COMMANDER

“A couple of ideas, Captain, thoughts, mainly. As pointed out earlier, we have no real idea of when, if, or who might be the next to jump into this system. It is my belief we should both take the time needed to get our defensive and offensive capabilities to as high a level as possible, and also be planning on how we might take the fight to the enemy. Why continue to fight here from a defensive posture, placing Hanos in peril and, quite literally, dancing to the tune of the LCP? Why not try to find a way to take it to them, or even straight to their home world to take out the ruling caste? I mean, in a hive society, to destroy the nest you first need to take out the queen, or king, as the case may be. Cut the head off of the snake and the body dies, as the adage goes.”

“Bold ideas, Commander. Be careful to not bite off more than we can chew,” admonished Lewellyn.

“I’m not advocating a headlong dive into uncharted and unknown waters, Captain. We have their ship, a slaver ship, and we have prisoners of several caste levels. All of the intel we need is at our fingertips if we can just have the time necessary to grasp it. We have hypno-trainers adapted by the Medical AI to be an interrogation unit and we are learning a great deal, though, most of our prisoners are simply not of high enough rank to be privy to the full level of knowledge we desire about the LCP interactions.

“I am just saying, our goal should not be just defense and offense here in this system. Our goal, everything we aim our efforts at, should be to win at the endgame. From where we found ourselves a few months ago, we have made monumental advances. Everyone has sacrificed and performed above and beyond what even we thought ourselves capable, and we can all take great pride and satisfaction in what we have accomplished. However, let us not take our eyes and focus off of the main goal.”

“Well said, Commander,” stated the captain. “We all have much to consider, and much to do. Let’s adjourn for now and take up the discussion again at the next meeting. One last thing, have you determined how we will proceed in the Dullin case, Commander?”

“Not yet, Captain. This is a sticky situation for me. For the Marines, the case is cut and dried. The accused committed the crime of attempted murder of both the Marine Commander and of the Ship’s Doctor. Evidence is clear, and he has, in fact, voluntarily confessed to both crimes. For this, he would normally be sentenced to death and summarily spaced.

“However, I recognize this is a politically-charged situation, as well. This man represents the feelings of a good many Hanosians, and his execution could have very negative repercussions with your dealings with the planetary government. There are probably many of them who would like to have seen him succeed. I would appreciate having your counsel, Captain, before I make any decisions on how to proceed.”

“I see,” Lewellyn responded. “In my opinion, Commander, we can allow no political considerations to affect our judgment in situations such as this. If one of my people were attacked in the same manner, by a Hanosian sailor, I would not hesitate one instant over political ramifications. Hanosian or human or alien is not the consideration. A member of the military, who swore an oath to that military, has committed a crime against the military. The situation is clear, and must be dealt with clearly. The disciplinary action should match the transgression.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Very good. Thank you, everyone.”

After the battle with the Shaquaree, Hanos spent one month in discussions between the leadership of the four continents and taking polls and votes from the citizens. Nearly unanimously, they committed the full resources of the planet and the people into upgrading to the new technologies and to becoming a fully space-faring planet.

I convened a tribunal hearing for the Dullin incident. I requested a Navy legal expert to stand as defense counsel, and Lewellyn agreed. Several Hanosian governmental personnel were invited to attend as witnesses that the entire proceeding was handled fairly and correctly. With the evidence from the AI and the man’s own confession, which he again voluntarily corroborated at the hearing, the conviction was required. The sentence, read straight from the regulations manual, was death by execution in the most humane and quickest method available. Aboard a ship in space, this meant cycling him out an airlock without a suit. Although, with recent upgrades, we had modified this to transporting him into open space.

Though they could not disagree with the evidence, the confessions, or the verdict and sentence, the planetary representatives filed “humanitarian” grievances against both the Navy and the Marines, anyway. Trooper Dullin was spaced within the hour, and his body sent back to Hanos with the representatives at their demand.

New technologies were openly shared now, between the Navy, the Marines, and Hanos, with the exception of transporters. Even the government leaders of Hanos agreed this was simply too much risk. If some dissenting group or criminal element were to gain control of a working transporter, the results could be catastrophic.

In six months, two more incursions by Shaquaree and one by Torbor occurred. Using our new translation programs, we commed each and signaled our desire of truce and to enter dialogs toward peace. In each case, our comms were completely ignored and those enemy ships began hostile actions without warning or comms of any kind, just attacks.

We transported photonic devices directly onto the bridges of the ships which appeared and took each one out within minutes of jump-in, and then plundered the carcass and incarcerated the prisoners captured. Soon, we would need to create some sort of prison facilities to house them all. Hopefully, if we could ever get either race to begin honest dialogs of truce and peace with us, we would be able to repatriate those prisoners. The alternative was, for the moment, unpalatable.

