Assault Troopers Page 19

  “What’s that?” I asked, lifting my head.

  “I said it’s a pretty smooth ride for us maneuvering through the asteroid maze,” Rollo said. “There’s nothing but continuous acceleration. It makes me think we’re heading for a jump route or mothership, not to slaughter legionaries.”

  “N7,” I said, using a special channel to call him. There was nothing, though. Despite repeated hails, the android didn’t respond. “I think you’re right,” I told Rollo. “The hunt is over and the hounds are locked up.”

  “I wonder what it is about us that give the aliens such a low opinion of humans,” Rollo asked.

  I’d wondered about the same thing, and I had a possible reason. “My guess is arrogance,” I said. “They have high technology and we don’t. Therefore, to them we’re beasts.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Rollo said.

  “It did to the European explorers to the New World,” I said. “They saw Indians running around in breechclouts and moccasins, firing stone-tipped arrows. Some of the more bigoted Europeans wondered if Indians even possessed souls. That’s calling them beasts after a fashion, non-humans. And that was just humans seeing other humans of a slightly different color and facial features. Now imagine what it’s like for aliens seeing other aliens, especially those down on their luck like us. We lack their high tech, their mechanical sophistication and therefore to them we’re animals.”

  “Aren’t aliens supposed to be better than that?” Rollo asked.

  “Why should they be any better?” I asked. “They’re different, certainly. But the idea aliens were automatically going to be morally superior to humans is ludicrous. I’m referring to movies like E.T. or Close Encounters. What I find amazing is that we even have enough similar thoughts or ideas to work together. But I’ll tell you the one thing I’ve noticed. It seems to me the one constant to having higher intelligence is arrogance. You remember the smart kids from high school, especially in the areas they cared about like video games or a super guitarist in music class. The best in any of those areas was always looking down his nose at the lesser players. The aliens are intelligent, and they see that their tech is obviously better than ours. Therefore, they’re arrogant about it. Maybe that’s the one norm throughout the universe: high intelligence equals high arrogance.”

  Rollo grunted thoughtfully.

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” I said. “That’s what gives us our fighting chance.”

  “Alien arrogance?” Rollo asked.

  “Yup,” I said. “Arrogance usually brings blind spots. We can’t afford arrogance because we’re about as down as we can be. Okay, let them kick us for now if that makes them arrogant. We’ll use their blind spots against them to climb up from our low position.”

  I would have said more, but just then we jumped. That ended all conversations and it proved Rollo had been right about us leaving the battle area. After the jump, no one felt like talking anymore. Radiation poisoning had kicked in hard. Even the bio-suits must have felt it. Some of them oozed off their wearers, including me.

  In the end, the androids brought us back to the Jelk battlejumpers. In a giant hangar bay, we filed off the assault ship and trudged back to the mercenary area of the ship. From there, most of us went to the healing tanks. I floated for hours and I swallowed the big green pills they gave us. I could feel each one sliding down my throat. It made me feel like a dog with worms.

  Afterward, I slept for hours, woke up, took another green pill, drank water like a horse and went back to sleep. It took several cycles of that before my bones stopped hurting and breathing felt normal. I’d smelled smoke before that, as if each individual nostril hair had been singed.

  It had been a week and a half since the Forerunner battle. I was surprised we hadn’t heard anything concerning consequences so far. I figured Claath would have berated us for something, and I’d been thinking about what I would say to him.

  Rollo and I sat in a cafeteria playing cards. He took a card from the deck, put the card in his hand, studied them, looked up, widened his eyes enough so I noticed and cleared his throat.

  Without turning around, I knew Rollo must see an android approaching. It had been taking too long for them to say something. Like I said, I’d been expecting a visit for days.

  With my back to the android, I said, “Hello, N7.”

  Silence greeted me. I glanced at Rollo before turning around. The android stood there in cyber-armor and with a pistol strapped to his side.

