Conflict!

by Dale Moorhouse

  The more I looked at what she had accomplished, the more I thought this would work to help get the folks who had never been dirt-side get used to the idea of being on a planet and they would have plenty of time to adjust. I looked at Elaine and asked, “How?”

  She smiled, “I had lots of help. Ishmael and Wiley put me in contact with some of the agricultural specialists on Mother of Peril as well as the ones I knew on Mother of Glory. There are thousands of artistic people throughout the Confederation. Many of them flew out here to work their magic. Those cliffs you see over there are made from some plastics that are used to bind extra carbon removed from the air by the atmosphere scrubbers. We use some of it for building, but the majority of it is just released in space to dissipate.

  “It seemed like a shame to throw it away. An excellent way to store it is as artificial mountains. Instead of moulding it in sheets it’s now moulded in blocks which are piled together around some of the bulkheads used to support each habitat deck. Then a foam of the same material is shot over the piles and tooled to look like granite when it sets up. The blocks are hollow to keep weight down and in strategic locations all over this deck, house all of our environmental plant, from atmosphere regulation to power generation, gravity control and water supply and regulation.

  “We decided that putting penetrations through the decks would weaken the overall structure, so each habitat deck is similar to this one and self-contained in no small degree. What needs to be moved from deck-to-deck can all be accomplished between the inner and outer walls of the entry portals and strategically placed, hollow support pillars. Once the architects and engineers had an idea of what I wanted, they pretty much took over, and while they presented me with renderings of their concepts, I gave them free rein. This is what they came up with. We are standing on the first deck they did, they used it as a testbed for what they wanted to do on the residence decks. This one and each alternating deck will be used for agriculture.

  “If we look at the layers, the deck below us is a manufacturing and storage deck and the same above us. Then there is residence deck that has housing, creches, restaurants and refectories, medbays, offices and small workshops for artisans and hobbyists. There are barracks for warriors and campuses for schools of higher learning. Most of the offices and workshops are built around the supports that on this deck are where the mountains and hills are. We built the residences around support pillars that are hollow and used to service the utilities and transportation for each structure. Much of the open space around each residence grouping is planted with vegetation that helps keep the air clean and aids in capturing carbon dioxide and releases oxygen.”

  I just shook my head in wonder at how much she had gotten done in the last hundred cycles. When I said so, she started laughing. When she finally got control of herself, she said, “Love, I’ve been working on this for much longer than a hundred cycles. More like three-hundred and fifty to be honest. Ever since we had our fight about the Leviathan, you told me you were claiming for us. Now, come on, I have more to show you.”

  We went to a manufacturing deck and while it was pressurized and not freezing it was colder than what I’d become accustomed to. I was glad I was wearing my armour, which kept me comfortable. When we got to the first residence deck, I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked like a vast park with tall circular buildings placed every so often. I noticed the spacing of the buildings was every other column. The alternating support walls had small mountains built around them instead of offices and workshops.

  Serena said, “Look, dad, I can see birds flying around up there and over there where there should be a support wall is the beginnings of a forest.” As I looked around and up, I could see she was right. Someone had decided to plant a small forest around some of the support walls that had been made to look like mountains. I turned to Elaine and the rest and asked, “Where did all of the dirt come from?”

  Ishmael said, “That is the slowest part of the whole job. Each deck only took about fifty cycles to build out but flying the dirt in took over two hundred cycles for the first twenty decks. As to where it came from, we had all those captured breaker/sorters and harvesters just sitting there so I thought I’d put them to work. We mined asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. There is an amazing number of them that contain various organic compounds. We gathered those that included all of the essential materials for good soil along with some that were igneous in origin. Mixed with regolith from the mining operations of the moon, we were able to duplicate the basis of the best soils found on Terra. Then all we had to do was add organics we got from Russia, Ukraine and some of the cattle producing areas elsewhere and bring it here. That was the shittiest part of the job, no pun intended.

  “We still have two more decks to complete, they should be done in another fifty to a hundred cycles or so. We stopped at twenty because we will only fill the first two residential decks with all of the oxy/nitrogen breathers in our arks and motherships. The other decks will be opened up to whoever wants to come with us when we leave, or we decide to increase our birthrates for colonization.”

  “Where did you find all of the labour to make this happen?”

  Elaine answered, “There are many under-utilized people on all of the oxygen breathing Arks as well as the motherships. The Mmrrreeowwn Elders want to move their people off the Arks and motherships and bring them here. The thousands who helped out on this project have all asked to stay here, Terrans too.”

