Intergalactic Union

by D. L. Harrison

  Then I was ready, every ship in every fleet, including the mass of the mini-platforms, morphed into eighty foot ships. While doing so, it ensured every single one of the new ships got ten of the direct quantum connections. Five trillion ships on all fourteen borders, except of course for our border with the Atans who only had a trillion and a quarter ships, since there’d only been one million dreadnought platforms on that border. There was also the one hundred thousand platforms in Sol, which became a hundred and twenty five million smaller ships.

  I’ll admit to letting out a petty snicker, as I imagined my allied human fleets scratching their heads nervously. An interesting side effect of the split was increasing my scanning capabilities by separating those ships evenly around the inner system. It would give me an almost full light minute coverage around Earth and my station, to the point where there’d be no delay between a cloaked ship entering that territory and being found.

  Lastly, that gave me two point five trillion ships for my attack force and spare mass in the void, which I hoped to put to use as soon as possible once we found the last two million Vrok ships.

  I shook my head, screw it. I went ahead and lessened the fleet mass on the Vrock and Atans border to match the other border. That meant I had one point two five trillion ships on both those borders, instead of the five on all the others. It also meant I now had six point two five trillion ships in the void, the equivalent throw weight to five million of the old dreadnought platforms.

  So, I’d out-mass the enemy two point five to one when I finally caught up to them, if I did, anyway.

  With ten or more connections in each of the ships I could control them all directly, and I wouldn’t have to worry about creating more connections until I’d split every ship in the fleet ten more times.

  Lastly, I updated the sales listings and added the options to the colony package. I made it more dynamic, instead of either or, they could get a mix. A hundred manned dreadnoughts, and a thousand unmanned dreadnoughts or one point two five million smaller attack ships. I made it more variable than that though, they could get five hundred dreadnoughts and five hundred thirteen thousand small ships, or any other mix of both, as long as the mass was equivalent to a thousand platforms in the end.

  I listed upgrade options as well, for the older stuff, but those wouldn’t be live for actual purchase until the next day, when our human testing process for the new systems was finally complete. I already had approved orders for upgrades for all countries with colonies outside of the eight, but now they could actually see what the upgrades would get them.

  In all, it took several hours to get it all done, and I was wrapping up the day to day stuff when Jessica’s console alarmed.

  Jessica said, “You know that stealth attack we’ve been waiting for?”

  “I’ll go out on a limb, and I’ll say it’s here.”

  Cassie smirked.

  Jessica nodded, “From all directions, about a light minute out. At their current rate of acceleration, they’ll be here in two hours.”

  “That’s fast.”

  She nodded, “They’ve been accelerating the whole way, and are moving pretty quickly right now. I guess they figured they’d have a better chance sneaking through if they moved quickly at a light acceleration. No need to stop, just overload the subspace energy device right before it hits our shields.”

  “That… makes sense. All directions?”

  She said, “Fifty, and more are still appearing. It looks like they’re coming in on several lines to hit all our sides at once.”

  “We haven’t upgraded the station yet, and won’t until tomorrow, but I suppose they don’t know that.”

  Cassie said, “That, and they’re probably hoping even if you find a few, or even a lot, a couple of them might slip by and reach us.”

  I blew out a breath, “Wait another ten minutes, let’s make sure we’ve got them all before we start firing. The subspace energy explosions will clear away the stellar dust, for hours before it’s replaced, if we miss one now then we might not see a second wave coming.”

  Jessica said, “I suggest we do that, and jump the station to somewhere with a lot of stellar dust in the solar system. Just in case you’re right and ten minutes wasn’t long enough, we can always move back later.”

  “Prudent, and a good idea. We’ll pop out to Mars orbit for a day until the stellar winds makes the dust uniform again. Warn off any traffic that won’t make dock within the next ten minutes and communicate where we’ll be, and they can head that way now or cancel all trips until tomorrow afternoon.”

  At sixty gravities it’d be an eight-hour trip, probably not worth it in a cramped commercial shuttle. We could always quantum jump them, if it was an emergency.

  Jessica said, “Will do.”

  We waited the ten minutes, and there were five hundred in total. We waited five more minutes just to be sure, but considering it was an even number I suspected that was all of them.

  I assigned the targets to five hundred ships. We couldn’t lock on exactly, there was nothing to lock on to. But we could jump in the path of the moving blankness, and then fire a wide cone in that direction. A cloaked ship couldn’t have shields, so it should annihilate them quickly.

  The explosions were vast, as their rigged subspace energy containment systems were breached. As I’d feared, it totally wiped out the stellar dust, and there was no point taking chances if there was another wave of five hundred coming in an hour or two.

  Chances are there wasn’t, but why risk it?

  I smirked, as I hit the button to jump the station. It was the first time we’d moved out of the Earth’s and Moon’s L2 Lagrange point since we claimed it over thirteen years ago.

