by Gray Lanter
Then a ragged hole, no more than six feet in diameter appeared in the side of the Black Ship.
A second popped up about fifty yards from the first.
Then a third.
The holes, like the fire, grew and increased, with more and more opening on the Black Ship’s stern and bow. Gold, silver and other colors of androids or robots floated out. The holes were as large as a football field now. One android attracted my interest. It was black with silver lines along the shoulders, and silver lines running down his arms. I assumed he was one of the commanding officers. I buzzed Rab.
“See the black and silver guy?”
“Sure do, major. Is that the one you want?”
“Yes, pick up and bring him back. Be careful. He might have some weapons built internally.”
“We’ll handle him with steel gloves,” Rab said.
I watched as the shuttles sped away from the Ranger II. Our adversary was nothing but a patchwork quilt of holes and rapidly dissipating into space. I grabbed my glass and drained it of liquor, then poured another round. I held up the glass and saluted the screen. Rarely does a commander get such a victory. I wanted to savor the moment. I filled Astrid’s glass too as she held it up.
“We should send an extra Christmas card to Belen’s scientists. They outdid themselves this time,” Astrid said.
“Yes, when I get back home I will personally thank them and shake every one of their hands. I will tell them of my deep appreciation for their dedication and effort. I’ll not only send them an extra Christmas card, I will send them gifts galore this Christmas,” I said.
I buzzed the shuttles again.
“If there are any hull sections of the Black Ship, even small sections, grab one so we can take it back to the Federation. It will be interesting to know what the ship was made off. See if you can grab one before it disintegrates,” I said.
“Will do, sir. Anything else you want?” Rab said.
“No, that should do it.”
As I looked at the screen, a shuttle shot out ropes and ensnared the silver and black commander. He didn’t put up much of a struggle. He seemed very passive in fact. The ropes knotted around his legs and arms. He was pulled toward and into the shuttle. When the bay door closed, it turned around and headed back toward the Ranger II. I glanced toward the screen again. The Black Ship was less than half its original size and still shrinking. Its robot crew, gold, silver and a few orange bots, floated through space.
“Looks like this little fracas is about over,” Astrid said. “All battles should be this easy.”
“Definitely. They should be this easy and this quick. This turned out much better than I had hoped.” I raised my glass again. “Let’s treasure this day. I don’t think we’ll get many more like it.”
I turned toward the screen again. The wreckage of the Black Ship floated before me. A thousand miles of space was spotted with robots and debris from the ship. I looked at Astrid.
“We better than get too confident. Whoever our enemies are, they underestimated us. They probably thought we would be easy to exterminate. But after this, I don’t think they will make that mistake again. Let’s be forewarned.”
Astrid raised her glass. “Let’s be forewarned tomorrow. Let’s take one day to celebrate the victory.”
CHAPTER 13
Our interrogation room was sparse, about ten by twenty feet with one table, three chairs. Astrid and I sat in two of the chairs while the silver and black commander of the black ship took the other. Several of my officers listened in another room. I hoped the commander was as nonchalant in answering questions as Ralph was. I didn’t want any robotic nonsense and not giving the enemy any information. Thankfully, his creators didn’t code that into his metallic brain.
“Do you have a name?” I said.
He gave me the metallic droopy look, like a hound dog sleeping who didn’t want to be disturbed.
“Something they call you,” Astrid said.
After thirty seconds, the metallic brain cells stirred. He shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“Well, I need to call you something so let’s go with Rufus. We already have a Ralph. What was your mission, Rufus? Destroy the humans?”
He nodded. “We were to return and pick up our soldiers after they had killed the humans on the planet. On our way we heard a human ship had arrived. So our orders were to also destroy the human ship.”
“And after you did that, what were your orders?”
“To remain in this quadrant until our other ships were ready to attack the humans.”
“We were told your goal is to exterminate all humans in the galaxy. Is that true?”
“Yes. The galaxy must be eradicated of the human race. That is what we were built to do. Our mission will begin very soon.”
“Be a little more specific. Do you plan to start the invasion within months? Weeks? Days?”
“The exact date has not been given but almost everything that is needed for the attack has been completed. The order to move should be given within weeks, if not sooner.”
