by SF Edwards
Seri took a seat in the dirt. “I have a theory. I can’t be certain if it’s true or not.”
Bichard’s antennae twitched and Blazer took a seat beside him.
“You’re not the freak mutant you think you are.” She reached up and touched Bichard’s head before she continued. “These three ridges, do you know what they mean?”
Bichard shook his head emphatically. Seri pulled up a file on her forearm computer and projected the holograms within for the three of them to see. Images of Coretherians hung in the air. Blazer and Bichard stared at the images in fascination.
“Let me show you something,” Seri continued. “See these here? They’re one stripes,” she explained blowing up an image of a group of Coretherian workers.
“They have a single ridge but they look so different from me,” Bichard commented.
“That’s right. These are the workers. Simpleminded, very rudimentary intelligence, almost fully controlled by the queen and they have two distinct genders.”
Bichard saw Blazer draw back shocked. He understood why. The one-stripes were markedly different in appearance than he was and the subject of gender was not something they’d ever discussed.
“These are male and these females,” Seri went on, pointing out the subtle differences in height, stature and coloring. “Their reproductive organs never mature but you can spot the secondary sex characteristics if you know what to look for.”
“How do you know all this?” Bichard asked.
“I did a tour in the protective garrison there and I made some notes,” she replied and held up the next image. “These are twos. There are several different types of twos that I noticed. These are the warriors. See how their coloring is a mix of the male and female ones?”
Both men nodded.
“They’re androgynous, bigger, and slightly more intelligent than the ones but are still totally controlled by the queens. These are two-females,” she said bringing up the next image. “I’m not exactly sure what their role in Coretherian society is but they always seem to be attending to the queens and the eggs even though they have fully formed sexual organs,” she explained.
I remember them from my dream. Their coloring was similar and he could see their more pronounced secondary sex characteristics.
“These next few you’re familiar with. They are the two-striped males or drones.”
Bichard saw Blazer cock his head when he noticed the differences between the drones and Bichard, differences Bichard recognized from his dream.
“Their coloring is the same as the one-striped males. They’re bigger with fully formed sex organs,” Seri finished.
The holograms were clearer than the memories Bichard had had of his dreams. They showed distinct differences between Bichard and the drones. Not only did he have that third stripe, but they appeared smaller and their aedegeus’ were not covered like his was. Their exoskeleton didn’t even look rigid.
“But Bichard has three ridges!” was all Blazer observed.
“Exactly and that’s where I get confused. You see, queens are three-stripes,” Seri stated.
Blazer shot a quick glance at Bichard and Bichard nodded.
“Say again? Bichard’s a queen?” Blazer asked confused.
“No, he’s not a queen but he’s close. I have a theory and it involves the eggs,” Seri commented as she pulled up an image of an egg chamber. “See the eggs are soft-shelled at first. The outer shell doesn’t harden into a leathery skin until a couple of cycles after being laid. The eggs contain an embryo that has a gender of either male or female. I’m not sure of the mechanics of it, but I think that somehow the eggs and the embryos in this early state can somehow achieve some sort of fusion. That fusion, or lack thereof, determines what kind of Coretherian hatches from the new egg.”
Bichard nodded.
“I don’t get it,” Blazer admitted.
“Think about it this way. Take two female eggs and put them together and you get a two-striped female. Throw a male egg in the mix and what do you get?”
Blazer shook his head while Bichard nodded, a distant memory coming to mind.
“You get a queen: look at the coloring. The queens are mostly brown like the female ones, but with blotches of male red coloring. At least that’s my theory anyway. But think about it, Bichard, what happens when the queen mates, before she kills the drone?”
“She rips off the drone’s genitals and takes them inside of her,” Bichard replied.
“Exactly. They must need that male aspect in order to keep the genitals alive within them and to keep the fertilization going. Otherwise, they would need a constant stream of drones to service them. I think Bichard is a combination of either two male and a female egg or three male eggs. I would bet by your coloring that you’re two male and a female combined.”
“So you’re part female! Suddenly your penchant for doing women’s hair makes sense,” Blazer joked and gave Bichard a friendly punch to the arm.
Seri punched Blazer in return; hard enough to send him into the dirt as Bichard chuckled back. “Not the time, Vaughnt. Now Bichard, from what Arion tells me you have a specific fear about the dream.”
Bichard nodded, his emerald green eyes appearing to dim. “Yes, I fear I am a brute.”
“I can assure you that you are not.”
“How? How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve seen the brutes. What did they look like in your dreams? What did the one that freed you look like?”
“Massive, hulking, brainless monsters with those tiny heads on their shoulders.”
“And their coloring? It’s just like the one-striped males, all red, right?” Seri asked.
Bichard nodded, a light reentering his eyes.
“I think that the Coretherians are intentionally suppressing their evolution. Somehow, by accident or intent, they’re manipulating their breeding process to maintain the status quo. I know this because I saw another breed of three on Corether.”
