by B. V. Larson
“Thanks for not blurting it out, Captain Marvin,” I said, “but please tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’ll show you.” On the big viewscreen Marvin caused several pictures to appear.
It took a minute before I started to realize what it was I was seeing. “Are those Pandas?”
“Yes, Captain Riggs.”
“It looks like they’re laboring for the Raptors…” The bird-like guards were unmistakable in their role with weapons, uniforms, and watchful demeanors. Nearby, Pandas carried stones, tilled the soil, or performed other manual jobs.
“Slaves,” I said.
“Captain Riggs, are you angry?”
“I’m getting that way. Sentients should not be enslaved. It’s evil.”
“How angry are you?”
I stared at the pictures on the screen. “I don’t know, Marvin. Does it matter?”
“Would it be a good or bad thing if you were to become much angrier?”
Then I got it. Marvin was withholding something worse, but as usual he sought to manipulate or manage me just as he’d tried with my father or anyone else who had power over him. “If I get angrier, Marvin, I promise not to shoot the messenger.”
“I am not aware of any messenger.”
“An idiom, Marvin. Look it up. You’re the messenger in this case.”
“Idiom noted. Do I have your word you will not ‘shoot the messenger’?”
Marvin didn’t usually push this hard for assurances unless he was bargaining for something he wanted. In this case, he seemed worried that I would do something rash. Unless the crazy robot had misjudged the situation, the information must be explosive. If he really turned his neural processors on a problem though, he wasn’t usually too far off.
“Marvin, I give you my word I will not hold you responsible for what you merely report—as long as you didn’t have a hand in creating the situation in the first place.”
“Good. I believe you. Here is, as the idiom goes, ‘the real kicker.’” He must have looked that one up. A moment later a new set of images appeared in high-resolution detail, and for the second time in the last few months I felt my stomach roil uncomfortably. I went to the head and chugged some of Sir William’s orphaned antacids.
Once my stomach had settled down, I sat back down in front of the screen and forced myself to look.
On it were images apparently lifted from a documentary with Marvin’s translations alongside Raptor verbal symbols: Pandas separated into cows and bulls. Pandas in holding pens. Pandas enticed to the slaughter rooms. Processing of Pandas. The choicest Panda cuts are selected. Panda steaks and chops are packaged. The whole Panda is used: nothing wasted!
“Holy crap,” I breathed. “This is sick. They’re not just slaves, they’re meat. No wonder the Panda society is twisted.”
“Or possibly,” Marvin replied, “vice versa. We don’t know the full history of these two races. Did they develop in separate star systems? In that case, the Raptors apparently captured a Panda breeding population. Possibly both races arose on the same planet, and the Tullax Pandas are escaped slaves. Perhaps this influenced Panda development, causing them to begin the tradition of consuming enemies. Or, perhaps the Raptors were the ones who adopted a Panda custom. And then there’s my tertiary theory, one which I’m sure you’ll find fascinating. Did—”
“Okay, Marvin, you’ve made your point. We can’t fully understand their behavior until we understand their past. But I can sure as hell judge their culture as it stands today.”
I clenched my jaw until my teeth hurt as Marvin showed me more and more damning imagery.
“What are you going to do about it?” Marvin asked brightly, as if he was questioning me which of several tasty dishes I would enjoy sampling first.
I choked back a rash answer, breathing heavily as my mind slowly encompassed the brutal, bloody images in front of me.
“I’m not going to do anything until I know more. Marvin, I need you to start sorting through their documentaries along with any other source materials you can collect. Build me a summarized history of these two races—three races, really, if you include the Lithos.”
“That may take some time. Days, at least.”
“Give me a daily report on your preliminary findings. Go over the data with a fine-toothed comb.”
“I fail to see how that form of grooming would be appropriate.”
I sighed. “It’s another idiom, Marvin, an idiom. Now get to work. Don’t tell anyone about the Raptors eating Pandas—that’s a secret for now.”
“A secret? Excellent.”
The channel closed, but I was left staring at the console, disturbed. Why was this particular secret ‘excellent’? That was one of the key problems with Marvin. You never knew if his odd behaviors were just that—odd—or indicative of some deeper, darker meaning.
-35-
We entered high orbit without incident although our escort seemed to want to lead us closer to the planet. Marvin had done a decent job of coming up with a translation program, but I ignored them and didn’t try to contact them yet. As soon as we showed we could speak their language, the Raptors might try to have us do something we didn’t want to do. The lesson of the Panda dinner party was foremost in my mind.
I decided the time had come to name the system. I didn’t feel like holding a naming contest again, so I declared that system would be called “Orn” short for “Ornithology,” the study of birds. It seemed appropriate.
For over an hour, we orbited far above Orn Prime where I hoped the Raptors’ ground-based defenses would be less effective. Our preliminary analysis showed eight orbital battle stations circling the green world, each the size of a super-battleship. That would help during the coming fight. Even those stations weren’t enough to make it an even contest, however, since only two or perhaps three would be positioned to fire at any one time. On the other hand, if the battle went on long enough they might all revolve into range, following their orbital paths.
