Gods Dogs, Book 3

Inequality is generally at the bottom of internal warfare in states.

Aristotle

The trip to Dobal was interrupted by a call from Mudark Vannessen, the Iracian ambassador. He told them the three biological empires agreed to a negotiated settlement with the Milky Way. Now all five of the Andromeda empires were in accord. The preliminary talks could begin.

Solomon agreed to return to the Milky Way with the joint diplomatic teams that would represent the A-group. After the details of that were worked out, Quinn questioned Solomon about it at the daily command briefing a few days later.

“Why hold the preliminary talks in the Milky Way?”

Solomon chuckled. “They want me out of their hair. I sowed the seeds of revolution in those empires.”

Moss said, “You also set up the precondition for terrorist groups who will want to bring back their glory days.”

“Revolutions are messy,” Solomon conceded. “It is much better than a war of attrition between us and the three empires. We would lose that war.”

“That was your plan all along,” Ikel challenged. “Foment revolution here to avoid a war we couldn’t win.”

“Yes,” Solomon said. “I’ll not apologize for that, Commander. I saw that one ingredient for sparking a revolution was missing. All the other ingredients were there: social inequality, repressive taxation, generations of resentment, and so on. The missing ingredient was a favorable international environment. The future rebels may have figured that out, but I couldn’t wait. We couldn’t wait. I needed to let the people of those empires know they would have allies in their struggle for equality and justice.”

Pax said, “Those empires will need to go through a restructuring process to form a stable and confined government. Could they dodge a full-blown revolution?”

“I doubt it,” Solomon replied. “Too much resentment, too many atrocities to avenge. It will be a blood bath.”

“And the survivors?” River asked.

“As Moss said, elite or royal sponsored terrorist organizations will attack the new forms of governments the rebels will build.”

“Well, that’s just sad,” Quinn murmured.

Gunny Murphy added, “It is, but I agree with Solomon, the alternative would be worse.”

The asteroid changed course to meet the large delegation at the edge of the galaxy. The delegation numbered over two hundred. The Machine Autocracy brought the fewest at only eight androids. The Chert sent fifty-four, which was the largest contingent.

Each group was assigned its own residence – one of the long hallways off the main causeway. As each delegation came aboard, Pax and River were among the greeting party. They were looking for any saboteurs. As expected, there were a few in the Chert, Dobal, and Baston delegations. They were noted and tagged for surveillance.

The marines and Ikel’s company set guard rotations and monitoring shifts to keep an eye on their guests.

To their surprise, Lornalie Duval was on the Chert delegation. She sought out the Coyotes after she settled into her quarters. She found them at the main cafeteria. They were sprawled around a table drinking coffee.

“Hi, I’m Lornalie Duval,” she said with a shallow bow of her shaggy head. “May I sit with you?”

“Sure,” Moss said and pulled a chair out for her. “You’re the reporter Solomon contacted.”

“Yes. It was a dubious honor. I was under constant surveillance until well after you left.”

Moss chuckled. “The old guys didn’t trust you.”

“They trust no one,” she said. “It’s even worse now that they were forced into these negotiations. They see their world starting to fall apart.”

River asked, “What did you think of the Greek comedy?”

Lornalie looked around before answering, “Do women in your galaxy enjoy equal rights with men?”

River said, “Yes. At least for the last three or four hundred years in our part of the galaxy.”

“How could that work?”

River answered, “We are all created equal but born different. Both conditions must be accounted for.”

After a moment, Pax said, “You want to believe it, but you can’t let yourself believe it, because the disappointment would be too overwhelming.”

She looked down and responded, “How can you know that about me?”

“I’m an empath.”

“You read feelings?”

“I read feelings, and River is nearly as good at it as I am.”

Quinn changed the topic by saying, “You didn’t answer River’s question. What did you think of the Greek comedy?”

Thankful for the change, Lornalie answered, “It was shocking at first, but very funny in an outrageous way. The friends I shared it with reacted in a similar way.”

“Yeah, my reaction was the same when I first saw it,” River said. “Of course, I was only sixteen.”

Lornalie said, “I don’t understand the numerical reference.”

