by Lee Guo
“Of course,” Vier replied. She’d been in enough battles to know that nothing ever happened to plan. The question is—what exactly were the enemy’s plans?
Mu Pei reclined back. “If this war has shown anything, it is that errors will always be made like in every other war, but hopefully...theirs will be greater. We have a far less margin for error. We will look for opportunities to take advantage of when they arise. Well then, until we meet, again, Admiral. Yan Mu Pei out.”
When the holoimager on her desk turned off, Vier sat silently for a moment. Then, she glanced at the viewport. A Dark Matter nebula was anything but dark. Dark Matter had a special quality. From far away, no signal about its existence could be detected. Tachyons did not bounce. Electromagnetism was void. That was why it was easy to hide ships in dark matter. All signals get obscured. But close up, dark matter had a variety of self-emitting signals. It looked, well—like a rainbow of colors. Hues in every spectrum, gamma-ray, micro-ray, it was beautiful.
The idea came to her that if humans were deceptive enough to hide important information from their enemies, how could anyone not assume the same thing about those same enemies? These enemies weren’t stupid. They had gone through the same process before, against numerous races, probably, as seen by their methodical approach. Why couldn’t the enemy be hiding something important?
She decided. Next time she met with the admirals, she would push her point further. After all, even if she was an aggressive admiral who wanted to fight every battle to the end. In the end, she could not suspend caution. She was wise enough to know that much. Being an aggressive commander, her enemies had once attempted to lure her into traps, but she had ultimately prevailed.
Would she prevail this time?
Mu Pei was too optimistic. SECTOR INTEL did not know for sure how many ships the enemy had in this invasion. SECTOR INTEL could only predict based on sensor readings from numerous data sources in the systems that were invaded. According to that, the enemy had thousands of ships, but not tens of thousands. But what if, again, the enemy was being deceptive? At this point, no one knew the size of their industrial base or even their history. No one knew where they came from or how they got to be. The only thing people knew was what they had seen, and Admiral Mu Pei trusted this on sight.
Vier crossed her arms and stared out the window. If Shenks were here, he’d know exactly what to think and do. But Shenks was 1500 light-years away. Shenks...Why are you in that hospital bed while I’m left with decisions affecting entire sectors? Why did fate decide for you to leave me here?
Interstellar space
Imperial Mothership Ro’Zur’Gur
Great Commander’s Private Kohlar…
El-Sur did not know what to expect. Sitting in the Great Commander’s own lavish Kohlar, she awaited the summoning. She did not know why she was called into his presence, only that she was willing to give everything she owned to satisfy his commands. Out of all 16,000 linguistic collectors within his army, she was honored to be chosen. It must have something to do with linguistics, mustn’t it? Why else would he want her? She smiled incredulously.
The last time she had seen Gor-Eben was three tras ago, during the War Target Psychology Debriefing. She had summarized her findings about the humans’ culture and the psychological mechanisms underlining their behaviors. As she recalled, he had given her a smile and a nod…then he had left.
The four chief advisers, all old Cats, had been very pleased about her reports, but...she didn’t care about what they thought. She only cared about that fashionably handsome alpha Cat, dressed in the white cloak of the royals. The one who was head of his clan, a clan that he had built and lead from a minor system alliance to one that encompassed an eighth of the galaxy. It was true, that same Cat had done terrible things to pursue his ambition—El-Sur’s knowledge of this wasn’t a secret—but the Cat was brilliant. And if she could only harness his heart, well...
The door opened. A female dressed in light red, obviously a command rank, walked in. “His magnificence will see you now.” She bowed.
El-Sur stood up and followed the female into Gor-Eben’s inner chamber.
When she entered, the first thing she witnessed was its scale. For a room on board a warship, even one as massive as the command ship, the chamber was extravagantly large. Although she’d never been in any of the crucial command centers on board his ship, she knew this had to be luxury reserved for him only. Objects decorated every portion of it. A giant mesmerizing painting of the Battle of Inner Stars hung in the distance. She had studied the Eben clan’s history. She knew what that battle meant for him. Half a century ago, before the Eben clan became a dominant power, it had allied wisely with another minor clan. In a war of terrestrial dispute with a more dominant power, together, the two minor clans had defeated their nemesis then gained recognition and preeminence. Many marked it as the beginning of the rise of Eben, but El-Sur knew it had started long before that...
Next, she saw a hologram of a white Krushcha. She didn’t know what that signified to him personally, besides the fact that those wild beasts were prized targets for hunters on the home world. To kill a Krushcha and obtain its body whole was not an easy task, even with modern weapons.
She continued walking. As she followed the red uniformed female, she gasped when she saw a Huka to her right—an adornment of a glassy feline with a sword decorated by platinum leafs.
“Do you like it?”
“My eminence!” El-Sur exclaimed, startled.
“A trophy I won as a litter kitten,” Gor-Eben said from her left, eyeing his prize. He waved the assistant away. “The master of ceremonies said I was destined to become a great warrior. It is one of my most prized possessions, but not as much as what stands before me.”
El-Sur’s heart leapt. What did this mean...?
“You have a talent few others possess, and one that I want to possess through indirect means,” the alpha Cat purred.
