The Rask Rebellion

Her ears flattened against her head, but before she could deliver a scathing rebuttal, she was interrupted. A high-ranking Rask, identifiable by her purple sash, came marching into the room. She began to speak with Korbaz, the two reverting back to their alien language, Cooper frowning as he was locked out of the conversation.

***

"My Admiral," the warrior began, bowing her head respectfully. "I report to you as ordered."

"Good," Korbaz replied, giving the wretched human one last angry glance before turning to face the newcomer. "Datzi, was it? I trust that your debriefing with the Crewmaster was productive?"

"Yes, Admiral," she replied. She noticed the prisoner, cocking her head at him, then decided that it was none of her business. "If I might ask, my Admiral," she continued, glancing at the cots. "How are my warriors?"

"All that returned with you are stable," Korbaz replied. "Some are too injured to continue fighting, but they will have their lives at the end of this."

"I am relieved," she said with a sigh. She seemed exhausted by her ordeal, there were dark bags beneath her eyes. "When we arrived at the rendezvous coordinates to find that the crawler was missing, I feared that they would meet their fates in the troop carriers."

"You were leading the raiding party that discovered the wrecked crawler, correct?"

"Yes, Admiral. Unfortunately, my Alpha was killed during the previous engagement, and I assumed command in her stead."

"An unenviable situation," Korbaz said with a nod. "You did well to keep your soldiers in check. I will make sure that you and your pack are well fed tonight. Now, tell me what you saw."

"When the Tornado did not arrive, I decided to return to the last known location of the carrier," she explained. "I thought that maybe they were experiencing engine trouble or something of the sort. I was not prepared for what we discovered," she added with a mournful flick of her tail. "The area around the crawler had been subjected to a massive artillery bombardment, there were craters in the sand deep enough to swallow a technical. There was debris everywhere, and the charred husks of vehicles had been tossed around like toys. What bodies we were able to recover were too burned and dismembered to identify. I personally helped search the wreckage, but we found no survivors. We couldn't get too deep, the structure was very unstable, and the engine was still burning. What remains will be buried by the dunes before long."

"You are to be commended for your efforts," Korbaz said, a knot forming in her stomach. "I will see that you are appropriately rewarded."

Was it was not enough to have a room full of crippled warriors? The entire crew of the Tornado had been wiped out to a man. Hearing it from Datzi's lips somehow made it all the more real. Korbaz was the Admiral, she was responsible for all of these people, they were following her orders. Was she failing them, or was this a simple consequence of war? Indecision began to grip her, the same doubt that she had been suppressing rearing its head once again.

She placed an encouraging hand on her subordinate's shoulder, Datzi seeming to sway, her eyes losing their focus.

"Are you well, Datzi?" Korbaz asked. She recoiled as the Rask suddenly vomited, some of it splashing on her jacket, the warrior collapsing to her knees. She heaved again, more of it splattering on the deck, its acidic smell making Korbaz cover her nose. She took a step back, watching as Datzi shivered and gagged, not knowing what to do.

The alien was on her in moments, crouching beside her to press the back of his hand against her cheek.

"She's burning up!" he exclaimed, peering up at Korbaz. "Help me get her into a cot!"

Korbaz snapped at the clean-suit clad medics who were tending to the nearby patients, and two of them rushed over to help, supporting the warrior's weight as they carried her over to a nearby bed. They lay her down, Datzi continuing to shake.

"What...what's wrong with her?" Korbaz asked as Cooper began to run one of the alien medical devices over her prone body. She was so out of her element, she didn't know a damned thing about medicine, least of all how to use the myriad of alien tools that had come in the UN crates. The medics were supposed to know about that kind of thing, Vitza knew how to operate the machines, but only the prisoner seemed to be taking charge.

"I don't know what body temperature Borealans are meant to have," he grumbled, "but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be forty-two degrees centigrade." He set the device down and opened one of her eyes with his clawless fingers, examining her pupil. "Vomiting, fever, disorientation, weakness..."

He gave Korbaz a suspicious look, then marched over to another of the alien medical crates. After fishing around inside it for a minute, he returned to Datzi's side holding a blocky device with a yellow housing in his hand. As he ran it over her body, examining a numerical display closely, it began to emit an alarming crackling sound.

