Space Chronicles: The Last Human War

by Dean Sault

  “Scribe, transmit our decree to Internal Security for immediate action.”

  The standing royal then returned his attention to the officer.

  “Send the order for Prime Skah Rotaga to begin the final phase of the Tanarac Annexation. Remind him, his family awaits his success . . . or failure.”

  “Yes, my Lords.”

  The officer bowed separately to each royal before walking backwards until he reached the curtain.

  Deep in space, Prime Skah Rotaga paced angrily on the bridge of his command ship. Two crewmembers kneeled silently in front of his command chair.

  “Can either of you tell me why I should not take your heads? You saw the minefield tracings on scanners. Why did you fail to interpret the significance of those signs? Your incompetence cost me two full Battle Groups. Argue for your heads.”

  The younger Heptari spoke first without looking up.

  “Sir, I am Pak-Three Yah. I questioned the possibility and reported it. This can be verified by my station log.” He held up a small data storage device for the commander.

  Rotaga inserted the silver disk into his command module. Recordings of trace signal patterns from the antimatter minefields appeared on his screen, accompanied by a recorded conversation.

  Harmless looking space dots moved in a strange pattern along some invisible framework as dialog between Yah and his superior played. Rotaga listened with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that those innocuous dots turned out to be a very lethal trap. The recorded voices told the story.

  “But, it doesn’t correlate to any known data,” Pak-three Yah said. “It’s something new, possibly a new form of minefield.”

  A different voice responded. “Don’t worry about it. According to our telemetry analysis, it’s probably just monitor drones.”

  “But, what if it is some new kind of minefield?”

  “We don’t have reports of new Tanarac weapons. They’re just drone sensors. Ignore them.”

  “Sir, shouldn’t we inform the First Skah of each group and send out recon dregs?”

  “No, dregs would slow the fleet. They’re just drones.”

  “But, sir, I . . .”

  “I said ignore them. That’s an order!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rotaga turned back to the young officer who had given him the recording.

  “Rise Pak-Three Yah. If your superior heeded your warning, my fleet would still be at full strength. I promote you to Pak-One. You have done your job with honor, and I want you on my personal sensor deck. Your transfer is immediate. Serve with honor.”

  The sensor technician gave an enthusiastic salute before rushing away to begin his newly bestowed rank, and prestigious assignment. His former supervisor remained kneeling.

  “Pak-One Slin. Why did you ignore Yah’s warning? Speak!”

  “I have no good answer, Prime Skah. I failed and offer my head. I only ask that my family be spared.”

  “I accept your head, Slin. Your family shall be spared.”

  The kneeling Heptari lifted his chin as high as he could. A small black box hung loosely on a necklace of thin wire. Rotaga pointed his command staff at the box engraved with the royal seal of his family clan. He pressed one of the jewels on the ornate handle, and the box quivered for a moment as the wire on the necklace retracted into it. When the wire pressed into the soft, smaller scales under the officer’s neck, it stopped.

  “Prime Skah, Rotaga, it was an honor to serve you.”

  Rotaga acknowledged the compliment and pressed a second jewel. The Heptari officer’s head snapped back and to one side before dropping from his body to the floor. The small, black box landed next to the severed head, its wire loop now fully retracted. Despite the beheading, the body remained in a kneeling position, balanced tenuously on a tripod formed by its knees and tail. Blood spurted from the neck stump and ran down the soldier’s torso until it accumulated in a growing pool.

  Unaffected, Rotaga turned to his assistant.

  “Report the honorable death of Pak-One Slin to high command. His family shall have full military benefits for life. Call for clean up.”

  Rotaga left the command deck.

  In his ready room, he studied reports of the battle. A consistent pattern emerged. Damage to his heavies was insignificant, but his light ships suffered heavy losses to the Tanaracs. The Heptari commander admired the ferocity by this overwhelmed enemy. Even in retreat, they maintained order, larger ships remaining behind to cover for more vulnerable small vessels. They defended each other, sometimes to the death, rather than escape individually.

