Annihilation (Star Force Series) (49 page)
Read Annihilation (Star Force Series) Online
Authors: B. V. Larson
“May I?” he asked, indicating an empty chair.
I nodded and opened my beer. He did the same. We quickly gulped down our beverages with greed. There was something about a perfectly chilled beer. It demanded to be consumed with gusto.
When he was done, he set down the bottle and nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Again, I waited for him to leave. He asked me a question instead. This man had asked me a hell of a lot of questions since I’d first met up with him on Yale. But this one surprised me.
“Colonel,” he said, “why don’t you just make yourself a general? I mean, come on, get real. You command big armies and fleets. You’re at least a general.”
“That’s a good question,” I said, pulling out fresh beers for both of us. I slid his to him, and saw that the trail of ice crystals the first beer had left hadn’t even melted to droplets yet.
“You see,” I said, “I just made you a Major. That process felt real, didn’t it? It felt real, because I’m in authority over you. Everyone accepts that state of affairs. So, if I give you a rank, everyone accepts the rank. In my case, things are different. I don’t have anyone above me at the moment to award me a higher position. I’d have to just declare it, without anyone having approved anything. That would make it feel wrong—as if I’d cheated somehow.”
Gaines squinted at me while he worked on his beer. I did the same. He seemed to honestly understand the nature of my problem.
“How about we all get together and vote, or something?” he asked. “What if we all vote, and whatever we come up with, that will be your new rank.”
“Not a bad idea, but I’d be a little concerned I’d end up as a dog-catcher if I did that.”
We both laughed. It was possibly the first real laugh I’d had since the lobsters had gotten collectively boiled.
Gaines had made me realize I had a problem. A problem with my legitimacy. Upon what basis did my authority rest? I wasn’t sure. I’d frozen my rank long ago because I didn’t feel I had the right to give myself a higher rank. Someone else had to bless it, or it wasn’t real.
Back when Crow had at least been nominally in charge, I’d felt that I’d earned the promotions he’d given me. I’d believed there was some validity to my rise in rank. Maybe I’d been fooling myself, but I’d felt it. The promotions had seemed right.
But now, Crow had gone and declared himself an emperor. What would separate me from him if I made myself a general, king or even a god? What right did I have to do that? What would separate me from Crow if I pulled a stunt like that?
And so I’d stuck with the rank of Colonel.
“These aliens…” I said when we’d reached beer number four—or was it five? “They came at night, they plucked us from our beds, and they made us what we are today. They made us organize to fight for them. But there’s no nation behind us.”
“I understand what you’re saying, sir. You want to know what makes your power legitimate. I think I have an answer for you: The fact that people follow you.”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s the best answer of all.”
“Damn straight it is,” he said with feeling. “If you shout an order and people obey, who’s to say that you didn’t have the right to give the order in the first place?”
“I understand what you’re saying,” I told him, “but I’m seeking more legitimacy than that. Napoleon crowned himself emperor, you know. He took the crown from the pope who stepped up to his throne, and he placed it on his own head. He did that because he figured if the churchman crowned him, that meant the church had authority over him. I feel the opposite urge. I don’t want to be the man who crowned himself ruler. I want a body, a group, a legitimate organization of some kind to decide who I am and what I deserve for my efforts.”
He nodded in understanding. His fingers made a scratching motion on my desk, and I automatically fed them a fresh brew.
I looked at him suddenly at that point in our conversation.
“You didn’t come here and hang around my office to ask for advice, did you Gaines?”
He shook his head. A wintery smile played on his lips.
“You thought I was the one that needed to talk?” I asked.
“That’s right, Colonel.”
“Well, let me ask you this, Major: Who has the right to rule, and why?”
“I don’t know about that, sir,” Gaines answered. “But I do know that someone has to be at the top. And right, now, that’s you.”
I couldn’t argue with the man, so I handed him another beer from my stash. He smiled as he received it.
“I’ve got another story for you,” I said. “Did you know that Genghis Khan had a rule concerning his officers and drunkenness?”
“What was it?”
“That no commander of his could be caught drunk more than once a month. If he was caught drinking hard more often than that, he would be reduced in rank.”
Gaines appeared concerned. “Seems like a good rule,” he said. “But is this your way of taking back my promotion?”
“Have you gotten drunk yet this month?”
“No, sir,” he said, shaking his head with mock sadness. “Unfortunately, no.”
“I’ve got an easy solution for that.”
He grinned, and I rolled out more icy drinks.
Much later, I found myself slumped over my desk.
I dreamt of Sandra. She’d been carried off by a marching row of metal ants on a sunless world, and I couldn’t find her in the darkness.
When morning arrived, Major Gaines and I were in a sorry state. Even the nanites had trouble cleaning up my office. Fortunately, my kind recover quickly from physical neglect. It is our minds and spirits that heal slowly.
The way I saw it, my enemies had given me a difficult choice: which one of them to destroy first. Both the Empire and the Macros had landed heavy blows that demanded retribution. Crow and his baloney empire had snuck into my territory under a flag of truce and killed my lady love. I thought of revenge against him constantly. The Macros had slaughtered three worlds full of biotics. They were impossibly dangerous and evil.
And in addition to these two sworn enemies, there was a third that was rising as a potential threat: the Blues.
