SODIUM:5 Assault (8 page)

Mappings of the planets were given to the Kurtz leaders along with the authority to assign property rights to individuals. It was thought that if the Kurtz people had a sense of what was coming to them they might instead turn their thoughts towards how to make use of that property instead of stewing about their current situation. When reports came in of the first terraformers from Toleda landing on Toledus the riots subsided.

My attentions were soon turned back towards our next potential threat. We had a new language to learn. Our teams of cryptologists were working non-stop to get a full understanding of the language of the new Frekkin worlds. Audio and video communications were monitored and soon decoded, giving us a first look at who we would be dealing with. Their species was not tall and thin like the Kurtz, but instead were short at only a meter tall... and very rotund.

Their bulbous heads went straight down into their bodies and the bluish tint to their skin made them look like giant blueberries. But their teeth appeared razor sharp giving them a nasty looking grin. They had deep-set dark eyes and long white hair. My first thoughts were of blueberry trolls.

From the variety of shows being broadcast over video it was soon determined that they were a gluttonous bunch that was consumed with eating. That was at least our first impression.

Within a month our teams had deciphered several names. During a briefing I was told that the people were the Borten and the worlds were Trephin, Login and Pelvic. I laughed out loud when I heard the names, but I soon checked my outburst when I noticed a concerned look coming from my staff. The information we had gathered concerning our enemy was anything but funny. The briefing continued without my interruption.

The Borten were builders with nearly every square inch of each planet covered with buildings. Each world had the look of a Manhattan being spread across its globe. On Trephin the buildings were largely white while on Pelvic they were blue, Login was a mixture of many colors.

There were also numerous massive floating platforms orbiting each planet with ships large and small traveling between. The one thing that I took note of was the lack of any oceans. Our scientists guessed that they must either have massive underground reserves or a spectacular recycling system. We were sure that life would not exist without the precious resource we called water.

I thought about how dreadful an existence living there would be for me. I was a farm girl and these planets were nothing but massive cities. It had been many years since I had been a farmer, but deep down it was who I was. If things got tough or too confusing I would find my thoughts back in East Alabama, harvesting corn or feeding livestock. It was a simple life that I could only dream of once again living.

Two months into our observations an aid approached with an idea. The commander of the fourth fleet, Admiral Beth Collins, wanted to know why we were not sending another scout ship further on. We had a physical location of where the next Transit Pull in the Borten system was aiming and she reasoned that we should explore further. The order was soon given and a destroyer dispatched.

The data showed the next system to be another 170 light years distance. The destroyer Chennai was sent with orders to stop at three light years distance and observe silently until further notice. Soon after, I ordered a second ship to follow with the task of determining the next system again, followed by it moving on to observe.

With recon missions in full swing my attentions were once again turned back towards the Kurtz refugees and what we could do to speed up any terraforming efforts. Those with manufacturing know-how were given jobs at the factories on Earth, but their hours of work had to be shortened due to gravitational fatigue. They were grateful to contribute where they could.

The terraforming of Toledus and Mabia moved along quickly and estimates for the first colonists to be sent there had been updated from nine months to seven. Great buildings were being constructed that would initially house the Kurtz refugees before being dismantled and reused in the construction of their own cities. I marveled at the work a few hundred million utility robots could perform when running at a non-stop pace.

Earth itself had made great use of the robots automating food and construction needs as well as terraforming vast lands that had before been largely ignored. Every citizen was well fed, clothed, housed and educated. It was amazing that those who had been so dissimilar in the past were somehow living side by side in harmony. There were no longer any have-nots to be coaxed into war over what someone else had... Earth was a peaceful place.

Data was soon streaming in on the second and third systems that were under observation. The second system was a small red planet with a number of spaceports dotting its surface. Our analyst’s best guess was that whatever inhabitants there were must be subterranean. The sun in the system was particularly bright and the atmosphere of the planet was thin.

The third system had two worlds in synchronous orbit around its smaller blue sun. Midway between the worlds there were two massive ships or stations under construction. From the framing that had been laid our engineers guessed that they would be about 800 kilometers in diameter when complete. Construction appeared to be progressing at a rapid pace.

