by Tom Germann
“The OOng are not warlike but are very aggressive. We do not know how big their military really is, but we have had the rare opportunity on three separate occasions to see their power-armoured guards. They are individualistic in the extreme, as you can see. This would not be allowed in an Earth military unit. As they are not really warlike, the theory is that some cultural groups in the OOng civilization act as defenders. Their armour is the equivalent of our powered armour but smaller, lighter and, we are guessing, slightly more capable than ours.”
The soldier images fade, replaced by a star chart. Several spots are highlighted and the map zooms in. The highlighted spots grow and sidebar information appears on the wall. We are looking at planets, moons and space stations.
“No one informs any of their other alien neighbours what they are doing or the location of any of their colonies, facilities or what their intentions are. The information that we have here, we have found out through small leaks of information, observation and some AI calculations that sound like computer guessing. We think that the OOng have a great deal more in the way of territory and knowledge. But they are very secretive and we have no way of confirming that. We do know that no other aliens’ starships are allowed into their system. They have a small space station on the edge of their system that is a common meeting ground. If we were picking up trade goods, it would be waiting in a cargo container floating in space near the station.”
The image shimmers and changes into spaceships. “They use three types of star ships, like we do. Small courier style with a crew of maybe twelve. Mid-size transport ships that would have a crew of approximately sixty. Large transports similar to the “Mama Pig” with a crew estimated at two hundred. They have three of the large transports. OOng ships may have better range and speed over our ships.
“The OOng are not hostile to us. They were willing to share technology, which did help us and gave us a bit of a push. We think that they have other assets out there, including one or two colony worlds. Why were they helpful to us? They said that they were looking for trading partners, and while trade between races is not that large, it does generate a large profit when physical goods are exchanged and the technology transfers, while they look minor, offer spin-offs that the original race may not have thought up on their own. Finally, there are some that think that the OOng befriended us because they were hoping to use us to counter something else out there.”
The images fade and Smith looks at us. “We know almost nothing about deep space. Only what we have found out so far, and there is a lot still untouched. There could be a thousand alien races past the borders of OOng space. We won’t know till we go there one day, and we do not have the range to do that today.
“Right then, we’re done for the day. Off to the lab, and remember what you have been shown. As we review these files, they will be made accessible to you on your personal viewer. Know them.”
We get up and move out. Today we are in full armour for the first time. We completely sealed up and are on low power. It makes a lot of sense, as we would have to do this sooner or later. Even though we have more hours than I want to consider in sim armour, I still am nervous, as I could really hurt people with this.
So we walk and move on minimal power around the room and down the hall and back.
When we are too hesitant, Seven has us punch the wall as hard as we can. I expect to punch a hole in the wall. We don’t hit it much harder than a normal hand would.
That night, we take longer before dinner and everyone is exhausted. We used a lot of muscle moving the armour on such a low power level.
The next morning is like every other morning. Quick physical fitness early followed by food, calisthenics that are even tougher to do, and then back to class.
When we walk in, the loading screen is already on and comes up for just a second and then a three-dimensional picture starts forming. Everyone recognizes this race. They are everywhere.
Smith begins. “The Kah-Choo Empire is a true multi-system empire. It has colonized two worlds outside of its own solar system. They are a military-based society that worships an emperor as the embodiment of their virtues. What that really means is open to interpretation. The same family has ruled for an estimated twelve hundred years. They will sell technology to anyone and it is expensive but basic and functional. They mostly sell military technology.”
An image had formed. There are two images side by side, actually. Both are smaller than a human. The smaller of the two is about half the size of a human male. The other is noticeably larger and bigger. They both sort of look like standing rat-men, with some of the elements of dogs. They are covered in fur and wearing some sort of clothes. The first is small, covered in brown fur, wearing a belt and harness with equipment clipped to it. It is, I would think, runty but it is carrying what looks like a big, heavy tool in one hand. A human would put that tool on their shoulder to carry it. The runty rat man is just carrying it casually at his side.
The other one is scarier-looking. He is inches taller and you can see his muscles. He has blacker fur, also with a belt and harness. He doesn’t have tools on it, though. He is armed with a holstered side arm and what looks like a sword. Some of his fur is also shaved away and I can see what look like tattoos on the uncovered flesh. He is a warrior of some sort.
