Astraeus Station

by D. L. Harrison

  “Even thirty-six only works because we had them set up defensively as additional mass and automated point defense. Fighting in a liquid battle, we can’t do more than control ourselves and our small platforms. We’re limited to targeting about nine hundred targets a second, and in passing that data to missiles adds a bit more. Not a problem against a hundred and twenty ships, but we’ll be facing hundreds of thousands of ships, if not millions. That means we need command crews, for each and every ship, to do their part of that.

  “On the good side, that’s only offensively. If we use our small platforms for point defense, they’ll run themselves, and be able to target a million attacking missiles a second given there’s a million of them around each ship. But we need crews for long distance ship targeting and missile firing.

  “The Grays will have less warships when we’re done, even if they do have several million more scout-craft. But, if we survive the first attempt to destroy us, we’ll have time to outgrow them. Just one more week, and we’ll have more giant warships than they have scouts. Assuming we survive. Then we can go on the offensive, but that’s a whole barrel of shit I’d rather not uncork.

  “But we need crews, which means going to Earth and asking for them. China has a huge army, and should be able to fit the bill, and take most of the ships.”

  Cassie said, “We’ll never be able to crew that many, thirty-eight million I mean.”

  I nodded, “Probably not, but we could double the two point four million in a week, including missiles. After we see where we are when it’s done. Half that four point eight million warships can be an offensive force. Hell, we can just make it an even five million, two point five per fleet.”

  I shook my head, “The point is, we really can win against a multi-fleet blitz, with crews. The question is should we go on the offensive. I think after I figured out those numbers, and seeing what potential Diana’s upgrades really gave us, I’m not overly worried about losing. Though it’s still more than a possibility, we’ll be stronger, but we can still be swarmed and destroyed if they come with higher numbers.

  “Given the amount of FTL societies out there right now, it’s entirely possible.”

  Cassie frowned, “We’ll have to put them down, if we just fight defensively, they’ll just keep coming at us until we succeed. We can out-build them with the new power systems, by leaps and bounds, but humanity itself is limited and becomes the bottleneck at that point. We can only crew so many ships. We’ll need to counterattack quickly and destroy their infrastructure.”

  I nodded, “Agreed, and it’s one of the reasons I want to find that stealth probe. If so, it’s probably hooked up to a central command system like their ships are. If I can get my hands on one, we can not only build our own version, but completely blind the enemy by destroying theirs. Not just the one in our system either, I can take out the whole system if I act quickly enough.

  “But… the future past that point worries me. What happens if we do win? If we take down the infrastructure around thousands of high-tech worlds in Andromeda and destroy their war-fleets. Do we have a moral responsibility? Their current system is brutal, and disgusting, but it works. If we don’t replace it with something else, or take over what they have, the results will be horrifying. All those conquering races held back by fear will enslave pre-FTL societies, expand their empire, fight their neighbors.”

  Jessica frowned, “Do you think it’ll be that bad?”

  I sighed, “Maybe not as bad as all that, but bad enough. The thirty or so percent that trade we’ll be able to work with. Most of the rest are probably just aggressively defensive, xenophobic, and will just continue to aggressively defend their borders. Most of the super aggressive races would’ve been eliminated by the Grays’ current system of governance, but I’m sure there are some that will take up conquest, that only haven’t done it before out of fear of the Grays. We’re talking about toppling an empire of tens of thousands of FTL societies controlled by fear, taking down the game masters. The resultant violence across fifty galaxies will kill trillions of beings, if not more. There are tens of thousands of FTL societies, and millions of pre-FTL societies with intelligent life.

  “Yet… Cassie is right. We can’t fight a defensive war and win, and we can’t just lay down and die because of that cost. The question is what do we put in its place, assuming we win. Granted, it won’t be totally our fault and responsibility, we have a right to defend ourselves and destroy our attackers. Hypocritical attackers who assume we were their enemy, and that are breaking their own laws to remove us. But… I feel like we have to at least try to minimize the waves of violence that are sure to come.

  “Obviously, that’s not up to me, not alone. But, I’d like to have some ideas to share with the world when we inform the world leaders of what we’ve just learned. Otherwise, it will just be chaos when the point comes up.”

  Diana said, “It sounds like you don’t need me anymore, I’m going to work on detecting that probe you think is in our solar system.”

  I nodded, “Thanks, love.”

  She smiled lightly, but then bit her lip in worry as she turned away and left the room.

  Cassie said, “I don’t like the idea of taking over and being gamemasters to perpetuate the current political landscape.”

  I laughed, “Me either. It’s like solving world hunger by killing half the population. It’s crude, and unimaginative. Simple solutions to complex questions are always crude and brutal. The world isn’t black and white, but shades of gray.”

  Cassie smirked, “What do you suggest?”

  “The trading societies are the ones we know are capable of limited cooperation, but at the same time we have to avoid anything too grand. A simple non-aggression treaty might be possible, and perhaps even mutual defense against those races outside the treaty. Similar to what’s there now in some ways, but a little more complicated. Self-defense of a merchant for instance, would be allowable.

