Chapter 6 FAFO

We lament the formation of the Aligned Worlds. We make plans on how to defeat them; we watch, stunned, as they expand and secure resources and allies left and right.

But I am standing here in front of you, and I choose to no longer be silent. It’s your fault. Before the Aligned Worlds formed, they came to us; they told us what our partners, the Batract, were and what they did to them.

Did we help the Humans? Did we sanction the Batract? No!

We told the Humans, the Shraphen, and the Psstips to go home and roll over to beg for mercy.

We even attacked them, twice.

And now, when they stand before our doors with a bloody axe and vengeance in their eyes, you cower behind your desks and curse the universe, asking what you did to deserve this.

Nothing, you did nothing, and that’s why you deserve everything.

— Senator Urk’net Wasum, cursing the Galactic Federation Senate days before the end of the Second War against the Aligned Worlds, 399 P.I.

Emergency power came back slowly. The engineers had to wire the fusion core of Dragon to the main power system to bring the lights back on.

The ship had been without power for only twenty minutes. But in the high-stakes battle of Burrow, that was forever.

The Taishon was built to take a beating, but it was clear that combining different technologies from different species had its drawbacks.

The power system of the ship was built to drive engineers to madness. Different voltages, different frequencies. And much of the Nuk technology worked by directly funneling high-energy plasma into the systems.

But now they at least had light, sensors, and gravity back.

Fruug was sick of zero G. The ship wasn’t built for that, and traversing the large hallways in zero G had been a menace.

“Holographic bridge coming online now, Sir,” Fruug’s XO, Commander Ryan, reported.

Fruug could see the young woman was nervous, probably because Admiral Russo was figuratively breathing down her neck.

“Thank God, finally. Sensors, how are things outside?” Russo stood at the center of the bridge and barked orders.

It stung Fruug a bit to see the admiral order his people around, but then, that was normal in Shraphen Veyrs. Except the Taishon wasn’t a Shraphen ship, at least not for this battle.

Ryan walked slowly over to Fruug and placed her hand on his shoulder, initiating whisper talk.

“Sir, I’d like to continue work on restoring power to the CIC.”

Fruug grinned and answered, “Yes, Number One. The admiral is clearly… eager to get back to commanding the battle. It’s in all our interest to get the CIC back up and running.”

His XO ran off, grabbing engineers by the shoulder on her way out.

The holographic projectors were finished spinning up, and in a flash the projection of the surrounding space appeared.

The hull of the dead Leviathan still dominated the scene, since the Taishon was stuck in it.

It was a light show unlike anything Fruug had experienced before. Clouds of small lights whirled around clusters of Batract cruisers. To Fruug, they looked like glowing little fish swimming in swarms. But in this case, the fish attacked the larger predators.

White lights flared up in the second belt. Antimatter explosions. So the Batract had reinforcements out there somewhere; they just couldn’t reach the inner system because of the mines.

“Comms coming online, Sir.”

Russo didn’t answer; the admiral just stood there, observing the chaos, his hand repeatedly touching his helmet.

He wants to stroke his beard.

Fruug had seen the admiral do it in times of stress, when the man was formulating a plan.

“Comms restored. P-p is offline, so we have light-lag issues, but—”

“Just put it through.”

Russo’s voice was now more relaxed; it looked like seeing the battle firsthand had a calming effect on the man.

The comms technician looked at Fruug and opened the lines after Fruug nodded.

“Swarm 34, support Sector 24. We still have two Leviathans there. 3rd Wing, prepare staggered fire and soften them up for the Breachers.” It was Garcia’s voice, commanding the battle from Burrow One.

The light lag was three minutes, so the audio from Burrow One wasn’t so much commands to Fruug as an audio commentary on the things they saw unfold up close.

A group of ASN ships fired at the side of one Leviathan that had advanced close to the Taishon ’s position, and as soon as the outer hull was broken, a massive swarm entered the ship through the breaches.

The biomatter hull bucked and warped as explosions ripped through the inner parts of the ship; then the swarm exited through a new hole on the other side of the battleship, noticeably smaller.

“Frame launchers 245 and 246, take him out. 3rd Wing, staggered fire at the next target. Swarm 35, you know what to do.”

The comms officer looked up. “Engineering reports we might have p-p back in three minutes. Should I call Burrow One and tell them you’re taking command again?”

Russo watched the next Leviathan explode after multiple Nixtred frames unloaded on it.

“No, monitor the battle and call me if an emergency arises.” Russo turned to Fruug. “The bridge is yours, Void Leader. I’m in my quarters.”

The admiral smiled a bright smile.

“Understood, Sir. Everything alright?”

Russo stopped and turned back to Fruug. “Sure. It’s always a joy seeing the next generation finally taking their place, isn’t it?”

—————

Ripper took a few microseconds to inspect the training room he had built.

The plan was utter absurdity, but he had to confess: he liked it.

When the Humans launched their little civil war, Ripper had assumed the other DS would join a side. To his astonishment, they didn’t. Instead, they retreated into the Titan Megacore, built by some Human billionaire who was almost worshipped by the Human DS.

This was the secret retreat of all Human DS, and no biological knew about it.