"Vitza, get over here," he demanded. Korbaz nodded to the engineer, and he made his way over to join the human around the cot, the doctors looking on with worried expressions. "These crawlers, they're nuclear-powered, aren't they?"

"I..."

Vitza hesitated, looking to Korbaz again. He wouldn't reveal any information about the crawlers without her permission, who knew how the prisoner might be able to exploit such knowledge?

"Don't look at her, you idiot!" Cooper snapped. "For fuck's sake, can one of you cunts answer a bloody question just once without asking for her permission? Do the fucking crawlers have nuclear reactors or not?"

Korbaz nodded, not knowing what else to do.

"Yes," the engineer replied. "They are electrically powered, but they generate energy using an onboard fission reactor."

"That's where all of these casualties came from," the human snarled, turning to glare at Korbaz with fury in his blue eyes. "You lost a crawler, didn't you? The Coalition destroyed one of them, and these idiots went digging around in the wreckage, didn't they?"

He was mostly right, but Korbaz didn't know how to respond, so she said nothing.

"Listen to me," he insisted, marching over to her. He reached up and grabbed her collar, indifferent to the flecks of vomit that stained her jacket, Korbaz baring her teeth at him. Vitza and the doctors bristled, exchanging alarmed glances. To lay one's hand upon a superior in such a manner was an act deserving immediate, violent reprisal. It took all of Korbaz's self-control to save from taking his hand off. "If your guys were fucking about near a breached nuclear reactor, then they've been irradiated. Do you know what radiation does?"

She shook her head.

"That reactor is spewing high-energy particles, invisible projectiles that are tearing through everything around them like atom-sized railgun slugs. Everyone who was near it has had their DNA chewed up like Swiss cheese. They're sick, and they're contaminated. You need to strip everything that they were wearing and chuck it off the side of the crawler. Dump the vehicles, too. Just by being in this room, we're being exposed to radiation from her contaminated clothes."

"H-he speaks the truth," Vitza stammered, the cowering engineer staring intently at the floor as he addressed her. "I do not claim to know anything about radiation damage, but I do know about maintaining the integrity of the core, and what to do in the event of a breach. The humans treat such an event with the utmost caution."

"Is it like a plague?" Korbaz asked, the human relinquishing his hold on her. "Will it spread to others?"

"You might as well it treat it like one," Cooper grumbled as he wiped his hand on his suit. "Use the Geiger counter to check who's been exposed, and have them quarantined. Everyone who came into contact with them needs to take a dose of iodine tablets, there must be some in your stash."

"Can they not be healed like the others?" Korbaz asked, sparing a glance at Datzi. To have lived through so much, only to be struck down by an invisible poison...

"Oh, yeah," he replied, but she recognized it as his usual sarcasm. "If we had a fucking ICU, which we don't. I don't know anything about treating this kind of thing, I don't know anything about decontamination protocols. This is the point where we'd call in the guys in environment suits and have them deal with it."

"But...but what do we do next?" Korbaz demanded.

"Nothing," he replied with a one-armed shrug. "We can't do anything for them. They've got a few days left at best. Dose them up with morphine to keep them happy, they're going to need a lot of it."

"There must be something in these boxes that can help!" she snapped, marching over and starting to rummage through them. She pulled out packages covered in alien text one by one, reading off the labels before tossing them to the floor, a kind of frustration overcoming her. She could read English, but it was all meaningless to her.

"It's a shame you went to war with the only people who could have fixed this," Cooper said. She spun around, stalking over to him, gripping him by the wrist. He struggled as she dragged him out into the hallway, closing the door behind them so that her subordinates couldn't overhear their conversation.

"It was not my idea to go to war," she hissed, pressing him up against the bulkhead. He was so small that the span of her hand was nearly enough to cover his chest. "Stop acting like I'm responsible for this! My charges lie dying, and all you want to do is mock me! What little patience I have left wears ever thinner!"

"Just following orders?" Cooper scoffed, gripping her furry forearm with his clawless fingers. "People like the Matriarch don't put their critics in positions of power. Either you supported this war, or you were too spineless to protest it."

