Unlike some senior officers, Captain Absen disliked holding too many meetings, but this time he could not avoid it. All of his key personnel milled there, conversing in low, strained tones or arguing in heated whispers as he entered the boat’s largest conference room. It had been a long week of floundering, discussion, recrimination, grief and eventually acceptance. Absen hoped his people were ready to get back to work.
“Captain on deck!” COB Timmons roared, and the room snapped to attention – all but the civilians, who at least stopped talking to face the front.
“At ease. Take your seats.” Absen remained standing at the head of the large table. “Everyone is coming out of their funk, and is eager to charge into battle. I know how everyone here feels, because I feel the same. We want to do something, to strike back, to hurt the bastards that killed so many people and conquered our home. We want to charge straight there and free Earth from Meme domination. I get it.”
He took a breath. “But we have to be patient. The facts are not what we feel. We feel as if we have to hurry – and we won’t waste any time, I assure you – but we must use the time wisely. A few more days or weeks, or even months of preparation, will not cause much extra harm at our destination, but taking that time to prepare ourselves and Conquest may make all the difference.”
Once he saw the nods of assent and the grudging acceptance in their eyes, the captain sat down. “In the last week we’ve proceeded in short, easy hops two light-years toward the solar system. Observations show that Earth is a mess, but we believe several million people survived there, as well as millions more in the Jupiter system. The Meme smashed all organized resistance, but did not engage in further genocide. Yet, ninety-nine percent of the human race was wiped out.
“Further detailed information is very difficult to get, as no one is beaming us intelligence anymore, but it appears that the Empire has brought in or split-grown more Destroyers and has sent a squadron of sixteen our way. We can presume they will take time in Earth system’s Oort cloud to gorge on raw materials, but after that, we believe they will come straight at Gliese 370, and therefore us. With their biological interrogation methods, of course they would have found out where Task Force Conquest went, and even though they don’t know that we won, it’s the sensible move to chase after us.”
“We should intercept them, sir!” Ford said hotly, slamming his fist on the table. “We can hit them when they least expect it – in interstellar space.”
“Why?” Absen asked calmly.
“Why? Because...” Ford almost choked.
“I’m not contradicting you, Commander. I just want you to explain what we will accomplish by doing that. Build a case.” Absen had thought this through, of course, but he wanted to see if his officers had.
“Isn’t killing Meme enough, sir?”
“Is it?” Absen looked around. “Okay, let’s hear the pros and cons, pros first. We kill some Meme. Good. Anything else?”
“It’s a live-fire exercise,” Ellis Nightingale said with crossed arms. “We need to see how effective our weapons really are.”
“Actually that applies to the entire tactical system,” Master Helmsman Okuda added. “It would be extremely helpful to practice out in the middle of nowhere before we enter Earth’s solar system, with all its complicating factors.”
“Granted,” Absen acknowledged. “We kill Meme, and we get a top-to-bottom exercise. Anything else?”
Other than some murmured conversations in the background, the room remained quiet.
“All right, cons. Any downsides?”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Spooky Nguyen cleared his throat from where he sat inconspicuously in a chair against the wall. “We may be tipping our hand.”
“Explain,” Absen said.
“The Meme have never witnessed our TacDrive or the tactics that go with it. They will never have seen a human ship that can do what this one does. Surprise can only ever be achieved once,” Spooky said. “They will send reports back to Earth system. We cannot kill sixteen Destroyers quickly enough to prevent that.”
Ford replied in his usual combative tone, “We can arrive right on the heels of that information, before they have much time to adjust. Two days later, if we push.”
“Crew will be in no condition to fight after so much biological disruption,” the Sekoi Bogrin said.
Doctor Egolu raised her hand. “There is one crew member that will not be affected. Michelle.”
“We do not know that,” Commander Ekara objected. “We can’t assume its processors are completely resistant to anomalies. In fact, reason suggests that the more they are miniaturized, the more relativistic effects crop up.”
“She is not an ‘it,’ sir, and I do not need an engineer to tell me my job,” Egolu said through stiffened lips, making Ekara’s vocation into an epithet.
“We engineers live in the real world, where things go wrong and kill people.” Ekara’s voice rose.
Absen broke in, his voice a whip. “Simmer down and stick to the point. Pros and cons of engaging the Meme fleet.”
Sergeant Major Repeth nudged Major ben Tauros, who spoke up as if reluctant. “Is there any chance Desolator can’t handle sixteen Destroyers, sir? I mean, do we need to thin them out?”
Absen glanced around, preferring that others, especially experts, responded to questions, even when he knew the answers. With less than a real month working together, his subordinates still had not developed a tradition of smooth communication among their sections.
Okuda, always mild and professional, took on the job of answering what some might think was a stupid question from a dumbass Marine. “Even if we leave them untouched, it will take them decades to get to Gliese 370. Desolator estimated it would take him ten years to replicate himself – to make another superdreadnought, that is. Then those two make two more, and so on. If nothing interrupts, there will be eight to sixteen of them waiting when the Meme fleet arrives. Us taking out a few Destroyers won’t materially affect that equation.”
Murmuring swept the room. It was clear to Absen that not many of them had thought through the implications of Desolator’s Von Neumann properties, and how he was in essence spawning a new race of spacegoing mechanical Titans of enormous power.
“The Meme will get squashed,” someone breathed.
“I hope they burn in hell,” another said.
“So we don’t need to hit the fleet. Now that that’s settled,” Absen rode down the conversation with his voice, “are there any more pros and cons? Anyone?”
He waited a few more moments, then said, “All right. If anyone thinks of anything more, be sure to bring it up, but for now, I believe the upsides win. We need the weapons test more than we need absolute surprise. We will engage the Meme fleet.”