Battle for Earth

by Hammer Trollkin

  He’s shouting, “Roll, you need to port to-”

  A timer is beeping. “Oh no! Everyone, look away!”

  We all looked away just before the flash. My Ivees automatically glazed. It will take a second to reimage. Have you ever been happy and terribly sad at the same time? The Earth is now safe. The teleportation base is surely gone. But the city? Was there another way? Why did they build a military teleportation gate so close to a city? I’ll admit my eyes are misty, and not because of that bright flash. Well, not exactly because of the flash. What have we done? Now the stupid IVs lens fan is running. I hate nukes.

  How are you doing sis? Yeah, this sucks. What was Mr. T saying before the blast?

  Mr. T is shaking his head. “I don’t know where it came from. But a ship was suddenly in my field of vision and it was moving through the portal. It may have made it through the gate before the detonation. Too late to warn the EDF now. Hopefully the guns at Darkside can handle it.”

  The IVs booster slipped from his hand. I made to grab them but missed. No need for them at this distance anyway, the IVs magnification is fine. And I am mesmerized.

  I can’t believe my eyes. “Thank you Lord. This is so incredible. No nuclear cloud. The portal gate was secured within that energy dome, which is intact, and the city is fine. But everything inside the dome, the military base, the portal gate ... all gone.”

  The dome is still there. A glint of refraction here and there from a haunting glow. The dome is intact, not even a smudge. Crystal clear. But nothing in the dome remains. Just a deep glowing crater. The dome housed a military base, along with the portal gate. We have accomplished our mission, unless the Empire ship made it through. I didn’t see any ships when we were in the dome. It must have been underground.

  Roll sounds almost like he’s in a trance. “There were no ships on the surface. Underground hanger. Electromagnetic launcher. Caught the image before my IVs glazed. A second ship coming up, almost on the tail of the first.”

  The way the dome concentrated the blast I’m sure anything below ground is also gone. There were a lot of soldier types on that base too. Their families! War is an awful thing. At least no innocents were hurt. I hope the bomb flash was muted by the dome. Still, it could have been so much worse. My heart is still doing flippy-flops.

  It really is still there. I can see the super-freeway and all the traffic. The traffic has lightened up noticeably though. Now there are dozens of ships with strobing lights moving all over the area. They are acting a whole lot like a swarm of very angry bees; circling and moving further and further out from the city. There’s a lot of noise. The ships are making a droning claxon sound. Eerie. Some are heading our way. We have to do something fast!

  We linked arms, cloaked, and moved behind a rock outcropping. That should buy us some time. We need to find out where in the galaxy we are. And we need to do some reconnaissance. The Darkstar Empire has entered their last days.

  September 30 th , 12:30 PST. We have a general idea where we are and it’s a long way from home. Our Skymap software was able to get a close location lock. Rock is on guard duty. Mr. T thinks we are in a secure area planet-side. So, Roll has been tasked to port to the office with a data drive. That has star positions and the other information we’ve gathered so far.

  With the images of the star positions it will be easy to confirm a precise star system. That will ensure Roll can find his way back. We are all anxious to know what happened to that enemy ship that was moving through the portal just before the detonation. Hopefully the blast disrupted the teleportation gate system before the ship made it through to Earth. And, Roll is off.

  It seems nice here. I mean, as far as the weather goes. There is a light breeze. It might be springtime. There are a lot of nice scents. Insects that look like butterflies, birds, a mossy soft grass. All in all, this is a nice cozy spot. Me, I think I’ll close my eyes for a minute. Now, that’s an Earth smell. Rolls back, with a box of donuts. And an update.

  Roll’s in update mode. “An Empire star ship did make it through the portal before we nuked the teleportation gate. Mr. T, that’s the ship you saw just before the nuke went off. It wasn’t anything like a bug ship. But it wasn’t terribly large. Something like 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Even the Empire has to watch their weight.

