Galactic Corps

by Ian Douglas

  “That, I thought,” Dorrity said, “was what politics is all about.”

  “Maybe. But she does it to reinforce her own power base, to build up her own political authority, and trash her opponents.”

  “Again, politics in a nutshell.”

  “But she’s doing it to the detriment of that common defense I mentioned. Can anyone truly believe the Xul aren’t out to wipe us off the Galactic map?”

  “Marty,” Dorrity said, with an unexpectedly familiar use of his first name, “you’ve been out on the front lines for the better part of nine years. In all that time, the Xul have not launched a single attack on Earth, or against one of Earth’s extrasolar colonies. That, my friend, is a remarkable achievement. But maybe you’ve done too good a job.”

  Alexander was shocked. “Good God, you’re not serious! You can’t be! If the Xul had managed to launch another Armageddonfall, do you think Earth would still be here? They won’t send a single huntership next time. It’ll be a fleet, like the one they had in Cluster Space.”

  “I know. My point is, though, that there’s something like . . . what? Sixty billion people living in Solar Space, now. A couple or three billion on Earth, maybe a billion more on Luna, Mars, and the Jovians, the rest in EarthRing, AresRing, and the solar habs and planetoids. And except for those few actually in the military and their stay- at- home families, not one of them really knows we’re at war. The fleet and your Marines have managed to keep the Xul at arm’s length. They allow those billions to enjoy a quality of life that would seem downright magical to people living just a few centuries ago. They don’t know the real horror of war.”

  “I thought,” Alexander said quietly, “that that was why we’re here, why the fleet is here.”

  He felt the other’s shrug. “It is. Of course, it is. But that’s also the reason that she can rewrite history to her liking in order to further her own ambitions.”

  Alexander listened to Yarlocke for a few moments. “In all those years of conflict with Islam,” she was saying, “what was the benefit? What was the point? Great cities vaporized worldwide . . . Haifa . . . Tehran . . . Karachi . . . Moscow . . . Paris . . . New Delhi . . . Detroit . . . cities today that are names of horror and infamy because of the hundreds of millions incinerated in those holocausts. Holocausts, I might add, generated by religious intolerance, prejudice, and by a preposterous unwillingness on both sides to accept that there are always alternatives to war. . . .”

  She did not point out that most of those cities had been nuked by the militants, not by their enemies. Tehran had been incinerated in retaliation for the attack on Haifa, and Karachi had been taken out by India in exchange for New Delhi, but the others had been random terror bombings through the troubled years of the 21st Century.

  Nor did she point out that the bombings had stopped after the Western Alliance had unilaterally forced the separation of church and state, literally at gunpoint, in thirty- two countries from Morocco to Uzbekistan to Indonesia. Six centuries later, the resolution of the Islamic Wars was still a controversial matter. Did any government or alliance of governments have the right to shape or to dictate the religious beliefs and practices of a sovereign nation?

  Alexander firmly believed the answer was no . . . unless a government-sponsored religion called for the wholesale destruction of other people, cities, and nations in the name of their god. The only controversy, so far as Alexander was concerned, lay in why the Western nations had waited as long as they had. If they’d acted sooner, and with less internal dissent, a number of cities and some hundreds of millions of people might have lived.

  And in a twisted way, Yarlocke was right about one thing. The Islamists, beaten on Earth, had taken their absolutist beliefs to the stars. Militant Islamists had at last succeeded on colony worlds like Alighan, New Mecca, and ’Adali, overthrowing the secular governments of a dozen extrasolar worlds colonized by Islamic refugees and creating the Theocracy. After a thousand years, Militant Islam endured.

  But not on Earth or in the Rings, where freedom of religious belief was at the heart of every constitution and pop ular covenant. It had taken military force to achieve that small miracle. Against the black-andwhite,convert-or- burn theology of Islam’s more fanatical advocates, nothing less would have sufficed, not in ten times ten thousand years.

