Read Online The Xenocide Mission by Ben Jeapes - Free Book Online Page B

your people have used to imprison the extraterrestrials are jury-rigged. You brought nothing with you that could have been used to make a more secure holding area. Your main supplies all turned up days later. You couldn’t have planned this whole thing on the understanding that exactly two extraterrestrials would be captured. You weren’t expecting prisoners at all.
    ‘And,’ she added. ‘You did it without any kind of ritual of challenge. Not an honourable act by anyone’s standards.’
    The amusement evaporated and Oomoing knew she had struck home. ‘Then what was I doing?’ Barabadar said coldly.
    This was a leap in the dark for Oomoing, but she only had one hypothesis that made any kind of sense.
    ‘You were—’ she began.
    A call signal interrupted her. Barabadar waved her to silence and took the call. ‘Worthy Son?’ she said.
    Stormer’s features appeared on the display.
    ‘I’m sorry for interrupting, Martial Mother,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible that we’ve discovered another ship.’
    Four feet
, Joel thought sourly.
What a bloody silly
number.
    Of course, this wasn’t an entirely worthy idea, and part of him was grateful that he still had this capacity for rational thought. But honestly, Boon Round could be so . . . so . . .
    So
.
    Joel supposed he was glad to see Boon Round rallying. The Rustie was spending less and less time in his hammock, which unfortunately meant more and more time moving around the Commune Place and complaining about . . . well, everything.
    Which was what you’d expect from having two completely different species working side by side, Joel thought privately. You couldn’t really have the Commonwealth without the First Breed, the Roving being their home planet and all that, but he sometimes thought there might be a case for having all the First Breed stay at home and let the humans do the spacefaring. Let both sides play to their strengths.
    Joel passed his time doing exercises and thinking, which were really the only two options open to him and had the advantage that they could be done simultaneously. Escape was the main thing to think about, though exactly how was another matter. He kept hoping the big, friendly alien would return and let him out again. If he could somehow win her trust enough to get near a weapons locker . . . or
something
. . .
    ‘I wish you’d stop that bouncing to and fro,’ said Boon Round. Joel had devised the exercise of kicking gently off the floor of the Commune Place, doing a somersault in mid-air and landing on the ceiling feet first, to repeat the process indefinitely. ‘It’s deeply distracting.’
    Joel stopped exercizing and sulked in one corner. For the thousandth time he triggered the image on his ident bracelet and gazed into those blue eyes. So freakin’ typical. It had been as if every moment, every experience, every lesson of his life had been in preparation for meeting
her
. And before he had time to work out if he really was reading the signals correctly, he’d been sent to SkySpy.
    ‘I wish
you’d
come up with some helpful suggestions,’ he muttered.
    ‘Why bother? These creatures murdered my siblings without pity and they greatly outnumber us. Our only hope is to die with glory, taking as many as we can with us.’
    Boon Round sounded as if he approved of the idea. Perhaps he did. A Rustie in his situation would have nothing left to live for. Joel had a great deal to live for and he wore the proof around his wrist.
    ‘Fine,’ Joel said. ‘Jump the next one to come through that airlock and die gloriously. Me, I’ll hang around.’
    ‘Humans are meant to provide us with leadership. Why do you not show moral support? The Ones Who Command would have worked out what to do long ago.’
    ‘Oh, drop dead.’
    They both knew the Commonwealth would react as soon as it heard from the survivors onboard Lifeboat B. Neither of them knew how long had passed since their capture but surely it