“So they will probably put up a good defense,” Ford said.
“Yes. We have to consider that they have been living for decades under Meme rule. Most of them will have been born since the conquest. They don’t know anything else. We can’t expect them to revolt. Not without disaffected Blends, but the Sekoi don’t believe Earth has had long enough for our Blends to get bored.”
“Okay,” Absen said around a mouthful of chips. “So we’ll have to beat them militarily. But there should still be a point at which they know they’ve lost, and surrender.”
“Yes, sir. Neither Meme nor Blends are really willing to die for the Empire. We know that. Commander Bogrin thinks once our victory is mathematically certain, they will surrender. Of course, the Purelings will fight to the death.”
“So the key is to threaten the bosses. The Blends. I assume you’ve put some effort into identifying them?”
“Yes, sir.” Fleede clicked the slide show forward to display a diagram of the system. “We’ve found these major command centers – one on each large moon. However, while the unblended humans here are the most reliable, the Blends out here might not be.”
“Why is that?” Absen asked, leaning forward with interest.
“Because it’s not desirable duty. Some of the Blends might be dedicated, or militarily inclined, or seeking advancement through taking an undesirable assignment, but the Sekoi Intel team members believe that these will be few. Most Meme who accept Blending are looking for a hedonistic lifestyle, their second, more pleasurable stage of existence, as it were. For them, it’s like retiring from harsh military service. Like giving up a life of boredom and sacrifice and going to heaven – an amusement-park heaven composed of debauchery, lust for power, gluttony, drunkenness. What we would call all the worst of human traits.”
“So most of that fun is on Earth, not Jupiter system.”
“Yes, sir. The four moon bases have recreations, but they’re still pretty austere compared to Earth. The Blends here really haven’t had time to get these urges out of their system, according to our Sekoi that remember what it was like when the Meme conquered them. Takes hundreds of years before they start acting like statesmen rather than childish, spoiled, rich-kid politicians, begging your pardon, sir.”
Absen waved the apology away. “Lawyers and politicians are always fair game for jokes, Lieutenant Commander Fleede, and I’ve never wanted to be either. Carry on.”
Fleede snorted and choked his way through a laugh. Absen reminded himself not to joke again, if he wanted to keep the man on track. He waved, go on, and the intelligence officer continued.
“The bottom line is, sir, and I know you like bottom-line assessments…anyway, I believe that if those bases are neutralized, the rest will surrender. But,” Fleede waved a finger like a mad scientist, “if even one of them can continue transmitting orders, the rest will believe they have a chance.”
“Excellent summary. Do they have a Weapon?”
“A weapon, sir?”
“A Weapon with a capital ‘W,’ man. An exowatt-power laser.”
“Oh, yes, sir. It’s on Io, facing outward, and uses that moon’s volcanic heat as a power source, we believe. It also has the fastest orbit, about 1.77 standard days, so it sweeps the system the quickest.”
“But we can avoid it if we just stay out of its way.” Absen finished off his milk, wishing again for fresh instead of reconstituted. No matter the advance of technology, nothing could seem to replicate real fresh chilled milk.
“Yes, sir. Easily. Though if we land ground forces, and it takes them longer than a day or so to win, we will have to pull out our aerospace cover. Or, we could just use an Exploder on it.”
Absen’s face froze and he almost snapped at the man, remembering a long legacy of smart Intelligence people who thought because they knew so much, they should be in charge. Then he realized Fleede was, in his own awkward way, just trying to provide him with options. “So, an Exploder, or a ground attack like we did at Gliese 370, or just avoid it?”
“Ah…well, sir – Sergeant Janice, give me a close-up of Io – sir, as you can see, the laser sits very close to the command center on Io. In all likelihood they are connected by underground tunnels. We have to take the command center out eventually, so…”
“So we might as well take out the Weapon as well. Got it. Any other ways to do that other than Exploder or ground assault?”
“Our fusion missiles can be more precisely timed now, sir. A properly set up bombardment has at least an even chance of rendering it inoperative, according to our simulations.”
Absen looked around for other ideas, then realized this wasn’t the time or place for a mass brainstorming session. “All right. Ford, you’re Blue Team leader. Fleede’s your second, Conquest is the third. Pick several others, and make sure you have at least one Marine and one flier. I want you to come up with courses of action to defeat the Io laser, the four bases, and the rest of the Jupiter system, with the resources of this boat. I’ll want to see something in about forty-eight hours, and if you can spare the mental effort, start thinking about how to beat the Earth-Luna defenses as well.” He stood up, causing everyone else to stand with him.
Fleede spoke. “Ah, sir, I have a lot more detail on the Jupiter defenses…”
“You can keep briefing anyone here who wants to listen. For me, package it up in an interactive report and shoot it to my desk, all right? I’ll study it at my leisure. Ford, get to work. Anyone on the Blue Team is off the regular watch rotation.” Absen walked to the door as Tobias held it open for him, and then turned back to address his officers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve done half the job. We destroyed their two biggest ships, and the moon laser that holds Earth hostage. We forced them to pull back to defend the prize, leaving us free to attack the secondary target. Now all we have to do is seize Jupiter system as a base, free the human slaves there, and form a task force to liberate our home planet. I still have a few things up my sleeve, so don’t despair. I believe in a few short weeks, Earth will be ours again.”