  “After a thousand years of bitter warfare between Islam and the so-called West,” Yarlocke was saying, “an entire civilization still holds all non-Muslim peoples in utter contempt, hatred, and fear. And can we truly say that their attitude, their pain is their own fault? When it was we who made war on them over the centuries? . . .”

  “God,” Alexander said over the private channel. “Now she’s rewriting history.”

  “A specialty of hers,” Dorrity replied.

  “And is the same pattern to be repeated with the Xul?” Yarlocke continued. “You’ve all heard the arguments, I know, that the Xul are psychologically unable to interact with other species in any way other than with wholesale genocide . . . but I ask you now, can we truly be certain of this? Just because the Xul are alien does not mean they are hopelessly irrational. . . .”

  If Dorrity was right, the citizenry of the Solar System didn’t care about Yarlocke’s casually revisionist history. They would go along with what was convenient, or let themselves be swept along by the emotions raised by speeches, slogans, and news site downloads.

  How long, he wondered, after 1MIEF’s attacks ceased, would it be before the Xul found Sol once again and wreaked their inevitable retaliation? The city holocausts of the 21st Century would be snuffed candles by comparison.

  “My proposal before the Senate now is a binding resolution calling for the immediate cessation of hostilities against the Xul, and the immediate recall of the Navy-Marine expeditionary force to Solar Space. It also calls for the creation of a new expeditionary force, to be called the Pax Galactica, as an emissary to the Xul. Their sole mission would be to establish peaceful contact with the Xul, and to lay the foundations of a lasting Galactic peace.”

  Yarlocke’s words provoked an explosion of noise from the Senate floor, accompanied by an even noisier flurry of electronic exchanges over the Senate Net. Gavin Fitzgerald, the Senate Speaker, pounded on his gavel for silence. “Order! The chamber will come to order! Senator Yarlocke, will you yield for a question?”

  “Yes, Mr. Speaker. I yield for a question.”

  Fitzgerald recognized one of the raised hands on the floor.

  “Senator Yarlocke!” Janis Gallagher, a representative from the state of Nova Scotia said, rising. “The Xul could be the most peaceful and inoffensive civilization in the Galaxy, and they might still refuse to treat with us. As you’ve just pointed out, this war with them has been going on for a long time. There is bitterness on both sides. How do we know this Pax Galactica force you propose wouldn’t be destroyed as soon as it entered Xul space? The Wings of Isis, remember, back in 2148, was also unarmed, and the Xul destroyed it, apparently without provocation.”

  “Remember that we still don’t have a clear idea of what happened to that vessel,” Yarlocke replied. “There may well have been unintentional provocation.

  “In any case, however, we know far more now than we did then. The Pax Galactica expeditionary force would make extensive use of AI programming and of the information gleaned from Xul sources over the years to ensure peaceful electronic contact before humans ventured into Xuloccupied space. We now know how to enter Xul electronic systems. Our military does this routinely during their encounters with them. Specially programmed AI representatives would be sent into Xul space ahead of the main Pax force to initiate negotiations. Our military forces would, of course, be ready to provide back- up if, despite our best efforts, the Pax Galactica came under attack. . . .”

  As the discussion continued, Alexander could only sink back into his padded gallery seat and let out a heartfelt sigh. Did the Warlock seriously think it was possible to negotiate with the Xul? That the Xul in any way
, shape, or form thought like humans?

  Alexander wondered, though, if Yarlocke was right, if there was another way. The trick was in finding it without exposing Humankind to a devastating attack.

  “General Dorrity?”

  “Yeah?”

  “As a member of the Appropriations Committee . . . are you allowed to address the Senate?”

  “I’m a non-voting member of a Senate subcommittee,” he said. “I can address them, not the full Senate.”

  “Damn. Do you have an ally in the Senate who might be willing to speak for you?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Senator Armandez, of Ishtar, right here beside me. He’s a defense hardliner, and he has no love for . . . what did you call her? The Warlock.”

