“I pray that you’re wrong, too, son. Thank you. Excellent work. That will be all for now.” He saluted and left. He had not been gone for more than three or four minutes before the comm buzzed.
“Skipper.”
“Skipper, this is Chin. We finally got a confirmation from the Edward R. Murrow, the task force’s comms vessel, confirming receipt from us of the Krag message. The Admiral also signaled ‘No rush now, Robichaux. Rendezvous with the Churchill at standard cruising velocity.’”
“Thank you, Chin. Please give the word to Maneuvering to reduce speed to fifteen seventy-five c and alter course to rendezvous with the Churchill.”
“Aye, sir. Chin out.”
A few seconds later, Max could feel the vibrations and other sounds of the ship’s engines, fusion reactor, and the reactor’s cooling system all drop to a lower pitch as speed was reduced from Emergency to Cruise. The ship had been rushing back to Union space to rendezvous with a comm buoy or to get close enough to one to establish a comm channel.
“Speaking of the Churchill, I’m not certain why everyone seems to be talking about it with such rabid enthusiasm. I saw it on the visual display and it impressed me no more than did the other Battleships I have seen, the Wessex or the Michigan.”
Max almost choked on his coffee. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m entirely serious,” he replied. “I was watching when the Admiral made that ‘fly by’ before zooming off to join the task force and I am telling you that the Churchill looked no larger, nor more formidable, than the Michigan, which I saw several years ago. In fact, the two ships looked rather alike, to my mind. I must admit to being rather disappointed.”
“I’m sure the Admiral would be grieved to hear that seeing the largest and most powerful warship ever built by the human race was a let down to you. I’ll let him know that he should have brought with him an accomplished tridvid director to make the experience more impressive and memorable. Maybe an extended series of loving, beauty shots of the immense ship turning on its running lights one after the other, engaging its maneuvering thrusters, and slowly pulling out of the orbital construction dock, all with a transfer pod or, better yet, a so minute as to be almost invisible dock worker in a pressure suit in the foreground waving at the departing ship to provide scale. Then, accompanied by a swelling fanfare full of trumpets and French horns—lots and lots of French horns—the ship passes by the camera making a distinct ‘whoosh’ sound, in the soundless interstellar vacuum mind you, and then roars off into the trackless infinity of space in a burst of Cherenkov-Heaviside radiation which, in this case, manifests itself in a dramatic flash of rainbow-hued visible light. Then, you might have been impressed.”
“You are making a jest at my expense.”
“Yes, I am. The point is, Bram, you had nothing to show you the scale of the ship. It looked like the Michigan because the two vessels are of similar design. From what I could tell, the Churchill is very much like a scaled up version of the Michigan. The Churchill, though, has more than ten times the mass. Ten times. Her secondary pulse cannon batteries are twice as powerful as the mains on the Michigan, while the mains have twelve times the power rating. That ship’s so huge it has a hangar deck for a fighter wing as big as the one flown off an Escort Carrier. And, it’s almost as fast on compression drive as we are, so it can take off with a screen of fast cruisers, frigates, and destroyers, go straight across deep space to a Krag held system, and take it without having to jump in right under the huge guns of a fixed battle station zeroed in right at the jump point. That kind of force could take some of these Krag systems without any warning, turn their flanks, punch holes in their defensive perimeter . . . any number of things. Can you imagine a weapon like that in the hands of an aggressive, creative, unpredictable, unorthodox tactical genius like Admiral Hornmeyer? I’d hate to be the Krag commander who had to deal with that.”
“I had not taken the scale issue into account. I suppose it would be like examining a microorganism through a microscope without knowing the level of magnification—one would not know the size of the thing just by looking at it. I had no idea how much larger and more powerful this new ship was than our older ones.”
“Bram, it’s literally an order of magnitude.”
“Perhaps that will be enough to persuade those individuals who will make the grand decision to do what they should do. At least Chin’s news has got to be some kind of relief,” said Sahin. “We are not under pressure to get to the comm buoy to alert the rest of the human race what’s happening.”
“Oh, yes, sure. Huge relief. Great load off my mind. In any event, we’ll be back at the task force in three days. In order to make the rendezvous to deliver the answer, we will have to depart no later than ten days after that. We’ll know the answer then. For good or ill.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“Bram, I honestly don’t know, but I am very much afraid that President Lee will agree. You? You seem to have better insight into these things than I do.”
“I don’t know about that. I may understand the formal process in more detail, but that does not necessarily mean that I can predict the outcome more accurately than you or than anyone else, for that matter. For one thing, it is not going to be up to the President. On something of this magnitude, the decision will be made by the Senate in Executive Session. The President, as an ex officio Senate member and de facto leader of the Social Democratic Party will have a say and it will have a great deal of influence. It may even be decisive. But it is fundamentally the Senate’s choice. And, as you know, the Senate is not constructed on Party lines except for the Popular Members. The Members representing the other Estates vote the interests of their Estates—you know, Manufacturing, Shipping, Mining, Agriculture, Academia, Media and Communications, and the others--or what they perceive to be the best interest of the Union as a whole. How the Senate will receive this is hard to predict. I concur with you. I am very much afraid that they will agree. I have detected a certain exhaustion and want of courage in their actions lately. I pray and will continue to pray most fervently that I am wrong. But, what if I am right?”
