Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) (27 page)

“All right, Hal, you win. Right now, about anything would be better than endless days of vodka and soap operas.”

Yay!  — Still mad at me?

“Yes.”

Okay. I can accept that. You’ll get over it… eventually. Oh, one more thing, Diet.

“What?”

I can’t wear britches… yet.

* * * *

Two men in a burning house must not stop to argue.
— African Proverb

The prison camp was constructed beneath highly-placed lower branches of truly monstrous trees, common throughout this planet, concealing it from visual examination from above. Thermal scans would certainly reveal its location to the human’s ships, but it was doubtful that even their marvelous technology had perfected thermal imaging with the resolution necessary to differentiate human and Raknii signatures. 

Planet-Master Mral stood just outside of the fenced compound studying the gigantic aliens milling about in the yard, just outside of the barracks closest to the main gate. Next to him stood Prison-Master Swaq, senior administrator of this facility, which had been built to house and contain their human prisoners. Quadrant-Master Drix had personally selected both for their positions, as they shared his adherence to the old ways. 

As the Rak
appeared
to be at the pinnacle of their power, most Raknii become quite secular in their beliefs and considered any idea of impending doom from impossible aliens to be utter foolishness. But Mral and Swaq were exceptional, in that both had minds accepting of the knowledge their god was angry at their race’s apostasy in departing from
his
precepts, and their current worship of the false gods of science and technology. Both fully believed in Varq’s dire prophecy, which outlined Dol’s plan of redemption for his children… the prophecy that Dol required the Raknii to pass through flames of tribulation to burn away the rot of
secularism
that infested Rak society and placed them in opposition with nature.

Most importantly, each was fully aware of the role these gigantic human aliens were destined to play in Dol’s plan to “civilize” his Raknii children, that they might return to fulfilling their legitimate roles in nature — and avoid extinction. They understood the tragic necessity of massive Raknii deaths at the hands of these aliens… and their terrible abilities to inflict such. Indeed, after having witnessed for themselves a relative paw-full of human warships obliterate the most powerful concentration of Rak military power in history, both feared that Varq’s dire prophecy might not have told the half of it. 

The irony of their current situation was not lost on Mral…  that they, as true followers of Dol, should now be the first to face obliteration because of the sins of their apostate brethren living deep within the empire. Those sinful brethren continued on in blissful ignorance of the titanic forces their folly and arrogance had unleashed, while it was the faithful who first faced annihilation from Dol’s judgment for their race’s abandonment of
his
precepts.

That same alien fleet, which had so easily destroyed Rak military power in this system, now orbited unopposed right over their heads. These terrible aliens wielded the power to incinerate virtually every Raknii instillation and settlement at their whim, as the planet-bound Rak had no means to defend themselves against such powerful space-borne weapons. None of the Raknii on this planet had yet heard the story of the
Sword of Damocles
, but recent events shockingly brought them all into a sudden and brutal understanding of the concept.  

As Planet-Master, Mral was highest ranking of all the Raknii on this world. If he did nothing, almost a million Raknii would soon die for no gain to the humans, other than their simply ceasing to exist, and certainly no gain to the Raknii whatsoever… a million deaths for no good purpose. Could anything be
less
honorable, than for so many to die for nothing?

Is not life too precious to simply await our inevitable destruction to begin raining down on us, without effort to avert such an ignominious fate? 

Strangely, these aliens didn’t look all that terrible, when seen milling about here in the compound yard… yet their military power was undeniably irresistible.
 

Irresistible… Cannot be resisted.  I wonder. 

What does one do when faced with what cannot be resisted?
 

What did we, as victors, do when Trakaan planets surrendered? We stopped killing them and occupied their planet. 

But the Trakaan are docile creatures… submission came easily for them. Raknii are undeniably aggressive. Could the Raknii learn to submit to another race? Could it be that there might be an answer in pursuing, by intellect, the total opposite of the path dictated by our natural instincts? 

To merely stand and die accomplishes nothing, and brands us as fools.

Surrender would be humiliating, certainly, but would the dishonor of submission be worse than the dishonor of so many deaths serving
no constructive purpose? 

Is there a lesson that Dol wishes us to learn here? Why else would our god put us in this impossible situation, if not to learn something important?  If the faithful cannot overcome their instinctual aggressiveness and accept being humbled by a race more powerful and deadly than our own, what hope is there for the rest of our race to follow? The living always have hope… What hope do the dead have? 

Mral decided.

“So… these are the fearsome
ultimate predators
I’ve heard so much about,” said Mral. “Have you been able to ascertain which human holds the highest rank amongst them?”

“Yes, Master,” replied Swaq. “Since being brought down to the planet’s surface, much of the humans’ verbal communications have become more intelligible to us, using the Raknii/English translator the Trakaan assisted us to develop,” replied Swaq. “It appears that similar to our own, their military has separate structures for their space and ground forces. We believe that we have identified the individuals holding the most senior rank for both groups.”

