Alien Empire

by Anthony Gillis

  “That rules out power cells,” said Avtil.

  Hraragurr laughed, a growling purring laugh, “HRRRRRR! Fleet ration packs! The vitamin cake canisters are about the size of a power cell. There are billions of them floating around. Most are produced in ordinary factories. Not much security. AND I’d think in a big push like this, they’re probably rounding up anyone without an obvious job help pack them.”

  “That still leaves the questions of where we’ll get forged ID, coded for the specific world we choose, and who will be our turncoat, and” said Avtil, “It needs to be someone who wouldn’t attract special attention at a Labor Subdirectorate office when they go to register, and thus not an Elder or Imri.”

  “We’ve got our resident expert on surviving by false identity right on hand,” said Karden, “Why don’t one of you call up Giuseppe McCoy and see what he recommends. As for getting the coded information I presume we need, I think I know just the person.”

  Tayyis sighed, a sad resigned look in her eyes, “And… I think I can find our turncoat.”

  ///

  In orbit over Anish, Fleet Admiral Shirazi was on board a captured Liberty class starship. Eight others were behind him in a squadron. Since the Grounders had copied their ships in part from Elder designs, the control interfaces had proved easier to learn than expected. They’d spent the day testing newly repaired systems. The one thing they couldn’t repair was the one thing they needed the most, the rift drive. Now was the time to find out if it worked.

  “All captains, prepare your ships for rift,” said Shirazi.

  “Yes, Admiral Sir,” came the replies, in near-unison.

  It opened before them, ghostly pale against the deeper black of space.

  “Now, through. Full acceleration.”

  And in an instant, he travelled a thousand kilometers. Behind him all of the other ships did the same. Shirazi considered the implications. It was a good start.

  ///

  In the vastnesses of interstellar space, the largest fleet in the history of the galaxy was assembling. Supreme Fleet Admiral Katiyar watched the work in progress through an array of video panels on his command bridge. He had constructed a temporary depot starbase from trusses and huge supply pods. No doubt it was ugly work, and unfitting for the Elders, but this was war. Though he considered it unlikely that the Grounders and their allies would find his fleet, he reasoned unlikely was not the same thing as impossible.

  He had three and a half thousand Warden Ships, the majority of the entire star fleet, on hand, and another four hundred on their way. Most of them were formed into a huge protective sphere, hundreds of kilometers across, with weapons outward. Some others were oriented with weapons aiming in. In the center were the starbase, the Reeducator and a smaller sphere of Warden Ships.

  No open spot between the two spheres was left without coverage by a weapon’s field of fire.

  In between the two spheres were seven thousand transports. Two thousand of them carried troops, but the others were packed, down to every available square meter, with supplies. Another three thousand transports were either on their way, or en route to pick up supplies prior to being so. The space inside and outside of the spheres teemed with shuttles, fighters and with tiny Caltrop Missiles, ready to target enemy ships or missiles the moment they rifted in. Here and there were other little presents he had ready for the Grounders.

  Meanwhile, retrofits were proceeding as fast as possible on all the ships of his fleet. Additional space for antimatter power was being taken from standard supply chambers. Supplies were being moved into wherever they might fit. Protectorate crews were used to comfortable living conditions, but now they were getting used to sharing their quarters with crates of ration packs and repair parts.

  The organization of all of this was taking a long time, particularly because of the secrecy. Every order had gone out by hand, carried by intelligence officers and diplomatic staff with high security clearance, and been personally delivered to transport captains. Transports were arriving with minimal crews and maximum cargo, and with the knowledge they now possessed, were not being allowed to leave.

  But when it was all ready, they would strike directly for the star system containing the planet Ground.

  Flag Captain Sikrai watched it all at his side, then spoke, “Admiral Sir, with orders for Level Three Retrogression, we’ll have little need to take risks trying to minimize civilian casualties. However, I’m concerned about the corollary instructions to find survivors for relocation to research preserves.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Flag Captain, I intend to interpret them… loosely.”

