Armageddon

by Craig Alanson

  “Adams,” I replied sourly, the coffee tasting extra bitter in my mouth. “I recently told Skippy that he has no future as a motivational speaker. You-”

  “You think I’m not being supportive? Bullshit. If you want someone to pat you on the back and tell you nice lies to make you feel good, that’s a job for your parents. A real friend,” she emphasized the word, “tells you the truth. And then helps you deal with it. I know from watching you over the years that being in command sucks. It sucks especially for you because you’re a genuinely good person, and your conscience bothers you when you hurt innocent people. Even if those people are birds or hamsters, even lizards.”

  “I never wanted this job.”

  “No, but you’re stuck with it now. The Maxolhx are going to kill thousands of Bosphuraq before this is over. That action will save billions of lives on Earth. There are innocent people on our home planet, too.”

  She let me talk for a while, just stood there quietly while I talked about how I felt inadequate for the job. About how I took actions I thought were correct, even inspired and brilliant at the time. Only to later realize I might have just created a bigger problem in the long run.

  “Hey,” she actually patted me on the back. “It is going to be Ok. You know that, right?”

  I reached up and patted her hand while it was still resting on my shoulder. “Is this you telling me bullshit to make me feel better?”

  “No.” She squeezed my shoulder and didn’t pull her hand away. “I feel it,” she tapped her chest over her heart, “in here. We’re going to be all right.”

  “Well,” I lifted my hand from hers and she pulled away. “I do feel better.”

  She tilted her head and smiled at me. “That’s the coffee you’re feeling. It is,” she glanced at the clock on the nearby wall panel. “Zero three forty five, and we’ve been up for two hours.”

  People were coming out of the galley, so we stepped aside not to block the corridor. I lifted the coffee cup. “I’m not going back to sleep at this point.”

  “None of us are,” she agreed and smiled again, her eyes darting down toward the deck in a coy gesture.

  Damn it, for a split-second I almost thought she was about to suggest we, you know, sneak away somewhere private, and do something.

  Then, because the Universe hates me, she looked up and took a breath. “My duty shift begins at oh-seven hundred, so I’m going to hit the gym first.”

  And, just like that, the moment was gone. I jerked my head back up the corridor toward my office. “I’d better finish reviewing that data dump. It sure looks good, but-”

  “I know. The Universe hates the Merry Band of Pirates.”

  “I think it just hates me.”

  She shrugged. “We’re all in the same boat.”

  “True dat,” I held out a fist and she bumped it.

  I was sitting down in my office chair when it hit me: the whole time we had been talking, she had not once called me ‘Sir’ or ‘Colonel’. That was unusual. Adams did not overuse those titles as too many young soldiers do, making a ‘Sir sandwich’ like ‘Sir blah blah blah Sir’.

  She had not called me ‘Joe’ either, but it felt good.

  “Ok, Skippy,” I said with renewed energy to approach my crappy job. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  Two hours later, having scanned a significant portion of the data available, the situation was clear. The Maxolhx had conducted simultaneous attacks across a wide swath of Bosphuraq space. By ‘simultaneous’ I mean the attacks were all initiated within three-tenths of a second, though they were separated by up to seven thousand lightyears that we knew of. Such precision was totally unnecessary for surprise, because an attack in one star system would not be known about in another star system for at least a full day, even if a Bosphuraq fast courier ship traveled through a conveniently nearby wormhole. The purpose of conducting simultaneous attacks was a ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign to impress lesser species. The Maxolhx had made a statement that they could manage the tricky logistics of coordinating simultaneous surprise attacks across thousands of lightyears. They intended to impress upon their potentially-rebellious clients not only the quality of their advanced technology, but also the scope of their capability to deploy it.

  The Bosphuraq got the message, according to the data we had. The attacks were conducted on Day Nineteen, a remarkably rapid response that impressed even Skippy and scared the hell out of me. The Maxolhx had received information that must have been a severe shock to them, I mean, they thought their two cruisers were safely on the long journey to Earth. The message we sent to frame the Bosphuraq informed the Maxolhx that, not only were those ships now space dust, but they were destroyed by one of their client species. Destroyed by the Bosphuraq, who had access to technology beyond the capability of the Maxolhx. Oh, and as a final shock, the confession was sent by a Bosphuraq group that was afraid the Maxolhx would find out about the crimes of their client species sooner or later anyway.

