“I don’t even want to know what’s going on in there,” I said for BT’s ears only.
“Earth vessel USS Sentinel, what do you want?” High Commander Geralt asked.
“I want the complete and unconditional surrender of your planet,” I told him.
The translator did not have to work hard to translate a laugh. Though it was humorous to have his guttural heaves come through in English as Har Har Har. I mean, really. Who has ever har, har, harred?
“You are but one ship–”
I cut him off. “One ship that has already destroyed two of yours, crippled a third, and captured two.”
“The Julipion?”
“Gone. Not so much as salvage.”
He had the fucking audacity to ask: “Why?”
“Are you fucking stupid? You came to my planet, murdered, absolutely murdered billions of my people. Did you think we were just going to sit back and take it?”
“You have come here unannounced and killed hundreds of thousands of my kind; perhaps millions.”
“Don’t even try to swing this around, Geralt. If the High Council was responsible for sending ships to my planet, then this is all laid at your feet. We were pretty much minding our own business in our distant part of the universe when you decided you wanted what was ours. You can’t push a boulder down a mountain and just walk away from the avalanche. We’ve come for vengeance, for revenge, for justice…for the end of you. I’ll take any or all of those. And Geralt? I won’t stop until I get exactly what I want. If that means the absolute destruction of your planet, so be it.”
Geralt was taking his time responding, which meant he was plotting, but that was alright; we were repairing.
“Sir, we have Imminent Displacement,” Lane said.
“Are you kidding me? They have more ships? How could they possibly get messages off that fast and a response? Beckert, you’d better give me something that sounds like good news.”
There was a loud clang then an extended “Fuuuuck” over the monitor.
“That didn’t sound so good.” BT looked worried.
“See, that’s why you’re sitting here; so you can decipher the real meaning from the seemingly unrelated events that are happening around us.”
“Fuck you, Mike.”
“Multiple launches from the planet,” came from Tracy.
“Weapons?” I asked.
“Ships. Thousands of them. Fighters, shuttles, cargo…I think everything the planet has.”
“Evacuation?” I asked hopefully.
She shrugged. “I doubt it. I feel like they’d be heading to the armada for support, but they’re fanning out.”
“Protective barrier,” BT said.
“There you go, number two. Well, they can’t do anything to us,” I said.
“They could intercept our weaponry,” Fields said.
“Fire. fire now. Hit every major installation you can target.” If we lost this bargaining chip and this battle was over we’d be forced to run and then keep on running. Geralt would send far more ships than he needed to finish Earth off. Like BT thought, the tiny ships were attempting to shoot down what we had sent in. In a couple of instances vessels took the hit themselves, instantly disintegrating.
“Brave motherfuckers.” We watched as multiple locations on the planet flared bright reds, oranges, and yellows as they were reduced to ashes in moments under the inferno of raging fires. From this far up, even with our magnification, it hardly looked like more than strobes of light, but down there it was hell. Pilots had been mentally enabled to drop bombs on places they couldn’t see for years. I didn’t expect that it would take long for Geralt to respond, and I was not disappointed.
“We are in the middle of peace talks and you are still shooting!” he screamed.
“Do not play coy with me Geralt, you were doing your damnedest to take away my best bargaining chip. Withdraw your secondary vessels. Once they are back aboard the planet’s surface, we will stop.”
“That could take many moments.”
“Then I suggest you hurry up.”
Fields looked over to me. I nodded for him to continue. Two of the armada ships must have had enough; they broke from the group and were making full steam for us.
“Geralt!”
“They will no longer heed my instruction.”
“Cut comm. Great, he has ships going rogue. Beckert?”
“What?” he asked, but did not appear on the monitor.
“We’re going to need to slide again.”
“You do that hair-brained maneuver one more time and you’re going to find yourself floating around in space still attached to that fancy chair of yours!” he shouted. “And make sure you take Pender and his brilliant ideas with you!”
“Fields, stop shooting. Let’s see if they’ll stop moving.”
“That might look like a sign of weakness,” Tracy said.
“If it gets them to stop, I’m willing to lose a little face. They keep coming, and we need to keep sliding, and if Beckert’s right…”
“Oh, I’m right!”
“How did he even hear you?” BT asked.
“The Aradinian surface ships are pulling back. The two ships from the Armada will be in range in ten,” Tracy said.
“Turn to face them; let’s give them something to think about,” I said.
“They’re cruisers, we can take them,” Fields said. As if his words were the cue, they released hundreds of fighters that were going to make our job a lot more difficult.
“Alright, maybe they won’t talk to Geralt, but we can make them listen to us. Fields, pick one city and level it.”
He did as I asked. A large flare up on the screen signified the destruction of a heavily populated area. We held fire but the ships kept advancing.
“You can probably forget about that favor you asked for this morning,” BT said from the corner of his mouth, as he pointed up.
“Eight minutes,” Lane said.
“Pick another city, Fields. I don’t want so much as the Progerian version of a cockroach to escape the wreckage.”
