45. I will be the most hated one of my kind in existence.
"Ah, the little Elder," Tanak said when the holographic Aurealian appeared in his cell with him. "I knew you were stomping about when I was taken, but I am surprised to see you here, that the humans grabbed you as well."
"I do not know what to call you, Other who does not kill. But after some consideration, I decided to speak with you," the hologram said, perfectly understandable in words and tones that Tanak could hear.
"Oh? The humans are making you understandable, are they? I thought they were supposed to be neutral, but it seems that--"
"According to them, ensuring clear understanding on both sides of a conflict is both a neutral act and a pillar upon which any peace must be built upon. That is one of the reasons why I come. I wish to know why. Why did you stalk our hunting ground, but never kill any of us?"
Tanak scratched his mating scars. "It was my reason to exist. I checked the food drops. When they were low, I noted such and the Named Ones that maintained the hunting grounds would drop in supplies for your people, so that they would feed themselves. It was known that we could not maintain the density of Aurealians that the Named Ones wanted to have for the hunt without feeding them, and so I was part of that process. But I am Nameless, and thus unworthy of sinking tooth or claw into anyone of higher status, even an Aurealian game animal."
"We are not mere animals! We are sapients, and your people knew that all along !" came angry shouts.
"And the Named Ones hunted you for sport anyway," Tanak agreed, shrugging. "It had nothing to do with me or my family. We have been nameless for all the generations that I know of, at least fifteen. None of us have ever harmed you directly."
"You have helped the Named Ones in their--"
"I had no choice. I am Nameless, I cannot refuse an order of a Named One. I was ordered to check your food drops on a schedule, and so I did exactly that to the best of my ability. It was a good reason to exist; I enjoyed walking in nature and occasionally scaring your kips. Scaring them only, mind you, I would have been murdered if I did more than roar threateningly at them."
"The humans and the chimpanzee Simon call you Tanak."
"I have no name. But if I did, I would like it to be Tanak," Tanak explained. "The humans entertain my fantasy. But I am Nameless, as my family has been for--"
"You are willing to die for your family?"
"I am willing to kill or die for my family. I would swear the Death Oath to keep them alive," Tanak vowed. "Although I fear I would make a poor Deathsworn."
Stargazer was silent for a moment. Tanak studied the young Aurealian. The humans had certainly done a thorough job of grooming her; the tangles and knots and cuts in her fur were vanished. Small scars remained on her limbs, but were fading. Her faint black and gray striped pattern was clearly visible for the first time he had ever seen it.
"The Human Nathan has an idea, a way in which you may help your family, and many of your people survive," Stargazer admitted. "It required my cooperation, and it requires yours. It will possibly put both of us in danger, but if it succeeds, the human believes it may create a balance, a stability, a harmony between some of our people. Possibly even a world in which the war does not exist for us, and the hunts do not take place. A world in which both of us and all of our kin will have an undeniable right to exist. Will you help me make this thing a reality?"
"The human Simon has kept me informed of what has happened to my family," Tanak admitted. "They lived far from a city and the ocean, but refugees are crowding their lands, and now the hunted Aurealians are beginning to hunt the Nameless. I said I would die to protect my family, and now you give me an opportunity to prove it. Simply tell me what must be done."
"The human said you must do the following things. One, you must accept, from me personally, the name of ‘Tanak.’ Two, you must surrender, unconditionally, to me personally. Three, you must extend your protection to any Nameless who follow you, including but not limited to your family. If you accept these terms, I will tell you how to mark your family as your followers such that the Aurealians on the surface will not hunt them. However, in exchange, they must never kill an Aurealian, and must have never killed one in the past. I am ‘taking it on faith,’ as the human said, that your family has never killed one of my kind, but the humans have stated that there is a way to check such a thing, and that all of your followers other than your family must submit to such testing. Will you accept these terms?"
Tanak was silent for long moments, looking about the small cell that the humans had kept him in for the last several days. Aside from where his blood stained the door from his suicide attempts, it looked little different than when he had arrived. But within it, his life would change, one way or the other.
"If I do these things, Horthus will hunt me to the edges of the galaxy and beyond, as will the Deathsworn and all of the system lords throughout. I will be the most hated one of my kind in existence. Rather than securing my family’s safety, I may be damming them to a painful end, with my own either preceding or following there’s swiftly."
