by Joe Zieja
The two military leaders nodded in turn at Rogers, but before Rogers could ask any questions, Holdt bulled ahead.
“You can get to know each other later, but let me lay the groundwork here first. The pirates have been having good success cracking through the blockades, and the Jupiterians haven’t made much effort at a counterattack. We think it’s because they’re conserving their forces for pitched battles that might come later in this war, and don’t want to fritter their ships away blocking Un-Space points.”
Keffoule nodded. “Perhaps they are not as strong as they made themselves seem.”
The sharp-featured New Neptune man—General Krell—nodded, grinning ever so slightly. This surprised Rogers, as he’d based his assessment of New Neptunians on Xan and rumors. Perhaps they could actually emote when the mood struck them.
“We came to the same assessment,” Krell said. “I am honored and comforted that great minds think alike.”
Keffoule gave him the slightest of nods, a gesture that was either intended to thank the man or confirm his evaluation of Keffoule’s genius. This, for some reason, made the New Neptunian smile even more.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rogers said. “You don’t just attempt to take over the galaxy and then back off at the first sign of resistance. You’d lose the game.”
Rogers thought for a moment. The game . . . He didn’t know war, but he certainly knew gambling.
“They have an ace in the hole,” he said.
“Bingo,” Holdt said.
“I think he was talking about poker,” Tunger said.
“I’m sure the high admiral was aware of that, thank you, Tunger,” Rogers said, rolling his eyes. He turned back to Holdt. “I assume you know what this ace is, or you wouldn’t have these sour expressions on your faces.”
Holdt nodded, gritting his teeth. “It’s easier if I show you rather than tell you. I hear you’re a fan of irony, Rogers, so you’ll appreciate this transmission we received directly from Snaggardir’s corporate headquarters, which is still in geostationary orbit around one of the moons in Grandelle. It was sent directly to the heads of the remaining governmental bodies.”
While Rogers was busy contemplating why in the world someone would mention his appreciation for irony at a time like this, Holdt used his datapad to bring up a projection screen in the middle of the conference table, which was refracted in such a way that no matter the viewing angle, everyone’s perception was that they were viewing the two-dimensional image straight on. Rogers had always found this disorienting, like a creepy painting that wouldn’t take its eyes off you.
Shortly, an image came up that Rogers recognized as the corporate logo of Snaggardir’s, the empty chair now making him cringe a bit. Next, a plain portrait of the CEO, Sal Snaggardir, sitting at a plain desk in a plain office. Rogers had kind of imagined a throne of sorts, where the future Emperor of Everything would be sitting and addressing all those who had slighted Jupiter in the past.
Instead of launching into a propaganda speech, which is what Rogers expected, the bald, weathered old man began to talk as though having a conversation with his grandchild by a fireplace. His voice was warm—though his eyes were cold and unfeeling—and his posture was as relaxed as any lounging kitten.
“The Two Hundred Years (and Counting) Peace,” he said. “The pinnacle achievement of the human race, one which propelled us into over two centuries of prosperity, open trade, and tranquility.”
The image on the video changed from Sal Snaggardir’s face to a picture of Jupiter, taken, of course, before it was turned into galactic soup by the Milky Way’s collapse.
“You forgot us. But we did not forget you. By now you have seen how quickly we were able to take most of the galaxy in the blink of an eye. By now you have seen that the contributions Jupiterians have made to the new galactic society have been vast, important, and have played as much a part in the prosperity of humanity as any neglectful treaty ever did.”
Okay, so maybe it was a bit of a propaganda, soapbox speech. He was likely talking about the industrialization of the galaxy that had been supported by Snaggardir’s incredible business and manufacturing skills. Nearly everything had been made by this company—and if it hadn’t been actually physically produced by them, they’d done the R&D to make it happen. Rogers had of course understood the scale of the company’s influence before this moment, but not until now had it really meant something tangible. In fact, it almost seemed pointless to wage a war; the company already owned most of the galaxy.
