Mutually Assured Destruction (22/?)

Prev | First

Mem-O-Gram file user: Commander Veln, USS Strength of Walls

Subject: First Contact Record

Date [standardized human time]: August 30th, 1974

The strength of walls is the strength of its guards.

This is an ancient Venlil quote used to exhort crews to work hard. Yes, our ships are plenty good, but what makes them exemplary are the crew within. They are what make the engines burn, what makes the guns fire.

Now, my destroyer sat empty in a Farsul dry dock.

Not entirely empty.

A Venlil crewman stood motionless in the darkened mess hall of the Strength of Walls. He didn't react to the playing of flashlights on him as my men fanned out around him.

Petty Officer Aldev. One of the twelve unaccounted crew left out of all of us. His personnel record was spotless. Five years in the Junior Artillery Corps, a career in the Venlil Navy for ten years. Several commendations from superior officers. Family presumed dead in the destruction of Venlil Prime. His uniform even had the braided wool strands on the sleeves, keepsakes from relatives.

Except Aldev was entirely impervious to any kind of scan we could do on him. Thermal scopes returned nothing; no body temperature, no residual heat. The scopes our medics used to diagnose internal injuries showed him as entirely opaque; no internal organs visible. It was like the Farsul said: as if Aldev had a second skin that repelled all attempts to see beyond it.

I rubbed my own sleeve strands with unease. They were from my wife, a reminder of her love.

Who provided Aldev's keepsakes?

Carbines were leveled. A constellation of laser dots danced across Aldev's torso. He didn't respond.

"Aldev? You there, buddy?"

I didn't know Aldev, not personally, at least. I knew his name and face - a matter of honor, I'll admit - but not much else. His friends found him to be amicable. He always was the life of the party, according to his coworkers. Always the first to get drunk at our alcohol ceremonies. I could imagine how unsettling it was, to see your boastful, cheerful friend standing there like a deactivated automaton.

Not entirely deactivated.

Aldev's head snapped up. He turned towards me - but Venlil didn't turn our heads towards things.

Aldev's lips pulled back from his teeth, attempting to do what humans called smiling - but Venlil didn't smile.

"You know the names of your crew. That is commendable."

Aldev took a step towards me, snout fixed and teeth gleaming in the flashlights. His eyes rolled in their sockets as they attempted to focus in ways they weren't meant to.

A rushing wave of clicks. My men prepared to fire. I held up a hand.

There was a rumbling in Aldev's torso. A poor approximation of a human laugh and a worse imitation of a Venlil chuff. Aldev looked around at the assembled soldiers.

"I am discovered," Aldev grated out. "But why? I have done no sabotage, leaked no information. I am innocent."

"You are a spy," I said. "You aren't who you say you are."

"Is anyone? The Venlil say they are humanity's friends. They wish to pull humans up onto the galactic stage. But they are not what they say they are. They attacked the human island of Cuba to incite the use of atomics. The Venlil thought the humans, primitive and predatory as they are, would destroy themselves in the aftermath."

A wave of gasps came across my men. The humans were edging backwards, looking at their comrades in a new light. The Venlil shifted to and fro, eyes uncertain. They didn't know where to train their carbines. Their fear of the humans was apparent.

I stepped forward. I didn't even remember drawing my sidearm.

Aldev's smile widened. I painted the mess hall with his brains. The body crumpled, lines of fire going across the skin, and soon there was a light misting of ash across the walls instead of the dripping masses of viscera that was there a moment before. The lights flickered on, indicating we were safe. But the damage had been done.

I looked around at my crew. The humans' eyes were wide with what I remembered was shock. Betrayal, even. Their mouths hung open. The Venlil gripped their carbines, and their eyes darted back and forth. I saw Olevim moving backwards to keep his squadmates in his sight: Levi and Jackson, I remembered. Other Venlil drifted into tactical positions. Some were looking at me, and I realized that they were waiting for me to give the order.

My mind flitted back to Korea. The Admiral's speech had been relayed to everyone, and us Venlil, who knew the truth, had discussed the speech extensively. The humans had thoroughly exterminated a subset of their own who they thought had been responsible for the attack. Even now, the humans had only recently adopted the theory that the Federation at large was responsible. It was convenient, since that Federation was functionally destroyed.

Only Venlil Navy personnel knew that Selvim had given the order, and we agreed that the humans would most likely exterminate us, as they had with Korea, were they to find out the truth. Selvim had always been a supporter of the preemptive strike - destroy a suspected enemy before they get the chance to destroy you.

Cut off loose ends. Plug the leaks.

My heart burned with shame as I considered the option, but I'd be a fool not to. On one hand, it'd be easy enough to exterminate the human crew and blame the attacks on the impostors. They hid in the vents and under the floors, waging guerilla warfare on us. The humans were brave and many volunteered to enter the crawl spaces and deal with the sleepers. None of them made it out. Heroes, all.

My earpiece crackled as a Farsul coordinator cut off my avenue of escape. "Hey, erm, Commander? Looks like that was the last of them. Our scans of the ship don't show any more anomalies. You can pat your men on the back and call it a day."

No one in the room moved a muscle. My Venlil crew, bless their stupid, patriotic hearts, had read my train of thought perfectly. Every human in the room now had at least one Venlil covering him with a carbine, and from their faces, the humans knew it. That was going to work wonders for crew cohesion.

No. The Farsul would know the truth. Even if they sympathized, it was almost certain they'd use the massacre as blackmail to get what they wanted from us. Not to mention the surveillance videos of the operation might be leaked. Like the attack on Cuba, the truth would come out sooner or later, and we'd be even more screwed when that happened.

And that wasn't counting the trauma I'd inflict on my Venlil themselves. Many of them had made friends in the humans. To order my crew gun their friends down? No matter how necessary it was to our survival, that wouldn't be easy on their minds. Morale would fall further than it already had.

I sighed and holstered my sidearm. "That won't be necessary."

Hesitant, the Venlil lowered their weapons, though I noticed more than a few kept their carbines ready. I glanced around at the humans. From what I could read of their faces, I expected anger and betrayal, but what I got was an array of overwhelmingly sorrowful expressions.

I cursed bitterly inside. I only wished I didn't have to be the one to explain to these humans.

"Now is not the time. I will discuss it with you after we get off this maker-forsaken rock, but right now we need to stick together, no matter what reservations you have towards each other. This does not leave the room until I say so. Understood?"

The humans nodded, unease evident in their eyes. But they were well trained. I knew they wouldn't disobey a direct order from their superior officer.

If they did, I'd execute them myself. And everyone they talked to, if it came to it.

Everyone filed out for debriefing, except for me. I said I needed to check some effects from the communal officers' cabin to make sure they weren't tampered with. Nobody questioned me.

I reached under the communal sleep cushion and felt around. A recessed hatch brushed against my paw. I pushed in and back, felt the cold button underneath.

This was tip-top-secret; only Venlil knew of the button. Not even the human leadership were privy to this. The button was connected to an FTL relay message that, when activated, would send a priority message to the acting Venlil governor.

The message it sent was a single blip in order to send it through faster; the address it came from would say everything.

In Selvim's day, the message would say: The humans have betrayed us. Had Selvim not gone missing, the protocol he implemented would've had all Venlil military personnel carry out a systematic extermination of the human race, as their betrayal represented an existential threat to our survival. Luckily for humanity, Selvim's successor Sam was more friendly towards the humans, if a bit soft. The message now read: The humans on this ship know about Cuba.

I pressed the button and begged every god I knew of to make sure Sam didn't fuck this up.