The Rask Rebellion

"What do you propose?" she asked, watching him warily.

"We need to do this fast, before word spreads," he said as he gestured frantically with his prosthetic hands. "Once the Elysians find out what's happened, we're going to have a full-blown catfight on our hands. I don't think all the Krell and pepper spray in the Galaxy is going to keep the two sides separated."

"If they want to start a fight, then they shall have one," Korbaz snarled.

"Not on my station they won't," Moralez shot back, pointing an accusing finger at her with a whir of his electric motors. "Don't forget, I've put you in the brig before, and I can do it again."

Rather than responding with anger, the corners of her lips curled into a smile. She respected his brashness, she always had.

"Very well, tin man, tell me your plan."

"There's a civilian liner docked right now that can carry a good two thousand passengers. I just need to say the word, and the UNN can commandeer it. My proposal is that you and I work together to get every Rask on the station onto that ship and bound for home in the shortest amount of time humanly possible. Sorry," he added, "the shortest amount of time Borealanly possible."

"A sound plan," she replied. "A clever strategist might wait until said liner was clear of the station, and then use the defensive guns to destroy it. They could kill a Vice Admiral of the Rask and hundreds of Matriarchy troops in one fell swoop, rather than sending them home to join the fight."

"Do you really think the UNN would do that?" Moralez asked, scowling at her.

"No," she replied after a moment. "I'm sure that one of your foolish conventions or treaties would prohibit it."

"It's not like you have much of a choice in either case. I don't want to try interning a few hundred angry Rask. I guess we'd have to seal you up in one of the hangars and toss a crate of MREs in there every couple of days."

"Does it not worry your Admiralty that we will be bolstering the forces on the ground?" she asked skeptically.

"Bolstering the forces on the ground?" Moralez scoffed. "If the entire Rask population mobilized for war, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the armies that the UNN can field, let alone the Coalition. You have no fleet, no technology, how on Earth does your Matriarchy expect to win this war?"

"Do you think that we would stumble into battle unprepared?" Korbaz replied, her tail flicking in irritation. "You underestimate us. You always do."

"And what happens if a Bug fleet jumps into orbit and starts shooting drop pods into your territory? What are you going to do then? That's the reason the Coalition exists in the first place, might I remind you."

"The Matriarchy has more pressing concerns," she replied dismissively.

"Let's just get this done," Moralez sighed. "Get your people moving, and I'll start organizing escorts for them. Stay in touch," he added, tapping at his ear. "We need to coordinate this carefully."

***

The captain of the liner had been less than happy about the change, but after a few threats and promises, they had finally gotten to a point where they could start loading the Rask onto the ship. Moralez's MPs had sectioned off a chunk of the torus and had been escorting them from the barracks in groups of a few dozen at a time, shipping them out to the waiting vessel in troop transports. Just as Moralez had feared, word about what the Rask had done on Borealis had spread fast, but he and Korbaz had moved faster. They were almost done loading the aliens, and only a couple of hours had passed since he had first suggested the idea to the Vice Admiral.

The two of them were standing side by side next to one of the idling dropships in one of the hangars, its troop ramp open. It was designed to ferry personnel to and fro, its hull painted in a shade of ocean-grey. It had a pair of stubby wings for gliding in atmosphere, and a cockpit situated high on the stunted nose for maximum visibility.

Another procession of Rask entered from the torus, flanked on both sides by armed MPs. They were wearing the Navy-blue coveralls that had been issued to them when they had first arrived on the station to begin their training, duffle bags full of what few possessions they wanted to take home slung over their shoulders. Most of them looked more confused than angry. It hadn't been their idea to start a war with the Coalition, they were merely caught in the crossfire. Many of them were just kids, some of them might only have been on the station for a matter of weeks.

As they marched towards the shuttle, one of their number stopped, a confused MP at the back of the line pausing to wait beside him. Moralez turned to ask Korbaz what was going on, but her ears were already pricked up. She knew instinctively that something was wrong.