She would never admit it to him, but the human was right. Korbaz had supported the war at the beginning, she had been caught up in the fervor, in the promise of her territory restored and the slights against her people rectified. As time dragged on, and her faith had begun to waver, she had suppressed her doubt. Even now, she felt a fire rising in her belly, a visceral reaction to having everything that she believed in undermined.

"It is not my place to question the will of the Matriarch," she hissed, keeping her voice low.

"That old mantra again?" Cooper replied, remarkably indifferent to having her massive hand crushing his chest. "The Matriarch isn't a God, she isn't infallible. What if she made a mistake?"

"She has advisors, confidantes," Korbaz shot back.

"And does she listen to them? When they contradict her, does she reconsider? If you walked up to her and told her that the war was a shitty idea and that she'd fucked up, what would she do? If you told her that you thought she should surrender, what would her reaction be?"

Korbaz thought for a moment, her stomach churning, her tail whipping back and forth as the pressure mounted. In her mind's eye, she saw the lavish audience chamber in the palace, the Matriarch's cold, judging eyes as she glared down from atop her throne. She felt the stab as the accusations of cowardice came, of dereliction, of disloyalty.

"You're so scared of showing weakness," he continued, "but do you know what real weakness is? It's doing something that you know is wrong because you were told to. It's taking the path of least resistance because it's easier, even though you know that ruin lies at the end of it. Are you really strong, or are you just scared?"

Korbaz slammed her fist down on the wall beside his head, making the metal ring, staring into the human's round eyes. That familiar heat was taking over her again, the frustration of being unable to correct him as she would a Rask making her burn up.

"You would do well to return to your cell before what little restraint I have left is gone," she hissed, running a claw across his cheek. She applied enough pressure to cut through his soft, pale skin, a trickle of delicious red seeping forth. He didn't react, he merely returned her stare with those icy, blue eyes.

"Fine," he said, Korbaz releasing her hold on him. She took a couple of steps back, trying to calm her racing heart. There was a swirling storm in her head, arousal, doubt, anger, fear, worry, guilt. She needed to relieve this tension, to get her emotions back under control, or she wouldn't be able to perform her duties with a clear mind. She took a few deep breaths, willing her urges back into the recesses of her psyche, then called down the corridor. A pair of guards soon came jogging around the corner, Korbaz thrusting her charge into their arms.

"Take the prisoner back to his cell," she commanded, Cooper wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. One of them gripped him by the upper arm and began to steer him away, Korbaz hesitating for a moment.

"Wait," she added, the soldiers pausing. "Thank you," she added begrudgingly, "for what you did for the wounded."

"Get fucked," Cooper replied as he glanced at her over his shoulder, his reaction taking her aback. "I didn't do it for you."

She watched as the guards escorted him around the corner, waiting until they were out of sight before bringing her claw to her mouth. His blood was sweet, metallic, its taste only worsening the conflict in her.

Work, that was what she needed. Something to occupy her mind.

***

Korbaz made her way back up to the prefabs, eventually arriving in the conning tower, its occupants pausing to lower their heads in greeting as she entered. The Crewmaster was at his usual place beside the holographic table that occupied the center of the room, leaning over the display, his eyes scanning the various numbered icons. He stood to attention as she entered the room, the Admiral pausing to look out of the slatted windows, watching the storm pound the flat deck of the crawler for a moment.

"How are the wounded who returned from the Tornado?" he asked.

"Most will recover," she replied, joining him at the table. "We may have an issue with radiation, I'm having Vitza deal with it. Those who searched the wreck of the crawler have been contaminated, and the prognosis is not good."

"Is there a danger to the command crawler?" he asked, his brow furrowing.

"No, I do not believe so," she replied. "It can be dealt with."

"I was about to send for you," the Crewmaster continued, gesturing to a blue dot on the holographic grid. "We may have another problem."

"Has another crawler been destroyed?" she asked, her heartbeat starting to quicken again.

