by Tori Harris
“Admiral Naftur — Duke Sexton,” he said, also offering his hand. “It’s an honor to finally meet you, sir.”
“Admiral Sexton, I am pleased to meet you as well, and the honor is entirely mine. Young Captain Prescott asked me to inform you that he will join us in a few hours. I have been impressed with him from our first meeting, but his performance in battle at Gliese 667 was nothing short of exceptional. If he is any indication of the quality of your officer corps, then Terran Fleet Command is a formidable force, indeed.”
“That is quite a compliment. Thank you, sir. The situation here has been changing so rapidly that I have not had time to fully digest the details of the battle, but I look forward to having the opportunity to do so. I trust Admiral White apologized for our absence at your arrival? I regret the unfortunate timing on our part, but, as you can imagine, our Leadership Council has been in emergency session since immediately after the Guardian spacecraft arrived. They have kept our entire Admiralty staff fully engaged since then, and I suspect this trend will continue for some time. If you would like to step into my office, we will try to make up for our bad manners with some good food.” Sexton beckoned Admiral Naftur towards the sitting area on one side of his inner office, dismissing the two Marine guards to the hallway with a nod.
“I suspect there will be precious little opportunity for sleep in your immediate future, let alone ceremony,” Naftur said, taking his seat with a sympathetic smile, “so I will likewise dispense with formalities and proceed with the purpose of my visit. Please interrupt me at any time if something is unclear, or if you need additional explanation.”
“Excellent,” Sexton replied, nodding. “We are deeply grateful for your assistance. Please continue, sir.”
“There are three primary areas where I believe I can provide some meaningful, and hopefully actionable, information,” Naftur began. “The first thing I would like to do is provide you with some background information regarding the so-called ‘Pelaran Resistance’ task force. While there is a certain degree of supposition involved, I have a general idea of the makeup of their forces. Assuming my guesses are largely accurate, I believe I can offer you some idea of their military capabilities as well as their most likely strategy for conducting an attack on Terra.”
“That information alone will leave us deeply in your debt, Admiral.”
“Unfortunately, Admiral Sexton, the challenges your world faces at the moment are manifold,” he replied in a mournful, guttural tone. “It is my hope, however, that we may yet be able to locate the Resistance warships while they are still in the process of assembling their forces. If we can do so, I believe I may have some hope of averting the attack altogether.”
“I have no doubt of your sincerity, Admiral Naftur,” White began, “but surely these vessels could be just about anywhere. How could you possibly hope to locate their staging area?”
“It would seem so, Admiral White, but this is one of the few circumstances that fall in our favor at the moment. The majority of ships the Resistance is likely to have at their disposal have been commandeered from regions of Sajeth Collective space where the threat of military action is minimal. In many cases, these are older ships nearing the end of their service lifespans, but still useful for missions such as regional patrol or what you might refer to as ‘peacekeeping.’ Please do not misunderstand the intent of my words here. What these ships lack where modern propulsion or shielding systems are concerned, they more than make up for in terms of raw firepower. In the hands of a competent task force commander, these vessels represent a serious threat, particularly when paired with the command and control systems available on the more modern vessels. Make no mistake, the combined resources of this task force are more than capable of mounting a truly devastating attack on Terra. Having said all of that, when most of these vessels were constructed, the state of the art in hyperspace navigation was much less advanced than it is today. At the time, Wek starships relied on standardized navigational pathways defined by a variety of stellar phenomena such as the X-ray emissions from pulsars. This provided the accuracy they needed to avoid unfortunate events … transitioning from hyperspace within the interior of a star, for example.”
Although never actually employed as a primary means of navigation on Terran spacecraft, the idea that the clock-like regularity of pulsar emissions could be used in such a way had occurred to Humans as well. During the late twentieth century, Pioneer 10 and 11 as well as both Voyager space probes included a pulsar-based “we are here” map. The drawing featured fifteen lines from a common origin, fourteen of which included binary representations of the unique emissions from specific pulsars. The length of each of the fourteen lines provided the relative distance from each pulsar to Sol, while the fifteenth line indicated Sol’s distance to the center of the galaxy. A number of scientists had argued that providing a road map to our homeworld might eventually turn out to be a bad idea. Physicist Stephen Hawking was even quoted as saying that an alien visit to Earth would have likely resulted in an outcome similar to Christopher Columbus landing in America … which hadn’t turned out very well for the Native Americans.
“So are you saying that these vessels are forced to follow somewhat predictable flight paths?” Sexton asked.
“With an understanding of how their navigation systems were designed as well as the stellar cartography of the region near the destination, yes. A few of these older vessels will likely be traveling to the rally point alone. Since the Sajeth Collective assumes that your world has at least some level of monitoring and early warning capabilities deployed within the boundaries of the system, it is unlikely they will gather their forces less than two light years from Sol. On the other hand, they will also seek to minimize the distance required for their final approach and attack.”
