Fallen Empire

by D. L. Harrison

  Jayna shook her head, “Normally I’d agree, but this guy has connections. America has been grudgingly neutral toward us the last eight years, and that may change if this guy can raise enough of a fuss when he gets back on the ground. If tourism is impacted the resort companies will be furious at us. If a senator decides to make an issue of this and deliver a travel advisory it could snowball.”

  “How should she have dealt with it, doesn’t seem like she had a choice, the man wouldn’t calm down or talk?”

  Cassie nodded, “Nothing different, actually. Do we really want to cave to political pressure or sour campaigns? Have two sets of standards? One for the rich and connected, and one for the rest? We treat all our visitors with the same respect, until they do something to lose it, and this isn’t the first time we’ve revoked a visa for someone that stepped over the bounds of civility.”

  Jayna bit her lip, “Fine, but he’s giving a speech about it.”

  Cassie shook her head, “Let’s wait a few days for the full fallout, so he can address it all, we can’t march him out every five minutes as it evolves.”

  Jayna tilted her head, “I can agree to that.”

  “So… we’re good?”

  Jayna blew out a breath, “I think so. She isn’t wrong, exactly.”

  Cassie sighed, “I could’ve been more subtle doing it though.”

  I shook my head, time to call it a day.

  Chapter Twenty

  The command table hologram looked like a huge mess trying to keep track of it all. It was late morning the next day, and time to launch the plan.

  I had a bad feeling about it, as the fleets started to wormhole out in specified intervals designed to get them to the targets at the same time. The farthest target was just over fifteen million light years away, and it’d take at least three hours to get there via wormhole.

  The enemy had forty-two million ships while I had forty-eight million. Those forty-eight million ships had a combined five hundred and seventy-six trillion platforms. The table just couldn’t possibly display and track that many ships. The sensors were up to it, each ship being a huge computer the way it was, more ships, more computing power. It was just rendering that many ships in such a small space that was impossible.

  The numbers were just insane.

  As a result, I’d be looking for losses to gauge the battle, the eight border fleets of the enemy, and the ten million other ships were split in two different locations, one with six million and one with the four million that had attacked us.

  Seven of the fleets were going for eight borders, one fleet split to take two of the three enemy fleets that had their old ships. I had three fleets going to their six million ship fleet, and the last two going for the enemy’s four million ship fleet to maintain perfect two to one odds there. After the battle I’d split one of those five fleets so I’d have two whole fleets on those borders, instead of two million ships which might embolden one of the surrounding empires.

  To simplify things, it was now little better than a number display with ship counts, of both the enemy and my ships, superimposed over a very small-scale hologram of the twenty-six galaxies. The battle would be automated, the platforms would attack automatically when they came out of wormholes and detected enemy ships nearby. Otherwise it’d be simply impossible for one person to handle it.

  I shook my head, and I had a bad feeling about it. I wasn’t worried I’d lose ships. I was worried the plan wouldn’t work at all. I sent out a message to the committee on when the battle was starting in a little less than three hours from then, and I’d pipe the hologram down to the conference room at that time.

  I got up and grabbed a coffee, it was going to be a long three hours.

  Cassie said, “The fallout from yesterday isn’t bad yet.”

  I shrugged, “Some people will side with us, and call him a jackass. Some will rally on the idea we suppress expression, which is ridiculous. I guess what I’m saying is we did the right thing, and we’ll weather the storm if one comes. We can’t please everyone, if we’d caved to the jackass then the half supporting us would be the ones angry with us for giving in. The press already had their teeth in it, so I’d rather be damned for doing the right thing.”

  I was pretty sure my sister knew and understood that too, she was just angry at all the extra work this would cause.

  Cassie nodded in agreement.

  Everything went perfectly to plan, in the first two seconds.

  The ships dropped out of wormholes, and they started to eject the mini-platforms in waves from all over the ship’s hull. Ejecting twelve million mini-platforms took a shockingly short time, and would be done in a few seconds.

  My console alarmed on the third second, and I brought up the data. The ten million enemy ships were already opening wormholes, they must’ve had orders to evade at the first sign of the enemy, meaning us. It was exactly what I feared, and I already knew this foolish attack would gain us little.

  Two seconds after that, all my ships jumped forward into range and opened fire. The enemy returned fire.

  As expected, the three old Vrok fleets were destroyed or at least disabled in eight tenths of a second. They had about as much of a chance of surviving our weapons, as our ships had in surviving the newer subspace energy weapons without the jump drive to dodge targeting them.

  Simultaneously to three fleets destruction, the four billion mini-platforms per site were forced to jump to avoid destruction before their weak subspace shields buckled to the enemy’s fire. The other forty six trillion nine hundred and ninety six billion continued to fire non-stop.

  Of course, it wasn’t quite that lopsided, given enemy formations there were only so many mini-platforms that could fire at the enemy ships at once without getting in each other’s way. The enemy ships toward the center of the formation were pretty much safe in that first exchange as well.

  At the fourth second since they started opening wormholes, two seconds since the firing had started, twenty thousand of their ships exploded in each location, while another four billion of my mini-platforms were forced to jump before shield collapse.

