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The face of the enemy By Strega

There were three of them, now. There had been five when they were put in the cage, but one had refused to eat and the other had died before that. Many died in the presence of the Enemy, even their supposedly resistant species, and with their medical nanotech stripped away with their gear they were more mortal, more vulnerable now. To the eye you would think them strange, six-legged weasels, big as tigers. If you did know their species you'd recognize them as Falan: a primitive but intelligent race Uplifted to fight in the terrible long war.

Among the living there was Mura, an old soldier, one of the last (or so it was said) pre-Uplift falan still alive. He was white with grey touches, like snow or bone. He had always said he would die in battle. Technology had healed the many wounds on his body, but some scars ran deeper than that. He had been on Kshira during that year-long, awful siege, had seen too many friends die, and made no secret of the fact that when the fight was over, so would be his life.

Senga, by profession an archivist, captured during a raid on a research station. Another old, old falan, though medicine had kept her vigorous and her mind sharp. Her fur was dark green from nose to tailtip, and like most females she was sleek and strong, if only slightly smaller than the males. Once, she'd said in passing, she had even visited another universe, a place of magic and strangeness that no falan had visited since.

And Frizz, or so they called him. Butter-yellow of fur and always fluffed out in an almost cublike way. The others had not met him before being put in this cage, but bit by bit they had figured him out. They were nearly certain he was from a penal division, a criminal working off his sentence by risking his life. A murderer, maybe.

Their pasts did not matter now, in that cage. Only their present, and their future was bleak.

Perhaps their captor starved them to watch them eat their own dead, and under other circumstances they would have. The bitter climate and scarce resources of their homeworld had bred in their carnivorous race an unwillingness to waste meat. This was paired with an unshakeable loyalty to kin and clan, though, and they would not hunt each other for food no matter how dire the circumstance. Most extended that courtesy to other sophonts as well; it was a rare falan who would hunt a thinking creature for food. It was one of the reasons few who survived Kshira would speak of it. As the siege dragged on they'd been ordered first to eat their own dead, then that of their allies, and finally to hunt and eat the natives. You could be shunned or even exiled for daring to do that, even in time of war. It was a terrible thing to hunt sophonts for food, even when ordered to do so. Some had refused, starved to death and been eaten, but others obeyed.

A dead body was another matter, and the three were very hungry. As little attention as their captor paid them, though, they refused to give it the satisfaction. If they must die with food within reach they would, out of stubbornness more than anything else. They knew that there would be no rescue. No one even knew they were here and their lives would last only as long as it amused their captor.

They grew weak with hunger, but they did not die. Eventually the tentacled thing noticed the rotting, uneaten bodies the surviving falan had fastidiously pushed to one end of the cage. The remaining hexapeds lay in a furry heap as far away as they could get, breathingly shallowly, their bones showing through the thin flesh and ragged fur. With the tentacled equivalent of a shrug it had robots remove the corpses and gave them something else to eat.

Each day the side of the vast round chamber would roll away, and in the cavernous tunnel outside would arrive a grav-sled shaped to fit it. The sled carried a great dish topped with mesh, and in the cage was a mass of writhing chitin.

The natives of this system were like dog-sized ants, largely brown and grey. They weren't ants, of course, being warm blooded and endoskeletal, but the resemblance was there. Ten thousand years ago the Enemy had conquered this minor race, terraformed two worlds to go with the blue-green jewel of of the mother world, and settled down to exploit the system.

The asteroid belt was heavily invested with mining ships, and millions of natives labored in mines on the innermost planet as well. The mother world, once a haven for life, was gradually transformed into a great factory for armaments. This system was important enough to warrant not a supervisor of one of the more prominent servant races, but in fact one of the Ylesh themselves.

It stirred in its pit, tentacles curling as it noted the arrival of the sled. Each day it came at a random time to add a touch of variety to an otherwise dull meal. Eyes formed in the half-solid mass at the center of the tentacles, and the air twisted and rippled as the glowing thing rose from the pit.

Limed in a violet glow, half real, half still in whatever hellish dimension it had once called home, the Enemy turned toward the sled. The three falan in the cage bared serrated fangs, their killing claws sliding forth from their sheaths. They had seen this a hundred times before. The natives on the sled were only to see it once.

They had come from the agricultural world next out in orbit from the factory. The old, the unneeded, the sickly. Each day they were loaded into a ship and sent here.