  Ishmael spoke up, “Many of the Warms and Colds working on the project had said the same and when Wiley and Sonja toured a few cycles ago they practically cried when they saw how spacious and beautiful a habitat could be. Just in the time since they publicized it as a possibility, the clamour to move off Mother of Peril and our Ark has become continuous, with many of the workers on the project leading the charge. Wiley knows he will have to move our people or there will surely be a revolt. This is truly a case of not being able to stuff the toothpaste back in the tube.”

  “When will residence decks be ready to move people in?” I asked.

  “They could start moving in now,” Elaine replied.

  “How best could we accomplish that? It looks like it would be a daunting task.”

  Tuxedo chuckled and replied, “It is actually easier than one would think. We would simply bring the motherships down the portals and dock them to the residence deck then let the people walk off, one section at a time until it is empty. We would move it up to one of the unfinished agricultural decks and unload all of the soil and plants making more room for passengers then take the motherships out to the arks and do the same there. We wouldn’t be able to land, but we have towers we can moor the motherships to and march people aboard using the towers as access points. It has been done before, although not in our lifetimes.”

  “It sounds simple, but nothing is ever that simple. We are going to have to spend time and develop a plan to move the people as quickly as possible. Something else that jumped out at me is; although there is a lot of clamouring about moving aboard when it is time to move, how many will back out and want to stay on the motherships and Arks?

  “This is going to take some care and planning. I think the first step is to move the Warrior Training Complex and naval activities of all species here. Then start taking for volunteers amongst the civilians. Once people see it is actually happening, then I think the scaredy cats will fall in line.

  “Also, has anyone given any thought to what we should do about the Squids? I don’t trust them and would like to distance myself from them, but that is just me talking. I can’t make that decision myself.”

  Ishmael looked at me seriously and said, “Wiley has already addressed that issue for the Weasels. He asked our people over our entertainment channels what we should do about the squids and if we should continue our relationship with them. The consensus was to part ways with them. He has made that known to both the Confederation Council and the Squids themselves.

  “There is
to be a plebiscite in the next couple of cycles between the Mmrrreeowwn and Terrans that will guide what the Elders do. Mother of Glory will have a plebiscite, and the Ark will have their own. It will be interesting to see what happens.”

  “Well,” I said, “I can’t make the decision for anyone, but myself and I’m all for moving aboard and would like to invite as many to join me as want to. That said, I guess we will have to wait a couple of cycles and see how the plebiscites turn out.”

  39

  THREE HUNDRED CYCLES AFTER THEIR departure, Blue and Frederik returned and entered my office carrying their logs and AARs. They were both wearing grins and seemed happy about something. I bade them sit and starting with Frederik asked for their reports.

  “Ser, I set a course in the direction of the last known position of Ginger’s recon, staying towards the outside of the galactic arm. Blue and I had agreed to separate and move parallel with him covering the inner half while I covered the outer. I opted to do my fly-through of the previously explored area on a corkscrew course giving my sensor operators time to familiarize themselves with the latest sensor gear completely. It also seemed prudent to see if there was any Plague activity, and on the outbound journey, everything was clear. The new sensor arrays work very well, Ser.

  “We arrived at the unexplored region ten cycles into our journey and continued using the corkscrew search but at a slower pace. We found nothing of note for twenty-one more cycles then began detecting signals in the electromagnetic spectrum in the VHF and UHF frequencies. We also started hearing signals in the SHF band. They sounded similar to Plague signals my operators had heard before. We immediately shut down our active sensors and noting the direction the signals were coming from, set a bearing in our navigation system and maintained our corkscrew course.

  “As we continued the signals kept getting stronger until we were able to pick up distinct sources and my operators were able to unscramble the transmissions. I ordered a crewed Swift Fang accompanied by a pair of AI Swift Fangs to close with the source of the transmissions under full stealth. They were to observe for three cycles while we closed to a distance of two light-centas. When they returned, they had gotten considerable data, including visual images of the planets and constructs from which the transmission originated. The recon ships searched around the perimeter of the system trying to find the source of the SHF transmission and finally located a beacon whose purpose we don’t fully understand. Some of our analysts think it is a navigation beacon while others believe it is a warning for other ships to stay away. We have lengthy recordings of its transmissions which radiate out from the beacon but not towards the star system.

  “We had the opportunity to study satellites and other probes that we believe were launched by the civilization in the system and the technology is quite different from the beacon we found. Our analysts believe there is another spacefaring race that passes this system regularly, hence the beacon or warning.

  “We performed an in-depth survey of the surrounding star systems out to six light-kilocycles and found no other sign of activity. We continued on for another two-hundred and seven cycles where we began hearing activity in the SHF band again. I dispatched another crewed Swift Fang with a two-ship AI escort and sent them on a direct course towards the signal source with orders to observe under stealth. We repeated the same protocol as in the first instance of contact. When we assembled with our scouts three cycles later, they had been fired upon and damaged, presumably by the occupants of the system we were approaching.

