“But that doesn’t mean,” continued Rorder, now looking nobly thoughtful ,“that we should ASSUME they are coming back for another war.”
“Rorder, you…” started Jat, until Harker quietly tapped his arm. Neem stood by, looking surprised and worried.
Rorder continued, “Here we are, mortgaging future generations for the cost of a war we don’t even know we’re going to fight. While far be it for me to question the assessments of those deep inside the machinery of power, as a concerned citizen, I can see other explanations for the silence from the Elders.”
The smug smile returned, “After the brave, ferocious, and costly fight we put up, has it occurred to anyone in power that the Elders might have written us off as too dangerous, too warlike, and put us under some sort of interdict? Why indeed would they want to come back here?”
Harker, more composed than his two friends, spoke, “Mr. Rorder, it’ll be better to be prepared and have them not show up, than to be unprepared, and have them show up.”
“I’d expect someone who has been moving quickly, and profitably, into the arms business to say exactly that,” replied Rorder.
///
Karden sat in his office at GDC headquarters. Despite his best efforts, he was getting used to the comforts of having, for the first time since the Elders arrived, one consistent place to work. When the Elders came back, this building would accomplish little more than to be an inviting target. Still, until then, he could humor the complaints of his aging body against more travel.
He made a call. Dren Wimier, currently at the Tadine capital, picked up.
“Wimier, Karden here.”
“Good afternoon, wish I was down there in the sunny south right now.”
Karden smiled for a moment, but not long. There was serious business to discuss.
“Dren, have you been following the news since that ambush Selnin Rorder pulled at Harker Industries?”
“Unhappily yes, and I’ve been watching as some of the other pundits joined in.”
“I think it is just the first volley, Dren. I’d suspect people are starting to get weary of the war effort.”
“Polls agree with you, Haral.”
“It might be wrong, but it is understandable. The last time a sizeable part of the world was on a war footing on this scale, devoting as high a percentage of economic output to military production, was during the Great Eastern War,” said Karden.
“I’m aware we can’t keep this up forever.”
“Political opinion is your area, Dren, any thoughts?”
“Push Neem and Jat to get their prototype starship finished, and get it on a trip. I know they’re going fast, see if they can go faster. That will give people something inspiring to talk about.”
Karden considered that idea. “I think you’re right. Even if it means the first voyage needs to be somewhere closer than the Elder sector capital, and the ship needs to be armed for slightly less than single-handed war against the Elder fleet. I’ll see what I can do.”
He made another call.
“I’m busy,” answered Jat.
“Of that I’m sure, Darex. However I have something important to ask.”
“All right, what?”
“I’d like to get a progress report on the starship project.”
“Now? Let me guess, people want it faster.”
“Shocking, I know, Darex. You may also guess that some of the motives are political, but I will add that some are also practical. The sooner we know what is going on with the Elders, the better.”
“That’s what I’m working on right now Karden. Getting there sooner.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” and his voice sounded a bit more like the famous Professor Darex Jat than his friend, Jat, “that I’m working on a way to get that ship to the Elder sector capital, or anywhere, faster; much faster.”
Karden’s mind, as it did so often talking to Jat, began to process and grapple with what it heard. He knew Jat had been especially odd and testy since his altercation with Selnin Rorder, but this was something more.
“Darex, do you mean some kind of improvement in the FTL drive? I thought you said the wormholes had a fixed maximum speed?”
“An asymptote, really. A lot like getting close to light speed itself. Only so much more practical output you can get for additional input. The Elders had already pretty much maxed that out, and all we’ve been able to do is copy them.”
“All right, so how then?”
“By changing the rules. Your motto Karden. From the time I first looked at their wormhole drive, I was wondering if there was a way entirely around its limitations. I’m close now, or would be, if I wasn’t getting interrupted all the time.”
“Darex, to use your motto, we’re at war. That means current and practical considerations may take precedence, and it would be helpful if you’d be reasonable.”
There was an audible sigh at the other end of the line.
“All right. What I am very close to is a theory of how to generate a rift directly between two points. Instead of cruising through a pocket of real space inside a long wormhole tunnel - a cruise that takes hours to the nearest star, days to the Elder sector capital, or the better part of the year to cross the galaxy, we could do it instantly.”
Ordinarily, Karden might have been awed at the idea. The implications were certainly so enormous he couldn’t even properly grasp them yet. But right now, it sounded very theoretical indeed, and they had immediate problems on their hands. And, an obvious question soon came to mind…
“All right, I can see the immense advantage of that, if it can be done. But if it can, why haven’t the Elders done so, long since.”
“They aren’t me,” Jat said, without a hint of humor in his voice. “To see it, yes, you have to have a grounding in wormhole FTL theory. I’ll admit even I couldn’t have done it without them. But I think it helps to look at it fresh and from the outside.”
He continued, “But I think they’re stuck in their ways. You talked to their scientists before the war. So did I. They think they’ve found all the main answers. Just tweaking at the corners maybe now. Refining, making things prettier. But really new ideas? Not in a long time.”
