Remnants: Broken Galaxy Book Five

by Phil Huddleston

  But they had found no more Humans alive on the planet for three consecutive weeks. The rescue effort was over. They had also checked the Human settlements on Mars and the Moon, but the installations there had been wiped out as well. And on Venus, the Goblin projects were gone, the surface installation a vast crater a half-klick wide.

  And the orbitals of Earth were filled with the debris of ships, all of them smashed and scorched and burnt. Every satellite had been destroyed, leaving millions of pieces of debris orbiting the desolate planet.

  They found the remains of the EDF Home Fleet well out past the orbit of Mars, where they had met the enemy. The broken pieces were still coasting out-system on a vector to nowhere.

  And in the center of the debris field, the fragments of the battlecruiser Victory were found, in a dozen pieces. Not a single missile was left in her armory - the Victory had fought to the bitter end.

  They collected up the larger pieces of the destroyed battlecruiser and launched them into the Sun. The Human team stood on the Armidale’s bridge at attention, while Bonnie Page recited the names of their dead friends as the last fragments of the once-proud battlecruiser disappeared into the glare of the Sun’s corona and was gone.

  Then they left. There was nothing more for humanity in this solar system. There wouldn’t be a habitable planet here for at least fifty years, maybe seventy-five or a hundred. Their AI model wasn’t quite sure how long it would take.

  They discussed stopping at Ashkelon on the way back to Stalingrad; but Tika assured them it was pointless. The Goblins had rescued a few thousand Ashkelon survivors there and taken them to Stalingrad; but the planet of their recent enemy was also destroyed, unlivable for many years.

  And the EDF fleet that had been stationed at Ashkelon was the same as the one at Earth - fragments floating in the black.

  Merkkessa - gone.

  Asiana - gone.

  Every ship of the EDF Alliance - gone.

  And the same was true at Nidaria, and Dekanna, and Asdif, and Ursa. The Stree had been thorough. They had not taken any chances. They had wiped the slate clean of any species that might aid the Goblins.

  The Humans on the Armidale gathered in the galley for the departure. In the wall viewer, they watched the Sun fade in the distance as they headed for the mass limit. In the last weeks, they had already passed through so many emotions; first shock and numbness, then depression and despair on the long trip back to Earth, giving way to dogged determination as they searched for survivors. Now most of them had worked their way out of that pit of raw emotion to a sort of semi-stable plateau - a plateau of resignation and acceptance.

  “There she goes,” said Jim as they sank out, the system engines shutting down and the tDrive whining as it came to life. The Sun winked out and was gone.

  “Next stop Stalingrad,” said Mark.

  “And then what?” asked Rachel. “Earth Two? Build log cabins in the wilderness, like the pioneers in the Old West? Scratch out a living from the dirt?”

  Bonnie glanced across at Jim and Rita. Rachel wore her bitterness like a blanket now, never letting it go. It permeated her, had become part of her.

  “If that’s what it takes,” Bonnie said at last. “But I think we can do more than that, if we put our minds to it.”

  “We can,” said Jim. “We’re military. We can go on. But I don’t know about the rest of the survivors. I think they’re too shell-shocked to do much except survive at this point.”

  “So we just dump them off on a new planet and wish them luck?” Rachel spoke sarcastically.

  “No, we can do more than that,” said Tika. “We rescued fertilized ovum from several thousand species of animals. We can populate the new planet with horses, cows, sheep, goats, more than a hundred animals that will be valuable to the colonists there. We loaded up the contents of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault from Norway. So we’ll be able to plant almost any crop that people want. We have microbots that can build prefab housing for them. They’ll have a decent life there, for the most part.”

  There was a short silence. Gillian was the next to speak. “But it won’t be Earth,” she said. “It won’t be home.”

  “We’ll make it home,” said Luke. “We have to.”

  “But the Stree…,” said Gillian. “They’ll find us. They’ll come back.”

  Jim shook his head. “They won’t bother us. We’re too weak to hurt them now. They’re after the Goblins.”