  He pushed back from his desk and thought aloud, “These Tanaracs might not be as easy to defeat as we hoped.” An intercom broke into his thought.

  “Sir, we are exiting the first of the five asteroid belts. Tanaracs are not here.”

  “Hold all ships on the interior radial line until the entire fleet has exited from the belt. Set up a fleet-wide conference with my commanders.”

  Rotaga returned to his command deck. “Report.”

  “No sign of enemy ships, sir. Your commanders are on standby, as you ordered.”

  Prime Skah Rotaga stepped into the command deck’s holo-transmitter and began delivering instructions. He congratulated them on their early achievement.

  “Our forces succeeded in the third element of this campaign. We are now entering the Final Phase. Do not underestimate this enemy. They are smart and they fight with courage, but they will fail. Our ships are powerful, and our fleet is largest in the Galaxy. Victory is certain.”

  Rotaga paused for effect.

  “There are four asteroid belts remaining between us and the Tanarac home world. They will use the rock fields to split our forces. If they engage us as we are exiting a field, they will only have to fight a small portion of our fleet while the rest of us are still inside the belt. To prevent this, heavies will take the lead instead of the usual light ships. If Tanarac warships try to engage us when we come out of an asteroid belt, they will encounter our most powerful ships.”

  Then, Rotaga spoke with deliberate intensity, “THEY WILL DIE!”

  Following Rotaga’s conference, the reorganized Heptari Battle Groups slowly entered Tanarac’s fourth asteroid belt with their most lethal, heavy starships taking the lead. Rotaga watched from his command deck as his ships slowly disappeared into the barrier. He knew his fleet was no longer operating on the Royal’s schedule, but he also understood that another mistake like the minefield could cost him his head.

  The Heptari fleet’s chief officer wondered what his Tanarac counterpart was thinking. What would he, Rotaga, do if he were in that commander’s place? Outgunned. Outnumbered. The conclusion seemed evident. He would retreat to operate within range of Tanarac’s planetary shields. They could hold out indefinitely under the strength of that protection.

  Rotaga had a sudden realization. Shields! Planetary shields would be the key to his victory.

  They must be defeated. He left the bridge abruptly.

  Chapter 32

  Deep in the cave, Kelly raised her torch. The familiar Wall was gone. In its place, a large oval opening revealed a dimly lit corridor with smooth, warmly glowing walls, nothing like the cave outside. The corridor ended with no doors or windows.

  She entered cautiously and let out a startled chirp when Simon suddenly emerged through the end-wall directly in front of her.

  “Glad you’re here,” he said. “We’re almost ready to load. C’mon, I want you to meet someone.”

  Kelly’s psychic contact with Simon changed. She scanned his mind, but instead of the usual collection of random thoughts, she saw a vast ocean of rapidly changing images—star systems, mechanical devices, hicays, old memories from their childhood, and a frightening Tanarac wearing a striped robe with no face showing within the hood’s shadow. Even a strange image of herself dressed in a white gown and wearing a wreath of multicolored flowers raced past. Her connection with Simon ended abruptly when he passed back throug
h the solid wall, expecting her to follow.

  Kelly approached the wall but could not bring herself to go any further. She reached out to touch it, but her hand began passed through a seemingly solid barrier. Startled, she pulled back.

  “S’okay,” Simon’s voice came from the intercom. “Step right through. C’mon.”

  She trusted Simon, so with closed eyes, she made the leap of faith and stepped into an apparently solid object. Bracing for an impact that did not happen, she lost her balance and tumbled forward.

  Simon’s strong forearm caught her before she went off the edge of a narrow ramp.

  “Whoa there! Don’t fall off this thing.”

  She looked over his muscular arm at a vast open area filled with menacing electrical discharges.

