daveman
Diamond Member
Some six years ago, I read a post from a Tumblr blog called writing-prompt-s, with a couple of additions people had reblogged. I got inspired. This is the longest thing I've ever written. I finished it just last night.
The prompt and the additions:
@writing-prompt-s "Humans are average in everything basically and you are saying that we shouldn’t invade them. You are kidding, right?” The alien king looked at the prophet. “They might not have shown anything special thus far, until you decide to go and wage war.”
@shadows-ember We do not forget and we do not forgive. May the heavens hear and remember.
coolmanfromthepast Those who remain of you will speak of what we have done until the stars are gone cold. The races you meet, old and young, warn them:
Do not war against the humans.
Another blogger, @themauvesoul, wrote General Hadiscorpiumon's rescue buoy transmission.
"Humans are average in everything, basically, and you are saying that we shouldn’t invade them. You are kidding, right?" The alien king looked at the prophet.
"They might not have shown anything special thus far, until you decide to go and wage war."
– Rihiri IV –
The Listener, as it had all its life since childhood, Listened. Listened to the Masters' equipment, waiting for something to tell the Masters…only there had been no Masters to tell anything to for six years, and no transmissions for three. When it wasn't Listening, the Listener taught its child the nar-Khatali language, so it would take over Listening. The caste system among the Treel was inviolate.
The Empire had enslaved the Listener's people so long ago there were only dim racial memories of freedom, tales spoken quietly in the night as if they were myth. Sometimes the Listener thought of them…and wondered how life might be different living not as a slave, but as its own person.
It started wondering more about freedom two years after the Masters left. Others among the Treel wondered, too – and after three years, all the castes…Farmers, Miners, Electricians, Hull Welders…were talking about it. Some thought, fearfully, the Masters would return and punish them for their impertinence. The Listener didn't think the Masters were ever coming back. Among the last transmissions it heard were distress calls and ever-more-desperate unencrypted recalls to the Empire homeworld.
Something, perhaps catastrophic, had happened to the Masters. The Treel might have the freedom they talked about after all.
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
"Cap, there's something…" "Boss, I got something." The Comms and Sensor operators spoke simultaneously.
"Helm, all stop. Rig for silent."
The helmsman's hands flew across her station. "All stopped, sir. Rigged for silent." An energy field sprung into being around the ship, similar to the defensive shields that deflected kinetic and energy weapons, but instead it captured all forms of radiation coming from the ship, rendering the ship stealthy. The Prometheus simply vanished from view.
"Thank you, Romero." Captain Elliott arose from his chair and moved to the sensor station. "What's it look like, Givens?"
"It's a search-and-rescue buoy beacon, standard Nark military guard frequency."
"Anything on passive?"
"Just the beacon, Boss, bearing -20, +7 relative."
Elliott considered for a second. There seemed to be little risk in exposing the Prometheus' position. "Give me a sweep on active."
"You bet, Boss." Military protocol was relaxed in the fleet; career officers and enlisted lost in the war were replaced with civilians. Not much time was spent on customs and courtesies – the survival of the human race was at stake.
Givens set up the sweep on his station and pressed the go button. The stealth field dropped and a powerful pulse of energy burst from the Prometheus and sped into the space surrounding her at many times the speed of light…accompanied by a bwaa noise from the sensor station. Givens loved old submarine movies. The stealth field automatically re-established itself.
Captain Thomas Elliott, United Earth Navy, didn't really know how it worked…most of his crew didn't…but he knew the technology reverse-engineered from captured and stolen nar-Khatali Empire ships worked and worked well. And years of combat sorties clearing remnants of the nar-Khatali from the systems surrounding Earth had given them intimate familiarity with the technology's operation. They didn't know how it worked…but they damn sure knew how to use it with deadly effectiveness.
Givens studied his displays. "Boss, I show the buoy and a ship, range 0.52 light years. Ship is a Nark battlewagon, Pallavia-class. Lots of trash around her, like she's coming apart. No drive or plant signatures."
"Give me a tight-angle sweep to check her course and speed."
Bwaa. "She's dead in the water, Boss."
"Chavez, anything on IFF?" The Identification Friend or Foe system helped prevent friendly-fire incidents.
Chavez responded from the Comms station. "Nothing, Cap, but I got a hyperwave burst transmission from the Nark buoy, probably triggered by the active pulse."
"Did you record it?"
"You wound me, sir. You know I record everything. Translator's chewing on it now."
"My apologies, Chavez. Playback when it's ready."
"Roger." Chavez' console chirped. "Here it is, Cap."
An artificial voice filled the bridge.
This is Hadiscorpiumon, and these are my final words. Well, not my true final words, but the last words I speak that anyone living could hear.
(A sigh)
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
All of my people saw my king declare war on the humans, but only a handful heard the prophet’s warnings. Of course, everyone who heard dismissed them. The prophet was old, going senile, we said. And off we went to war.
My king needed an easy victory, something to soothe the people and bolster himself, and for a while it worked. We had better tech, better weapons. We were smarter. But we got careless, and we underestimated exactly what we had gotten ourselves into.
We met them on fields and outmaneuvered and destroyed them. We met them in the air and shot them out of their sky. We met them on the ground and decimated them with tactics they had never seen. But still they fought, long after we thought they would stop. And then they started adapting.
They stopped meeting us on the open field. They started drawing us into the wild parts of their world, where all the tech in the world couldn’t help you anticipate an ambush. And you couldn’t use superior tactics when you couldn’t find the people you were supposed to use them against.
They fought dirty. They used themselves as traps, strapping bombs to their bodies and detonating them once they were captured.
They hid their people in secret places, places that hadn’t been walked in thousands of years. They split them up into small roving bands, impossible to find because they never stopped moving.
They stole our tech, our ships, and they reverse-engineered them. And then they used what stolen ships they hadn’t taken apart to bomb us even more.
They sent assassins, took out our leaders. Everyone they could find who had influence and power they killed without honor, because humans have no honor.
They even dressed their soldiers as civilians, once they realized we wanted their non-combatants alive, so when our soldiers were expecting a passive group of soon-to-be slaves, instead they got highly armed troops.
