Trace the Stars

by Nancy Fulda

  Sachiko hid her dismay behind an expression of cool detachment. The estimates had increased since the first report. This even more overwhelming force would crush Neo Nihon in a matter of hours. The entire population was only three million scattered across the large planet, and only a tiny fraction of them were part of the military or safety officer core.

  “To mount any significant resistance,” Hinato said, “our builder drones will have to be re-tasked and armed with whatever is available. However, there is no time for such a course of action. The chances of defeating the invaders is close to zero, though we could mount small-scale warfare indefinitely if they spare a significant percentage of our population.” He bowed and sat down.

  Sachiko stood solemnly and stared into one of the many cameras recording the meeting. Her performance would have to be perfect if she was to be believed, and the enemy duped into trusting that Neo Nihon was no threat. She willed tears to her eyes by thinking of when her only child was born. Nenji was such a beautiful little boy and had become a perfect adult son, intelligent, respectful, and hard-working. She also remembered the birth of her first grandchild. Nenji and his lovely wife, Esumi, had presented the beautiful baby girl to Sachiko and said, “Dear Mother, to honor you, we have decided to give this child your namesake.”

  Tears flowed freely from Sachiko’s eyes, but she kept a stern visage as if they meant nothing. Many would see this meeting. Friend and foe alike would judge her accordingly. “Honored Ministers, I am very sorry, but it would be fatal to our people to mount armed resistance. I shall offer our total surrender. I respectfully ask if any of you disagree. Let each minister speak freely for the record and if a majority believe differently, we shall make other plans.”

  One by one the ministers agreed with the futility of fighting such a tremendous force. Sachiko’s husband spoke last, his spirit undaunted. “Neo Nihon is the only hope for our people on Earth,” Takeshi said. “We shall be resilient as our ancestors have always been. We will endure any hardship. It is what we must do.”

  Sachiko blinked and wiped her eyes. She opened a channel to send a message to the enemy. The communications officer in the adjoining room confirmed a connection and Sachiko spoke in International English. “To the force in orbit around Neo Nihon, I am Prime Minister Sachiko Okura and speak for the entire colony. If your intention is to forcibly take control of this colony, we offer complete and unconditional surrender. We will not resist. I humbly request that you please refrain from attacking. We desire a peaceful resolution.”

  The communications officer signaled that the message had been received and that he was awaiting a reply. Nothing came for several moments and Sachiko considered sending her message again.

  An alarm claxon sounded. A glowing red warning kanji flashed urgently on the monitors. Had the enemy responded violently? She glanced at her husband and Defense minister Hinato as the alarm got louder. “Status report, please,” Sachiko said into the security line.

  “Prime Minister,” the communications officer spoke rapidly in a high-pitched voice, “multiple enemy ships have discharged some kind of pulse wave. It’s hitting us . . . now.”

  Sachiko expected the walls to shake, the ceiling to rumble, but she felt nothing. What manner of weapon was being unleashed? Was her surrender too late to stop the attack or had she provoked it? A few seconds seemed like an eternity as the ministers glanced nervously at each other, expecting the worst.

  “Sachi-ko.” Takeshi slurred her name, his face drooping so much it appeared he was a ghastly caricature of the man she loved. He slumped to the floor, ineffectually trying to grab onto the table. She watched in horror as he collapsed in a heap as if all his bones had been removed.

  Warning kanji filled every screen and lit the room in a crimson light. Sachiko leapt to her husband’s side and cradled his head. Several others fell to the floor. Cries for help filled the chamber. Security officers and terrified assistants rushed inside.

  “What’s wrong?” Sachiko asked as Takeshi’s eyes began to glaze over. She felt for a pulse in his neck and found none. “Takeshi!”

  Unable to answer, Takeshi let out a wheezing breath.

  “Help me, Doctor Ishibashi!” She turned toward the Health Minister, but the older man was also on the floor, apparently not breathing. Defense Minister Hinato lay motionless beside him, spittle leaking from the corner of his mouth.

  “Takeshi!” She shouted desperately at her husband.