With our progress seemingly on track I took several days leave to visit the farm. When I arrived it was unrecognizable. The gentle rolling hills of the western acres were flat and the corn planted there grew taller than I could remember ever having seen. I was a little disheartened that the house and the barn had been replaced by modern pod-like structures. To me it took on a cold and utilitarian appearance.

I spent the days with my parents and Zack's father. The memories of Zack and all that had transpired came flooding back as the visit progressed. There were so many things that I had not had time to think about since my return. Was I happy? I didn't know as the thought of being happy somehow seemed no longer important.

I wondered if I had lost a large part of my humanity. The endless hours I had worked and the complex issues I had faced had kept my mind well occupied since my return from captivity. When I left the farm, heading back to my command ship, I had the feeling that a part of me had died. I wished that I had not gone.

My parents were in good health, but the farm was no longer the sanctuary that I had kept in the back of my mind. The ordinary dull quarters on-board my ship and the high-back leather captain's chair were my new home. Their familiarity and their comfort was all I had to cling to... all that kept me sane.

When I arrived back on the ship and took my place in the chair I immediately got to work on the day's problems. Plans had to be approved, orders given and disputes settled. I had an empire to run.

After nine long months of preparations the first groups of Kurtz colonists were being transported to Toledus. It had been decided that those who had endured the hardship of heavy gravity would have the first crack at the land disbursements that were to follow. Those on Alvin would be heading to Mabia. The land was plentiful so disputes were few and far between.

The cities that were under construction had the advantage of everything being new, new designs where layouts were geared towards a more efficient life. Transportation was top-notch, manufacturing and farming were mostly automated. The Kurtz were on a three year plan to make the best use of the resources they had been given. They were an industrious people and I had no doubt their worlds would be the envy of many on Earth when construction was complete.

With the Kurtz issue subsiding, our own factory efforts were soon changed back to the business of war. The Borten had a massive fleet and we could only speculate that they had technologies that were superior to the Waffen and the Kurtz. We needed a build-up of our fleets if we were going to eventually take them on.

Everything had changed so dramatically for so many on Earth that we were starting to hear rumblings from those who thought we should stop the expansion. They reasoned that since the Frekkin had not responded to our last assault that they had decided to leave us alone. I knew better.

From what little evidence we had of the Frekkin, I was sure they were planning a massive strike. I often wondered what the two globe-like structures they were building were. Weapons? Attack ships? Colonization ships? Or, perhaps the doubters were right, and they had nothing to do with the HE.

I also wondered if the Frekkin were aware of Earth's existence. We had no way of knowing what information had been sent forward by the Kurtz that had then been sent forward again by the Waffen. Many of the records were destroyed when the gravity bubble made its way through Gurthead on the Kurtz home-world. Many of the record keepers had perished as well.

I often paced the area surrounding my command chair while deep in thought about what may lie ahead. I knew the best we could do was to plan and to build defenses that would best cover whatever war scenarios we could dream of. We were pushing our technologies hard for any advantage we could gain.

Our science and engineering endeavors had been advancing with our newest drive systems capable of 8,400 SOL. The speed of light was a mere ten seconds away from a standstill. Along with the drives the shielding available to our BGS suits had essentially doubled and our pulsed gravity handguns had variable levels. The levels allowed minimal settings that would only knock a person down, up to the maximum setting that would stop a large vehicle.

With the Kurtz moved off Alvin, our robotic terraformers were hard at work preparing it for eventual Human habitation. Our population continued to grow. The Earth itself was a more spacious place with the terraforming being done at home. Our three and a half billion citizens had room to expand.

Every citizen had land rights that could be passed down to their children. With the promise of a new world opening up, those who were more adventurous had lined up for a lottery where they could trade all or part of their land on Earth for property on Alvin.

As the situation stabilized at home the reports began to trickle in from the Borten system. We had a mini-fighter in orbit around Trephin relaying high definition data back to our command centers. It seemed the Borten were undergoing a massive shipbuilding exercise of their own. I had a nervous feeling that those ships were meant for us.

