Earth Interstellar_Proxy War

by Scott Olen Reid

  The two senior officers did not believe the tribute Earth was made to pay to the Vrene had ever been earned. That may be changing, he realized. The Vrene and Rool must have planned for this if they were prepared to speak about what would happen so far in the future. Have they been planning this meeting between the Chzek and Humanity? he thought. For how long? The Vrene initiated first contact with Earth over three hundred years ago. It made him wonder.

  The admiral sat quietly in thought and his counterpart, Admiral Nelson, gave him the time he needed. Bilford thought back to his time in the Academy to one of the lectures he attended by one of the school’s military historians:

  When the Vrene arrived, everything changed for humanity. We were suddenly required to build interstellar capable ships that months before we did not even know were a possibility. We learned from building those ships, and from the exposure to advanced technologies that we may never have researched. The Rool never interfered in our acquisition of knowledge; even when the methods we used to acquire it were highly questionable. If anything, they encouraged us. Without their help we would not now be exploring the depths of space.

  Once the ambassador left the meeting and returned to his new warship, Admiral Bilford turned to his counterpart and proclaimed, “They set us up. The sorry bastards set us up. You know it, too.”

  “Yeah. They may have,” Nelson replied, thoughtful. “But, did they really set us up for this conflict, or did they prepare us for this conflict?” he asked, wondering for himself. It was a topic the admiral had spent several weeks contemplating. “We may have been intended to fight this battle from day one. The Vrene could have made contact with us with just this in mind.”

  “How did they not screw us on this?” Bilford replied, his anger rising. They put all of humanity at risk to fight their war for them.

  “To know that, you have to know the answer to, ‘Would the Chzek, or these Chzek-kin, have shown up in Earth orbit if the Vrene had never made contact with us?’ ” replied Nelson, “Looking at the warships docked in the hangar up on the display in the conference room, Admiral Nelson continued, “What would have happened if the Chzek had shown up in our solar system a hundred years ago if we had never met the Vrene? Where would we be technologically? Would we have been as helpless against the Chzek as we were against the Vrene when they showed up? Better yet, if you are going to have an overlord no matter what, would you want it to be the Vrene or the Chzek? The Vrene have let us do what we want. Would the Chzek have done the same? If you believe the ambassador, we would have been forced into some mold and made to become like them. It’s possible we’d be slaves right now. When you look at the raids they made; the Rheas were incapable of harming the Chzek-kin even if they wanted to. That didn’t stop the Chzek-kin; they still attacked and murdered thousands for no reason.”

  “If our choice back then was to have an overlord now or have a different overlord in three hundred years? I’m pretty sure we would have passed on both choices.”

  Nelson agreed, “Absolutely. We would have told the Vrene to go pound sand. That’s also easy to say now. How much choice do you think they felt they had back then? And, would that have been the right decision? Most humans don’t even have an annual budget. We don’t plan beyond our next meal. Even the best of us don’t plan anything more than five years out, ten at the most. If we were set up, the Vrene were planning at least four to five hundred years out when they brought us into the Consortium as their protectorate. They didn’t even have to tell us about it. Or even demand we prepare for it. They know us better than we know ourselves. Bring us in, wind us up, and let us go. The only thing they did was have us build spaceships, which pointed us in the direction they wanted us to go.”

  “I sure hope their plan for us doesn’t have an end date. Because if it does, we’ll be a hundred years too late finding out about it.” With that, the two men left the room. There was still a lot to be done before the fleet was ready to be deployed.

  It took three weeks to complete all preparations, time the admiral was disinclined to shorten as he took advantage of the base’s hard-wired networks to link all of his ships together and run combat scenarios using the Chzek profiles provided by the Vrene. Third Fleet was coming together into a real fighting force, albeit still green, which could only be changed by actual combat. They would not have another chance to do fleet maneuvers training once underway except in single ship simulators.

