Theogony 1: Janissaries (7 page)

Captain James Deutch, the commanding officer of the USS
Vella
Gulf
(CG-72), stared down at the requisition paperwork on his desk as if
that would change what was written on it. It didn’t. He was more than angry. He
was livid. His ship was due to deploy in less than five months, and all of his
requisitions were being returned with the stamp, ‘not authorized.’ One of the requisitions
on his desk was for a key component to the ship’s missile launch system. How
the hell was he supposed to defend his own ship, much less an aircraft carrier
or any other ship they might get attached to, with a vertical launch missile
system that didn’t work? The vertical launch system was
the
key
component to the entire battle group’s defense. If the
Vella Gulf
couldn’t launch missiles, what good was it? And now their communications gear
wouldn’t be fixed in time for cruise, either? What the hell was going on?

He had his executive officer call their superiors at Carrier
Strike Group Eight, but they didn’t know anything about the denial of the
requisitions. Captain Deutch had personally called Strike Group Eight’s
superiors at U.S. Fleet Forces Command, but they didn’t know anything either.
The requisitions had been denied up at the CNO’s office. He looked at the clock
and saw it was 1700. There wouldn’t be anyone there at this time of day worth
yelling at, he decided. Better to go home, pack, and drive up to D.C. tomorrow.
Then he would find out what the
HELL
was going on.

Too angry to do any further work, he was gathering up his
things when eight bells, the number of bells that an admiral received when he
came aboard a ship, sounded over the ship’s intercom. A very nervous-sounding
voice followed it, announcing, ‘CNO arriving.’ “What the fuck?” he muttered. He
didn’t even know that the CNO was in town, and now he was coming aboard his
ship? What the hell? This had better not be some kind of fucking joke!

Before he could go down to meet whomever had just come
aboard, his phone rang, and the Petty Officer of the Watch told him that Admiral
Wright was on his way up to the captain’s in-port cabin. The Petty Officer of
the Watch sounded just as nervous on the phone as he had on the intercom
system. Within a couple of minutes, there was a knock on the door, and he
opened it to find the real CNO standing in his doorway. Too shocked to say
anything, his jaw dropped, and he just stood there looking. Finally the CNO
asked simply, “Can I come in?”

Captain Deutch regained his senses and replied, “Yes sir,
please come in,” while moving out of the doorway. “Please, have a seat,”
Captain Deutch offered. “Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

“No, thank you,” replied the CNO. “Perhaps on my way out,
you can send for a drink. I have many miles to go before I sleep, as it were.”
He settled himself onto the sofa in the captain’s office, and Deutch returned
to his desk chair. The CNO looked speculatively at him before saying, “I
understand that you were wondering why your requisitions were being denied.”

The fire immediately returned to Captain Deutch’s eyes,
although he forced his voice to remain temperate. “Yes sir, I was trying to
track down the idiot that denied the requisition to fix our vertical launch
system.”

The CNO smiled. “You found him,” he said. “I am the one that
killed that requisition.”

Captain Deutch’s face reddened in anger, but he knew that
the CNO was an aviator, not a ship driver, so he pressed on. “Could you please
tell me
why
, sir?” he asked. Despite his best effort, sarcasm tinged his
voice. “It will be
awfully hard
to defend the battle group without my
missile system.”

“I’m well aware of that, Captain,” replied the CNO. “The
answer is simple; this ship isn’t going on cruise.”

“
What?
” exploded Captain Deutch. “This is the ship’s
last cruise, and both she and the crew deserve it! If it’s something I’ve done,
relieve me and at least let the crew go!”

“Calm down,” said the CNO. “You haven’t done anything wrong.
In fact, it is because you run such a good crew that you were selected for
something even more important.” He smiled. “You have been selected to go to
space.”

“What does that mean?” asked Captain Deutch confused at the
abrupt change in topic. “How exactly would we ‘go to space?’”

“As difficult as it may be to believe, the United States has
been contacted by extraterrestrials that need help manning their spaceship.
Your crew is going to help get them back home.”

“I’m going to
what?
” asked Captain Deutch
incredulously. “Extraterrestrials? And we’re going to do what with them? Even
if there were extraterrestrials, none of us know the first thing about crewing
starships. How are we supposed to do that?” asked Captain Deutch. “Wait a
minute,” he continued. “Is this some sort of hidden camera show? If so, I’ll
bet my reaction will be great on TV.”