Seri brought up one last image. This one was grainy and poorly defined. It showed a small cluster of three stripes. Bichard’s antennae twitched in recognition. Their coloring matched the one-striped females but they had three stripes and they looked like a female version of himself. Just like my dream.
“So, if your theory is right, then a queen is a combination of two female and one male egg?” Blazer asked. “A brute is three male eggs. Bichard is two male eggs and a female egg. Then you’re thinking that these are what, three female eggs?”
“Exactly. They appear to be more intelligent than even the queens. I think that intelligence must reside in the female egg. No offense, Bichard,” Seri smiled. “Really if you want to get into it Bichard, as two male and a female you’d probably best be classified as a king.”
Bichard sat up proud. Seri’s data had brought all the pieces together. “I am King Bichard.”
“Don’t go too far with that yet. I can’t be certain. What I can say is that you are definitely not a brute. You’re not big enough and your head is too big. See, the real reason for the garrison is to protect the hives from the brutes. Enough of them exist out in the wild to create a threat. When they attack they always try and kill the queens and steal, or rape, the three-striped females.
“That’s how I saw the three females in this picture. I rescued them when a brute broke into a hive. The queens say that they’re merely a mutation but I think that’s wrong. They’re the accidental byproducts of their evolution trying to take your people to the next step. And you Bichard, you are that next step; you and the three females.”
Bichard sat thinking about that for a long time. “But what do I do about that?”
“That’s up to you. But for now can I suggest getting out of here? I don’t like staying in high-grav like this,” Seri commented.
Bichard nodded and the three of them headed out. Seri’s insight had given him a lot to think about. Do I still want my glands removed? Will losing them prevent me from breeding the next evolution
of my people? Do I even have them? He had based his limited knowledge of his own physiology on the texts he had read about drones. He’d never read any of the reports that the scientists had done on him. That’s going to change. If Seri’s right, I’m the best chance for my people’s survival and of breaking free of the queens. In order to find out he would have to go to Corether. He would have to test if he was still under the queen’s thrall but if Seri’s theory proved wrong; he would become their slave and die.
UCSB DATE: 1000.368
Xoth System, Alpha Station, Strategic Planning Chamber
Captain Delgado looked about the room in satisfaction at what he'd accomplished and stared at the data floating around him. Pride puffed his chest and posture into an exaggerated stance. He smiled. He stood at the heart of the massive Strategic Planning Chamber. Four huge view walls extended above and below him. Con-coms in hoverchairs zipped about the walls, tapping the maps with light pens to flag key systems and ships for any assembled officers. With the latest intelligence at their disposal, the con-coms plotted out the movements of friendly and enemy ships throughout the warzone.
Captain Delgado could barely contain his excitement. Analysis of the data from probe 1-3-53462 yielded a target too juicy to pass up, one that he, by all rights, would destroy. He would keep that little tidbit back for now, but it was too far away from the Barker Battle Group to attack. Admiral Hackeron would not garner the glory of this kill. Better to let him continue disrupting enemy supply lines.
Captain Delgado snapped to attention as Admiral Jackson and his entourage marched up to the main holographic display at the heart of the chamber. Keep your cool; don’t show your hand too soon.
“What do you have for us, Captain?”
Captain Delgado activated the holographic display and a rather unremarkable star system appeared. He caught the look of boredom on the Admiral’s face. Good, I caught the Admiral by surprise. All the better. His flesh warmed with the thought of his revelations to come.
“What am I looking at here, Captain?” the admiral asked.
Captain Delgado smiled, trying to hide his enthusiasm. “What we have here, sir, is a Confederation Academy.”
The admiral locked eyes with him. “Are you certain?”
“Absolutely, sir!” Captain Delgado replied, tapping a key on the console. The relevant data analysis with imagery from the probe appeared. “We received multiple data bursts from this particular probe, and eventually took direct control of it due to the significance of its findings. The first such active control session several months ago contained only passive data but it did show this.” An image of the gravitational anomaly above the ecliptic plane and the wreck of the old bomber orbiting it appeared.
“Again, what am I looking at?” the admiral implored.
“It appears to be a micro-singularity with the hull of a ship wrapped around it.”
“That’s definitely interesting. You don’t see many of those but I fail to see its tactical importance.”
“Well, sir, the ship, a Corvette, we think, dates over a thousand years-old.”
The admiral raised a questioning eyebrow in response.
Captain Delgado suppressed his own smile. Good, I have his attention, now to reel him in. “A thousand years-old would make it the same age as the Confederation.”
The admiral crossed his arms and stood up.
Captain Delgado couldn’t let him leave and reached out. “Sir, since it appears you haven’t studied the Confederation’s history I will explain further,” the captain interjected quickly.
The admiral gave him an annoyed look but waved him to go on as he looked up at the status maps.
“Sir, the Confederation was founded on the genocide of a powerful race known as the Vedekian.”
The admiral nodded. At least he seems to know that much.
“The Confederation at the time had singularity weapons. They have since lost their ability to make them but they used them at the time to destroy numerous Vedekian planets.”
He let that thought sink in and went on. The admiral rubbed his chin, clearly intrigued.