Another of the aliens turned around and left the formation, followed by a handful more. There were five of them in all. These must be that Rask's packmates. The Borealans tended to self-organize into small social units of half a dozen or so, each one led by an Alpha who commanded total obedience. The taller of them stepped forward, a couple of MPs following, one of them looking to Moralez for guidance from beneath his white helmet. The Chief began to move, but Korbaz placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait," she whispered, watching intently.

"Nugza, get back in line," the Alpha snapped. He looked mean, even for a Rask, the dark skin on his face crisscrossed with faded scars. The solitary male's ears flattened against his blonde hair, his amber eyes turning to the deck. "I said...get back in line," the Alpha repeated in a menacing tone, his packmates sharing uncertain glances.

"No," the male replied.

"What?" the Alpha hissed, his tail puffing up like a feather duster. It might not be apparent to the uninitiated, but a Borealan refusing a direct order from their Alpha was practically unheard of. It was a violation of their social hierarchy, a spit in the face that warranted immediate reprisal. Moralez had never seen such defiance before, not unless a challenge for dominance was about to be issued.

"I don't want to go," the male replied, clenching his fists as he stared at the floor. He was frozen as still as a statue, as if afraid that any movement might provoke an attack from his superior.

"Nobody has given you a choice," the Alpha snapped, taking a couple of steps closer. "I'd scar you for your insolence right here if we weren't pressed for time. Get back into line, and pray that my anger cools before we find ourselves alone together."

Everything seemed to have come to a standstill, as though someone had pressed the pause button on the scene. The Rask were all watching the confrontation, and the MPs were standing around, not really sure of how to deal with it.

"This isn't right," Nugza continued, baring his teeth in a grimace. "These humans have shown us kindness, as have the Elysians. They are my friends. The Matriarch orders us into war against them, and I...I cannot."

"You question a decree from the Matriarch?" the Alpha asked in disbelief, his jaw hanging agape. "How dare you! Nugza, you have spent too long in the company of these aliens, you forget yourself. What of your loyalty to your people, to the pack who fills your stomach with food and your hands with steel?"

"I will not shed their blood!" Nugza yelled, his voice echoing in the hangar. "They are as my pack, my kin."

"Traitor!" the Alpha sneered.

Moralez wasn't sure what was about to happen. Disagreements of this nature usually ended in a physical bout in which one participant emerged victorious, while the other submitted, but this was bizarre.

"I won't go either," someone shouted, all eyes turning to another Rask as she stepped out of line. She brandished a prosthetic arm, not dissimilar from Moralez's, the motors whirring as she flexed her polymer fingers. It seemed that she had lost her original limb just below the elbow. It had three thick digits and a thumb, each one tipped with a claw that was decidedly duller than her natural ones. Perhaps that was due to weaponized prosthetics being prohibited under UNN treaties.

"I owe the humans my life," she continued. "Without their help, I would have surely died, and without their medicine, I would be living out the rest of my days as a cripple. I will not raise arms against them."

This one seemed to be from a different pack, her own Alpha swiping at her. The female leapt clear, brandishing her claws and crouching low as her furious superior began to circle her, the two gearing up for a scuffle.

"Korbaz, you gotta nip this in the bud before I have my guys break out the mace," Moralez warned. The Vice Admiral stepped forward, her voice carrying through the hangar as she bellowed loud enough that even a couple of the MPs were startled.

"There will be no fighting!"

Even the disobedient Rask stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her, Nugza swallowing conspicuously as he stood up as straight as a board.

Moralez approached the gaggle of aliens, their feline eyes tracking him. He waved over the pair of dissidents, their Alphas watching with barely contained fury, a chorus of low muttering coming from the others.

"I appreciate what you're doing," he began. "Really, I do. It takes a lot of guts to refuse an order that you know is wrong, to go against your Alpha like that. But if you choose to stay, I'm going to have no choice but to lock you in the brig. There's no way for us to be sure that you're not spies or saboteurs."

"Very well," the female with the prosthetic arm replied. "Better that, than to be forced to kill our comrades."

The male, Nugza, seemed less sure of himself. As Borealans often do, he looked to the more brash female for reassurance, eventually nodding his head.

"I will accept imprisonment," he added, stony-faced.

