by James Rosone
“Ideally, we want them to welcome us with open arms as we liberate them from the Zodarks; however, if they’re intent on staying part of the Zodark Empire, then we may have a fight on our hands. In either case, we’re going to capture the planet as it’s going to be a springboard for further invasions of Zodark-controlled space. So, we’re going to need as much intelligence as we can acquire.”
“Have you thought about bringing Hadad with us?” Hosni asked. “Or maybe that other woman, Satet? They are both from the capital city. They’d probably be able to guide us around the area a lot better than I can.”
“I have thought about that,” Royce replied. “I’m having a meeting with Colonel Hackworth to discuss it. Hadad is currently working for Governor Crawley. I’m not sure if he’ll want to come with us or if the Governor will allow him to. Hopefully, they’ll allow him to come, but if they don’t, we’ll do our best to figure it out on our own. As to Satet, I’d love to bring her, but she’s married now and is a university professor. The Republic now has her teaching Sumerian language and culture classes to help us better understand the Sumerian people.”
Hosni nodded in acknowledgment. “OK, Brian. So, what do we do while we wait to see if Hadad is going to come with us? Is there any specialized training we should be preparing right now?”
“There is,” said Royce with a nod. “Work on getting to know the rest of your teammates. We’re also going to be incorporating a number of new types of surveillance drones on this mission. Everyone’s going to need to pitch in on how to operate and use these things effectively. I’ll be the mission commander, but we have four others. If Hadad can come, then he’ll make six.
“If he comes, then we’re going to have to spend some time teaching him how to conduct an orbital HALO. That can be a tricky jump, so we’ll be practicing it ourselves a handful of times from the new ship we’ll be using for the mission. We will make a few practice trips in this new ship. I have a feeling it has some bugs that’ll need to be worked out before we’re stuck on it for months on end.”
Chapter Twenty-One
An Emperor’s Mission
Cobalt
Gallentine Imperial Palace
Rear Admiral Miles Hunt was in awe of the palace as they approached it. They had flown in a small hovercraft vehicle out of the center of the city toward the imperial palace, located on the outskirts. It was positioned along an ocean, one of the few planetary features not covered by the continuous city that wrapped around the entire planet.
Pandolly interrupted his private thoughts. “This is a great honor being bestowed upon you, Miles. I hope you understand how incredibly rare this opportunity is.”
Hunt turned to the Altairian, who had become quite the friend and mentor over the years. “I appreciate that, Pandolly. I feel my people owe this opportunity to you. You’ve taught us so much. Had the Altairians not intervened in our war with the Zodarks, there’s a good chance my people would either be slaves or dead.”
“If there is one thing I have learned from my years of interacting with you and your people, Miles, it is not to underestimate you humans,” Pandolly replied. “Of all the races of people we have encountered, humans are by far the most clever and resourceful. The technological leaps and bounds your species has made in the last thirteen years are beyond impressive.”
Pandolly fidgeted a bit. Is that nervousness I detect? Hunt asked himself.
“When we reach the outer chamber to the emperor’s private chamber, you and Ambassador Chapman will enter on your own,” Pandolly explained. “Your son, Ethan, and I will join you for dinner.”
Once the vehicle came to a halt on an outer parking pad, the four of them got out and headed into the palace. A set of guards snapped to attention as they approached. Miles and Ethan were wearing their military dress uniforms, medals and all. Nina had an elegant formal outfit on as well. The three of them were dressed to impress.
As they approached the antechamber that led to this private meeting, Ambassador Velator appeared. “Hello, Miles,” he said, a little less warmly than his previous greetings. “In a few minutes, I will escort you to meet with the Emperor and some of his key advisors. When we walk into the room, you will be required to approach the emperor and stop three tensils from him. That’s approximately three of your meters. The Emperor will approach you, and he will extend his right hand to you. You will drop to one knee and then take his hand in yours and kiss the imperial ring. The Emperor will then return to his chair, and the two of you will take your chairs.
“The Emperor will spend some time talking with you before he’ll bring in his advisors. They will quiz you on matters they would like to ask you about. When this is done, we will move to the dining hall for a formal state dinner. Your son and Pandolly will join us for this dinner. Do you have any specific questions for me before we go in?”
During the last few days, Miles had learned that Ambassador Velator was a very precise man. He provided very detailed information and liked the itinerary to run on a very precise timeline. He was a very meticulous individual, as all Gallentines appeared to be.
“No, Mr. Ambassador, I believe I understand what’s expected of us. Thank you for allowing our people the opportunity to meet with the Emperor,” Miles said calmly. He might have managed to portray composure, but internally, Miles felt like a kid on his first day of school—unsure of everything that was about to happen. Butterflies swirled about in his stomach.
“Excellent. Pandolly, we will see you later today. Miles, Ambassador Chapman, if you’ll follow me in,” Velator replied before leading them through the massive double doors of the anteroom.
