Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (47 page)

Interval J: and After

“Silence!” barked To-Henton, “I will impose martial order on this meeting if I have to.”

The room responded. It took a second, as passions were necessarily high, but they eventually came to some semblance of order.

“In the wake of the attack, and I think we must start calling it that, as no other conclusion seems possible, I have been appointed temporary chair. I think my first order of business, then, should be to acknowledge that we remain unable to reconnect with the transport ship that contained the chairman of Third Yalla. Though she herself is apparently stable, the AM of that ship was seriously damaged when it sustained an indirect hit.

“I am informed that a new representative from the Yallan contingent is being nominated, as the originally named successor was also a casualty of the attack, which hit the Yallan sector particularly hard.” He paused a moment to compose himself, then finished by saying, “I know our thoughts go out to them as they work to stabilize their systems.”

“If I could, acting-Chairman Henton,” said Princess Lamati, and he yielded the floor perhaps a touch too quickly for the taste of some Council members. “While I understand the seriousness of the Yallan contingent’s circumstances, I think we have more pressing matters to discuss. My AM has spent the last hour analyzing the …”

To-Henton surprised all by interrupting the princess, something he instantly regretted, but he did not let his remorse show as he reclaimed the floor. “Of course, Princess, I understand your impatience, and I am getting to the subject of the attack. We have all been privy to the Arbite’s reports, which continue to flow with a regularity that I, for one, find reassuring. But their content cannot be called good, not by any measure.

“For the purposes of this extraordinary meeting of the Council, I have taken the liberty of dividing them into three categories. The first is the attack itself: the extent of the damage and what that means for our force dispositions in what, it would appear, is going to be a much more contested war than some among us, myself included, had really anticipated.”

There were few among them who would deny having been utterly blindsided by the scale of the attack, and the acceleration in technological capabilities on the part of their enemy that it implied. He saw nods, and noted where others merely stared at the space in front of them, either because of an understandable shock, or because their own sector’s AMs were still struggling to get virtual constructs back online.

Even the spartan simulated space that they now met in, black and featureless except for their own floating personages, was more than most of the colonists and military personnel in the fleet yet enjoyed. Most of them were either now in a forced mental hibernation or facing a blank screen that simply scrolled data past them on the fleet’s status, with little or no interaction possible.

And that did not count the tens of thousands that were dead, and the even greater number that were slowly fading as the fleet’s many systems struggled to repair transport ship breaches and return power and intelligence to damaged life support systems.

“The second topic,” went on To-Henton, “is the repair plan, specifically how we will manage the extensive work that still needs to be done, including a fair and reasonable sharing of resources among contingent forces. Of course, we must also discuss how that work will affect the fleet’s resources as a whole, and I envision some tough decisions are going to need to be made.”

He let that point stand for a moment. Everyone thought they knew what he was saying, but few yet understood the full gravity of the situation. The worst hit sector had been the Yallans, by far. But the Mantilatchi had also been hurt disproportionately badly, compared with the rest of the fleet. Their partition of the vanguard, made up mostly of the most powerful drive ships, had suffered a harsh blow when a carrier ship’s subspace core had broken lose.

Like a decapitated chicken, the ship had gone rogue, and the only recourse of a recoiling fleet had been to kill it before it pulled the entire sector apart. Somewhere during the third second after the attack, they had focused the surrounding ships’ fires inwards and cauterized the wound with a nuclear fusion brand.

“And the third topic?” said the princess, urging To-Henton on with thickly feigned deference.

“Well, my Princess,” said To, trying to sound conciliatory, “the last topic must be, I think, what changes this attack forces us to consider to our strategy. After all, I think we can and must conclude from this potent counterstrike that all is not as we had supposed on Earth, indeed, it would seem something must have gone very seriously wrong with our silent advanced team, conspicuously so, given this shocking turn.”

Here the princess once again spoke up, “I am surprised, acting-Chair Henton, that you chose to put that topic last. For me, at least, that is by far the most important topic at hand, and I have several points I would like to put forward, with more to follow shortly once my war council has finished analyzing the attack.”

To-Henton went to reply but DefaLuta did it for him, a reprieve he was glad for. “Your concern is shared by all, I do not doubt that, Princess Lamati, but let us not forget that many have suffered, and are still suffering, including members of your own contingent, and I would propose that we should get our house in order, as it were, before thinking about how best to repay the humans for their welcome gift.”

