by Lee Guo
By surrendering, he could very well be ordering the execution of his remaining troops.
But they would die anyway.
They would just take out more enemy soldiers in the process. But did it matter? There were millions of them on the planet.
What possible alternatives could he be left with?
The enemy did not have a way to communicate in any known language, therefore he couldn’t even negotiate a deal. Nor did they even appear as if they would accept any deal.
For more minutes, he thought about it. Finally, he came to the conclusion that his only choice would be unconditional surrender. He had to hope that the aliens wouldn’t kill their enemies if they gave up. If they didn’t, his troops were dying out there needlessly.
Damn though—they could very well die just as quick after they surrendered.
He eyed the planetary hologram, portions of it flashing red where combat was still occurring in the cities. The minds of a hundred people in the room were still channeling their energies towards fighting the aliens. Streit knew they would until he ordered them not to. The question was…when would he do that? If the alien did treat enemy soldiers in a humane manner—or at least, not execute them outright—how would he live with himself knowing that he could have ordered the surrender hours earlier and prevented more deaths?
Colonel Streit stood up. He picked up a mic and pressed a button that would transmit his voice across the room. He cleared his throat.
For a moment, the room quieted in eerie silence as everyone turned their attention towards him.
“All personnel, we are going to surrender. Commence F8 procedures immediately. Purge the central datacore of all information. Relay the orders down the chain of command. All combat units are to follow F8 procedures and terminate offensive activities.”
Then the room rushed into a new flurry of sounds as the orders were sent down the chain.
He hoped he had done the right thing.
Bajor City, Southern Continent, Meerlat
Main Hospital Complex
Outside Building 8D…
“Everyone, lay down your weapons.” Kubersly’s voice came as a shock even to himself. After all that gruesome fighting, all that killing, he still couldn’t imagine himself giving up. The Black Cats—that’s the name he’d given them secretly after seeing inside their armored exoskeletons—had given him hell. Hell and back. They had killed off ninety percent of his platoon, and now he was giving up to them? He wanted to kill as many of them as possible, even if it meant dying, but he couldn’t disobey orders. If surrendering actually saved the lives of his two remaining troopers, then he had to relay that order.
“But, sir,” Private Shelby said on the com line. “We have no way to tell them that we’re surrendering.”
“When everyone stops firing, they’ll know.”
“Then what?”
“Then we wait for their judgment.” Kubersly shuddered. He had personally witnessed them blow off the torsos of three civilian bystanders. He had watched the victims, two teenagers and an elderly man, run in fear before they disappeared in a blast of flesh and blood. How would the Black Cats treat him, who had actually killed two dozen of their soldiers?
Let’s hope none of them get rash or hold a grudge.
Throughout the city’s battlezone, the sound of magnetic whirring, gunfire, and explosions suddenly decreased, although not completely extinguished. For several minutes, he paid close attention to the officer level com chatter. Soldiers who had formerly been tough enough to weather hell and kill without hesitation were now frightened since they had no control over their fates. He heard one officer verbally narrate his encounter. From the fear and anxiety he felt, knowing the enemy could come closer and he could do nothing—to his final realization that this particular alien did, in fact hold a grudge—to his screams as he was killed outright.
The night basked in smoke and the sky held a golden glow from numerous city fires.
Then, Kubersly heard it himself. The pounding of heavy armored boots on blasted plasticrete.
Crunch. Clunk. Crunch.
The Sergeant sat behind a mound of rubble from a collapsed building. He knew they could see him, just as he could see them through the overhead nanosensors. The battle that had raged in the air between enemy and friendly recon probes had caused occasional blackouts in sensor information, but nanomachines were cheap and they were constantly being released into the air. Kubersly was not an expert at nanomachine warfare, but it seemed his side had fought the air war well.
Kubersly saw it through his sensors on the other side of the rubble. The Cat, black and menacing. With a two meters high armorsuit, holding a massive rifle, walking towards the position where Kubersly lay.
