Earth Song: Etude to War (4 page)

A hundred clicks farther on, the pilot gained some altitude as they rocketed over the leading edge of an algae flow. Like massive glaciers, some were as much as a kilometer thick and a thousand kilometers long. Studies through telescopes by scientists on Bellatrix in centuries gone by showed that some rafts of algae lasted for decades.

The shuttle slowed and effected a wide sweeping turn, giving them a bird’s eye view of the settlement. Minu was reminded once again of a deep ocean oil platform from old Earth, only much bigger. Hundreds of meters on a side, the platform was supported by huge legs with floats dipping in to the algae.

Complex hydraulic cylinders moved the legs’ position to keep the platform steady, almost walking on the surface as the sea undulated below. On top, dozens of buildings rested holding the Rasa settlers. And on one side, a dock sat almost level with the algae. The passengers could see an armada of bots moving to and fro by the dock, busily harvesting the thick, protein-rich organism.

Different levels of the algae growth yielded different types of proteins. Only some had value, so the bots worked to quickly exploit veins of the ideal kind. The raft of algae would eventually break up and the platform would migrate to a new one.

As the shuttle came in on final, a Rasa stood in the center of the landing pad, two glowing wands held in his claws, guiding them with hand movements to a gentle landing. The Rasa waved, his face hidden by the bulky breathing mask he wore. Remus might have been teaming with life, but the oxygen content was too low to support complex organisms like humans, or Rasa. The atmosphere was predominantly carbon dioxide, just how the algae liked it.

With their masks in place the three friends moved to the door as it slid into the hull. Aaron didn't need his cane in the 1/4
th
gravity of Remus, another reason he enjoyed the trip so much. As they descended the ramp, the leader of the Rasa came out of an adjacent building and bounded towards them with long hops.

Anyone who lived on Remus long enough learned to deal with the reduced gravity and take advantage of it. The Rasa easily made five-meter jumps and skittered right up the side of hundred-meter tall gantries without a seconds thought. To Minu it looked like they considered it the ultimate playground.

“Welcome!” Var'at hissed as he approached. “It has been too long!” They all exchanged greetings as he guided them towards the nearest building. “We have a meal ready if you are hungry?”

“No squidge?” Aaron asked.

Var'at put a hand to his face, unable to cover his mouth because of the mask. “You don't like squidge?”

They all gave him a dirty look and his mouth fell open in the Rasa version of laughter.

“Of course not, we all know of your squeamishness. No, dinner is lamb and sea kelp! You will love it.”

It almost sounded like an order, and luckily it was as good as advertised. The sheep were grown on their secret land down on Bellatrix, the kelp was cultivated there on Remus. Several of Var'at’s assistants attended the meal along with his brothers, Kal'at, and Zar'at. Already Ted and Kal'at were deep in discussion to solve the problems with the bots while Kal'at was talking about their living conditions.

“The oxygen isn't absent, only below the six percent our species normally requires to survive. What is fascinating is that this new generation being born here, from eggs fertilized on Remus, seem to be adapting!”

“I thought that was impossible?” asked Minu.

“Impractical, really. It is only two percent less than we are accustomed to. The hatchlings all have much larger lungs than we do. It is amazing to watch them adapt.”

As if on cue one of the Rasa young appeared through an open door. The tiny version of the adults had a smaller head and they preferred to move on all fours. Var'at was right, its chest was twice the size you would expect, but that didn't slow the little guy down. It surveyed the room with its turreted independent eyes, made a decision, and struck. With lightning fast speed it leaped on the table, seized a large piece of uneaten lamb, and retreated.

Var'at laughed and made a halfhearted swing at the infant, one claw nicking a leg as it retreated without being slowed down. The first time Minu saw this sort of behavior towards the Rasa young she was horrified. Then she discovered that the little ones were not sentient until two years old, at which time they bonded with an adult and began to learn language. “That one is almost ready to bond. I think he will choose me.”

Not if you kill it first, Minu thought. “How many young are at this settlement?”

“With so few of us left,” Zar'at explained, “I am using fertility drugs to increase egg production in the females. There are between two and three thousand young here.”

