to your world."
 

Ram tried not to let that wind blow through his mind and rip his thoughts from him, but there was no keeping it out. He heard himself crying out pre-verbal sounds and half-choking on his own spit. The entity known as Thrall pulled back from his mind. "You
still
want me dead. Why?"

He coughed as he spoke. "If we become what the Squidies were to you, it will mean endless war. Conflicts will begin and end, but war will never cease for Humanity."

"Your vanquished enemy served the Ortani Imperium for 1
356 solar years. Until you killed them."
 

"
And how long do you think Humanity will serve?"
 

"
Longer. Much longer. This affair is concluded. The treaty between us is made. The Imperium will now arm you and give you more powerful technologies and make you so mighty this entire galaxy fears you."
 

Ram thrust his next thoughts at Thrall like a pike. "We don't need you. You’re right about us. We are brutal and we excel at making war. We’re good enough at it that I’m willing to bet on us," he said. Those were Harry Cozen’s words once. Now, they were Ram Devlin’s. "I’m willing to bet we can beat whomever you throw at us. We don’t need your Imperium. We have nothing to fear from you. We already killed the best you had."

Ram let Thrall deep enough into his mind then to read the thought he’d been hiding down deepest of all, the thought he'd secreted away: He'd already armed the one, remaining gravity bomb in the
Boomslang’s
ordnance bay.

"
The primitive device you wish to hide from me cannot do me harm."
 

Thrall sorted through Ram's thoughts at will, but the connection the emissary had forced between them wasn't entirely a one-way street. When Ram's thoughts of the last gravity bomb and his plan to detonate it had been snatched from him, what came back to him, what he sensed from Thrall was like a shuddering vibration along the line that connected them, a ripple in the light that Thrall shined into his mind. It was like a shiver of fear...a twinge. In this context, whether it came from a human or an alien, it indicated a bluff.

"
Allegiance with the Ortani Imperium and making war to preserve our order is Humanity’s future. You will accept it."
 

"I
will not steer Humanity to war without end. I will not. I won’t. We are going home now. Prevent us from leaving or interfere with us in any way, and I’ll detonate the gravity bomb. You know I'm telling the truth. Its radius of effect is far larger than this vessel."
 

"Refusal
means war with the Ortani Imperium. Have you not yet apprehended my power?"
 

"
You?" Ram said. "You're just middle management."
 

"This will not end war for your species. You will be conquered."

"W
e may suffer war for a few more years, but there’s a chance for peace at the end of it. I’ll fight for that peace and so will the rest of us."
 

"
Others of your species will be more receptive. There are others like Harry Cozen."
 

It released him then and Ram’s legs wobbled under him so badly that Biko and Dana had to catch him. It was only then he realized they’d been steadying his thrashing limbs and holding him up while Thrall rifled through his mind.
"Tell them I will be coming soon."
The thought boomed inside Ram’s head as Dana and Biko limped him down the steps of the Ziggurat.
"Go now and tell them. Go."
 

Ram got his legs back after ten steps down and from there, they ran straight to the longboat.

Medoc and Max were already set to go. After Ram, Biko, and Dana made it in the airlock, the pilots lifted off and turned the boat so hard on its thrusters that the airlock spun around the three of them.

Once inside the cabin, Ram looked for the opening in the hull they’d come in and suffered a moment of panic when he couldn't find it. The 300-meter circular hole leading out of that gargantuan vessel was still open, and now, when they looked out the aperture they’d entered through, instead of impenetrable tarry blackness, they saw the stars and freedom. Medoc accelerated for it as hard as they could while Thrall's words thundered in all their heads,
"Go. Tell them I am coming."
 

After they crossed the threshold and were outside that vessel's hull, Ram turned to the cherry. "The bomb."

The redsuit nodded. "It's good."

It only took a few gestures in the air to light up the improvised firing circuit in his helmet's visor. The illusion of an imaginary, free-floating button was projected a half-meter out in front of him. It was ten centimeters wide and it glowed a soft green.
"
This guarantees war with them," Dana said. "They’ll be no way to go back."
 

"
That's the idea." If he didn’t do this, then the Staas Company’s Board of Directors and the UN would vote to take Thrall’s proposal in a heartbeat.
 

The imaginary button flashed only once after Ram pushed it, and then, without any further confirmation, it disappeared. "Is that it?" He glanced back to the vast vessel behind them. "Nothing happened."

Tig said, "You push the big, green button and initiate the firing sequence?"

"Yes!"

"Then...it fired." The redsuit said it without a shred of doubt.

