Epilogue

Three days later Jill stepped off the shuttle bus that had brought her into the Hippo town of Blorun. She’d downloaded the latest language program and practiced making the sounds come out of her mouth. Humans were common sights here, unlike other places on the planet, so she felt less like an intruder and more like a tourist. She’d only visited a couple of times before to do some shopping with Dannie, who came here almost weekly.

Sounds carried well and echoed strongly off the sturdy Hippo buildings in the thick Afranan air, creating a feeling of busyness and crowdedness that was only partially true. The huge natives, some massing a thousand kilos and weighing even more in the heavy gravity, lumbered about, and she tried to stay out of their way. Her bones would not break the way an ordinary human’s might, but getting stepped on was likely to hurt. A lot.

She’d looked up the coordinates of the Saigon Beverage Company, one of only three such concerns in town and the only one with a human – not to mention Vietnamese – name. Now, she started strolling toward it, letting her GPS guide her through the town.

She could have sent Spooky a message or called, but after her self-revelation she decided to just have a little adventure. If he happened not to be there, well, it would be a nice day out and she could leave him a note.

Spotting a man going into what looked like a restaurant, she asked him about the food, and learned that dishes approved for humans were clearly marked on the menus here. Inside, she saw several people sitting at appropriately sized tables, but no one she knew. Because she was hungry, she joined the man she had accosted and chatted with him about how their kind operated in Hippo society, until the food came.

Shortly after she had taken her first interesting bite, Spooky tapped the man on the shoulder. The man left, and Spooky sat down. He wore a soft suit in scaled-down Hippo style. “How do you like the choika?” he asked.

“Not sure yet. Spicy,” she replied. “Do you have the buses watched?”

“I do, actually. By Hippos on my payroll. Purely for market research purposes, of course. It also trains them to recognize and differentiate among humans. Here,” he said, pouring her a cup of whitish liquid. “Drink sips of this. It will cool the burn and complement the flavor.”

“What is it?”

“Fermented milk of an animal you’d rather I not describe, using Earth yeast. It’s a big hit.”

“As long as I can digest it...” Jill tested it with her tongue. “Mm, not bad. Now, tell me what happened.”

“I would have come to visit you, you know.”

“Eventually, perhaps. I figured you’d be busy in your secret lair, going over the news about Desolator and whatever intelligence you’ve gathered on it. And, I wanted to get out, see things. Like you wanted me to, right?” Jill took another bite of choika.

“Touché. All right. I’ll spare you the details, but we pinpointed the Meme agent. Along with stealing the whole database including all the transmission logs, Ezekiel put in backdoors so we can tap into that computer any time we want.”

“And?”

“And that’s it for now. I have to talk it over with some people. We might try to turn him to our side as a double agent, or we might finger him to the Yellows.”

Jill’s voice became more insistent even as it dropped in volume. “I get a feeling there's more to that story. But what about the message and where it went?”

“Oh, that. The big telescope on Enoi found a sentry probe about half a light year out in position to receive. We can’t get there in time to stop it from retransmitting, and we probably can’t tell in which direction it sends, so...that’s it for now. Absen will deal with that end of it.”

“Speaking of Admiral Absen, what do you know about,” she pointed heavenward, “that.”

“Not much more than you do. You can probably learn more through Marine channels.”

“Okay, okay.” Jill chewed speculatively at her food. “I’m glad I came and tried this stuff, and your drink – what are you calling it?”

“Moik. It sounds right to Sekoi ears.”

“Yeah, choika and moik. I’m glad, because it was the most satisfying thing about the trip here to Blorun,” she grumbled.

Spooky shrugged. “Sorry I can’t give you a lot of closure, but that’s the covert world.”

Jill nodded. "Keep your secrets, then. For now. Even you can't keep them forever.” She lifted her moik. “Absent friends,” she toasted.

“Absent friends,” he responded, clinking his cup against hers. He drained it and stood up. “Back to work.”

“I'm sure you'll soon have more work for me.”

“Certainly,” Spooky replied with a smile that said he’d won. “Until then...enjoy yourself.”

Jill did not return the smile, but loaded a fork full of choika as Spooky ghosted out. She opened her eyes wide, took a deep breath of Afrana’s smells and tastes, and chewed. “Damn right we will,” she breathed, then took out her tablet and triggered its uplink function. “Put me through to Commander Rick Johnstone please,” she told the watchstander on duty in the moon’s command center. “Tell him it’s his wife.”

