Remnants: Broken Galaxy Book Five

by Phil Huddleston

  “I will listen,” he said.

  “That is all I ask,” Cerutti replied smoothly. Glancing at Turgenev, he continued his pitch.

  “Now…they tell us the Goblins have found a planet for us. And our rescuers will shortly relocate us to that planet. If you’ve heard, there are only about 21,000 survivors left. If we play our cards right, we can take over the entire planet.”

  Turgenev grunted an objection. “But they said our rescuers will form a government.”

  Cerutti smiled. “Let them! That makes our task easier. They form a government and get things organized for us. Meanwhile, we lay our plans. When things are ready, we take over the government. That is the way of the strong!”

  Cerutti looked over at Kim across the table from him. “Think of it, Kim Geun-shi! The best food, the best housing - all at our feet! A whole planet to rule!”

  Cerutti could see Kim weakening.

  “And the most beautiful women, Kim Geun-shi! Anytime you want!”

  Cerutti saw Kim’s reaction. The involuntary twitch of an eye revealed his inner weakness.

  I’ve got him.

  Turgenev glanced at Cerutti. “So - how will we do it? There are three of us - who will be top dog?”

  Cerutti nodded. He knew he had won the day.

  “We divide up the spoils. Kim Geun-shi was a gangster in Seoul. So he knows how to run the rackets. He can have the sin. The gambling, the numbers, the prostitution, the black market - all the things he already knows how to do.”

  Turgenev nodded suspiciously. “And me?”

  Cerutti gazed at him. “You can have the government. We’ll get you on the Council, then we’ll get you elected Governor. After that, we’ll dismantle the Council and you’ll be in sole charge.”

  Turgenev, still suspicious, cocked his head at Cerutti.

  “And you? What do you get?”

  “I’ll take the Security Team. That will allow me to protect you and Kim to ensure your success. And I’m not greedy - I can make enough from graft and bribes to satisfy myself.”

  Cerutti sat quietly for a minute as Turgenev and Kim thought through the proposal. He could see their lust for power slowly overcoming their suspicions.

  Ah, such easy men to manipulate, Cerutti thought. Once they have helped me take over the planet, they’ll meet with a sudden accident. And then I will be governor. And I will own the world.

  King of Phoenix. I like the sound of that.

  ***

  The next morning, a second meeting took place. The ten AM meeting to discuss fighting the Stree began in the Amphitheater, with Jim and the rest on the stage at the front of the crowd.

  “Not much of a turnout,” said Jim.

  “Well, you can’t really expect much, can you?” said Bonnie. “Think about what they’ve been through. Starving for weeks, huddling in caves and holes, barely surviving. Thinking they were as good as dead. Then plucked out of their holes by Goblin androids, taken to space, crammed into the cargo hold of a battlecruiser for three weeks, unloaded into empty apartment blocks. Told they have only two choices - life as pioneers on a virgin planet, or a desperate fight against a powerful enemy. I’d probably think twice about joining that fight.”

  “I guess so,” said Jim. “How many do you think we have here?”

  Bonnie scanned the crowd, estimating. “I’d say about two hundred.”

  “Looks like about 80 percent males,” Rita interjected. “Evidently not a popular option among females.”

  Bonnie grunted. “Well, war never is. But I’ll take two hundred. That’s more than we had when we woke up this morning.”

  “Looks like everyone that’s coming is here,” said Jim. “I’ll get started.” He stepped to the front of the stage, with the others lined up behind him.

  “Hello all,” Jim began. “I assume by your presence here you have some interest in fighting the Stree. As I said yesterday, there are two ways you can fight. The first way is the traditional way - crew on starships, ground support personnel, logistics, intelligence, all the normal activities of the Navy. For those who elect that option, you should know that the Goblins will take the lead in this war. They will bear the brunt of the heavy fighting. We Humans will perform specialized roles - sort of Special Forces, if you will. And those missions may be dangerous. For example, we may work behind enemy lines, or perform targeted missions that require small, focused teams. I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you; people will die. But we will take the fight to the enemy, and I for one intend to get revenge on them for what they did to Earth.