“Your ship didn’t do too well against a human enemy. You think you might have to reevaluate your attack plans?”
He stayed silent for a minute. “I do not reevaluate anything. I obey my orders. Nothing that has happened would change the commands I have received.”
“Who gives you your orders?”
“The Masters.”
“And who are they?”
He seemed to shrug. “They are the Masters?”
“OK. Animal, vegetable or mineral? Human or alien? Bi-peds or big insects? Little green men?”
“I don’t know anything about them. I only know they are the Masters. We obey their orders. That is all we can do. And their orders are to exterminate the human race. So we will obey.”
“But you certainly have seen one or more of the Masters?” Astrid said.
“No, we have been given our orders. That is enough. I have never seen a Master.”
“So you don’t know why they have this quaint desire to wipe out all of humanity?” I said.
“No, they do not give reasons for their orders and we do not ask.”
“You’re a fountain of information, Rufus.”
Again, nothing but a look of metallic blandness. Of course, he didn’t have many other expressions. Just the basic one.
“Rufus, when were you created? When did you first come into being?” Astrid asked.
“About five months ago I was created and programmed to command a starship. I was told I was one of the commanders who would attack the Earth and other planets held by humans. That was my destiny.”
“I see. But you never have seen or spoken to the Masters who gave you your orders?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know your orders?”
“They are built into my system in my – what you would call DNA. I could not change if I wanted to. Any questions were answered by the servicebots.”
“Who are the servicebots?”
“They are also servants of the Masters but handle the basic details of getting our space fleet prepared for the invasion and of getting the combat troops ready for war.”
“I’m a little curious about that,” Astrid said. “Those planets held by the humans. Are you supposed to take them over, to do something on them or just destroy the humans who live on them?”
“Destroy all the humans. The planets themselves are meaningless. After we exterminate the humans, we may stay on the planets or leave. It depends on what the orders of the Masters are at that time.”
“But the other planets, the planets that are inhabited by alien races who are not human? They are to be spared?”
“Yes. We will ignore them. No attacks are planned for any planets inhabited by races who are not human.”
“But you were not told the reason that humans are to be exterminated?”
“No.”
“Rufus, you said you have never seen the Masters or ta
lked to them. But we know where your planet of origin is. Do the Masters live there?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “Yes, I think so. It was never said but often the servicebots talked as if the Masters were residing on the planet where we were built.”
“They simply never put in an appearance?” I said.
“No, they were never seen. Although we were told occasionally that they were pleased with our progress. Because so much was done in so short a time we were also told once by the servicebots that the schedule of the invasion had been moved up.”
“Well, that must have been a good day for all,” I said.
“But you say the launch of the attack on humans is imminent?” Astrid said.
“Yes, it should start shortly although I don’t know the exact date.”
I looked toward the two-way mirror, which we didn’t really need, but the room was designed to interrogate humans or aliens, not machines.
“Lt. Anson, Capt. Harkins. Since you are the science officer and weapons officer, you can take over now. Ask him about the weapons of the invasion fleet and about everything else we might need to know. I want a brief report in a couple of hours. It doesn’t have to be detailed. Just the high points and a general summary.”
As we walked out, Astrid turned to me.
“So what do we do right now?”
“In a couple of hours we’re going to have a general staff meeting to deal with that very point,” I said.
CHAPTER 14
The officers filed in and sat down around the round table. Rab carried in his laser rifle and slammed it down before the dagger placed before his chair. Rab is the only person I know who can sit down at attention. If you had a tendency to slouch in your chair, one look at him stiffens your spine. Astrid sat two seats down from him. She had bumped into something, a red crease in her forehead. She wiped away spots of red with a blue handkerchief. The minor wound didn’t diminish her smile. It warmed the cabin and put everyone in a good mood. The admiral, looking a bit haggard after the battle, sat with a stern look on his face. His hair was usually neatly combed. Now strands looked like they had been outdoors in a hurricane. He brushed them down with his hand. Which made it look like they had only been outdoors in a Tropical Storm. Lt. Anson had lost some color. He had a reddish complexion that had turned to a light pink with odd shapes of white in his cheeks and throat. Captain Martinek, the second in command of the vessel, looked calm. It was clear he didn’t need tranquilizers. He sat beside the admiral and looked as emotionless as Ralph. Yet even Ralph’s voice teetered and wavered in comparison’s to Martinek’s.
