Conquest of Earth (Stellar Conquest Series) (16 page)

“Pulse in three, two, one,” Okuda said, and the drive field snapped on.

Absen held his head still while he thought about the rapid changes going on around him. He rode the tiger here, several tigers at once, really.

One was his own and his people’s hatred of the Meme, stoked by the savaging of Earth they had witnessed just weeks before in relativistic time, almost fifty years ago in reality. The grief seemed fresh, and making peace with the aliens who had wiped out the families of many strained the limits of their discipline.

Another tiger was the changes taking place among Earth’s populace. Fifty years ago, the few million survivors had been rousted from their shelters, enslaved and put to work rebuilding the planet’s ecosystem with the help of their new Blend masters and their biomachines. They had made startlingly rapid progress during the last five decades using sophisticated Meme terraforming techniques. They had also been forced to
breed
, there was no other word for it, by mandatory administration of fertility drugs, resulting in litters of babies that increased the population explosively in the first few years, then again as the generations hit puberty.

The resulting society was unrecognizable to
Conquest
’s crew. It operated more like a group of feudal kingdoms than the old nations. Workers served overseers, who in turn served administrators, who owed fealty to their Blends.

Absen shook his head, then regretted it as the field effects gave him violent nausea. Despite his reservations, he was glad he had smart people working for him, drawing up ways to govern now that the Meme had withdrawn from the process.

“Dropping pulse in three…two…one. Mark.” Okuda’s voice coincided with the normalization of the universe, and soon the bridge screens and holotank flickered to life. Absen saw that
Conquest
had arrived just where he’d directed, a million klicks above the North Pole looking down on the Earth-Moon system. This ensured that, no matter what, the Weapon could not bear on the boat, dug in to Luna’s far side equator as it was.

Eight Meme Destroyers still cruised below, gorging themselves on the many asteroids and comets in orbit, a moveable feast for the living ships. “Mister Ford, calculate engagement solutions for all of those Destroyers, just in case. Okuda, I want to be able to pulse out at the first sign of trouble. Maintain battle stations. Scoggins, do we have
Roger
yet?”

“Got his transponder ten thousand kay off the port bow and closing, Admiral. Should be entering the launch bay in about five minutes.”

“Good. Captain Scoggins, you have the conn.” Absen left the bridge and met Leslie Denham on the way down, escorted by Sergeant Major Repeth and a squad of Marines sealed into their battlesuits. More Marines in armor lined the launch bay deck, ready for any eventuality. The reports from Earth had made him happy, but there was still the matter of verifying Blend identities.

Bogrin stepped out of the little ship first, nodding to Absen, then moved aside for Ezekiel to advance and shake the admiral’s hand. The Blend’s face fell slightly as he touched the glove Absen wore, and then he sidestepped to allow Rae to exit. Rather than walk forward or embrace him, Rae turned to introduce the tall, shaven-headed man behind her. “Admiral Absen, this is my son Charles.”

“You’re certain?” Absen asked, looking at Ezekiel and Bogrin. Both nodded, confirming that both were who they claimed, which relieved him no end. The admiral shook Charles’ hand, though did not take off his glove, then asked the group, “I know you said Spooky is doing his thing in Australia, but where’s Trissk?”

“Decided he had enough of confined spaces and stayed on planet,” Bogrin replied. “He wishes his mate to be allowed to join him at earliest time.”

“Granted. Now…” Absen waved Leslie forward, and gestured at Ezekiel and Bogrin again.

The two put out their hands to touch palms with Leslie, and the Marines raised their weapons, even as Ezekiel hugged the Blend claiming to be his sister. “Good to see you, Lizzie.”

“Oh, I hate you!” Leslie said, hugging him even more fiercely.

“It’s her,” he said, tears coming to his eyes. “It’s good to be home.”

“Stand down,” Absen said, waving the Marines back. “Either you’re all imposters, or nobody is. I guess I have no choice than to trust you. Rae, I hate to do this to you, but I need you to go over to talk with SystemLord again and pick up the data he promised, and then drop off the schematics for the lightspeed drive.” He handed her a tiny data spike.

