We gathered near one of the icosapod colonies on Pacifica. My own subordinate, Bubbles, a large fish-like scaled alien with a single arm folded under its chin, had volunteered to help with the final evacuation of the last few icosapods left on their homeworld in cat space. The Pacificans were soldiers in the Imperial Spaceforce who were wearing armour and carrying weapons – there seemed to be a perception throughout the Empire that humans made good soldiers after we’d repulsed the cat fleet all those years ago. This group was small: only me, Bubbles, Haruka, the three Pacifican soldiers, and two icosapods, as well as a goldenscales named Ikako to quietly gate us in and out. I hadn’t met this dragon before, but she’d volunteered and had taken her soulstone out. Miko was back on the dragon homeworld minding our son while we risked our lives.
We floated in the shallow clear water as we made the last-minute preparations. Haruka was wearing his own armour, black embossed with gold chrysanthemum motifs and with a faceplate that made him appear to have four eerie, glowing eyes. Kinked-Tentacle, his icosapod liaison, was on his shoulder and watching the group with interest tinged with more than a little fear.
‘Everybody stay completely still while I do a final backup,’ Marque said.
I closed my eyes, then opened them to see the timer on my faceplate had advanced two minutes. If it took that long it wasn’t incremental, it was a full backup, and an indicator that Marque didn’t expect us to return. Like the goldenscales gating for us, we’d all removed our soulstones in preparation for the assault, but the icosapods were in mortal danger by choosing to come with us.
We’d been trying to explain the benefits of a longer life and soulstones to them, and they couldn’t really comprehend the advantage. They passed their life’s legacy to the talekeeper of the next generation, and that was an important heritage that they didn’t want to abandon.
Pacifican Martha Coldcurrent was the leader of the expedition, and we all went still to listen to her.
‘Remember: daytime. The cats will be in their sleep period but there will still be guards. The icosapods are ready for us but expect the cats to engage if we alert them – these icosapods are some of the last “weapons” they possess. Taking these icosapods from them after they lost the moles, amoebas and heavies will be a loss of status so great that if we succeed, any cat present will probably be forced to commit honour-based suicide.’
‘I still think we can get them to defect,’ Horace Seagrass, one of the other Pacificans, said.
‘Not happening under their new social structure,’ Haruka said. ‘If it was the old ways, we might have been able to turn a virgin female, but now that they’ve gained a small degree of freedom and autonomy, I don’t think that will happen.’
‘Look at my son’s foster child,’ I said. ‘We took Newmea in as one of our own and treated her like family. She attempted to kill us all when she was discovered. Their social indoctrination is very thorough.’
‘Right,’ Martha said, cutting off the conversation. ‘Marque will attend in a couple of spheres, but it’s possible that the nanos will disable it and comms will go down. If that’s the case I will direct by telepathy. The goal here is to get these last few icosas out. Any questions?’
We were all silent. We humans checked our weapons. They were set to stun cat biology, but there was a good chance we would need to switch to lethal force.
Martha was obviously thinking the same thing. ‘Remember, if we use lethal force against the cats it’s likely they’ll retaliate in kind. We could start a war here. So: in, stealth, gate, out.’
Ikako created a gate. The water rushed into it then stabilised, and we swam through with Martha at the front, we soldiers next, and the icosapods, gathered around Haruka, at the rear.
‘Full of nanos,’ Marque said. ‘Nanos in comms. Self-destructing. Hygiene, please.’
‘Understood,’ Ikako said, and the Marque spheres popped like balloons, the metal pieces falling to the sandy floor.
They’re in our comms so I’ll direct telepathically, Martha said. Count off.
We all raised her hands – or tentacles or fins – and she nodded.
Close to the bottom, like we practised. Icosas, you’re up.
Our icosapods reached out to their kin, and although I couldn’t see the local icosapods, the response from them was like a sparkling telepathic rainbow of welcome and relief.
Our icosapods had a swift conversation with the locals, and Kinked-Tentacle spoke.
They are heavily guarded. There are fifteen Cats present around the edge of their colony with weapons, all on heavy alert!
Horace and Rana to take out the perimeter closest to us without alerting the rest, Martha said. If they are alerted, go to plan B. Acknowledge.