“Anything I have is already yours, your eminence,” she bowed.
“And that is why I have asked you here.”
El-Sur felt dejected. Her hopes of sharing litter suddenly diminished. “What is that, your eminence?”
“Your skills as a collector are unparalleled. You have been of much use to me in the past, perhaps more useful than even my most skillful subjugators. There is something I need you to do.”
“Anything, your eminence,” El-Sur replied.
The clan leader gazed at her. “I want you to communicate with the humans and offer them terms of surrender.”
El-Sur smiled. Really? Her? This was the first time she’d been given such a task. But she couldn’t let down the Great Commander. If she succeeded, wouldn’t he be just more impressed with her? “I can do that, your eminence. Tell me when.”
“We have invaded a large swath of what the humans call a starzone. They will counterattack, of course. And we will defeat them. When the humans are defeated in the Nakra Space, I will grant you a fast battleship. You will take this battleship and hail any human ships using their channels. You will then deliver the detailed message. It will not be dangerous, as I will have other ships escort you, despite our qualitative superiority.”
“Can I see the contents of this message?”
“To cut it short...” He told her.
She recognized it. It was the same terms of surrender given to most conquest targets. Except...she thought it was perhaps too lenient. It sounded as if the Great Commander was too eager to have them part as of his Suffra. “I will deliver it, your eminence.”
“Good.” Gor-Eben smiled. “Now, we will only have to wait for Hal-Dorat to do his dirty work and persuade the humans that defeat is inevitable. In the meantime, allow me to show you something of far greater importance to me than this simple trophy.” The clan leader clapped his paws and suddenly the wall to her right opened up.
El-Sur purred as her eyes darted in amazement at the divine objects, no normal Ka should ever see.
CHA
PTER SEVEN
Eleven Days Later…
January 24th 3987 AD
Rigel Seven (Planet), Rigel (Star)
Alcubierre City, Panasia Continent 348th Street…
The annual Zex celebrations on Rigel Seven had long ago ceased when the Cats invaded the system. What had once been a busy metropolis was now eerily silent as the citizens hid within their homes, not that any of them was safe if the aliens wanted to destroy them. With only one hundred thousand marines to protect them against a landing force in the tens of millions, the citizens of Rigel Seven knew their independence was doomed.
Dusty Attemborough knew very little about the gigantic multi-mile alien ships up there. He only knew that what was left of the star system’s defenders had either fled or been annihilated in meticulous fashion. Being from a military family, he had some knowledge about the chaos happening in the space above. As he sped his hoverbike through a street a kilometer above the ground, he saw a giant broadcast from one of the major holonetworks playing out in front of a skyscraper.
The aliens were landing, the giant image of the anchorwoman said. Forty-eight multi-kilometer troop transports have deployed in the planet’s exosphere, spread evenly throughout the world. Tens of thousands of smaller transports were now descending across the planet, aiming for the population centers. What was harder to imagine still was that each of these transports carried thousands of armored warriors.
“All citizens, please vacate public areas and return to the safeties of your homes. Remain indoors. Do not attack or threaten the invaders,” the anchorwoman announced.
Dusty took his gaze off the enormous holobroadcast. Feeling the wind press against his face, he continued zooming through the street a kilometer high.
I’m not going to make it.
His apartment was seventy kilometers away, but the aliens were landing...now. Even though the street was depopulated, his bike could only go at one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. He turned his gaze at the night sky and saw the sudden flashes of nuclear detonations, which meant the overmatched ground defenders were still able to put up a fight. But for how long? The aliens were coming. Even the stars were occasionally blotted out by black objects, which could only mean one thing.
He had to go in doors—now. If he stayed in the streets when they arrived, who knew what would happen to him?
Skyscraper after skyscraper zoomed past him on all sides as his hoverbike rushed through the lifeless street. Business offices in every direction, much like his own work place. But they were all closed. Why? Why did he leave his company building in the belief that it was safer at home than in a multi-kilometer skyscraper?
Then, he saw an open establishment located inside a skyscraper that led off the street. Slowing his bike down, he saw the flashing holo emissions above the place.
Nellie’s Red Light Club. All Visitors Welcome. Free Drinks to B-Card Holders...
He parked his bike right near the entrance without even bothering to hook it to the autolock. He climbed off and ran through the neoplastic doors into the roomy establishment. The first thing that greeted him was the scent.
He felt suddenly happy, almost giddy, and everything looked so clear and illuminating. He saw the naked holographic belly dancers in the distance, their long bodies wavering back and forth, alluring him. Aroused, he saw the robot receptionist scan his body for his E-Card, and he barely noticed it saying, “Twenty credits removed, enjoy your stay.” Everything everywhere felt so bright, the flashing tables, the colorful chairs.
“Hello, what can I get you?”
Dusty blinked at the sound of the woman’s voice. The woman was young like him, in her mid-thirties, with shoulder cropped purple hair that looked like bliss.
“Nothing,” Dusty involuntarily smiled, “I just want a place to stay.”
The woman smiled back, and for a second, Dusty couldn’t help but gaze at curve of her breasts beneath the blue skinsuit. Wow, she was beautiful. But this was hardly the time...
