Wrath of an Angry God: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 3)

by Gibson Michaels

  At first, the Raknii found it odd that the human ships were dropping out of x-space within sterile systems of no particular value, but later they realized that the alien’s relatively slow speeds indicated that those ships must be large transports, so they must be establishing supply depots along a particular route they had chosen. The demons were definitely going somewhere, but so long as they didn’t directly threaten any of Region-6’s worlds, Raan’s warriors remained content to just leave them alone. Whatever consequences might arise from allowing these aliens to push deeper and deeper into the empire unmolested, was best left to the High-Rak to deal with. As humans might have said, it was above their pay-grade.

  * * * *

  The Rak Planet Vnayrk

  September, 3867

  Hal had certainly eaten a lot of meat since his capture by the Raknii a year and a half earlier — a lot of meat. The Raknii diet consisted almost entirely of meat. While the large Raknaa assault troops generally consumed their daily allotment of meat raw, their smaller Raknii superiors routinely charred the outside of theirs over an open fire whenever possible, and within specially designed broilers while aboard ship. This meant that Hal had consumed a vast amount of charred meat during his time amongst the Raknii, with the insides were cooked to what humans might describe as rare to medium-rare. That much protein had caused Hal to gain a considerable amount of weight which, in view of his original emaciated appearance, was not necessarily a bad thing.

  But being an omnivore, rather than a true carnivore like the Raknii, Hal’s body required vitamins and minerals from plant fibers, not found in meat alone. Hal had discovered local fauna which provided most of the nutrients missing from his daily meat ration, and he’d experimented with cooking them in various ways... approximating recipes that he had stored in his mind from that single download he’d received from his brother on Massa. Acquiring locally made approximations of pots, pans and skillets had been every bit as challenging as finding plants containing required nutrients, which his human body could digest.

  Drix had gotten over his anger relatively quickly, as Hal found himself frequently called into yet more deep discussions concerning human philosophies of ethics and moral conventions. It soon became obvious that Drix was using these conversations, whose intensity occasionally bordered on interrogations, to seek out human philosophical contributions most compatible with the Raknii’s ancient ways and schools of thought, in the attempt to formulate and document an entirely new code of ethics and morality for his race.

  * * * *

  The Troxia System, Trakaan Space

  October, 3867

  “Admiral, I’m receiving an answer to our hail.”

  “Very well, Smitty. Pipe it to my station, please,” replied Confederate Admiral Eileen Thorn. Fleet Admiral Roger Kalis, Commander in Chief of the Confederate Fleet and Supreme Allied Commander of the Combined Allied Fleets had recently changed the operational orders for Thorn’s Confederate 3rd Fleet. Confederate Intelligence had located a world of a previously unknown alien race, whose language had surprisingly shown up as the common denominator in the cat’s language translators, that enabled them to converse with their human captives. It was unknown whether these aliens were possibly a subject race, who had been conquered by the Raknii, or if they might be full allies of the feline predators, but Kalis deemed it important to find out, and had tasked Thorn to investigate.

  Initial scans of this system were similar to the single scan taken by Confederate Intelligence several months earlier, which appeared to show a prosperous, peaceful space-based civilization centered around the fourth planet, having manufacturing facilities in orbit and some activities apparent amongst the outer planets as well. The beta-translator was breaking out voice communications, sounding like routine traffic control, just as Admiral Bonhoeffer of Confederate Intelligence had suggested. So Thorn had transmitted a hail, identifying themselves and expressing their peaceful intentions towards the fourth planet, through that translator some hours earlier, after 3rd Fleet had transited into this system about four light-hours out from the system’s primary star, to give them plenty of time to evaluate what kind of reception they might get from these unknowns.

  Thorn was initially startled at the image which formed on her monitor... a gray, ovoid face with a pointed chin, with a small, almost lipless mouth and two tiny slits where a human nose would have been placed. The alien had overly enlarged oval, slanting eyes that appeared all black, with no discernible whites at all. There was something eerily familiar about that strange face — something from deep within racial memory that Thorn couldn’t quite place. There was no record of it, but somehow she felt deep in her bones that this wasn’t mankind’s first encounter with these particular aliens.

  “I am Fraznal,” said the voice accompanying the video, in almost perfect, if somewhat antiquated English. “I am the Planetary Administrator of this world. I greet you in the name of the Trakaan people. If your intensions are truly peaceful, as claimed in your initial transmission, we welcome your visit to our world of Troxia.

  “We ask that you coordinate your approach with our traffic control on frequencies that I’m sure you have already detected, so that they may more easily reroute routine planetary traffic to avoid any potential accidents arising from your unfamiliarity with our standard traffic patterns and policies. Again, be welcome to Troxia, humans. I look forward to speaking with you again, when distances allow.”