"The human Nathan and the chimpanzee Simon have stated that they will bring your living family aboard the Theseus and treat them as protected refugees and dignitaries. They will be safer aboard the Theseus than they are at the moment. As to your other followers, the ones not related by blood, the choice will be upon their own skin to submit to my protection or spurn it."
Tanak considered the offer for another pause, then simply exhaled. "Tell the humans that, when my family is safe aboard the Theseus, and they promise that they will protect them from whatever follows, I will do whatever they ask of me. Even to the extent of eternal disgrace and dishonor."
Stargazer’s hologram nodded back at him, a very human gesture. "I will notify the humans. They will retrieve your family members as soon as they are located and make them safe. After this, we will broadcast your naming and your surrender."
"And what will follow will follow," Tanak said, shuddering at the imagined wrath of Horthus as the system overlord ripped Tanak’s heart out of his chest and bit into the still beating organ. Because that was exactly what he believed he was agreeing to.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"So, your plan is to make her the new system overlord?" Katherine asked. She was back in her rooms, reviewing the events that she had missed and filing her reports for what had happened in the Neurelian system, including her suspicions that something wasn’t adding up.
"I’m preparing for that eventuality. Of her ruling Horthus Prime, at least, I think having Horthus remain in control of the larger system is actually in everyone’s best interest. She’s been duly elected by her people on Horthus Prime, Ninety-eight percent of the vote with eight-five percent participation. The only ones who didn’t vote were some of the kips, and the remaining two percent who voted for someone else are trying to establish their own Elder as their representative, with limited results," Nathan explained. Voice communication only, she had too many holograms open as she dealt with her reports for her to want to see his talking head staring at her. "Splitting control of the system between the Aurealians and the Horthians might be exactly the sort of balance we can use as a precedence in future conflicts, but we may need Horthus to remain in place to prevent or control retaliation from the Deathsworn."
"It’s not a bad plan, if you can get the Aurealians and the Horthians to stop slaughtering each other," Katherine admitted.
"I’m working on that, too," Nathan grumbled. "The worst part is that the Aurealians have managed to get their hands on Jurassian weapons, which is making the slaughter of Horthian civilians even more one sided, and there’s little that we can do about it, especially as the Aurealians are realizing that they can leave the hunting grounds."
"After centuries of literally being hunted like rabbits, it makes sense that they’d want some retribution," Katherine pointed out.
"Except that the Named Ones are all staying clear, and the Nameless would have been too afraid to retaliate even before Horthus declared that anyone who kills an Aurealian on the planet is dead, along with their entire families," Nathan countered. She could hear the frustration in his voice. "And people continue to die from the aftershocks, the food shortages, and now there are some illnesses beginning to appear in the Horthian refugees."
"If you hadn’t used Atlas, the world would have been shattered, Nathan," she reminded him. "Thousands of kinetic strikes at relativistic speeds, each more deadly than the one that killed the dinosaurs."
"I could have tried redirecting them. Created a gravitic whirlpool around the planets instead of swapping them to their antipodals."
"The level of gravitics involved in stopping that many missiles, at that speed, from an unknown number of angles … Nathan, the effects to the planets would have been nearly as severe. Maybe if we knew for certain where they were all coming from we could have changed them before they hit the outer orbits and knocked them off course, but we didn’t have time to get the relevant assets into place for that, and most of the missiles were stealth coated," she reminded him. "And you knew that because General Notoma told you as much. You engaged Atlas because it was the only way to be certain that all of the missiles would miss. And they did. More civilians would be dead as a lack of your actions than are dying because of them, Nathan, and we both know it."
"And that makes me feel so much better about the knowledge that my decisions have put me into the history books alongside stalwart figures willing to kill people for acting on their beliefs such as Stallin, Mao, Eisenhower, and --"
"It is not the same at all, Nathan, and you know it ," she shouted at him. "You acted to save lives, not force your ideals upon others."
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"It is my ideals which dictated that I was required to take action to save those lives, no matter the cost," Nathan countered. "It is not the same. But it puts me in the same book, Katherine, if not on the same page."
Katherine sighed, typing a paragraph on her notes regarding the diplomats from Neurela. She was curious to tease out more information on their system of governance, but while they had shown no dishonesty, she consistently got differing answers from them on how it actually worked.
