“We are ready, Madame President,” replied the reptilian face looking calmly out of the wormhole com. She knew the Crakista female as Admiral in Charge of the Combined Republic Crakista Joint Fleet. She did not know the being's real name. She had heard it once or twice, but could not repeat it with her merely human vocal apparatus.
“I wish I could give you more time, Admiral,” she told the alien female, who had proven a better tactician and strategist than any of her own flag officers.
“We both know that is not possible, Madame President,” said the Crakistan Admiral, her face showing no emotion, as was their nature. That there was some emotion under that mask the President was sure. But as a race they had turned their backs on emotion, and approached the Universe in a logical manner. Which did not mean they had no empathy. “We both know that every day that passes means more tens, even hundreds of thousands of humans will be processed as food for the Ca’cadasans. And we both know that we cannot just stand by and watch intelligent beings turned into rations for an enemy.”
Graham thought of the camps she had toured just after they had liberated the capital system. Not all of the captives had been processed. Tens of millions had been killed by the Cacas as they left the system, and several hundred thousand had somehow gotten away. She had talked with some of those survivors, heard them describe the horrors of the camps in which they were treated like cattle, harvested as quickly as the Cacas could move them into their factories and render them into rations.
“You are correct, Admiral. As always. I just wish we had more ships to give you.”
But she didn’t have more ships. She had given the force all she could spare, after cutting out the task forces she needed to help get her nation back to work. She had a fleet to rebuild, which meant that she needed to rebuild her industry, which meant that she had to delay building ships while she built the factories and yards she needed to make them.
“We have what we have,” said the Admiral, a hint of a smile showing on her mostly immobile face. “According to our simulations, we should have enough for our part of the mission.”
Graham nodded as she looked over at the holo that showed the area of operations. The near side of the Kingdom of New Moscow, with every known or suspected Caca base or ship concentration blinking among the star field. Also on that field was the force the Admiral would lead into that space on a lighting assault that would push the Cacas toward the center, and the combined allied fleet that would strike from the Empire.
There were over five thousand ships in that force, battleships, carriers, battle cruisers, cruisers, destroyers, the auxiliaries needed to keep those ships supplied. It should be more than a match for any force the Cacas had in that space. It seemed overwhelming, and that was what worried her the most.
“Very well, Admiral. Kick those bastards out of human space for me.”
“That I will, Madame President. And may our trust in each other grow, and in the growing lead to a brighter future for both of our species.”
* * *
SECTOR IV HEADQUARTERS.
“You wished to talk with me, Great Admiral?” asked Commodore Mary Innocent as she walked into the prison cum audience chamber.
“I did, Commodore,” replied the big male, sitting up straight in his seat. “I wished to tell you something about us. Something that might help.”
“Why the change of heart?” asked the human Intelligence Officer. “I thought you had said you would die before you gave us anything of military value.”
“This will not be of military value. But it may help our, understanding.”
Innocent motioned to one of her Marines guards, and the armored woman walked over to a wall and grabbed a human sized chair that had been placed there for just this purpose. Mary took the chair once it was in place and tried to make herself comfortable. “I’m all ears, Great Admiral.”
“Then I want to tell you about my people. And about how we came to be the way we are.”
“And this will help us, how?” asked Innocent, almost chomping at the bit to hear what he had to say, but not wanting to show too much enthusiasm.
“I am hoping it will help us, in case you win this war.”
“And you think we will win?” she said with a smile. “You are always telling us how your mighty Empire will be too much for us. Are you having second thoughts?”
“Oh,” said the male, crossing his lower arms over his chest. “I still think the odds are in our favor. I believe that when our next wave arrives, you will find that mine was not the most powerful fleet we could raise.”
“And what you are about to tell me?”
“It may help you to decide what to do if the time comes where you are in the control chair,” said the Ca’cadasan, pointing an upper right index finger at the Commodore.
“Then tell me what you want to say,” she replied, planting an elbow on one knee and placing her chin in her hand, leaning forward.
“We have always been carnivores,” said the male, his eyes taking on a distant look. “And as such we have never been the most peaceful of species. Still, we had entered period of relative peace. Our planet was enjoying the longest period of peace and prosperity in our history. We had solved our environmental problems, there was plenty of food for all, and we had an abundance of wilderness to allow our young males to hunt and grow into adulthood. The religion that dominates our society was on the rise, and we worshiped the nature of our world. We were even on the way into space. And then…”
“Yes?” said the Commodore, her mind trying to picture these aggressive aliens as peaceful.
“The aliens came. They were like insects, though their skeletons were internal. They were a hive mind. Individually, not that bright. But as a collective, as smart as any. They were obligate herbivores, having no use for animals. They had none, the only resource they needed the vegetation of a living world, which their singular digestive systems could handle in all the many myriad forms across the Galaxy. They had eaten their own world bare, and had moved out in a globular pattern from their home world. They entered our system in enormous sublight vessels, the best their technology could produce, generations ahead of anything we could make. We could not pronounce the name for themselves, and simply called them The Plague.”
