Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2)

by Gibson Michaels

  “Bat, wait… please.”

  “Mr. President, if you were merely misled, or just fooling yourself as to what actually prompted the Southern planets to secede, I might have hoped that you could be made to understand the truth, but…”

  “Bat… I am well aware of the reasons the South seceded, and of the corruption that prevented the South’s protests from being heeded by Congress. The Consortium was blackmailing just enough key people, that Congress became deaf, dumb and blind to their protests.”

  “Including you,” said Masterson.

  President Marrot almost exploded at the temerity of the young vice admiral’s daring to address the President of the United Stellar Alliance in such accusing tones… but then he remembered what Admiral Melendez had warned him of, concerning the youngster. Worse yet, he was absolutely right.

  “How did you know? Your sixth-sense?” asked the subdued president.

  “No, sir,” answered Masterson. “The Consortium solidly backed your campaign. With all the corruption that the Confederate papers revealed, I don’t figure they’d be backing anyone that they didn’t already have firmly in their pocket.”

  “It was a nightmare. I even had my entire cabinet selected for me.”

  Masterson simply sat there, watching the president as he wrestled with the memories. Later, Marrot could never explain quite what it was that caused him to continue with what he confessed to the amazing young vice admiral that day.

  “I let my pecker get me into trouble as a freshman congressman. I was young and I’d never been in a situation before, where illicit sex with such a wide array of stunningly beautiful women was so readily available. It was exciting. I got a political groupie pregnant, and she threatened to go to the media if I didn’t divorce my wife and marry her.

  A guy, who eventually ended up as a bigwig in the Consortium after it was formed, made my ‘pregnant groupie problem’ go away. After that, there was no freeing myself from them. I was already on the hook, so why not take the money they offered? It made them happy and they already had enough on me to either get me kicked out of Congress, or make damned sure that I couldn’t get elected dog catcher.”

  “Was that businessman who made your ‘problem’ go away, named J.P. Aneke, by chance?”

  “Did you get that from your sixth-sense?” asked the president.

  “Perhaps. But, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about J.P. Aneke exposing you any more.”

  “With J.P. Aneke, there’s always a danger. That snake will cause Satan headaches in hell someday.”

  “Hell is the only place that J.P. Aneke will be causing trouble, anymore.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “J.P. Aneke died of mercury poisoning in a Nork hospital, this morning.”

  “How the hell could you possibly know that?”

  Masterson just shook his head and gave the astonished president an enigmatic smile. President Pierre Marrot just stared open-mouthed at the gold-bedecked young man before him and asked meekly, “So what are these Friends terrorists going to do to us next?”

  “They’re right… we haven’t approached the ‘peace talks’ with any intentions of finding a peaceful solution to the war. We’ve just been trying to clog the machinery as best we can, buying as much time as possible to rebuild our Fleet. So they’re very likely to stick it up our ass again even harder, just to prove that they still can.”

  “God damn those maniacs!” yelled the president.

  “They’re holding a pat hand, Mr. President. Is it any wonder they’re upping the bet? Do we really want to find out how badly they can hurt us next time?

  “Of course not, Admiral, but I absolutely cannot be remembered as the president who gave one-third of our country away.”

  “Why not? Great Britain survived as a world power on Old Earth, after losing the American War of Independence — and it eventually turned out to their benefit. On more than one occasion, their former colonies became allies, who later came to their aide against an incredibly strong enemy and turned the tide of a war that Great Britain could have never won alone.

  "Besides, I don’t see it where we’d be giving anyone, anything. The Confederates appear to have won their independence all on their own. Would you rather be remembered as the president who lost it all, and destroyed the country completely?” Masterson pointed out.

  “I simply cannot believe that the Confederates could possibly act so inhumanely as to subject millions of innocent Alliance civilians to starvation and death by totally erasing the financial records of the entire Alliance, all for purely political gain.”