It walked slowly, like a victor.
Within seconds, it finished walking around the rubble and gained line of sight on Kubersly. It aimed its rifle at him and shouted in some brutish alien tongue.
“For the Federation!” Private Mizzi shouted over the com channel.
The Cat, ten meters in front of Kubersly, suddenly exploded in a fireball. Black armor blew in every direction. Bits and pieces of flesh and yellow blood scattered on the charred plasticrete. The alien’s armored legs flew apart and landed meters away with a clang.
“Idiot!” Kubersly yelled. Gun blasts exploded all around him. He instantaneously reached for his magrifle near his feet and knew this time, he wouldn’t get out of it alive—when suddenly a human-sized hovercraft levitated down from above and hovered two meters above his head. He didn’t recognize this type of drone but he didn’t need to. It pointed its barrel towards him in an obvious sign, ‘Move and Die’. In his in-helmet display, he saw Private Mizzi’s life signal blink from blue to gray to black.
Kubersly raised his hands in the air in a universal gesture of surrender.
On the outskirts of Meerlat’s (star) hyperlimit
Imperial Mothership Ro’Zur’Gur
Command Nexus…
A massive one hundred kilometer wide doomstar emerged through a flickering white hyperspace window—limitless cascades of photons blasted in every direction. Sizzling electrons scattered around the gigantic portal, a tribute to the raw energy required for a hyperlight transit, let alone one of this magnitude. After the enormous window fizzled and died, the ship hovered in real space momentarily before accelerating inward towards Meerlat.
The Cat who controlled this flagship, and the entire Ga invasion, was the Great Warlord Gor-Eben. He stood in the center of a massive chamber surrounded by hundreds of uniformed Cats dressed in various rank-designating colors. These Cats occupied the control interfaces that maintained the ship. Gor-Eben himself wore the ceremonious white coat and cloak that designated the highest echelons in the Ga hierarchy. His black fur was neatly trimmed and his blue, searing eyes revealed his concentration and ambition. As he gazed around the cavern, he saw dozens of holoprojections appear and disappear as workers manipulated their interfaces.
It was safe to say that Gor-Eben was not a being to be trifled with. He had commanded trillions of lives and taken killed trillions of lives to satisfy his objectives. As long as his ambitions fell in line with the Great Prince, no being in the entire half-galaxy spanning empire could object to his wishes. Only if the Great Prince did not suspect, of course.
The Great Prince, the most powerful being in the entire universe, one day Gor-Eben would dethrone that obstacle. Gor-Eben was the greatest warlord to have ever amassed power in the empire, and it would be only a few more decades before this power was enough to surpass all the fleets the Great Prince commanded.
However, to do so, Gor-Eben required more servants and loyal territory, particularly territory with large manufacturing bases and trainable populations. Another race of beings that could be conquered and then put to use into making warships and becoming footsoldiers for Gor-Eben’s future armies… this aim was like precious platinum in his burning, blue eyes.
All in the name of the Great Prince…Go
r-Eben schemed.
“Your magnificence,” one of the comm operators in standard Gar said. “Subjugator Hal-Dorat wishes to report his progress.”
Gor-Eben nodded. “Bring him to me.”
A hologram of the fleet commander fizzled into existence in front of Gor-Eben. The bright-red uniformed figure wore golden shoulder sleeves and stood in a translucent gray background. It bowed. “Your eminence.”
“Rise, Hal-Dorat.” Gor-Eben gleamed at his subordinate’s space black fur, a true warrior. “Tell me that which you wish to speak.”
“All surface resistance has ended. The beings of bare-skinned bipedals have capitulated the system. We gained information on all their weapons and defenses. Primitive but courageous. Their surface population is six million sophonts. In addition, we have captured seven hundred survivors from their space battle. We have lost sixty thousand ground Ka. Our space fleet losses are negligible. Do I proceed with usual assimilation procedures?”