The space dock was completed and boasted ten fabricators and twenty raw materials drones. The Phoenix was completely refit and fully operational. Captain Lewellyn moved to take command of the battleship-class Phoenix and Dotes was promoted to Captain of the Rontar. The Shaquaree ship was being refit by Hanos as a civilian trade vessel, with the shields and weapons of a warship. Crew for the new Hanosian vessel were being trained alongside Navy and Marine crews.

We graduated our second full class and were well into rotation of a third for the Navy and the Marines. Flynn was promoted to major and, along with Major Jenkins, they commanded an oversize billet each with three full Wedges. Major Donner now commanded four teams, two under Lieutenant Vickers and two under Lieutenant Bolton. Donner had made a bold move and put Bolton, Dog, in charge of Team Zulu after Boomer went outside. Dog had responded to the challenge and was now a competent leader.

Another six months passed. Four more incursions of enemy jumping in occurred. By this time, we had learned more and had much better sensor arrays. We had improved our knowledge and capability with the transporters, too. We could now transport through full power shields, ours and theirs.

Cmdr. Hampstead and team had found references in the Torbor archives about some of the chemical weapons used by the insectoid race, called the Kraal. From the descriptions therein, the science team had formulated a new toxic gas; very, very deadly. The Marines made up delivery devices for the gas.

With the new incursions, we would transport toxic gas devices into several places inside the enemy ships; bridges, power generator bays, holds, and crew spaces. The gas was incredibly virulent. It had a property which combined with oxygen and hydrogen atoms and spread like nothing we had ever seen. From a single device detonating, many thousands of cubic meters would be infected at a fatal level to any living thing in less than two seconds.

The intel we gathered and the knowledge we gained was phenomenal, not to mention increasing the size of our fleet by doubles and triples with only refit time and resources. We were gathering ships faster than we could produce captains and crews to man them.

Such physical knowledge was not all we gained. Through study of their computer records and through interrogations, it was more than clear the attitude of both alien races of Torbor and Shaquaree were true to their races. They both considered themselves, as races, to be incomparably superior to the miserable human race. Their societies were viewed as functional, civilized, and advanced compared to our barbaric existence. The fact that the other, even more advanced races of the LCP had them taking humans as slaves and destroying human home worlds was simply a good excuse for them to practice whatever sorts of evil they desired on us.

We even tried to allow for the lowest castes of both races being overpowered by their own ruling bodies, with the leaders shouting propaganda and the followers having little choice but to obey. Whether due to time of propagandizing being measured in centuries or just inherent in the beings, it was not clear, but the phobia of hating, despising, and desiring to ruin or destroy humanity was quite clear at every caste level. Again, even in this, we shared everything we learned with the leaders of Hanos.

At the two-year mark, the Navy had ten battleships, two dreadnoughts, one frigate, six corvettes, and a corresponding fleet of fighters and Wasps. Lewellyn was appointed admiral of the Fleet, by declaration of support by the Hanosian government, support by the Navy Flag Officer Council, and by my statement of promotion. I commanded two oversize clans through four majors, and two SOG teams per clan under Major Donner. Recruitment was slowing on the planet as more citizens were being involved in the rush to space and the necessities of running the evolving planetary economy.

Carla and I had our ups and downs as we juggled our professional and personal lives but through it all, our love grew. Both of us were so busy we were only able to get together a few times a month, despite speaking together several times a day. Those times together, though, were worth whatever trouble or trials came our way. I still made appearances in the training, both classroom and PT, still pushing myself to train as hard or harder than any trooper I commanded. Obviously, that did not work simply because there was so little time available for it anymore. Still, every trooper knew me by sight and I knew nearly all of them.

Doctor Annsbury did make a full recovery. She decided to stay on Hanos and to work in the hospitals on the planet rather than return to the ship. We heard through scuttlebutt she was in a relationship with a Hanosian doctor.

The medical staff had surprised me one afternoon by calling me to the hospital. There, they showed me my new leg! They had harvested some stem cells during the surgery to implant my cybernetic leg, and had designed a machine and methodology to grow a new limb from the stem cells. By attaching electrodes and using stimulation in the regen tanks, the muscles had been strengthened. With a couple of days of surgery and therapy, I would soon be 100 percent flesh and blood, again! Mondo!

Captain Dotes began taking the Rontar and two corvettes on scouting missions, T-jumping into other systems to check on registered Earth colonies from the Hanosian archives and corroborated by alien archives. Our star charts, and those plundered from the enemy, now contained eighty-seven designated colony planets throughout our galaxy. The first three he checked were completely dead and irradiated systems, every planetary body ruined by heavy radiation to prevent any mining of any resources for humankind. In a fourth system all they found was destruction. There should have been three planets and an asteroid belt further out. Whatever had happened there, all three planets had been reduced to rubble.