  “Mr. President, I think that you may be ascribing your own motivations to the Confederates, while their own motivations are probably very much different,” said Masterson.

  “How so, Admiral?”

  “An Old Earth Chinese dictator named Mao Tse-Tung once said, ‘Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.’ Mr. President, because you are a life-long politician, you see this war merely as a political struggle between two incompatible political points of view.

  “But the Confederates see it as a war for survival. The Alliance First Act of 3854 made virtual slaves out of the people in the South, and the Consortium’s stranglehold over Congress guaranteed they could not escape the tyranny except through secession. Their trust in this government is irrevocably broken. People have few limits when their very survival is at stake.”

  “I still cannot believe that any human beings could possibly be so cold and utterly ruthless as to undertake acts so monstrous as to threaten the very lives and livelihood of billions of innocent men, women and children,” responded President Marrot forcefully.

  “Ah, I think that you’re forgetting something very important here, Mr. President,’ said Vice Admiral Masterson. “Our real enemy isn’t human… not human, at all.”

  * * * *

  Diet?

  “Yes Hal?”

  The first eight production models of the Infiltrator class warships that you donated to the Confederate Fleet have been delivered to Admiral Kalis at Ginia. They have been assigned the names of CSS Phantom, Specter, Spook, Wraith, Shade, Spirit, Phantasm and Apparition. Production facilities are continuing to be expanded and work on the first 10 of the 100 Infiltrators ordered by the Confederate government is proceeding.

  “That’s great news, Hal. I’m sure that Admiral Kalis will find good use for those babies.”

  Captain Diamond of CSS Ghost recently submitted a couple of very intriguing ideas in his after-action report from the Battle of Nork. With your permission, I will forward them to our TBG engineers at Joja, to have them begin feasibility studies.

  “Of course… can you give me a hint about what we’re talking about here?”

  Captain Diamond emphasized the need for a Ghost class Infiltrator to get very close behind their target before missile launch, to ensure that countermeasures cannot be brought online in time to interfere with the missiles’ flight. He noted the long and medium-range capability of the heavy and medium-yield missiles we’re currently using is wasted and suggested new short-range missiles having heavy and medium-yield capabilities be developed, small enough to increase an Infiltrator’s payload capacity.

  He mentioned being frustrated that he’d been forced to expend all of his anti-ship missile capacity in taking out only three Federal carriers, and wished he’d had more missiles available to throw against the Federal battlecruisers in such a target-rich environment.

  “That’s really an excellent idea, Hal! Run with it. What was Captain Diamond’s other idea?”

  He wanted to know if it was feasible to upscale the Infiltrator design into an equally invisible, light cruiser-sized vessel, capable of carrying a lot more missiles.

  “Damn, why didn’t we think of that?”

  We’ve been a bit preoccupied with winning Confederate independence, so I don’t think either of us should feel too badly. It just serves as a reminder that no matter how powerful
a computer I might be, human beings retain a creative spark of genius that complements my capabilities admirably.

  “Agreed, old buddy. I think you and I have made a hell of a team, so far!”

  I will work up design modifications for both the heavy and medium-yield short-range missiles to be made specifically for Infiltrators, and attempt to upscale the Infiltrator's design to see if a larger vessel could be made that would retain the undetectability characteristics of the Infiltrators.

  “Excellent!”

  * * * *

  Chapter-12

  When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat. -- Ronald Reagan

  April, 3863

  As promised, the Friends of the Confederacy cyber-terrorist group launched another cyber-attack against the Alliance, as punishment for their obvious insincerity in the peace negotiations being held in Pari. The media spread word of the promised cyber-attack beforehand and the public braced themselves for it, as best they could. No one knew what, or where, the terrorists would strike next, but few had any faith in the government’s ability to thwart the Friends. The waiting was almost as bad as the attack itself. The newly opened Alliance Stock Market fell to its maximum SEC mandated daily allowance within minutes of opening, before federal regulators shut it down for the day. Virtually everyone wanted to divest their portfolios before the terrorists made the records go away forever. The cries against the government’s interventionist trading policies, that prevented them from doing so, became deafening.