***

Admiral Absen watched on Conquest’s bridge’s high-res optical screen as the great Ryss ship spun slowly in space. Both the human dreadnought and Desolator orbited Afrana’s moon Enoi, and already, only six days since the crisis ended, he could see the firefly lights of grabships, shuttles and suited repair workers busying themselves.

With Desolator’s central integration processor repaired, rebuilding accelerated. All that was needed was abundant fuel, and that was available. Despite severe damage, the vessel itself still contained functional factories and maintenance shops deep within its structure.

Now, these facilities spewed out maintenance drones by the dozens, and soon, hundreds. Directed by the powerful Ryss AI, these swarmed throughout Desolator, rebuilding and repairing alongside Ryss, humans and Sekoi.

Absen, still the military governor of the system, was quick to direct that every available effort, human and Hippo, be diverted to refurbishing and exploiting the amazing warship. His thoughts turned to what he could do with just one of them, never mind a whole fleet.

With the photonic drive, the crew would not need the stasis cocoons – relativity would reduce the time that passed on board to a few days or weeks between star systems. While nothing they knew could overcome the light speed barrier, this was the next best thing to it.

And tactically...if he could improve the recharge time and use the photonic drive to maneuver within a star system, to zoom from point to point, he could surprise the Meme and destroy their military capacity before they even knew Desolator had arrived, then leap away. It would be just like commanding a submarine again, to hunt the enemy and strike with surprise, then slip away into darkness.

The possibilities seemed endless.

Absen had never been one for bloodlust, but he thought he felt it now – the desire to crush the hated Meme underfoot and simultaneously free their enslaved planetary sub-races. It was a powerful combination of rage and righteousness, activated by the thought of these incredible new capabilities.

And even before that, with Desolator at full military capacity, the Ryss-Human-Hippo alliance should be able to fend off almost any conceivable Meme attack. He’d spoken with the Ryss and seen the records of Desolator’s epic final battle. Just five of the Dominator-class warships had held their own against over nine thousand Destroyers, at least long enough to save the Ryss – if only the AI had not been damaged. One of its many particle beams on fractional power had disabled Krugh; again, Absen felt in awe of the strength that would be available to preserve humanity and its allies, and carry the war to the enemy.

When he finally turned in, Admiral Henrich J. Absen slept very well indeed.

***

Trissk approached his and Klis’ cottage with the dead sheep over his shoulders. Meat, he thought, hot flesh as our ancestors ate. My first kill, courtesy of the Humans and their domestic animals. Its body rested on his new-grown mane. The ruff itched when he thought about it.

He looked at the blood on his paws and was glad their Sekoi allies had built the cottage according to Ryss specifications, with running water inside and out for just this purpose. Licking oneself clean would do if necessary, but wasn’t really civilized. A hot soak sounded much better.

Klis stepped into the doorway and waved with one hand, the other on her belly. She was as svelte as ever and had not begun to show her condition, though her time and his first glorification were past.

Trissk returned the wave and was content. More than content; he was happy to be a pioneer of the new old ways, of a return to what the Humans called monandry. Enough males had been killed fighting that each young dam could choose a husband – an old word, revived from ancient writings – and for now, there would be harmony among the Ryss. The oldest males had agreed to leave breeding to the young.

Soon would come drugs and life code manipulation, he had been told, to restore the Ryss’ breeding to their natural, and also civilized, norms. The Blends among the Sekoi had given assurances that this would be a simple matter, given their skill at such biological tinkering.

While the old swallowed their objections, Trissk found himself able to accept the once-taboo ideas without difficulty, as doing so sealed his ties to Klis.

Trissk set the meat animal onto the flaying table. “Klis,” he called, “Rick and his mate – his wife – called Jill, have invited us to socialize with them tomorrow evening. They want to show the fearsome Ryss to their kits.”

She laughed. “I would be happy to visit your friend and meet his wife, though I hate their monkey-warren cities with their huts piled atop each other. Perhaps they can visit us in turn, here, where one can breathe.” Klis took a deep breath, as if to illustrate, and spread her paws wide.

“How soon you forget that you lived your whole life inside a cold ship little different from a Human city. Do not judge them for their species and proclivities. Do you know some of them keep animals like tiny moor-cats as pets?” Trissk moved toward the outdoor shower, adjusting the controls.

“Then it is only right that we shall adopt a small primate.”

“Only if you want me to sleep outside.”

