Star Force: Shame (SF59) (8 page)

He considered not doing so once he found out what had
happened in the battle, for right now the Dsevmat were holding off on another
assault and if they found out what had occurred it might prompt another and he
didn’t want to get involved in a war that he only knew about through a few
records from one party involved. Roger weighed his options, looking through all
the angles he could conceive of and not really caring about the promised
reward. Eventually he decided to tell them, banking on his read of their
culture, with him returning to their ship one last time to spell it out for
them.

He wasn’t sure how it was going to hit them, and they
might flat our refuse to accept the theory he was going to give them, but the
trailblazer had no doubts now as to what had happened and in reviewing the
battle
holos
one last time before calling the snakes
to him it was painfully obvious what had occurred…and saddening to the point
where he almost wished it hadn’t, despite the circumstances.

Hadeem
and a group of about
20 other Dsevmat slithered into the room where Roger had been working with a
pair of assistants for the past month, all obviously eager to see if the Human
warlord had been worth the trip and actually found the cause of their defeat as
they transmitted little blips of excitement, curiosity, and doubt
telepathically as they entered the room and moved around the small armored
biped.

“
You have an
answer for us?
”
Hadeem
asked skeptically, with
the telepathic prodding being to prove the point.

“
Yes I do, and
you’re not going to like it
.”

“
Better that we
know the truth and learn to counter the
H’bat’i’s
tactic than to live in doubt and uncertainty
,” another said almost as if
reading a quote.

“
The reason
,”
Roger began, pointing to a running loop of the battle on the gigantic hologram
behind him, “
that your weapons’ accuracy
was diminished or outright compromised in some cases, and the reason you
haven’t been able to find any discernable pattern in the lapses, is because
you’ve been looking at things from a technological perspective, and therein
does not lie the problem
.”

Roger looked around at the various snakes, with no
clue how they were going to take what he was about to say.

“
Your weapons
didn’t hit their targets because your gunners deliberately missed
.”

8

Ripples of confusion and disbelief transmitted off the
surrounding Dsevmat, creating a telepathic noise that was contrast to the
physical silence as none of them spoke an audible word. They stayed like that
for nearly half a minute before one finally asked Roger to explain, also using
telepathy as if speaking now would have been inappropriate somehow.

“
The H’bat’i
conquest and annexation of the surrounding worlds that prompted your assault is
not what you have told me it to be. I’m assuming your people had access to the
same information I’ve had, and there are enough pieces here for the line troops
to put together what really was happening on those worlds. The lack of
population is the first clue, for when someone conquers a world they usually
want to keep it for their own purposes
.”

“
The H’bat’i
have almost no personnel on their annexed worlds, and those that they do have
are not sufficient to keep the population suppressed militarily. If you review
the intelligence reports on those planets, you will see that the materials
being harvested are being transported back to the H’bat’i worlds, but this does
not make the conquered a slave race. I believe it to be tribute…and I think
your troops figured this out as well
.”

“
What more there
is to find in the reports is the lack of certain things, such as executions,
prisons, various forms of maltreatment of the natives. There was very little to
be found by the recon team, though those few instances were overly emphasized.
The truth is the H’bat’i conquered these worlds to become their caretakers, not
to enslave them. The resources flowing back were merely in compensation, with
92% of the local economic produce remaining on planet
.”

“
Whether or not
the locals had a choice in the H’bat’i taking control is unknown, but even if
they didn’t I believe your troops deduced that they were being ordered to
attack a race that didn’t deserve it…which prompts me to ask you a question.
Had they refused to fight what would their punishment have been?
”

Roger let the question hang in the air as no one
wanted to speak, but finally one did, with the discontentment of the others
telepathically visible. “
Sedition is
punishable by death. Our military must act quickly and decisively. There is no
room for discussion and debate. All know and accept this
.”

“
And what is the
role of your military?
” Roger asked, already knowing the answer.

To safeguard the
Dsevmat and to pacify the region the Nexus has tasked us with
.

“
Pacify? Or
maintain the tenants of justice?
”

Both
,
another snake replied when the one the Archon was talking to refused to answer.

“
I think your
assault force saw that they were being sent to conquer and kill a race that did
not deserve it, but with the threat of death on them if they refused to fight
they tried to deliberately lose the battle instead. Not all the troops, but the
vast majority of them. This is why the inaccuracy rate spiked so drastically
and why you couldn’t find a technological cause. Your troops had to fight, but
being in an unjust battle they were trying not to win
.”