The Ylesh turned its attention to the natives. A handful of tentacles reached out, an eye or two blinked. It did not touch them. It did not need to. What it did was not physical. The glow around it flickered and stretched forth, and the natives screamed.

It was an uninteresting meal, bland, yet fulfilling. It took only moments to extract the lives and minds of its prey. A few thousand was little more than a snack, but populous as the star system was it must limit itself. There were no great feasts to be had, unlike the early days of the war. It had been fifty years since it last gorged, but the Ylesh had learned their lesson long before that. If they fed as they wished they would soon lack food altogether. Over the course of a million years they had built for themselves a mighty empire not out of lust for power, but to allow them to conquer new prey and feed well, if only occasionally. The universe was their larder and a variety of thinking food was, to their minds, a perfect state of affairs.

Sometimes captives from the ranks of the adversaries were brought to it. Special treats, small but interesting meals. When the first falan were brought before it they too were to be meals, but it had read about this species. It took time and a particular effort to devour one; more energy was exerted, in fact, than it regained from each meal. And these small morsels were without battle-drugs and gear. With those, they might be an actual threat even to one of the mighty Ylesh.

It began to see why this one minor branch of the enemy had caused so much trouble. It was a rare breed of creature that could live at all in the presence of a hunting Ylesh, but here was one who could survive - sometimes - to attack a Ylesh physically. The Masters were all but immune to energy weapons that could be carried by troops, but physical attacks, if powerful enough, were another story.

The second group of falan, captives of war like the first, arrived months after it devoured the last of the others. This group it determined to keep. Little toys, it thought. Pets, after a fashion. They would share its room and watch as it thought and planned and devoured. To it the three-hundred-kilogram pseudo-weasels were less dangerous than ferrets would be to a human owner, and they provided a certain amusement.

So it broadcast thoughts to its minions - natives of the system, like its meals, but more educated than mere farmers and miners. It watched the progress of the war on the many screens that lined its chamber. And when it fed, it would pull a lifeless husk or two from the sled and throw them to its pets.

So the falan lived, and groomed and comforted each other in the depths of their despair, and picked the flesh from the bodies of the natives. They never tried to speak to the Ylesh and it never tried to speak to them. They were just small amusements to while away the days until it tired of them. Why they did not turn on each other with fangs and claw to end it all It could not say. It was as though they were waiting for something.

They had watched the progress of the war on the screens just as It had, and had seen the tide of battle turn against the Enemy. They had lived on the crumb of hope that they would survive to see this day. The Ylesh was prodding its furry pets with a tentacle, amused when they clawed and bit. They were large and strong by the standards of most sophonts, but to it they were nothing. Nothing material could do it any real harm, not without powered armor and hullmetal weapons.

"Unexpected transit detected," came an emotionless computer voice, and the Ylesh turned from its small entertainment. A holographic screen formed, spanning half of the periphery of the huge room with its numerous subscreens. The system appeared in miniature, the primary a yellow-white sphere and the three populated planets as mixtures of blue, green, brown and white clouds. Chains of sensor buoys ringed the system and orbital forts circled the inner worlds, the vast majority around the factory world - not so much to protect it, the Ylesh knew, though it was valuable. They were concentrated there to protect him, for nothing was more important than the life of a Master.

A cluster of crimson-on-crimson icons, each dot with a like-colored ring, appeared as the map populated. Enemy capital ships, a mere handful. They were too far from the nearest sensor ring for detailed scans, but even from a light minute away drive fields could be read, and much could be learned from that data.

"Four Glory-type command ships, eight Vendetta-type dreadnoughts, and one unknown class detected," a different voice said, and on a side screen the strategic control room appeared. Dozens of the locals, indistinguishable from the ones recently consumed save for the occasional leathery harness, worked at consoles. In the sea of brown antennae were three with metal bands around their bases, two with steel and one with blood-red. A steel-ringed controller spoke.

"Unknown class is extremely large. Estimated drive class five hundred twenty." Antennae rustled and even the Ylesh's tentacles twitched in surprise. Command ships were massive but this new vessel was far larger still. Ship silhouettes flicked across a screen as an equivalent was sought, but the closest matches were not warships but rather tug-vessels used to move asteroids or, in large enough numbers, entire planets. Asteroid strikes on populated worlds were a useful tactic, but required weeks or months to arrange. The enemy flotilla would have at most a day before reinforcements arrived. Already priority calls were going out to summon help from the fleets engaging the Commonwealth further toward the galactic rim.