The CNO sighed. “No, this isn’t a hidden camera show,” he
said. “Your crew has really been selected to fly a spaceship. Don’t ask me how
you’re going to do that, because we don’t know yet. Just know that when you
leave to go on cruise, you’re not going to the Mediterranean. You’re going to
outer space. We will hide the ship here, and no one will be the wiser. All of
this is classified at the highest level; the president even invented a new
clearance level for this information.”

The CNO pulled out a piece of paper and slid it across the
desk to Captain Deutch. “The code word for this information is ‘Olympos’ and,
at this point, only a handful of people know what is really going on. You are
not authorized to bring anyone else into the program without my approval. That
consent needs to come directly from me; most of my staff doesn’t know anything
about this.”

“I’m sorry sir, but you’re going about it all wrong, then,”
said Captain Deutch, finally starting to believe that something else was going
on. “If you want to keep everything secret, you have to
approve
all of
our requisitions. That way, no one will be the wiser. Everyone will continue to
believe that we are going on cruise, as scheduled. If you keep disapproving our
requisitions, people are going to start to talk, and then rumors will start
flying. Eventually, they’ll even get out to the media. If everything just goes like
normal, though, there will be no media buzz. We’re just another ship going on
cruise, the same as the navy has done for almost 250 years.”

“That makes good sense,” said the CNO. “Resubmit the
requisitions, and I’ll make sure they get approved.”

“Aye aye, sir,” answered Captain Deutch.

“One last thing,” said the CNO, “Your families are going to
hate it, but the communications system is going to stay broken so they can’t
reach you on cruise. Get ready for some serious complaining.”

“I thought the
war
killed my love life,” said Calvin
to the senior officers and enlisted of both of his units. “The only thing worse
than the war is this peace, and it keeps getting worse. I think I’ve got ten
different bosses now, and that only counts the ones here in the United States.
I just got a phone call from the head of the freakin’ CIA, for crying out loud!
I’ve never even been a squadron department head, and I’m expected to be a
commanding officer for both a squadron and a mixed platoon of soldiers. My
entire resume of leadership experience is the
two days
of the war.”

He sighed. “The bottom line is that I need your help. I
can’t run both of these organizations the way things are going now. I haven’t had
time to fly in the last week, and I’m the one that is supposed to be
integrating our mini-squadron’s tactics. I need everyone here to step up and
take on everything that they can. Any suggestions that you have for making
things easier would also be greatly appreciated.” He looked around the room to
see if there were any ideas.

Finally, his platoon XO, First Lieutenant Paul ‘Night’ Train,
spoke up. “Well sir, I’ve been in a lot of commands, and I have to say that
this one is the most bizarre I’ve ever seen. One CO and two separate
organizations, complete with full logistics tails for both the aviation and the
ground force units. There are too many people trying to do too many things.
Instead of having two separate units, why don’t we just merge the commands into
one?”

“Well, that would reduce the number of people giving me
reports every day,” said Calvin, “which would be wonderfully helpful, but which
one of you would be the XO? I need both of you.”

“Why do you have to cut either one of us?” asked Major Robert
‘Bullseye’ Pierce. “We’ll keep both XOs. I’ll take care of the aviation side,
including all of our maintenance folks, and Night can take care of the platoon
side. The rest of the staff will support both sides. They’ll be busy,
especially the supply guys who will have to requisition both aviation and
ground force gear, but we can augment them when we merge, and we can make it
work. There’s no need for two intelligence or operations sections, and both of the
units are already handling their own planning and training. We’re already writing
our own rules here; we might as well write them the way we like ‘em.”

“Hmmm,” said Calvin as he pondered the idea, “that’s so
crazy it just might work. Actually, I think it makes a lot of sense and cuts
down a bunch on the amount of space we’ll need onboard the spaceship, too. I’ll
talk to the brass in D.C. and tell them that’s what we need.”

“Which boss is that, sir?” prodded Bullseye. “The CNO? Army
Chief of Staff? Air Force? CIA? One of the other countries?” he smiled. “I
think that is the other big problem. You need the senior brass to figure out
who is your boss and then only work through him or her. That would cut down a
lot on all of the bullshit briefings that you currently have to do.”

“You’re right, Bullseye,” said Calvin. “I’ll work on that
one too…once I figure out which one of my bosses to suggest it to.”

“In national news this evening, the National Science
Foundation has announced the award of a $20 million grant to the University of
Washington to coordinate 85 institutions in 45 states working on new ways of
finding black holes,” read KIRO’s anchorwoman, Anna St. Cloud. “University of
Washington Professor Larry Riccardi announced the award earlier today.”

