Shadows of the Gods: Crimson Worlds Refugees II

by Jay Allan

  “Okay, I guess there is no real choice. You keep an eye on the upcoming systems, and pick one you think is suitable.” He paused, his mind considering the specifics of the mission. “Put together a list of everything you need…equipment, personnel, ships. Let me know as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” she said softly. “I’ve got most of it done already.”

  He smiled, not at all surprised she was so prepared. “And remember…” The grin faded away. “You’re going to need to keep energy output to an absolute minimum on whatever planet we land you on, so keep that in mind. If a First Imperium ship moves through the system and detects you…”

  She just nodded silently. Then she said, “I understand.”

  Chapter Three

  From the Personal Log of Terrance Compton

  I have tried to keep my people safe, to avoid the enemy at all costs. But I am too old a soldier not to know that defense is often a trap. I had a long talk of this once with Elias Holm, the Commandant of the Marine Corps. He told me of the seductiveness of entrenched positions, the enticements of standing on the defensive, of forcing your enemy to attack…and dash himself upon your works. Then he said, more battles have been lost this way than any other, by yielding the initiative to a cunning foe. War in space is different than ground combat, certainly, but I have come to feel this axiom of war applies even more pointedly to fleet actions. I have known this many years, employed it to attain victory…watched my friend Augustus exercise even more aggressive tactics than I have ever dared, to even greater success. Yet, with all that has happened, I have forgotten this lesson, surrendered the initiative to an enemy we haven’t even seen for six months. And I don’t know how to get it back.

  For six months I have made my decisions based on caution…on fear. I have avoided any actions that might aid the enemy in finding us, but in doing so I have yielded any initiative. I have prevented Dr. Cutter from exploration that could expand his research. My concerns are certainly valid…yet in X18 such a strategy would have been fatal. Cutter’s aggressive efforts were our salvation there, not any tactical wizardry from me.

  What would you counsel me, Augustus? For decades we fought side by side, you the more dynamic half of our team, me the more cautious, methodical. Now I must try to imagine how you would act if you were here, what steps you would take differently than I. I feel the loss of your influence, the pressure urging me to accept greater risk seeking reward, to understand when a gamble, even a poor one, is still the best option. Perhaps you too feel the loss of my restraint, the slight pull that made you pause and reevaluate a plan before leaping. I cannot know that, my old friend. But I surely miss your advice and skill…as I miss you.

  Perhaps it doesn’t matter now. Food has forced my hand. I can postpone research missions, delay sending out exploratory parties…but I must have food for those in the fleet. Indeed, my caution has grown, and it has led me to dark places. It shames me even to acknowledge in this journal, which no one will ever read, that I have considered the alternative to taking the risk of stopping to grow food. How would I handle things, I asked myself, if we had only half enough food to sustain us? Would I simply allow everyone to subsist on half-rations, until no one had the strength to man their battle positions? No, that would be a gift to the enemy…when they finally find us.

  Would I have a lottery, let chance decide who lives or dies? No, for I would have to ensure the fleet retained the experts and veterans on which its survival depends. So it would come down to me, like some dark god, decreeing from on high who lives and who dies. I can hardly imagine a nightmare so dark, a horror so maddening…far more terrible than any enemy I have faced. Worse, I would have to have them all killed—murdered. I couldn’t risk the resistance of slowly dying men and women, the desperate rebellions and mutinies by those chosen to die. Nor the effect it would have on the others, as they watched friends and comrades driven mad with hunger and fear.

  Perhaps I could do it, perpetrate such a monstrous crime, if we were stranded somewhere, if there was no other way…if the only alternative was certain death for all. But never when there was an alternative. No, I would see us all destroyed in the attempt to survive together before I let myself—all of us—become that. Better to take the risk, to do what must be done and fight for survival together.

  Still, I would hear the words from you, for it would bolster my own failing strength. Yet I know what you would say, what you would do. And I will take your counsel, though you are a thousand light years distant and unable to give it.

  X48 System

  Approximately 14,000,000 kilometers from AS Midway

  The Fleet: 144 ships, 32,808 crew

  “Let’s take a closer look at planet two. It’s the only one that looks worth checking out.” Mariko Fujin sat in the fighter’s command chair, looking out over the other four members of the ship’s crew. Her eyes paused as they passed over the pilot’s station, and she felt a touch of wistfulness. That was her place, had been her place, at least…but no longer. She hadn’t lost her spot due to failure or disgrace, indeed, she was one of the best fighter jocks in the fleet. But success had its costs too, and rank brought obligation and loss along with privilege. She’d managed to juggle flying her own bird with commanding the squadron, but now Admiral Hurley had pinned a commander’s insignia on her collar—and put her in charge of an entire strike wing.

  She still wasn’t used to the weight of so much responsibility. Eighteen ships. Eighteen crews…ninety men and women, all looking to her to lead them. It had hurt her deeply to relinquish the pilot’s chair, but she had done it without argument. She understood duty, and her responsibility to the crews under her. And they deserved a commander who was one hundred percent focused on leading them, not clinging to the adrenalin rush of flying a single bird in combat.