"No, at least, not yet. The Landslide has put out a distress call, they are experiencing mechanical problems that have stranded them in the dune sea. Something to do with one of their tracks, I do not know the details. Their engineer has asked to be put in contact with Vitza so that they might discuss the situation."

"We just lost the Tornado," Korbaz hissed, leaning over the display. "We cannot afford to lose one of our battleships as well. That would halve our effective firepower, it's the only advantage over the Coalition that we have right now."

"The Landslide is currently located here," the Crewmaster continued, pointing to one of the icons. "She has been moving in a Westward direction to keep some distance between her and the enemy formation, but with her present difficulties, she may be in danger of being discovered by their forward scouts."

"Then we must secure her immediately," Korbaz replied, tapping her sharp claws on the edge of the table as she considered. "The Hurricane is not far to their North, have her dispatch some of her vehicles to secure the Landslide."

"A wise decision, Admiral," the Crewmaster replied. "They should be able to reach her before the Coalition artillery comes into effective range."

"Order the crew to scuttle the Landslide by detonating the remaining munitions if she cannot be salvaged," Korbaz added, the Crewmaster glancing up at her with a shocked expression. "The aliens know about the crawlers now. We cannot allow them to learn the armaments and capabilities of our battleships."

"As you command, Admiral," he replied.

"How long until the reinforcements from the territory arrive?" she asked.

"A little over a day," he replied. "They'll be splitting into two groups, one of which will be heading to the Volcano, and the other to the Hurricane. With the loss of the Tornado, a third of our effective forces are out of commission. Even with the two remaining carriers reinforced..."

"We must make do with what we have," Korbaz sighed, the Crewmaster bowing his head in submission. "The second offensive will go ahead as scheduled."

"And...what of the prisoner?" he asked. "Were you able to discover any secrets about the enemy tanks?"

"If I have not done so by tomorrow, then you may do with him as you wish," Korbaz grumbled. "Peel his skin off, feed him to the hounds, I don't care. He is no more valuable to us than the information that he carries."

CHAPTER 15: REDACTED

The Courser drifted idly, Borealis little more than a sand-colored marble hanging against the inky backdrop of space, lit by the glow of its parent stars. At such a great distance, the swirls of white clouds, and the shimmering of its blue lakes were almost impossible to make out with the naked eye. Well, naked was perhaps not the best description of Lieutenant Brenner's eyes.

He had lost his organics long ago, seared away by Bug plasma weapons, his organs replaced with prosthetic equivalents. Most men would have gone for replicas, perfect recreations of their original eyes that wouldn't draw stares, but Brenner had always been one who favored practicality over aesthetics. He peered through the cockpit canopy, frost clinging to the glass, the lenses in his implants focusing. He preferred to think of his maiming as an opportunity, a chance to improve himself. He could see in wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum of light now, he could see clearly in pitch darkness, in infrared. Sure, he might look like he had a pair of helmet cams pushed into his empty eye sockets, but what of it? He was a soldier, not a model.

The pilot made a few adjustments, tapping at his control panel, keeping them on course. They were staying well out of range for the time being, assessing the situation before jumping in any closer. The craft was not part of the UNN fleet that had been assigned to protect the planet, and it had made no moves to join the formation, nor to identify itself until the time was right.

It was shaped like a giant knitting needle, the prow pointed and streamlined, housing the cockpit and limited cargo space. It was connected via a skeletal frame to the engine section at the aft, naked beams that resembled the jib of a construction crane keeping the volatile fuel and nuclear reactors at a safe distance from the crew, its massive engine cones projecting out from the rear.

This class of ship was engineered for speed and range, a perfect balance between mass and power capacity that allowed them to make long-range superlight jumps, leapfrogging between the stars. They were commonly used to ferry VIPs or to carry important messages where normal methods of communication were not available. A radio signal or a laser pulse could not travel faster than the speed of light, but a Courser could.

This was no messenger, however. Its sleek hull was encased in layers of armor plating, the angular surfaces painted with a black, radar-absorbing stealth coating that made it almost invisible against the darkness. Missile pods and jutting railgun batteries had been installed wherever there was room, the craft bristling with weaponry, seemingly at odds with its philosophy of low mass and high speed. Black Ops was a very descriptive term.