Reaper's Crossroad

by Timothy Ellis

  "Your fleet is pitiful," said the admiral. "I see some big guns, but not many of them. Let's see how your defenses fare against our most advanced missiles."

  He barked an order down into the pit.

  "Launch warning," said Jane through my PC. "Several thousand. Launching mosquitos."

  One of the screens was now showing a tactical of the planet, with missile tracks. Another was showing my fleet, and the three to one mosquito launch which now clouded the display. What they didn’t realize was they'd identified to Jane every single launch point they had. It gave us an extra option to hit them all. Given they were all around the planet, collateral damage would be major.

  The missiles from the ground were slow to reach orbit, giving Jane plenty of time to task the first launch of mosquitos to the further away missiles, and have a second launch ready for the nearer ones.

  Space boiled.

  Tigers were wearing grins, and shooting me glances to see how I was coping with my fleet being destroyed. I kept my serious game face on, and waited for the displays to clear.

  "How?" exclaimed the admiral, when it became apparent none of their missiles had managed to hit any of my ships.

  "In terms of defenses, you are not our equal. We fought the Darkness and won. Compared to them, you are little kittens playing with toys."

  I was laying it on a bit thick, but what the hell.

  The admiral rose, looking thunderous.

  "The Darkness is a myth."

  "The Darkness is a myth NOW."

  I wondered how many times I was going to have to say this in the years to come.

  "Target one locked," said Jane.

  "Fire," I said sub-audibly.

  Alarms went off in the pit below, and all eyes turned to the screen showing my fleet's titan and battleship guns firing.

  "What are you firing at?" the admiral barked at me.

  The ground rumbled beneath us before I could reply.

  "Sir?" said a minion. "The Braynar volcano."

  "What about it?"

  "It isn’t there anymore. The entire island is gone, and a tidal wave is in its place."

  "Worse," said another. "The sea has flooded into the new caldera, and the whole area is erupting."

  The governor's pit burst into frantic activity as warnings were sent to coastal regions. Evacuation orders were given.

  "Was that necessary?" asked the governor.

  "You tell me. You fired at us first. I just returned the courtesy. It was merely a demonstration of what will follow if we do not have a cease fire soon."

  "Demonstration? Certainly you can do our planet some damage, but really, destroying us would take you a long time with what you have here. Is that what you want?"

  "I want peace. I was told you needed to consider us a threat worthy of it, before it could happen. Are we a threat to you yet?"

  "No more than an irritation," said the admiral.

  "Fine. Admiral Bentley?"

  "Sir?"

  "Come on down."

  Hammer of Thor appeared through the rift immediately, and was quickly followed by the rest of the titans. They spread out around the planet, taking an orbit above targets Jane had supplied. The tactical screen displayed them as the small boxy stations they appeared to be, while another screen showed Hammer in enough detail to show the plain big box she currently was.

  "What madness is this?" asked the admiral. "We've been told about these missile stations of yours. Are you here to insult us?"

  Obviously we'd had a few spies on foot go through Redoubt we didn’t know about.

  "They're not stations. Admiral Bentley, you may go to battlestations now."

  Hammer changed shape. Turrets rose from her top and bottom sides, and she angled over so all of them could fire down.

  "In case you can't count, the large turrets under my carriers are the same ones on each of my titan class ships. Only they carry either twenty four or forty eight turrets depending on the class. Do the math admiral, and then have someone check the targets under each ship."

  There was a silence from the pits as tigers ran the numbers, and checked the locations. Images flicked across one of the screens. All of them were mountains.

  "Report," ordered the governor.

  There was silence from the pits. Finally, one young looking tiger dared to look up.

  "Perdition's fire," he said.

  Sixty Two

  "Who are you to threaten us with planetary destruction?"

  The governor boomed it at me, beating the admiral, who closed his mouth instead.

  "I am your doom. You have options. Choose one."

  "What. Options?"

  The admiral grated the words out, obviously trying to keep his temper from erupting.

  "The easy option is to die now. I'll order my ships to fire on every super-volcano and dormant volcano on this planet, and the resulting eruptions will tear the planet apart. If anything remains, it won't sustain life."

  I flicked a glance between them.

  "The second option is I reverse what I did at the jump point, and allow ships to jump in, and not jump out. This planet becomes isolated, unable to communicate with any other system, and especially unable to import food. Every ship which comes here will find itself stranded, and accelerate the collapse of your society into barbarism where numbers equate to available food to sustain them."

  "But that’s not all I can do. I'll make it my business to hunt down every Keerah system, and join their jump points to yours, so every ship jumping out, jumps in here, accelerating your population growth. Eventually, all of your populations will collapse as traders begin to refuse to visit your systems, after enough of their numbers vanish."

  "Personally I favour option one. It's quick, messy, kills a few hundred million to make my point, but allows me to move on to your next most important system, and offer the same options to them. And so on until I find a governor and military leader with enough sense of self-preservation to deal."