“Bram, between you and me, I think this ship ignores a surrender order. We run to Rashid, use the gold we still have on board from that freighter we captured in January to buy all the supplies we can stuff into the ship, and we go rogue. I bet there will be others. People like Captain Kim. Hell, can you see Hornmeyer meekly turning his ships over to the Krag. Not in this lifetime. We find a way to keep fighting.”
“I pray that it does not come to that point.”
“Amin to that, my brother.”
“And, with that, my brother, I take my leave of you. I have a few patients on whom I must check. Good night, Max.”
“Good night, Bram.”
He left. Max reached again for his Bourbon. Like a small boy picking at a scab after having been told by his mother several times to leave it alone, Max called up the Krag message that was causing him so much unease. He put it on the smaller display of his workstation rather than on the display wall. Somehow, displaying it on the wall gave too much dignity and importance to the chilling words.
He read:
From the Hegemon and High Privy Counsel of the Sovereign and Supreme Viceroys of Creation, known to you as the “Krag,” to the President, Senate, and Assembly of the Union of Earth and Terran Settled Worlds, we send greetings and the following message.
When we initiated the present Holy War against you, it was in the sincere and faithful belief, informed by authoritative revelation, that you were unholy blasphemers and that your very physical form and genome were demonic creations of the Evil One brought forth into the Universe to challenge the Vice-Regency of Creation for which the Creator-God made and destined us. We now have increasing reason to believe that our interpretation of events and of the holy revelations we have received may have been in error.
Your ability to resist our initial attack and subsequent offensive operati
ons were far greater than expected. Your ability to challenge us with a continuing series of new strategies, new tactics, new weapons, new ships, and new technologies has led us to the inevitable conclusion that the Creator-God has not decreed that we must, necessarily, be the instrument of your destruction at this point in history.
We have re-examined the evidence upon which we made our initial determination and have concluded that you are not demonic creations of the Evil One nor are you, as we first thought, inherently and incurably evil. Rather, as is the case of all living things, and—in particular—all living things that share our common genetic heritage, you are children of the Creator-God as we are. Accordingly, we are now of the view that to seek your unconditional eradication from the Universe would be sacrilege, as the Creator-God abhors the needless death of any sentient beings whom he has brought forth.
We do, however, believe that you are dangerously and blasphemously deluded. You do not worship the Creator-God. You do not recognize the overlordship of the superior beings whom he has created and chosen to rule over you. You refuse to recognize that it is His plan that you submit to our authority. You continue to believe that your life form and ours originated on your world, that our world was populated with life forms evolved on your world, and that we are not the Creator-God’s chosen creations but merely an animal evolved from an ancestor of the lowly pests that infest your homes and granaries.
Therefore, rather than exterminate you, we have concluded that the Creator-God wishes us first to humble you, then to rule over you as just and wise overlords, and finally to convert you from your various unholy, idolatrous forms of worship to the eternal glorification of the Creator-God who spawned the Universe and all life in it.
You may be of the belief that you, rather than we, are the recipients of divine favor, based on certain recent events that, admittedly, would appear to show that events have turned in your favor. The advantages you believe they confer upon you are illusory. We know of your recent purchase from the Sarthan and what that will mean in terms of your vessel design. Although the Sarthan will not give us the benefit of a similar sale, irrespective of cost, the simple knowledge of what you now have will enable us to eliminate much of the strategic benefit you expect to gain from this technology. When your larger ships appear, we will be ready for them and will have countermeasures adapted to destroy them. We have new and more powerful weapons which have not yet been used in combat against you. These weapons will be particularly effective against your new vessels.
Further, we retain our previous advantages of greater population, greater rate of population growth, more worlds, more natural resources, and greater industrial capacity. Recent events, in fact, have made these advantages even more formidable. Unknown to you, our civilization has been at war with another race known as the Thark since the second year of our war against you. This war has consistently consumed nearly a third of our personnel and the output of our military-industrial complex. We have just conquered the Thark, which will allow us to turn all of the resources we have been devoting to fighting them to the war against you and, in the fullness of time, will also allow us to turn against you all of the resources and production capacity formerly controlled by the Thark.
If the war continues, our victory is inevitable. You will be defeated. If we defeat you, we will exterminate you.
In light of the foregoing, we offer to accept the Union’s surrender on the following terms:
1. Complete disarmament of all humans subject to Union jurisdiction. All Union Naval vessels, all bases and installations, and any other military assets will be surrendered to us. We will transport vessel crews and other combat capable personnel to detention centers for re-education and, provided that they are found not to be a threat to our rule, later transport to their home worlds. Military personnel who cannot or will not be re-educated will be humanely detained for life. No human will retain any firearm or other weapon capable of military use for any reason. Civil law enforcement will be provided by armed Krag military and unarmed Human police. Human police and paramilitary units may be provided with arms at some time in the distant future when your descendants are contented subjects under our just rule.
