Quorum of War (Part 2)

Silver Wisp sat and let his body rejoin the ship, his skin flowing into his seat and console. Applications immediately started flooding in from researchers, the curious, the angry and the blood-thirsty that wanted to accompany the mission. An Old-Fleet going to a legitimate war on the far edge of human space? This would be a research/entertainment opportunity of a lifetime. He checked the social credit of each applicant, cross-checked their references and issued a hundred passes. Out of sheer perversity, he carefully ensured that none of their personalities would mesh. So they enjoyed combat? No problem.

He sent a note to the Quorum of war that he had assembled the required witnesses and would depart once they arrived. He had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Ambassador Rowan felt uncomfortable as she approached the Silver Wisp. Common courtesy dictated that the Commander was both the man and the ship and you were expected to acknowledge that. It was truly vast, a gently sloping dome that only seemed to expand. She was aware that he had been constructing it for nearly ten millennia, a labour of love equivalent to her forest domain. A nagging fear of what she had unleashed on the brute Xenos had dragged her from slumber in the soft greens of her home and into this dark, metal strangeness. She made a call to the ship and in clipped tones announced, “This is Ambassador Rowen, Signatory to the Quorum of War, requesting permission to board, as is my right.”

Silver Wisp grinned as he answered, “Welcome Ambassador. Your rooms are prepared, I’ll drop by when you are settled in.”

Her needle-craft was taken under autopilot and interrogated then pulled deep into the vast craft, liquid metal walls sliding around her ship. Finally, it was gently deposited in a vast hall, even as the walls were sealed without a sign or mark to indicate a way out. Beautiful and practical she thought. Her ship unsealed and revealed a forest.

She drew in a breath, the sounds and smells of her homeworld filling her lungs and dappled daylight feeding her now happy leaves. She stared about at the tall trees, ancient and real. This was no illusion, this was the work of ages. Why had he grown this? She had no record of her people travelling with him before. She dismissed the ‘Why’ and just resolved to thank him. Her terror of space receded among such friendly surroundings.

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In the Oort cloud around a burning world grew the true dark, the side forever hidden. The beacon was not just a call for help, it was a creature sent to watch, record and guard. Rarely would it need to take form, even rarer that it would be permitted revenge but this time, this terrible time, there would be no leash and no rules save only one. It was permitted to exact justice from the people that had committed the atrocity. Not the governments, not the civilians, just anyone that stood on a ship or pulled a trigger. Then it had been given the blessing of the Quorum of War.

From the ragged and broken rocks, it drew what it needed to become the walking nightmare that mankind always knew rested within. Its figure flickered as it tested its camouflage, guns blighted nearby rocks as it refined its techniques. Plasma picked out specs of dirt from dark space as it rehearsed its algorithms. Blades were crafted and blackened, tested against the stone itself. The flickering image it had sent as a warning now become real, a face as cold as space and a heart as stony as the asteroids it was forged from. As pitiless as the creatures that had earned its existence.

Beacon raised his face to the universe, fully real for the first time. Filled with the pain of watching those he guarded die as he was held helpless by their rules. The nanites that had carefully built him had finished their job and had left a trail for him, lines bright in the dark for him to follow. With a final message to the Silver Wisp, he resigned from the human race and went to work. He wrapped the dark around him and left his failed post for the last time, carrying only weapons and vengeance onwards.

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The Shant council was as miserable as he expected. There would be no heroic welcome for his bloody work, just the sickening feeling that the nation, his nation, had soiled itself in the name of some nebulous fear. A planet-bound species melted into flaming rock, a few miners burned from the sky. This was not a story they wished to hear nor recount. Still, recount it he must.

“Council, on your orders I have destroyed the uncontacted race that called themselves ‘human’. Since they were in no position to do much more than throw a few rocks at us we suffered no casualties.”

He allowed the silence to draw out. One of the council shifted uncomfortably and began, “We gave you those orders because the race was perverse. It could not be allowed into space. “ A murmur of agreement came from his colleagues. “Indeed it was at the insistence of our allies. It would have been political suicide to refuse.”

The Director of War nodded, “Indeed. How could we bear the shame of not committing genocide and annihilating a race that was so very different from those that we understand? Those spears looked very sharp and those miners were quite difficult to kill. Thankfully you gave me a thousand ships to do it.” He slowly peeled his rank from his shell and dropped it on the floor. “I believe the galaxy must be free of all threats now since you sent me against such terrifying opposition. I hereby resign. Perhaps the Goddess will forgive us, she tends to do that. I don’t.” He turned and his rank was crushed into the floor as a curt glance sent the Armsmen to open the door.

The council watched him leave, more than one of them feeling the same. Sensing the mood the chairman snapped, “We all agreed. We all read the same damn reports. A race that hunts as nomads? A race that eats prey, hunts as a pack and yet maintains the technology that can build ships to harvest resources in its system? Never could we allow it to reach us. You saw the same projections, it would be here in a generation and we would not be able to stand against it. It was but the egg of a nightmare, a thing best destroyed and forgotten.” He stood up, “In any case, it is a thing done. Pity them and those we called on to do it, but it is over! The Council is dismissed.”

One of the council, not willing to be dismissed so easily, held up a copy of the warning sent from the beacon that they had officially ignored, “Is it?”

The speaking stick was banged down with unnecessary force as the council was dismissed. The question was left to linger in the air.

The Alliance learned that while fear is a small thing, that ghosts are a children’s tale best told in the dark and that there are many monsters that can quickly become friends sometimes the true dark gets closer. The genocide had quickly become a silent shame, the threat of revenge a slow beat in the creatures that had ordered the deaths of so many. Questions were murmured, sometimes to an empty room. What had they done to be so destroyed? Hidden was the unvoiced fear that perhaps it could happen to them.

The clips of the fleet melting the world into molten rock, of the destruction of the moon over an offence never even declared or understood. They had been given no reason but their very existence and died for it. Others delighted in the ‘victory’, the death of a cancer, the destruction of a threat foreseen and dealt with quickly. How many would have died if the humans had reached space?

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From out of the dark Beacon followed the fading path laid by the nanites. A shipyard loomed ahead of him, the obvious destination for whatever ship he had followed. He had no information yet. He slowed his approach, wasting a day to stay out of sight of any sensors and then drifted gently into what seemed to be the normal approach to the stations. He left his sensors on passive, hunting the right ships and then making his plans.

In the shipyards, the mood was grim as they returned to sullen silence and strange rumours. The announcement that the Director of War had resigned sent another message to the old hands on his ships. More than one put down his tools and walked off the ships, throwing their military identification into deep space. They had heard the threat and they knew what they had done. The nights seemed darker, the worlds smaller than before.

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Beacon landed softly on a ship. He was waiting for confirmation before he acted but he recognised it. This one had fired eight million kilotonnes of ordnance at his planet. He drew his primary blade and prepared to meet the destroyers of all he had been sent to guard. Blood for blood. He wanted names because they had never asked. He wanted to remember because that tempered his rage. They had killed the nameless but he wouldn’t, no he would kill the known and wear their skin as a trophy. A simple torn panel and he dropped silently inside...

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