  “The second way you can fight is to become a Goblin yourself. My wife Rita has already undergone that process, so I’ll let her speak to that option.”

  Jim stepped back, and Rita stepped forward. She gazed around the room. By all appearances, she was a normal human female, albeit a bit taller than most. Her flashing brown eyes reflected the lights. She was once again wearing her Admiral’s uniform, and her black hair was cut short in a military style. She held her uniform cap under one arm as she spoke.

  “My name is Rita Page. Some of you may know my story, but I’ll recap it for you anyway.

  “Until six months ago, I was an Admiral in the EDF - the Earth Defense Force. At that time, I was captured by the Ashkelon. Well, I knew too many secrets of our defense plans to allow myself to be tortured by them, so I was forced to take poison. Through a long chain of circumstances that I’ll skip for now, I was freed by my husband, Jim, and returned to the EDF. Unfortunately, it was too late for my biological body to survive. The poison was slowly killing me. Just before my biological body died, my consciousness was scanned by the Goblins and placed into an android body. I was brought back here to Stalingrad. I completed four weeks of training to adjust to my new body, and then I was released to go live my life. A life I would not have - if not for the transfer process provided by the Goblins.”

  Rita paused, scanning the room. It was quiet; people were focused on what she had to say.

  “I want to tell you just three things about my life as a Goblin. First, I would do it again in a heartbeat. They saved my life. More than that, they gave me a chance to be with my daughter again. My daughter Imogen means the world to me, and thanks to the Goblins I have the chance to see her grow up.

  “The second thing I’ll tell you is that the process is painless. It’s not nearly as scary as you might think. Yes, waking up the first time is strange. Your coordination is off. It’s like your body is drunk, but your brain is not. It’ll take you several days to get your coordination back. But once that is done, you’ll be stronger, faster, and more coordinated than ever before. And you’ll have marvelous abilities. You can switch from your primary android body to other types of bodies, such as a spaceship AI, or a hardened fighting android or something we call a caterpillar. You’ll be able to think faster, hear better, see farther and in other wavelengths, communicate via radio or laser instead of just voice.

  “But the last thing I’ll tell you is that there’s no going back. Once you are transferred into a Goblin aspect, you cannot go back to your biological body. You will be a Goblin for the rest of your existence. You will have a primary body that will be a close copy of your original body; as you can see, I still look pretty much as I did before. But there’s no transferring back into your old biological body. You’re a Goblin forever.

  “Would I do it again? Yes - in a heartbeat. Knowing what I know now, would I do it again even if I wasn’t dying? Yes, in a heartbeat. Because I intend to fight the Stree with every ounce of ability I have. I invite you to do the same - either with your original biological body, or with a Goblin body, but either way - let’s fight them. Let’s show them what a terrible mistake they made when they destroyed Earth.

  “Thank you.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. Rita stepped back, and Jim stepped forward again. He gazed at the crowd.

  “I wish we could give you more time to think about this and make up your mind. But unfortunately, we have litt
le time before we’ll be fighting the Stree. We can only give you until the date of your scheduled transport to Phoenix to decide.

  “Everyone here has been assigned a transport date. Once that date arrives and you get on the transport ship to Phoenix, the window is closed. Before that date, you can still elect to join the new force. There is a sign-up booth at the back of the Amphitheater. Please take a form with you and make your decision. Thank you for your time.”

  Venus

  Sol System

  Rauti had relocated to the wreckage of the destroyed space elevator terminus, thousands of miles above the surface of Venus. It had not been easy; he first had to build a small rocket capable of getting him there. That had taken a week. Working in the hellish conditions of Venus without the support of a base was incredibly difficult, even for his hardened caterpillar body.