“That being the case, how will the older vessels manage the final portion of their journey?” White asked. “Clearly, they will need to be much closer than two light years in order to make their attack run using sublight engines.”
“Indeed. When attacking, they will endeavor to transition as close to Terra as they possibly can. This will be accomplished by coupling the navigation systems across multiple vessels. Although this still diminishes the tactical surprise capabilities of newer warships such as the Gresav-class, the task force should still be able to transition out of hyperspace within a few million kilometers of Terra. From there, they will approach as closely as possible from multiple directions, saturating whatever defensive systems you have in place with a barrage of missile and kinetic energy weapons fire. In order to achieve this level of navigational accuracy, their rally point will most likely be less than five light years distant.”
“If I understand you correctly, we’re still talking about the space between two concentric spheres with a radius of two and five light years, respectively, Admiral Naftur. That still sounds like an awfully large volume of space to search for potential staging areas,” Sexton observed.
“Impossibly large, given the time we have available,” Naftur agreed. “Before leaving the Gresav, however, I tasked our AI with simulating the area within five light years of Sol to look for the most likely staging areas. Although the analysis was incomplete when I departed, it was still able to narrow the list to three hundred thirty-six of the most likely locations.”
“That still sounds like a pretty daunting challenge, Admiral,” White sighed.
“It does, but we have Fleet assets that might be able to work through the list pretty quickly as long as they don’t have to remain at each location very long,” Sexton interjected, careful to avoid revealing additional classified information in spite of what he knew Admiral Naftur had already observed for himself firsthand. “Let’s cover your remaining topics at a high level before I start issuing any orders, but time is of the essence where our search is concerned.”
“Very well,” Naftur continued. “The second item is one of long-term strategy. There are no doubt many within the Sajeth Collective Governin
g Council who would deem my actions and continued presence here as nothing short of open rebellion and treason. Fortunately for me,” he grinned,” the classified nature of my mission prevents my whereabouts from being generally known. In any event, I strongly believe that I am still acting within the bounds of the orders I was given when originally dispatched to the Sol System several months ago. One of the Council’s objectives was to establish contact with your world, hopefully leading to formalized diplomatic relations. This was to be accomplished in spite of any interference the Pelaran spacecraft chose to employ. Accordingly, another significant part of my mission was to continue developing tactics to overcome some of its technological advantages. Ultimately, as you can well imagine, we hoped to discover a way to destroy the Guardian ship entirely, even with the knowledge that doing so might well undermine our relations with your world.”
“It might at that, Admiral,” Sexton chuckled. “Now that we are acquainted, I hope you will seek our counsel before you attempt such a thing. I also recommend that we keep that particular piece of information to ourselves, for now. There are members of our Leadership Council, notably the chairwoman herself, who seem to be in favor of Earth rushing headlong into membership in the Pelaran Alliance. Personally, I have a hard time understanding that position, since we don’t yet have any idea what membership in such an alliance would entail.”
“Humph,” Naftur grunted. “I believe I might be able to shed some light on that question as well, in just a moment. And yes, if I have any say in the matter, Sajeth Collective forces will not attempt an attack on the Guardian without your prior knowledge. Returning now to the topic of charting a path forward, we must develop some sort of contingency plan for how we will proceed over the coming days and weeks. If, for example, I am either unable to locate the Resistance task force or unable to stop their attack on Earth even after locating their vessels, the manner in which we mount our defense of your world could have grave consequences for relations with the Sajeth Collective.”
“Forgive me, Admiral Naftur, but I’m not sure I follow. Since we are the ones being attacked, why should the method of our defense be a concern for us?” Sexton asked under raised eyebrows.
“Your question is one of justice and fairness, Admiral Sexton, which is understandable. Unfortunately, such concepts have little bearing on the outcome of the current situation. Although the Resistance task force is not officially sanctioned by the Sajeth Collective, I fear the Governing Council has reached a tipping point — one that will determine their official stance towards relations with Terra going forward. I can assure you that both the Resistance and its sympathizers within the Sajeth Collective do not anticipate that their task force will encounter any Human military resistance during their attack on Earth. They believe the Guardian spacecraft itself represents the planet’s only significant defense, which they hope to decoy and/or avoid altogether during their attack. Furthermore, during the battle at Gliese 667, we did not detect the launch of any communications drones before the Resistance ships were destroyed. So I believe we can safely assume that they were unable to warn the task force of Ingenuity’s offensive capabilities.” Naftur paused, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling slowly before continuing. “Having witnessed Ingenuity in battle for myself, as well as some of the forces preparing to defend your world, I now believe that Terran Fleet Command might well be capable of destroying the Resistance forces outright. My fear is that such a victory will do little more than serve as a pretext for a wider war.”