  She flipped the commandwide com switch. “Alright, listen up. We’re going to do a sweep of planet two. The Gold Dragons and Wildcats will do a scanning run at fifty thousand klicks. The Whirlwinds will maintain a defensive formation at five hundred thousand klicks…just in case we missed anything.”

  “Wildcats leader, acknowledge.”

  “Whirlwinds, acknowledge.”

  Gold Dragons, acknowledge, she thought to herself. Admiral Hurley had gently suggested—not ordered—that she assign one of her people as squadron commander, but Fujin had quietly ignored the advice. The Dragons were hers…indeed, she was the only survivor of the original squadron, and she just couldn’t let them go. It was bad enough sitting like a useless lump while somebody else flew her fighter. But give up the Dragons? No. Not unless Hurley or Compton gave her a pointblank order. And even then, she’d argue as hard as she could before giving in.

  She flipped off the com and stared down at her screen, moving her finger across, finalizing the scanning plan. Then she pushed a button and sent the instructions to her squadron commanders. Twelve ships were enough to do a first class sweep of a planet, especially since Admiral Compton had relaxed the restrictions he’d placed on the scouting formations, allowing them to get close enough to get some serious data.

  “I’m sending you nav instructions, Lieutenant. We will take point for the squadron.” She knew Greta Hurley would have scolded her a little for putting her bird in the lead. But then Hurley used to drive Augustus Garret crazy with her antics, didn’t she? There were rumors throughout the fleet that Garret had ordered Hurley’s pilot to keep her back from the fighting. If true, it had been a valiant effort, but a failed one. Fujin couldn’t recall any instance of the fleet’s strike force commander hanging back in a fight.

  “Yes, Commander.” Grant Wainwright’s response was sharp, crisp. Fujin couldn’t help but resent the young officer, just a bit. He’d taken her place at the throttle, after all. But she was glad to have him, and she had to admit, he was a hell of a pilot.

  “Whenever you are ready, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m always ready, Commander.” Wainwright pushed the throttle forward, and the force of 2
g slammed into everyone aboard.

  Fujin was struggling to hold back a smile. Are pilots getting cockier? Or am I just getting old? She tried to brush the thought aside…she hadn’t even reached her thirtieth birthday. But it was still there, nagging at her. She’d been every bit as brash as Wainwright once, and as quick with a smart-assed reply. So when did I change, end up on the other side? Perhaps there is a limit to how much combat and death can could see and still remain young…at least inside.

  “Just focus on leading the squadron in, Lieutenant,” she said, reminding herself as she did of her first squadron commander. They’d called him T-Rex, for the way he’d unleashed on anyone who’d failed to meet his exacting standards. My God, she thought, suddenly realizing how far she’d come from the cocky young pilot she’d been then. I wonder what they call me.

  “Yes, Commander.”

  The response was textbook, sharp, respectable, spot on. But all she heard was ‘yes, T-Rex.”

  * * *

  “I have the results of Commander Fujin’s scouting report. I have called this meeting to review these findings and determine if this system is the place to conduct a more extensive investigation, one involving a protracted expedition to the surface.” Compton sat in his chair at the head of the table, his eyes flitting around, gauging the reactions of those present. He caught the look in Cutter’s eye immediately.

  “Am I to understand that you are considering allowing a research team to conduct an exploration?” There was surprise in the scientist’s voice, but mostly excitement.

  “Perhaps, Hieronymus. Indeed, I still retain all of my earlier concerns…” He looked around the table. “…you are all familiar with them. But events appear to have forced my hands. The situation with our provisions requires that we land a team on a habitable world to grow crops to supplement out fleet-produced foodstuffs. The alternative is…well, there is no alternative.” None I can live with…

  “As the operation will require eight to ten weeks, we have little time to spare. The supply situation is rapidly becoming dire—so we must select a planet very soon. Preferably immediately. We may elect to land the expedition here…or move on to the next system and explore the worlds we find there. But I am reluctant to wait any longer than absolutely necessary.”

  A soft murmur rippled around the table. They had all known food would be a problem eventually, but Compton had just laid it out in front of them. And everyone present understood the risk they would take landing on another First Imperium world.

  “Will you be authorizing a research expedition as well, Admiral?”

  Compton almost let a laugh escape his mouth. He was a little surprised Cutter had waited the few seconds he had to ask. “Yes, Hieronymus, I will. I retain all of my prior concerns, but since we have no choice but to land the agricultural team, I believe the benefits of allowing your people to gather artifacts and data are likely to outweigh the incremental risk. We will already be on the planet…if there are active alert systems, they will be triggered anyway.” Compton paused. “But listen to me, Hieronymus. I understand your drive, your passion. I know you want as much data as you can get, to learn more about the First Imperium. And I respect it…and recognize its value to our survival efforts. But let me be perfectly clear. You are to conduct your operation with extreme caution at all times. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Admiral. Of course.”

  “I mean it, Hieronymus. No matter what you think you may find…you have to be extremely careful every moment you are down there. Every second.”

  “Yes, Admiral. I understand completely.”

