'The Way of the Kresh'
by Keith Stevenson
The procedure was painless, just as they’d said, but Jeldon wished himself dead when it was over. He howled his
anguish, fingers grasping at the newly–formed stump as he fell to his knees and curled up in a ball like a
frightened pup. His thoughts came disjointedly through a wall of desolation that closed in around him. For the
first time in his life he felt truly alone.
The guards looked on dispassionately. They had seen this all before. They holstered their weapons and relaxed a
little. This one posed no more threat. The mantle lay on the floor like so much useless flesh now — ‘excised’ the
Kresh called it — clear fluid oozing from the incision.
The door irised open, but Jeldon made no move to leave. One of the guards nudged him with the toe of his boot,
“Hey, Kresh. Move it! We didn’t cut your legs off.”
One of the others laughed but was silenced as Jeldon regained his footing in one fluid motion. The sight of one of
these giants towering four feet above the tallest human, thick chitin glowing dull red in the light, was enough to
give anyone pause. Instinctively his muscles flexed to raise the mantle. The force it manifested could breach any
shield, melt flesh and bone. His hands reached for the stump again in remembering. His grief was a weight which
hung around his shoulders like a ghost–mantle. Slowly, he turned away from them and shuffled towards the open
doorway.
What did it matter? he thought as he crossed the threshold into the corridor. What did anything matter now? He
felt weak, battered, defeated.
“Welcome, citizen!” the mechanised voice said in badly enunciated Kresh. “Please proceed to Processing Bay 9 for
release. Rejoice! The Hegemony welcomes you.”
There were other Kresh in the wide, low–ceilinged bay, and the shock of their presence drove home his ‘aloneness’
all the more keenly. None of them would make eye–contact. Like him they bore the scars of excision and the shame
of it, shame for themselves and for each other. With their mantles gone, they had lost their ability to link with
the Kresh Communion. Cut off from that support, they were outcasts among their own people.
Jeldon joined the end of a ragged queue and tried to hold back his tears. How had they fallen so far, so fast…
* * *
“Jeldon! Have you heard the news?”
Jeldon halted his steady ascent of the steps up from the Commons and looked skyward, a smile already creeping
across his face. There was only one person he knew who possessed too much energy to bother with a simple
greeting. He turned to see Insa, his whelp-mate, bounding up the steps towards him, taking them three at a time.
“I’m sure you’ll enlighten me if I haven’t,” he said.
She slowed her advance and looked reproachful, “You’re too world weary for your own good, Jeldon. But this news is
big enough to quicken even your hearts.” She stopped level with him, hands on hips and breathing heavily,
“We’ve made formal contact with that ‘Hegemony’ you’ve been reporting on. They want to open relations with us, and
I’m to lead the contact team!”
“Ah,” Jeldon said, trying to sound happy for Insa, despite himself.
“ ‘Ah’! Is that all you can manage?” she said. “This is the first new contact we’ve had in over fifty cycles.”
“I’m sorry, Insa,” he began slowly before pressing on. “It’s just — I had hoped they wouldn’t move so quickly. I’
m on my way to try to convince the Council to have nothing more to do with them.”
“What!” Insa said taking a step back, all trace of her earlier happiness gone. “Why?”
Jeldon clicked his upper mandibles slowly, “It’s hard to explain, Insa. Just things I’ve heard. I’ve no real
proof, but — I don’t trust their motives.”
She placed her hands on his shoulder plates and looked deep into his eyes, “Jeldon this is important to me. I’ve
been working towards this all my life. If you can’t prove your fears, at least let us hear what the Hegemony has
to say.”
Jeldon looked back up the steps towards the Council Chambers. The doors were slowly closing, and the plenary
session was commencing.
“Please,” Insa said, demanding his attention again. “I’m asking you as a friend not to do this.”
This close, the strength of her emotions washed over him, drowning out the steady resonances of the Communion.
Maybe he was jumping at shadows, but there was no way he could simply let things lie. Not after what he’d heard.