River replied, “I wasn’t an adult yet.”

“Oh, it must have been truly unsettling then.”

“It was, but the play was just one part of a course on how women went from a matriarchal system in prehistoric times to suppressed in historical times to equality now.”

“Was the oppression a patriarchy?”

“It was, but at the beginning, and for many centuries, it was a biological necessity that both genders agreed to. It didn’t become an oppressive ideology until the last few hundred years.”

Lornalie thought about that before saying, “For us it’s been a lot longer.”

Pax said, “Your Empire is entering a period of change. Perhaps women will gain their independence and equal status in the near future.”

“Chert men won’t allow it.”

River laughed. “Of course not. You don’t ask permission for equality, you demand it.”

“Of course,” Lornalie said with a sigh. “That was stupid of me.”

“No,” Pax said. “It was your training. The option to demand anything from men was never before available. Soon it will be.”

“I suppose.”

Moss paused a beat before asking, “Are there any of those kinds of men in your delegation we need to worry about?”

Lornalie frowned, her furry, leathery face wrinkling in shallow lines. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Quinn said, “There are those who prefer the status quo. They would do what they can to prevent a treaty between our galaxies.”

“There is a debate, yes, but the Chert are realists. We may feel we are forced into the negotiations to come, but the alternative is a war we cannot win.”

“Fanatics aren’t realists,” Moss pointed out.

“That is true. Are you asking me if there are fanatics in our party?”

Moss shrugged. “We know there are, Lornalie. I’m more concerned about what will happen when we kill them.”

She sat back in her chair. “You would kill them?”

“If they do anything to endanger the ship, or anyone on it, then yes, absolutely,” Moss answered.

River put her hand on Lornalie’s hand. “Coyotes are protectors. We deal harshly with those who threaten innocents.”

“I believe you, but I’ve never known of anyone standing up to the agents of the council of elders. They are elite assassins,” Lornalie said with urgent fear in her voice.

“Amateurs,” Moss replied. “We know who they are, and they are under surveillance. When we kill them, how will the others react?”

Lornalie snorted. “Probably with relief.”

The Chert people began as a hardy people, but generations of good living, at the expense of the conquered worlds, softened them. Military training wasn’t as tough as it used to be. Sons of the elite gained rank, not through merit but favoritism. The constant war of expansion did cull the weak or the unlucky from the herd, but not like before. Now, conscripts replaced citizens on the front lines and in the warships. There was a general softening within the Chert population, a slow slide into decadence.

Except, some would argue, in the Special Forces. That training was as demanding as ever. In the Chert system, individuals were picked from the regular troops as SpecOps candidates. Once a class was assembled, they went through a twelve week training that was reportedly brutal. At the end of that, specialties were determined, and the candidates headed off to specialty training. One of the most difficult of those was assassin training.

The Chert didn’t have a problem with the term ‘assassin.’ The lives of non-Chert were not held in high regard. Killing vermin, therefore, was acceptable and necessary. Because many of them could be cunning and dangerous, assassins needed to be better.

As such, the three Chert assassins on the asteroid had no doubt they would be successful. They were the best of the best Chert military training had to offer. At their commissioning at the end of their training, the trainers bestowed on them their call-signs. The call-sign represented the qualities they saw in each trainee: Death from Above, Slow-strider, and Shadow-stalker.

Among themselves, they shortened it to Above, Strider, and Stalker. Their supreme confidence, born as it was in the numerous kills each acquired, made it difficult for them to work together as a team. Each felt he should be the leader of such a team. Therefore, an officer aimed each one at a target.

The first task was to map out the environment they were in. That revealed Solomon’s impregnable location was behind miles of rock. To kill the ASI, they determined, meant destroying the entire asteroid.

That conclusion led them to the engines and stored fuel tanks. Again, they were disappointed to find those locations were well protected. Overwhelming force could take those positions, not stealth and sabotage.

That left the designated individual targets the council of elders identified. At the top of that list was the Coyote team.

During their surveillance, the assassins noted the team, singly or together, went wherever they wished, seemingly without a care. If there was a routine, the assassins didn’t discover it. The Coyotes were as spontaneous and as vulnerable as precocious children enjoying a rich environment of new people to meet and new experiences to enjoy.