  Microbots still covered the surface of Venus, diligently converting the carbon dioxide to oxygen and carbon nanotubes, oblivious to the fact there was no longer a system to transport the carbon. Using several billion of these microbots, Rauti re-purposed them to new tasks.

  The dead bodies of his friends littered the floor of the caved-in tunnel where he sheltered. Using the microbots and materials from those bodies, he first built a new caterpillar body for himself, only three inches long, and switched into it.

  Then he turned the microbots to the task of building a rocket. It didn’t need to be large - there was only one of him, and he was now tiny. The final product was only ten feet in length and twelve inches in diameter. On the seventh day after waking in his protected tunnel, he had the microbots carry the rocket outside and lean it against a rock pointed up toward space. He crawled inside and launched. He didn’t need software or a guidance system - Rauti guided the rocket himself. Two hours later, he docked at the destroyed space tether terminus, now just a collection of debris orbiting the planet.

  But it was his debris, and he knew how to use it. Although their orbits had been highly perturbed, the four asteroids that were originally used as raw materials for building the terminus were still floating in reasonable proximity. It took Rauti another week to bring the closest asteroid back to its position beside the wrecked terminus, re-connect the piping, and start the flow of raw materials to his assembly location inside the debris field.

  From that point, things got easier. He didn’t need an airtight space; he didn’t need food; he didn’t need water. He got his energy from the Sun’s radiation. Within two days, he was back in a large caterpillar body, and had completed the design of his first missile. The hard part was the tDrive to give it interstellar capability; tDrives were a very specialized thing to build. Under normal circumstances, an interstellar-capable tDrive had to be in a radiation containment vessel to protect any biological material nearby.

  But this was a special case. There would be no biological material to protect. The missiles Rauti was building would fly directly from Venus to their target.

  Rauti skipped the radiation containment.

  Chapter Twelve

  Stalingrad System

  Dyson Ring

  “We need a strategy,” said Jim. “We can’t just go straight at these Stree bastards. We’d have no chance. We need a way of getting to their backside.”

  “I’m not seeing any backside,” said Rita. “The Stree have the numbers and the initiative. The Goblins are on the defensive. The Stree have us on the ropes.”

  “There’s always a backside,” said Jim. “We just haven’t found it yet.”

  “How do we find it?” asked Bonnie. “We know almost nothing about these assholes.”

  Jim looked seriously at the team assembled around the table.

  “We go there. We scout them on the ground.”

  Everyone looked at him in a stunned silence.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Luke. Rachel, sitting at the far end of the table, lifted her head in interest.

  “What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

  “I mean exactly what I say,” said Jim. “We get off our asses, go to the Stree home world, and scout them. Find a weakness we can exploit.”

  “And if there is no weakness?” asked Luke.

  Jim stared at him. “There will be. Every society has one. And we’ll find it.”

  Rita looked down the table at Tika, who was at the far end. “But if the Goblins haven’t found any weakness so far, how can we expect to?”

  “We’ve never actually gone to their home planet,” said Tika. “We’ve only done scouting and remote sensing from the edge of their system.”

  “My Lord,” exclaimed Bonnie. “You can’t be serious! With your ability to translate into any form, you’ve never gone to their planet?”

  Tika shook her head. “No, we haven’t. Our leaders felt it was too risky and might precipitate another war.”

  “A bit late for that,” growled Rita.

  “So,” said Jim. “What do you know about their society?”

  “It’s a religious theocracy,” said Tika. “They are ruled by a caste of priests and monks. Anyone who questions the priesthood is killed. The priesthood funnels up to a supreme leader called the Great Prophet. The Great Prophet is infallible; his word is called the Word Ordained. The priesthood fear and hate AI with a deep-rooted passion. They allow dumb computing, but nothing that can approach sentience. As a result, their ships tend to be a bit clumsy and slow compared to ours. But it’s clear they vastly outnumber us.”

  “By how much?” asked Jim.

