Chapter 461 (1/2)

The day was overcast, chosen that way specifically by the people manning the Planetary Weather Control. There was a light blustery wind, a chill that cut through the jacket, vest, and flank sash. The clouds were low and heavy with bluish lightning snarling deep inside. They no longer held the threat of fallout or radioactive rain, the Terran nanotech doing its job quickly to clean the radiation from the air, ground, and water. The lightning was a byproduct of the nanites discharging, but it completed the look for the dreary gray day.

The entire capital was hushed. The main road from the starport to the nearly founded Grand Mausoleum of History was blocked off on the sides, armored sec-beings moving back and forth to keep the crowds back. For the crowd's part, they were mostly weeping, many kneeling, with crying children throwing small flowers out toward the black grav-cars that slowly moved by, pulled by ancient draft animals despite having their own motors.

It wasn't all the dead of the fierce fighting to save the Artcarick, there were far too many to have a procession for all of them. It wasn't even all the dead humans. No, that was impossible. Across the entire stellar system there were only two humans left of the thousands who had defended the system with their very lives.

They had died within days of the final fight, leaving behind shocked and grieving Digital Sentiences and silent wargear. It was as if without battle, their spirits simply abandoned their bodies. They had slumped down, fallen over, and in a few cases, had seizures.

And then they were gone.

At first it was feared there was betrayal or an attack by the Unified Council.

Then the terrible word had come.

It was everywhere. In less than a standard week the human race was nearly extinct.

Two remained in the Artcarick System. One a low ranking infantryman, the other a Space Force Naval Officer. Both of them appeared on the Tri-Vee often, looking washed out, their eyes haunted, almost like ghosts that had not left the party.

And so the grav-cars slowly moved down the main avenue of the capital, heading for the Grand Mausoleum. Bodies of Maktanan, Carikan, Lanaktallan, Telkan, Rigellian, Treana'ad, Mantid, and Humans were inside. All of them with a list of deeds and heroism. Pictures of the dead were projected by holograms from the top of the vehicles. More than a few of the population of the planet held tight to their own pictures, alive only by the determination of the dead.

Mana'aktoo stood in a viewing box, roughly ten meters of the ground, his father and sisters and mother with him. Across from him Planetary Armed Forces Grand Most High Kulamu'u stood in a box with his wife and children. The elderly Lanaktallan was wearing black already.

His father had died in his sleep during the fighting, passing on, in some ways Mana'aktoo felt grateful for, calm and safe and dreaming.

The caravan was approaching. The Lanaktallan had no customs for such ceremony. The dead were dumped into incinerators or reclaimers and no more thought was ever given to them.

But the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems, of which the Artcarick system was now a signatory of, had customs to honor the dead and give the living a sense of closure.

The lead vehicle was drawn by a stocky reptile that had once been used by the Maktanan to plow fields. Four of them, their scales polished, pulled the hover-limo forward. On the front was the Artcarick flag, carefully arranged on the hood. Above the top was holos of children at play, females of all races smiling and engaged in activities, workers at work, and elderly beings.

The windows were not tinted, so that the crowd could see the back of the limo was empty.

The custom that the people of Artcarick had adopted insisted that the empty vehicle, signifying the uncountable dead civilians in a war, was to always go first. It was empty for all the bodies that would never be found and the stories that would never be known.

There was something, Mana'aktoo thought, something strangely melancholy about a simple rigid substance pulled tight across a steel ring and then tapped upon by plastic tipped sticks. The staccato rapping of the drum, a steady, almost monotone rhythm, the way the young Maktanan child marched in time with his tapping, seemed to echo off the buildings like thunder.

Mana'aktoo could see the unshed tears in the child's eyes as he drew near.

The System Most High in Exile straighten up and saluted as the child marched by, looking straight ahead and never to either side, his 'drum' tapping.

His mother and sisters began to softly weep as the first vehicle went by.

It began to drizzle, a misty, almost nebulous thing, as the next vehicle went by.

Admiral Schmidt, the Terran that most of the population felt was the being who had defended the system successfully, was in the hologram. The hologram rotated slowly, showing Schmidt in his dress uniform, then obviously on the bridge of some kind of warship engaged in combat, then standing with a woman and several children, then standing with Most High in Exile Mana'aktoo and his mother.

It made something inside of Mana'aktoo ache that the talented and interesting lemur had died.

I liked him, he thought to himself.

The next was System Defense Second Most High Plu'umo'o. The rotating hologram showed the Lanaktallan in dress uniform, galloping across a sunny grassy field, and then, holding a Terran rifle in his hands shooting at Precursor machines and yelling into a headset.