The camera cut to Dr. Larry Riccardi at a podium bearing the
university’s seal. “This grant will allow us to further our research into new
ways to locate and evaluate the nature of black holes,” he said. “We are
excited to be able to bring together some of the greatest minds and facilities
in the United States. In particular, MIT’s Haystack Observatory has made great
progress in designing an event horizon telescope that will allow direct
observation of the immediate environments of black holes with an angular
resolution comparable to the event horizon. We are excited to be able to expand
on their research. We will also be working with some of the world leaders in
black hole research, like the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, whose
scientists have already determined the correlation between the mass of black
holes and their rotation.”

The camera returned to Anna St. Cloud. “UW will receive
$10.6 million of the $20 million grant for the project and will administer the
rest for the other participants. This money includes funding for both the research
scientists at the university’s Physics Astronomy Building, as well as its
Physics and Astronomy Computing Services Group, which will provide the project’s
information technology solutions. The university was chosen due to the close
relationship of the physics and astronomy programs at the university, which the
National Science Foundation said would be integral to the success of the
project.”

The camera shifted to co-anchor Bob Brant. “In other news…

“OK,” said Calvin, looking at Steropes, “it is time for a ‘come
to Jesus’ meeting. Are you familiar with that expression?”

“I have heard it used,” answered Steropes. “It means that it
is time to bring everything into the light, correct?”

“That’s right,” replied Calvin. “If we’re going to go
somewhere and do something, neither of which we know right now, we need to at
least know what equipment we’re going to have. You’ve already told us that you
have some sort of laser rifles, and we have seen your force field generators in
action; it’s past time that you started the technology transfer to us. The soldiers
need to know what kind of weapons they are going to have so that we can devise
tactics to use them effectively. The squadron needs to start learning how to
fly the space fighters, which we
still haven’t even seen yet
! You either
need to start giving us these things, or I’m going to go join my squadron on
cruise.” Everyone knew that was an idle threat, including Calvin. As long as
the possibility existed to fly a space fighter, Calvin wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’re right, of course,” agreed Steropes. “We should have
had this conversation before. Just a second; Arges needs to get out of a
meeting with the president.” Brontes appeared immediately after he stopped
speaking.

“See?” asked Calvin. “That is one of the things that I want
to know. How do you get places? Sometimes, I know you’re there but invisible,
and other times you just seem to pop in. Do you have some sort of matter
transmitter?”

“It is obvious that we do,” said Brontes with a smile, “if Arges
is going to instantly join us from Washington, D.C.” As she finished speaking Arges
appeared next to her.

“Salutations,” said Arges. “I understand that the time has
come to initiate technology transfer? Where would you like to begin?”

Calvin looked at Ryan. “Master Chief, I think you’ve been
very patient. Would you like to start?”

“Yes sir, I would,” he replied. “I’d really, really like to
know what kind of weapons and defensive systems we’re going to get.”

“Give us a moment,” said Arges, and all three Cyclopes
disappeared.

“Maybe you should have asked for something smaller to start
with,” said Calvin with a smile.

“Maybe I should have,” said Ryan, “but I’m getting awfully
tired of the ‘mushroom treatment.’”

“What is the mushroom treatment?” asked Bullseye.

“It’s where you’re kept in the dark,” said Calvin, “and fed
shit all the time.”

“Do you suppose they’re actually going to tell us anything
this time?” asked Ryan.

“If they don’t, I’m quitting this whole thing and going on
cruise,” said Calvin, with a wistful tone in his voice. “I’d get to fly and
have no responsibilities…”

The Psiclopes reappeared, each holding an object.

Brontes stepped forward, holding a trident. The staff of the
trident was about five inches in diameter, larger than any trident Calvin had
ever seen “This is an antimatter projector. In the
Theogony
, I was
called ‘the Thunderer;’ this is why.”

Master Chief O’Leary took the trident, and looked at it
critically. “What does it…what does it do?”

“In function, it performs generally like one of your grenade
launchers,” explained Arges. “It launches a round of antimatter within a
magnetic containment field. The magnetic field extinguishes when it hits
something, and the antimatter detonates explosively with whatever it hits.”

Ryan looked at the holes at the end of the tines. “Umm, it
doesn’t look like the rounds will be very big,” he said. “What is the size of
the antimatter round that it shoots?”

