SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Muzzac met his end as he had lived, and died a hero, his name remembered and his remains preserved.

But he had only ended one war. Another much more deadly one would take its place…and it was for something none of them, not the warriors, the drones or the Jiha had ever suspected: the Demons had arrived.

Sandis went to the refectory, his stomach growling, to get a late lunch and then returned to the blissful silence of the near-deserted library. The Academy had cancelled afternoon classes for the festival. With another load of source material, more terminal-based than books this time, Sandis turned his attention closer to home.

The Mihari were a part of his history, their expansion having been the driving force behind the Union’s formation. The Mihari—referred to by some races simply as the Demons—were the sea monsters who would devour unwary wanderers of deep space, races who were beginning to explore the galaxies. The Union had formed to combat the Mihari Empire, based on the idea that together the races were stronger than they ever could be alone. That one idea had allowed for eight millennia of peace within their borders.

He knew from his childhood history lessons that the Mihari Empire held the least stable but largest span of stars. They ruled with an iron fist, headed by an Emperor who demanded the very souls of his subjects to feed a creature that gave him near-immortality, a creature they named their Shadow God. The wraith, more a parasite than a deity, gave the leaders of the ruling dynasty long life and then jumped from father to son at the moment of death. Each generation was forced to offer their most precious commodity—their souls and the souls of their children—to ensure the continuity of the Empire.

Like the Chiitai, they had also gone through a period of expansion, but the Mihari continued, descending on weaker worlds not protected under the Union banner. That was how Earth, a world Sandis found oddly curious, came to be Contacted years ahead of schedule, because the Mihari’s watchdogs, the Rulani, had been snooping around the Sol system for decades, trying to decide if the planet was worth their interest.

Mihari Prime orbited an old sun, one in the last vestiges of its life cycle and it was a given that, if the Mihari Empire was to continue, it would need to search for another homeworld. They seeded planets in a particularly brutal and irreversible way, wiping out all other life with nuclear weapons, and returning eons later to reclaim the planet. Others they mined for resources and a few they just subjugated because they found the natives useful.

That was how they had stumbled across the Chiitai Conglomeration and stolen the race’s greatest secret.

On Mihari Prime, a dust storm had blanketed the city for five long days, the air so thick you couldn’t see more than a footstep ahead. The Helot would die in droves, then more of them would have to go out and dump the bodies in the magma river that encircled the capital like a moat of fire.

Death came, even here: the Slow Drowning. The dust mixing with the air and moisture in their lungs and killing them slowly. Sticky mud that would drown them even as they breathed, lungs gasping for air. Anyone forced to roam the streets was a walking victim to the sickness. Sometimes it took weeks to die, sometimes months or even years, but all Helot succumbed eventually. Such was their lot.

The Emperor and the aristocracy had no such problems. Current incumbent to the Shadow God and aging Emperor of the Mihari, Arokae’s only concerns were focused on the survival of his Empire and for the sons who would come after him; the hosts for their god.

Their sun was burning up and that meant they had, perhaps, a half millennia left before Mihari Prime became uninhabitable. The star would expand and burn their world to a crisp, but even before that happened, they would all be dead. The heat was already rising, too hot for even the Mihari, the dust storms becoming more violent, more frequent as the planet convulsed around them.

Darak was the Emperor’s emissary and one of many warriors given leave and ships to search the stars for a new home. His task was grave and of the utmost importance, but it also proved that all was not well on Mihari Prime, despite the facade.

He stood watching from the shadows of the Emperor’s court and it hit him: the Shadow God living inside their ancient emperor didn’t want to die, and Darak could understand that desire. He believed the Shadow God would survive the supernova, but over the aeons since it had found its way to Mihari Prime, it had grown used to corporeal hosts and physical forms, perhaps even comfortable with them. So this problem of the dying sun and what it was doing to its hosts was what Darak had been tasked to solve.

Face covered to protect from the Slow Drowning, Darak left the Emperor’s audience chamber with his orders—to go as far out as it was possible, to seek out promising systems for a new homeworld. There were old star charts from the period of expansion long ago, worlds ready and waiting if they could only find them. Every Mihari, be they Helot or aristocrat, knew there were a myriad of places in the universe that could sustain life, if you knew where to look.

But he had not expected to find the insects’ world or that they would fight back.

After three years journeying, of diving into unknown space, they found the planet almost by accident. It had too much water, too much green for his liking, this jewel in the starry void of heaven that they stumbled on outside the rim of known space. There were minerals though, mountains of them that could be refined into fuel even if the world was too harsh for their liking. To the Mihari, this world was the equivalent of an icy tundra and certainly not suitable for habitation.

They landed their craft outside the main city, making no attempt to hide. The city was made of sugar spun into buildings, delicate in appearance, but strong. Light filtered through coloured glass and tall structures, and creatures flittered from high gardens, the air almost vibrating with the noise.

Darak found the whole thing repugnant, the light, the smell, the alien vista. Black creatures with exo-skeletons like armour began to land, standing between the Mihari and their precious city. The Mihari were outnumbered, but the creatures looked fragile enough. As their wings beat and their legs moved, sound transmitted and the translation matrix turned sound into words they could understand.

“Who are you?”

“We are the Mihari, servants of Emperor Arokae. We claim this world in the name of the Shadow God and our Empire!”

“This is our land,” the aliens responded. “We have fought hard for our peace, and we will not yield to invaders!”

Darak didn’t know of the Chiitai’s history, of how the War of Bloodied Fields had begun and ended. Had he, his strategy might have been different. Instead, blinded by lust for the resources, he raced into battle and the aliens decimated the Mihari until the remainder were forced back to their remaining ships.

But not before Darak discovered their secret.

While his troops were being slaughtered, he watched with a veteran’s eyes and quick mind. The black soldiers were the main fighting force, joined sometimes by a caste of what seemed to be strategists or more experienced commanders.

But if their commanding officer was killed, these soldier-drones were useless, almost like the Helot of his own world, the ones the Emperor summoned to his palace so the Shadow God might devour their essence. The pesky alien insects were left blank-eyed and incapable of movement until another commander took the place of the one who had fallen.