Theogony 1: Janissaries (17 page)

Armory, TSS Vella Gulf, Dark Side of the Moon, January 15,
2019

“What the
hell
is that thing?” asked the medic,
Sergeant ‘Hacksaw’ Liu, looking at the massive rifle that the unit’s sniper, Corporal
‘Tiny’ Johnson, was oiling lovingly.

“That’s his new toy,” replied his spotter, Corporal ‘BTO’
Bachmann. Tiny didn’t speak much, but BTO more than made up for it. “Although
he is still going to use his .50 caliber sniper rifle when we’re not wearing
our combat suits, this is what he is going to carry when we
are
suited
up.”

“That’s the biggest freakin’ rifle I’ve ever seen,” said
Hacksaw, picking up one of the rounds for the massive rifle. “These shells have
to weigh half a pound and look like 20mm autocannon rounds.
What the hell is
it?
”

“It’s a SSK Industries .95 caliber rifle,” Tiny said with a
sigh. “It’s my new baby.” He went back to pampering it.

“It’s the largest rifle ever made,” added BTO. “They only
made three of them. The unit bought one to try it out, and then Tiny asked them
to make another couple of them for us. They’re too big to carry around, even
for Tiny, which is why he’s only going to use them when we’re wearing our suits.”

“No shit,” said Hacksaw. “That thing’s got to weigh 100
pounds.”

“110 pounds, actually,” said BTO. “They’re so big that they
were classified as destructive devices under the U.S. National Firearms Act, but
the company that made them got an exemption to sell them. They cost about $8,000
a piece.”

“What are you planning to shoot with that, exactly,” asked
Hacksaw, “elephants?”

Tiny looked back up again and smiled. “Whatever I need to.”

Little Thai Restaurant, Seattle, WA, January 16, 2019

Sara walked into the restaurant to find Calvin seated at a
table waiting for her. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry I’m late. I’ve got a project this
semester that is taking up a lot of my time.”

“No worries,” said Calvin. “For my part, I’m sorry I missed
our date last week. Something important came up.”

“Arges said you took some woman to the
Gulf
,” replied
Sara. “Should I be jealous?”

“Ha! Jealous of her, no. It’s a long story, but she’s lucky
to still be alive.” Calvin changed the topic. “So what’s the project that’s
taking up all of your time?”

Sara looked around conspiratorially. “I’ve got something to
share with you. I was told to keep it a secret, but I think it is all right to
let you know.”

The conversation paused as the waitress arrived and took
their order. Calvin had been to Thailand on his first cruise and had developed
a taste for spicy Thai food. Sara ordered something a little more on the tame
side.

“OK,” said Calvin once the waitress had left, “so what is the
big secret?”

“You know,” began Sara, “it might be easier to just show
you.” A window opened in Calvin’s mind as Sara contacted him by implant
communication. “
Hiya
,” she said.

“
When did you get implants?
” Calvin commed back,
shocked. “
Wait, who knows that you got them? Does the president know you got
them? Hell, did the Psiclopes authorize it?
”

“Slow down,” Sara said with a smile. “I’ll tell you all
about it.” She switched back to the implant. “
Yes, the Psiclopes authorized them.
It would have been really difficult to get the implants put in if they hadn’t.
”

Calvin nodded ruefully, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” He
considered briefly and then said, “
I wonder if only the Psiclopes can
authorize implants, or if my status allows me to do it now, too?
” That is
an interesting question, he thought. He decided to follow up with Solomon on it
as soon as he was able.

“
And no,
” Sara continued, “
the president doesn’t
know anything about me getting implants. He’d probably have a coronary if he
knew that the Psiclopes had implanted civilians without giving them to him too.
”

That got Calvin’s attention. “
Did you say civilians? With
an ‘s’ at the end
?”

“
Yes, my professor and a research scientist at the
Institute of Science in India also have them,
” said Sara. “
The Psiclopes
need us to develop new ways of finding black holes, because it is the way that they
travel between stars. We are working on innovative ways to find them.
”

“
Wait a sec,
” said Calvin, “
how did you get
involved in this? Aren’t you still an undergraduate at the University of
Washington? In art? This sounds like pretty high level rocket science stuff.
”

“
Well, I would still have been an undergraduate if the
Psiclopes hadn’t come,
” replied Sara. “
I’d be just starting my last
semester as a senior. However, at the start of last semester, Arges showed up
and said that they needed help. I said I would do what I could, and they gave
me implants to make me more productive. I finished all of my undergraduate
classes last semester; I also started working on my doctoral project, which has
to do with finding black holes.
”

“
You completed all of the classes you needed to graduate
in one semester?
” asked Calvin. “
How many classes did you take?
”

Sara blushed. “
Well I was a little behind, so I needed 12
classes to graduate. I was kind of on the 4.5 year plan to graduation.
”