  Katiyar continued, “We aren’t about to delay, putting our men’s lives at risk while the Grounders bring out last minute tricks. The fleet is going to melt down the planet’s surface from a safe distance with nuclear and antimatter weapons. Once Ground is gone, we are going to proceed against the rebel Production and Supply worlds at once.”

  He couldn’t enact retrogression there, but bereft of their Grounder leaders, and by that time, most of their fleets, how long were they likely to last against the massive bombardment and invasion he had ready for them?

  ///

  In high orbit above the planet Anish, one hundred and twenty Warden Ships were gathered in protective formation. Two hundred and fifty transports stood by, loaded with supplies and troops. Space swarmed with Caltrop Missiles and patrolling fighters.

  There were nine very distinctive ships on hand as well; recently repaired, resupplied, and tested Liberty class starships captured from Enyarial’s squadron. Six of them looked just as they had under their prior ownership. Three had been repainted in the blue and silver colors of the Diplomatic Directorate, marking them as Diplomatic Courier vessels. Much of this scene was visible from the vast panoramic curved window of Admiral Shirazi’s office. He sat talking with Sector Administrator Vazquez.

  “Your new method for getting around their espionage attempts is brilliant, even if it does require you to handle it personally!” said Vazquez “We know they’ve cracked our encryption, and they’re never more than a half step behind our codes, but how many people in the Galaxy speak classical Farsi?”

  “Three hundred and twelve, when last I checked,” said Shirazi, “I am thankful that one of the others is Sector Intelligence Director Wilson, over in 85.”

  Like all the other ancient pre-interstellar languages of Earth, Farsi had long since been submerged into the language now known as Elder, and itself become a matter of historic and scholarly interest.

  Shirazi paused, looked at Vazquez, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “We’ve had no luck understanding how the rift technology works,” replied Vazquez, “On Luna or Earth, they might, if they have prototypes to work with. We need to get them there as fast as possible. That will require the authority, in person, to get past whatever delays – approvals, procedures, or questions – might get in the way while we’re trying to refuel and move on. That means either you or me, and you are needed here. In any case, Now that you’re a Fleet Admiral, I think you can manage.”

  They both stood up, faced each other, and gave solemn salutes, hands across chests.

  “Sector Administrator Vazquez, with honor, for enlightenment.”

  “Fleet Admiral Shirazi, with honor, for enlightenment.”

  Without another word, in smooth measured steps, Vazquez turned and left for his shuttle. Later, as Shirazi watched Vazquez and his squadron depart, three captured ships rifting away with the uncanny Grounder technology, he considered his options with the remaining six.

  The Grounders and their allies had held the strategic initiative the entire war. They’d been able to strike at will. With their network of spy satellites, they’d had real time intelligence on the comparatively slow moving Elder forces. They’d been able to anticipate every attack, with little fear of retribution at home.

  They were likely to be careless.

  He’d put great effort into hunting
down and destroying every spy satellite he could find. But he couldn’t really be sure whether he was being watched. If so, the Grounders would soon know of Vazquez’s departure, and that he, Shirazi, now had working rift-drive warships.

  That meant there was no time to waste.

  49

  It was an overcast night, clouds blocked both moons, and shadows were deep beneath the twisted multi-trunked trees. Not far away was a maglev rail station, and beyond, the outskirts of Bountiful, largest city on the planet Harmony 63. There was a small clearing in the trees. Something silent and invisible descended to its center.

  Skrai’kiik looked over at Viris. “I am still amazed you wanted to accompany me.”

  “Sorry, this is my last stop. You’ve got the rest of the trip by yourself,” replied Viris in passable Elder, “But I can’t afford the little delays that creep into signals across multiple rift communicators. I need to be able to hack in directly, right here.”