  No response. His mouth hung open. She lifted Takeshi’s head just as the light went out of his eyes.

  Sachiko put him down as gently as she could and sprang toward the emergency closet. The automatic door slid open as she approached and the med bot emerged.

  “Help him!” she ordered.

  The six-armed bot instantly sped to Takeshi and began a rapid scan by running a glowing white sensor over his torso, followed by intensive resuscitation efforts to restart his heart. The med bot stopped a moment later and began simultaneously scanning the other injured people in the room.

  “Don’t stop!” Sachiko shouted.

  “The patient, Mr. Takeshi Okura,”—the bot spoke with a woman’s voice in an overly calm tone—“has suffered total nervous system destruction. He will not respond to any further emergency efforts and biomechanical support will not change the outcome. Regretfully, there is no chance of revival.” The med bot went to each of the others affected by the pulse wave. All eight men were given the same pronouncement.

  Sachiko realized with a jolt that none of the female ministers were hurt. She asked for a report from the communications officer. The line was silent. Sachiko opened the side door and entered the communications pod. All three of the male staff lay on the floor while the traumatized female officers stood over them helplessly. Med bots soon pronounced all the men dead and waited for instructions.

  “Excuse me, please!” Sachiko shouted to the panicked staff. “I require your help.”

  “Yes,” the four survivors, all women, responded as one and stood at attention. They looked at her with large eyes full of fear.

  “Please fill the most critical empty work stations. I need to know what is happening in the entire colony. Report to me and the . . . surviving ministers as soon as possible. Please, work quickly and have the med bots remove the bodies.”

  Sachiko bowed and went to kneel beside her dead husband. His face had turned gray, his lips were blue, and his mouth hung garishly open. She considered turning him over as she could not bear seeing him like this, but instead covered his face with her lavender faux-silk scarf, the one he had given her on her sixty-fourth birthday a few months before.

  News came in quickly, overwhelming the reduced staff in the communications center. The reports were clear. No females had been hurt by the unknown pulse wave weapon. However, all genetic males on Neo Nihon appeared to have been killed, though it would take days to verify. Men, boys, infants, even unborn male children. All of them. Preliminary tests revealed their entire autonomic nervous system had been ablated—which caused immediate death. An estimated 1.49 million male colonists, half the population, was presumed dead.

  Sachiko felt numb. She refused to speak or acknowledge the information as it streamed in. Finally, she called her son. Nenji always answered, but when his wife, Esumi, answered the call, Sachiko’s hopes disintegrated.

  Esumi, please let me speak to Nenji.”

  “He won’t wake up!” The terror in Esumi’s voice made Sachiko feel feint.

  “Esumi, please check for a pulse.”

  “Mother! Send help! Nenji! Wake up!” Esumi dropped the receiver. Sachiko listened to the young woman shout and cry. The wails of a frightened child entering the room and yelling for her father was all Sachiko could take. She terminated the call.

  Nenji was dead. All the men were dead. No weapon like this had ever been used in the history of the human race. It had been unbelievable to Sachiko a moment before, but hearing Esumi’s voice, and listening to her sweet granddaughter, little
Sachiko, wailing for her father had finally made it real.

  Updated alarm messages with sharp warning bleeps scrolled down the large monitors in the command room as they had for what seemed like hours. The volume and the flashing lights overwhelmed Sachiko and she could not take it anymore.

  “Turn off these alarms right now! Stop all of them! Immediately!” Sachiko shouted as loud as she could and glowered at the duty officer.

  Everyone stared at her in total astonishment. Sachiko heard her own words echoing inside her mind. Had she really just snapped like that? In front of everyone?

  The alarms were silenced and only a faint beeping continued. The staff kept their distance and Sachiko felt her own rage radiating from her body, an aura of pure hatred that no one dared enter.

  Sachiko paced for a moment, then found the scarf on the floor she had used to cover her husband’s face before his body was dragged away. Why had she let the med bots take him? She had not said goodbye.

  “At least Nenji died in his sleep,” Sachiko mumbled to herself as she dropped to the cold floor and lost all track of time.