“And you fought them?”
“Of course we fought them,” said the male, his eyes glaring. “It is what we do. But they had the technological edge, and the advantage of the orbitals. More than we could handle. They wiped out over ninety-five percent of our population. They established themselves on the ground and stripped large areas bare of vegetation. When they had filled their ships they left our system, out to the next target. They left over half of the beings they had brought with them here, establishing themselves in the underground cities they built. These continued to strip the planet, and it looked like our story was over. That was over twenty-five thousand of your years ago.”
“But your story, it didn’t end.”
“No,” said the Great Admiral, sitting up even straighter in his chair. “It didn’t. The first of our Emperors, Msse’rrazon, arose, and organized what was left of our people. Every male became a warrior. We attacked the enemy in their lairs, losing half of the males that were left. But we overran them. We won back our planet, and then worried that they might return in their ships. A supreme effort was made to reverse engineer their tech, to get us onto even footing with them. Over three centuries we rebuilt our infrastructure, struggled to restore our ecosystem, including the animals the invaders had destroyed, the source of our food. We increased our numbers as much as we could, until we were as ready as we could be. And then the aliens returned.”
“I take it that the second invasion didn’t go so well for them.”
“No,” said the male, showing his carnivore’s teeth. “It did not. We destroyed their ships in the outer system, then started to build up our own interstellar capabilities. And we went hunting, destroying The Plague wherever we could find them. Until w
e had wiped them from the Universe, eventually finding and destroying their home world, or what was left of it.”
“You, killed off an entire species?” asked Innocent in horror. “Genocide?”
“The Galaxy is a better place for their absence,” said the Great Admiral with a very human head shake. “Our religion forbade us from destroying a species like that, but revenge was hot in our hearts, and the captains on the spot made the decisions to annihilate the aliens wherever they found them. But we had taken a step onto a path we could not retreat from. We had become a race of warriors. No longer would sons be raised to be scientists, engineers, technicians. They would all be raised to be warriors, until they were too old to serve, at which time they would fill those other jobs.”
“And you lost the flexibility of young minds.”
“Yes, and many of those minds that would have been of great worth to our people never developed.” The Great Admiral looked into the internal distance for a moment, then back at the human. “I am considered intelligent among my people, in the top one percent of males, maybe higher. I could have been a scientist, one who helped to advance my people. But now males with minds like my own are groomed to become flag officers, to make up for the deficits of our other males.”
“So you started on the path to Empire, and found no way to get off?”
“We did. We could not trust any of the other alien races we had found, not with the safety of our own species at stake. And our military society needed scientists and technicians, engineers, which we found among the first species that we conquered. The more we conquered, the more soldiers we needed, to keep the new subjects in line. There was always the fear that any species that got free of us would seek revenge, and so we could not let any go. But we did not destroy species, or the life forms of other evolutionary paths. We conquered a hundred species, and only found it necessary to destroy three of them.”
“And those three?” asked Innocent, suppressing a surge of anger at the thought that hers had been intended to become the third such species.
“One was insane, a genocidal species that killed everything in their path. The Plague. We were forced to destroy them. The other was more accidental than anything else. They were a very advanced race that wanted nothing more than to be left alone, but we couldn’t afford to leave them to their own devices, not when there was a possibility that they might attack us.”
So you went after them and they had no choice but to fight back, thought the Commodore.
“We bombarded their planet through their defenses, which proved formidable. In the end, several of our most powerful weapons made it through at destroyed all of their population concentrations. Before we knew it, they were extinct.”
“And us? Why did we need to be destroyed?”
“You killed the heir to the Empire, after your colony had surrendered.”
“And what the hell was he doing on that planet in the first place?” asked Innocent, not believing they could have been that nonchalant with the heir to their Empire.
“It is traditional that the heir to the Empire serves with a conquest fleet. You had surrendered, which among my people means that you had given up all thought of resistance. So the young male was sent to the surface, to accept the formal taking of the planet, so he could have the appellation conqueror added to his name. But one of your people killed him, and the enraged Emperor ordered your people destroyed.”
“That’s not how it works with our people,” said Innocent, sitting up straight and staring at the Ca’cadasan. “Just because the authority says something, doesn’t mean that everyone will just follow orders. We’re a race of individualists.”
“And we obey the orders of those above us. If I had been conscious, every one of our ships would have either broken off and gotten away, to regroup later, or would have fought to the finish. The Admiral who took over was a coward, more concerned about his own survival than his honor, and ordered the fleet to surrender so that he might live. And because of that males who would never have surrendered did so, to the shame of the Empire.”
“So you didn’t want to come to this state of being,” said Innocent, still not sure why she was being told this story. “But here you are, and we’re locked into a death struggle with you. And what do you think telling me this will get you?”
