by PP Corcoran
Lorai could not keep the proud look from her face. "Supreme Leader. I am happy to report as of this morning, we have 1.3 billion of pure blood at your command."
The Supreme Leader grasped the sides of the chair and forced himself to stand on legs still not adjusted from their long sleep. He pushed himself away from the chair and leaned heavily on the window, marveling at the achievements of his chief scientist and the engineers. Lorai had convinced him that, given sufficient time and resources, this amazing construction project would indeed be possible. The scale of what she envisaged was unbelievable, but what choice did they have? Once his move against the Elders failed, he had been tried like a common criminal and forced to wear the brand of one. When he was imprisoned, he managed to get word to his followers to put in place his alternate plan.
It took nearly six whole years before they were ready to act and when that day came, his followers assaulted the prison holding him, with Harama at their head. When she opened his cell door, he moved to leave, but hesitated and retrieved the prison jacket with the despised emblem of his conviction on it.
Harama ensured his plan was followed to the last letter. Before the Elders could gather their forces, he was aboard one of the disused starships that the Elders, in their blind faith, decreed were never to be used again. And so, with his followers crowded aboard six starships packed to the gunnels with everything needed to begin again, they fled out among the stars in search of a new home. One where they could rebuild the race. A place where he and his followers’ ideals would shape the future, free from the restrictions placed on them by the simple-minded Elders.
They traveled from star to star in their search until they had stumbled upon one of the half-breed worlds the Elders chose to be the legacy of the race. His first reaction was to order the half-breeds erased, as one would any other infestation, but Lorai approached him with an interesting idea. One that had a certain appeal to it.
Why not use these half-breeds against the very ones who conceived them? Lorai had always provided him with good counsel and this time was no different. His six starships held only 5000 of his followers. Barely enough to establish a strong bloodline, so he could ill-afford to waste any in a futile war against the Elders. Lorai's idea held promise but first he had to find a secure base from which to operate. A place where the Elders would never find them. Eventually they emerged in a system the engineers guaranteed held all the necessary ingredients to begin.
It took decades of construction. The self-replicating construction robots, although initially few in number, went to the system’s asteroid belt and began the process of extracting the necessary raw materials to not only build his and the engineers’ vision, but to build more of themselves. For every construction robot he built, another duplicated itself, and so their numbers rose exponentially.
Within a decade, there was no longer an asteroid belt left, so the robots moved on to the inner planets. Reducing them to raw materials and adding them to the growing construction. Slowly it came together. A shell completely surrounding the system’s star, hiding it from prying eyes. And on the inner surface of the shell would be the new home of the race.
With the shell nearing completion, he decided it was time to put Lorai's plan for the Half-breeds into operation. They returned to the world of the Half-breeds where Lorai selected a group she considered the most pliable and began the process of exterminating the remainder. When the numbers were whittled down to something more manageable, he transported them to his starship where he presented himself to them as their god.
As an example of his power, he allowed them to watch as the last pieces were put in place by the construction robots hiding the glowing red star from the universe. The Half-breeds fell to their knees in awe of his power and so began the process of psychological manipulation, which would see the fall of the Elders and all they had conceived.
Lorai, however, did not rest on her laurels. With the construction of their new home complete, she immediately set to work in securing the most vital part of his plan. If the race was going to flourish, it would need something which could not be manufactured overnight. It would need children.
Lorai and her staff constructed the artificial embryo banks and harvested the females among the followers for their eggs.
Cloning was an option, but he was against it. The chances of genetic failure in the future was something he was not willing to risk. He wanted strong, pure members of the race. His decision against clones meant it would take hundreds of years to produce the numbers required, so volunteers were sought to stay awake with the soon-to-be young so they could be educated in the true beliefs of the race and taught the skills they would need in the inevitable war to come.
The construction robots were put to work on a new task. The building of the warships and ancillary equipment that would be needed, as well as the maintenance of the habitat shell. With everything in place, he and his remaining followers took to the cryogenic cylinders for their long sleep, hoping to awake in a universe cleansed of the half-breeds.
Turning his back on the green fields, he addressed his chief scientist. "Convene my officers, Lorai. I want a complete update on our current strengths and weaknesses and the progress of your half-breeds."
"At once, Supreme Leader."
As Lorai rushed off to carry out his orders, a sudden chill like a cold breeze brushed against the light brown hair covering his entire body. He dismissed it as a hangover from the long sleep. His body was yet to regain its full strength. Walking unsteadily back to his cryogenic cylinder, he retrieved his jacket. The same jacket he wore the day of his rescue from the prison. Slipping it on, he glanced down at the symbol the Elders had forced him to wear. One he now wore proudly. A black circle with a simple red X on it.
#
The Leader sat at the head of the long, burnished metal conference table. Pointedly, at his right hand side was Harama’s empty seat. The Supreme Leader making his point by highlighting her sacrifice to the cause.
