1.26 solar hours after departure from Automated Border Outpost 1D-25
Polar orbit of the third moon, 128,272 kilometers from Faria Prime
“It is time, Ambassador.”
Skarl ignored the honored elder as he continued to frantically tap on the screen of the Ma’lit datapad for a few moments before looking back up at the exosuit standing in front of him and pleading. “There must be another way, Honored elder. We just need more time; I am sure the three of us can think of something if we just give it a little longer.”
“Like the air your lungs ache for while drowning in the ocean of circumstances, so it is for the time you are desperately seeking. You will find none in this moment, and we are sinking fast; we either do this now, or your progeny shall perish, along with your species.”
No! I don’t want to lose you! I will be sending you to your deaths, and the chains of guilt will bind my spirit for the rest of my life. I will never be able to forgive myself for doing this. There has to be something we have not thought of.
I am sorry, Hildak. I am sorry we could not figure out a way to save you.
That is no longer our fate because of you, Skarl. We will be remembered by you, and our short existence will mean something now. We will do a right thing, and many will live because of us. This makes us content. Let us go, Skarl. Let us have this remembrance and meaning.>
I will never forget you, Hildak. I will make sure every Farian knows what you did for us. I will tell them that Hildak was not a myth but a real person who sacrificed themselves for us. You will not only be remembered by me; a whole world will remember and honor you for as long as we exist.
Skarl was stunned by the unexpected question, not expecting machines to think about the after. His anguish became almost unbearable as he realized that by asking him this question, Hildak was confirming that they did not want to die and that they instinctively feared the death waiting for them, whether they realized it or not.
Skarl was not really religious, only speaking to the Maker when he needed something from the being that created them. The question forced him to, at long last, acknowledge his selfishness and lack of true faith, and he answered Hildak in the same way he would have answered if the question had been posed to him by an innocent hatchling. It was the least he could do for them considering their sacrifice.
He struggled to remember how his mother had explained what the after was like, and as the long-latent memories began to surface, he explained it to Hildak just as his mother did to him all those cycles ago.
The prophet tells us that those who are good go to an infinite ocean where we will turn back into hatchlings and swim with the Maker and all those who have gone before and wait for us in the after.
Here, we will know nothing but love, joy, and peace, forever. In this place, all our desires are realized, and there is no hate, suffering, nor sorrow to be found anywhere as we swim with an endless multitude of hatch brothers and hatch sisters in perpetuity. If I am deemed worthy to go to this place, I promise I will ask the Maker to bring back my friend Hildak for me, and we will swim together forever.
We say, ‘In the after, may we meet again,’ Hildak.
I will. In the after, may we meet again, Hildak.
Skarl felt the prick under the unguis of his main finger on his right hand, and a deep sadness came over him as he looked back up at the honored elder and reluctantly flicked his head.
The exosuit shifted slightly as one of the arms reached behind the suit and came back holding a pitch-black, oblong device barely larger than Skarl’s hand. In his eyes, he saw Hildak highlighting one of the ports, and he inserted the connector sticking out of the tip of his trembling finger until he heard a clicking sound.
There was a finality to the sound, and a low grief moan escaped from his lips as the dark blue Farian runes in his vision began to lighten. The last of the runes faded out a few moments later, and there was one last prick from his finger before his fingertip slipped from the port, the connector no longer holding it there.
He pointed the finger at his face and looked at it, regretting letting Hildak do this as he felt a large void inside of him.
Hildak?
There was no answer, and he felt the sorrow glands under his chin begin to swell painfully as regret seized his soul. What did I do? I shouldn’t have let this happen.
Hildak?! Answer me, please!
Only silence answered his anguished plea, and Skarl stared at the back of the exosuit as the honored elder placed the probe holding his friend Hildak into the receptacle with the twenty-six other probes containing the Ma’lit nanobot clones they had made while Hildak showed them the exact coordinates of all the viral bombs.
Without turning around, the exosuit speakers activated, the volume much lower than usual. “I deeply regret I could not find a way to save Hildak, Ambassador Skarl. My failure will reside with me always until the Creator calls me to come to him.”
Skarl didn’t respond to the honored elder, and he lowered his chin onto his chest as the sorrow glands continued to throb painfully. The honored elder spoke again a moment later, the speakers even lower than before as one of the suit hands hovered over the chute actuator, and Skarl could hear true emotion in the computerized voice for the first time since he had ever met a Ma'lit.
