But something had.
An Elder, tall and trim with gray streaking his light brown hair, was standing in front of his seat, speaking. “This debate has gone on long enough. All of you have access to the same facts. Call it what you will, we have suffered defeat on a scale not seen in three thousand years. A sector Command Starbase, a hundred Warden Ships, an equal number of transports, and millions of lives have been lost.”
“According to reports, the enemy has some new, faster method of FTL, and by equally unknown means of communication they are attempting to foment revolution among the inhabitants of a small, but growing swath of the galaxy. Fortunately, our policies of enlightenment have borne fruit, and that revolution has not spread far, yet. However, this must be dealt with now, before events move further out of control.”
“Presidium Speaker Quinn, I move for a vote to mobilize the Grand Fleet at Luna, along with such detachments from sector squadrons as Military High Command sees as sufficient.”
The Elder at the podium raised his hands, “Presidium Member Laursen calls for mobilization of the fleet. Does anyone second?”
“Seconded,” said an Elder with brilliant white hair.
“Presidium Member Ozerov seconds the motion. Cast your votes.”
Electronic votes were cast, and once done, in accordance with millennia-old tradition, hands were raised by those in favor.
Speaker Quinn gathered their attention, “The vote is cast in favor of mobilization of the fleet, eight hundred and seventy five in favor to one hundred and twenty opposed, with two abstaining.”
Quinn paused, for effect.
“Now, honored members, I have an additional proposal. I move that we enact Level Three Retrogression on the enemy homeworld, known to them as Ground . Does anyone second?”
There was a low murmur of astonishment across the chamber.
“I repeat, does anyone second?”
“Seconded” said a short thin Elder, her gray hair trimmed to collar length.
“Presidium Member Cavallo seconds the motion…”
Laursen stood up again, “I move for a debate prior to vote on this matter.”
Quinn surveyed him, “Presidium Member Laursen, you just succeeded in a motion to mobilize the fleet for this very task.”
“I motioned that we mobilize the fleet, because we are under attack by a threat that should be taken seriously. That does NOT mean that I support Level Three Retrogression.”
“Very well, the floor is hereby opened for debate.”
As the discussions rolled across the chamber, the Presidium Member next to Laursen, a short, physically fit man, turned to him. “Presidium Member Laursen, Federico, I’ve supported you on many issues, but in a crisis this grave, I don’t understand your reasoning.”
Laursen replied, “Presidium Member Tranh, you know what Level Three Retrogression means… a great deal more than simply disarming them and taking out their ability to strike at us. It means the forcible destruction of all their technology and infrastructure, every brick of it, and the annihilation of their entire population except for a handful kept in preserves for observation by researchers. It is a policy I do not see as consistent with enlightenment.”
“But,” said the other, “It has been done before.”
“Yes, though not in over four hundred years, and to bitter debate in this chamber. Should we take such a decision less seriously than the honored ones of the past?”
And with that, Laursen stood up to deliver another presentation in the debate. It went on for hours, then days. When at last it was settled, the vote was cast – five hundred and ten in favor of Retrogression to four hundred and eighty seven opposed. Later, the members left the chamber, walking in a column of measured rows. Quinn, as was his duty, stood by. Laursen passed him, and contrary to usual custom, Quinn spoke, a slight smile on his face.
“Don’t worry Presidium Member Laursen, we will show those savages what it means to reject enlightenment.”
43
Karden sat in his office with Varen and Abida. They had Jat with them via a video monitor. A thunderstorm raged outside.
Varen was speaking, “Jat, you’ve got to find a way to squeeze some extra distance out of the rift generators. Even taking jumps in stages, we’re hitting the limit.”
The limit, thought Karden a bit ruefully, was the better part of their own sector, and the borders of sector 107. With one hundred eighty sectors in the galaxy, their revolution wasn’t going to spread very far.
“General Varen, nothing left to squeeze,” replied Jat, “Just like the Elder’s wormhole drive. Rift generation works how it works. Even with theoretically perfect efficiency in antimatter use. Aren’t going to be able to generate enough on the planet to power jumps much longer than what we’re doing.”
“I do realize we’ve discussed this,” interposed Karden, “But, let’s revisit the idea of jump stations.”
Abida frowned, “Putting rift generator satellites in rebellious systems leaves those satellites exposed to counterattack and destruction by the Elders, or sabotage from the surface.”
Jat joined in, “Uninhabited systems would be better. Even so, Elders could find them sooner or later. Suggest we start there. Best of bad options.”
Karden pondered. Something was missing…
“Why do we need to put them in star systems at all? The Elders put supply depots and starbases in systems under their rule because they had no reason to do otherwise, and with transit time, it made logistical sense.”
“But,” he continued, “From our perspective, any patch of space is as easily reached as any other within range, and is just as close by rift to whatever resupply and repair we would need. Why not put supply and rift depots in interstellar space, where the odds of them being noticed, let alone found, are exceedingly low?”
Now Abida’s scarred face lit up with a hearty smile, “Professor Karden, you have remembered that we are guerrilla fighters! If the populated star systems are like cities held by the enemy government, let the void of deep space be the waste places in which we can move and hide!”