  I looked at them both again, wondering which would ask the question. It turned out to be the governor.

  "What deal?"

  "Option three. You swallow your pride, admit conquest is a fool's game which only ends with self-destruction, and you announce a cease fire wherever you are currently in conflict with humanoid species. You send diplomats to the Imperium to negotiate a proper peace, and trading agreements."

  "You want us to admit to being weak?" asked the admiral.

  "No. You accept reality. You control a third of the galaxy's core. You failed to take Imperium space, and in fact have lost systems to us instead. You are making no inroads into Ralnor or Trixone space. There is very little expansion left for you. The task before you now is not conquering more space, it is governing what you have. We've met the Bhockah. We will meet more of your conquered species. You are ripe for insurrection, and it won't take much for it to happen."

  I was guessing, but it probably wasn’t a guess. Conquest eventually bred uprisings. The Bhockah might not be the first, but they would eventually.

  The admiral shook his head.

  "There is only one option here. We will throw all we have into conquering your Imperium. Our ships are already on their way. You might destroy us here, but the Keerah species will prevail in the long run."

  "We have a saying. The only important battle is the last one. And we're very good at winning the final battles we fight. Maybe that’s option four. We let you crash against our defenses, which we will expand faster than you can get ships to our space, and eventually you'll weaken yourselves so much, all those you conquered will rise up and cast off the yoke of your oppression. It's not my choice though."

  "Why not?" asked the governor.

  There was something about his tone which suggested he already knew the answer.

  "The Keerah are a vital species to the welfare of this galaxy. If you continue the way you are, you will eventually force someone to destroy you or conquer you. In the fullness of time, the longer you assault our
defenses, the weaker you become everywhere else, and the Ralnor and Trixone will eventually carve up what remains of your territory after your conquered species take their own space back from you."

  "I’d rather war ended here, and we start to build a galactic core which becomes one big trading network. Our method of arrival can be used for linking all the corners of space so trade only takes moments to go from anywhere to anywhere. I see a galactic economy where the distance of space is not an obstacle, and all benefit."

  The governor's expression suggested this wasn’t what he'd expected. It changed to speculative as the impact of distance negated trade started to make sense. Or was it just greed surfacing?

  "Ridiculous and impossible," snarled the admiral.

  "You have flag officers and governors only one system away from Imperium space in three places. All you need to do is ask, and we'll show you how to walk from one end of your space to the other."

  "We've heard this before in reports. We didn’t believe it then, and we don’t believe it now."

  "The offer stands. All we need is a cease fire. If you want a demonstration yourselves, I can arrange for you to visit the Imperium, and have you home for dinner. What say you?"

  The governor still looked thoughtful, but the admiral was enraged. I shifted my feet so I was braced.

  "There can be no peace. You defile this chamber with your talk of it. It ends now. Defend yourself human."

  He dropped to all fours, and leapt towards me.

  Two steps beyond the walkway, his rear paws left the floor abruptly, he roared in pain, and collapsed just short of me. Front paws moved to cup the injured area in a way all males could sympathize with, and he moaned.

  Aline appeared lying on the ground just beyond him, as her suit shifted to 'slinky red'. She rose, a determined grin on her face, and stood over the fallen tiger.

  "You want to fight him? You go through me first."

  The governor was looking shocked. But apparently not for what I thought was the main reason. He looked from her to me.

  "You allow females to fight?"

  "In our society, the sexes are equal. Females not only fight, but they go in at the shit end of any conflict, and demand to do so. Observe."

  An instant later, the whole team appeared, guns drawn and pointed at the tigers in the pit. Annabelle had the governor covered, now standing on the walkway with her gun almost touching his head.

  The gasps of shock came from everyone in the pits, half of which I was sure, was about all of my troops being women. The governor had eyes only for the gun barrel pointed at him. The admiral moaned again.

  "Did you have to hit him that hard?" I asked Aline.

  "Hard? That was a love tap. If he wants to get up and fight me properly, I'll show him hard."

  Her fists changed into something resembling metal boxing gloves. She mimed throwing some punches. The governor tore his eyes away from the gun, and looked horrified at Aline. I looked over at Annabelle.

  "General, perhaps the governor could use a little thinking space."

  "Sir."

  She moved back off the walkway, but continued to point her gun at the governor. He looked again at the admiral, then over to each of the still down guards. And finally back to me.

  "Let me guess. Another of your technologies we are unable to counter?"

  I grinned at him.

  "Call off your ships Imperator Hunter. You've made your case. The cease fire will be issued immediately, although it will take a day to reach our forces near your space."

  "Actually, if you send it right now, it will reach them within minutes, via the method we arrived here, and my own communications network. You can have answers just as quickly."

  "You would allow that?"

  "Why wouldn’t I? We want peace. Why would I slow it down by not allowing you to send messages quickly?"