“As you wish. The bed is soft, and the ground is not, O hardened warrior.” She shrugged, insouciant, and then flounced inside.

Trissk snorted and then stepped under the warm running water.

While drying off, he looked across the savannah toward the distant sprawling Human city of more than a million inhabitants. It was kind of them to allow Ryss to take of their flocks; perhaps sometime soon wild meat beasts would roam free nearby and he could really hunt. For now, the sheep was enough.

A hundred hastily built cottages dotted the grassland around, in a loose group. In a few years, kits would play here, and the Ryss would build – rebuild – their civilization. With litters of three to five, it would not be too many generations before his people would outstrip even the fast-breeding Humans, not to mention the slow-growing Sekoi.

Trissk left the sheep and went to greet his wife properly; while the desperate urge to glorify was past, still he and Klis lay on their divan and basked in the summer sunlight that streamed through the south-facing window, marveling at the warmth of the orange star. Soon enough, he would see his kits born. Soon enough, he would take his place alongside his new allies.

Soon enough, he would hunt Meme.

The End of Desolator: Conquest

READ ON for an excerpt from Tactics of Conquest, Stellar Conquest Book 3

Excerpt from Tactics of Conquest

“General Quarters. All hands to battle stations.”

Admiral Henrich Absen felt an instant of relief as the automated voice of Conquest’s computer shattered his nightmare. In the dream he’d been back in the Tucson, staring at the message that outlined the destruction of Los Angeles. Knowing the bombs killed his family was hell, and knowing that his own failure to stop the other sub’s nuclear missile launch had doomed them had been hell’s lowest circle.

Nothing could be as horrible as reliving that all over again.

The noise sent him reaching for the khaki trousers draped over the nearest chair before he even came awake. Once he had them on he grabbed his shoes, socks and shirt, and bolted out his quarters door.

Klaxons wailed as the advisory repeated. In the few steps to the bridge he managed to pull the shirt on, and he threw himself into his flag chair as soon as he crossed the threshold. “Kill the noise and report,” he snapped.

Captain Mirza in the Chair waved at Johnstone at the CyberComm station and turned to Absen. “One of the sensor drones picked up something inbound at high speed. That alerted the big Sekoi array on Enoi, which took a look. It’s a Meme Destroyer.”

“How fast?”

“Point seven relative. If it does not decelerate, it will cross the orbit of New Jove in four hours, but we won’t see that time-delayed light until it’s another hour in.”

Absen nodded. “Got it. Can we seed its path with mines?”

“No, sir. We’re out of position. We can fire missiles, but at that speed we’ll be lucky to get any hits unless we manage to maneuver them directly in front of it.”

“Which won’t do a terrible lot.”

“No, sir.” Mirza lowered his head and shot the Admiral a raised-eyebrow look. “This is what we’ve been waiting for, sir. I know you don’t want to, but we have to ask Desolator to do it. And, it will give us a real look at his capabilities...things he’s only claimed.”

Absen nodded. “At least he has some living crew aboard. Assuming things go our way – and we have no reason to believe otherwise – it will be a victory for all of us. Conquest and her people will just have to wait their turn.”

Mirza folded his hands tightly, elbows on the Chair’s arms. “I’ve taken the liberty of maneuvering toward the point of interception. That way we’ll be as close as possible, and you never know. We might have a chance to do something.”

“Good idea. Carry on.” Absen leaned down to put his socks and shoes on. “COB, you got a cup for me?”

From his seat near the rear of the circular bridge, Chief Timmons pulled a battered metal mug out of a cubbyhole and filled it from an even more battered stainless-steel coffee dispenser bolted to the floor. He handed it across to the admiral without moving his own cup, which rested one-handed on his ample gut.

Absen tasted it. “Been stripping paint again, COB?”

“Can’t abide that weak sauce the mess serves, sir.”

Absen snorted and sipped again. “Well, at least I’ll be wide awake for the big show. Captain,” he turned back to Mirza, “you mind bringing up the holodisplay?”

“Yes...I’m waiting to see that myself. Sensors?”

Commander Scoggins snarled at her board as she repeatedly pressed keys, buttons, and touchscreens. Finally she mumbled something foul and reached beneath her brunette bob to plug in her link. A moment later the main holotank manifested itself in the center of the spherical bridge space, floating above the sunken cockpit where Master Helmsman Okuda sat beneath his medusa.

