It Will End In Screaming
*****
Communications Room
Zar’krun
SO BOLDLY stated, the words held little confidence behind them. Liao leaned back on her heels, tilting her head up, trying to project as much strength as she could muster. “You were bluffing. Just like how you said the fish-aliens were alive and I had to choose if they lived or died.”
[“Do you think I would lie to you?”] Kest’s face was a cold, emotionless mask. [“About this? This recording is no forgery. This ship providing the recording is the Seth’vaardun, The Herald of a Thousand Cuts. It is the flagship of the entire Toralii Alliance. Its crews are the best, its weapons are the best, and its support fleet has been tasked with protecting New Evarel for nearly two hundred years. These are our best units. They guard our homes; they guard this planet. If you think this is faked…”] He laughed helplessly. [“You are in for a painful education.”]
“I think you’d lie to me about anything. Small, petty men will take whatever power they can find. Goes the same for alien pieces of shit, too, I wager. You wanna yank my chain.”
[“You did compare yourself to a dog.”] Kest didn’t seem affected by her insult, rather amused. [“But this isn’t your day. I will confess my amusement. You stand here and use such words on me after everything that has happened. Fire Gods, you are brave.”] He clicked his tongue, teeth running over his sharp feline teeth. [“Courage, I suspect, drawn from your ancestors.”]
Her parents were dead. They had been on Earth when it was scoured. “If my parents are anywhere, they are cheering me on. They approve of what I do every step of the way. Can you say the same about yours?”
[“I didn’t say your parents. We did an analysis of your DNA. You’re a distant relative of one Genghis Khan.”]
A totally meaningless insult. “Lots of Asians were. A lot of them. Something like ten percent. I’m not special—good or bad—because of who one of my distant ancestors was. They aren’t me.”
Kest paced back and forth, his tail lashing behind him. [“Perhaps, or perhaps not. I do wonder. How does it feel having a rapist’s blood flowing through your veins? That you, as one of the few survivors of Earth, carry his biological makeup to the stars?”]
“As well as it feels to have a murderer’s flowing through yours, I suppose. Except I didn’t kill anyone.”
[“Oh, of course not, Captain Melissa Liao, the Butcher of Kor’Vakkar. De facto leader of the Humans who have bought such worry and calamity to our people. You’re completely different from this Genghis Khan.”]
Worry and calamity? The Toralii attacked Earth first! Liao curled back her upper lip, but that was playing his game. She took in a deep breath then slowly, gently let it out. “Kest, you aren’t here for the… whatever the hell society are you?”
He made a soft, curious sound in the back of his throat that sounded like the chirp a young cat might make when picked up unexpectedly. [“No.”] He locked eyes on her, affixing her with a deep, unwavering stare. [“My reports do go through them, but I am not a civilian. I am from the Intelligence division. My purpose is to befriend you, to encourage you to release information willingly.”]
“You’d tell me that upfront? That makes me less likely to trust you.”
[“But you already don’t trust me. Especially not after… everything I just showed you. So I lose nothing by the admission.”]
She had to concede that. “Fair point. So,” Liao said, folding her hands. “Tell me about Humans.”
[“We have learnt much, especially on how to manipulate you.”] He flicked his eyes to the wall. [“And also how to destroy you.”]
Humanity wasn’t done yet. “When I get out of here, I’m going to find some way of making you pay for what you did. Everything you did.”
A smile danced on his face. [“Repay me for my honesty? The kindnesses I gave to you?”]
“Kindnesses you used to try and buy me.” She felt her gut clench. Admitting it hurt. “And I let you do it, all because I was too… distracted. Too focused on the good commandant to realise that she was just there to make you look good.”
[“Of course she was. Our studies have found that honesty in the role of befriending a prisoner is, ultimately, more effective—but it requires teamwork. It requires an enemy for the person to rally against. You had to perceive me as honest, which implies that I would tell you the truth, even when it isn’t something you want to hear.”]
“Making your actual lies more believable?”