  UEG ships were intentionally designed to not have integrated data sharing to protect ship systems from being hacked by the Rool. They shared data, but in a limited manner that did not directly input into combat data systems. Limiting access to counter a real threat learned from three hundred years of unsuccessful attempts to block Rool penetrations of human networks. Advanced warfare is naturally a long series of action and counteraction in both strategy and tactics as well as evolutions of technology; evolutions the humans were still trying to develop in protecting their quantum computer systems from alien intrusion.

  “Captain Simms,” Admiral Nelson called out into the virtual bridge of UES Atlanta, “Is the fleet in position?”

  “Yes, Admiral. And Ambassador’s Dek’s ship has reported they are prepared to depart.”

  Curious, the admiral asked, “Does the ambassador’s ship have a name?”

  “Yes, sir. The name they responded with was, ‘Singularity.’ ”

  “Very well,” he answered. Turning to the communications officer, he said, “Order all ships to initiate the acceleration profile,” and the fleet began to accelerate toward its first contact with the Rheas, and possibly the Chzek.

  Chapter 9: Third Fleet Flagship, UES Atlanta, Breaching System Heliosphere, Rheas System

  Upon entering the outer solar system of System 48269, five pairs of UEAF frigates were sent into widespread orbital paths; each pair of ships taking a different path and maintaining a higher velocity than the rest of the fleet as they made their way into orbits in the outer system. The larger destroyers, cruisers, and support ships of the main body continued toward their destination of the Rheas Homeworld. Ten hours later, another five pairs of ships, made up of destroyers, split into orbits similar to the frigates, but much closer in-system in the region of the system’s gas giants. The ten pairs of frigates and destroyers maintained a high velocity and moved into a fast orbit around System 48269’s main sequence star. The broad deployment of the fleet was intended to allow the fleet to retain maneuverability and velocity that would otherwise be lost if the entire fleet took up a planetary orbit.

  UEAF warships Atlanta and Oklahoma, accompanied by the ambassador’s warship, continued on their way to the Rheas’ Homeworld and took up position at the la grange point between the larger of the two moons and the planet; it being a similar orbital position as was taken up by the Vrene’s ship over three hundred years ago in their first contact with Earth. The remainder of the fleet moved into a solar orbit approximately twenty million miles out-system in parallel solar orbit to the Rheas Homeworld.

  The crew of the Cousteau watched as Third Fleet split, then split again, then split a third time as the last three ships moved into position above the Rheas Homeworld. Communications between the Cousteau and the fleet was limited to a data pack sent by the exploration ship to update Admiral Nelson of everything which had transpired since the Chzek-kin raider departed the system, which was limited to strong debate and fruitless teeth gnashing among the Rheas on what to do about the Chzek threat. Admiral Nelson ordered the Cousteau to maintain its position and only communicate via laser comm. They were to continue their mission and monitor the Rheas and the rest of the solar system for signs of another incursion by the Chek-kin.

  The Rheas, for their part, having recently suffered at the hands of the Chzek-kin alien raiders, were understandably agitated by the arrival of the Human’s fleet. The Rheas went on high alert; planetary defense was primarily made up of sub-hypersonic aircraft and surface to air missiles that were inadequate to defend the planet from an att
ack by an interstellar species, but it was what they had and they meant to use it.

  Admiral Nelson’s flagship and his accompanying warships, Oklahoma and Singularity, Singularity, maintained their position and waited silently. The ships were an ominous presence with the recent attack by the Chzek-kin raiders; Rheas panicked at the sight and prepared for the expected onslaught.

  Commander Mary Kree, having studied Earth’s history of first contact with the Vrene, had her own notions of why the Vrene waited so long before initiating contact with humans. They waited a week before making first contact with Humanity and no explanation was ever been given as to why. The official UEG position was the Vrene were trying to intimidate us. The commander believed it was to give humans enough time to come to terms with the realities of their situation and to not do anything hasty that could get them annihilated in a fruitless attempt at self-defense against a technologically superior interstellar race.