“So many?” Aaron gasped.

“Not so many, friend,” Var'at told him, “only one in ten will live to bond. They often prey on each other and are prone to...mistakes.”

Minu shuddered at the idea of young sentient beings eating each other or succumbing to lethal accidents at a rate of ten to one.

Zar'at shrugged. “We considered keeping this hatching contained, but research on our home world indicated there would be deleterious side effects to such an experiment.”

“Such as?” Minu wondered.

“Much more violent tendencies during their middle years, and a decreased lifespan.”

“I'd call that serious,” Aaron agreed.

Minu nodded then heard a high-pitched buzzing in her ear.

“Excuse me a moment,” she said, getting up to walk a few meters away. Aaron watched her go, knowing she was getting a secure call.

Minu tapped the little blue gem behind her right ear The implant had been installed by the Medical Intelligence aboard the Kaatan years ago as a way to be sure she could always talk to her daughter, any time, no matter what, and no matter how far away. “Hi Lilith.”

“Hello mother.” The greeting hadn't changed in six years, and probably never would. The girl didn't lend herself to familial greetings like mom, or momma.

“We'll be there in a few hours, what's the urgency?”

“I am not in orbit behind Romulus any longer.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Fifteen minutes ago, another starship entered our solar system.”

Chapter 3

Julast 14th, 533 AE

Geosynchronous Orbit Behind The Moon Romulus, Bellatrix Star System

Lilith remembered every moment of her life, going back to when she was still inside the artificially created womb the Kaatan's Medical Intelligence fabricated to mature her from a discarded fetus to a nine year old girl. The ship had planned to use the unpredictable time variations around a supra-luminal starship to mature her to fifteen, the ideal age to become the biological half of a Kaatan warship. Unfortunately that unpredictable nature saw her taken from that medium several years too soon. She'd spent the last six years, or most of it, inside the ship as its sole crew member.

Occasionally she left the Bellatrix system to wander among the stars. Usually when she got bored watching the affairs of 'her people' from on high, or when she was confused by her own body. Recently, she'd began to see disturbing differences in her behavior. Television broadcasts from Bellatrix were more interesting than before, especially those that contained human males that were considered muscular and handsome. She was the Combat Intelligence of a Kaatan class warship, one of the most formidable instruments of battle ever made! What possible interest could a mere human hold for her?

Her main duty to her people was to watch the heavens. From her quiet little outpost in close geosynchronous orbit over Romulus she had a perfect view for light-years in all directions.

She knew there was little chance one of the T'Chillen warships would come here seeking revenge. They had no clue it was humans who piloted the Kaatan they'd spirited away from the fire-base in Enigma. They'd believed it was the Rasa, and thus had annihilated them on their own home world. If Lilith hadn't been awoken there, the T'Chillen would have claimed the Kaatan as well. Instead, the newly awoken Lilith had dealt with the clunky, outmoded snakes’ spaceships and returned her passengers to Bellatrix.

While keeping the ship’s sensors trained outwards, she spent a lot of time studying human history, helping them invent new things to make humanity more powerful, and watching dramas on TV.

She'd been watching one in particular, 'As Remus Orbits', the story of a handsome man named Chad and how he fought to become one of the Chosen. It was an impractical story, he was many years too old for the Trials. Just now he was professing his love for a woman who was not interested in him. He paid particular attention to her breasts, having difficulty keeping his eyes from them. They were quite large and bounced as she walked in the heavy gravity of Bellatrix.

Lilith looked down at her own breasts, such as they were. What was the human male’s fascination with mammary glands, anyway? They played no direct link in the reproductive act, at least that she'd read in technical journals. Like her mother who was small-busted, she was even more so. Gravity had a lot to do with how a woman’s body matured, and Lilith had only experienced it a couple times.

Where the TV woman’s bosoms stood out full and with a lot of cleavage, her own were quite tiny and pointed. What little fat that her body possessed was distributed to more important places. Lilith frowned and tried to use her hands to scoop them from the side and make them appear bigger. That was when she noticed that the sensor alarms had been trying to get her attention.