“I have failed you; I am sorry, Hildak.”
Skarl groaned again and fell to his knees on the hard black tiles before lying on his side and pulling himself into a compact ball. Two solar seconds later, he heard the chute activating with a loud clunking sound, sending Hildak and the clones to their deaths.
The sound of the probes being expelled hurt him almost as much as the old teacher’s sobbing that echoed off the walls of the caves all those cycles ago, and Skarl began to soothe-rock himself as he whispered the death litany for his soon-to-be-dead friend, Hildak.
Great Maker, who made the firmament, the dry land, and the life-giving sea from which we sprang; who breathed life into the mud and crafted us in his image. Hear my plea, Great Maker. I beseech you to make a place next in the after you have promised for our hatch brother Hildak, who is on his way to be judged by you now.
I, Skarl, son of Yalik, my father, and son of Wenlir, my mother, of House Trik-ri, do vouch for the one who will soon stand before you; I vouch for his goodness of spirit and intent, and I vouch for his worthiness to swim with you in the gloried after. I beg of you to write his name in the kelp scrolls of the worthy and grant him entry into the waters of the eternal ocean.
RSS Indomitable
Independence-Class Carrier, 7th Fleet
Holding station 5,000 kilometers from NSR-14
83.6 Light years from Kingdom of Faria
June 13th, 0437 ship time
The conference room was deathly silent, the attendees all staring at the hologram of President Lopez as she finished briefing them on the new intelligence she gathered from her interrogation of the Farian ambassador.
“Here are the images and the recordings of the Farian children from the satellites after the first viral bomb was set off. I must warn you... this one is tough to see.” President Lopez said quietly before she tapped on a datapad and several holo screens shimmered into existence around her.
Thompson ignored the new screens and continued to stare at the hologram of the president, concerned about her haggard appearance even as the others began to angrily mutter and curse at the sight of millions of the small bodies and ruptured eggs surfacing before they began lifelessly bobbing on the waves.
She looks like shit. I hope she hasn’t started drinking again, Thompson thought worriedly as he finally forced his eyes away from her pale, gaunt face and looked at the recordings. Off to his left, he heard Major General Hyrum’s raspy voice cut through the tumult that had erupted around the conference table.
“This is an act of deliberate genocide, and against babies, no less! I thought the 101st was ordered here to teach the Farians a lesson and rescue our embassy personnel, but now it seems to me as if this has turned into something far more complex. Are we here to liberate Faria Prime now, Madame President? Because if we are, then we need more backup.”
Thompson turned to look at the major general, surprised by what the famously hard-charging Hyrum had just said. The Brigadier General of the 1st Marines spoke up next, her polished British accent a sharp contrast to Hyrum’s smoker's voice.
“I agree with Major General Hyrum. We do not have the necessary forces to take on the entire Farian military if they choose to resist our assault. We need to-”
“Enough!” President Lopez yelled, instantly silencing everyone as they all pivoted their heads to look at her in surprise. Her hologram glowered at them, and Thompson could see her balled-up fists trembling at the sides of her hips as her chest expanded and contracted rapidly.
“Did you not see those millions of babies floating on the surface? There are almost 1.3 billion more hatchlings and eggs at risk of being murdered just like that. There is no time to gather more forces; do you understand me? There is no more time for any of this. We go with what we have, or we don’t go at all, and we live with the fact that we did not try to save them for the rest of our goddamn lives!
Ambassador Skarl and Honored elder Hreth’nir are already at Faria Prime in a cloaked Ma’lit scout ship, and if they are successful in disabling the viral bombs, then the First Prime will not be forced to obey the agents anymore, which means the Farian military will most likely not be resisting us. We will then focus on hunting down and eliminating these murderous sons of bitches wherever they are on Faria Prime.”
She finished speaking, and Thompson took the opportunity to chime in and voice his concerns, hating that he was adding to her troubles instead of backing her up all the way.
“And if they are not successful, Madame President? What then? The First Prime will have no choice but to order the Farian Defense Forces to resist our invasion, and we will be greatly outnumbered the second we flash out of null space.
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We will have to invade Faria Prime with our troops while simultaneously fighting off the Farian naval forces in orbit. It will be a contested landing, if not a goddamn bloodbath, and I can’t guarantee a victory for us under such conditions with the limited forces at my disposal.”