“Just one thing remains,” said Jat, “Someone needs to call Harker. Discuss how we can further ramp up production of rift satellites. Sure he’ll be very, very happy.”
“I propose that you call him!” said Abida.
“I’m busy!” exclaimed Jat, and his screen went blank.
Karden sighed, and opened his phone.
///
In high orbit near the gold and blue world known as Radiant, an Elder Sector Command Starbase floated serenely. Nine Warden Ships, the remnants of Sector Squadron 107, were parked in space at considerable distance from one another. Since news had arrived of the disaster at Malachite, they’d been on high alert.
Without warning, three hundred rifts opened in space-time, and through them poured three hundred Avenger class warships, followed by swarms of fighter craft. The warships almost immediately launched volleys of exceedingly fast nuclear missiles, smaller but more numerous than the ICBMs used at Malachite, while the fighters fanned out in all directions.
The Elders were ready. A hail of fire aimed accurately at the attackers. Smaller guns blazed away, picking off the nuclear missiles. From the starbase came blasts from powerful energy cannons, each shot vaporizing a Grounder warship. Authorization had come to use nuclear weapons, and they fired them at the Grounders.
Then, the enemy missiles began to strike home. All nine Warden Ships disintegrated within nuclear infernos. This time, the shields of the starbase held. It continued to deal death to the attacking ships. The Elder missiles reached the enemy warships, which promptly vanished into rifts and reappeared on the far side of the starbase. Not all the hundreds of attacking fighters were so lucky. Nuclear blasts ripped through space, but the fighters were widely scattered, and could spare the losses.
At close range, the Grounder warships launched a massive volley of railgun fire into the starbase, along with the remainder of their nuclear miss
iles. Then, as swarms of Elder fighters launched from the starbase, they rifted away again.
With this second volley, the mighty shields of the starbase collapsed at last. It sustained catastrophic damage, but still survived. Elder fighters attempted to fend off the vastly more numerous Grounder Starfighters, but were overwhelmed by swarms of gatling rockets.
What followed was a long, slow agony for the Elder defenders. Wave after wave of Grounder fighters and starships strafed the base with rockets and railgun fire, keeping the shields from regenerating, and gradually smashing the base apart.
Hours later, it was done. The starships destroyed the system’s communications network as small Grounder satellites appeared, took the fighters home, and then slowly floated back through their own rifts.
///
The Production world called Solidarity 17 was, by Protectorate standards, a restless place. It had been known over the years for shortfalls in public order, particularly in the past two decades – though no one could quite pinpoint the source. Matters were not helped by the recent rumors of unknown alien enemies, supply worlds suddenly going offline, and a battle at the Sector Capital, Malachite.
The very secrecy imposed by the Elders about it all contributed to more restlessness.
The increased restiveness did not go unnoticed by the Elder administrators in the Depot Starbase out in high orbit. They had sent requests for protection, and though none was forthcoming from Malachite, a Warden ship had eventually arrived from Sector 107.
News was increasingly confused, and disturbing. Then one day, without warning, fifty small alien warships appeared from nowhere. At close range, they fired nuclear missiles into the Warden Ship and the starbase, and then disappeared just as quickly.
The Elders were alert, and even with no more than a few seconds warning, they destroyed or disabled close to half the missiles. The rest, however, hit their targets, and both starbase and Warden Ship ripped apart in nuclear explosions. A few minutes after the last of the shockwaves had dissipated, the ships reappeared. Whatever they were doing, it left no visible trace, and they vanished once more.
Then the messages started appearing.
An Ara’kaa and an Imri narrated a litany of longstanding offenses by the Galactic Protectorate against its non-Elder population. There were scenes of a little-known policy called Retrogression, being enacted against innocent civilian populations on primitive worlds that had resisted integration. Finally, there was news of what had actually happened at Malachite, and hints of a shadowy league of worlds determined to reform or overthrow the Protectorate and replace it with a system more just.
The messages said the league might be outmatched in strength by the Elders, but it possessed an epochal new technology, the time-space rift drive they had just witnessed. It gave them the ability to travel instantaneously, to strike where and when they chose, and retreat with impunity. It was only a matter of time until the Protectorate crumbled. Now was the time to leave it, and be free. Now was the time to spread word of that freedom to other sectors. The league had left a few Protectorate communications satellites, carefully hacked, in place for just that purpose.
The Elders on Solidarity were few. They were no match for the sudden rebellion that swept the world.
///
Imni Ilyar Mneoniri sat in the comfortable master chair, recently built to Imri specifications, in the reception hall of his splendid new estate. He called up a video monitor from a hidden panel while sipping a passable reconstruction of his favorite drink from his homeworld. Two of his newly hired Grounder managers stood by, waiting on instructions.
Haral Karden’s face appeared on the video monitor. He started speaking in Elder.
“Ilyar… a league of worlds? Really?”
“Professor Karden, a league in the very early stages of growth might after all boast only its founder on the membership list. And a league sounds so much more collegial than… a lone and until recently primitive world taking on the galaxy by itself.”
