The Admiral and the Assistant

Elias spread his arms, palms down. They brushed the tops of the waist-high flowers that surrounded him. He was in a yellow field, bright and peaceful, surrounded by golden flowers. He turned his face to the sky, looking at the pale red star warming the surface.

He drew his gaze back down. The Velonians were scattered in the field around him. They went about on four legs, mostly, with two stubby rear legs, and long forelegs that doubled as arms. They would occasionally stand upright, craning their long necks around to look for danger. A few looked over curiously at Elias, then dropped back down and resumed munching on the flowers.

"They are coming," Elias said, his voice shaking. His voice swelled. "Judgment is coming. The innocent will be swept up with the wicked."

A few Velonians watched him curiously. They bleated at each other in their native language, discussing him. Their vocal chords were poorly suited to speaking Common Imperial, but one stumped over and made the effort.

"Have you come to feed?" she asked, her voice high and trill. She gazed down at him with her large, doe-like eyes. "There is plenty for all."

"I bring a warning," he croaked. "Death comes."

She tilted her head in curiosity.

"There are no predators here," she said. "We watch. We see far over the fields. You are safe." She deftly gathered a few flowers and held them out to him. "Please, eat."

Elias' lips trembled. He stared deep into her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't change the outcome. I can only bring warning." He gently took the flowers from her, staring at the bright yellow teardrop petals. He carefully stroked the silky-smooth plant. "I bring warning. If I am fortunate, this time, they will take me as well."

Herin Kasra felt the galaxy unfold around him as the Feeder boneship rocketed toward its destination. His anticipation was building. His transformation was far from complete, but it was far enough along that he could feel the hunger, could sense the upcoming feeding.

He would have chortled, if he'd still had the ability. Traveling faster than light speed was so much simpler than all that dangerous mucking about with jumpspace. Just point yourself in the direction you wanted to go, then go. The rest of the Imperium had to dance around the galaxy, following the sprawling jumphole network, but he could go directly to his destination.

The boneship slammed to a stop in the Velonia system. A fat red star squatted there, orbited by a small yellow planet.

Velonia was remote, pastoral. Its surface was covered with rocky soil, and its atmosphere was hazy yellow, full of sulfur dioxide. The ground was rich with nutrients from its many volcanoes.

Up until recently, its people had been a Subject Species. Life for them had changed little since the Emperor's announcement. They were subsistence agriculturalists, living a simple existence as farmers and gardeners. The Imperium had brought them new fertilizers, along with technology to control weeds. And they were beginning to develop an economy, now that they could transport their food all over the planet. They'd even begun selling some of their crops off-planet, making a name for themselves with their exotic gourds and tangy wheat.

But life, for them, was about to change permanently with the arrival of Herin Kasra and the Feeders. They were a small morsel, but poorly defended.

The boneship loomed in the space over the innocent world. The little scarab ships began to wriggle out, streaming down toward the planet's surface. Herin watched them go. His many arms swayed rhytmically, eager for them to return.

From what he'd learned so far, he knew that the drones would collect the sentients from the surface and bring their energy back to the boneship. Their energy would be pooled and stored in the many comfort stations around the ship.

The comfort stations were centers of warmth and food. The ship was primarily warmed by the main reactor sending energy through the structure of the ship, but the comfort stations were especially hot. The Feeders could bask in the heat of their gatherings as they fed.

Herin had been assured that he was far enough along in his transformation that he could feed, too. His body was warped now, folded along itself. He squirmed as he thought about his first feeding.

At the moment, the comfort stations were nearly empty. The Feeders ordinarily kept them full, but when the warning had come to them that this galaxy had begun developing faster than anticipated, they'd dropped everthing and rushed over, leaving the comfort stations at low ebb. They'd partially refilled on Brolla, but they'd gotten hardly anything from Techterra, and now they were running short.

It was bad to have interrupted the harvest from the other galaxy, but security trumped hunger. It simply wouldn't do to have one of their gardens growing wild and untamed. If one galaxy grew strong enough to repel them, other galaxies would follow.

Herin sneered. The Feeders suspected interference by the Cryptographers. There had been some brief interactions between the Feeders and the Cryptographers many thousands of year before. Currently, they were under an uneasy ceasefire.

The Cryptographers were sentients, but their flavor was appalling. The process that extracted their food from sentients should have cleansed the energy, but regardless of what the Feeders tried, the strands of jumpspace clung to the energy of the Cryptographers, vile and repulsive.

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After a few inconclusive skirmishes, they'd simply stayed away from each other. The Cryptographers didn't have the military might to take on the Feeders, and the Feeders couldn't stand the taste of the Cryptographers. There was no reason for either of them to interfere with the other.

Except maybe now there was.

The Feeders had never developed the technology to enter jumpspace. It would have been simple, given their level of scientific knowledge, but they'd never had a need for it. And given their reaction to the Cryptographers, Herin could only imagine how they'd react to actually being in jumpspace.

As it stood, Herin was using the data he'd brought with them to help them put together the ability create and destroy jumpholes, at least. He had a feeling that if the Imperial Navy were still a threat, being able to strand them in a sector would be handy.

The rest of the Feeders didn't really understand, but they were happy to let him work on it. It seemed harmless enough, and it might come in handy.

The first wave of scarab ships began returning from Velonia, fat with energy. They wriggled back into the boneship, working their way deeper, preparing to offload their cargo.