She cursed in the ancient language of the People and banished the show with a wave of her hand. Surrounded in the power of the Kaatan, she extended her awareness outward. In a split-second, her mind covered a full parsec of space.

Normally there was little to look at. The space that Bellatrix resided in was somewhat boring as space went. A minor pulsar and a small swarm of rare extra-solar comets was about it. But now there was the telltale evidence of a supra-luminal ship about to arrive. The distortion was unmistakable, as was its destination: Bellatrix. In a flash she brought the ship’s drives to life and opened the FTL radio link to her mother and told her what was happening.

“We'll be there in thirty minutes!”

“Do not attempt that,” Lilith warned; “the ship is already precipitating into normal space. It is inside the orbit of Valhalla and likely we are in their sensor range.”

Minu cursed and smacked a fist into her palm, luckily punching with the left. Aaron was up and next to her, a worried look on his face. She quickly brought him up to speed. “Are you ready to run?” she asked her daughter.

“I have moved to an orbit opposite the approaching ship, but a Kaatan warship does not run.”

“That may be true, but you are alone. You don't know what you’re facing; what if that ship is more powerful?”

Lilith snorted, something she'd picked up from her mother. She rather liked the expressive emoting without words. “Unlikely. But as you say, the drives are spun up, both gravitic and tactical. If they discover that I am hiding here, your world is in serious danger. The only logical course of action at that point is to destroy them before they can get word out.”

“Thanks, but you're more use to us alive than dead. Have you notified Chosen command?”

“Via data stream at the same time I called you. Hold one, data is starting to come in from passive sensors.”

The Kaatan sat still and quiet, settling its orbit over a massive impact crater on the outside face of Romulus. The natural energy-absorbing qualities of the crater added to the Kaatan's own stealth features to make it all but completely disappear. She knew they would only see her if they looked directly at her. So the important question was, who were they, and why were they here?

As the new arrival passed by the rings of Valhalla, it presented Lilith with a number of good images. The design was completely unlike the amalgamated messes of the T'Chillen capital ships. This was a sleek flying cylinder, its surface only interrupted in places by weapons blisters, sensor arrays, and docking bays. The front suggested massive shield systems while the aft contained powerful drives. The T'Chillen battleships were sledgehammers, this was a delicate foil. Delicate, but deadly.

The new ship swept the system efficiently with its sensor beams, wave after wave of multi-spectral energy prodding here and there. Some reflected data back, others illuminated worlds and belts so they were more visible to other passive sensors. Nothing about the sweep spoke of subtlety.

Lilith was certain this visitor had no idea she was here. One shipkiller launched on low power would catch it completely unaware. And in that moment she considered destroying it. One devastatingly swift attack and it would all be over. Once stunned it wouldn't matter how powerful those shields were; a full spread of six sub-fusion shipkillers would turn it into a glowing ball of plasma in a most efficient manner.

Ultimately it was curiosity that stayed her hand. The ship wasn't here for war, it presented a docile front. And it wasn't here for a stealthy reconnaissance, it was putting out enough radiation to nuke a sheep at a hundred kilometers.
So what was it doing here?

As it drifted deeper into the Bellatrix star system, Lilith consulted her files. To her surprise, the answer came quickly.

“It is a Tog ship,” Lilith announced.

“What? The Tog have ships too? Why didn't you tell me that?”

“Well, I guess it’s a language barrier. All my files are in the language of the People. Only Pip has some command of it, rudimentary as it is, he often relies on me to translate. The Tog aren't known by that name to the People, they are the P'ing.”

“That's interesting,” Minu said. That just happened to be the name of the highest ranking Tog they dealt with. Many humans thought of her as the leader of the species, but Minu knew she was more like a council member on a ruling board. “How long have the Tog been around?”

“As long as the People. Very old.”

“How many other species still in existence have starships?”

“I cannot say. However, I will endeavor to translate as many existing species as possible, now that we are aware that more than one possess starships.”

If her daughter’s data proved accurate, and there was no reason to doubt her, that made the count two higher order species with working ships. Minu had a sinking feeling that she now knew the price of admission to that club.

