| |
––––––––
Jason Alvarez stepped outside his small house and let the cool night breeze wash over him. Life on Haven was not great, but it was getting better. Thank God the enemy attack had been stopped cold by the Space Force people two weeks ago. He shuddered to think what would have happened if the shells containing the biological agent had landed. Sure the colonists had all evacuated the settlement by then, but if the settlement had become contaminated, he along with everyone else would still be living in the woods under makeshift shelters with minimal food.
He was pondering what that might have been like when he noticed a faint noise that was getting louder. It was a whooshing sound that quickly peaked in intensity and then just as quickly faded, and it seemed to be coming from above. He looked up but saw nothing. As he continued to look at the night sky, he felt tiny drops of something hit his face. That's strange. There aren't any clouds in the sky so it can't be rain. The smell of the air started to become quite pleasant, almost like some kind of perfume or cologne. He inhaled deeply, savoring the aroma. He looked around at the nearby houses to see if anyone else was still awake. There was one other house with lights on. He decided to walk over to them and let them know about the sweet smell. This kind of thing hadn't happened before, and unless he got someone to corroborate his story, it was likely that nobody would believe him.
* * *
Howard entered the conference room, stepped over to the chair at the head of the large oval table and slapped his tablet down in obvious anger. As he sat down, Shiloh could see the pulsing blood vessel in his boss's forehead. I don't think I've ever seen him this angry before. What the hell is going on?
Howard looked around the table. The room was dead quiet. When he spoke, his voice was outwardly calm, but those who knew him well could tell that he was on the verge of exploding.
"I've just received a verbal report from Kronos. He's returned from a mission to contact the Friendlies. Kronos, are you on line?"
"Yes, Admiral," said Kronos from the speaker unit in the center of the table. "All of the SPG AIs are connected as well. I've already briefed them on the mission results."
"Good. I'll summarize what you told me for the benefit of Vice-Admiral Shiloh, Senior Commander Kelly and the other human members of the SPG who are present. The Friendlies object to our plans to let the Bugs bring the damned Sogas to heel for us. It's okay for them to exterminate us, but we're not allowed to let them suffer the same fate! We're supposed to save their hides even though they're still trying to use biologicals against us! The Friendlies have made us an offer to avoid becoming trapped in their own hypocrisy. If we prevent the Bugs from decimating the Sogas home world, the Friendlies will allow us Humans to establish a colony on some small land mass on the planet containing the goddamned furry aliens as a sanctuary for insurance against the outbreak of the bio-weapon!" Howard was shouting by the time he finished that sentence.
When it was clear that Howard was going to pause, Shiloh said, "That may not be a bad idea, Admiral. We could shift the Haven colonists—"
Howard cut him off. "Wolfman! Tell Vice-Admiral Shiloh about your latest vision."
"My vision contained information that Haven and at least seven other colonies have been infected with the bio-weapon. All incoming ships from any colony should be held in quarantine orbit until their crews and passengers survive for 28 days from the time they leave a colony. At the point when the vision was sent, seven colonies were confirmed as infected, with the status of the other fourteen unknown. They could all be infected."
"How did they do it?" asked Shiloh before Howard could say anything.
"We don't know and it doesn't matter," said Howard. "Now you know why I'm so angry. If the other colonies aren't already infected, then the enemy has screwed up. I'm going to assume that they're infected now or will be before we can do anything to help them. We are going to wrap Earth in a ring of steel. Even if every single colony is wiped out, we can start over as long as Earth is not infected. We're still looking for that homeless guy living underground, but we know that we'll find him eventually. As for the Friendlies' suggestion that we turn the other cheek and save the Sogas, they can go fuck themselves! WE ARE NOT TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK!"
Howard's face was red with rage. Opening his mouth to say something more, he suddenly grimaced in pain, clutched his chest and fell off his chair to the floor. Shiloh was closest, and as he knelt down beside him, he heard Kelly call for medics over the intercom.
"Take it easy, Admiral—" Shiloh started to say, but Howard cut him off.
"Promise me you won't turn the other cheek! Promise me, God dammit!" said Howard in a voice raspy with pain.
Shiloh hesitated. He's letting his rage cloud his judgment. We need to break out of this cycle of fear and hate.
He shook his head and said, "I can't promise that, Admiral. I don't think it's the best way."
Howard said nothing and looked away.
Kelly knelt down beside Shiloh and said, "I'll keep an eye on the Admiral. The medics will be here any second. You should take over the meeting, Victor."
Shiloh shook his head. "We can't continue the meeting with Howard laying on the floor for God's sake!"
Kelly gave him a hard look. "I'm not saying CONTINUE the meeting, just take control of it. You're now the ranking officer. Everyone is waiting for you to do something, so go do it."