  “Have you seen the intel our people brought back from Cluster Space? The stuff on the Core.”

  “Yes, I did. Scary stuff.”

  “It occurs to me that we might use that.”

  “How?”

  “Well, we need to know what the Xul are doing in there, anyhow. And our initial analysis of the data we brought back suggests that what we’re looking at is the closest thing we’ve seen yet to a capital or military headquarters for the whole Xul empire.”

  “Jesus! You’re thinking of taking 1MIEF in there?”

  “Why not?”

  “Cluster Space will seem like RR by comparison.”

  “We’ll need to formulate an ops plan,” Alexander said, thinking with a quick, sharp ferocity. “And it’s a hellish long shot. But if you can get Senator Armandez to propose something for you. . . .”

  “Here,” Dorrity said. “I’ve just brought the Senator onchannel.”

  Alexander felt the new presence on the e-communications line. “Hello, Senator.”

  “General. I’ve heard a lot about you. What do you have in mind?”

  “I wonder if you could suggest this to the Senate. . . .”

  10

  2206 .1111 Seaview Gardens

  Lost Miami, Earth

  1250 hrs, local

  “So where is the lost city of Atlantis?” Nikki Armandez wanted to know.

  “Lost,” Garroway replied, grinning.

  “You know what I mean. . . .”

  “The Bimini Ruins?” Ramsey asked. “We probably zipped right over those in the ekranoplan phase of our trip.”

  “Damn. I was hoping to see those.”

  “Not much to see,” Garroway told her. “I’ve been there in sim. Big flat rocks piled in long, straight walls and barricades, all pretty deep underwater. Besides, that wasn’t the real Atlantis.”

  Mysterious ruins, apparently pieced together from slabs of local beach rock, had raised speculations for centuries about Plato’s fabled lost city just off the now-sunken island of North Bimini, in the Bahamas. The actual identity of Atlantis—a Bronze Age superpower in the eastern Atlantic destroyed by a volcanic eruption around the time of the Trojan War—had not been confirmed until the 2500s.

  The Bimini structures, most likely, had been part of a breakwater and port system built by Atlantis as part of their North American copper-mining franchise. When first discovered, the ruins had been located in shallow waters, less than ten meters down. With the melting of the polar icecaps five centuries ago, the water over that region was now nearly thirty meters deep, but archeological research continued from a large, seafloor complex raised over what had once been the island of North Bimini.

  There was a possibility—little more than speculation even now—that the Bronze Age trading federation of Atalan had been deliberately destroyed by the Xul in around 1200 b.c.e., plus or minus fifty years. The Xul had a penchant for dropping large rocks out of space onto emerging civilizations across the Galaxy. Ancient myth and legend originating with hundreds of disparate peoples around the globe hinted that the famous lost continent’s demise had been a deliberate act—a divine punishment for sins of arrogance and hubris.

  If, in fact, this was true, it had far-reaching import for modern Humankind. It was already certain that the Xul had annihilated the An slave colonies on Earth sometime around seven to eight thousand years b.c.e., but the An at that time had been starfarers, with FTL drives and a highly sophisticated computer technology. If the Xul had bothered to bombard a Bronze Age civilization, still planet- bound, with no technology more advanced than sailing vessels and chariots, it suggested a xenophobic drive on their part much stronger than had previously been imagined.

  It also suggested that the apparent Xul complacence of the past few millennia—the fact that they’d sent only a single huntership to Earth in 2314, for example, instead of an entire battlefleet—was temporary at best. Possibly Xul militancy ran in cycles. Possibly they’d possessed a different form of societal organiza tion in 1200 b.c.e.

  Possibly . . . no, probably . . . Humankind simply didn’t have the full picture, even yet.