After a year of spying on the Borten we had a good understanding of their language, our monitoring of their audio and video broadcasts was paying a dividend. I assembled a team to investigate what it would take to make the Earth silent from the same type of reconnaissance. I wanted to know if we could go dark.

In addition, ideas were thrown around about how to disguise the Earth so that it did not look habitable. One of the proposals was to build a gigantic Sodium skin that surrounded the planet. In the case of an imminent attack we could activate the skin and poof... Earth would disappear.

It was an ingenious idea, but the resources needed for such an undertaking were staggering in scale. If it was at all possible, as our engineers suggested, it would take 15 years to construct and the power needed to activate it would be five times that which we currently had powering the entire planet. I ordered more studies to be done with a focus on lowering those requirements.

On the offensive front I had teams working on ship designs. If there were other black hole lensing structures out there we needed a way to attack them without them destroying everything in their vicinity. Smaller, heavily shielded assault vessels for our BGS Marines were a high priority.

With so much of our daily lives taken care of with automation, we were beginning to have trouble keeping our citizens focused on the all important tasks at hand. Our historians reasoned that it was the same syndrome that had befallen almost every empire in our history.

Empires were built and great works accomplished only to have the citizens slowly grow fat and lazy. A culture of entitlement was fast brewing on Earth and it was endangering the goals we had set forth for our defense. The media had begun to turn from promoting the HE and our expansion to what was immediately best for each individual.

It was the same scenario that had plagued each great spurt of growth by the Human population. My planners began to suggest an agency be formed to start putting out propaganda pieces that would tilt the media skew back towards the goals we had planned. I was troubled by the suggestion as I had always detested falsehood. But falsehoods had won me my freedom from the Kurtz so many years before when I had been held captive. Those same falsehoods had turned around Earth's entire existence.

The Agency of Change (AoC) was given a large budget and a secret mission. Those who we knew to be loyal to the cause would be trained on how to recruit loyalist followers and to disseminate the stories to the media that we thought might change the direction of the growing discord.

The operation was kept tight and quiet until such time as a solid foundation was in place. Then the stories began to trickle out. The first among them were stories about some of the broadcasters and their private habits. There was nothing to turn an audience like a little dirty gossip.

In the first year of the AoC existence, four of the 26 broadcasters identified as being the most detrimental to the cause, were shamed into resigning their lofty positions. Five more were soon on the ropes, teetering on the edge of oblivion for their careers. I found the whole operation distasteful, but necessary. We were in need of everyone's support and cooperation, the stakes were too high.

Our shipbuilding capacity had been increased five-fold with new capacity coming online daily. The autonomous robots of the Kurtz numbered more than the Human populous. Their work was rapid and precise. A new battleship could be framed, built-out and launched in less than two months, and we had three bays doing such that ran around the clock.

We had begun to run short of the necessary resources for ship construction until mining discoveries on Mars filled in the gaps. Within a year the Martian surface had been dotted with buildings and spaceports that were crowded with ore haulers. Whole regions of the planet were dedicated to processing the ore before finished product transports began their trips back to Earth.

Plans had been put in place for the future to push Mars into a synchronous orbit with Earth, only on the opposite side of the Sun. From there, terraforming could be done to add another habitable planet to the HE base. I was at times in awe thinking about our ability to move whole worlds. That awe would soon turn to angst as I would inevitably think about Eldred and the destructive power living beings also had at their disposal. The new age of Man was wondrous and yet horrifying at the same time.

The pace of construction of anything we wanted to build was largely only limited by the number of automated robots we could produce. But other issues began to arise. The great stockpiles of Sodium on Earth were beginning to show their depletion. It was one more resource we would have to monitor and search for elsewhere.

Word soon came in that the first of the 800 kilometer behemoths being built by the farther Frekkin worlds appeared to be nearing completion. Other than their size we had no clue as to what they contained or what they were capable of as they had been constructed from the outside in.

Once the initial framework was complete, massive sections making up an outer skin were then put in place. From that point on we had no way of knowing what their large hauler ships were transporting to it. One of my senior planners remarked that as far as we knew they could just be filled with bananas. The attempt at humor did not draw a laugh.

