by Marc Neuffer
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Before we arrived, the Bears had quickly modified a large building, at the library campus, as temporary quarters for the Surrons. A village, from a layout proposed by Archer, was being constructed at the edge of a forest. The Bear city, library campus and new Surron enclave would form an equilateral triangle. The Bears preferred symmetry.
After their arrival on Shangri La, most of the Surrons stayed outside as much as possible, touching the plant life, the ground. Each one spent time running, exerting themselves, as organics once again. When the daily rain shower came, every single Surron danced in it; reveling. It had been a long time for them.
Archer appointed three teams, of his kind, to assist the Bears. One would help them unlock the hidden files in the Surron library AIs. Another was helping to work through the Mintic inscriptions and contents of the containers. The last, smaller group, joined us in revising our plans to thwart the Zees.
In light of Archers information about the Zees less than honorable practices, our previous plan was put on hold, to ensure we didn’t do anything that might limit our options in the future.
There was a possible bloody war on the horizon. We had heard the distant warnings of canon echoes, but had not recognized them as such. While intellectually, the Bears saw this as inevitable, they begged off being part of the war-planning council. If asked, they would advise on technical issues, but didn’t want to, and couldn’t, engage in planning for possible mass death and destruction, even if it was defensive in nature.
Archer and I both knew there would come a time we would have to shift from defense to offence. Unfortunately, until we could find a way to influence the realm of the Zees, the races under their influence, would be casualties of war.
We couldn’t simply develop weapons to bash about in the Zee’s dimensions. Those dimensions were part of the layer cake we call the universe. Adversely changing or wrecking those would have horrendous effects on every other layer, ours included. Besides, we wanted to get a choke hold on just the Upper-Zees, to expose them to the Under-Zees.
I was calling in a favor. I was going to recruit Adam Ranger. Like Abby, Mica’s wife, he had been an Under-Zee, inhabiting one of the AIs on my ship. Together, we had started, and successfully completed, our mission to close the dimensional rift.
Adam, who we called Ranger back then, had taken a human body and existence after the rift closure. That decision, for Abby and himself, had been a rebellious act against the controlling Zees on the other side. He had become suspicious of them.
He still lived on Satchel. Mica and Abby saw him occasionally. Adam had a wife, children, and small grandchildren. He’d become a highly successful sailing-yacht designer and builder. Like Abby, he’d become enamored with nature in our plane of existence. He was a friend.
Sandy and I were going to the ranch for a reunion of sorts. Sarah and Noah stayed on Shangri La, hip deep in their respective professions. On the way, Sandy expressed her concern about their detachment from humanity. She wanted grandchildren. Not too soon, but sooner rather than later. How were the kids to find suitable spouses if there were none around? Sandy and I looked too young to be grandparents, but that was an effect of having Surron made human bodies. We were both over fifty.
PART TWO: WAR
23 Alliance
Alliance: a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them.
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Before we had encountered the Surrons, there was occasional evidence of previous or on-going projection of violent force by one species over another, as well as intra-species conflicts, ranging from a few star systems, to entire quadrants of galaxies. Historically, where one ascendant species existed, they either killed themselves off, knocked themselves down the technological ladder or finally came to realize that neither war nor repressive regimes were the best, long-term solutions. Though policing actions were still sometimes necessary.
There was no discernable pattern of warring activity. You couldn’t point to an area on the universal map and say ‘here is the front’. The only marker, which we came to recognize, was the unnaturally rapid increase of technological advances prior to the start of a war.
According to Archer, the Zees would pump tech advances, from far distant species, into a ripe-for-war area, millions or billions of galaxies away. Spatial geography was not a consideration for the Zees. They wanted war, of any type. War created information for them. War was an instrument of investigation into our dimensions. They didn’t like wars to end, they played one side against the other, attempting to maintain a perpetual seesaw balance. Technological knock-downs blinded them.
The Zees favorite flavor, in the current two-billion-year-plus game, was one of fomenting planetary conquest of another specie’s colony worlds, leaving the main worlds largely untouched. Ground and space wars in the hinterlands; hot border wars.
During our efforts to close the dimensional rift, the Zees had lied to us about their contact with other races, having implied they had thousands of benign relationships. Our Zee friends, in the AI blocks, had not been aware of the activities of the Upper-Zees. They had bought the same story. Other than the races we had briefed, there were very few races who ever knew of the Zees existence. Most of them were gone; removed eons ago by the cyclic Q-wave of extinction.
We had one thing in our favor. While the Zees knew about S-drive capabilities, advanced weapons and cloaking systems, they didn’t have access to any AIs who held that technical information, preventing them from transferring it throughout the universe. The Surrons had used a system, similar to ours, to hide the quantum activity of not only their AIs but also their entire technology bank.
It had been fortuitous that we hadn’t yet disseminated the universal Q-com systems and related dark-tech. That would have prematurely tipped our hand to the Zees.
