Astraeus Station

by D. L. Harrison

  The rules were simple of course, if a race attacked another’s sphere of influence, and took them out, they got to claim it as theirs, but only if their target was FTL capable and officially a part of the empire. This of course, ensured those with very aggressive instincts had a managed outlet to take out their destructive tendencies.

  Failing to destroy all of an enemy, meant the attacking race would be destroyed by all, and their territory given away in a game of chance to those that participated. This was far less common, but it was enough of a risk to ensure most of the predator races were too wary to take the chance in facing the combined might of all the races. It also had the side effect of giving all those races that managed to suppress their conquering instincts, an outlet for those instincts in destroying others without risk to themselves, and them having a possible chance to extend their empires past the fifty light year mark the Grays enforced.

  It was a brutal system of control, but also quite effective, and had led to relative order in their vast empire encompassing the fifty closest galaxies.

  There weren’t even any questions of what compromised an attack, even a merchant ship merely defending themselves in another race’s system counted as attacking, and even that defensive action would spell the end of the merchant’s civilization. No gray areas at all in the rules. Black and white rules led to stability and order. Any attack in another system, regardless of cause, would end in the destruction of one of the races involved.

  Of course, spying on any race openly when they had FTL would lead to negative results, yet it would be foolish not to keep an eye on them. So, their intelligence branch had their own stealth ship system, separated from the rest of the military of millions of scout ships, and many tens of thousands of warships. They were really just unmanned probes that had advanced stealth technology not available in the rest of their fleet.

  He reviewed the data the system had flagged, it was from a fairly new species to their community, less than a year. The people there called their system SOL, and their planet Earth. He snorted and rolled his eyes, might as well call it bright light in the sky, and dirt.

  It looked fairly typical, even if the savages had their technology, until he saw the missiles cross each other, and one side was completely destroyed. He felt… alarm, they had nothing at all that could do that, and how the hell were they shielding something that small?

  Jervis was quite alarmed when he finished reviewing the scan data of their internal skirmish. By law the Grays couldn’t do anything about it, there was only a handful of rules, of laws, after all, and nothing that limited the various races in their own systems. If anything, the Grays would encourage such behavior and internal strife, it was a healthy outlet for aggression that wouldn’t affect their own race, or any others.

  In short, the rule of non-interference in another’s territory wasn’t out of any sense of morality, but because if they did try to dictate at that level, all of the races would turn on them. Sure, they’d win the battle, but the number of deaths would be alarming. They’d have no choice but to commit genocide on an intergalactic scale, on thousands of races.

  He knew that, because it’d happened once before in the dim past of their empire, and they’d had no members left until some of the monitored pre-FTL systems had once again started to flesh out their territory and the great game started again. It’d been why the stealth military intelligence branch had been created, to avoid a recurrence of such a horrific event.

  Point was, he hoped his superior wouldn’t shoot the messenger. This wasn’t a good thing, for the first time a race not only had their technology, but they were also apparently making shocking advances to that technology. Oh, they could still win, they had tens of thousands of warships, but over time that could change. The new race didn’t have their stealth technology, but that wasn’t much of an edge outside of information.

  The Grays took the long view in everything, and according to the data these barbaric humans weren’t aggressive enough to get themselves destroyed. Oh, they were predators, just like the rest of the FTL species, but they were also capable of a surprising level of cooperation under the right circumstances.

  He shook his head, packaged up the data, and sent it on. He just hoped he wouldn’t be reassigned to the Elba sector, what a horribly boring galaxy that was.

  High leader Tellus glared at the colonel shaking before him.

  “Colonel, you assured me over sixty years ago that the plan was foolproof. That the Sonex would destroy Earth and any of our technology they managed to reverse engineer, except for the one ship that would escape and reach us. All so we could safely remove the Sonex who sought to rise above themselves before they became a true threat.”

  Tellus took a deep breath.

  “Instead, the situation is much worse, and now you’re telling me it’s even worse than we first thought, not four months ago?”

  The Colonel replied, “Yes leader. I still can’t explain how they managed to more than get access to fly and navigate our scout ship, much less build warships. Those functions were locked down, and they should’ve been inaccessible. I’m equally shocked they’ve managed advances to our technology that gives them a clear edge in combat. We’ve put our scientists on it, to try and figure out what they did, but so far they don’t even have a clue what kind of beam that is, or how they power shields around their missiles.”

  Tellus sighed, “We’ve been on top too long, and stopped development because no one has ever risen to our level of technology before. This is a problem, do you have any suggestions?”

  The colonel relaxed slightly, apparently he wasn’t going to be shot for the biggest blunder in the millions of years of their civilization, ever.

  “Well, just one, leader. They use our technology.”

  Tellus gaped, “That’s the problem you idiot! Not a solution.”

  The colonel replied carefully, “What I mean to say, leader. Is that… do you think any of the races would know they were facing one of our ships, or one of theirs? We can reshape our ships too, and hologram technology…” he trailed off.

