Koban: When Empires Collide

by Stephen W Bennett

Farlol continued to speak of his focus on punishing the followers of his “traitorous” former High Commander. “The loyal elements of my fleet will restore the factions of my people that have been misled, and return them to my herd. When they learn of the lies they have been told, this will unify us, and enable us to end the rebellion of those who oppose me. Only then I can prevent adventures by my Security Forces, who may think they can take advantage of the Thandol divisions.”

  “I understand, your Imperial Majesty. There is but one other issue that we must address. One of our new citizen factions, the Olt’kitapi, are resuming their construction of the giant habitat they were forced to postpone when the Krall revolt spread. They need every citizen of their species to join with them in this great project. They have provided our military forces with the gravitational technology we now have. When they use the advanced portions of their technology to break apart the cores of giant worlds, which will be used as building materials, they must have every member of their reduced population to help.

  “For that reason, we will transport every one of the Olt’kitapi living at level 1200 to a new home. We know they have not been well treated, therefore any resistance from you, or from any of your security people, will result in a greatly increased level of discomfort for you personally. Greater than what I caused you when I personally came here and infected you and your court with parasites.

  He watched as the realization and shock registered before he continued. “Yes, that was me. I came here and did it myself, depositing the eggs in your sugar spear plots. It seemed better than killing you at the time, although I may have been wrong.”

  As a demonstration of how he might have done that, he activated his suit’s stealth, and winked out of view, moved closer to Farlol, and reappeared. Startled, the emperor pulled back slightly, and his knees suddenly seemed more unsteady. His medical staff began twisting their trunks in agitation, but other than a few suppressed bagpipe-like squeaks, they remained silent.

  “Knowing how willful and stubborn you can be, I am warning you in advance. It would be to your benefit, and future safety, if we are not forced to eliminate all your remaining Palace Imperial Guards in the process of evacuating the surviving Olt’kitapi. I am certain you will require their loyalty and protection as your personal guard, when you try to restore your uncontested rule over your citizens. Do you agree?”

  Farlol suddenly settled to his couch as his legs lost the locked-knee stiffness that had held him defiantly upright, in the face of this casually powerful enemy. An alien who knew more of the Empire’s secrets than most of its citizens.

  Mirikami was insistent. “I asked if you agree. I require an acknowledgement from you, so that if I ever find it necessary to speak to you in person again, that you will understand that something extremely unpleasant will happen to you, and why.”

  He found his voice, and bleated, “I agree. I will order the guards at lower levels to immediately withdraw from level 1200, and to remain clear of the lift shafts and ramps when your troopers pass.”

  There wasn’t much of a force assigned to watch the remnants of the insect race anyway, and none of those were of his most elite troopers. However, he’d just been told that most of his elite forces were dead. Wiped out in a bloody slaughter by these efficient and unstoppable killers. Something that this insolent and dangerous alien had just reminded him about. He’d need every trooper he could find on the planet.

  “Excellent, your Majesty. I was told that my soldiers have found wheeled transportation in two side corridors, which will fit on the ramps. We will use those to carry the Olt’kitapi up, and when we finish with them, we will leave them for your personal use.

  “We hope to depart Wendal before nightfall touches your palace. I’m certain that will please you.”

  This frightening little alien had a knack for understatement.

  Chapter 12: Intimidation Diplomacy

  Mirikami was describing the rescued Olt’kitapi to Stewart and a half dozen council members on Haven. “Those pitiful looking creatures, undersized from insufficient food, many with limbs missing, and burns on their thorax or abdomen, were astoundingly resilient, and quick to grasp who we were, and why we were there. Their minds are as sharp as those Olt’kitapi we met on Canji Dol, yet they had never received any training from the living ships that saved them from the Krall revolt.