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Six months after the Surrons had settled in, we held our first war cabinet meeting. Fifty-three other races, representing the most stable galaxies, had joined in the first Interspecies Congress. Mica, Martin, Adam and I represented the initial human delegation. Archer, and his advisors, served as Surron ministers. The Bears carved out a group of elders from their home planet for the assembly, but had only one representative on the war cabinet. It had been a struggle to get them to agree to post even that single participant.
Congress would have its first official seating when the Capital was completed. It was being built in an uninhabited galaxy as an above and below ground facility with sixty separate environmental segments; designed for rapid expansion. It would take two years to complete. Until then, shuttle diplomacy and darkened Q-com was our means of organizing. Our allies were now building Surron based ships, complete with S-drives.
Going to war is easy, you just do it. Going to war to win, while limiting collateral damage, was another matter altogether. We needed an overarching plan including strategies, tactics and an interspecies war college. Agreement in the cabinet organizing session came smoother and faster than I had any reason to expect. The Bears and Surrons were a naturally matched team for selling, constructing, and implementing alliances. Archer was selected as the President Pro Tempore of the congress. Adam served as his chief war advisor.
I had no official status or title, which suited me just fine. I had carried things as far as I could. It was time for experience and wisdom to step in. My only insistence was to keep the phase shift tech a secret, until and unless, it became essential to win the war.
I wasn’t going to be passing the Ruler of the Universe baton to Noah and Sarah. That plan had been overcome by events; a relief to both Sandy and me. That mantel was a heavy one.
Sarah was appointed co-director of the military R&D wing, along with a notable Surron and one of the Library AIs. The Bears had agreed to staff the remaining positions, until environmental arrangements could be met to permit other
species to physically participate. We put a rush on that construction.
Noah continued in the study of Mintic artifacts, information and technology; an adjunct section of the R&D wing.
With the exception of Traveler and Ranger, my fleet, and shipyard, were put at congress’ disposal. We weren’t ready to release plans to the human galaxy, though we did start the distribution of the universal dark Q-coms and selected non-sentient dark AI designs. Only those species that had complete unanimity in their galaxies were to be the foundation for a stable congress. Humans weren’t there yet.
Most surprisingly, Sandy had volunteered to head the development of the war college. She said if there was going to be ground action, she wanted to be included. Once a Marine always a Marine.
One of the last items for development, by the war council, was how to manage the peace after we won. The future would look much different than it had only a year ago. The technological overflow would create some measures of chaos, I was sure of that. Congress would have to manage the after-effect of peace well ahead of the actual event.
In the meantime, before overt war actions were taken, we needed to gather intelligence; covert actions, spies. After that we were going to need armadas, armies, more and active allies. We needed to trust others.
24 Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance: a small-unit military maneuver to assess opposing forces positions and strengths. Typically, to explore with a singular goal in mind.
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The universe is a big place. Unless we could find a means of blocking Zee influence, it was going to be a long, or possibly unending, war. A war fought on our turf.
Rather than fight brush fires, the war council made the decision to create lodgments from expanding bridgeheads in allied galaxies, establishing pickets to warn of incursions. This would provide protected zones, and more importantly, time. It wouldn’t be long before the Zees figured out that someone was attempting to thwart their game.
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It had taken over two years, but Sandy had created an upper cadre from the militaries of congress races. In that time, eighty-seven more had joined, with another three-hundred or so as associate members; the numbers were rising fast.
Her charges were forming not only ground force structures, but also air and space elements for tactical support. She told me, creating operational doctrines, rules of engagement, and logistic structures were a nightmare. The fleets would be the Navy, she was the Marines. She wanted to recruit over a million humans. In her words, our race needed skin in the game.
Archer and Adam were driving similar development of the space fleets. It was essential, as much as possible, that equal representation, in the officer and naval ranks, was held by all species. After presenting their plans to congress, and smoothing some feathers, they were given the green light to unify major elements of existing forces. Each race kept significant sovereign assets, in their respective galaxies, to keep up appearances and allay internal suspicions.
Using automated shipyards, we would have ten major fleets in less than three years. In five years, as more construction facilities were added, we would have three hundred. I hope we can train and crew those tens of thousands of ships.
To hide our actions from the Zees, construction and training was confined to uninhabited galaxies that had never had anything but natural quantum signatures. The shipyards were constructed in resource rich, but uninhabitable, systems.
Sandy’s Marines had three unique worlds for training. One was an airless rocky world, one an essentially water world with little land mass, and the other had several environmental zones, including deserts, jungles, mountains and icy polar regions. The last one was her headquarters world; General Sandy Bonner, United Space Marines, leader of some of the most hardnose NCO’s I’ve ever known.
I had accidently, and slowly, slid into covert ops planning and execution. I think Martin had intentionally tricked me into that by frequently having me join him, asking my opinion of the developing strategies and force requirements for those efforts. Before I knew it, I had an adjoining work space, which magically turned into a suite of offices, complete with assistants, when I had been away for two weeks visiting Sandy.