Medoc shouted, "It's gone!" The gargantuan vessel had vanished entirely.

Two seconds later, Max spotted it some 49,000Ks away from where it had been. "There it is!"

It seemed to blink back into existence low over the atmosphere of the bloody gas giant, but it wasn't a sphere anymore. The hull was still intact, but it had been distorted. The surface appeared wrinkled now, covered with ridges and valleys like dried fruit. That was the only damage it showed from the outside. Ram thought the pulse from the gravity bomb might have killed the living thing at the center of it because the vessel seemed to lose all will. It drifted like a mindless rock. It fell into the bloody gas giant's gravity well.

Only minutes later, it sank into the upper atmo like a setting moon. The lightning storms started when it got close. They continued through its descent and for long minutes after it was lost from sight. Ram hoped the final, punctuating flash deep down at the bottom of the planet's atmo marked the vessel's impact with a solid core.

"It's over," Ram said. "Set a course for
Hardway
."
 

"It's not over," Biko said. "Not by a long shot."

Epilogue

Privateer warships and haulers as big as two city blocks soared over Ram's head and rose into the gray, North Atlantic sky. Rivers of rainwater sluiced off them and fell upwards as they rode the Staten Island Spaceport's artificial gees to orbit. Commodore Ram Devlin watched the ascending hulls mostly just to feel the rain on his face a little more before he had to go back. It had been so long since he'd had his feet on the Earth that he'd forgotten he liked rain.
 

The Staten Island Spaceport was barely Earth, but at least the Staas Executive Compound had a walled garden with dirt and grass and plants to stand in. Compared to a Privateer ship, this was a nature retreat.

He was lucky the Staas Company's Board of Directors had been willing to come to
him
and meet at the company's high-security wing of the Staten Island Spaceport. The SIS had artificial gravity to ease the strain on the spacers like him who'd been living at .3 gees for years. You could gene-cut against muscle-loss and beef up human bones all you wanted, but going from .3 gees to a full gee was nearly crippling.

For once, he considered himself lucky to be involved in something so secret because the Board didn't mind showing up in person to hear about it. It gave them a chance to tightly manage the counter-surveillance and ensure Ram's final report to them about the events in the Squidies' home system would be kept a secret.

Regarding the destruction of the what was now estimated to be 92% of the Squidies' entire population, the only question he was asked pertained to the likelihood of there being any Squidies lurking out there with revenge on their minds. He pointed to the alien dreadnought and the last of her escorts, to the orbital battlestations, and to the Squidy vessels encountered since the genocide on the homeworld moon. All of them had been boarded without incident, and in not one instance had a single Squidy been found alive. All appeared to have died by their own hand. This fact, partially explained by what he'd been told by Matilda Witt regarding the aliens' belief in some kind of afterlife, led him to conclude that it was highly likely no Squidy remained alive anywhere at all. The members of the Board of Directors only nodded grimly. The Squidies weren't the threat Humanity had to worry about. He'd told them all about Thrall and the Ortani Imperium and the Board had believed him when he said the Imperium would be coming.

They reiterated their commitment to being ready for that day and promoted him.

"Commodore Devlin, it's time." The woman who stepped out from inside to tell him when his hopper had arrived wore a Staas Security uniform. He swore he'd met her before. She wore her blond hair short and when she stood facing him, she seemed aggressively posed somehow, like she was trying to pick a fight. Once he came inside, he saw she faced off with everyone like that. It was the shape of her body and her posture. She reminded him of a bulldog. Or a bulldozer.

Before he got out the door on the other side of the foyer where his hopper would be waiting to take him to his private orbital launch, the young blonde woman stepped from behind a counter and said, "I know it sounds odd, but I'd just like to shake your hand, Mr. Devlin." He was too tired to argue. Her hand was warm and her grip was firm and when he felt her press something in his palm as they disengaged from the handshake, he made sure it couldn't be seen by any cameras.

Sitting in the private launch while they hovered over the main pads for their priority ascent, he finally placed her. He'd never actually seen
her
before. She looked like a young Matilda Witt...so much the spitting image of her that she could have been her daughter. Or her illegal clone.
 

Ram read the handwritten note where he couldn't be seen. On it was the name 'Harry Cozen' written twice in cursive, a time, and a place. He memorized the coordinates (halfway to Sagan Station) and the time, and ate the note. Considering who gave it to him, he thought he understood what it meant. Only once did he imagine he'd poisoned himself by eating it, and the fear passed even before the Staten Island Spaceport and the glittering lights of Freshkills shrank below.