  He remembered his own apprehension the first time he was on this ramp. “It’s okay. You’re safe with me. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  Kelly followed her friend through a maze of passageways and rooms while he described a little about each room as they passed but never slowed enough for her to see details. Single-minded pursuit of his objective reminded her of his performance on the ore-plow’s boom when he found a rich vein of C-syncolite. Sometimes, she would have to back up the plow, pulling his boom cage completely out of the ground, before he noticed Adam’s signal that the ore bin was full and overflowing. He was obviously on just such a mission now. All she could do was trust him and try to keep up.

  “Here it is—the command center for the ship. What do ya think? Little bigger than that control cabin of yours back on Striker Twelve.”

  She did not respond, mesmerized by the vast array of unrecognizable electronics.

  Simon slipped into the pilot’s seat and waited while she took in the spectacle. She was slowly walking in his direction when he jumped up out of the pilot’s chair and pointed past her.

  “This is Dr. Boroski.”

  “Hello, my dear. I’m glad to meet you.”

  Kelly scampered over to Simon before looking back to see what startled her from behind. An old man stood right where she had been.

  “Where’d you come from?” she demanded.

  “I’m a hologram. I just appear. Did I startle you? I’ll try to give you some auditory or visual cues in the future before I materialize.”

  “Simon, why are we talking to a computer?”

  “It’s a long story, and he’s a lot more than a computer image.”

  With a momentary closing of Simon’s eyes, a reclining chair materialized, rising from the cabin floor. He invited her to have a seat before beginning his briefing about the ship, Dr. Boroski, and their mission. When he finished, Kelly got up and approached the hologram with a mix of anger and astonishment.

  “He’s just a boom operator on a stripper plow,” she yelled. “He can’t navigate a space ship through interstellar space. He can’t even drive my plow. This is crazy!”

  “In an ideal world, young lady,” the hologram addressed her skepticism, “people have the luxury of making choices based on adequate preparation. In real life, some choices are dictated by fate. Look at this.”

  Dr. Boroski pointed to several consoles that blinked to life as he spoke. A massive space battle spanned the screens. Warships fired energy cannons at each other. Shields glowed with impacts. Electrical flashes could be seen lighting blackened hulks, otherwise, dead in space. Audio increased until it filled the room, coinciding with activity on the monitors.

  The unmistakable high-pitched trill of Tanarac voices changed into human equivalent speech as the interpreter program engaged. Officers barked instructions. Pilots coordinated attacks with each other. Every so often, a plea for help ended abruptly by a death scream or the random screech of electrical overload. Each silenced transmission matched a ship vanishing from one of the monitors. The hologram scientist allowed time for Kelly to experience the full impact of the realities of war.

  “This is real,” he said gently. “It’s happening right now. Space fleets of Tanarac and the Heptari Empire are fighting just outside this star system. Heptari ships are winning, and the Tanarac fleet is retreating to prepare for the next engagement. They recalled their deep-space fleets, and, hopefully, they will arrive in time. Kelly, the Heptari plan is to kill all humans.”

  “Taskers will protect us,” she replied.

  “Quarry guards are not military fighters,” the doctor said. “They manage captive humans, and stun cords cannot compete with military weapons. Fortunately, Tanarac maintains a formidable military force. Humanity may yet survive, that is, if Tanarac defeats the Heptari Empire, but if our mutual enemy prevails, then I’m afraid, humanity will end. It’s that simple.”

  Simon noticed the intentional pause his mentor allowed for the young woman to ponder facts. For a moment, he wondered how a hologram could be so skilled at such communications. When the time seemed right, the hologram continued.

  “It would be wonderful, Kelly, if we had the luxury to wait a few years before leaving. Simon’s training could be complete and free humans better prepared. Who knows? By then, maybe even Tanaracs would be willing to help us on our journey. Unfortunately, we only have hours, not years. We must depart, and Simon will have to learn as we go.”

  Kelly was speechless. The sounds and images of the space battle ebbed as Dr. Boroski faded the screens to black. Simon put an arm around her shoulder. He felt a need to protect her.

