Posleen War: Sidestories The Tuloriad (2 page)

“There is a team of them watching us,” Aelool surmised. “They're almost as disorganized by victory as you are by defeat . . . else that last shell would have been here, and it would have been followed by hundreds.” To his human escorts, he said, “Find the observers. Silence them. Do not harm them.”

Wordlessly, one of the human escorts used his fingers to indicate to a brace of his men that they were to follow him. In perfect silence those three took off into the woods and disappeared from view.

“They are very good,” Tulo told Aelool, as the three humans disappeared.

“They are,” the Indowy agreed. “I'm told they're Swiss . . . mmm . . . Swiss . . . 'Guards.' Or a special subset of that group, anyway. They're on loan to my organization.”

The Posleen shrugged. The details didn't matter much when the humans had, as a race, proven so deadly.

Another shell landed, this one closer still. Tulo thought he saw treetops rising majestically, only to sink again, slowly, in the not very far distance. The trees fell as if with regret. He looked around. Only he and Golo, Brasingala, and the Indowy remained above the surface; those, plus the human captives and what some among the humans might have called the “mess sergeant.” Tulo had shortened that to “mesergen.”

“You have made a great mistake,” the mesergen said to Tulo. “I am not enough, on my own, to butcher these properly. Nor is there time for me to do so.”

“We're not butchering any of them.”

“What? That's nonsense! I didn't curry these along merely to—”

“Brasingala!”

So fast was the guard's blade that the messergen's lips were still moving as his head hit the forest floor.

“I am not in the mood to be argued with,” Tulo'stenaloor whispered to the corpse, after it had finished settling to the ground.

Mesergen forgotten as quickly as he had been killed, Tulo turned his attention back to the tunnel ahead. He could just see the twitching rumps of the last of the remainder, losing themselves in the dark.

“Maybe you're right, Golo,” Tulo'stenaloor said. “Let us enter this place and see.”

“What of your humans?”

Aelool answered, “Some of my escorts will take charge of those you have freed and lead them to their own people. The rest of my escorts will disperse as soon as we are boarded. I think that, even with your former captives, no observer will see them.”

Tulo shrugged that off. Let himself and his people escape and what matter what the human's saw on their own world? He, his guard, Goloswin, and Aelool entered the tunnel and walked forward. Clawed Posleen feet, and sandalled Indowy ones, made an odd sound on the surface of the base of the tunnel. What should have been dirt was, instead, turned to some other substance, something that felt almost like gold.

The tunnel continued on, deep into the earth. It twisted only once, near the end. Just past that hard right twist a large portal stood open, with a ramp in front of it, leading from ship to “soil.” The ramp appeared to be of a much different shape from the portal, yet Goloswin sensed it was intended to fold into it. A bluish-greenish glow came from the opening, turning ramp and tunnel much the same color.

Once inside, they saw that the disconcerting blue-green seemed to come from no place in particular, but simply to be everywhere at once. The cabin in which the refugees found themselves was small, perhaps twenty-five of the humans' meters by thirty. With nearly four hundred of the massive creatures stuffed into that space, there was hardly room, and an excellent chance of being inadvertently injured, for one tiny Indowy. Standing near to Goloswin, with the Indowy on his feet in between the two, Tulo'stenaloor suggested, “Maybe you should climb on my back, Aelool. Here, let me give you a hand up.” The God-king reached down with claws that, under ordinary circumstances, would have sent a normal Indowy gibbering.

Aelool was not a normal Indowy, however. With the god-king's help, he scrambled onto its broad, muscled back, sitting there side saddle as his legs were too short to take a comfortable riding position.

“Something really bothers me, here, Tulo” Goloswin said, leaning over to whisper to Tulo.

“I hate this fucking blue-green light, too.”

Golo twisted his head in negation. “The light? No, no, I hadn't even noticed the light. Though now that you mention it, it is a little unsettling. No, I was thinking about the size of this thing. Even if it recycles the waste at one hundred percent efficiency, it would have to do so instantaneously or we'll spend half the time hungry. And we cannot make a long journey crowded in like this, muzzle to asshole. I wonder if . . .”

A voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “Attention. Attention Posleen lord and lordlings and servants. This is Argzal, captain of the scout smuggler, Surreptitious Stalker, Himmit Sixth Fleet—”

“Sixth Fleet?” Golo questioned. “Himmits have fleets?”

“Shhh! Listen. Besides, we don't know if they mean by 'fleet' what we or the humans would mean by 'fleets.'”

“—going to be passing through the humans' interdiction forces now gathered around the planet. Unlike most of the humans' weapons and sensors, those ships can potentially sense us and could possibly harm us. Do not worry; I am very good at my job. I intend to bluff.”

“'Don't worry,' he says. 'I intend to bluff,' he says.”

“Shhh.”

“—placing an inertial dampening field around your compartment. This will retard your movements, slightly and temporarily. The inertial dampening field, while not dangerous, is also not what is normally used for livestock.”

“Livestock!”

“Dammit, be quiet, Golo!”

“—should not fear this; it is necessary. In the interim, to keep you entertained, look to the nearest bulkhead. You can see our progress there. I will also adjust your light to something more comfortable.”

The compartment, not exactly raucous to begin with, went deathly silent as most of the walls were seemingly replaced with totally black holographic rectangles. The ambient light likewise shifted to a red-orange more suitable to Posleen visual rods and temperament. Between the two changes, the pitiful remnants of the great host of Tulo'stenaloor calmed down completely.

“I wish I had my AS,” Tulo whispered. Sadly, every AS in the oolt had been wiped by the electro-magnetic pulse of the humans' ultimate anti-matter weapon. Off in the distance, Binastarion could still be heard weeping over his own.

To Brasingala, the chief said, “Migrate through the oolt as best you can. Find our Chief Rememberer. Tell him it would please me if he would lead our people in a prayer of thanks to the ancestors for our deliverance.”

“We're not delivered yet, Tulo,” Goloswin said.

“Yes we are. We just don't know whether we're delivered from death or from shameful life. Either is cause for thanks.”

Beneath and around the Posleen and Aelool the Himmit ship began to hum as it prepared to break free of the Earth and the war which had nearly consumed it.

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam.

(To the greater glory of God.)

—Unofficial Motto of the Society of Jesus

Anno Domini 2013

Rome, Latium, Italy

Father Dan Dwyer, SJ, was old Navy. Tallish, at almost exactly six feet, broad shouldered, blue-eyed, and red-headed, Dwyer looked to be approximately in his mid-twenties though he was, in fact, many times that. Although temporarily detached, he still wore on his blue dress uniform the insignia of a naval captain. As a matter of fact, he not only wore the uniform that said he was old Navy, he had enough ribbons running up from left breast pocket nearly to shoulder, indicating medals of high enough quality, to prove it. Navy Cross, Silver Star . . . somewhere in the Pentagon floated a recommendation for the Medal of Honor, though that was at best an outside shot.

There had been a day when Dwyer could have worn Marine Corps uniform, other than dress blues, if he'd wanted. That, though, had been generations earlier, before the Posleen War.

He'd lectured and sermoned, fought and bled, as soldier and sailor, both, and of both God and the United States, since he'd been very young priest, fresh out of the Jesuit's uniquely severe cursus. He'd done it in Vietnam. He'd done it marching back from the Chosen reservoir in Korea. Though he'd been something of a legend for those things, in the Naval service, equally he'd been legendary for his remarkably well-stocked sacramental wine cabinet, aboard ship, which was always nestled nicely between and among the sacramental scotch, sacramental bourbon, sacramental vodka and rum, sacramental cognac and armagnac, sacramental grappa . . .

Dwyer had been, for most of his life, a highly functioning alcoholic. An act of will and of love had put an end to that. Rejuvenation via galactic technology, or GalTech, had erased the damage of years of drinking and even removed the addiction, a matter of genetic manipulation, rather than psychiatric reasoning or counseling. What it could not do, or at least had not, was remove the psychological need for euphoria arising to oblivion in the face of endless, limitless pain.

“God,” whispered Dwyer, looking around at what remained on the bare seven hills of Rome, “God, You know I could use a drink about now.”

“Shush,” said the Jesuit's companion, Sally, walking beside him. “You don't need anything of the kind.” Her finger pointed at an odd sight. “And there's someone who might be able to help,” as if being lost could be Dwyer's motivation to break his vow of sobriety.