  Compton still didn’t believe Cutter, not completely. But the scientist sounded sincere, and that was as good as he could get right now. “Very well. Then let us proceed…and decide if X48 serves our needs. There are only three planets, far fewer than in most of the systems we have passed through. And only one of them is habitable. The first is a scorched rock, so close to the sun that its surface is molten most of the time. The third is a gas giant, without even a moon orbiting it. That leaves planet two.”

  Compton slid his finger across the small screen on the table in front of him. “I am sending the scanning results to your ‘pads.” He waited a few seconds while everyone in the room looked at their screens.

  “You will note that the planet is almost a perfect one for human life. Indeed, it is a virtual paradise…and it is covered with ruins. It was once the home to billions of life forms, though, like every other world we have encountered, there are no signs any of its residents remain.”

  “What are these readings, Admiral?” Sophie Barcomme looked up from her ‘pad. “We haven’t seen anything like this on the other worlds.”

  “Those readings are a big question mark, Commander Barcomme.” Compton was deliberately formal with Barcomme, as she was with him, though he suspected the whole thing was pointless. He didn’t have a doubt in his mind everyone else in the room thought they were lovers. But there was no time for that nonsense, not now.

  He turned and looked around the table. “There are traces of radiation in certain locations. They are consistent with what we’d expect to find after the detonation of fusion and anti-matter weaponry…about half a million years after the fact.” He paused to let his words sink in.

  “After gathering these readings, Commander Fujin took her craft into orbit and collected some visual intelligence. If you’ll move to images five through eleven you will see what she was able to obtain.”

  There were a few soft gasps, but otherwise the room was silent.

  “Yes,” Compton said, reinforcing what he knew they had all realized. “These cities were not left to slowly decay. They were destroyed. In battle.” He paused again. “Whatever happened here, it was different from the fates of the other worlds we have passed. Those all seemed…abandoned, for lack of a better word. The cities were ruins, but that was time’s work. All of our analysis suggests that they were intact when the people disappeared. We have long wondered what happened to the people of the First Imperium, what could have caused them to abandon their homes en masse…or die off so suddenly. We have considered many possibilities. Disease, reproductive issues, some sort of mass insanity…even religious fanaticism. To that list, we must now add another possibility. War.”

  “It certainly looks like there was fighting on this planet, sir.” James Preston was the commander of the fleet’s Marines, and a veteran of more than one bloody conflict. “But how do we explain the other worlds? Billions lived there, and we found no signs of significant conflict.”

  Compton sighed. “I can’t answer that, Colonel.” He looked out across the table. “I’m hoping some of the people in this room can provide me with some hypotheses given the time to review this material. But that is not our primary issue right now. There is only a single question we must answer at this meeting. Is planet two suitable, both for the growth of crops and for research?”

  He looked around the table, his eyes pausing first on Barcomme. “Commander? Your mission in the most vital in many ways. We cannot take the risks we are taking only to find out that the planet is not suitable for producing the crops we require.”

  Barcomme was staring down at the ‘pad, but after a few seconds she looked up and turned toward Compton. “I believe it is very suitable. I’d normally be concerned about the radioactives, but after half a million years, I wouldn’t expect any problems. Of course, we don’t know if there were any other contaminants that resulted from the fighting, but the planet is damned near perfect in distance from the sun, climate…” She glanced back at the ‘pad for a few seconds before she turned back to Compton. “I say yes.” Another pause. “And, to be extremely candid, I’d be hesitant to waste any more time if we don’t absolutely have to. We’re going to be looking at some pretty unpleasant rationing as it is.”

  Compton nodded. Then he turned toward Cutter. “Hieronymus?”

  Cutter was silent for a few seconds. “Well, sir, if the cities are all destroyed, rather
than simply decayed by time, we may find it more difficult to find intact artifacts. This is, of course, of considerable concern. However, if there was widespread war on this planet, it is possible that we will find much remaining equipment from that conflict. And I suspect the First Imperium is no different from us in one respect…the leading edge of technology is employed in war.”

  The scientist hesitated again, flashing a glance toward Barcomme. “It’s a gamble either way, sir, but if Dr. Barcomme thinks the planet is suitable for her needs, my advice is to proceed.”

  Compton nodded. “I am inclined to agree with both of you. I’m uncomfortable with this entire operation, but I’d just as soon complete it as quickly as possible.” He looked around the table again. “Does anyone disagree? Any comments?”

  There was a ripple of nodding heads, but no one spoke.

  “Very well,” Compton said. “It is decided. Commander Barcomme, Dr. Cutter, you will both plan your expeditions immediately. I would like everything ready to go in forty-eight hours.”

  “Admiral, that is…yes, sir.” Barcomme’s objection died mid-sentence. Everyone present, including her, knew that the fleet couldn’t remain in X48 for long, especially not with the danger that the expedition could accidently alert the enemy. It was an unspoken fact, but one everyone present well understood. Those going down to the surface were expendable, at least more so than the fleet itself, and once they were landed, they would be on their own. When they were ready to return, enough ships would be dispatched to collect them, and the food and artifacts they hoped to bring back. But the fleet would be gone, waiting in some system farther ahead…distant enough to escape the cataclysm if anyone triggered an alarm that reached an enemy base.