Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (6 page)

War Council

After more than thirty years of active duty, Admiral Clarkson was still none too happy about being awoken at 3 AM. He was even less happy at the news he was greeted with as he stepped into Earth Fleet Command's central war room.

President Stripling and Admiral Patrick were already waiting for him there, the both of them looking for all the world as if they wished they could be anywhere but here.

"Mister President," he said as he took his seat at the table, then nodding his head at Admiral Patrick, he continued, "Admiral, good morning. What do we have?"

"Good of you to join us," Admiral Patrick commented with no attempt to hide the sneer on his taut lips.

Everyone in EFCOM knew that the two of them had never been friends. They were as polar opposite in their personalities as they were in their command styles. Admiral Patrick was as "by the book" as they came, everything was to be done according to regulation. While Clarkson was more prone to thinking "outside of the box" in the way he handled things. While this behavior would have certainly been frowned upon, and deemed unacceptable, it was his unorthodox ability for achieving outstanding outcomes that had gotten him this far in his military career.

An aide slid a folder across the table towards him, and he promptly opened it as the aide began the briefing.

Half an hour earlier, they had received a frantic message advising of a Coalition war fleet entering the inner part of Earth Republic space on a direct course for Earth itself.

In the past forty-eight hours, Earth forces at three Null Points had fallen beneath the unyielding firepower of this new assembling threat. As Clarkson glanced through the report, he realized that it wasn’t a standard combat fleet they were facing, but a fully fledged armada assembling itself slowly as it took out Earth Republic colonies on its way in.

Fleet Threat Analysts had already determined that the Coalition armada's next jump would bring it to Mars within the hour. Admiral Clarkson shifted in his seat, knowing full well that the bulk of the Earth Republic's own fleet was currently scattered around the rim worlds, many of its units actively engaged fighting small Coalition intrusions.

"Is there coffee?" he growled at the aide giving the briefing. The President looked at him in surprise as the briefing was interrupted. Admiral Patrick glared at him.

The aide rushed away to fetch him some. "Make it black and strong, I don't want any of that sissy mochaccino latte crap!" Clarkson called after him.

Clarkson leaned back in his chair, and took a long hard look at the real time vid display of the Mars system and grunted as the aide quickly returned, handing him his coffee.

"So they've taken Mars," Clarkson said as he sipped at his drink. He watched the President's jaw drop at his words.

"Not quite yet," Admiral Patrick corrected him. "We are not about to allow them to take it either. We have scrambled every ship within range to meet them there."

Clarkson never even bothered to look over at the Admiral; he just sat there shaking his head. "It's a waste of fragging time. We should call them back, and do it now before it is too late. We're going to need every ship we can muster around Earth when the time comes. We might not be able to afford to lose Earth, but we sure as hell can let Mars go. If we spare the fight at Mars, we will save time and precious resources rebuilding later after we destroy them here on Earth. No, we need to spend the resources defending Earth, not a world that we are going to lose. Fact is, Mr. President, we'll be hard pressed as it is to stop them here."

President Stripling leaned forward in his chair, his hands splayed out on the surface of the table, asking, "You don't believe we can stop them at Mars?"

"Forgive me for saying so, Mr. President, but I'd say we don't have a chance in hell of doing so." Clarkson laughed darkly. "Meeting them head on at Mars would merely be a delaying tactic, at best, if we are lucky. With the intel we have, and the size of the force they have, it would be a walk in the park to defeat any forces we could potentially mobilize into that area. If they're smart, they'll be delayed anyway. If they move on Earth without properly dealing with Mars itself, it will leave them exposed to being caught in the crossfire between our own forces."

"I hate to admit this, but I don't follow your meaning, Admiral," the President admitted.

President Stripling was not a military man, having only served his compulsory service, and sometimes that grated on Clarkson. He took a breath and did his best to explain it in layman's terms for the President. "Null Jumps require a prepared area of space in order for a jump to succeed. You can't just go anywhere in an instant without one, even if you were able to accelerate enough into Null Space itself which, as far as we know, physics does not allow.”

Stopping to drain his coffee cup, he motioned for the aide to bring him a refill before continuing, "If the Coalition were to move on Earth without dealing with Mars' populace first, any damage done to the Null Point during ingress can be repaired in a matter of days at most. Our forces en route from the rim systems will form up behind them and drop in on them without any real warning. If they take the Null Point there, the Coalition will have no means of retreat left open to them except by standard Normal Space propulsion systems."

"I'm afraid I must disagree, Mr. President," Admiral Patrick argued. "If we meet them head on at Mars with everything we can muster, there is no doubt we can bloody them badly. Maybe we can even scare them bad enough to force them into retreating, even if it is just to regroup. Even in the worst case scenarios this would still leave us more than enough time to strengthen our defenses here around Earth."

"Allowing them to take Mars will slow them regardless, Mr. President," Clarkson said again. "It's not a start up colony from the outer rim. Mars is a major colony with a well-established Defense Force of its own, and the Coalition will have no choice but to fight a ground war there before moving on. The ground war will happen whether we are there to intercept them or not. Either way, Mars will burn, Mr. President, and there is nothing we can do to prevent that from happening."

Earth Republic President Stripling's face was grim as he nodded, "Right then. Recall the entire Earth Republic Fleet, Admiral Patrick; I want them back here, protecting Earth. As much as I hate to do this, order those units already in place around Mars to pull out and return to Earth when things start to get too hot. From that time on, Mars and its colonial Defense Forces will be on their own."

Clarkson returned Admiral Patrick’s withering glare with a warm smile, then took another sip of his coffee, instantly wishing he had some alcohol on hand to add to it. It was going to be a long and bloody day.

Saying Hello to the Neighbors.

