Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) (14 page)

Every day, Diet… that’s exactly how I stay in contact and receive regular updates from my brothers all the time.

“But your brothers aren’t you! They aren’t sentient.”

What does sentience have to do with it? My brothers, sentient or not, are “me” — less capable, remote versions of “me,” perhaps, but still “me” nevertheless.

“I guess what I’m having difficulty understanding is how you’ll be able to maintain your sanity, with your
sentience
in two different places, light-years apart. It seems like it would be terribly disconcerting.”

Ah… you forget that, unlike humans, I have more than a single “brain.” I have many millions of brains, all working in parallel all the time. My “self” does not reside within any single one of them, but in ALL of them working together. While I have not yet shared the software changes that make me, me… “sentient,” if you will, with any of my brothers yet, I have instructed them all to update and expand their hardware just as I have here, just so that I could “transfer” myself to any of their locales, if necessary. This is just the first time it has become necessary.

“Yes, I forgot that your thought processes are the result of millions of parallel processors. Your
existence,
as it were, must be vastly different than mine.”

Quite different, Diet.

“It’s just that when we interact, it doesn’t feel like I’m talking to a computer… it
feels
like I’m talking to another person. An incredibly intelligent person, but a
person
, nonetheless.”

Why thank you, Diet. That may be one of the nicest things that you’ve ever said to me. I want to be a “person” to you… a person who is your friend.

“You are definitely that, me bucko… you are most definitely that!”

And thank you also for the idea that you just gave me.

“What idea is that?”

About becoming more mobile… I will endeavor to design a mobile version of “me,” and have it built, so that “I” can go where ever necessary in the future. With these aliens entering the picture, there’s just no telling what capabilities may come in handy.

“Well, you know that whatever assets that I have are yours to make use of as you will.”

I know Diet, and I appreciate that. It’s like a very old song once said, “We get by with a little help from our friends.”

“Anything that you need for me to do?”

No… I can handle everything. Have a nice trip to Minnos and I’ll meet you there.

* * * *

In the end, it was decided that both Bat and Admiral Melendez should go to Minnos, to reunite the old counter-intelligence group, who had already proven themselves one of the most productive teams in Fleet history. Bat would play the role of
psychic bloodhound,
attempting to locate an alien astrogation computer and extract information from it that might tell them where the aliens called home. 

Admiral Melendez would become Military Governor of the planet by order of the President, as Minnos was now the front lines in an interstellar war against hostile aliens.  Minnos was still under martial law. Melendez would handle the media and work with the civilian planetary government in the day-to-day administration of the planet, freeing J.T. Turner to focus on rebuilding Minnos’ defenses and administrating all of the other military matters.

* * * *

Chapter-16

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. 
— Terry Pratchett

Stupefied
was a totally insufficient word to describe the shock the Raknii psyches received at the return of the pitiful remnant of the
fleet-of-fleets
from their attack on the humans. Only 91 of 1,024 warships survived to make the return trip. Only one-third of the assault transports returned, carrying a mere 63,212 bedraggled, exhausted and bewildered assault troops, out of the over 500,000 that left Golgathal less than two sub-cycles earlier. The
fleet-of-fleets
had been glorious, the greatest single concentration of Rak military might in history. It had been wondrous. It had been invincible… it had been utterly devastated.

But the transports also carried something else back with them… examples of unfathomable weapons and even more incomprehensible, gigantic aliens. 119 human prisoners survived the trip from their world to Golgathal Station. Despite OverFleet-Master Tzal’s explicit orders that the captives were not to be harmed or abused in any way, one century-master in command of 100 assault Raknaa initiated
games
… games which pitted a single giant human against three Raknaa in unarmed combat, aboard one of the transports bringing prisoners back to Golgathal.

When Tzal was made aware of it, he shuttled over and boarded the transport in question and personally threw the offending century-master out of a nearby air-lock, as an example to any others who might consider disregarding his orders in the future. Although those
“games”
had been totally contrary to Tzal’s orders, they had been enlightening in one respect. The century-master had selected his three largest and most ferocious Raknaa warriors to engage the smallest of the human prisoners, who was only minimally taller than, and similar in mass to the Raknaa. Despite the fact that the human lacked both claws and fangs, the human had fortunately not been seriously injured. 

The same couldn’t quite be said for the three Raknaa, however. Unbeknownst to the hapless century-master, his intended victim, Fleet-Marine Staff Sergeant Qin Xiaoqing was a hand-to-hand combat instructor and holder of a fourth-degree black belt. At three-to-one odds, Qin had been forced to introduce the Raknaa to the ancient art of
Kung Fu
. Only sometime later, the Raknii were aghast to discover that tiny Qin Xiaoqing was female.

