“And that is a bad thing?” prompted President Nehru.
“Yes,” Brontes confirmed. “Becoming immortal might not be so bad by itself, but the side effects of the process weren’t known for some time. One of these effects is that the immortality process caused sterility in both males and females. Just one treatment of the anti-aging process, and a person was unable to have children. On that day, our race began to die. Most of the people got the treatment before the side effect was known; others decided that it was still worth having, and they got it even though they knew what it meant. A few decided not to have the treatment, but over the course of the intervening years, nearly all of them have died out or chosen to get the treatment. Our race is no longer producing new members. Although numbering in the tens of billions 4,000 years ago, our numbers are now down to less than 10 million, with eight million on our home world and other odds and ends scattered throughout the universe, like the three of us here. We don’t dare fight or do anything dangerous; to do so only hastens the extinction of our race.”
“Did the other races get the process?” asked President Nehru. “Would it work for them?”
“Yes,” said Steropes, “it works for most, but not all, of the other races. The side effects were known before it made it off planet, though, and most of the other races outlawed the process from the start. Although a couple of the minor races embraced it, the treatment only caught on in one other alliance culture; they are experiencing the death of their race just as we are.”
“It is ironic,” noted the Secretary of State, “that the process that removes the specter of death from an individual causes the death of the race.”
“Who would want that?” asked President Nehru. “To give up your race for a chance to stop your individual aging?”
“I would,” replied Speaker Silva. “Where do I sign?”
Brontes looked at Speaker Silva. “Be careful what you ask for,” she said. “It does not always work out the way you hope it will.”
“OK,” said President Nehru. “So where does that leave us? What is the state of the alliance now?”
“The alliance is finished,” replied Arges. “When the last of our politicians died about 800 years ago, the Psiclopes dropped out of the alliance, as did the other race that accepted the treatment, the Hooolongs. When we left, we ‘invited’ the alliance to move its headquarters off of our planet. No one cared anymore, and our society just didn’t want to be bothered with the alliance politicians’ comings and goings. Society got tired and bored with it all. I suppose that the three of us would have been the same had we stayed there; it is only by observing your race on a daily basis that we have stayed young at heart.”
“When the alliance moved off of our planet,” Steropes said, “the other original members couldn’t agree on where to take the alliance headquarters. All of them wanted the increased trade and status that having it would bring. They fell to fighting amongst themselves. Years became decades and decades became centuries without resolution. Without the united front against aggression that the alliance provided, other races that had formerly been held in check began to get away with more and more. Instead of putting down their insurrections, the former members of the alliance began to practice a policy of appeasement. They traded away star systems with the hope that each would be the last system that the aggressors wanted.”
Steropes shook his head. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “just like your countries found in between the world wars, you can’t appease aggression. Giving territory to emperors only makes them want more. One hundred years ago, the remaining good races said, ‘no more’ and refused to cede any more systems. That lasted about two years before the Ssselipsssiss attacked the Mrowry, one of the former alliance members. The Mrowry called to the rest for aid, but none came. Had the others helped, the war would have probably been over quickly. As it was, it lasted over 30 years and resulted in the destruction of the societies on several planets. While the Mrowry were entangled with the Ssselipsssiss, several other races attacked other former members of the alliance. Within a few years, there was warfare across most of the galaxy. Trade came to a near standstill, and most of the nations began focusing solely on fortifying the systems they had to try to protect them from attack. Twenty years ago, several of the former members decided to try to re-implement the alliance. We know this because they invited the Psiclopes to participate.”
“Olympos, our home world, chose not to join them,” said Arges. “We do not know what happened after that, because the other nations decided to shun our society. They expected us to take up the leadership mantle that we had held for thousands of years. When we did not, they were most disappointed with us.”
“Disgusted would probably be a better word,” noted Steropes. “I believe the final communication that Olympos received was, ‘Look to your own borders then, oath breakers, because we will no longer come to your aid.’ We still had communications with Olympos then so we knew what was going on. We also heard that one of the other alliance members, the Depsips, had been attacked by a Drakul force. We thought that the Drakuls had been annihilated in one of the last joint actions of the alliance, but apparently, they were not. When the Depsips last saw the Drakuls, they were moving in the general direction of Olympos. We have never had a fleet, so there was nothing in their way to stop them.”
“Shortly after that, we lost communications with our home world,” said Arges. “We don’t know what happened, whether someone found one of our communications beacons back to Olympos or whether Olympos was attacked and destroyed. We just don’t know. We believe that some of the former alliance members are continuing the fight, and they may even be trying to resurrect the alliance, but they are in retreat in most places and on the defensive.”
“So you’ve pretty much been lying to us the whole time about the state of affairs in the galaxy,” commented the vice president, glaring at Arges. “You’ve only told us what you thought would get us to do what you wanted us to do. You’ve been manipulating us all along.”
