Commander Fleede stood before the assembled crew, who sat with rapt attention in Conquest’s auditorium. “Our best estimate, using data the Meme provided, is that the Scourges will show up between two and six months from now. That’s the closest we can narrow it down, based on our understanding of the lensed-gravity wormhole effect that will bring them here and the Meme analysis of their earlier attacks.”
“How do we know this new info isn’t some Meme trick?” newly promoted Colonel ben Tauros stood and asked. Absen had jumped him two ranks, as he expected a rapid expansion of Marine forces.
“Everything we can tell says it isn’t a trick,” Admiral Absen said from his seat, “so let’s lay that concern to rest. We treat the threat as real. If it’s not, we still got everything we wanted without one more human dying to do it. Earth and the Solar System are ours again. We don’t have to trust the Meme, but in this regard, I believe that they believe.”
Bull sat down, and Fleede continued. “The Scourges are not actually insects, but they do have exoskeletons rather than bones. Their social model is somewhat like a hive, except instead of one single queen laying eggs that develop into different types of offspring, they have many breeders we call Archons, all of whose eggs hatch as infants, which start at the bottom and work their way upward. Those that survive proceed through several developmental stages until they reach the top of their society. These Archons are actually hermaphroditic, and they impregnate each other to lay more eggs. Here’s our latest workup on what the enemy will look like and how they will fight, again based on some pretty good Meme intel. Slide.”
On the main screen, a picture of a bizarre creature appeared, with the outline of a human for scale. About the size and shape of an old-fashioned public telephone booth with arms, each of the four corners of its neckless head sported an eye just above a double-jointed limb projecting from its “shoulder.” These arms ended in four-digit hands, all opposed toward the center, like mechanical grabbers. The fingers appeared to end in sharp claws. The whole arrangement remained boxlike until it split into four stumpy quad-toed legs, each also with two joints. As the creature slowly rotated on the screen, it became clear it had no front, back nor sides. The thing seemed utterly symmetrical.
“We call these Scourgelings. This is the infant stage of the race, hatched from masses of fist-size eggs and achieving this size within days. To do that, of course, it has to consume huge amounts of biomass. In this form they are nearly mindless eating machines. The mouth is a funnel on the top, by the way, where their head would be if they had one. The only thing Scourgelings won’t try to eat is each other – some kind of taboo or biological inhibition. Higher castes will, however, eat Scourgelings if necessary. That appears to be their secondary method of population control, after using them as cannon fodder.”
“That’s one big baby,” someone in the audience muttered, triggering a wave of nervous laughter.
Doctor Horton raised a hand, and Fleede recognized her with a gesture. “Seems like we could paint ourselves with Scourgeling hormones and they wouldn’t try to eat us.”
Fleede replied. “That might keep them from eating people, but it won’t keep them from killing us.”
“Doc,” Absen said, “I want you and some of the Sekoi to work on biological possibilities like that. Go on, Commander.”
Fleede continued, “As soon as a Scourgeling eats enough, it will go into a cocoon for several days and then turn into this.” The next slide showed a larger, more graceful creature, a four-legged spider or crab with a wide stance and a body slung in the middle, like a daddy longlegs. Its eyes and arms remained in roughly similar positions to the Scourgeling, as did its top-mounted arms. “This is the adolescent form, which we have termed Soldiers. These apparently develop enough brainpower to be trainable on simple equipment and firearms. They are used for manual labor, and for fighting, backing up the Scourgelings.”
The pictured Soldier acquired a harness, off of which hung what looked like grenades and ammunition pouches. In two of its hands appeared a rifle of sorts. “The basic firearm fires caseless rounds of about fifty caliber, with roughly the same knockdown power. They appear to have other weapons available such as lasers, rocket launchers, grenade throwers and plasma blasters.”
The next slide showed a creature still with four legs and four arms, but its inner body had grown fat, its limbs proportionally smaller. “After six months to a year of life, Soldiers metamorphose into these adults. We call them Centurions. While the Soldiers are dumber than your average human child, Centurions are roughly of adult human intelligence and form the skilled caste. They run and repair complex machinery from factories to aerospace fighters. They are the true generalists, and function as NCOs and officers. There is a hierarchy within the Centurion caste, and they stay in this form for an unknown number of years.”
Fleede signaled for the slide to change again, this time showing a bloated creature that looked barely mobile. “This is the queen, or breeder stage, the Archon. We don’t know what causes a Centurion to become an Archon, but it hardly matters. They are apparently quite rare, and live like petty dictators. Each mothership has several aboard. We don’t know their command structure. As far as we know, there is no level above Archon, and no command structure larger than a star system, though there are junior Archons that serve more senior ones. When senior Archons meet, they make deals, have sex, and then go home to lay their eggs.”