  Garroway checked the skimmersub’s data link just to be certain. In fact, they’d missed the North Bimini ruins by a good twenty kilometers, and they had been flying at the time. Only the beginning and ending portions of the skimmersub shuttle’s course were under water. Twenty minutes after departing from Freeport Tower, they’d risen to the surface, flattened out the hull below and aft of the torpedo- shaped passenger section into something looking distinctly like a large stingray, and lifted gently above the waves on surface effect, skimming above the sea at nearly 150 knots. Just a few minutes ago, the skimmersub had settled back down into the water, gently submerged, reassumed its elongated egg form, and continued the voyage at a slower pace beneath the surface.

  “According to the downloads I’ve seen, there’s not a lot to see out there, anyway,” Ramsey put in. “Like Gare said—flat rocks marking out some walls and breakwaters. The underwater ruins at Aguna, west of Okinawa, are a lot more impressive.”

  “Yeah,” Garroway said, touching her shoulder and pointing ahead. “You know, if you want to see a real lost city, take a look at that.”

  Armandez looked up, and gasped. Ahead, through the transparent hull, immense ruins were rising from the sea floor, shadowy masses slowly resolving into walls, towers, and buildings.

  Since the 19th and 20th centuries, Earth had been struggling with the effects of a gradual global warming trend. In 2314, the Xul attack had sent titanic waves smashing into coastal areas around the planet, demolishing cities worldwide. The attack had thrown vast clouds of dust and water vapor into the sky, blocking off sunlight at the surface and plunging Earth into a brief, mini-ice age. Solar mirrors constructed in orbit had helped raise temperatures again and melt the ice, but no one had ever tried to manage climate on a planetary scale before, and control had been a problem. Eventually, things had balanced out, but by then the polar ice caps had vanished, and sea levels had risen some twenty meters above their pre-Armageddonfall depths.

  “It’s beautiful!” Armandez exclaimed.

  “It’s an underwater junkyard,” Ramsey said. “But the marine growth does pretty the place up, doesn’t it?”

  Tangled wreckage—iron gratings, the shapes of ancient vehicles, piles of broken stone, glass, and steel—everywhere emerged from a smothering blanket of silt banked and shaped around the submerged bases of those titanic buildings. Coral had taken root, and in places the wreckage had been all but swallowed by colorful masses like living, flowering rock. Schools of fish wheeled and turned above what once had been city streets. They could see humans out there as well, wearing black breathersuits as they worked among the ruins. Genegineered dolphins, Tursiops habilus, sporting muscular arms and hands, assisted them. They appeared to be clearing a foundation for new seabed construction.

  The skimmersub slowed as it entered a region of deep shadow. External lights switched on, spearing ahead into bluegreen shadows.

  “Those buildings are huge,” Garroway said. “I saw some of them in sim, but I didn’t realize they were this big in life.”

  “Hotels, most of them,” Ramsey said. “Miami Beach. This was supposed to be
a tourist hot spot five hundred years ago. It was pretty much trashed by the tidal waves in 2314, but the buildings remained standing, most of them. After the ice melted, they were sticking up out of the ocean a good 200 kilometers from the nearest large land mass, so people turned the buildings into pylons and built platforms up above the water. Some of them are a couple of kilometers high, now.”

  “Is that where Gunny Warhurst lives?” Armandez wanted to know.

  “Nah. He’s in a hab called Virginia Key Reef. Actually, I think that may be it up ahead.”

  The shuttle had passed through the looming pylons of the partially sunken city and into a region of dazzling, shifting light playing across brilliantly reflective sand. More ruins loomed up out of the shadowy waters ahead, however . . . storage tanks, forests of tangled piping, and more buildings, most of them engulfed by mountainous reefs of coral.

  In places, the coral had taken on oddly symmetrical and geometrical shapes, due to the structure of the artificial structures beneath it. A series of seafloor habitats had been anchored to the sea bed just above one particularly large coral-encrusted amphitheater. The skimmersub was angling now toward the lock mounted on one end of the huge, semicircular structure. The transport drifted above the vertical docking sleeve, settled onto it, and nanosealed with the facility.