He grunted, “I’ll consider it.”
Then he nodded before I could respond and hung up. Well, it was the best I could do…
It had been a very long twenty-four hours, or so it seemed. Kristi found me on the bridge, she was wearing nothing except the skin suit which hugged every curve. I obviously wasn’t in uniform anymore, but I had a pair of dark jeans and a light blue shirt on over mine.
“It’s too damned quiet on this ship,” Kristi complained.
I happened to agree with her. It also explained her clothing choices, it was just the two of us up here. We got to keep the ship, but of course all the pilots, marines, and our staff had to go, they were all part of the USFS. I didn’t mind the solitude, or rather, sharing it with only one other person and my best friend, but I knew Kristi was more social than I was.
“Yeah, we’ll get some people soon. I imagine it won’t be too hard to hire some people, although the ship pretty much runs itself, all we have to do is point and tell it where to go.”
Kristi grunted, “At the very least we need a cook.”
I laughed, neither of us were very good at that.
“Well, outside of this jaunt, we don’t have any driving reasons to stay on the ship all the time anymore, and we can start to actually use our home.”
She looked around, her eyes narrowing.
“What is it?”
She sighed, “No wood to knock on anywhere on the bridge, now that you said that, something is sure to come up. I love being out in space, but yeah, going to go nuts up here.”
Curiously I asked, “Are you working on anything?”
She shook her head, “Not really, I’ve been running a few tests for a new weapon idea, but even with the crazy amount of power we have available it doesn’t look good.”
She obviously didn’t want my help, so I let it go there. She kind of had a point too, I didn’t want to give up the ship, and some testing and ideas would be better off in space. But did I really need to be on my ship all the time? I also had the idea to keep up on what came in on the stealth sensor net as it expanded toward the rim, but really, even if I saw something it wasn’t like I could do anything with it.
It would just be me being nosy, not that I wouldn’t do it, but I needed to be more productive than that.
I also had the feeling that it was all just another way for me to try to be a hermit. Also, without the military job I could relax a bit more, maybe even take another vacation?
Relaxation, why did the idea of that bother me so much? Maybe I should stay on the ground when we got back, at least until I had a real reason to come back out here. New idea to experiment with, or a visit to one of the other treaty worlds… something.
I changed the subject, “We’re almost to the rendezvous point. You’re okay with doing this right?”
Kristi shrugged, “Yup. It’s all our inventions they’ll be fighting with, and I’m not letting you do it alone.”
I nodded, “This should be it for a while, it took me being bored to realize we don’t really belong out in orbit all the damned time anymore, not without a fleet to look over.”
Kristi looked relieved, “I thought I was going to have to fight you on that.”
I laughed, “No, not much anyhow. I’m sure we’ll want to visit another planet at some point, and we have a ship for that, and maybe the next time we have an experiment that could blow up Earth. Other than that,” I shrugged helplessly.
Kristi snickered, “You know, we could run the lab ship just as well from our office in Colorado as we can on this ship.”
I glared at her, “A true friend wouldn’t have pointed that out.”
She giggled, but held her hands up in a peaceful gesture.
Al said, “We’ve arrived at the rendezvous point.”
“Open a wormhole to Leira, and launch all our Shield missiles. Just in case the Seltan attack when they see us bringing a few hundred ships through.”
Al asked, “Should I recommend it to the fleet?”
I shook my head, “No, Sergei has eyes, he’s in command. Just me doing it is hint enough, I’d rather not step on his toes any more than I have already.”
Al was silent for a few seconds, “Understood. Shield missiles launching. The fleet is following suit, and heading into the wormhole, missiles first.”
“Put it up on the screen.”
We watched as the fleet moved through, and then the other fleets followed. I wondered if they were reluctant, and what they thought about the fact we could do this at all. It wasn’t the first time that thought had crossed my mind. We went through last, because we needed to continue to feed the wormhole energy to keep it open, even as we travelled through it…
“Report,” I ordered.
Kristi rolled her eyes at me playfully. Damnit, habits to break, and I wasn’t even military all that long.
Al replied, “We are two light years from Leira, the fleets are already moving off. The Seltan are still holding and haven’t attacked, they have nineteen hundred and twenty-three ships. As far as I can tell the last one arrived hours ago, no more have trickled in since then.”
I shook my head and whispered, “Why haven’t they attacked yet?”
It didn’t make sense, which meant I was probably missing something. Waiting until we were all gathered and ready was stupid.
Al replied, “Unknown at this time.”
I smiled, at least the AI wasn’t perfect. I didn’t bother to tell him I hadn’t expected an answer.
“Move us alongside the Earth fleet, and launch our anti-FTL gravity missiles.”
Kristi shrugged, “I guess now all we can do is wait.”
We waited for hours, and no other ships came on the Seltan side. It was tense, and horribly boring at the same time. It was hard to stay alert for hours at a time, but I could control my body and reactions pretty well. When something happened it would take but a moment to regain my sharpness, but right now I wouldn’t bother.