“How in the world did the Meme get all this info if the Scourges have been kicking their asses?” Sergeant Major Repeth asked.
“The Meme have won a few defensive battles and captured specimens, apparently extracting their memories even after death.”
“Handy, that,” someone mumbled.
“Thanks, Commander Fleede,” Absen said. “Let’s move on to their military forces. How will they attack?”
“But sir, I have a number of slides detailing their biology and sociology, even –”
“Commander.”
“Yes, sir. Umm...let’s move to slide 146.” After skipping more than a hundred slides, Fleede stopped. “Here we go. This is a mothership.” The picture showed something like a thick flying saucer, drawing some jokes about little green men. “We estimate this example to be about twenty kilometers wide by five high, but there is no standard size.”
The picture expanded, becoming more detailed. “The ship is huge, but most of it is made of an organic resin, very strong stuff, forming a latticework around the central part, rather like a wasp nest. In the center you can see a more solid core made of metal and other manufactured materials, a flattened sphere about two kilometers across. This is the real ship and command center where the Archon and his staff live and work. It is heavily armored. It also holds the bulk of the drive system, we believe, though there are emitters scattered around the mothership’s rim, probably to extend the FTL drive field. Like the wasp nest I mentioned, everything between the core and the rim is mostly empty space, with the resin latticework structure to keep the swarm of attached small craft in some semblance of order. There are water tanks, generators and power conduits embedded in it, but these are minimal and, as we had previously surmised, can only supply their force for a few days.”
Fleede clicked to the next slide. “You will notice that craft we call aerospace fighters occupy the innermost layer of the lattice, then small gunboats on the next layer, then cheap assault craft packed with direct combat forces in the Marine role farther out.”
Bull stood up. “You sure that ain’t backward, Fleede?”
Fleede looked down his nose at the big man, only possible because of his position on stage behind the podium. “No, Colonel, but I understand why you ask. We would put fighters on the outside for quick launch and leave the more vulnerable ground forces inside. However, they have hundreds of assault boats for every fighter, and fighter pilots are valuable Centurions, while assault boats contain mere Soldiers and Scourgelings. The cheap grunts are there to absorb casualties, while the fighter pilots are the top of the food chain, except for Archons.”
“These Scourges actually sound like sensible guys,” Vango Markis deadpanned, drawing a laugh from the audience.
Fleede took a deep breath, a look of longsuffering on his face as he continued. “When the mothership leaves its wormhole warp, it immediately begins launching from the outside inward. The assault swarm spreads out and starts toward its target or targets, absorbing enemy fire and overloading enemy sensors with their sheer number. Fighters easily overtake and then get ahead of them, attacking and seeking to overwhelm enemy fighters and small ships. Gunboats follow up, assisting the fighters to swarm larger ships and fortresses, while the assault boats board and chew their way into anything that resists. Once opposing space forces are driven off or destroyed, assault troops land and infest habitable planets, bringing pairs of fertilized junior Archons with them. While the ground troops continue to overwhelm and eat everything in sight, the Archons set up nests and breed more Scourgelings, becoming a self-sustaining threat.”
Rick Johnstone leaned forward from two rows behind, to speak quietly but within the senior staff’s earshot. “It’s like one of those computer strategy games from before the Plague Wars – Swarmcraft or something. Except it’s real.”
Absen turned to look over his shoulder with interest. “How did you beat the swarms in the game?”
Rick frowned. “If you couldn’t beat them in an early rush, you had to get ahead of their tech curve. Come up with lots of cool weapons.”
Absen grunted and smiled faintly. “Sounds pretty obvious. I thought you’d give me some great insight.” He turned back to Fleede’s briefing.
“When the Meme defeated an attack,” the intel officer continued, “they did it by striking with maximum force early. The motherships are most vulnerable when they have just arrived, because of two factors. One, it takes over an hour to deploy hundreds of thousands of small craft, even though they do so in such a mad rush that it often causes over one percent casualties from their own collisions. Two, they must recharge their wormhole drive for about thirteen hours.”
Admiral Absen spoke. “So if we hit them in the first hour, they’ll be densely packed and vulnerable. And the motherships have to stick around for at least, say, twelve hours after that.” Fleede nodded. “All right, Commander. Carry on with your briefing. My staff is staying –” he gave them all a stern look “– to get all the detail for their specific operational areas. Be sure to send me a copy.”
“Already on your desk, sir,” Fleede replied smugly.
“Excellent. Senior staff, ops discussion in,” Absen looked at his watch, “three hours twenty minutes.”
“If this one’s over by then,” Ford muttered.
Absen smiled as he walked out. Sometimes, it’s good to be the boss.