And their civilians, they taught them how to fight too. It was almost impossible to capture any of them. So we resorted to killing. That was…that was our biggest mistake.
They adapted to everything we threw at them. Not just their generals, but their individual soldiers too. They saw something new and seemingly instantly adapted. Our command structure was too rigid, too inflexible to adapt to the new things they threw at us. We had to wait, for our superiors to figure out what was going on, for them to issue us new orders, but by then the humans had already adapted to our new strategy and were trying something different.
But that. That was not what was truly terrifying about them. My people, you see, are highly logical, but even we would not go on suicide missions. What would be the point, if all your death accomplished was the destruction of a single ship? For us, there is no honor in death. Only victory. But the humans.
They throw themselves at us, ready to die so long as they can bring some of us with them. They do impossible, stupid things, all so that they can kill as many of us as possible.
And when faced with an enemy willing to die to kill us, we quit. But the humans didn’t stop.
We didn’t realize how bloodthirsty they were. We didn’t realize how far they would go for vengeance. To them, war isn’t something cold and detached. To them war is not just another tool used in the game nations play. To them, war is personal. An attack on one human is an attack on them all.
And humans do not respond well to being attacked.
They chased us to the edge of our great empire. My king is dead, and so is his family. The noble houses are in shambles, and the people are terrified. We surrendered a long time ago, but they still come, saying that if we wished for mercy then we shouldn’t have killed billions.
I don’t think any of us were expecting to be brought down by the bonds between humans. It seems so stupid, that things like “friendship” and “love” destroyed an empire, but here we are. A dying empire, destroyed by irrationality and emotional ties.
We see them sometimes, see the anger in their eyes. And though we are logical beings, we’re afraid. Afraid of what that anger will do when it finally reaches the last of our kind. But I won’t be there to see it. I was a General once, and I now command our last ship. Our ship, which is currently disabled, and the only thing standing between the human fleet and the rest of my people.
I don’t even know why I’m making this recording. Despair, I guess. We are doomed. I suppose this is all I can do. Speak of the events that led us here to a recorder because I have no one left to tell them to.
I don’t know who will hear this, once I’m finished I’m launching it into space, but if anyone does. Please tell my children I am sorry. Their father failed, and has brought shame upon their name. Please, dear universe, let my children survive the humans. Please. Please.
For a solid minute no one said anything. "Exec, what do you think?"
Bob Belden, the executive officer of the Prometheus, appeared thoughtful. "Captain, that may well be the last nar-Khatali ship. It's on the same projected course as the battlewagon that the Nashville beat the hell out of until the Nark got in a lucky shot and disabled her drive. Recon drone patrols of this area through to the Empire homeworld turned up nothing else as recently as three weeks ago. Navy Intel says General Hadiscorpiumon was indeed commander of the last Empire capital ship and believes the Empire fleet is effectively destroyed, zero combat capability, confidence 92%."
Captain Elliot said, "Hmm. So the last Nark ship is out there, dead…"
– Earth –
While the guerrilla war raged, ships and weapons were smuggled into the secret labs built in the great caverns below New Mexico, Kentucky, Oman, Borneo, and the Philippines and were carefully disassembled and studied. The engineers and scientists gradually learned how they worked, the principles behind their operation…and, most importantly, how to build more. Data files and CAD drawings were copied and spread all over Earth. Basement machine shops and covert factories turned out components. Copies of Nark energy weapons were 3-D printed and sent to what remained of the world's militaries, at first creating great confusion among the Nark occupiers, who thought they were being cut down by their own troops.
The nar-Khatali Empire was old when the pyramids in Egypt were new. Old and old. The Empire had never come across a species that it couldn't dominate and subjugate handily. Thus the Empire grew in size…but it no longer innovated. In its arrogance, it grew complacent. Enslaved species whose worlds had the required natural resources were forced to build ship hulls, but the drives and weapons were built only on the homeworld, lest some individuals who did not accept their place under the nar-Khatali boot get ideas. Homeworld scientists were more interested in currying favor at court than in researching new concepts.
Tens of thousands of years of easy victories had ossified the nar-Khatali military command structure as well. Initiative was discouraged among the few officers with an inclination for it; those who showed ambition beyond their rank were shamed and broken. Decisions that should have been made at the unit level instead had to be elevated to higher headquarters or even the Empire High Command, where they were discussed by committees of admirals and generals before a consensus was laboriously and gingerly achieved and orders passed down through the chain. Officers were chosen for advancement and command more for political and familial considerations than for any military acumen. The Empire simply couldn't react fast enough to an enemy that could think on its feet.
Once the scientists on Earth understood the Nark technology, they began to innovate. They saw how the technologies could be improved far beyond what the Narks had allowed to stagnate. The first defensive weapons emplacements and shields were built in secret around the shipyards at Groton, Connecticut, and Pascagoula, Mississippi…and shipbuilding began in earnest. Some 17 years after the first Nark fighter was dragged into Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the first United Earth Navy space fighter launched, 198 years after man's first powered flight on a cold winter's day in North Carolina. Within 4 more years, there was not a single Nark left alive in the Solar System.
Humanity's first interstellar war had begun.
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
"Romero, let's go take a closer look. Secure from silent, shields up, all ahead one-half, put the Nark's nose a thousand klicks off our bow."
"On our way, sir."
"Bozeman, warm up the beam cannons and spin up a Claymore." Named after the iconic anti-personnel weapon, the Claymore was a relatively small missile, composed of a guidance package, a small but powerful drive capable of pushing the missile to ten percent the speed of light…and a thousand steel ball bearings an inch in diameter.
"Aye, Captain," responded the weapons officer.
Fifteen minutes later Romero reported, "Captain, we're in position."
"Thank you, Romero. Givens, tight-beam deep scan. I wanna know everything about this Nark, down to how many rolls of toilet paper he's got left."
"You got it, Boss." Givens worked a few minutes, humming tunelessly to himself.
"Boss, she's beat up pretty bad. Drive's totaled; she'll never fly again. Plant shows signs of severe overheating. Damn near melted down. Magazines are empty, blaster coils are burned out. Hull's open to space, atmosphere in only a couple of compartments. She fought and lost, then she ran far faster than she should have. One life sign aboard, faint, on the bridge. I think we can confirm this as a kill for the Nashville."