  “The AI’s on their four ships, with no living adults to guide them, were of course trying to escape the Krall, and took the juveniles to the home of a previously friendly species in the Empire called the Jandal, which the Olt’kitapi had previously visited. I understand they’re a large flightless bird-like species with fuzzy short feathers, who at the time the four ships arrived, were still recovering from a series of punishment raids on their home world and on their one colony by the Finth. This punishment was ordered by the Thandol, because the Jandal had violated trade restrictions by dealing with several neighboring species without permission.

  “They knew they were under close surveillance, and assumed the arrival of four T-cubed traveling Olt’kitapi ships had been detected. They promptly contacted the commander of a Finth squadron, which roamed randomly between the Jandal planets, watching for continued trade violations, and collecting increased taxes. The Finth, without coordinating with the Thandol High Command, destroyed the four orbiting ships of a species they knew the Thandol considered a potential enemy, and were in Empire territory.

  “The juveniles had already been transported down to the Jandal’s planet, and when a Thandol Crusher arrived, summoned by the Finth, they were taken away, and the Jandal never knew what happened to them.”

  Chrysant, a Torki Council member asked, “You said you recovered nearly two thousand of them, how many had there been before the Thandol killed and tortured them, to try to make them publicly offer their former planets in the Orion Spur to the Emperor?”

  “That was hard to learn at first. To us, they could only speak a difficult to comprehend form of pidgin Thandol, which their mouth parts could not easily reproduce, and of course they had no mind enhancers to link with. However, in the Thandol number system, and by use of the Thandol phonetic written script, they said they once numbered in the range of just over ten thousand.

  “Secretly, between themselves, they had long ago invented a private language, based around a limited vocabulary of original Olt’kitapi words that were carried over from the earliest juvenile survivors. When we provided them with an aural database of Olt’kitapi words, with a Thandol translation of their meanings, they were eager to learn and were fast to acquire the new vocabulary. I think they have an equivalent to our memory matrix in those triangular heads. When we delivered them to Egg, after three days of practice using our Olt’kitapi database, they had a basic vocabulary to use to speak to their distant cousins.

  “I wondered how they had proven so resistant to Thandol physical pressure to do what the Emperor demanded of them. Prola and Frithda explained that Olt’kitapi have an ability to isolate their minds and brains from physical injuries and associated pain. Oddly, they say it was a characteristic that the Krall admired and wanted to breed into themselves, because it seemed a good trait to have for a warrior suffering injuries in combat. This ability was how they didn’t merely endure Thandol torture, they ignored it entirely.”

  Stewart asked, “Are they blending in with the other Olt’kitapi?”

  “Completely. They eagerly want to receive mind enhancers to recover and explore their racial history. First, they’ll have their bodies restored in the med labs we provided to the Olt’kitapi, which they redesigned for their insect bodies. We taught them how to reprogram our nanites for their own use. They say they can heal the burns, regenerate amputated limbs, and regrow destroyed eyes after excising the damage. They want the new members of their population to have the honor of participating in the building of Excelsior.”

  Chrysant was interested in that project. “They’re ready to begin?”

  “Yes. Prola says t
hey modified some of their fabrication machines they used on Canji Dol, which work like those in the factories their ancestors designed, and which the Prada learned to operate to earn their right to survive under Krall rule. These are programable 3-D printing systems, like we use in our orbital factories, but theirs employ their advanced materials science, to integrate quantum effects in the products, like the stealth coatings we now use and understand, and the flowing hulls of our Scouts and Mark IIs.

  “They reproduced the large printer units they needed, all since we broke up the Empire. Those printers have been mass producing the parts needed to assemble another type of ship which the Krall destroyed. These might be called, if we name them like we did Dismantlers and Differentiators by function, something like Fabricators or Constructors. They’ll receive various purified molten alloy materials from the planetary cores, provided by the Differentiators, and then print out enormous panels of pieces that will form the millions of sections that will be used to construct a hollow habitat shell larger than Mars. There will eventually be thousands of such shells orbiting that small red star.