He smiled a smile that seemed totally genuine. [“Now you’re beginning to understand me. But, rest assured, I have little cause to lie at this time—I’ve found it generally ineffective—but yes. That is the purpose of the upfront honesty.”] Kest paused, running his hand over his ears in a way Liao found distinctly feline. [“It’s a shame, really. I would have thought the Butcher of Kor’Vakkar to be much more cunning and able to resist such manipulations.”]
“You’re trying to make me mad.”
[“By using the title the one named Sunkret called you? Hardly. I have much easier ways of angering you. I simply choose not to. Anger is not my way.”]
“No, of course not,” Liao said, bitterly. “Yours is dialogue. Yours is negotiation.” She folded her arms, drumming her metal fingers against her flesh. “I noticed you haven’t sent me back to my cell yet, Kest. You’re the kind of person—and I use that term as loosely as possible—who does nothing by accident. Why am I still here?”
[“I want to talk to you,”] Kest said, simply. [“That has always been my goal. To speak to you, to understand you, to know you. To find out as much as I can about the species who chased me from my beautiful, peaceful home to atone for the sins of others.”]
“No.” She tried not to think of James and the Tehran, dead in space. She tried not to think of what might happen to Velsharn. She tried really, really hard. “I won’t satisfy your curiosity. Nothing we say here matters, if what you told me is true. If the fleet is gone… then we have nothing. You might as well shoot me now and save us all the bother.”
Kest considered for a moment. [“Very well. In the morning, you will be executed.”] He glanced over her shoulder, to the guards behind her. [“Take her away.”]
She was led back to the elevator and didn’t say a word, watching the doors closing and imagining they were crushing Kest’s stupid little head.
Back in her room, Liao found a small metal box waiting for her. Cautiously, she opened it. Inside, she found the contents of her cell in Zar’krun. Inks. Glues. Pens. Her… notes. The so-called wall of crazy.
With careful deliberation, Liao put the ripped-up pieces of parchment back on the wall. She placed the strips for Decker-Sheng, and those who had escaped, back into the box. Freedom box. The one representing Kest, she set to one side, the same area as the Toralii guards. Kest was the enemy.
She stared at the mismatched patchwork of parchment stuck to the walls, trying to draw some kind of conclusion from it. The puzzle pieces were there. They were all lined up… everything. Everything she needed to solve the riddle and escape was there. She just had to—
The cell door opened with a faint hiss, and two guards escorted O’Hill inside. He had a tray of dozens of round blue cakes. “Permission to enter?”
No was the right answer—she needed to think—but Liao waved him in anyway. Maybe he could help.
“I got you some left over blue cake things, Captain,” he said, crumbs still staining the corners of his mouth. “They’re delicious. You should try some if you haven’t already.”
Food was her last consideration right then. “O’Hill…”
“Wait, they bought the wall of crazy you were building in your cell?” O’Hill put the tray down on her bed and looked at it with her, obviously trying to be polite. “Wow. Very… kind of them. I know you were attached to that.”
“Yeah,” Liao said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “They’re great. I think it’s Kest playing some kind of game.”
O’Hill squinted at her. “Ma’am, I was kind of hoping it would stay in Zar’krun. It’s not healthy for you to be obsessing over something you can’t change. And Kest? Games? No way. He’s a teddy bear.”
She felt as though she might gag. “Kest works for Toralii intelligence. He was manipulating us. Good cop, bad cop. Oldest trick in the book, and we fucking fell for it.”
He looked like a fish that had been whacked on the head. If she hadn’t seen what she’d seen, that would have been her face, too. Maybe she did look that way, all those levels away, in that room… watching the fleet, watching those aliens die in a flash of light.
“Y-you serious?”
“Yes.”
“He dragged you away from dinner to tell you that?” O’Hill turned to face her, now, realisation dawning. “What did he want?”
She put her fingers to her temple. “He… showed me the fleet.”
Hope flickered over his face, then she silenced it with a glare.
“No,” Liao said. “They’re walking into an ambush. The Toralii have nearly fifty ships rallied against the Washington, the Madrid, and the Telvan. They were almost an hour away from a jump point… there’s no way they can win.”