  “How did you know I approached?” N7 asked.

  “Through elementary deduction,” I said.

  “Did you hear my footsteps?”

  “No, you were walking too quietly for that.”

  “Precisely,” N7 said. “Nor did I hear your secondman warn you.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes. I’ve been observing him since entering the cafeteria.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but Rollo did warn me.”

  “He drew a card and—Ah,” N7 said. “The cough was a prearranged signal?”

  “No. It was just a cough. Well, not just a cough. But it hadn’t been prearranged.”

  “I see that I must refine my studies on human communications,” N7 said. “I still have more to learn.”

  “Why bother?” I asked.

  “Interesting,” N7 said, “you’re attempting to elicit information. I recognize the technique, as I’ve been studying the various recordings of you. It has been quite profitable. I have found that you are a crafty beast. You playact the part of a ruffian, but I’ve come to see that all the while you scheme most cunningly.”

  “What recordings are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You already know. The woman gave you a warning. In Recording B24-18 I clearly heard her tell you.”

  I scowled for a moment, before asking, “Do you mean Jennifer?”

  “Precisely,” N7 said.

  I set my cards face down on the table. I noticed the top card had a tiny mark on the back, an extra line in all those swirls. Had someone been marking cards? Ignoring that, I wondered about Jennifer. I hadn’t thought about her for some time.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “On Earth, I presume.” N7 grew still as he studied me. “You’re showing heightened interest in her whereabouts. Is this because you wish to mate with her?”

  “Are you studying humans or me?” I asked.

  “Both,” N7 said.

  “You still haven’t answered the question as to why you bother.”

  “I am not here to answer your questions. I am here to escort you to Shah Claath.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So I’m finally going to meet him in person?”

  “If I had humor conditioning,” N7 said, “I believe this would be the moment for me to laugh. No. I am escorting you to a screening chamber.”

  “Why doesn’t Claath met me in person?”

  “He is displeased with you.”

  “That’s his reason?”

  “Negative,” N7 said. “I am not responding to your query as to why he declines a face-to-face encounter. Instead, I am informing you that as of this moment, he is displeased with you personally.”

  “How come?”

  N7 hesitated. It almost seemed like a human reaction. Then the android glanced at Rollo before fixing his solemn gaze back on me. “Shah Claath is also unhappy with me. I believe he thinks you have a corrupting influence.”

  “Because you used the assault ships to attack the Fifth Legion?” I asked.

  “You are operating under faulty information. After the artifact’s disappearance, neither I nor the other androids flew deeper into the maze. We retreated for the Starkien motherships.”

  “And that’s why Claath is unhappy?”

  “Negative,” N7 said. “The Starkiens complained about our actions. They lost ships…”

  “Yes, the Starkiens lost ships,” I said, trying to prod him along.

  “In a most
insulting manner,” N7 said, “Naga Gobo barely accepted my explanation as to why we retreated from the maze. His problem was that although he clearly desired to, he could not refute the logic you had shown me. Eventually, he launched missiles, but because of his tardiness in responding, it took too long to pulverize the outer asteroids for his ships to get near the inner ones. Therefore, he brought heavier ships to bear—beamships—bringing them to the edge of the maze. It was at that point the Lokhars launched their surprise: suicidal single ships. Naga Gobo lost critical Starkien vessels. Because of that, he demanded heavy restitution from Shah Claath.”

  “So this is about profits?”

  “Negative,” N7 said, “this is about expenditures without sufficient return. The Forerunner artifact assault proved a costly failure—as we failed to capture the object. Shah Claath blames us: the N-series androids. Through impeccable logic, I have tried to show him the blame justifiably belongs on you.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  N7 shook his head. “Thanking me is not reasonable, especially as Shah Claath is considering abandoning the Earthbeast Project. If he decides to do so, he will jettison the humans on Earth and likely sell you fighting beasts, hoping to recoup the loss your training entailed. He may even sell you at bargain prices, which means the Starkiens may buy you.”

