Frig worked his console, checking systems until he found the breaker that had kicked out saving our internal electrical system. A quick reset from his console had the standard generators powering up. "Before we go Sir, I would like to analyze the data collected from that electrical blast. If that is a common ground weapon the Colonel and our captains will need to know. I don't know that the Raiders electronics would have survived that. Perhaps we were lucky that it was the Swift."
I gave Frig four minutes for his analysis before I lifted off. This time the electrical weapon was targeted and destroyed from a safe distance. It was followed quickly thereafter by the destruction of the large tower. Four minutes later the remainder of our targets had been annihilated. Frig completed his study and passed the information back to the fleet.
With the towers eliminated I took the liberty of targeting obvious Milgari garrison buildings and outposts. Within an hour we had destroyed 48 such buildings in the target area we had been assigned. The results were again passed along to fleet command.
Our ground troops, using the conventional weapons, again had an overwhelming advantage. The Milgari troopers were being slaughtered by the thousands. Frig then brought up an issue that we had overlooked. "Sir, what of the Barithians? I've counted more than five million on this planet. Do we leave them, once again at the mercy of the Milgari?"
I got the Colonel on the comm to discuss, "How many can we transport and house Colonel? Is this something we even attempt? If they are left alone, the Milgari will probably just put them back to work."
The Colonel replied, "I discussed this with the team earlier, we do not have the ability to move five million Barithians or to house and care for them. The Maximum we could support would be in the 600,000 range. I don't know that we do any good by taking only a few. The others would likely suffer more."
The Colonel was right. And it would not be the first time we had left others behind. The last time we had done so the captives had disappeared, that time it was several hundred thousand, this was five million. I sighed as I replied, "I guess you are right. Until we have the ability to care for them we cannot do a partial rescue. It would only cost the others."
Thirty-six hours after the hostilities on the planet's surface had begun, the last of the Milgari were dead. I landed in the bay of the Slaughter as the troop transports filled with our Ground Assault Marines lifted off. Initial counts revealed more than 562,000 Milgari dead to our 680 killed and 3,340 wounded. Our warriors would be missed but not forgotten on this day. Our goals had been accomplished and the battle won.
When the last of the transports lifted off we set a course back towards home. It had been a battle well fought. The Colonel had taken possession of five new cruisers and we had the bonus of two Durian prisoners. The Milgari production and trade facilities in the system had been destroyed. The battle for Barithia had clearly gone our way.
On route back to the Suppressor I had a sudden bad thought about the Durian prisoners. I no longer trusted taking them to our base of operations. I was in fear of them somehow being bugged where the Durians could follow us home. I had the Slaughter change course to a remote uninhabited planet where we would park.
A ship would be sent from the Suppressor carrying George and the truth drug that we would attempt to use on them. I would also ask Rita to bring out her best signal detection gear as an added precaution. The thought then occurred to me that a permanent base for the interrogation of captured soldiers might be a good thing to maintain. I thought of it as one more layer of defense.
The planet was a swampy mess. Large creatures moved about through the swamps during the day and mysterious ones swam in the waters depths at night. The creatures were savage and it was evident that Human life on the planet would be difficult to sustain. It would not be a welcome place for colonists, but it was perfect for our use.
We set the Slaughter down in a large lake and sank beneath the surface. The water was high in minerals, along with our own signal inhibitors we would be difficult to detect. Eight days later George and Rita arrived with their gear. The interrogation process was begun.
Five hours after administering the drug the first Durian committed suicide by cracking a poison capsule in his mouth. The commander that I had met with before was stopped and searched before he could the same. Six hours later his tongue began to loosen.
"You Humans are a foul and disgusting species. I shall be glad when you are done with. We are in discussions with the Torrians about making joint use of the Grid's gravity drive. The Torrians are fools. They will be tossed aside after winning us our prize."
"With the power of the Grid and our vast fleet of powerful warships we will rule this arm of the galaxy within my lifetime. All aggressive species will be wiped from existence. The remaining docile unfortunates will be herded to war or to slaughter for our causes. Within a thousand years the Durians will rule this galaxy!"
The Durian's words were fascinating. They possessed a pure hatred of everyone not Durian and a willingness to use whatever means necessary to rid the galaxy of such. No others were viewed as equals, only as those to be sacrificed in the name of Duria, their god.
I asked the commander about their home-world. He replied, "Methessila." He then began to describe the plants, animals, cities, people and their accomplishments. The Durians were proud of what they had become. As the Durian continued he began to slur his words. Less than a minute after first having difficulty he fell silent and slipped from his chair to the floor. A green ooze dripped from his small blue scaly nose. The Durian was dead.