“Our demands are simple. Cede one planet from each of the systems to our control, and make a new Two Hundred Years (and Counting) Peace that includes the people of Jupiter. There will be no forced relocations, no purges. Reparations will be demanded from each of the offending systems in order to support the rebuilding of Jupiterian society, but it will be fair. It will be more than you deserve.”
“That seems kind of silly,” Tunger said. “If we restart the Two Hundred Years (and Counting) Peace, it’s not exactly an accurate name anymore, is it? We might as well call it the Peace That Started Just Now.”
“Very astute, Tunger,” Rogers said, shaking his head. “Well, at least we know what they want. I was kind of scared for a little bit that they wanted the complete destruction of the galaxy.”
“If our demands are not met within two weeks,” Sal Snaggardir said, the video switching back to his face, “we will employ a weapon that will result in the complete destruction of the galaxy.”
“Oh,” Rogers said. “There we go.”
The screen shifted again, this time fading out to reveal a couple of fast cutaways of indecipherable metallic equipment. It was starting to look like a commercial for personal space transportation vehicles. Any moment now, someone was going to come on the screen shouting “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!”
. . . And then blow up the galaxy.
“What is all of this?” Keffoule asked, gesturing at the screen. Rogers looked over at her and noticed she was no longer sitting back in her chair like a relaxed leopard ready to strike, but was now leaning forward, her face scrunched up, focused. Rogers was used to looking at her and seeing “creepy woman trying to marry him,” but this was more “commander of huge amounts of firepower and ready to employ it.” It was a less stressful version of her.
Nobody else at the table answered, and the video soon made it evident what they were looking at. On the bottom of the screen appeared the words “The Galaxy Eater,” which was at once the worst and most effective name for a Snaggardir’s product that Rogers had ever heard. The camera moved out to a full view, and it was evident that the close-up shots had been different angles of a gigantic machine, something of a scale that Rogers had never seen before.
“Congratulations—you’re entitled to one free apocalypse,” a gruff voice from offscreen said. “Redeemable in two weeks.”
“Damn it, Szinder!” Snaggardir said, turning around. “I told you to—”
The video cut off.
Forced Joints
Everyone in the room fell into a tense silence, staring at the now empty center of the table. Even Tunger was silent this time, though Rogers might have actually welcomed a stupid comment. What were they supposed to do with a low-budget car commercial that notified everyone of their impending extinction?
Keffoule remained in business mode. “Do we have any indication as to what this device is or how it will be used? Destroying the galaxy is a fairly broad mission statement.”
Holdt turned the lights up in the room, leaning back in his chair. He looked awfully relaxed for someone in charge of saving the galaxy.
“That was all that was available in the video,” he said. “We’ve gathered some other bits and pieces from intelligence but we don’t know where the damn device is to reconnoiter it. It’s a damn tight spot.”
“Tight spot” was not how Rogers would have described being on the verge of the total annihilation of humanity. During the collapse of the Milky Way, the holes leading to w
hat would eventually become known as Un-Space had been discovered once the planets had started to shift out of their orbits, allowing mankind a new lease on life. This time, there was nowhere else for them to go. The only other path of the Un-Space tunnels was back to the Milky Way, which was currently still on its way to becoming a super-massive black hole. If the Galaxy Eater started, well, eating the galaxy, there was nothing they could do about it.
“As you are undoubtedly aware, Grand Marshal,” General Krell said, nodding—almost bowing—to Keffoule, “a machine of that size and scale couldn’t possibly remain completely undetected. We’ve had our scientists working on it around the clock, combing over the video and trying to determine the device’s purpose.”
“It’s not enough to know that it’s designed to destroy the galaxy,” Premiere Thrumeaux said, her voice thick and operatic. Did Grandelle produce anyone who wasn’t always pretending they were on the stage? “We must identify precisely how it is designed to destroy the galaxy, if we are to counter it.”