Elliot wrote a short message on a pad and handed it to Chavez. "Translate this and send it to the Nark, all short-range military frequencies. Bozeman, stand down cannons and target the Claymore on the Nark's nose."
– General Hadiscorpiumon's ship, interstellar space –
Hadiscorpiumon was nearly dead, from radiation and dwindling oxygen. He was surprised when he heard the mechanical voice from the bridge speakers.
"General Hadiscorpiumon."
Rescue? So soon? But it couldn't be…he was so far from the homeworld.
"Nark, you should have stayed home with your children."
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
Elliot waited ten seconds…to give the Nark time to comprehend…then pointed at Bozeman. The Claymore leapt from its launch tube, accelerating almost instantly to a tenth the speed of light. As programmed, a small explosive shattered the missile and spread the steel ball bearings in an expanding pattern, distributing them to cover the entire target when they struck.
Hadiscorpiumon and the last nar-Khatali warship were reduced to their component atoms in a blinding flash and a rapidly expanding cloud of incandescent gas.
"Romero, let's clear this datum. Full speed for one hour galactic north, then all stop and rig for silent. Exec, I want your written report in one hour to append to mine for transmission home. Bridge crew, copy all your files from 30 minutes before contact to this moment and send to the Exec for inclusion. We're definitely phoning this home."
In his quarters, Elliot only needed about ten minutes to write his report. He sent it to Belden, then sat back, remembering ten weeks prior, when he was handed this mission.
– Dunning Station, Earth orbit –
Elliot looked up from the screen. "My God in His Heaven…we can really do this?"
Admiral Bridget Graham, CinC, United Earth Navy, looked into Elliot's unbelieving face. "Yes, Tom, we can do it. It's been tested outside of known space, on a small target. It really works…and it will work even better on the Nark target, since it's bigger."
"Better, sir?"
"Better. The whole damn galaxy will see. Tom, the mission has two elements: Find a place to hide, launch the beacon to the edge of the Nark system, activate it when it's in position, then release the weapon 10 hours later. It takes two hours to function. The beacon will broadcast a repeating message, multiple frequencies both hyperwave and electromagnetic, in the Nark language and those of ten of their subjugated species, telling everyone who can hear where to look…and, more importantly, why."
Elliot nodded. "Very good, sir. What am I driving?"
"We refitted the assault ship Krakow for this mission. No Marines; you won't need them. We altered the troop spaces as bays to hold the beacon and the weapon. Standard munitions load-out. Fresh plant and oversized drive and shields. She's light and fast. You're going alone – stealth is important. Oh, and we recommissioned her with a new name: The Prometheus."
"Very fitting, sir. Crew?"
"Your choice, aside from a handful of specialists for the beacon and the weapon."
"Thank you, Admiral. I'd like the Jeff's bridge crew, and for the rest, the shakedown crew of the Prometheus. They'll know the ship better than anyone."
"Wise choice, Tom. Standard bridge equipment, so your folks won't have much of a learning curve. We'll give you a week to play with her, see what she can do. Then back to Dunning Station for re-arm and resupply."
Elliot looked thoughtful. "Sir – why did you choose me for this mission?"
The admiral turned to walk back to her desk, the tartan of her Clan Graham kilt adding color to her gray dress uniform blouse. She opened a thick folder on her desk. "Your service record. You've been in this war almost from the beginning. Saw some action as an irregular around Norfolk, then enlisted when you were old enough. Field commission at the battle of Charleston. Multiple combat decorations. Consistently promoted faster than your peers; you were exec aboard the Jefferson City and were given command after Captain Davenport was killed at the Jupiter station. You were 25, the youngest captain in UEN history. Since then, you've put the silhouettes of 2 Nark carriers, 3 battleships, 14 destroyers, 21 cruisers, 42 attack boats, and 118 fighters on the Jeff's hull. You've completed missions Intel says were impossible. And you really need to ask why I chose you?"
Elliot grinned. "Well, sir, since you put it that way, I guess not. Let the record show I do not question my Admiral's judgment. When do we go?"
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
A single knock at the door brought the captain out of his memories, the faint echo of his earlier grin fading. "Come."
"Sir, a reply to the report. I already decrypted it."
"Thanks, Bob." Elliot quickly scanned the short message.
UEN PROMETHEUS
UEN FLT OPS DUNNING STATION GEOSYNCH ORBIT EARTH
FLASH 1514122Z MAR
FM CINC UEN
TO PROMETHEUS ACTUAL
WD 24BT
TOPSECRET
CONTINUE MISSION AS ORDERED
UPDATE BEACON RECORDING WITH ATTACHED FILE WHICH ADDS HADISCORPIUMON TRANSMISSION AND TRANSLATIONS SEND THE WARNING AND BRING THE FIRE TOM
BTNNNN
"Okay. Announce to the crew we boost in ten minutes. Have the beacon techs come see me."
"Aye, sir."
– The Prometheus, near nar-Amiyar –
The Prometheus encountered no other Empire ships during the rest of the flight to the Nark home system. Half a light year out from the sun the Empire called nar-Amiyar, the ship dropped into normal space and listened and looked.
"There, Bob – that gas giant with the faint ring, just where the recon drones said it would be. Looks like a likely place to hide."
"I concur, Captain. We'd have a good view of the entire system from there."
The Prometheus took her time getting to the gas giant, approaching stealthily and listening closely for any sign of Empire ships or activity from known orbital stations. There had been a mining station in the ring, but it had been destroyed in a previous mission, and the Empire simply didn't have the resources to rebuild it…nor a navy left with which to defend the home system.
– The Prometheus, nar-Amiyar VIII –
Romero's long and graceful fingers danced across her helm controls, settling the Prometheus gently among the wreckage of the Nark mining station on a piece of ring ice the size of Manhattan. The forward view screen showed blackened and scattered debris which contrasted heavily with the ice it sat upon, lit by the distant Empire sun. "We're down and anchored, sir."
"I didn't even feel a bump, Romero. Good work. You're the best damn driver I've ever worked with," said Captain Elliot.
Romero, who was old enough to be her commanding officer's mother, smiled. "I'm the only damn driver you've ever worked with, Captain."