President Lopez stared at him with an Et tu, Brute? expression, and he forced himself to keep his face neutral as she gazed at him with eyes full of hurt and betrayal. He was an admiral first, and he had a duty to the men and women under his command to try his best to secure victory with the least number of casualties.
“I hear your concerns, Admiral Thompson, and I share them. The fact of the matter is, we have no choice. What will the others in the Alliance we are trying to build think of us when they find out we did not try? They will think that we are only willing to fight and die for some of them, and not all of them. This way of thinking will poison the Alliance we are trying to build before it is even born.
We were not able to be there for the V’rni, or the other Commonwealth species that were exterminated by the Insectoids during their initial invasion. There was nothing we could have done for them even if we wanted to, but this is different. We can make a difference this time, and I truly believe we have an obligation to do our best despite the dangers facing our people.”
She stopped speaking and pointed at the screens still displaying the millions of lifeless corpses on the surface of the ocean as she slowly moved her eyes around the conference table.
“Can you truly live with yourself if we don’t try, knowing that this is the fate of every innocent Farian child? And when they are all dead, whatever remains of the adult population will die off, turning the Farians into an endangered species for generations to come.
I know the low estimation held by all of you here regarding the martial prowess of the Farian defense forces, but we cannot deny that their Navy is not only one of the largest in the quadrant but also one of the most technologically advanced.
We need them fighting alongside us when the Balrikans finally arrive. If we do this and succeed, they will owe us. I hate that this is even a factor in our planning, but it is, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. We need their ships, and doing this will ensure their cooperation in the war to come.”
Senior Captain Ruggeri spoke up in the silence that followed the president’s exhortation. “What role will the Ma’lit dreadnoughts be playing, Madame President? I know it is hoped their presence would make it so the Farian Navy would stand down, but what if they don’t? Will the Ma’lit engage in combat with us, because that is the only way we have a chance of making it out of this without horrendous losses.”
President Lopez gazed at Dominic for a few moments before answering him. “The AI Controllers are currently under orders to only engage in defensive action. They will only fire back if attacked by the Farians, and they will cover our retreat if we are forced to withdraw. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Subdued, angry muttering erupted around the table at this revelation, and Thompson rapped his knuckles on the table to silence them as he glared at them for a moment before looking back at the hologram of President Lopez. “What are our rules of engagement, Madame President?”
“You will only attack them if fired upon first, Admiral Thompson. The second a Farian ship fires on one of ours, the gloves come off, and you make them regret ever being born. Same for the ground forces; is that understood? You will not fire the first shot, but the lives of our people are paramount, and they are to do whatever it takes to protect themselves.
I had a chance to look at your operational plans, and I already signed off on it in case shit goes sideways on us, so the fault will lie with me alone. Standard rules of engagement apply for Farian civilians and infrastructure, and you will have to use your best judgment as the situation unfolds, Admiral. Any other questions?”
The president looked at each of them, her eyes moving around the table until she finally locked eyes with Thompson last. Seeing that no one had anything to add, he stood up, the rest of them following his lead as he did so, and he saluted her along with the others.
President Lopez straightened herself up and returned their salutes before addressing them all again in a cold voice that sent chills down his spine.
“Good hunting.”
Her hologram vanished, and Thompson looked around at all the grim faces staring at him. “Any saved rounds I need to address before we enter null space and proceed to our target?”
All shook their heads in the negative, and Thompson could feel the tension in the air thicken until it was almost palpable as he looked around at each of them one last time. They were ready, and it was time to do this.
He looked at his wristcom, hoping none of them would notice the slight trembling of his hand as he did so. It was now 0449, and he quickly calculated the time it would take for all the shuttles to get back to their respective ships before glancing back up at them.
“The fleet will transition at 0520. I want all wills and letters downloaded into the black boxes and ejected before we flash out. Let’s get to it, and I’ll see you all on the other side.”
They all saluted him again, and he returned it, watching them as they quietly and efficiently filed out of the conference room to get back to their respective ships. Once the last one had left, he sat back down wearily and looked over at Dominic, who had remained seated in his chair.
“Dom, please coordinate with the dreadnought AIs and Command Unit 581 for the flash out. I am going to sit here for a minute or two and then I’ll join you on the bridge.”
Dominic looked at him for a long moment before nodding his head and getting up. He reached the door before turning around suddenly. “Karl, what are you going to do about Samson?”