  “Prime Minister, there is a message for you, please.”

  A communications officer led Sachiko to a terminal and let her watch the short recording. The ethnic looking Chinese man wearing a CMC military uniform spoke International English with a faint Mandarin accent.

  “Prime Minister Okura, representatives of the Chinese Military Corporation will formally accept the surrender of Neo Nihon. A shuttle will arrive outside your parliament complex shortly and you will get on it alone. Failure to comply will result in further attacks.”

  “Acknowledge the message.” Sachiko returned to inform the surviving ministers. She left them to plan the public announcement and went to the office of Saito Nagata, the Deputy of Public Safety. His body was in the middle of a ring of his surviving staff who were all kneeling as they held a vigil. The other men who had been on duty or responded to the summons were also dead beside their stations. Most of the survivors wept openly. Some were in a daze.

  Sachiko knelt beside the Deputy’s body and bowed to him. All of the staff stared at her, clearly surprised to see their Prime Minister on the floor with them in this darkest of moments.

  “We will not forget what has happened,” Sachiko said, her voice trembling. “However, our friend, Deputy Nagata-san would want all of us to carry on and do what was needed for our people. I must request that all of you please help me prepare for my meeting with the leadership of the Chinese Military Corporation. I will soon formally submit our surrender.”

  “Prime Minister, how may we serve?” A steely-eyed woman, Okina Makoto, Deputy Nagata’s Chief Director and one of Sachiko’s oldest friends from their days in the diplomatic core on Earth, asked her. Sachiko hoped Okina would be here. Her friend was the guiding force behind Neo Nihon’s investigative service and secret research division. Okina had worked closely with Defense Minister Hinato and his predecessors.

  “We must learn everything we can about the CMC force,” Sachiko said, “about what has happened on Earth, and especially their new weapon. I will require the most advanced surveillance, infiltrator information gathering, and crypto-deciphering bio-nanobots. I will soon be on their ship and they must suspect nothing.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” Chief Okina said and began giving commands to her staff who ran off in several directions.

  Sachiko worried that the bio-nanobots she would soon use would be detected. They were designed to appear as a person’s own cells, and millions of them circulated inside everyone on Neo Nihon, preventing illnesses, helping keep the water supply safe from bacteria and viruses not present on Earth, and allowing the colonists to thrive in the alien environment.

  The Neo Nihon colony had spent vast amounts of resources on developing this new technology, but did the CMC have scanners that would detect the spying devices? If Sachiko made it aboard their ship and they found out would they blow her out an airlock? Someone else would have to carry on, but this great task was hers, and she could not fail her people. The lives of the survivors on Neo Nihon and those Japanese waiting on Earth—if they were still alive—were her responsibility.

  “Okina,” Sachiko said, “The CMC must never know what your office has done tonight. Your staff must be given new identities, memory replacements, and sent away to await your orders. Purge your systems of any records of my being here.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister. Please, excuse me . . .” Okina hesitated.

  “Yes.”

  “Our defenses are in place,” Okina said, “but what will we do to them in the end?”

  Sachiko heard the anger in Okina’s voice. She wanted to know about retribution. How would the enemy be made to suffer? How would they be made to regret this barbaric atrocity committed against a peaceful people?

  “Okina-san, we will not deal with them as they have dealt with us,” Sachiko said. “They have made a fatal mistake which we shall not repeat.”

  Okina blinked. She did not understand.

  “They are greedy, Okina-san, and know nothing of war. They should have killed us all.”

  Glowing arrows directed Sachiko to follow the same short path out of the unmanned CMC shuttle that she followed in. She paused at the doorway, her legs shaky from the harrowing ride. At the bottom of the ramp stood a squad of human-sized battle drones in sleek armor that reflected the dull gray metal walls. Scanners on the drones’ torsos passed over her body from head to toe and she felt a flush of heat. They scanned her a second time, and Sachiko thought they had detected the bio-nanobots.