The news his officers brought remained incomplete but they, like him, had only been awake for less than a day and all those implications were yet to be thoroughly analyzed. What was obvious though, was that the half-breeds they fostered to do his bidding had achieved much but ultimately had been defeated. The victorious forces concerned him.
From information gleaned from the ship that brought news of their demise, it appeared the victorious forces were an alliance of the remaining half-breeds that the Elders had somehow successfully hidden from him. Damn them all to hell! The sound of his fist crashing down on the table brought all conversation in the room to a halt. Stifling his anger, he addressed his fleet commander.
"What of the fleet, Star Commander Foral?"
"I have only completed a rough inventory, Supreme Leader, but it would appear the construction program put in place before we entered sleep has been exceeded by a factor of four. It was necessary to construct additional yards to cope with the extra hulls. However, there was a flaw in the original programming, which has led to the construction of far more lighter units than heavier ones. It has left the fleet unbalanced. But I believe it will not adversely effect the fleet’s effectiveness in the longer term."
Foral and the Supreme Leader had been friends and allies throughout their careers, so if Foral was satisfied with the forces at his disposal, then the Supreme Leader was willing to accept that.
"What of the crew, old friend? Are they prepared for what is to come?"
"From what I have seen so far, I am very impressed. We have sufficient crewmembers for every ship in the fleet and all have been drilled from youth for their position. Those who volunteered to remain awake while we slept aided by the AIs have made improvements and innovations I have as yet to fully comprehend and I would not be willing to give my full backing to these changes until I have witnessed them in combat."
"A wise precaution, Foral. The information I have reviewed on the fleet, which managed to destroy the half-breeds shows aspects of Saiph te
chnology being employed, although I believe our ships and weaponry are still superior to theirs. We must seek out a suitable target of opportunity to try out our new fleet. We need better intelligence on what we face out there and any cracks in this unholy alliance of half-breeds we can endeavor to exploit for our own benefit. Use the intelligence downloaded from the half-breeds’ AI before they met their end and deploy scout ships to the systems controlled by this... what was it they called themselves... this Commonwealth. Compile a list of targets in order of ascending force levels. Let us tread carefully until we know the true strengths of our enemy."
Dismissing Foral, he turned to the only face at the table he did not recognize. Geoll was the product of Lorai's breeding program and he had inherited the position of Caretaker of the Race from his father, who had inherited it from his father, and so on. It was the Caretaker’s role to ensure the race would be ready when the Supreme Leader and the others wakened from their long slumber and if the initial information reaching the Supreme Leader was to be believed, he and his ancestors had done a job worthy of praise.
"Caretaker..." Geoll raised his chin proudly as the Supreme Leader addressed him by his title, surely a mark of respect. "We have much to thank you for. Your diligence and that of those who came before you show the true strength of the pure race."
"I live to serve, Supreme Leader. I am but one of many who have striven for this day."
"Your modesty serves us all well, Geoll, and is an example of the dedication required to fulfill our dreams of ridding the universe of the half-breeds created by the Elders and ensuring the Saiph and the Saiph alone take their place as the dominant species among the stars."
CHAPTER NINE
A New Command
EDGE OF THE ASTEROID BELT - SOL SYSTEM
The courier carrying John Radford re-entered normal space and the crew slowed the small ship to a dead stop. The captain double-checked the Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) beacon was transmitting the correct codes for the day. It wasn’t that the courier’s command crew were incapable of ensuring the IFF was activated, but the sight of so many grazers and missile tubes on the patrolling warships tended to encourage any ship’s captain to do a double-check.
In the cramped passenger lounge, John viewed the space around the ship via the courier’s passive sensors. He gave a low whistle of appreciation. This was the first time he had been back in the Sol system since the defeat of the Others three years before. As commanding Admiral of Third Fleet, he had of course been instrumental in the battle against the Others and the final assault on Durav; however, for the last thirty-six months, he and his fleet had been kept busy alternating with Second Fleet, under Admiral Lewis, as they planned and executed what the politicians had come to call Operation Clean Up, literally a cleansing of the remaining Others bases. John pursed his lips as he thought of the hundreds of sailors and marines under his command who had perished during Op Clean Up.
Mentally berating himself, he returned his attention to the display. Gateway Station was certainly an impressive piece of engineering. One of the key recommendations of the Combined Joint Chiefs of Staff following the near catastrophic Others attack on Earth was to take a lesson from the Alonan Empire. No ship was allowed direct transit into the Alonan home system without first being required to halt and have its identity verified at the system’s outer marker. Earth thus instituted a similar system but with a few modifications. When the Others launched their attack on the Sol system, they had prevented help from reaching the beleaguered defenders under Admiral Chavez by placing buoys in the area, which generated an artificial dampening field negating the Commonwealth navy's gravity drive. Any ship that attempted to use its gravity drive while in contact with the dampening field suffered catastrophic engineering damage and was left floating uselessly in space. If it weren’t for the handful of experimental cruisers equipped with a modified gravity drive by Jeff Moore's research teams on Zarminda and used by Admiral Glandinning to successfully destroy the enemy buoys, then the battle would have undoubtedly been lost and humanity’s home destroyed.