The Lanaktallan had been rallying the Carikan troops, who had almost buckled beneath the onslaught of metal, when he had been struck by a high-vee round and killed.

A waste of talent that could have led our people far, Mana'aktoo thought.

His sister wept at the sight of her betrothed on the hologram. She had promised Mana'aktoo that, if he returned from war, she would marry him.

She wore black and had sworn that she would never wear anything else.

The population of the system were already calling her The Filly Widow.

A little green mantid was next. The equation was long, almost incomprehensible. It had taken Mana'aktoo nearly three hours to puzzle it out. The relation between the time it took to overcharge your credit line and the proximity to gambling machines. The handy nickname had been 125, and everyone had called him ”Buck and a quarter” for some strange reason. He was shown as a tiny mantid, then working on medical equipment, again working on an air conditioner, then teaching a class of Maktanan students about mathematics. Then the final picture. On the shoulder of a warborg, firing a missile launcher. He represented all green mantids lost.

Mana'aktoo's mother grasped him, holding tight, burying her face in his vest, and cried as more limos went by.

Finally, after an eternal moment, the last one went by. As per Terran custom, it had the lowest ranking of the dead. A nineteen year old Private from Terra. The final images of him were of him jumping out of his fighting position and running to where the two Maktanan anti-armor gunners had been killed, lifting the anti-armor weapon, and facing six Precursor heavy AWM's.

He had killed three of the six, giving his unit time to bring their firepower to bear on the others, before he had been hit and killed by a heavy PPC.

His mother sobbed.

A black mantid followed, a decorative bandage on his head covering one eye, stained red, tapping on a drum with his bladearms.

The procession was past.

Speeches were next. How the people still lived. How the planet endured. How it was a new day forward. Mana'aktoo stood stoically, silent, and many who watched it on Tri-Vee wondered what the Most High in Exile was thinking as he held his sobbing mother.

Finally it was over, and Mana'aktoo stood and watched as important people filed out of their boxes, and the weeping and solemn crowd left. When his guards told him it was time, he left, accompanying his family to his manor.

He trotted to his private study and stood there, staring at the night sky through the windows, his mind a whirl of images and emotions.

His control slipped.

He turned, grabbed the heavy monitor on his desk, turned, and threw it through the window. The glass shattered, letting in the rain and wind, glass and the monitor flying out to hit the ground outside the window.

Guards burst in, weapons drawn, and lights came on, illuminating the yard, highlighting the monitor laying on the ground.

”Are you all right, Most High?” the Maktanan guard asked.

”A temporary lapse of self control,” Mana'aktoo said. ”My apologies for alarming the guard.”

The Maktanan nodded, withdrawing, and using his comlink to let everyone know it was a false alarm.

Mana'aktoo took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out explosively.

He trotted out, heading for the command center.

The dead had been laid to rest, now he had to watch over the living.

-----------------------

The morning was sunny and warm, a light breeze carrying the smell of flowers to the parade field. The entire Brigade was drawn up in dress uniform in razor straight lines. The only weapons were swords, although here and there a soldier had a Terran chainsword on their hip. At the head of the formation was a Most High, who watched as his adjutant called out names. The name was then called out by the Battalion Commander, then the Company Commander.

”Private Second Class Palgret Two Nine Five Two Two,” the adjutant called out.

The Maktanan Private took a single step back, looked both ways, then made a left face, toward the shorter end of the platoon block he was in. He moved mechanically, parade ground movements, up to stand next to his Platoon Leader. Together, they moved to the Company Commander and waited.

After ten seconds, it became obvious, through tradition, that nobody else would be called up.

Palgret followed his officers to the front of the Brigade, standing between the two Lanaktallan. The Lieutenant was on his right, a long gash that never seemed to heal down the side of his face, held together by crude loops of warsteel wire. The award for valor glittered on Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u's sash.

Palgret swallowed around a lump in his throat, very aware of the human cutting bar on his hip.

He didn't remember the human handing it to him, but it had been in his gear when he had been released from the hospital.

The words were a buzz to him. Boarded. Hellspace. Rescued. Drew the enemy from a shelter. Mar-gite. Precursors. Shrieking Array. The Void. Marduk.

It all blurred together, images flashing in his mind of the hellish journey.

THERE IS NO LIFE IN THE VOID went through his mind and he swayed slightly.

He was accepting not only his own award, but the award for his dead cousin Culvit.

Mercy, brother, the Terran's rumble echoed in Palgret's memory.

The Brigade Commander saluted him and instinct made him salute back even though his mind was far away and long ago.

It's a weapon, it's supposed to hurt when it's fired

He's a Terran, what, you've never seen one before?

BRRT!

At ease that shit, Two.

FRAG OUT!