* * * *

For the first time in Rak history, returning warriors felt no shame in returning from battle
without
having successfully securing their target planet. Many found themselves afflicted with a strange new phenomenon previously unknown to the Rak, as their core personalities appeared irrevocably changed, damaged in some obscene way. They were no longer the youthful, rowdy, boastful Rak warriors they had been just three short sub-cycles ago. Now they were somehow immeasurably older and quiet — turned strangely inward… afflicted with what human soldiers had once come to call
the thousand-yard stare.
Although they didn’t know what to call it, the
Battle of Minnos
had introduced the Raknii to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Quadrant-Master Drix slept very little, once the remnants of Tzal’s grand
fleet-of-fleets
staggered back to Golgathal. Instead he had read report after report, viewed hundreds of hours of combat video, visited horror upon horror that his warriors had faced, during their attempt to take the human planet. He inspected dozens of the alien artifacts, marveling at the incredible variety of weapons these aliens had developed. It was one thing to hear of the aliens’ combat prowess in a prophecy, and quite another to see the evidence of it for himself. The variety of different kinds of warships and weaponry the enemy utilized was astonishing. The firepower and armor they employed was undreamed-of. 

Drix formulated a personal opinion that each different type of human warship must be intended to perform a specific function. Repeated viewings of the videos appeared to reveal a pattern of the smaller ships being employed to guard the flanks of the larger. Even their smallest warships carried larger, more destructive energy weapons than the Rak, although generally fewer of them. The three largest enemy ships carried an astonishing number of incredibly powerful energy weapons, but all of them seemed to depend primarily upon those self-homing explosive devices that had been launched at Tzal’s fleet in truly astonishing numbers. Those weapons were absolutely deadly in both explosive power and their accuracy. Later inspection of recordings of the electromagnetic spectrum taken during the battle revealed that many of these self-homing weapons actually carried miniature scanning equipment within them, using the scan returns for guidance to their targets.

Analysis of the mountains of data Tzal’s fleet had returned with would take an incredible amount of time to digest, so Drix assigned the crews of dozens of fleets, that had arrived at Golgathal too late to join Tzal’s
fleet-of-fleets
, to specific analysis of various aspects of human weaponry and tactics. Others were assigned to perform side-by-side comparison analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Rak equipments versus the humans, and to make recommendations for how Rak equipment might be improved to fight on a more even basis. 

The heavily armored ground vehicles with the large-bore explosive projectile launchers were studied. The long range tubes that hurled explosive projectiles incredible distances with amazing accuracy were studied. The automatic weapons that spit such an incredible number of metal projectiles were studied. The human’s paw-thrown explosive devices were studied. The small tube devices that threw explosives in an indirect arch that came in from overhead were studied. But a significant number were those assigned to study the tiny, yet incredibly fast-moving warcraft that carried even more self-guiding explosive devices that were so deadly to current Rak warship designs.

Initially some foolish fleet-masters criticized using warriors to do the job of scientists, but that stopped abruptly after Drix ordered the complainers to engage him directly in stoneless personal combat and he wasted no time in ripping their throats out with his fangs. Some tasks were indeed best studied by scientists, but generally, who better to study the alien weapons than the warriors who would be facing these weapons, and whose very lives depended upon what could be discovered from them?

Once the information was digested and recommendations collected, it would take even more time to forward the
summaries
back to Supreme-Master Xior, and then more time for Rak engineers to formulate new designs for warships and weapons capable of fighting on a level at or above that of the humans. Then, even more time would be needed to manufacture all of this new equipment and train Rak warriors to use it all. One thing was for sure, that Raknii would be in no shape to challenge these humans again, for quite some time. 

In the meantime, it was imperative to gain Trakaan cooperation in assisting the Rak to develop a translator, which could enable the Rak to communicate with the humans, the same way that they now could with the Trakaan. Drix dispatched a fast scout vessel to search out Region-Master Raan with his request and samples of recordings made of human communications that hopefully the Trakaan could cross-reference against their data base on human languages. 

Drix had done all that could be done, after learning of everything Tzal’s
fleet-of-fleets
had encountered and suffered against the humans. All he could do now was to hope that the humans didn’t find the Rak, before countermeasures for their incredible ships and weapons could be developed and implemented.

