Galactic Arena Box Set

by Dan Davis

  Admiral Howe held himself quite still. “And do you believe we should have left them all on the planet? All penned up in a subterranean prison camp with the others of their species? Not use them?”

  “They are a resource, for sure. I’m not saying they’re not an opportunity.” Kat leaned back. “I just think twenty-four is a lot. That’s all, sir.”

  He looked at her. “What do you want with the rest of your career?”

  The change in subject took her by surprise. “Sir? I suppose I was thinking that I have had enough of that shuttle. After this, I mean, after this is all over. Then, when we get back home, I’ll resign from UNOP, take my mission bonus and start up the old family business again. Air taxi stuff, some pilot training and recreation. That kind of thing.”

  “You have had enough of your shuttle?” He asked it innocently. “Why might you be feeling this way?”

  I’ve had enough, you daft old bastard. I’m just a pilot. And it’s not the same without Sheila. The new AI is kind of a dickhead.

  “I never signed up to be a shuttle pilot, sir. Not originally. When I joined UNOP, I wanted to get away from home, get away from shunting people about. After I qualified, I volunteered for the ERANS so I could be a combat pilot and it worked so well they made me a Lieutenant and put me in the elite program. Ever since, it’s been a pain in the ass, frankly, sir. A curse, outside of an exciting few minutes here and there. You know, I overdosed pretty severely on that last mission, sir but I had done the same every other day for a few days before that. On the ground, escaping the last couple of wheeler attacks and when we evacuated the Victory. My liver was in a bad way, and my heart, my kidneys. I’m getting it all fixed now and I’m on the bare minimum dosages for everything and Dr. Fo said that maybe they can change my system for a more modern version when we get back home and I hope that’s the case. I could cycle off the drugs completely, in time. Anyway, after I had the ERANS originally, I could have taken a posting with the Pacific East interceptor squadron but then they offered me the place on the Victory. I’m glad I took the job.” She was not sure whether that was the truth or not but she had to throw it in there. “But it was never a grand plan to be a shuttle pilot for the rest of my life. And a lot has happened between then and now.”

  The great admiral nodded his head. “What would you say if we offered you a role in our short-range combat squadron here on the Sentinel? Even if you did not get your ERANS upgrade, you could take a lead in training or oversight?”

  “I’d say I would be honored, sir. But that would be more sitting around for years, running simulated flights rather than real combat. I sound ungrateful.”

  Admiral Howe smiled. “I knew you would turn down that offer. That was not the reason I asked you here. Tell me, have you ever considered a career in command?”

  Kat almost burst out laughing. “Command?”

  “In serving on the bridge of a frigate? I can see you progressing to XO very quickly, almost immediately with the right captain. Perhaps you might want to start out with a specialized position here on the Sentinel, if you were so inclined.”

  “I’ve barely ever been in a working CIC, sir. I think maybe I’ve missed the boat on that kind of career progression.”

  He nodded, tried a different tack. “We’re building ships at double the rate we were even two years ago and that will increase. They can’t build new orbital shipyards fast enough. Mars is trying to compete with Earth in that regard and they’re not doing too badly, in fact. Which is remarkable. One of the bottlenecks is stripping enough asteroids quickly enough for the raw materials. But another bottleneck is the dearth of quality officers. We’re recruiting and training many thousands for the Navy and even more for the Marines. And in such a context, I would very much like to retain someone with your experience, Kat.”

  She was surprised. “You must be desperate, if you want me. I’m not exactly a model officer.”

  The admiral did not return her smile. “We can train model officers. What I need right now is an officer who will make hard decisions and make them quickly. I need an officer who will stand up for herself in the face of pressure from senior officers, from the civilian command. Someone who will stare down a mob of angry VIPs when it needs to be done. Someone who will take calculated risks because she knows that our species is at some kind of grand crossroads, with one route leading to potential immortality and the other to certain death. And someone who can relate to nonhuman intelligences. And that officer, I hope, is you, Kat.”

  Was that bit about nonhuman intelligences a reference to Sheila, sir? I suppose you bastards have ways to know everything I said or did in that shuttle.

  “Sounds like you have a specific post in mind, sir.”

  He smiled. “I would like you to be the chief liaison officer for the wheelhunter delegation.”

  Kat let out a small laugh that she cut off as soon as she could. “Sir?”

  “It requires someone with an appreciation of the risks involved with the wheelhunters. And it requires someone able to resist the influence of all the people who would badger her for access, pressure her to bend the rules. The post would be part of my command staff, so you would have to deal with the captain and crew of the Sentinel as well. The importance of this post cannot be overstated and I have looked at every officer at my disposal. I have made this offer to no one else. You are not only the clear choice, you could not be more perfectly suited for the role.”

  Kat opened her mouth, hesitated. He was flattering her, that was true. And she did not want to trust anyone else to do the job as well as she would.

  Still, she did not want the responsibility.