“Well,” O’Hill said, his tone surprisingly light. He picked up one of the blue cakes and popped it into his mouth. “If it’s true, Captain, we’re fucked. War sucks.”
She didn’t know quite what to say. “Yup.”
O’Hill pointed to her prosthetic hand, munching on the blue cake. “But you’d know all about that. War costs an arm and a leg, apparently.”
Liao was almost offended—almost—but she managed a bit of a smile. It was funny. “I guess.”
“I’d love for that to happen to me,” O’Hill said. “Think about all the jokes I could make. I shoot a guy? That bitch just got handicapped.”
She chuckled politely. “I… guess. I never thought being maimed would be a useful vehicle for jokes.”
“Every bad thing is a useful vehicle for jokes, Captain. That’s how I deal with it.” O’Hill raised an eyebrow. “How are you dealing with this?”
What could she say? O’Hill was right; if the fleet was really destroyed, they were more fucked than ever. Liao wanted to mention Kest’s promise of execution, but she kept it to herself. “I’m operating on the assumption that the recording is a fake.”
“Ma’am?”
“Because if it’s real, our whole species is dead, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, so I don’t lose anything by hoping.”
O’Hill chewed thoughtfully. “Righteo, Captain. Guess you’re right.”
It wasn’t fair. Life generally wasn’t, as a rule, but their situation was different. Most people had to deal with different kinds of unfairness—losing the car keys while running late, crashing a car that had recently been cleaned. But this? Their whole species, dead or soon to be, because of some twisted vendetta the Toralii had against her?
“About the religious thing,” Liao asked, somewhat cautiously. “When things got really dire… normally, I’d ask Kamal to tell me a story from the Koran.”
“Yeah,” O’Hill said, an unmistakable hint of scepticism in his voice. “I’m sure that helped you, Captain.”
It usually had. She found no value in faith, but the stories of hope and overcoming adversity appealed to her, especially in her darker days. “Actually, it did. I was kind of hoping you knew some Koranic stories.”
“All I know is the good Bible, sorry.”
Liao slid her prosthetic fingers down her arm. The metal of her fingertips was cold. That was good—it helped her focus. “Sounds like you don’t like Muslims.”
“Curiously enough, though, the people I see who call Islam the ‘religion of peace’ are white Western liberals, not the people leaving Islam.”
She snorted a little at that, but even as she did, she had to acknowledge the truth. Islam was heavily suppressed in China. “Do I look like a white Western liberal to you?”
“Good point.” O’Hill picked up another blue cake and took a bite. “I went to Syria, you know. Pretty much some of the most beautiful countryside in the world, there, being fought over by savages chanting, ‘Allah Akbar.’ God is Great. If their religion is so fucking great, why does he allow such horrible things to happen to his most devout followers on a daily basis?”
“Strange sentiment coming from you. I thought Christians and Muslims worshipped the same God.”
“My vision of God is big enough that I don’t need to fight his battles for him, Captain.” O’Hill twisted on her bed, turning towards her. “The story of Abraham and his sons is told in the Book of Genesis and the Koran, but with certain differences, with Muslims emphasising Ishmael as the older son of Abraham, with Christians and Jews emphasising Isaac as the favourite son of Abraham. So really, the whole Christianity-Islam split is about a two-thousand-year-old popularity contest.
“You know why it’s the Tehran, a ship from Iran, not a representative of the entire Islamic movement? Because they all hate each other. Arabs hate each other. More than each other, they hate the Jews. Then the Persians, then sub-Saharan Africans, then Asians, then Europeans… if they fought Israel as hard as they fought each other, it would no longer exist. They couldn’t stop fighting over what to call the ship, who would be in command… only Iran got off their arses fast enough and managed to finish it in time to launch. The Muslim nations will never unite. Sectarian, religious, nationalistic, ethnic, tribal, or clan level hate… take your pick. You drill it down, they will always have something to cut each other’s throats over.”