  Tellus frowned, and looked thoughtful for a second, before his eyes widened in understanding.

  “Colonel, that would be a clear violation of empire law.”

  “Desperate times, sir. It’s the only thing I could think of that would eradicate their society and destroy the leaked technology before they grow further in threat potential.”

  The leader sighed, “I’m afraid I couldn’t give such an order. Of course, you were speaking hypothetically, weren’t you Colonel?”

  The colonel said, “Of course sir, I’d never do that. I wouldn’t bet against the humans doing something extremely foolish however in the very near future.”

  The leader smiled grimly, “Good luck colonel. If the humans happen to do something inexplicably stupid, why I might actually make sure your promoted, instead of hanged. Am I clear?”

  The colonel quailed, “Yes, leader.”

  “Dismissed!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The week passed quickly, and our vacation was exactly what the doctor ordered so to speak. I was in a fantastic mood, well rested, and deeply in love with Diana when the yacht arrived on the station. Besides resting, playing, loving, and building our intimacy higher, we’d also managed to set a marriage date for a month later.

  It’d take a little time to get the custom dress she wanted ready, and of course I was a head of state and needed to send out invitations. The wedding itself would be just friends and family, but there’d be a rather large reception afterwards. I’d pretty much just gone along with whatever she wanted, putting the ring on her finger was my goal for the day, the rest was just dressing, and all about her.

  There’d been a couple of work things that had come up. For one, I’d approved a section of the city to be used as embassies, that would have their own private docking ports. Of course, they’d need to buy the diplomatic courier ship I’d designed if they didn’t want to fly comme
rcial to the station on a shuttle.

  The second thing had been approving all the upgrades my allies bought for the ships they controlled, making them just as deadly as my station and shield warships.

  I gave her one more kiss goodbye, as she headed to check on her scientists and research projects, and I headed for the command center.

  Cassie and Jessica said simultaneously, “Welcome back.”

  I smiled, “Good to be here.”

  I should’ve known of course, that the other shoe was coming. I’d forced peace on my old country, Astraeus was recognized by every country on Earth and a part of the U.N. The colony ships were heading out of system all loaded up. Our system was protected well. Even my personal life, my friendship with Cassie, the way I’d grown even closer to my sister Jayna of the last few months, and the deep loving relationship I had with Diana couldn’t have been going better. Add to that the tech and ships we were selling to governments and corporations as well as private citizens, we were rolling in the money, and our station’s city was growing. Two more resorts were going up, including one with a water park. There were also a great number of requests for people to emigrate and join our security force, or to open businesses outside of the resorts and as citizens of Astraeus.

  Sure, the U.S. still hated me, but they wouldn’t be attacking me anymore as a terrorist or private citizen, which made all the difference. I wasn’t universally loved on Earth either, but overall those that even cared at all, approved of all I’d done and was doing. There were also merchants out there making deals with other civilizations without me involved at all thanks to the Vax’s database. I saw that as mostly a positive, I wouldn’t mind the competition at all, with everything going on for humanity there was so much potential for wealth creation, more than enough to go around.

  I’d also reviewed all the information the Grays disseminated out to all the races, and there was nothing overly alarming in any of it.

  In short, life was going too well in this new age of humanity. Sure, we’d overcome some pretty scary challenges, both to my life and this station, and to humanity as a whole, but we’d won through. Outside of quenching my curiosity, I hadn’t really given Threx’s theory of what the Grays had done, and his warning to watch our backs a second thought. After all, the merchants out there were locked down, they couldn’t defend themselves even if they were willing to risk humanity’s destruction.

  In truth, I should’ve saw it coming, but I didn’t.

  I asked, “Anything need my attention?”

  Cassie opened her mouth to answer, but Jessica interrupted.

  “Sir, Threx is calling.”

  I nodded, I’d integrated the entangled communicator into the command center, so it could be routed like any of our communications.

  “Threx, how are you?”

  Threx replied, “I am well, but I am calling with dire news. I feel it is the least I owe you, though my government would be angry for this action.”

  I frowned, and the back of my neck tingled, “What is it?”

  Threx said, “Your race has been convicted of unsuccessfully attacking another. Your world will be attacked by a joint fleet of several civilizations in one month’s time, a little over five of your weeks. I am transmitting the data now. I suspect you are innocent in this, and that this is the Gray’s solution for the conundrum of your continued survival with their technology, as their suspected plan to have the Sonex destroy you failed.”

  I frowned, and said, “Wait one, please.”

  We brought up the data, and it was of a merchant ship that looked exactly like one of ours. Of course, I didn’t recognize the captain of the vessel as one of Earth’s merchant captains as he argued with a species we’d have never even dreamed of visiting thanks to the Vax database. The race fired on the on the merchant vessel, who returned fire and destroyed the alien ship. Then the merchant fled, opened a wormhole, and escaped.

