The Siluvara Files
The Story of Udo's Salute
 
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It is a long held tradition of all Bollar fighter pilots to toss a celebratory alcoholic drink over one's shoulder upon return from a successful mission. This custom, known as Udo's Salute, began with a one Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo, a pilot who narrowly escaped the Siluvaran Matron invasion of Ke'yeppa Beta at the outbreak of the Three Way War. Udo's Salute is clearly a superstition among pilots, but it also has obvious, practical benefits: given the countless surpise attack waves thrown at the Bollars by the Imperishable Empire and the Siluvaran Confederacy during the war, it was expected that a pilot would be called back into combat mere moments after landing, or even a few hours later. Unlike the times before that tragic first strike by the Siluvarans, there was no time for a pilot to wind down with a cold one. From this point on, all pilots slept sober. And they slept very lightly.
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"Get that creature off your six, pilot!"
 
"Negative, command, I can't shake her!"
 
Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo glanced frantically over his shoulder one more time at the butterfly angel that seemed to cling to his sharpest flips and turns like a bad case of body odor, gaining preciously rare inches on him with every passing second. He knew his time would be up soon if he didn't find some way to shake the hand of fate off his tail.
 
"She's staying right on my ass!"
 
Even as he informed Bollar Imperial Space Command of his predicament, he had decided it was time to show this unbelievably arrogant and equally agile alien aggressor the full might of the Space Force. Hurtling along at Mach 2 he maneuvered his thrust vectors and pitched his jet vertically, turning it 90 degrees on its new axis; then as his pursuer began to overshoot him, his thrust vectors twisted sideways, causing his ship to pitch down and go into roll onto its side.
 
The naked female chasing him turned, her soft smile twisting into a wide-eyed look of shock as he drifted across the sky, moving away from her subtlely yet also too fast for her mind to compensate.
 
His brows furrowed deep as his lips curled into a lopsided grin until only one eye remained open: the one he needed to correctly pinpoint that invisible bullseye in the alien woman's forehead. Snarling, "Fuck you," his thumb depressed the trigger. The satisfying hum of his auto-cannons spewing a short burst of focused, near light-speed magnetically-accelerated aluminum slugs, filled his ears. Every single shot found its mark; as the butterfly angel before him turned to follow him her body suddenly flopped wildly from dozens of devastating sub-relative speed hits by his guns. Pieces of her head flew off until her entire face exploded into a cloud of oily gray and red, his guns continuing to stitch their way down the invader's body until they sliced her in half. Assured that she was dead, he pitched and rolled his aircraft up into an upright position again at a 90 degree angle of attack.
 
He caught sight of three more of her kind coming in hot, directly overhead, their arms to their sides as they plunged into a nosedive right at him. Already they were defined by three red target reticicles; and without hesitation he triple tapped three more bursts of hyper-slugs that exploded them into a shower of blood and guts.
 
His vessel then twisted into a sharp curve, putting a billowing cream puff of clouds between him and four more aliens he spotted coming up from below. His feet worked the pedals and his thrust vector nozzles to briefly spin his fighter jet around. His targets were concealed on the other side of the cloudcover and only passed in front of him for a brief instant; but that was all his targeting system needed. Four micro-missiles tore away from his wings in mid-spin and homed in on their targets.
 
The explosions lit up his cockpit from behind through the veil of clouds, blowing them aside to reveal a mass of fireballs expanding in the night sky - but by then he was already onto his next objective.
 
It was then that a soft feminine voice then said quietly to him, "I forgive you for killing my fellow Matrons, Captain Udo."
 
His smile instantly died as his mouth fell wide open. Where did that come from?
 
"You truly are an amazing warrior, young Ke'yeppan, and for that you will be offered directly to the womb of Gaia."
 
"WHAT?!" he howled, glancing around wildly.
 
"She will envelop you in ecstasy... immerse you in her love... soothe your heart with song... as you are made into one of us."
 
Another butterfly-winged woman dropped down from the clouds, cutting him off.
 
He put those words out of his head and tapped off a burst, swerving out of the way of the disintegrating target's gorey remains; again his craft turned upright, making a run for outer space.
 
"Love that, you fucking freak!"
 
Then, a softer, quiet, yet deeper female voice echoed in his cockpit. "Come to me, Captain Udo. It's okay. Relax and do not be afraid."
 