  “The baboons need assault troops?”

  “I can only assume your faulty reasoning lies in your lack of data,” N7 said. “Because of his critical ship losses, Naga Gobo needs scapegoats—you and your Earthbeasts would do. He hopes to expiate his sins by sacrificing you before the Starkien Grand Council. It would be an agonizing end, and I’m told very shameful for you humans.”

  “Crucifixion,” I told Rollo.

  N7 stood silently for a moment as if processing data. “Yes. That is an apt analogy. Unlike the Jelk, the Starkiens believe suffering can atone for bitter setbacks. To a Jelk, such a concept is unthinkable. Money alone can pay for failure.”

  “I gotta say, N7, you’re a wealth of information.”

  “What an odd way to say it: wealth of information. Your Earth idioms are often strange.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I find you, Claath and the Starkiens to be pretty strange, too.”

  “You are in the inferior position,” N7 said. “Thus, it is foolish to make verbal value judgments concerning your betters.”

  “You could be right. The thing is I find it helps my peace of mind to call a spade a spade. I don’t like to wear blinders or to pretend. I didn’t like it back on Earth—the PC crowd—and I don’t like it out here in space either.”

  “PC?” N7 asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Claath wants to see me, is that right?”

  “To see us both,” N7 said. “Come along. I have already dallied here too long.”

  I got up and followed the android down miles of corridors. In the end, I found myself sitting on a metal chair before what must have been the same table as earlier. In moments, the wall screen flickered and I saw Claath in an entirely new setting.

  The red-skinned Jelk lounged in a vat of steaming purple liquid. In one hand he held an hourglass-shaped container filled with a foamy yellow drink. In the other hand he gripped a clicker. Softly discordant music played in the background while beautifully naked women—human women—moved around him. The women wore strings of jingling jewelry on their throats, hips and ankles, which only heightened their desirability.

  “I see you’ve noticed the females,” Claath said.

  I nodded, also noticing something else: the difference between the women and the Jelk. Claath was the size of an evil Rumpelstiltskin: he couldn’t be any taller than three and half feet. It was a shock. Until now, I’d considered him normal sized. But then I’d had nothing to compare him with. Maybe that’s why he’d been interviewing me via screen, for safety’s sake.

  “If I had acquired the Forerunner artifact,” Claath was saying, “you and your troopers would be reclining at ease now and enjoying these sex objects.”

  I swallowed, watching the lovely movements of the ladies. A pendant stirred between one woman’s large breasts. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her nipples.

  Sight of them had definitely caught me by surprise. Then I scowled. Were they Earth women or androids? If from Earth, they were slaves to an alien. I found myself hating the fact an alien had captured and enslaved them.

  “We defeated the Fifth Legion,” I said. “We drove them from their asteroid maze. We did our part as requested. So I don’t see that you have any reason to be unhappy with us.”

  “Let me correct your error,” Claath said. “You defeated the forward fortress areas, but you did not complete the mission as ordered.”

  “We fought hard enough that we panicked the rest of the legion,” I said. “Why otherwise did they flee their inner strongholds and race for the artifact?”

  Claath took a sip of his drink, soon slurping it dry. He beckoned a woman, handing her the glass. She hurried away with jingling sounds, and I noticed the Jelk watching the woman with a lustful eye.

  “We performed better than you’d expected,” I said.

  Slowly, Claath tore his gaze from the woman and regarded me. “I have a theory concerning the odd Lokhar behavior. The Fifth Legion must have become stale. Perhaps they rested on their reputation and became lax in training.”

  “Either that,” I said, “or Earth troops beat the shit out of them and the rest panicked. The rest were unwilling to face such savage troopers in combat.”

  Claath grinned in a mocking way. “You bask in illusions. If the Lokhars were so terrified of you, why did they return to the battlefield? No, in the end, you Earthbeasts ran from them.”