  After recovering from the shock of receiving the confession, the Maxolhx must have rather quickly done three things. Four, no, five things, really. Number One, they did what they could to authenticate the file without alerting the Bopshuraq. Two, they sent ships to recon the supposed battle site, to look for evidence that confirmed the data in the confession. Three, they must have sent a ship to the star system where we nuked the moonbase, to search for signs that the Bosphuraq had indeed been conducting experiments in warping spacetime.

  While waiting for the results of One, Two and Three, they also must have taken Step Number Four: deciding what to do if the confession was confirmed. Finally, Step Five required their military to spin up ships for a response. A response that was thrown together quickly.

  “It was a remarkable effort, Joe,” Skippy shook his head admiringly. “Still is a remarkable effort, I suspect the Maxolhx are not done yet. The data we have is only one small slice of the tactical situation. Even I am surprised by how the Maxolhx were able to make plans and position ships so quickly. You should take planning lessons from them, Joe.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He did not expect that reply from me. “Joe, all I meant was-”

  “Not bullshit that I could learn something from the Maxolhx. There is always opportunity for improvement. I meant, it is bullshit that the kitties threw a highly detailed plan together at the last minute. No way did that happen,” I slapped the desk, making Skippy’s avatar take a small step back. “The greatest fear of two senior species is their clients obtaining technology that could threaten them, right?”

  “Correct. Where are you going with this?”

  “Where I’m going is, the Maxolhx must have had a contingency plan, to do something pretty close to what actually happened. They anticipated their clients might be involved in researching forbidden technology, and their military had scenarios for attacking sites where that research was most likely being conducted. When they received our message, somebody in their military headquarters probably dusted off plans they’ve had sitting around for centuries. All they had to do was update the details for the current situation like the disposition of their fleet assets, and give the ‘Go’ order.”

  “Come on, Joe,” he scoffed. “You really think the Maxolhx had a plan prepared for this scenario? That seems rather far-fetched.”

  “I do think that. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have a plan prepared. I’m sure that somewhere in the Pentagon are multiple operation plans for the US to invade Canada.”

  “Why would you invade Canada?” He gasped. “They are so polite.”

  “I don’t know, uh, maybe somebody in the White House got sick of hearing a Celene Dion song and got pissed at Canada? Look, we’re not actually going to invade, but staff officers need training in preparing op plans, so they create what-if scenarios, you know?”

  “Hmmm, Ok, I can see that happening. Especially after a late night of tequila shots. How would you do it?”

  “I’m not a staff officer, so I haven�
��t been trained to-”

  “No,” he said, in a way that contained an implied ‘duh’. “I didn’t mean how would you draft an operations plan. How would you invade Canada?”

  “Jeez, it’s not something I’ve thought about. Probably, um,” I stared at the ceiling. “Infiltrate small groups across the border undercover as hockey fans, then they seize control of strategically important Tim Horton’s donut shops? Without access to coffee and Timbits,” I chuckled, “their economy would grind to a halt.”

  “Good thinking, good thinking,” Skippy mused. “Ok, I agree with your line of thinking. It makes sense that the Maxolhx would have prepared plans to strike the research facilities of their clients, if the client became a potential threat.”

  I looked at the star chart of star systems where we knew the Maxolhx had conducted attacks, knowing it had to be incomplete. It scared me to think of the havoc and suffering I had wrought. Innocent Bosphuraq out there were dead and dying. How could all this be on me? I am just Joe Bishop. I’m a good guy, at least I think I am a decent human being. Yet the Maxolhx were committing mass murder because of something I did. I would have to live with that. “Skippy, how long do you think this will go on?” My unspoken question was, how many more star systems had to feel the wrath of the Maxolhx, before they were satisfied that they had made their point that client species did not, could not, rebel against their masters.

