Alien Empire

by Anthony Gillis

  Skrai’kiik turned her head sideways and fixed one of her piercing eyes on Tayyis.

  “About you Grounders? Yes, less nervous. Thank you for separating the officers too. It is nice not having both sides try to give me orders! But, whether or not I actually tell you anything, some of the others are already starting to see me as a traitor.”

  “But a traitor to what, Skrai’kiik, to the Elders?”

  “Not exactly. They are in charge. No doubt about that. But, a lot of Ara’kaa these days believe in what the Elders believe, and what they’ve built. The galactic community, enlightenment, things like that. A lot of them hope, if they try hard enough, they’ll get a better place in the order of things.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “Tayyis, I’m tired of having nobody to vent to. If you want to know what I FEEL about things, I’ll tell you, if you get me a new cell of my own. I want one far away from other prisoners, especially other Ara’kaa. I’m not going to give you technical information, or military dispositions or whatever, because I did sign up for the fleet, and swore an oath.”

  “That sounds fair. I will make it happen, today. As for technical and military information, remember what Professor Karden said on the Vigilant. We really are getting everything we want of that kind from the Vigilant’s computers, and from the ship itself.”

  “No doubt. How you Grounders cracked those things I can’t imagine. I’m not a computer tech, but I didn’t think it was possible.”

  Tayyis smiled, “Well, it was a team effort.”

  “All right Tayyis, so what do I feel? How would you like living, forever, as second class in a system that doesn’t even admit that it is treating you that way? So far as I’ve ever been able to tell, the Elders believe in what they say, what they do, but that doesn’t make it any better! In fact, if anything, it makes it worse because with sincerity, no one feels guilty!”

  Skrai’kiik continued, long-repressed emotions flooding out, “Some Ara’kaa join the fleet because there at least you get treated, mostly, according to your rank, not your species! That is why it matters so much to a lot of us that, after three thousand years, we may finally have an Ara’kaa admiral!”

  “It is probably hard for you Grounders to even understand. Three thousand years ago you were probably digging in the dirt and stabbing each other with spears. You probably didn’t have the same culture, language, anything you do today! Do you even remember or care what happened on your backward world three thousand years ago?”

  Tayyis took the comments and their attitude philosophically. She shouldn’t be surprised that it wasn’t just the Elders who saw themselves as dealing with primitives. There most certainly were cultures that old, and people who still cared who lost which war three thousand years earlier, but no point arguing…

  Skrai’kiik went on, her voice high, “But that war, our war, the only real interstellar war in the galaxy, lives on in our memories! Every Ara’kaa, no matter what they think of it, has to live with that same piece of history, and with the endless, never-changing subservience that came after.”

  “I have more education than most Ara’kaa, I could’ve done any number of things. But no matter where you go in the galaxy, there is always duty, obligation, service, passive acceptance, changeless order! All the things others call enlightenment, have always, to me, felt like… this prison.”

  Tayyis was listening very, very closely. Skrai’kiik was in a storm of pent-up feelings.

  “After a few years in the fleet, I signed up for duty on a First Contact Mission, not that you necessarily get to choose, but signing up puts you ahead of those who don’t volunteer, I signed up for it because I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d see something different, meet an alien, get a breath of different air! Of… I don’t even know how to put it… of air, or a mind, or an idea that is… free!”

  Sometime later, and far away, Tayyis called Karden.

  “Haral dear, we have our turncoat, and I need a shoulder to cry on.”

  36

  In the dark cavernous interior of the main testing chamber at Neem-Jat labs, a generating device sat in a central position at one end, bearing some resemblance to that used to generate a wormhole, but only some. Mounted on it was a small projectile-firing gun. In a control room behind sturdy transparent ceramic windows, recently copied from Elder designs, figures were huddled over computers.

  “Ready?” said Neem.

  “Go!” replied Jat.

  The generator activated. A ghostly pale field of energy appeared, looking nothing like a wormhole. In the tiniest fraction of a second, it disappeared again.

  “Slag!” cursed Jat, “Let’s try again!”

  “That used a lot of power,” said Neem, “We can only do four more at that rate, even using the extra reserves of antimatter we stockpiled.”

  “Then we’ll USE them!” snarled Jat.

  Neem looked over at him, concerned.

  “You know after that, we’ll have to raise some more funding.”

  “I KNOW!”

  A worried look crossed Neem’s face. Jat was looking drawn-out, paler and more disheveled even than usual. He was getting testier as he pushed himself past the limits of sleep deprivation.

  They ran it again, with the same failed result; and then again.

  “Jat, that’s it. I’m not co-signing for the rest of the antimatter. This isn’t going to work on the surface. Let’s try in orbit.”

  Jat glared at him, his eyes bleary, “All right” he muttered.

  ///

  Tayyis was talking to Skrai’kiik in her new, comfortable private cell. It had furniture, an Elder-style bed, and some décor in the Elder style, which she’d said she favored. It even had a video monitor that could present carefully selected aspects of Grounder life and culture.

  “No, no complaints. Thank you for coming through on your word. This has been a lot more comfortable,” said Skrai’kiik. She was sitting in a chair built for Ara’kaa, along specifications she’d given, “So how can I help you today?”