Her words went in one ear and out the other as he studied the skies above and judged them to be clear. He pushed the throttle to its limits and braced for a brutal onslaught of g-forces. His entire cockpit turned crimson as all his indicators went to full redline and the Bollar Empire's most advanced experimental fighter-based propulsion system ever designed, was put to its first operational test in actual combat. There was no guarantee that the inertial dampening system would work this time around; it was installed only for the purposes of further troubleshooting after several previous runs that he could only describe as encouraging. Still, being crushed by g-forces was preferable to what he saw happening to the personnel at the air base while he was fleeing for his life.
 
"Inertia dampening system activated." the familiar female voice of his helmet computer announced. Suddenly, the clouds raced by until they became a blur; and then the sky gave way to the darkness of space.
 
Captain Udo held on for dear life despite the slight, brief tug that pushed him back into his seat; then, when the indicators went green again, he relaxed, and he saw that his craft accelerated to sub-relative speed at 24 shiamuata* per second. Whatever was pursuing him would be half a continent away in the blink of an eye.
 
"It's about time you creatures shut the hell up," he panted, glancing frantically around him. The blue-green world of Ke'yeppa Beta, the original homeworld of the Ke'yeppan peoples, the second most important world in the whole of the Bollar Empire, the burial place of brothers Karip'sh and Jiraro Bollar, and the primary training ground for the Empire's Psychic Soldier divisions, rapidly receded behind him. It was now in the hands of these mysterious winged women, along with millions of Ke'yeppans who were now trapped inside their bodies, being transformed, if the aliens' comments were to be believed. But then was not the time for Captain Udo to reflect on the things he saw on the ground while he was fleeing the invaders. As soon as his ship left the atmosphere, it accelerated to medium sublight speed, taxing its engines almost to redline. At 3100 shiamuata per second, he would reach the moon in a little over a minute.
 
"Captain Udo to Space Command," he announced, now almost out of breath from all the maneuvers he'd been forced to make to effect his escape, "I'm clear. Please transmit jump coordinates."
 
Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo sighed as his computer received the data he requested and it showed up on his cockpit main screen. He would have to make it to the moon and activate a warplink to escape the star system, to flee to parts unknown.
 
No, he told himself, he was not fleeing. He was regrouping. He would be back, with millions of ships as reinforcements.
 
"Thank you again, young Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo," a second, distinctively different alien female voice spoke soothingly to him. "We will follow you to your rallying point and you will all join with us."
 
His jaw fell open as the moon grew rapidly in front of him, a giant dark orb blocking out the stars, its face turned away from the sun. "No... that can't be..."
 
As his craft accelerated with the help of the moon's weak gravity, he saw the serene face of a brightly glowing woman in the reflection off his well lit cockpit window. A ghost was drifting right toward him from behind and above. Her thick, bright silver hair rose above her head as she prepared to touch his ship.
 
Captain Udo decelerated rapidly, then used his vector thrusters to twist his ship fully around, letting loose a missile which curved around his wing, over the ship and exploded almost in his face. His hull resisted the blast, but this time, so did his pursuer.
 
She'd gotten wise to his tactics; but Udo would not be made to despair. He was a gambling man - and he was wagering that his pursuer could not take him inside her while her defenses were being taxed. He let loose another missile to drive her off and then turned to swerve hard, firing his retro boosters.
 
He turned not a moment too soon; the individual rocks on the moon's face raced by his cockpit as his fighter tumbled, its nose sparking as it barely grazed the surface. Had this been the surface of a planet, he would have slammed into the rocks and died instantly in a fiery crash; but the moon's weak gravity allowed his retro boosters to keep his ship on a tangential path until, with the help of vector thrust maneuvers both controlled and frantic, its nose was pointed back up at the stars again; just long enough to spot two more butterfly women racing to intercept him. A single-tap of his guns skewered one and two missiles peeled away from his ship, chasing them off into space to finish the job. Two explosions lit up the moon's surface as his ship completed its controlled tumble, righting itself to follow the curvature of the planetoid and took off at full throttle.
 
Captain Udo didn't need to check around to know the second butterfly angel had thrown up her shields upon seeing her partner die, and was back in hot pursuit. All that mattered now was that he was on the final stretch to freedom; another four hundred-fifty shiamuata toward the other side of the moon lie the warplink. His computer identified it as a glassy platform in the middle of an ancient crater bed that would lock onto him as he passed overhead and shoot him through a wormhole toward safety. It was a relic from the early days of war with the Imperishable Empire, situated above one of the two known bases on the moon. He was out of breath again and his heart was wanting to thump its way out of his chest, but he still took an instant to pray that the personnel there had already evacuated. It would be up to him to drop a sufficient amount of ordnance behind him to destroy the wormhole generator.
 
