The only tales he really believed were those his great-grandfather had told him, about the dark days when an American capitalist pig had briefly seized the Kremlin before being driven out by loyal citizens. In this version of the story, it was patriotic Russian scientists who had healed the Motherland with the Eden Plague.
No matter. At least he would one day see again.
“Tell me of the battle, Private Stanchyk,” Bokorin said.
“We hold. No drones have come to our aid, but we do not know why. The city is in flames behind us from the plasma bombardment, but Headquarters tells us that Brigadier Kragov strikes the enemy from behind with his tank division, and this seems true. In any case, the pressure on our front has been relieved and our sector is now quiet.”
“How many of us remain?”
“Perhaps half, Lieutenant.”
Bokorin rolled over on his hands and knees, trying to stand. “Help me up, Timofei Igorovitch, and guide me.”
“Sir, you should not!”
“Yob tvoyu maht, Private! Follow my orders unless you want me looking an idiot in front of our brave troops.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.” The medic helped him to his feet.
“I will grasp your arm. Walk us behind our lines. Keep me from stumbling.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
After a few hesitant steps, Bokorin’s strides steadied with confidence, and he raised his blinded face to lift his chin in pride as he walked the trench. “Well done, everyone,” he called into the darkness. “For Mother Russia, we shall defend Moscow. Well done…”
He continued to repeat variants of these phrases. When Timofei turned him around at the end of their sector, he could hear an unfamiliar but rhythmic swell of noise.
“What is that?” he asked.
“They cheer you, Lieutenant. They say Bo-ko-rin! Bo-ko-rin!”
Bokorin thought he might die today, but now…perhaps not. More importantly, he had not failed in his mission. His sector had held, despite the sacrifice of half his people. He smiled and turned his blind face to the sound as if toward the warmth of the sun.
Chapter 27
Captain Kassir prowled the spacious bridge, looking over the shoulders of his officers and snarling. While by any objective measure the damage to Demolisher was being repaired at an amazing rate, spearheaded by legions of maintenance bots, it wasn’t fast enough.
Glancing upward, a habit everyone seemed to share when speaking directly to the AI, he said, “Demolisher, I place the warriors at your disposal as well. Use them as manual labor if necessary.”
“Thank you, Captain. I shall do so. I am also returning main weapons and drive control to the officers in order to conserve computational power.”
“Is there anything else you can suggest?”
“Have the medical staff load the wounded onto boats and evacuate them to the planet’s moon facilities. Doing so will reduce my expenditure of computational resources further, as well as saving energy on unnecessary gravplating and life support.”
“Do it.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Suddenly, a cheer went up from Kassir’s bridge officers and watchstanders. “What is it?” he said, eyes roving the many displays on the walls.
One ape stood to point as the main screen changed to a long-range optical view. On it, he could see the Scourge flagship – or what was left of it. It looked like a melon that a Sekoi had bitten in half, its ragged pulp made of tangled structure and flaming plasma instead of fruit. “Captain, it’s been cracked in half! It’s dying!”
“Helmsman, move us closer on fusion drive. Weapons, continue to target the hulk with particle cannon. We can’t be certain they are unable to fire again. Communications, is there any word from the admiral?”
“No, sir,” the Ryss comms officer replied. “The last report is that he is aboard a pinnace heading for this planet’s moon.”
“Really? Why?”
The warrior turned around and rose to report formally. “It appears that Conquest was the last available TacDrive-equipped ship, and the admiral ordered him abandoned in order to send him at lightspeed into the enemy.”
“Her, Lieutenant. Human ships are female.”
“That’s…nauseating, sir. To sacrifice a female to save males? Dishonorable.”
“Their ways are not ours. They do what they must in order to save their homeworld…as did we so long ago.”
The young lieutenant, barely a yearsmane, looked skeptical, but remained silent in the face of his captain’s declaration.