  “Should we even go back to Stalingrad now?” asked Mark. “What if we arrive just as the Stree attack?”

  “That’s a chance we have to take,” said Rita. “We have to stabilize the Human survivors, get them healthy, let them make their own decisions about what to do next.”

  “Their own decisions? What is there to decide?” asked Rachel. “They go to this new Earth or they die, right? What other choice do they have?”

  Jim looked at Tika meaningfully. She nodded.

  “There’s one other option,” said Jim.

  Corvette Armidale

  Returning to Stalingrad

  “Another option?” asked Rachel. “What other option is there? Either they go to this new planet the Goblins have found, or they stay at Stalingrad. What else is there?”

  Jim gave a second glance at Tika before he continued.

  “Become a Goblin. Fight these bastards as an android. An AI.”

  There was a shocked silence in the galley as everybody tried to wrap their heads around Jim’s words. Rachel was the first to come back at him.

  “Bullshit,” she said.

  Tika took up the conversation.

  “Not bullshit,” she replied. “It can be done. Any Human can have their consciousness transferred into AI form.”

  Rachel glared at Tika as if she were the enemy.

  “You want us to give up our bodies? Become machines like you? Losing Earth isn’t enough for you?”

  Jim spoke gently.

  “Rachel. It’s not Tika’s idea. It’s my idea.”

  Rachel turned her glare to Jim. “Why would you even think about that? What’s the point of it? And why now when we’re still grieving Earth?”

  Jim continued to speak gently, trying to calm Rachel down.

  “Force multiplication, Rachel. Think about it. As a biological being, I have only one body to give. If I fight them and they kill me, that’s it. I’m done. But as an AI, I can be cloned into dozens of entities. Each one of those can fight them. If they destroy my ship, I can translate to another ship. It multiplies our Human force by at least a factor of ten, maybe a factor of one hundred.”

  There was a long, pregnant pause. Jim saw a visible shudder go through Gillian. She was the next to speak.

  “It’s unholy,” she said. “Duplicating ourselves. It’s blasphemy.”

  Jim nodded. “Each to his own opinion, Jilly. No one has to do anything against their own conscience.”

  Mark reached, placed an arm around Gillian’s shoulders in support.

  “I’m with my wife. That’s something I’ll never do.”

  “Understood, Mark. And I respect your opinion. But likewise, you should respect mine. I’d do it in a heartbeat, if it meant I could kill more of those Stree bastards.”

  “Me, too,” said Ollie with venom in his voice. “Where do I sign up?”

  Rita felt it was the appropriate time for her to jump in.

  “As I’m the only person here who has ever done this before, I should probably tell you a few things.”

  “Please,” said Jim, giving her the floor.

  “It’s very disorienting when you first wake up. It’s almost like being in a waking dream for the first day or so. You have incredible energy, more energy than you’ve ever felt in your life. I can only compare it to when you were a child and you had boundless energy, when you could go all day without stopping. But at the same time, your body doesn’t respond the way you expect it to. It’s more powerful but also heavier. So it takes days to adjust, to get the hang of that part of
it.

  “And then your senses. They intentionally bring you out after the transfer with your senses dulled, so that they’re a close match for your old Human senses. But they still feel incredibly powerful. Your vision is the best it’s ever been. Your sense of taste and smell is the same. Your hearing is perfect.

  “Combining all those things, it’ll take you several days before you can do things normally without falling over or stumbling or stuttering when you try to talk. But after that…

  “After that, you feel wonderful. It’s a heady experience. You learn how to switch your consciousness to another aspect. You learn how to increase the sensitivity of your senses on your own, when you feel ready for it. You learn how to talk with radio instead of with voice.

  “You feel like you’ve been re-born. I would never go back.”

  Gillian shuddered again. “This is blasphemy. I won’t listen to this,” she said as she rose.

  “Before you go, Gillian, one thought,” interjected Jim.

  Gillian paused on her way to the door. “What?”