  International stock markets responded to the Alliance sell-off by dropping sharply. Even the threat of another cyber-attack against the Alliance paralyzed the economies of all mankind — except for the Confederacy, whose war-based economy was mostly internal, and so continued to thrive on government defense contracts and the strength of its gold-backed currency. International tensions again rose sharply, as stern warnings were voiced at the Pari peace talks and through normal diplomatic channels as well. Defense expenditures also rose sharply throughout human space, as the uncertainties of what these terrorists might bring to financial markets continued to escalate.

  The attack, when it came, startled and infuriated the Alliance public in ways that all of the effects of the previous attack had not. On every Alliance planet, people woke up to find that their personal checking and savings accounts had their balances reduced to a mere $25.00. Virtually every private citizen in the entire Alliance was effectively broke.

  The resulting firestorm was directed not so much towards the Friends, but directly at the federal government, whose obvious obstructionist policies of merely playing for time, and making a complete sham of the peace talks, had literally forced the terrorists to act. Public opinion exploded against the federal government. Calls for impeachment and recall elections for Congress soared. Polls now showed that the public now favored ending the war immediately: recognizing Southern independence and paying the demanded reparations had skyrocketed to 74% in favor.

  On the morning of the third day after the attack, people woke to find that their bank accounts fully restored. An announcement from the Friends appeared on virtually every media outlet on every Alliance planet, issued an apology to the Alliance people for their being inconvenienced by the 48-hour period during which they could not access their money. But the attack had served its purpose, and put the entire Alliance on notice, as the Friends issued their final ultimatum:

  Neither the Confederacy, nor the Friends of the Confederacy, wish to invoke harm to the innocent citizens of the United Stellar Alliance, but your government is hereby put on notice. Instead of putting all of those untold trillions of dollars back into the accounts of their rightful owners, we had it in our power to make those funds disappear forever, bankrupting every man, woman and child in your entire nation.

  This serves as a fair warning to all of what could have happened, and can easily happen again, if the belligerency of the Alliance government towards the Confederacy does not cease immediately. The United Stellar Alliance started this war by their unprovoked attacks upon the Confederacy in their attempts to re-subjugate the Southern people by force of arms — a war they have now lost.

  There will be no further negotiations. The United Stellar Alliance will immediately recognize the sovereignty and independence of the Confederate Stellar Accord as members of the international community of nations, forsaking all future claims on its territory, and will also sign a binding pledge of future non-aggression towards the Confederacy and normalization of relations between the two nations.

  The people of Tucky, Maylan and Dela will be afforded the opportunity for a one-time vote to determine their future status, as to whether they desire to remain citizens of the United Stellar Alliance, or become citizens of the Confederate Stellar Accord. The results of this one-time vote will remain binding for all time on both nations, so the citizenry of these three planets should search their hearts deeply before casting their votes, determining which of these two nations they wish to associate themselves with in the future.

  War reparations demanded have now been increased to $3.5 trillion, just because the deceitful dealings of the Alliance federal government at the Pari peace talks have pissed us off. Should the Alliance federal government fail to comply with these just demands, neither the Confederacy nor the Friends of the Confederacy will be responsible for the unprecedented suffering that will be incurred by the people of the Alliance. We beg of you... Please demand that your government stop acting stupid. Don’t make us impoverish your entire nation!

  * * * *

  Golgathal Station, in orbit around the Raknii Planet Golgathal

  It had taken a long time to tow the massive Raknii shipyard and base station into orbit around this new habitable planet, that was one of five near to the human systems, exchanged to the Rak as part of the negotiated return of Troxia to Trakaan control. Instead of already being full of billions of Trakaan, as Troxia was, this was a pristine world of generally mild climate, empty of intelligent life, but full of prime real estate for millions of Raknii settlers desiring to carve out their own destinies and begin building prides of their own. It was a beautiful world... a blue, sparkling jewel hanging starkly against the black of space. If this was any indication of what cooperation with other intelligent species might foretell for the future, this revolutionary idea definitely had merit.

