Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

you
slaughtered - how many of your own kind have you put to the
flame?’
    ’Ah, but I am different. I relish death, as you do. Can you see my
black hull? These others are silvered to save their heat. I relish
the obscenity of waste - as you do. I am like you. Or I am like our
Destroyer god of old.’
    ’Your own kind despise you,’ Borno said.
    ’That may be. That is why I brought back these others…’ Hex’s
translator box interpolated, the ur-Ghosts. ’These, forged in the
cold desperation of our race’s most difficult age, don’t deny what
they are. It is strange. Once the ur-Ghosts were called back from
space, to help save a dying world. Now I have called them again, back
from the deeper darkness of the past, to help me save my kind from
humans.’
    ’It’s crazy,’ Hella whispered.
    ’So you have us,’ Hex said. ’What now?’
    ’You will serve me. Three of you will be given to my ur-Ghosts, my
scientists. We will drain you of what you know, and then use you to
explore ways of killing humans. Oh, you will be bred first; we are
running short of laboratory animals. The fourth will be flayed, kept
alive, and sent back where you came from. Perhaps you, the commander.
A warning, you see; a statement of intent. Don’t you think I know
human psychology well?’
    ’Not well enough,’ Borno said.
    Hex snapped, ’Gunner - ’
    ’For the Engineers!’
    With a roar Borno straightened his legs and hurled himself out of
his palette station, straight at the Ghost’s bland black hide. In
mid-flight his suit slit open and fell away, leaving him naked save
for underwear, his head, hands and feet bare. His last breath frosted
in the vacuum, his mouth gaping. But he held out his hands like
claws.
     
    Jul screamed, ’What’s he doing? He’s killing himself!’
    Hex, stunned, could only watch.
    Borno landed on the Ghost’s night-dark hide and grabbed big
handfuls, pulling and crumpling. The Black Ghost rolled, trying to
shake off its assailant. Around it the other Ghosts bobbed, agitated,
but they had no way to help; they couldn’t fire on Borno for fear of
hitting the Black Ghost itself.
    Then Borno took a mouthful of hide, bit down hard, and arched his
back. The Ghost’s hide ripped, and a clear fluid laced with crimson
boiled within the wound. Borno’s eyes were bleeding now, his ears
too, but he dug into the Black Ghost with his teeth and nails, the
only weapons he had left.
    ’We have to help him,’ Hella called. She breathed hard; Hex sensed
her psyching herself up to follow Borno. ’Are you with me?’
    ’All right,’ Hex said. ’On my mark - ’
    Before they could move one of the Ghosts broke ranks. A perfect
silver sphere, it swept down purposefully on the Black Ghost and its
clinging human assailant. A slit opened in its own belly, a weapon
nozzle protruded - and a projectile fired neatly into the black hide
through the wound Borno had opened. The Black Ghost emitted no sound,
but it quivered and thrashed. Borno clung on, but he was limp
now.
    And every other Ghost among the million arrayed around them froze
in place.
    As the Black Ghost suffered its death throes, the assassin came
drifting to Borno’s vacated station.
    Hex asked, ’Integumentary?’
    Hella said, ’How do you keep doing this?’
    ’I suggest you get us out of here, pilot,’ said the Ghost.
’Without leadership the troops are paralysed, but they will react
soon. If you want to live - ’
    ’Not without Borno,’ Jul said.
    ’He’s already dead,’ said the Ghost.
    ’No!’
    The Integumentary spun in its station and spat another bullet,
this time neatly lancing through Borno’s limp body. ’Now can we
go?’
    Hex grimly drew her hands towards her lap. The palette shot
backwards out of the bastion, and into open space.

 
VII
     
     
    The palette hovered at the rim of the system. The misty, dying
star of the Ghosts was still visible, as was its intensely blue
companion.
    ’They won’t find you here,’ the Integumentary said, still nestling
in Borno’s vacated pod.
    Commodore Teel’s disembodied head appeared before Hex. ’So the
Black Ghost is dead. Good. Now we will see how the war turns out. You
did well, Hex.’
    ’Borno did well.’
    ’He will be remembered.’
    The Integumentary seemed to feel its plan had worked out as it
hoped. It had been able to penetrate the Black Ghost’s bastion, even
smuggle in a weapon so crude it wasn’t picked up by the defensive
systems. But it could never have