Princess Lamati stared across at DefaLuta then looked down, almost demurely, before replying, “The Lamat house
is
in order, DefaLuta, make no mistake about that. And we will address what repairs must be done to our sector thoroughly and quickly …”

“No house stands alone here, Your Majesty,” said DefaLuta with real defiance, spiced with a hint of the verdant disdain she felt for the Lamat woman. “Where the fleet bleeds, we all bleed. I, for one, do not wish to face the apparently feisty human race alone. But maybe, dear princess, you would like to take your fleet contingent on ahead and see what other surprises they have in store for us? Very generous of you, I am sure.”

They locked eyes, and no one doubted the very real hatred that burned between them. Many had an opinion on the topic, not all of which fell on the side of the seemingly more charitable Kyryl representative, but no one voiced any such thought yet, and after a second’s delay, the royal Lamat replied, “Maybe, just maybe, you are right, DefaLuta. Maybe I should do that. So I can dismantle those upstart humans myself.”

They all looked at the Lamat. She was posturing, surely. Wasn’t she? But there was no humor in her eyes, only fight, and Quavoce saw in her mood something terrible. Not terrible for them, but for the humans. Their enemy had struck the Armada hard, no doubt about that, but with over eighty percent of the fighting craft still fully functional they were still a truly awesome fighting force. And where, before, they had been tasked with an act of statistically necessary culling, now Quavoce saw something else in Sar’s eyes. Something colder. A thirst for vengeance. A thirst for blood.

Though he did not allow it to show here, somewhere inside a transport ship in the Mantilatchi sector of the Armada, his body shuddered. The princess’s building fury may seem alone among her more diplomatic peers, but the sentiment would be shared, he knew, by many in the fleet, and he could not deny that the underhanded blow had left him fighting a similar hunger for revenge himself.

But there was no place for anger in war, certainly not here, not among the strategists, and he glanded cool into his mind before speaking out into the icier silence. “DefaLuta, Princess, if I may be permitted to interject …” neither replied as they faced each other down across the space. With this tacit approval, he went on, “Tensions are understandably high. I think we can all appreciate that. We must, I think we all agree, reassess our force disposition and strategy in light of this attack. And we will. But I must agree with the Kyryl representative that our first priority should be securing the Armada, if only to protect against potential further attack.”

“There will be no more attacks, Quavoce, not like that one. That much is all but certain,” said the princess dismissively. DefaLuta stared at her, but silently knew that she had to agree with that. Her own PM’s analytics had told her as much with a reassuringly high level of certainty based on a whole host of reasons. But others in the room had not been party to such analysis, either because of the quality of their personal military systems, or because their resources had, necessarily, been focused elsewhere during the aftermath of the missile-mine strike.

Theer-im Far thought he knew why the princess had said it, but still was curious to hear her explain herself for purely academic reasons, and so asked, “Why do you say that, Princess? If you don’t mind.”

Sar rolled her eyes. Why did she bother with these fools? She sent a mental ping to Schney to release the relevant section of the Lamat Prime Mind’s analysis to the group and then said, with no small amount of petulance, “I would be surprised if others have not come to the same conclusion, but for those less well informed: detailed analysis of the missile strike’s formation and synchronization, as well as the length of the salvo’s subspace footprint point to a truly massive number of total units … well over fifty thousand.

“That scale, whilst impressive, no doubt, and all too effective, was the only reason they were able to score so many hits at relativistic passing speeds. But we have to assume that construction on such a scale was also prohibitively expensive. For the combined resources of all of Mobilius to construct such a salvo would take nearly two years. For humanity to do so, even if we assume they have made some truly
inspired
technological leaps, must have taken them at least that long, probably longer.

“I have just sent you all the details. Suffice to say that the Lamat Prime Mind’s analysis is that we are unlikely to see another strike at all, and even if we do it would take them several years to amass that kind of scale again. Either way, now that we know what to look for, we can, I am told, put in place measures to significantly reduce the damage from such a strike in the future.”