  I shook my head. “The Forerunner artifact vanished, turning the attack into a futile exercise.”

  Claath frowned. “You would do well not to openly remind me of your failure.”

  I slapped the metal table and laughed.

  Claath’s frown turned into a scowl. “I am not Naga Gobo nor am I a Saurian or an errant android. I am the Jelk, the paymaster of seven battlejumpers. Without me, humanity fades into the dark night of oblivion. Forget that, and you and your ilk will die.”

  His threat sobered me. “I haven’t forgotten,” I said.

  “See that you do not.” Claath snapped his fingers. “Like that, the freighters will head into space, ridding themselves of unprofitable cargoes.”

  It was galling, particularly seeing the women in thrall to him. In truth, I was just as much in thrall to Claath as there were. But it was different because my hard wiring made it that way. How much of human behavior was rationally decided versus an inner biological need? Babies naturally sucked. They didn’t consciously decide to. At two, they turned into hellions. At fourteen or fifteen they became rebels against parental authority and somewhere in their twenties most got married. None decided to live in trees the rest of their lives or build nests like a wasp. Were those logical decisions or biologically—hard wired—determined?

  I turned away from the screen and drummed my fingers on the table. What had happened to the vengeance-driven manic in Antarctica who’d charged onto an alien lander? These freaks had come down and wrecked our world. Now the oh-so mighty and puffed-up Claath blithely threatened me with human extinction if I didn’t jump high enough when he uttered the word.

  It was time to eat crow and time to plot.

  I faced the screen and bowed my head. “I’d like to respectfully point out that the assault troopers could have done nothing differently to halt the vanishing artifact.”

  “It is the single point in your favor keeping me from flushing you all out of the hangar bays,” Claath said.

  “Didn’t we do well in driving the Lokhars from their outer asteroids?” I asked.

  “You showed ferocity, that’s true. But this disobedience to orders…I have yet to decide how to punish you beasts so you understand that another such incident will end in your deaths.”

 
I sat quietly, with my head bowed.

  “Still,” Claath said, “on an individual basis, you did prove yourselves the equal of a Lokhar legionary. It proved my thesis correct in initially coming to Earth. Unfortunately, there was too much wastage in bringing you beasts into combat range with the legion. The wastage incurred heavy profit losses.”

  I looked up. “May I inquire as to battle casualties?”

  “Do you note the beast’s behavioral differences?” Claath asked N7.

  “I do, sir,” N7 said. “It is impressive.”

  “Never bargain with them,” Claath said. “It only leads them to believe they are your equal. Always remember that the beasts are cunning and egotistical. They are quick to sense indecision. Observe how Creed-beast has seen my steel glove. He understands my threats and instantly modifies his behavior accordingly.”

  “Your handling of him is quite instructive, sir,” N7 said.

  With a single hand, Claath splashed purple liquid. He appeared thoughtful and soon said, “Perhaps I am partly at fault for this disaster. With the new upgrades, I had thought you N-series androids cleverer than you actually are. I wonder now how costly further upgrades would be in order to bring you into the needed intelligence range to properly handle the beasts. I have debated sending you back to the mines, all of you, and letting Saurians take your places.”

  “Yes, sir,” N7 said. “We deserve no better.”

  “That is correct,” Claath said. “You do not deserve anything, as you are my constructs to do with as I please. But I am not driven by thoughts of vengeance such as a Starkien contractor feels. Profits alone interest me. I have sunk sizeable funds into your combined upgrades, into the Earthbeast bio-suits and training and into hiring a Starkien raider fleet. This artifact—” Claath accepted a refilled glass from a kneeling woman, taking a healthy swallow and wiping yellow foam from his lips. “Fortunately, the artifact’s vanishing has upset many in the Jade League. I have already heard word of violent debates among the leading league theologians. It appears none of them knows where the artifact went; at least, so say my spies. This may be the perfect time to strike at Sigma Draconis.”