Thompson gave Dominic a grateful look for his consideration before quietly answering him. “I already thought of that; Doc gave me some medication for Samson, and he is sleeping inside a ventral escape pod. I gave it to him with some beef and gravy for dinner before coming here. He assured me that Samson will sleep through the whole thing and only wake up when injected with the antidote by either me or SAR.”
“That makes me feel better.” Dominic replied in a relieved voice before nodding to Thompson one last time and exiting the conference room. Now that he was by himself, he tapped on the control panel in front of him, and the door hissed shut.
He quickly accessed his personal account and began to download his will and death letters to the black box drones, wanting to get it out of the way before he left to go to the bridge.
He typed out a short addendum to his will, asking for his older brother Kevan to take Samson in the event of his death before providing the bank vault location where a flash drive with all his account numbers was stored. He read it after finishing typing to make sure he didn’t forget anything.
All the accounts I leave to you, Mary, and my nieces and nephews. Samson is like a son to me, so please take him in and let him live out the rest of his life in your home. He gets a medium-rare steak with gravy every Sunday night, and I would appreciate it if you could continue to do that for me.
Just a fair warning, he farts like nothing I have ever seen or smelled before, so consider this payback for all the times you hotboxed me when we were younger until you finally stopped after I kicked you in the nuts that time.
He had a life extension treatment done on him by his mother, Mei, before she passed, so he should be perfectly healthy and remain at his current equivalent age of five years old for at least the next fifteen years or so before he starts to age normally again. I know this is asking a lot of you, but at least now you can finally get the dog you and the kids always wanted without Mary using the cat as an excuse not to.
Samson has a strong spirit, and he will most likely test your right to be his pack leader, so be firm with him and don’t take any of his shit, Kevan. He’ll stop once he realizes you’re the boss, and he is extremely protective of kids and wants absolutely nothing to do with cats, so there is no need to worry on that end.
Who knows? Maybe Mary’s cat Okona will straighten him out for you, and you will not have to do anything at all. He likes to dismember stuffed toys, so don’t bother getting him any chew toys or balls; just a stuffed toy for him to murder is more than sufficient.
Mei’s parents aren’t long for this world, I think, after losing their daughter. It was hard on them, and still is, so please let them come and visit Samson whenever they want to if you can do that for me. It makes them happy, and it would mean a lot to me.
I love you, and my love to Mary and the kids. I’m sorry to leave you, and I wish I made more of an effort to see you and your family, but I know you understand how it is. I’m just glad you did your twenty and got out, and I wish you a long and happy life.
Thank you for always being a good big brother to me, and I’ll see you all on the other side.
Your loving brother,
Karl.
He downloaded the addendum into the black box drone and stood up, his hands still trembling slightly. They only shook before a battle, never during or after, which he always thought was weird until he found out from many others that it was the same for them.
He left the conference room and headed to the bridge, passing many crewmen going about their tasks in the main corridor and returning their respectful nods as they scurried past him.
He glanced at his wristcom to see how much longer he had before flashing out. 0502. Just enough time to hit the head and take a stim.
He stepped into the nearest communal head right before making the final turn into the short corridor that would take him to the bridge, and he sighed with relief as he drained his overfilled bladder at the empty bank of urinals.
After washing his hands and drying them, he reached into his inner chest pocket and pulled out the small stim he always kept in there. He pressed the subdermal injector directly over his carotid artery and depressed the plunger, the coolness spreading like a wave.
He looked at himself in the mirror, seeing a sharpness that was not there before entering his eyes as his pupils dilated. An energizing alertness came over him, and all the little aches and creaks that plagued his beat-up body vanished as he rolled his head around to crack his no longer stiff neck.
This newest version of the combat stim would prevent him from needing to drink, eat, piss, or crap for the next twelve hours, allowing him to stay on the bridge without having to leave for any of those reasons, though he did hear some scuttlebutt about it causing constipation for a couple of days.
Glancing at the wristcom again, he stared at the numerals being displayed on the screen. 0505. Fifteen more minutes to go. He left the communal head and continued towards the bridge, a youthful spring in his steps that he hadn’t felt since the battle of Eleania.
He walked down the short corridor and stopped two paces away from the two sleek, black, combat-suited Marine sentries guarding the bridge. He returned their perfectly crisp salutes and nodded appreciatively as they verified his identity and security codes with their scanners before they opened the armored door for him.
He entered the bridge and immediately walked over to his observer seat to the right of the empty captain’s chair, returning the salute of XO Carvalho, who stood up to salute him as he approached. She sat back down in her chair to the left of the captain’s and waited for him to get settled in before asking him if he wanted a final update on the fleet’s status.
