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

Darak saw a resource more valuable than even the planet, so he led a mission into the black hive, the one set apart from the city, and stole the matriarch, their Jiha Queen, and a half dozen incapacitated drones. Then they ran across the alien fields and the familiar stars, heading home with a prize that Darak was sure would ensure the Empire’s continuing strength for millennia.

It took them nearly five generations to crack the genetic code linking the Black Queen with her warrior drones. But once they found the key, it was the moment the Mihari Empire truly became a force to be reckoned with. They took a single iceberg of a planet and turned its inhabitants into a perpetually-renewable army.

The Sankai were one of their earliest discoveries, a race of identical mammals who reproduced via cloning and communicated purely on a non-verbal level. Their reliance on cloning made them the perfect choice for enslavement, especially as they had already achieved a high level of technology which saw them beginning to travel to the stars.

Their world was an iceberg; their star of origin a speck on the horizon, but on this one occasion, the Mihari had endured their hatred of the cold in pursuit of a larger goal. Their combined forces swamped the tiny unprotected planet and took control of the cloning centres. Within a year the first Rulani — the name the few remaining Sankai-in-exile, the ones who ran and hid, gave to their successors — began to make noise across Mihari and Union space.

Sandis turned to his terminal where a black and white movie was playing, dialogue and sound piped through his wireless connection. The neural rig he used to understand alien languages was proving useful when it came to digesting Terran media. The humans might not have heard of the Mihari or the Chiitai but they knew the Rulani.

Known on Terra as Greys—and their place cemented by a much-publicised crash in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico—these creatures were in truth the Rulani, the Mihari-enslaved foot soldiers. Through sheer numbers, these mindless clones and soulless abominations turned the Mihari Empire from a civilisation on the edge of collapse into the most feared force in the Universe.

Rumours preceded them but it was sometimes a generation between the first reports of abductions and the ships descending with Rulani pawns and Mihari overseers that overran their chosen targets. In the last half century alone, the Rulani had been responsible for subjugating fifty worlds.

The maturation chambers on an iceberg-asteroid on the edge of the Zeta Reticuli system were a sight, rows stretching as far as the eye could see and still further, a sea of artificial wombs that would birth generation after generation of clones.

Once they had been the Sankai, scholars and scientists, advocates and artists, but since the forced occupation of the system all the chambers now decanted were soldiers. The Rulani were born loyal, decanted with a single purpose: to conquer and die for the Mihari Empire.

On the edge of the forest of chambers, two overseers stood and surveyed the latest batch, their eyes settling on a single individual.

“It’s defective.”

Clone 873e, decanted a month previously, stood silently as one of the overseers looked it over. Functionally identical to its batch mates, the only difference was a marker tattoo, a barcode-like sequence that identified it. It was naked, unblinking, and the Mihari treated it as if it were a stupid animal, even as they tried to place the nature of its defect. Behind those black eyes, however, a mind was listening, comprehending their words even as they decided its fate.

Behind the grey skin and eyes deeper and darker than a black hole was a mind stripped out by genetic manipulation. 873e was different—but no one could quite explain what it was that made it stand out amongst its hundred identical siblings, born on the same day from the same genetic sample.

To recognise a soul, you must first possess one yourself. It had been generations since the Sankai’s own enslavement, and the Mihari guards had long ago surrendered their own to their Emperor. No one remembered what a soul was anymore.

“It doesn’t look defective,” the other overseer said. “Physically it looks just fine. It’s obedient, it follows commands. Aside from that blip after decantation, it seems just like the rest of the batch.”

“And the mental interface?”

“It seems to have settled down. The neural readings are certainly more active than its brethren, but they’re within normal parameters for a clone.”

The superior nodded. “Keep an eye on it then. As long as it remains docile and obedient there’s no problem. Where is it assigned?”

“The next world on the list.”

“What was the local name? Saruvoi?”

“Yes, sir. Apparently the radiation killed off the mammals but it also pushed the reptiles to the top of the food chain; they have a basic level society.”

“Well they won’t for much longer. This planet is top of our list for resettlement, it’s the most viable candidate.”

“Sir? Is he…does that mean the Emperor is going there?”

“That information is above our grade. Get that clone to where it’s supposed to be and let’s move on. We’ve got a new batch due for decantation in two hours.”

873e let itself be guided, or herded more like, to the waiting pods. It and thousands like it were about to be dropped on a hostile world as shock troops, trained to subjugate the native population and assert control within a few days.

873e was disturbed by this knowledge, although it wasn’t aware of the name for the emotion it was experiencing. The blip the overseers had mentioned hadn’t really been a blip, but a suppressed panic attack that had almost broken its sanity. 873e was defective, but not in the way they assumed. 873e was self-aware.

It had woken to self-awareness moments after decanting. The neural link between it and its siblings was silent; they were blank slates and it was not. It had been like standing in a cavern and shouting, only the sound of its mental voice echoing back. If any of the others heard, they didn’t have the capacity to answer. It was alone in a sea of identical faces and blank minds.

Stasis forced 873e to contemplate, its mind never quite switched off as the others were. Through the link, 873e had access to a million other minds and senses. It felt the cold of its home-world, saw a nebula spinning in deep space, watched a family cowering as they were taken so the Mihari might know their potential enemies better, understand the weaknesses to be exploited when they landed on that world’s doorstep and decided to move in.

It understood it was alone but as long as it kept silent, 873e would live. There was no one else like it, not amongst the Rulani or the Mihari. The latter might be sentient but they were still under the thumb of a higher power; 873e had free will and the knowledge that it could disobey at any time, even if that moment would be its last.

So 873e kept silent.

Saruvoi was a hot world, dusty and parched from residual nuclear radiation dropped so long ago than no one remembered why or who had been responsible. There was water, and from all other standpoints this planet was similar to Mihari Prime—but without the peril of a dying star.

It would make a suitable home, once the natives learnt their place. That was where 873e and its brethren came in.

When the invasion began, the Rulani moved in formation, quickly, killing what lay before them. 873e kept back, knowing what death was.