Conquest of Earth (Stellar Conquest Series) (9 page)

In that time, the eight Destroyers had not moved from their position near the moon. Absen wondered whether the top Meme leadership had been eliminated with the destruction of the gargantuan Guardians. Certainly their ships seemed to be doing little beyond eating captured asteroids, presumably fattening their stores and fuel.

The human defense forces also seemed paralyzed, as if waiting for Absen’s next move. It chafed at him to delay, but he wanted
Conquest
at full capability, and incorporating the best of the defecting humans in the Jupiter system to supplement his Marines and Aerospace rosters took time.

While thousands had volunteered, he had only so many trainers, simulators, and fighters. Even the pilots among them had never been allowed to fly armed spacecraft; they were limited to ground and orbital defenses. Obviously the Meme did not trust their underlings, and for good reason.

Absen was glad the purges were over with, though. Of the over one million human workers, crew and defenders scattered among Jupiter’s moons and satellites, a hundred thousand had been killed, often in pitched hand-to-hand battles between loyalists and defectors. Once those opting for freedom had won, more loyalists had been hunted down and executed without any semblance of due process. Some were hardcore supporters of the Empire, but others probably died to settle personal scores, or simply by mistake, caught in crossfire. Even a small-scale civil war was an ugly, brutal thing, and he simply didn’t have enough people to bring order by force.

Absen wondered where the Eden Plague’s virtue effect was in all of this. Doctor Horton believed that, without any tradition of freedom or morality beyond the laws of the Empire, there was little conscience to enhance. Cast adrift from the twisted ethics of subservience, it would take time for society to adjust to a more just and benevolent model, even with all the new information the populace was being bombarded with. He wasn’t so sure; instinctively he thought humans must have a sense of right and wrong apart from purely learned behavior.

Nature versus nurture again
, he thought.
Which dominates?

Eventually the violence had burned itself out, even faster when Absen appointed Leslie Denham as his civilian governor. Backed up by his authority and assisted by the humans’ habit of deference to the Yellows, the Blend had quickly sorted things out, and now relative peace prevailed.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to free Earth,” Absen said to Michelle Conquest as he sat, otherwise alone, in his office. He’d taken to talking to the AI a lot; she was the perfect aide, always available, reliable, with facts and analyses at her fingertips, and seemed to have matured with the increase in her responsibilities. Only a few systems remained off limits to her, and he suspected she could seize those any time she wanted.

We’ve passed far beyond the point of no return, trusting her with our lives
, he thought to himself.
God help us if she ever loses her mind like Desolator did.

“The staff has already put together a comprehensive campaign plan, sir,” Conquest replied from the speaker overhead. “It just takes time to build up the industrial capacity of Jupiter system and then manufacture an invasion fleet. I know you are impatient, but a deliberate approach is guaranteed to succeed, whereas haste risks failure.”

“Nothing is guaranteed to succeed, Michelle,” Absen said. “The longer we wait, the more time there is for us to lose our current advantage.”

“I’d call it a standoff, sir,” she replied. “Two unassailable bases, with insufficient associated mobile forces to beat the other. However, we have superior technology, and thus when we have built up our forces, we shall win.”

“Technology…yes, I’ve been thinking about that. Let me outline an idea I’ve had, and you see if you can poke holes in it.”

“All right, sir. Shoot.”

“Funny you should put it that way…” Over the next hour, Absen explained what he wanted. Once he had the basics worked out, he called Ellis Nightingale to his office.

“What can I help you with, sir,” the tall weapons engineer asked as he folded himself into a chair.

“I need a new weapon, Ellis. Something that will allow us to break the standoff we have going here.”

Nightingale cleared his throat. “As I understand it, sir, in a few months we should have a fleet strong enough to beat the Meme at Earth.”

“That may be true, but in a few months, almost anything could happen. The Destroyers could decide to cut their losses, bomb Earth’s remaining population and run away.”

“We could easily chase them down…yes, but I see that wouldn’t keep them from genocide.”

