Cutting Smoke with Scissors
© 2020 by Walter Reimer


“Anulka, how nice to see you again,” the rabbit said. Her smile failed to reach her eyes.

The Dhole-Akita mix matched the insincere gesture. “Shumeng. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Hwillis Shumeng smirked. “As if ‘pleasure’ was anything you were familiar with.”

“I seem to recall you screaming.”

“To keep from laughing at you.” Now she smiled, if it was possible for a rabbit to imitate a wolf. “But enough of sweet nostalgia. How are the talks going?”

Balakrishnan swallowed her bile and said to her former lover and current superior, “About as well as you’d expect. The Critters are intent on holding the territory they’ve already taken, and that little bitch the Emperor sent is being much too smug about our incursions.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m getting updates, but what’s really going on, Shumeng? The shlani are usually completely insufferable, but are we doing well?”

Hwillis glanced aside, probably rechecking that her encryption and privacy devices were running, and dragged a paw over her head, pulling her ears back and smoothing her headfur. It was late at night where she was. When her ears came back up, she sighed. “I wish I knew, and that’s the truth. The Foreign Ministry’s been written out of the daily high-security briefings.”

Balakrishnan stared. “On whose authority?”

“His Highness’ direct order,” came the reply. “Al-Sakai’s talking to the military, of course, and to some of the other ministries – Industry, Labor and the like.”

“That makes sense,” the canine conceded, although it appeared to hurt her to do so. “He’s not really expecting me to work anything out, is he?”

Again, a worried glance around. “I want you – shit; I need you to keep trying, Anulka. The shlani wanted to talk, so the least we can do is keep them talking. Based on your last report, k’Ven’s signaled a willingness to withdraw some of their forces from key salients. Can we build on that?”

“It’s tricky. You’ve never had to talk to them before, Shumeng; they’re always so fucking certain of themselves and this ‘manifest destiny’ thing they think their first Emperor gave them.” Balakrishnan gave an exasperated snort. “Complete vaporware.”

“Yes, but it’s vaporware they believe in.” The rabbit stifled a yawn. “It’s getting late here.”

“Early morning for me.”

“Sorry.” The canine’s tail twitched at that. “We – you – need to do something, Anulka. We don’t want Felix to get the idea that he can do without the Foreign Ministry. And if you do manage to pull this off, you can probably name your own reward.”

Like having your job? Balakrishnan thought, but didn’t say. The idea of humbling the rabbit appealed to her.

She smiled. “I’ll do my best, Shumeng.”


***


“It stinks in here,” one technician grumbled.

“Errnh, it’s a Terran base,” another said. She made a tail gesture that equated to an eloquent shrug. “What did you expect?”

A third remarked, “It’s all the blood, too. You can’t expect Trackers to be neat.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” The first technician sat down, and squirmed. “Cursed chairs.”

“Quiet, all of you,” m’Gen said. Conspicuously, the captain-major was on his feet at the command center’s principal console. His tail kept swishing about, betraying the fact that he was still very nervous. Despite the swift action by the Trackers in neutralizing the station’s personnel, there were still risks. Chances were excellent that the base had surveillance devices in it, and if Terran Security discovered that the base had been compromised . . .

M’Gen really didn’t want to dwell on that.

More shlani had moved into the facility, mostly Support personnel who would maintain the fiction that the base was still in Terran paws. The one hundred and fifty-two Terran corpses had been moved outside and buried under a layer of nitrogen ice, but clearing away the rest of the remains was a very low priority.

“Quiet, please,” he repeated. “Full status check.”

“Computer functions are within normal parameters. It has accepted our reprogramming.”

“Very good.” Ten levels below him and sitting atop the base’s fusion reactor was a heavily-armored tank containing fifty kilos of cloned brain cells, the core of the base AI. It still made him shudder to think of the perversion of nature it represented.

He felt his fingerclaws twitch, but suppressed the emotion. “Status on the sensor arrays?”

“Nominal. Normal traffic.”

“Communications links?”

“Standard message traffic, sir.”

“Good. We have achieved what some thought impossible; well done to you all.” M’Gen smiled as his people relaxed slightly. “Aka, now comes the hard part – making the Terrans believe that this place is still theirs for as long as possible, while we work a little mischief.” Some of the smiles broadened.

Computer experts love a challenge.

“Our next objective,” m’Gen said, “is the Terran Fleet’s primary communications arrays, Borealis and Australis.”