That fit with Karden’s own perception. Elder culture seemed… static, and their history for at least two thousand years seemed primarily one of maintaining that stasis, especially when faced with potential disruptions, like a newly technological planet.
“All right, Jat. Let’s say you can do this, how long till you have a prototype drive ready to test?”
“Don’t know.”
“But can I infer that you’ve been delaying completion of the starship in hope of putting the new, superior design of drive in it, rather than the existing one?”
“It is more than just superior Karden! A rift drive would give us a huge advantage. It would be game changing, galaxy shaking...!”
“Yes it would, Darex, but right now, let’s start with having a working star ship.”
“I…”
“It would turn public opinion back around, not that you care about that. But, doing so would pull the smile right off Selnin Rorder’s face.”
“Karden, you… just… oh all right.”
35
On the main launch pad at Neem-Jat Labs rested a ship.
It was shaped roughly like an elongated horizontal wedge, resting on its landing gear. Multiple powerful engines surrounded the back of the wedge. In the middle of the ship was an array of weapons – missile launchers, gatling rocket pods, and defensive lasers on mobile spherical turrets with comprehensive overlapping fields of fire. Further forward were long, deadly magnetic railguns, and at the very front, a warp rift generator.
In the interior heart of the ship, surrounded by energy shield generators and heavy armor, was a small bridge and cramped living quarters. A crew of twelve was to sleep in narrow bunked berths, share a small lavatory at one end, a food dispenser at the other, and a little t
able in the center.
Several people stood at a balcony, surveying it.
“It’s a brutal looking thing,” said Karden.
“It’s designed to do its job, not be pretty,” said Neem. “We skipped the aesthetics and comforts of Elder design. But, with not much more than a thousandth the crew of a Warden Ship, it packs more like a hundredth the firepower.”
Neem continued, “Besides design efficiency, we have improvements in terms of flight and weapons control per person thanks to some ideas and software architecture from Viris.”
Viris smiled, “Doing what I can, now that I’ve finally got the slagging Elder code training program up and running.”
Neem concluded, “Despite its size, it is highly maneuverable. It handles more like a fighter, and it has Elder-style inertial dampeners. Flight tests are a go. Our low-orbit jumps were successful. It’s nearly ready for its first interstellar jump!”
“How soon do you think that is?” asked Karden.
“Forty-eight hours,” replied Neem.
“It still needs a name, you know.” said Karden, “That numeric designation you use is well enough, but the crew and the rest of the world are going to want a name to call it by.”
“And the rest of the world will be watching,” added Air Marshal Sellis.
Varen smiled, “How about the Big Surprise?”
///
Forty-eight hours later, Varen and his crew, in spacesuits, walked towards the Big Surprise. Politicians and military officers flanked one side. Neem, Jat and their scientists and researchers flanked the other. Further back were hordes of reporters, and behind them, seats constructed especially for the event, full of VIP guests.
He climbed up the simple, narrow steps into the interior of the ship, entered the small weapons and parts storage room where the stairs terminated, and then moved forward past the living quarters to the bridge. He sat himself down in the pilot’s chair.
His lean little crew included himself, his copilot, two navigators who doubled as communications officers, four weapons officers and gunners, three technicians to maintain and monitor systems, and one computer specialist.
They strapped themselves in, checked systems. “Operational and ready,” each confirmed in turn.
“All systems operational and ready,” confirmed Varen.
He requested and received clearance from ground control.
“All crew, prepare for launch. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…”
And the Big Surprise lifted off into the sky. It flew like Elder craft, astonishingly fast, and without substantial internal inertia. It wasn’t as quiet. Its powerful engines achieved great speeds more cheaply than the Elder originals, but without their quiet ergonomic perfection. In a short while, the blue of the atmosphere faded to black. The vastness of space loomed before them. They were far enough.
“Navigator, confirm destination coordinates,” their destination was the closest star on the Elder’s map, and one of the closest to Ground’s own system. Known to the Elders by their efficient numeric code system, it was known to Grounders as The Forge, for its faintly visible red color.
The navigator on duty checked his data drawn from the Elder’s galactic map program, “Confirmed.”
“All crew, prepare to enter wormhole,” said Varen, his flat, professional tone of voice masking the awe he felt inside at what they were about to do, “Opening wormhole.”
Before them, a patch of space opened up. In less than a second, it became a circular hole like the entrance of a tunnel, glowing with faint yellow-white energy. Beyond that opening, through that tunnel was another solar system.
Varen accelerated, the ship blasted into the wormhole. The light streaked past them all round. It wasn’t perfectly uniform. Small variations, moving past at immense speed, made for a weird, shifting, flickering effect. Fast as they were moving through the pocket of real space inside the wormhole, their real, effective speed was far faster. In less than a day, they would travel light years.
Hours passed. One or two crewmen rotated testing out their cramped berths. Most couldn’t rest or sleep, monotonous as travel in the wormhole soon became. Varen was among them. A born pilot, adventurous and curious, he’d still never imagined doing anything like this. At last, it was time. Exactly on schedule, there was a sudden flash, and they were out of the wormhole.