“Surely you don’t mean to imply that we don’t have the right to defend ourselves against this unprovoked aggression,” Sexton asked, beginning to feel frustrated at where the conversation seemed to be heading.
“Not at all. Indeed, it is your duty to do so. What I believe we must consider, however, is how the complete destruction of Resistance forces might actually serve to strengthen their cause within the Sajeth Collective. Some within the Governing Council will see Earth’s unexpected military capabilities, and their willingness to use those capabilities to destroy Sajeth Collective vessels,” Naftur held up his hand, anticipating Sexton’s objection, “ — even though they were used in a defensive role — as proof that the Pelarans will soon begin their domination of this region of the galaxy.”
“Using Earth as their proxy,” Admiral White observed.
“Just so. Those members of the Governing Council who were previously unsure of their position might then be easily swayed to join those supporting the Resistance. The history of both your world and mine is replete with examples of criminals and traitors who were transformed by circumstance into heroes and martyrs.”
“That depends on who is writing the history books, I suppose,” Sexton replied, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling as the implications of this latest complication raced through his mind.
“It is invariably the victors who do so,” Naftur said gravely. “In any event, the outright destruction of the Resistance task force may well push the Sajeth Collective in the direction of an outright declaration of war against Terra.”
“I hope you have some ideas regarding how we might go about overcoming that particular challenge, Admiral Naftur, because this sounds like what we commonly refer to as a ‘no-win situation’ to me.”
“That concept is … unfamiliar to me,” Naftur replied with a tilt of his head, “but the strategy I believe most likely to yield an outcome beneficial to both sides is to locate those ships and do what we must to prevent the attack altogether. Failing that, there may be few, if any, options available other than defending your world by whatever means necessary. If that occurs, we must then be prepared to move quickly to intervene with the more reasonable members of the Governing Council in hopes of avoiding an all-out war.”
“Very well. Although I am reluctant to ask for more bad news at this point, please continue to your third topic.”
Naftur looked at his Terran hosts in turn, as if to assess whether they possessed the mettle to deal effectively with the potentially world-altering decisions now facing them. “Unfortunately, my friends,” he sighed, “the last piece of information I have for you also has potentially grave consequences, but it is unclear what, if anything, we can do to address it. As you know, the Sajeth Collective has amassed a significant amount of data regarding the Pelarans and their cultivation program. Although the process has some variation, depending on the species involved, it does appear to proceed along a somewhat predictable path. We have also been able to identify certain tools and tactics used consistently by the Pelarans. Our assumption, of course, is that the program has been implemented so many times that it has become routine to some extent. We have noted, for example, that the Guardian spacecraft will occasionally intervene when unexpected events threaten to derail the process. Otherwise, it tends to remain largely passive. One notable exception involves the communications devices that are used to disseminate highly sensitive information. I trust these devices are being used on Terra as well?”
Admiral White glanced at the Commander in Chief for confirmation that discussing such highly classified information, even in general terms, was something they were prepared to do with a high-ranking military officer from another world. Sexton furrowed his brow, then nodded his tacit approval, keenly aware that they were unlikely to reveal anything about the cultivation program that the Wek officer didn’t already know. White smiled politely at Naftur before continuing, “The devices to which you refer are informally called ‘talkies’ on Earth. The Pelarans have used them as a means of compartmentalizing the most classified information. They are also used as a means of ensuring multinational cooperation, since key pieces of data are communicated only to specific individuals located in different countries.”
“The devices are genetically coded to the intended recipient,” Sexton added. “We don’t really understand how the biometric scan works in any detail. Unlike most of the other technology shared by the Pelarans, the schematics for building these devices provided
only enough information to complete their assembly. I can also tell you that they are damned effective at preventing anyone else from accessing them or eavesdropping on the data streams — and I can promise you it’s not for lack of trying,” he said, smiling wanly.
“Yes,” Naftur nodded, “this is indeed consistent with what has been observed on other cultivated worlds. Are you aware that the devices are capable of two-way communication?”
“We considered that it might be possible. In fact, I believe the original plans included what our engineers thought to be a type of transmitter. We, of course, attempted to use it a number of times without success, and then omitted the transmitter from the final design, based on security concerns. No one was comfortable with the idea that individuals might somehow end up in unilateral discussions with the Pelarans.”
“My guess is that the component your engineers removed was indeed a transmitter, Admiral Sexton,” Naftur replied, “one that they were intended to find and remove. Unfortunately, there is another — one of such cunning design that it was clearly intended to be unwittingly included when the devices are manufactured.”