Radar imagery showed several missile installations were pinging us from the ground, but we found no evidence of beam-based defensive batteries. The planet’s atmosphere appeared perpetually cloudy, and we calculated beam defensive systems would be less effective due to particulate interference. The heavy water vapor alone would absorb and scatter laser fire.
Orn Prime had no natural moon, which gave it no easy platform to build a large ground-based defense without atmospheric interference. I didn’t see more than a handful of ships awaiting us in orbit, and those looked to be vessels that had limped home from previous battles. Most of them hung in space around the orbital shipyards, which were hives of frenzied activity.
Taking a cue from the Raptors, I brought in our own drones and frigates to effect repairs aboard Valiant. It was a slow process as the ship wasn’t designed or equipped to serve as a true mothership.
In preparation for initial contact with these newly met aliens, I made sure all my officers were on the bridge—Hansen, Adrienne, Sakura were on hand with Kwon and Bradley representing the enlisted marines and crew. For an hour or so the Raptors ignored us, but the expected call finally came.
“Incoming transmission from Orn Prime,” Valiant announced.
I could see the source of the signal was a military base near one of the planet’s largest cities.
“Marvin, are you on the line?” I asked.
“Ready, Captain Riggs. It’s a combined audio-video transmission. Shall I return the same?”
“Yes, go ahead open a channel and use their language.”
On the main screen I saw nine Raptors sitting at a table facing the video pickup. The Raptor in the center wore rich but dull clothing, as did the four to her right. I inferred they were female by their manner of dress, and none wore military accoutrements. The other four were, if I had to guess, two military males in brilliantly colored uniforms and two male civilians. I wondered if we were dealing with a matriarchy.
The female in the
center of the group spoke for the rest. “Greetings, fellow biotic beings. I am called Ralda, Eldest of Raptors.” I presumed Marvin had assigned certain words like ‘Raptors’ to otherwise untranslatable names and sounds. I mean, what did our word “human” signify anyway?
“I’m called Riggs,” I replied, lifting a hand in greeting. “I’m the commander of this squadron of warships, and we come from the planet we call Earth. We entered your system hoping to find allies against the Lithos, your enemies. I hope we’ve proven ourselves worthy to be your comrades in battle.”
Ralda waved a desultory hand as if shooing flies, and I had the impression of great age. I recalled she’d introduced herself as “the Eldest.” Perhaps they chose leaders based mainly on longevity.
“Who is your Elder, Riggs?” Ralda said. “I would speak with she who is in charge.”
“I—”
Adrienne put a hand on my arm, digging in her fingernails and leaning over to whisper in my ear. “If they have females for leaders, it might not be wise for a male to claim to be the boss.”
I considered that for about two seconds then gently removed her hand.
“Eldest Ralda, we do not separate leadership by gender. I happen to be male, and I am in charge, no other.”
“That is inappropriate. I cannot treat with a male of such minimal rank.” Ralda stood up as did the rest of her entourage. Then she walked out leading all the females with her. The males stared after them, the video pickup shook as if it had been jostled, and then they began to whisper among themselves.
Unfortunately for them, the audio was good and Marvin was able to translate much of what they discussed. Apparently they were completely confused and at a loss until finally one of the military men stepped forward. “We apologize for the Eldest’s abrupt manner. I am Lomm, Senior Staff Director. Perhaps we can establish relations on a purely military level.”
“The military is only for males?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“For your information, we have females in our military.”
This caused another huddled conference, and then Lomm spoke again. “As long as we’re not forced to speak with your females, I do not believe this will be a problem. Your internal perversions are your own concern.”
“Perversions?”
Marvin broke in and said, “Perhaps that’s not the best English equivalent. Maybe ‘oddities’ would be better.”
“Just keep things simple and inoffensive, Marvin. I hate to think what nuances of meaning they’re getting from us. Commander Lomm—”
Lomm’s ruff came up suddenly and he hissed like an animal defending its territory. Just as quickly, this display subsided.
“Apologies, again, Commander Riggs. There must be some error in your translation software. I am not a mere commander. I am the Senior Staff Director.”
“Fine. I meant no offense. Can I just say Senior Lomm?”
“That will not be excessively insulting.”
All this fine diplomacy with effete snobs was giving me a headache. I could tell already this was going to be a long meeting.
“Okay, Senior Lomm, you may have to get used to our informal ways. Anything offensive is probably our translator’s fault. Let me start by pointing out that all the politeness in the world won’t matter in about three days when those Lithos show up and wipe your race off this planet.”
“Your words are harsh but true. We are facing a disaster. But what can be done?”
“You have a relief fleet on the way from your outer colonies. Combined with your main force and mine it may be enough to defeat the Lithos.”
The old warrior looked around, found a chair, and sat down heavily. “The relief fleet will not arrive until a day too late. That is unfortunate, as by that time the deaths of billions will have occurred. The Lithos are not here to conquer us. They will bombard our world then infect it with their templates. We will make our stand in orbit and pray to our ancestors we win.”