  “Still, that isn’t a small ship. Probably one of their top of the line dreadnaught class ships. Just saying.

  “The Empire crew seemed to make some tactical errors. There was no attempt to access the Darkside data base. It’s certainly possible the ship took damage as it traversed the wormhole, because of the nuke blast. They cruised on, heading toward Earth.

  “Our guys had run into problems getting the base defenses online. They weren’t ready for the ship. The enviro-domes hadn’t been inflated yet either. Those would have stood out on the Lunarscape. The lack of normal radio chatter must have been unusual. And they should have been aware their Mars base was cold and silent with a hint of radioactive glow.

  “Of course, there was a great deal of concern Earthside. That one ship would capable of bringing massive destruction to Earth. The general received a flash report from NORAD. The general was chatty for, well, for the general. He mentioned the Skywatch satellites. They sure didn’t like what they were seeing.

  “One of the captured bug ships was on route to Darkside, to take the hostages home. Cocoon G-systems had even been installed for the crew. The EDF gave notice to the crew that an Empire ship was on route to Earth. They were already aware and had changed course to intercept the Empire warship. The EDF gave their blessing.

  “There were doubts, uncertainty that bug weapons would be effective against the Empire ship. So, they punched it, with the intent to get close before firing. They also wanted an option to ram the Empire ship.

  “Well, even in the cocoons they couldn’t handle the G-forces that the bugs can handle. But they managed more than a 15-G acceleration for 10 minutes. Evidently, they were moving nearly .005C before they cut the main engines.

  “No one knows why the dreadnaught didn’t try to evade the bug ship. It was accelerating and moving even faster than the bug ship. But the Empire ship crew didn’t open fire until it was basically too late.

  “The Earth crew on the bug ship waited patiently. They were close when they opened fire. No effect. The Empire shot back. The bug ship came apart, but in large sections. One section made contact with the dreadnaught’s shielding at a combined velocity of nearly 1% light speed. The Empire ship couldn’t take a hit like that, not with the combined mass and velocity.

  “Or, like I said, the Empire ship was damaged from the nuke blast while in transit. To the good, the Empire ship was destroyed. The entire crew that was on the bug ship will receive the Medal of Honor. Beyond the call of duty. Let’s take a moment to remember the crew.”

  Roll continued. “At least there isn’t a huge hurry to pick up the hostages. The people are fine. They got the enviro-domes up and decided to move the bugs out there; all of the bugs except the Darkside base queen.

  “It turns out there was some second-in-command queen at the base. They found her in a secret hidey-hole. A bug gave her up. He sought out one of our guys and spoke to him in broken English, ‘you find wassel queen there.’ I take it wassel is not a nice term. I’m not sure what they did with her.

  “Most of the other bugs are fine, the spray knocked them out cold, without doing permanent damage. The domes have minimal air and heat, but the bugs didn’t seem to mind. They just piled up in a ... bug pile ... and went into hibernation. They will be fine.”

  Roll was looking at me and smiling when he said that. I think he has come to agree that not all bugs are bad. Thanks to our engineer bug. He sure helped save the day!

  Oh, here is some more location information. It turns out we are on a planet far, far away. The science folk don’t have a name for it. But we aren’t too far from Kepler 452b. Astronomers discovered that star system a while back and found a rocky “Earth-like” plan
et in the sweet zone. So, there’s a possibility of life there too.

  This planet is in the constellation Cygnus, around 1,400 light years from home. The star system is relatively close to another system, though they may be too far apart to be a binary system, I’m not sure.

  Think about the distance from Earth! On a straight course, it would take a bug ship 2,800 years or more to get from here to Earth. Well, without a portal gate it would. The bug star system, Trappist-1, is relatively close to Earth. Someone put the portals in place. Probably bugs, traveling along at about 50% light speed, or less. That means this Darkstar Empire is large. And very old.

  ***

  + BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. This is a Timeline Project drop.