“Do they have something that can read it?” Rae asked, putting it into a pocket.

“Not my problem,” Absen answered. “They’re smart; they can figure it out. When you get it, come right back. I have an intel officer champing at the bit for that information. Military priority number one is finding out just what we’re up against.”

“I’ll take her over in
Roger
,” Ezekiel said, reentering the ship. Rae kissed Absen on the cheek and followed. Bogrin laughed uproariously.

“Shut up, you,” Absen mock-growled, and then laughed as well as he led the others off the deck.

“Thank you, my love.” Klis hooked her claws into Trissk’s mane and nuzzled him.

“Why did you arrive on such a large boat?” Trissk asked, eyeing the spacecraft.

“Funny you should ask,” Klis replied, and gestured with a
come here
motion toward the top of the ramp. From the opening strode five young males, some with prosthetic limbs. They paused, blinking in the bright sunlight while shading their eyes, and then resumed their walk down the gangway.

Behind them marched thirty females, each carrying some form of luggage. Trissk made a confused sound in his throat, almost a strangled yowl, and Klis cuffed her mate’s shoulder. “What did you expect them to do? Five paws of Ryss warriors died to seize the base on Io – their mates. Only these males survived, so badly wounded they were left behind in the assault, leaving many gravid widows. This all happened while you were off playing with your Ape friends. Now, since you have such a close relationship with the new Alpha of this place, you will find somewhere for them to settle and raise their kits – with my expert guidance, of course.”

Trissk’s whiskers and ears twitched in unison as he stared, then he turned to his mate. “Of course. You are wise. It is fitting. I will talk to Spectre and arrange for a suitable home.”

“Speaking of wisdom…you might want to accidentally forget to mention that all these females are pregnant.”

“The Apes will find out soon enough.”

“Soon enough will come when it comes. Let’s not remind them right now.”

Trissk thought for a moment as the Ryss milled around the ramp, watching as automated loaders lowered more possessions to the tarmac. “Do you really think it’s wise to settle here when the Scourge may overrun the planet within months? At least if we are aboard
Conquest
, we will either die with honor, or we will escape to fight again.”

“If that is what you decide, O mate-for-life. But at least give them time to lie in the grass, under a warm yellow sun.”

Trissk smiled a closemouthed Ryss smile. “So be it.”

“How do we know this new info isn’t some Meme trick?” newly promoted Colonel ben Tauros stood and asked. Absen had jumped him two ranks, as he expected a rapid expansion of Marine forces.

“Everything we can tell says it isn’t a trick,” Admiral Absen said from his seat, “so let’s lay that concern to rest. We treat the threat as real. If it’s not, we still got everything we wanted without one more human dying to do it. Earth and the Solar System are ours again. We don’t have to trust the Meme, but in this regard, I believe that
they
believe.”

Bull sat down, and Fleede continued. “The Scourges are not actually insects, but they do have exoskeletons rather than bones. Their social model is somewhat like a hive, except instead of one single queen laying eggs that develop into different types of offspring, they have many breeders we call Archons, all of whose eggs hatch as infants, which start at the bottom and work their way upward. Those that survive proceed through several developmental stages until they reach the top of their society. These Archons are actually hermaphroditic, and they impregnate each other to lay more eggs. Here’s our latest workup on what the enemy will look like and how they will fight, again based on some pretty good Meme intel. Slide.”

On the main screen, a picture of a bizarre creature appeared, with the outline of a human for scale. About the size and shape of an old-fashioned public telephone booth with arms, each of the four corners of its neckless head sported an eye just above a double-jointed limb projecting from its “shoulder.” These arms ended in four-digit hands, all opposed toward the center, like mechanical grabbers. The fingers appeared to end in sharp claws. The whole arrangement remained boxlike until it split into four stumpy quad-toed legs, each also with two joints. As the creature slowly rotated on the screen, it became clear it had no front, back nor sides. The thing seemed utterly symmetrical.