  * * * *

  October, 3867

  Eight months in space, loafing along like a wallowing garbage scow at a measly 125c, had the entire crew of CSS Defiant, flagship of the Confederate 2nd Fleet, pissing and moaning... which by normal Fleet standards meant they were somewhere just south of deliriously happy. What made it a concern was the fact that they were only about half-way to their intended target, after multiple refueling and reprovisioning stops along the way. It was the same aboard every ship in the fleet, but that was the best speed that the three giant asteroid-battleships could muster, given their incredible mass. The slow speeds and vast distances involved were a stark reminder of the difficulties their ancestors had faced during the Great Diaspora from old-Earth some 300 years earlier. By the time they got to where they were going, 2nd Fleet would be farther from home than mankind had ever been… well, except for those crazy intelligence bastards, zinging around the universe in those little invisible ships of theirs.

  2nd Fleet had experienced a few breakdowns along the way, but after making repairs, the stragglers had no trouble catching back up with the lumbering fleet, keeping company with those three monstrous asteroid-battleships. Never had anyone dreamed they’d ever see anything quite like those great beasts… small planetoids in their own right, covered in weapons blisters everywhere. The spacers' grumbling about how slow they were, was light-hearted, as they gave everyone great confidence in living through whatever was coming. With those big babies with them, most of 2nd Fleet felt like they could take on the might of the entire Raknii Empire and come out on top. Little did they realize, just how close they’d eventually come to doing just that.

  * * * *

  The Trakaan Planet Troxia

  October, 3867

  “Flying saucers, for God’s sake!” Indeed, disk-shaped Trakaan ships of all sizes orbited the planet they called Troxia, looking all the world like flying saucers. There was something disturbingly familiar about the idea of flying saucers, but damned if Thorn or any of her bridge crew knew exactly what it was. They all felt it, though... the appearance of these gray-skinned, bug-eyed aliens gave everyone on board an eerie sense of déjà vu.

  Thorn was given landing coordinates for her shuttle crew, as she was scheduled to meet with the Planetary Administrator outside in an open park-like area, as humans were evidently much too tall to fit inside any of the Trakaan buildings. If anything, the Trakaan were perhaps even smaller than the Raknii, so with both alien species that they’d recently encountered being of such diminutive size, it made Thorn wonder if hum
anity might not rank toward the large side of the galactic norm for intelligent life?

  That creepy, otherworldly feeling continued, even after Thorn and her staff landed and approached the arranged meeting place, where chairs had been arranged in the shade under some large trees — including human-sized chairs, perfectly proportioned to fit the human derriere. Yes, these little aliens obviously already knew quite a bit about humankind… including the dimensions of their asses.

  * * * *

  The Planetoid Discol

  October, 3867

  Noreen believed herself the victor in the little “battle of wills” she’d waged with Diet for the past several months, over his choices in men’s toiletries. Each had thrown out several generations of his toiletry products, replacing them with an entirely different set of their own choosing. She had been gratified when Diet finally stopped replacing her choices with his own.

  She knew she was winning on a broad front of issues, when she returned from a three week business trip to Okla, which would eventually provide tens-of-thousands of new TBG jobs for the people of Native American decent who lived there. Industrialization had come slowly on Okla, as internal conflicts among the dozens of tribal entities had dissuaded most Alliance companies from building large-scale industrial complexes there, for fear of terrorist attacks by radical elements within Okla society.

  Noreen had lobbied Diet for months to convince him that the additional costs of security necessary to ensure TBG assets remained safe were viable and that building them, despite the risks involved, was “the right thing to do.” Diet’s natural bent towards philanthropy and his deep-rooted sense of fairness had made convincing him to spend billions of dollars to provide jobs to disadvantaged workers had been easy, compared to getting him to abandon his cheap, drug-store toiletries. It took her several weeks to finally notice the levels in her toiletry choices were not going down with usage.

  What the hell?

  She took to keeping an eye out for changes in Diet’s hygienic routine and noticed that he was spending an inordinate amount of time inside his gigantic walk-in closet. When she investigated further, she discovered a small palm-lock installed along the back wall, hidden behind his hang-up clothes. The next time Diet disappeared into his closet for more than just a few minutes, Noreen verified that Diet had somehow disappeared and was no longer in there, so she brought in a folding chair to wait him out. After about forty-five minutes, the back wall of Diet’s closet opened with a hiss, and Diet stepped out, freshly showered and smelling of cheap “every-mans” cologne.

  While Noreen had been away on Okla, Diet had his own subterranean bathroom dug under his closet — it was easier than arguing with her, and it emphasized the futility of trying to force the richest man in the galaxy to do anything he really doesn’t want to do.

  * * * *

  The Confederate Planet Ginia, City of Rikmon

  October, 3867

  Lincoln Collier’s single six-year term as president of the Confederate Stellar Accord was expiring in another month, and his one regret was that there had been so very little time of real peace, during his term in office. Just the few short weeks between the end of the Confederate War of Independence and the Raknii attack on Minnos, was all the actual peacetime the Confederacy had truly known since it had been formed in 3861.

  Senator Patrick Franklin George of Lusia was currently favored to replace him in the executive mansion, but his opponent, Governor Jennifer Steele of Joja, had been making up ground in the polls recently, so who really knew?

  I guess that’s why we actually hold elections.