  Skrai’kiik looked around at the cabin of the small Elder stealth shuttle. She’d been told its weapons had been removed and replaced with one of the latest rift generators. Up front were the pilot and navigator. Behind was a heavily armed Grounder guard watching the area around the ship through a monitor, and a strange machine. It made perfect forgeries of standard Protectorate ID cards. It had completed every step except the encoding. That required data directly from an authorized ID center, verified against existing records.

  The machine had been provided by a less-than savory friend of Giuseppe McCoy. In her propaganda work with the renegade Elder, Skrai’kiik had decided his years living underground had made him as much rogue as philosopher. Or, who knew, maybe he’d always been that.

  “So Viris, you’re really going to hack into both the ID center and the planetary database?”

  “Simultaneously, so they talk to each other and the authorizations get done in the right way.”

  “But why didn’t they just send Giuseppe McCoy’s friend?”

  “Let’s see… first, he was a scumbag. Second, he would’ve wanted an even bigger pile of money than we were already giving him. Third, once here, he might have switched sides if he thought the Elders would pay him more money yet, or give him a pardon or something – I guess that goes back to my first point.”

  “Fourth,” she continued, “He might have been adequate at hacking into a system he knew well and that was already pretty broken by Elder standards, but as a real hacker and cracker, he wasn’t anything remotely as good as me.”

  “Ah I see,” said Skrai’kiik, trying to process all that. She didn’t know Viris as well as Tayyis, but where Tayyis reminded her of a gentler, more caring version of an Elder, Viris was… almost like people back home. She liked her.

  She thought about the paltry gear she had for the trip. Besides the fake IDs, she had a few Protectorate credit chits in her pocket, she had lower class clothes of a style common to many Production worlds, she had a few items of food, and some random personal effects in a bag.

  Among the items of food were two tins of vitamin cake – it was the tastiest item in military ration packs, carefully formulated to be edible by all the main advanced races, and had been popular among the civilian population for centuries. No one would see anything out of place there. What was out of place were the three other objects that looked exactly like tins of vitamin cake, but weren’t.

  Her last item was her own touch, a battered mobile communicator of common design, and broken. It would be unusual for her to be without one, but it wouldn’t do to have someone at the Labor Subdirectorate ask for her contact code, and then find it was invalid. She decided she’d claim one of her great goals was to get it repaired and reactivated, once she got paid.

  All in all, she would look much like one of the minimally skilled workers at the very bottom of the Elder’s social system. Someone who spent half their time on government assistance, the other half looking for work in the sclerotic government-controlled labor market, and all their time being lectured about duty and sacrifice in the cause of enlightenment.

  She would look like much of her family, and her younger self, before she’d proven to be a brilliant student, won the honor of an education at one of the free government universities on her homeworld, and then found that being an Ara’kaa with an education but no government connections had its own limits.

  Her thoughts were occasionally interrupted by muttered curses from Viris, who was deeply immersed in her work. She looked up at the shuttle crew, who were busy talking to each other, and back at the guard, who didn’t look talkative at all.

  Here she was, in service to a group of rebels against the entire system she’d lived in all her life. Here she was about to risk her life for a movement led by a group of crazy primitives who, what, a little over three years earlier had never even heard of the Galactic Protectorate, and now thought they could overthrow it. Then again, not so primitive and maybe not so crazy; one of them was about to hack into a Protectorate computer system on an Elder-ruled world.

  With that thought, she dozed off.

  ///

  She awoke to a loud noise.

  “Ha! Got it!” yelled Viris, “Skrai… can I call you Skrai? You’re in!”

  Viris reached back and activated the machine. A few moments later, out popped a shiny new Protectorate ID card and a travel permit, both localized to this world. Per Skrai’kiik’s suggestion, they used her real name. In a galaxy with twenty trillion Ara’kaa, there were plenty with the same name. By contrast, a false one would open the chance that she might forget to answer to it.

  Ohhh… that meant this was it.

  Viris looked at her with genuine concern and sympathy.

  “Now it is my turn. Are you ready to do this?”

