“I think the other issue was what we were doing with the Vrok, our end goal. Unlike the Grays this race is monstrous, using three million intelligent races as feeding stock? Will that change if we give them time to grow up while we keep them confined to their almost three hundred thousand planets?”
I shrugged, “It could be societal, or cultural. By instinct they’re aggressive meat eaters, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn not to eat intelligent beings. Herd animals, or even cultured meats should be able to satisfy their diets. If I’m wrong about that, then a lot of them are going to die anyway, when their population collapses and a great majority of them starve, because we sure as hell aren’t going to feed them.”
Natalya chuckled, “That seems fair, limit their choices to our society’s moral stance on it? They lost that right to choose when they tried to invade us, and they decided to make us the food. Does that mean you’re going to supply the technology to make those cultured meats, what if they don’t know how?”
I frowned, “I hadn’t thought of that. Without that most of them will die, even if they have prey animals on their worlds. Perhaps they already have it, but if they don’t, they could die out of ignorance. I don’t believe we have a moral imperative to do so, but I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea if everyone else wanted to do so.”
Grady said, “Another question for the U.N. Defending the galaxies, and technology so they don’t starve, or let them starve?”
Well, the delay was just about in the bag, the U.N. wasn’t exactly quick at deciding a damned thing, and we already had two major questions for them.
Gil said, “Delaying is a risk, it’s a roll of the dice on if our scientists or theirs will overcome our disparate tactical deficiencies first. I think while the U.N. is working out those two issues, our generals and admirals should get together and come up with a campaign based on our current technology. They can’t shoot us, but there has to be a way to harry the enemy and cut down on their numbers. If it goes on long enough, they may just surrender if we demand it.”
I sighed, “It’s dangerous, because they could just hide in the void and avoid their worlds and our probes. It’ll be impossible to even take out twenty thousand in harrying pursuit attacks once per wormhole jump if they do that. With my six fleets it would take three hundred and fifty of those attacks, successful ones where they couldn’t wormhole out without losses, to take them down.
“Once they’re in the void, even if we got upgrades to make us more effective, we couldn’t find them.”
Natalya said, “We could threaten their home world, and other worlds, at that point. You might not pull the trigger, but we have ships too. I’m sure they’d be willing to negotiate a surrender at that point.”
Chen shook his head, “Maybe. Carnivores are different than omnivores. We’d probably surrender under those circumstances, if we could get a good deal and keep our worlds from harm, but we can’t assume they will. That said, it would be worth the attempt, and while we’re there we could wipe out their build programs. They’re still building ten thousand ships a weak, in five thousand of their two hundred and eighty-six thousand star systems.
“Which means we were also lucky. To have thirty million of their new ships, that means at that rate they’ve been building for sixty years with the intentions of invading the Grays. I suspect they’d have held off another twenty-four years until they’d replaced them all, if we hadn’t replaced the Grays and alarmed them.”
Natalya said, “You might be right, but we can’t be sure of that for another twenty-four days, until the second sweep is done. For all we know they have another five thousand build platforms in unoccupied systems by themselves, and they’ve only been building for thirty years. Or… who knows?”
Chen shrugged, “My point still stands, we could cut their build program by ten thousand ships a week, and get those others later, if they exist.”
I nodded, “We should discuss it again, when we see what our scientists have for us after the U.N. has decided on those two issues. If our combined military wisdom can’t come up with a decent plan during that time, and our scientists are close to a breakthrough, I suspect we should give it a little time. I know my head scientist is on the edge of several breakthroughs. Plus, any of us could match that build rate with our eyes closed, keeping up won’t be a problem, and waiting will be worth it.
“Their worlds aren’t exactly helpless either, they all have space stations and who knows how powerful their defenses are, and there’s even more defensive emplacements in their build worlds on the build platforms.
“The main point remains. A breakthrough that would give an amount of parity means I could take out a full fleet at a time, instead of chipping away at them and risking them hiding in the void. I’d lose a lot of platforms in the effort, but those could be rebuilt.”
Yeah, I had less than half the room on that point, they wanted to press the enemy hard, with our current slight tactical advantage. Maybe they weren’t wrong, was I being too careful? Or was it just my surety that we had a good chance to catch up quickly thanks to the mission I wasn’t sharing?
Natalya said, “I think we’re starting to go in circles. We bring the feeding and quarantining issue as well as the expansion issue to the U.N. We’ll also have our best tacticians work on a plan for the current level of technology we have. We’ll reconvene once those three things are accomplished. Hopefully no more than two or three days,” she looked at me, “I’ll entertain possible advancements then, but it will have to be very promising for me to change my mind.”
No one objected to that, not even me, and the meeting broke up.
Chapter Thirteen
The small stealth probe bounced around the millions of ships I had in the void, and my sensors just couldn’t see it, at all. The ships were detecting the quantum field for the quantum drive, the only external energy it used. There was no way around that, but Diana assured me their sensors lacked the technology to see it.
