Chapter 22: Ttynn

MARKIN: We request that you send a full, detailed report of these Talent structures along with the cargo. In addition, we request data on what alterations have been done to the beings.

 

ELD: We can provide you with the Talent listing as per your request, but our medical files cannot be shared. As we have no interest in the creatures once they are under your guardianship, we encourage you to alter them to fit your needs. You will find flare genetics malleable, and with a gestation period of three months, you should find your desired traits coming to the forefront in only a few generations.

—Segment from a transcribed communication from the Ardulan Eld to the Risalian Markin, 2008 CE

 

JANUARY 27TH, 2061 CE

 

“The Keft ship is on an intercept course with our upper-left hanger bay,” Captain Hhffvnoll said. He rose to Yorden’s height and curled in his ears. Next to Yorden, Salice leaned casually against the hallway wall, eyeing the Mmnnuggl captain with…Yorden couldn’t quite tell. Wariness? Fondness?

Hhffvnoll continued. “We’re allowing access, as you instructed. However, I am not pleased with the current turn of events. This debris cloud, no doubt the work of the flare, is needlessly antagonistic. I appreciate your efforts in bringing her to us, Conqueror, but in this scenario, what do the Neek hope to gain? What do we gain by bringing the biped aboard, unless it is to accept Neek surrender, which is not our goal?”

“But you’d accept Ardulan surrender, right?”

Hhffvnoll chirped. “Yes, I would accept an Ardulan surrender.”

“Well, the Neek speaks for both, as I understand it, and she can help convince Emn, if you’re still hoping she’ll join your side. They’re mating, conveniently. This is what you wanted. A chance to talk to the Ardulans. Negotiate. Broker. You’ve shown your cards, and they’ve shown theirs—and maybe that’s enough, for now. You won’t know until you talk to her.” Yorden leaned in conspiratorially. “Besides, I’ve got the Ardulans under my control, even if things seem otherwise. Even if things seem out of hand later, I’ve got this.”

Hhffvnoll spun once in a circle but remained silent. They started walking, Hhffvnoll keeping pace with Yorden and Salice just behind, and eventually rounded the circular hallway to the docking bay. Every fifth step, Salice’s toe caught the back of Yorden’s heel. Not enough to trip or hurt, but enough to let Yorden know she was still there. It was endearing—and irritating. Yorden just hoped she dropped the habit once they left the pod.

They stopped again upon entering the bay as Atalant’s ship was just beginning entry. “I assume she will also explain why Emn is directing the activities outside?”

Yorden stroked his beard and shrugged his shoulders. “Emn is in containment on the Kelm. I had her placed there myself, using your crew members. If she’s directing anything, it’s from behind a containment field. I doubt she has any role in this.”

At that statement, Hhffvnoll slicked his ears back against his body. Yorden surveyed the hangar while the other captain processed the information. A number of spheres bobbed at the interfaces embedded in the black paneling that lined the walls. Some were vibrating, and a few of the younger spheres were rolling on the metal floor, whistling to themselves. In the middle of the floor, garish in the lime-green lighting, a magenta ship shaped like a deformed acorn cut its thrusters and slid to a stop. It was twice Yorden’s height and looked long enough for five or six separate rooms aside from the cockpit. Salice exhaled audibly, although whether it was from the colors or anticipation, Yorden couldn’t tell.

“What’s got them so upset?” Yorden asked.

Hhffvnoll let his ears sag. “The outside action toys with their emotions. It is hard for my people to move on from Ardulum. They are…easily swayed at this juncture. They are eager, I suppose, to hear what the Neek has to say.”

“If she’s representing Ardulum and is here to surrender, don’t you want more of your people in here?” Yorden strode towards Atalant’s ship and thumped the hull. “If you want to reinforce rhetoric, nothing works better than a visual.”

Hhffvnoll bobbed once. “Perhaps. A few additional ones, then. I will send the message.” The captain emitted several low chirps. At a nearby panel, another Mmnnuggl chirped in response, and a band of green light streaked across the interface.