  Note: Information related to Darkside Gate, enemy ship incursion.

  Sources:

  1. Empire ship computer log, file data recovery project.

  2. Shockwave team debriefing report.

  The Empire ship had just entered and was in transit along the portal bridge when the nuclear device within the dome on Cygnus Prime detonated. That detonation caused a blowback through the portal bridge system which damaged the dreadnaught. Damage to the ship was limited to ship systems utilizing external arrays, systems such as communications and scanning. Computers were not severely impacted but had begun a series of diagnostic reviews as a precaution. That involved cycling through reboot protocols as the ship transited the gate.

  Damage while in transit-space between Primary Service Transportation Gates was unusual. Yet it was not unheard of with a brand-new gate system. The supposition was, the bugs had done something wrong resulting in a gate tuning malfunction. A thorough review was in order.

  Two additional Empire ships should have transited immediately through the gate. But the gate malfunction would have been monitored and the other ships delayed until the gate system was repaired. From the Empire side, with the portal gate destroyed there was no way to readily contact their voyaging ship.

  The human crew on the bug ship managed a 15-G burn. That level of acceleration was not unusual for a bug crewed ship. There was only a 10-mintue burn before the human crew had to throttle back due to the strain of the G-forces. That made it appear the bug ship was experiencing some technical difficulties.

  The Empire ship crew was aware that sort of thing happens often enough with the crude old bug ships. Such a glitch is analyzed by the onboard ship computer, there is an automated recalibration, and everything is fine. Those on the Empire ship were busy with their own repairs and quite focused on having a good close look at what they thought was their latest new toy planet. This planet was considered an exceptional find.

  Normally, there would have been a large data burst from Darkside base as their ship exited the portal gate. The Earth special ops teams had wrecked Darkside’s communications array. And, the Empire ship crew had their own communication system problems. The base was oddly quiet even so, which was attributed to “those lazy bugs” rather than a human incursion and related transmission stoppage.

  The crew did notice the bug ship cruising toward them, even though their sensors were minimally operational. A formal greeting was expected, though a single ship was unusual. There should have been a multiple bug ship escort to welcome the Empire to their new world. One ship? That caused anger rather than concern. It was an insult. The High Queen would have more charges stacked up against her. Perhaps they actually should feed her to the spice flies of Aarodan as had been threatened.

  There was no longer a Mars base. A quick look, even with a degraded scanning system, would have given them pause. Where the base had been was a crater emitting an eerie radioactive glow. The crew didn’t bother to look.

  The portal gate had opened on schedule, allowed by the incursion team. Active alarms had been shut off by the Earth team. The crafty Earth engineers had recalled the distress beacons to base.

  There was a good deal of debris in the Moon-to-Earth corridor. They didn’t bother to examine the debris. After all, those low-tech Earthlings still used explosive fuels for reaction mass. Would you even step foot in one of those things? No doubt at least one-in-ten exploded while on route to some dreary destination.

  By the time they realized the fast approaching bug ship was an interdiction, and they were going to be rammed, it was too late. So much for hoping bug ship technology would be on par with Empire ship technology. END TIMELINE DROP. +

  ***

  October 1 st We think this planet is Empire central. Mr. T has been calling it Cygnus Prime. At first, we were afraid the locals might be able to detect us when we port. Or, the cloak wouldn’t work for a split second when porting. But it looks as though we are safe despite their technology. We’re not sure what alerted them to our position in the dome.

  The Empire has amazing technology, as expected. The Darkstar Empire has been around for thousands of years. They have most likely expanded in every direction 1,400 light years. That’s a lot of territory. Light travels fast. That gives an idea of how large the Empire is, how long it’s been expanding.

  We are making some assumptions of course. Such as, Cygnus Prime is the home world, the first world, of the Empire, and the expansion started there. We assume Earth is located at the far edge of the Empire.

