Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire

by Stephen W Bennett

  Chapter 16: A Federation at War

  It wasn’t easy for the military High Commander to face his Emperor. He had rushed to his Emperor’s aid the instant he learned of his distress that his personal ship had been destroyed within his direct gaze. Farlol had been awakened by the alarms and by his Imperial Palace guards, when a White Out occurred directly above his palace. His head of security was frantic to get him down to the shelters below the palace, but Farlol refused to go without having his customary morning snack.

  He insisted on waddling out into his adjacent breakfast grazing garden, to personally select and pick the “perfect length” tender yellow shoots of golden sugar spears. He complained that he’d “fasted” all of five hours before his normal seven hours of sleep was interrupted two hours early. His security chief promised that fresh stalks would be cut and brought to him.

  Imperial obstinacy took charge, as he said, “I would miss consuming the moist rich soil that clings to the roots, which help me with my difficult digestion problems.”

  It seemed his Imperial dung was persistently and overly dry. Apparently, to the point that his personal sense of safety was secondary to the state of his poop.

  He soon was using booth trunks to pull shoots, and alternated shoving moist and freshly watered shoots into his forward jutting V shaped lips, head tilted back slightly to catch the fragments of dark loamy soil clinging to the roots, which he desired for aiding his digestion. His eyes happened to be gazing up at the passing triangle “star” of his personal Crusher in its orbit, when suddenly it flared into blinding incandescence.

  Sometime during the subsequent trumpeting and bugling cries that he and his security team made, amid the pounding of hurried footpads, the Imperial Bowels overcame whatever reluctance had previously hindered their proper functioning. He left a lumpy trail of steaming royal waste along his path, as he was rushed blindly past his sleeping and mating stands, and into a heavy-duty elevator. He and his surrounding security guards plummeted down into the armored depths of the palace. When he slipped on some additional mess as he exited, his eyes now recovered from the brief glare blindness, he demanded to know who had soiled his elevator and his Imperial feet.

  At a glance, and the smallest of tendril tip gestures from the head of security, the lowest ranking member of the Palace Guard present, took a “bullet” for his sovereign and his Empire, and accepted the poop blame. He’d be removed from the prestigious security team, of course, but there was a fund maintained that provided compensation for such unfortunate victims of fickle Imperial volatility.

  When the High Commander first rushed into the Emperor’s sleeping quarters, he saw the odorous trail leading to the elevator, and quickly located Farlol in a subterranean royal cleaning station, where warm water and pleasantly scented disinfectants had washed away the soiled remains on his feet and posterior.

  The High Commander offered some assurances. “Your Imperial Highness, we will be able to salvage the Empire’s Tentacles which was damaged by debris, but that Crusher will be out of service for a minimum of two orbits. If you intend to retain a Crusher here for personal transport, you will have only six to use for internal displays of your power, or for deployment to combat Federation ships and worlds in our new territory. We have no defense against the destructive weapon they used once it is launched, any more than there is a defense against our delivery system for the Decoherence bombs. Both type warheads are delivered via travel through Tachyon Space, and at such a short range, the arrival is effectively instantaneous.”

  “How did they approach so close to Wendal? Were monitors not watching?”

  The soft, calm questions didn’t fool Trindal. There was risk here today, and he answered carefully.

  “They traveled at untraceable level one speed for part of the distance covered. We will examine monitor records along the route they must have followed. They surely used the second and third levels for greater speed for part of their journey. At the second level, they could easily blend in with the common shipping traffic of our subservient species. Nevertheless, we may be able to find tracks that do not connect between pairs of inhabited planets within the empire, as local shipping would do.

  “At the third level of Tachyon Space we will be able to identify every recorded wake trail within the empire, and find those that did not relate to our own known ship movements. These attackers were very careful, and devious. We will try to trace them back to specific worlds within Federation space.” Trindal knew for a certainty that they couldn’t do that, because as of yet they had no monitor stations in Federation space. Admitting that to his agitated Emperor might make his day end badly.

  Fortunately, he had anticipated the Emperor’s next question. “How were they able to build a Crusher? Or is the one that attacked us the same one that I sent to the annexed stars, carrying my warnings to those species to either join the Empire or abandon their worlds. Is that Crusher now missing, and in the grasp of enemy trunks?”

  “No your Imperial Highness, the Emperor’s Trumpet reported back when we called them, and it remains fully under our control. All of our other Crushers are accounted for as well. We think the enemy found a way to mimic the tachyon trace of a Crusher, using multiple smaller ships, which replicated the separate tachyon wakes caused by the passage of the corners of our large ships. I will order that every Crusher captain report their routes in advance, to include departure point and destination for every flight. We did not have such scrutiny in place previously, because it had never been needed.”