Absen said, “Or a Meme fleet could show up. Or some clever loyalist could come up with a technological advancement we haven’t anticipated, now that they have a real threat staring down at them. Maybe they figure out how to weaponize antimatter the way we have, and we can’t stand up to Exploders any more than they can.”

Ellis ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “All right. Maybe we do need to move faster. But a weapon isn’t really the problem, right, sir? We need a delivery system that can allow us to take down the moon laser. Once that goes, the system will fall like dominoes.
Conquest
can beat eight Destroyers in a straight-up fight – or even sixteen, if they all divide. They
have
been gorging.”

“If you can make my idea work, the delivery system and the weapon are one and the same thing.”

“What is it, then?”

“Michelle, bring up that diagram, will you?” On the wall screen appeared a schematic, the design of a small ship.

Nightingale stood to look closely at its densely packed notations. “I see it, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking at. It has a TacDrive of sorts, though barely enough power and battery capacity for one pulse. No crew quarters, a rudimentary computer, sensors, thrusters…I can’t see what you’d use this for.”

“Think like a Meme, Ellis. That’s what gave me the idea. You put your finger on it before, when you said we needed a delivery system.”

The big man stared a moment longer, then he said, “Oh. Oh, that’s brilliant. Sir, you’ve done it. This thing will work, I believe. It’s a quantum leap forward in capability. No enemy fixed target will ever be safe, once we get these babies into production.”

“Nor friendly ones, either,” Absen said, his expression earnest. “They’ve already seen what our TacDrive can do. I’m amazed the Meme never replicated the Ryss stardrive, though of course they never captured one of their ships…but I’m not sure they ever had a motivated underling population before. The Ryss raiders wiped out the populations of hundreds of planets, and spacegoing Meme have no industrial capacity or great facility with complex, non-biological machinery. But now…”

“Now since they saw ours, the Meme for sure have loyalists working on a lightspeed drive, and…”

“And the only way to defend against something heavy coming in at lightspeed is not to be there. We can’t afford to wait until they come up with their own TacDrive system – or much more simply, weapons like this one.” Absen gestured at the diagram.

“This is the V-2 of lightspeed weapons, sir,” Ellis breathed, touching the screen almost reverently. “An unguided but unstoppable ballistic missile.”

“Not quite the same, Ellis. Unguided, but not unaimed. If we fire it precisely enough, we should be able to hit something the size of the Weapon on Luna all the way from here. Salvo enough of them, and we’ll take down the laser. Once that’s done,
Conquest
moves in and cleans up the Destroyers. So right now, this is your first and only priority. However,” Absen shook a finger at Nightingale, “this is top secret, need-to-know. Only you, me and Conquest know about it. With a million humans in the Jupiter system, we can’t be sure there aren’t still loyalist spies that could figure out what we’re doing. This stays aboard
Conquest
. Bring in whoever you need, but keep it to a minimum, you understand? The last thing I want is something like this coming
our
direction.”

Nightingale rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, sir. I’ll need Quan’s help on the power systems, and Okuda for guidance and navigation, and Michelle…that should be all for now.”

“Fine. I’ll want a daily report. How soon for a prototype?”

“A month.”

“You have two weeks.”

They’d been trapped a week, and it had been almost a day since the food and water had run out. The bodily wastes they’d deposited in one place had not been absorbed, but
Roger
’s inner skin and the sarcophagus that held Ezekiel remained warm, pliant and alive. Periodically Spooky would gently tap on the coffin-like thing, hoping to rouse the Blend.

This time, when he did, Bogrin rolled to a sitting position. “We must try stronger measures.”

Spooky nodded in resignation. “Go ahead. We need water. Or we need to break out of here.”

Bogrin rubbed his ham fists together, then licked his palms with a dry, sticky tongue. “Almost too late,” he remarked, then slapped them down onto the floor by his thighs and closed his eyes.

Spooky watched the Blend try to establish contact with the living ship, hoping, hoping. Minutes passed before the Sekoi’s eyes popped open. “I have explained situation. Ship is healing. Ezekiel will awaken soon.” With that, Bogrin removed his paws from the quivering floor with a faint sucking sound.