“Agreed,” Holdt said. “Our best scientists are working on analyzing the footage and working with our intel teams to see if there’s anything we can piece together. In the meantime, every telescope and spectrometer in space is tuned to detect the slightest of abnormalities.”
Thrumeaux folded her arms, tossing a head full of wildly curly hair behind her. “Is it possible this is all a bluff? Is it even possible that a single device could be responsible for the destruction of an entire galaxy? The amount of firepower it would need would be astronomical.”
Rogers laughed, which he immediately understood to be the wrong reaction. Everyone at the table looked at him.
“Ah, sorry,” he said. “I thought you were making a joke. ‘Astronomical’ firepower and all that?”
Everyone gave him a blank stare.
“No?” Rogers felt like his uniform collar was getting tighter by the second. He cleared his throat. “Well, fine. You’re missing the point, anyway. It doesn’t actually need any firepower.”
Krell and Thrumeaux looked slowly toward Holdt, as if to ask him why the hell he’d brought some random boozer/pirate into this meeting. Keffoule, on the other hand, seemed to understand what he was getting at.
“It was the Jupiterians who collapsed the galaxy the first time,” she said.
Rogers nodded at her. “Exactly.”
“But the collapse of the Milky Way took almost a full year to complete,” Krell said. “Humanity had enough time to find Un-Space, discover that they could escape through it, and then pile every ship in the system chock full of people and get them to Fortuna Stultus.”
“Well,” Rogers said, “they did have the last couple of centuries, a gigantic amount of capital from being the most powerful corporation in the galaxy, and an obsession with revenge. Don’t you think they might have improved the design a bit?”
A moment passed as they took all of this in. Honestly, it even made Rogers uncomfortable; he wasn’t used to being the one who delivered insight in a meeting of powerful people. He was used to being the one cheating them out of money. Or trying to cheat them out of money, and getting caught and arrested. Rogers supposed he had a better track record for the second version.
Holdt reached over and tapped his datapad, then tapped his earpiece to route the audio to him alone.
“It’s Holdt. I need you to get me all the available information on the original terraforming technology that collapsed the Milky Way. . . . Yes, as much as you can. . . . The cakes were very tasty, thank you. . . . No, for god’s sake please just use a French press to make coffee from now on.”
Holdt looked up, tapping the earpiece again, and cleared his throat. “Short staffing. My orderly is also the one heading up the research effort behind all of this, and he makes excellent shortcakes. All of you should do the same right now.”
“Eat cake?” Tunger asked, clapping excitedly.
“No. Start gathering whatever information you can on the collapse and its cause. If Rogers is right, we might at least be able to understand the old technology and extrapolate from there.”
Resisting the urge to ask for one of the cakes anyway, Rogers sent a quick message back to the Flagship to have Deet start working on the same thing. Hopefully he’d downloaded at least a few useful things while illegally digging through everyone’s file structures. When Quinn had started siphoning information from the Jupiterian data server connected to Commodore Zergan’s computer, they hadn’t known what they were looking for. As a result, a vast majority of the information they’d captured was useless. Shortly after Zergan had died, the terminal had erased itself. There might, however, have been something that they’d missed. He’d have Deet comb through that as well.
When everyone finished transmitting their orders to their respective organizations, Holdt was somehow eating a small piece of cake. It did look really good. Wiping a crumb from his mouth, Holdt pointed the tines of his fork toward Keffoule.
“Grand Marshal Keffoule, is there something wrong? You look troubled. I will need everyone’s help to accomplish this. I would think with Thelicosa’s reputation as scientists, you would certainly have someone with access to that kind of research.”
“There is someone,” Keffoule said. Everyone in the room turned to look at her, and Rogers had to suppress a startled chortle. Keffoule actually looked scared, a state of mind of which Rogers thought her incapable. Her face was white, an evident transformation on someone with olive skin, and she had both hands on the table, balled into fists. She opened her mouth to continue, but shut it abruptly.
“What’s up?” Rogers asked. “You going to throw up or something? This is pretty intense, but I thought you were a little tougher than that.”