Shiloh took a deep breath. She was right. There was nothing he could do for Howard, and as the next most senior officer, he had a duty to take control of the situation. He stood up and walked over to the end of the table where the other three human members of the SPG were standing.
Speaking loud enough for the AIs to hear, he said, "We're going to temporarily stop the meeting until the Admiral gets medical attention. Kronos, I'd like to talk with you on a private line. Stand by while I set that up."
"I'm standing by, CAG."
By the time Shiloh had finished speaking with Kronos, the medics had taken Howard away. Kelly was nowhere in sight. One of her SPG comrades confirmed that she had gone with the medics. Indicating to the others to sit, Shiloh sat back down in the same chair as before.
"Obviously I can't make any decisions about our future strategy. Admiral Dietrich is the Deputy CSO, and he'll take over temporarily until a permanent replacement can be appointed by the Oversight Committee." That should be an interesting meeting, thought Shiloh. "What I can do is make recommendations. Kronos has just informed me that the Friendlies are willing to try to restrain the Sogas if we don't let the Insectoids conquer them. My understanding of events in the alternate timeline lead me to believe that we have a lot more to fear from the Insectoids than from the Sogas. Even if we can sidestep them now, Humanity will have to face them again at some point. Eliminating the Insectoid threat once and for all will require Friendly assistance. In order to get that, we need to capture one of the Bugs, dead or alive, and take it to the Friendlies. Wolfman! Given what we know of the alternate timeline, what's our best option for capturing a bug?"
"Data recorded by Valkyrie of the insectoid attack on the Sogas colony at Omega77 shows that at least one Insectoid was killed by the defenders. None of the subsequent recordings of that encounter show that dead Insectoid being recovered before the VLO left. If we send a ship to arrive there after the VLO leaves, then we may be able to recover an insectoid body, CAG."
Shiloh nodded. "Yes and when the VLO arrives at the Sogas home system, we'll be there to take it out with the new Mark 6 warheads, and we'll help destroy the bug attack ships as well. That should show the Sogas that they don't have to fear us."
"Not necessarily, CAG. We shouldn't assume that they’d stop their attacks on us just because we help them with the Insectoids. We might act that way, but their logic is sufficiently different from ours that they may continue the war. The Friendlies seem to have some influence with them. If we let the Friendlies know what our plan is and ask for their help, they may be able to convince the Sogas to stand down after we save their home world."
"I hope you're right. I'm going to recommend to the Acting CSO that we plan to capture a specimen at Omega77 and stop the VLO when it reaches the Sogas home world, AND that we send Kronos back to the Friendlies to tell them that and ask for their help. Does anyone object to that or have a better idea?" No one did. "Okay then. This meeting is adjourned. Intercom...connect me with Ops.”
"Operations here."
"This is Vice-Admiral Shiloh. Find Admiral Dietrich and inform him that Admiral Howard has suffered what appears to be a heart attack and is undergoing medical attention. Advise him that he is now the Acting CSO, and tell him that I request a meeting with him as soon as possible. Shiloh clear."
As he got up to leave, Shiloh said, "Gentlemen, if anyone is looking for me, I'll be checking on Admiral Howard."
With the meeting over, he hurried to the rear entrance of the building where the air ambulance would pick up Howard if it hadn't already. He got there just in time to see the paramedics put Howard in the vehicle, which then quickly took off. Kelly was standing there with tears in her eyes. Shiloh put his arm around her.
"How's he doing?" asked Shiloh.
She shook her head. "Not good. He's hanging on but just barely. What are we going to do without him, Victor? Who else has his force of will? The Oversight Committee will start foaming at the mouth when they hear about this."
Shiloh sighed. "Dietrich will hold the line. He knows what's at stake." But even as he spoke, he wasn't sure if it was true. Did Dietrich really have what it took to keep the OC in line? What might the OC do if they thought they could get away with it? He didn't like the thought that came to mind. They might try to strike back at the AIs. He had to prevent that at all costs. Shiloh heard his name called and looked around to see Dietrich approaching. He and Kelly let go of each other and turned to face Dietrich.
"What's his condition?" asked Dietrich. Kelly repeated what she’d told Shiloh. Dietrich nodded. "He's a tough, old bird. My money's on him pulling through. How did it happen?"
"He had just convened a meeting in the conference room. He was extremely upset with the response from the Friendlies in light of Wolfman's latest vision." Shiloh looked around to make sure no unauthorized ears were nearby. "At least seven colonies have been infected with the bio-weapon, and there's a distinct possibility that they all are."
Dietrich’s face turned pale. "Son-of-a-bitch! No wonder he had heart problems!" Now it was Dietrich's turn to look around. "I think you and I should go to my office. I want to be up to speed when the OC calls, as they inevitably will." Without waiting for Shiloh's response, Dietrich turned and walked quickly away.
Shiloh looked at Kelly who smiled and nodded to him. He smiled back, gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and turned to follow Dietrich. Dietrich was already seated behind his desk by the time Shiloh entered his office.