  “Well, I’ve been curious, all of us have here, why the Elders haven’t returned. It is not much more than twelve or so of our days from their Sector Capital to here. Yet, it has been many months now.”

  “Tayyis… I’m glad for your help, and for the friendly way you treat me. I enjoy being able to call you by a proper name instead of your title, and sharing the same with you. But, I told you I wouldn’t discuss military dispositions.”

  “Skrai’kiik, I feel the same way, and I enjoy your company. I hate to think of you as a prisoner here, but I’m not in control of it. Perhaps someday that can change. Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t need to know where the Elder fleet is or what it is actually up to.”

  “We know where it is based, and we’ve seen the final distress signal from Deputy Ambassador Hsien. We know that at some point, they are going to come back and try to put an end to our resistance. We know about Retrogression.”

  “What is Retrogression?” asked Skrai’kiik

  Tayyis considered her answer carefully.

  “A process we discovered in the correspondence between Ambassador Margaux, and the Elder’s Diplomatic Central Directorate back at their Capital, Earth. Engineer Diplomat Mitchell mentioned it as well”

  “Ah, wait, I believe I’ve heard the term at least. I think it is some kind of bombing campaign and pacification on the ground when the natives are really determined to have a war. I don’t know much else about it. They don’t give us briefings. It sounded like the kind of thing you might never see even in a career on diplomatic missions.”

  Tayyis made a gesture that she knew meant, among the Ara’kaa, unhappiness. She wasn’t overt about it.

  Skrai’kiik stopped, as if considering what she was saying. “Sorry, I guess in this context you are the natives. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “It is all right Skrai’kiik. We’re from a very different cultures and backgrounds, even careers. There is no way you could know
what might bother us.”

  “Still, sorry.”

  “I’m sorry for my part, if I seemed to be moving in a direction that would make you violate your oaths. All I’m really interested in is why, culturally or emotionally, the Elders haven’t come right back to us with vengeance in their hearts.”

  “Vengeance?” said Skrai’kiik with, to Tayyis, visible surprise, “Oh no, you aren’t important enough to them to make them care about vengeance. All of this, the First Contact Mission, the pacification force that must be coming, your whole planet, is the tiniest procedural glitch in a Protectorate of two hundred thousand systems.”

  “Don’t misunderstand, they take it seriously, I’m sure they do, but they have no reason to hurry. What are you going to do to them, to the galaxy, the Protectorate, or even the Sector Capital? Nothing. You’re just going to sit here and wait until they decide they are correctly prepared to come back to deal with you.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way,” said Tayyis, “They see us as basically trapped, passive. They know we can’t affect what they do in any way, so they can take as long as they feel like they need. It must be an enormous task.”

  Skrai’kiik was still continuing her train of thought. “Yes, and besides that, there is only so fast things can move. Communication takes time. It is over nine standard months by ship from Malachite to Earth, and nearly a month even for a message. Requests have to go out, and authorizations come back. Then they’ve got to get everyone organized from other sector detachments and whatnot. It could take a long time. And they have that time.”

  “We got lucky then, in that battle with the Vigilant?”

  “I think so. What could you possibly do when forty or fifty Warden Ships come for you? Tayyis I’m sorry. You said you hoped one day I wouldn’t be a prisoner. I think you are right, but if we live through the initial attack, and I manage to convince them I wasn’t a traitor after all, I might be the one looking in on you as the prisoner.”

  Tayyis made her gesture of dismay again.

  “And Tayyis, that thought makes me sad, because I like you, and from what I’ve seen thus far – and I’m sure you Grounders are carefully selecting it – I like how life is lived here.”

  “Thank you Skrai’kiik. I hope to see things turn out some other way, and perhaps we can both walk freely as friends.”

  Skrai’kiik looked away, sadly.

  ///

  Darex Jat sat watching events through a monitor. Up there, in medium orbit, a satellite was ready. It had recently been put in place by Grounder scientists, including, to his amazement, Neem, using an Elder shuttle. He never understood Neem’s comfort with flying, let alone in space.

  The satellite was essentially, a floating rift generator with a massive antimatter power cell and an attached missile launcher carrying a lot of ammunition. Its job was to see if the rift generation process would work in space. Thus far, all planetary efforts had failed.

  Jat was getting tired, and frustrated. He knew a lot of people were watching this, and thinking of the cost in a time of war. Only he really believed in it. But he was right. He had to be right. He hadn’t slept in three days.

  “All right, power up!” he said to the row of scientists and technicians at stations in front of him.

  The generator made no sound in space, but he could remember the soothing buzzing hum it made in atmosphere, soothing to him at least. Pale silver light appeared around the field coils and the aperture.

  “All systems check. Ready,” said his lead technician.

  Jat felt his nerves tense and his pulse quicken. This was it.

  “Go!”

  Pale, ghostly energy crackled. Even now, Jat marveled at how different it looked from the wormhole process.

  And then it happened.

  A rift, a rip in the fabric of space-time appeared. Not a neat circular wormhole, but something ragged and fluctuating at the edges.