  “Before you make a decision,” Admiral Howe said, holding up one finger. “Allow me to describe the strategic situation that we are returning to. I have decided to restrict much of the intelligence from the crew but I have served for long enough to know that word gets out in the form of rumor and accurate guesswork so perhaps you know some of this. But the new Orb Station Alpha that has appeared in the Sol System will be host for our battles with a new species. A species totally unknown to us. But not, it seems, unknown to the wheelhunters.”

  Kat must have made a face, because the admiral nodded at her.

  “You hit the nail on the head earlier, Kat, when you said the presence of the aliens would have an effect on crew morale. On a long distance, long term deployment such as this one, it may be the most important factor, something on which all other areas depend. And if this sort of information got out before we were able to present it in the right way, it might be difficult to retain a positive general attitude on the ship.”

  “I understand, sir. I won’t say anything.”

  “I would not be telling you if I had any doubts about that. Now, we do not know a great deal about the Orb Builders. Even that term is a placeholder. They could be a single species or a collective, they could be the AI or biologically engineered offspring of an original civilization, the could be from anywhere, they could look like anything. And our knowledge of the mechanics of the arena combat system is based on Orb Station Zero alone. We suspected that the rules of the combat were designed to achieve a certain level of equality between the two species, between the combatants. It is an inference from the fact that the environment appeared to, possibly, be an averaging of the environments from both species’ homeworlds. We also know now that some of the wheelhunters on Arcadia had a self-defense device implant which incapacitates certain ones of their fellows who are without a corresponding device. The slaves or the insubordinates, we’re not yet sure how their society is structured, of course. And yet they were not so armed inside the arena. We know, therefore, that they were also restricted by their own version of what we called a Zeta Line, their own adjusted so that it would match what the Orb Station or the Builders operating it decided would make for an equal fight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, the new Orb Station Alpha has been communicating with Earth. It has broadcast a description of
the aliens that we will have to battle on that station.”

  “Just a description? Text? That’s annoying.”

  Howe’s lip curled. “Indeed. Everything the Orb Builders do appears designed to manipulate us, does it not? Their messages describe a tall creature, three meters high at full stretch. At the top is a somewhat spherical head or body, armored in some fashion and it is ambulatory via sixteen very thin legs, or tentacles, or whipcord-like appendages.”

  “Sixteen legs?”

  “Extravagant, is it not? Obviously, they sound rather like a monster from a nightmare and it gets worse. You see, we asked our friend Red about these creatures and it became really quite agitated. It seems that the wheelhunters know these aliens as the Great Enemy or some such hyperbolic cliché. The name they gave them has no known translation so UNOP has designated them hexadecapodiformes. Of course, some people are already calling them squids. I will have to stamp out that nonsense before it takes off or else we will end up stuck with it, like we did with the word wheelhunters. Ridiculous.” He flicked his finger at the screen and an image of the creature floated up on it. “This is a mockup of what we think it will look like.”

  Even as a static, 3D image, it was nightmarish. The thin appendages were clustered under the hard, bulbous body. It looked like it would scuttle or scurry. If it was three meters tall, she could not imagine how a human could defeat one in an Orb arena.

  “The wheelers are at war with this new species? These hexadeca… the hex guys?”

  “A conflict facilitated through the Orbs, yes. We’re still trying to establish a common method for describing time with the wheelhunters but they may have been in direct military conflict for hundreds of years. Red has conveyed a sense of desperation and fear of this new species. The wheelhunters have apparently founded colonies on a number of worlds but have seen many of them taken by the hexadecapodiformes. We believe Red is saying the new species outmatches them on the ground and in space combat. Their technology is superior and they are far more aggressive than the wheelhunters.”

  “I thought it was official opinion that the wheelers aren’t as aggressive as humans, sir?”

  “That is probably true but we believe now that the alien outpost on Arcadia was made up of scientists and the soldiers were irregulars. Militia, perhaps. The Wildfire was a warship, that’s true but they were not truly expecting us to win and to offer them such a challenge. They did not expect us to react so quickly and send a fleet to reinforce the Victory. They underestimated us, just as we had them, on the ground. We do not know yet whether we could defeat the wheelhunters in an all-out war but it would likely be a close-run thing. If the hexadecapodiformes really are more dangerous than the wheelers, then humanity is facing an even greater existential threat than we had realized.”

  “We might have a war on two fronts?”

  “A war with the wheelhunters alone might have bled us dry for decades but against the hexadecapodiformes also?” It was clear from his expression that he had his doubts. “If we can bring a wheeler faction over to our side as allies then we might just even the balance through technological and information exchanges, even personnel and materiel, perhaps. The future, for all of humanity, looks to be one of conflict. If we’re to survive these threats, we need everyone on Earth and in the colonies pulling together. We need to embrace total war. We need our best and brightest to sign up for the Navy and for the Marines. We need all our scientists working on weapons and energy technology and we need engineers to build ships and create hundreds and thousands more habitats in asteroids. We need to disburse further within our home system and to bring as many people as we can out to Cancri and begin to cover Arcadia and the other bodies in this system with people.”

  “So,” Kat said, “you’re suggesting I don’t go home to become a flight instructor in the recreation market?”

  “We will be recruiting Earth’s best and brightest young people into UNOP, there is no doubt about it. But you’re a good officer. You have real world experience out here. I want you on my team. That’s what we’re out here for, after all.”