Tentacles curled. If it were one of the lesser species upon which it fed, the Ylesh would have tilted its head. A silent query to the control staff ensured that defensive dispositions were as it had ordered.

Two hundred system defense ships, roughly equal to Commonwealth attack ships and like them unable to jump without the aid of a mothership, bolstered the system's defenses. Toward the primary were more fortresses with a specific function - neutralizing the star-killing weapons that wrought so much havoc when the Commonwealth first began to truly fight back. Though the black ships that had destroyed so many vital star systems had not been used much of late, they must be defended against. The mechanism of star death had been analyzed and great field generators in the fortresses neutralized it. It would take more time than this small squadron had to clear out the defending fortresses.

Twenty-four fortresses with long ranged missile batteries orbited the factory world itself, backed up by eight energy beam forts for close in defense. The small Commonwealth force was significantly outgunned...and that was not even their worst problem. Ultimately, the flotilla lacked the firepower to accomplish much.

The sullen red glow of planetary shields came to encompass the three worlds and the Ylesh's puzzlement grew. The Commonwealth force could not hope to pierce those shields before reenforcements arrived even if they somehow overpowered the forts.

Was it a mere raid, intended to divert forces from the fleet? The mining ships were hiding themselves amongst the rocks of the asteroid field, but some could be found and destroyed in the time the task force had. Yet they had not dispatched their cruiser-sized attack ships and swarms of fighters; those formed a shell around the task force as the fighters spat from launch tubes and attack ships undocked from the command ships. And what was the purpose of the monstrous vessel at the center, large as a major shipyard? It must be extortionately expensive, slow and clumsy. Even a Glory would maneuver like a fighter by comparison. Such a large target would be hard to defend against massed missile fire no matter how heavy its point defense.

A last piece to the puzzle: the Commonwealth task force had come to a halt more than thirty light seconds from the factory world. No ship-based weapon they had would reach their target. They would not commit their attack ships and fighters, leaving themselves bare to a counterstroke. Perhaps some of the ships were disguised freighters, carrying missile pods for a massive pod attack? The system's fighter force would pare down any conceivable pod wave to manageable numbers before they could launch unless the entire enemy force advanced into range of the forts to escort the pods. Suicide attacks on this scale were not normal doctrine for the Commonwealth, not since the tides of war had turned in their favor.

Sensor drones and recon fighters on each side danced an elaborate ballet as each tried to gather data without exposing itself to destruction. Unbeknownst to the Ylesh, one had gathered data that while not vital, was nevertheless of great interest to the Commonwealth.

"It is confirmed, sir."

Fifth Admiral Val sank back in his armored command chair. He considered it a personal failure when his claws unsheathed involuntarily, but this one time he allowed himself the weakness. The arms of the chair were padded along with the seat for just this reason.

"So," he purred. "After so many years. We remember you, murderer. We remember." On the screen were the readings from the now-destroyed sensor drone. Nothing else in the universe had the energy signature of a Ylesh, and each was as individual as the pads on his paws. Val had seen this signature before.

His fur was coal-black now, but fifty years ago it had been russet. When he had led the defense of Hestia Prime and failed to keep a lone Ylesh - this Ylesh - from making planetfall. It had been driven off at great cost, but not before billions had died and half the ancestral homeworld of his people had been reduced to rubble by the soulsuck and its robotic armies. The Hestia Offensive had cost the allies dearly and it remained to be seen whether his own race could recover. So many dead, so many worlds devastated. His fur would be black as a starless night until the day he died...or until the last Ylesh was dead.

The defenses of the system were as previous probes had reported. Orbital fortresses, planetary shields just now coming up, systemships and a swarm of planet-based fighters. There was no sign of enemy capital ships, the fearsome and beautiful Reavers - called 'Diamonds' by nearly everyone for their shape and crystalline armor - or the smaller, older classes. Those had been committed to the bloody battles closer to the galactic rim. Powerfully fortified as this system was, releasing its mobile assets for the effort to crush the Commonweath beachheads was a strong signal that the Enemy was growing desperate. His task force was here to add to their misery.

The presence of one particular Ylesh was just a bonus, but for Val and his crews it was a substantial one. His only regret was that Glory Of Hestia, still in repairs after a recent battle that had cost them Glory of Kshira and heavy damage to other capital ships, had not been available to join the assault.