Swiss Guards in their traditional uniforms patrolled the mostly unmarked and unbounded pathways of the city. While the guards carried halberds and baselards, a kind of short sword, they all had quite up to date rifles slung across their bodies, as well. The slings were of the type that hung from both shoulders, leaving the rifle with its muzzle down, free to be taken in hand by the carriers.

Rome had changed. The hills were there, of course; the Posleen showed generally little interest in remaking natural geography. The bridges stood still; the Posleen had no skill whatsoever in building them and found them useful enough to preserve where possible (especially so, as Posleen could not swim at all). The foundations, if nothing else, of the Forum Romanorum could be found. They could even be seen from many of the seven hills. And why not? There was absolutely nothing else high enough to block the view. Old Rome had survived the incursion of the Posleen better than had New only in that there were, at least, some traces of Old Rome left.

That said, the Flavian Amphiteater? Gone. The arches of Constantine, Titus, and Septimius Severus? Gone. Column of Trajan? Gone. The three remaining columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux? Gone. Pantheon? Gone. No wonder Dwyer felt the need for a drink.

On the south edge of the city the pyramidal tomb of Caius Cestius was not merely gone, the Posleen had hit it with a large enough KEW, or Kinetic Energy Weapon, to destroy it and leave a rather large and deep crater in its place. The crater had, in time, become a small lake.

And that's what hurt the remaining Romans the most, even more than the destruction of the Vatican, the loss of the ancient heritage that had proclaimed, “Once we were the greatest.” To the extent that real rebuilding was ongoing, Rome was being reconstructed as the Rome of the Caesars, not the Rome of the popes, of Garibaldi, or of Mussolini.

This was not particularly uncommon across the Earth, as people who had lost all sense of normality labored to recreate the world that had been mostly erased by the Posleen. And if the Italians had lost more than most, what better reason was needed to recreate a world even more ancient than the one they had recently known?

The Vatican was not among even the foundations of the ruins remaining. The very rocks that had made up the Basilica of Saint Peter had been taken down, crushed, reformed and vitrified to produce one or another of the pyramidal structures favored by the aliens. These, in turn, now swarmed with jackhammer wielding workers, cutting the rock free to rebuild human structures. In the interim, Mother Church, as it had sometimes in the very early days, once again operated from tents and caves. The Society of Jesus was no better off.

“Well,” muttered Father (Captain) Dan Dwyer, SJ, to his companion and fiancée,

Sally—short for . . . well . . . among other things short for Shlomit Bat Betlechem-Plada Kreuzer—“At least the Society has its own cave.”

Father? SJ? Fiancée?

Yes.

Somewhere in an interior pocket of the priest's uniform tunic rested a copy of the latest Papal Bull, De Propagatione Fidei, which translated as, “Concerning the Propagation of the Faith.” The language of the thing was Latin, of course. What it meant, in practice, was, “We've taken it in the shorts. Go ye forth and multiply. Yes, Father, yes, Sister, THIS MEANS YOU. Oh, and while you're at it, work on getting us some converts, too. And, no, you are not freed of the responsibility of getting married before you propagate.”

Nor was that all the Bull did. One result of the Posleen invasion, and the learned preference for expending men and preserving women—coldly put, the factories for the next generation of plasma cannon and rail gun fodder—was that the imbalance between the sexes of the human race was close to five to two, female. For Catholics, for whatever reason, it was more like three to one. After consultation with some learned Moslems and Mormons, the Pope had seen fit to authorize and encourage polygamy, along with a vigorous castigation of celibacy, and a side sneer at homosexuality, for a set period of seventy-five years. For some Catholic women, the reaction was something like, “Crap, you mean I can't have one of my own?” From others it was, “I just knew there was a merciful God. Thank Christ that I won't have to do all the coddling myself.” For men, reactions varied from the common, “Yayyyy!” to the almost as common, “Shit; one woman is difficult enough. You're telling me I have a duty to deal with up to four of them?”

Of course it was never that simple. It couldn't be that simple. We're talking about the Roman Catholic Church here. There were forms to fill out, questions to answer, interviews to be sat, shrieks to be endured.

Tradition: It's what's for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and Holy Communion.