Herin would have grinned, if he could have. The feeding was about to begin.

The alarm blared through the Ocher Dawn, and Captain Minius nearly fell out of his bunk. He spasmed and came awake.

He'd been sleeping in his quarters more, lately. In the last decade, he'd fallen in to the habit of snoozing in his captain's chair on the bridge, but for some reason, with all the recent changes, he'd wanted actual time in a bunk.

It also helped that he'd cleared most of the scrap out of it.

Minius sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes, his heart racing. In the dimness of his room there was an unfamiliar shape. Minius peered at it, then started. He tumbled out of his bunk and scramble for the light switch.

"Flander?"

The robot stood impassively in his room. Minius gave it a long careful look.

"Flander, are you... okay? Why are you in my bunk?"

The robot reached out with one arm. The arm terminated in a springy cluster of bands, designed to pick up small, delicate parts. Flander gently patted Minius on the shoulder with it. Then it smoothly left Minius' bunk, gliding along on its many arms out the open door.

Minius frowned in concern, watching the robot depart. Then he followed, heading for the bridge.

Grimthorn stood on the bridge, Kinnit by his side. His arms were crossed and he glared at the screen, his face fixed in a set frown. The Swordheart, still limping on only two engines, was heading for the last Velonia sector, trailed by the scraped-together remnants of the Ninth Fleet. The Wraithfleet, the privateer, and a mishmash of ships from the garrisons, whose captains happened to have fleet experience. It was a paltry handful compared to the mighty armada that the Imperium had fielded a few weeks ago.

But the handful would stand. They would fall, but until the last breath, they would stand and spit in the face of anyone who would harm the citizens of the Imperium.

Grimthorn's frown stiffened.

"They're hitting a more remote system this time," Kinnit said.

Grimthorn nodded.

"First Techterra, now this," he said. "I don't think they're stumbling across systems at random any more."

"I wonder if they captured some Imperial intelligence?" Kinnit asked.

Grimthorn shook his head.

"The jumphole network is not exactly a secret. Every ship has a map of the whole thing. The Feeders do seem strangely aware of it all, though. I wish the enemies of the Imperium would just stay stupid." He thought for a moment. "Sehren Senn is still in prison, I assume?"

She rubbed his back.

"I'm sure he is," she said. She leaned her head on him, and he put an arm around her. The stood that way for a long, quiet moment, while the rest of the bridge pretended they couldn't see the couple.

"I'm glad," he said finally.

"What's that?"

"If this is the end, I'm glad to have known you," he said quietly, pitched for only her hearing. "I'm glad to have married you. I'm glad we got everything you wanted for your people. I'm glad for every moment I've spent with you." He squeezed her. "At any other time of my life, I would have died for duty, and been satisfied. I would never have known how wonderful life really is. You showed me how much better it can be. My only regret is that I wish I could have spent more time with you."

She turned her luminous eyes up to him.

"Grimthorn, I..." she choked on her words. "We can still..."

"Shh. You need to get to your station." He lifted her chin with two fingers. "Just know that I love you."

He drew her into a passionate kiss as the Swordheart drifted among the stars.

They broke apart at long last. She reached up and laid her hand on his face.

"I... I love you, too, Grimthorn."

"Two minutes until jumphole traversal," call Lieutenant Phet, keeping his eyes carefully fixed on his console.

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant," Grimthorn said. He patted Kinnit's back. "Go on, now," he said. "It's time."

She gave him a quick, final hug, then stepped down from the captain's dais. She walked over to a console that had been quickly patched together by the engineers at the Copper Grove shipyards.

The weapons systems had been so damaged that there wasn't time to fully repair them, so a new console had been set up to manually manage them. Kinnit would be handling that aspect, since all the other Lieutenants with bridge experience already had a role in the upcoming battle. She quickly activated all the weapons systems and began rerouting power to the Swordheart's armaments.

"Weapons are ready, Admiral," she said.

"Very well. Fleet, remember that our job is to slow the Feeders down so that as many Velonians as possible can escape. Let's go stand between the Imperium and her enemies. All hail the Imperium!"

"All hail!" came the reply.

Captain Minius drew in a shaky breath as they emerged from jumpspace into the Velonia system.

"All right, just as the Admiral has asked," he said. "Flander, scan the sector and the boneship."

Panic wrenched his gut as Flander put the image of the boneship on the bridge's primary monitor. The last time they'd seen the Feeder boneship, they'd hidden in silent terror as the death ship had passed.

Now, they'd be fighting it.

With the improved scanners and data, the image of the boneship was so much more crisp and terrifying.

Minius forced down his fear.

"Brutus, clear the jumphole," he said. "Make sure we are not in anybody's way. Flander, send the data and analysis to the Admiral." He took a deep breath, reviewing the data. His face fell. "That boneship... it have been repairing. Compare the scans from the battle over Techterra. They have already repaired so much." He pinched his lips in frustration. "It are not fair," he said finally.

Flander tapped once on the deck, then made a complex scraping movement.

"What do you mean, 'growing?'" He peered at the scan data, a grimace on his face. "Okay, that are horrifying. It does grow." He shook his head. "Oh, who does care if it are growing or repairing? It are a problem either way."

He stiffened his spine.

"Flander, load torpedo. It are time to change the galaxy for the better."