System after system, it went on the same way. In the sixteenth system checked, Dotes found an alien civilization. They were humanoid, at least, bi-pedal with two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. They called themselves the Wassun. They had space travel limited to within their own system, and recordings of their transmissions indicated they were similar to us in many ways, although clearly not human. Dotes did not make contact, instead bringing back the information to present to the admiral and the Hanosian leadership council. They would decide how to proceed with the Wassun.

Of the Earth colony supposed to be in that system, there was no evidence, but no dead or irradiated planets, either. Only one other planet was close enough to the HZ, Habitable Zone, to be considered viable for an Earth colony, neither too close nor too far from the star and having a steady, nearly circular orbit. The planet showed no EM transmissions or power readings of any kind. Dotes did not get in-system far enough to have any visual readings on the planet.

At two years, six months, a fleet of twenty Torbor dreadnought-class warships jumped into the Hanosian system. By then, we had ten automated defense space stations peppered around the system in static orbits. Each station had a large AI networked to all other stations and Fleet AIs, and a transporter platform with fifty pads, each pad capable of independent destination and simultaneous transmission. Each defense station carried a complement of ten thousand gas devices and ten thousand each of photonic and quantum devices.

We added twenty Torbor dreadnought warships to our growing fleet, assigning an AI and a fleet of refit robots to each. They would do the work of refitting the Torbor vessels for human habitation, and the AI would run the ship automatically until it was ready for a human crew.

“I cannot and will not condone genocide!” exploded President Bota Tonnoe.

“I am not proposing genocide for the Torbor,” I answered, as calmly as I could manage. “My plan is reduction of military capability and quarantine . . . not genocide.”

“It may as well be genocide for what it could do to the Torbor race!” countered a balding and elderly male Hanosian council member. “They are a race of travelers and traders! Their society will stagnate and begin to fail, to retrogress just as ours did without outside contact and trade goods. Surely, you know this! Surely you cannot be serious about this quarantine and embargo!”

“I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley,” I snapped my response.

I almost laughed out loud at the joke I knew the councilman would not understand. Andreas hid a quiet chuckle behind a false cough. It was a quote reference from an old Earth vid in our archives called Airplane. Most of the references in the movie were so archaic and colloquial we had no concept of what they might mean but, overall, the movie was as funny as outlandish slapstick should be and quite popular with Marines.

“Councilman Dussein is correct,” Tonnoe stated imperiously after recovering quickly from the confusion my remark caused. “The end results of such attacks could mean incredible and detrimental change to their society. We cannot, and will not, condone such measures of offensive actions. And, all equivocating aside, you have proposed genocide for the Shaquaree!”

“You prefer to remain eternally on the defensive? It is fortunate, then, the decision is not yours to make,” I responded.

Admiral Lewellyn said, “Commander Rawlings is correct, President Tonnoe, council leaders. This decision falls into the province of the Marines only. Not even I may have anything but recommendations at this point.”

“But . . . you can’t be serious!” cried a council member. “To destroy a whole race?”

“Even if the race is one who has sent nearly sixty of its own warships against you, and has enslaved multiple colony world populations and then reduced those colonies to radioactive cinders?” I responded angrily. “Are you people insane? They want to enslave you and destroy you! They want to perform genocide on the human race! We . . . are . . . at . . . war . . . with . . . them . . . all of them . . . the whole of the LCP! Do you really think for one moment they have any compunction at all for what they want to do to us?”

“Their actions don’t matter!” cried the same council member. “We have to be responsible for our own morals and ethics regardless of what another race may do. After all, their values are different from ours.”

Tonnoe broke in again, “If this is a new society, a new Fleet as you have described yourselves, then we all should have the ability to remake the rules and conditions as we see them now, in context with current situations. We demand there be a full leadership enclave to discuss this before any action is taken.”

“We have shared fully everything we have learned about both the Torbor and the Shaquaree,” I said to them as gently and calmly as I could manage. “We have been humane with prisoner interrogations where they have tortured humans with glee. We have interrogated every single ship sent against us for truce and peace, only to have them ignore us, not respond to us, and to attack without provocation. We have sent robotic envoys to the Torbor home system to entreat for dialog toward truce and peace, and they have either never returned or have been sent back to this system as debris! They . . . do . . . not . . . want . . . peace! Their every action, of both races, have been unspoken declarations of total war with the goal of annihilation of humanity.”

“Can you not take out their leadership without destroying the entire race?” asked a female council member. “Can we not just do that, then leave them alone? Wouldn’t that be enough to change all of the dynamics to our favor?”

“Have you not been listening at all, Councilwoman?” I asked with incredulity clear in my tone.