Authors: Greg Fish
In one of the large, claw-shaped spires overlooking the central dome of the space city, Christine and Steve sat in the large and very comfortable living quarters of the cyborg responsible for Earth’s defenses. He was a charming, laid-back Child named Leo. A student of Ace’s, he specialized in defensive strategies. Ace, Dot, and other top commanders frequently used his expertise on key missions to invade capitol worlds and defend strategic outposts. Their specialty lay in how to unleash the Nation’s considerable firepower with the most lethal effect. Leo’s advice helped them refine their battle plans to counter the defenses of their targets.
Like all Children, he had a young face even though he was some 760 years old. He also wasn’t a cookie-cutter cyborg like Steve and Christine were expecting. In fact, as they found out, none of the Nation’s inhabitants were. If they were converted as humans, the prominent features of their faces were kept. If they were created with a blend of extremely sophisticated synthetic gametes and real DNA, they would have the face that genetics would likely select for them set in dark carbon gel.
While Ace and Dot excused themselves to prepare for a major meeting with some of the Nation’s rulers, Leo agreed to entertain and educate the humans. He did so by introducing them to more of the commanders in the Earth’s fleet, giving them the grand tour of the space city and by graciously tending to their every need. Steve and Christine finally started to relax around the cyborgs. Rather than being handled as an unnecessary burden at best, or spies at worst, as they had feared when accepting their assignment, the two were treated like ambassadors. After the tour, Leo brought them to his living quarters and had his robotic assistants make the humans something to eat, carefully checking what items from the Nation’s rather bizarre cuisine might be safe for them to consume.
“So what do you think of the Nation so far?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.
“We’re very impressed and somewhat overwhelmed,” replied Christine. “It’s been a very interesting few days.”
“Oh I’m sure. And again, I hope you don’t mind dealing with me while Ace and Dot work with the High Council. No offense but as I’m sure you understand, some meetings just have to be confidential.”
“Of course, of course,” agreed Steve. “As I understand it, Ace is something like an advisor to the High Council in addition to his military duties, right?”
“He’s what we call a high commander,” clarified Leo. “It’s the rank of a highly trained career soldier who coordinates entire fleets, but that’s not really his full time job. His actual job is being an intelligence advisor to the High Council.”
“Kind of like the Deputy Councilor of Defense on Earth, right?”
“Yes... I suppose that’s a good way to describe it.”
“What about yourself Leo?”
“I’m a commander right now. In a few years, I might make it to high commander if the Council decides I have what it takes. It’s not easy to become a high commander. It takes centuries of service and you have to rack up a lot of accomplishments. I believe that Dot is next in line to rank up to that.”
“And who’s under the commanders?”
“Officers, specialists, and enlistees. The actual hierarchy gets somewhat complicated with education and time served. Then there are special ops certs that create sub-branches, and so on.”
“Does having a mostly robotic army change anything in terms of ranks?”
“Not really. We just have very few commanders. Each one of us controls 5,000 destroyers out of a fleet of 500,000 not including capitol ships like this one. This group of 5,000 is called an MRDG, or multi-role destroyer group and typically has 80 squadrons of SBDs (destroyers that fight only in space) and 20 squadrons of GUDs (destroyers that carry ground units and troops). Mostly we just watch the overall strategy for our MRDG and make sure everything is going according to the battle plan which is carried out by officers and the specialists and enlistees they command. Each ship’s AI chip does the rest. But the catch is, and it’s kind of an important catch, that…”
Leo continued the lecture in acronyms and proper Nation military terminology for hours and the humans asked question after question. Meanwhile, the High Councilors and their top advisors were gathering in the central dome below to discuss their future plans for the little blue planet below.
In the main room of the space city’s central dome was a round table with a brushed aluminum color scheme designed to seat twelve people in sleek, rounded chairs. The panoramic window around the circular room looked out on the Nation’s fleet and the Earth, setting the mood for the meeting.