  “I felt the same way,” he said. “This is the last thing I wanted to do, but there’s no choice. I trust Dr. Boroski, and he’ll be with us the whole way, but we need your help. We’ve got to get our people into the ship, and I can’t do it from here in the control room while managing stasis chambers. I need someone I trust to get our people into stasis. Will you do it?”

  Kelly nodded meekly, still shocked by the magnitude of the threat they were facing. She left the control room to begin preparations for receiving passengers. After a detailed briefing from Dr. Boroski, she headed back to the surface.

  “Welcome back.” Shilgar’s tone was unusually impatient. “Is the ship ready?”

  “I need four people to assist me,” Kelly relayed her instructions. “Loading can begin any time you’re ready. Send groups of ten people at six-minute intervals. It will take about six hours to load everyone. The path is well lit, but I would suggest you send one escort with each group. We don’t have time to search for anyone who wanders into a side cave.”

  Again, the Elder scout noticed leadership potential in this young woman.

  “Ammul, take your best three scouts and assist her at the ship. I’ll have the first group ready shortly. Thank you, Kelly.”

  She and her assistants left immediately for the ship. On the way down, she explained their jobs. Nothing could have prepared them for the sights they beheld when they stepped into the vessel. They had all been to The Wall before, but where the most important icon of their existence once stood, there was now a strange room with ten flat surfaces protruding from walls, five on each side. Kelly positioned two of her assistants at the entrance of the cave to receive and organize arriving groups. The other two would help her inside.

  The first group arrived.

  “Tai. Kayli. I heard you got married. Congratulations.” Kelly hugged the new bride. She only knew them from Simon’s descriptions, but they were unmistakable.

  “Yep, we did,” Tai said. “Been thinking bout this for a long time. When I asked Kayli to marry me, I was scared she would—”

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I’ll have to hear about it when we get to our new home. Right now, we have six hundred people coming down behind you. There’s no time to visit. I promise, when you two come out of stasis, I want to hear all about it. Right now, we have to get you into the ship.”

  Without further delay, Kelly led the group of ten through the ship’s entrance and began the stasis process.

  “Welcome, everyone. This is where we prepare for the trip. Please lie down on one of these beds, and we’ll get starte
d. If you have questions, just ask. The outer door of the ship is going to seal, so you have privacy during the process. Don’t be afraid. Everything is okay.”

  Kelly offered as much reassurance as she could as the ship’s door materialized.

  “Try to relax,” she said softly.

  One small boy didn’t follow directions and began crying. His mother came to his side to calm him, and Kelly joined her, patting the child’s hand as she talked.

  “How about if I put your mommy right over here next to you.” She motioned for Tai to change beds with the woman, so she would be right across from her son.

  “There. Is that better?”

  The child calmed down with his mother clearly in sight.

  “Let’s all count to ten together as we prepare for stasis. One, two.” A few people joined in the count while others waited patiently. On the count of three, a wall of blue light snapped up from the edges of the beds, encapsulating each person in an instant. It happened so fast, people resting on the platforms were frozen in the middle of saying the next number.

  There was no sign of alarm in any of them. Kelly’s helpers jumped back, startled by the sudden change. Despite her attempt to prepare them, seeing the real event for the first time came as a shock.

  “They’re fine,” she reassured one of her assistants who seemed particularly disturbed by the frozen images. “Entering suspended time is completely painless. Those blue fields are stasis tubes. When these people wake up, they will be on these same beds, and they won’t even think they entered stasis yet. Are you okay?”

  “I feel like we tricked them by acting on the three count. Why can’t we explain to people exactly what will happen, so they understand?” The troubled assistant argued that it might be better to give people honest expectations and freedom to back out.

  “Ordinarily, I would agree with you,” Kelly said with compassion. “Our problem is we have to load six hundred people in less than six hours. That’s only six minutes for each stasis cycle. There’s no time for discussion. If you can think of a better way to prepare our people, and keep within the timeline, I’d love to hear it.”