Elliot grinned. "Then you've set the bar exceptionally high for any others who might follow. Exec, shut down the drive and everything but life support and sensors. Rig for silent," and thumbed a switch on the arm of his chair.
"Attention, all hands. This is the Captain speaking. So we are well met. We are at anchor on the ring of nar-Amiyar VIII, the outermost planet of the Nark home system. Crew, you volunteered for this mission when you were briefed at the Station. This is an undertaking that may be considered by some a war crime, but given that our target was used to launch a series of attacks against civilians, the Narks themselves removed the target's protected status. And while I and the entire UEN command staff believe it necessary, some of you may have had second thoughts on the flight out here. I want to give you a chance to either reaffirm your commitment to the mission, or rescind your consent. If you do rescind, I guarantee no one will bear ill will towards you. You will face no consequences. Your Naval careers will not be jeopardized, should you wish to continue serving. In fact, there will be no record kept of your participation on this mission. Your service records will show this time spent on the Station. There's a link to the poll on the ship's intranet home page. Record your choices there. Captain out."
Unsurprisingly, all members of the crew – all of whom had lost loved ones to the Narks – voted to proceed.
–––––-
The Prometheus sat silently on the ice for a full day, every passive sensor tuned to hear the slightest signal produced by intelligent beings. They detected nothing.
–––––-
"Launch the beacon," Elliot ordered. A massive hatch opened in the top of the ship, and the beacon rose clear. Once safely away, it turned on its main drive and sped around the gas giant, setting course for interstellar space, the very edge of the nar-Khatali system. At fifty Astronomical Units, it came to a halt and turned on its transmitters. The beacon had a ship's class power plant and the largest transmitters ever flown. Everyone in the galaxy with hyperwave receivers would hear the message almost immediately, and everyone with standard light-speed radios would hear it as it propagated through space. It would take about seventy-five thousand years for the radio signals to reach the entire volume of the galaxy.
Ten hours later, the weapon launched from Prometheus.
– Rihiri IV –
A short tone sounded from the equipment. "Parent – what is that?"
"A transmission, child. Hush, and Listen as I taught you."
– The Beacon’s Transmission –
“Attention, peoples of the galaxy. We are humans of the planet Earth. Thirty-eight of our years ago, our planet had no idea there were other intelligent beings in the galaxy. That changed the day the nar-Khatali Empire attacked our planet, meaning to destroy and enslave us. We were no threat to anyone. How could we be? We thought we may well be alone in all of space.
“We would not roll over and be wiped out and enslaved. The Empire killed billions of humans; whole cities were destroyed. We captured Empire ships and technology and built our own. We killed all the nar-Khatali in our solar system and every ship of theirs we could find outside the light of our sun.
“We are aware this may seem unbelievable. We have two pieces of evidence to present. The first is the final transmission of General Hadiscorpiumon, commander of the last Empire battleship.”
“This is Hadiscorpiumon, and these are my final words. Well, not my true final words, but the last words I speak that anyone living could hear…
“…I don’t know who will hear this, once I’m finished I’m launching it into space, but if anyone does. Please tell my children I am sorry. Their father failed, and has brought shame upon their name. Please, dear universe, let my children survive the humans. Please. Please.”
“The second piece of evidence we will present in 12 hours. Turn your hyperwave instruments to the nar-Khatali system. This message will repeat in nar-Khatali and several other languages until then, whereupon we will have a final message for everyone listening.”
– Rihiri IV –
"I have Listened, Parent, but I do not understand."
“We must wait, child. Rest now.”
But it was hours before the child slept.
– Near nar-Amiyar –
The weapon drove itself to within a light-second of the surface of the Nark home sun. Powerful shields kept it from being vaporized. Instead of reflecting away the enormous forces impinging on it, these shields absorbed the energy and shunted it into a hyperspace bubble, where the weapon used the energy to assemble the rest of itself.
Much of the weapon in operation did not exist in normal space, but was constructed of complex fields and pockets of hyperspace. Once all the parts were established, energy transfer began in earnest. The weapon built two conduits that reached into the star, siphoning plasma and energy into the hyperspace bubble, which expanded enormously.
When the weapon decided it had enough energy available for the next step, it set up a spherical field inside the star, enclosing the core and half the star’s volume…and then shunted that entire mass into hyperspace. It didn’t move any distance in hyperspace; the star matter simply winked out of normal space.
The remaining stellar material, no longer supported by the volume and radiation of the core, fell into the vacuum suddenly created at speeds approaching a quarter of the speed of light. As it collapsed, the matter grew more dense and energetic. Sensor feeds on the weapon relayed visual and telemetry to Prometheus. Nar-Amiyar appeared to shrink rapidly.
When the weapon sensed the normal-space stellar material had collapsed fully, occupying all the volume created by the shunted core, it released the core from hyperspace. As it shifted back into normal space, the density of the star doubled. Heavier and heavier elements started fusing, from carbon to iron, creating a supernova explosion and flinging away staggering quantities of stellar material. The weapon turned off its protective shields and was consumed by the fire it created. Later analysis of the weapon’s telemetry and that from Prometheus indicated nar-Amiyar had been reduced to a neutron star some 20 miles in diameter, with ten percent of the star’s matter converted into a storm of neutrinos, a blaze of visible light and other frequencies, and a massive burst of hyperwave noise. The rest was flung into space.
This was the humans’ warning to the galaxy, and the nar-Khatali Empire’s funeral pyre and gravestone.
– The Beacon’s Transmission –
“Now you can no longer doubt what we say. We have destroyed the Empire’s sun, nar-Amiyar. The blast wave will propagate outward and render all the Empire’s home planets barren rock.
“The nar-Khatali Empire is dead, because they chose to make war on the humans of Earth.
“We do not forget and we do not forgive. May the heavens hear and remember. Those of you who have listened will speak of what we have done until the stars are gone cold. The races you meet, old and young, warn them:
“Do not war against the humans.”
– Rihiri IV –
"Parent?"
The Listener turned away from the equipment, looking at its child, the spark of hope that had been kindling inside it bursting into flame.
"Child…I think we are free."
EPILOGUE
All across the nar-Khatali Empire, voices in dozens of languages rose.
"We are free!"