  Chapter Seventeen - Interlude

  Blood and guts were scattered all over the great hall, at least twenty corpses, three of which were Vrok, and they had all been torn apart. The other seventeen… it was a horrible waste of their limited food stores. Sinzan had lost his mind, and had gone berserk, he’d had no choice but to end his old friend’s life.

  Jarune shook his head, “Clean this up.”

  One of the attendants bowed, “Yes, Exalted one.”

  He looked over at the hologram, “Hunt Leader Barok. Report, tell me what so drove our last Exalted one insane.”

  Barok replied, “The shield fleets were simultaneously ambushed. Were it not for chance, and quick thinking, we would have lost them all. There are two million five hundred and twelve ships left, and we’re currently in the void between galaxies. The attack on the human station also failed, their scanning net is too tight, we didn’t even get the hidden spears close before they were destroyed.”

  Almost twenty-two million of their ships had been destroyed in a surprise attack and their surprise attack had failed? He could see that driving Sinzan insane, the loss of his life’s work and the end of the great hunt, for now.

  “How did the humans find you?”

  Barok answered, “I know not, Exalted one. When we knew they were there we fired a low-level beam to find them, then targeted the impacts. They were almost in place. More of us would’ve survived, but they jammed our wormhole drives from close range. It was only those out of range that were able to escape. I’m rotating the ships through our current formation, and all ships on the edges are firing two overlapping beams at weak power. They will not get closer than a light second if they find us again.”

  He pondered that, “Perhaps they cannot find you in the vast emptiness between galaxies. They must have hidden spears searching, and we were too predictable. All the fleets were only five hundred light years from their true shield posts. It’s possible they stumbled over one and found the rest because we were too predictable. That seems more reasonable to me, than them magically finding you in the void between stars within a galaxy.”

  Barok nodded his head, “That could be, but I didn’t wish to risk our last ships on an assumption.”

  Jarune said, “The great hunt has failed, for this li
fetime. But all is not lost. The humans are weak, they will keep us confined to our planets as they have the Grays. We will be safe and waiting. Here are your orders. You will invade the Bavoi galaxy empire. Their ships can’t stand against ours, even against tens of millions you will cut them down like helpless herd animals. You will eat, you will start a build program, and you will breed your females as fast as possible.

  “Both your females and ours will work on advancements, the humans are our match. When the fleets are rebuilt, stronger, we will have our expanded empire and once more rule the stars.”

  There was a long pause, and Jarune understood it so let it go. The Bavoi was a single galaxy empire on their far border opposite the human empire. Their ships were similar in power to their older ships, and the Grays ships, but no match for them now. They could have attacked that way long ago, but adding a single galaxy wasn’t very glorious. Plus, the Bavoi tasted like crap, which was probably the real reason Barok hesitated for a moment.

  Barok replied, “It shall be as you say, Exalted one.”

  Jarune said, “Take heart, Barok. We will not see the glory in our lifetimes, but we will lay the foundation and sharpen the spears for our children to reclaim our birthright. There is much pride in that, and opportunity in adversity. If our planet bound females have advancements to try, we will contact you.”

  Barok straightened, “We will not fail, Exalted One.”

  Jarune said, “You have your orders, and you are now the Hunt Master of our fleets.”

  He ended the contact, and then blew out a hissing breath.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was the next day, the enemy fleet never showed back up, and I could only assume they were outside the galaxies for the moment. The only good news in that was they were relatively helpless out there. Without the resources of star systems out in the deeper voids, they wouldn’t be building anything, and at some point they’d run out of resources and show back up.

  It was just a matter of time.

  The testing was completed, and our space station was currently undergoing nanite upgrades and manufacturing the subspace energy beam turrets. With the upgraded shields, another stealth attack wouldn’t be as large a concern. It was doubtful, we had the enemy hiding, but it certainly didn’t hurt my confidence any.

  I was also converting all our mini-platforms to the eighty foot long ships.

  I really needed a name for those, I couldn’t just call them eighty-foot-long ships for the rest of my life, so I titled them scout destroyers in the system. Similar in size to the original Gray scout ship, but with the nanite reactors, new nanites, new weapons systems, and stronger systems, they were so much more powerful.

  Lastly, we were back at L2, the stellar dust and winds in that area returned to normal the last night. There’d been a few complaints about our short sojourn to Mars, but I wasn’t going to risk my two million civilians or my family over a tiny inconvenience.

  Cassie broke me out of my thoughts.

  “Our ambassador called. The United Nations approved your plan to claim a one percent diameter area of each galaxy to call human space. If our alien trading allies agree as well, they’ll all sign the agreement and vote in a human representative for the Galactic Union.”

  “Really?”

  Cassie giggled, “The eight aren’t that bad, six of them supported it openly, the last two merely abstained and didn’t veto as you feared. It’s a good plan, and it means a lot of space for humanity to spread out, and it justifies protecting so much space and alien worlds from aggressive empires.”

  “Since when does a good idea matter in politics?”

  Jessica laughed.

  Cassie smirked, “I don’t know, but humanity has been mostly sane in dealing with interactions in space and other alien societies.”