  “We stayed in the vicinity and retrieved our scouts to repair them and review their logs and recordings. I also sent out more scouts and deployed all of our AI fighters configured for long-range recon. Appended to my log are files of images from each fighter and Swift Fang as well as every piece of technology we found around these new systems. Copies have been left with Silent and his people to analyse.

  “We had planned on continuing a little farther, but I had a gut feeling I should stay in the area and expand my search. I travelled to a small cluster ten cycles outside the arm and found several planets orbiting each star. One star is a G4, the other an F9. Both have planets in the liquid water zone, the F9 has four, the G4 has two. All of the information our sensors could gather is also appended. We searched around the area to see if there were any beacons, and there were none.

  “On our journey home, we explored more towards the centre of the arm looking for beacons and other stars. There are a few with planets that might be usable and no signs of beacons or discovery by another spacefaring race.”

  “Thank you, Frederik. What did you find, Blue?”

  “Nothing as interesting as Frederik except for signs a Plague swarm had been in the region just past where Ginger turned around. We found a system that had been partially destroyed and, based on debris fields and some remains of artificial constructs floating out by the outermost planet, we concluded the attack had occurred in the recent past. I suspect within the last kilocycle based on the way the debris from destroyed planets has spread.

  “There appeared to have been a large planet in the liquid water zone, but it was utterly destroyed and consumed by the Plague, so there was no way to tell if it had been settled. We lingered in the area and searched for twelve cycles, not finding anything other than the remains near the outer planet. We brought back samples for analysis, which should be interesting.

  “We did hear the SHF beacon at the location Frederik reported and some very slight traces out near where we turned around for our return. The bearing of the strongest signal places it in the vicinity where Frederik found the second populated planet. I would recommend we establish teams to send out to both planetary groups to try to make friendly contact. It might not hurt to send them with a heavy escort just in case.”

  “Thank you both. I suggest you take twenty-five cycles downtime to spend with your loved ones while your ships go through refit and refurbishment. When you are back on duty, you can get your ships provisioned and ready for your next assignments. Well done, both of you. Please pass that to your crews.”

  ◆◆◆

  Sarah White-Stripe returned six cycles later from her expedition down our back-trail, and her fleet was somewhat the worse for wear. She and Chocolate had used a search method similar to Frederik and Blue and timed their arrival back at the centre of the arm, so they were close enough to exchange information.

  “We had just completed our ninety-third cycle and had rendezvoused in a small system that seemed untouched by the Plague when one of our sensor operators heard some transmissions on a band unique to Squids and Plague. We had both gone to passive sensors early in the patrol, so we were pretty sure we hadn’t been detected. We immediately went full stealth and moved our fleets out of the system using just our gravitic engines. We agreed to use our directional laser comms only and only at specific times then went doggo and waited.

  “Over the next few cycles the periodic signals we received led us to the conclusion there was a swarm of unknown size and composition heading our way, proceeding at sub-light speed. We sent out our AI fighters with full recon packages and full stealth in a circular grid with intervals of two light-decas between them and instructions to gather as much data as possible then short-jump back to us. We sent them along the bearing from which we were receiving the strongest signals.

  “It took another five cycles before some of our fighters caught sight of the swarm. A cycle later, a second swarm was spotted coming towards the first. Two more cycles passed when we started getting indications a third swarm was heading our way. We launched our Swift Fangs and had them set up listening posts above and below us, and within two more cycles, we had a total of ten swarms converging on our area and no idea why.

  “We decided to send a Swift Fang towards each swarm to get a better idea of what was approaching and to try to get an idea why they were congregating in this area. A few cycles later all of our scouts returned and we decided to scoot somewhere safer and review their data. Once
our intelligence groups had copies, they began analysis and determined each swarm had between a thirty and fifty-thousand ships mostly of the breaker/sorter type. There is one globe ship with each swarm and a few hundred harvesters. We saw none of the Swift Fang clones nor was there any sign that any of the mini-swarms have FTL capability.

  “Five of the swarms gathered around the small untouched system we’d found and proceeded to destroy it completely. They didn’t seem to be manufacturing any ships, just taking on reaction mass. When they were done, they ignited the one gas giant in the system and left.

  “We followed them for a while until we could determine they are staying together and heading in the general direction of Terra. They are travelling at less than .1 C and the other approaching swarms are travelling at close to twice that. I believe they intend to link up. We jumped around them and moved along their bearing until we came to another system that was intact a light-kilocycle from the one they’d left. We left a few AI Swift Fangs to monitor them and just before we got back we got a message saying more mini swarms had joined the aggregate swarm and it is still on the same heading.