Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest) (2 page)

“Desolator grows ever more unstable. It is better not provoked. We must hope and pray to the Ancestors that it…” The aging speaker, B’nur, trailed off as she often did, losing her train of thought.

After a polite moment for the other Mother, Kirst’aa snapped to Chirom, “Make your proposal.”

See how clever she is. She calls for a vote early, before Chirom has a chance to persuade them further. And she will win.

“I propose we petition Desolator to contact the aliens here, and to allow us to leave the ship and settle in this place if they will have us.” Chirom folded his arms and looked around.

“So proposed. Vote as one, etan, detan, dar.” On the count of three each held out a paw, claws sheathed for no, out for yes. Four to one was the vote against action.

Again they do nothing….therefore it falls to me to do something.
Trissk merely had to figure out what that something might be.

Commander Rick Johnstone, CyberComm watch officer on duty aboard the EarthFleet dreadnought
Conquest
, sat bolt upright with his mouth unconsciously hanging open. His dark locks mingled with the two cables connected to his skull plugs, unusual for many linkers that shaved their heads – especially on patrol.

“What is it, Commander?” Captain Chandar Mirza asked mildly, ignoring the man’s unkempt look.
He’s the best comms officer I’ve ever seen; I can flex a bit on the grooming.
By contrast, his own hair was short and neat, just like the rest of him.

Instead of answering, Rick’s fingers flew across his console. In concert with instructions from his link, the view in the main holotank swooped out, briefly showing the whole of the Gliese 370 system before zooming in toward New Jove. Blue and green icons blinked dully, marking the carrier
EFS Temasek
and the Hippos’ new pride and joy, the heavy cruiser
Krugh,
in orbit around the ice moon Reta.

Another icon joined them in the tank, yellow and bright, over a hundred million kilometers out. Numbers scrolled beside it and the view expanded further as Mirza leaned forward, his smooth Persian face even more frozen than usual. “If I interpret this correctly, we have an inbound bogey out beyond New Jove. Can we get some idea of what it is, and how large?”

Commander Tanaka, Sensors officer on duty, replied, “The feed says it is a superdreadnought-class object, but does not appear to be a Meme ship. It’s coming in from the nearest edge of the Empire. From the Bite.” A large man, he appeared a bit puffy and out of shape, but like everyone on the bridge of the system’s premier warship, he was very good at his job.

“Bring up the Meme Empire data and load it into the holotank,” Mirza said.

Soon the device displayed a model of their enemy’s holdings, constructed from data captured from the Meme or supplied by the Hippos. Shaped like a lozenge over a thousand light-years across, the area contained tens of thousands of stars, only a fraction of the Milky Way Galaxy’s component of hundreds of billions.

The Bite was what Intel called a chunk missing from their captured knowledge. It appeared as a hole in the edge of enemy space covering almost a quarter of the display. Earth’s solar system sat at the tip of the sliver of the Empire that reached around to embrace and surround the Bite. Perhaps this was the reason humanity had not been overwhelmed outright: the blank area seemed to shield it from direct Meme attack.

While Earth’s solar system lay off to the side of the Bite and fifty light-years inside Empire territory, Gliese 370 fell thirty-six light-years out toward the end, hopefully away from the main Meme fleets. Perhaps humanity could find expansion beyond the edge of their enemy’s realm.

No one knew for sure what that blank space represented – dead worlds, enemy worlds, worlds with no Meme? On optical and radio telescopes, stars and the wobble of planets were visible there but little else. Rumors from the Hippos said that the Bite was the battleground between the Meme and an enemy that had almost beaten them: what the Meme called Species 447, or the Ryss.

Interrogation of the three captured Meme had yielded little, not because they were unwilling to tell, but because they simply seemed not to know. The Meme Empire compartmentalized its knowledge ruthlessly, and these had been purpose-bred creatures, fit only to tend the great moon laser they called The Weapon.

“At present speed how long until the contact reaches Reta?” the captain asked.

“Something like twenty hours, Skipper.”

“And how soon can we get there?”

