“I would have to agree, Admiral,” said the Marine officer. “While I think we could still carry it off, it is always better to have more in reserve.”
* * *
“You realize, sir, that the humans will be striking at us next,” said the Klassekian with the rank insignia of the Supreme General of the Honish Military.
“And it is your job, General, to stop them,” said Zzarr, his primary eyes locked with those of the officer. “By all means possible.”
“I am not sure that it is possible,” said the Supreme General. “We have very few nuclear weapons left in our inventory. It will take months to assemble any more, and launch vehicles are still going to be a problem. And the humans have proven that we cannot stand up to them in open combat.”
“Also, there is no way we can strike at their ships,” said the Chief of Intelligence. “It is difficult to shoot down their aerial vehicles. Really, the only point of attack that leads to any kind of success is against their research personnel, when they are out in small groups. And even then, the odds of our people getting away are slight.”
“I don’t care about our people getting away. They can be martyred, and go to paradise.”
“Suicide bombers,” said the Chief of Intelligence, raising a tentacle into the air. “We can get volunteers to wear explosive devices, drive vehicles full of explosives, even fly aircraft into ground targets. I am sure we will be able to get our quota of volunteers when we tell them they will serve Hrrottha by such attacks.”
The Leader stared at his Chief of Intelligence for a moment. “Why didn’t we think of that? From where did this idea come?”
“From the history of the humans,” said the Chief of Intelligence, his face taking on an expression of joy. “They gave us access to some of their historical databases when they first arrived, I guess to prove how trustworthy they were. And their ancient history, before they left their home world, is replete with examples of suicide bombers. Civilian terrorists, military pilots.”
“Brilliant. Let it be so.”
“You realize, sir, that our chances of driving them from this world are remote,” said the Supreme General. “And they are already moving people from this world away from the judgment of the God. It may already be too late.”
“We still must try,” yelled the Leader, slamming his left side tentacles on the table. “The God has given us this test, and we must do the best we can.”
Zzarr turned back to his Chief of Intelligence. “How is the interrogation of the prisoner going? Have you come up with any new insights into the enemy?”
“She is well conditioned to resist any means of persuasion we might employ. And we don’t know enough about her biology to utilize chemical means. Chemical means,” said the Chief of Intelligence, waving his right side tentacles in the air. “Chemical means.”
“What is it?” demanded the Leader.
“Just a thought. And maybe a means to actually hurt the aliens. I will have to talk it over with some of my staff, but it might be feasible.”
* * *
Warrant Officer Melissa Sung opened her eyes as the too bright lights came up in the room. She had lost track of time, only measuring it by way of the meals they brought her, at what seemed to be infrequent intervals. And, of course, the interrogation sessions.
Torture is more like it, she thought. The Honish had some diabolically effective methods of pain inducement, which, unfortunately, seemed to work on humans just as well as their own. They would have been extremely effective against old style humans, the ones before the Improvement Project of eight hundred years ago. Those humans couldn’t even turn off their pain pathways, and had to suffer through the repetition of signals from pain receptors to the sensory strip of the brain even when such signals were no longer useful. When people needed to rest, to heal, they were still disturbed by throbbing pain.
Melissa could turn off those pain pathways, stop the signal, even while they were trying to push her nerves to the limit. But she had to make them think she was still in pain, something that stretched her acting abilities to the limit.
“More questions?” she asked as the being she only knew as the Inquisitor walked up to her.
“No more questions,” said the being. “We have wasted enough time on you. It is time to put your body to some use, if your mind won’t cooperate.”
“What do you…” The last word would not come out of her mouth as the Klassekian put a device to her forehead and fired a fast moving dart into her brain.
“Get her prepped,” said the Inquisitor to the two other males who then entered the room. “Command wants her found within the next twelve hours.”
* * *
“We monitored the meeting between the leader of Honish and his staff,” said Susan Lee, sitting across the desk from Admiral Nguyen.
The Admiral looked up from the small tactical holo he had been using to track the incoming ships, thinking about the other vessels the initial report had told him were coming in hyper VI from base. And contingents coming directly from the Empire through VII and VI.
“So, what’s their plan?” And can we stop it by taking him out, which should happen in the next forty-one hours.
“Suicide attacks,” said the Chief of Staff. “They’re planning to use fanatics to attack us with explosives, either strapped to their bodies or in vehicles.”
“And how do we stop them?” asked Nguyen, rubbing his temples. “I’m assuming we can use our chemical sniffers to track them.”
“That would probably work, in most cases, but we were given some information by the intelligence services of Tsarzor and their allies that the Honish have an advanced binary explosives industry.”
“So they’re going to hit us again, and hard,” said Nguyen, shaking his head. “I wish we had just gone ahead and crushed the Honish when we first arrived. Damned fanatics.”