“
Then, when the
tide was turning the H’bat’i outmaneuvered your fleet in a brilliant piece of
strategy and pinned them down. When that happened and your troops were in
danger of being destroyed the inaccuracy began to vanish, and by the time they
were fighting for their lives and trying to flee it disappeared entirely.
It’s
one thing to try not to win a battle of conquest, but
quite another to commit suicide. Your troops wanted to live, but with no
coordination between the dissenters they threw the battle too much and the
H’bat’i bested them
.”

“
Rather than
drive your fleet back, the H’bat’i went for the kill, sacrificing many of their
own ships to keep yours from fleeing. The handful of Dsevmat ships that escaped
were those that had shown no inaccuracy problems, thus the dissenters were not
around to tell what had happened. They all perished because they underestimated
their opponent while trying to protect them. You put them in a position where
they would either have to defy the purpose of your military or to defy orders
and risk execution. They tried a third option and it ended up getting them
killed anyway, but at least they preserved the independence of the H’bat’i in
the process
.”

“
I know you do
not like to hear this, and the reason you came to us was so you could learn how
the H’bat’i had bested you, devise a countermeasure, then go back and finish
them off, but what you need to understand is that you were in the wrong and
your troops knew this. Rather than commit the treason of injustice they
deliberately threw that battle in order to preserve their honor
.”

“
You couldn’t
find the truth because it was something that you weren’t looking for, but it
was staring you in the face the entire time. Your leaders were in the wrong and
your troops knew better, but had they refused you would have killed them. You
failed to follow the course of justice and I don’t care what your reasons were.
You probably wouldn’t care to tell me even if you knew, but the point is your
troops figured it out and acted in the only way they could without sacrificing
their own lives…which they accidentally did anyway by not fighting hard enough
to be able to withdrawal against an opponent that had been grossly
underestimated twice
.”

“
So there is the
answer to your conundrum, whether you will accept it or not
.”

And he knew that they wouldn’t, at least not right now
based on the telepathic impulses that he was getting from this group. No one
spoke again, but the rage and disgust within one of them boiled over and Roger
felt the brush of a consciousness against his own. It couldn’t get past the
Ikrid blocks, but
him
being able to feel even the
slightest pressure meant that the Dsevmat was trying to hammer him with
telepathic influence.

That was odd, given that they seemed unable to talk to
each other directly using telepathy, but he quickly surmised that the
transmission ability and the interlink were separate for them and they’d have
to get past another one’s blocks in order to communicate privately. If that
wasn’t something they culturally allowed then ‘speaking’
omni
-directionally
made sense. Roger also guessed that with their entire race being telepathic
that casual probing was frowned upon, which would make what this one was
attempting to do to Roger a full blown fist in the face, despite the fact that
it wasn’t using its body or telekinesis to do it.

The trailblazer looked at the one that was the source
of the tickle and decided to return the favor, hacking into its mind and
essentially taking it by the telepathic throat. The tickle in his mind
vanished, and the Dsevmat was froze in place as its body no longer responded to
its own impulses.

The others sensed the assault taking place and
responded instinctually, trying at first to get to Roger then wisely abandoning
that idea when they couldn’t reach past his permanent Ikrid block and instead
hacked into their fellow snake and fought Roger through him. That made it
harder for the Archon to maintain his grip, but even with them stacking their
telepathic power against him it was still no contest. They might possess some
psionics, but theirs were nowhere near as advanced as the V’kit’no’sat package.

Wanting to make a quick statement he let them try and
remove him from the other’s mind, then after giving them a taste of failure
sent out a Fornax sphere that dropped all of them to the ground like limp
ropes. When he did he let go of the
Dsevmat’s
mind,
then let them shake off the temporary effect and try to figure out what had
just happened.

“
Do not try and
enter my mind
,” Roger warned. “
And do
not do so in retaliation for me simply showing you the truth. That’s rude. If
I’m wrong feel free to point out where and in detail, but you know you won’t be
able to. What I’ve said may infuriate you but it also smacks of truth and you
know it. I can sense it in you without even entering your minds.
”

Just then the doorway melted open and more snakes
rushed in, apparently having felt the telepathic scuffle, but one of them
wasn’t focused on Roger and instead headed directly for the Dsevmat that had
first tried to get inside the Human’s head.