  “As much as I’ll ever be. And, usually I’d say don’t call me Skrai, because it means something entirely different without the suffix, but for you Viris, I’ll make an exception. Besides, it’s not as if you speak the dead language that is prewar Ara’kaa.”

  “You bet I don’t! Good luck Skrai. We’ll be back here in three days. Try… not to die.”

  “May you not die, Viris.”

  Viris grabbed her in a hug. Grounder hugs were a bit like those loved by the Rhurrg, except a lot less bone-crushing.

  “See you in three days!” and with that, Skrai’kiik slipped out the hatch of the shuttle.

  Her first thought was to flop to the ground. It wouldn’t do for someone to see her apparently materialize out of thin air, but getting up from a nap in the woods was merely eccentric. She stood up, slowly. No one was around. A chilly wind was blowing in the predawn darkness. They hadn’t thought of that. Oh well. She waited, sitting in a patch of shrubs very near the station, against one of the twisted ugly trees. As the first light of day appeared, she watched it shine radiantly on the white walls, sparkling windows, gleaming gold, and bright colors of the city.

  Eventually, the train showed up. Now, while there was a large crowd milling around, was the best time to come wandering into town; fewer questions. As he left her sheltering shrubs, she felt another chill. Fear.

  No one in the crowd paid her any mind. Some few well-dressed Tsamier and Daltarans had private hovercars to pick them up. They were rare except among Elders. Others took public transit into the city. Not Skrai’kiik, she walked with the young and adventurous, and the very poor, along the footbridge.

  At the far end of the footbridge, nicely out of sight of the patch of woods, was a checkpoint, it looked new. Wartime security, maybe. Hovercars, transports, and pedestrians were all stopping and showing ID. The guards were security police, in gray uniforms with black helmets, ballistic vests and boots. One, a Tsamier with a slug rifle strapped to his back, eyed her.

  “ID and travel permit,” he said in a bored-sounding voice.

  “Yes, Protector Sir,” she said, using the standard, subservient, greeting for talking to security forces. She handed him her documents.

  “Destination and employment?” h
e eyed her with momentary attention, the gun gleaming at his back.

  “Public shelter, and seeking employment, Protector Sir”

  “Report for registration at a Labor Subdirectorate office within the next twenty-four hours. Your ID shows you will not again be eligible for public assistance for another forty-five standard days. Therefore you will remain registered until at least that time. I have time-stamped your ID, so don’t forget.”

  “Yes, Protector Sir. May I ask for directions to the closest LS office?”

  “Use the map on your phone,” he said, his attention increasing slightly, and tinged with annoyance.

  “I’m sorry Protector Sir, it’s broken. I plan to get it fixed with what I earn in town.”

  “There’s an LS office four blocks straight back, then two left,” he was getting impatient.

  “Thank you Protector Sir” she gave a shallow bow, as was appropriate, and moved on.

  Only after she’d gone a block or so from the checkpoint did her nerves catch up with her. She’d grown up with this sort of thing, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying now. And after tasting freedom, real freedom, on Ground and the more familiar Solidarity 17, she was reminded of how much fear she’d always lived under. She willed her body not to shake with it.

  And here she was, with her chance to help do away with that fear, for hundreds of trillions.

  Or, her chance to end up dead.

  ///

  She rounded the corner at the left turn, and saw the Labor Subdirectorate building, its Elder-inspired beauty contrasting with the petty dull intrusiveness of its purpose. She reported at the front desk, went through the usual questions and paperwork, and was soon waiting in the queue for a case worker.

  Normally one took the first available, it hardly mattered which, since they would all say much the same things. This early in the morning though, there was no line, and she had her choice. Most of them were busy chatting with each other about whatever mundane things interested them.

  One, an Ara’kaa, was sitting half-asleep, staring into space with her head on her hand. Another, a plump pinkish Daltaran, was pretending to work, but reflected in a glass case behind him was a reflection of his computer screen – and it showed some game or other.