Infinite Exploration

by D. L. Harrison

  The whole point of the Intergalactic Union was to pay in living worlds in each galaxy for our protection, so it wouldn’t be a true empire with them under our authority. For England to turn around and press their authority by force of arms might anger a lot of the other races.

  On the other hand, I kind of wanted to go help them, not that they needed help. Genocide was a horror, but where did we draw the line? It’s why Darrell didn’t tell me about these things usually, because it was policy not to get involved unless it was self-defense or in our self-interest.

  Cassie said, “A leak it is. They’ll argue it’s in their self-interest, and they’re not entirely wrong.”

  I nodded, “They’re a close trading partner for them. I’m not sure what if anything we should do. This is the first time a country is acting unilaterally outside of our space, against what the U.N. decided, which was to wait until the treaty was signed before we could get involved. I’m also not about to engage England’s ships to help a genocidal race commit genocide. Let’s see what others make of it, assuming the press picks up the leak and runs with it. It’s a huge story, but maybe not as big as my ship building efforts in the void?”

  Jayna said, “They can run with both stories, since they usually have two or three major ones going on at once. I’ll release some memes on the other, once the press release on the Mirelak goes out.”

  Darrell said, “A leak is no longer necessary on the Kolia and Staphec issue, England just put out a press release on the matter, citing they wouldn’t allow another trade partner to be removed and had answered a request for assistance from a Kolian colony. Apparently, they wanted to get a jump on it, and put it in the best light possible. They’re indicating they’ll try to get the Staphec to abort their attack until the last minute, and only open fire if they near weapons range of the planet.”

  I nodded, that would win over most of the people, if not the actual governments that wouldn’t be happy with England’s end run around their earlier decisions and compromises.

  In short, I didn’t like it, but at the same time I couldn’t blame them from doing what was right, despite the possible negative consequences. A part of me was cheering them on, in fact.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was late afternoon, a couple of hours later. The press had been covering the two issues almost exclusively. Although they seemed to be running with the Mirelak explanation and no longer touting paranoid theories about me turning into a power-hungry madman.

  Jerks.

  The other story had raised tensions and divisiveness. No one wanted to speak out against stopping genocide, but it was obvious a lot of the other countries were against it including the U.S. and China, while Russia openly supported England. It was the same old argument and tension from last week, that had cooled down after the compromise of building a treaty to define war crimes with all the other species that were part of the Intergalactic Union.

  There were six more hours before the Staphec fleet would be within range to launch missiles against the Kolian planet and space station. They were still moving in and I could only assume they’d either ignored England’s warning, or were currently arguing with them.

  Cassie said, “We may have a problem.”

  “May? Let’s hear it.”

  Cassie said, “Well, all the other countries bought the explanation, as far as it went at least. It hasn’t occurred to the press yet, but a lot of countries have been calling us or asking our ambassador how we learned of the threat. The Mirelak are a hundred and sixty million light years away after all. There’re a lot of other empires between us and them, big and small, including the Olmai.”

  I replied, “We’re scouting for threats beyond our territory, obviously. As for how, that remains top secret and we should stonewall. We know we’re more than a match for the twelve empires directly bordering us, but the greatest danger to our worlds and fleets is the one we don’t know about.”

  Cassie nodded, “They’ll want to know how, and worry we might start a war if we get caught.”

  I shrugged, “It’s a risk, but a smaller one than sticking our heads in the sand and hoping for the best. Like I said, stonewall on how.”

  No one else had stealth technology, at least no other human countries, and as far as I knew they didn’t know we had it either. I was sure they’d figure it out at some point, but even if they did they wouldn’t be able to detect our stealth network.

  I added, “If they don’t like it, tough. No other country is telling us all their secrets. The fall out can’t be any worse than admitting we have a stealth network.”

  The door opened, and Melody walked into the command center.

  “Mel?”

  Melody smiled, “It turns out both mass and energy in normal space causes resonance bias in the quantum fabrics, just in different ways. It took me a while to see it in the data, and I only noticed because of my experiments in lower subspace.”

  I frowned, “So you can scan for energy sources in lower subspace?”

  Melody giggled, “No. Lower subspace is an energy sink, scans farther out than a light second are worthless as they’re swallowed up, and a light second in the first level of lower subspace is like… a few feet in normal space.”

  I said, “Right, I should’ve realized the scans would be effected by the energy dampening in that space. So, how does that help us then?”

  Melody said, “Well, energy in normal space effects the entropic force in lower subspace only, and mass only effects the energy in upper subspace. But… the bias translates across all fabrics, so we can scan for it in upper subspace. What it gets us is we filter out most of the mass found in the voids between stars and galaxies as space junk, old shipwrecks from battles, and the like. We can tune it to find mass and energy bias, which absolutely has to be working ship if it’s in the void.

  “I verified it works with all our ship locations, as well as the locations of the empire ships facing ours at the borders. It also shows the exact position of every stealth ship we have out there. The energy might be contained to the ship, but it does affect the quantum fabric inside the ship, which translates.”

