by Lee Guo
“Thank you, sir.” Vier smiled. “When I was demoted—”
Mittermeyer raised his hand, signaling that he wasn’t finished. “I am not, by nature, a gambler, but I believe you are. In this war, we’ll need a lot of gamble if we are to win. Fighting a conventional battle with conventional tactics will only result in us playing in their hands. Since it’s obvious that the methodical way in which they invade is a sign that they’ve done it all before, that is why we’ll need people who can surprise them, even at such a disadvantage. Your official orders will be forwarded to your new flagship.”
“I will do my best, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“Also, if you can capture some of the aliens, do so. Since every attempt at communicating with them has failed, if you succeed in boarding their ships, take as many prisoners as you can. We need to be able to figure out their society and psychology. It will enlighten us about the motivations of their sudden war. Now, I would say good luck and Godspeed on that but there are several operational issues I need to explain...”
In orbit around Meerlat
Imperial Mothership Ro’Zur’Gur
Cultural Monitoring Room…
Chief Collector El-Sur zoomed the monitor in on the trio of humans in the city streets of Meerlat and casually observed them engage in verbal and nonverbal communication. Humans, they called themselves, with the same reverence El-Sur’s race spoke of themselves. Humans, a very simple word that had been added into the Chief Collector’s lexicon.
El-Sur saw and heard everything in their exchange. The facial expressions, body movement and postures, eye movements, the way the female touched the male. The space they gave each other; the timing, pace, tone of their voices and of course, the sounds themselves.
As a linguistic and sociological expert, she could relatively quickly piece together another specie’s language and social mores. Her mind was different from most of her species, which is a reason the Great Commander valued her so much. She was quick to learn and easy to understand.
It had taken her less than two planetary rotations of Meerlat to become simply proficient in the main human language, the one they called Galactic English, and she didn’t even need to interact with them. She was, so much as she knew, the fastest linguist in the empire. Of course, she had the help of five thousand image and sound probes spread throughout this world, mostly in the cities to monitor its population.
That was weeks ago. Now, she pushed herself to become an expert in knowing all aspects of the main human language. Who knew all nuances, intricacies, and subtleties were so difficult to master?
Sitting inside the monitor room with a dozen other linguists, she casually gazed at the visual cues on her display. The first female was in ‘love’ with the male, but the male preferred the other female. Interesting, thought El-Sur. A reproductive trio. Will these three humans engage in sexual activities? Throughout all bipedal species in the galaxy, the male-female dichotomy almost always resulted in a few selective males monopolizing multiple females. It was a natural and logical outcome of most specie’s evolution.
Gazing at the display, El-Sur saw more touches by the first female. A bit of frustration, but also excitement.
The male was, of course, conscious of all this. He was playing the first female, using her to catch the interest of the second. The second began succumbing to the trap, starting to show interest—when suddenly all three sophonts stopped. They gazed upwards...
El-Sur sighed and watched in disappointment as the trio scurried away into a building as if their privacy had been invaded. Didn’t they know? There was no such thing as long as the monitors exist. Tapping the interface, she changed the view to another interaction.
“You digress from the objective, Chief Collector,” a Cat sitting next to her spoke.
“And what objective is that, Sela?” El-Sur asked, eyes still gazing at the displays.
“To learn but not to involve.”
El-Sur purred. “Then you do yet understand, Sela. To become involved is necessary to learn.”
The Cat yawned. “Your interest in this species is too apparent. You forget that they are Pra. We are the conquerors.”
“And you forget that I am your Kael,” El-Sur turned toward him indignantly.
The Cat stretched her arms. “If the Great Commander did not fancy you, you would not have attained your rank.”
El-Sur steamed.
The Cat sitting beside El-Sur smirked, returning her attention to her display.
As much as El-Sur tried not to think of it, she couldn’t. She gazed at her own display, pretending to be observing human social customs. It was true the Great Commander gave too much attention to her to make her believe otherwise, but she had greatly contributed greatly to his well-being. Over the years, she had single-handedly deciphered several languages whereas others had failed and acted as first intermediary during interspecies exchanges for him. She had done her work to attain the position she had now.
Then she sighed. The opposite was also true. Everything she acquired right now was because of the Great Commander. Ever since the Great Commander had pledged to vanquish her enemies, the same enemies that had irradiated her home planet as well as her entire clan, she had been a loyal follower of the Great Commander. She owed everything she now had to him ever since the fall, so naturally she lent him all her raw abilities and talents. And if the Great Commander was overly grateful or overly attentive because of other reasons, then why should she complain? Her desire for vengeance had been fulfilled because of him.
She shook her head. She still had memories of being a kitten—playing with her litter brothers and sisters while being nurtured by her mother and father. Those memories had suddenly stopped with the Suras clan—her clan! When they had been ruthlessly exterminated by that cowardly preemptive attack by her enemies, the Meluks. When the Great Commander—that was before he had attained that rank given to him by the Divine Prince—had declared war on the Meluks clan. Then El-Sur had pledged her blood allegiance to him so that he may succeed.
