Out of the Dark (29 page)

“So far,” he said out loud, speaking to all of them now, “we’ve allowed these creatures’ navigational and communications satellites to remain functional. Now that we have our entire fleet in orbit around the planet, the
human navigational satellites have lost their immediate postlanding utility for us. I see no reason to permit
them
to continue to use that capability, and I suspect that denying it to these small parties of infantry of theirs may make their lives more difficult in the future, as well.

“By the same token, we left their communications satellites intact for the same reason we left their Internet in operation—so that they could communicate news of their defeat to one another and submit, and so that we would have a sophisticated communications interface when they had the decency to do so. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the negative consequences of leaving the ‘Internet’ intact outweigh any positive ones, particularly in light of what Ground Base Commander Shairez has just reported. I believe she’s correct about the fashion in which ‘Robinson’ has so impeded our efforts, and I would not be astonished to discover that other humans continue to utilize this capability to coordinate their small combat groups. I realize our cyber techs are searching for indications of precisely that, but it’s become painfully evident that these creatures are far more capable of communicating through indirection than we are. Ground Base Commander Shairez tells me they actually have a term for the practice—they call it ‘double meaning.’”

He raised one ear and half bared a canine in grim humor at the baffled expressions of some of his officers. He’d had to spend some time thinking about the term himself before he realized how applicable it appeared to be to human “psychology”—assuming such a neat and tidy term had any particular relationship to whatever it was which really served humans in the place of logic and reason.

“In light of those considerations,” he continued, “beginning today, I want their ‘GPS’ destroyed and their communications disrupted. Take out their satellites and seek out and destroy as many of their ground-based communications systems as possible. We’ll still be able to establish direct contact with anyone with whom we choose to communicate; I will no longer allow them to communicate with one another in order to coordinate their actions against us. At such time as they recognize reality and submit, we may restore that communication.”

“If I may point out, Sir,” Shairez said respectfully, “there will be serious secondary consequences to your proposed actions.” Thikair looked at her, and her ears moved in an expression of profound respect. “There’s already been massive disruption of the humans’ societies, especially in the more
technically advanced nation-states, Sir. I would estimate for example that no more than thirty percent of their remaining power generation stations are operational. There’s been a massive exodus of population from their urban centers, as well. Even some of those who had begun to filter back into their surviving cities have fled once more, following our kinetic strikes on cities where our forces have met resistance. Transportation systems are breaking down, especially as fuel distribution is interrupted. That means urban populations are unable to feed themselves, which is further accelerating the rate at which their cities are emptying.”

“Your point, Ground Base Commander?” Ground Force Commander Thairys prompted when she paused.

“My point, Ground Force Commander,” she replied, “is that they’ve been relying heavily on their communications to coordinate such central services as have continued to function at all. Cutting off those communications as the Fleet Commander proposes can only accelerate the disintegration of those societies. The death rate among the humans will soar as that occurs. Of more immediate concern, however, is that as their society disintegrates, the possibility of our being able to locate some central authority with both the sanity and the capability to submit will decrease still further.”

“As always, your points are well taken, Ground Base Commander,” Thikair said after a moment. “Nonetheless, I think we have no choice but to proceed as I’ve already indicated. To be perfectly honest, I will shed no tears if the fatality rate among these creatures rises to a level which finally compels them to recognize reality and submit. And encouraging the disintegration of their more advanced nation-states strikes me as rather more of a plus than a minus at this time. We’ve been trying for almost two of their weeks to get them to submit and end the destruction. They’ve either steadfastly refused, or else they lack the ability. In either case, we’ve gone far enough to meet them in that respect.

“At the same time, these more advanced nation-states are the ones most likely to continue to provide significant opposition. As you yourself pointed out, our troops are already reporting encounters with improvised weaponry, and the more technically advanced societies are those most capable of producing
effective
improvised weaponry. Moreover, I suspect our standard techniques for neutralizing conquered populations will ultimately prove more effective against the less advanced humans, whose capabilities are closer to those of the species we’ve already conquered.”

He looked at Shairez. The ground base commander met his eyes levelly but respectfully, then bent her head and flattened her ears in recognition of his authority.

“In light of what I’ve just said, Thairys,” Thikair resumed, turning back to the ground force commander, “I want you to revise your deployment stance. For the immediate future, I want to concentrate on these creatures’ more heavily developed and advanced societies. That’s where we’re encountering the most significant threats, so let’s start by establishing fully secured enclaves from which we can operate in greater strength as we spread out to consolidate. And if we can push along the disintegration of organized resistance in the process, so much the better.”

“Yes, Sir,” Thairys acknowledged. “That may take some time, however. In particular, we have infantry forces deployed for the purpose of hunting down and destroying known groups of human attackers. They’re operating in widely separated locations, and pulling them out to combine elsewhere is going to stretch our troop lift capacity, especially given the transport losses we’ve already suffered.”

“Would those forces be necessary to meet the objectives I just described?”

“No, Sir. Some additional infantry will be needed, but we can land the additional troops directly from space. And, in addition, we need more actual combat experience against these roving attack groups. We need to refine our tactics, and as Ground Base Commander Shairez has just pointed out, even our most experienced combat veterans have never faced
this
level of threat in the past. I’d really prefer to keep at least some of our own infantry out in the hinterland, where we can continue to blood more junior officers in a lower threat level environment. And honor, as well as prudence, dictates that we allow our warriors to seek out and destroy the enemies who have killed their comrades when they ought to have submitted.”

“As long as you’re capable of carrying out the concentrations I’ve just directed, I have no objection,” Thikair told him.

And as long as we’re able to somehow get a tourniquet on this steady flow of casualties,
the fleet commander added to himself.