“From one point of view, perhaps,” said Arges. “We did what we thought we needed to in order to get your aid. It is important to understand, though, that the things we asked of you were necessary to help your civilization advance and become better prepared to protect itself. When Solomon forecast that he expected the Solar System to be discovered by an aggressive race within the next 25 years, we knew we had to act. Trying to find out what happened on Olympos was just a serendipitous byproduct of helping you to prepare for the dangers that may be coming.”
“Call it what you will,” growled the vice president; “you still lied to us. How do we know that what you’re saying now is true? How will we ever know what you say is true?”
“I guess you never will,” replied Arges. “That is to be expected, of course. Unfortunately, the situation is so dire now that you don’t have any choice but to believe us. If you don’t, we will all be destroyed.”
“What advice would you give us then?” asked President Nehru.
“You need help,” replied Arges. “Regardless of whether you believe us about anything else, you must understand that much is true. The last time we were out, we ran into a Ssselipsssiss base. If we are close to their territory, we are also close to the Depsips civilization as well. Their civilization was relatively close to the lizards. If we scout around the lizards’ systems, we may be able to find it.”
“We also might find more lizards than we’re able to handle on our own,” noted the vice president.
“That is true,” agreed Steropes. “Before we lost contact with our society, we heard that several of the Depsips’ systems had been lost to the lizards. They did, however, still have a manufacturing center in a pocket star system, and that is where I think we need to go. If we could link up with them, we might be able to work together to push back the lizards and then get their aid against the Drakuls if they come.”
“I am not aware of any better plans,” said President Nehru. “I will
contact our military leaders and have them get in touch with you. If they do not have any better ideas, we will make that the next mission of the Vella Gulf.”
“I have a question,” interjected the vice president into the silence that followed. “With all of these civilizations looking to take over other civilizations’ planets and races, how come none of them have come to take over ours before now?”
“There are several reasons for this,” replied Steropes. “First of all, when we first found your planet, civilization was already in decline. We decided at that time not to mention Earth to the other races, to keep you from being one more bargaining chip for the advanced races to throw around.”
“So, you’re saying that we actually have you to thank for our lack of visibility?” asked President Nehru.
“In a manner of speaking,” replied Brontes, “yes, you do.”
“Second,” continued Steropes, “it is incorrect to believe that no other civilizations have found this planet. In fact, at least six different civilizations have landed on this planet, besides our own. You are lucky in that either they weren’t able to get word of your existence to their home worlds or that we were able to fight them off for you.”
“Like the Drakuls when they attacked Atlantis?” asked the vice president.
“Yes, just like that,” agreed Steropes. “I admit that we wouldn’t have been able to deal with the Drakuls without human assistance, but the humans at the time wouldn’t have been able to handle them without the weapons we provided. Finally, have you ever heard of the Fermi Paradox?” He looked around the room. All of the Terrans shook their heads.
“The Fermi paradox was proposed by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael Hart. Their question was, in a nutshell, since your Sun is a young star, and there are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older, why hasn’t the Earth seen any existence of intelligent life? The answer to this is really quite simple. All of the other major civilizations in the galaxy started out on super-Earth-type planets, those that were many times the size of your Earth. To the majority of the civilizations, your lower mass planet simply doesn’t have the ideal conditions necessary for life. Despite your prosperity on it, Earth is a marginal planet when it comes to what most civilizations believe are the required conditions to support life.”
Steropes paused and looked at the vice president. “It’s simple,” Steropes said in conclusion. “Despite the fact that many of you believe yourselves and your planet to be important, the fact is that, until now, neither you nor your planet has been big enough or important enough for anyone to notice.”
* * * * *
Chapter Eleven
Asp 01, Approaching Ganymede, Solar System, June 15, 2020
Jupiter filled most of the space fighter’s view screen. Calvin’s target, the moon Ganymede, was silhouetted in front of it. The largest satellite in the Solar System, Ganymede was larger than Mercury and almost three-quarters the size of Mars. Ganymede made a great target, as it had variations in its coloring that formed intricate patterns across its surface. These color variations could be seen from a long way off and made excellent visual references. About 40% of the surface of the moon was covered by highly cratered dark regions, with the remaining 60% covered by a light, grooved terrain. In addition to the different levels of shading, there were also a number of large craters that were visible due to the bright rays of ejected material that had splashed out from the craters when asteroids hit the moon. Although formed in the same manner as the craters on the Earth’s moon, they lacked the same kind of central depressions, due to the slow and gradual adjustment of Ganymede’s soft icy surface.
The squadron’s target was in the middle of the Tros crater. The depression was one of the biggest on the moon, a large white area nearly 60 miles across. As the moon started to swell ahead of him with the view screen’s enhancements, he could see it as a white dot in the upper right of the moon.