"We are no longer slaves!"
"WE ARE FREE!!"
The prompt and the additions:
@writing-prompt-s "Humans are average in everything basically and you are saying that we shouldn’t invade them. You are kidding, right?” The alien king looked at the prophet. “They might not have shown anything special thus far, until you decide to go and wage war.”
@shadows-ember We do not forget and we do not forgive. May the heavens hear and remember.
coolmanfromthepast Those who remain of you will speak of what we have done until the stars are gone cold. The races you meet, old and young, warn them:
Do not war against the humans.
Another blogger, @themauvesoul, wrote General Hadiscorpiumon's rescue buoy transmission.
THE WARNING
– nar-Amiyar IV, the nar-Khatali homeworld –"Humans are average in everything, basically, and you are saying that we shouldn’t invade them. You are kidding, right?" The alien king looked at the prophet.
"They might not have shown anything special thus far, until you decide to go and wage war."
– Rihiri IV –
The Listener, as it had all its life since childhood, Listened. Listened to the Masters' equipment, waiting for something to tell the Masters…only there had been no Masters to tell anything to for six years, and no transmissions for three. When it wasn't Listening, the Listener taught its child the nar-Khatali language, so it would take over Listening. The caste system among the Treel was inviolate.
The Empire had enslaved the Listener's people so long ago there were only dim racial memories of freedom, tales spoken quietly in the night as if they were myth. Sometimes the Listener thought of them…and wondered how life might be different living not as a slave, but as its own person.
It started wondering more about freedom two years after the Masters left. Others among the Treel wondered, too – and after three years, all the castes…Farmers, Miners, Electricians, Hull Welders…were talking about it. Some thought, fearfully, the Masters would return and punish them for their impertinence. The Listener didn't think the Masters were ever coming back. Among the last transmissions it heard were distress calls and ever-more-desperate unencrypted recalls to the Empire homeworld.
Something, perhaps catastrophic, had happened to the Masters. The Treel might have the freedom they talked about after all.
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
"Cap, there's something…" "Boss, I got something." The Comms and Sensor operators spoke simultaneously.
"Helm, all stop. Rig for silent."
The helmsman's hands flew across her station. "All stopped, sir. Rigged for silent." An energy field sprung into being around the ship, similar to the defensive shields that deflected kinetic and energy weapons, but instead it captured all forms of radiation coming from the ship, rendering the ship stealthy. The Prometheus simply vanished from view.
"Thank you, Romero." Captain Elliott arose from his chair and moved to the sensor station. "What's it look like, Givens?"
"It's a search-and-rescue buoy beacon, standard Nark military guard frequency."
"Anything on passive?"
"Just the beacon, Boss, bearing -20, +7 relative."
Elliott considered for a second. There seemed to be little risk in exposing the Prometheus' position. "Give me a sweep on active."
"You bet, Boss." Military protocol was relaxed in the fleet; career officers and enlisted lost in the war were replaced with civilians. Not much time was spent on customs and courtesies – the survival of the human race was at stake.
Givens set up the sweep on his station and pressed the go button. The stealth field dropped and a powerful pulse of energy burst from the Prometheus and sped into the space surrounding her at many times the speed of light…accompanied by a bwaa noise from the sensor station. Givens loved old submarine movies. The stealth field automatically re-established itself.
Captain Thomas Elliott, United Earth Navy, didn't really know how it worked…most of his crew didn't…but he knew the technology reverse-engineered from captured and stolen nar-Khatali Empire ships worked and worked well. And years of combat sorties clearing remnants of the nar-Khatali from the systems surrounding Earth had given them intimate familiarity with the technology's operation. They didn't know how it worked…but they damn sure knew how to use it with deadly effectiveness.
Givens studied his displays. "Boss, I show the buoy and a ship, range 0.52 light years. Ship is a Nark battlewagon, Pallavia-class. Lots of trash around her, like she's coming apart. No drive or plant signatures."
"Give me a tight-angle sweep to check her course and speed."
Bwaa. "She's dead in the water, Boss."
"Chavez, anything on IFF?" The Identification Friend or Foe system helped prevent friendly-fire incidents.
Chavez responded from the Comms station. "Nothing, Cap, but I got a hyperwave burst transmission from the Nark buoy, probably triggered by the active pulse."
"Did you record it?"
"You wound me, sir. You know I record everything. Translator's chewing on it now."
"My apologies, Chavez. Playback when it's ready."
"Roger." Chavez' console chirped. "Here it is, Cap."
An artificial voice filled the bridge.
This is Hadiscorpiumon, and these are my final words. Well, not my true final words, but the last words I speak that anyone living could hear.
(A sigh)
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
All of my people saw my king declare war on the humans, but only a handful heard the prophet’s warnings. Of course, everyone who heard dismissed them. The prophet was old, going senile, we said. And off we went to war.
My king needed an easy victory, something to soothe the people and bolster himself, and for a while it worked. We had better tech, better weapons. We were smarter. But we got careless, and we underestimated exactly what we had gotten ourselves into.
We met them on fields and outmaneuvered and destroyed them. We met them in the air and shot them out of their sky. We met them on the ground and decimated them with tactics they had never seen. But still they fought, long after we thought they would stop. And then they started adapting.
They stopped meeting us on the open field. They started drawing us into the wild parts of their world, where all the tech in the world couldn’t help you anticipate an ambush. And you couldn’t use superior tactics when you couldn’t find the people you were supposed to use them against.
They fought dirty. They used themselves as traps, strapping bombs to their bodies and detonating them once they were captured.
They hid their people in secret places, places that hadn’t been walked in thousands of years. They split them up into small roving bands, impossible to find because they never stopped moving.
They stole our tech, our ships, and they reverse-engineered them. And then they used what stolen ships they hadn’t taken apart to bomb us even more.
They sent assassins, took out our leaders. Everyone they could find who had influence and power they killed without honor, because humans have no honor.
They even dressed their soldiers as civilians, once they realized we wanted their non-combatants alive, so when our soldiers were expecting a passive group of soon-to-be slaves, instead they got highly armed troops.
And their civilians, they taught them how to fight too. It was almost impossible to capture any of them. So we resorted to killing. That was…that was our biggest mistake.