“Some understanding, if you do prevail. Some insight into my kind, and a recognition that we are not evil.”
Innocent stared at the male for some minutes, aghast at what he had just said. The Cacas had wiped out whole worlds, and caused over twenty billion deaths in the Empire. They were killing and eating humans, another intelligent species. If that wasn’t the definition of evil, she didn’t know what was. She wasn’t sure how this understanding of them would help if the humans found themselves with their boot heels on the throats of the big sentients. Probably less than this male hoped.
“Thank you, Great Admiral,” she finally said, getting up from her chair. “I will make sure my Emperor gets this information.” She kept her face devoid of emotion while she spoke, though she was sure she would order every one of the creatures killed if it was in her power to do so.
* * *
NEW MOSCOW, APRIL 4TH, 1002.
The sun on New Moscow, at least at this latitude, was not particularly hot. Not compared to hellholes like Sestius or Azure. Still, even a high mountain would seem hot in the Ghilley Suits that the Rangers were wearing on this recon.
Cornelius had decided that he needed to be on this initial recon. At least that’s what he told himself as he crawled through the gully at the head of the squad. As a company commander he would not be able to go on every patrol. That was the one thing he still had problems with as an officer. His men were good, but he was better. That was not braggadocio. It was fact. His men moved like a breeze through the brush. He was moving through the woods like the stillness that was no wind. He beat every single one of them in sparring, or on the range.
He knew, however, that he couldn’t do the mission on his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his men to get the job done. It was that he couldn’t stand the thought of sending them to their deaths. Preacher had warned him that an officer’s task was not easy. He shared all the dangers of his men, but shouldered almost all of the responsibility.
What passed for birds on this world continued their warbling cries and songs in the trees above, a good sign, one that his men were moving as part of the forest. Larger beasts grunted in the near distance, herbivores clipping vegetation from the trees. There would be carnivores out there as well. They made the Captain the most anxious of anything on the mission. He had studied what was known about them. That was not the same as knowing them, understanding how they hunted, where and why.
The gully continued out into the plain, about three meters deep by four wide, zigging and zagging across the flatlands that had been wild grasslands interspersed with farmlands before the Cacas had come. Cornelius crawled up on the side of the gully facing the camp, swinging his rifle back on its straps to lay across his back as he pulled his glasses from their case.
The camp leapt into clarity through the binoculars. Cornelius was aware of where the sun stood in the heavens, making sure that he was not reflecting any light that might be seen from the camp. The lenses were treated to be non-reflective, but the Captain did not like to take chances he didn’t have to. Swinging the glasses away from the camp, he followed the web of gullies that ran across the plains, picking out what looked like the best approach routes, where to place his snipers, and the heavy support units from the heavy and medium infantry.
Some hissing ahead and to the right caught his attention, and one of the other Rangers, crawled up beside him with his rifle in hand. It was an air weapon, firing a dart of tranquilizers that was supposed to work on the native life, without making either the noise of a chemical weapon or giving off the electronic signature of more advanced rifle. A large predator moved on its four limbs in their direction, sniffing the ground with a fla
t, large nose set with wide nostrils. Horns stood along its back, and rose to their full height as the creature roused itself to fight.
The Rangers were wearing a chemical spray on their Ghilley suits and undergarments that was supposed to blend them in with the vegetation of the forest. It worked against most animals on this world, but had not been tested against all of them. And he didn’t think this predator had been one it had been tested on.
“Wait a moment, Slater,” he told the other man in a whisper. The beast looked up at the sound and seemed to zero in on them, then took a few steps their way, its soft pads soundless on the hard ground.
Cornelius was sure that they could down this creature, even if the tranquilizer darts had not been tested on its species. Enough darts and it would go down, maybe in death. But he didn’t want the Cacas to see a predator fall for no reason and stay down, and if other predators, or scavengers, came along, that would attract even more attention.
Both men watched the creature carefully as it continued to sniff the air. Walborski signaled the men behind him in the gully to stay still, still hoping that the predator would lose interest.
A group of small herbivores trumpeted in the distance, and the head of the predator rose and turned that way. In a motion it lowered itself to the ground and slunk off, heading for prey it was familiar with, and not something strange that offered unknown risks.
Cornelius turned his attention back to the mission, waving for two more men to come up on the side of the gulley and get a take of the area. All of the men were augmented as much mentally as physically, and they took in every detail, stored every memory. Later, back at the base, they would be able to send those memories through their implants into the computers that would help to develop an appreciation of the area.
On the way back to the mountains and the tunnel entrance that led back up to their base Walborski was thinking about what he had seen, his mind envisioning the battle that was to come. No matter how he replayed it in his mind, he could see no way they were going to carry this off without massive casualties among those they had come to rescue. There was no way they could herd millions of civilians across the open areas while lasers, particle beams and explosive projectiles flew between the battling forces.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 13