Kristi and I kept an eye on the status of the fleet at Knomen, and it looked like that battle was going to happen. The three attacking fleets were well informed, they dropped out of FTL before any could be destroyed by the small gravity missiles. After that, the battle was almost painful to watch.
The first two volleys the enemy sent at FTL, and all the missiles were destroyed before they could get close. After that, the battle was fought at sub light speed in its entirety. The enemy ships had a throw weight advantage at five major ships to one, but with all the Shield missiles and attack shuttles, those attacks were held off. The enemy had no problems keeping up with Sergei’s missile strikes either, though both sides lost a few in the first eight volleys.
For the Earth fleet, we lost fifty-two shield missiles, and four battle cruisers before Sergei could adjust to their concentrated fire. The enemy lost fourteen ships in return fire. Considering the attrition rate of both sides, it would have been a close battle.
But then the two sides came within range of the Earth ships’ plasma cannons. Even before the new ship design, the old ones packed quite a punch. Every battle cruiser, carrier, attack shuttle, and even the shield missiles, all opened fire at once. The enemy fleet was torn apart.
I bit my lip, I was happy we’d won of course, but it was a slaughter. And that was before the upgrade, the new plasma cannons would put the old ones to shame in both destructive power, and range, and there would be twice as many on each ship. I loved the Earth, and believed in humanity, I just hoped they would be worthy guardians of the weapons I had built them, and would not abuse that power.
“Status?”
I don’t know why I asked, I was looking at the screen which showed me we were having some kind of weird standoff. Neither our fleet, nor the Seltans, had moved since we got here.
Al replied, “No change.”
Kristi stretched, and yawned, “I’m hungry.”
I nodded, there was only so much time I could wait. Of course, as soon as I stood the Seltan fleet started to mov
e. My mouth dropped open when the fleet turned around, and went to FTL, disappearing back to Seltan space and out of sensor range. All of them, except for one that stayed behind. Then that one started our way, at a slow speed, relatively, he was still going several hundred times the speed of light, but he was ten light years away, so it would take a while for him to arrive. At least an hour if he didn’t speed up.
“Al, transfer bridge status views to my overlay.”
I figured we had time to eat…
Chapter 14
Kristi asked, “What do you suppose they want?”
I shrugged, “I don’t know, they’ve never tried to communicate before as far as I know. They must want something.”
The Seltan ship had slowed down gradually until they dropped out of FTL at thirty light minutes almost a half hour ago. I was hoping we’d find out soon, without quantum communications it would take about a half an hour for us to receive a message.
Kristi sighed, “Well, hopefully they want to talk, because this is a really bizarre battle tactic.”
Al replied, “I’m receiving a wide area laser communication, the whole fleet should be picking it up. It isn’t sound or video, just some data. Stand by a moment.”
A few seconds later he continued, “It’s a quantum signature, along with a translation matrix, shall I program it in?”
“Go for it,” I said softly, “And retrieve all our missiles and shuttles, I don’t think we’ll be fighting today.”
I was surprised to have rather mixed feelings about that. Mostly relief, but there was some disappointment in there as well. I guess with the adrenaline build up I’d turned a little savage.
“Incoming message ma’am.”
“Put it on Al, and call me Alicia please,” I replied.
I heard Kristi gasp, and had to admit the Seltan had an intimidating appearance. He looked at least seven feet tall, and had dark black hair, and brown eyes sunken into a craggy and angular green face. His ears were rather larger than human, and the nose was bulbous. He looked more built than a linebacker without an ounce of fat on his bulging muscles.
What really stood out however, was his two sets of arms. The bottom set were huge and defined by large muscles, and he had them crossed over his chest. The upper set were rested on his sides and were even more muscular. I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, that was for sure.
“I am Dral, force leader of the Seltan empire. I apologize for the subterfuge that brought you here, but I had reason. One, I wanted to see if this new treaty I have heard about was worth anything, or just a piece of paper. Two, I wanted to talk to all of you, and honestly this was the easiest way to get you all here.”
He smiled disturbingly, “I wish to broker a peace, and perhaps more, there is much you don’t know.”
What the hell could he mean by that?
“This is Alnot, leader of Leira. What do you mean by that, and why would we ever trust you?”
Dral nodded, “Because those cowardly Knomen no longer pull your strings, we have hope that you will deal with us honorably.”
Alnot replied, “What do you want of us?”
Dral was silent for a moment, “I would have at least peace between us, perhaps even join you in your treaty, there is much to explain. Much that has been hidden from you by the Knomen in times past. I ask that you hear my words, and spread them to the worlds and their leaders that you’re allied with.”
Alnot frowned, “We will listen, beyond that I cannot say. There is much blood between us.”
Dral bowed his head, “Yes, that is regrettable, and part of my words to come. Yet, we have never threatened your world itself, when we could have. Our actions were… I get ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning.”
I was fascinated, and despite the translation his words… now he had me doing it, his speech was a little odd. I told Al to bring us some coffee, one of the maintenance droids could handle it, with the repair nanites all over the ship they no longer had a job anyway.