She digested that. “Sounds like the Toralii. The Alliance and the Telvan don’t get along. Yet they work together when there’s a common enemy… only to go back to shooting at each other when we go away.”
“Maybe we should go away, wall ourselves off like the nations of Earth. Partition ourselves up… make divides. Separate. Isolate.”
Liao was quiet for a moment. “You seem to know a lot about this.”
“Yeah. My dad was a vet. US Army, just like me. Went to Iraq. Afghanistan. Went all over the place. I loved watching ISIS videos as a kid, learning about them, studying them, because I knew one day I’d have to fight them. Them or someone just like them.” He shook his head as though trying to clear away a painful memory, and his voice got softer. “You know… I once saw this jihad video released by Islamic State. I must have seen a hundred of them, but this one stuck in my head. I watched the same thing, over and over and over, and what I saw was both beautiful and terrible. The Syrian sky at twilight, endless tracers like streams of falling stars drifting overhead, men blown into hunks of meat by automatic weapons fire, their bodies twisted in death. The video showed their faces. Showed the militants pouring petrol over them and burning them, obstinately to keep the smell down. Showed three guys holding down some terrified kid—couldn’t have been more than fourteen—so a forth one could slit his throat, hacking through it with a blunt knife.
“The camera showed the kid kicking and gurgling as he died. Then the camera panned around, and it caught one of the dead—a soldier from whatever other rebel group they were fighting. He had been hit with an RPG, and the top half of him was almost gone; on the bottom part, his pants had been blown almost off his body, revealing his butt crack. The filmmakers blurred it in post-production. The mangled, bloody top half of him? That was fine; let the world see that. The kid with his throat cut? We saw that in crisp, high-definition, digitally stabilised and colour-adjusted 1080p… with a slow-mo replay of the first cut at the end, just in case we missed it. But some guy’s bare arse? Gotta censor that.”
Silence. Liao simmered. Kamal was her friend, and his religion was important to him. He wasn’t a jihadi. They had discussed it, and he abhorred the process. O’Hill’s assessment wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair—that seemed to be her mantra lately.
“But,” O’Hill said, his voice quiet, “you know what? Despite all that, I can’t bring myself to hate Islam.”
“Sounds like you do. A little bit.”
“Nope.”
“How do you justify that belief after… all that?”
O’Hill pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m critical of it. I’m critical of everything—even Christianity. Even me. We’re not perfect. Jesus wasn’t perfect. Hell, I’m a patriot, and even America’s not perfect; Christopher Columbus was a rapist, a slaver, and an all-around piece of shit, and people build statues of him. It’s easy for me to say, ‘You know, hey, Mohammad was fifty-four when he got married to a girl named Aisha, who was nine. Nine years old! But…” He shrugged, half-heartedly. “Captain, that’s just how things were done at the time. People raped. People enslaved. It’s not about our past—it’s about our future.”
“I’m sure Kamal would agree with you.”
O’Hill closed his eyes and took a slow, easy breath. “I suppose I am not perfect, either. If compassion would damn me, then that is a burden I am willing to bear.” He was silent for a moment, as though he wanted to ask a deep, personal question but couldn’t find the right way to phrase it without offending her. As though the barest shreds of military protocol were still in effect. “Captain, may I ask… have you cried yet? For Cheung? You two were close, yes?”
A little more than workmates, that was true. Cheung had been there since the beginning for her and had stood by her during Sheng’s mutiny. “No, I haven’t.”
“You should.”
That was not a good idea. She wanted to but couldn’t. “I’m a leader. I have to promote strength to those people here. I’m their commanding officer.”
“You’re also a human being. Do it in private. Away from prying eyes. The Toralii are here to study us; what image do we paint? Of unrepentant savages, out of touch with our emotions? No. You wanted a Koran story? How about a lesson from the oldest story ever found, ever recorded. Humanity’s first tale: The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, the strong hero, cried for seven days because one of his friends died. And he was the manliest, most authoritative, most leader-y man to ever lead. Achilles cried at the death of Patroclus. David cried in the Bible, and he was a warrior king. Melissa Liao doesn’t have to pretend she doesn’t cry.”