“Timing will be very important with this.” Yorden turned back to the Mmnnuggl captain, pleased to see that Salice had disappeared. The Mmnnuggls rarely noticed her anymore, which made it all the easier for Salice to sneak onto Atalant’s ship.

There were six entrances to the round hangar, and Mmnnuggls began to filter in simultaneously from all sides. They stopped and stacked together in a wide crescent around the ship, leaving room for more to fill in behind. The magenta ship depressurized with a loud hiss. The first row of Mmnnuggls skittered back.

Be smart, Atalant, Yorden thought. You know this game. We talked about how this would go.

Hhffvnoll moved to Yorden’s side. “We are ready. She may proceed at any time.”

Yorden squared his shoulders. Immediately after, the side of the ship opened to form a ramp. A tall woman glided down, dressed in loose golden robes tied with a striking purple sash. Her light hair was pulled back in its usual braid, and to the unfamiliar eye, her face likely looked calm. Yorden caught the tells however—the tightness of her lower lip, the way she pulled at the cuffs of her sleeves. She was nervous, and he didn’t blame her. They’d played bluffs in the past, but never like this.

“The Neek is an eld of Ardulum?” Hhffvnoll whispered to Yorden. “In the transmission, it looked to be a joke. Her words will have more impact, although I question Ardulum’s choices in this.”

“I question Ardulum’s choice in a lot of things,” Yorden muttered under his breath.

Atalant reached the bottom of the ramp. Her eyes found Yorden’s and twitched a fraction of a second before her seemingly calm expression smoothed back into place. Yorden stepped forward, a hand held out in greeting.

“Eld,” he said, his tone flat. “We are prepared to accept your surrender and begin negotiations.”

The Mmnnuggls twittered nervously behind him. Hhffvnoll was right. The gold robes were hitting all the sensitive spots. Hhffvnoll seemed less affected, but then, Hhffvnoll didn’t seem nearly as invested in the Ardulan religion as the other Mmnnuggls Yorden had met.

“I have come for the Ardulan you keep prisoner here,” she responded just as flatly. “You will return her to her people.”

“Not happening.” Yorden crossed his arms over his chest. “We don’t do Ardulum anymore. Didn’t you get the memo? We killed her. All Ardulans must die. Rhetoric and such.”

A very real shudder came from Atalant. A little too close to home? They hadn’t gotten specific about the dialogue, but this wasn’t the time to take things personally. Unsure of what else to do, Yorden winked. Atalant caught the motion, and Yorden hoped she remembered the meaning behind the Terran gesture. She needed to stop pressing the Salice issue, given that the woman was at this moment sneaking onto Atalant’s ship.

“We might spare you, if you ask nicely. You are a Neek, not an Ardulan. The Mmnnuggls can see this clearly on your hands. They don’t have a quarrel with your people, nor any beings the Ardulans have misled. Hell, they’re willing to put their faith in a Terran. That should tell you something. Besides, we know your history.”

Something changed in Atalant’s face—a fleeting emotion that Yorden couldn’t place. “I am Eld,” Atalant returned. Her voice was chilly, and the thick hair on Yorden’s arm rose. “Chosen by the andal, and quite against my wishes. I would be open to brokering a cease-fire, but the Mmnnuggls have a great deal to atone for. As do you, Conqueror Kuebrich.”

Yorden absorbed the bite. It was well deserved. Even the Mmnnuggls knew it, as their chittering rose in tempo. “We would be open to reparations for the Neek,” he said slowly.

Hhffvnoll chirped in agreement. “The andal destruction was not done lightly. We will not give in to Ardulum, however.” Hhffvnoll floated up to Yorden’s head height and spun in three complete rotations. “I will negotiate for Neek. I will not negotiate for Ardulum.”

“Then, we have nothing left to discuss.” Atalant reached into the pocket of her robes and pulled from it a fibrous, white clump. It fit perfectly into her palm, and Yorden almost thought he saw it jiggle. Hhffvnoll’s ears curled in and some of the spheres began to whistle, but Yorden held up his hand. The whistling died away.