We all raised hands, tentacles or fins and followed her lead, creeping along the bottom towards the colony. Our armour was set to camo and the colours merged into the seafloor. The cat guards became visible, standing on the bottom in weighted shoes and carrying weapons. They stood three metres apart around the colony and their faces weren’t visible inside their white armour. The guards were alert, looking around them and swinging their weapons at any movements near them. Their AI must have warned them about Marque’s presence in their comms.
Rana and Horace in their camo armour were ripples of movement along the sandy floor, and one of the cats noticed Rana. It swung its weapon and fired at her. It missed her and hit Horace. Horace’s camo was damaged so he came into view and the other cat swiftly swung to shoot at Horace as well. They destroyed his body, then the cat stopped moving and stood still, obviously warning the other cats on comms.
Plan B, Martha said. Go go go.
Rana erupted from the sand, still in her camo, and managed to take down one of the cats before the other blew a hole right through the middle of her. We surged around the conflict, ignoring it, and reached the edge of the colony. The icosapods were gathered in a bunch, all covered in the deep green and black stripes of fear and despair. Many of them were missing tentacles to the degree that some of them had none left.
Ikako created a gate in front of the icosapods and they all rushed into it with relief, the ones without tentacles carried by their kin. The cats’ feet were clearly audible as they clanked in their weights towards us, and they fired at Ikako. We quickly moved in front of her to shield her with our bodies as the icosapods scurried through the gate, herded by Haruka and Kinked-Tentacle.
I heard the blast that hit me more than felt it, and water rushed into my armour from the damage where both legs had been blown off. The suit dosed me with painkillers but it was filling quickly. I took a deep breath and attempted to swim towards the gate, but I couldn’t move fast enough with no legs. Ikako closed the gate and I stopped: all the icosapods were through and we’d been left behind as planned.
I really, really hated drowning. The dark spots danced in front of my eyes and I had a choice: self-destruct, or inhale the water and die. My body made the decision for me, and I took a deep gasping breath of the water. It filled my lungs and I choked on it.
A cat appeared in front of me and worked quickly to seal my suit over my missing legs. It was obviously planning to use me as a hostage. Air filled the suit from the top down and I could breathe again. I was about to hit the self-destruct while the suit extracted the water from my lungs, when the cat’s head floated away from its body in a spreading cloud of red blood. Haruka came into view floating behind it, holding his large blade. He put the sword away, grabbed me and dragged me to a gate.
Just let me self-destruct, I’m critically damaged, I said telepathically.
He shook his head, gathered me up to hold me like a child, and swam through the gate. When we landed on the other side in the waters of Pacifica, he popped his face plate to reveal his face in an air bubble and spoke to me on comms.
‘You promised you wouldn’t make me watch you die again. You’d better keep your word.’
I popped my own face plate into a similar bubble. ‘But I have no legs!’
‘Marque can make you new ones. This is non-negotiable, Jian, you promised me. I never want to see either of you die without a soulstone to transfer and your memories intact.’
I pulled him down with one hand and kissed him, then released his head. We shared a smile.
‘Go through here,’ Ikako said. ‘The other end is at the medical centre. Be quick, I don’t want to flood it.’
Haruka stepped into the gate, still carrying me, and the doctors rushed to place me on a table and return my soulstone to my head.
‘That’s better,’ Haruka said. ‘Look after her, Marque.’
‘I have a new pair of legs ready to go,’ Marque said. ‘This won’t take long at all.’
Haruka touched my face as Marque lowered me into the liquid.
I floated back out of the liquid and had a moment of disorientation, then my eyes focused and I could see Haruka and Miko watching me with expressions of distress.
‘How do you feel?’ Haruka asked. ‘Do they hurt?’
I wiggled my toes. ‘It feels like I never lost them.’
‘Good.’ He put his hand out and assisted me to sit upright on the bed. I hopped off and walked up and down.
‘Now I have an idea how Richard Alto felt all that time ago,’ I said. ‘Did we save them?’
‘Yes,’ Miko said. ‘We now have all of them except the ones on the cat ships.’
‘I doubt that we’ll be able to save those ones,’ Haruka said. ‘But the icosapods can’t reproduce in the ship-based tanks; the water isn’t clean enough for the babies. Once the ships drop out of warp, they have four years, maximum, to use them as a weapon and then they won’t have any more.’
‘Sad, but effective,’ Miko said. ‘We’ve gutted their biological weapons program, and our own biological weapons are as strong as ever.’