  “Some loss of life is inevitable, but the first time a treaty system is invaded, and we all reach out and kick the shit out of the one that did it, the other seventy percent made up of aggressive loners will at least leave us alone. There’s a lot of space out there, Earth for instance could easily expand our empire out to five hundred light years of a sphere without running into competition, perhaps farther.

  “So, then there’d be rules in our Earth empire, to leave pre-FTL societies alone within it. Then what would we do for those out of our sphere, and among the treaty systems. Do we protect them too, or ignore it when others prey on the weaker races outside of our sphere? It sounds heartless, but I’d say the latter outside of the treaty. We have a right to defend ourselves, those we have a treaty with, but we can’t save everyone or be the good guy everywhere. The universe is too big, and too violent, and trying to protect everyone would make us their rulers, and it’d be just as wrong as what the Grays are doing.”

  She nodded, “I’ll think on it. As you said, there’s no easy answers, at least not ones that aren’t also brutal in nature. I also agree we have the right to life, to defend ourselves, and it’s okay to be a little selfish. We can’t save everyone. What about the ship limitations?”

  I grimaced, “I already removed the FTL limitation on warships. In anticipation of the need to take out the Grays. I’ve left the planet and ship limitation, since it will work perfectly as a friend and foe system. I imagine over two million ships and several trillion missiles will get messy, and that’s just on our side. It’ll prevent friendly fire. That limitation won’t affect our ability to fight the Grays, even if they shape their ships and missiles to look like ours, the system will know. All the new ships are made from my probe warships, so they’ll all be command and controlled by this station, can share targeting data, and all that.”

  Cassie said, “Our allies won’t like that.”

  I shrugged, “it’s too many ships, we don’t have a choice. I won’t override their orders or actions against an enemy, or any jackassery, but
all ships will share data freely, it’s the only way it can work and prevent friendly fire. I hope they trust me that far, we all live here after all. Besides, they’re not buying the ships, they’re just crewing my fleet to defend Earth.”

  She smirked, “Good point, and that’s our lever point. Not their ships, and they can’t afford to buy two million ships.”

  “I just hope none of us want to go conquering, is it naïve to think we’re above that?”

  She shrugged, “I don’t think so. We’re on nine planets now, and space is big. There’ll be plenty of room to spread out, and to make friends out there. Most wars are fought over resources, I imagine at five hundred light years there’ll be another hundred planets or more we could move into, not to mention thousands of resource systems without life. There’s no reason to compete. It’ll also help because after taking out the Grays we’ll be the strongest militarily, and have very little to fear, all of which will temper our aggressive instincts a great deal.”

  I nodded, and hoped we weren’t both naïve, because that sounded right to me.

  “Alright, anything else? I think we should just pack up everything we’ve just talked about from the moment Threx called us until now, along with the data Threx furnished us with. Give the world leaders time to absorb it and calm down, before we all get in the same room and decide what to do. From defending ourselves, to taking down our enemy, to living in a new galaxy that won’t be quite as… calm. Obviously, all group decisions and not just up to us, what we discussed is just a starting point.”

  Yeah, things just got complicated as hell.

  Cassie said, “Good idea, I don’t think we’ve said anything needing to be censored.”

  I nodded, and took care of that, then said, “I suppose it’s too late for a second week of vacation?”

  Jessica snickered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The conference room was tense, and it had high level people from several first world countries. It wasn’t that we were excluding the rest, so much as only including the countries with large armies. The United States, Russia, China, North Korea, and India all had armies over a million soldiers, then there were others who were hooked in via a video call, twenty more countries that had over a hundred thousand or more soldiers. Not to mention world leaders, including myself. I wasn’t actually present in the conference room at the U.N. complex.

  “Good morning. I’d like to, if we can, talk about the colony ships first, which are still in transit to their worlds.”

  I paused for a moment, and I was relieved when no one objected.

  “Starting colonies right now would be a mistake. If the enemy has a probe here, you can be sure they have a probe in the eight systems with life bearing worlds they’ve so generously given us,” I took a deep breath, and dropped the sarcasm, “I don’t think it would be wise to split the fleet I’m building to try and protect nine worlds, and while the fleet a colony ship will build out is formidable enough to hold off a single species attacking, they won’t be formidable enough to face down multiple species swarming in on them.

  “Instead, I suggest we turn them from a vulnerability to a worst-case scenario asset. If the countries that own them agree, the colony ships should hide somewhere in the void between stars within our fifty light year sphere. If the worst should happen, and we are lost, they could go in eight different directions and leave Gray space, perhaps find a galaxy outside of the fifty claimed where they could continue the human race.

  “I don’t believe we will lose, not for a moment, but it seems prudent to prepare for the worst, even as we consolidate our fleet to protect our home world without leaving the colony’s backsides hanging out in the wind, so to speak. When we defeat the Grays in Andromeda, they could continue on with their mission as planned. Two months out in the void will be boring, but they should have more than enough supplies.”

  The room was silent for a moment, then soft conversation broke out which lasted for quite a while. I patiently waited, and sipped my coffee, as they argued about it. In the end though, it’d be up to those eight countries that bought them, on if they wanted to take their chances or hedge their bets. Most of the people in the room didn’t really get a say, and in the end I didn’t either.