“I looked up some historical references to Old Earth,” said Lee, pulling up another holo that showed a view of what was considered a tall building at that time. “This was a time when the technology was similar to that of this planet.” An aircraft came flying into the picture and hit the side of the building, giving the structure some scale. The building had to be about four hundred meters tall, compared to the three or four kilometer high structures of the Empire. “They had a number of competing religions, and most thought they were the only true faith, while the others were populated by fools and liars. The Western world was the more technologically advanced, and the Eastern, which was dominated by one of the more fanatical religions, used asymmetrical warfare against the West. Such as terrorist attacks, like flying a passenger aircraft, fully fueled, into landmark buildings.”
“And how did they deal with their fanatics?”
“They tried all kinds of things,” said the Chief of Staff. “Reason, reconciliation, giving in to demands. But nothing seemed to work other than military action.”
“Which we are already engaged in,” said the Admiral, watching the aircraft slice into the building, a ball of flame flaring out into the air from where it had hit.
“One of the experts of the time said this about the military strategy,” continued Lee. “He thought they needed to kill all of them, and their families, and their pet goats.”
“Barbaric thinking,” said the Admiral, closing his eyes and shaking his head again. “What was the name of this fanatical religion.”
“Islam. And their followers were known as Muslims,” said Lee, looking into his eyes.
“But, they aren’t fanatical today. And they’re still around, so obviously the opposition didn’t take the advice of that expert.”
“No, but there were religious wars, and many of the homelands of the Muslims were devastated. Hundreds of millions were killed, but the faith continued.”
“And that changed them?”
“I think the lure of better technology, and a better standard of living convinced most of them to adopt a more accepting attitude. That, and being thrown of
f their own homeworld with the coming of the Cacas. Nothing like being totally defeated by an alien power to rid one of an attitude of being specially blessed by God.”
“What brings this up, Susan?”
“I know, sir, that we are dealing with a people, a religious belief system much like the Muslims used to be like before they joined modern civilization. I guess I should back up on that a bit. There always were lots of Muslims who were living in the modern world, willing to get along with those who were not of their faith. But there were also a very large number of the radicals, the fanatics, those who thought they were the specially chosen of their God, above all others. Not to be offended lest they strike back and kill the offenders.”
Lee changed the view of the holo she had pulled up from the ancient terrorist attack, to the terrorist fanatics charging across the plaza as the Tsarzorian embassy, and into the deadly beams of the pulse laser. “You face a choice here, sir. We are here to save as many of these people as we can. As many as we can from all ethnic groups. Can you imagine, sir, what it would have been like if our ancestors had only taken one chosen ethnic group with them, one race, one genetic heritage. Without the Chinese, I would not be here. Without the genomes of the Vietnamese, you wouldn’t be here either. And these followers of what I could only consider a Death God believe that only their faith counts, and, that like little children, they must have their way. You have hard choice, Admiral. You may have to kill most of the Honish in order to rescue some of their genome. And to protect the others we wish to relocate.”
“You’re speaking atrocity here, Susan,” said the shocked Admiral. “Crimes against sentience.”
“This world is doomed, Admiral. The great majority of those left behind, the billions who cannot get into shelters, will be dead within a year and a half, when the wave of radiation strikes. And since the Honish refuse to build shelters, that includes all of them.”
“I’ll have to think this over, Captain,” said Nguyen in a distant voice. “I appreciate the courage it took to broach this topic.” And he did. Most humans would never admit to thinking of such a bloody solution. It went against everything they were taught in their society. It was not a society of pacifists. But it was one in which people were taught to use the minimum force necessary to achieve their objectives, even if sometimes the minimum was actually the maximum possible.
And I wonder if this is a case where the maximum force is the minimum necessary.
* * *
“I really don’t like these results, Captain,” said Commander Stephanie Harrison, taking the offered seat across from Walther Huang’s desk. “I know I’m not in the same league as a real astrophysicist, but these results scare me.”
Huang nodded, recalling what he could about his Exec’s history in astrophysics. He knew she was bright, probably the most intelligent person aboard the Lewis. And, checking her records with his implants, found that she had been in the Doctoral program at Imperial University on Jewel at one time. Until some charges of academic impropriety had cropped up, one of her major professors accusing her of stealing his work. The records showed that not only did she deny the charges, but counter charged the professor of actually stealing the work from her. Of course he denied it, and refused to testify under a physiological recording, as was his right, and she was dismissed from the University, soon after to enter the Academy, and then on to the Command.
“What have you found?” asked Huang, holding up a hand before she could speak. “And remember to dumb it down for us people who have not reached your level of physics,” he said with a smile.
“It’s the release of gravitons, sir. That star is a big gravity source, and is flooding space with gravitons, the messenger particles of gravity. And when it blows, and the matter disperses, the amount of graviton emission will go up by ten to the power of eight. Just for a little while, but enough to really screw up all of our graviton based sensory systems.”
“We were already warned of that,” said the Captain in his best patient voice. “So we won’t be able to track other vessels in hyper. I really don’t think that is much to concern ourselves with.”