Smith continues. “They are individually stronger than they look, primarily meat eaters and very aggressive. They also appear to have a pack mentality. The military has had a lot of that worked out of them, but if you were to land in the centre of one of their cities and attack, then their instincts would kick in and you would likely be swarmed under a mass of them and then torn apart. They are very aggressive and it is amazing that they did not destroy themselves before achieving space or star drive. They have armour and powered armour, as well as vehicles that are amazing. Every member of their race is ready to fight. We believe that during mating, the female of the species will give birth to up to eight cubs. They can have multiple litters and their little ones are the equivalent of teenagers within a few years. They breed fast and their emperor wants new breeding grounds for them.”
The image disappears and the star map comes back. The image does not zoom in as much. There were three star systems labelled as in their control, a few other moons, and only a few space stations. “The Kah-Choo do not need to worry about lots of stations in other star systems. They own three. They are terraforming planets in those systems and have found a way to colonize that works for them. They send a relatively small crew to build a covered or underground city. Then they ship in mass quantities of their own people, filling that city. They will expand it while the terraformers are working. They now have a large population on one planet that supports the terraforming of the other planets in that system. When the planet is terraformed, if it is a domed city, the dome is removed and that becomes their capital. They have two fully colonized planets and are definitely working on terraforming another three in those systems. As soon as they develop a system to self-sufficiency, they begin work on the others. We believe that they originally over-stretched themselves and expanded too far, but they have caught up now and are getting ready to find and colonize another star system.”
The map fades and several ships appear. They have two more types than previously listed. “The Kah-Choo have one strike cruiser; we believe its name translates to ‘sudden death.’ We know nothing about it other than it is to deploy a small elite unit armed with their best equipment anywhere that it is needed. Estimates are that it could deploy ninety heavy-armoured troopers with all their support gear. Much scarier than that are the three starships called Birth Mother. They are much bigger than the Mama Pig and are used as their colony transports. They were made the same way as the Mama Pig and transport a lot of colonists. We have no estimates on anything regarding that ship class or its capabilities. The question of why the Kah-Choo focus on such aggressive colonization is unknown. It is guessed that popul
ation pressure must be significant. But they have not had a civil war in a very long time. The thought would be that the different systems would begin to feel like they should pull away from the emperor and the empire or ask for more rights. That would be what humans would end up doing. There is no sign of that with the Kah-Choo at all.”
Smith stops his briefing and takes a breath. “Why expand so much? Earth was invaded. The theory has been put forward that perhaps, much further back, they came under attack and were much more badly hurt. This may have affected how they view the universe now. If that is correct, then that may pose a long-term problem for the rest of the civilized races out there.”
Smith steps back and looks at the images of the starships as they fade, contemplating a future threat that would have eight or more fully colonized planets. He continues. “They are not hostile to us. No more so than to any other alien race, according to everything we have been able to find out. They appear angry to any race that they meet and view us with a degree of what we consider contempt. They have seen samples of our military might and formed soldiers and they ignored it. We believe that they put the individual over the group for military action. But they also ignored those demonstrations. The experts are stuck and there is a great deal of interaction between our races. So much of their equipment is out there that there are detailed files that you can access to review capabilities. Remember, this is older technology for them and likely not their best gear.”
The screen clears again and while the loading icon comes up, Smith walks over to the podium and takes a drink out of a tumbler that he has sitting there.
As the screen starts to change again, he puts the drink down, unfinished.
“You are off to the lab now. Tomorrow is the last day of the briefings from myself. There are two more alien races to cover, and there is not as much information on them so those are shorter briefings.”
He turns away and collects his paperwork and we stand up and leave again.
Today we go through donning drills twice, walk around the lab, and then head into a large warehouse up top. The elevator is large and takes half of us at a time. I have never seen this one before, and after a short trip, we are up in a huge warehouse. It is mostly empty but for some shelves, which appear to be holding large skids of food.
Our practice for the afternoon is for two of us to lift the skids down and position them so that crews can later load them into the elevator and take them down to the kitchen.
We are not officially domestic help.
We don’t drop any of the shrink-wrapped skids and move several tons of potatoes and other food.
By the time we are done, it is late and I am starving.
We go back down the elevator, remove the armour, and then have to do a quick calisthenics routine for whatever reason. We only do it once and then we are off.
The next morning comes too fast, but everything goes by quickly until we are back in class.
Smith starts in straightaway. “These next two races we do not know as much about. This next species is the ASSA. They are not very friendly and we do not think they have been in deep space for much longer than ourselves. We have only had a few run-ins with them as a species, and they do not want to exchange technology or even material.”