“
You took 12 classes in a single semester?
” Calvin
asked. “
The most I ever took was six, and that nearly killed me!
”

“
Yeah, well, you didn’t have implants then, did you?
”
Sara smiled. “
That’s not what I needed, though. I needed 12 classes to finish
my
art
degree. On top of that, I needed another 22 to graduate with an
applied physics degree. That is what truly sucked. The only thing that saved me
was that I was able to finish most of my classes the first week. I walked into all
of my professors’ offices and asked to take their final exams with the
condition that, if I passed them, I passed their classes. Almost all of my
professors accepted the challenge, and I aced all of the exams.
” Sara’s
blush deepened. “
It really wasn’t too hard with most of the knowledge of an
advanced civilization in my head. The worst part, aside from having to do all
of the labs, which I couldn’t get out of, was having to do physics
applications. The general knowledge was there; figuring out how to apply it was
hard.
”

“
OK, I see how you were able to pass the exams, but how
did you get the university to allow you to sign up for that many classes? How
did your parents pay for it?
”

“
I have Arges to thank for both of those,
” replied
Sara. “
He met with the head of the Physics Department off campus somewhere and
told him what he wanted for me. I think that Dr. Riccardi was initially
hesitant to help, but then Arges got implants for him and got the National Science
Foundation to award the university a giant grant. All of a sudden, Dr. Riccardi
was my biggest fan, and he got the university to go along with it. As far as
the university is concerned, I’m a late blooming child prodigy who is going to
continue to bring them piles of research money and national acclaim.
” She
shrugged. “
Arges also paid for all of the classes somehow. My parents don’t
even know about this; they still think I’m an art major, not a physics prodigy.
I’ve had to turn down three TV and newspaper stories to keep them from finding
out anything about it.
”

The conversation paused again as their food and another
round of drinks arrived.

“
I’m happy for you,
” said Calvin, “
but doesn’t it
seem kind of unfair to pass all of those classes because you have implants?
What is college going to look like once we start implanting everyone?
”

“
I don’t know what college is going to look like,
”
said Sara, “
but I’m sure it will be different.
” She paused. “
Yeah, I
felt kind of bad acing all of those exams, almost like it was cheating, but
then I thought about it. What is the purpose of final exams? To prove you have
acquired the knowledge. Well, I have acquired all of the knowledge that the
university tested me on...just not in the traditional way. It wasn’t cheating,
though; I do have the knowledge. In fact, I could probably teach just about any
class that UW has.
”

She paused a second and then commed, “
One thing is
interesting; although I have this wonderful data bank on astrophysical
knowledge, my knowledge of astronomy seems limited. If I got all of the
Psiclopes knowledge, shouldn’t I know the names of lots of planets and the
races living on them? I don’t know any more of that stuff than I did before I
got implants.”

Calvin thought for a moment. “
You know what? I don’t
either. Interesting...I guess they must have blocked the transfer of that
information. Makes you want to trust them, doesn’t it?
” He smiled at her. “
In
any event, I’m really proud of you. Congratulations on your graduation!
”
praised Calvin. He got up to give her a hug. As he sat back down he asked, “
So,
why did the Psiclopes do all this? What do they have planned for you?
”

“
You don’t know?
” Sara asked. She sounded
incredulous. “
They haven’t told you?
”

“
No one has told me anything about you,
” replied
Calvin. “
What’s the secret?
”

“
I’m going with you,
” explained Sara. “
Not on the
first trip when you go out to test out the ship, but when you go out the second
time for real. I’m going to be the Assistant Science Officer under Arges.
”

The waitress brought the check. Apparently the date didn’t
go well, the waitress thought with a shrug. They barely spoke to each other the
whole time.

Sir Henry Flowers, the Ambassador and Permanent
Representative of the UK, Mission to the UN, took the podium. An experienced
diplomat with years of practice negotiating treaties, he had been selected to
accompany the
Vella Gulf
as the Terran Government’s ambassador to
whatever new civilizations might be found in the course of its mission. “I
would like to thank everyone who’s come to participate in and bear witness to this
discussion today. Your presence adds weight to what will be decided.”

“Going forward,” continued Ambassador Flowers, “I will do
all I can to support our common goal of reaching negotiated agreements with the
societies we meet on our mission. This crisis requires bold, responsible
leadership and active engagement with all like-minded civilizations, in order
to meet and repulse the cultures that would do us harm. While many of the
challenges in implementing this agenda lie beyond the topic of today’s debate,
the central issue that must be decided today is what nations to contact.” He
paused.

“There are many instances of first contact with an alien
civilization in the popular literary and motion picture establishments,” he
continued. “Many of these discuss something along the lines of a ‘Prime
Directive,’ which forbids interfering with the internal development of an alien
civilization. A similar proviso has been used upon us by the Psiclopes as they
have, in many instances, refused to transfer technology which they feel would
alter the natural development of our society.”