When they entered the room, Miles shook his head, in awe of the grandiosity. It wasn’t gaudy, but at the same time, it had the appropriate amount of decorative touches to communicate to those entering the hall that someone important resided here. The Emperor sat on a throne on a raised platform at the end of the chamber. Along the edge of the room were large, ornate columns. There were guards positioned periodically throughout the chamber, armed with a type of rifle Miles had never seen before.
Along the walls of the room, windows provided natural light, and a strange light emanated from the ceiling. There were some flags with strange markings on them hanging on the walls—Miles assumed these must represent some of the factions of their Empire.
As they approached the raised platform with the throne, the Emperor stood to greet them. He proceeded to walk down toward them. “People of Earth—Admiral Miles Hunt and Ambassador Nina Chapman—it is truly an honor to meet you both.”
As the leader of the Empire approached, Miles and Nina dropped down to a knee as they had been instructed. The Emperor held his right hand out to them. As instructed, Miles reached for the extended hand and saw a large rectangular ring with the seal of the Gallentine on it. He kissed the seal as he’d been taught and then waited for Nina to do the same.
When this part of the protocol had been completed, the Emperor turned around to head back to his throne. Some people appeared from the side of the room, holding two very comfortable-looking chairs, which they brought forward for Miles and Nina.
“How would you like me to address you?” the Emperor asked. “Shall I call you by your formal military rank? You may address me as Your Majesty, a term I am told was also used on your own planet many centuries ago.”
Miles smiled that even the most powerful man in the universe would take the time to ask such a question. Miles could already tell he was going to like him.
“Your Majesty, my friends call me Miles. You may call me Miles or by my formal military rank, whichever pleases you.” Miles was doing his best to be as agreeable and amenable as he could. This was an incredible opportunity to meet the head of the Empire, and he was determined to make the most of it.
“I am pleased you feel we can be friends. I would like nothing more than for the people of Earth to become good friends with me and the Gallentine people. I shall address you as Miles, and you as Nina,” t
he Emperor said, welcoming his two guests.
“Please, take a seat. We have much to talk about. I want to get to know you both as individuals and as a race,” the Emperor said eagerly as he sat forward in his chair, truly showing an interest in them.
For the next two hours, the Emperor asked Miles and Nina a host of questions about Earth, their people, and themselves as individuals. The Emperor asked about their families and what it was like for them growing up. Both Miles and Nina had grown up after the Great War of the 2040s. The economic and physical devastation of that war had obviously impacted them as people. The Emperor was keen to learn what had caused the war and how it had ultimately ended.
Miles regaled him with tales of how the two warring sides had developed autonomous killing machines and then, later, how those machines had gone rogue and threatened the very existence of each side. The Emperor told him this story paralleled what had happened with their former friends, the Amoor, who would later go on to become the Collective as they left their biological bodies in search of transcendence.
The Emperor talked at length about his concern that the Collective was growing at a rate that, in time, would make them impossible to defeat unless a way to triumph over them was found soon. It was during this conversation about the Collective that the Emperor brought in several of his advisors to join their conversation.
One subject the Emperor’s advisors asked Miles about was his plan to seize control of the Zodark world Tueblets. They were extremely curious about why Miles had chosen that particular world when there were so many closer worlds and systems that could be seized more easily.
Miles explained his current frustration with the Altairian strategy—how he felt they were waging campaigns that were losing tens of thousands of people without bringing the war any closer to victory. Miles told them about the strategic importance of Tueblets and how its capture and the fortification of the surrounding stargates would cripple the Zodarks. He explained how he would then work on dismantling the Zodark Empire and either force them into surrendering or suing for peace. Once that had been achieved, then the Alliance would put its entire effort into defeating the Orbots.
The Gallentine advisors dissected the plan in many different ways. They asked Miles a lot of probing questions about how he would handle the war in the Milky Way galaxy, what he’d do if he were in charge of the war, and how he’d handle dealing with the Orbots and, ultimately, the Collective. Miles’s plan for dealing with the Orbots was simple—remove the Zodarks as a pawn they could use. Isolate them, then wage a total war on them across all of their systems while seeking the knockout punch that would remove them from the war.
The longer the conversation went on, the more Miles felt like this was turning into a job interview more than an exchange of ideas or a “get to know you” meeting. When they had been talking for nearly three hours, the Emperor finally asked, “What is the biggest factor holding your people back from being able to wage the kind of war you want to wage to defeat the Zodarks and then the Orbots?”
Miles felt this was a bit of a loaded question but did his best to answer it truthfully. “Aside from the war council and those who lack the will or the vision to see victory—technology. We’ve done a lot with the technology we have. But at the end of the day, we’re facing off against a technologically advanced foe that has more ships, more resources, and more ways to defeat us.”
“If you could be given one piece of technology to change the course of the war, what would it be?” asked one of the Emperor’s military advisors.