He nodded and listened to her as he logged into his holographic interface and started rearranging the multiple windows that popped up in the way he preferred as she began to send him status updates to his terminal. Once she finished, he turned to face her and smiled in true appreciation.
“The captain is damn lucky to have you as his XO, and I mean that, Carvalho. You have a rare and special talent for filtering through all the useless nonsense I don't need and giving me exactly what I want instead.”
She beamed happily at his praise. “Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me coming from you.”
He smiled back at her before turning to look around the massive bridge, seeing all the bridge crew at their stations as they prepared the ship for departure and potential combat. Dominic was over by the tactical station, hunched over the workstation as he and the tactical officer gazed intently at whatever was being displayed in front of them.
He then looked at the massive viewer on the forward bulkhead, and his heart quickened at the sight of the 7th Fleet in their neat and orderly combat formations, ready to take the fight to whoever dared to stand against them. Nestled deep within the squat, cone-shaped fleet formation were the troopships and armored carriers, surrounded by their escort of ten Bunker Hill-Class Fast Battleships, led by Command Unit 581.
I can’t wait to see these new nullships in action, but hopefully not against the Farian Navy, he thought to himself as he stared at the graceful curves of the fast battleships and the numerous weapon hardpoints and sensor apparatuses that covered almost their entire hulls.
He didn’t bother looking for the two Ma’lit dreadnoughts accompanying them, as they were still cloaked and would continue to remain so until they reached Faria Prime. The hope was that their sudden appearance in front of the 7th Fleet when they reached the border would encourage the Farian Navy to stand down, but that was now no longer a consideration.
The Kingdom of Faria was suspected of having an active null space dampening system in place that would severely hamper the fleet’s journey through null space. This would have caused them to have to flash in and out of null space repeatedly, forcing them to run a 12.3 light-year gauntlet filled with multiple ambushes that would have sapped their numbers and depleted their weapons stocks.
Luckily, a cloaked Ma’lit scout ship was able to confirm that the Kingdom had not yet finished setting up the entire null space dampening system and charted a course that would allow the 7th Fleet to bypass the operational sections and reach Faria Prime without having to flash out during their passage through the Kingdom's territory.
Now, Thompson was hoping that the sudden appearance of not only the entire 7th Fleet but also the two Ma’lit dreadnoughts less than half a million kilometers from Faria Prime would shock the Farian defense forces in the system enough to allow him to get the 7th into orbit before the defense units could effectively respond to the incursion and the rest of the Farian Navy returned from the borders.
Once in orbit, he would broadcast a prerecorded message he had already made, demanding the Farian Navy stand down and not interfere, or they would begin orbital bombardment on all major population centers. They would not actually do that, of course, but he hoped the threat was enough to get them to hesitate while the ground troops and BioSynths dropped on their targets.
He was banking heavily on the Farians not knowing if the Republic Fleet would follow through on their threat to indiscriminately bomb the cities, as most of the older species still thought humanity was overly aggressive and quite capable of reverting back to their barbaric roots. His train of thought was derailed as Dominic suddenly appeared in front of him, scaring the shit out of him as the senior captain snapped a perfect salute to Thompson. He got up to return it and then sat back down again, knowing Dominic would not take the captain’s seat until he did so.
As soon as they were both seated, Thompson activated the privacy field around all three of them and looked at the XO and Dominic for a long moment before speaking. “Are you ready to do this?” They both nodded solemnly, and Thompson gave them a weak smile before speaking again. “The Indomitable is yours, so fight your ship as you see fit, Captain. I will focus on the entire fleet and only intervene if shit goes sideways, okay?”
Dominic nodded again, and Thompson leaned back before looking straight ahead. “Let’s get to it, then.” He toggled the privacy field control off, and the bridge returned to existence all around them as Dominic and Carvalho began to bark out a rapid stream of orders.
Two minutes later, Thompson closed his eyes and allowed the thrumming of the power systems feeding the null space capacitors to flow through his tense body as the battle AI counted down the last ten seconds to flash out. At the four-second mark, he opened his eyes again and stared at the viewer as the compact battle lines in the front of the cone formation began to flash out, his heart rate quickening from both excitement and fear.
He tightly gripped the ends of the armrests as the countdown finally reached zero, and the Indomitable’s bridge filled with a pure white light before making the transition into null space to take them to Faria Prime.
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