  Farlol flipped his tentacle tips in agitation. “While I bathed, I ordered that their insulting warning to be played for me, and learn that it was deliberately delivered as if from a Thandol female. I think that was done to trick me into some rash act. They also claimed they were exacting a penalty from us. I believe, aside from the damage done to our prestige, the penalty was to be my ship and its crew. This was done in exchange for the punishment we previously delivered to them, for their insult at interrupting my warning message to them. Do you know how many of their peasants died on that colony? What species they were? How many Thandol died today? Would you say there was a balance?”

  With a hollow rush of breath through his right trunk, a sort of sigh of dread, Trindal feared to deliver the bad news. Even a million dead humans might not balance a single Thandol life in the Emperor’s mind, but the ledger was far more out of balance than that.

  “We do not have a count of those killed on the colony world we struck, but it could have been in the tens of thousands. We believe they were all human, because the others killed appear to have been livestock, and not unknown and intelligent new species as the Imperial Speaker speculated.”

  The noble that the Emperor had selected to deliver the four warnings to Paradise had little experience with subservient races even in the Empire, being a huge elitist snob. He had ordered the Crusher commander to destroy the livestock in the pens at the colony, claiming they appeared to be representatives of the other reported species known to reside in the Federation. The commander had no shortage of Decoherence bombs, and no desire to contradict a close relative of the Emperor, so he did what he was asked.

  “My cousin reported there were a number of other unknown species present, but in small numbers. I want to know our losses last night.”

  “Your Highness, we were fortunate in that the Emperor’s Pride was at home port, with only a partial crew aboard. We think there were twenty to twenty-one thousand crew and Imperial staff aboard him, but not all of those ashore have reported in for a full accounting of those lost. Commander Valtep was aboard him, but not Vice-Commander Granwor.”

  Unexpectedly, he saw the Emperor shiver, despite the warm water spraying over him. His next words explained that odd response, instead of the angry outburst anticipated.

  “I had planned to travel to Jorndal, for a vacation with my favorite young females in another three days. As you know, I move the females aboard two days early, to let them grow accustomed to the c
hange in routine, so they are receptive when I arrive. They, or I, could have been present when those monsters attacked.”

  Ah. Trindal understood now. It was the sense of the Emperor’s own mortality that concerned him this morning. Along with the vagaries of random fate. Farlol knew, as any Emperor before him had, that his reign had nearly an even chance of ending unpleasantly early for him. A noble was fortunate to be elevated to herd master at any level in a family herd, with his choice of a number of adoring females for mating. This desire was an ingrained instinctive urge in every male Thandol, particularly overachieving Emperors. Not that a male of any noble family suffered from empty mating stands in their bedrooms. Mere sex, or a greater number of young and attractive partners wasn’t the end goal for a noble male, it was simply a side benefit of achieving dominance, of family herd leadership.

  In noble families, it was an instinctive urge to become the Imperial Herd Master, for however brief a time, which made the rise to ultimate power worth the effort and risk for a noble born male. Dying when at the top of the heap, defending your right to be there, left behind a legacy to be envied of the leader being overthrown. The pride of having achieved that position at all, when so few did.

  The alternative, to die of some sickness before old age took you implied a weakness of body, mind, and spirit, which tarnished one’s legacy. To die by some accident implied poor planning or lack of attention, another source of tarnish. Worse, however, was to be killed by a group from outside any herd, such as by this enemy or any subservient species, which represented a failure in leadership, an indication of weakness, and one of incompetence, regardless of circumstances.

  That ending was not considered a tarnished legacy for you; rather it was no legacy at all. You would vanish from the line of your Imperial predecessors in history, not leaving even a gap to be listed before the next historical legacy appeared after you, making it appear as if your successor had ruled the Empire during your time in charge, as if you had never existed.

  Trindal was worried his Emperor would overreact. “Your Highness, we must consider our response carefully. We could send our other Crushers to their worlds to extract our vengeance. Yet, if the enemy has the means to deliver more of those massively destructive bombs, the loss of another Crusher would be noted by our subservient species, as this one will be noted. We must preserve these valuable symbols of your power, for awing those that cannot resist its destructive power, or hope to even damage one.”

  Then Emperor Farlol’s former life experience, as head of the previous Emperor’s Alien Intelligence Service, exerted itself. He’d not always been such a seeming dilettante at intrigue and strategy. Decadence had gradually crept up on him, after enough orbits engaging in the pleasures and excesses that near absolute power provided. Despite that, he maintained contact with former young nobles in the career field he’d subverted to spy on the previous Emperor’s court. He was not about to forget the lesson he’d taught the corrupt old Emperor, Farlol the eighty third, whom he’d personally strangled with his own younger and much stronger trunks.

  “High Commander, I want you to provide the Ragnar with four Strangler class warships equipped with Debilitater projectors. Order them to reduce a recently established Federation colony world, for which I will provide the coordinates, to smoking ruble after stunning their population into painful submission. I want the Ragnar to preserve a few fours of survivors from each city they destroy. They must let them watch and report the destruction and killings as they lay helpless and in pain. Send an Imperial Observer to watch the destruction, and repeat my generous offer to the survivors to allow them to join the Empire if they swear allegiance to me.”