I supposed I’d find out.
There was also the problem of the ship creating a hole in space with nothing in it, but since it was jumping five times a second even that was hard to see, as that space was filled in with normal background radiation as soon as it jumped to the next spot. A mere blip. I supposed the success of the plan depended on how close an eye they kept on the space around their build platforms, if they even had their sensor software tuned to report a blank spot.
A further point, the probe ship was tiny, in comparison to the big empty spot one of their probe ships had left.
I chose one of the Vrok’s five thousand build systems that wasn’t a major government world, yet still had plenty of traffic. It was a little tricky, I had the probe jumping around ahead of their pursuing ships trying to close in on it, about two light minutes away from planet when it formed a second quantum beacon and my stealth probe jumped to it.
The normal probe started to jump further away, to evade their attempts to block it in and trap it, while my stealth probe started to jump toward the large platform at a speed equivalent to light speed.
I gasped in a breath, when I realized I’d been holding it. A few seconds later, it was apparent by the ships in the area that it hadn’t been seen.
The build platform was vast. It was shaped like a large rectangle, ten miles long, a mile wide, and a mile in height. They could build two ships inside of it inside a week, that was about seven miles long. I could only assume the rest of the space was for stock and the automated machines that built the ships. The thing was heavily shielded, and it had a whole lot of turrets on it. It was also big enough inside to accept an almost constant stream of raw material deliveries.
It was one giant fabricator.
It had the two extremely large main airlock doors to release the built ships once a week, but it also had four smaller airlocks on the other side for smaller mining vessels to fly into and deliver the materials used to build the ships. I’d reviewed the scout’s data while planning, and the shield around the small
er airlocks dropped for just a few seconds, each time a merchant vessel entered or left the platform, while keeping the rest of the platform shielded.
My magic didn’t work through shields.
So, I’d timed the mission to an inbound mining vessel that was headed toward one of those airlocks. My cloaked ship intercepted the mining ship just as the door was opening and the shield dropped. It quantum jumped a mere five hundred feet that last time, taking advantage of the unshielded location.
A moment later, after a quick passive sensor scan of the interior, it quantum jumped one last time nearby one of the ships being built and the platforms infrastructure.
“Going to be absent.”
Jessica said, “We’ll keep your body safe, Scott.”
Cassie smirked, “Speak for yourself. I’m feeling a bit peckish.”
I snorted and sent my awareness and magic away from my body, and through the quantum connection to the probe, and finally the short distance to the platform. I was completely vulnerable in such a state, no idea what was going on back at my body, but I was positive it wasn’t feeding Cassie.
It was both everything I’d hoped, and a disappointment at the same time. They were very conscious of security. It was easy enough to bypass that, my magic went right through their local protections and firewalls, and it pulled all the data on their ship’s technology.
All the disparate systems and full technical specifications including materials used in construction and how to make them was downloaded in moments to my mind. I could see immediately my Diana was right. I could set up those systems with the nanites already, but if we turned them on they would draw more power than the materials could handle, and ultimately would destroy the ship.
It was what it was made out of, that was even more important than the designs. The designs weren’t actually all that different in the propulsion, shields, weapons, and inertial dampeners, save the analogous subspace beam weapon which was very different. Even the computers were similar. There were small design differences, to make up for the different properties of the newer and more advanced materials used, but nothing major there outside of the fact their weapons could gain a target lock in about half the time as ours. In the end, they were just more robust versions capable of utilizing more power and making it stronger and more effective, outside of their subspace tech which we didn’t have at all, I mean. Until now, anyway.
That’s what Diana would have to figure out, how to adapt our systems to their superior ones, either through nanite upgrades, or if necessary, moving away from nanite design. It would suck if we had to move away from that technology, but if that’s what it took to grow stronger to protect humanity it’d be what we did.
I had no doubt she was up to it, and suspected she’d even be able to maximize the efficiency of the new tech and perhaps make it even stronger than the Vrok’s in that way. But it would also take time.
That was the good news, that part of the mission was a complete success, as I quantum jumped one more time to the void and self-destructed as I returned to my body.
But on the bad side, the platform was completely isolated, there were no connections to follow to find social or historical databases for their people. It also didn’t give me a connection to their fleet, they didn’t use a quantum paired connection to a command center, it was decentralized and worked similarly to the non-entangled quantum communicator we used to connect our various more directly connected fleets together, for a common datanet.
It was probably smart, because if their command center was ever destroyed, they wouldn’t lose their tactical net among their fleets. The problem was there was no record of the Vrok military’s tactical frequency anywhere on the station or the ship’s being built. I had to imagine once the ship was complete, the military officers who took the ship entered the specific fleet frequency as they took command. In short, this place was run by civilians, who didn’t need to know that information.