“During the course of the mission it is quite possible that
we will come into contact with races that have not developed the technology for
interstellar spaceflight. We must decide whether we want to hold tightly to a
convention of this sort, or whether the nature of our circumstances is so dire
as to require the aid of every civilization, regardless of their technology
level.”

“The question for debate is this, ‘Should we engage every
civilization that we come upon or only those above a certain technology
level?’”

“
Ladies and Gentlemen
,” Bullseye commed, stepping
back from the side of
Viper 01
, which had been parked several hundred
yards from the
Vella Gulf
, “
I give you
Viper 01,
the squadron
bird of Terran Space Fighter Squadron 1
.” He pulled the cord, and the
canvas cover that had been draped over the nose of the space fighter fell to
the ground. The officers and enlisted of the squadron got their first look at
the squadron insignia of SF-1, the Spacehawks, painted on the nose of the Viper.
A large grey hawk was in the foreground, with a spaceship in each of its
talons. The background was the blackness of space. Under the logo read the motto,
‘Primus et Primoris’ in gold lettering. Under the pilot’s cockpit was painted
the name of the squadron commander, LCDR Shawn ‘Calvin’ Hobbs.

“
For those of you that don’t speak Latin,
” Calvin
commed, “
Primus et Primoris means ‘First and Foremost.’ Although right now
we are the first and only space fighter squadron, there
will
be more. I
mean for this squadron to always be the best!
”

“Gluck ab!” someone commed. The cry was quickly picked up by
several others, and within seconds, all 106 men and women standing next to
Viper
01
were shouting it.

Damn, that is a good looking space fighter, thought Calvin,
his eyes misting slightly.

“We’re within a month of our March 13th departure date,”
said Captain Deutch. “Let’s go around the table and get a status check.” The
commanding officer of the
Vella Gulf
had called the meeting in the officers’
mess so that all of the ship’s officers and chiefs could be in attendance; he
wanted to be sure that nothing got missed or left behind. They had grouped
several tables in the center of the dining room around which the senior
officers sat; the junior officers and chiefs sat at surrounding tables in an
impromptu version of ‘stadium seating.’

The ship’s administrative officer spoke first. In addition
to being in charge of the ship’s paperwork process, he was also responsible for
manpower, personnel and services. “We have almost our full complement of
sailors onboard. We are down one petty officer who was severely injured in a
car wreck in Virginia Beach yesterday, but the Bureau of Personnel already has
a replacement for him. He will arrive next week, in time to get his implants
and be ready to go as scheduled.”

“The sailor didn’t end up at Virginia Beach General, did
he?” asked Captain Deutch, worried about what the civilian doctors would make
of his implants.

“No,” replied the admin officer. “They took him to
Portsmouth Naval Hospital and the doctors have been given stern warnings to
forget anything out of the ordinary that they might have seen.”

“Good,” said Captain Deutch. “Next?”

“I don’t have a lot to report, since the Psiclopes haven’t
shared much with us,” said the ship’s intelligence officer. “We have all of the
star charts that we can get our hands on, as well as all of the data that our
scientists have been able to generate on possible exoplanets.” By this point,
the entire crew had implants. No one had to ask what an exoplanet was; simply
thinking the question furnished the information that it was a planet that
orbited a star other than the Sun. “We’re as ready as we’re going to get.” He
looked over to the operations officer, who was next.

“I’ll be honest, skipper,” said the operations officer.
“I’ve never felt this unprepared for deployment before. That being said, we
have full loads of fuel, weapons and everything else I think will be needed, as
well as everything that you or the Psiclopes have asked for. We’re as
operationally ready as we can be.” He looked at the logistics officer.

“We’ve got all the stores and spare parts that we can carry,”
said the logistics officer. “We’ve also got plenty of blanks for the replicator
to make into things we might need along the way. Being able to make our own
spare parts will give us a readiness capability beyond any ship I’ve ever been
on, which is helpful since there won’t be any ports to pull into to pick up
anything we need later. We already have a full load of canned and dried foods,
and we will be stocking up on fresh fruits and vegetables during the week prior
to deployment.” He looked around as if he was expecting or daring anyone to
disagree with him. “We’re as ready as we can be.”

“As far as planning goes,” said the plans officer, “we
continue to be handicapped by a lack of information. We really don’t know where
we’re going, what we’ll see there, or what we hope to accomplish moving
forward. We have reviewed all of the information that exists in the data banks
on how to fight this ship, both with and without its air wing, but without
knowing what the threat is going to be, it is hard to plan for it.” He
shrugged. “We’ll be ready to get to work as soon as information starts coming
in.”

The communications and information technology officer was
next. “We have developed and practiced our communications plans with the air
wing,” she briefed. “We have procedures for both radio comms, implant comms and
for any situations where all of our comms have failed. The only comms we won’t
have are with Earth; once we leave the system, we will be out of communications
with home until we get back to this system.”