We’d been observing strange phenomena from their gas giant, Eden-12, for months. The activity had increased, as had the level of energy releases. According to Marvin, they now regularly generated more EM output than the entirety of Earth. What in the nine hells were they up to?
I’d begun to suspect in my heart that I’d misjudged them. I’d always thought of them as neutrals that could possibly become future allies. I’d believed them when they’d said they’d released the machines by accident.
But possibly, I’d been duped. Some I’d spoken with had expressed regrets, while others had been remorseless. They hadn’t cared about the billions their creations had slaughtered. Perhaps they weren’t all of one mind on this topic.
But again, maybe that was by design. How do you conquer the universe without loss? Well, you get someone else to do it for you, and you back them in secret, and you play dumb when questions are asked. That way, the dirty job gets done while you maintain your ivory tower innocence.
My mind was finally eased the day after Gaines and I had gotten piss-drunk together. Relief came from an unexpected source.
Miklos came into my office with a large file on a tiny portable data-chip. The chip was about the size of a nickel and glossy black.
He flipped the coin-sized chip onto my desk. Immediately, the desk sensed it, linked with it, and began dragging files out to display. He paged through them with his fingers expertly, searching for something.
I watched him with raised eyebrows. I’d been sipping a fresh beer, my second of the afternoon. I quietly dropped the bottle on the floor between my feet and the ship’s deck swallowed it. I knew the squeeze-bottle of delicious liquid would be released into space, where it would freeze and drift away with the rest of the debris our ships dumped every day. I didn’t like wasting beer like that, but I didn’t like letting my officers know I’d been drinking before dinnertime lately.
“To what do I owe this visit, Commodore?” I asked him.
“I have it right here, sir. One moment…ah, here it is.”
He flicked a particularly large diagram out onto the desktop. It dwarfed the rest, and I realized in an instant it was a ship design document. The ship was big—very big.
“Another carrier design?”
“Exactly, sir,” he said.
“We already have a pretty functional model,” I said. “Let me guess, you want permission to upgrade?”
“No, sir,” he said. “I want to leave the two ships we have as they are. It would not be cost effective to upgrade them, other than possibly adding a few components. These new ships will form an entirely new class of carrier.”
I examined the diagram, expanding it with my fingers to fill my desk. “This thing is huge,” I chuckled. “Why should I build such a monstrosity?”
Miklos smiled at me knowingly, and leaned on my desk. “This ship will allow us to extend our reach,” he said. “This is an attacker’s weapon. It can perform many tasks, but most importantly it is effectively a floating battle station, like this one—only mobile.”
“What are you calling it?”
“A super-carrier.”
“How many do you think we should build?”
“One, sir. To start with…then another, and another. As many as it takes.”
“As many as it takes to do what?”
“To carry the attack to the enemy.”
I stared at him thoughtfully. “And who do you think that enemy should be?”
Miklos raised his hands with his palms up. “I don’t know. That’s not my job. I fight the battles, you start the wars. But these ships will take out anyone you aim them at.”
I sat back in my office chair thoughtfully. He had me there. I did want to attack.
“You’re right, Miklos,” I said. “For years, we’ve sat out here in the Eden System, far from home. We’ve built up an independent colony, but no one recognizes our right to exist. We’ve been on the defensive, while waves of enemies attempt to destroy us. They haven’t managed to strike a fatal blow, but they are certainly wearing us down. We’ve faced battle after battle on two fronts for too long. I’d hoped the Macros could be stopped by my battle station. I’d hoped the Empire would come to its senses and normalize relations with Eden. These hopes have not borne fruit.”
I stood up as I spoke and walked to a window I’d installed in the far wall. It was a real, honest window made of lead-impregnated glass. The nanites had to work overtime to keep it from fogging up, but I enjoyed gazing through it with my own eyes and seeing the universe outside as it really was. Viewscreens could only approximate reality.
“I’d hoped they’d come to accept us,” I continued, “but our enemies have down nothing other than plot and work to bring us down. They’ve hurt me badly—not just my plans, but me personally. The Macros have slaughtered trillions of sentient beings and made me carry the weight of those deaths on my spirit. Crow and his Imperial Earth sycophants took away the woman I loved.”
Miklos stepped up and gazed out of my window beside me. He spoke quietly: “That’s right, Colonel. And no matter what you choose to do now, attack the Macros, the Empire or just sit here and hold on, you’ll need a massive fleet.”
I nodded in agreement. “All right,” I said. “Build your carriers, Miklos. Improve the fighters too, and build thousands of them. I’m hereby ordering that ninety percent of Nano and Macro factory production be turned over to Fleet construction. Go crazy, but do it right.”
“Thank you, sir! You will not regret it.” He ran out of my office before I could change my mind. I didn’t even turn to watch him go.
“It is they who will regret it, Miklos,” I said quietly to the stars outside.
The way I saw it, both the Macros and the Empire owed me. The only question in my mind was who was going to pay the bill first.
The End
From the Author:
Thanks Reader! I hope you enjoyed
ANNIHILATION
. The Star Force series will continue with the eighth book. If you like the series please put up some stars and a review to support it. Let new readers know what’s in store for them!
-BVL
More Books by B. V. Larson:
STAR FORCE SERIES
IMPERIUM SERIES
Five By Five
(Mech Novella)
OTHER SF BOOKS