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She called it R&D’s World. A tip of the hat to Roger and Dodger, who had been the two Zees, inhabiting human built androids. They had converted to real-human existence during the rift-mission. R&D’s World had large training and exercise areas in every possible topography and weather climate. With the exception of the Headquarters and troop billeting areas, every other area was a no-frills, bring what you need; live in the mud, rock, or ice.
This corps of ten-thousand would be the backbone to train and staff a five million strong assault and interdiction force. She had her humans now. Service bonuses drew in so many that she had the pick of the litter of experienced trainers and elite service units from throughout the human galaxy. We even accepted the better mercenaries.
While she had a multi-species staff of Brigadier, Major and Lieutenant Generals, she kept a hands-on oversight of all activities. There would be no junior officers. Below the rank of Colonel came the Sergeants. Later, additional senior officers would come from home allied forces after they had graduated from the War College. Her opinion was, it was better for junior officers to make their mistakes at home, as they rose through their species officer ranks.
Each army was to be trained and equipped for warfare in one of the four environments, with cross-training in the others. She had her desert rats, jungle fighters, sharks and mountain rangers. From over twenty years of exploration, we knew these were the most likely planet-side battle areas in which we would engage in interdiction and peace keeping, between belligerents.
The Space Marines, a much smaller force, were a different flavor altogether. They trained in space and on the airless rock she called Ragnarök. She wanted them to be mean sons-a-bitches; they didn’t mingle with the rest of the Marines.
On my arrival, Sandy had a surprise for me. An addition to my staff. I thought I had a few assistants, not a staff, and I sure didn’t want more. I’d landed at the headquarters terminal. Walking into the arrival area, two very large ten-foot tall Marines, in full powered armor, snapped to attention. She gave them a quick ‘at ease Marines’ and we continued on.
“Who, or what are those?”
“Those, my dear husband, are Marines, specifically, warrior caste of the Deqovian race. Very proud, very disciplined and very lethal.”
Once past the entrance, two of her adjutants joined in behind us. I noticed there were no dress uniforms being worn. Knowing Sandy, there was probably only one uniform; battle dress. Even at the headquarters, everyone had sidearms and gear laden utility belts. The Marines had a one word motto: Prepared.
We stepped into a side passage, then entered a small assembly room. Roger and Dodger were casually leaning against the wall.
The last time I’d seen them was when they left Satchel to build a business; squiring rich trophy hunters throughout the human galaxy. Mica, Sandy and I had chipped in to give them seed money to get started. Actually, it was more than ‘seed’ money. I think the total was over three-hundred million credits. They had made another fortune, helping the wealthy kill man-eaters; only the vicious, apex hunter-killers, no herbivores.
Grinning, Roger said, “Hi, Hornblower, we’re your new agents.”
“Yeah, we heard you were getting the old team back together. Wouldn’t want to miss that,” Dodger added.
They had been the best spec-op duo I’d ever seen. Saved my life a time or two. These two, I would take on. They would be my lieutenants. There was nobody between me and the top of the chain. That was Martin.
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We had a team of six, including myself on our first real recon mission. While we could detect Zee incursions and insertions in Quantum AI’s we needed to see what they were actually doing before committing to truncating, then choking off their interferences.
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br /> In addition to me, there was a grizzled old special forces human non-com, Sargent Reeves, who Sandy had convinced me to take into my group. He was an excellent soldier and technician, but I think his primary mission, from Sandy, was to ensure I got home alive. Then there was Roger, Dodger, a Surron named Trader and his sidekick, Heldon, an Ufflor.
We had trained and planned together for three months, setting the standard for follow-on units. Each of us could fly the two, specially designed, Ranger-clone ships, as well as the embarked fighters in the flight bay. Heldon was an ace pilot and navigator. He was also deadly with his races’ version of a stiletto and other silent weapons. Trader was our resident AI expert, and jack-of all-trades. For a Surron, he sure took pleasure in blowing things up. Especially when he had the opportunity to hand place the charges.
To take advantage of the torus-wave Sarah and her team had developed, we needed two ships. We might have need to send a ship or two on a long trip away from the war zone.
Our job is to gather intel on the means and methods, the Zees are using, to influence the decision makers in this conflict. We were Q-dark and cloaked, hopefully, for the full mission. While our ship’s sentient AIs could probably penetrate the dumb AIs, of the combating sides, we wanted to capture an infected one, from each side, for forensic study. The home worlds were too closely guarded and congested for that. We were landing both ships on a contested colony world for the thefts.
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Neither side wants to destroy this planet, each has the same objective; claim and garrison it as a boarder operating base. Previously it had been an agri-world, providing food to both sides before the war started. For the natives, it was unfortunate that their home was in the wrong place.