On the other side, a sun, a vast red-orange star, loomed large, even this far out in its solar system. As his crew looked upon it with awe, Varen spoke, choosing his words carefully. They were being recorded and would be remembered.
“We’ve crossed interstellar space, and look out upon a new sun. We the crew of this first starship, we the people of Ground, have taken our first step among the stars.”
And with that, short as it was, it was time to go home. They were here to make a full practical demonstration of the drive, not to explore.
“Navigator, confirm destination coordinates,” said Varen.
“Confirmed.”
“All crew prepare to enter wormhole. Opening wormhole.”
The entered a new wormhole, and the way home.
“Crew, you all know the trip back is going to be a lot longer. And, we have our little detour to make at the Elder transmission satellite. Rotate and get some rest.”
Even at the speeds the Big Surprise could travel, its Elder-design engines propelling it faster by far than any other craft ever built on Ground, it would be four days back from the wormhole exit far out in their solar system.
And, they had a satellite to reprogram, with a little instruction from Viris Nane.
///
The crew of the Big Surprise returned to a heroes’ welcome. Hundreds of thousands crowded into and around Capital Spaceport to watch it land. Millions more gathered worldwide to celebrate. The positive reaction was immense and immediate.
There were a few who weren’t impressed. One of them was Darex Jat. His station at Neem-Jat labs was more of a mess than ever, as was he.
“Slag!” he growled, at no one in particular.
Neem, newly returned from the lab floor, walked over. “Maybe you should get some sleep today. I mean, assuming you got some sleep yesterday. Or even if you didn’t, I mean…”
Jat glared blearily at him.
“Look Jat, I know this is important, but we could all use your help on other projects.”
“The System Defense Ships are just going to be stripped-down versions of the Big Surprise anyway. You’re an engineer, right Neem? I think you can do without me.”
“It would go faster if you were there. They aren’t just stripped down. You know that. Since we’re skipping an FTL drive, they can be really, really maxed for speed here in regular space.”
“I’m really close Neem. If I do, think about it. Instant trip to anywhere. The Elder homeworld if we wanted. Strike wherever, whenever. Instant victory.”
“Not that instant,” said Neem. “They still have a whole galaxy full of ships, weapons, and resources. All we’ve got is us.”
Then Neem considered, “All right, I can see how it would be a huge strategic advantage. Put an edge like that in Karden’s hands, or I guess I mean really in his head, and we’ll see some things. But wouldn’t there be some limitation. Say, more power to rift to a farther destination? Yet another asymptote?”
“Well… yes, but… WAIT! That gives me an idea! Sorry Neem, busy…”
And Jat went back, feverishly, to work.
///
Tayyis was sitting in a small meeting room at one of the new prison centers built to house the crew of the Vigilant. She considered some of the things she knew thus far.
The prisoners had been carefully scattered around the world, with crew separated from their sections and their officers. With little clear idea what the Elders and their minions might be capable of, every precaution had been taken.
There had been a lot of lessons learned as well.
One of the first had been food. Medical te
sts had established that the dietary overlap between Grounders and Elders was not large, but was more than expected. With some care, the Grounders had been able to come up with a diet that kept the Elders fairly healthy and well fed once their original supplies ran out.
And run out they did. It had become clear that the Vigilant was not supplied to maintain its huge crew for long periods of time. The Elder transport ships had done more than bring so-called gifts to Ground, they had also brought massive quantities of provisions to the Warden Ship.
Whatever they were up to out there, Tayyis decided Karden was right, the Elders operated with the assumption, built on thousands of years of experience, that they would have regular supplies available from their vast network of worlds and starbases.
Not surprisingly, the Ara’kaa and Laderathai had relatively similar diets to the Elders. Perhaps that was a part of what made them suitable crewmates on the same ships. The Imri not so much. Thankfully, there were few of them, and the difficult task of formulating things they could eat wasn’t overwhelming.
As prisoners, they varied as well. The Elders were aloof, passive, and completely unhelpful. The Laderathai, trained by thousands of years of servitude, were friendly and docile. The Imri… inscrutable might be the best word. The Ara’kaa, though difficult prisoners, were in a way the easiest to understand.
And it was an Ara’kaa with whom she was about to speak. Her name was Skrai’kiik. Tayyis was, thus far, the only Grounder able to pronounce Ara’kaa names, or anything of their apparently dead ancestral language. It had been an opening in the door, however small thus far.
“Good afternoon, Skrai’kiik, may you not die today,” she said, using a formal polite greeting in the Ara’kaa language.
“Is it good? Might be now that I’m out of my cell!” said Skrai’kiik in Elder, “Anyway, may you not die today, Tayyis. So, going to try to get information out of me again, or another language lesson?”
“Both, in fact,” said Tayyis, “Though I’m also hoping you’re feeling less nervous in our custody, since my last visit.”
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