There was a scuffle between them, all telepathic, and
Roger quietly tapped in to see what was going on but without enough of a
presence for them to notice. The one who had rushed in was ship’s security and
he was reviewing the recent memories, confirming the attempted invasion of the
Human’s mind.

“
How dare you
shame us in this manner
,” it said aloud, the first words spoken by the
Dsevmat in some time. “
This one is a guest
and here at our request. Be gone
,” it demanded, telepathically pointing
towards the door and telekinetically shoving its head in that direction none
too gently. The snake didn’t stick around to argue and slithered away, but it
was spouting a considerable amount of telepathic noise in the process, all of
which was in its native language that Roger couldn’t understand, but then again
some sentiments were universal and didn’t require translating, with this one
being the equivalent of a middle finger back at the Human.

“
Our deepest
apologies
,” the security snake said, throwing discontent at the others
nearby for their part in the scrap. “
We
do not normally behave in such a manner, though your skills are clearly
sufficient to defend yourself
.”

“
They are
,”
Roger agreed.

The snake twitched it head slightly, sending a
telepathic nod of respect along with it. “
I
do not care what the guest has said. You will retreat him with respect. Is that
understood?
”

The telepathic boom on that last word was so forceful
that even Roger got a bit prickly from it, and it had the effect of subduing
the others instantly.

“
I know what he
has said and the affront it carries, but if there is even the slightest truth
in it we must know, for if there is it would shame us all. Ask your questions
of him, ask many questions, but do not turn away from this and do not
disrespect him again. He is a guest and I should not have to remind you as to
what that means
.”

With that the security snake left the room along with
his escorts, his task apparently done, leaving Roger with the others and
another long, awkward pause before one of them spoke.

“
Explain the
H’bat’i further
.”

Roger telepathically told one of his assistants which
files to bring up, then pointed to an unrelated report that he’d found when
digging through commerce records.

“
Prior to the
Nexus’s interest in them, the races that the H’bat’i conquered has some contact
with your economic community through third parties. The data is piecemeal but
I’ve gathered enough scraps to suggest that several of the conquered races were
themselves predatory, with the others being a mix of the needy and primitive.
Comparing those states with those in the reconnaissance reports indicates that
the tech level of the conquered races and their living standards rose after
annexation, and rose considerably for some.
”

“
Now that
typically does not occur when one is subjugated by a hostile entity. Another
point is the population statistics. In nearly all cases they rose, with one
that I have been unable to confirm for lack of initial numbers. There were no
massive purges that diminished the local populations down to ‘manageable’
numbers, and the number of overseers in the most recent reports show that they
would be incapable of suppressing an uprising. This suggests a partnership of
some sort rather than brute force control
.”

“
A broken slave
is often compliant
,”
Hameen
commented.

“
Yes, which is
why I went further in my analysis and searched the current infrastructure. Even
with broken slaves there must be some measure of control in place, even if it
is not used. I found none other than a light military force, and those were
arrayed as defensive guards at the H’bat’i outposts instead of in the
population centers. However the H’bat’i took possession of the annexed worlds,
even if it was through war, I believe the current inhabitants are not at odds
with them given the lack of societal controls. The H’bat’i may be in charge,
but it’s not by means of any leash that I can detect
.”

From there on Roger explained in detail each step of
his logical progression which invariably came to his final conclusion. The
Dsevmat, after their initial backlash, probed him with more and more questions
trying to poke holes in his theory, for which the trailblazer schooled them on
each one. They stayed at it for hours, but in the end they were forced to
reluctantly accept the truth that was being explained to them.

And with that they were gone, sending Roger back via
pod and leaving a massive slew of cargo containers drifting in space without
even bothering to tell Star Force what was inside them. It took a while to
unload them before they jumped out, so Roger was able to have his own people
there to stabilize and receive the ‘bounty’ for him completing the challenge,
but he didn’t know what was inside until they tried to move them.

A few of the giant boxes were so massive that there
was really only one thing they could contain and Roger was eager to open them
up to confirm it. The others massed less and were still a mystery, but once all
of them were moved over to the nearest station with sufficient hangar space
they were floated inside and positioned on the deck with the AG slowly cranking
up to normal and settling them in place.