“I disagree with your strategy. You have no chance. You’ll lose your main fleet, then your homeworld, and then your relief fleet will follow in without support and be taken out as well. The rest of your worlds will then die, undefended.
While I spoke, Lomm’s ruff deflated steadily as did those of his fellows.
“If, however,” I continued, “you were to pull your home fleet back you may lose this single planet, but you may spare your race from extinction. It’s a hard choice, but extinction would be permanent.”
I knew it was easy for me to give the Raptors such sage advice. We weren’t talking about Earth. I’d hate to have to face that kind of choice. It helped me to remember that my own father had made similarly dramatic command decisions in his day especially when the Macros were assaulting Earth. For example, he’d once bombarded and killed millions of Chinese in order to temporarily placate the Macros and save billions more civilians.
“Your words are dust in my ears but no more than I deserve,” Lomm said at last. “We warriors have failed our mothers and our sisters. We reject your solution, however. It’s better to die with honor than live to see our females turned to ash.”
“Senior Lomm, please give me a few minutes while I confer with my officers.” I made a cutting motion toward the main vid pickup knowing Marvin would be watching, and the audio went silent.
I turned to the others. “I need options, people. I don’t think they’ll pull back. I can’t say that I blame them. How can we beat this Litho fleet before they wipe out Orn Prime?”
Adrienne tapped furiously on her console. “If they gave us all the materials we asked for we could churn out more than a thousand nuclear repeller mines in the next three days.”
“Good idea,” I said, “but that’s not enough to blanket so much territory. The mines are very effective against the smallest enemy craft, but then, so are the Raptor point-defenses. The big Litho ships are the primary threat, especially their dreadnought. That must be why they’ve resisted the temptation to break up their ships against the Raptors—they know doing so is tantamount to losing the ship. No, we need something that will take down their flying mountains.”
“Why are we doing all this thinking for them?” Hansen asked. “They have the resources of a whole planet to draw on. They must have thousands of factories.”
“If I may interrupt,” Marvin said over the ship-to-ship com-link, “I don’t believe the Raptors have Nano-factories like ours. I base this conclusion on my scans of Prime, which show large complexes both on the ground and in orbit. These structures are consistent with more conventional industrial construction methods. Putting anything new into production would take them days, if not weeks.”
I nodded. “So even if they were visited at some point in the past by Nano ships, they didn’t acquire the factory technology. Maybe they exhausted most of their munitions trying to hold the gate. They probably have only a couple of days’ production of missiles and mines to reload on their ships.”
“That means our one single factory might be able to out-produce this entire planet in the short term,” Adrienne said.
“All this is beside the point,” I said. “Mines and missiles aren’t going to save this world. Remember, the Lithos don’t have to be alive to cripple this planet. Just one of their flying mountains falling onto a major city will kill millions and devastate the environment. We need something that will hit them so hard they can’t help but break up.”
Hansen leaned forward, “And if they don’t? What if they just plunge past us and suicide? The Macros did that at times, preferring to die in order to kill as many biotics as possible.”
“I doubt they’ll do that,” I said thoughtfully. “So far the big ships have tended to break up when stressed, trying to survive as well as kill the enemy. If they do as you suggest, Hansen, the planet is lost anyway. I can’t see any way to divert them—especially that dreadnought.”
“Captain,” Sakura spoke up hesitantly. “If we had inexhaustible power we could do a lot more damage wi
th our antiproton weapons. The Raptors don’t use them much, favoring grasers. But in this case, the APs are needed to take down big ships.”
“Makes me wonder why the Raptors don’t make more APs and fewer grasers,” Adrienne said.
Marvin’s voice broke in. “Their antiproton weapons are more primitive than ours by at least one order of magnitude. They likely consume much more power and must be significantly larger in order to do comparable damage.”
“Then their ships would run out of energy even faster than ours,” I said. “Pound for pound the Raptors’ grasers are more efficient, but by keeping their big ships together as long as possible the Lithos have partially countered this advantage. Sakura, what if we had more heavy APs and that unlimited power you want?”
Sakura’s brows furrowed in thought. “There’s no way to actually do that.”
“Indulge me. What if?”
“We could deal out a lot of damage, at least until overheating became a problem.”
My mind was racing now with an idea forming that might buy the time the Raptors needed.
“Adrienne, Sakura,” I said, “get the factory set up to build super-heavy APs, larger than the two we already have. The bigger the better. I want all the range and punch possible. Assume you have all the materials you need and optimize for fast production.”
“Where is all this material and power coming from?” Adrienne asked.
“From the Raptors.”
“What about sensors, brainboxes, mountings, everything else that goes into a weapon system?” Sakura asked. She was always the hardnosed, practical engineer.
“Just the AP beam projector, for now, thank you.”
“But—” Sakura began.
I pointed at the door. “No time for further discussions. Turnbull can help you with the operational side. Please get down to the factory and start writing scripts. I’ll feed you more information as I get it.”
Frowning, Sakura and Adrienne left the bridge, but I knew they would get to work. Now that I had the beginnings of a plan, I had to get as many parts of it working in parallel as possible. “Unmute the audio and let me talk to Lomm.”