Twenty-Three
Duchess Antoinette Embrak could trace her lineage back to the first colonists who stepped off the first ship to land on Ignis Glace. They’d been a hard-bitten people from the beginning, who’d worked as traders in the early years. Driving caravans of goods from one settlement to the next had proven very profitable, and they bought the canyon which now housed the fabled Lavender City only three decades after first setting foot on the planet’s surface. On Ignis Glace, ownership equated to nobility. Those that owned things were lords, and the value of their properties combined with their accomplishments achieved rank.
Duchess Embrak came from a long line of hard-nosed people bent on rising to the universal goal of becoming the planetary monarch. Thus far, no one in history had been crowned by the Ruling Council. The nobles on the council either wanted the prize for themselves, hated one another, or mistrusted one another too much to bestow that unique honor. Instead, they handed out lesser titles and offices to those who pleased or impressed them.
On the day the alien armies landed, the Duchess knew the final death of all her dreams of ascendancy. That was almost more painful for her to witness than the death of the city itself. She sat at the needle-like top of the Opulence, which had once again become a watchtower. From this headquarters, she was in touch with the city around her.
The aliens began the assault by firing salvos of missiles from orbit. The rocky rim of the valley was lined with gun batteries, but they were designed to deal with local threats and could not reach up into space. Nonetheless, the gunners had expected the enemy fighters to descend and attack, so they were crewed and ready for battle.
Unfortunately, in a large scale battle the force with the superior range often had the advantage. The missiles the Skaintz Imperial troops had built over the long years in space reached down like falling stars. They resembled white, burning flares of light, dropping rapidly from space. Bluish-contrails hung in the sky behind them like spider webs-hundreds of them. When the missiles reached the ground, they did not strike the exposed city, fortunately, but rather bombarded the guns that ringed it. The crews were blown to bits in an incandescent instant. Even those who fled when they saw death falling, and those who took shelter in nearby bunkers, perished. The missiles were too accurate, their payload too great.
Duchess Embrak watched this horror unfold with her small, exquisite mouth falling open. She’d already given Aldo the recall order, but as she saw the assault vessels come down-fat, ugly things shaped like mushrooms-she knew they must contain troops. She knew then there was no way the army could return in time.
She ordered out the militia and the police forces. She called the Nexus headquarters repeatedly, but their building was a smoking ruin. If any Nexus people had survived, they weren’t answering her call.
The aliens came down in two battlegroups, one at either end of the long dark canyon that contained Lavender City. Their plan was obvious from the start. The populace could not escape over the cliffs, so by assaulting either end, they trapped everyone.
The Duchess made a hissing sound, and pounded on her transceiver. She ordered the garrison troops she had left to hold the entrances to the city at all costs. They were also to open all armories and arm the public. This was going to be a bloody affair.
Her final act of the day was to sip tea as she awaited her emergency extraction. A flitter glided down from sunward to hover near the pinnacle of the watchtower. She stepped outside into the open, powerful breezes. She could see the fighting now, distant glaring flashes and explosions flared orange to her left and right. Moments after the flashes, loud booming reports echoed from the canyon walls around her.
She hesitated in concern before boarding the craft. The pilot anxiously waved her forward. But she did not move. There was something…
Yes, she knew what it was now. There were no aircraft over the city. None at all. She licked her lips. Her hair whipped into her face and stung her eyes. She retrieved a communication device from one of her bodyguards and spoke to the flitter pilots.
“Fly to the rim of the canyon, up over the edge, have a look, then return for me.”
The pilot hesitated. “This is a dangerous situation, Duchess. I suggest you board with haste and-”
“Are you refusing my commands, Major?”
“No, Duchess, but for your safety.”
“Indulge me. I wish to have an eyewitness account of the situation along the rim. Are there aliens preparing to rappel down into the midst of the city? You must inform me. It will only take a moment.”
“Very well, Duchess,” the pilot said.
The craft lifted away and buzzed toward the canyon wall. Within moments, it had reached its objective. It rose up then, circled above the rim of the canyon, and did a sweeping turn to return to the watchtower.
The aliens were a little slow, but they were accurate. Beams lanced out and riddled the craft. It fell, a burning ruin, into the city streets far below.
The Duchess nodded, her suspicions confirmed. The aliens had allowed the craft to approach, but they weren’t going to allow anyone to fly out of the city. She should have heard about this critical detail, but the Nexus people who ran traffic control were all dead, blasted to atoms along with their radar systems.
She turned around and stepped back into her penthouse. For the first time, she felt a real pang of fear. She could not leave. She was trapped with the rest, be they lords or peasants.
The aliens were closing down the city-but not directly destroying it. She’d expected at first they might wish to simply bathe the place in nuclear fires. Since they’d passed up this easy solution, they must have something else in mind for the populace. The Duchess had the feeling she wasn’t going to like learning of their plans. Before she closed the outer hatches to the flitter port, she looked out away from the sun, toward Nightside. What was Aldo doing out there with her army? She’d been a fool to trust the Nexus people and send Aldo to needle the young Baroness. The temptation had been too great, however. Now, she was paying a price for underestimating the aliens. She hoped that in the end, the price would not be too great.
The harvesting of the human population center was going exceedingly well. The Skaintz were like most predators: they liked their food to put up a fight. Like terrestrial snakes, they were bored by dead prey. The wriggling, the resistance, the stings and barbs-such details stimulated their appetite like nothing else could.
And the humans did struggle. Once their militia barricades were swept aside at either end of the long canyon, they fell back to fighting house-to-house, street-to-street. Their weaponry was mostly ballistic in nature. The military had laser rifles, but the average citizen may own nothing more than a single-shot rifle. Still, these weapons were well-designed and were capable of hurling a lead pellet at significant velocities. The killbeasts were on the front line, and when struck by a rifle bullet they were often knocked off their horned feet. In almost every case, they bounded up again and returned fire, or charged close to eviscerate their attackers. But occasionally they were mortally wounded and only flopped on the cobbles. The nife commander considered charging such concentrations of resistance with juggers, but withheld them in reserve for serious threats. Sometimes, the humans laid mines in the streets or even blew up their homes to kill a few more of the advancing Skaintz.
As the Imperial troops moved into the city, capturing herds of huddled, weeping food-creatures, the resistance grew stiffer still. Perhaps the rest of the beasts had seen those that surrendered were herded to the invasion ships and carried aloft to Gladius. Suspecting the terminal fate that awaited them, they fought with the fury of desperation. Snipers began to work in trios, holding their fire until they could concentrate on a single target and bring it down once and for all.
“We’re losing too many killbeasts!” the Empress shouted via radio.
The nife, who sat in his command chair, ducked his cusps and sighed. He regretted ever having allowed the Empress to link into the live streams coming up from the combat zone. This was a military operation, and he rankled under her micromanagement, as any commander would. He could not simply tell her to turn off the feed, however. He quickly brightened as he thought of another approach.
“Empress, my dearest majesty. I have excellent news. The first of the ships have arrived from the surface. They’ve brought an assortment of the finest wild food-creatures.”
“What? Why was I not informed? Bring them to me at once, we shall have a feast!”
“An excellent idea.”