“The scans of the Lucidity showed no weapons onboard,” Yorden said loudly to the spheres. “Just the ones physically attached to the exterior of the ship. Calm down. It has to be mostly organic.” He met Atalant’s eyes, hoping the flatness of Representative Hepatica was an aesthetic choice and not an indication of their health.

“What am I looking at?” Yorden challenged. Now, they were back on track.

“Ardulum’s negotiation.” Filaments began to unwind from the mass and fell between Atalant’s fingers. They hit the floor, continuing to elongate, until the final bit of white bled from her hand.

Hhffvnoll floated to the floor to inspect the mass. “What is this?” he demanded. The sphere turned toward Yorden, his ears thin rolls against his body. “This was not discussed. This conversation is not as it should be. In addition, our scans reveal chitin in this—this thing. What is it?”

Hepatica suddenly expanded exponentially across the floor, their white filaments curling onto pods and up walls. Flakes of metal began to float down.

Mmnnuggls broke from their columns and tried to surround the mycelium, which now coated most available surfaces. Hhffvnoll shrieked commands in Mmnnuggl, but the spheres, panicking, ignored him.

Yorden grabbed the Mmnnuggl captain by the ear and pulled him close, so that his lips were right against the pale appendage. “You don’t have to die today,” Yorden hissed, “and neither do your people. Your family is on this ship. I want you to think really hard about your choices. Ardulum is fighting back, and we can all walk away from this and go back to our lives, or your people can get thrown back a century. Your choice.”

A low whistle came from a narrow slit on Hhffvnoll’s body. Yorden released the ear, and the Mmnnuggl spun sharply. His ears twitched, and the top of his body took on a sickly green tone. Yorden huffed. He’d been on a Mmnnuggl ship too long. He knew exactly what that coloring meant.

“I’m not behind Ardulum,” Yorden explained in a low whisper. “I don’t give a fuck about that planet, but I do care about some of its inhabitants and rulers. What I’d like is for you all to shake torsos and agree to leave each other alone, but if that isn’t going to happen, I’m siding with the Neek. ‘Cause whether you like it or not, Ardulum, through some very convoluted pathways, does, in fact, listen to me.”

Neither got another chance to speak. The floor cracked. A ten-meter section near one of the doorways gave way, and three Mmnnuggls fell through to the deck below. That spurred everyone into action. Spheres charged the now aerial mycelium with their bodies or shot at it with lasers, but only managed to singe Hepatica’s white hyphae. The fungal mass, now writhing with thick tendrils, snaked through the small gaps in the wall and short-circuited the electronics. The paneling broke apart. More Mmnnuggls fell.

“It’s time to go, Captain.” Atalant grabbed Yorden’s sleeve and tugged. “Salice is already onboard.”

Yorden began to follow, but looked back over his shoulder before boarding the ramp to the ship. He couldn’t distinguish the Mmnnuggl captain through the chaos, but he called loudly, “Captain! Get your kids out of here!” A creaking sound came from above, and when Yorden looked up, powdered flakes from the ceiling snowed onto his face. He tried to wipe the bits from his eyes using the sleeve of his flight suit, but that only served to grind in the powdered metal. He could still see, but his vision was distorted and grainy and—damn his eyes hurt. He ran up the Lucidity’s ramp, tears streaming from his eyes.

“Yorden!?” The voice was Atalant’s.

“Get us out of here, Atalant!” Yorden bellowed back as he felt the solidity of the Lucidity’s carpeted floor under his feet. He bumped into a wall, eyes still tightly shut, and heard the boarding ramp shut.

“Captain—”

“Atalant, now!” Yorden rubbed at his eyes, desperate to clear them or get some relief from the pain. He heard the stamp of Atalant’s boots on the carpeted floor and then the firing of the ship’s thrusters.

The Lucidity jerked, and Yorden fell against the wall, hitting his head against what felt like textured wallpaper. He forced his eyes open again, this time to a haze of colors that bled into one another.