  The commander’s belief was confirmed as practice as the Cousteau monitored the communications of the Rheas, which initially was intent on fighting back against the “Alien Invader.” It was three days of silent waiting before the Rheas government began to discuss the possibility the aliens in orbit were not there to do another raid on their planet and to question whether these were Chzek-kin ships in orbit or some other aliens. It was another full day after that before the Rheas government began to question how they should react to the new aliens. Not surprising to Commander Kree, it was the hawks in the Rheas military who were most in favor of not initiating hostilities and put forward doubts whether these new aliens were there to attack them. As the proverbial tip of the spear with the most to lose the Rheas military had a vested interest in not initiating hostilities.

  Commander Kree was lost in thought while monitoring a military communication from the Rheas government to their Supreme Military Council. The government ordered their military to remain vigilant, but under no circumstances were they to fire on the aliens without prior orders from the governing body. On the fifth day, something happened, but not what either party expected.

  “Contact!” shouted Sensors Tech, Roberta Gold, “It’s a flare! Positive light source detected in the outer system!” Pausing a moment to read the analysis from the ship’s quantum computer, she continued her report, “Most likely a fusion thrust engine. Sir, it's coming from the direction the Chzek-kin raiders exited the system!”

  “Main screen!,” ordered the captain, “I want all sensors on that contact NOW!” Turning to communications she ordered for the fleet to be notified of the intruder, “Stream a narrow beam communication of all contact data to the Atlanta!”

  “On main screen, Captain. We’ll have primary imaging of the object in thirty seconds.”

  “I need course and speed yesterday.”

  Everyone in the room was showing streaks of anxiety and fear in their avatars. So much so the captain turned off her perception of the crew’s mental state as it was distracting. Let them feel on edge. They should be. In a soft, calm voice, the captain once again stated her need, “Sensors, I need that information now.”

  “Aye, Captain. The image is stabilizing, but it’s heavily filtered. The thrust plume is pointed towards us, so we can’t get a good look at the ship. There is some distortion, so it could have an active Epson Drive.”

  “Damn. Damn. Damn. Comms, let the admiral know it is our estimation the Chzek will soon know we’re here and the contact may be a sentinel drone departing the system.”

  “Yes, Ambassador. That is our belief as well.” Admiral Nelson was annoyed and made no effort to hide the scowl on his avatar’s face from the Rool. He learned a long time ago that it saves a great deal of time to keep his emotional expressions active on his avatars as it saves the effort of explaining much of what he is thinking. “Can you provide a conservative estimate of time we have before the Chzek are able to respond?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately, I do not, Admiral. The Chzek-kin home world’s location is unknown to us. We also do not know if they have any forward-deployed fleets. We must assume they have.” Ambassador Dek paused in thought. Something unusual to see in a Rool who, so far as humans have been able to tell about the artificial life form, have processing powers that would put a human quantum computer to shame. “It is a high probability the Chzek-kin will consult with their homeworld and the Chzek before sending in a fleet to contest the system. They have not made a claim on the Rheas with the Consortium, so they have limited legal standing. Based on the raids they are making on the Rheas, they may not intend to report their existence. It is more likely they plan on turning them into a Level 0 slave race. Now their hand is being forced and they will need to work out how best to proceed.”

  “Why wouldn’t they have already made a claim?” asked Admiral Nelson, “The Rheas are close in technology to where humans were when the Vrene first made contact with us.”

  “The Chzek do not make claims to civilizations with the Consortium if they intend to enslave the race and keep them at a Level 0 technological development. It is likely the Rheas would never be allowed to develop into a Level 1 species and the Chzek intend to use them solely for providing raw materials and labor in some capacity. The Chzek will first establish a forward base in this system for one of their vassals. Having an entire civilization supporting a known loyal vassal is preferred by the Chzek and will allow the base to be developed much more rapidly than as an outpost supported from many light years away by the vassal’s homeworld; it cuts hundreds of years off expansion into new regions of space. It is also not uncommon for them as they prefer to use slave civilizations to support the development of chosen, loyal races they deem more suitable for military service. Based on only two raids happening in ten years they may not be ready start the subjugation.”