"Admiral, all systems are ready. Do us the honor, sir." The weapons officer, a fellow hestan like nearly all those in the task force, rose from his seat. Without a word the rest of the bridge crew rose as well, right arm across chest and tail stiff in formal salute.

Val looked at the panel, its lines of light showing power systems at full, the screen showing the target. The simple red button. Barring point defense arrays, this ship only had one weapon, a weapon that had never been fully tested. After all, the only true test was battle.

His muzzled face was expressionless as he stood, his simple shipsuit adorned with none of his many decorations. On padded feline feet he stepped forward, and even iron self-discipline could not keep an anticipatory quiver from his tail. Only now did the fangs appear from behind his lips as the admiral allowed himself a predatory grin.

It could be perceived as a weakness to take this honor, rather than leaving it to the cat who had stood. The admiral decided that this, too, was a weakness he would allow himself.

A drone under control of the system defense controllers snuck in close enough for a scan of the central vessel in the Commonwealth formation. Though it lived only seconds before a fighter picked it off it gave the Ylesh its first look at the new class, even as it fired.

"Alert, alert," the falan in their cage heard, and like their captor their eyes were fastened on the screen. From the great cone-shaped ship at the center of the Commonwealth formation appeared a white spark. Tiny in comparison to its mother vessel but vastly larger than any plasma weapon ever before seen it sped unerringly toward them. By all rights the flotilla was far out of range of the factory world, yet as it sped away from its parent vessel it was clearly headed nowhere else.

"Energy pulse detected," a steel-antennaed native announced belatedly. "Type Y-plus plasma bolt. Unable to further analyze projectile at this time." The bolt passed through the formation of system defense ships without incident, its guidance systems uninterested in this prey. It was easily close enough to engage, and dozens of counter-missiles and point defense lasers picked at it as it sped past.

"Point defense ineffective," the steel ant said, and ten seconds later the bolt was engaged by the orbital forts in turn. It had long since traveled further than any known plasma bolt, but no one was surprised that it did not dissipate. The Commonwealth had not fired it for their amusement.

What happened next was as astonishing as the incredible range of the projectile. Ignoring the tempting targets of the forts the bolt swept past and slammed into the awesome planetary shields.

The monitors went white with energy discharges as the unthinkably powerful bolt detonated. The dull red of the shield went eye-searingly bright above them as it strove to disperse the energy delivered by that one bolt, and chain lighting jumped from shield plate boundaries inward, scoring mountaintops clean of life. A skyscraper-sized shield generator exploded only ten miles from the central redoubt, and even this far underground they felt the shockwave from the blast as it passed through the rock itself.

"Shield overload," the computer voice said. Side screens showed moment by moment analysis of the detonation. "Graviton pulse warhead of heretofore unknown power. Compensating...alert. Unable to fully reassemble shield. Alert. Shield penetration likely."

Mura, old warrior that he was, grinned. "A warhead within a warhead. The plasma bolt absorbs point defense fire, and within it, one of the new graviton bombs. Or maybe they built it into one warhead. It was only a matter of time before someone managed a shield cracker."

Frizz, who rarely spoke, watched the side displays with keen interest. A second bolt was already on its way and to him it was plain that no last-minute adjustment of the shields would stop many more. "I had heard something big was being built at the Mrish shipyards. I thought it might be a new carrier class."

The second bolt impacted on the shields a mere mile from the last, and as dust sifted from the ceiling and more screens went from green to amber or blood-red Senga spoke in her turn. Old as Mura, sleek and beautiful and gentle, nevertheless her fangs showed as she spoke.

"They know it is here," she hissed through her grin. Even a weapon this powerful could only crack a few shield tiles at a time, and clearly the Commonweath fleet had located the Ylesh and had decided that whatever else might happen today, this Enemy would die. Hard to hurt as Ylesh were, weapons designed to crack planetary shields and scour the crust down to the mantle would do the trick.

They watched the Ylesh's tentacles writhe in a way few lesser beings had ever seen. Was it possible the Enemy was actually afraid? A moment later every brain within a kilometer rang with pain as the Enemy's telepathic voice thundered.

"Commit system ships and fighters," the Ylesh roared in their heads. "Ignore enemy small craft and escorts. Target the world killer!"