  The fifth second arrived as my ships opened fire on the next large group of ships, but it was too late. The wormholes finished forming, and every enemy ship disappeared. I’d managed to destroy forty thousand out of ten million, and in that moment, I had no idea where those ships were going.

  On the sixth second another twenty thousand ships on their five remaining border fleets exploded, and my console alarmed as their ships started to open up wormholes. For some reason their border fleets hadn’t the same orders as their attack fleet, and it’d taken some time for them to determine and implement that action.

  Still, a six second response time wasn’t exactly shabby on the enemy’s part.

  Our mini-platforms continued to jump when forced, about four billion of them a second, while we managed to take out twenty thousand of their ships on seconds eight and ten, right before they too entered the wormholes and disappeared from my scanners.

  In total, we’d managed to kill just over a quarter million of their new ships, plus all twelve million of the old ones. That left them just a quarter million short of thirty million new ships, their full fleets were virtually still intact, for the new ships.

  I assigned one of the five free fleets to split and join the split fleets on the two borders that had old ships, so we had eight full fleets of four million on all their borders, including ours, given they still had close to thirty million ships that was just prudent.

  That left me with sixteen million ships, four full fleets, twiddling their thumbs in the Vrok’s home galaxy. It wasn’t possible to trace a wormhole, and unless their fleets came out in range of a probe, we’d never find them. So, I put them to work in the hopes of drawing them back out. It’d be stupid for them to fall for it, but desperate people did stupid things.

  I sent the fleets after the Vrok infrastructure in space. Specifically, their build platforms in five thou
sand systems, their space stations which was in orbit of all of their two hundred and eighty six thousand worlds. Their mining ships, their food transports, and their merchants. If it was an enemy target, and not on a planet, I marked it for destruction.

  The four fleets split up, and unleashed unimaginable destruction on the enemy’s presence in space, in less than an hour they had no space assets at all, and might as well have been confined to their planets.

  Except of course, almost thirty million warships, which stayed hidden. We’d still have to deal with them at some point, and I hadn’t seen one wormhole exit, which meant they were hiding somewhere.

  Lastly, I sent fifty ships to all two hundred and eighty six thousand of their worlds, and just let them sit there in orbit. Then I got up and Cassie and I headed toward the conference room.

  The committee looked grim, and I suppressed the I told you so that was on the tip of my tongue.

  I said, “If you followed, they have twenty-nine million seven hundred and forty thousand ships left. We have no idea where they are, nor is it remotely possible to find them. There’s a tiny chance the second wave of the probe blitz might find them, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. If I were them, I’d hide in the void, not in one of their unoccupied systems.”

  There was still twenty-one days before the second wave probe blitz was complete, until then we couldn’t be sure they didn’t have hidden bases in any apparently empty solar systems.

  I added, “I suppose taking out all their space stations, build platforms, and resource shipping and mining is a good thing. But now, even if I get those expected upgrades in the next five or six days, we can’t find their fleets to remove them.”

  Chen said, “It went about as we expected.”

  I shut my eyes and took a breath, mostly so I didn’t explode. They knew it would end like this, like I’d expected, and they did it anyway? It hadn’t been desperation at all, which meant there was more to their plan.

  They hidden the second part of their true plan from me.

  Livid didn’t really cover it, and I was trying to control that anger.

  Natalya said, “I know you’d have preferred to wait for your scientists to come through on their promise, but we couldn’t risk them making the breakthrough they needed first. We have them at our mercy now, they may have thirty million ships, but they aren’t a threat, while we are in orbit of all their worlds, and their food is out of reach on three million other planets.”

  “I won’t make that threat. I’d never follow up on it.”

  Chen nodded, “We know. But we will. Ships are being dispatched now to demand their surrender at their home world and seat of power. We will simply threaten them with starvation, they can’t pick up more food with no more ships, and we’ll promise the cultured meat technology in return for surrender and the destruction of their fleets.”

  Shit. They’d used me, they couldn’t have done this without me, without me chasing off thirty million ships. They didn’t have the numbers for it, so they used me in their stupid plan. All so they could threaten Vrok worlds and demand surrender.

  Which meant if it did go forward, they could be making me complicit in genocide.

  “Who is we, did you all plan this, to use me to get to a point you could use a lever I’d never approve of?”

  Chen said, “We all discussed it, the decision was not unanimous, and my people’s fleet was chosen for this task.”

  I sighed, it was still a bad plan, one I didn’t think would actually work.

  “If they’re close to the breakthrough, as you all feared, then they won’t surrender. They’ll upgrade enough ships and come back at us. Worse, you’ve made them even more motivated to do so, when a little patience would’ve prevented this whole scenario. The only question is if they’ll come for my ships, or for our planets directly. I’m betting on the latter, since it’d draw our ships in to be destroyed.”

  Minato said, “With all due respect, we disagree. Our militaries came up with this plan, and as you’ve said so many times before, you’re not a military minded person. They will cave, or they will starve.”