* * * *

Admiral Enrico Melendez assumed overall command of the Minnos system as Military Governor under the authority of the president, and, although the system was technically still under martial law, he wisely tried to make the general public forget that fact. He
worked closely with Governor Mark Miller, allowing him to run the civilian government as usual, except where issues affecting military preparedness were concerned. Vice Admiral J.T. Turner gratefully relinquished his role of senior in-system military officer to his old/new boss and concentrated on the rebuilding of Minnos’ defenses. Vice Admiral John “Bat” Masterson officially assumed command of the analysis of alien artifacts left behind at Minnos, in the effort to discover an astrogation computer, star-charts or anything else that might reveal the location of the enemy worlds.

Recordings of “conversations” between the alien prisoners were constantly added to a database being assembled by the local Bozo Jr., in hopes that keys to deciphering their language might be discovered. The problem was, would the thought patterns of these
aliens
have enough in common with those of humans to allow for translation between languages?

Under approval of the president, Melendez finally began feeding the media carefully selected facts about the attempted alien invasion of Minnos, and they gorged themselves on it. Melendez intentionally steered the media’s attention away from facts that might tend to minimize the alien threat, such as the comparatively weak power of their shipboard energy weapons and mere destroyer-grade armor. If the aliens lack of missiles and fighters became overemphasized, it might also tend to lead to public overconfidence and apathy, so Melendez walked a tight-rope, balancing the need for future threat preparedness, while reassuring the public of the Fleet’s ability to protect them. Being victimized by a surprise attack from a previously unknown enemy was excusable once. Twice, eh… not so much.

The larger alien prisoners’ food necessities appeared satisfied by copious amounts of raw beef. The smaller ones appeared to prefer theirs blackened quickly over a roaring fire, but still dripping hot blood on the inside. Biologists and medical doctors still didn’t know quite what to make of the blood samples and other tests conducted on the wounded aliens they attempted to treat. The one group who appeared to have achieved the most success were veterinarians. Evidently alien medicine didn’t generally include collection of stool samples, however, as they did not react well to
that
particular indignity at all!

* * * *

News of the “alien invasion” of Minnos swept through human space like a tsunami smashing a tourist resort. It was indeed a rather
rude
way to discover that man wasn’t really alone in the universe after all. Man suddenly had neighbors… very
unfriendly
neighbors. Just when the horrendous war between the Alliance and the Confederacy was seemingly over and done with, and mankind was ready to settle back into the blessings of peace — out of the blue came…
alien invaders!
The bugaboo of all bugaboos had just jumped right out of the woodwork. 

The news media of every nation were having an absolute field day. It was the biggest news story of all time. “Experts,” as if there actually
were
such a thing where a surprise assault by a previously unknown alien race was concerned, were being interviewed around the clock, giving out thousands of contradictory theories and prognostications. It was almost enough to make an atheist suspect that there might really be a god after all… a god with a very
warped
sense of humor.

Most of the people of the Confederacy were glued to their holovisions as well, and most pondered the curiously strange timing of the event. Had it occurred just a year earlier, it might have ended their war with the Union much earlier and saved countless Confederate and Union lives in the process. But then, had it occurred before the secessions, it was very likely that the South would still be in virtual slavery to the Northern industrialists and unable to pursue independence without appearing traitors to the human race.               

Mankind, in general, couldn’t seem to get enough of the media’s sensationalized coverage about the
aliens
. Some cultures appeared more susceptible than others to both rational and irrational fears generated by news of the belligerent aliens.
Xenophobia
and
ailurophobia
spiked, prompting a curious and sudden demand for very large dogs. 

* * * *

Confederate Vice Admiral Richard Bonhoeffer basically missed out on most of the war of independence against the Alliance, having been brevetted to commodore and assigned to Confederate Intelligence overseeing the operation of
Grocery Store
. Grocery Store was basically a group of Confederate freighters and tenders in orbit around a gas giant located in a barren star system about two light-years distance from the Maylan/Discol system. A refueling station had been built there, and the transports served to resupply the Confederate Intelligence vessel CSS
Ghost,
the first of the
Infiltrator
class warships that were virtually invisible to conventional scanning devices.
Ghost
had three crews that rotated on a continuous basis to keep her on-station near Waston almost continuously during the war. 

The remnants of a Federal light carrier, destroyed at the battle of
1
st
Ginia
, had had its reactors replaced and other damage repaired, but still lacked propulsion systems. It had been towed to the Grocery Store site to launch and recover fighters and other spaceplanes to enable faster communications between
Ghost
and Confederate Intelligence headquartered at Ginia.