He pulled his craft into a what would have been a post-stall climb in a normal atmosphere, his nose pointed away from the moon's surface again; then he tilted his ship, forcing it to drift sideways, its nose pointing right at his pursuer as she overshot him. A hail of slugs rattled her invisible forcefields and then punched through, missing her head and torso but still tearing off an arm and a wing. Fearing that another of her kind would be coming to join the fun, he did not waste time reversing his ship to finish her off; he turned and followed the terrain, low and fast, toward his destination.
 
It was then that his cockpit filled with a bright flash of light.
 
Captain Udo's heart leapt into his throat as he instinctually reached for and pulled the copilot eject lever. A sweet scent filled his nose right as a butterfly angel was shot out of his ship before she could cast one of her awful spells on him. The venting of atmosphere nearly yanked him out of his seat, despite his harnesses; the outside of his space helmet fogged over with ice crystals until the cockpit closed again. Desperately shaking his head in a futile attempt to clear his vision, he nonetheless managed to perceive the edge of a large lunar crater looming ahead.
 
Captain Udo's nerves remained painfully tense, his heart racing as he soared over the edge of the crater and then took a clumsy, almost blind dive. Below lie a giant lens, its glassy surface covered by a thin coat of moon dust, almost undetectable without the use of electronic equipment.
 
And he was out of missiles.
 
Behind him he could almost sense another butterfly angel about to touch down on his ship before the light emanating from her body cast its glow over his cockpit.
 
So Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo did the only thing he could do; he set his engine power core on self-destruct and dumped it right as he settled into a crash course into the warplink...
 
... and then there was a flash of light.
 
***
 
Fleet Admiral Mabruke Okino Jartau Nu'ahej, head of the 3rd Bollar Imperial Galactic Theater Dominion, had earned his Title of Valor carving his way into the belly of a live Kadruata in the middle of a heated battle to rescue a couple of civilians the snake-woman had swallowed alive, many years ago when he was but a mere Navy foot soldier. He knew what it was like to show courage in the face of unimaginable peril; and he had been honored to grant Titles of Valor to many soldiers under his command. Indeed, he pondered as he paced back and forth in front of a long window displaying the stars and ships outside his private office, many were calling this the next Age of Great Courage... even if others were calling the Bollar Empire's final hour of desperation. The war with the Imperishable Empire had produced many fine, brave Ke'yeppan warriors. Warriors who never backed down from any threat, no matter how terrifying or unreal. Warriors who were making the galaxy take notice of a new superpower emerging onto the interstellar stage.
 
Admiral Nu'ahej breathed deeply, stopping to look at the ships floating in space before him. He could hardly continue to judge the valor of others when his own heart trembled with an unspoken fear of what lie in wait for them among the stars. Outwardly he stood up to politicians who described his men as fighting like cornered animals with nothing to lose. He would remind the doomsayers that the war with the Imperishable Empire had evolved from a desperate defensive battle for survival, to an offensive campaign of mass extermination in which Bollar colonists were cleansing the Silurhean-led filth off habitable worlds formerly under countless centuries of enemy control. Yet still, everyone knew that for every planet conquered by the Bollars or outright burned to a lifeless piece of space charcoal, a thousand more worlds were feared to be under the dominion of the Imperishable Empire.
 
And then, out of the blue, the whole of Ke'yeppa Beta had fallen to an unknown menace that only resembled the Silurheans of the Imperishable Empire. Disjointed reports from military forces in the area unanimously described these Silurhean-like females in the act of shrinking their victims and forcing them into their vaginas. Countless numbers of their kind were caught on video laying out in homes or on the streets, their lewdly exposed bellies rippling while they writhed in apparent ecstasy.
 
It was unreal. But yet he had also seen it on video. Telepaths hastily recalled from the primary moon base and among the refugees from Ke'yeppa Beta had ascertained the mission imperatives of the invaders. All of them, unanimously, testified to the same thing. The citizens of Ke'yeppa Beta were being transformed within the wombs of these women, into fairies much like, but at the same time terribly unlike, the Silurheans.
 
Fairies of another great superpower in the galaxy - the Siluvaran Confederacy.
 
It was unreal. All unreal. Ke'yeppan science and even common sense screamed that none of this was remotely possible. They had of course been forced to accept the historical revelations uncovered by the Gurus of T'santho about the ravenous nature of the Kadruata. They had seen the Silurheans in action, devouring Ke'yeppan citizens whole and alive like one would consume candy. Years of war had forced them to believe; repeated battles with these monsters had ingrained an acceptance of the impossible into their collective conscious. The sun shined, and unwary or unlucky humans died sloshing around and melting away in the digestive juices of a fairy's stomach. The stars twinkled in the heavens, and fairies piled up in mountains of rotting corpses as the Bollar Imperial war machine steamrolled across the Imperishable Empire, spreading across the galaxy like a nuclear explosion in slow-motion. But this new threat... how in the universe would the Bollars come to comprehend this?
 