Okuda of course had no need of the holotank; helmsmen were always fully linked into VR space, their chip-filled brains well trained to interpret the three-dimensional environment of the interplanetary void.

“We’re having a few problems with the boards,” Mirza said apologetically. “The links seem to work better, but even then...”

“Does it have anything to do with the new AI engineering?”

Mirza shook his head. “Shouldn’t be, sir. The AI isn’t connected in any way to ship systems yet, and it won’t be until it checks out completely.”

Absen grunted. “Not so sure about AIs. With these new systems we’re getting, it looks like we’ll need one, but....”

The bridge crew, including Mirza, kept silent, having heard the Old Man’s views on intelligent machinery many times.

Absen stood and walked over to look closely at the holotank. “The Destroyer’s coming in well off the plane of the ecliptic. Looks like he won’t be able to hit much of anything unless he slows down and maneuvers.” By tradition dating back to the first attack on Earth, alien ships were all referred to as “he,” whether friendly or enemy.

“Might be just a reconnaissance in force. Blow through, get a close look. Decel and attack or speed up and run, depending on what they see.”

“And what will they see?” Absent put his hand out, waving it through the hologram. “Flensburg, Conquest, the defense installations we have built over the last ten years since we conquered this system, a dozen Hippo heavy cruisers...”

“And Desolator.”

Absen touched the glowing icon that represented the Ryss superdreadnought. “Out in the asteroid belt. Do you think the Meme have spotted him?”

“No way to tell. He’s not giving off a lot of signature, as he’s just mining and manufacturing Conquest’s upgrades, and his...sibling.”

“Do we know what he plans to do?”

Mirza shook his head in negation. “He’s behind us, relative to the enemy, so we saw the Destroyer first. We should be hearing from him in...” He turned to Johnstone with a questioning look.

“About forty minutes, sir, at the earliest.”

Absen took the next forty minutes to eat a ready ration and take a quick walk around the ship. With only half a crew, they could fight, but he’d really rather not. Conquest was an inverted teardrop three thousand meters in length and two in diameter, with enormously thick armor and weapons to match, and had been built to go head to head with a Destroyer and win that kind of slugfest, but battle meant casualties. Part of him wanted the fight, but his better judgment preferred a bloodless victory.

I just don’t have the people to lose, he thought. Not with only a few million humans here in the system, most of them children. Every one has become that much more valuable.

That bloodless victory would be especially welcome if it could be done so that the Destroyer couldn’t get a message off. In fact, he’d discussed this situation with his military council of humans, Ryss and Sekoi. Desolator claimed, with complete confidence, that he could kill any single Meme ship so suddenly that it would not be able to report how it happened.

Absen hoped the Ryss machine intelligence was right.

When he returned to the bridge, he picked up his cold mug of coffee and handed it to COB Timmons, who dumped the old and filled it with new steaming lifer-juice. That ritual, and a few sips, used up the time until the communication came through.

“On screen, gentlemen,” the Johnstone said as he played Desolator’s message. Rich tones filled Conquest’s bridge:

Desolator to Conquest.

In accordance with previously discussed courses of action, I am maneuvering to engage the enemy. I calculate a 99.9999% probability that I will eliminate this Destroyer and a 97.9673% probability that I will do so before it can send any transmission about my strike. The chance of failure represents the possibility that they maneuver during my TacDrive approach, or are transmitting a realtime update as they are vaporized. By the time you receive this, I and my crew will be on our way via TacDrive. We will engage at the coordinates in the accompanying data package.

Desolator out.

“Here are the coordinates,” Scoggins said, and in the holotank a ruler-straight line connected Desolator’s current position to a new, flashing icon. Another unbending line extended itself from the Destroyer, intersecting the engagement point. “Just about where we expected.”

Mirza cleared his throat. “That’s assuming the Destroyer doesn’t maneuver, as he mentioned. If he does, Desolator will miss his interception.”

Absen waved a confident hand. “But with the new TacDrive system, he has three jumps before he has to fall back on fusion drive, and even then he can chase the bastard down.”

“Just not before the Meme get a message off.”

“A message that will still take years to get anywhere and then years more before the Meme react.”

Mirza continued acting the devil’s advocate, as he often did with his admiral. “But if that happens, they will respond with overwhelming force.”

Absen smiled without humor. “If that happens, we’ll just have to hope our plans, our strategy and our tactics can overcome overwhelming force.”

The End of Tactics of Conquest excerpt.

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