“I’m not a warrior,” Brontes said, “but it may be written on
it.” She took the trident back, looked at the writing on it for a second and
then handed it back, pointing to a dial and button that the American hadn’t
noticed previously. “It looks like it goes from five nanograms to one gram of
antimatter.”

“How much is a nanogram?” asked Ryan. “That must be a lot,
right?”

“No,” said Steropes, “a nanogram is the equivalent of one
billionth of a gram. It’s very, very small.”

“So…it goes from itty bitty up to one gram? That’s it?”
asked Ryan. “A gram is like the weight of a paper clip, right?” Everyone’s
heads nodded. “That’s not very much,” he continued. “How are we going to kill anything
with that?”

“Quite handily,” responded Arges. “That should meet all of
your explosive needs, although using the one gram setting in anything other
than space is suboptimal.”

“Suboptimal? What is suboptimal about it?” asked Ryan,
looking confused.

“One gram of antimatter contacting one gram of matter has
the same explosive power as twice that of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki,
Japan on August 9, 1945. That bomb had the equivalent of about 20 kilotons of
TNT; one gram of antimatter detonates with the force of 42 kilotons. If you use
that setting within the atmosphere, it is likely that you will destroy yourself
as well as the target.”

“Hoooooly
shit
!” said Ryan, suddenly handling the
trident with much more respect. “What does that nanny gram setting do?”

Steropes smiled, “The five nanogram setting has a yield of about
226 grams of TNT, or about the same as one of your hand grenades.”

Ryan looked at Calvin and moaned, “Oh, sir, I want about 20
of these.”

“I’m sorry,” said Brontes, taking the trident back, “but we
can’t repli-…we only have ten of them.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Steropes stepped
forward with a helmet. “Sara referred to this as Zeus’ helmet of invisibility,
but it is actually a part of the Mark XXXVII Mod 4 combat armor system. When
the full suit is worn, it generates a force field that gives the wearer certain
abilities. One of these is that the suit can bend the light around the wearer.
When the soldier is motionless, he is almost invisible in most circumstances.
The faster he moves, the more likely he is to be seen.

Ryan took the helmet, and a look of surprise crossed his
face. “This can’t be combat armor,” he said. “It’s far too light to be
effective.”

“I think you will be pleasantly surprised,” replied Arges.
“The helmet, as well as the rest of the armor, is a composite fiber that is
much stronger than anything you have ever seen. It will easily stop a round
from one of your combat rifles.”

“That’s great if we were fighting the Chinese,” Night
growled in his deep voice, “but I’ll bet that the frogs have something better
than the Chinese QBZ-95 assault rifle.”

Arges’ face fell. “While the veracity of that statement
cannot be ascertained, it is quite likely. They have, after all, had 3,000
years to work out an armament solution to defeat this particular level of
technology.”

“What does the armor system weigh as a whole?” asked Ryan.

“The combat armor system weighs about 100 pounds,” replied Steropes.
“The majority of the weight is the antimatter power generation system.”

“Wow, that’s going to make combat…difficult,” said Top,
picturing having to carry 75 pounds of gear plus another 100 pounds of armor.
He frowned at Calvin. “Sir, I don’t think we’ll be able to wear it. Their combat
troops must have been monsters.”

“Actually,” interjected Steropes, “you should be fine with
it. One of its other capabilities is limited anti-gravity.”

“That is correct,” added Arges. “You can carry a total of
about 250 pounds before you start to experience performance degradation.”

“What does that mean?” asked Ryan.

“It means,” explained Steropes, “that in addition to the 100
pounds that the suit weighs, an average soldier can carry 150 pounds and feel
as if he were completely unencumbered. If he had a 200 pound pack, it would only
feel like he was carrying about 50 pounds.”

“What is an average soldier?” asked Top.

“When functional, the suit can counteract a total load of about
450 pounds,” said Steropes. “If a soldier weighs 200 pounds, the suit can
counteract his weight, plus 150 pounds of gear and the 100 pound weight of the
suit. The soldier will feel like he isn’t carrying anything. If the soldier
weighs more, he will not be able to carry as much before he starts to feel it.
Alternately, a smaller trooper will be able to pack more.”

Initially crestfallen when they heard the weight of the
suit, smiles began to light up the faces of the soldiers as they thought about
the extra equipment they would be able to carry and the additional capability
that it would give them.

“150 pounds…” muttered Ryan. “Hmmm…” Calvin could almost see
the wheels inside Ryan’s head turning as he did the mental calculations.