  “Okay, that’s kind of cool, and it’ll probably save the amount of false alarms and stealth probes Darrell has to send out to the void and take a look.”

  She nodded, “We also verified that right now our stealth network is the only one within sixty million light years, but I was saving the best part for last.”

  I tilted my head, “Best part?”

  She grinned, “The reason we couldn’t find ships in solar systems was because solar systems are choked with mass. The sun, planets, moons, asteroids, meteors, comets, and even space dust. But of course, energy signatures are entirely different. It’s easy to filter out the sun’s bias, as well as the bias from the Earth’s molten core, and the various power systems on the surface.

  “After that everything else is a space station, or a ship. It did take some effort to filter it out, but now that we have a very good defined filter for the few natural energy sources in our solar system, we’ll be able to spot a stealth ship just about anywhere. Except on the surface of the Earth, where it’d get lost in all the car, plane, building, and other power systems present. No need to scan for holes in dust anymore, it’ll really stand out, when the data is constantly correlated to our normal scans which will show all the visible ships in the system. Anything not accounted for in normal scans has to be a stealth ship.”

  “That’s huge.”

  Melody bounced on her toes with a wide smile, like she forgot for a minute she was a moody teenager now, as she got caught up in the excitement of it.

  Darrell said, “It really is, it will cut down greatly on the number of stealth probes I need to track ships, and of course make us aware of any ally or enemy stealth systems moving into our space to scout us out.”

  Melody gave me a parting grin as she left the room.

  I shook my head, truly amazed at the women in my family. Our void scan tech
nology was already amazing, even with the limitations of being worthless inside solar systems, with that limitation removed it was beyond awesome.

  “Okay, have any of the traders commented on England getting involved in the war between the Kolia and Staphec?”

  Cassie said, “Not yet, that I know of. It’s only been a couple of hours.”

  She checked on some things and shook her head, then her eyes widened.

  Darrell’s next words clarified Cassie’s surprise as he said, “China just jumped two hundred ships to the Kolian’s colony.”

  Oh, crap. Here we go. I knew it wouldn’t go well, when England went against the U.N. policy and went off on a unilateral action of their own in defiance of current policy for all humanity. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a kneejerk decision on China’s part, they’d taken two hours to talk about it before acting.

  Thing was, there wasn’t really a law against what England was doing either, up until now it’d just been common sense, and we’d acted as one out there among the other intelligent species within our protected territory. It was international cooperation in this new age of plenty for humanity, not a true surrender of national sovereignty to the U.N.s authority outside human space.

  A moment later, he said, “They’re hailing England’s fleet on an open quantum channel common to all human based ships, including civilian. It seems clear they’re acting in the open, and they want this to be heard by all.”

  I said, “Pipe it through.”

  “This is Admiral Li, of the People Republic’s fleet.”

  “Admiral Li, this is Admiral Livingston of the United Kingdom’s fleet. What brings you by?”

  Admiral Li replied, “Not amusing, Admiral. You know why I’m here. We’d like to persuade you to conform to what your leaders approved and backed in the U.N. The treaty process is almost complete so we can put an end to this kind of evil action in space, but your premature actions may bring it to an end.”

  Admiral Livingston said, “We are merely defending ourselves, and our interests as our colonies heavily trade with the people of Kolia. This is not a punitive expedition, and our action will end as soon as the Staphec withdraw. We hope they withdraw before engaging, and just leave.

  “Again, we’re here in self-defense. We will not pursue any justice against the Staphec for the four worlds they destroyed since we freed them fourteen years ago. Nor will we pursue justice for the men and women of the Kolia fleet that was just blown out of space. But we will protect ourselves and the surface of this planet.”

  Li said, “Sophistry.”

  Livingston replied, “Not really. I admit it’s a fine line, but all the races in the Intergalactic Union have already condemned genocide as a war crime. They’re only arguing about the penalty to be levied against a world or race that commits such a heinous act, and that’s the part we aren’t going to pursue. We’re here to stop a tragedy and to allow millions of Kolians to die because the ink isn’t on the paper yet would be an act of moral cowardice.

  “My country’s leaders have thought long and hard on this, and they’d have preferred it if the treaty had been finished before we were forced to act, but we also can’t allow a crime against nature happen again. However, no matter what they deserve, we will allow the Staphec to withdraw at any time.”

  It was well thought out, and I had to admit Livingston had convinced me it was the right thing. Even if there was some fallout, sometimes it was a price worth paying. We couldn’t save everyone, and shouldn’t try, but a trading partner that begs for aid made it more than reasonable to act according to our conscience and screw the political realities.

  Li said, “Your words are persuasive, admiral. If it was up to me, I’d line my ships up next to yours and stop this indefensible act of the Staphec. But it doesn’t change the fact you’re acting against the agreement reached in the U.N. supported by your leaders at the time. With this fleet action, you will be opening the gates to confusion and disorder outside human space, as other countries will follow your example on lesser matters and interests and start taking unilateral action.