Sitting at the round table were three of the Child Councilors, Ace and Dot. The two commanders were in their non-combat uniforms as they always were during official meetings. The Councilors wore dark cloaks with silver tribal designs around their edges and a silver seal of the Nation emblazoned on their chests. They politely chatted with Ace and Dot, waiting for the Senior Councilor to make his appearance.
“So sorry to keep everybody waiting,” said Thomas Nelson as he walked into the conference room with a sigh, the black chrome door softly sliding shut behind him. “Typical bureaucratic junk on Abydos. That’s it, next cycle, I’m cutting all this busy work out.”
He sat down next to Dot as was his custom. As a Child he looked much younger and as with all Children, the distinguishing features of his face were perfectly preserved in carbon gel.
“So where were we?” he asked.
“Just waiting for you,” replied Cynthia, a fellow Councilor and Nelson’s second in command.
“Thanks,” nodded Nelson. “Before the end of the week, we should be able to finalize trading rules with Earth. Right now, we were thinking about selling household technology and planetary construction services for starters. What do you think?”
“I’m sure someone will want weapons too,” noted Dot.
“They don’t need our weapons,” grumbled a High Councilor. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to give them even more ways to kill themselves.”
“They’ll get weapons Alex,” said Ace. “And they’ll get them because they want them and because it’s going to be one of our most lucrative business lines. It’s been this way for thousands of years and they haven’t killed themselves yet.”
“Ok, then what about a lunatic general using our bombs and missiles around on us? How do we counter that?”
“That hypothetical lunatic general will have an interstellar drive in a few years,” noted Dot. “If we’re not going to sell humans weapons, they’re going to take their shiny new ships to someone who will. We bought weapons and weapon components from aliens a few times so they’ll certainly figure out how to do that.”
“Then it would be a snap for someone to take them out,” added Ace. “Who knows what they might bring back from a shopping spree in deep space? Some vulture might decide to save a lot of effort and sell them a weapon designed to backfire and destroy their whole world or cripple their military.”
“But what about an off world inspection point?” asked Nelson.
“Just as bad. These devices can have an AI chip which would lie in wait until the device is on the home world or a significant military base or it’s being used in combat. It goes off when it can do the most damage to its owners’ fleet. The guys who sold them this device just took out their potential competition with minimal effort and got paid for it. Or at least didn’t have to spend a lot of time or resources to do a lot of damage.”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before Ace,” guessed Cynthia.
“Eh... once or twice,” admitted Ace with a guilty shrug.
“So, any bright ideas?” asked Nelson. “Cynthia?”
“Sell them a lower powered version of our stuff?”
“Hmm... What about you Ace?”
Ace scratched his chin for a moment.
“You know Nelson, let’s sell them everything short of the heavy artillery. You know... no IGFs, GRBGs, DSDs, etcetera. They’ll still be one of the best armed races in the galaxy, but they won’t have the kind of weapons that could take out the whole system. When things really get underway, we’ll sell them whatever they want, just jack up the price to control how much they buy.”
“And since we’re right here...” continued Nelson, “there’s little incentive for them to wander off to another world and look for a new supplier... Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“Well, as long as they don’t blow themselves up,” sighed Alex.
“That’s where we come in,” winked Dot. “They’ll need our help to learn how to use the weapons safely.”
“Very well,” nodded Cynthia. “I’ll put all this into the agreement and we should have it in a few hours. We’ll just need the humans to agree to it, but with what we have to offer, I’m sure they will.”
“How do they pay us until we go to phase two?” asked Ace.
“Genetic data,” replied Cynthia, “tritium and deuterium.”
“Genetic data as in blood?”
“For now, yes.”
“Won’t somebody figure out what it’s for and have a shit fit on global TV, scaring everybody half to death?”
“They’ll have a shit fit faster if we give this stuff away. We need the blood for research in the first place to make sure we can add two more base pairs.”
Ace nervously tapped his fingers on the table. He could smell the imminent upheaval brewing on Earth.
“Politics isn’t my area of expertise so I defer to you,” he said.