“Pbbb.” Salice rested a hand on Yorden’s shoulder as the Lucidity made another tight turn.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered. “Take me to the cockpit, okay?”

Salice led Yorden through a hall of yellows into a surprisingly large cockpit. Here, the yellows bled into greens and browns and then formed into shapes he thought looked like chairs.

“Yorden?” That was Atalant’s voice. Salice led him to a chair, but he refrained from sitting. He’d not break her new ship his first time on it.

“Can’t see well,” he said, rubbing at his eyes again. “We on track?”

The tone of Atalant’s voice changed due to either worry, fatigue, or both—Yorden didn’t know. “We’ve cleared the Ttynn and left a gaping hole in her side. Three of the pod frigates and half a dozen of the small pods, oval and otherwise, are moving towards her. Maybe to salvage Mmnnuggls? Regardless, we’ve got about a dozen more coming towards us, too.”

Yorden nodded and dug his fingers into the thick velvet cover of the chair. “Did we leave someone behind?” Yorden asked, thinking of the fungus Atalant had loosed on the ship. “Representative Hepatica? I didn’t see them get back onboard.”

Atalant pointed to her lap, where a smear of white seethed. “They’re here with me,” Atalant said, staying focused on the main viewscreen. “They are also on the Ttynn and, very shortly, will be on every ship that tries to help the Ttynn. There’s enough hemicellulose in the Ttynn for Representative Hepatica to induce massive sporulation. We’ll pick them up after they’ve completed reproduction. Right now, we sit here as bait.”

Yorden hated being bait, and he hated the choppy movements of the Lucidity as Atalant wove through the thick field of disassembled ships, putting distance between them and the fleet and drawing some of the pods away. Yorden rubbed his eyes and then squinted at the screen. The Ttynn still shone with bits of green light around its circumference. He could see blobs of black around it, likely the large and small Mmnnuggl pods still buzzing around like bees to a hive.

“Since you can’t see well: we’re surrounded now by small pods and a bunch of tramps. They keep breaking off to avoid impact with the debris of the Ttynn, but they’re staying close. Not firing though, which is unexpected. We did just blast through their lead frigate.” She looked back at Yorden. He couldn’t make out her expression, but caught a shake of her head.

“I’m fine, Atalant,” he huffed. “Medics can take care of this later. Just fly the ship.”

Salice patted Yorden’s shoulder and made a gesture with her other hand that Yorden couldn’t make out.

“Good idea,” Atalant said. She adjusted the viewscreen, magnifying the area near the Ttynn. Yorden leaned in, squinting against the haze. The debris cloud distorted his vision even more, and it was impossible to make out any fine detail. What was unexpected, however, was the color. Yorden didn’t remember the flotsam being so white. In fact, he was certain it had not been white at all. Now, however, the debris closest to the pod had a hazy brightness to it—a brightness that seemed to be propelling itself towards other ships. Propelling, or being pushed. He couldn’t tell. Mycelium, then, or spores. Space spores. Disgusting.

“Atalant, what is going on out there?” he asked.

She made a sound he couldn’t decipher. “Just fungi…I think. I don’t really know. It’s working. That’s what matters. Now isn’t the time for esoteric questions. The spores are getting to the armada. That’s what we wanted.”

Yorden chortled. Once they were out of this fun little situation, and most of the way through a bottle of whiskey, this would be an excellent conversation.

Atalant tapped her pocket. “Remember, just the ones without cellulose,” she said to Hepatica.

Her pocket jiggled, and a squeaky “we remember” sounded from inside. “Connections made to fifty non-cellulosic ships currently. We are very pleased to have found so many ships. The propulsion was not our own.”

Atalant did not reply to that comment and instead looked up at Yorden. “You ready for this? Only nineteen more to go.”

“Complete.” Three thin, braided strands of hyphae peeked from Atalant’s pocket. “The clones are forming.”

“Right.” Atalant slammed her fingers back into the console depressions. There was a telltale click of an audio feed. Everything sped up.