It was clear now that the monstrous Commonwealth ship had been designed and built as a siege weapon - one that out-ranged the missile forts and had enough power to pierce the mighty planetary shields. The only resource the system's defenders had that could reach their tormenter was their mobile force of systemships and fighters - fortunately a strong enough force to do real damage once they were past the wall of attack ships and enemy fighters. Vendetta-class ships were not optimized for anti-fighter work and the many Splinter fighters should be able to slip past even if the SDSs died.

Then the other shoe dropped. "Fighter wings report extremely heavy fire," the steel-antennaed tactical controller said suddenly. Antennae twitched around the room as controls were touched and readouts assessed. "All eight enemy dreadnoughts are a previously unknown escort variant, now designated Vendetta-E. The weight of fire suggests their energy armament has been replaced by additional point defense and short-range missile launchers." Missile launchers that were being used to launch anti-fighter missiles by the hundred.

It was a disaster. Forced to commit to close action in order to blast through the line of attack ships and fighters to reach the world killer, the fighters flew into the teeth of a hailstorm of missiles. The sheer volume of fire did much to address the difference in fighter strengths and fully half of the attack ships were also armed with missiles rather than the usual long-ranged force beams. That did give the System Defense Ships a numerical advantage against the energy armed cruisers, but the SDSs were never meant to be the deciding factor. And with no capital ships to target the Glories launched their heavy missiles against the SDSs and though their warheads were puny compared to the world killer's bolts, nothing as small as a SDS could survive even a single hit without heavy damage.

A Vendetta died the death of a thousand cuts as the massed fighters turned on their tormenters but the Commonwealth fighters were quick to take advantage of the distraction and the system's forces paid heavily for their small victory. Intense combat raged around the dreadnoughts and two more were battered into near helplessness but not nearly enough fighters had reached the world killer and its shields and armor were as tough as its size suggested. Commonwealth drone fighters raced after them and it was obvious that barring a stoke of luck the world killer would survive.

The Ylesh sank back into its pit, noting peripherally the bared fangs of its little captive toys. Intersystem comm traffic had just arrived, too late to make any difference. Three other fortified systems were under attack by world killers screened by similar escort forces. They had been too predictable in releasing their heavy mobile forces and the Commonwealth had developed a doctrine that used their new world killers to exploit their predictability while committing minimal forces. It was a trick that would only work once but four massively industrialized worlds were suddenly at risk - worlds whose output was badly needed in the ongoing war effort. Even worse, defending vital worlds from this sort of raid would affect the strategic mobility of Battle Fleet.

There was little to do but watch the white spark of another incoming plasma bolt. Its fighters and SDS forces were committed to an unfavorable battle and its fortresses would likely never fire a shot.

As if on cue the incoming bolt, its guidance system entirely ignoring the forts, slammed into one by pure chance. Half a million tons of armor, weapons and crew disappeared in an awesome flash as what amounted to an overloaded gravity generator created momentary billion-G stresses. The warhead dispersed too much of its energies in the blast to materially affect the planetary shield, and he added a line to what he feared would be his last message to Central Command. His crews were gathering sensor data to the last. Might fast and maneuverable suicide ships be used to counter this weapon? Would a sixty-thousand-ton SDS disperse a bolt or would the plasma envelope around the warhead resist even that?

The next bolt slammed into the planetary shields directly atop his headquarters, and as the concussion made its way through kilometers of bedrock to shake his chamber he did not need to be told that the shield was breached. It had taken only four shots to crack the heretofore nearly impenetrable barrier.

A hissing scream drew his attention to his playthings. Part of the wall had collapsed, crushing one end of the cage and pinning the female falan beneath the rubble. The white and yellow hexawoozles dug at the fallen chunks until their paws were bloody, but there was no freeing their dying comrade from the tons of rock.

When they realized the rubble was too massive to shift Mura set to licking Senga's ear and Frizz supported her head. All three turned their ink-dark eyes to the screen, and even the dying one smiled a bloody-fanged smile.

"It has been an honor serving with you, friends," Senga gasped, and shuddered as she clung to life. She needed to live just a few seconds longer to see it happen.

There was no time to run, nowhere to hide. Nothing for the Ylesh to do but order the accumulated sensor data sent. If he had but a moment more he would kill his little furry toys, for they were not worthy to see a Master die. There was only time to touch a control with a tentacle and then he and his playthings watched the surviving viewscreen as the white star of plasma descended on their heads.