I banged my fist on the table and then rose to pace the room. "We were so close! He was about to tell us their location. I'm beginning to wonder if we are ever going to find any of this out." George stopped me and put his hand on my shoulder, "There will be other chances and when they come we will know. We at least know Methessila. Some traveler somewhere knows where that is."
George took control of the Durian's body for an autopsy. He was dead, but it didn't mean there was nothing else to be learned from him. Knowing the locations of vital organs and nerve bundles could be useful during hand-to-hand combat. We were not yet at war with the Durians, but we knew that one day soon that might all change. Of late, the Durians were seemingly picking sides.
After George finished his autopsy we lifted off from the swamp planet and fired the dead Durian's body towards the planet's sun. If there was a tracking device located on or in his body, it would not survive the immense heat and pressure of the star. The Colonel turned the Slaughter towards home. Frig was in need of his lab to do a thorough analysis of the Durian data. The Colonel and I would need to plan our next move.
Upon our return Gy gave the news that our newest personal craft was ready to deliver to Doris on the Grid. The Finch had all of our latest modifications. The exterior was painted with a subdued red and a gray stripe that ran the length of the hull. It matched the colors of the Martool Mining and Commodities logo.
The small ship featured a full strength ion cannon as well as a negative ion field generator. At times she might find it advantageous to stop and disable a ship to enable her own getaway. Free space still had its dangers.
After seeing the Finch off I took a stroll to the Colonel's office. "Grange! Have a seat and let's get started. I have a few ideas I would like to run past you. I think you'll like 'em but I want your buy in before I take them further. It's time we took a deep run beyond the Torrian world into the Delvin sector."
"The Delvin is where I believe we will find the real Milgari supply lines and factories. They have to be building those ships somewhere and it's high time we figured out where. We slowed their production for a while by disrupting their Tantric supplies. I think it's time we stopped that production at its source."
I thought about the Colonel's proposal, it was sound. "Do we have any data at all on the Delvin sector?" The colonel pulled out a paper chart. We have a scan from the Grid as it passed through that sector on its way to its current location. I had a friend pull it out for me from the archives. Had to grease a few palms as it is not public info, but there are always those eager to make a few extra credits."
"It doesn't have much detail as traveling at that speed takes its toll on the sensors. But we do have several dozen star systems that we passed that are near the Torrian world. I thought we would start with recon runs of those. Maybe we will get lucky."
"We will be sending 46 teams of two out to scour the area. If we give them a month at it I'm sure we can find some targets of value. Heck, we might even get lucky and get the opportunity to grab a few prisoners for interrogation. George has been training several crews on the use of the truth drug. Pop a few new Torrians and maybe we get lucky with vital info on their operations in the sector."
After discussing the Colonel's plan I gave my approval for him to proceed. I took a short walk to Frig's lab to see how the Durian data mining was coming along. "So, what do you have for me? Anything we can use?" Frig moved from one console to another as he worked over the information the data contained.
"Sir, the Durian data is stored in a format that does not make sense. It does not seem to be encrypted, but it is also not connected. In Human writing as well as Gambit and most other species, a series of words are connected to form a sentence that conveys a broader message. The Durian data is missing that connection. Such as this...
Package offers three Mega diagonal septic
."
"Until we know what that means we have no useable information. At the moment I am at a loss Sir. We are either missing a fundamental key to the meaning of the data or it was scrambled before I could access it." I walked the lab looking at Frig's setup. "What's this console over here?"
Frig eagerly explained, "I was unsure of the nature of the Durian data. They are a crafty bunch and in order to prevent that data from finding its way onto our network I isolated these three systems from it. This particular system performs a continuous monitor function on the data itself. I took the precaution in case the data contained a virus."
"If this monitor sounds, a program on that data store is attempting to replicate or move itself elsewhere. It would not be out of the realm of possibility that this data is one big cyber weapon. With the Durians it is almost impossible to know."
"Oh, Sir. I also took the liberty of attaching your father's data cube to a cracking system of its own. The system will run continuous algorithms against it in an attempt to get through. The Swift was able to decode a single key of the encryption, but it appears to be 132 layers deep. As I said before, unless the cracking algorithm stumbles upon the right sequence it could be many years before we are able to break through. Having a single key though, is an excellent start."
I moved over to another console in the lab and began to peruse through status reports from the entities that made up the Council of Governors. There was something comforting about being around Frig as he worked. It was like the background noise from your home. Familiar sounds would put you at ease.