“Do you have room for another team member?” he asked finally.
“You, Envoy?” she asked, her face breaking out in that infectious grin she had. “We’d be honoured.”
* * *
The line of excised Kresh moved steadily and soon it was Jeldon’s turn to be processed. The guards were dressed
differently here but they had the same look of scorn on their soft little faces. They were the victors, these
jellybones. The Kresh in the bay were now no more than slaves, despite the title of ‘Citizen of the Hegemony’
which they had earned through their defeat.
The Terran in charge stood tall on a raised dais and looked Jeldon in the eye, “Ready to join the free community
of the Hegemony, Citizen?” he asked, holding out a bundle of documents for Jeldon. “Ration Card, ID Card, curfew
guidelines, and a map of the perimeter. You’re confined to the curfew area until we can be sure of your loyalty to
the Hegemony.”
Jeldon reached for the documents and the man neatly electrostenciled his forearm in one swift motion. He pulled
his arm back and looked at the small, black markings carved deep into the chitin. He could understand Terran but
couldn’t read it. He supposed it was some identity mark, a further outward sign of his bondage.
Thinking of Insa again, he was glad she had not survived to suffer such a pathetic fate, to be crippled and then
catalogued. He stuffed the papers into his pouch and headed out into the daylight.
As he stood on the pavement, he sniffed the air tentatively. The smell of the city was wrong. It smelt of them in
a thousand ways: their sweat, their breath, their food, their waste. He couldn’t continue to live in such a
place. He was cut off from all he had been in too many ways. The city where he had grown up was now denied to
him. The link he shared with the Kresh people was gone, severed forever along with his mantle. His position as
Envoy of the High Council had been swept away with the war. His whelp–mates were all dead. He hoped his pups were
too. He had wished for death himself as the mantle dropped from his shoulders, and it beckoned to him now. The
universe held nothing for him. The only option left was to go to the Helop Parks.
He clung to this thought as a seafarer would to the wreckage of his own vessel and strode purposefully in the
direction of the Parks. His swift motion drew some uneasy glances from the Terrans enjoying the newly constructed
food outlets along the boulevard. He didn’t move like a ‘liberated’ Kresh. But Jeldon was out of sight before
anyone thought to challenge him.
* * *
The great flagship shook violently as its shields absorbed another lethal broadside, and Jeldon staggered against
the corridor wall, reaching out to steady himself. The buffeting passed, and he looked back at the others. Insa
had managed to latch on to a wall duct, but Karis had been sent flying.
“This is all your fault, Jeldon,” Karis hissed, picking himself up off the floor. “If you hadn’t rejected their
offer out of hand —”
“How can you say that?” Insa said. “This attack proves Jeldon was right about the Hegemony. As soon as any
obstacle was placed in their way they revealed their true intentions. Besides, you supported the contact team’s
recommendations, just as we all did.”
“Only because of Jeldon’s bullying,” Karis said. “The Kresh blood spilt here today will be on his hands, no one
else’s.”
“Enough!” Insa shouted. She reached out and grabbed Karis between the torso plates, pulling the shorter Kresh up
off the deck so they were face to face. Her upper and lower mandibles parted as she snarled dangerously and raised
her free arm above his head. Karis’ eyes widened, feet kicking uselessly in mid-air. But Jeldon grabbed hold of
Insa’s arm before she could deliver the blow, and she relaxed her grip a little, allowing Karis’ toes to brush the
floor.
“Don’t bother, Insa,” Jeldon said, looking squarely at Karis, “I see the body of an adult, but perhaps there is
only a pup within.”
Karis swallowed his retort as the door to the Bridge irised open and Admiral Ramid stepped through. Insa dropped
Karis quickly to the deck and turned to greet the Admiral without a trace of embarrassment.
“Envoy. Insa,” Ramid said and nodded to Karis who was rubbing at the scratches on his carapace.
“How goes the battle, Admiral?” Jeldon asked.