  I sighed, “That wasn’t us. We have records of who’s on our merchant ships, and I can tell you that person is a fabrication, a hologram, and this was nothing but a lie.”

  Threx growled, “I suspected as much, but no one would believe you. They wouldn’t believe the Grays would break their own laws. They also wouldn’t care, even if they did. Most of them see this as an opportunity to gain another fifty light year swath of territory. Some might pause, but the grand majority would attack anyway, even if they had proof. As you know, it’s almost impossible to prove a negative, and you can’t really do it, can you.”

  I got that. They were greedy and it was a chance to expand, and they’d also fear calling our game masters liars and cheats. Still, there had to be something we could do.

  I sighed, “No, any data we sent would be suspect, after all, we’d just have to leave out one record to falsify things, that’s not proof at all. I suspect if there’s any proof, it would be on the Gray’s systems. They must have a record of it, somewhere.”

  Threx shook his head, “I doubt it. They could’ve built a new ship and kept it off their command and control net. That’s what I would’ve done to get away with it, and any scans or evidence they might have would actually suggest it wasn’t their ship. My race will not attack yours, we don’t participate in such things, as I have said before we direct our instincts to hunt in commerce, not war. Good luck.”

  “They might have probes in our system, the timing of being right after a conflict, where we showed advancement to their technology, is suspect.”

  Threx nodded, but he had nothing else to offer. Still, the warning itself was priceless.

  Threx hung up, and the three of us looked at each other, completely horrified.

  “Let me start building, then we can plan, and notify Earth. No doubt, we didn’t get word of it and our communicator at the U.N. was cut out of the loop.”

  They both nodded, and I connected my magic to the station. It’d be faster that way.

  First, I split up each of the thirty-six large warships into sixteen small warships, and then powered up all the nanites. With that much power, it’d take about a week to get the resultant five hundred seventy-six small warships back up to large warship size, when it would split again. The second split would yield over nine thousand warships at the end of two weeks. At three weeks it would be over a hundred and forty-seven thousand ships. At four weeks, over two point three million, at the end of five weeks, over thirty-seven million large warships ready to meet how many combined fleets?

  We’d have to research that answer. I was a little shocked by the numbers, and just how fast we could build with nanite reactors as opposed to building fusion reactors. The larger the ship got the faster it would build. The reason for one week instead of two was the small warship was a lot bigger than the starting point of the much smaller scout ship, starting out that much bigger shaved half the time involved.

  Of course, without missiles they wouldn’t be as effective, so I changed things. I hoped I wasn’t missing anything else obvious, and moving too fast, but I could always change things again. The important thing was not wasting a second of growth potential.

  I integrated a missile growth system, which would delay the growth cycle by a day and give us only four cycles instead of five, with three extra days at the end to get the missile count in the millions for each ship by the deadline. Of course, there’d only be two point three million ships, instead of over thirty million, which I hoped would be good enough. It should be, since those two point three million ships would be loaded, with trillions of shield and attack mini-platforms, rather than thirty three million ships that just had energy weapons.

  Plus, we could never man that many ships.

  I suspected that would be more than enough. With shielded missiles, it wouldn’t take more than one, maybe two, to destroy ships not on our technological level. I doubted even the joint fleets added up to billions of ships. Which meant our biggest threat would come from the Grays, who I assumed would be joining the attack to make sure of us.

  I took the
twenty-four ships building in the other system, and I set up a similar growth cycle. They were small warships already. So that meant only three weeks of growth, since the first week would be blown to get them to twenty-four large ships. Still, that was another hundred thousand ships filled with millions of missiles.

  So, two point four million in total, all carrying about three million missiles.

  When I came out of it, I was relieved to see Diana there already.

  “Hi. Umm, I suspect there’s a cloaked probe of some kind watching us. It would help to find it, before the Grays figure out just how many ships that we’re going to have in five weeks.

  “Oh, and we need about two hundred and twenty million people willing to fight a ship.”

  Diana frowned, “I’ll give it some thought, the first one. If they do have cloaked probes, it isn’t like the cloaking field I used. Are you sure?”

  I shook my head, “It makes sense, given the timing. I imagine your advances scared the crap out of them, a beam that ignores their technologies old shields, shielded missiles, and all that. Scared them enough to violate their own laws.”

  Cassie said, “That’s pretty much the population of America, almost. Why so many?”

  I said, “We can handle running thirty-six probe warships, and assigning targets for millions of missiles which will act independently for secondary targets. But greater enemy ship counts will make targeting harder, and we can’t automate two point four million ships, and quite possibly several trillion missiles.”

  “Two point four million?” she asked, clearly shocked.

  I nodded, “Thirty-six ships split sixteen ways, the resultant split every eight days, adds up quickly. Thanks to Diana’s power systems, we can build a small warship out to a large one in seven days. The extra day is for missiles. If we had a little more time, I could make it thirty-eight million large warships. Point is, this station can’t automate that many.