Another city blasted into oblivion. We waited. They kept coming.
“Six minutes sir,” Lane said.
“Fields?”
He blinked out another city. We ceased fire and waited. I was just about to order him to fire again when our hard lesson was finally learned. The fighters held position around their mother ships.
“They are ninety seconds from range.”
In the context of space, that was less than a hair's breadth. I had a thought. “Pender!” I said much too loudly. “Five years is a long time, no?”
“One thousand eight hundred twenty-five and a quarter days, sir.”
“In an active war, though, that’s almost magnified, isn’t it?”
“Where you going with this, Mike?” Tracy asked, curiosity overriding protocol. I didn’t even notice; if I had and we lived I’d discipline her later…definitely couldn’t think about that now.
“At the beginning of World War II, we went from grenades to atomic bombs in roughly that same time-frame.”
“And?” BT was curious, though maybe he suspected where I was going with this.
“What if the Sentinel is more advanced than what they have out there? The computer estimates based on our capability, from five years in their future. What if it’s really another five minutes until they’re in range?”
“General, that’s very well possible. But you also need to remember that before the Progerians came, the United States used fifty-year-old battleships that were virtually the same as the day they left dry dock,” Captain Fields said.
“That’s true, but the United States wasn’t under much pressure to have an updated fleet, they still had the numbers and the technology was years ahead of their enemies. And if I remember right, their guidance systems had been drastically improved, giving them the ability to shoot missiles from the sky. The Progs have been in a continual war of survival for a century or
more. Naw,” I shook my head. “They would have taken every chance they had to give their ships an edge. I’ve got a feeling this ship is like an F-18 and those things out there are like P-51 Mustangs,” I said excitedly.
“That’s a pretty big leap of faith,” BT said.
“Long jump, yeah, I know. We’re going to need to push off hard. Colonel Talbot, drive us into weapons range.”
“Mike…General, is that wise?”
“No time for wisdom, Colonel. I gave you an order.” The personal fallout with my wife beat straight-answering if it was wise because it most assuredly was not; but I didn’t need everyone second guessing my decisions; the time for theoretics was past.
I received twin daggers of death from her eyes before she turned and got us moving. To their credit, the cruisers did not move.
“Their weapons are heating up,” Fields said as we approached.
“Thirty, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen…” Lane was announcing.
“At zero drop anchor,” I said, “not one inch closer.”
“In position,” Tracy said tight lipped.
“Their weapons are hot and ready,” Fields said.
“He makes it sound like lunch,” BT said.
“They’re not firing; that’s all that matters right now,” I said.
Geralt came back over the speakers. “We have convened an emergency session of the High Council and have voted to withdraw all of our forces from your planet. In return, you will leave this area immediately.”
“No,” I told him.
“Those are our terms!”
“I don’t give a flat fuck. I said unconditional surrender. There’s no guarantee once I stop pummeling your kind back into the swamp that you won’t retaliate a hundred-fold. My kind can’t afford anything but your absolute surrender.”
“You suspect us of subterfuge?”
“Suspect? No. Know without a doubt? Yes, yes I do. Maybe the Genogerians aren’t capable of lying, and you thought it would be hip to adopt that quaint custom, but only when it suits you. I have personally witnessed Progerians lying through their teeth on more than one occasion. So excuse me for not believing the shit that is spewing from your mouth.” I had a moment to ponder how that was going to come across in Progerian. Would it come across as an expression or a literal translation? Maybe something like “Pardon me for unaccountably doubting the unsavory words flying past your lips.” Or, “Why is feces falling from your face?”
“We cannot and we will not surrender.” Geralt said.
Well, there’s something I can believe. I thought. “Fire on the nearest cruiser.”
Fields let loose a bevy of space missiles. They sped to meet their destination. The fighters raced to shoot them down.
“Target the fighters, broad spectrum.”
The blowing up of an individual fighter was hardly a blip, but with enough of them, it looked like a huge grassy field in July flashing with lightning bugs. The cruiser behind was turning to get away; the closer one was moving to the side and forward, but as of yet, had not fired. They kept coming, even as the first of our missiles impacted the nose of the ship, punching it in and laying it flat against the hull like a boxer two seconds from the mat. Still, they had not returned fire.
“I knew it.” I smacked my fist into my cupped palm, very ala Captain Kirk, the over demonstration just seemed fitting. That smug sentiment changed quickly; only the over-confident can get hit so hard.
“They’re firing,” Fields announced.
“Too close to evade, Mike. We’re going to need to slide,” Tracy announced.
This was the time Beckert decided to show his mug. “You do that, General, and we either slide forever, or you know…boom.” He made an explosion noise and spread his hands to signify what would happen to our parts.
“Stand. We stand our ground.” I hoped to stand in solidarity; BT put a hand on mine as he saw me reaching for the buckle to my harness. He shook his head slowly and mouthed “no.”