“You have done well, Hal-Dorat. Start assimilation protocols immediately. Do not give any information away but learn much from them. As usual, destroy all tachyon transmitters and receptors and all vessels capable of hyper transit. I will loan you my linguistic Lar, so we may learn how to communicate with them.”
“What do I do with their warriors, your eminence?”
Gor-Eben paused, stroking his golden whiskers. What to do with the enemy’s fighters was always tricky, especially during the beginning of the invasion before the entire race realizes that victory is impossible. The aggressive warriors may try to sabotage the assimilation process or, worse, attempt to kill fellow Ka. “Kill the most difficult dissidents, but leave the rest alive until our linguistic and social scientists have studied their psychology.”
“As you wish, your eminence.”
“Is that all, Hal-Dorat?”
“Yes, your eminence.”
“Then I salute you on your success, subjugator.”
Hal-Dorat grinned, a small grin typical of someone with tact and wisdom. “It was an easy task, your eminence. The technology of the aliens was trivial. I estimate the conquest of their empire will not be as hard compared to other empires. Certainly not as difficult as the Diars. However, theirs is a larger area. This will give them more time to adapt, and perhaps find new technologies and tactics. But from surface observations, theirs is not an unreasonable species. It will not be difficult to convert them into the empire. Of course, there will always be the overly zealous among them. We will probably suffer casualties from acts of sabotage and dissent.”
Gor-Eben nodded. “Such optimistic conclusions delights me, Hal-Dorat. I hope the reality is true as you say. Naturally, every conquest requires risks, but they will be overcome. You will be rewarded for your services, again. Once you have put the final orders in, I will assign a planetary governor in your place. You will then have another star system to conquer. Go.”
The Cat bowed, his black fur glistening. “In honor of the Great Prince.” The hologram faded away.
In honor of the Great Prince, Gor-Eben thought shrewdly.
Outside Bajor City, Southern Continent, Meerlat
Unknown Alien Ship…
Sargent Will Kubersly walked through a large cavernous ship. He didn’t know where they would eventually take him, but currently he was in what appeared to be the hangar bay of one of their black troop transports. The transport itself was two hundred meters wide.
So much black, Kubersly observed. This race was obsessed with black, as if it were a divine color. From what he’d seen, every member of their species had shades of black fur from gray to solid oily black.
Kubersly saw a couple of feline technicians working on one of their tanks. The smell of an unknown gas made him choke. The technicians barely noticed him, as if they had seen it all before.
Kubersly fell forward when one of the armored Cats shoved him from behind. The metal ground of the hangar bay felt cold in his alien sandals.
He continued walking. Stripped of his exoskeleton hours ago, he had nothing but trousers and a combat shirt. During his trip here through one of their black transports, he had seen other humans being herded in lines. Whatever the aliens wanted, they wanted to do it quick.
It took minutes to traverse the hangar bay. When he reached the other end, he was led through a door and into an elevator.
Surrounded by Cats in black armor, Kubersly felt small. When the elevator stopped climbing, it opened to another hangar bay. This time, the ceiling was open to the sky. He saw a dozen shuttlecraft occupying the pads. They led him into one of the shuttle’s doors. A passenger compartment filled with seats.
Three humans sat inside, all of whom were barefoot. Kubersly recognized marines anywhere. These war torn marines had been stripped of their armor just like him.
The Cats forced him to sit beside his fellow humans. The door closed.
Within minutes, the shuttle began to move. Artificial gravity kicked in, and Kubersly felt the stomach churning grouch that came with it. For the longest minute, all was quiet inside the shuttle. The alien guards silently watched in their black armor.
A woman gazed at the group. “Does anyone know where they’re taking us?”
A man spoke, “We’re not dead. That’s a good sign. I really doubt these Cats would waste all these resources to kill us in space.”
“Names?” the woman asked.
“Second Lieutenant Victorio Bertini.”