Quavoce was impressed by her grasp of the situation, a grasp that did, he had to admit, match his own war committee’s conclusions, but that still brought him back to his point, a point he knew she was not going to like as he said gingerly, “Well said, Princess, I am sure. But that, again, emphasizes the need to get our house in order, including putting such measures in place before we discuss the more strategic issu …”

“I am afraid I disagree, Quavoce,” said Sar with regal authority. “The likelihood of a second attack was not the limit of our analysis. And the decisions we face are more pressing than just which wound to lick first. In our opinion, the strategic implications of this attack should, indeed they
must,
be the driver of everything we do now, not the result of it.” She looked studiously from Quavoce, to DefaLuta, to To-Henton, and then said, “I speak, fellow Council members, of the thrust imbalance.”

While Shtat and the Hemmbar looked confused at the comment, the three she had locked eyes with had no less capable a set of military advisors than she, and knew what point she was trying to draw out into the cold light of day.

She waited. Waited for one of them to have the guts to step up and say it. Quavoce could not deny the truth of her course. She was right. It was callous, but she was right. Damn her that coldness, but it must be faced, he knew that. He breathed deep. If they were to discuss this now, then he would not shy away from his responsibilities.

“What the princess is describing we have seen as well. It is likely,” he said deliberately, “no, it is almost certain, our PM tells us, that we can no longer stop at Earth with our current mass.”

The room went silent, and he did not mask the disgust he felt at the greater reality behind those words. His own systems had been clear on the topic, though he had joined his fellow Mantilatchi lords in demanding that the AMs reassess their prognosis.

“What do you mean we cannot stop?” said Shtat. He looked around, but the only other person who did not seem to be in on this particular little secret was Theer-im Far, and he had gained a distant look, a sign that he was, no doubt, consulting his own advisors at that very moment. But the Hemmbar contingent’s eyes had been, like always, focused on the past, not the future, and while they had been busy gathering every scrap of data about the brief but spectacular assault, they had missed this fundamental consequence of it.

A consequence that Sar Lamati now explained all too succinctly, saying, “They destroyed more of our carriers than our transports. Our mass now outweighs our thrust capacity. If we are going to be able to stop ourselves, we are going to have to lose some deadweight.”

“And if we do not?” said Shtat. But he knew the answer immediately, and regretted asking. Luckily for him, no one really felt like voicing the simple answer: that they would not be able to decelerate quickly enough and would fly right past their destination.

“But …” Sar then added, more quietly now, “… there is a simple solution to that imbalance.”

All turned to her as one, and all feared the look of stately detachment they now saw on her face.

Interval K: The Cost of Membership

Marta understood why Elder Pulujan was late, but also knew they could not afford to have him going rogue. The meeting started without him, moving quickly through the topic at hand. The crisis was a victory of sorts, they supposed, though none would call it such. It was the sign that they had been waiting for, even if they had not known what form it would take.

Now they had new steps to take, new missions to go on. The first involved Shtat. He must be informed of some key facts in such a way as to lead him to support their new course, or at least not stand in their way. He would not know the real reason why he was being forced down the road they were going to set him on, but if they gave him the right nudge, there would not be much alternative for the man.

The meeting wound on in a black space. Gone was the bay they had enjoyed during the last translation celebration. Gone was the banter, the excitement, and the camaraderie. Gone was the joy from their little venture, it had all been replaced by unforgiving fact in the void left by their own mad gamble.

After a while, with next steps clear, they came back to the subject of the grieving Elder Pulujan.

“I will talk to him,” said Marta, as the others looked to her and Fral to take the lead now. “I’m sure he is just mourning, no one can blame him for that.”

“Of course not. I just …” said ILyo, shakily, “… I just worry that …”

“I know, ILyo. We all do. I’ll follow up with him as soon as we are done here.”

They nodded and moved on. The fleet had lost a great deal in the attack, and now the six friends who had fought so very hard to bring a halt to the great Armada’s work had to face the consequences of their actions.

Death was not something that happened often in civilized society anymore, and when it did it was usually voluntary. Unintentional death was very rare indeed, a genuinely newsworthy thing. All the colonists had known, though, that this venture brought real risk, few more so than those that planned to stand in the Armada’s way. New Mobilius was not unguarded, and though the humans had seemed weak, even a primitive arrow, flying true, could strike home.

It had seemed only fair, once upon a time, that the six conspirators would try to arm their quarry with the tools they would need to defend themselves against the interloping horde. But now, in the desolated parts, in the darkness of their lost innocence, the cost of that choice became apparent.