  That was true, we had managed to show a united front outside our own species, despite internal wrangling.

  “Okay, I can see that. We do manage to all work together when dealing with outsiders, for the most part.”

  The most part being the obvious, me getting stabbed in the back during our war with the Vrok, which I reminded myself wasn’t quite over yet.

  I considered informing Rena and the others, but it’d been three days and we were already scheduled to meet right after lunch. It could wait. I’d tell them the news face to face.

  With the upgrades fully tested, I spent the rest of the morning filling government orders. I combined ships in the void to make the hundred manned dreadnoughts and equivalent mass of a thousand platforms, and I started to send them to the hundred and thirty-four systems that’d ordered them, along with the control nanites to be passed to their station.

  That last was pretty standard as well, I could deliver them in a probe, and maintain control over it all while it was in transit using the probe itself as a router of sorts. The delivery probe with the control nanites also carried the upgrade for their colony ships turned command space station. All stuff I’d had set up and had software for, for years.

  My allies got everything I had, except the cloaking technology, singularity weapon, and second-generation energy to matter devices. Those three were top secret, and I wouldn’t be sharing them anytime soon.

  That took me most of the morning. It was easy enough, but repetitious and time consuming.

  “Good afternoon, I trust you’ve all been enjoying the station?”

  We were back in the conference room just after lunch. Rena, Threx, Uvi, and Cirlok were in attendance with me and Cassie.

  Rena replied, “We have, and appreciate your hospitality, as well as your willingness to work with us to assure our self-worth.”

  I nodded, “My world has agreed with the concept of a limited Intergalactic Union, we have also agreed to consider a small area of each galaxy as proper, complete, and ongoing payment for the protection we offer from the surrounding empires.”

  Rena said, “We have met with similar success, though not as complete as we’d hoped. None of the seventy percent of xenophobic races have replied to our inquiries, but we believe as long as we don’t invade their space that they won’t care what the rest of us do. Of the last thirty percent who are the active traders among us, five percent have declined but similarly have no concerns if the rest of us do it. They just don’t want to be a part of it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are the same races that refused any formalized trade treaties in the past and are obsessed with total independence.

  “The last twenty five percent of the interstellar capable races have agreed to the proposal.”

  I asked, “That’s about seven thousand races in the fifty galaxies?”

  That was going to be one big space station. My station had a lot more people than that, but it would need over seven thousand separate living areas, as well as a joint council chamber for seven thousand plus delegates and common trading areas. Assuming several chairs for all that, the council chamber alone would be the size of a small stadium.

  Uvi corrected, “Seven thousand two hundred and sixty-four. We’ll give you the data on them all when the meeting concludes.”

  I replied, “Sounds good. We’ll elect a delegate and prepare. We need to build a station. We also need to come up with the formal version of the treaty for all the delegates to sign off on as a first act. Lastly, I can map out and make preliminary claims in all the galaxies to be added to the cornerstone treaty for the Intergalactic Union. We obviously wouldn’t physically move into any of those systems until ratification.”

  We didn’t have a formal treaty yet, just a loose concept based on a meeting.

  Rena nodded, “They are the obvious next steps and they’re what we need to complete the treaty organization. We also need to discuss security of the Gray home world’s system where we’re putting it, and security on the station itself. But first things first, who will build it?”

  “I wouldn’t mind designing it and building its base configuration. Then each delegate and race can design their private living area for their race.�
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  Uvi asked, “Base configuration?”

  “We’ll all have different ideas of what home should look like. I envisioned the central part of the station as the delegate meeting area and meeting rooms, as well as a large space for traders to openly meet. Then off that main part, we’d have spokes of some kind, with seven thousand two hundred and sixty-four discrete living areas where the delegates, their families, and guests can call home while on station. I could make those living spaces dynamic, as far as room dimensions and facilities, and put them under control of the delegates.

  “Each group would have to import their own furniture, art, food, and add on technology, to make it theirs.”

  Rena nodded, “That is agreeable. Who will run the station? Apportion and charge for trading spaces, security personnel, not to mention the surrounding space.”

  Uvi said, “We should all secure our own living spaces and assign a warship each to the system to be commanded by the station administrator. I’m not sure who should secure the central area, can anyone be truly neutral?”

  I came up with a crazy idea, just popped up in my head, and I was fairly sure it was insane.

  “An outsider. I don’t think it should be us either, that would leave the impression we’re in control, when we’re trying to establish the opposite. We’re just being paid for a service under a formal treaty and trading organization.”

  Rena tilted her head, “What are you suggesting, exactly?”

  I took a deep breath, and I wondered if I’d been dropped on my head as a baby.

  “Well, I can’t think of a more neutral party than someone both outside of our treaty, and an artificial intelligence who would judge without bias. That’s probably crazy though. We could just hold an election on it. Rena, your people are highly trusted by most.”

  Rena shook her head, “My people would not want the responsibility. And that other idea is crazy.”

  I smirked. Just because a thought popped in my head didn’t make it a good idea.