Ramid grimaced, “We’ve engaged them as you’ve probably guessed. But I’d be interested in your analysis. As
members of the original contact team, you know more about these Terrans than anybody else.”
“Of course, that’s why we’re here,” Jeldon said, glancing once more at Karis.
Ramid turned and lead them onto the Bridge. A huge display screen dominated the deck, showing the line of
engagement spread almost to the edge of the Kresh system. The Hegemony heavy cruisers were supported by squadrons
of tiny assault craft with relatively low firepower and little shielding to speak of. But their pilots flew well,
and they moved so quickly it was all the larger corvettes of the Kresh fleet could do to hold them at bay.
“They’re as difficult to fight as the air we breathe,” Ramid said. “We can hold the line but, as you can see,
there will be heavy losses on both sides.”
“They’ve had a great deal of practice beating their enemies into submission, Admiral,” Jeldon said. “They won’t
give up easily. We must hold out. If we lose here, everything we hold dear will be swept aside.”
Jeldon watched with a sense of deep foreboding as the battle played itself out on the screen. Tiny flares
blossomed in the dark, marking the destruction of more Kresh or Terran ships. He watched those tiny deaths and
couldn’t help but feel responsible. Had he done the right thing? He’d convinced the contact team and then the
Council to see through the Hegemony’s lies and reject their offer of an alliance. At the time he felt prepared to
accept that dreadful responsibility. But now…
Once his people committed themselves to a fight, there was no turning back. He could feel the determination of
those Kresh aboard the flagship and the other vessels in the fleet. Their resolve stood in his consciousness like
the blade of a bolga knife: strong, unbending, and very very deadly.
The question rose unbidden again yet, even as it did so, he felt a renewed assurance stirring within him, a
certainty that the course he had fixed for his people was right. He turned to see Insa standing close behind,
concern etched on her features.
“I might have known these were your feelings” he said, smiling. “You’ve been my strength all along.” She returned
the smile hesitantly. “I’m sorry the mission didn’t work out the way you’d hoped.”
“Things would have gone a lot worse without you, Jeldon,” she said. “You’re a very special person. You see things
more clearly and feel things more deeply than the rest of us.”
“Maker…” Ramid hissed, and Jeldon and Insa followed his gaze to the display.
“The Hegemony have broken through our lines?” Jeldon asked, trying to make sense of the lights swimming through the
void.
“No!” Ramid said, his voice rough with sudden anger. “They’re being escorted through! Look here, here and here.
Those are Kresh ships, flying in formation with the Terrans.”
“Who…?” Jeldon asked.
Ramid thumbed his bracelet and the image dilated, centring on the breach. “They’re House Karis ships,” he said.
“Look at the markings.”
Jeldon spun around, his eyes searching for Karis, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Find him!” he snarled.
* * *
Moving quickly though the downtown section, Jeldon made good progress to the perimeter. The streets here were all
but deserted since the Hegemony’s victory. All activity was centred on rebuilding the production facilities in the
outer territories and readying the Council Chambers — that last stronghold of Kresh defiance — so that the new
Hegemony-backed Administrator could occupy them in an obviously symbolic gesture.
He’d worried that the perimeter would be heavily guarded, but it was no more than a hastily thrown up fence. No
remotes were visible and as he knelt in the shadows beneath an overpass, he saw a single guard walk slowly past.
The Terran was staring at the ground, obviously bored with the duty he had pulled. He walked on, skirting the
wire, and disappeared round the corner at the end of the street.
Jeldon approached the fence and trapped the lowest strand in his upper mandibles. The wire gave easily, and he
pushed through the gap and ran quickly down the incline on the other side, claiming the cover afforded by a thick
grove of endar trees. He pushed his head cautiously back through the blue foliage and looked up the slope. There
were no signs of movement by the wire, so he turned again and made his way through the closely packed trees.
His whelp-mother had played with him in the shade of these woods. The memory of her was very clear, even though
they had not spoken in over 20 cycles. It was she who had taught him the Principles, and he repeated them in his
head now, rote-like, as he had spoken them to her so many times before. All are one. One can be all. Thought and
deed reflect on the soul.