  He revealed how he knew this much about the Federation.

  “My surveillance reports, from undetectable and slow level one drones, have not yet found any of their more populated worlds, but we have located some colonies. We have also examined former known Krall worlds, where savage and defeated Krall warriors appear to be on the verge of killing and eating their own young. The Federation appears content to watch the remnants of their former enemy destroy themselves. Their claim to have not shown mercy to them was accurate.”

  “Your Highness, the enemy must have large population centers to have recruited the huge armies needed to beat back the hordes of Krall. They could have suffered huge losses in the process, but they obviously were victorious. There is considerable support invested in any new colony. Where does that help come from?”

  There was a tentacle twitch of negation. “Unknown. We have sent drones to watch them, and they clearly have watched us as well. For example, they knew that we trace movements of our subservient species through Tachyon Space. How else could they know how to conceal their approach to Wendal, mimicking a Crusher’s trail, and then retreat and vanish without any trail that leads back to one of their populated worlds? They are concealing their travel from us, expecting us to search for their major centers. A very cunning group of cooperative species. We have not encountered this situation previously.”

  An alternative explanation, that the Galactic Federation really did have a low population, never entered their minds. Merely by defeating the Krall, they had convinced the Thandol they had far greater numbers, and they clearly possessed technology similar to what the Krall had taken from the Olt’kitapi. The Krall’s most powerful weapon, the gravity projectors used to destroy whole worlds, had somehow not won the war for them.

  The Thandol were confident the quantum key system, left in place by the Olt’kitapi, assured that the other species of the Federation shouldn’t be able to use that weapon, even if it was captured intact. The Empire’s own carefully hoarded population of Olt’kitapi descendants had told them what they believed the key did, confident that the Thandol could not solve the mystery of how it worked. It involved a mysterious fifth force of nature, which the Thandol had not discovered, even after all this time.

  Learning that the Krall lost access to their weapons, to the Thandol it was apparent what the humans had done. They had learned how to list the DNA pattern of the Krall in an encrypted list in the key circuits, to deny them the ability to activate their own ships and weapons. Humans hadn’t needed to understand how the keys worked, just how to add an encrypted DNA pattern to a database on a key chip. That chip then passed the new database to other chips, by whatever method the fifth force provided.

  The Thandol had used a drone to obtain drifting debris from a destroyed clanship, and studied the changes in the coding contained in several key circuits. They had samples of Krall DNA from dead bodies, and observed differences in an encrypted table stored in the mysterious key circuits, changed from the same tables found in uninfected Krall weapons. With that clue, they had deduced the encryption method used in that table. That didn’t tell the Thandol how the circuits transmitted their information to other key circuits, using the fifth force, but they realized they knew enough to add other identically encoded DNA patterns to that table. Such as human DNA. They believed they could disable access to the clanships the humans used, in the same way the humans had done to the Krall.

  The Empire had been unable to subvert the stubborn insects, to convince or force them to rediscover the science behind the fifth force, or of gravity projectors, and to share that with the Thandol. The adult builders had a plausible explanation for their not knowing how to do that already. The adolescent forms the Thandol had recovered didn’t have mind enhancers, functioning ones for Olt’kitapi adults were not available, and the new adults didn’t know how the fifth force functioned, or know the mathematics of the quantum gravitational manipulation used in the gravity projectors. The theories behind those two branches of science may have been part of the data on mind enhancers, but those no longer existed.

  The survivors also shared the original adult’s weakness of a moral conscience, because they said they wouldn’t work on rediscovering the technology for Thandol use, under any circumstances. The circumstances became very grim for some of the captives, but
they refused to yield.

  The Emperor admitted they were hampered now by lack of information about the Federation. “Searching many of the stars in the region the Krall once controlled, at least those that were closest to our borders, the drones often found worlds that showed signs of previous habitation by other species, but which had only single Krall clans using the entire world as a training and breeding center. Sometimes they had slave operated production centers, which only made war material, but never were there large non-Krall populations on any planet.

  “Commander, we have no idea where the Federation strength lies yet. When the Ragnar have made an example of the the known Federation colonies, we will learn from the survivors where their major worlds are located, and understand more about their weaknesses.

  “I want the offensive carefully organized, supplied, and ready for departure within a quarter of a Wendal orbit. The Ragnar must learn more about which of the Foundation colonies they should attack first and occupy. It is from that base they will launch their future operations. I want their scouts to leave in a tenth of an orbit, to study the colonies we know about. These will be the weakest points within the Federation, and not well enough established to offer any opposition to us.”

  The High Commander was relieved that his sovereign ruler retained some of the skills that had won him the throne. The Emperor was making rational decisions, after the shock he’d received last night had worn away. Trindal surprisingly dropped to his front knees, his trunks crossed. A posture of respect not demanded of highborn noble males of the Emperor’s own family herd.