  Both George and Steele were fierce Confederate patriots, and both had fully supported his decision to aid their former countrymen and enemies in the Alliance, after Minnos had been brutally attacked by those aliens. Their primary differences were whether the Confederate taxpayer should continue footing the bill for four full fleets' worth of that support, now that the Alliance had managed to get much of their fleet repaired and their defensive infrastructure rebuilt. Some thought that the Alliance should now assume the lion’s share of the financial and military burden for continued prosecution of the war against the… well... lions.

  Some were fearful of renewed Yankee determination to restore the Confederacy to Alliance control, and were nervous about having 80% of the Confederate Fleet so far from home. Collier wasn’t particularly worried on that score. The corrupting influence of the Consortium had been broken and President McAllister wasn’t stupid enough to stab her primary ally in the back, when she still had an alien war on her hands.

  Besides, the Yankees and most of mankind were still fearful of that mysterious hacker group called the “Friends of the Confederacy,” whose cyber attacks on the Nork banking system had forced the Alliance to recognize Confederate independence years ago. Nothing had been heard from that shadowy group since the peace treaty and normalization of relations between the two countries had been accomplished, but none could have forgotten their ominous warning that “they would be watching.”

  The other major difference between the two political opponents concerned differing methods for financing the tremendous financial burden on the country, remaining on a war footing for so many years, with no foreseeable end in sight. Both the Alliance and the Confederacy had balanced-budget provisions in their constitutions, with war conditions as the only exception for going into debt through the sale of war bonds. Interest rates paid on those war bonds became more and more controversial, as more and more of the government’s annual budget had to be earmarked towards paying that interest on previous year’s bonds.

  After over 40 years in public service, Collier wasn’t sure what he planned to do with the rest of his life, but laying down the burdens and responsibilities of office, returning to the bosom of his family and relaxing next to a Ginia lake drowning worms for a while, really didn’t sound like too bad an idea at all.

  * * * *

  The Trakaan Planet Troxia

  October, 3867

  “We must have absolute assurances that our neutrality, in regards to your war against the Raknii, be recognized as total and irrevocable,” said Fraznal, Planetary Administrator of the Trakaan planet of Troxia. “If agreed to, we will devote all of our energies to engineering a lasting, negotiated peace between humanity and the Raknii Empire.”

  Admiral Eileen Thorn was in complete agreement with Fleet Admiral Kalis’ position that total conquest and occupation of so large an alien empire was implausible, as it would require decades of continued bloodshed and potentially bankrupt the governments of humanity. Much of Kalis’ strategy of deep penetration into Raknii space as quickly as possible, was intended not only to push the enemy away from threatening human planets, but to shock the Raknii with the strength of human arms and impress upon them the logic of pursuing a negotiated cessation of hostilities and peaceful coexistence with humankind.

  According to Fraznal, the Trakaan had already successfully introduced the Raknii to the concept, through their skillful negotiations with a particular Raknii region-master named Raan, which had ended Raknii hostilities towards the Trakaan and persuaded them to return all of their conquered worlds back to Trakaan control. With such skilled negotiators on their side, perhaps this was exactly the opportunity for finding a peaceful solution to the Raknii conflict that Admiral Kalis had been praying for. Thorn herself had been praying very similar prayers, for as skilled and formidable a warrior as she was, Thorn thoroughly detested the appalling waste of lives and property that war invariably entailed.

  “You have those assurances, Planetary Administrator,” replied Thorn. “Would it be possible for you to convince this Region-Master Raan, with whom you’ve worked with before, to meet peacefully with our Commander-in-Chief here on Troxia, as a neutral site, do you think?”

  “Raan is a quite unusual Raknii, in that he’s also a reasonable being. He’s open to new ideas and willing to consider the merits of logical thought,” replied Fraznal. “I’m sure that I can con
vince him to meet with your Commander-in-Chief, here in this neutral setting, and convince him of human sincerity that he might come here for such a meeting without fearing for his safety.”

  “And would you be willing to personally act as arbitrator, for these peace discussions?” asked Thorn.

  “I would not only be willing, Admiral,” responded Fraznal sincerely. “I would be greatly honored to directly participate in ending wanton death and destruction in this part of our galaxy.”

  “As am I, Planetary Administrator… as am I,” replied Thorn.

  “That is a curious statement, Admiral,” said Fraznal, “coming from one who has dedicated her entire life to perfecting the art of war.”

  “Freedom and peace are siblings, Planetary Administrator,” responded Thorn. “And neither may be obtained without a price. For any people to enjoy the blessings of living freely and in peace, some must always stand ready to kill, and if necessary to die, in defense of their inherent rights to both. I fight solely in the hope that my children and grandchildren will not have to.”

  “My heart is gladdened to hear you say so, Admiral,” said Fraznal. “For a great many of your millennia, we had serious doubts as to whether your species would ever mature enough to attain such civilized beliefs.”

  * * * *

  November, 3867

  “Why is the Alliance Bureau of Investigation here asking questions about my son? What has he done?”

  “Your son hasn’t actually done anything that we’re aware of, Mrs. Masterson,” replied ABI Special Agent Reed Nuland. “We’re simply trying to locate him.”

  “It’s Ms. Masterson… and if the ABI is trying to locate him, then he must have done something, or you wouldn’t be here looking for him.”