A small smile tugged at her lips, and despite the temptation, she maintained her composure. “You seem to know a lot about crying.”
O’Hill shrugged. “I read a lot.”
Reading… reading had done her a fat lot of good to get out of prison. Liao turned her attention back to the wall. She repurposed the plan to escape Zar’krun for New Evarel. It would need to be modified. Adjusted. She could come up with something. She could…
For a brief moment, she thought all those things, then just as fast, she dismissed them. Planning to escape was pointless.
Her legs found some kind of purpose. She walked over to the pieces of parchment on the wall, snatched up one, and threw it down. Kest. Then another. O’Hill. She tore pieces off with both hands, gritting her teeth, scraping them off with her fingers, and throwing them over her shoulder.
“Oh no,” O’Hill said. “Not the wall of crazy. Anything but that.”
She waited for the epiphany to come. For the answer to find her. Finally, the wall was clear, and she had learnt nothing. “Sorry,” she said, her voice quiet. “I just…”
“Hey, it’s okay, Captain. Let’s… talk about something else. You okay?”
“Great.” A distraction was actually what she needed. Taking a breath, Liao steadied herself. “Yeah. So… I don’t really understand a lot about American politics. You’re a space Republican. Tell me about that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” O’Hill spoke with the forced-calm of someone who was trying not to upset someone. “Being a Republican is usually being pro-life, pro-small government, all that nice stuff.”
“Pro-life. Pro-choice.” Liao shook her head. “Everyone’s pro something.”
“Ain’t that right, Captain,” O’Hill said. “Oldest political trick in the book. To be anti-something is to be defined by that other thing. If you’re pro-something, you get control of the narrative, and those who disagree with you have to operate within the chalk lines you draw.”
Liao absently kicked one of the stray pieces of parchment. “I’m not pro-life or pro-choice. Not in that way. My rule is simple: my body, my choice. A woman wants an abortion, she can have one. If not, that’s fine, too.”
“Maybe to you that’s better,” O’Hill said. “I see it differently.”
Abortion wasn’t exactly the best topic to bring up with her, but it took her mind off Kest. He wasn’t a foetus. “How so?”
“I see the rights of the unborn as more important than a woman’s dislike of discomfort.”
“And I see the right-wing as hypocrites of the highest order.”
O’Hill struggled down some words that he obviously wanted to say. “Aye, ma’am.”
After more silence, the door opened. Two guards were waiting to take her somewhere.
No more moving. No more being ordered around. Liao’s rage flared up again. With a roar, she sprung towards them, steel fist leading the way. It hit the first guard in the face, sprawling him on the deck. The second Toralii pulled out a plasma pistol. She slapped it away; the shot discharged into the bulkhead, melting a round hole. The weapon clattered to the deck. She snatched it up and, with a quick motion, put two shots into the prone Toralii. The second one, weaponless, hit the alarm around his neck.
Liao shot him, too, splattering purple blood over her front.
Slowly, her anger subsided. Purple lights flashed all around her. Pacifiers would be on their way, and she couldn’t defeat them all with a pistol.
The fight flowed out of her. What had she done? She put the weapon down and stepped back into her room.
O’Hill, wide-eyed, said nothing the whole time.
She realised the blood made the chest area of her prison garb see-through. “You’re staring,” Liao said. “Stop it. I know there aren’t many women here, but just stop it.”
“Huh?” O’Hill shook his head firmly. “What? No. The Pacifiers will be here soon, and they won’t like this. You have blood all over you.”
“So I have.” Liao tried to wipe down her face with her sleeve, succeeding only in smearing the blood all over everything. She gave up.
O’Hill held up a hand. “Lemme get you a cloth or something. Before the guards shoot us both. Wouldn’t want to die messy.”
“I’ll be fine,” Liao said, a touch more defensively than she meant to. “There’s a change in the drawers under my bed. Get it for me, and then you best get out of here. If the Pacifiers think you helped me with this…”
“Don’t worry,” O’Hill said, pulling open a drawer with his foot and taking out a new suit, just like the old one, minus the blood. “It’s best I stay here. I won’t look. I’m not interested in you like… that.”