***
Everyone else aboard the pinnace broke out in wild cheering when the cockpit screen showed the Scourge flagship smashed like a hard-boiled ostrich egg and spinning through space, but he couldn’t find elation within himself.
Relief, yes, and tremendous satisfaction at the performance of his people – most of them, anyway, he told himself, thinking about the unaddressed question of Doughty and his officers – but no joy. Michelle was dead, and even if her programming and memory could be uploaded into some other platform, the new AI wouldn’t be her, no more than a surviving human twin is identical to the dead one.
When Absen disembarked at the busy moon base shuttle hangar, there was more cheering, taken up spontaneously by those who recognized him walking across the concrete floor. He raised a hand and waved, eliciting even more noise, and forced a smile.
This is the price of command, he reminded himself. To love someone, and then to send her to die.
People saw the privileges and trappings of power, the instant obedience and the deference, but they could never understand the crushing weight of responsibility shared by only a few men and women throughout history. He thought of the leaders of America, the country of his birth that existed only in his memory now, of those destined – or doomed – to make pivotal decisions that changed the course of nations. Stretching backward from Markis to Reagan to Kennedy and Truman, FDR and Eisenhower and Marshall, Wilson and Pershing, all the way to Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and George Washington: these were his few comrades.
Absen’s musings were cut short by a pair of officers that accosted him as he entered the base’s main corridor. Steward Tobias put out a hand when one got too close, but the admiral brushed his bodyguard aside. “Yes, Major. What is it?”
“Rear Admiral Sawyer’s compliments, Admiral, and he invites you and your staff to join him in the CCC.”
“Of course. Lead on.”
“We have a tram waiting.” The second officer, an eager lieutenant, waved at a wheeled vehicle, and they boarded.
While Scoggins, Ford and the rest of Conquest’s bridge crew murmured in quiet conversation around him, Absen stared out the window at the activity of war passing by, feeling empty, bereft of a ship, a command, a home for the last decades.
The lights of the tunnel flickered and dimmed regularly, presumably as the laser batteries continued to fire. He almost asked the aide about it, but decided the combat control center would provide all his answers soon enough.
When he arrived, Rear Admiral Sawyer, a spare woman with tired eyes, greeted him with a handshake. “Welcome, Admiral, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry about Conquest. She was a fine ship.”
Absen steeled himself. “More than you know, Jeanine. Was it worth it? Have we won?”
Sawyer gestured at the big screen up front. “The flagship looks dead. It hasn’t fired a shot, and Demolisher continues to pummel it.”
Absen held up a hand. “Send an order to stop firing on it unless it fires again. We need to seize what’s left of it for intelligence exploitation.”
Sawyer nodded to a CyberComm tech, who began tapping at her keyboard to encrypt an order.
“What about the swarm?”
“We’ve shifted our lasers to take out as many fighters as we can see, and remaining Fleet ships and the Meme are going after the rest. The Aerospace jocks are getting a workout, as are Ground Forces units, but the reports from the surface are cautiously optimistic
. The hammer-and-anvil strategy seems to have been successful, and no major cities have been overrun, though several are in ruins from plasma torpedo bombardment.”
Absen began to let himself relax. “Have you seen any problem areas? Anything I can help you with?”
“No, Admiral. It looks like mostly mopping up right now. May I say, sir, that…well, I just mean, everyone here is grateful that…” The woman ground to a halt.
“I understand, Admiral,” Absen said with a wave, “but I just called a few plays. It was people like you and your staff, and my bridge crew behind me, who did the hard work. Some of them didn’t make it. Save your admiration for them – our fallen heroes.”
This impromptu speech brought more cheering aimed at him, which was exactly what Absen had been trying to stave off. He smiled gamely and made calming motions with his hands. “If you have some room for us, I’d appreciate a shower and a bunk for couple of hours. I think I’ve been awake for about a day and a half, and it’s starting to catch up to me. To all of us.”
“Of course. Major Green, get the Admiral and his people some billets in officer country.”