  “You believe that God created this Universe. Have you ever considered - maybe He allows this as a natural progression to a higher form of living? That maybe this was His grand design all along? Would He even allow the Goblins to exist if He disapproved?”

  Gillian stared at Jim strangely.

  “We don’t know yet if He will allow the Goblins to continue to exist, do we?”

  With that, she departed through the hatch. Mark stood, grimaced at Jim, and followed his wife. In the aftermath of Gillian’s sudden and somewhat surprising outburst, the rest of them sat and stared at each other.

  “She’s starting to sound like the Stree,” muttered Tika.

  Stree Prime

  Battlecruiser Great Prophet

  High Admiral Sojatta gazed at the plot as his six expeditionary fleets collected themselves back into a single, unified mass of warships orbiting the Stree home world. It had taken them eighty-five days to go and return - but they had accomplished the mission. They had eliminated the biological allies of the Goblins - the Humans, the Dariama, the Bagrami, the Taegu. All were dust now, dust blowing in the wind of their desiccated planets. As were the Ashkelon and the Nidarians - the Stree had not taken any chances.

  Now there were no biologicals left to stand in his way. It was down to a one-on-one war, a simple fight of good versus evil. The good of the Grand Prophecy vs. the evil of the blasphemous and unholy Goblins.

  And there was no doubt in Sojatta’s mind how that war would end. Their victory was assured. The Universe fought for them. The Great Prophet had foreseen it and had given them the Word Ordained.

  All Sojatta had to do now was implement the victory. He gazed at the holotank before him. Six expeditionary fleets had been sent to destroy the enemies of the Grand Prophecy: 300 warships each to the four major biological species, and 200 warships to the lesser ones of the Bagrami and the Taegu. 1,600 of his front-line warships.

  Of those, 1,502 ships had returned. Sojatta was a bit shocked at the level of his losses; he had not expected the pitiful biologicals to fight so hard against their destruction.

  But it was not a problem; his intelligence experts told him the Goblins had only 500 warships. He still vastly outnumbered them. It would be a quick war.

  Sojatta turned away from the plot to his staff, standing around his conference table, and smiled.

  “We have accomplished the first great objective of the war,” he spoke. “We have eliminated the biologicals who might hinder us. Now we move to Phase Two - eliminating the Goblin Home Fleet and destroying their barbarous Dyson Swarm.”

  Sojatta moved to the head of the table and sat. He waved a hand at the Stree officers surrounding the table. “Sit, and let us plan our victory.”

  With a rustle of uniforms and the clink of medals, the members of his inner staff sat, adjusting in their chairs until they were comfortable. Sojatta waited until all were settled, then began again.

  “The Goblins wait for us in their home system. We shall let them sweat while we repair and re-arm our ships. Admiral Hojoni - what is the estimate for readiness to depart?”

  “Eight weeks, O Great High Admiral. There was more damage to our ships than anticipated.”

  Sojatta smiled. “Yes. The perverted biologicals fought harder than we expected. That makes our decision to eliminate them by surprise even wiser. If we had allowed them to prepare and join forces with the Goblins, our victory might have been delayed.

  “But now…the time to victory will be shortened considerably. Eight weeks to repair and re-arm our fleet. Another four weeks to Stalingrad. And then we smash these Goblins.

  “Admiral Deyeunna. Ensure that our maintenance crews are closely supervised. We must be ready to launch in eight weeks. There is no other acceptable outcome.”

  Admiral Deyeunna bowed his head in acceptance of the task. “Thus it shall be, O Great Chief Admiral.”

  “Thus it shall be,” echoed Sojatta in the timeworn mantra of the Stree priesthood. “Then let us move on to the strategy for the destruction of the Goblin fleet twelve weeks from now. Please present your plan, Admiral Hojoni.”

  Chapter Nine

  Stalingrad System

  Dyson Ring

  While Jim and his company had been at Earth rescuing survivors, the Goblins had re-configured a large area of their main Dyson Ring to become a long, narrow facsimile of Earth. In the middle of a longitudinal strip was an open park, covered in greenery, with hiking paths, playgrounds, even a couple of creeks feeding into small lakes. It also contained a large Amphitheater for community meetings. Several thousand feet above it, the ceiling was blue, an imitation of the blue sky of Earth. A long artificial Sun ran down the center of the ceiling, simulating the brightness of Earth’s own star.