Ilyar watched Karden. Though he’d mastered a lot more of the Tadine language, among others, than his hosts yet knew, Grounder expressions still sometimes baffled him. Still, he was quite sure Karden’s expression reflected a complex mix of feelings. He decided to continue.
“Besides Professor, with Solidarity joining us, we will, even technically, be a league of worlds. I’d say it is now up to you to successfully exploit this opportunity.”
At last Karden made what Ilyar knew to be the Grounder version of a smile.
“Ilyar, you are brilliant, though you make me wonder whether I missed some clause in our deal. In fact, I’ve already got Vrir on the way with diplomatic and military teams, as well as one of Skrai’kiik’s friends named Vrakaai who hails from Solidarity, and decided it was time to switch sides.”
“I knew I could count on you Professor.”
///
In a palatial office in the Command Starbase over Anish, capital world of Sector 101, stood a tall trim Elder with olive skin, aquiline features, and dark hair turned to gray at the temples. His high-collared black uniform carried the heavy gold braids and shoulder boards of a flag officer of the Protectorate. Sector Admiral Shirazi had nearly a million men under his command, and that number was growing.
He was reviewing the latest batch of the increasingly disturbing messages coming from worlds in Sector 104 with another man in the white and gold robes of a high administrative official. That man, his old friend Sector Administrator Vazquez, was shorter and heavier, with round features, a brown complexion and tight curly black hair.
When news had arrived of the disaster at Malachite, Shirazi had taken some extraordinary steps, testing and perhaps exceeding the limits of his authority.
“I’m glad you have an additional twenty Warden Ships on the way” said Vazquez, “but now might be the time to tell me how you so quickly obtained emergency authority from High Command to get them.”
“I took the liberty of assuming High Command would approve my request for the authority, and directly contacted the Admirals in sectors 94 and 95 to send detachments.”
“Rostam, speaking as your friend, if someone back on Earth notices the timing, that shortcut might cost you your career!”
“That shortcut has saved several months in getting those reinforcements here. After what happened at Malachite, I think we are at war. My career is nothing compared to the fate of the Galactic Protectorate. Speaking of which, did you authorize those requisitions and dispositions of equipment?”
“They’re a bit unorthodox, but yes,” said Vazquez.
“This is the time, Mikhail, for unorthodox thinking. We’re up against an enemy with capabilities we haven’t fully grasped yet. We should not underestimate them.”
Some days later, when sensors picked up the unusual energy signals that reports associated with the enemy rifts, Shirazi gave one simple command.
“Deploy.”
///
Star General Edad, prince of Harrat, led his fleet of two hundred Avenger class starships, backed by two thousand Starfighters, toward the rifts from their operating base in deep space in sector 101. The base, such as it was, consisted of Neem-Jat rift generators, supply pods, and a communication satellite, all docked to a long lattice truss, and none of it manned. Still, it was what enabled them to be out this far.
This was the first attack on a Sector Capital led by anyone but Varen, and Edad had been given the honor in light of his victory at Solidarity. He was eager to prove himself.
“All crews, ready! Remember to launch missiles and immediately rift out! Go!”
The entered the rifts in groups, each group reentering space close to one of the ten Warden Ships they’d seen in space, or to the starbase.
Instantly, something went wrong. Small missiles, floating in space, and too small to be easily noticed except at, in space terms, close range, activated and homed in on the ships as they appeared. Some ships were disabled. In the chaos, some forgot their launch orders, and
went into evasive action rather than rifting. Others rifted again, trailed by missiles, without having fired their nuclear weapons.
The Elders opened fire almost instantly, and beam weapons took a toll upon the surviving attackers.
Edad and a few others kept their nerves, took the damage and launched their missiles. He rifted and appeared hundreds of kilometers away. The tiny Elder missiles intercepted many of Edad’s, but not all. He watched with a split-second’s satisfaction as multiple nuclear explosions went off, clearing four Warden Ships with them. Then, he reviewed his ship roster.
“All units, report!”
Calls came in, fully forty ships were missing.
He messaged the operating base, “Call those fighters back!”
It was too late. Rifts were opening according to plan, on the far side of the Elder fleet, and fighters were streaming toward the starbase. It still had shields up.
“Curses! All units, proceed to help them.”
The fleet rifted into the vicinity of the starbase, and began firing all weapons. Fighters swarmed. The deep blue of the starbase shields began to very slowly ripple and fade. Energy beams shot from the starbase, and each shot vaporized an Avenger.
Then, from the surface, came a volley of missiles, and behind it, soaring upward at top speed through the thick cloud cover of the atmosphere, twenty Warden Ships with weapons firing.
Avengers began shattering, or disappearing in bright explosions. Fighters had stopped swarming through the rifts, but lacking their own generators, the ones already through were trapped.
“Fourth Squadron, generate rifts and get those fighters out of here, all other units, help cover their escape!”
A pitched battle began, as Starfighters streamed through the rifts of a dwindling number of Avengers, while the rest of the fleet was being chewed apart by the vastly superior Elder force. Finally the fighters were all through, or destroyed.
Alien Empire Page 29