Haruka glanced questioningly at her. ‘Our own biological weapons?’
Miko gestured towards me. ‘Full-blood humans.’
‘We are not weapons,’ Haruka said with dignity.
‘No, we’re toys,’ I said.
He snorted with laughter. ‘Sex toys.’
‘No, you aren’t!’ Miko said. ‘You’re treasured equal spouses—’ Her voice petered out. ‘Don’t make jokes like that, it’s not funny!’
‘What about the cats?’ I asked. ‘What was their response?’
‘They sent us a message from their homeworld,’ Haruka said. ‘The usual bluster, “act of war”, give them their subjugates back, bullshit bullshit, surrender now or face the consequences – you know the drill.’
‘All of us need to be on heightened alert,’ I said. ‘They’ll try to take revenge on us – and I mean you two and me specifically, here – for taking four of their most useful subjugate species away from them.’
Haruka quirked a small smile. ‘Actually, five more subjugate species have quietly contacted us asking about their friends and why they deserted the Republic.’
‘Extremely heightened alert,’ I said. ‘I need to work out a security plan to protect our family.’
Later that evening I tapped on Haruka’s workshop door.
‘Come on in,’ he said from inside, and I slipped in.
It was Haruka’s space and I felt like I was intruding. The workshop was the size of a classroom, full of dust and clutter. Pieces of wire, blocks of precious metal, and small containers of gems sat on every surface, along with a variety of tools. He was sitting at the main table wearing his singed coveralls. The table was the only clean surface in the room, and he was using a hammer and tiny chisel on a ring held in a vice in front of him.
‘Take a look and tell me what you think,’ he said, removing his magnifier and passing it to me.
The ring was platinum with a large circular diamond surrounded by smaller rectangular ones.
‘It’s lovely. Who’s it for?’ I asked.
‘I can’t say, it’s a surprise gift.’ he said. ‘The stone’s a bit big for my taste, but there isn’t much you can do with Jovian diamonds – the things are enormous.’
‘Why a ring?’ I asked. ‘Jovian diamonds are usually better on pendants.’
‘It’s an engagement ring—’
I interrupted him with glee. ‘About time Richard Alto asked Sarah to marry him! They’ve been together for what – ten years? The Empress will be delighted – there are so few of us pure-blood humans marrying our own kind that it’s impacted the size of the army.’
‘Don’t let anyone know!’ he said, alarmed. ‘They’ve discussed it but he hasn’t formally asked, and he wants to do it the old-fashioned way.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t. She’ll think it’s charmingly quaint; I don’t think anyone’s proposed like that in decades.’ I sat on the stool next to him and handed the magnifier back. ‘You killed someone today. I’m pretty sure it was your first time.’
He put the magnifier back on and returned to work on the ring. ‘Of all the people I would approach for counselling on this, you are the last one I would think of. Empathic skills notwithstanding, you have the sensitivity and compassion of a . . .’ He searched for the word. ‘A soldier. Someone who kills people for a living.’
‘That’s why I came,’ I said.
He was silent, studying the ring, then spoke. ‘Point taken. Am I supposed to be having an emotional meltdown because I killed someone? I think I am. I think I’m supposed to be having a crisis of conscience, wondering how I could do such a thing; feeling compassion for the family of the cat I killed, and guilt for taking a life.’ He took the magnifier off and turned to me. ‘I feel none of that. I don’t even feel guilty because of it. I’m glad I stopped that cat from torturing you, and from torturing those icosapods.’ He shrugged and turned back to wipe the ring with a polishing cloth. ‘I have lingering resentment over them killing my brother, I suppose. He was a terrific kid and was always on my side whenever people were cruel to me because of my scales. I was heartbroken when he moved to the colony world, and even more when all of them were killed by the cats.’
‘Okay,’ I said, hopping off the stool. ‘If you need to talk about how you don’t feel bad, I’m always here. But I’m glad you don’t feel bad because I don’t feel bad either. I think you’re a born soldier, just like I am.’
‘All those years of learning the art of the sword,’ he said, returning the magnifier to his head and picking up his tools. ‘I was wondering if I would ever have the chance to use it, and whether I would feel guilty about it. Now I know.’ He tapped the ring with the tiny chisel. ‘I’ll let you know if I need to talk, Jian, but I think I’ll be perfectly all right.’
I kissed his shoulder – I couldn’t reach his face through the equipment – and went out.