  The drones paused for a long moment before one of them motioned for her to come aboard the ship. Sachiko walked meekly down the ramp and pretended to stumble at the bottom. She caught herself by grabbing one of them, her hands on the machine’s chest.

  She wiped one hand over a seam near the shoulder joint of the drone, implanting thousands of bio-nanobots that would eventually infiltrate the memory core and communications center.

  The squad of battle drones surrounded her and guided Sachiko to a room where a simple unpadded metal chair sat at the foot of a crescent shaped stage. Looming above her were five empty chairs with elaborate armrests and red cushions. She sat and focused on her breathing, ignoring the metallic taste in her mouth from ingesting a solution of bio-nanobots.

  Nearly twenty minutes later, a door behind the stage opened and five men in their fifth or sixth decade of life entered. Their CMC military uniforms were filled with red stars over eagles. All were ethnic Chinese in appearance, though one, the youngest at perhaps fifty-five, had a fair amount of European genes in him, judging by his Caucasian facial structure. He was probably descended from one of the powerful North American bloodlines that had mingled with the ruling Chinese caste.

  “Prime Minister Okura,” a distinguished man with a wide jaw, and silver hair addressed her. “I am First Admiral Zhou Guang and the ranking CEO of this battle group.”

  Sachiko got on her knees and bowed in the ancient way, keeping her eyes on the floor.

  “There is no need for another strike on your colony,” Admiral Zhou said. “I wish to end these hostilities. Will you sign an unconditional surrender?”

  “Honored Admiral Zhou Guang,” Sachiko spoke his name before ending her bow and looking up, though she did not make eye contact, “I will sign as you request.”

  A large screen lifted from the floor beside her. Sachiko grasped the screen and pulled it toward her, transferring a large amount of bio-nanobots to the device. She read the short document written in the customary legal language, International English. It was brutally simple and precise. The people of Neo Nihon would accept any request from the CMC military authority without protest.

  This was not the time for resistance. Without delay, Sachiko signed with her finger, then imprinted both her hands to provide a DNA sample, transferring even more of the espionage devices.

  “Our forces will begin ground deployment,” Admiral Zhou said. “Do yo
u anticipate any of your people will resist?”

  “Honored Admiral Zhou Guang,” Sachiko said, “if you allow me to speak to them, the citizens of Neo Nihon will comply with any order you give.”

  “That is my expectation,” Admiral Zhou said, and nodded at his companions. “You will make the speech from here. The key points have already been drafted for you. Please review them now and we shall record the broadcast.”

  The screen changed and Sachiko read quickly, hiding her horror. The surviving women of Neo Nihon would be forced to serve the invading soldiers in all ways, and would in effect become their property. Women with the ability to bear children would do so as quickly as possible. Birth control was forbidden. The genders of the offspring would be equally divided between male and female, and standard genetic enhancements would be made. The mistake of having too many sons, as had happened on Earth in the United Chinese Republic, would not be repeated.

  When Sachiko finished reading, her mouth was dry as desert sand, and the urge to urinate was so sharp it made her whole body shiver.

  “Are you well?” Admiral Zhou asked. “I expected a woman with your pedigree and well-known accomplishments to be more resilient.”

  “Admiral Zhou, please excuse me. The flight was quite unsettling.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Are you prepared to read the speech, or do you need a moment to settle yourself?”

  “Thank you, Admiral, if I may have a short time, and also use the toilet.”

  He grinned. “No, you may not. You will read the speech right now. We do not tolerate delays, and you will comply with our schedule.”

  Sachiko kowtowed, and thought his juvenile tactics to fluster her were poorly done. She decided to play along, and realized that it would be more advantageous if he did not respect her. “Yes, Admiral,” she said timidly, “I am ready.”

  “You may proceed.”

  Sachiko remained on her knees and stared into the camera, and at the prepared speech on the screen behind it. “Citizens of Neo Nihon, I have signed the formal surrender of our colony and the Chinese Military Corporation is now in total control. CMC ground forces will commence landing immediately. No form of protest, even non-violent, will be tolerated. The penalty for resistance will be swift and severe. We must fully comply with all directives.