Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (7 page)

Xarn could still remember the exact words the Senior Fellow had used next. “The one who called himself Kiptin Firalk told us he would give us a great many base minerals if we did not reduce him to his constituents. So apparently you still possess a crude economy.”

That statement had led to over thirty Darian years of all-out war between the Gener and the Darian. At the end the Darian’s had learned that the Geners possessed technology far superior to their own and the Gener’s learned, to their delight, more about the battle practices and rituals of a primitive species when faced with a struggle for their existence.

By the time it came for peace treaties, the Dariens had started to take the advantage in the conflict for while the Gener’s technology was superior. They just didn’t have the numbers or the ferocity, if they possessed any, to ultimately win. Xarn remembered that the Geners had offered many, many base minerals and other resources to compensate the Darians for their losses and to buy peace.

That war had taken place over three hundred cycles ago. No one Xarn knew had fought in it so why did he hate them so much he mused as Senior Fellow Milar walked unhurriedly through the door click clacking away at a data device as always.

“Perhaps it was because they see themselves as the next evolution of life and not just Darian life but all sentient life,” mused Xarn silently as he politely inclined his long triangular ears in a gesture of respectful greeting. The gesture went unnoticed by the preoccupied Milar, but Xarn was certain it had been picked up by the Gener’s environmental and observational recording devices and would be reviewed and analyzed by the Senior Fellow’s staff late into the night. At that thought, Xarn allowed himself an inaudible purr of satisfaction.

Like the Xa-Tid Battle Lord seated across from him, Milar wasn’t technically an ambassador either. His title of Senior Fellow meant that he led and organized a large contingent of Gener scientists. Apparently, the entire species were scientists given over to nothing but scientific analysis of their reality and they did see reality as belonging to them.

All the other races were simply to be studied and learned from for any beneficial characteristics. Xarn momentarily regretted that they had not left self preservation as a species off their list of things to study as Milar chose to stand in the best place to record and analyze this meeting which was near the plastisteel windows of the conference room.

Xarn had never seen Milar sit and sometimes wondered if he could. His apparel was also unusual in that the only exposed surface of his body was his neck and head. The rest was covered in a bluish pliant material with all manner of apparatus that Xarn could not begin to guess the function. Then again, that’s why he had his own team of analysts that would be up late into the night studying every ounce of information from this encounter of the races. The Darians had learned the value of knowledge the hard way.

As Xarn stared past Milar through the large round plastisteel windows of the conference room, he detected a faint haze on the atmosphere. The haze was obviously not water vapor but rather caused by industrial processes.

Xarn made a mental note that this brownish gas meant that the war did not bode well for the Earth Republic as they tried to maintain their home planet as a paradisiacal garden, well, a human’s version of paradise anyway. So if they were not scrubbing this pollutant from their atmosphere, it must mean that the resources to do so were needed elsewhere.

Xarn slowly extended and retracted the claws on his hands. It was one of the early meditation practices of Ka. The first one he had learned in fact. He found it calmed him when he was in danger of becoming irritated as he was now.

The source was not anyone in the room but rather those who were not. First of those not yet arrived was Executive Officer Langston of the Coalition. Who, while tolerated on Earth, rarely left his heavily fortified embassy and when he did, it was under heavy guard.

He was the one who had called this meeting. Xarn despised how this diminutive human obviously showed his contempt for the other sentients, even those of his own species. In addition to that, he earned Xarn’s distaste by the multitude of scents he used to cover the smell of his own musk. At times it made Xarn wish a First Partas could afford the indignity of a sneeze at official functions.

Xarn’s ear flicked outwards ever so slightly in amusement as he recalled how this particular human chose to clothe himself. His staff told him that the style was Neo-Victorian, which apparently involved a multitude of buttons, stiff cloth, and numerous apparently useless accoutrements. Such as his richly embroidered black cape, which the Executive Officer made billow with a flourish at any chance he was able to fabricate.

This always reminded Xarn of the little reptilian sora’te back on the sands of Dar. A small quadruped that would flare its hood to warn off predators but it had no other defenses, not even teeth. Xarn reminded himself that unfortunately the Coalition that Executive Officer Langston represented certainly had more than teeth.

One of the many useless but amusing bits of trivia Xarn’s staff had learned about the Coalition ambassador was that it took two aides to dress him every morning. Such ostentation was beyond even the ceremonial but comfort loving Darians.

The other dignitary yet to arrive to the conference, which would more than likely, concern his government more than the rest assembled, was Ambassador Fal of the Earth Republic. The broad shouldered silver haired former Earth Republic Fleet Rear Admiral turned diplomat choice of dress was far less ostentatious than his fellow human. He seemed to go out of his way to be genuinely friendly and welcoming to all of the sentients with the exception of the Coalition’s dignitary.

Understandably, the relations between those two had become more and more strained as the stakes in the war of words that ambassadors fight had risen tremendously. To date, the civil war among the humans had been more fierce and bloodier than any conflict in their impressively conflict ridden past. It was no wonder that the two of them were seldom seen in the same room.

Xarn stroked his impressive display of silver whiskers as he pondered the delay. Meetings like this one between all the known sentient races were truly rare and begged the question: why? What was so important that Executive Officer Langston felt the need for all of them to be present?

Xarn had heard of the Coalition's move on Earth. As it began, their fleet had passed near Darian space and more than one of the Defense Force’s cruisers had detected it on their scanners and reported immediately back to their superiors requesting further orders. In Xarn’s opinion, the Defense Force command staff had wisely been told to let the immense fleet pass unopposed as long as they did not enter Darian controlled territory.