  “For the last fourteen years the one thing humanity has agreed upon has been that we act as one outside the borders of human space. Your mission is the beginning of the end of that cooperation.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but at the same time he was.

  I said, “Cass, give our ambassador a call. Let’s see if we can get the U.N. to back this action, in the next six hours.”

  Cassie giggled, then her face fell as she realized I was serious.

  I shrugged, “It won’t hurt to try, and I don’t think England is going to back down. I also don’t believe for a second the Chinese fleet will try to stop them outside of persuasion. Have him stress that it’s a limited action of pure self-defense, and no punitive actions will be taken.”

  Livingston replied, “We understand, and regret that truth. But we’ll lose our souls if we allow this horror to happen.”

  Li didn’t seem to have a response for that, perhaps he was consulting with his superiors back in China.

  Cassie said, “Consider it done, but it may make things worse. China and America won’t want to look weak, by caving in the last minute even for a partial exception to a previous agreement.”

  I shrugged, “At least we will have tried to preserve our cooperation outside human space, and we will be bending on this position. Let them try to sleep tonight, if they put politics before millions of lives facing genocide. I’d hoped the worlds would have this settled before it came up again too, and I’m not sure I’d be acting any differently if it was a Vax, Arnis, Vonerith, or Katera world on the line, and they’d called me for aid.”

  Jessica nodded, “But you’re a softy and have a hero complex.”

  Cassie snickered, and my chief of security was unaffected by my glare.

  “Okay, I sent the instructions.”

  Two hours later we were around the dinner table on the beach. It was the middle of the night on Astraeus’s planet, the moonlight glinted off the rolling waves striking the shoreline just fifty feet away. It was one of our extended family dinners, and everyone was there.

  I’d left the command center behind, but the issue of the day was still foremost in my mind. The U.N. was still in session as the issue was discussed, working late. Unfortunately perhaps, it wasn’t our race or world that was facing genocide, so the focus of the argument was around England taking unilateral action instead of the true issue.

  Some countries had even suggested England should face sanctions for failing to uphold their word and agreement. It was even kind of reasonable given human nature. No country or leader was going to go on the record saying its none of our business and we should ignore the genocide happening under our nose.

  Politics.

  Jayna said, “Well, the inevitable happened. One of the talking heads on the news asked the obvious question, how did we know about the Mirelak threat from so far away, given their current space is over a hundred and fifty million light years past our border with the Olmai Empire. The other news stations have picked it up.”

  I nodded, “We tell them the same thing we told the leadership of the other countries two hours ago when they asked that question. We scout for potential enemies that could destroy us, should they turn their eyes in our direction. Just because the empires on our borders are behind us technologically, doesn’t make us safe. As for how we do it, that’s a matter of national security.”

  Cassie nodded, “That’s going to go over about as well as England running off to protect the Kolian colony.”

  “Maybe, but we’re not acting unilaterally against an agreement made in the U.N. The world approved me watching our borders and keeping us all safe from other empires fourteen years ago. No one else but us can do it, and no definitive measures were ever defined.”

  Melody interjected, “I think that’s what Cassie is getting at. They’ll try to define those measures now. Not everyone will be happy your poking around other empires and ris
king war. You won’t be able to calm those fears without revealing our stealth and quantum scan sciences.”

  Damn, schooled by my own thirteen-year-old daughter. She wasn’t wrong, and I really hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  Cassie nodded, “She’s right.”

  I sighed, “Okay, obviously we aren’t telling them about Darrell. The world isn’t ready for that. We also can’t tell them about quantum scanning or other universes, that’ll cause more panic too. Our new weapons and the second-generation energy to matter device thankfully isn’t even on the table for this problem.

  “I guess what I’m getting at is if we should reveal the cloaking technology. I’m not sure it would matter. Either way, at the end of this other world leaders will see my decisions as risky, I’m not sure telling them the truth would be better. If we reveal the stealth network it might calm some fears about other empires catching us spying, but it will immediately start paranoid responses on what else I might be spying on. Not just other human countries and colonies, but our seven thousand plus trading partners in the Intergalactic Union will worry we’re spying on them.

  “I think I just talked myself into and out of revealing the network in the same speech. If we have to take a black eye for this, that’s what we have to do. Revealing the truth to calm fears will only bring up even worse fears from another angle.”

  Cassie sighed, “Alright, you’re not wrong. But what if the U.N. tells you to guard the borders and stop surveillance activities beyond the border.”

  I shrugged, “It’s different. I’ll do it anyway, of course. Plus, I doubt I could convince Darrell to shrink his network to within our borders anyway, nor would I want to.”

  “Different?” Diana asked.

  I nodded, “Internal to our protected territory we need to act as one, because all the races within it are potential allies or trading partners, and we don’t want to send mixed signals to those we share space with.