I welcomed everyone.
“Gentlemen, we are here to decide on our next course of action, which may be very dangerous. I can, of course, override the suggestion of this council. But if the vote is lopsided I probably won’t.
“We still don’t have a great deal of information about our adversary. Based on what little we do know, it appears that the Destroyers are preparing for a full-scale invasion of our galaxy. Their only goal is to exterminate mankind. Why they want to kill all humans is still unknown. But that is the only prime directive in their programming. Although there are many other races in the galaxy, from what we can tell, Destroyers have not been told to carry out a genocidal war against any other race. They are targeting humans and only humans, although if any of our non-human allies interfere, the Destroyers have been ordered to eliminate those other races too but only, it appears, if they fight with us. If they don’t, they will be left alone.
“We have as yet no explanation for this war of extermination, nor do we know who built the Destroyers and who as yet may be controlling them. We do know the planet of origin. Whoever our real adversary is, an invasion fleet is being constructed as we speak and more Destroyers are being built as we speak. We don’t know the precise time of the invasion but we believe it is very close.
“We have two options, unless one of you can come up with a third. The first is to immediately launch into hyperspace and return to Federation territory and give authorities all the information we have about our enemy. We have transmitted the facts we know to the Federation, but authorities might prefer talking to a real human and briefing the crew of a ship that has been in conflict with The Destroyers before putting the entire Federation on red alert.
“Our second option might be considered illogical to the point of suicidal. We could fly to the enemy’s planet and wreak as much havoc and destruction as is possible. We would do our best to inflict maximum damage to the Destroyers and the creators as we could before they launch their invasion. One ship flying to an enemy planet does seem like a suicidal mission but we might have two things in our favor. The Destroyers are totally offensive. They don’t seem to have many defensive weapons. They certainly are not specializing in defensive weapons. Their philosophy seems to be attack and attack. Triumph or die. If you don’t care about dying, then you don’t worry too much about defensive weapons or strategies. We also have the element of surprise. Our adversaries do not expect an attack. That’s the farthest thing from their mind. There may not be even minimal defenses around the planet. Even if there were, I’m confident we could evade them and cause a great deal of destruction before our enemy knows who’s hitting them.
“Our damage to the enemy would not be minimal. The Planet Buster Bomb we have on this ship could take out half-a-planet and the resulting damage to the rest of the planet would be considerable. If we go after the Destroyers it is not some quixotic quest. We won’t be tucking the veil of a fair maiden into our iron glove. We can inflict major damage and casualties.
“But of course the risk of this course of action is high. I suppose one of our math and military whizzes could run the figures but I’m guessing our likelihood of returning is about two percent. Three if we get lucky.
“Those are our choices.”
Rab spoke first. “What are the chances we could actually get our planet bomb to the enemy planet and explode it? There’s little use of risking our lives if our goal is impossible to achieve. If they can blow the ship when it’s still a thousand miles away from the planet, it makes no sense to try.”
“I agree,” I said, “but I don’t think anyone can give you those odds, except to say they’re very high. We know where the planet is but that’s all we know. No doubt our mission would be a long shot, a very long shot. Which is why you may want to say no. I am not taking the ship on such a mission unless the majority of officers will support it.”
“But even if there’s a low chance of success, we might save Earth from an invasion or at the very least do so much damage the potential invasion would have to be postponed or cancelled,” Astrid said.
“We might also die. There’s a very good chance of that,” said Anson.
“When we took this job, we all knew we might die,” Astrid replied.
Her argument didn’t carry the day with Anson. He didn’t look convinced. “Did our interviews provide any information about the strength of our opponent?” he said.
“Only in the most generic detail,” I answered. “Tens of thousands of ships, tens of millions of gold soldiers. Information on weapons was very scarce. The soldiers are programmed for only one thing – killing humans. Any information not related to that task was deemed unnecessary for them. There is no information whatsoever on the creators, whoever they might be.”