“How are you doing?” said Marta, finding the drifting Elder Pulujan after the other meeting was over. He was just floating in the blackness of his stunned mind. She waited a moment.

“Elder?”

A full minute passed by in silence. Marta waited.

Sensing that his visitor would not leave, Elder eventually turned to her, frowned, then turned away again and said, quietly, “She did not think they could do it, you know.”

Marta willed herself closer to her friend, close enough that he would feel her presence, and maybe sense just how much she felt for him in this terrible time.

“She didn’t think they could fight back, not this quickly,” he said, as if to himself.

“No?” said Marta, reaching out to the man, shrunken now, crumpled compared to his normal lithe, graceful form. He was crouched in a position that could only be described as fetal.

“No,” he said once more. “She thought they were doomed, no matter what we did. But that didn’t stop her. Tough odds never stopped her from picking a fight she thought needed to be fought.”

He smiled wanly, clearly remembering the hundreds of times his younger sister had stood up to him over the years, never relenting, no matter how much stronger he was. Until one day she was big enough and quick enough to beat him.

He laughed involuntarily at the thought, and Marta looked confused, understanding but confused, happy at least to see something of the man she had called a friend and ally all these years. “No, she never gave in. Always stood up for what she believed in. Which was usually herself, of course!”

They both shared a smile. Yes, Other Pulujan, O-Pu to her close friends, had always been fiercely loyal. Competitive, but loyal. She wanted to beat everyone at everything, but once you were on her side, that was for life. As she considered the many times she had stood side by side with the younger but no less brilliant Other, Marta felt the loss hit home again, and her breath caught in her throat.

“She admired you a great deal, Marta,” said Elder, becoming conciliatory now as he saw the emotion come over Marta’s face.

Marta smiled kindly and nodded, then he added, “When she wasn’t calling you a moron, of course.”

Now they both laughed with real mirth. “Yes, that definitely sounds like O-Pu.”

They went silent once more.

“We missed you at the meeting, Elder …” she started, as diplomatically as possible, and as he went to respond, she held up her hands and said, “no, no, everyone understands, and everyone is more than sympathetic, but …”

“But?”

“But … we still need you. You know that. And Other, she would have wanted us to …”

“She would have wanted us to win. Now that she has gone and gotten herself killed over the damn thing. Yes, I know.”

Marta waited a moment then said, “No one is saying you shouldn’t take your time. Take all the time you need. Just …”

“… just don’t do anything stupid?”

Marta looked defensive once more, but it was Elder’s turn to hold up his hands and say, “Marta, relax. I know you don’t mean any offense, but I know that the others must be worried. I would be in their shoes.”

He looked at her with as genuine an air of bravery as he could muster, and she cried inside for him, as he said, “I am angry, of course. And bitter, no doubt about that. But the focus of that anger is not you, or even the humans, though I will never thank them for what they have done.”

“No, of course not.”

“But that doesn’t mean I have forgotten who started this … or lost my will to help stop it.”

They locked eyes a moment longer. There was not, she knew, anything more to say. After a moment, she sensed, with a feeling of regret and no small amount of shame, that he was waiting for her to leave him alone again so he could grieve in peace, but that he didn’t want to be rude and ask her to go.

That he would worry about offending her at such a time only cemented her already high esteem for him, and gave even greater impetus to her desire to grant him his wish.

She ended her visit with a sentiment that was equal parts heartfelt and inane, saying, “You need anything, Elder, anything at all, I hope that you will not hesitate to reach out …”

And she left, reminding the Nomadi Prime Mind once more to inform her immediately if they were able to recover Other Pulujan’s body from the wreckage of the damaged transport ship the woman had been once been interred in.

- - -

Stiffness and hurt. The feeling was like being drugged, or waking after a boxing match. A heavy dose of confusion, well soaked in nausea, and then liberally drenched with brightness and pain. Other Pulujan reeled from the feeling.

She squinted, trying to focus her eyes, then realized they were not even open. She pinged her AM. Nothing. She tried to warp out of whatever sim she had stumbled into, but no response came. The mental muscles that you learned to use in the ether were not responding. It was like they had been amputated. It was almost like she was in reality. But that would mean bad things. Very bad things. What the hell was happening?