Master Helmsman Okuda spoke up from his cockpit, the medusa of cables plugged in to his shaven ebony skull moving as he turned. “At maximum burn we’ll arrive four hours before it does, assuming no further acceleration. We can get there sooner if we fly past and come back.” If they were to attack, he meant. Nobody wanted to fight at relative rest to the enemy.

Mirza took a breath, then rattled off orders. “Set up a course to come to relative rest inside New Jove’s orbit. We may need to use the planet tactically. Sound General Quarters. Rig for flank acceleration in fifteen minutes. Everyone into their crash chairs and overload the gravplates five percent.”

Rick passed the orders via link even as he listened with his ears. It was a skill he had perfected long ago.

“Get some Marines down to help the engineers, and make sure the new weapon is secured,” Mirza went on, “and inform the Admiral what we are doing and request reinforcements. Everyone to link now, with standard rest protocols. We may have to fly straight into a fight.”

Rick pressed his lips together in disapproval but did not argue. Linking everyone for such a long time could be dangerous, as the line between reality and virtuality blurred.
Not my call,
he thought, as he made sure
Conquest
’s computer would properly schedule and enforce everyone’s unplugged periods.

Over the next sixteen hours
Conquest’
s immobilized crew built a linked virtual picture out of the various data feeds it had received. They learned the bogey was definitely nothing like any Meme ship they had ever seen, nor was it human or Hippo. Massing something on the order of five hundred billion tons – twenty times that of
Conquest
, and twice that of a Meme Guardian – it measured over nine kilometers long and two wide, a flattened cylindrical object with four stubby superstructures, making it vaguely resemble a quadruped creature, rather like a short-nosed alligator with an equally stubby tail.

With suppressed irritation Captain Mirza learned that Admiral Henrich Absen and the Hippo General Kullorg even now blasted toward Reta on a command courier, and would actually arrive at the rendezvous before they did. Still, if it really was an alien contact, he was happy to have someone of senior rank present.

Best it did not come to a fight in any case. Mirza had been captain of the cruiser
Kolkata
until his beloved ship had been turned into a very expensive kinetic missile and slammed into the Meme Guardian of this system. He had no desire to lose another vessel on his watch.

“Sir, another update,” Johnstone told the captain and bridge crew in linkspace. “Here are pictures from an eyeball we have on a passing comet, relayed back to
Temasek
.”

4D graphics filled their minds’ eyes, the magnification of the sensor drone expanding the unidentified vessel into a stately shipwreck, rotating slowly around its long axis in the void. The closer the picture came, the more badly damaged the bogey seemed. Gaping holes in its structure reached deep into its interior, showing the gutted latticework of open decks and broken struts. Energy burns, kinetic strikes, and the distinctive melting of nuclear plasma effects all became clear.

Captain Mirza let out a sigh of relief, thankfully unheard through the link. “Doesn’t look to be in good shape. Energy readings?”

“We only have electro-optical right now,” Tanaka answered, “but infrared shows heat sources in several places. It’s not completely dead.”

“But at least not in any shape for a fight, we can hope. What are
Temasek’s
and
Krugh’s
postures?”

Okuda answered from the helm, “They’ve broken orbit, sowed more static sensor drones, and are falling back toward us. Rendezvous in forty-eight minutes.”

“What about
Flensburg
?” The only other capital ship the humans still possessed Mirza knew to be on the other side of the system beyond the orange dwarf star.

“Three days, more or less.”

“All right. Once we come to rest, tell the engineers to get that particle cannon working, no excuses. It just went from experimental to operational.”

Sergeant Major Jill Repeth, EarthFleet Marines (Reserve Status), dandled her daughter Cassandra on her knee, making baby-talk sounds to delight her. Perhaps strangely for such a seasoned warrior, it bothered her not at all to take her turn at the communal crèche. Some female Marines all but gave up their mandated children to the EarthFleet nurseries, but not Jill.