Miles wasn’t sure how to respond right away. He asked for a moment to think about it. When he was ready, he replied confidently, “Wormhole technology.” At this point, Miles figured that the Gallentines had offered the opportunity to make such a request, and he was going to go for it. “While our warships are inferior to the Orbots’, we’ve found ways to leverage the technology we do have to defeat them. What we lack is the ability to travel from one system to another the way they can, or for that matter, the way the Gallentines and the Altairians can. If we had the same wormhole travel technology as the Altairians, we could deploy our forces faster and keep the enemy off-balance.”
That same military advisor then asked for clarification. “You mean our wormhole generator? The ability to create a portable wormhole that other ships in a fleet can use as opposed to just the single ship generating the wormhole?”
Miles nodded. “Yes, exactly. The Altairians have used that technology with our fleets a couple of times, but not nearly as often as they could have. For example, when our forces assisted the Primords in capturing Intus, it took our naval forces five months to travel to the battle. When we assisted the Primords in attacking Rass, it took our forces another four months to reach that battle. When the fighting was over and we redeployed our forces back to New Eden, it took four and a half months for them to reach our staging planet. This was more than an entire year we lost in transit, just moving from one battle to another.”
“You are saying if you had this technology, then you could have moved your military force from one battle to the next with little time between battles?” the Emperor asked, summarizing Miles’s point.
“Exactly, Your Majesty. That’s the key to defeating the Zodarks and the Orbots,” Miles replied. “We need to keep them off-balance. We need to keep them constantly trying to guess at what we’re doing next, where we’re going to strike, and how many forces we’re going to hit them with. If we were provided this technology, then I am confident our human fleet could make the difference in the war. Heck, we might even be able to defeat the Zodarks on our own without any help from the Galactic Empire. Humans are natural warriors; we just lack some of the technology needed to make us truly deadly in this war.”
There was a short pause in the conversation as the Emperor leaned over to talk privately with a couple of his advisors.
While they were talking, Miles whispered to Nina, “What do you suppose all of these questions are about?”
“They’ve been interviewing you,” Nina replied softly. “What they are interviewing you or us as humans for…I can’t say yet. Judging by the questions, I’m getting the vibe that maybe they aren’t happy with how the Altairians have been managing the war. It appears the Alliance has made more progress in this galactic war since we joined than they have in more than a hundred years.”
Miles snorted at the suggestion. “It sure seems that way. With all the Altairians’ technology, I’m truly surprised they haven’t been able to defeat the Orbots or the Zodarks yet.”
Before the two of them could talk amongst themselves any further, one of the Emperor’s advisors asked, “Miles, do you believe the war between the Zodarks and Orbots can be won quickly?”
“That depends on what you define as quickly,” Miles countered. “The Altairians have been fighting them for nearly a thousand years.”
“That’s a good point,” said the Emperor, seemingly amused. “That is also a problem we want to address. We are pleased with how the Altairians have cultivated and grown the Empire in the Milky Way galaxy, but their warfighting abilities are lacking. They have been at war for nearly two thousand years with the Orbots and then, later, the Zodarks. This war never should have lasted so long. We consolidated the Andromeda galaxy in less than four hundred years. We’ve consolidated three more galaxies in another thousand years. Our Empire now spans four and a half galaxies, yet the war in your home galaxy threatens that. The Zodarks and the Orbots need to be defeated—”
Miles was afraid to interrupt but did so anyway. “Excuse me, Your Majesty. Each time we’ve proposed a strategy or campaign to end the war or bring it to a swift conclusion, the Altairians and others bring up the threat of the Collective coming to the Orbots’ aid. Is that true? Would the Collective come to their aid?”
One of the military advisors spoke. “That depends. The Collective might. Right now, their attention is focused elsewhere, and it likely will be for many years to come. They are focused
on a couple of galaxies on the far side of the universe. It is the opinion of many on this council that the Collective would probably stay away. If they did attempt to intervene, it would be a limited engagement meant to restore the balance of power back to the Orbot side. However, if the Collective did appear in your galaxy, we would also dispatch ships to fight them.”
A short pause ensued before Miles asked, “Your Majesty, what can I or the people of Earth do to assist you in defeating the Orbots and the Zodarks? What can we do to end this war swiftly for the Alliance?”
The Emperor stared deeply into the eyes of the humans, as if searching their souls. Two of his advisors leaned in and whispered something to him. He nodded and then smiled. “I would like humans to defeat the Orbots and their Zodark pets. I realize you cannot do this in your current technological state. However, you have proven to be the warrior class we have been seeking. As such, we are going to do something the Altairians may not like or agree with. We know they provided you with some technology and are currently assisting you in building a new fleet of warships. We would like the current class of warships they are helping you build to be the last you construct. We will provide you with direct military assistance to lead the Alliance to victory in your galaxy.”
The Emperor continued, “We will provide you with the wormhole technology. We will provide you with the blueprints and technology to build your own orbital ring like the one we have around our own planet. This will enable Earth to become a dominant military and economic superpower in the Milky Way. It will take you many decades, maybe even a hundred years, to build, but once complete, it will become the economic engine for your people.