“Of course, if you need to carry more,” said Brontes
suddenly, looking at Ryan, “there are always the mechs.” Both of the male
Psiclopes suddenly looked annoyed.

“
You were not supposed to mention the mechs,
” said Arges
to the other Psiclopes, unheard by the Terrans.

“
Do you want to watch them face the Drakuls in nothing
but combat armor? The Drakuls will rip them apart. I still remember Atlantis,
even if you don’t,
” replied Brontes, visibly shuddering.

“
You know DAMN WELL I remember! She was my WIFE!
”
yelled Steropes.

 
“
My point exactly,
” said Brontes.

“Mechs? What mechs?” asked Ryan, unaware of the conversation
going on around him. “Like in the movies?”

“We used to have heavy mechanized combat armor suits,” replied
Steropes. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any here, nor do we have access to them.”

“We do, however, have one more piece of equipment for you,”
said Arges, holding out what looked like a child’s toy rifle. While shaped like
a rifle, it appeared to be molded out of cheap plastic. “In olden days, this
was known as ‘Zeus’ Thunderbolt.’”

Top took Zeus’ Thunderbolt. Although it weighed about ten pounds,
up close it looked even more like it was made of cheap plastic. Obviously not
made for humans, it also wasn’t very well balanced in his hands. He was
unimpressed. “I saw something that looked just like this at the toy store
yesterday. It was $19.95 and called the Space Ranger Special,” said Top. “I got
two for my kids.”

“May I?” asked Steropes, holding out a hand.

“Be my guest,” replied Top, handing the plastic rifle to
him.

Steropes flipped a switch on the rifle, and it made a noise
that sounded like something electronic powering up. He pointed it up at the
roof and pulled the trigger. With a low-pitched, ‘
pang!
’ the weapon
fired, and a beam of blue light went through the ceiling. Looking up, Calvin
could see that not only did the ceiling have a hole in it, the roof did, too.

Top looked up at the blue sky. “
That
isn’t something
my kids’ rifles can do, however.” He said with a new tone of respect. “I think
I like this one better. What is it?”

“It’s a three centimeter blue laser,” Steropes said.

“Nice,” replied Top. “That’ll put a hole just bigger than an
inch into something, right?”

“Correct,” agreed Arges.

“Those are all great,” said Calvin, “but what else do you
have for us? That’s not everything, is it?”

“Yes,” said Arges, “those are the weapons that we have. They
should give you a marked improvement in combat capability.”

“Ok,” repeated Calvin, “so what else do you have for us?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Steropes. “These weapons
give you a tremendous improvement in firepower and defensive abilities. What
were you expecting?”

“I was expecting a technological leap forward in
communications, among other things,” replied Calvin. “When are we going to
receive that?”

“
He knows!
” said Brontes.

“
It was to be expected,
” replied Arges. “
He always
knows.”

“
You expected him to know?
” asked Brontes.

“
He wouldn’t be the person I believe him to be if he
didn’t,
” answered Arges.

“Damn it! That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” shouted
Calvin. Everyone else looked confused by his outburst. “You’re talking right
now; either telepathically or through some internal radio system, and
I’ve
had it with you not telling us everything
. If you’re not going to be
open with us, I’m leaving.
Right. NOW!
” Calvin started toward the door.

“Oh, save the drama,” said Steropes. “You’re no more going
to walk away from flying space fighters than I am going to kiss a Drakul.” He
looked at Arges, who nodded. “We will tell you everything.”

“About fucking time,” muttered Ryan, capturing the mood of
the Terrans.

“The problem is,” began Steropes, “you don’t have a
planetary government. Our culture has strict rules on technology transfer to
developing planets. We can’t allow our weapons to be used for one nation to get
an advantage over any of the others. If we armed all of your soldiers with our
weapons, the United States could quickly take over the world.”

Ryan was incredulous. “Why the hell would we want to do
that?” he asked. “Trying to govern some of the hell holes I’ve been in would
suck beyond belief.”

“No shit,” agreed Calvin.

“Regardless,” continued Steropes, “you don’t have a
planetary government, and that is the rule. There have been times in the past
when exceptions have been made to these rules, but we are handicapped in our
decision-making capabilities, and our process is flawed.”

“What do you mean,” asked Calvin.

“There should be four of us,” answered Brontes. “There are
always four sent on a mission such as this, but we are only three. Normally, we
come to an agreement through discussion. At least three must agree to a course
of action, so that two more-warlike people cannot outvote two less-warlike
ones. Without our fourth, we are handicapped and cannot determine the best way
forward.”