They adapted to everything we threw at them. Not just their generals, but their individual soldiers too. They saw something new and seemingly instantly adapted. Our command structure was too rigid, too inflexible to adapt to the new things they threw at us. We had to wait, for our superiors to figure out what was going on, for them to issue us new orders, but by then the humans had already adapted to our new strategy and were trying something different.
But that. That was not what was truly terrifying about them. My people, you see, are highly logical, but even we would not go on suicide missions. What would be the point, if all your death accomplished was the destruction of a single ship? For us, there is no honor in death. Only victory. But the humans.
They throw themselves at us, ready to die so long as they can bring some of us with them. They do impossible, stupid things, all so that they can kill as many of us as possible.
And when faced with an enemy willing to die to kill us, we quit. But the humans didn’t stop.
We didn’t realize how bloodthirsty they were. We didn’t realize how far they would go for vengeance. To them, war isn’t something cold and detached. To them war is not just another tool used in the game nations play. To them, war is personal. An attack on one human is an attack on them all.
And humans do not respond well to being attacked.
They chased us to the edge of our great empire. My king is dead, and so is his family. The noble houses are in shambles, and the people are terrified. We surrendered a long time ago, but they still come, saying that if we wished for mercy then we shouldn’t have killed billions.
I don’t think any of us were expecting to be brought down by the bonds between humans. It seems so stupid, that things like “friendship” and “love” destroyed an empire, but here we are. A dying empire, destroyed by irrationality and emotional ties.
We see them sometimes, see the anger in their eyes. And though we are logical beings, we’re afraid. Afraid of what that anger will do when it finally reaches the last of our kind. But I won’t be there to see it. I was a General once, and I now command our last ship. Our ship, which is currently disabled, and the only thing standing between the human fleet and the rest of my people.
I don’t even know why I’m making this recording. Despair, I guess. We are doomed. I suppose this is all I can do. Speak of the events that led us here to a recorder because I have no one left to tell them to.
I don’t know who will hear this, once I’m finished I’m launching it into space, but if anyone does. Please tell my children I am sorry. Their father failed, and has brought shame upon their name. Please, dear universe, let my children survive the humans. Please. Please.
For a solid minute no one said anything. "Exec, what do you think?"
Bob Belden, the executive officer of the Prometheus, appeared thoughtful. "Captain, that may well be the last nar-Khatali ship. It's on the same projected course as the battlewagon that the Nashville beat the hell out of until the Nark got in a lucky shot and disabled her drive. Recon drone patrols of this area through to the Empire homeworld turned up nothing else as recently as three weeks ago. Navy Intel says General Hadiscorpiumon was indeed commander of the last Empire capital ship and believes the Empire fleet is effectively destroyed, zero combat capability, confidence 92%."
Captain Elliot said, "Hmm. So the last Nark ship is out there, dead…"
– Earth –
While the guerrilla war raged, ships and weapons were smuggled into the secret labs built in the great caverns below New Mexico, Kentucky, Oman, Borneo, and the Philippines and were carefully disassembled and studied. The engineers and scientists gradually learned how they worked, the principles behind their operation…and, most importantly, how to build more. Data files and CAD drawings were copied and spread all over Earth. Basement machine shops and covert factories turned out components. Copies of Nark energy weapons were 3-D printed and sent to what remained of the world's militaries, at first creating great confusion among the Nark occupiers, who thought they were being cut down by their own troops.
The nar-Khatali Empire was old when the pyramids in Egypt were new. Old and old. The Empire had never come across a species that it couldn't dominate and subjugate handily. Thus the Empire grew in size…but it no longer innovated. In its arrogance, it grew complacent. Enslaved species whose worlds had the required natural resources were forced to build ship hulls, but the drives and weapons were built only on the homeworld, lest some individuals who did not accept their place under the nar-Khatali boot get ideas. Homeworld scientists were more interested in currying favor at court than in researching new concepts.
Tens of thousands of years of easy victories had ossified the nar-Khatali military command structure as well. Initiative was discouraged among the few officers with an inclination for it; those who showed ambition beyond their rank were shamed and broken. Decisions that should have been made at the unit level instead had to be elevated to higher headquarters or even the Empire High Command, where they were discussed by committees of admirals and generals before a consensus was laboriously and gingerly achieved and orders passed down through the chain. Officers were chosen for advancement and command more for political and familial considerations than for any military acumen. The Empire simply couldn't react fast enough to an enemy that could think on its feet.
Once the scientists on Earth understood the Nark technology, they began to innovate. They saw how the technologies could be improved far beyond what the Narks had allowed to stagnate. The first defensive weapons emplacements and shields were built in secret around the shipyards at Groton, Connecticut, and Pascagoula, Mississippi…and shipbuilding began in earnest. Some 17 years after the first Nark fighter was dragged into Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the first United Earth Navy space fighter launched, 198 years after man's first powered flight on a cold winter's day in North Carolina. Within 4 more years, there was not a single Nark left alive in the Solar System.
Humanity's first interstellar war had begun.
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
"Romero, let's go take a closer look. Secure from silent, shields up, all ahead one-half, put the Nark's nose a thousand klicks off our bow."
"On our way, sir."
"Bozeman, warm up the beam cannons and spin up a Claymore." Named after the iconic anti-personnel weapon, the Claymore was a relatively small missile, composed of a guidance package, a small but powerful drive capable of pushing the missile to ten percent the speed of light…and a thousand steel ball bearings an inch in diameter.
"Aye, Captain," responded the weapons officer.
Fifteen minutes later Romero reported, "Captain, we're in position."
"Thank you, Romero. Givens, tight-beam deep scan. I wanna know everything about this Nark, down to how many rolls of toilet paper he's got left."
"You got it, Boss." Givens worked a few minutes, humming tunelessly to himself.
"Boss, she's beat up pretty bad. Drive's totaled; she'll never fly again. Plant shows signs of severe overheating. Damn near melted down. Magazines are empty, blaster coils are burned out. Hull's open to space, atmosphere in only a couple of compartments. She fought and lost, then she ran far faster than she should have. One life sign aboard, faint, on the bridge. I think we can confirm this as a kill for the Nashville."