  The Russian representative said, “I think we should move on. This is a high level meeting, and we will have deeper meetings later to take a more detailed look at all the issues brought up here today. I suspect we will take President Akin’s advice, but obviously not all of us have to. We only have five weeks, there’s no way we can sufficiently protect nine solar systems in that time, quite frankly I’m amazed and thankful we can even protect one in that time.”

  There was general agreement in the room.

  I noted, “For myself, besides building the ships, Astraeus is looking for that suspected cloaked probe, though there’s no guarantee we’ll find it. I suspect a scanning breakthrough is required to do so. If any of your scientists want to take a crack at it too, that would be good.”

  The India represented asked, “To what end.”

  I nodded, “Just another approach to mitigate this war. If we can prove the Grays are spying on everyone in the empire it will piss people off. It’s also the first step in finding proof the Grays and not us were behind the attack and it was part of a deception. It’s a long shot, granted, but worth the effort in my opinion. If we can find and get that data out, we’ll most likely only have to face the Grays, and the other races will drop out of the attack. At least, the ones not burned up with greed, that will no doubt do it anyway.

  “We’re also working on the comms problem. An FTL communicator that doesn’t require entangled pairs, since I believe we only have entangled pairs with a handful of races at this point, thanks to our brave merchants. I’ll keep you all updated on it, and it’s just something we’re trying to do within five weeks, that will probably fail. Unfortunately, no one can dictate breakthroughs in technology, but my head scientist tells me they’re very close to quantum communications without entanglement. Similar to radio broadcast, but universe wide.

  “Plus, looking to the future, it’d be better if we could prove we didn’t do it. If only so we’re trusted later on. Otherwise, it’s going to look like we’re power hungry maniacs taking down an ancient civilization. That’s going to make it harder to continue trading with other races, never mind making some kind of joint treaty between trading civilizations.

  “One more point. Finding and removing their stealth probe means they won’t know our final ship counts, or how we’re deployed. Taking out the spies in any war is pretty important, I think.”

  I shrugged, “Moving on, to the meat of this meeting, the battle for our solar system. We’ll have two point four million ships. A command crew of twenty would give you six on the bridge in three shifts, plus a captain and first officer. Unfortunately, I don’t think we can meet that. That’s forty-eight million crew. Of everyone represented here, we probably only have fifteen million military personnel, and I imagine none of you would be happy stripping the planet.

  “Instead, I suggest we split the ships into fleets of a thousand. That’s twenty-four hundred fleets, all with a flagship that will have a full command crew of twenty. Which is only forty-eight thousand people of full command crews. The other ships will be in an enslaved formation, and they’ll move with their thousand ship fleets automatically. If the command ship is destroyed, the ships will automatically slave to the closest command ship, or if necessary and impractical, that can be overridden.

  “The rest of the ships will have a team of two on them, which adds up to just short of four point eight million people. They’ll need to stay well rested without relief crew, so they’re ready at any time. Fortunately, space battles are short on actual fighting, if not the duration leading up to them. All they’ll need to do is launch a small missile defensive perimeter, and defense is taken care of. The rest of their efforts will be in offense. Someone to control and lock in weapons before firing offensive sm
all-platforms, and what kind given the situation. The second person will be taking orders, keeping an eye on the bigger situation, and if necessary they can override and pilot the ship.

  “If we defend successfully, we’ll build for another week. At first, I was thinking of doubling the fleet and leaving half here in case of a second wave of attacks, but I don’t think that will work, because we’d need another five million soldiers to man them. Instead, I’ll double the mass of the ships, a new large warship class half the size of a colony ship, instead of a quarter. We can call them dreadnoughts or something, and they’ll be holding a twelve million small-platform complement, instead of three million. We’ll leave half here, and half will go to Andromeda and put the Grays down. How thoroughly that’s done is something we should discuss.

  “Once the war is over, we can decommission most of the ships, and mothball them for the next major blow up, so you can have most of your people back.”

  The U.S. representative said, “There’s no tactical considerations in all of that.”

  I smiled, “I’ll be fighting my station, and risking myself as usual. But, I’m responsible for building a fleet of ships, which will remain in my care if only in name. That and all the other stuff I said I’m doing, is my true purpose in all of this. I’m the logistics, intelligence, and counter-intelligence part of this, in short, getting us the hardware, weapons, and ships we need to defend. However, I’m not a tactician. The skirmishes I’ve won have been thanks to overwhelming force, and greater technology. We’re going to be two point four million ships, defending against who knows how many civilizations. We could be facing billions of ships. I’ll leave those tactics up to the admirals, but if you really want to know my opinion…

  “I’d leave four hundred thousand ships around Earth for enemy ships that manage to sneak past the fleet, forty fleets englobing the Earth a light minute out in every direction, and I’d put the two million ships left a few light seconds within the FTL line that englobes our solar system. The distance from the sun at which FTL and wormhole creation becomes possible. That’s an impossibly huge area to cover, even for two million ships, or two thousand fleets of a thousand.