Following the battle, a number of these buoys were recovered and transferred to Zarminda, where those same scientists adapted the technology to generate a rotating dampening field covering all the frequencies a gravity drive could work on. Fortress Command then seeded the entire inner Sol system with the dampening buoys, which resulted in any form of gravity drive being useless anywhere within the asteroid belt.
Another lesson learned from the enemy attack was the need for a dedicated fleet of heavy units, their sole purpose being the defense of the Sol system.
When the Others launched their feinting attack on Alona, First Fleet, home ported at Earth under the command of Admiral Jing, rushed to their aid. Jing had already summoned units of Second Fleet from Janus to reinforce Chavez's battle-weakened Fifth Fleet, which remained in orbit around Earth following its punishing victory at 70 Ophiuchi. However, before any of these units could arrive, the Others sprung their trap and activated the dampening buoys, leaving Fifth Fleet to stand unaided against the invaders.
Now Fortress Command retained sole control of these heavy units, outside of the normal chain of command, ensuring there were always sufficient mobile naval units in the system to deal with any potential threat.
All this naval firepower was something John had seen before. While in command of Third Fleet, he had had just as much firepower readily available. But what he did not have then was filling the center of his sensor display now. Gateway Station.
As a fleet commander, John was privy to the schematics of the proposed station, but seeing it in real life was something else. At a little over two million metric tonnes and with more firepower than five Bismarck-class battleships, the station looked for all the world like someone had stuck two mushroom caps together, joining them with a thick, short stalk. And just like some varieties of mushroom, this one could be extremely hazardous to your health.
Nestling in the center of layer upon layer of grazer and missile platforms reaching the station would be a mighty task for any attacking enemy. Gateway held another nasty surprise for anyone stupid enough to try to take it on. Six squadrons of Mosquito space fighters called the station home. The TDF's version of the Benii Freiba, the Mosquito class fighter consisted of a two-member crew and was just as swift and agile as its Benii forerunner. The Mosquito, however, thanks to those researchers at Zarminda, was powered by a miniaturized fusion generator derived from Saiph technology, which meant its twin needle grazers were fully capable of punching through even a battleship’s armor at close range, and when the promised High Velocity Anti-Matter Missile (HVAMM) became reality, then these particular Mosquitos would become even more deadly. It was these little ships and how Admiral Jing intended to employ them that was bringing John back home to Earth.
The double tone of his wrist comm sounded and John absently tapped the accept key.
"We have permission from Gateway Station to complete the transit to Earth’s orbit, Admiral. We're just awaiting confirmation of the buoy deactivation along our route and we should be on our way shortly."
"Thank you, Commander. Please let me know when we reach Earth."
"Aye-aye sir."
As good as his word, not five minutes later the courier vanished from normal space and the sight of the imposing Gateway Station. An instant later, it re-entered normal space, within touching distance of Fortress Command itself. John was forced to reduce the scale on his display several times before he was able to get a complete picture of Earth’s primary orbital defense station. If he thought Gateway Station was impressive, it paled into insignificance against Fortress Command.
The gigantic station was the same basic design as Gateway but easily three times the size. Six million tonnes of battle armor, grazer, laser, missiles, and plasma guns were stowed in Fortress Command and the cloud of space forts and overlapping weapons platforms surrounding the Earth it controlled was the last line of defense against any attacker. Admiral Jing,
serving as Chairman of the Combined Joint Chiefs, and his planners had spared no expense in ensuring Earth’s safety. The other member planets of the Commonwealth were so impressed by what Jing and his designers achieved that they were all in the process of building their own variations of the fortress concept and if current projections held true, then every major planet in the Commonwealth would be secure behind its own web of forts and weapons platforms within four or five years. John was still taking it all in when a call from the flight deck came through.
"You have a priority call from the president's office, Admiral."
John automatically straightened his uniform before replying. "Put it through."
In John's display, the presidential seal appeared briefly, before the face of Patricia Bath replaced it. Her green eyes seemed to flash mischievously at him as he heard her smoky voice.
"Well hello, sailor."
John's heart beat ten to a dozen times faster as he struggled to control the twitching in his cheeks, they so wanted to break into a huge smile at the sight of her. With all the control he could muster, he kept his face deadpan.
"Ah, Doctor Bath. How good to see you again. I see being an adviser to the president allows you the use of the priority communications channels."
The smile in her eyes moved to her lips. "The job has its perks, I suppose, and a small abuse of my position to ensure I at least get a word with my future husband before those horrible navy types sequester him away in some hole in the ground for God knows how long isn’t too much to ask, is it?"
The little-girl-lost look she gave him was enough to elicit a snort of laughter from John. "Admiral Jing promised me that after a short debrief at Mont Salève, I’m free to spend what’s left of my bachelor life cavorting in various bars until I finally put on the shackles of marriage."