“And I believe what we have here is one of the ancient corvettes that carried these weapons. One must have gone off, however, and destroyed it.”
“What are you thinking, Captain?” the admiral asked for clarification.
“I believe that if we can recover the micro-singularity or take the system and study the device in detail…”
“Then we could build micro-singularity planet busters,” the admiral finished, his eyes widening.
“Exactly,” Captain Delgado smiled back, reveling in the fact that he could see the admiral formulating plans to take the system.
“The Confederation has had access to this place for over a millennium. Why haven’t they been able to reproduce the technology? What makes you think we can?”
“The Confederation states that they have evolved since then,” he replied, expecting the question. “They no longer use weapons of planetary-level destruction.”
Captain Delgado let the admiral ponder that for a moment. He’s sure to have heard all this before. If the Confederation had used those types of weapons in the early days of the war, then they would have destroyed the Earth.
“So you think that the Confederation may have a cache of these old weapons at this academy?” the admiral asked.
“Yes, sir. If we could get our hands on them, we could turn the tide of this war and wipe out their home worlds.”
Admiral Jackson smirked at the sound of that. “What other information is there?”
“Here,” Captain Delgado replied. The hologram zipped across the system until it displayed the asteroid field and the almost spherical mass of the asteroid shell.
“What is that? A protoplanet?” the admiral’s aide asked.
“No, I believe this was a Vedekian world that the Confederation used a singularity weapon on.”
“What makes you say that?” the admiral asked, staring at the curious mass of asteroids.
“There’s a massive dark energy field around it keeping the shell in place.” Captain Delgado tapped the hologram and the shell split open revealing the interior. “At the center of the shell is another micro-singularity. It’s at the heart of this small asteroid.”
“What kind of gravitation are you reading from it?”
“The limited data we received from the final data drop was unfortunately incomplete. The datafeed indicates a surface gravity of approximately a quarter Terran g.”
“And your analysis leads you to believe that that’s the academy?”
“Yes. It’s either that or a weapons depot where they’re keeping more singularity weapons.”
“Any surface structures?”
“There are a few small structures and hangars on the surface. Most of the sensor data from inside the shell was corrupted and incomplete. Our analysis showed that the probe was destroyed by a stray asteroid during transmission.”
“Are you sure of that? If they know we found them they could be getting ready for an assault.”
“Yes sir, the live-feed showed the rock just before impact. In addition, we have been monitoring the communications traffic from other systems where they discovered our probes and they have not stepped up their security measures at all. The Confederation has assumed that all of the probes are just old CAD-1’s and are of no threat.” Captain Delgado beamed with pride as he watched the admiral consider that. He has to see the brilliance of my plan now. Sure enough, the Admiral nodded his approval.
“Is there anything else in there that we need to be aware of?” the admiral inquired.
“There are several more asteroids within the shell. This one here has a significant number of gravity generators on the surface. We feel that it is likely used to simulate landings at various gravitational levels,” the captain said pointing out the objects.
The admiral looked at the curious cylindrical rock and nodded. “Interesting, why not use the local planets o
r the gas giant’s atmosphere?”
“I considered that as well. It would save energy but then this is the Confederation we’re talking about.”
The admiral nodded and waved him to go on.
“Over here on this side is some form of gunnery range where a lot of sensor radiation and radio traffic are emitted,” the captain continued.
“What about this one here?” the admiral asked pointing at the pill-shaped rock in orbit around the central point.
“I find this one very curious. There is evidence of some traffic about it. Our thinking is that it is a space dock for training cruisers and corvettes.”
Admiral Jackson scratched at his chin. “What about defenses?”
“Beyond the asteroid barrier there are none that we could detect.”
The admiral gazed up at him with an incredulous look. “How can that be?”
“We found no evidence of orbital weapon emplacements, large scale plasma or particle cannons, or missile batteries. Any armaments they have are likely buried beneath the surface, except for two mid-sized turrets here on the asteroid at the heart of the shell.”
The Admiral waved him to continue as the hologram zoomed in on the asteroid at the core, a grainy image displaying one of the emplacements. “So what makes you believe that this is an academy?”
“For one thing, the bomber. Its identification code indicated that it was a trainer with no hyperdrive aboard. It had to come from within the system. Also, the majority of the fighters detected were Splicer 1000s.”
The admiral’s aide shook his head. “I thought they had retired all of those old things.”
“Not all of them. You still find them as recon fighters in some fleets or as trainers,” the admiral commented, raising an eyebrow.
“Exactly. So I hand you your academy, admiral,” the captain concluded.
The admiral smiled down at the hologram and turned toward the situation walls. “Display this location on the wall.”
A light winked to life, a holographic tag marking it. The group turned to examine the location of their battle groups. Captain Delgado smiled. The admiral has to see that it is too far from the Barker and its battle group. The projected jump path its current retreat took it on appeared a moment later, and he bit at his lip. He hadn’t accounted for that in his analysis. No! At its closest point, they’re only three jumps away from the academy, less if the battle group free navigates.