Everyone was watching the screen as our death was hurtling toward us. I wanted to go over to my wife and hold her for what could be the last time. Then I thought it might be a trick of the light or my eyes and brain were conspiring to show me something I wanted to see. The rays dissipated and the missiles just flat out stopped and were drifting. Still coming our way, because of their inertia, but not at terminal velocity. I heard long exhales and even a nervous chuckle or two from around the bridge.
“Clean that mess up,” I told Fields, “and put that ship out of our misery. Lane, get Geralt back on the line.”
“This is Geralt.”
“Do you still doubt our resolve or capabilities?” I asked.
“You have advanced technology; the Julipion reports stated that you have barely started your own space exploration. Who have you allied with?”
“I’ve destroyed three of your ships in less than an hour, fifteen of your largest military bases, and seven cities. I think I’ll be the one that asks the questions. I mean…if I really feel like it. If you want to talk, then talk. Otherwise, I could finish this up by dinner and head home.”
“You insolent mouth shitter.” Maybe the translator was better than I thought. “We are the Empirical Progerian Dynasty. We rule the known galaxy!”
“Cut comm. Fields, target something close to that transmission.”
“Mouth shitter.” BT smiled. “Seems like he might have known you for a long time.”
I waited until the surface glowed before I had Lane re-establish the connection. Alarms were blaring in the background at whatever building Geralt was huddled in.
“We are ceasing all military activity; we ask that you do the same.” This was a different voice.
“Who am I speaking with?”
“High Council member Dendrun. I, we request that you come to the surface so that we can discuss terms.”
“Not a chance, Dendrun. Load up your council and come up here. You have my word I will not fire upon your ship, if it behaves itself. But if you bring one Devastator on board I will light you up. And in case there is a problem with the translation, that means I will shoot you so far out of the sky you’ll land in next week. You have an hour; if I don’t see a shuttle heading my way I will consider my invitation declined. I will be forced to assume that you are remaining hostile to us and I will resume the bombardment of your planet and the destruction of your ships.”
“Three of the ships buckled,” Tracy said.
“Reinforcements?” BT asked.
“Possible, but they could just get a transmission off. My guess is they are going to try and buckle back close to us.”
“We’ll see them coming, right?” he asked worriedly.
“No reason not to think that,” I told him.
“Actually, sir there is,” Pender said.
Go on, I motioned with my hands. “We only pick up the buckle signatures of ships we know; it’s possible those aren’t logged anywhere so we wouldn’t register them when they come back. The good news is that they have not worked their way around the quantum physics of a buckle, so it will still be a little over two hours before they can turn around.”
“I don’t like the idea of ships just randomly popping in and out. We can move away from here, but at some point, they’re going to hit the lottery and we’re going to be sitting there with our thumbs shoved up our asses.”
“We get the High Council aboard we can use them as hostages,” Fields said.
“There’s no guarantee they’ll actually come. Even if they send a ship, Mike, we won’t know if they are who they say they are.” Tracy raised some doubt, and I remembered when Sabé took the hit for Padmé. “They’ve already proven they will sacrifice themselves; maybe they send some imposters up here.”
“And we think we’re playing an ace when it’s a big smelly deuce. That, gentlemen, is why women will always win in a fight. They’re just fucking smarter.”
“And more devious,” BT said super softly.
“Brave moth
erfucker you are when you don’t think anyone can hear.”
“There’s more, sir,” Pender intoned.
“Beckert, you want Pender back?”
“No, sir.”
“Go ahead,” I said to him.
“There’s a chance this close to Aradinia the ground could still communicate with the buckled ships and could relay our location almost real time.”
“Lane, that possible?” I asked.
“I…don’t…well maybe, in theory.”
“Seems their lottery system is rigged,” BT said.
“Dendrun is asking to speak to you,” Lane said.
I nodded.
“We have acquiesced to your demands. We can be aboard your ship in two hours. We need your assurance that we will not be fired upon.”
I slashed my hand in the air across my throat to cut off comm. “Well isn’t that some convenient timing? They’ll be here just as the buckled ships are coming back. I’d call that a tipped hand. Beckert where you at with repairs?”
“Good news is that we have the parts and some ideas to keep them stronger and more stable.”
“And?” I prodded. “Come on Beckert, I never get pros without some measure of cons from you.”
“Going to need about eight hours to do it.”
“Scotty from the Enterprise could do it in two. Would it be easier if the buckle drive was free of its moorings?” I asked.
“Sir?”
“Because it and your technicians will be free-floating in space if it takes you that long,” I told him.
“I don’t know what the hell you think we’re doing down here, sir, but this isn’t an oil change.”
“My engineering department is full of jokes today,” I gritted out.
“Wonder where he gets it from,” BT said.
“Get the horn going, Lane. Alright, Dendrun. we look forward to your presence and the opportunity to come to a peaceful resolution.”
“Very–” Lane turned off comm at my request.
“Beckert or Pender, I only want one of you to answer and it needs to be the answer I want.”
“Very dictator-like of you,” BT said.
“Can a ship change direction in buckle? I am already under the assumption this cannot happen, so don’t bother with the basics.”