  On the sides of the open area, Goblin microbots had assembled housing for the survivors. Six huge apartment blocks surrounded the park, providing space for all 21,146 Human survivors.

  Jim, Rita, and the rest of the team stood on the roof of one of the apartment blocks, staring at the view below them in wonderment.

  “How could they do this in only twelve weeks?” asked Gillian.

  “Our microbots are extremely effective,” said Tika. “If they can build a Dyson swarm in two centuries, building apartment blocks is child’s play for them.”

  “But where did you get the greenery?” asked Rachel.

  “We’ve always had plants from Earth,” said Tika. “Remember, I told you before at Dekanna - we’ve been secretly visiting Earth for well over twenty thousand years. Through the years, we’ve collected millions of samples of plants and animals. This basic park was already in existence, used by our people for a leisure spot. All we had to do was build the apartment blocks around it.”

  “It reminds me of Central Park in New York,” said Jim.

  Rachel turned on him. “Something that doesn’t exist anymore,” she spoke angrily. She marched off toward the stairs.

  The group watched her go, until Gillian spoke.

  “We have to do something to help her.”

  “There’s not much we can do,” said Rita. “She’s mourning Dan. She just has to get through her grief process somehow.”

  “Here comes the last group,” Tika called.

  Below them, a large group of Humans came out of a subway entrance in the center of the park. The Humans walked out onto the surface in amazement. They milled around in shock, staring at the apartment blocks, the greenery, the lake beside them, the artificial blue sky above them.

  “I can’t even imagine what’s going through their minds,” said Jim.

  “Shock,” said Luke. “Pure shock. After what they’ve been through…it has to be incredible.”

  “But with relief mixed in,” said Bonnie. “They thought they were going to die, there on Earth. Huddling in caves or underground, a surface covered in ice and snow, no visible sun, little to no food, contaminated water. At the most, a few more weeks to liv
e. They must have been making their peace with God when we came along.”

  “And then rescued by alien androids, packed into a battlecruiser cargo hold like sardines, brought to a strange system that looks like nothing ever seen by a Human before,” added Rita.

  “And then this,” continued Jim. “Disembarking from their ship, a ride on a subway, climbing a flight of stairs and coming out in Central Park. It has to be mind-boggling for them.”

  Below them, they could see the group of survivors being led by several Goblins toward the apartment block where they would be housed. The Humans straggled along, faces turned left, right, up to the artificial sky and the artificial sun, children lagging behind to play with ducks on the pond, parents turning back to gather them up and move them on.

  “It looks so normal now,” said Bonnie. “It’s too good to be true.”

  “Yes, and it is too good to be true,” Tika spoke. “The Stree are still out there. We think they’re holding off because they have to collect up their expeditions and repair any damage, re-arm, prepare for a massive attack on us. Or else they want to terrorize us - intimidate us. But they’ll be coming soon - they’ll not want to give us too much time to prepare. We need to get these people stabilized and then moved to the new planet as soon as possible.”

  “The ones that want to go,” said Jim.

  Tika looked at him. “Yes. The ones that want to go. The rest can stay and help us fight.”

  Stalingrad System

  Dyson Ring

  One day later, Jim, Rita and the rest decided it was time to formally present all options to the Human survivors. Although they had already announced the news about a new planet where people could be relocated, they had said nothing about other options.

  Now they called for a mass meeting. Thousands of people showed up in the Amphitheater. They milled about, waiting for the meeting to start, wondering what was happening.

  Jim, Rita, Bonnie, Luke, Rachel, and Ollie stood on a stage at the front of the assembly, waiting to start the meeting. Finally the appointed time came, and Jim stood to address the crowd. As he began speaking, his voice boomed out over speakers arranged around the Amphitheater.