***
Absen sent Tobias out of his quarters and sat in his armchair, staring at a map of the solar system on the wall screen. His last bottle of Scotch sat on the table to his right, and he sipped at the amber liquid from a highball glass of Sekoi crystal. Unbidden, doubts ran through his mind, and the press of time weighed upon his soul.
He’d once believed that the TacDrive was a magic bullet, a technology that would let him dance into the solar system untouched and snatch it from the Meme as a street urchin would steal an apple from a vendor.
Now he realized how naïve that belief had been, and his mistake had lost him good people. If he’d looked more carefully, searched for the hidden traps that fifty years of Meme rule had allowed them to lay, he might have found the second moon laser. Now Conquest had to waste effort licking her wounds, giving up that most precious of commodities: time. Time and surprise.
I’ve tried out most of my tools, he thought. My best ones, the ones I had expected. Now I’ll have to admit that Spooky was right. I am glad he and Denham are here with their weird little boat. Let’s just hope they can pull another rabbit out of the hat. And then there’s Bull and his Marines. Thank God for them and their monolithic loyalty. They’re going to be vital, because contrary to a certain unruly weapons officer, we’re not going to win with just the biggest guns.
Or even the biggest hearts and brains.
We’re going to win because have no other choice.
Epilogue
Spooky smoked like a chimney, staring out the flat glass porthole surrounded by brass and polished wood. The fumes of his cigar wafted into the air and vanished, disturbing his fellows not the least. Sighing, he tossed the half-finished stogie into the air, where it vanished. “There’s always something missing about smoking in VR,” he said with a touch of wistfulness.
“Maybe it’s the guilt,” Ezekiel said from his position standing before the bank of ste
ampunk-inspired levers, knobs and gauges. “You were born in a time where smoking caused all sorts of nasty illnesses. It was a real vice back then, something for macho men. Now it’s just one more annoying habit.” Like Spooky, he wore a pea coat with brass buttons, trousers with stripes down the legs, and sported a round naval cap.
“VR used to be interesting, but I find it pales in comparison to reality.”
Bogrin, or the VR avatar of Bogrin anyway, snorted with amusement in a very manlike way. Spooky suspected the simulation interpreted the Hippo’s emotions and rendered them with a homo sapiens flair. “You humans constantly seem to be trying to escape from reality. If you can’t do that, you obsessively control it. Eventually you realize that all such control is an illusion, and the best one can hope for is to ride life’s waves.”
“Your English has improved quite a lot,” Ezekiel observed.
“That’s because I am speaking my own language, and your translator simulation renders it more accurately than I can in physical form.”
“Of course. I should have thought of that.”
Bogrin snorted again and manifested a cigar of his own, suited in size for his enormous grip. Once lit, he puffed on it contentedly. “I have not spent enough time in VR to get bored of it, however. The Meme did not allow Blends access to ships such as this one, or the organic technology to link into virtualities. I sometimes wonder if, had they done so, no revolt would have been possible. Most of the Blends would just have abandoned reality to spend all their time inside this kind of ‘second life.’”
“For a while,” Spooky countered. “As you pointed out, eventually you would have tired of it.”
“Yes.” Bogrin said no more, but simply smoked and looked out at the void rushing by.
On the other side of the room, Trissk paced back and forth like the upright lion he resembled. After ten years, he had grown into his prime, his mane full and his muscles rippling. Though not as bulky as a Sekoi, he flowed with contained menace and power. “I do not fully understand what we are doing here. Conquest fights on, and now we abandon her and our fellow warriors, for what?”
“You didn’t have to come along. As you Ryss have no Blends, some other could have represented your race,” Ezekiel said mildly.
“I was the logical choice. I have the most experience dealing with humans and Sekoi. I command our small contingent. I could not send another in my place, or I would have looked like a coward. However, I fear I may still look like a coward, as I will be elsewhere when the fight finally comes to tooth and claw.” He snarled and slashed a hanging curtain, which slowly raveled itself up afterward. “I also do not like this virtual reality. What satisfaction is there in attacking a simulation?”
“You can always go back to your body in the cocoon,” Ezekiel replied. “Though without the link, you won’t be comfortable. And you can’t get out and roam around. This ship doesn’t have the extensive gravplating of Conquest, so you need to be sealed up and cushioned in case of hard maneuvering.”
“I agree with the young Ryss, though,” Bogrin said around his stogie. “It is time to hear what this is all about.”
Ezekiel sat in a chair, placing his hands on the arms as if on a throne, and smiled. “We’re going to meet my family.”