Elliot wrote a short message on a pad and handed it to Chavez. "Translate this and send it to the Nark, all short-range military frequencies. Bozeman, stand down cannons and target the Claymore on the Nark's nose."
– General Hadiscorpiumon's ship, interstellar space –
Hadiscorpiumon was nearly dead, from radiation and dwindling oxygen. He was surprised when he heard the mechanical voice from the bridge speakers.
"General Hadiscorpiumon."
Rescue? So soon? But it couldn't be…he was so far from the homeworld.
"Nark, you should have stayed home with your children."
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
Elliot waited ten seconds…to give the Nark time to comprehend…then pointed at Bozeman. The Claymore leapt from its launch tube, accelerating almost instantly to a tenth the speed of light. As programmed, a small explosive shattered the missile and spread the steel ball bearings in an expanding pattern, distributing them to cover the entire target when they struck.
Hadiscorpiumon and the last nar-Khatali warship were reduced to their component atoms in a blinding flash and a rapidly expanding cloud of incandescent gas.
"Romero, let's clear this datum. Full speed for one hour galactic north, then all stop and rig for silent. Exec, I want your written report in one hour to append to mine for transmission home. Bridge crew, copy all your files from 30 minutes before contact to this moment and send to the Exec for inclusion. We're definitely phoning this home."
In his quarters, Elliot only needed about ten minutes to write his report. He sent it to Belden, then sat back, remembering ten weeks prior, when he was handed this mission.
– Dunning Station, Earth orbit –
Elliot looked up from the screen. "My God in His Heaven…we can really do this?"
Admiral Bridget Graham, CinC, United Earth Navy, looked into Elliot's unbelieving face. "Yes, Tom, we can do it. It's been tested outside of known space, on a small target. It really works…and it will work even better on the Nark target, since it's bigger."
"Better, sir?"
"Better. The whole damn galaxy will see. Tom, the mission has two elements: Find a place to hide, launch the beacon to the edge of the Nark system, activate it when it's in position, then release the weapon 10 hours later. It takes two hours to function. The beacon will broadcast a repeating message, multiple frequencies both hyperwave and electromagnetic, in the Nark language and those of ten of their subjugated species, telling everyone who can hear where to look…and, more importantly, why."
Elliot nodded. "Very good, sir. What am I driving?"
"We refitted the assault ship Krakow for this mission. No Marines; you won't need them. We altered the troop spaces as bays to hold the beacon and the weapon. Standard munitions load-out. Fresh plant and oversized drive and shields. She's light and fast. You're going alone – stealth is important. Oh, and we recommissioned her with a new name: The Prometheus."
"Very fitting, sir. Crew?"
"Your choice, aside from a handful of specialists for the beacon and the weapon."
"Thank you, Admiral. I'd like the Jeff's bridge crew, and for the rest, the shakedown crew of the Prometheus. They'll know the ship better than anyone."
"Wise choice, Tom. Standard bridge equipment, so your folks won't have much of a learning curve. We'll give you a week to play with her, see what she can do. Then back to Dunning Station for re-arm and resupply."
Elliot looked thoughtful. "Sir – why did you choose me for this mission?"
The admiral turned to walk back to her desk, the tartan of her Clan Graham kilt adding color to her gray dress uniform blouse. She opened a thick folder on her desk. "Your service record. You've been in this war almost from the beginning. Saw some action as an irregular around Norfolk, then enlisted when you were old enough. Field commission at the battle of Charleston. Multiple combat decorations. Consistently promoted faster than your peers; you were exec aboard the Jefferson City and were given command after Captain Davenport was killed at the Jupiter station. You were 25, the youngest captain in UEN history. Since then, you've put the silhouettes of 2 Nark carriers, 3 battleships, 14 destroyers, 21 cruisers, 42 attack boats, and 118 fighters on the Jeff's hull. You've completed missions Intel says were impossible. And you really need to ask why I chose you?"
Elliot grinned. "Well, sir, since you put it that way, I guess not. Let the record show I do not question my Admiral's judgment. When do we go?"
– The Prometheus, interstellar space –
A single knock at the door brought the captain out of his memories, the faint echo of his earlier grin fading. "Come."
"Sir, a reply to the report. I already decrypted it."
"Thanks, Bob." Elliot quickly scanned the short message.
UEN PROMETHEUS
UEN FLT OPS DUNNING STATION GEOSYNCH ORBIT EARTH
FLASH 1514122Z MAR
FM CINC UEN
TO PROMETHEUS ACTUAL
WD 24BT
TOPSECRET
CONTINUE MISSION AS ORDERED
UPDATE BEACON RECORDING WITH ATTACHED FILE WHICH ADDS HADISCORPIUMON TRANSMISSION AND TRANSLATIONS SEND THE WARNING AND BRING THE FIRE TOM
BTNNNN
"Okay. Announce to the crew we boost in ten minutes. Have the beacon techs come see me."
"Aye, sir."
– The Prometheus, near nar-Amiyar –
The Prometheus encountered no other Empire ships during the rest of the flight to the Nark home system. Half a light year out from the sun the Empire called nar-Amiyar, the ship dropped into normal space and listened and looked.
"There, Bob – that gas giant with the faint ring, just where the recon drones said it would be. Looks like a likely place to hide."
"I concur, Captain. We'd have a good view of the entire system from there."
The Prometheus took her time getting to the gas giant, approaching stealthily and listening closely for any sign of Empire ships or activity from known orbital stations. There had been a mining station in the ring, but it had been destroyed in a previous mission, and the Empire simply didn't have the resources to rebuild it…nor a navy left with which to defend the home system.
– The Prometheus, nar-Amiyar VIII –
Romero's long and graceful fingers danced across her helm controls, settling the Prometheus gently among the wreckage of the Nark mining station on a piece of ring ice the size of Manhattan. The forward view screen showed blackened and scattered debris which contrasted heavily with the ice it sat upon, lit by the distant Empire sun. "We're down and anchored, sir."
"I didn't even feel a bump, Romero. Good work. You're the best damn driver I've ever worked with," said Captain Elliot.
Romero, who was old enough to be her commanding officer's mother, smiled. "I'm the only damn driver you've ever worked with, Captain."