It seemed insane to be discussing such a thing when armed guards were coming to take her away, but she simply didn’t care. “Not interested?”
“Not even a little, ma’am.” O’Hill tossed her the suit. “Here.”
“You like boys?”
“Nope. Neither.” O’Hill casually flopped over onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Never been into anyone, male or female. Don’t get what all the fuss is about. You put your food holes together. Gross. Sex is gross.”
Liao changed; the process was as swift as it was efficient. Toralii clothing was engineered well. “Sometimes I envy you,” she said, but regretted the words instantly. She missed James and wanted nothing more than to not feel that pain, but she wouldn’t have given up being with him no matter how it hurt to be apart from him. “What’s that… like?”
He laughed. “It’s pretty ace.”
Liao snorted. “Funny.”
“Oh, I got more.” O’Hill propped himself up on his elbows. “My father’s half Vietnamese. Asian father says: Why you A? Why you not A-plus?”
Her parents had always put pressure on her. Stereotypes existed for a reason, she figured. “It’s funny because, well, a lot of Asian parents really are like that. At least mine were. I was talking to Cheung, though—oh years ago now…” Mentioning her friend saddened her, but she pushed on. “Her parents were fiercely supportive of everything she did and never put any pressure on her at all.” And now Cheung was dead. As were her parents.
“Yeah,” O’Hill said. “Honestly, they pushed me to excel, but they were great.”
Pounding footsteps
“Sorry I killed us,” Liao said, and she meant it. Attacking the guards was a stupid mistake. What was she thinking?
“No worries.” O’Hill’s eyes drifted to the plasma pistol, and hers followed. They might be able to take down a Pacifier with that. Or two. Maybe.
Neither of them went for it. Some unspoken agreement that fighting was useless passed between them. Going on was useless. What would killing some guards do? They were just doing their jobs. It wouldn’t bring the fleet back.
“Listen…” Liao took a deep, steading breath. I’m not going to make a big speech to inspire you; if you had the willingness to escape, you would have done it by now.” She intertwined her fingers, threading the fleshy ones between the metal. “So, let’s just see how this plays out.”
“Okay.”
The Pacifiers arrived. Most carried plasma rifles and heavy armour, but two—the two who seemed to be in command—carried some kind of strange sword. Not good.
This was it. Warbringer Avaran had threatened to kill her with a sword; they obviously had some kind of fixation on them. Now he was dead. And she was going to be, too. She straightened her back, facing death with all the courage she could muster. The blades were sharp, curved like a serrated scimitar, with a needle-nose point. The metal gleamed in the New Evarel dawn filtering through the window.
“Hey, kitty cats,” O’Hill said to the Pacifiers, a careless, cheeky smile on his face. “Vote Republican.”
Slowly, with careful deliberation, the Pacifier to the left drew the weapon, turned it around, and handed it to her. [“Warbringer Kest wants to see you. Bring this.”]
Liao took it, surprised by the weight. Even her prosthetic complained, the metal groaning softly and tugging at her shoulder. “A sword?”
[“Yes.”] The guard stooped and picked up the pistol. Then she beckoned over her shoulder, seemingly unconcerned about the two dead Toralii nearby. [“Come.”]
Liao stepped forward, casually holding the weapon. She moved towards the door and glanced over her shoulder at O’Hill.
The two exchanged a look, and then it was time to go.
Liao hadn’t touched a sword since officer’s school. Even in an age of guns and spaceships, martial arts were still an important part of training. To drill for martial combat imposed discipline, strength, and confidence.
In the People’s Republic of China Army Navy officers school, officer cadets were expected to learn a martial art. The notion was to be sure—most picked fencing or kung fu—but Liao had selected boxing. She had thought almost forgotten about it since her bout with James, which seemed like a thousand years ago.