Soon, Absen crawled numbly into a narrow bunk, which felt like heaven in the Moon’s low gravity.
He dreamed of a glassy sea, a sailing ship beneath him.
Rae was there, her white dress fluttering in the stiff breeze, and she hugged him. “She’s not gone, you know. Not as long as we remember her.”
“That’s a nice platitude, Rae, but I don’t feel that way.”
“I know. I miss her too.”
Then the vision dissolved, and Henrich Absen sank into the arms of Morpheus.
When he awoke and glanced at the wall screen’s chrono, he realized he’d slept for ten hours. A fresh uniform hung from a hook, and his shoes had been polished. Nice to fight from a fixed base that didn’t get hit hard, he said to himself as he dressed. Michelle’s loss threatened to overwhelm him afresh, but he ruthlessly shut down his emotions.
As usual, Tobias stood outside his office, dressed in fresh whites. If he didn’t know better, Absen could swear the man never slept. They nodded to each other and the admiral strode in the direction of the CCC.
After fifteen minutes of spot briefings, Absen decided that in half a day he’d gone from vital to useless. Markis and Ground Forces Command had everything well in hand on the planet, and Bull had taken it upon himself to conduct an armed reconnaissance of the shattered enemy flagship. He’d reported that most of those aboard were dead and the vessel was a wreck. At some point, gravitic control had been lost, and apparently Conquest’s collision had not only cut the ship in half, but had struck with such force that the impact had pulped most of the Scourge crew.
One exception was a group of several Archons captured in the ship’s control center, presumably the Scourge admiral and staff, which Brigadier ben Tauros had brought to the moon base as prisoners. Absen shook off his lingering funk, suddenly finding himself interested.
“Does anyone know if we can speak to the Scourges?” It was something he’d never asked, and he wondered why. Perhaps it was the fact that the bugs treated other races as food rather than mere enemies. Well, they were damn well going to speak to him now.
Rear Admiral Sawyer replied, “Ambassador Denham took charge of the interrogation almost immediately, Admiral.”
“Rae? I mean, Raphaela Denham, you mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me transport. I want to see her and these Archons, now.”
“Of course, sir.” Sawyer snapped her fingers and the major from the day before led Absen and Tobias to a spacious ground car.
As they climbed in, Commander Rick Johnstone came jogging up. “Mind if I join you, sir?”
“Of course not. How’s Jill?”
“Fine, sir. The Marines hardly got a workout on this one, she tells me.”
“And you believe her?” Absen asked as they accelerated into the tunnel complex.
“Cautiously, sir. She seemed disappointed, which to me means she didn’t get enough action.”
“Why did you want to come along?”
Rick grinned. “Where Bull goes, Jill does too, and he’s overseeing the prisoners personally. I hear they’re some big sons of bitches.”
“I see.” Absen cocked his head in mock disapproval.
“And,” Rick said hastily, “I might be able to help with communication. I hear these Archons have cybernetic implants. Maybe we…” his face fell, and he swallowed. “Maybe I can hack their brains. I can use the base supercomputer.”
Absen patted Rick’s knee. “You two were close.”
“Like…like a sister, I guess, and a colleague. Me and my real sister Millie love each other, but we never really shared common interests. With Michelle…when we were working together in cyberspace, it was like…”
“Like a dance?”
“Yes, like she was my perfect work partner. She provided the raw computing power and drive; I had the intuition and creativity.”
“I think I understand.” Absen sat back and deliberately changed the subject. “What about these prisoners? Can we negotiate with them?”
Rick shrugged. “That’s well above my pay grade, sir, but…you got the Meme to talk. I would think that anything sentient can negotiate, especially when you have them over a barrel.”
“Maybe they don’t care about themselves personally. We certainly don’t have their empire, or whatever they call it, over a barrel. All we did was survive another attack, and as far as we know, next time they can come at us with more than we can possibly handle.” Absen sighed heavily without meaning to.
