Assistant Ambassador Geto watched the destruction of Black Rock Three Base and felt a rage he had not felt in more than a hundred years. It was that long since he last lost a major asset of a client and he would be the first to admit he was not taking it well. The humans were putting up a good defense and far exceeding both Rool and Vrene expectations. The loss of the base was a major blow in the defense of the space between the Chzek-kin and Earth and would require a major shift of resources away from expanding the search for the Chzek-kin Homeworld to make up for the destruction of the base.
Now was not the time to plan for overcoming the loss, however. Now was the time for saving the remaining ships in the system and denying the Chzek-kin the opportunity to capitalize on their victory.
“Prepare orders to transmit to ship Decoy Phi for distribution to the human fleet. I am taking over command of the system’s defense. Order the patrol ships in System Quadrant Eighty-Three to begin pursuit of the damaged enemy ships attempting to flee the system. Order the patrol ships in System Quadrant Sixty-Two to move to intercept any other ships as they attempt to flee. They are to pursue the ships until destroyed no matter how long it takes. Those ships are not to make it back to Chzek space.
Looking at the system tactical map, Captain Geto was able to see far more detail than his human counterparts. Even where they relied on sensor feeds from the humans, the Rool ship’s consciousness was far more adept at manipulating the data and extracting tactical information than the human’s quantum computers. “Order all platforms to continue firing on the Chzek-kin fleet. They are wearing them down,” he ordered and commented to no one in particular. The ship’s consciousness could see on its own the decrease in the Chzek-kin fleet’s efficiency as more and more of its ships were destroyed, incapacitated, or damaged at a higher and higher rate due to the Mk VII missiles streaming in.
“Once Decoy Phi issues its orders, have it deploy its Phyrro missiles and do an active search for the Chzek warship. Its position will already be compromised, let’s see if we can get anything extra out of it before it is destroyed.
With the orders sent out, Captain Geto waited as ship Decoy Phi, an exact duplicate in appearance and sensor readings to the Rool warship, went active. It would take up to several hours for the light speed communications used by the humans to reach many of the ships in the system, but the active scanning of Rool systems was near instantaneous. He expected a response from the Chzek warship shortly after.
Multiple Class Three missiles detected by Decoy Phi, Captain. Impact is imminent, reported the ship’s consciousness.
Are you able to backtrack to the source of the missiles, Ship? asked the captain, thinking he should ask the warship’s consciousness what name it would like to be called and whether it had a gender preference.
Yes, Captain. Extrapolation completed. Order Decoy Capsi to launch its full complement of Phyrro missiles in pattern Kiel Seven for the greatest potential for intercept. And, Captain.
Yes, Ship?
Please refer to me as Golosta, after my mother.
Captain Geto raised his eyebrows in a very human-like manner as he was surprised by ship’s, or rather Golosta’s, ability to meld so closely with his thoughts in the short period of time they had worked together. The similarities in Golosta’s consciousness with her parent, Golost, and with Geto’s mind having a near hybrid connection to Golost during their many years together, must have enhanced the ease with which the two were able to connect.
Thank you, Golosta. I expect we will continue where your mother and I left off. Let us start by ending this Chzek’s biological existence. Execute the attack by Decoy Capsi.
Yes, Captain. The conversation, analysis, and orders were given in one hundred forty-two milliseconds.
Captain Geto watched the tactical feeds transmitted into his consciousness by Golosta. The feed showed Decoy Phi as it fired its point defense lasers in a last-ditch effort to avoid destruction by the inevitable Chzek missile attack on its exposed position.
The second screen showed Decoy Capsi launch its Phyrro missiles before pulling back to a view of the missiles approaching the extrapolated position of the Chzek warship. The Phyrro missiles, like the Chzek missiles, used a much different method for spatial compression than the humans. Humans learned to compress space constantly to increase the speed of ships and missiles by compressing the space being traveled through by hundreds of times. This allowed both ships and missiles to amplify their speed up to a theoretical fifty times light speed but was limited by the ability of the technology to hold the compressed space.
More advanced interstellar races, such as the Chzek, Rool, and Vrene, among others, discovered an oscillation could be achieved by pulsing the field at high frequency. Each successive pulse fed into the strength of the field’s compression; multiplying the spatial compression up to a thousand times.
“Prime commander, the Rool ship has been destroyed,” reported the weapon’s director of the Chzek warship, Dominator.
“No. It has not,” answered Prime Commander Jita, with barely contained rage. “The ‘ship’ made no real effort to defend itself; there is no possibility of a Rool ship being caught on its haunches. Even if it only detected the incoming missiles in the last possible moment, their reaction times to threats are measured in micro-ticks,” he explained. This young officer must be trained until his primary skill is no longer to be a fool, he thought but did not say. “That was a decoy. Prepare to engage active defenses. The coolegg bastards have flushed us from our concealment.”