Elliot grinned. "Then you've set the bar exceptionally high for any others who might follow. Exec, shut down the drive and everything but life support and sensors. Rig for silent," and thumbed a switch on the arm of his chair.
"Attention, all hands. This is the Captain speaking. So we are well met. We are at anchor on the ring of nar-Amiyar VIII, the outermost planet of the Nark home system. Crew, you volunteered for this mission when you were briefed at the Station. This is an undertaking that may be considered by some a war crime, but given that our target was used to launch a series of attacks against civilians, the Narks themselves removed the target's protected status. And while I and the entire UEN command staff believe it necessary, some of you may have had second thoughts on the flight out here. I want to give you a chance to either reaffirm your commitment to the mission, or rescind your consent. If you do rescind, I guarantee no one will bear ill will towards you. You will face no consequences. Your Naval careers will not be jeopardized, should you wish to continue serving. In fact, there will be no record kept of your participation on this mission. Your service records will show this time spent on the Station. There's a link to the poll on the ship's intranet home page. Record your choices there. Captain out."
Unsurprisingly, all members of the crew – all of whom had lost loved ones to the Narks – voted to proceed.
–––––-
The Prometheus sat silently on the ice for a full day, every passive sensor tuned to hear the slightest signal produced by intelligent beings. They detected nothing.
–––––-
"Launch the beacon," Elliot ordered. A massive hatch opened in the top of the ship, and the beacon rose clear. Once safely away, it turned on its main drive and sped around the gas giant, setting course for interstellar space, the very edge of the nar-Khatali system. At fifty Astronomical Units, it came to a halt and turned on its transmitters. The beacon had a ship's class power plant and the largest transmitters ever flown. Everyone in the galaxy with hyperwave receivers would hear the message almost immediately, and everyone with standard light-speed radios would hear it as it propagated through space. It would take about seventy-five thousand years for the radio signals to reach the entire volume of the galaxy.
Ten hours later, the weapon launched from Prometheus.
– Rihiri IV –
A short tone sounded from the equipment. "Parent – what is that?"
"A transmission, child. Hush, and Listen as I taught you."
– The Beacon’s Transmission –
“Attention, peoples of the galaxy. We are humans of the planet Earth. Thirty-eight of our years ago, our planet had no idea there were other intelligent beings in the galaxy. That changed the day the nar-Khatali Empire attacked our planet, meaning to destroy and enslave us. We were no threat to anyone. How could we be? We thought we may well be alone in all of space.
“We would not roll over and be wiped out and enslaved. The Empire killed billions of humans; whole cities were destroyed. We captured Empire ships and technology and built our own. We killed all the nar-Khatali in our solar system and every ship of theirs we could find outside the light of our sun.
“We are aware this may seem unbelievable. We have two pieces of evidence to present. The first is the final transmission of General Hadiscorpiumon, commander of the last Empire battleship.”
“This is Hadiscorpiumon, and these are my final words. Well, not my true final words, but the last words I speak that anyone living could hear…
“…I don’t know who will hear this, once I’m finished I’m launching it into space, but if anyone does. Please tell my children I am sorry. Their father failed, and has brought shame upon their name. Please, dear universe, let my children survive the humans. Please. Please.”
“The second piece of evidence we will present in 12 hours. Turn your hyperwave instruments to the nar-Khatali system. This message will repeat in nar-Khatali and several other languages until then, whereupon we will have a final message for everyone listening.”
– Rihiri IV –
"I have Listened, Parent, but I do not understand."
“We must wait, child. Rest now.”
But it was hours before the child slept.
– Near nar-Amiyar –
The weapon drove itself to within a light-second of the surface of the Nark home sun. Powerful shields kept it from being vaporized. Instead of reflecting away the enormous forces impinging on it, these shields absorbed the energy and shunted it into a hyperspace bubble, where the weapon used the energy to assemble the rest of itself.
Much of the weapon in operation did not exist in normal space, but was constructed of complex fields and pockets of hyperspace. Once all the parts were established, energy transfer began in earnest. The weapon built two conduits that reached into the star, siphoning plasma and energy into the hyperspace bubble, which expanded enormously.
When the weapon decided it had enough energy available for the next step, it set up a spherical field inside the star, enclosing the core and half the star’s volume…and then shunted that entire mass into hyperspace. It didn’t move any distance in hyperspace; the star matter simply winked out of normal space.
The remaining stellar material, no longer supported by the volume and radiation of the core, fell into the vacuum suddenly created at speeds approaching a quarter of the speed of light. As it collapsed, the matter grew more dense and energetic. Sensor feeds on the weapon relayed visual and telemetry to Prometheus. Nar-Amiyar appeared to shrink rapidly.
When the weapon sensed the normal-space stellar material had collapsed fully, occupying all the volume created by the shunted core, it released the core from hyperspace. As it shifted back into normal space, the density of the star doubled. Heavier and heavier elements started fusing, from carbon to iron, creating a supernova explosion and flinging away staggering quantities of stellar material. The weapon turned off its protective shields and was consumed by the fire it created. Later analysis of the weapon’s telemetry and that from Prometheus indicated nar-Amiyar had been reduced to a neutron star some 20 miles in diameter, with ten percent of the star’s matter converted into a storm of neutrinos, a blaze of visible light and other frequencies, and a massive burst of hyperwave noise. The rest was flung into space.
This was the humans’ warning to the galaxy, and the nar-Khatali Empire’s funeral pyre and gravestone.
– The Beacon’s Transmission –
“Now you can no longer doubt what we say. We have destroyed the Empire’s sun, nar-Amiyar. The blast wave will propagate outward and render all the Empire’s home planets barren rock.
“The nar-Khatali Empire is dead, because they chose to make war on the humans of Earth.
“We do not forget and we do not forgive. May the heavens hear and remember. Those of you who have listened will speak of what we have done until the stars are gone cold. The races you meet, old and young, warn them:
“Do not war against the humans.”
– Rihiri IV –
"Parent?"
The Listener turned away from the equipment, looking at its child, the spark of hope that had been kindling inside it bursting into flame.
"Child…I think we are free."
EPILOGUE
All across the nar-Khatali Empire, voices in dozens of languages rose.
"We are free!"
"We are no longer slaves!"
"WE ARE FREE!!"