Unfortunately, boxing didn’t provide any skill with a blade. She had taken a single wushu class, just for kicks, and struggled to bring back to her mind the singular lesson taken decades ago. The stance, the techniques…
The sword was wrong. That much she remembered. Her instructor had told her the ideal length of a sword should be from the middle of the throat along the length of the outstretched arm. The Toralii weapon was too long and thin, but her prosthetic arm was of Toralii manufacture and styling—longer than a Human’s and stronger. That would probably help.
Probably.
Once again, the lift doors opened to the communications room. Kest stood in the middle of the square, an identical sword in his hand, held with much more confidence and strength.
[“Captain Liao,”] he said, his voice almost a purr, but there was something to it. The tremor that belied some crack in Kest’s confident sociopathic mask. [“Time to die.”]
She stepped into the room, holding the sword in her prosthetic hand, the tip almost dragging on the ground. They each had weapons… in a locked room… “You sent me back to my quarters, and then ten minutes later, called me back for a duel? This is a bad joke.”
Kest adjusted his stance, putting one foot first and balancing on the balls of his feet. With a flick, he cut his blade through the air. [“Come. Attack me and meet your doom.”]
She stood where she was, sword dangling limply. She wasn’t about to fight him pointlessly. “What’s this about, Kest?”
[“Perhaps I want to see how the Butcher of Kor’Vakkar fights.”]
She bristled. “Stop calling me a butcher. I didn’t choose that name.”
[“Then you should discard it. Disavow it. Titles encourage complacency by dwelling on the past. Instead, your history must be atoned for. For Kor’Vakkar. For the Velsharn Research Colony you destroyed and the world you occupied. For the Toralii you killed above my homeworld. You, Captain Liao, must pay for what you’ve done!”] He leapt forward, sword tip leading the way.
Liao clumsily swung her blade out wide. Metal hit metal. She deflected it. The flat edge of the blade dragged along her prosthetic arm, throwing up sparks.
Kest sprung forward and swung again. Liao jumped back, and again as he repeated the action. This time the blade caught her between the flesh and steel of her right arm, slicing across her skin and drawing a crimson cut into the scar tissue.
She was clearly outmatched. The weapon was too heavy, her form too unpractised. Liao threw down her weapon and held her arms out wide. “Just kill me,” she spat.
[“No, descendant of Genghis Khan. I will have the honour of claiming your life, just as Warbringer Avaran tried to, just as so many others have tried. Your body will be my trophy, to be paraded on the streets of New Evarel once we repel your fleet—”]
“What?” Liao blinked. “The fleet—”
[“Is no longer a concern of yours!”] The words came as a ferocious roar painted with rage. [“Fight me, coward!”]
That was exactly what she’d been trying to do. But fighting him was easier said than done. It was not possible for her to win without using her strength. Not in a fight with blades. Liao took a breath and forced the anger and frustration out of her mind. Repel your fleet…
Kest had watched the recording. It hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted.
They really were coming for her. But if she didn’t act, Kest would run her through before they could arrive. She did a quick mental calculation. If they were on Earth, it would take hours to get from the Lagrange point to the surface of Earth. Perhaps New Evarel was smaller… how long had she been downstairs anyway? How old was the recording?
The only truth was: more time was better. Stall him. Stall him or die.
“You think I’m a Khan?” Liao searched her mind for a conversation topic he would bite onto. “Well, what about you? You’re Toralii. I’m sure there’s a Toralii version of Genghis Khan in your past. What darkness lurks in your blood?”
[“Plenty,”] Kest said, stalking around her, his blade dripping her blood. [“More than you imagine. Telvan Toralii are considered moderates by most people, including your own, but our history is as bloody as any other. It is not where we come from that defines us, but what we do. I choose the path of non-violence. As do many of my kin.”]
“Actually,” Liao said, her hand pressed against her wound, “the Telvan came to our side at the Battle of Velsharn. I’d say there’s still some good in you. Unless you and the Alliance have come to war on our behalf.”