"How are the relief efforts going?" she asked after he’d had a moment to settle down. Better to keep him distracted, she hoped.
"The Rodentia corps are all over both of the planets. They’re passing out beacons to civilians this time, just tracking and record keeping ones. It’s how we’re keeping track of migration and directing our supplies. And Horthus’s too. Despite his willingness to murder them personally in horrific ways, he is putting forth great effort to keep as many of the Nameless as he can alive through the disaster."
"Is there anything else we could be doing?" Katherine asked, keeping him on task.
"We could be rounding up the Nameless and sending them to other Jurassian worlds as refugees, like we did with your kips," Nathan suggested. "I offered to Horthus and he turned me down flat. He said he refused to let me ‘steal from him’ and that such an act would be one of aggression which would break our neutrality. Not because it weakened him against the Aurealians, but because it would strengthen his Jurassian opponents while weakening him."
"Was Jon in on that conversation?"
"He was, although he didn’t say much. He and Horthus are still flying around on that shuttle of his, playing go when they’re not busy. He did notice my escorts and raise his eyebrows a little, but it looked to be a signal of respect as much as surprise."
"Escorts?"
"Pleasant scent from another room which makes one curious. Or that’s a fair translation of his name, I’m told. And a few other former Rodentia corps members who chose to teach me Rodentia dance-language instead of being medically retired. The ones that have recovered enough from their injuries to be about are already at their new duties, although Pleasant Scent is one of the only ones who can actually dance. He’s repeating everything I say, more or less, while I try to keep up and figure out what all the movements mean. The fact that there’s not a dictionary to consult is extremely frustrating, but with how important these little guys are, I feel like any commander should be able to at least communicate clearly with them."
"Of course. That is one of the gaps in your education that we couldn’t really prepare you for until after you’d left the ESF," Katherine agreed. "It’s fine as long as you see the need to fix it now. Ultimately, operation ‘song and dance’ was a resounding success. I hope you see that, Nathan. I know when I left you were-"
"Self pity won’t change anything. Jon fucked up by ambushing me with command, I fucked up by not following up on a mission I knew was active, we all fucked up by thinking that the Rodentia corps and Athena were sufficient to handle their map and sap mission. Ultimately we saved a lot of lives, but it was messy."
"And when it’s time to sap the other worlds of the Hrustius, we’ll know where the kips are being held," she pointed out. "We’re making history and setting precedence, Nathan. Humanity’s inaction in this conflict is coming to an end, one way or another. I am entirely certain of that."
"We’ve been ignoring the Aurealians practice of mass suicide at the first hint of a loss, and the Jurassian’s practice of hunting Aurealian kips for sport, for decades. While the ceasefire looks like it might actually happen, I’m still not holding my breath about mediation and long term peace. What, other than that, makes you so damn sure things are going to change?" Nathan demanded.
"My passengers, Nathan. Didn’t I tell you? Neurela sent diplomats with us to formally thank us for providing humanitarian aid to the children of a Hrustian world. They asked to speak with our governments, and I plan on sending them straight to the general assembly of the UEOSC as soon as our mission is completed, success or fail."
"Oh," Nathan said, and for the first time since she’d returned she heard a bit of amusement in her voice. "If they’re diplomats asking for passage, then yeah, we would have to do that, wouldn’t we? Going to pretty hard for those bureaucrats to cover that up, I think."
~~~~~~~~~~
The three generals came out of stasis within moments of each other. Light-hours apart, they were connected using quantum-entangled faster-than-light communications devices. This operation had been decades in planning, and most of that had been running relays to establish FTL communications with a fleet that would be splitting into dozens of parts and engaging on a front that was separated by light-years.
But it would be worth it, in the end. An end to the worlds of the Hrustius was a tragedy, but they had been lost centuries ago. The first of the Aurealian worlds to fall. All that was left was to give Urata to the poor souls trapped in an endless cycle of birth and pain, to bring them the peace of extinction which would come to all Aurealians in the end.
The Aurealian race was losing the fight against entropy. Had been since a rogue gas giant had first visited their birth system millennia ago, throwing comets about like handfuls of gravel and disrupting the orbit of their home planet. Extinction should have come then. The pain and loss that followed could all be traced back to those ancient Aurealian’s unwillingness to simply go into the light, their stubborn determination to defy the call for Urata.
