My people have always been creatures of the deep places. On Quall, the desert does not forgive those who build upward—the sand storms that roll across the flats will strip a structure to its skeleton in a single season. So we learned, generations ago, to build downward. Our structures are modest things on the surface: low, wind-worn facades of pale sandstone that a traveler might mistake for natural formations, even a few beautiful spires and community centers. We keep our real treasures and our true selves below. Ritual spaces, dining halls, the archives of our laws and grudges, all of it lies safe beyond the reach of orbital scans or the clumsy boots of Ciberling mercenaries. It is where we live and sleep during the hottest seasons when the surface is unbearable. There is a lesson in this, and it is a lesson the Ciberlings of Danje never understood.
The Ciberlings build up, and out, and above. They celebrate their architecture as an extension of their will to dominate. Their capital, Arken, is visible from orbit, a dizzying array of towers and stone plazas, all arranged in a circular pattern, mathematically optimized to maximize the sun’s reflection and, I suppose, their own sense of importance.
There is a kind of mutual loathing between our peoples. A rivalry that once might have produced poets or war heroes but now only produces saboteurs and assassination attempts. The origin of the feud is lost, which suits both sides fine, because now it is about everything and nothing at all: water rights to a passing comet, mining access to an asteroid field, historical grievances that nobody could actually prove.
The Systems Alliance, distant, rich, always too busy to care, yet somehow omnipresent, made a brief show of mediating between us. They arrived in gunmetal ships with the flags of a dozen core worlds stenciled on their hulls, delivered pronouncements in the heavy diplomatic dialect, and departed within a week, having declared our systems “of comparably trivial economic value.” They left behind a set of barely enforceable treaties that neither side honored, but both found useful as propaganda. Even now, I could almost like the Alliance, if only because in declaring us equally unimportant, they finally gave us something we could agree on.
But the Ciberlings had one crippling flaw, and it was the reason I am alive, the reason our people have survived at all: they loved what could be seen. Their entire history was a performance staged under a thousand spotlights. Their power was in parades and martial displays and the names of their ancestors inscribed on the facades of public institutions. Our power was in the fact that we didn’t need anyone to know we had it. The surface could be taken, burned, glassed to nothing, and it would not matter; by the time the enemy stood atop the ruins, we would already have dug deeper, or tunneled elsewhere. There are more than a hundred abandoned sublevels beneath the capital of Quall. Many are booby-trapped or filled with gas that kills slowly over years, but those are only the ones we want the Ciberlings to find.
I suppose this is why I despised Akima Ciberling before I ever laid eyes on her. Everything about her was designed to be witnessed: her face on recruitment displays, her name carved into public monuments, her reputation as the sharpest point of Danje’s spear. I studied her the way you study a wound that won’t close—not with admiration, exactly, but with the kind of focused attention that looks almost like it. Her weaknesses were things I had memorized long before I could confirm them: the overcommitment, the hunger to be seen as the dominant force in any room, the blind spot for anything that happened outside an audience’s view. She could not conceive of being struck from somewhere no one was watching. And she knew me too, in her way. The first time we crossed blades she had a rifle on me and a full pack of her wolves at her back, and she waved them off… Gunning me down and killing me quickly was not something she was capable of wanting. She wanted the bloodshed. She discarded her rifle, drew her sword, and engaged in her lustful wish fulfilment to slay me up close, to make me feel every cut, and to flay my pelt in front of her entire team. Afterward, breathing hard, she told me I was “full of fire when backed into a corner.” Coming from her, that was practically a love letter. That battle was interrupted and we would not see the end of our rivalry that day.
We shared a solar system, which meant we shared moons, gas clouds, ore belts, and the question of who owned what had never once been answered peacefully. Neither side could finish the other. Too many of our ships circled Quall for them to overwhelm us, and Danje had ringed their planet in anti-ship batteries so dense our fleet couldn’t get close. They were right that we were small. They were wrong that we were finished. Every system has one flaw. Ours was the desert. Theirs was people - and people can be bought.
My name is Kiara Quall, I planned this mission myself, and I would see it through myself. A small squadron, mine to command, crossed three days of sublight travel to reach operational range of Danje—arriving to find their vessels sparse, their response time measured in hours we intended to use.
The Ciberlings Empire would have laughed at a frontal assault. They were not laughing at what came instead. One hour before we crossed into range, the underground resistance they had publicly denounced as terrorists quietly deactivated the polar batteries. Getting them the weapons and resources to do so was not easy, but it all came down to this. The sacrifices they made in blood would not be made in vain.
“All ships have cleared the warp aperture, Captain,” said one of the bridge crew.
I addressed the gray and white furred Amber Krowen man in the captain's chair next to me on the bridge. He glanced my way and said, "My lady?"
"Set a high orbit over the capital, Arken,” I said. “Direct the other ships in the task force to follow. This operation has commenced." I couldn't help but be proud of myself. Usually, there would be bright flashes of light from the surface rail guns that could've caused us some real trouble, but it was quiet this time.
The captain nodded at his ensign pilot sitting in front. "You heard what Kiara said. Move us into an orbital pattern over Arken. All stations to full combat alert and keep our landing craft updated in real time."
Our command ship’s engines flared, a rocking force pressing us into our seats as the long, smooth hulk angled toward Danje. Behind us two enormous personnel carriers loaded with numerous drop ship shuttles followed. Two other escort vessels guarded the rear. We had to keep our task force number small, or else they could have detected us coming hours in advance. This had to be a surprise attack.
My fur stood on end as I suppressed a shiver of excitement. If our plan worked, this could be the end of the war.
“Carriers reporting they’re ready to launch. Communications suggest Danje craft are being launched to intercept. The nearest vessels have been signaled to return to Danje, but their estimated time is several hours.”
“Perfect,” said the captain. “Launch the invasion force. Capture the Ciberling palace.”
I walked over to one of the tactical stations and tapped a few keys on the touchscreen. A camera feed appeared with a rear view behind us, showing the two carriers behind us. Along their sides and underbelly, I could see white plumes of steam and smoke as dozens of smaller ships detached from them and began turning away from the superstructure with thrusters firing toward their destination. The carrier vessels looked almost naked with half of its body detached. It was quite something to witness those numerous tiny ships making up one large structure. The cost of these two carriers, and the years to build them, would hopefully pay off tonight.
Our weapons were older, our ships slower, but they were ours. The Systems Alliance would have little use for us in their war against the Sun Jin Empire. Our fleet was a relic by their standards, but maybe when the fighting was over, there would be a place for us somewhere in their order. A support role. Something. The thought of a command position in their ranks surfaced briefly before I let it go. I would miss the smell of this place. I would miss the desert.