  He didn’t have an answer. The doors opened at the admiral's end, and a white tiger walked in, followed by six orange guards. He ignored my team and their guns, walked over to the still downed admiral, reached down, and tore off his baldric. From it he took one of the badges, which he added to his own. Two of the guards dragged the admiral out. The other four dragged out the downed guards.

  The white, a general this time, stood there looking around the room, and finally looked at me.

  "You can stand down your troops, Imperator."

  He preceded to continue to ignore all the guns, walked across to the seat the admiral had vacated, and sat. He looked over to the governor for comment, but received none.

  "General, you can stand down the team please. Take a position along the wall."

  "Yes sir."

  Nothing further was said, as the girls did as I asked. All but Aline, who took up a position slightly behind and to one side of me.

  "You may return to your ships Imperator," said the governor. "The cease fire orders will be sent to you as well. If you don’t mind, we have citizens in need of saving because of you."

  I opened my mouth.

  "Don’t say it," said the general. "We accept our damage and casualties as we do for any failed battle. The one who failed has been replaced. We would refuse any offer of aid as an insult. Leave us. You will hear from our diplomats in due course. You will please restore our jump point."

  "Of course, as soon as the cease fire is in effect. I'll leave communications open for the next day so you may issue orders to your people near our space. And the invitation for the two of you to visit us remains open."

  I nodded, turned my back on them, and walked straight through the rift back to the cargo bay. The team followed, and I closed the rift down.

  "That went well," said Jane.

  It had, but I was getting sick of her saying it.

  Sixty Three

  Back on the bridge, I stood down the fleet.

  The relief showing on most of my ship captain's faces mirrored my own. The titans changed back into large boxes, but remained pointed at volcanos.

  The planet was buzzing with ships converging on the about to be wet areas of the planet. Smaller freighters undocked from the stations, and dropped towards the low lying areas as well.

  "Had to be done," said Amanda.

  "We can be thankful it was only this bad," added Aleesha.

  I frowned, and nodded. I was trying to think of ways I could stave off the impending disaster down there. The volcano was erupting into the air very spectacularly, in spite of the land being well below water level now. I had ideas, but not the time to complete them.

  The cease fire orders arrived, and about five minutes later, came acknowledgements from all three systems on our borders. Also news a fleet heading for Kelewan had turned back.

  I sent the titans home immediately, after making the rift edges visible. Wayward fleet lined up ready to depart, with BigMother at the rear. When Jane confirmed all but a single fleet of ships were heading away from the jump points into our space, I had the fleet rift back to Redoubt.

  With only BigMother remaining, I removed the rift on the jump point, and Jane informed the Keerah their fleets could return home. Within minutes, the first fleet jumped in, formed up, and headed directly to the planet. I took that as our cue to leave. We knew exactly what was going on in the whole system, having seeded cloaked comnavsats all over.

  Back in Redoubt, I moved the other end of the rift to a point well above the plane of the system, and closed it down to less than the size of a fighter. Enough size to send through communications, but not enough for any size of warship to come through. This end I also moved high above the plane of the system, so nothing would accidently try to go through it.

  By the time I’d finished, Jane had us docked. The team departed, with loud calls for a party. I told Aline I needed to finish a few things, and I'd meet her on Haven later. She took Angel with her.

  With just me left, I swiveled to face the rear of the bridge.

  "I think it's time we had a talk Thirteen."

  He materialized in one o
f the chairs, looking amused.

  "How did you know I was here?"

  "Max has been looking particularly contented lately, as if you'd been dropping in on him regularly. Once I figured that out, it was pretty likely you were monitoring everything we were doing."

  "A reasonable deduction, and quite true. What do you want from me?"

  "Did you or any other higher send me to Gold Coast?"

  "Nope. That was all you."

  "Fine. Why do I get the impression the Keerah are less than what they used to be?"

  "What gives you that impression?"

  "I was told when the Darkness conquered the galaxy, the Keerah were the last to fall. Specifically that their hull technology gave them the edge over everyone else, albeit it not being enough at the end."

  "True. What of it?"

  "I've seen no such superiority of hull tech. Sure, their hulls are better, and in a long fight, they can regenerate them, but they are much less than I expected. Any idea why?"

  "A lot of things changed with the time line. One of ours worked with the Keerah to perfect their hull regeneration technology. In the new time line, this was never done. They are as you said, less than what they used to be, even though they are now more warlike than before."

  "Were you going to stop me destroying the planet?"

  "Hell no. I'm just observing. What you do is your own business. Kali gave you the sceptre for a reason though. She trusts you to use it wisely. And you did."

  I sighed.

  "I didn’t achieve anything of note here did I? Just merely postponed the inevitable?"

  "If you mean they took advantage of your unwillingness to destroy them completely, then yes. They took the opportunity to send you away thinking you won, while they get time to devise a strategy to beat you. But you suspected it anyway, and let them believe it, didn’t you?"

  "True. And I may yet have to go back and finish the job. But for now, we do at least have a chance of convincing them trade is a better option, even if it is a long shot."