Dral started talking, his tone of voice oratory, as if teaching us, “Long ago, when we first discovered FTL, when most of your worlds’ populations lived in caves, we joined the Knomen empire. They came to us, much like many of you, and we fell for their good sounding words and lies. Yet, when their dishonor became apparent, we had no choice but to break off, and go on our way.
“It was a large war, the largest the Seltan had ever seen or been a part of at that time. Eventually, we beat them back, and they started to fear our border, if not respect our honor. We hold all the stars between the Orion arm, and the Core. Next to us, we were surrounded by two other races. On one side we had the Drenil. The Drenil are a peaceful species, and quite strange.
“They have no true shape, and are amorphous. Thankfully, they are as peaceful as they are powerful.”
I frowned when Alnot interrupted him, “Amorphous, all life is like we are, what tales do you spin?”
Dral growled, “Be patient, listen to my words, but hear this. Implicate me as a liar again and I will burn your world to ash. We have honor, something you dogs perhaps wouldn’t understand. If the situation wasn’t what it was, I probably wouldn’t even bother trying.”
When Alnot didn’t answer, he went up in my estimation a bit.
Dral continued, “To the other side of the core were the Reilan. The Reilan were peaceful as well, and hard to describe. They weren’t humanoid either.”
The fact he was describing them in the past tense made me pay even more attention to his words, and it gave me a sense of foreboding.
Dral nodded, “So in short, we were alone. We had two peaceful neighbors, but they weren’t humanoid, and were hard to speak to and understand. Up the arm we had the Knomen empire, an empire without honor. Many millennia passed, and then the Reilan were invaded from the other side. Many millions of small ships, the size of what we would consider a shuttle or troop transport, invaded their space.
“We watched, and waited, thinking we were next. But when the Reilan were destroyed, the swarm of ships headed up the arm. We’d escaped a nasty war, but only for a time, and we never forgot, we built up our ship numbers knowing that they would be back someday. Five hundred years later, they swarmed back down the arm, and attacked us.”
He paused for a moment, and I wondered if they were so different after all. He clearly had a good handle on the theatric.
“We have been fighting them off ever since. We tried once again to get the Knomen to see true honor, and join us in defending our arm of the galaxy, but that wasn’t to be. More than once, the Knomen saw us as a threat and considered attacking us. We have the ability to find out such things. Whenever that happened, we invaded Leira with a small force, made up of older ships, and old warriors that wished to die in battle.
“We regret the loss of life, but true to form, the Knomen are cowards, every time we invaded they would change their mind, until the next time they remembered us.”
Alnot replied, “So you want to join the treaty, and have us fight with you against these invaders, is that it? Why should we?”
Dral frowned, “Do you not understand? I thought from my words, this would be clear. This… galaxy is some kind of experiment. Whoever seeded our galaxy with life, only gave one arm to humanoids. On one side we have amorphous forms that are peaceful but so alien we can’t have meaningful contact, the other aliens that were destroyed are beyond my ability to describe properly. The enemy that attacks us came from the fourth arm, the one opposite us. We use words such as swarm to describe them because they swarm like insects.
“The creatures themselves have exoskeletons like many insects on our worlds, they even have an amalgam to mandibles, and the way they feed. Beyond that though they have no relation to us at all, they are entirely alien in nature. Even the insects on our worlds contain up to sixty percent of the same DNA, not so for this race bent on destroying all life in the galaxy that is unlike them. They do not live in atmosphere like us, they thrive on gases that would poi
son and kill us. They do not communicate at all, we are unable to even learn the name of their race.
“To answer your question, why help, if we are destroyed, they will swarm up the Orion arm with millions of ships, you will not have a chance. It is the way of honor, something we hope is possible between us now that the grip of the Knomen has been broken. If we join your treaty, we will be allies, and you can help defend our lives along with your own. Or, you can say no, I’ll leave, and when my race dies, yours will surely follow. The truth that you have until now been unaware of, is we have guarded you for millennia, against a brutal and merciless enemy.
“We are running out of resources, colonies, and warriors. The truth is, without allies we will not last much longer. When I say that, realize we have in excess of a million warships, we could have invaded the arm long ago, and easily won, but we would see that as dishonorable, and frankly we need these defenses to fight off the swarm ships. They come in waves every few years, and they are due soon.”
Millions of ships? Holy crap. I smiled, the board had thought four thousand overkill. Granted, we were the baby FTL race, ironically we were also the most advanced. Or were we? It made no sense. I could understand the peaceful races, like Tressia and Leira were limited in technology, especially as they had the Knomen breathing down their neck until recently. But the Seltan had been fighting in a war for millennia, how the hell were they less advanced than Earth ships?
Granted, we got a boost in tech when I visited Tressia and bought some. But it only took me a few months to make all of that tech obsolete. Yes, I was smart and innovative, but I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I was the smartest being in the galaxy. Why were the Seltan stuck. War should drive innovation. WW One brought the tank, WW two brought fighter planes, and nuclear bombs. Humanoids excelled at advancement when under pressure. Either it was something societal, or the Seltan held back to older tech when attacking the Leirans, to prevent their current stuff from being analyzed after the battle.
Alicia Jones 3: New Frontier Page 8