Motherhood had changed her, just as every other significant event in her life had changed her…
for the better, this time
, she thought. Killing hands were now doing something more positive, and the gaps in her emotional armor were wider now. Still always in the background hovered the knowledge that in perhaps thirty years this tiny girl-child, her year-older brother Roger, and their siblings yet unborn might take their places at her side in the long campaign against the Meme. Sadness and pride warred within her, and the warrior in her told the mother once again that no sacrifice was too great to ensure humanity’s survival.

Sometimes that felt like the truth; more often like a nauseating and very sick joke. Pushing her feelings away once again, she forced herself to think objectively.

War over interstellar distances created a chess match in extreme slow motion, punctuated by battles over systems. At least that’s what their theory and her limited experience said. Given the vast gulf between stars, even information crawled from stellar island to island hardly faster than did warships. Each battle was an all-or-nothing affair, leaving one combatant in possession of a system and the other driven away or destroyed – and the loser’s forces in other systems none the wiser for many years.

What a strange way to fight
, Jill thought for the umpteenth time as Cassandra burped and spat up a bit of milk. For herself, it meant winning a life-and-death struggle to conquer the Gliese 370 system. If there was any justice in the universe, that victory would bring decades of relative peace.

She cleaned Cass’s face, folding the goo into a cloth and snagging another with a stretch of her arm.

Of course Meme warships could show up at any time, but it would be pure horrendous ill fortune, for they would have been, by definition, inbound long before the EarthFleet task force had arrived. If so,
Conquest
herself, the surviving battleship
Flensburg
, and a handful of other vessels plus Hippo forces would have to handle it.

Else they would all be enslaved.

Believe we have time
, Jill instructed herself.
Have faith we are here for a purpose, that God would not bring us here just to lose.
Of course too,
the rain falleth on the just and on the unjust.
Snorting at herself as she held her daughter, she embraced the eternal problem: what was divine will, and what was circumstance?

“Oh, did you make a stinky?” Jill asked to the giggling Cass as her latest bounce gave a decided
squish
. “Yes you did, yes you did!” Diaper duties pushed aside cosmic thoughts as she carried the baby to a changing table.

Later, after child-care duties were complete, her other work – what she would have called her real job as a Marine – claimed the rest of her time. Leisure was limited nowadays – she was used to that, after so long in the military. With the Eden Plague keeping bodies young and fit, twelve-hour workdays remained the norm, six of them per week.

In this case just catching up on her office work took the time allotted, though like most of the military mothers, she did it all from her flat.
Wherever Rick is
,
is home
, Jill thought as she filed her last fitness report and stretched. But he wasn’t home, so it wasn’t either. The cramped, Spartan one-bedroom apartment lacked almost all the other amenities that normally provided a homey ambience. The Hippos had been kind to their new human allies, and grateful for liberating them from their Meme overlords, but their own economy was also stretched to the limit, on permanent war footing, so luxuries were few.

Eating alone at her desk was no fun, so she decided to walk down to the Markis’ flat. Knocking once, she cracked the door. “Dannie? It’s Jill.”

“Heah, honey, come on in,” her friend answered in that strange American South crossed with South African accent. “I made a big batch of étouffée if you want some. Gonna freeze the extra and send it back with Vincent on his next visit.”

“In exchange for another bun in the oven, I imagine. When’s he get leave?” Jill sat down on a barstool across the kitchen counter, as there was no space in the tiny room to help out.

Setting down two plates of the rice and seafood dish, Daniela replied, “Next week.
Temasek
is still on patrol with the
Krugh
out near New Jove. Can’t wait to see him. What about Rick?”

“Still on
Conquest
; they’re testing the new particle cannon. He’ll be back in six weeks or so.” Jill absently patted her flat belly.

“And with the new fertility treatments, start another two or three on the way, I imagine. The way BioMed is pushing, I’m surprised we’re not birthing litters.” Daniela’s smooth chocolate face turned pensive as she forked the Afranan version of shrimp into her mouth. “I don’t mind having the children, really. I know we need to breed more people as fast as we can. It just scares me what they are all growing up for.”

“They won’t all be warriors, Dannie. With the Hippos now on our side, our children can be other things – scientists, engineers, farmers, teachers of the generations to come.”