"Admiral, sir!" a woman's voice called from his floating computer screen. He turned to see the back of a soldier's shaved head.
 
Walking around to the front of the 3-d display, he sat down and tapped his fingers nervously on the desk. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
 
"Sir," she announced, her voice trembling with jubilation, "Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo from Ke'yeppa Beta was recovered by the 42nd Battlegroup in one of our experimental Kijari-class starfighters."
 
Admiral Nu'ahej's eyes widened, his Admiral's cap lifted by his eyebrows and the subtle ripple of the muscles in his forehead. Of all the hyperspace exit points in the galaxy, this war hero had to come here. He would have the honor of selecting the Title of Valor for this pilot. A smile crossed his face as he asked, "Captain Udo! What is his status?"
 
"He is quite shaken but otherwise well, sir. He is being debriefed on the dreadnought Nimotho."
 
"Bring him and the debriefing team here," he ordered. "I will speak to him personally."
 
***
 
Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo's fingers were still trembling as the door to Admiral Nu'ahej's office slid open with a quiet hiss before him. His shiny boots stepped proudly onto the burgundy carpet as a soldier's boots ought to, and he held his head up high, his face stoic. Despite the terror that he feared would leave him rattled for the rest of his life, he still had an image to uphold - the image of the brave Bollar Imperial starfighter pilot who conquered the air as his own playground, the warrior who effortlessly humiliated the fairies in their own dominion in the skies and among the stars. Preserving his image became even more urgent when he stood before an Admiral known for his own acts of epic bravery on the field of battle.
 
Fleet Admiral Mabruke Okino Jartau Nu'ahej was a tall, brawny, rock-faced man with thick warrior braids adorned with platinum, gold and silver medals to honor his many achievements as a soldier and a fleet commander. His dark chocolate skin contrasted strongly with his white Admiral's cap and matching white uniform, which was also festooned with medals. His left and right pauldrons were adorned with a single smokestack - a symbol dating back to the Age of Steam when the nation known as the People's Enlightenment of T'santho dominated the world with steam-powered warships and commercial trading fleets. Admiral Nu'ahej was a legend among soldiers for his strategy of launching bold first-strikes against the Imperishable Empire and driving them from dozens of star systems in the process, going so far as to reduce their worlds to lifeless chunks of rock if they would not simply lay down and die. Few others besides the Gurus of T'santho themselves, commanded more reverence than Admiral Nu'ahej.
 
Upon entering the room, Captain Udo snapped a crisp salute, as did the man and woman in orange hooded cloaks behind him. "Captain Rajabu Uguru Udo, reporting as ordered, sir!"
 
As he spoke, his eyes fell upon the heavy, turquoise-embroidered book that Admiral Nu'ahej was holding in his hands. The sight of the book was enough to make his heart race all over again. "Maliza, the Deft One," the Admiral said with a slight grin as he gingerly closed the book in an apparent act of reverence, turning to lay it gently on his desk in an ornate wooden box. "I think that is fitting, is it not?"
 
Captain Udo gulped, nodding. He would never even think to question a Title of Valor. "Yes, Admiral."
 
Admiral Nu'ahej gestured to a chair in front of his desk. There were two medium-sized mugs of dark golden Simbweya beer, still frosted over with ice, waiting for them. "Take a seat, Major Rajabu Uguru Maliza Udo," he said, walking around the other side, taking the box with the turquoise book to place in a chest behind him, at the base of the window.
 
The newly-promoted pilot nodded with a smile, "Yessir," and took his seat while the Admiral sat down. The two Bollar telepaths came to stand on either side of him.
 
"Enjoy," the Admiral lifted his mug to take a sip.
 
Major Udo looked down at his ice cold mug, and nodded; then he took the mug by its handle...
 
and promptly flung its contents over his shoulder, causing the two telepaths to turn their heads to watch the ale fly by.
 
The Admiral lifted his eyebrows; Major Udo then planted the mug on table firmly, saying, "I must apologize, sir. Those monsters are still out there. They appeared out of nowhere. Every one of them struck with an even greater speed and efficiency than a Silurhean warlord. If they strike here, I must have my wits about me. I must always be ready to fly."
 