  “I’m sorry?” She was not quite sure what he was getting at.

  “The question comes up, time and again. Usually from civilians but not always. Politicians love to ask it.” He raised his eyebrows, dramatically. “Why, Admiral Howe, they say. Why do we not use drones? There are AIs that can be programmed with perfectly acceptable ethical parameters, so let them fly the fighters, bombers, and the ships, no? Let them choose when to fire the missiles and let the robots stride across the battlefield, they say. Or if it’s not AI and robots, the questioners ask again about artificial persons being used as soldiers. No one to mourn them when they die, no one of us humans has to feel guilty about murdering another one of us. Why should purebred humans be tainted with the traumas of violence?”

  He paused, looking at her.

  “And,” Kat asked, slowly, “what do you say to them?”

  He leaned back, sighing. “Oh, I equivocate, and I quote the laws against using this or that. But the truth is, it has to be us. Why bother existing, if we retire ourselves from the fighting itself? We relegate ourselves to button pushers and risk avoiders. Violence, war. Aggression. It is who we are. It must continue to be what we are, as we expand out into our system and into new systems. You and me. All of us, out here. No matter how much we enhance our biology and integrate with technology, we remain completely human. Human, but better. Only through directly engaging in conflict can we reach our potential as individuals and only through warfare can our species reach the heights that it must do in order to survive. We will reach greatness by holding our weapons in our hands directly, not by remote control and not by lines of code.”

  Classic technoprimitivist ideology. The military all over the world was partial to it, for obvious reasons and UNOP was remarkably keen on it. The flexibility of it as an ideology meant that any ethical action could be justified through appeals to historic precedent or human behavioral biology, cherry picked and simplified, if need be. People usually assumed that Kat was a believer, for some reason. It was an attractive enough concept but so flexible to be close to meaningless, in Kat’s entirely uneducated opinion.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “You don’t agree?” He was frowning. “Do you believe that we should use tank-bred APs and production line robots to fight our enemies for us?”

  “No.” Kat hesitated, because Admiral Howe was one step below God and a hundred times more dangerous. On the other hand, what could he do that would be worse than what she had already faced. “It’s just that, if you treat your officers and NCOs like drones and APs, then what’s the real difference?”

  He stared at her, face flushing dark at his cheeks. “You are referring, of course, to the fact that you and your fellows were deceived about the possibility of human prisoners onboard the alien ship. I can understand your position. It is natural for you to take it personally. On the other hand, you are seeing what was done to you through the lens of a pre-Orb Station Alpha morality. The stakes are grander now and the old rules will be stretched further. Because time was of the essence, and you were required in order to give us the highest possible chances for success, you were manipulated. The psychological profiles for you, Rama Seti and Sergeant Stirling all suggested that you would perhaps resist volunteering for a hit and run mission to simply drop off a bomb, and so the chance of human POWs on the enemy ship was emphasized to speed up the process.”

  “With respect, sir,” Kat said, feeling very little respect whatsoever, “they lied to us. Used us.”

  “We’re not out here for us. Did you not know that, Lieutenant?” The admiral tapped his chin while he regarded her. “It isn’t us that benefits from all this effort, all this death and loss. We don’t get to enjoy the fruits of our labor here. We’re doing all this so that in a hundred years or a thousand, humanity is still around. Still thriving. You fought so that this planet can one day have cities on the sea front with cafes
and restaurants with a sea view and people raising their family here. That’s why we’re here. That’s what duty is. It’s what it means.”

  “I never really went in much for all that, sir.”

  Howe slowly extended a finger and pointed at her face. “I think you did, Lieutenant. The problem is that you do not realize it yet. When you accept that you will only find fulfilment through embracing your sense of duty, you will no longer feel at odds with yourself and with the world.”

  Kat almost laughed but a feeling of dread overwhelmed her.

  Dread that he might be right.

  “That’s quite the upsell, sir.”

  “You must understand that I am in no way suggesting my offer will prove an easy way forward for you, merely that it will be a fulfilling one. There will be no simple choices. Getting all of humanity working together in a state of total war will mean our species, our civilization will continue on to thrive amongst our enemies out there. We have had to make a number of utterly indefensible and unforgivable deceptions, as when we lied to you and the Marines. Seti was always supposed to be expendable anyway. Stirling is a Marine and we will need to spend those fellows like pennies at a garage sale for many years to come. You, we did not want to see wasted but you must see that in the cost-benefit analysis—”

  “Of course, sir,” Kat said, unable to take any more.

  The fact was, humanity did have enemies. Entities that were actively trying to destroy her and her family and all the families that there were and all the families that there could be. Only a moral and physical coward would avoid stepping up to play their part.

  And so, like all grand life decisions, it was, ultimately, rather simple.

  “Alright, sir. I’m in.”

  The admiral nodded. A man well used to having his own way. “I’m glad you understand. Now, what do you think about starting right away in the—”

  “What’s going to happen to them?” Kat spoke over him. “To Seti and Stirling? They were supposed to be coming out of surgery earlier but they said there were complications.”