The image forming is of a strange-looking creature almost as big as a human, but it is a reptile on four legs. There is another pair of legs or arms that looks like they are for fine gripping and include an opposable digit. A second image formed of the possibly same lizard. It is standing on its back legs, using its tail for balance and the middle bigger arms for holding what looks like a staff while the smaller hands hold a computer tablet of some kind. Both lizards appear to be naked but wear a hood over their head, looking out from the depths with cold eyes.
“The one thing we know is that they do like to communicate and they are very direct. If the translation programs are correct, they find us hideous and wouldn’t deal with us at all but our simplistic view of philosophy appears to amuse some of them. The little interaction that we have had mostly consists of philosophical debate.”
The star map image comes up but there are only a handful of spots on it. “We know they have a star system and three habitable planets in there. We also know that they have some space stations in the next system over. That is it.”
When the image clears and ships appear, there are only two types: a small scout type and the mid-size freighter or survey ship. “They do not appear to have any interest in colonizing other systems, or doing anything else. Interestingly enough, we don’t think they have a military like we do. Maybe police or smaller militaries on their planets, but none of the ships we have ever encountered or the personnel we have talked to has ever indicated or given anything away about military strength. Given the real difficulty of conducting a war across such large gaps in space, that may make sense. They seem to have no desire to colonize and so would need less military might to hold the initial efforts against any possible threats.
“Yet we have been told by other races and even by their representatives that they are a very warlike aggressive race. The ‘experts,’” Smith’s face freezes as he says the word, “think that they may have come to some sort of philosophical or religious balance and have now curbed their aggression. I think that’s a load of crap. But we go with the expert opinion for now as they do not appear hostile toward us.”
The screen clears and starts loading again.
Smith finishes his drink and then looks at us. “This is the last race that we have met, and we know the least about them, even though we have had contact with them. The Crill, or Krill with a K.”
The image forming looks kind of like a lobster but it is noticeably smaller than a human. It has four manipulating arms and eight eye stalks. The image moves, and it moves sideways like a crab would. It has a band around the middle that holds several tools and the one claw is holding something while evaluating it with four of the eye stalks.
“Space travel is difficult for them, as they prefer to be wet and submersed. We know where their system is, but nothing else about it except for the fact that their terraforming turns planets into oceans and will take longer than our terraforming projects would. We have seen one large ship of theirs that is a scout ship. We do not understand their motivations or really anything about them. They may view us as talking food. We just do not know. Their views of everything are so different from ours that we have a great deal of difficulty communicating with them. More so than with the others. We do not even know if they have different sexes or classes. We have had interaction with one when we can get them on a video link. Most communications are verbal only.”
The screen fades and then turns off, as do the projectors. Smith picks up his data cube and puts it into his carrier.
“You will now head back for more sizing and armour testing, then dinner. On your systems are files that contain everything that we officially know about the different alien races we have encountered, and a few things that we do not officially know. You need to review and make sure you are up to speed on this. There are other alien races out there that are outside of our range. Those… we know less than nothing about.”
He turns and walks out the door at the front of the room while the rest of us stand and troop out the door, down the hallway and into the armour room.
This time, we spend over an hour stretching, bending and moving in every way possible for the technicians.
I notice that guy in the suit walk in. The suit is different, but it is the same guy from the gym when Armour hammered me into the ground and I vented everything out.
He clears his throat to get our attention and then starts talking. “When you are done your fitting here, I would like you to meet me in the briefing room that you have been using for your updates. I’ll see you there.” He turns to Armour and says, “Seven, do you want to be there?”
Armour is eyeing on
e of the candidates that the techs were having sensor problems with. “No, sir. I have nothing to do there and I do not want to hear stupid questions. I get enough of those.”
He nods at her. “Very well.” Then he turns and walked out of the room
We finish shortly after and head down the hall to the briefing lecture room. The man in the suit is standing at the front of the room by the podium, fiddling with some paperwork on top of it.
He looks up as we all sit down and considers us for a moment. Then he starts talking. “My name is Timothy Labaron. I work as a manager for the Corporation. I am here to answer your questions, and by now you have some. The training you undergo discourages questions and is geared to getting you to stand on your own with no attachments. The overall desire is to get you to think and react faster. All good things that a Marine should do.”
What answers can a manager have for us here and now?
He continues. “In fact, at this point, you need to take the next step. You need to be encouraged to ask questions and make decisions. After all, we do not want robots. We want Marines that are trained to work together unquestioningly as a team, yet will not go off and do whatever they are ordered no matter what. The ability to question what seems wrong or perhaps just incorrect is important. So this is one of the rare chances that you will have had in the last few months to ask questions with no penalty.”