  Here’s the thing. It seems certain the Empire is ancient. But for such an old and advanced civilization their tech is not as amazing as you might think. They are maybe 100 years ahead of us in technology on average. Maybe a bit more. At least from what we’ve seen so far. It could be less than that, with the current rapid pace of technological advance. So, I bet we would have caught up on our own in less than 100 years.

  Just saying, right Roll? Oh, you do to say that, all the time. Just saying.

  The fact remains, the Empire is advanced and can do some amazing things. But why aren’t they even more advanced? They developed interstellar travel a long time ago.

  Mr. T says it could make sense that they have not advanced as much as one might think. “From what I have gleaned during my interviews with the bugs, the Empire is a master-slave culture. There is a relatively small group of very rich Empire citizens. Beyond rich. Those are likely the citizens of Cygnus Prime. Let’s call them Prime citizens.

  “It could have unfolded like this. A few thousand years ago, give or take, some smart scientists on Cygnus Prime figured out how to travel in space, how to really travel. Slow but sure. 50% light speed. They found and conquered a less advanced civilization. Probably the bugs. Somewhere along the line they figured out how to make wormholes.

  Para had a thought. “Doesn’t it seem like a civilization advanced enough to travel among the stars would be more, I don’t know, mature? More grown up. They managed to NOT blow themselves up. Why are they so evil now?”

  That made sense to me too. “Yeah. It could be they started out good and then were somehow corrupted. Like an Adam and Eve in the garden kind of thing.”

  Roll took over. “That could be, in that maybe the Empire has overlords. I hope we have an opportunity to find out more about their history. We do know they turned evil at some point, maybe made a deal with the dark-side.

  “Prime citizens wouldn’t want to waste their time traveling for hundreds of years in space. They would send out automated drone ships to find new worlds to conquer. Upon finding a suitable planet, the bugs would be sent out to overthrow the civilizations when possible, or at least soften them up for their overlords. They would erect a portal gate. The Empire would cruise through the gate. Maybe they see it as a little action within their boring existence. The planet would be totally subjugated.”

  Rocks turn. “There would be taxes. Typically, the population would be moved and replaced by others. Prime citizens grew more and more wealthy. At some point it became ridiculous. They had everything they could ever want, and more. But they had this process in place. Find world, conquer world, add wealth.

  “They would need to keep the conquered worlds from developing beyond a certain technological level. The Em
pire overlords would keep their technological and military edge. They may have come across civilizations that were too advanced to conquer. If so, they would just move on. They might say hello. Glad to meet you. We’ll be sure to write. Then they would move on and stay out of that section of the galaxy.”

  (Note: It would have been nice if some advanced civilization figured out what the Empire was up to and gave them a good spanking. And gave all those conquered worlds a helping hand. But it hasn’t happened that way. Now it’s up to us. Who knows, maybe that’s part of some big plan.)

  Mr. T finished his earlier point. “They are advanced but have stagnated, content to keep the status quo. New discoveries aren’t important to them, just making sure all the systems run well, at least for the Prime citizens. They are rotting from the inside out. We will use that against them. With God’s help, their Empire will fall and we will set the captive worlds free. That is exactly what will happen if we embark on this road of deliverance embracing Justice, Mercy, and Humility.”

  Let’s get out there and humbly help bring about some genuine justice to the Empire! But let’s not forget the part about mercy either. I wonder if we could have been more merciful with the bugs?

  October 3 rd We’ve been doing a lot of systematic recon work and have found more of those domes all over Cygnus Prime. Each dome has a portal. And each dome portal gate probably connects to a portal gate on or near another planet. We have counted 50 domes. There may be more. But we were thorough in our survey, using cloaked ports at high elevation. It’s not as though the domes are small.

  We think each portal can only link to the one other portal to which it was set. We destroyed the portal gate linked to Darkside. So, the Empire portal linked to the Moon is dead. Of course, just to be sure, the Darkside portal gate has been disconnected from a power source and locked. The Empire can’t use it.