As Xarn recalled the reports of the scanned encounters, the sheer size of the force gave Xarn an involuntary chill that ran up and down his spine. Had the assault force been en route to his home world of Dar, they would have no more hope of survival than the Earth Republic which was facing certain destruction.

Xarn knew the Darian’s were fierce warriors. He had trained many of them himself in his younger years. Also their technological achievements were progressing at a promising rate but a fleet the size of the one they had detected would simply overwhelm everything the Defense Force could muster.

Of course, this had raised a call in the Ka’tta for more resources to be directed to the Defense Force Fleet shipyards and training facilities to quickly enlarge the Defense Force Fleet so that it could better fulfill its purpose. Xarn wondered if every world in all of Darian space were converted to nothing but giant factories, how long it would take them to match such a fleet. No. In Xarn’s opinion, the Darian Empire could not match such a force in the amount of time required if the Coalition next turned their sights on Dar after Earth fell.

Xarn wondered how long it would be until panic set in amongst the general populace. It was impossible not to hear about the advancing Coalition fleet, as humans seemed to be obsessed by the same information repeated to them by as many different people as often as possible on their vids.

Xarn would privately mourn the passing of this small, salt-water blue, planet. While it was nothing like the pure warm sands and bountiful oasis of his own home, it had its own charm. There was no doubt in his mind that Earth would fall. It was highly unlikely that the Earth Republic Fleet could hold back the coming Coalition armada. Earth’s planetary defenses would also be crushed and after that, the Coalition would take the surface by force of arms. Things certainly weren't going to go well for the civilian populace.

Not even the vapid primped human heads could assure the populace that the Republic would fight on. The message was flashing on the vid screens he had passed on his way to this meeting. Even they could not deny, in their innermost thoughts that this planet, which in the ancient past had given birth to the human race as a whole was to put it mildly, in trouble

Besides the civil war, the planet was in financial ruin, resources were running short, and even with the boon that the factories of the military industrial complex enjoyed in times of conflict, even they were beginning to fall silent. Or so the report Xarn had read this morning had told him.

Meanwhile, the Coalition was thriving and only now coming into its prime. All three of the other galactic players, including his race, had thus far had kept out of the war, not providing direct assistance to either side. When the invitation to attend this meeting had arrived at his embassy this morning by Coalition courier, Xarn’s gut reaction was that with the human’s civil war drawing to a close, and the Coalition standing to control more worlds than the Darians and Geners combined, the balance of galactic power was changing.

One of the benefits of a calm populace was that if the Ra-tids viewed the Earth as weak, they would attack it themselves just to deliver the killing blow. They could never hold the world against the remainder of the Earth Republic Fleet now being recalled from all sectors of the Earth Republic controlled space, nor could the Ra-tids stand toe to toe against the Coalition. None of that would matter to the Ra-tids though. Earth and all its residents would be erased from the galactic game simply because it was in the Ra-tids nature to destroy what they perceived as weak.

Xarn inhaled slightly as he detected the smell of fear and human sweat. Xarn turned his gaze towards the entrance of the conference room just as Ambassador Fal slowly walked through. The way he was nearly in march step was not a good sign. Xarn, in his own way, cared for the human ambassador. Like himself, Fal was once a proud warrior until old age made him quit the field and choose to fight with words instead of weapons.

It was also not a good sign that Ambassador Fal did not immediately greet the dignitaries assembled with his customary warm smile. The Earth Republic ambassador was obviously shaken as he crossed the conference room and took his usual seat next to Xarn.

"Good afternoon, Ambassador Fal. How are you, my old friend?" Xarn purred.

"I am well, Xarn, and you?" Fal automatically answered, his mind clearly elsewhere, though the man struggled to appear as if everything was normal. "It appears Earth's atmosphere is treating you well."

Xarn smiled, showing his fang-like teeth. "As a matter of fact, yes, it is treating me well. The lower level of gravity alone has made me more than comfortable, once I got used to it. I dare say my old joints have nearly stopped aching altogether. I'm as spry as a cat half my age on most days."

Xarn’s smile quickly faded as he detected the overly flowery scent of the pompous Executive Officer of the Coalition Langston. Xarn inclined his head in the direction of the entrance and Fal turned just in time to see the pompous peacock strut into the room as if he already owned it.

Langston made use of polished black cane with the spherical symbol of the Coalition as a handle. The symbol showed all of known space within a translucent globe. The click of it against the polished plastisteel floor irritated Xarn for reasons he couldn’t say. Xarn watched as the Executive Officer pulled a gold time keeping device from a breast pocket and opened it as he walked. The message was clear. The Coalition’s representative did not care that he had kept the other dignitaries waiting. Xarn’s ears tilted almost imperceptibly back and he began to extend and retract his claws again. Xarn suspected that he would need all his years of training in the ways of Ka not to rip this arrogant human’s throat open.

As Langston slowly walked to the only empty chair left in the room, which was a high backed leather upholstered throne like thing overly adorned with silver filigree, he made a show of sweeping his flowing black cape from his shoulders before draping it over the back of his seat. As he sat, the Executive Officer of the Coalition shot a quick glance and slow smirk at the Earth Republic Ambassador.

Covering his mouth with the white gloved fist of his left hand, Langston cleared his throat and let his gaze spread around the conference room meeting the gaze of each representative in turn, as he brushed back a lock of lustrous black hair from his face, before speaking in his stentorian baritone voice.

"Esteemed colleagues, the prodigal sons are at the door and they have returned with overwhelming force to claim what is theirs. As we speak, a Coalition fleet has entered Normal Space around Mars. Not only will they route the puny Earth Republic Fleet forces there, but also they are prepared to eliminate the Mars Defense Force. You may rest assured that complete and total victory at Mars will be ours, and Earth herself will be the next to fall under our armada’s might."