“Take combat spread,” Calvin commed. He watched as the other five Asp fighters that had been flying alongside him spread out to both sides. On his in-head display, he could see that the other half of the squadron, the six Viper fighters, spread out similarly 50 miles ‘above’ him. The four crews that had survived the Vella Gulf’s first mission were flying the new Asps; the other two Asps and all of the Vipers were crewed by new personnel. As the fighters all reached their pre-briefed positions and settled into them, Calvin smiled. This was their first full-squadron strike. So far, so good.
“I wonder when they’re going to start shooting at us?” asked one of the new WSOs over the radio. With a thought, Calvin saw that it was Lieutenant Ali Ahmed Al-Amri in Viper 05.
“Are you in a hurry to die?” Calvin asked, annoyed that the Saudi had violated radio silence. “Stay off the frequency unless you have something important to say.”
Now that the question had been asked, Calvin wondered when they were going to start shooting. The brief said that the enemy’s missiles had a range of 15 million miles, and they were passing 17 million miles. The space fighters’ defensive systems had reported several surveillance radars active, but none of the tracking radars were yet. Even though the Terrans were trying to achieve surprise, Calvin didn’t think that they had fooled anyone. Especially with people talking on the radios when they weren’t supposed to be. They were probably just letting the Terrans get into the heart of the defensive systems’ envelopes so that they had a better chance of killing them. Still, the defenders should have launched already if they were going to intercept the Terrans at a distance of 15 million miles.
The squadron had to run the gauntlet of the moon’s missile defenses for 11 million miles before they could launch their missiles at four million miles. Their best defense, especially for the initial phase of the run-in, was to maneuver. Although some galactic civilization had figured out how to make communications go faster than light, no one had yet figured out how to make radars do so. Traveling at just over a 186,000 miles per second, it would take the radar beam about 80 seconds to cross the distance from the moon to the fighters located 15 million miles out, and then another 80 seconds to get back. In that time, the fighters traveling at about 100 million miles per hour would have moved over four million miles.
Passing 15 million miles, the tracking radars activated. “Spacehawks, begin evasive maneuvers!” Calvin’s WSO, Lieutenant Imagawa ‘Samurai’ Sadayo commed.
The enemy’s strategy quickly became apparent. Since they would only have time to fire one or two volleys of missiles at the fighters, the enemy defenders launched several missiles from each of their launchers, trying to bracket where the Terran fighters might be when the missiles arrived. As each of the missiles had their own acquisition and targeting systems, they only had to get them ‘close enough’ to the space fighters for the missiles’ onboard radars to acquire them, but with the fighters spread out, it was impossible for the defenders to mass their attack on any single fighter.
The fighters continued to maneuver randomly and violently as they got closer to the target. The fighters’ anti-missile lasers began firing at the missiles that had targeted them, and the WSOs did their best to defend themselves while still trying to complete the attack. Their best wasn’t good enough for some of them, and a few of the Terran fighters were enveloped in nuclear explosions. Samurai looked through his targeting system and could just make out the missile site that was their target. Calvin had done a good job banking their craft around, and they still hadn’t been hit. The range counted down until it was time for the attack sequence. “Standby...” Samurai said to Calvin. The call was repeated throughout the squadron as the WSOs acquired their targets and locked their missiles onto them. “Acquired!” Samurai commed. “Roll out!”
Calvin ceased maneuvering and leveled the wings of the space fighter. This was the most critical and dangerous part of the attack run, as the missiles needed a couple of seconds to get the final targeting data and align themselves, without having large g-forces ripping them from si
de to side. Within 1.5 seconds, the missiles had everything they needed and a green ‘Ready’ light came on in front of Calvin. “Firing!” he said and then, “Missiles away!” The two big anti-surface missiles leaped from under his wings and raced toward the target, accelerating as they went. Even without any explosives in them, the force of the missiles hitting at a sizable percentage of the speed of light generated devastating amounts of energy, and the missiles tore huge chunks out of the moon.
Once the missiles were clear, Calvin began to jerk the space fighter back and forth again, hoping to avoid any additional missiles fired at them. His missiles hit the target, and he watched as the squadron’s other missiles began impacting the target area. Their missiles were only intended to silence the defenses, not to destroy the target, and the space fighters continued inbound on their strafing runs. At the speed he was traveling, he wasn’t able to line up the laser visually for the shot. Instead, Samurai designated the target to the computer, and the computer began tracking it. As the Asp came in range, the computer fired, its high-powered laser burning through the target and into the surface of the moon.
In the blink of an eye, the fighter was past the target and headed back out to space with the other fighters of the squadron following behind them. Calvin continued to jink the fighter around in case any of the defensive missile systems were still operational. Passing 15 million miles from the target, Calvin sighed and relaxed. They were clear. “All Spacehawks join on me,” he commed.
Calvin looked over to Samurai. “How’d we do?” he asked.
“We got the target,” Samurai replied, “but we lost over half of our fighters doing it. I hope we don’t have to attack too many more targets like that. There won’t be any of us left!”
When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony Page 8