Moralez called over a couple of the MPs and instructed them to escort the pair to the security building, where they'd be interned until further notice. Maybe he could pull some strings, get them out early on the condition that they'd be kept under surveillance. He couldn't deny that their stunt had moved him. Korbaz wandered over to stand beside him as the pair were marched out of the hangar, the remaining Rask seeming content to board the shuttle.

"Thanks for handling that," he muttered, Korbaz nodding. "I guess the war isn't all that popular with the Rask, either."

"I understand their sentiment," she replied, "it is...difficult to raise arms against someone that you once called a friend. But the Matriarch does not require our sentiment, only our obedience. A Borealan must obey their Alpha in all things, and the Matriarch is the Alpha of Alphas. This is something that humans understand also. A Private would never defy the orders of an Admiral, a Marine must obey his commander in all things. You labor under the misapprehension that your way of life is different from ours, but you merely practice obedience selectively. It is something that I have always hated about you..."

"Damn," he chuckled, giving her a sideways glance. "You go straight for the throat, don't you? I used to hate Borealans too, you know. These," he said as he waved his prosthetic hands in front of her, "are partly the fault of a Borealan. Eventually, I came to understand them, learned that there was a method to their madness. I don't hate them anymore, I don't hate you."

"I...don't hate you either," she sighed, seeming to regret the sharpness of her tongue. "You just frustrate me sometimes."

"Are we talking about the human race, or me in particular?" he asked with a wink.

"A little of both," she replied, giving him a weary smile. "Perhaps, when the Rask are victorious, I will take you as my concubine. A Security Chief would make for a fitting trophy."

"Well, that's something to look forward to," he laughed. He wasn't quite sure if she was joking or not. "If you wanted to stay," he continued, "I could probably swing it so that you'd be put under house arrest in one of the suites. You could claim political asylum, and we could stick you in a five-star hotel for the duration of the war. Under surveillance, of course," he added.

"Thank you for the offer," she said, "but my place is at my Matriarch's side. I must return to her, I have been summoned."

"Have it your way," he said with a shrug. "By the way, I never got the whole Vice Admiral thing. What does that mean, exactly? Borealis has no oceans, and the Rask have no fleet, so what kind of ships are you responsible for?"

"We sail oceans of sand," she replied cryptically, Moralez raising an eyebrow.

"There are only a couple more groups of Rask to bring through," he said as they turned to watch the troop ramp of the shuttle seal. They walked clear as the engines flickered to life, a blue glow emanating from within the nozzles as the pilot ran a pre-flight check. "I take it you're heading back home on the liner with your troops?"

"No," she replied. "My Matriarch has chartered a private Courser to take me back. Our business cannot wait the two weeks that it will take the liner to make the jumps."

"Courser'll get you there in about a day," Moralez said with a nod, watching the shuttle rise from the deck. It hovered over to the blue force field on its thrusters, passing through the shimmering barrier as it headed out into open space. "I don't think this will be a long war. For all the grief you give me, I'll be sorry if you don't make it out. My job would be a lot less interesting without you around."

"Do not worry," she said, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "I must return to claim my trophy, remember?"

CHAPTER 2: SANDSTALKER

The Courser emerged from superlight like a needle piercing the fabric of the cosmos, a cloud of colorful gas spreading behind it as the vessel tore a hole in reality. It drifted for a moment, the thrusters along its chassis flickering as the autopilot righted it, emitting jets of blue flame. It was shaped vaguely like a torpedo, pointed and streamlined, the engines and the nuclear reactor that powered its drive housed far at the back of the sleek hull. The cockpit and the limited cargo area was situated at the pointed front of the craft, linked by a long, skeletal scaffold that helped to reduce its mass. A Courser was the most optimal ratio between mass, carrying capacity, and power consumption that the Navy could build. They were designed to be as fast as possible, ferrying important personnel and critical information over great distances where slower methods just wouldn't suffice.