  “We think about three-to-one,” said Tika. “It appears they’ve been building ships at some location we didn’t know about. We’ve monitored their home system for years - and all these ships didn’t come from there. We were as shocked at the number of ships as you were.”

  “So they have a secret base somewhere,” said Jim.

  “That appears to be the case,” answered Tika. “The number of ships they used to attack the bio worlds is far greater than we expected.”

  “So. Who’s up for infiltrating the Stree home world?” asked Jim.

  There was a long silence. Finally, Rita smiled grimly. “You know as well as I do that only Goblins can do it. We’d have to take Stree form. So that means Tika and I.”

  “And me,” said Rachel. “I’ve decided to become a Goblin.”

  The group looked at Rachel in amazement.

  “You?” Bonnie blurted out before she could stop herself.

  Rachel continued bitterly. “Dan’s gone. Without him, I don’t have much reason to continue living as a Human. So I’ve made up my mind. I’ll convert to Goblin and go with you on this mission.”

  Rita spoke gently. “Have you really thought this through, Rachel? You know there’s no going back. It’s a one-way trip.”

  “I know,” Rachel responded. “I’ve been thinking about it for days. I’ve made up my mind. I have nothing to live for without Dan, except my revenge on these Stree bastards. So I’m in.”

  Rachel turned to Tika. “How soon can we do the conversion?”

  Tika glanced once at Rita, then back at Rachel. “It doesn’t take long. We’ll need to scan your Human body to get data for your android template. Then we build your new body. When your android body is complete, you’ll transfer over to it and start your training.”

  “Then let’s do it today,” said Rachel. “The sooner the better. I assume we need to leave on this mission right away?”

  Tika nodded slowly.

  “It’s 40 days to Stree, right? Can I complete my training enroute?”

  Tika nodded again. “If necessary,” she replied. “It’s not ideal, but I think we can make it work.”

  “Then let’s get it done, please,” said Rachel. She stood up from the table. “I’m ready.”

  Tika stood. She gave a long look at Rita, silently asking for permission. Rita gave a slow nod. Tika turned and led the way out of the room, Rachel following.

  Rita turned back to Jim and shook her head. “I didn’t see that coming,” she said. “Did y
ou?”

  “Sorta,” said Jim. “I knew she was in a dark place. I suspected she might take that option as a way out.”

  Rita changed the subject.

  “So,” she said, addressing the group. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “About what?” asked Jim.

  “About how to infiltrate the Stree.”

  “And?”

  “We bootstrap our way into their command center.”

  “Bootstrap?” Ollie asked from the other side of the table, putting down a beer.

  “Like a computer does. First it loads a single small program from a known place on the disk. Then that program loads a larger program. Then that loads an even larger program, until the whole computer is up and running.”

  “Oh, booting!” said Bonnie. She wrinkled her nose. “What does that mean in terms of the mission, though?”

  Rita leaned forward to expound on her idea. “First, we take over a little station somewhere in their system, well out from Stree Prime - their home planet. That gives us a base of operations. We use that as a springboard to take over another installation on the surface of Stree Prime, but far away from their capital city. Now we have a base for ground operations on the planet. Then we use that to worm our way into their command headquarters. From there, we can gather all the intel we need and try to find a way to influence the coming battle. Maybe disrupt their communications, or plant a virus in their fleet.”

  There was a short silence as the group absorbed the idea and thought about it. Ollie knew he had to begin the discussion; he had long since figured out that Jim, Bonnie, and Rita had a philosophy of letting their juniors speak first, so as not to contaminate any first-blush ideas with the pressure of their senior officer opinions.

  “It’s just crazy enough that it might work,” Ollie said.

  Jim went next. “Crazy, yes. But…maybe.”

  Bonnie nodded last. “I don’t see what else a small team like ours could do, so why not?”

  “So,” Rita continued. “It’ll have to be Goblins for the insertion. So Tika and myself for that. And Rachel if she’s ready in time.”