Jita was a First in the Keeloff Academy of Martial Science; decorated six times for valor in combat. His future assignment to squadron commander was guaranteed. Destroying a Rool warship, something no Chzek commander had done in over seventy cycles, could potentially land an assignment back along the Flitael border where any commander with ambition for fleet command and a seat at the governing council needed to be to achieve a record prestigious enough for recognition. Unlike fighting in this backwater war with these educated boon Chzek-kin that would not get him the prestige to win a seat at a kavat stand in a Chzek-kin neighborhood.
The prime commander’s moment of career reflection was interrupted by Tertiary Commander Kot at the sensor station, “Enemy missiles at 287 pat 14-5! Six missiles!” The announcement was more informational than effective as the Dominator’s defense systems were all automated. Shields activated and anti-missile batteries and lasers began tracking the incoming missiles.
Prime commander Jita had enough time to snap his head up to the 3D tactical map in the center of the combat bridge. The six missiles were scattered, indicating to the commander, and any fool with a skev of combat training, the Rool backtracked the Dominator’s attack on the drone to their location. The missiles may not have been able to detect the ship if it had only maintained zero emissions, but the point was made moot when the anti-missile battery began firing. As soon as the missiles were fired there was a race between the attacking missiles reorienting on their now detected location and the anti-missile missiles activating their drives and spatial compression systems to close with the Rool’s Phyrro missiles.
The Chzek missiles won the contest and activated their drives milliseconds prior to the Phyrro missiles completion of retargeting the Chzek warship, except that the Phyrro missiles completed their targeting and activated their own drives before the Chzek missiles reached their targets.
Disengaging their spatial compression drives a second time, the Phyrro missiles reoriented once again; the Dominator fired a second wave of anti-missile missiles. This time the Phyrro missiles were first to complete their realignment and activated their drives as they now had a positive lock on the location of the Chzek warship. Each missile was set to disengage their drives at different ranges from their targets on their terminal approach. If the target was able to substantially change its position, the furthest, and first missiles to disengage their drives would have time to reorient a third time, while the late, and closest to their target
missiles, would disengage their drives nearly on top of their targets so as to have the greatest chance to defeat close-in anti-missile defense with a supra-light speed approach that could not be countered.
One, then two, then four, then five of the Rool missiles were destroyed by the Chzek destroyer as they disengaged their drives for final approach, but the crew of the Dominator never saw the hundred megaton explosions of each of the missiles as the final missile detonated at less than a hull length distance from the ship. The explosion overloaded the ship’s shields and vaporized the Chzek ship and everyone inside.
Captain Geto could feel the satisfaction and pride coming from Golosta, Well done, Golosta, he said.
Thank you, Captain, for your trust in my analysis, the ship responded.
Begin focused jamming of the Chzek-kin fleet’s sensors. Let’s give the humans a little help to finish this, the captain ordered, feeling confident now their interference in the battle would not be detected, and that no observing Chzek-kin ships would continue to exist in short order. Even if I have to destroy them myself, he thought.
The remainder of the space battle was a slaughter as the humans took their revenge. Only three of the Chzek-kin ships could be called operational in any capacity. The remainder of the ships were vaporized or destroyed in detail.
The largest of the warships still exhibiting a modicum of structural integrity was the Command Battlecruiser, Behemoth. A battle for survival continued inside the hull as isolated pockets of survivors tried to save themselves and their ship. Chzek-kin warships did not have escape pods as their overlord’s approved designs did not permit for escape from a doomed ship; the warlike aliens believing it to be better to die when your ship is destroyed rather than be captured by an alien species. They knew what they did to their own enemies when captured and had no desire to be the subject of a fully conscious vivisection.
Sitting in his command chair, Chzek-kin Admiral Tukool relived the battle in his mind over and over and came to the same conclusion each time: he had won the battle. Even with heavy losses, the battle was won and much of his fleet should have escaped. How did the humans jam their sensors so thoroughly after their base was destroyed? Why did they not jam their sensors before losing the base? The fleet was helpless to defend itself.
There were only two moments of satisfaction for the defeated admiral as he relived the battle: the destruction of the enemy base; and the destruction of the Chzek warship, Dominator. That foul creature, Prime Commander Jita, the khul veck son of a bog kecker. Seeing him die would have been a prized memory to celebrate if he were not about to die himself.
Pulling out of his self-pity, Tukool set his mind to reflect on the happy times throughout his life and to enjoy the view of the stars through the gaping hole in the fore section of the combat bridge. His friend, the captain of the Behemoth, and his bridge crew died when that section of hull was torn away by the low yield nuclear warheads preferred by the humans.
As he waited for his air to run out, Tukool remembered his bonding ceremony to his childhood love, Caspara, and their vacation on the island of Puul-Ma with their seven offspring. Chita and Keela will be all right. They’re old enough now to understand, he reminisced, thinking of when they would be told of his fleet’s failure to return from its mission.
A cold like the vacuum of space ran through his body. What would happen to his family? The Chzek were viscous overlords who punished failure mercilessly. Even if you died fighting, they could eradicate your family, sometimes even extended family for generations in the most extreme cases. Having lost his fleet, his family was at grave risk. Only if the damaged ships he sent out of the battle were able to report the destruction of the enemy base would they have a chance. Relief flooded through him, washing away the burning sensation of fear as he remembered at least two of the ships he ordered back were not damaged in their drive sections. The ships should have no problem returning home.