“From a training perspective,” said the training officer,
“the crew is ready to go. We have completed all of the simulations required to
reinforce the knowledge downloaded by implant. Once we get away from Earth, we
need to do some live firing of the weapons systems to make sure that everyone knows
what they’re doing.” The operations officer nodded his head; he wanted to have
a live fire exercise as soon as possible to check out the systems. Combat was a
bad time to find out that something didn’t work. The training officer
continued, “I will leave the air wing training and platoon training to
Lieutenant Commander Hobbs, as he oversaw that.”

The special projects officer was next. Among other things,
she ran the replicator. “We are currently working on making additional space
suits,” she said. “We will have enough replicated for the whole crew prior to
our departure.”

“Good,” commented Captain Deutch. “This isn’t the Titanic.
If something happens, I want everyone to be protected. We’ve got more than just
cold water to worry about.”

The special projects officer nodded and continued, “After we
finish the suits, we will begin working on spare parts for the Viper space
fighters, in case any of them get damaged.”

Calvin nodded. “Thanks,” he said.

The civil affairs officer was next. It was his duty to
interact with any government or non-government civilian organizations they came
in contact with, as well as to deal with the civilian populace. He was also the
liaison with the ambassador. “We are all set. The ambassador and his staff are
visiting with all of the nations’ presidents and prime ministers. They will be
boarding the week prior to our departure.”

“We’re as ready as we’re going to be,” said the ship’s
surgeon. “I’m still working out what my duties are in conjunction with the
medibot, but I think we have all of the equipment and pharmaceuticals that
we’ll need for the voyage.”

Captain Deutch looked at Calvin. “That just leaves your units,”
he said.

Calvin looked around the table. He’d been so busy trying to
get both units ready to deploy that he hadn’t made it to many of the commanding
officer’s previous meetings, and many of the department heads were strangers to
him. He’d have plenty of time to get to know them on deployment, he decided.
“The squadron is all set,” he said, looking at Bullseye who nodded. “We have
practiced a variety of formations, from single-ship operations to full squadron
strikes. All of our pilots are also trained to fly the shuttles whenever they
are needed.” Prior to a deployment, a squadron would normally be evaluated by a
host of commands and agencies, who would delve into administrative and training
records to make sure all of the ‘Ts’ were crossed and the ‘Is’ dotted. Then
they would have to
show
the inspectors that they were ready by
performing a variety of missions. That wasn’t going to happen with this
deployment; Calvin was the sole arbiter of the squadron’s readiness.

“We did have one suggestion from Captain Park Ji-hun, one of
our pilots from South Korea. In some of the maneuvers that we’ve been
practicing, he thought that it would be handy if we were to bring along a load
of mines. With the right design, we could make these fairly cheaply and easily
with the replicator. If all you need is five kilograms of antimatter to make a 215
megaton explosion, then the mines wouldn’t have to be very big or take up much
space, but they would be a very good force-multiplier if we needed them.”

“If we can make the mines easily and cheaply,” replied
Captain Deutch, “
and
if it doesn’t affect our production schedule too
badly, then go ahead and make some of them. Let me know how it turns out.”

“Yes sir,” said Calvin. “As far as the platoon goes, it is
also ready to go. All of our gear is loaded, and we have practiced all of the
types of missions that we expect to be required to perform. We are practiced on
land, in the air, under the water and in space. We are current with all of our
weapons, both our new alien technology and our legacy armaments. We have all of
the ammunition we will need and the raw materials to make more if needed.”

Calvin looked Captain Deutch in the eyes. “We’re ready to
go,” he said.

Captain Deutch looked at the ceiling. “Solomon, do you have
anything pertinent to add to the discussion?”

“I am in as good a shape as I think I can be,” said the
ship’s AI. “I agree that it would be prudent to do some weapons testing at the
earliest opportunity. My weapons have not been fired in a very long time. Aside
from that, I see no reason not to deploy as planned.”

“All right,” said Deutch, “it looks like we are on track for
our scheduled deployment date.” He stood up so that he could look around the
room at all of the officers and chiefs, not just the ones sitting at the head table.
“Obviously, we have never done this before. The
human race
has never
done this before. Most of us, however,
have
deployed previously. I want
all of you to use every last bit of your experience to get the ship ready to
go. If you think we might need something and there’s room, bring it. If you
think we might need something and there’s no room for it, make room. If you
can’t make room, tell your chain of command. I want to know if we’re going to
leave behind something that we might need.” He looked around again. “There’s no
calling for help and there’s no pulling into a port for supplies or to get
something that we forgot. It’s just us.”

“Any questions?” Captain Deutch asked. Seeing none, he said,
“That’s it then. Let’s finish getting her ready to go.”

* * * * *