“Relax, I’m an android,” she said. “Follow me.”
The woman led him towards a table where there was a holoset. When he sat, the chair evolved around him, sucking him in. It was more comfortable than the average lounge chairs at his office.
“Everything here is automated, so as long as your E-Card works, you’ll be able to adjust anything to your control. Have a good time at Nellie’s.” The woman left.
“What’s your name?” yelled Dusty.
“I don’t have one!”
Dusty turned on the holoemitter to the same channel he saw outside. The same anchorwoman was on. Now, he could see the giant alien landers. They descended down the sky with no resistance. Minutes later, the anchorwoman reported that one had landed outside the city.
“What’s going on?” someone beside him asked.
Dusty looked up to see a new face.
An older man, soggy, drunk in elation pheromones just like him. He must have just came in. “They’re coming into the city,” Dusty replied.
“I doubt they’d touch a place like this,” the man said.
Suddenly, a loud transparency shattering boom erupted close by. Then, another.
For half an hour, the booms continued uninterrupted.
Then, sudden thumping footsteps could be heard outside the door. They were loud, like metal clanking against ferrocrete.
“What’s going on?” the man asked.
“They’re here!” Dusty said.
Then, just as the door was about to be blasted open, it stopped. The footsteps hurriedly retreated, eventually disappearing into the distance.
At the same time, the newswoman’s face suddenly turned elated. “The alien troops are returning back to their transports! Several alien landers are lifting off!”
“Why?” the man asked.
Dusty shrugged. The sudden news, combined with the drugs in his system, made him want to cry.
Hours later, when the alien landers returned to their kilometer-wide transports, Dusty finally found out.
The sector fleet had arrived.
Betelgeuse Combined Fleet
Dreadnought Beginner's Luck
Bridge…
That’s a lot of ships in one place, Vier Kleingelt thought while staring at the holomap.
The holomap read 4892 signatures, all federation. Sixteen hundred of them were cruisers of various types, another eight hundred were dreadnoughts, the best the humans could offer. Her own ship, the Beginner’s Luck, hovered in the middle of the armada. Out of sixteen million spacemen, Vier felt a little giddy that she was the second highest ranking officer in the entire fleet. With little regard to her own safety, she wished in her heart she was at the front.
But she couldn’t be—because the vice admiral desired her safety more than anything—nor could her tactical mind consider that to be a wise decision. If an admiral got taken out in the middle of a battle like this, an enormous hole would open up in the chain of command. One of the lesser ranked commodores would have to replace her, but even then that meant there would be negative impacts in morale and efficiency.
For as much as that feeling inside her chest desired to be in the grit and nit of combat, she knew her dreadnought would probably never see it. The giant probability was that even if the battle went against her, her flagship would probably be protected to the point where it could safely retreat out of the warzone.
For generations of star admirals commanding fleets of this size, the idea of fervently boosting the morale of the fleet by heading at the front of battle had been lost to the necessity of keeping the chain of command intact. This would not have been the case in her earlier assignments, where there weren’t enough ships to protect her, where she was just as vulnerable to missile, and hyperbeam strikes as the next battleship. Now though, she was in command of a giant...
“Sixty nine missile boats in the squadron A19 are all accounted for as requested, Admiral,” one of the controllers reported.
“Twenty five carriers i
n B12 signal affirmative.”
“Marine Assault Wing A through D returns affirmative check.”
Vier nodded in mock approval. While she seemed to be impressed in appearance, she was actually a little fearful of the results. This was the first time a large fleet like this had been gathered together in a decade. Since the Pirate Wars and the Orion Wars had ended, massive federation fleets had no purpose to assemble. The sheer logistics of moving a near five thousand vessels together into one beacon of hope meant a criteria for organization and assembly was even more needed than the skills of a tactician.
What this meant was that even if Vier hoped she had those skills, she would be hesitant to think her lower ranked commodores could follow suit. And there wasn’t that much time for any real-time practice, either...
The only thing these newer raw flag officers knew was what they had experienced years ago in real battle, and perhaps, if their distant memories were still functional, what they’d learned in the space academy.
However, that wasn’t her biggest worry. No, her biggest worry was something far more dangerous and potentially disconcerting.
Admiral Mu Pei had rejected her pleas to send more scouting fleets to determine the enemy’s true abilities. In the time it took to detain and observe another hundred feline warships, he said, the Cats would have invaded another fourteen heavily populated worlds. The true enemy wasn’t uncertainty, it was time, he said. The more fleeting the action, the quicker the determination of the fate of billions of people.
But what was billions when compared to the trillions of people within the empire? Vier thought, still gazing at the holomap like a familiar child’s toy. Although she wished Mu Pei’s negligence for caution and space was just a fortunate attribute, she knew that such negligence could prove fatal. And if that wasn’t bad enough, what made matters worse was that sixteen other flag ranking commodores and rear admirals believed in Mu Pei’s will over truth. For the eighteen billion civilians on Betelgeuse Five, she certainly hoped the truth, at least her suspicion of the truth, was false. What made it damn futile was that hope didn’t impact reality at all.