Her clan, all six thousand Ka, had once ruled an entire planet. It had been a dynasty in its own right; an economic powerhouse in the empire, capable of manipulating royal court intricacies. Now, it was nothing. Billions of Ka had been eradicated in the nuking of her planet. The clan itself, including her mother and father, had ceased to exist. Instead of inheriting a planet, El-Sur came home to find out that everything and everyone she knew and cared about had become irradiated carbon.
So naturally, she desired that hole to be filled. So, the one who could fill it could be none other than the Gor-Eben himself. If her clan was still alive, she’d be fortunate to mate with such a being as him—ruthless, decisive, ambitious, filled with clarity, and more powerful than anyone else in the universe, second only to the Divine Prince himself. Her mother and father, the head of the clan, would not have objected.
Now, she’d be glad to find any mate with a decent rank in a powerful clan—let alone the Great Commander. She surmised, she was both the most fortunate and unfortunate Cat in the empire. To have lost everything aside from death itself and to be in a position to gain everything if one day, the Great Commander finally chose her as his mate.
Still, what if the Great Commander didn’t choose her as his queen? What if all he wanted was for her to be his plaything, a feral toy? Well, it was just the same. She would not object, since she already owed everything she had to him. The Great Commander, after all, had to think about the well-being of his clan and had to play the political game. For instance, if the Divine Prince offered his sister to the Great Commander, an outcome which was very likely…the Great Commander would have no choice but to mate with her. Or another female from another powerful clan.
As for El-Sur, she had no political leverage, economic leverage, nor power of any kind. All she had was her intelligence, her skills, her body, mind, and her love. That was it, but if she truly wanted something, what was there truly to stop her from getting it?
> Things that were out of her control. The right thing to do—the wise thing to do—was to only concern herself with things in her control. She would continue to prove herself to him, just like she had already. And the savory, tongue-licking reality was that her trap was working. It was only a matter of time before Gor-Eben’s lust, if not his love, would fall for her...
In orbit around Meerlat
Imperial Mothership Ro’Zur’Gur
Holographic Map Room…
The holoimaging chamber was massive. It could display any location or setting he wanted in every direction.
Gor-Eben stood in the center, alone, gazing at the mesmerizing universe of stars surrounding him.
His universe.
At the center of his universe was a single star called Kaella, a dim red star, one of the smallest in the galaxy, but one of the longest living. A planet called Ka orbited this eternal star. Ka was the Ga homeworld, a lush blue ocean world filled with many island chains. Before the Ga had set sail for the outer reaches of the local star cluster, and long before the Ga had becoming a galaxy spanning empire, the Ga had first learned to sail Ka’s seas and oceans. The black furred Cats loved water and throughout the empire, planets with oceans were idolized and those without were terraformed.
The homeworld of today had millions of underwater cities, which although protected by layers of liquid, was still vulnerable to conventional planetary bombardment weapons. But that wasn’t what interested Gor-Eben.
No, what he focused on was a different type of city that didn’t need a planet to survive.
Lakfakalle. Situated inside the home system, it was the imperial city. The gem among gems. Home of the Great Prince. The city that would rule the empire for a billion years. The city that could not be destroyed, constantly protected by the best fleet with the most up-to-date weapons and crewed by the most loyal soldiers in the galaxy. This city and its all-important cargo could only be compromised when the vast fleet and the vast system of fortifications surrounding the star had perished.
For years, Gor-Eben had tried with no success and significant risk of betraying his intentions, to infiltrate this city, to find a way to destroy it and the Great Prince from inside. There was none. The city was crewed by the most loyal guardians of the Ga throne. Using brainscan technology, these guardians were constantly memory tested to detect any sign of betrayal. Their personalities were accessed, and even if there was no evidence of direct hostile intent, the fact that the individual was susceptible to bribes, threats, and all manners of persuasion was enough to dismiss the guard. The Great Prince was invulnerable from covert assassination.
Lakfakalle. Protected by the most advanced shield generators in the galaxy and armored by layers of dense multidimensional phase material, it could also move as fast as a warship. Three hundred So’longs long, it was the size of a small moon. Its weapons were minimal, as its primary purpose was to protect the monarch from attack while relying on the Royal Fleet and the home system’s arsenals to destroy the enemy.
Gor-Eben wanted to attack it with its shields down and its armor unpowered, but was hindered by the fact that no warship could enter the home system unless it belonged to the Royal Fleet. There was only one way, the direct frontal way that would kill trillions in the greatest war the galaxy had ever seen.
It will be destroyed. Gor-Eben gazed at it. One day, Gor-Eben would do the impossible task himself. When the Great Prince’s vast fleets were in flames, when the blood clans sworn to the Great Prince had perished, Gor-Eben would kill the Great Prince and the royal litter then make himself the de facto most powerful being in the galaxy.
Gor-Eben grinned. Every day you live, you make a mistake. You become dulled and complacent with your power. You place too much trust in ambitious felines like myself. You don’t take precautions. You give trust, expecting fealty back. Granting me an honor of not having to undergo the brainscans is your deadliest mistake —one that will cost you your dynasty!
