Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (59 page)

Chapter 12: A Malevolent Force

A year after Medford was voted out of office, in a narrow presidential victory for DEW, the Democratically Empowered Workers, the LOR, Leaders of the Old Republic, still held a slim majority in both branches of Parliament. The political right wing couldn’t save Medford’s career, not after her embarrassing and humiliating showing on the Capitol steps. But they were able to rally enough of the conservative and religious voter factions in the Hub itself, and many of those on the sympathetic Old Colonies, who took in the devastated survivors and refugees from Meadow and Bootstrap.

Those conservative voters reelected many incumbent LOR representatives. Those that won reelection were more successful if they were sure to condemn Kobani genetic modification of the human genome, despite the Kobani being responsible for ending the war. The party managed to link the destruction of two planets to Kobani gene changes, as if this were somehow related to the Gene War disaster of three hundred years ago, and not part of the effort to defeat the Krall.

It was pointed out by the LOR, that Captain Mirikami was originally from New Honshu, the home of the clones that were the targets in the Gene War. Now he led the people that had actually exceeded the genetic changes of those past centuries, bringing about yet another disaster.

It had been two years since the defeat of the Krall, yet politics had blocked diplomatic recognition of the Galactic Federation, despite the support of President Marlene Strickland, and her Vice President, Adriana Bledso, formerly Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The choice of Bledso as the running mate was a significant reason the DEW captured enough of the conservative, pro-military vote, to win the top office.

The diplomatic failure with the PU had not much bothered the GF, and it certainly didn’t slow them down. They established diplomatic and trade relations with several dozen independent Rim Worlds, who were eager to gain access to the faster transportation of goods and people via the T-cubed fleet of ships, which only the Kobani possessed. They also purchase new products that benefited from alien technology, which the Federation manufacturers sold at reasonable prices.

Even though the Federation held a monopoly on the
production
of the items that used their new technology, as was the case with Hub world manufactured products, there was a difference. The Haven based companies didn’t add government regulated tariffs on items that used this proprietary technology when sold outside the Federation. Hub companies did charge extra when selling to a Rim World, in an effort to pressure them into joining the PU as a New Colony, avoiding the tariff charges.

The Federation offered consumer items such as appliances that used low power tachyon derived energy, and which never required household electricity. This made the gadgets more portable and versatile, and cheaper to operate than equivalent Hub products, which usually had to plug into a power grid, or have their batteries recharged from one.

What stung the Hub worlds and PU more, were the new human colonies started in Federation space, the new planets being selected from the best of the worlds that were most suitable for humans, out of the thousands of habitable planets available. The Planetary Union had not established a single completely new colony since the recovery from the Collapse, following the Gene War. And then the Krall halted ambitions in that direction for over twenty years.

The Rim Worlds, and even many New Colonies, had barely managed to hold out through those tough recovery years, and now they were benefitting from Kobani services, and alien technology. They were offered the purchase of gene modified crops and livestock, free of the costs of research and development expenses. Those crops and animals were better suited for the individual climates and unique planetary ecologies of each colony.

This work was something the Midwife Project had been intended to address, the gradual decline in productivity of foods from those colonies, because Earth evolved plants and animals were often not compatible with their new homes. The life already on a colony world frequently was not fully chemically compatible with Earth evolved life, at least not without some outlawed modifications being employed. There was no suggestion of changing the human colonists. Everything was oriented towards making the new world conform to human needs, not the other way around. However, anyone wishing to receive the Kobani mods could travel to the Federation for them. There was a steady but small stream of takers.

Old Colonies and Hub worlds didn’t have this planetary adaptation problem, because people forgot they had been settled when gene mods were a normal part of terraforming a planet. Now, the Kobani were helping Rim Worlds do this, thus drawing them closer to the Galactic Federation camp.

Using the GMO plants and animals, a farmer or rancher on a Rim World could raise bountiful crops, and healthier livestock on the same land. They stood to further increase their profits by eliminating the need to import Hub furnished soil nutrients, and vitamin supplements for animals, and for the health of the colonists, who couldn’t get the nutrients they required by consuming their original crops and animals.

The gene mods were offered in exchange for fair trade agreements with the expanding Federation to buy food from them. The participating worlds soon had more goods to sell, produced them more cheaply, and had expanding future markets on new Federation worlds to provide a demand for their products.

The trade agreements were an important aspect, because most of the core Hub worlds had decided they would boycott purchase of GMO foods from any Rim World that raised gene-modified crops and animals. The archaic objection was a clear reflection of similar old arguments, proven absolutely baseless back when genetically modified organisms were introduced, first on Earth, and then more vitally, when they were required for the success of the first human colonies, over five hundred years ago.

GMO foods had been no more harmful then than natural genetic hybrids, which were derived from thousands of years of selecting desirable traits that appeared accidentally in crops and animals, or were attained via deliberate cross breeding. Cattle were far removed from their wild ancestors, as were potatoes, tomatoes, corn, wheat, and too many food items to waste your life reading about how they came into existence.

The fears today were fed by illogical stories from the Gene War, which was caused by a weaponized agent
designed
to be harmful to human males via infection. Even so, the gene change that killed men didn’t render them dangerous to
eat
, had anyone tried to overcome the revulsion of cannibalism. In a few macabre examples, after society collapsed, some starving women in isolated pockets had eaten the only meat available to them and their dying children, when supplies of food failed to arrive at their isolated and fledgling colonies. They and their daughters, and a mere handful of males, survived and remained healthy until relief arrived.

The PU’s actions now merely drove the Rim Worlds to form closer ties with the Federation. New Colonies, who had only voted to become members of the Planetary Union when the Krall attacks started, nevertheless retained their independent attitudes from before their transition from Rim World status.