Kest hissed faintly under his breath, as though the very notion wounded him. [“It is not accurate to say we are at war. Rather, that our two factions frequently shoot at each other in open space. The difference, I’m sure you understand, is academic, but it at least allows this fiction to persist: that the Telvan are, notionally, still a part of the Alliance. Those who, like me, choose not to take up arms are allowed to serve, although relations between myself and my commanders remain… strained.”] He pointed the tip of his weapon to her. [“But I will bridge that gap when I present them with your head.”]
“I’m sure you will,” Liao said. She tried to stall for time, pushing him to talk. The schism in his people seemed to be a topic that held his interest. “But isn’t that a candid admission? That your Alliance is splintering? Why would you tell me this?”
He smiled a sad, amused smile, some of his rage dying out. [“The cracks are visible from far away. I assume your intelligence-gathering operations know of our disunity by now. What I tell you doesn’t matter. Like I said… I’d prefer we remain truthful with one another.”]
“You probably don’t know much about our intelligence operations if you think we truly know much of the Toralii at all.”
[“Maybe.”] He switched the blade from one hand to the other. [“Would it surprise you to know that, despite all of our efforts, we know little of your people, too?”]
“Not really. Commandant Yarri thought Bugs Bunny was some kind of war hero.”
[“We should have watched some of his episodes together,”] he said, an edge of wistfulness creeping into his tone. [“I might have enjoyed that. I’ll put up an episode after we’ve resolved this… little matter.”]
The idea of Kest and other Toralii watching cartoons struck her as so ludicrous that she actually, genuinely, laughed. “Alas,” she said, completely unable to fight the huge smile across her face, despite the pain in her shoulder. “I doubt you would learn much at all, actually. They are for children.”
Levity faded from Kest’s face. [“Children grow up. Invariably, what they see as youngsters, they mimic as adults. It is a critical part of learning about a society to study what imagery they feed the new generation. Do you know of Murder River, on Evarel?”]
Good. More talk of things that weren’t running her through with a sword. “I’m afraid I don’t”, Liao said, biting back on her sarcasm. “My geography of a world long since swallowed by a singularity isn’t exactly fresh.” Taunting him seemed foolish. She focused on conversation. “But, by all means, tell me about it.”
[“A river in the northern continent of Evarel, before its destruction. The origins of the name are lost to time, but many suspect them to be simple: someone was murdered there, in the past before recorded history, and the superstitious natives believed the water took on some property, some essence of killing. Due to the name, further murders were committed on its banks: individuals, dictatorships, genocides… scales small and large. The how and the why are largely irrelevant. Eventually, people stopped caring, as though the history of the place justified more killings. ‘Oh,’ they would say, ‘more killings on the murder river. Hardly surprising, is it?’ They had a point.
[“People, and by this, I mean Toralii and Humans and every other species we have encountered, seem able to adapt to almost barbarism as long as said barbarism is acknowledged and, in at least some trivial sense, justified. It doesn’t take much, just enough for the average person to say, ‘This is normal.’ From there, it is easy.”]
“So, that’s why you’re torturing us? To make us accept it as normal?”
He smiled widely. [“You do catch on fast,”] he said, casually slipping back into his fighting stance, taking a step towards her purposefully.
Was there anything she could say at this point?
Words came to her mouth, unthought, some quote she had heard at some point. “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
That stopped him. He considered for a brief, careful moment. [“But what if you are the monster in the first place?”]
“Is that what you are?”
Kest took his hand off his blade and jabbed a finger at her. [“Ironic that you think Commandant Yarri was stupid. Do you know why she played music every time you were burned? To distract her. The process was disgusting to her. Abhorrent. She didn’t want to cause you pain; she wanted answers. She wanted your cooperation. She wasn’t like me… the Alliance are short-term thinkers. Not like us. But she is not evil.”]
“But you are.”
[“But,”] Kest said, closing the distance and thrusting the blade upward into her gut, right up to the hilt, [“I am.”]
She stood there, in mute, pained shock, her eyes upon his.
[“You engaged in open warfare with the largest empire in the galaxy… with just three ships.”] Kest twisted the blade within her, sending a roar of pain throughout her body. [“What did you expect was going to happen?”]