Since she'd first starting learning about the Concordia, and before from stories told by her father, she'd believed spaceships a thing of the past. The story was they'd been abandoned as too expensive or impractical eons ago. Yet here was evidence that ancient species held onto those ships, and still used them. But did that also mean the T'Chillen had been around for eons as well? How could such a hostile species be so long lived in the Concordia without having learned to play well with its neighbors?

The commonly held belief was that species came and went, some ascending to the level of 'higher order' before eventually fading once more into obscurity. Maybe that was completely wrong.

“What is the Tog ship doing?”

“Just scanning now.”

“Can you tell what it’s interested in?”

Lilith contemplated the myriad sensor data coming in from the ship around her, the Kaatan gently sniffing the flavor and direction of emission from the other ship millions of kilometers away. It was indeed indicating particular interest. “Initially it swept the entire star system, now it is spending a lot of time analyzing the sun.”

“Can you tell what for?”

“Not without revealing my presence.”

“Don't do that.”

“I have no intention… just yet anyway.” Lilith didn't say the last part of that aloud.

“Is there—”

“Just a moment,” Lilith interrupted, “the ship is changing course.” She observed as it quickly orbited Valhalla and gained a much less obscured look of Bellatrix itself, and its two moons. “They are scanning our vicinity much more intensely.”

Down on Remus, Minu held her breath, worried what would happen if they detected the Kaatan in its hidden orbit. Would they attack? Would they come closer to investigate?

Much more worrisome was what would Lilith do in that situation? Regardless of her much improved demeanor towards her fellow humans, she was still a dangerous person in her ship, which she regarded as part adoptive parent, part home, part suit of medieval armor.

“Any idea what it is looking at specifically?”

“Yes. You. The settlements on Remus are under intense scrutiny right now.”

Minu considered telling Var'at to prepare for evacuation, then decided against it. She-knew that from Valhalla to Bellatrix was only minutes in one of the powerful gravity driven starships. It took the four shuttles from the Kaatan almost nine months of weekly flights to build, supply, and staff the settlements.

At best she could cram half the Rasa on this one platform into her shuttle, thereby also rendering it so overloaded that it would be easy prey for an attack. If the ship decided to attack the settlements, could Minu even bring herself to leave them alone to die? Save her own life and abandon the faithful Rasa allies? Luckily, she didn't have to answer that question.

“The ship is changing course,” Lilith reported; “to head out of the system.”

“Do you know where it's going?”

“I will report when I return.”

“Lilith! Don't follow that ship!”

“I thought we'd had this discussion and resolved my status long ago.”

“This is different; we don't know about the Tog and these ships! We don't know if they're even piloted by Tog, maybe some other species salvaged them.”

“Unlikely considering their very suspicious presence in your star system.”

“Regardless, you can't risk yourself.”

“Myself, or my ship.”

“Lilith, don't be that way.”

“I will be back.” And with that, Lilith terminated the connection.

“What happened?” Aaron asked.

“She's going after the Tog ship.”

The Kaatan came alive in a flash as soon as the Tog ship made the leap to supra-luminal travel. In seconds, full power was being channeled to propulsion. Lilith oriented the ship and shoved off the big moon's appreciable gravity well, leaping from standing still to thousands of kilometers per second in an instant.

It was one of the tactical advantages the Kaatan possessed, their ability to neutralize thousands of gravities of force while performing unbelievable maneuvers. The move delivered megatons of force to the moon. Even diffused across half its surface, a series of quakes rocked the planet. These facts didn't concern Lilith; the moon’s gravity well was just a means to an end. She'd analyze the orbit when she returned, to be sure no real damage was done.

She subscribed a half million kilometer arc, clearing the wider gravity well of Bellatrix and skirting the even more massive well of Vegas. All the while, Lilith recorded sensor data at a furious pace.

As her training dictated, she was looking for any nasty surprises left behind. Detection webs, gravitic mines, high energy traces indicating the ship was perhaps damaged in some way were just a few of the things she was looking for. In the five minutes since she'd boosted away from Romulus, Lilith passed within a hundred thousand kilometers of where the Tog ship scanned Remus. A few final sensor readings completed, she jumped past the light speed barrier in hot pursuit of the other ship.