They were easy marks, in other words, and the assassins prepared the traps to kill them all.

Above, as his name suggested, found a niche in the channel cut in the rock for conduits. The pipes, recessed in the ceiling, carried air, water, electrical lines, and the like. The cut channels weren’t covered, which allowed easy access. Above squeezed himself into his hide near the Coyote corridor to their quarters.

Stalker and Strider were nearby. It was hoped the four Coyotes would exit the hallway this morning in a loose group, thereby affording the assassins easy targeting solutions.

The plan was to stun the smaller humans and finish them off with knives. The female was considered ‘incidental catch,’ and whoever was nearest her wouldn’t bother with the honor of the knife and just put a laser beam through her head.

The Coyote team exited the wide tunnel and split up. One moved toward Strider, another toward Stalker, and two, including the female, walked straight ahead toward Above.

He felt the keen joy of a predator ready to pounce, the satisfaction of a well-placed ambush, and the still certainty of a sure kill.

Above dropped soundlessly from his perch and fired two quick shots from his stun pistol. Neither hit its mark.

Instead, a hand caught his throat before he touched the ground. With that leverage, his head stopped its forward motion, but his feet didn’t, and the same hand slammed him to the ground.

“Look what I caught,” the female said as Above tried to get his breath. He was on his back, the wind knocked out of him, the female’s knee on his stomach, and her hand was still on his throat.

The male finished disarming Above and said, “I don’t know, River, he doesn’t look big enough. Maybe you should throw him back.”

“Is this a catch-and-release zone?”

Marines trotted up and an older male said, “You’re slipping, River. You left this one alive.”

“Moss said he was too little.”

“He is scrawny for a Chert,” was the marine’s response. “What do you want to do with him?”

“Give him back to the officer-in-charge of the assassins and let him deal with it.”

“Okay. Jones, Metler, drag this would-be assassin back to the Chert quarters and give him to the colonel.”

“Aye, aye, gunny.”

They helped Above to his feet and supported him as they began the short hike to the Chert hallway.

Murphy added, “And let him know his other guys didn’t make it. Ask him what he wants to do with the bodies.”

“Okay,” Jones called back.

In the few minutes it took to reach their destination, Above started breathing easier, but he was still shaky from the body-slam.

The trio approached the two hall guards, and Jones said, “Hi there, sergeant. Gunny Murphy told us to return this guy to the colonel – what’s-his-name.”

The Chert sergeant recognized Above, and his eyes widened in surprise. He spoke into the radio affixed to his harness.

Then he asked, “What happened?”

“He attacked Coyote River.”

“The female?”

Jones snickered. “Yeah. The female. More to the point, she’s a Coyote. People that attack them usually end up in pieces.”

The colonel hustled up to join them, and Jones said, “Corporal Jones, sir. Gunny Murphy sends his compliments and is returning one of your men to deal with. He attacked Coyote River, and for some reason, she let him live. Your other two men weren’t as lucky. They’re dead, and the gunny wants to know what you want to do about the bodies.”

The colonel gestured for Above to move through the hall. He stumbled forward. Then the colonel just stared disbelieving at the two marines.

The Chert sergeant noticed the colonel was in a mild state of shock and covered for him. “You can transport the bodies here, and the colonel will talk to Gunny Murphy about this in the afternoon.”

The colonel looked at the sergeant and then the marines, nodded once, and hurried back the way he came.

Jones spoke to the air, “Solomon, would you have some bots bring those Chert bodies here, please?”

“Certainly, Corporal Jones. They have been dispatched.”

“Thanks,” Jones said.

“That was the ASI?” the sergeant asked.

“Yeah.”

“He’s that available?”

Jones snickered. “You could say he is the asteroid – the whole thing.”

“Amazing.”

Metler handed the other guard a bag. “These are all their weapons. We didn’t want to leave them lying around unsecured.”

The other guard nodded and looked at the bag.

Jones shrugged and turned to go, Metler following him. Over his shoulder he called, “Have a nice day.”