“Well,
that’s
unpleasant news.” Dave Dvorak grimaced. “On the other hand, I wondered how much longer they’d wait before they got around to taking it out.”

Alec Wilson had just poked his head into the kitchen to inform them that their link to the Internet was down. Given the fact that they knew the relay tower into which they’d tapped was still functional, that suggested the Shongairi had finally decided to knock the net itself out from under humanity, probably starting with the telecommunications satellites which had somehow survived so far.

“Yeah.” Rob Wilson shook his head as Alec withdrew his head to rejoin Jessica in the effort to make certain the problem wasn’t at their end. “Assuming the net’s really down, that is, and it’s not just at our end. Not exactly the
smartest
thing they could’ve done, though.”

“I never thought it was very smart of them to leave it up in the first place,” Veronica Wilson said, pouring herself another cup of coffee.

She and her husband were coffee drinkers; Dvorak and Sharon weren’t, and coffee wasn’t something they were likely to be seeing a lot more of anytime soon. That was why she and Wilson had agreed to ration themselves to only two cups each at breakfast. He was already working on tapering off, however, and he shook his head with a virtuous expression when she waved the pot in his direction.

“Sure, Mr. Slim Jim,” she told him, shaking her head, then looked back at Dvorak, sitting at the head of the breakfast table. “Letting us talk to each other—letting Robinson put up that video of what happened to their shuttles in Virginia, for instance—always struck me as pretty stupid,” she said.

“It had its upsides from our perspective,” Wilson agreed. “The biggest one was Robinson, though. What he posted proved we could take down their shuttles, that their hardware was vulnerable. Without that, I think a lot of people would’ve been a lot more hesitant about pulling the trigger
when they saw them coming. But what they should’ve done—hell, what they may’ve been
doing
for all we know!—was use the net to spread disinformation. Think about it, Ronnie. Done right, they could’ve sucked us into one mousetrap after another. And that doesn’t even consider the propaganda possibilities! You think a steady diet of real or CGI footage of our side getting the shit blown out of it wouldn’t’ve gone a long way to undoing the consequences of what Robinson and those fighter jocks pulled off?”

“You’ve got a point,” Dvorak agreed. “On the other hand, my impression’s been that these critters don’t have anything like a solid handle on human psychology. They keep talking about ‘submitting’ like it’s the only reasonable thing for us to do. And”—he shook his head—“from a purely logical perspective, they’re probably right. They’ve sure as hell proved they can hammer the shit out of any target they want to once they find it! And”—he shook his head again, his expression going grimmer—“they’ve probably already killed a third or so of the human race. That doesn’t even count the number of people who haven’t starved yet but will, either. Or the number of people who’re going to get killed by other
humans
trying to protect their own food supplies and housing.”

There was a moment of silence as they looked down at their breakfast plates. They’d established a tight series of meal plans as one of their very first priorities, stretching food carefully. Yet they also knew they had a year’s worth of canned and preserved supplies, plus the garden they’d put in right after arriving and a huge supply of home-canning equipment. That garden (planted with heritage seeds, despite the higher yield and greater disease resistance of genetically modified seeds) had been carefully located to conceal the traffic marks they hadn’t been able to avoid leaving behind when they’d moved all of their more recent supplies—and firearms—into the cave. Disguising the area where they’d flattened the mountain grasses and pounded down the dead leaves had seemed like a good idea at the time, and putting in the garden had given them the perfect “obvious reason” to till up all that evidence.

And now that the exodus from America’s cities had been given time to sweep out over the countryside, it seemed like a
really
good idea.

For the first time in modern history, starvation was a serious threat—indeed, a grim certainty—for large percentages of the American population. Flight from the remaining urban centers had redoubled when the Shongairi started simply destroying towns and cities—like Charlotte—where their ground forces met serious resistance. Chicago had probably been the real
motivator, though, Dvorak thought grimly. Charlotte had been bad enough, but people outside the Carolinas hadn’t really thought of Charlotte as a “big” city. Chicago, though . . .
that
had been seen as a major hit, and Fleet Commander Thikair’s message—posted, of course, on the Internet immediately after Chicago’s destruction—that other cities would receive the same treatment if his troops were fired on in them had only accelerated the process.

Which was leading inevitably to the disintegration of the country’s social and technical infrastructures. Which, in turn, might well be exactly what the Shongairi had wanted.

Frankly, Dvorak was astonished the transportation system and power grid had remained operational—to some extent, at least—as long as they had. It helped a lot, locally anyway, that North and South Carolina had both been home to numerous nuclear power plants. At least interruptions in fuel deliveries hadn’t automatically shut them down. Of course, the Shongairi had taken out both of the McGwire reactors when they destroyed Charlotte, and the Summer plant in South Carolina had shut down when Columbia was destroyed. As far as Dvorak could make out from the fragmentary reports which had come over the Internet, that reactor hadn’t actually been destroyed when the state capital was, but it was still off-line. Possibly because of shock damage. More probably because the people who would have been operating it were either dead or fled after the Columbia strike.

How much longer any of those generating stations were going to stay up was problematical, of course. Local government was doing its best to protect them, along with other critical services, but throughout much of the country those authorities were being steadily overwhelmed by the influx of desperate, hungry refugees. Dvorak knew damned well that he would have done
anything
it took to keep his kids fed. He couldn’t blame other parents for feeling exactly the same way, and that didn’t even consider what people would do to keep their
own
bellies filled. So he wasn’t surprised “looting” and other crimes of violence—and reactive vigilantism—had become commonplace. By the same token, he wasn’t about to let anyone take away what he and his family had built for themselves against this very day.