He’d believed in these truths all his life. But the acts he witnessed in this past semi made him question whether
he had been fooling himself all along.
The tree cover thinned as he neared the edge of the Parks. It was typical of the Hegemony to restrict access
here. Whenever they occupied a planet, they moved quickly to control the political, cultural and social life of a
civilisation, and from there the strangle-hold on a race tightened.
The Family Spikes lay before him like so many jagged steel talons scraping the gunmetal sky. He picked his way
amongst them, avoiding those sporting the bodies of other excised Kresh, until finally he came to his own family
plot. He had visited this place on many joyous occasions when the life of a revered relation had come to an end.
Three days after death, their bodies would be broken on the spike so the carapace yielded up meat for all to share
in honour of their life.
On less happy occasions, a Kresh who had brought shame upon himself and his house would cleanse the family name by
falling upon the spike. In such circumstances the body would be left as carrion for the forest beasts. Jeldon had
never once thought his life would end this way, but there was nothing else for it. As a soldier on the losing
side, he was regarded with suspicion by the Hegemony. But worse, as an excisee his own people would now shun him.
He was damaged goods, less than whole. There was no place for him in Kresh society.
He clambered onto the rough stone altar and grabbed the spike with both hands. Moving closer, he guided the tip to
the small opening between his upper and lower torso plates. He need only lean forward and the point would drive
through his intestinal cavity and spike the aortas. It was here that he would die as custom and culture demanded.
His blood would flow down the spike to stain the altar below and death would come quickly. There would be no one
to mourn him. He would join the countless nameless bodies hanging from other spikes in the Park, and all that he
knew and felt would be lost.
* * *
Laser blasts ricocheted around the arcade leading into the Council Chambers as Jeldon ducked back behind the
column. At the bottom of the once graceful steps, Terrans darted from cover to cover drawing closer to their
position. This would be the final battle. The Kresh resistance was coming to an end. He looked round at the
others with him. There was barely a handful of them left, and they wouldn’t last long once the siege guns were
brought up.
“It’s hopeless, my friends,” he said. “I want you to get away from here. Quickly, while you still can.”
No one moved.
“What about you, Jeldon,” Insa asked, jamming a last charge pack into her blaster.
“I can’t allow them to take the Envoy alive,” he said simply.
“Then I’m not leaving either,” she said, glancing at the others. “None of us are.”
“Insa, I’m ordering you to go. It’s important some of us survive to tell what happened here.”
“Sorry, Jeldon,” she said, slapping the nearest Kresh on the shoulder and pointing across the arcade to the next
row of columns. “This conversation is getting boring.” She came up to a crouch, “I’ll see you in Rahal’va.”
He reached out to her but she was already gone, laying down a volley of fire as she ran across the top of the
steps. A fusion blast fell short of Jeldon’s position, followed by two more. Rubble rained down as smoke rolled
over them.
“This is it!” he shouted and leapt into the open. The others followed his lead, ranging themselves along the
steps, their mantles raised. The smoke cleared slowly, revealing twenty or thirty Terran troops racing towards
them. Mantle energy exploded from each Kresh, black death coursing down the steps and over the oncoming soldiers.
Personal shields flared and collapsed, bodies burst apart. The sound and smell was appalling.
A stillness descended on the Commons again as the Kresh ran for cover. There was a whimpering sound from below,
quickly silenced by a single laser blast. Then Jeldon heard heavy footsteps and a voice shouting in Kresh,
“Comrades! Release me. For the Principles’ sake, release me!”
Anticipating a trap, Jeldon glanced cautiously round the column and quickly drew back again, swearing under his
breath. A miserable wretch stood halfway up the steps, arms spread wide. The scar of a recent excision was all
too obvious. Jeldon squeezed his eyes shut, revulsion rising up from within. That one race could treat another in
such a way…
He eased round the column again, looked directly into the eyes of the Kresh — and was lost. A rushing noise, like
the battering of waves, filled Jeldon’s ears and a chill ran through his body. Slowly he stood and stepped into
the open. The sunlight felt like cold fire.