From within its passenger compartment, Korbaz slowly came to, spitting out her plastic bit and releasing the manacles that were secured around her wrists. She leaned forward in the padded crash couch, cradling her head in her furry hands. Superlight travel was supposed to get easier over time, but she didn't see it that way. After every jump, she felt like someone had beaten her with clubs. The wracking energies of these arcane, human engines had a strange effect on living nervous systems, sending the occupants of the craft into varying degrees of seizure and unconsciousness. It was one aspect of being an Ambassador that she wasn't going to miss.

A human voice came through on the nearby intercom, her ears flattening against her head as the sudden noise exacerbated her lingering migraine.

"There's a shuttle en route to pick you up," he said, followed by a crackle of static. "Hurry up and get your gear, I ain't hangin' around for any longer than I have to. Your boss paid me to drop you off, not to stare down the railgun barrels of a UNN fleet. I just got hit with a dozen fuckin' radar pulses."

How she would have loved to tear the insolent whelp from his cockpit and teach him a lesson about respect, but now was not the time. Every moment that she wasted was a moment that she was not serving her Matriarch.

She rose from her seat on legs that were still unsteady, slinging her pack over her shoulder. The passenger compartment was cramped, even by human standards, and she narrowly avoided hitting her head on a protruding pipe as she made her way across the metal deck. The docking umbilical was already extending from the ship when she arrived at the pressure door, Korbaz watching through a tiny porthole as the flimsy tube telescoped outwards into space. It looked like a metal frame wrapped in flexible material, hardly sure footing. A shuttle appeared from her right, its retros flaring as it decelerated. It was similar to the troop transports used by the UNN, albeit an older model. While the Matriarchy didn't have the resources to buy frigates and gunboats like the Elysians, owning a few private shuttles was a necessity.

The two vessels lined up, then there was a loud thud as they locked together. The pressure doors opened automatically, a rush of stale air blowing her hair as she took a step forward. The shuttle door was perhaps fifty feet away, the white material that served as her only protection from the vacuum beyond couldn't have been much sturdier than a plastic tarp. The metal walkway creaked underfoot as she slowly made her way over, loosing a sigh of relief when she stepped onto the shuttle.

The pilot was a Rask, and he greeted her with a respectful bow of his head. There wasn't much room for him to do anything else considering how cramped the cockpit was, so she didn't expect a more formal reception.

"Take me to the palace," she muttered, tossing her bag to the floor before taking a seat on one of the crash couches. She strapped in as the pressure door sealed with a hermetic hiss, the shuttle beginning to drift away from the Courser. Through the cockpit's canopy, she got a view of her homeworld, the sprawling deserts seeming to stretch infinitely. Coming home should be a good feeling, but all she felt was a twinge of apprehension. She didn't know what the Matriarch expected of her, what her role might be in the coming conflict.

Korbaz would never dare to openly question her superiors, but as the shuttle banked towards the planet, doubts swirled in her mind. The Matriarch had never left the homeworld, she hadn't seen the might of the Coalition with her own eyes. The humans had mass drivers that could crack planets mounted on their battleships, they had nuclear weapons that could turn the entire territory into an irradiated crater if they so wished. Did she really know who she was picking a fight with?

The aliens were obsessed with their laws, their regulations, their rules of engagement. They went to such lengths to avoid what they called war crimes, collateral damage, but was it safe to assume that they could not be provoked into breaking those rules?

They descended through the atmosphere, turbulence buffeting the little craft as the flames of reentry began to lick at its nose, the Rask territory coming into view. Where many territories were encircled by a protective wall of verdant jungle, Rask was exposed, the desert sands spilling through the miles-wide breaches between the trees. These broken bands of jungle did a poor job of trapping moisture and creating a micro-climate, resulting in the territory's interior being dryer and harsher than any other. There was water, and there was forest, but Borealis had not bestowed the same gifts upon all of her children.

Its people were a reflection of their environment in many ways. Like their home, they were scarred, inhospitable. The Rask prided themselves on their tenacity, their ability to face the hardships of daily life and thrive on them.

The Elysians had a lake that was bigger than the entire Rask territory, ringed by jungle so dense that not a grain of sand could reach the interior. Being within its bounds was like stepping into a different world. Food was plentiful, they never had to range far to find a gourd hanging from a vine, they never had to swim far to find a shoal of fish. The Rask had to fight for everything that they had.