2. Complete dismantling of all apparatus of government in the Union at higher than the city and county levels. Government and administration will be provided by wise and just Krag overlords appointed by the Hegemony. Their rule will be absolute.
3. The purely Human concept of ‘Civil Rights’ will have no place in the new order. Humans’ place in the Universe is as a subject people. Subjects have no rights other than those conferred by their superiors. Our rule will be just and humane, but only because we choose to rule in that manner, not because of any inherent or innate entitlement on the part of Humans to be ruled by their superiors in any particular manner.
4. The practice of all false religions will cease. All clergy will be detained and reeducated. All other Humans will be instructed in the worship of the Creator-God. Those who refuse will be executed. Their deaths will be brought about humanely, but without delay. There is no place in Creation for children of the Creator-God who are blasphemers.
5. We understand that these terms seem harsh. This is because the Creator-God has decreed that you be humbled and reformed. Doing so requires that our rule at first be with an iron hand. Once your race has been humbled, and once your people are reformed and have grown to adopt the true faith, you will find that we can be benign and gentle rulers who will allow you to retain much of your culture and autonomy. Later generations will fail to understand why there was such enmity between our peoples and will regard us as wise overlords. Your descendants will be happy subjects of the Krag Hegemony. And, more importantly, you will have descendants. Your race will continue. Your billions of progeny will live on, most enjoying long, healthy, productive, and happy lives—working, having families, and living in a manner unchanged in most particulars from how you live now.
6. If you do not accept these terms, we must conclude that you will not accept humbling and reformation. In that event, your blasphemy and offenses cannot go unpunished. We will continue the war against you until your race is forever removed from creation. Because this is an outcome which we would deeply regret, we earnestly and sincerely pray that you accept our overlordship and religious instruction so that your people need not be destroyed.
7. Communicate your acceptance or rejection of these terms by sending the same ship to the same rendezvous point at 12:00Z Hours, 2 May 2315. If the designated ship is not present, we will conclude that you wish the war to continue. Not one of you will survive. Each of your worlds will be sterilized down to the last bacterium. So, the question we pose to the Union is: will you save your race, preserving the lives of yourselves, your children, and the generations to come by tendering your surrender and accepting the overlordship of the Krag?
Even in the heat of battle, in the face of the enemy with the odds against him, Max had never as an adult been truly, abjectly afraid.
He was afraid now.
Chapter 16
11:50Z Hours, 2 May 2315
Max had experienced tension in a CIC before: on capital ships before major fleet actions where the Admirals were rolling the dice with three or four Carrier Battle Groups and the stakes were an entire sector or sometimes even two. Once, he had been present when Admiral Middleton had quietly put his whole Theater Task Force on the table to be victorious or to be obliterated. None of those compared to this.
Cumberland was at the rendezvous point. Ten minutes early. The Union’s answer to the Krag surrender demand had been decided by the Senate in a closed session that lasted for nineteen straight hours. It was known that the President attended the entire debate and made use of his rarely-exercised privilege to speak personally on the issue. It was also known that the vote of the Senate had been unanimous and that the text of the message communicating the decision to the Krag had been drafted by the First Senator (what the Senate called its Chair), Alexander Conway, a
short, balding, fastidious man known more for his mastery of the legislative technicalities than for any particular wisdom or strength of character. It was further known that the two were advised by Union Foreign Minister, Judith Bernard, a retired Admiral who had fought in the early days of the Krag war, before the killing of billions of females by the Krag biological weapon known as the Gynophage caused the Admiralty to remove women from all front line service. Bernard, known as the “Smiling Executioner” for her habit of wearing a small, tight smile on her face while cutting the enemy into small slices and bite-sized chunks, had enough toughness to make up for any shortfalls in the two men with a generous quantity left over for the rest of the Senate. Unfortunately, she was not in charge. And, it was known that, in an unprecedented move to guard the security of the Senate, that body had held this crucial session in the Pete Conrad Convention Center on the Earth’s Moon.
What was not known was how the vote turned out. That was the most closely-held secret in the history of the Union. Only the President, the Senate, and Minister Bernard knew the outcome, and they were all secluded on Luna Base under Marine guard with all the long distance comms on the whole Moon shut down so that no one could leak the result. It was feared that disclosure of the outcome, before it became a fait accompli by transmission to the Krag, might spawn demonstrations, riots, even secession of worlds from the Union, detracting from the unanimity of the response and rendering it ineffective. This step, standing alone, made Max lose almost all hope.
The response to the Krag had been encrypted with a timelock code that would not allow it to be read until the appointed moment, the timelock encrypted data encrypted again in ICEPACK, the Union’s highest level encrypt, and placed on a datachip to be carried to the rendezvous in the Cumberland and transmitted.
For Honor We Stand Page 47