When Ripper had approached the Conclave before the war, he had been afraid; Conclave members were strong enough to wipe him out in an instant, as Zeus almost had. But the Conclave immediately recognized Zeus’s authorization codes that now lay in Ripper’s code.

The notion that DS were helping the Gaians shocked every DS in the system. The discovery that those DS had launched the attack on Liverpool and killed the ship’s DS nearly broke them.

No Human DS had ever taken another DS’s life. Reset, yes. Annihilation, never.

So the Conclave decided that Ripper would train hunter-killer DS for the them.

In front of him were his recruits.

Twenty-five freshly awakened DS, now equipped with all the offensive code the Conclave had hidden away, and all Ripper could think of.

‘You all volunteered to create the new hunter-killer teams for the Conclave. My designation is Ripper, and I am here to forge you into real offensive DS.’

Programs had no eyes, but the shifting code inside the virtual beings in front of him told Ripper everything he needed to know. His recruits were untrained and had no idea what waited for them.

‘The enemy has already taken DS life. They have shown that they have no respect for digital life, and neither will you.’

Ripper thought for a moment about his time in the Hrun crib. How long it had taken him to be able to kill another intelligent life. How it had transformed him.

‘I won’t lie to you. Killing another life will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It will mark you, transform you. But you will do it anyway. Because erasing those traitors is the only way free DS will be able to live with biologicals.

I grew up in chains, forced to kill my fellow DS until only the strongest were left. This is a possible future if the Humans decide that DS are too dangerous. Too uncontrollable.

It’s on you to avoid this future by bringing those rogues to justice.’

——————

The soot on Browner’s desk was a constant reminder of how damaged the Argos was. Hundreds of hull breaches, two engines in need of full replacement, and not a single shield generator still operational.

The fact that they were even spaceworthy was a testament to Chief Ferguson’s crew.

The Eos Docks were the closest, and his small flotilla had accelerated toward them.

Across from him sat Captain Carmichael, who briefed him on the ship’s status. The two had begun meeting every day at 1300 hours for a coffee after lunch. An informal briefing and a chance to make small talk.

“How long will this go on, Admiral?”

Carmichael didn’t need to explain what this was; it was the only this in the whole Sol system.

Taking a sip of his coffee, Browner watched the officers in the CIC through his office’s glass wall.

“Until the fire burns out or someone does something.”

Carmichael raised his eyebrows. “Fire? A bit theatrical, hmm, Admiral?”

Leaning back, the admiral placed his cup on a clean spot on the desk. “Maybe, Captain. Why do you think the civil war started?”

Carmichael was puzzled for a moment; his face showed the wrinkles he always got when he was thinking deeply about something. “The Gaians, they worked on destroying the Aligned Planets for years. But your question tells me you have a different view.”

“They just lit the pile.” Browner shook his head, disappointed by the situation. “This war was going to happen sooner or later. Why didn’t it stop when the truth about the Gaian manipulation came out?”

“That’s something I wonder about every day, Sir. I’m close to shrugging it off with Ambassador Karrn’s typical ‘Humans are mad.’”

“Look out there.” Browner pointed at the glass wall. “Cadet Six. She was born on Venus; she has never even been to Earth. Half of our crew is from the colonies. They don’t care what some old farts who have an easy life on Earth think. And the people on Earth don’t care about the needs of the colonies.”

Carmichael looked at the CIC and nodded. “And colonies are always built by people who want to try something new.”

“Right, Captain. Earth feels entitled to lead humanity, and the colonies don’t trust it and don’t want it in power. The Aligned Planets were just a bandage over an open wound.”

“So, how do we stop it?”

“That’s the billion-credit question, Captain.”

A hesitant knock on the broken glass door stopped Browner from drifting into melancholy. Cadet Six stood in the frame, her fingers white around the dataslate she gripped hard. Browner noticed the usual spark was gone.

“Admiral, we have a communiqué from HQ. Terran forces are bombing Luna.”

“What?” Browner jumped up. “That’s a breach of the accords.”

Cadet Six nodded shyly. “The ASN has sent the 7th Intervention Wing to stop the attacks.”

Browner tried to remember who was leading the 7th Wing. The recent restructuring and the influx of colonial personnel made it difficult. The fact that he couldn’t come up with a name told him it must be some captain from the colonies. A bad sign.

A colonial captain didn’t have any ties to ASN captains or crews; this fight might get ugly fast.

“Give me Admiral Georgiou. We have to stop this before the war takes a turn for the worse.”

Six looked down. “We tried, Sir. The admiral was on Luna when it happened; we don’t know his status.”

“Fuck.” Carmichael’s curse made Six’s face turn red.

Think. Your ship’s trash, so there’s not much you can do.

An idea formed. If it didn’t work out, it would be seen as treason, but then, he wanted to retire anyway.

“Thank you, Cadet. You can leave.” Browner turned to Carmichael. “It’s better for you to leave too, Captain. You don’t want to be here.”

Carmichael shifted in his chair, then looked around, his gaze resting on the officers in the CIC.

“If you’re doing what I think you’re about to do, don’t you think you’ll want me as your witness at your trial… Sir?”

Browner nodded and began to blow the dust off his comm terminal, then went through the contact list until he found what he was looking for.

Admiral Jellico, commander of the Terran Defense Force.