“We call these Scourgelings. This is the infant stage of the race, hatched from masses of fist-size eggs and achieving this size within days. To do that, of course, it has to consume huge amounts of biomass. In this form they are nearly mindless eating machines. The mouth is a funnel on the top, by the way, where their head would be if they had one. The only thing Scourgelings won’t try to eat is each other – some kind of taboo or biological inhibition. Higher castes will, however, eat Scourgelings if necessary. That appears to be their secondary method of population control, after using them as cannon fodder.”

“That’s one big baby,” someone in the audience muttered, triggering a wave of nervous laughter.

Doctor Horton raised a hand, and Fleede recognized her with a gesture. “Seems like we could paint ourselves with Scourgeling hormones and they wouldn’t try to eat us.”

Fleede replied. “That might keep them from eating people, but it won’t keep them from killing us.”

“Doc,” Absen said, “I want you and some of the Sekoi to work on biological possibilities like that. Go on, Commander.”

Fleede continued, “As soon as a Scourgeling eats enough, it will go into a cocoon for several days and then turn into this.” The next slide showed a larger, more graceful creature, a four-legged spider or crab with a wide stance and a body slung in the middle, like a daddy longlegs. Its eyes and arms remained in roughly similar positions to the Scourgeling, as did its top-mounted arms. “This is the adolescent form, which we have termed Soldiers. These apparently develop enough brainpower to be trainable on simple equipment and firearms. They are used for manual labor, and for fighting, backing up the Scourgelings.”

The pictured Soldier acquired a harness, off of which hung what looked like grenades and ammunition pouches. In two of its hands appeared a rifle of sorts. “The basic firearm fires caseless rounds of about fifty caliber, with roughly the same knockdown power. They appear to have other weapons available such as lasers, rocket launchers, grenade throwers and plasma blasters.”

The next slide showed a creature still with four legs and four arms, but its inner body had grown fat, its limbs proportionally smaller. “After six months to a year of life, Soldiers metamorphose into these adults. We call them Centurions. While the Soldiers are dumber than your average human child, Centurions are roughly of adult human intelligence, and form the skilled caste. They run and repair complex machinery from factories to aerospace fighters. They are the true generalists, and function as NCOs and officers. There is a hierarchy within the Centurion caste, and they stay in this form for an unknown number of years.”

Fleede signaled for the slide to change again, this time showing a bloated creature that looked barely mobile. “This is the queen, or breeder stage, the Archon. We don’t know what causes a Centurion to become an Archon, but it hardly matters. They are apparently quite rare, and live like petty dictators. Each mothership has several aboard. We don’t know their command structure. As far as we know, there is no level above Archon, and no command structure larger than a star system, though there are junior Archons that serve more senior ones. When senior Archons meet, they make deals, have sex, and then go home to lay their eggs.”

“How in the world did the Meme get all this info if the Scourges have been kicking their asses?” Sergeant Major Repeth asked.

“The Meme have won a few defensive battles and captured specimens, apparently extracting their memories even after death.”

“Handy, that,” someone mumbled.

“Thanks, Commander Fleede,” Absen said. “Let’s move on to their military forces. How will they attack?”

“But sir, I have a number of slides detailing their biology and sociology, even –”

“
Commander
.”

“Yes, sir. Umm…let’s move to slide 146.” After skipping more than a hundred slides, Fleede stopped. “Here we go. This is a mothership.” The picture showed something like a thick flying saucer, drawing some jokes about little green men “We estimate this example to be about twenty kilometers wide by five high, but there is no standard size.”

The picture expanded, becoming more detailed. “The ship is huge, but most of it is made of an organic resin, very strong stuff, forming a latticework around the central part, rather like a wasp nest. In the center you can see a more solid core made of metal other manufactured materials, a flattened sphere about two kilometers across. This is the real ship and command center, where the Archon and his staff live and work. It is heavily armored. It also holds the bulk of the drive system, we believe, though there are emitters scattered around the mothership’s rim, probably to extend the FTL drive field. Like the wasp nest I mentioned, everything between the core and the rim is mostly empty space, with the resin latticework structure to keep the swarm of attached small craft in some semblance of order. There are water tanks, generators and power conduits embedded in it, but these are minimal and, as we had previously surmised, can only supply their force for a few days.”