  “Oh, not long, Joe. If the goal of the Maxolhx is to strike research facilities, they are going to run out of targets real quick, even if they hit facilities they suspect are undeclared research bases. The main reason I do not expect this offensive to continue more than a few days is, the Maxolhx do not want to weaken their defensive posture against the Rindhalu. They can’t afford to have their fleet scattered on feel-good but strategically worthless punishment actions. The spiders have a well-deserved reputation for laziness, but they have long memories, and they are eager to get revenge against the Maxolhx.”

  “I thought the spiders hit them pretty hard during their war?”

  “They did, and the Maxolhx hit even harder, because they hit first. It took a while for the Rindhalu to get organized for a major counterattack, and by the time they did, the Sentinels were already awake and crushing both sides. So, the Rindhalu never were able to retaliate properly, and when the Sentinels went dormant again, the spiders didn’t have the strength to press a counter-attack with conventional weapons. The Rindhalu lost territory in that war that still is held by the Maxolhx. Because the Maxolhx logically concentrated their initial attacks on the most strategically vital assets of the Rindhalu, much of the territory that was lost was, and still is, considered valuable by the spiders. Joe, the spiders lost their original homeworld in that brief war.”

  “Whoa. I knew the Rindhalu lost their homeworld early in the war, but you’re telling me the Maxolhx still control that planet today?”

  “Yes, and it is heavily defended by the Maxolhx, although the war left that world barely able to sustain life. Joe, imagine if aliens had captured Earth, and humans had a vast empire elsewhere in the galaxy. How would you feel?”

  “Shit,” I thought. “It would eat away at me, every time I saw a star chart.”

  “Exactly. The Rindhalu have been largely inactive because they do not see a realistic opportunity to hit the Maxolhx in a meaningful way, so why waste their resources in a futile effort? Their clients handle the work of nibbling away at the Maxolhx coalition, so there isn’t much the spiders need to do. There isn’t much they can do, without provoking a direct response by the Maxolhx.”

  “Damn. Now I can see why this war has dragged on so long.”

  “Sadly, yes. In one of her reports to UNEF HQ on Paradise, Emily Perkins mentioned that she had a meeting with former Admiral, now Commodore, Kekrando-”

  “Whoa,” I said again. “Kekrando? The same guy whose ships were blasted out of the sky by Perkins and her team?” I snorted. “I’ll bet that meeting went well.”

  “Actually, it did, Joe. Kekrando admires Perkins, she was only doing her duty, and she did it exceptionally well. During the meeting, Kekrando arranged for his Keeper slave to be returned to Paradise. He also told Perkins that there be no true victory for anyone in this war. The clients can only achieve a certain level of success, before they are slapped down by the senior species. The Rindhalu are more subtle about suppressing the gains of their clients, and they do not employ open violence, but the result is the same.”

  “So,” I speculated, “this war is like that old Greek guy rolling a stone up a hill, only it always rolls back to the bottom. He can never win.”

  “Correct, Joe, and I am impressed by your knowledge of classical mythology.”

  “Ah, don’t be. I only know that story because my Uncle Edgar hated mowing the lawn on his day off. He told his wife the grass is just going to grow back, so why bother?”

  “Did he win that argument?”

  “Um, no. All right,” I got the rubber ball out of a drawer and squeezed it while I thought. “If the Maxolhx call a ceasefire, we should hear about it soon enough through this relay station, so there’s no point to us looking for trouble. I am, let’s say, cautiously optimistic.”

  It took eight more days for news of the ceasefire to reach us, partly because the Maxolhx were restricting the movements of Bosphuraq warships. “Joe,” Skippy declared with bubbly gleefulness, “we did it! Somehow, you monkeys pulled your asses out of the fire again. My hat is off to you,” he made a grand bow and swept off his ginormously oversized admiral’s hat. “Hee hee, once again, the supposedly more intelligent species of this galaxy have no idea you screwed with them. They don’t even know they have been screwed with. I love it!”

  “Yup,” I tossed the ball off the ceiling and caught it. That annoyed Skippy, but less than his annoyance level when I bounced the ball off the table, right through his hologram. “It might be time for a party to celebrate.”