“Then we don’t wait for them to come at us. Do what you did at Gliese 370: go to them. I’m no strategist, but I have picked up a few things from working on your bridge. Don’t we want to hit them at a time and place of our own choosing?”
Absen turned to look at Rick’s intense face and felt his mood lift. “You’re absolutely right, Commander, and thanks for reminding me.”
***
“So this is an Archon,” Absen said as he stared down into the improvised cell. Bull, Rae, Rick and Jill stood with him on the catwalk, the latter two surreptitiously holding hands. He wished he could do the same with Rae, but “no PDA” was still deeply ingrained in him.
The creature below measured around six meters across in its squared-off, almost cubical central body and must mass at least a hundred tons. It looked to him more like a symmetrical four-legged, four-armed yellowish-brown crab than an insect. From time to time, light rippled from its combination eyes and photo-emitters.
“Yes, sir. This is the boss, the admiral, we’re pretty sure,” Bull said. “We found it sitting in the center of the command center, and it’s bigger than all the rest of them. In fact, Doc Horton tells me in one G it would hardly be able to drag itself around, but in one-sixth G…well, that’s why we have it restrained.”
Absen could see the creature had been fitted with heavy ferrocrystal shackles on its legs and arms, forming a network that let it shuffle a meter or so in any direction, but not get far or reach anything.
“So, how do we talk to it?” he asked, turning to Rae.
The tall Blend leaned over the railing to point. “Those screens are able to replicate its light-based language. We’ve already deciphered its grammar and a lot of vocabulary.”
“So soon?”
“I’ve had a team working on this for over a year, ever since Operation Bughouse. Remember, Rick and the AI copied a lot of data from the mothership core. Some Sekoi Blends and I were able to interrogate a few of the Soldiers we captured in the last attack. They didn’t know much, but doing so gave us enough insight into their language to make progress.”
Absen rubbed his jaw. “Has anyone talked to this one? Their admiral?”
“Not beyond some basics to see if we can understand one another, testing words for our equivalents, things like that.”
“Is it responsive?”
“Yes, sur
prisingly so.”
“Maybe it’s so arrogant it doesn’t think talking will hurt its cause.”
Rae shrugged. “I think we’re a long way from understanding how it thinks, Henrich.”
“Then let’s find out. I want to talk to it.”
“I figured you would.” Rae took his arm and led him down to the next level and into a room with electronics strewn about, clearly a hastily established comm center. “Sit in this chair and speak clearly,” she said. “Its responses will show in several formats on the screens in front of you – raw light patterns there, biometrics there, text on that one, and a voice synthesizer will speak.”
Absen took the proffered seat, and after glancing at Rae and the lead tech for a nod, he spoke. “Greetings, Admiral of the Scourge. I am Admiral Absen, commander of the military forces of this system. Do you have a name?”
I have a name. It is Ikthor. Until I was captured, I have never spoken with an infestation, and I find the experience fascinating.
Absen covered the microphone with his hand and looked at Rae. “Infestation?”
“That’s the literal translation of what they call us.”
Absen snorted and removed his hand. “We are not an infestation. We are an alliance of sentient species.”
Your words convey no meaning. You infest our worlds, therefore you are an infestation.
“I can see this might be a short conversation.”
I would regret that.
Absen decided to take that statement at face value rather than as a threat. “Me too. Why do you say we infest your worlds? What justifies your claim on them?”
This is our galaxy. It is our manifest destiny to expand to its limits. Perhaps then we shall seek to claim other galaxies, but for now, this one is sufficient.
“Just like that? You’re here, so it’s yours?”
You seek additional justification?
“That would be nice.”
We employ natural resources more efficiently than you, putting everything we find to use. Our biology is inherently superior to yours. We breed faster, resist phages better, and can survive in a broader range of environments, including vacuum. Without technological enhancement, you would be powerless before us. Evolution clearly demonstrates the principle of survival of the fittest.
Conquest and Empire (Stellar Conquest Series Book 5) Page 27