“So what are we going to do about the Rexx?” asked Nelson.
“Kill them of course,” replied Ace nonchalantly, as if Nelson just asked him about how he liked his tea. “Frankly, we can’t afford to permanently move the bulk of the Sixth Fleet out here and that’s what we’ll end up doing if we don’t go on the offensive. Besides, we need to send the Dark Gods a message by severing whatever they’re using to control them.”
“They’re prolific bastards, aren’t they?” asked Nelson.
“Their queens produce a hundred Rexx every day.”
“And if we took a nicely sized fleet out of here to neutralize the Rexx and left just a small detachment and a few probes I think it would relax Earth’s armies,” finished Nelson.
“Coming with us Nelson?” asked Dot.
“You bet. Just after we finish up this trade deal. Oh and Ace... what’s the plan with Steve and Christine?”
“I’d like to take them with me. They’re fast learners and they did quite well yesterday. Besides, we might need allies when we’re back and have to sort out whatever humans will end up doing to their home world with our machines that’ll inflame the... shall we say... more politically aggressive occupants of the planet.”
“There’s no such thing as too many allies,” agreed Nelson and directed his attention to the rest of the Councilors. “Ok everybody, meeting adjourned. Let’s get the formalities out of the way so we can get to work.”
As the Councilors went back to their offices, Dot and Ace called Leo to start the slow withdrawal of the destroyer fleet. In a few days, just a few transports and a token squadron of warships would be left in orbit. Deeper in space, long range probes would watch over Earth, locking on to any enemy signal.
[ chapter _ 009 ]
When Ace’s destroyer entered an alien solar system thousands of light years away, it flew by a Hot Jupiter, a massive gas giant so close to its star that its orbital period was measured in days. The side of the gas giant turned to the sun was a magnificent vision of hell. It was as if the center of the planet’s sun burnt face was exploding from within; fountains of vaporized nickel sent constant shockwaves that churned enormous, beige clouds of superheated silica.
The small, blue sun perturbed by the gas giant’s gravity shot out spectacular plumes of plasma for millions of miles into space. Some of the giant plumes licked the planet with their fiery tongues, leaving unfathomably hot vapor trails along the parted clouds. On these long, hot vapor trails, blue and white auroras danced with breathtaking fluidity and intensity.
Wrapped around the solar system was a thick cloud of bluish dust left over from the giant nebula from which this star and its numerous siblings developed eons ago. From deep within the dust cloud, white, yellow and blue points of light gently shone.
“Oh wow...” gasped Christine as she looked at this stunning and alien view on the destroyer’s holographic wall. “I’d kill to see that with my own eyes and not go blind.”
“I know there are lots of systems like this,” reflected Steve, “but I never thought they looked quite like that.”
“Eh... You get used to it,” shrugged Ace.
“How would you ever get used to seeing that?”
“It’s like a sunset. You tend to stop and admire it at random. If you look at this every day for so long and with that much excitement, kind of wears off.”
Steve sighed, eyeing the beautiful and serene image for the last time as the destroyer spun around and headed to a rocky, barren moon of a bluish gas giant in a much farther orbit. Buzzing around this moon was a huge swarm of destroyers, orbital factories and GRBGs, the terrifying ships referred to as planet killers. They were monstrous craft capable of generating bursts of energy potent enough to decimate a small world. The power of these planet killers came from a tiny, artificial star encircled by six powerful, claw-like engines that could generate a massive gamma ray burst on command. As big as a mountain, jet black with a hellish red aura around it, shining with the light of a churning red star the size of a city which produced untold petawatts of energy per second, a planet killer was a terrifying sight. Any species that stared down the barrel of this hyper-weapon knew that the end was near and there was very little they could do to stop it. Sitting on the bridge of Ace’s destroyer, Christine and Steve couldn’t make up their minds as to whether they were very happy that the Nation had planet killers to help them kill the Rexx or whether it was a demonstration of what could be in an orbit around Earth if the humans ever decided to move against the cyborgs.