John Ringo: Into the Looking Glass

“Approved.”

Miller and Weaver were standing when the guards brought General Thrathptttt into the interrogation room. Weaver was in civilian clothes and Miller in desert BDUs with a web belt and a holster holding an H K USP .45 caliber pistol.

The sergeant with the two guards frowned and shook his head.

“You can’t have a weapon in the same room with a prisoner,” the sergeant said. “It’s against regulations.”

“Sergeant,” Weaver answered before Miller could open his mouth. “Did you happen to see my orders?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, carefully.

“My orders say that your regulations are superceded, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied.

“You can go.”

“Sir,” the sergeant said, again, with a pained look on his face. “This isn’t about regulation. You’re both injured and…”

“Sergeant,” Miller said, chuckling. “The day I can’t handle one three-foot-tall cat, even with one arm and one leg broken, I’ll just have to turn in my trident. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant sighed.

Thrathptttt had been seated in the chair in front of the table by the two guards and all three of them left. The chair was an adjustable swivel chair so the Mreee could sit at the table at something like normal height.

Bill and the SEAL had slightly less comfortable folding metal chairs into which they lowered themselves.

“General,” Miller said, inclining his head.

“Chief Miller,” the general replied. “Dr. Weaver. I am pleased to see that you both survived.”

“Pleased enough to talk with us?” Weaver asked.

“No,” the general replied. “I am not required to answer your questions.”

“No, you’re not,” the SEAL answered. “Although, God knows, we’ve got a lot of them. We need to know about the Dreen. Where they are. If they have interstellar capacity. If they do, when they might show up. Anything at all that we can find out. And ain’t none of you cats talking. We didn’t capture but a handful of Nitch, what with nobody really wanting a ten-foot spider near them, and the ones that we did we can’t communicate with. So we’d really like to ask you about the Dreen and we’d like you to answer those questions. But, you know what, General, I’m not going to ask you about any of that stuff.”

“Good,” the general said, straightening. “Can I leave, now?”

“No, because I am going ask you one thing, General,” the SEAL said, leaning forward. “Why? When I saw you the first time I thought to myself: ‘That is one hardcore motherfucker of a cat.’ I don’t respect many people, much less aliens, on first meeting. But I respected you. And I’m pretty good at first impressions. Pretty good. And I still say you’re an honorable guy. The way you let those National Guard soldiers off proves it. Not only to me, but to the President. So I gotta ask, General, soldier to soldier: Why?”

The general looked at him for a long moment, as if he was going to spit or cough up a hairball and then he looked away. Silent. Bill was smart enough to hold his tongue. So was Miller for a while.

“You might be wondering, if I’m talking soldier to soldier, why I brought this pasty-faced academic with me. I brought him because he deserves an answer, too. He’s a lousy shot and hasn’t got the situational awareness of an ant, but we both stood our ground at the gate and he got his share of a bodyguard in Valhalla. He took the job and he closed the gates. I think he probably killed a great many of your people. If your world was on the other side of that gate, likely it’s gone. At his hands. But he’s here because he deserves the answer, too. For honor and for standing his ground.”

“If my world is gone, so much the better,” the general said, softly. There was a long silence and then he made a faint mew. “The reason we don’t talk to you, Miller, is because we know the depths of dishonor. And we find it hard, impossible, to share them.”

“Well, I’m black ops,” Miller said, leaning back. “It ain’t all fields of glory. One of our mottoes is: We do a lot of things we wish we didn’t have to. So: Why?”

The general made another mew and looked away, silent for a moment, then he looked back.

“I was a young officer, what you would call a lieutenant, when the Masters came to our world.

“The banners of Tchraow flew from sea to sea, upon them the sun never set. We had bested the Raaown, we had conquered the Troool, an ancient and powerful land. The White Empress held sway over a vast empire. And then we were given word that in the unsettled lands a new power was arising. I was a young officer in charge of a small unit in the expedition that went out to pacify this new threat.

“We came upon Master forces far from their bases. The ones you call dog-demons and the thorn-throwers. Our sraaah riders fell upon them in a terrible charge and it was a complete defeat. The infantry stood their ground against the Masters for as long as they could but we had only cannon and poor rifles to try to hold them. They broke us. A regiment that had never been broken and they broke us like a twig.

“I was carried back on a stretcher, hundreds of your miles. It was upon the Plains of Shraaaan that I took this,” he said, gesturing at his eye. “And other hurts. But I survived. All the resources of the Troool empire were gathered, host upon host. General Mreooorw, who had defeated the Raaown, was sent from Tchraow though he was old, old. You call me a general?” the cat said, looking at Miller. “That, that was a general. He had never lost a battle, but he lost one then. We met them on the Plains of Mraaa, a vast host, shining in the sun. Cannons ranked league upon league, in perfect positions, our infantry filled the valley and the hosts of sraaah riders were like the ocean’s waves.” He paused a moment, savoring the image.

“And they destroyed us. Of that vast host no more than one in ten survived. I was one of those unlucky enough to stumble away from that black field.

“Again and again we met them but we could never defeat the Masters. In time, we lost Troool to them and some of us, a fragment of the Tchraow who had been masters there, fled back to our homelands.

“Tchraow was far from Troool and we thought we might be safe. We sent out more forces, aiding other lands, I did my time in that duty, but always the Masters were undefeatable. They spread, land to land, sometimes slowly, sometimes in jumps. They created vast weapons of war, air-beings that blotted out the sun, giant Nitch-like creatures that burned the land as they came, every footstep a disaster, spitting fire from their mouths. Water did not stop them for they could fly through the air. Nor did distance.

“Finally, they sent the N!T!Ch! to us. The N!T!Ch! had been slaves long before our world was conquered and they managed to communicate with us. The Dreen held hundreds, possibly thousands, of worlds. They spread by the gates but also by biological systems that drift from solar system to solar system, looking for fecund planets. One such had found our planet and it would be fully colonized unless we submitted to the Masters. The Masters would let some of us live if we submitted tribute to them. Metals, many that we had never heard of before, certain types of gems and…” He paused and did spit, “ ‘biological’ materials for their expansion.”

“Biological?” Bill asked. “Herd animals?”

“Those and the bodies of our people,” the general said with a snarling yowl. “We were defeated. We knew we were. There was no choice. So we made that devil’s bargain. We sent our best to slave in the Master’s mines. We sent our litters to the Masters to be ‘reprocessed.’ Our herds, our bodies, whatever it took to keep us alive. And when they called for us to trick you? You think we paused? Do you think we cared? After giving of our own bodies? My litters…” The general paused and his face worked in anguish. “My children…”