Planets like Poldark were willing to disregard PU boycott recommendations, and they and many other New Colonies imported the lower cost Rim World GMO foods, which they were forbidden to grow for themselves by new PU laws.

****

Deep into the Galactic Federation, Paradise was a close analogue of Earth, located on the far side of former Krall territory from Koban, close to where the Orion Spur and the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way separated. All of Human Space and former Krall territory fell within the minor arm called the Orion Spur, a branch of the Sagittarius arm. The much longer major arm offered a wealth of stars for other civilizations to have flourished. At least eighteen intelligent and space going species had evolved in the spinward side of the short Orion Spur. Humans had yet to look very far in the opposite, anti-spinward direction of that spur of stars, which gradually dwindled away, leaving a wider gap between the Perseus and Sagittarius Arms.

Paradise, like most of the other newest Federation colonies, was in the oldest area the Krall had capture early in their expansion, and had benefitted from the longer time to recover from previous exploitation and habitation. They happened to be close to the Sagittarius Arm. This region of stars was left fallow many thousands of years ago, after the Krall eliminated a number of minor colonies there of several species. After that, they had moved in the direction of fresh inhabited worlds found deeper in the Orion Spur.

There were a number of near perfect worlds found for humans, Paradise being the best example. There were others well suited for the Torki, Raspani, and the Prada. They were located farther away from Haven and Koban, and from Human Space, but with T-cubed travel, the distance was no longer an issue.

But not all was well in Paradise. For the fourth time in a month, an indecipherable radio broadcast suddenly started arriving. This time it came four hours before dawn for the lone watch stander, the only person that was probably awake of the fifteen thousand one hundred nine residents of the first, and largest town on Paradise, named Elysium. Peshawar Tolvert had the unenviable task of staffing the small communications shack this night.

It was certainly easier work than many of the other jobs the small colony assigned to those that put in long fifteen-hour half day shifts. The thirty-hour days of the planet pushed the four growing colony towns on Paradise to use all of the daylight hours possible, because nighttime outside work was hindered by limited moonlight from two small moons, and a lack of adequate outside lighting. Fifteen hours in the dark, alone, while the rest of the colonists slept, or perhaps worked on inside personal projects, made for dull duty. Usually.

Peshawar would soon desperately trade tonight for a long dull shift. One located on, say, another colony?

The colony AI, named Margo, promptly routed the audio of the transmission through the speaker system of the shack. They had already determined that it was a frequency-modulated signal, but they didn’t know if it would return after three repeats. Peshawar thought the louder volume he had set would arouse him if he nodded off to sleep, if it came again. His transducer implant was something he’d never had before immigrating to Paradise, and he thought its limited volume might not wake him, so he counted on the loud speaker to get his attention.

The booming bugling sounds from the speakers damn well jolted him awake. He leaped out of his leaned back chair, tipping it over, and promptly banged a knee into the console shelf where he’d had his feet propped.

“Shit!” He rubbed his knee. “Margo, turn that damn volume down, I’m awake.”

“Yes Sir. I see that.” The sound lowered to a comfortable level.

“Notify Gale Murchison that the signal’s returned.”

“I have started ringing her com set. She disabled her transducer for the night. No reply as of yet.”

Still rubbing his knee, he wondered why the colony leader thought the AI was incapable of handling this monitoring task on its own. The boss was already being notified, so he was redundant here. He could have been in his residence hall, asleep in his own bed.

“Is it the same as before?” He asked.

“If you mean the main signal content Sir, then yes. Although it started slightly different, as did each of the last two, with what I believe is a change to a single word in this unusual language. Perhaps the different word in the first sentence of each message is the number of the message. If so, then I have four possible vocabulary words for the numbers one through four, assuming it is counting up.”

Underwhelmed, he answered, “Gee. That’s great to know. Now we can have a very limited chat with a two year old of whatever species is sending this.” He wondered if it might be a countdown, instead of an incrementing message count. Intuition is something AI’s don’t have, but it was merely a sour mood guess on his part, as he rubbed his bruised knee.

The three previous transmissions had each lasted almost ten minutes, and appeared to originate from one steady point in a daylight sky, at an indeterminate distance. It wasn’t coming from a ship in low orbit, because the direction from which the signal arrived didn’t change at all over the ten minutes. For that reason, at first it was believed that it originated as far out as a geosynchronous orbit, which was at around 22,600 miles for this 15% higher gravity world than Earth.

That suggestion was refuted when Margo told them the origin of the signal was not from an equatorial location, as it would be for a true geosynchronous orbit. The angle of the signal came from directly over Elysium, which was built at the middle latitude of 33.7 degrees.

For the signal to stay perfectly over them for ten minutes, the source required an acceleration to hold its position as the world rotated. The cash poor colony only had a single shuttle for its daily use, good for low orbital work, and travel between the other three smaller towns scattered on this same continent. Its capability would be stretched to its limit to try to reach as high as 22,600 miles for an investigation. The only small telescope in the entire colony was privately owned, and it hadn’t revealed any object directly overhead in the daytime sky, for the last two repetitions of the signal. But a bright sky wasn’t conducive for using a hobbyist’s small optical telescope.

From this, it was assumed the presumed ship wasn’t even as close as 22,600 miles and might not actually be that close at all. Only, it would need greater speed to hold station for ten minutes over the town if it was considerably farther away. The Kobani supply ships could easily manage this, out to a few hundred thousand miles, as could any navy vessel. Commercial ships were not found this far from Human Space, and the next chartered Kobani supply ship wasn’t due for over two standard weeks.