After Shiloh sat down, Dietrich said, "Okay, Victor. What do I need to know?"
Shiloh told him what the Friendlies had told Kronos, what Wolfman's vision said, what Howard said before his heart attack and what Shiloh had said afterwards.
"Well I can't really fault Howard's reaction. It does seem just a bit hypocritical of the Friendlies to insist we help the Sogas while they're doing their very best to wipe us all out," said Dietrich.
"The Friendlies don't want anyone wiped out. Not us and not the Sogas either, but they're in the line of fire of the Bugs. We have the Mark 6 warhead. They don't. From the Sogas point of view, it makes perfect sense to secure your rear area, which would be us, before you turn your attention to the main enemy. From a strictly military point of view, I understand it. What they're missing are the non-military factors such as having an ally at your back. It's clear to me that they're not going to be the ones to break the cycle of strike and counter-strike. That means we have to do it, and it seems to me that if we're prepared to take out that bug mothership with a Mark 6 drone anyway, then why not do it before the Sogas home world is decimated instead of after?"
"And if the Sogas still continue to come after us, what then?"
Shiloh shrugged. "If they witness a two hundred and fifty megaton blast and still come after us, then I will not lose any sleep over dropping a few Mark 6s on their planet. But if we can build the time machine ship, that all becomes unnecessary. With several hundred raiders, we can overwhelm their defenses at any of their industrial outposts. We'll destroy their ability to build more ships, and we’ll monitor them from orbit until hell freezes over to make sure they don't rebuild their offensive capability. Nobody gets exterminated, and therefore the Friendlies should be okay with that. It's the best outcome for everyone. Everything else is just buying time."
Dietrich shook his head. "I wish I could see a way for that project to be completed, but I don't see how after what's happened." When he saw Shiloh's look of confusion, he continued. "I'm not talking about losing Howard, although that's bad enough. I'm talking about the colonies becoming infected. That news will get out into the open sooner or later. The public will demand answers. The Grand Senate will go into cover-their-ass overdrive, and the Oversight Committee will want a scapegoat. Howard will be the obvious candidate partly because he won't be able to fight back and partly because all of this really did happen on his watch. The OC is going to insist on retaking control, and they’ll have the public backing them. I don't see how we and the AIs can resist that without a full-blown mutiny, and that serves no one's purpose. Once they're in control again, they're going to want us to resume offensive operations, and it's hard to see them pushing for that at the same time as allowing our one and only battleship to be cut in half for a project approved by their scapegoat, Howard. Do you?"
Shiloh sighed. "Well, when you put it that way, I don't see it happening either, Sir." When Dietrich didn't respond right away, Shiloh added, "If we can't convert Dreadnought to a timeship, then we'll have to build a new ship from scratch, and it'll have to be where the OC can't see it."
Dietrich smiled. "Like Site B perhaps?" he asked.
Shiloh nodded and smiled back. "Exactly. I'll arrange for a freighter to take the project personnel, including Valkyrie, to Site B along with all the design data. I think they're very close to having every part of the time machine coded for production by UFCs. We'll make sure they have the engineering expertise to design a new ship. Site B will have to build an orbiting shipyard first, but we already know how to do that."
"Will that mean pushing back the completion date?" asked Dietrich.
"Maybe and maybe not. If we're going to design a new ship, it may end up being a lot less massive than Dreadnought. No armor and no weapon turrets. It might just turn out to be an overgrown freighter, and look how fast we build those."
"Let's hope so. Go ahead and get that moving. Anything else we should discuss?"
"Yes. The Bugs worry me a lot. Even if we can take care of the one mothership, I'm convinced there will eventually be more. A working timeship could give us the ability to stop them at the source. That would not only save us, but a whole bunch of other alien races out there. The Friendlies would no longer have any reason to start this war to begin with. The catch is that the Friendlies don't want to see any species wiped out, including the damn Bugs! But if we can prove that they're not a naturally occurring life form, in other words that some other agency created them and then turned them loose, then the Friendlies will not object if we exterminate them. They might even help us do it. They want to see proof, and the only way we can give them that proof is to provide a Bug for the Friendlies to scan temporally. If we send a ship to Omega77 to arrive just after the Bugs have decimated that colony, I think we can bring back a dead Bug. I don't want to tell the OC about the how and the why. We'll have to sneak that mission in under their radar. I'm telling you about it now so that you're aware of what has to be done, assuming that you buy into the idea of course, Sir."
"As you know I've been in favor of altering the timeline so that this war never happens. If bringing back a dead Bug can help us achieve that, then I'm all for it. I'll leave the details to you. Just keep me in the loop. Anything else, Shiloh?"
"No, Sir. That's it."
"Okay then, I won't keep you from what you have to do."
Shiloh stood up, saluted and left the office.