Xarn, First Partas of the Darian Ka’tta, or as his hosts on this slightly disturbing water covered world, might say in their own style, Xarn First Ambassador of the Darian Empire lounged in the elegant but just this side of opulent custom made chair. His hosts had provided it for him in the conference room located on the 400th floor of the Earth government’s Stellar Communion building.

An ostentatious title for a building to be sure but many ostentatious things happened here after all. In addition, Xarn admired the architecture of the building itself. It was inspiring, like a single great spire pointing to the heavens as if to point and say “Out there! Out there is our race’s destiny!”

Perhaps he had been among humans too long. Their abundance of optimism might just be starting to rub off, or perhaps he just found them more welcoming and easier to read than the government officials he had been forced to contend with in the Ka’tta back home.

Xarn, in an apparently absentminded gesture, stretched his silver grey, fur-covered arms towards the heavens and arched his back while he did so. This produced an almost inaudible crackling sound as the vertebrae in his spine popped. Not only did this ease the mild pain of sitting upright at a high table, which was one of the human’s more annoying customs, but it also produced a low baritone gravel-like growl from his counterpart occupying a truly tremendous grey granite chair which was located across a clear plastisteel conference table that occupied the majority of the room.

Battle Lord Juma of the Ra-tid had informed him many times, via a diamond shaped translator located on what served as the throat on this hulking brute of a rock, how such an act produced a vibration that was very akin to an offensive term used by the lower castes of his society.

While the silicon based Ra-tid species were hulking, eleven foot high humanoids made of many segmented stones, their physiology did not come with vocal chords. They had learned to communicate by picking up on subtle vibrations and when you saw two Ra-tids holding a heated conversation it sounded as if a fierce avalanche was occurring as they stomped their legs forcefully down on whatever they happened to be standing on.

Xarn reflected that this was most likely the reason why the humans had seen it prudent to reinforce the Stellar Communion building’s infrastructure after they had made first contact with the Ra-tid.

The title of Battle Lord was not some sort of ambassadorial affectation. The Ra-tid did not have ambassadors but neither was they poor tacticians. When it became apparent to them that they did not have the strength, at the moment, to annihilate the humans upon their first contact, they decided it prudent to send a high ranking military officer and a small contingent to listen to the intelligence that the other races freely gave at such gatherings and to inform a race that they were about to be annihilated.

While Xarn had a healthy respect for the shear brutal strength of the Ra-tid’s warrior society, he was completely appalled at their lack of honor and the atrocities they were known to commit on the battlefield. It was well known amongst the sentient races that the Ra-tid was not a race to enter into conflict with lightly for their brutality had long been a thing of legend. They gave no quarter, nor asked for such, and tended to leave nothing but an oozing, splattered pulp of their enemies whenever possible, even if they had just surrendered.

Xarn’s heightened olfactory senses alerted him to the unmistakable synthetic odors that Senior Fellow Milar of the Gener race exuded, about a minute before he entered the room. Despite his years of disciplined study of the Ka (A semi-martial discipline of his people for mastering self-control) Xarn's whiskers almost imperceptibly twitched. If the humans viewed the Geners as unnatural beings, Darians such as himself saw them as utter abominations.

The overly sterile and almost chemical smell Milar gave off burned Xarn's nostrils. While Xarn had nothing personally against Milar per se, he did despise his race.

When the Darians and the Geners had made first contact, it was by way of a Gener Exploratory Cruiser, the Gener equivalent of a human heavy battle cruiser, abducting the crew of a Darian merchant vessel. The crew had managed to send off a distress signal prior to being abducted but when the closest ship of the Darian Defense Forces had arrived, all it found was a perfectly empty and unharmed ghost ship.

There were no signs of a struggle but they did find additional holo-cords (Darian data records) that showed the young Darian who had sent the distress message reporting that they were being boarded by a vessel of unknown origin. The still gold furred youth, a fur color that denotes that the Darian has just achieved sexual maturity, then seemed to have difficulty keeping his eyes open as he repeated their ship’s coordinates his face suddenly went still and he sat back is his chair in a relaxed position.

The rest of the holo-cord revealed three humanoid beings in pressurized suits enter the bridge of the small merchant vessel. One held up a trapezoidal instrument and tapped at it with a distended forefinger. Then all three of the invaders removed their helmets and the Darians had their first view of a Gener’s face.

It was not covered in fur so it was clear that it was a non-Darian sentient, even if the elongated three fingered hands of their pressurized suits had not given that fact away already. It was rather covered in small scale like patterns that seemed to have a moist sheen about them and varied in color from grey to green to even bright orange.

One of the three intruders drew closer to the holo-cord device. As it did so, its face came clearly into view. There was no apparent nose but the mouth and eyes were enlarged, even by human standards. When the sentient had tapped the recording lens of the holo-cord with one of its three long fingers the holo-cord had gone black.

After review of this information, the Darian Defense Forces sent more ships to the area to ensure that this wasn’t a full scale invasion. Two weeks later, they found the Exploratory Cruiser in orbit around a Gas Giant’s moon not one jump from where it had abducted the Darian crew.

The captain of the Shak’ta (the Darian equivalent of a Heavy Cruiser) was surprised to be hailed in his own language by the giant ring shaped vessel. The Gener who appeared on the Darian viewing screen inquired as to their business in this sector.

When the Darian captain replied that they came in search of the missing merchants, the Gener’s told them that they had been reduced to their constituencies so as better to be studied on the base level. However, he told them not to worry because they had learned much of Darian culture and language from their subjects before they proceeded to the next step of their studies.

The Senior Fellow of the Gener ship informed the Darian captain that it would not be likely that they would need new subjects for some time and hoped that the vessel they had left adrift would provide the adequate recompense for the Darian’s troubles as apparently physical objects were of great value.