The status reports read that the terraforming of Jarhead continued to move rapidly along. The atmospheric portion was ahead of schedule. Our planet would be able to sustain air breathing life in only a few short months. When our scientists gave the go-ahead, we would then move forward with terraforming the ground. Within two years, the greening up of Jarhead would begin.
The automated space docks continued to crank out Raiders. The Colonel and his men had been working on a destroyer design that would soon be under construction. The destroyer would house 26 Raider ships along with the supplies and repair facilities to keep them flying for extended periods of time. The conversion of the five captured Milgari cruisers was well underway.
With the Wren and the Finch now in service we had given additional thought to turning the small flyers into warships. They would be a tight fit for a crew of two on an extended mission, but moving through space had only ever been a travel of luxury for a wealthy few. Most transports were less that comfortable after a week’s time aboard.
The smaller ship design was designated as the Hawk. Gy's designers were of the opinion that our automated docks could initially produce 100 Hawks per month if full priority was given to the program. I began to think in terms of taking on a large Milgari force. I wondered if the Hawks could rise to the challenge offered by such a force. I was soon daydreaming of 2,000 such Hawks going up against a 1,000 ship Milgari fleet. Bigger was not always better.
After spending much of the afternoon with nothing else to do I gathered several members of the Council of Governors together. "I've been having thoughts of starting up contact with Admiral Zimmerman. I am curious as to their progress and I am interested in how they manage diplomacy with other species such as the Prassi."
"I wanted everyone's input before moving ahead." Rita spoke first, "I think we need all the allies we can get. 17,000 Milgari ships is way beyond our ability to deal with. I understand that the best we can do at the moment is to pick at them around the edges and then do the occasional hard strike. But they are going to adapt and find ways to make those efforts much less productive. We need allies and we need all we can get."
The room erupted in discussion before the Colonel stood and spoke, "We have been building up our forces, but we are reaching the limits of what we can do effectively. Pilots are becoming difficult to find and with the new Hawk ships we are talking of building we are going to need many more. We can train, but their needs to be some level of flying skills already present unless we want to send greenhorns into battle. Personally, that is not a practice I like."
The others in the room each voiced their opinions. As the discussion continued Frig walked in with news of the Durian data. "I've just come from the lab, the Durian information was a trap. The detection monitors I had running sounded the alarm just before the intelligent application in the data store broke through its firewalls. Nine levels of high security were violated in under a minute. I'm afraid we have little left of value from our Durian encounter."
I replied, "That is not true. We know they have chemical lasers that function when ion fields have gone static, we know the name of their home-world, and we know that they die just like everyone else. I would say we learned a lot from this encounter. We also learned that our strategies and tech can defeat a Durian destroyer."
Frig sighed, "You of course are correct Sir, my response was mostly rhetorical. I am frustrated at the moment because of my failure. Although, somewhere in there could still be a silver lining. If I am able to analyze their intelligent application, I may be able to figure out a way to use it against them."
"I believe its initial programming directed it to gather information to be transmitted to the Durians at some future point. If that is true, we may be able to fill it with false discoveries and to then provide a method for that data to be released. Those falsehoods could be tales of our woe, of our immense power and capability or perhaps of a false location of our home base. Hmmm, I will be giving this some thought."
I could see the gears in Frig's brain turning. He quickly asked to be excused and headed back towards his lab. Our discussion continued through the morning until we stopped to take a vote. It was unanimous. I would be flying out to make contact with Zimmerman the following afternoon. I would be bringing to his attention my concerns over Cortes and the Ranger and their meeting with the Milgari. Cortes would have to come clean.
When the meeting had adjourned I asked George about his progress with the Milgari virus. His team had successfully killed the virus in a Milgari, but it was at the expense of the Milgari's life. The virus engrained a dependency in the hosts nervous system, if it was not present the host body would shut down.
After the day’s activities I returned to my office for some quiet time. Running an empire was tiresome. The constant push and pull of the needs of thousands gave the position of President an often unsatisfying edge. I soon found myself asleep in a lounge chair. I did not wake until morning.
Gy's computer team made a run through of the Wren's computer system. They removed any data that would lead a captor back to our base. I was taking a chance by speaking to Zimmerman. I hoped that he was the man of honor that he had once been. Things were changing on the Grid and old political alliances could easily turn against you if not properly managed.
After a hardy meal in the general mess hall I boarded the Wren and set out for Zimmerman's space. It had been a long time since I had been in the distant grid. I was traveling in a straight line and had the image projector running, I slid silently along, unknown to any who crossed my path or looked for moving ships.