  Raan’s messages to the supreme-master, informing him of the startling agreements he’d made with the Trakaan and of the five new planets just outside of human space the Trakaan had exchanged for Troxia, should have reached the imperial planet of Raku by now. Raan had requested, and it was assumed that Supreme-Master Xior would be dispatching, four more similar stations to each of the other four planets exchanged by the Trakaan, so that even more human planets could be assaulted on a wide front.

  Under the unanimous approval and authority of Region-Master Raan, Quadrant-Master Drix and OverFleet-Master Mraz, Tzal underwent yet another ascension ceremony and donned a brilliant light blue topaz rank-stone surrounded by a ring of diamonds arranged in a four-pointed “moonburst” pattern, denoting his new Mid-Rak status as an OverFleet-Master.

  The pace of Tzal’s incredible rise in rank was exceeded only by that of his old Squadron-Master, Drik, who was now known, by very few, as Quadrant-Master Drix. Tzal had been transformed from a mere ship-master wearing an amethyst rank-stone and the bright medium-blue silks of his home, Region-3, to the white silks of an imperial OverFleet-Master in command of 16 entire fleets. It was mind-boggling, but with the hypnotics that came with each new rise in rank, it seemed that yet another previously unknown portion of his mind awakened, so his new responsibilities, that once would have frozen him in stark terror, were met with quiet confidence and complete competence.

  Tzal himself would be leading the initial assault on an entirely new species that his own ship had discovered. Drix briefed Tzal thoroughly on the apocalyptic prophecy, so that he would be fully prepared for his initial confrontation with these ul
timate predators. There would be no mistakes made from arrogant overconfidence against a foe that prophecy foretold would “cull the Raknii, as we once culled back the prey herds.”

  The rank of OverFleet-Master was the highest rank in the Raknii military. It implied command of 16 entire Rak warfleets, but it was largely a ceremonial title, as no more than four warfleets had ever been utilized in a single combat operation. QuadFleet-Master Wrin held that exclusive honor from an excessively nasty inter-regional confrontation between the blues of Region-3 and the greens of Region-4, some 350 cycles ago. Wrin had commanded four blue fleets that day and defeated the greens... who still smoldered in resentment at having their three warfleets routed by the blues.

  Tzal would be the first OverFleet-Master in history to actually take 16 full warfleets into combat in a single battle. Extensive interviews were being conducted for pliability of mind, as eight new DoubleFleet-Masters, four new QuadFleet-Masters and two new MegaFleet-Masters would need to be selected and raised through their own ascension ceremonies, before the initial assault beginning the Rak/Human war could be launched. Although the station had finally arrived at its destination, a tremendous amount of preparation and training remained, before the Raknii fleets boosted towards the destiny of their race.

  * * * *

  Chapter-13

  I know God won't give me anything I can't handle.

  I just wish he didn't trust me so much. -- Mother Teresa

  May, 3863

  Alliance Press (AP): Waston – News Flash (5/12/63)

  THE WAR IS OVER! – Alliance Capitulates to Confederate Demands – Alliance Press has recently received a communiqué from the State Department stating that President Pierre Marrot has issued an executive order, instructing the negotiating team in Pari to acquiesce to Confederate demands for recognition of the Confederacy as a sovereign, independent nation, and the Alliance officially abandons all future claims to any and all planets or properties therein. The statement went on to say that a formal treaty of peace, containing a mutual non-aggression clause and paragraphs outlining the normalization of relations between the two former belligerents, is to be negotiated in good faith. It is expected that complete agreements, including the establishing of formal diplomatic relations, trade, passport recognition, commercial spaceliner service and other such agreements as commonly found existing amongst the nations of humanity, will soon be forthcoming.