It no longer mattered. All that mattered was destroying the Hrustian worlds before they lost the ability to do so.
Which is why General Betoma was surprised to find, upon awakening from the timeless preserved state of stasis, not only were the planets his ships had targeted not destroyed, they were in the entirely wrong part of their orbit. None of the missiles had even passed nearby, although the remnants of their moons were spreading out into the planet’s new Lagrange point.
He was searching his mind for an answer when the communications lit up with an urgent report. General Notoma, from the stealth strike force that had been sent in first to soften the targets. The advanced general was calling the others into a conference, and, curious as to what exactly had transpired while his ship had been decelerating from relativistic speeds, Betoma quickly accepted. Once Generals Coroma and Kortoma were in the digital conference room – Notoma remained on the wall in two dimensions, while the others were holographic – Notoma began to explain.
"Of course it’s the humans," Kortoma groaned. "They stand aside while we die by the billions, but step in the moment our enemies are threatened to suffer any losses of note. Only a human could act with such hypocrisy and still claim moral superiority."
"The humans do not accept Urata as combat deaths," General Notoma reminded them. "They see it as ‘ritual suicide’ for ‘cultural reasons following a perceived defeat.’ I remind you of the lengths our advisors have suggested we go through to remove the right of Urata from our society. I also remind you that our advisors rightly pointed out that practices of Urata by members of the military have significantly contributed to a majority of our historical losses. As Patron Sawyer pointed out, ‘You’re mostly doing this shit to yourselves. If you actually fought back, you wouldn’t be up against the wall like you are.’"
"But now that we are finally ‘fighting back’ and have banned Urata among members of the military, what do they do? They protect our enemy! It is--"
"They protect us as well. Do not forget there are hundreds of thousands of females and kips on each of the worlds of the Hrustius. We authorized these operations to bring them Urata, to allow them to go into the light of extinction in peace. But is that a decision we can make for them?" General Notoma asked from his screen. "I submit that we were wrong, again, brothers . The humans shared this with us earlier. It will echo throughout all Aurealian worlds soon, but because we are generals, because we sing with authority for the military, we must listen to it first. And it must be considered for all decisions, future and past, regarding our intentions on liberating the worlds of the Hrustius."
The data that came through the connection was holographic, not simply two dimensional, despite coming from the stealth ship. It was of the highest quality, visual and audio, of a young Aurealian female. Attractive, but covered with scars and aged prematurely due to stress.
"I am Stargazer, Eldest of my hunting grounds, and this is the Song of Defiance," the young female sang.
Betoma scoffed at first, both at the absurdity of anyone choosing that name , and of such a young Aurealian being an Elder. The girl looked to be less than two standard decades old, with elders living into the second half of their second centuries. But she was from a world of the Hrustius, where there was no Urata and no stopping the Jurassians from committing their atrocities. And if she didn’t know the history of the larger galaxy, then how could she know the significance of her name?
But as she sang, those two considerations dropped to the wayside. The realizations that had run through Notoma’s mind the first time he’d heard her song ran through his.
The song of Defiance was incompatible with Urata.
It was fully compatible with the teachings of their human patrons. She sang of coughing blood in the face of her enemy with her last breath just out of spite. He had seen the halls of the dead humans where young human warriors had done exactly that to their Jurassian combatants. This kip, this young woman, she understood without needing to be told the concepts that had taken Betoma and the other generals decades of study to understand following their encounters with humans.
She was too valuable to allow the peace of the Urata. She was too valuable to allow to walk into the light. The Aurealian race needed her , perhaps they needed all of the females alive on the Hrustian worlds if they were to survive.
"Stargazer … she is with the humans now?" Kortoma asked, his voice as shaken as Betoma felt himself.
"She is. According to the humans, they have assisted her in forming a chorus stretching the entire planet below, with all living Aurealians naming her Chorus Leader, although the humans do not know to sing that term. Such is the strength of her leadership that only two percent are singing disharmony," Notoma sang.
Betoma exchanged looks with the other generals. They were all singing the same thoughts in their head, it was simply time to make them real.
"Upon my authority, contact the local civilian head of Aurealian government of the nearby world of the Hrustius," Betoma sang, trying to keep his voice as human as possible, although some notes of excitement and expectation and other emotions slipped into his song. "We issue the following statement. ‘Our fleets are yours to command, Stargazer.’"