  There, on the other side, clearly visible, was The Forge, its vast red-orange bulk glowing in the distance, and a very different view of stars behind it.

  “Fire.”

  They watched the missile, built to glow with highly visible tracer lights, jet across the mile or so from the generator to the rift, and fly through to the other side as if it were just another patch of space, as if there had been nothing intervening at all.

  The missile continued on, in space light-years away, until it vanished in the doubly immense distance. Keeping the rift open was burning immense amounts of power, even antimatter cells could be used up quickly.

  “Stop.”

  The generator shut off, and the rift closed. At the control center, around the lab, and in a dozen conference rooms where others watched from around the world, there was an uproar of cheers. But not from Jat. He smiled, collapsed in his chair, and fell straight to sleep.

  ///

  Karden sat in conference with Varen and Abida. The lights of the International Zone, bright once more, shined outside while the stars glittered overhead.

  “I already asked them, gentlemen,” said Karden, “I think we’re nearing the limit, even supplemented with voluntary donations. We’re going to have to come up with lower cost solutions.”

  Varen maintained his usual professional demeanor, “I strongly recommend we find a way.”

  “The one thing that might put a bit hotter a fire under everyone would be a definite answer on what the Elders are up to. That won’t be too long now. The retrofit on your ship is almost complete. In the meantime, let’s take stock of what we’ve got to work with.”

  A hint of a smile passed over Varen’s face at the mention of the Big Surprise as his ship. It would soon be, from what they were telling him, the fastest craft ever made, anywhere. It would be crossing the distance to the Elder’s Sector Capital as if it were a jaunt into orbit.

  He composed his thoughts and spoke.

  “We’ve got nearly six thousand MSSA-2 fighters operational, and another two waiting on trained pilots, but they don’t have the range to get much past medium orbit on their own power. The Elders could be close enough to fire nuclear weapons at that distance.”

  He continued. “We have one hundred and four System Defense Ships, eighty operational and the rest waiting on crews. If our estimates on firepower are correct, that puts them in total equal to one or two Warden Ships. Keep in mind, that estimate ignores the effects of tactics.”

  “We have about four hundred Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles from the old southern and Tadine arsenals. They are being retrofitted for launch into space, give or take a few depending on how many are still in useable condition. We’d better hope we don’t have to use them, because we’ll take out our own satellite network and who knows what else in the process.”

  “We’ve got the Vigilant, retrofitted with more weapons than even I thought possible even on a ship of that size, and a new centrally-housed bridge. It can go anywhere in the solar system like the SDS’s, but slower. Based on pure firepower, it is equal to roughly three standard Warden Ships.”

  “Finally,” Varen concluded, “we’ve got a hacked Elder communications network in our system, including the main communication satellite, ensuring they’ll be out of touch with home for at least a while after arrival, and we’ve got Jat’s rift generating satellite, assuming we can find something to do with it.”

  Karden wondered if they could. But now was not the time. He was inwardly amazed at the conversation they were having. Was he really the man who, not so very long ago, was a history professor? Were they really talking about space fleets and battles in high orbit? Whatever his thoughts, his words were simple.

  “General Abida, our planetary forces?”

  Abida’s Tadine had improved considerably in his time here, and he had picked up some of the manner of southern and Tadine military officers. In a way, Karden missed the brash rebel leader of Bacchara.

  “We have about five thousand atmospheric fighters worldwide, four hundred ocean warships of varying sizes, tw
enty thousand main battle tanks, a great many other vehicles – I have more details in the file I sent you – we have two hundred Elder power armor suits, if Neem can get them usable, about thirty million soldiers under arms across all nations, and more than one hundred million in the militia.”

  “I think though,” said Abida with a change of expression, “they will not make the mistake of coming and fighting us hand to hand on the ground.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Karden, “we have one more thing. The Big Surprise, which I think is, very much, going to live up to its name.”

  37

  The Big Surprise cruised along in medium orbit, on its first trip since its retrofitting with a rift generator. General Varen was at the helm.

  “All crew, ready at your stations,” his crew reported all was good to go.

  “Navigator, prepare coordinates,” the navigator did, and confirmed.

  “Prepare to enter rift. Opening rift.”

  Space opened wide before them. It was very different from looking at the wormhole. Instead of a mysterious, eerily glowing tunnel through reality, there was simply another place. The Big Surprise moved smoothly through the rift, and found itself two hundred thousand kilosteps further out, as planned.

  Just like that.

  Varen thought it had all been a little anticlimactic. Someone who cared more about how much energy had just been expended might have thought otherwise.

  ///

  At mission control, on the surface, a collection of Ground’s leaders stood and watched. Karden looked over at Jat.

  “I suppose this is the point where I’m supposed to say how sorry I am that I ever doubted you. I think I’ll skip that and go straight to the congratulations!”

  Jat grinned, let out a low chuckle. “Fear not Professor. I’m the legendary, world-famous, soon to be galaxy-famous, and only rumored to be unstable, physicist Darex Jat. And now, in addition to having antimatter power plants at my disposal, I can rip holes in space-time. What could go wrong?”

  Several people in the crowd, who knew Jat less well than Karden did, looked on with the most astonishingly confused expressions.