  “Each finished panel has trap field emitters built-in, for tachyon powered Normal Space drives to move them around, and artificial gravity that allows both sides of each panel to have a down direction with an adjustable force of gravity. These panel are, I’m told, rectangular pieces over a mile on a side, with a slight curve of a final sphere of radius roughly three thousand five hundred miles. The panels will internally hold circuitry and plumbing, power generation sections, and recycling units for the habitat. It’s incredibly complex.

  “Before assembly, the overall design of a shell is usually decided, with Olt’kitapi providing guidance and advice, so there can be low places for seas, elevated sections for land masses, peaks for mountains, channels for winding rivers, adjustable gravity levels for the appropriate species, and so on. A late-to-be-invited species can start with a generic completed shell, and design changes, swap out sections, or modify them to meet their likes and needs as it’s altered.

  “In later stages of construction, new tool ships that specialize in performing organic and inorganic chemistry, which will isolate and deliver the water, soils, and atmosphere, to be manufactured from the various elements salvaged and separated from the super Jovians. I assume, once a habitable shell is created, the process of establishing a living environment and biosphere is started on the outside. The inner side of the shell is also expected to be habitable, but that’s also where manufacturing, industry, and recycling happen I understand. I don’t really know, since this is so different from the varied use we make of the single surface of a planet we have available for use now. There won’t be any mining, or mineral and resource extraction, of course, but there is expected to be plenty of leftover material from the Jovians that can be stored in the outer system for later communal use. I’ll leave it to the planetary science geniuses to figure that out.

  “All I want is a spaceport to land my ship, and a comfortable home with a nice view of the landscape, and to see the night sky when I’m not in space.” He smiled. “I don’t intend giving up being a Spacer just to raise orchids.”

  Stewart asked, “When do they break ground, or break planet, in this case?”

  “In nine days. They invited observers for the first dismantling, and Maggi and I are going. Why not requisition a ship and watch for yourself? It should be impressive.”

  “You’re the Spacer. Can’t I go with you?”

  “If you can be gone that long. We’re recording the event, then Jumping to the fragmented sections of the Empire to deliver personal copies to the Ragnar, Finth, Thack Delos, and specifically to the two feuding Thandol factions. You want to be gone that long? I’m taking five hundred ships, in case things get contentious.”

  “Oh. Never mind, I’ll find a pilot and go in a scout. Why do you think anyone in the Empire wants to see the Olt’kitapi start building their habitats?”

  “That isn’t my purpose, and I won’t tell them that it’s the Olt’kitapi building project. It will be filmed with several Mark IIs in the foreground, and when the giant planet starts to fragment, I’ll cut away to a rather pointed discussion about advanced gravity control, and mention that any planet, large or small, can be broken apart the same way. I think they’ll get the point, and leave us alone.”

  “But the elevated species, at least their monitors, won’t permit us to employ that type of gravity use, to attack inhabited planets. Plus, we don’t know how, and I think it’s immoral anyway.”

  “That’s all true, and I agree with you. However, I don’t recall any of the Empire species being invited to that meeting on Egg with The Silha, and I certainly didn’t tell them what we were told. Did you?” He grinned.

  “You’ll lie to them?”

  “I’m shocked that you’d think I wouldn’t. Of course, I will. The Silha didn’t say our lying about having that level of gravity control was forbidden. We know we don’t, the Silha know, and the Olt’kitapi know, that we currently can’t break apart a planet, but we have clearly demonstrated a level of gravity control technology that our enemies don’t have. The Thack Delos experienced the only large scale damage we could produce with our current level of gravity control, which involved provoking stellar flares, which is far milder than a planetary breakup. We are not allowed to repeat that action either, of course. But our enemies don’t know that. This is a bit like that big poker pot I took from you two nights ago.”

  “When you went All In? Were you being a sneaky rat?”

  “A sneaky bluffing rat. But I don't always bluff, you know. That two pair I never needed to show you could have been a full house.”