“You!” the Kresh shouted, “I see you. Restore…” The words were drowned out as the pounding increased. Jeldon’s
arm came up of its own accord, bringing his gun to bear. The Kresh knelt, arms stretched out towards the blaster,
pleading for its caress.
A thought slowly unfolded in Jeldon’s head, like a flower, petal by petal, “You’re. Already. Dead.” He fired and
fell himself, his arm bright with pain. He nearly dropped the blaster as he slid down the steps, eyes searching
for the sniper’s position.
“No!” he heard and turned painfully, looking back up the steps to see Insa leap up, death spraying from her
blaster. He tried to speak, saw her body explode through the chitin as the Terrans fired on her, then saw no more.
* * *
“Which is why they come here to end their wretched existence?”
He spun around and crouched instinctively as he heard the voice behind him. Two Terrans and a Kresh, mantle still
intact, were moving through the family plots, talking and laughing as they stopped here and there to view the
pitiful sight of the dead.
“Think of it as evolution in action,” the Kresh said, his mandibles clicking oddly as he enunciated the Terran
words. “What you Terrans call ‘natural selection’.”
Jeldon scuttled off the altar and crouched in its shelter. The voices came closer and he feared he would be
discovered. But their footsteps moved past without stopping. When he felt it was safe, he stood once more to
watch them walking up the hill, still deep in conversation.
He contemplated the retreating back of the Kresh traitor, a bitter taste in his mouth. That such a creature should
be allowed life! That fitak and others like him had sold their planet and their race to the Hegemony. Jeldon
couldn’t understand their actions, or how they had concealed their plans from the Communion.
He sat on the altar’s edge and tried to compose himself again. He could not meet death in such a state. He must
clear the way and find the calm within before continuing.
But his thoughts kept coming back to the traitor. All his life he had abided by the Principles. He had helped his
fellow Kresh whenever possible. Until the war, he had lived with honour, raising his pups to follow his example.
Those who thought as he did surrounded him now, unable to live with what had happened to their world or to
themselves.
It was the traitor and others like him who would live on to enjoy the fruits of their treachery. Jeldon saw now
they were the ones who would rule Kresh. And they would raise the next generation according to their own code:
principles which included greed, self-seeking, betrayal and murder. Everything Jeldon had known, those things
which gave the Kresh honour and purpose and destiny would be lost in the space of a single lifetime. The Kresh
would become mere lackeys of the Hegemony. Worse still they would become just like the Hegemony, emulating its
actions and behaviours. A separate Kresh identity would cease to exist.
Custom, and the sheer desolation of being without the Communion, demanded that he die. But what purpose would that
serve if it meant the ways of the Kresh died with him? Against the survival of his race, his own private pain
meant nothing. He looked at the bodies hanging around him in a new light. Rather than escaping their shame in
death, these Kresh had compounded it, assisting the enemy to achieve its goals. They had taken the easy way out.
The more difficult path was to choose to live despite everything, to continue the fight against the Hegemony, to
reject their way of life and their future plans for the Kresh.
As he stood, his former weariness dissolved to be replaced by a new vigour, a new sense of purpose. Excised as he
was, there was still work for him to do. He could not be the only one to realise this new truth. Perhaps a few
others had escaped the carnage of the last battles and even now were gathering together, gaining in strength and
numbers. He felt now that he had a destiny to fulfil, that his life and the lives of all Kresh were inextricably
linked. All were one. And for the first time in his life he truly understood the second Principle. One could be
all. One could make a difference for all.
He would leave the Kresh homeworld. The Hegemony was too strong here now. He would seek out others of his kind
among the stars. And when he returned, it would be to reclaim his birthright and make the Kresh free once more.
Copyright by Keith Stevenson © 1999
For more on the Kresh - go to the Kresh War Project Page