The Admiral's eyes widened as he listened to Udo's reasoning; then he slammed his mug to the desk as well. "You are right, Major. We will revisit this." Looking to the telepath to Udo's right, he commanded, "Summon a seaman here to tend to the carpet." The Admiral then focused his eyes on Major Udo. "Major... I have a mission for you."
 
Major Udo nodded. "Yessir."
 
"We now know who was responsible for the total annihilation of the Imperishable Empire leadership in the impenetrable region of Zone Erebus-6, over 20 years ago," he explained. "Those Silurhean-like women you battled on Ke'yeppa Beta... those were Matrons of the Siluvaran Confederacy, the chief enemy of the Imperishable Empire."
 
Udo's eyes darted this way and that. "The Silu...what, sir?"
 
"You will see it all in your files," the Admiral went on. "Suffice it to say that this is an ancient superpower whom we have never seen before, but who now knows of us. They're here to conquer us." He took a deep breath, revealing a moment of vulnerability that made Major Udo cringe slightly. "The Matrons made the mistake of making a naked stellar far jump to Ke'yeppa Beta, expecting to take us all by surprise, recharge in whatever way that they do, and settle the planet as theirs."
 
Udo nodded. "So... no wonder I was able to take so many out... they were exhausted, and they underestimated us."
 
"They did not make that same mistake at Ke'yeppa Prime." the Admiral's next words stole the very breath from Udo's lungs. "However... we had five minutes of forewarning there, which was enough for our Psychic forces to be prepared. The Matrons came to our homeworld in full strength, with a fleet of ships to back them up. We turned them back, but more than a tenth of Ke'yeppa Prime's population was snatched in the process. We were forced to activate the lunar detonation system we put in place back when the Imperishable Empire was bearing down on us."
 
Udo's eyes widened as talons of grief suddenly gripped his chest. "The moon!"
 
"The moon was completely destroyed," the Admiral nodded. "Along with their support ships."
 
" But... sir..."
 
"Ke'yeppa Prime is enduring waves of tectonic chaos. Our homeworld's ecosystem is doomed."
 
Udo slumped in his chair. "Dear God..."
 
"Our Empire will endure, Major," the Admiral's eyes glared as he spoke forcefully, clasping his hands behind his back. "We have many colonies and starfaring colony ships among the stars. A billion citizens were evacuated from Prime, and with the Matrons gone, we're free to escort more to safety. The entire 81st Battlegroup from my taskforce is there to shield the planet from the moon's endless bombardment of asteroid fragments. We will evacuate as much of the planet's ecosystem as we can."
 
The pilot nodded, his face haunted with sadness. "I understand... sir."
 
"What I need for you to do, Major," he said sternly, "is to finish your telepathic debriefing, and to advise other pilots on how to deal with these Matrons. I understand you made do with a very bare bones loadout there on Beta. You will not have to do so again."
 
"Yessir."
 
"And... Major Udo..." he added. "You will be transferring to the Basathi Sector immediately, along with the 9th Battlegroup, to prepare their star patrol defense line as well."
 
Udo's eyes widened. "Sir? That's..."
 
"Yes, the Basathi sector. That is where we are working on an experimental planet killer weapon system. We must ensure that if these Matrons find that base, that they do not compromise it or our personnel." Admiral Nu'ahej leaned forward slightly. "Major, we may have just lost as many as twenty percent of all our psychic population in the invasion of Ke'yeppa Beta."
 
"The neutronium collider..." Udo's words trailed off fearfully.
 
"It's our best hope for survival."
 
Major Udo nodded. "I will deploy as soon as possible, Admiral," he sat upright again, his face stern with renewed courage. "I will not fail you."
 
 
 
 
 
* Shiamuata - literally "thousand light steps", or "one thousand steps taken by a ray of light" in the Ke'yep language, was first used during the Ke'yeppan (the Bollar peoples, before they were known as Bollars) Age of Steam, right before the Steam Wars. It is a thousand times the "muata", which is the Ke'yep metric term defined as the distance traveled by light in free space in 1/100,000,000th of a second. Light travels 186,000*5280 feet per second in a vacuum; thus, one-third of a muata is 3.2736 feet, or just BARELY under 1 meter (3.2808 feet), 21st century Earth standard. Note: one muata is exactly 3 meters by 25th century Earth standard. This is purely coincidental, and is the result of the new definition of the Earth standard meter being redefined by the 1/300,000,000 standard during the January 2401 Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures in Paris, France, a direct result of the "Global Reconstruction" period that followed Earth's Global Civil War. This makes one shiamuata the equivalent of barely less than one 21st century-standard kilometer.