Hours passed and the Chzek-kin admiral was done with all the reminiscing he could stand. Now it was just a matter of watching the stars while periodically checking his air supply. He still had thirty-five percent. How much air do these vecking things hold? he asked himself, already knowing the answer. His morbid thoughts were interrupted by a bright light flooding the entire bridge through the hole in the hull.
The light showed the admiral the bodies still floating on the bridge. The consoles and equipment were torn to Helse, covered with gore, and the bodies ripped apart and flash frozen in gruesome sculptures of the evidence of their deaths. The sight shocked the admiral back to awareness even more than the light. He was still stunned and staring at the dead crew when a small, many armed vehicle entered the hull.
Ripping his attention to the new light source that now occupied the bridge with him, the admiral yelled in his helmet and began to frantically search for something he could use to compromise the integrity of his suit. He could not allow himself to be captured, but nothing was within reach and the restraints of his command chair were still in place.
Tearing at his restraints the admiral did not see the vehicle approach or the flash in his visor that overwhelmed his optic nerves and shut down his nervous system. The next time the admiral awoke, it would not be aboard the Behemoth.
Chapter 27: United Earth Government, Earth
“Tell me, Lieutenant Swan, where are you from?” asked Ambassador Dek. He already knew the young human was from New York. Most of the military and most of the civilians working in the UEG Capitol Building were Americans from the East Coast, and the lieutenant gave away where he grew up with his accent.
Following one step back and on the ambassador’s right, the ambassador’s escort for the day was not expecting a personal question, “Excuse me, Ambassador?” he asked, without answering, before realizing his error, “New York. New York, Sir.”
“Where at in New York?” the ambassador inquired, still pursuing his unusual line of questioning.
Nowhere in the lieutenant’s briefing on how to escort the Rool ambassador did anyone tell him how to respond to personal questions. That’s because the ambassador had never asked a personal question before. “Uhh, Prospect Heights, Sir,” he answered, uncertain.
“Did you like growing up there?”
“Yes, Ambassador. I loved growing up there.”
“That is good to know Lieutenant. Do you believe most humans love where they grow up?”
Starting to panic, the lieutenant began looking around for help from someone more senior to extricate him from the conversation. Speaking with the ambassador could be dangerous. In the last three hundred years the ambassador had killed seventeen people while visiting the UEG Capital for giving one offense or another. Granted, most of them were ruling council members, but three of them were escorts to the ambassador. The lieutenant broke out in a sweat.
“Are you going to answer my question, Lieutenant?”
“Oh, sorry Sir. Yes, I would think most people love the places they grew up.”
“That is excellent to know Lieutenant. But, tell me. What is it the ruling council has against where they grew up?”
What the hell is he talking about? thought the lieutenant, followed by, Oh damn, he’s going to kill me. He wants to make a point about something, and I’m going to be the example. Rather than disagree with the ambassador, who would all but ensure an early end to his existence, the lieutenant answered the question with a non-answer, “I do not know the members of the council personally, Ambassador. If you prefer, I can summon someone who could better answer your question.”
Ignoring his response, the ambassador carried on the conversation without the lieutenant. He had served his purpose, and now the ambassador could continue the conversation with the people walking the halls and the intelligence service officers who were listening in to their conversation from the host of microphones filling the huge hall that ran down the center of the UEG building. The fifteen-minute walk to get to the other side of the building, and back to his shuttle, would be p
lenty of time to get his message across.
“It seems quite clear the ruling council does not love where they come from. It may be they do not love even their home planet,” pausing to reflect, the ambassador gave the lieutenant a momentary look. The sweat was just starting to create an oily sheen on his forehead and face. Let him sweat, thought the ambassador, they should all be sweating.
Not sure he should ask, the lieutenant went for the obvious question, “Why is that, Ambassador?”
Surprised he was getting any help from his overwhelmed escort, the ambassador looked at him again and smiled, “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m glad you asked,” he replied, “How long has it been since Black Rock Three was destroyed, Lieutenant? Do you know?”
“I heard the base fought off an attack, but there’s not a lot of information about what happened.”
“Black Rock Three did not fight off an attack, it was destroyed in an attack, Lieutenant,” the ambassador stated with a loud and clear voice. A hundred heads in the crowded hall turned to look at the ambassador; their eyes were full of shock at the announcement. Part of them because it was the first they had heard of the destruction of the base, and part of them because the ambassador had revealed a secret the UEG Government was keeping from the public, “It has been three months. Would you consider three months knowing the single biggest defense Earth has to stop the Chzek-kin finding Earth was destroyed enough time to rebuild our defenses? That is how long it has been since Black Rock Three was destroyed.”
Approaching the ambassador from either side, two obvious, but plain clothed, capital security service officers stepped into the path of the ambassador, “Excuse me, Ambassador. Good afternoon,” one of them said as the other kept six feet back. His feet were set for a confrontation, with one foot forward and one back, while still trying to maintain an appearance of calm.
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