  Realizing the parallel in what the ambassador was saying and what was done with humans by the Vrene, Admiral Nelson challenged the ambassador, “Isn’t that the same as what the Vrene did with Earth?”

  “In a very limited sense, yes. The Vrene use Humans to build ships. However, humanity was not enslaved, has almost no restrictions placed upon it in the agreement, and was allowed to become a space-faring species. I would say those are significant differences.”

  The admiral decided not to start a losing argument as it was possible humanity had little to complain about in their relationship with the Vrene; only time would tell and arguing about it would be a waste of time.

  “Admiral Nelson, I am familiar with your resentment of the relationship that has been forced upon humans by the Vrene. I believe you are about to learn the agreement you entered into was quite fair and to humanity’s benefit. It could have been much more one-sided.”

  Grudgingly, the admiral replied, “You may be right about that, Ambassador. That doesn’t mean I am ever going to like it.”

  Ambassador Dek chuckled in a very human-like way before resuming his analysis of the Chzek’s anticipated response, “The Chzek are aggressive, but they are not stupid. They will start by sending in a drone to scan the system as I do not believe they were able to detect most of our ships from that range unless they are using Chzek technology in their sentinel drone. It is more likely they detected our communications.” pausing, the Rool observed the human admiral to study his reaction. “None of our ships have ever been seen before. Certainly not Human ships and my ship is a new design series that has not previously deployed near the Chzek frontier. They will not know who we are, or our capabilities. For the Chzek, I expect they will send in their vassals as proxy, without the support of a Chzek ship, so as to limit their own exposure until they know who they are facing. For a warrior race, they can be quite cautious with their own exposure to risk.”

  “I’m beginning to think these Chzek are not a very nice people.”

  “Indeed, Admiral. Indeed. The Chzek are a vicious and underhanded race of marauding villains,” the ambassador replied, “Now I believe it is time to initiate contact with the Rheas. ‘We’ve no time to lose,
’ as they say.”

  Chapter 10: Capital City, Rayquiem, Rheas Home World

  “Ambassador Dek, we are humbled and in awe of the presence of a great space-faring race. We are grateful the humans you represent have shown no violence towards our people as was done by the Chzek-kin terrorists.” The Rheas Prime Minister was holding his six digit hands out to his side and making a slight bow, without taking his eyes off of the ambassador. Cautious and unafraid were the traits the Rool Ambassador saw in the Prime Minister. “However, for the Rheas to accept your offer of becoming a protectorate of the humans, we must know what it is we will be protected from, and to what extent, so that we may weigh it against the cost of the protection.”

  “I believe you are already aware of what the humans will be protecting you from. The Chzek-kin have already raided your planet on two occasions. Their most recent you are still repairing damage from and your people are still grieving their losses,” Ambassador Dek replied, speaking fluently in the dominant dialect of the Rheas language spoken by the Prime Minister.

  “Yes, the Chzek-kin are a problem,” the Prime Minister said, slightly bowing his head, “But, they have been limited in their attacks. Their simple raids we are quite easily able to absorb. What will happen if we ally with you and the raids grow into total war? We could not hope to survive against a space-faring race. I have no doubt they could wipe out our entire planet without us ever seeing them do it. No, Ambassador. We cannot accept the risk.”

  Variations of this discussion were happening every couple days for the past two weeks with no advancement of the Rheas’ willingness to accept becoming a protectorate. The Rheas, unlike Humans 320 years ago, knew what they feared: the Chzek-kin. They were able to quantify their choice between limited raids and all-out war, although they were obviously understating their risk during the negotiations. Ambassador Dek was certain their posturing was a negotiating tactic rather than an outright refusal and was continuing to probe what the Rheas were really trying to achieve. It would make for a better relationship if they came to a mutual agreement, rather than having one forced upon them.