  “I’ll test you, the next time I have a straight.”

  “That could just cost you more credits, but I don’t think our opponents can risk their home planets to call this bluff.”

  ****

  Mirikami had repeatedly watched the images of the planets the Krall had torn apart, at Meadow and Bootstrap. Thor, at Meadow, was seven times the mass of Jupiter, and Melnor was a smaller Neptunian sized ice giant world in the Bootstrap system. The Krall were uninterested in gathering the fragments for use, and had caused the cores to explode far more violently than required to merely exceed gravitational escape velocity of the pieces. They had wanted huge, fast moving shrapnel to hit the populated planets.

  When the Olt’kitapi mentioned that what the Krall had done was wasteful for proper retention of construction material, Mirikami asked, “How will this be different? You are still blowing up the core of planets. Why not get the most material available at the outset, and start with Egg Mother, which is the largest planet?”

  Frithda told him, “Friend Tet, we want a more controllable breakup than the destruction the Krall desired, and we have not built as many tool ships as we need yet. We have a selection of five giant planets to choose from in the Excelsior system. Egg Mother, which based on human standards of your home star, is ten times Jupiter’s mass. That is a great deal of material, as you said, but we are not prepared to process that much at one time yet.

  “Besides, our base planet for our population is Egg, the only habitable world at Excelsior, and it’s a satellite of that largest gas giant. We don’t want to disturb that arrangement yet. There are two other giant planets closer to our M type dwarf star, and two farther out than Egg Mother. From the problem of gravitational dynamics, our moving the pieces to where we want them, the two inner planets will be easier to manage.”

  A two Jovian mass planet was the closest to the star, and outside of its orbit was a Uranus massed world, of about fifteen times the mass of Earth. In the Sol system, the namesake comparison planet was a cold ice giant, but in this system, the icy world had migrated inward long ago from the cold regions where it had formed, in a cosmic billiards game between the larger gas giants. When the chaotic early solar system formation settled down, there was only one surviving terrestrial sized rocky world, and it was what the Olt’kitapi had named Eg
g, long ago captured by the gigantic Egg Mother. It now was classified as a planetoon by human astronomers, a life bearing and habitable satellite, and it even had its own small moon, termed a moony.

  After a few billion years of greater warmth in its eight-day orbit, the now inner system ice giant’s icy composition had sublimated to gases, and its atmosphere was bloated, with a diameter of nearly thirty-eight thousand miles, making it look significantly larger than the Sol system Uranus, although with a similar mass of about fifteen times that of Earth. It had a relatively small rocky core, perhaps three or four times that of Earth, so it would produce less metals and silicates for construction.

  Frithda explained all this patiently to Mirikami, and Maggi. “It is the number two planet we have selected for our first disassembly. We acknowledge that this easier choice is a result of caution, for our first attempt to break apart a large world, and because we do not yet have the number of tool ships available to process the more massive inner-most Jovian world, which has twice the mass of your Jupiter.”

  Their goal was to generate just enough disruptive force to explode the planet’s core and spread the fragments barely faster than the escape velocity that would allow them to quickly recoalesce. They were using two Dismantlers, to employ a more controlled dual core explosion method, both blasts slightly off center from the middle, to control the direction of the debris when the newly created antimatter pockets were rotated from Tachyon Space back into Normal Space, to trigger the blasts.

  Maggi asked, “What was wrong with a single explosion at the center, but less powerful than the Krall used?”

  “Friend Maggi, the Krall method of a single core detonation was ineffective, even if done less forcefully, because it produces ejecta moving in all directions, which leave the original orbit and will pass through the entire system. We wish to produce an asymmetrical breakup, creating what one of your scientists, Max Born, called “string of pearls” effect. With material staying closer to the original planet’s orbit, with some clumps moving ahead, some falling behind, but remaining close to the original orbital radius, and closer to the plane of the rest of the solar system.