He expected Keffoule to shoot him one of those “You are going to die” kinds of looks, but she didn’t move. She was too deep in her own mind.
“Out with it, Grand Marshal,” Holdt said.
“Please, Holdt, don’t rush her,” General Krell said. “Genius takes time.”
For some reason, Xan, who had been standing silently in the corner of the room this whole time—something he did exceedingly well—made a choking noise. When Rogers glanced at him to see what had happened, though, there was no indication that he’d done anything at all except for a slight swinging of his face weights.
Keffoule didn’t acknowledge the compliment, though a quick flick of her eyes told Rogers that she’d heard it. What was up with this Krell guy? Now wasn’t the time to be flirting with a fleet commander.
Wait, Rogers thought. Does this guy actually like Keffoule? A tiny bubble of hope blossomed in his belly.
“We have a . . . man,” Keffoule began, her eyes looking far off into nowhere. “He has abilities of discernment so incredible it seems like clairvoyance. He has bested complicated computers in calculation races.”
“Grand Marshal,” Xan said quietly, as though talking to a frightened child.
“Although we likely don’t have any information on the collapse that you don’t,” Keffoule continued, “it is extremely likely that if we present it to this . . . man . . . that he will be able to interpret it in ways that simple computational analysis could never hope to achieve. He is, in a word, incredible.”
Holdt seemed intrigued, but not impressed. “We’re going to need more to go on here than ‘a man,’ Grand Marshal. It all seems a little hard to believe.”
“Yes, who is this man?” Krell said, his voice taking on a bit of an edge. “Is he handsome?”
Rogers rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure that’s the most important aspect of his character, General Krell.”
Krell glared at him.
Keffoule took a deep breath. “We have . . . ,” she began.
“Grand Marshal, no,” Xan said. “You mustn’t—”
“Oh this is becoming very interesting,” Premiere Thrumeaux said, her face splitting into a Cheshire cat grin.
The question of the man’s identity hung in the air like a finger ove
r a detonator button. Even Rogers felt a little swept up in the moment, and he thought Keffoule was full of shit.
“We have the Astromologer,” she said breathlessly. In the corner, Xan actually gasped and brought a hand up to cover his mouth. His face weights got in the way, though, so he really just started a sort of Newtonian perpetual motion machine between his hand and the weights.
This revelation, however, seemed to have absolutely no effect on anyone else at the table. In fact, Krell, Thrumeaux, and Holdt looked utterly confused. Tunger was playing with a paper clip.
“The who?” Holdt said.
“The what?” Krell said.
“Never heard of him,” Thrumeaux said, her face deflating into the disappointed expression of one who had expected juicy gossip but had instead gotten an under-ripe plum.
“That’s your secret?” Rogers said, dimly remembering a conversation he’d had with Keffoule during their “We’re invading” incident. “You told me about that guy like two weeks ago. Obviously it’s not that classified.”
“I told you about the practice of astromology,” Keffoule said, her lips thin. “I most certainly never revealed to a Meridan that we had the Astromologer.”
“I don’t know what either of those two things are,” Rogers said. “Is it like . . . a combination of horoscopes and astrophysics?”
Keffoule’s eyes widened. “You do know of astromology!” she gasped.
“No,” Rogers said, shaking his head. “No, I do not. I’m just pretty good at etymology—which, by the way, is a word that means ‘not crazy math psychic bullshit.’ I’m not sure anyone outside of your system knows about this practice, because it sounds like the most absurd thing I have ever heard of.”
“It is absolutely not bullshit!” General Krell said, pounding his fist on the table. For a New Neptunian, he certainly seemed prone to a lot of expression. “This is a sacred and important part of Grand Marshal Keffoule’s culture and identity, and I will thank you not to refer to it in such a disrespectful way.”
Rogers raised an eyebrow. Behind him, Xan scoffed. It seemed all the New Neptunians were going no-holds-barred today when it came to emotional displays.