  “No, Joe,” he disagreed. “This triumph, where you monkeys snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, calls for a par-tay. That’s what the cool kids say. Although,” he mumbled, “this is your party, so ain’t nothing cool about it. While the cool kids are head-banging at a bitchin’ rave, you can sit alone in the corner.”

  Somehow, I resisted the temptation to say his slang might be slightly out of date.

  Skippy’s insults did not spoil my enjoyment of the moment. My own thoughts did that for me. Adams knocked on the door frame to my office while I was writing a report. “Sir?” She looked me up and down in a disapproving manner. “Why aren’t you getting ready for the party? It’s in less than an hour.”

  “I will, I will. Just trying to compose the mission report for UNEF Command. This,” I pointed at my laptop, “has to make a very good case for why the US Army should not bust me down to Private and toss my ass out.”

  “Sir?” She glanced down the hallway to see if anyone was around, and sat down. “How do you figure that?”

  “The reason UNEF didn’t lean on the Army to toss me out, or toss me in Leavenworth, was because I told them our Renegade mission ensured that Earth would not be threatened for centuries. It was a totally brilliant, inspired, genius plan-” I saw the look she was giving me, and it made me cough. “Those were Skippy’s words, not mine. Smythe and Simms agreed,” I added, and it sounded lame to me too. “Anyway, they could forgive my past screwups, because we had been so wildly successful. That, plus, you know, stopping a surprise Kristang attack on Wright-Patterson. But now,” I spread my hands on the table, palms up. “Now we have to tell them that was all bullshit. Earth was not safe, and we just barely pulled a plan out of our asses to dig ourselves out of a hole again. Who knows what else will go wrong next? We are right back to me being a reckless amateur who put all of humanity at risk by not thinking ahead. To UNEF Command, I am a guy juggling Grandma’s prized china plates. Sure, I haven’t dropped one yet, but that is purely by luck, and I shouldn’t have touched them in the first place.”

&
nbsp; “That, is an interesting analogy.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, except you need to remember that Grandma’s prized china would all be smashed, if you had not brought Skippy to save the world.”

  “We saved the world, Gunny.”

  “You know what I mean. Sir.” She stood up. “Permission to speak freely?”

  “You never have to ask.”

  “Then my advice is, close that laptop, change into civvie clothes and enjoy the party. Skippy told me the far end of the Gateway wormhole is still blockaded, so we can’t go home now anyway. That report,” she jabbed a finger at my laptop, “can wait.”

  I took her advice. I put on shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and had fun at the party. So much fun that the next day, it was tough to start my duty shift on the bridge at 0800. Fortunately, the ship was drifting in space, so there wasn’t anything I had to do. As a bonus, after my shift ended, so many pilots were still hungover that the Panther flight simulator was free for three hours. I had great fun practicing flight maneuvers in our hotrod dropship, and I only crashed it six times.

  Ok, I crashed it eight times, but the last two were totally not my fault.

  We remained at the relay station another four days, when a passing Bosphuraq ship transmitted news of a ceasefire, that was offered by the Maxolhx two days after they began their attack. It was frustrating that interstellar communications were so slow and scattered, that we learned about the ceasefire days after it went into effect. To verify in real-time what was going on, I ordered the ship to the outskirts of an important Bosphuraq star system. There, we lingered among dirty chunks of ice and rocks in the local Kuiper Belt, where we could listen to transmissions that were only five hours old.

  I kind of felt sorry for the Bosphuraq government, and especially for anyone who worked for their research group. The Maxolhx demanded their apparently traitorous clients turn over details of technology the birdbrains did not have, which made it somewhat difficult for the birdbrains to comply. The government threw their scientists under the bus without any regrets, and I could understand their reasoning. Their researchers had achieved a huge technology breakthrough and had not informed senior government leaders about it. Therefore, those leaders thought, the researchers must have been planning to use that advanced technology not only to break free of Maxolhx patronage, but also to seize control of Bopshuraq society. No doubt, the current senior leadership would not survive the coup. So, they quite rightfully thought, fuck those scientists.