“And I’m not concerned with that part, sir. What I’m concerned about is the way it will interfere with our ability to open holes into and out of hyperspace. As you can see from these calculations.” Harrison brought up the said calculations on her flat screen, which she tilted toward her Captain so he could see them. “The interface between the dimensions of normal space and hyperspace, all of the interfaces, will resonate at a frequency that will interfere with our own hyperdrive resonances. We won’t be able to go into hyperspace from normal space, or be able to change dimensions of hyper, or leave.”
Huang looked at the calculations, which really meant nothing to him until he brought up his link to the ship’s computer and had the AI go over them. It could find nothing wrong with them, which didn’t prove the conclusions that came from them were correct.
“So, you’re saying that when Big Bastard blows, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“That would be my theory.”
“How far will this effect reach? And for how long?”
“I really have no idea, sir. A hundred light years, more or less. I wouldn’t think it could last longer than a couple of weeks, a month at most. But I really don’t know.”
Huang sat there, staring at the calculations on her pad, then back at the holo of Big Bastard. “What do you want me to do about this?”
“Let the people higher up know,” she said, putting the flat screen back on the desk. “Have some other astrophysicists, or, preferably some hyperspace spatial theorists, look at them. I ran them past our Engineer, and got a qualified approval of my theory, but we need to have some true experts look at them.”
“I’ll send them up to the Admiral,” said the Captain, looking back at the blue giant. “It will be up to him to decide what to do. At least we don’t have to worry about the damned thing blowing up tomorrow, or even several months from now.”
He could see the worry in the face of his Exec, and knew what she was thinking. Her alarming theory might be put on the back burner with all of the other things weighing on the Admiral’s mind. And if it was forgotten long enough, there might be hell to pay.
Chapter Seventeen
When a scientist tells you something is a sure thing, check your wallet first, then his calculations.
Old Malticon saying.
APRIL 12TH , 1001. D-81.
“Lusitania has started loading, sir,” came the call from the captain of that ship to the Admiral. “We should be fully loaded and ready to break orbit within forty-eight hours.”
Nguyen smiled. The ship would only carry six thousand five hundred Klassekians in cryo sleep. A light cruiser and two destroyers would ride herd on the ship. That was a strong escort for a single ship, but there were too many unknowns in this space to risk that resource, and the warships would be loaded up with all the aliens in cryo they could handle, about eight hundred for the cruiser, and four hundred each for the destroyers. The ships would be leaving behind more than half their Marine contingents, who would be of more use to the evacuation effort here than riding as passengers.
“Very good, Captain. I look forward to a swift voyage by your ship, and a speedy return.” The ships would be heading to Bolthole, the first evacuation effort headed that way. Only the bridge watches of the ships would know where they were going, and they would have that memory removed once they were through with their mission, just as had been done to the crews of all the other ships that had plied the lanes to the hidden base.
Nguyen looked at the holo of the local space, stretching out to two hundred light years in each direction. There were several million stars in that sphere that was located in the dense structure of the Perseus Arm. The whole area hadn’t been explored, but it was known that there were two space faring races in that sphere, as well as twelve other intelligent species. The worry was that there might be other space faring sp
ecies in the sphere, or even further on along the path to Bolthole. Even if they were slightly less advanced, they could still be a threat to a single ship like the liner, hence the escort.
With a thought he zoomed in on the closer space, fifty light years out from Big Bastard. That was the danger zone, the area that would be swept by sufficient radiation to endanger life on the surface of worlds. Everything within ten light years was probably dead, though enough microscopic life on land, and some of the larger sea life, might survive. From ten to twenty light years there would be major damage to the ecosystems, similar to what occurred on Earth during the massive extinctions of the past. After that there would be damage of various levels, and increased mutations. Those planets would probably be OK.
The closest system with intelligent life to Big Bastard was eight light years, about eight and a half years from the radiation wave the blue giant would send out in a sphere. There was another within fifteen light years, and a planet with a species that would probably achieve sentience within the next million years within twelve light years. There were scores of worlds with life, many highly developed. It would be the job of the Command to gather genetic samples from all of those planets, and put up protective screens around those worlds where there was intelligent life. They might not be able to screen the whole surface, but they could at least protect enough to allow the world to survive.
That only worked due to the inverse square law. Big Bastard was six light months from Klassek. Something a light year away would only receive a quarter of that radiation. At two light years a sixteenth, and so on. So a world eight light years away would only get thousandths of the same radiation, and it would be easier to shield that world.
“We’re ready to go when you give us the word,” said Colonel Margolis over the com.
Nguyen checked his internal timer and saw that there was still over eight hours on it. “We go as scheduled, Colonel. I don’t see any need to hurry everyone to action stations when they already know when to be where they need to be.” He was mostly thinking of his naval personnel, the people who would man shipboard stations, pilots, medical personnel. “Tell your people to stand down, get something to eat, some rest, and we’ll go at eighteen hundred hours ship’s time.”
Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova. Page 20