She reached back, into her memory, to the last time she had moved outside the ether, to before the departure, to home. She tried to remember what movement felt like. She flexed her arms. Discomfort, a creaking pain, like an old door slowly opening. The stiffness was up and down her arms. Her legs were not responding at all.

She tried another muscle. She opened the link to her personal onboard diagnostics and autonomics, her body’s prosthetic headquarters. It came to life like an old friend answering the phone.

The system update came to her as a flow of data, and she switched off her eyes for a moment so she could focus on it. There had apparently been a critical failure in her cryo-unit. She was, indeed, awake. She was battered, quite badly, in fact, but she was stable, for now. She sent another ping out to her AM, this time a distress call. Still nothing. Whatever had happened to her cryo-unit, it should not have shut off her communications.

No, that the AM was silent spoke of something more sinister, more profound. She was in trouble. She needed to wait. There was nothing she could do here, she was alone. She considered her situation. She could have no idea how long it would take for help to come. She also knew that her mind, conscious as it obviously was, was using up precious resources, resources that may be in limited supply now.

She sent the pulse through her autonomics system to render herself unconscious while she waited for the help that must, surely, be coming. It did not respond, or rather, it did, but not in the way Other expected.

What? What message? Wait … open … no, god damn it. She forced herself to think in terms her limited onboard AI could hear and understand. She had not done this in so long.

O-Pu at AAI:
‘¿what message? ¿why was i not informed sooner?’

O-Pu at AAI:
‘ok, i am curious. open new message.’

O-Pu at AAI:
‘¿what the hell are you talking about? you just said there was a message waiting.’

Other Pulujan went to grunt, but in this place, as her body slowly came back to life, the grunt actually happened, and sent an answering spasm of pain through her throat and lips, dry and unused for decades now. She cringed, and that made her forehead hurt as well.

O-Pu at AAI:
‘damn it, open the outbox message, you stupid machine!’

The message opened without further comment. Her system was neither offended nor even aware it had been insulted. Indeed, her system was not even really designed for this kind of interaction. It was supposed to work behind the scenes, and a more proficient user, as Other Pulujan had once been, long ago, before entering a system-induced coma, quickly learned how to interact with their autonomics system far more smoothly.

She would have to remember how to do that, apparently. At least until this, whatever this was, was over. She focused on the message that she had, apparently, written so very long ago.

‘
Note to self,

If you are reading this then, lucky you, you are dead. Don’t freak out. It was bound to happen to one or all of us, and actually it might be quite useful, in the end.

Whether out of a sense of duty, or self-respect, or yet another stupid competition with your Elder, you volunteered to be part of a conspiracy to stop your fellow Mobiliei from wiping out another race just for the fun of it. This you know, because you needed to know it in order for you to work with your colleagues to recruit others while the Armada was in transit.

What you don’t know, well not anymore, anyway, is that you actually signed up for a much more involved plan, one you helped devise, you masochistic nut job, and which now, it appears, you are going to have to help execute.

I won’t go into details here. There is more in the attached data packet that should bring you up to speed on everything you had wiped from your memory implants before departing on this little jaunt. As this message has never been transmitted and is not even part of your real-time memory, it will not have been subject to audit, and will never have been reviewed by the Arbite.

Clever, huh?

Unfortunately, that also means it was only accessible safely if you were cut off from the fleetnet, and your AM. Which means that if you are reading it, lucky you, you are dead, or at least the system now thinks you are … another nifty part of the plan you so suicidally helped formulate.

You have no way back, sorry about that. As far as the fleet is concerned you are gone, but we have a plan to allow you to move around as a repair unit, albeit a rather fat and stupid one*.

Set your systems to recover while you review the attached packet and then get to work. If all goes well, then I, or rather you, estimate that, err, we(!) have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the next stage.

All the best,

-Other Pulujan

*Hey sis, Elder here. Good luck and all that. It’s a bummer really, not only are you dead, but you have come back as an even fatter, stupider robot than you already are. Love you, -Elder
’

Perfect, thought Other. Just bloody perfect. She sighed, cringing once more at the pain it brought, and reminded herself to punch her brother squarely in his genitals if she ever saw him again.

But that would be later. First she had to get the hell out of this damn cryo-unit and find whatever exo-suit/faux repair-bot they, or rather she, had apparently arranged for herself. She instructed her onboard AI to start the wake-up process in earnest and started reading.