The two aliens stared in puzzlement, and Spooky lifted an eyebrow in a very Vulcan manner. “I always thought Raphaela had her own base somewhere in the outer reaches of the solar system. I even had people searching for it in the decades before we departed, but I never found it.”
“Space is too vast even for your resources to find it,” Ezekiel said with satisfaction. “And we were very careful. If Earth ever fell, no one could know where it was, what it looked like or how to detect it. With the Meme sucking information out of everyone’s head, if anyone knew, they would too.”
“Absen could have found it,” Spooky groused, “but he didn’t want to put enough EarthFleet resources against it. But, I suppose that’s now proven fortunate.”
“Precisely.”
“Would you two cease sharing inside anecdotes and explain yourselves?” said Trissk, striding up to Spooky and looming over the small Vietnamese man.
Ezekiel waved diffidently and said, “Before he died, my father convinced my mother to set up a secret base, a young and healthy living machine little different from a ship. With that, her shuttle, and the resources of the Asteroid Belt and the cometary halo, she and my brothers and sisters had everything they needed to assist EarthFleet without ever getting co-opted by it.”
Spooky grunted, moving out from under Trissk’s shadow. “Brothers and sisters? I never knew. Were they part of the ‘black box’ team of scientists that cracked so many technical challenges?”
“Yes. They were quadruplets, and they were not only part of the team, they were the team. No other humans were ever brought out to the base, though Mother did recruit some smart normals to form a second cell on Mars.”
“As a blind. I see,” Spooky said.
“So that’s where we’re going? This secret base?” asked Trissk.
“Exactly. If we can find it, we can show Mother what we’ve done, and the allies we’ve made. She can give us a wealth of information about Earth. If there are any resistance movements, any soft underbelly to Meme rule, she will know about them. The trick, though, will be making contact.”
“Did you not arrange codes and signals, in case you returned?” Bogrin asked.
“Of course. The tricky part will be dodging or getting rid of all the Meme sentry drones lurking around the system, and making sure that when we transmit, nobody sees or follows us. If I was Mother, I would be extremely careful. On the other hand, she must already know that the Empire has been attacked here. The battles and the destruction of the two Guardians would have been visible throughout the system and beyond.”
“Then we had better get started killing drones, don’t you think?” Trissk snarled. “Show me how to use this ship’s weapons, and I will be your gunner. Let us begin the hunt.” He paced around the room as if looking for a fire control station.
“I have a better idea.” Ezekiel gestured toward the front screen, which appeared to be a window opening onto space itself. The view leaped forward until they stared at the shark-like shape of a Meme sentry. “Roger, think you can sneak up on that drone?”
“Of course, Zeke,” the voice of the ship came back.
To the two aliens, this was just another VR wonder. Spooky, though, nearly jumped out of his skin.
“I will keep that expression permanently in memory,” Ezekiel laughed. “In fact…” A moment later a holographic image of Spooky, with completely unrehearsed shock on his face, appeared on the wall. “Priceless.”
“Roger is sentient,” Spooky accused. “All these years we have been working together, you kept this from me.”
“Only so I could reveal it to you at the proper time. What, you think you’re the only one that gets to have secrets?”
A slow smile stole across Spooky’s face, then a belly laugh burst forth from his lips. He bent over, clutching his knees and letting out several gasps and whoops. Ezekiel had never seen the man so unabashedly amused. “Well played, sir. Well played.”
“If you can breathe now, take a look at the screen.”
The four gathered in the front of the sumptuous control deck to see the sentry looming closer and closer. It seemed to be unaware, almost somnolent. Suddenly it jerked and thrashed as two tentacles leaped forth from Steadfast Roger and speared into the tiny ship. A moment later it calmed, returning to its former stillness.
“Give Roger a few hours and he will break through its conditioning and steal all the current Meme communications codes and protocols. Then he’ll have that sentry doing our work as well. If all goes as planned, he will quietly call the drones in this area of space to him one by one and take them over. Pretty soon, we’ll have our own little fleet reporting only what we want back to the Meme, and also searching for the base signature that I supplied. It may
take a few days or a few weeks, but eventually we’ll track Mother down.”
The four, each a warrior in his own way, stared at the screen and watched the future unfold.
THE END of Tactics of Conquest. Captain Absen and his stalwart crew will return in Conquest of Earth, coming in summer of 2014.
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on Amazon, and look for more by David VanDyke at www.davidvandykeauthor.com.
By David VanDyke:
Plague Wars series:
The Eden Plague
Reaper's Run
The Demon Plagues
The Reaper Plague
The Orion Plague
Cyborg Strike
Comes The Destroyer
Follow many of your favorite Plague Wars characters a hundred years into the future in the hard-hitting mil-sci-fi Stellar Conquest series.
Stellar Conquest series:
First Conquest (within the anthology Planetary Assault)
Desolator
Tactics of Conquest
Look for them at your favorite book provider or visit www.davidvandykeauthor.com
Tactics of Conquest (Stellar Conquest) Page 24