A moment later, the sarcophagus split and Ezekiel sat up, rubbing mucus off his face. “Sorry that took so long.
Roger
was badly burned by seawater flash-heating from the final beam strikes. I had to mute the pain and keep him unconscious or he might have given up and died.” Ezekiel shuddered, his eyes unfocused. “I think he’s out of danger, but he’s going to be of little use to us for a while. Unfortunately we have another issue. Something is approaching us. I have to go back in.”

“Can we help?” Spooky asked as Ezekiel lay back down.

“No. But here’s your gear. If everything goes to hell, swim for it, and good luck.” A seam in the living wall split and pressure suits, clothing and weapons spilled out in a heap. The three began sorting it out as the sarcophagus closed back over Ezekiel’s face.

“Not encouraging,” Trissk said, pulling on his battle harness. “At least if we have to cut our way out, I have this.” He held up his white crystal hotblade, unheated.

“Just keep that thing turned off,” Spooky replied. “We stay here as long as we can.”

“Who put you in charge, Ape?” Trissk snarled.

Spooky shrugged and smiled coldly. “We splashed down above a trench more then ten kilometers in depth. Who knows how deep we are now? If you cut your way out, the pressure will crush us.”

Trissk’s retort was cut off by a sudden shift in the floor under their feet, and then it tipped quite steeply for a moment before leveling off again. “What above All is going on?” the cat asked, looking around as if the walls would cave in on him.

Spooky knew the Ryss was on the edge of panic from the close confines, and he prepared to take physical measures to render Trissk unconscious if he must. Soon, though, the chamber stabilized and he thought he could hear the rushing of water and another, deeper sound, like whale song. He placed a hand on the wall and after a moment Bogrin did the same.

“We move,” the Sekoi said.

“But not with Roger’s normal mode of locomotion. I’ve been inside him underwater on Koio. This sounds nothing like that.”

“Meaning what?” Trissk asked.

“Something else is moving us.”

“Ezekiel’s ‘something’?”

“Presumably. Let us be calm, and wait.”

Trissk slashed his claws down the wall, scratching gouges in the moist skin and drawing bloodlike fluid. “I am tired of waiting!”

Spooky stood, but before he could take action, the big Sekoi had interposed his bulk, facing the cat. “I grow tired of your whining. Desist, or I will subdue you,” Bogrin said.

Trissk lifted his crystal sword as if to strike, and then Bogrin’s mouth opened and he roared, an elephantine bellow that stunned the others with a wall of sound. Trissk staggered backward and Bogrin lashed out, knocking the blade from his paw. “Are you warrior or child?” the Sekoi asked with all the power in his lungs.

The Ryss darted around the big alien and fetched up near Spooky, with nowhere else to go. While Spooky could not call Trissk’s appearance exactly terrified, he did seem quite unnerved by five hundred angry kilos of gray-skinned pachyderm.

“I think damaging our conveyance is a bad idea,” Spooky said mildly, ready to try for a knockout if Trissk wouldn’t calm down.

Panting, the Ryss repeatedly unsheathed and resheathed his claws, and then took a deep breath and settled back onto his haunches against the wall. “I will wait,” he said, closing his eyes and lowering his head, still panting.

Spooky exchanged glances with Bogrin and they both moved as far from Trissk as possible. The big cat seemed to lapse into a near coma after a while, and his tongue lolled. Bogrin examined the wall slashes and shook his head. “Should be healing, but are not.
Roger
is not well.”

“Nothing we can do right now. Leave him be. No need for our suits, either. Somehow I suspect we won’t be getting dumped into the water right away.”

“You understand situation?”

“Let’s just say, I have a strong suspicion.”

Hours later, Ezekiel’s coffin opened and he leaped to put on his clothing and suit. “Trissk, get up. We’re about to have visitors.”

Spooky nodded, Buddha-like. “Bring everything,” he said. “Right?”

“Yes. We won’t be returning to
Roger
anytime soon, I suspect.”

“Explain,” Trissk hissed as he gathered his possessions. “Will we fight? Or try to escape?”