Ssss. The door to the hologram chamber slid open, breaking his sensationally pleasurable reverie. Gor-Eben knew only one Cat that could enter his chamber without his permission.
“Spending too much time in this room, again, Gorathi?” Rael-Eben’s handsomely confident voice called out. The door slid close behind the second Cat.
“It is never too wrong to dream, Rael,” Gor gazed at his fellow clansmen. “You could do the same.”
The space-black haired servant looked every much like Gor himself—tall, strong built, with a calm voice but much less observable temper. Rael’s managed his superior’s personal guards as well as relayed information from the subjugators and lower ranking clansmen. “I, too, have dreams, and you know they’re one with yours,” Rael replied, wearing the elite bright red uniform of a subjugator. Bright red, the might of the home sun. The only color more powerful was white, the uniform of royalty, and those dominant enough to become related to it. “And I know yours will shed far more blood than any of the previous wars we’ve become entangled with.”
“What is blood when measured against ambition?” Gor murmured.
Rael purred, walking next to Gor, his black fur shimmering as the hologram lights reflected off him. “Nothing. Not a single drop nor a galaxy’s full. We’re so close. Twenty more years and Lakfakalle will be ours.”
Gor grinned, a mischievous deadly grin he only shared to litter mates. “What news of our progress against the Pra?”
“May I?”
“Go ahead.”
Rael put his paws on the holo panel controls. Immediately, the stars around them shifted. Instead of a view from the center of the galaxy and the Ka’s homeworld, they were now 20,000 odd light years away near their present location slightly inside the human empire.
From the data collected by commandeering human databases, they knew the human empire—or Human Federation, as they called it—was around 12,000 light years in diameter. Because of the long duration it took for messages to be sent throughout this empire, military power was split into fifteen near-autonomous sections, or starzones, each about 2,500 light years across. However, its central nexus, Trantor, still held overall control of all military units and its sovereignty superseded all other orders.
Currently, the hologram chamber displayed the nearest starzone, the one that was being conquered, called Betelgeuss, named after its capital.
Already, Gor saw all the Ga force deployments and star systems within. The conquered star systems with more than 1 million humans were in red, numbering fifteen. 180 smaller humans systems with negligible population were overrun as well. His invasion force did the same thing in every system it assaulted. It destroyed all military units capable of defense, and went on to send landing forces to take control of the non-military population. So far, they had not encountered a true human world or a colony that had more than 50 million population, although that was about to change as they reached deeper into the human empire. So far, they had only conquered a territory 300 light years in length.
Gor and his Chief Advisers estimated that it would take approximately two years to conquer this empire and another four to ten years to convert the empire into a Ga slave manufacturing state—a lot of it depending on the humans’ sociological and psychological aspects that were just beginning to be discovered right now. The conquering part would be relatively quick, although a lot of it depended on how the humans would adapt to an overwhelming technology advantage. Eventually, however, this slave state would be given more rights as its culture was assimilated by the Ka. Although, by name, it would be the Great Prince’s territory, control of it would always be in the Eben Clan. Also, it will forever be even after the Great Prince was desecrated and a new Ga dynasty was born, mused Gor.
“The humans are discrete and wise,” Rael purred. “They withdraw all units until they are confident they can hurt us.”
“When will this confidence come?” Gor murmured.
“Perhaps never. Perhaps as soon as they test us in a battle situation as they have n
ot yet witnessed our abilities.”
Gor nodded. Null space. Or what the humans called Hyperspace. His Chief Advisors, a group of blood-sworn Alpha Cats, also told him the same thing. The alpha chiefs advised him that the humans will test Ga hyperbattle technology soon, since his invasion fleets will shortly impede on one of their larger worlds. Although, it is by far much smaller than one of their capital worlds, the humans valued their people as much as their weapons. They will try to impede him before he reached it. “Do you have any new suggestions?”
Rael smiled. “Actually, yes. It is why I am here. As you recall, the traditional idea is to let them see us for what we are, that it is impossible for them to win in any scenario, but...one of our subjugators Hal-Dorat, one you well know and prefer, just came up with an even better idea.”
Gor’s eyes widened. Hal-Dorat was a brilliant warrior. No less can be expected of him. “Tell me his plan.”
Chief Protector Rael-Eben mouthed Hal-Dorat’s idea to him. It did not take much time, for great ideas were also very simple.
Gor’s ears straightened. Clearly impressed, he nodded. “I see. No less than expected of such a great tactician. Everyday, I find satisfaction in promoting him from the ranks of the Skra. Have you told this to the chief advisers?”
Rael shook his head. “I have not yet had the opportunity.”
“The idea is brilliant. Present it to the Alpha Chiefs as soon as the next meeting. Let them see what they think. If they do not object to the meager waste of ships, I want you to begin plans for implementing it for all fleets. For an idea like this, time is of essence, of course.”
“Hal-Dorat has already drawn up plans, litter brother.”
“Wise as well as quick,” Gor purred, gazing at the stars, radiantly. “What goals can I not accomplish with such talent by my side? The universe!”