So, I supposed it was a good thing we’d come up with the probe blitz idea, or I’d have no idea where or how many ships they had, or what systems they were in. Still, at least my magic would help with what we lacked. Although, it’d been nice to be able to see exactly what kind of society we were dealing with, not to mention a surer count of their ships, but the probe plan was adequate that way, or would be in just twenty-four more days.
There was little to no chance I could successfully get my magic in an active ship, they were too security conscious and far too self-destruct happy, and even if I did then I’d bet their fleets weren’t connected.
The thing that worried me the most was they had non-entangled quantum communications. That was just a hop, skip, and a jump from having quantum jump drives, but there was no indication they’d made that mental leap yet. On the good side, we had time. Even if they made that leap and figured it out quickly, they’d have to upgrade all their ships in facilities, without nanites to just add the system to their current ships.
In short, we’d win that race, I was fairly sure.
Cassie said, “Well?”
I grinned, as I downloaded all the information into our secure system network, and I only gave Diana access to it. She could decide who else got it. Then I sent her a message. On a whim, I added my daughter as well. Maybe it was insane giving a twelve-year-old access to our greatest state secrets, but she already had that, and my wife had convinced it would contribute to her education. I knew she could be trusted. She’d never tell anyone outside the family who already knew.
I yawned and stretched, and then got up slowly and started to make a coffee.
Cassie growled, “Scott!”
“Hmm?” I smiled faux innocently.
Jessica giggled, “The mission, sir.”
I narrowed my eyes in mock confusion, “The mission? What about it?”
It was about then I started to laugh, and I couldn’t hold the faux bored expression any longer.
“The core mission was a complete success, since we got their technology. The other data I was hoping for was a completely failure, and no connection to their active fleet as well. They’re as paranoid about their technology as the NSA and military combined. Not just from their enemies, but from their civilians as well. I suppose we’re no different that way.”
I explained all I’d learned. I also finished making my coffee and sat down at my console.
“So, yeah. We got it, but we can’t use any of it, yet.”
Jessica said, “If we did?”
I said, “We could take them in a fleet to fleet ambush without jumping to avoid their beams, in about three or four seconds, and I’d lose something close to a third of the mini-platforms in the exchange. But those could be rebuilt in a few days. That’s assuming we can adapt the nanites with new materials technology. If we have to abandon the nanites, then it will be far more… problematic.”
Jessica asked, “Materials technology?”
I nodded, “Sure, think about televisions. First they used vacuum tubes and had to be warmed up, and the reception sucked. Then more reliable transistors replace vacuum tubes, and reception was better. Then integrated circuits came along, and that made it even better. Similar in theory, still a television, but a better version of it.
“Same thing with our propulsion, weapons, shields, inertial dampeners. The new materials and slightly different designs make it better, and more robust to use more power before burning out, making the systems more powerful overall. We’ll still focus on adding new technologies to make us even more diverse, but we need to keep up with advancing the old ones too, if we want to stay ahead in the arm’s race. This will catch us up to the Vrok, and it’ll exceed what the Atans just accomplished ten years ago. Although in the latter case, the new tech we built would’ve made it a moot point, the Vrok shields against our new technologies made it necessary to get back to basics.”
Jessica nodded, “I think I get it. Same technology, but more refined and robust.”
“Exactly. We also learned they’re
using fusion reactors. Which is probably why their self-destruct never left behind even a little intact technology. Between all their missile stock and the reactors, it’s amazing even pieces of hull survive the explosion.”
Jessica said, “But if we can’t integrate it, we’d be screwed, how could we catch up to their building?”
I frowned, “I have twenty-four million ships in the void, that could be turned into huge fabrication factories. We could create the raw elements, and the factories would build the ships from that raw fabrication stock. Similar to the smaller fabricators that Diana designed to take the raw molecule sized grains the energy to matter devices made of the reactor material, to make fusion reactors. We could create an equivalent fleet within a week, double it in two weeks. But I hope that isn’t necessary, I kind of like the nanites because they can rebuild systems on the fly and quickly restore lost mass. Any systems destroyed in a space battle on regular ships would be unreplaceable on the spot, at least.”
Cassie said, “Unless we just use the second-generation energy to matter devices, with molecular bonding. Then we can just build the ships, and even repair them on the fly.”
I nodded, “But if we do that, the secret that we’ve cracked that limitation will get out. That’s a final desperate option for me, and only if Astraeus had to become completely independent of Earth because they cut off our imports, which seems unlikely now. I don’t think we’re there yet. Better to go the fabricator route. If that tech becomes known, it’ll blow up economies. The original one is bad enough. No, that, my magic, the cloaking probe, and the fact we just stole the Vrok’s technology with it needs to stay our highest state secrets.
“All our technology should be guarded, even if we’re selling the rest of it and others are aware of it. But for those, I don’t even want people aware of it, if we can help it.”
Cassie nodded, “I suppose that’s wise, and at least we have a plan if it can’t be integrated. Still, our people would be fine with it.”
Fallen Empire Page 10