  I nodded, “Assuming they don’t already have that technology, and they’re only eating sentient races because they taste better, and it appeals to their instincts as predators. Your whole plan hinges on that unproven assumption. I was worried they’d starve when we limited them to their planets, but that was a theoretical concern, not proven fact. They may have it, and they just think of it as survival rations, like MREs. So what happens if they do, they can eat, and they can wait for their fleet upgrades.”

  Chen said, “Perhaps, but war is uncertainty, trickery, and turns of fortune. If that’s the case we’ll overcome, adapt, and find another way. Either way, your active part in this is done. We will of course, welcome your insights and ideas should our plan fall through.”

  Natalya said, “You might bend your mind toward finding those ships.”

  I suppressed a snort, and I didn’t even address that absurd statement. It’d be easier to find a single specific grain of sand on the whole planet. No, it’d be easy to find a particular spec of dirt in our solar system.

  “What I’m having trouble swallowing is half the plan was deliberately kept from me. My vote should’ve been included. I followed the lead of the majority did I not, even when I knew the attack plan was doomed to failure.”

  More than a few of them shifted uncomfortably at that. Call me naïve, but I was kind of shocked, they’d all broken faith with me. I was leader of the most powerful country in the U.N., even if it was the youngest. Had they feared I’d have said no if I knew the full plan, backed out completely? I couldn’t see another possibility as to why they did it, they’d needed me for the first half of the plan, but not the second.

  Chen said, “Your vote would’ve made no difference, and it was felt you had enough on your plate given you were solely responsible for phase one.”

  “Sophistry, that doesn’t even make sense. It’s an offensive plan outside our space, that means it’s a join decision that belongs to all of us and must be discussed and voted on, or do we all start working independently from this point forward? Tell me the truth, you all feared I’d unilaterally reject the plan if I’d known it in full.”

  Gil said, “Not us. Our leaders. They didn’t want to risk it. This is war, we can’t afford to deal with deadly sentient eating enemies like we do with our neutral neighbors.”

  Yup, definitely naïve. I felt used, and angry. Worse, I wasn’t sure they were wrong, I’d have never starved their citizens and non-combatants as a lever to end the war.

  It was deeper than that though, and the blood drained from my face.

  “If they fix their weakness, and they come after us suppressing our jump drives, you’ll fire on their worlds and threaten full destruction if they don’t immediately surrender.”

  Natalya at least had the grace to blush at my horrified tone, but her voice was steely, “Yes. We can’t hang the future of the whole human race on a scientist’s promises. Not ours, and not yours. What if they fail? We do what we must to survive, and that horror in your voice tells us our leaders were right to fear you risking everything and rejecting our plan. It is not our first choice, but it is our last should it be necessary.”

  “Anything else you’re still hiding?” I asked coldly.

  Chen shook his head, “That’s plan B, if they don’t surrender under duress of starvation before they can suppress the jump drives.”

  I felt… dirty.

  Admiral Grady interjected, “We prefer peace, and we’re as wary about abuse of power out of our space as you are. We agree to the hands-off policy for the weaker races, and we also agree with protecting them from large empires. These are all good things we can be proud of, humanity is off to a good start in the stars.

  “But consider this Vrok empire in light of all that good we’re doing. It’s not just humanity’s survival on the line, but the survival of over five million sentient races in fifty
galaxies, not to mention the three million sentient races we’ll be freeing from enslavement as food breeding stock. We have to do what it takes. Sometimes we have to do ugly things, to preserve the greater good.”

  He wasn’t completely wrong, but he was totally missing the point.

  I nodded, “That sounds like a fine argument, and it’s one that should’ve been used to try to sway me when the plan was made, not after you hid it from me and no longer need my assistance. Forget the enemy for a moment. You broke faith with me, you let fear lead to a betrayal of your staunchest ally and the provider of the most powerful ships. All in fear I wouldn’t follow the plan and would break faith with you.

  “Well, you’ll never know if I would or not. Of course, if you do that, and they call your bluff, what then? We’ll destroy their worlds, they’ll destroy our fleets and our worlds in revenge, and it’ll start a twelve-way empire war to claim seventy-six unprotected galaxies. Not even that, because with thirty million ships they’ll have more than enough population to start a few colony worlds and rebuild their society, while our world’s merrily burn.

  “So, I really hope these predators are cowards at heart, and give in under the duress of genocide.”

  Chen said, “That worst case scenario is highly unlikely.”

  I snorted, “Based on what you know of human politicians, that will cave to save their own skins. We don’t know what the odds are for that in the case of the Vrok.”

  Natalya said, “What would you suggest.”

  “Same as before. We upgrade, destroy their fleets when they show themselves, share the cultured meat technology and not worry about it. Who cares what their aggression and pride index is if they’re locked on their planets, and can’t get to us? Still, I don’t suppose it matters at this point, it’s still a technology race in my mind, but your plan could work too, so it won’t hurt.

  “At least, it won’t hurt my soul, I had nothing to do with it. I do hope it was worth it.”

  Chen said, “It was necessary, at the very least two plans are better than one. Counting on one plan in a war for survival is foolish.”