“Private Arthur Lynch.”
“Sargent Will Kubersly.”
“I’m First Sargent Cornelia Windsor,” the woman stated. “It seems we’re all similar in that we’re all military survivors of the invasion.”
“That have seen combat,” Kubersly remarked. His gaze tried to search for a window but he realized it was futile. There were no windows in military transports, and certainly the Cats followed convention. Whatever antigrav technology the aliens had, he felt not a bump. He didn’t know if the transport had landed or was accelerating out of the system.
“So why us?” Cornelia asked. “Why not civilians?”
“And why only us, instead of all the other captured military personnel?” Arthur asked.
Kubersly shrugged. “Perhaps we’re guinea pigs for an alien experiment. Perhaps they need fit men.”
“Then why not also chose from the civilian pool?” Cornelia wondered. “And if being in the military is must, why just us four? There are plenty of other fit military men and women.”
Silence.
“Maybe it’s something good,” Victorio stated. “A reward.”
“For what?” Cornelia spoke again.
“For fighting well. Maybe their culture values those who are good at combat.”
“But how do they measure that?” Cornelia asked.
“I don’t know.”
Kubersly spent the next thirty minutes listening to everyone’s combat stories including which units they were assigned, where they fought, and most of all—how they survived. By the time it was over, everyone was reasonably certain that they’d been handpicked because of their experience as soldiers. Everyone’s story in the fourteen hours of ground combat were so extraordinary that it was obvious they had been chosen for because they had fought better than ninety-nine percent of the other marines. What the aliens intended to do with such a handpicked lot remained a mystery. Ideas ranging from brain scans, combat medals, sacrificial goats, interrogation schemes to medical probes circulated.
Finally, he heard a clunk. The shuttle’s antigrav turned off and instead of feeling 1.1 G’s similar to the gravity on Meerlat, he felt about 1.3 G’s. They were on board another spaceship. They couldn’t be on another planet. No planets in the system had 1.3 G’s. They could be in orbit of another planet, however, like one of the system’s gas giants.
The door opened. The alien guards signaled them to stand up.
They were led out of the shuttle into a much more massive hangar. This one was a mile across. What ship were they in? What types o
f armaments did this ship have? What type of technology built it? The distant bluish walls glowed. Large vessels the size of Federation frigates docked inside the hangar. Thousands of alien personnel worked inside it, going about their business.
The four waited in an odd group, shuddering because of the cold and surrounded by alien guards until a smaller transport pulled up.
They were forced to climb into it. The guards followed.
The grav bus flew through a kilometer until it reached a landing pad high up in the hangar. When Kubersly exited the bus, he tried not to look down. They were more than eight hundred meters from ground level.
He and his compatriots exited the hangar through a door into the rest of the ship. They walked through kilometers of metal corridors. Each wall comprised of bluish metal with ambient light that glowed directly from the wall itself.
Numerous Cats with black fur barely noticed them as they passed through the tunnels. The Cats seemed to ignore them completely. Each wore uniforms like a conventional navy.
Kubersly saw a variety of uniforms, but mostly yellow. Yellow must designate standard shipboard personnel. Occasionally, he saw blue. He had no idea what rank or branch or order or specialty that signified. One time, he saw light red. The light red one paid a bit more attention to them as they passed.
Finally, they stopped outside a large gray metal door. The alien guards spoke in a guttural language to a device on the walls. Finally, the hatch opened.
When the marines stepped inside, the first thing Kubersly recognized were all the control interfaces and the Cats who worked on them. This looked like the inside of a control room. Holodisplays in front of every worker, hundreds of workers. This was a command center.
The next thing he realized was that there much fewer Cats in yellow uniforms. There were more oranges and light reds. Officers?
The guards walked them to the center of this chamber. One of the Cats turned to face them. This Cat wore dark red, and had golden shoulder pads, obviously some sort of rank signifying insignia.