“Atalant to the Heaven Guard. It’s time.” The audio clicked off. “Emn, you ready?” Atalant asked under her breath. Yorden heard no response, which was probably normal. A quick glance to Salice confirmed this.

“Everything is set, then. Brace yourself, Captain.” The pilot entered another string of commands, turning the Lucidity a tight one hundred and eighty degrees so that it once again faced the Ttynn, and fired.

The laser never connected. A thick piece of biometal flew between the laser and the hull of the Ttynn just before impact and broke apart. The pieces bounced harmlessly off the Ttynn’s hull.

“Atalant, what—” Yorden didn’t get a chance to finish. Retaliatory shots came from the surrounding pods, all firing simultaneously. Atalant didn’t try to avoid, nor did Emn protect the ship with any debris. The Lucidity beeped in warning first, shrieked, and then flopped about like a fish at market as the pods peppered its already-damaged hull with laser fire. Yorden fell heavily against Salice, and both hit the carpeted floor.

“Sorry!” Atalant said. The Lucidity steadied, and Yorden brought his weeping eyes back to the viewscreen as he stood.

The lasers stopped.

Emergency foam hissed into the fissures in the hull. The air cleaners quickly removed the smoke. Yorden barely noticed. He couldn’t take his eyes from the viewscreen and the fuzzy image he saw there. His vision was slowly recovering, but everything looked like it was painted with watercolors rather than acrylics.

The battle had stalled around them. The encircling pods moved away from the Lucidity. Ships drifted on momentum or stopped altogether as the Mmnnuggl flagship morphed. A deep brown color spread across the Ttynn’s surface, beginning from the hanger bay and traveling with incredible speed across the surface of the ship. In its wake, the ship began to crack. Cubic lines spread across the surface, fracturing the hull. Debris spilled out along with thousands of little, round bodies. The small pods tried to catch them, as they had the others, but there were too many, too fast. Mmnnuggls and spores choked the black of space.

Then, the settees appeared. They flew above the Lucidity in a perfect parabola, engines flaming blue behind them—which wasn’t normal, Yorden was certain, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

The settees rammed the Ttynn. The fractured pod offered little resistance. It crumbled apart on impact, the browned bits of metal debris arcing widely into the surrounding fleet. The settees emerged from the other side unscathed and returned to their guard formation around the Lucidity. As if nothing unusual had happened. As if pods crumbled apart every day.

The surrounding ships jolted into action. Lasers began to streak through space, aimed at the settees and the Lucidity. This time, however, nothing connected. The debris from the Ttynn began to move in a coordinated manner. Chunks flew between lasers and ships. Deflecting. Blocking. Somehow, somewhere on the Kelm, Emn had to be standing in a pool of her own blood. That was the only way Yorden could see her pulling off something like this.

The settees continued to fly in formation, unmolested by laser fire. Atalant tracked the Guard with the Lucidity, keeping them on the viewscreen. Yorden caught the telltale cubic cracking on a Risalian cutter a moment before the settees hit it. The cutter crumbled to dust as the settees flew through it before arcing back towards four skiffs that had been following them.

Yorden was at a loss for words. They’d planned it. Discussed it. He knew it had been coming…

The tailing skiffs were the next to disintegrate, followed by three more of the large pods. The Heaven Guard manually targeted every hemicellulose ship and picked them off, one by one. Not firing, as they had no weapons, but straight ramming. Ten ships down. Then twenty. Then fifty.

A settee flew through three Risalian skiffs right in a row, crumbling them to dust. Those skiffs were on autopilot, he knew, but that didn’t make it any less horrifying. Lights flashed on the viewscreen, and the Lucidity rocked again, but this time, Yorden’s grip on the chair was strong enough to hold him. He couldn’t stomach watching much more. If he played his hand too early, the plan would fail. But every second he delayed, more Mmnnuggls died.

“Enough, Atalant,” Yorden said. He moved to the front of the chair and sat. His hips pushed into the sides of the plush fabric, and the seams groaned under his weight. “Open the comm.”

“But—”

Yorden shook his head. “Enough. It’s time for the Conqueror to bow to Ardulum.”