As I paced on the bridge one day, I was handed a report of our fleet status. We had 16 fleets in some form of operation with 14 of them fully manned. With the ease of pace of life on Earth the populous was no longer motivated to join the military. Our propaganda machines were pushing their limits, but our recruiting goals were not being met. My staff contemplated creating a false alert in an attempt to whip the masses into a patriotic frenzy.

It was soon apparent that we would not need one. The Borten fleet was assembling and their numbers were staggering, 5,000 battleship class ships to our 48, 7,000 cruisers to our measly 386 and more than 30,000 destroyers to our 1,100. But the biggest threat was the unknown. What weapons did they possess, how well could they maneuver and what could their shields withstand?

Within a week of the report we got another urgent message from our destroyer at the far Frekkin world. The giant globe-like structures were on the move... and they were moving towards the Borten system. I gave the order for our destroyer to tail them from a secure distance. Word soon came back that they had accelerated through light speed.

I gave the order for our ship to run at full speed for half the distance to the Borten worlds and then to stop and watch for the passing ships. I hoped to learn at what speed they were able to travel as it would give us an idea of when they could be expected to arrive at Toleda. We reasoned Toleda would be their first target as that was the last known world to them.

Our analysts soon hatched a plan to try to use Toleda as a decoy planet. If we had the time a terraformer and construction fleet would be sent with orders to clean the place up... to make it look inhabited. They would work non-stop constructing false buildings, transportation and farming. The goal would be to turn the ruined planet into a giant movie set where a war could be waged without endangering our own world.

The destroyer on recon soon found its position and waited patiently while using its long wave sensors to catch the passing globe ships. After a three week stay the globes moved past on their way to the Borten worlds. They were traveling at more than 2,000 SOL. Our ships were faster, but we had no way of knowing whether or not the globes were moving at full speed.

At the current rate we had as little as six months to prepare. Our ship building was at its peak, but during that time we would only be able to add three new manned and qualified fleets. We were vastly outnumbered and I found myself loathing the thought of once again having to go into battle.

I ordered martial law on Earth and began to put a system in place for conscription in case our recruiting goals were not met. It was once again a battle for all of Earth and every man, woman and child had a stake in its outcome. The 15th and 16th fleets were soon fully manned and running constant war simulations with the other fleets.

I also ordered the engineers who had come up with the plan to build an active Sodium skin surrounding Earth, to meet me on the bridge of my command ship. I wanted them to build a shield, a shield for all Man, even if it cost us every last ounce of Sodium. The small team departed in a hurry with the signed orders to acquire whatever they needed, excluding the resources in use for building our ships.

Two weeks passed before the two globes dropped out of light speed on their approach to the Borten system. As our recon destroyers watched on, the mass of ships sat idle. Another two weeks of idleness passed as we wondered why they waited. We soon got the answer when another eight globe ships dropped out of light speed and took up position with the other two. The odds against an HE victory were growing.

I decided to crank up our propaganda machine beginning with a speech about some of the worst case war simulation estimates. The public needed to know the seriousness of what we were facing. When the speech was complete I had all forms of broadcasting turn their control over to the agents of the AoC. New commercials went on the air extolling the virtues of being a BGS Marine or a Machinist's Tech or a maintenance worker.

I also called on our Kurtz partners to provide extra manpower for the new fleets that would be coming online. They were a proud people and the volunteers to be BGS Marines numbered in the millions. We soon had ships and trainers at their disposal. They would be manning two fleets of 250,000 Marines each and the remaining Earth fleets would get additional Kurtz Marines to the tune of 100,000 per fleet.

It was a Wednesday when the Borten Mass Fleet departed from their home-world. We used the same tracking technique that we had used on the globe ships to get an estimated arrival date. The Borten ships were slower and the mass fleet was given a date of October 14th for arrival at Toleda. Eleven months to the day from when they departed.

I was soon giving another speech to all the citizens of the HE. It was about how it was our ultimate challenge. The sheer number of ships we would be facing made for a near impossible task. We needed to dig deep... deeper than all of our past wars... deeper than when the full Kurtz mining fleet had first arrived, deeper than the self-defeating food wars that had ravaged our population.