“That is well, as I need to speak with both of them,” said Mral. “Have them both brought to the conference room nearest your office, at the camp administrative center.”

“Immediately, Planet-Master!”

* * * *

“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” said a thoroughly discouraged Fleet Admiral Roger Kalis.  “We’ve been over this from every conceivable angle and we’re right back at square one. As much as I personally detest the idea of wholesale slaughter of sentient, intelligent beings, it just isn’t morally feasible to trade the lives of hundreds of thousands of our Fleet Marines in order to save lives of a predatory species which wantonly attacked us without provocation. If it were possible to avoid this, I would… but we seem to have no choice but saturation bombardment of all cat installations on the planet’s surface.” 

Kalis had hoped that his admirals and their staffs could come up with something…
anything
that might work in gaining control of the planet below, without incurring or inflicting hundreds of thousands of deaths. Unfortunately, all the alternatives they’d come up with required
some
kind of communications be established with the enemy, and communications with the aliens was one thing they did NOT have. So they here they were, back to the extremes… black or white… life or death on a mass scale, for one side or the other… or both.

Kalis felt dirty. He hadn’t even given the order to begin the bombardment and he already felt unclean in a way that all of his previous wars had not. This wasn’t war. It was more like exterminating vermin. But vermin didn’t develop star-drive capabilities. 

I didn’t put on this uniform to become a damned butcher! 

Kalis couldn’t concern himself with the welfare of the human prisoners taken from Minnos. No one knew exactly where the cats might be keeping them. If they had been on the station, they were already dead and beyond concern. If they were down on the planet, they soon would be. They were virtually all military people and therefore willing to forfeit their lives in trade for those of their comrades-in-arms, high above. At some point, any member of the military might be required to sacrifice their lives upon the alter of duty. It was just the realities that went with putting on the uniform. Military people understood that and accepted it, along with all of the other sacrifices involved in defending their country. 

Resigning himself to the necessity of issuing such a distasteful order, Kalis girded his emotional loins and…

Now hear this!  Admiral Kalis to the bridge.  Urgent!  —  I repeat…  Fleet Admiral Kalis, to the bridge, immediately.  Urgent! 

Kalis couldn’t help but glace up at the loudspeaker shouting his name. “Well, perhaps I should go see what’s going on,” Kalis said.  “Fleet commanders, with me.” 

* * * *

“Admiral on the bridge!” shouted the burly Confederate Fleet Marine sergeant standing watch at the hatch, as Fleet Admiral Kalis and the four other admirals commanding the combined fleets stepped through the hatchway into the big battleship’s combat information center.

“As you were,” called Admiral Kalis. “What’s up, Sandy?”

Captain Sandiford Wallace, commanding officer of the CSS
Malice
looked up from the ship’s communications console, where he had been looking over the communications officer’s shoulder and said, “We are receiving an incoming hail from the planet’s surface, asking to speak with the fleet commander, Admiral… in English.”

Kalis raised an eyebrow at this unexpected development and perched himself into his command chair. “Has the caller been identified?”

“No ID as yet, Admiral,” responded the communications officer. “But whoever it was, he sounded a bit tense. Transferring to your station now, sir.”

Kalis nodded and when the light on his console lit, indicating that his comm was hot, he thumbed the talk button and said, “This is Fleet Admiral Roger Kalis, commanding officer of the combined fleets of humanity… go ahead.”

There was a delay of about four seconds due to light-speed limitations before Kalis heard, “Admiral, this is Commander Lawrence Goodwin, commanding officer of the USS
Daluth
… Alliance Fleet, speaking to you from a prisoner of war camp on the planet’s surface. It appears that our captors wish to parley and they have requested that I initiate contact with you. They desire to know your
intentions and terms for sparing the planet from incineration.”

Kalis pursed his lips as he recalled that USS
Daluth
had been the name of the an Alliance frigate destroyed in the initial alien assault on Minnos. “It’s very good to hear from you, Commander. And it’s also good to hear our adversaries understand the hopelessness of their situation and their desire to avoid further, unnecessary bloodshed. Might I ask, how it is that you and the aliens are managing to communicate with one another?”

“It’s been difficult to keep track of time since being captured, Admiral, but what felt like several months after we were transferred to their orbital station, the Raknii… that’s what they call their race… started growling into some kind of box we hadn’t seen before, and after a slight delay, a synthesized voice from the box spat out an antiquated, but mostly recognizable form of English,” replied Goodwin. “Evidently our responses are somehow retranslated back into the cat’s language, as the box then spits out growling that they can understand… one moment, Admiral.”

Kalis considered what terms he considered vital, and what he could be lenient on, in order to help him build a foundation for establishing a long-term working relationship with these creatures. The better communications he could promote, the fewer of them he’d have to kill. 

It took over nine minutes before Commander Goodwin came back, “Sorry, Admiral… the ranking Raknii on the planet interrupted, requesting an explanation of the word ‘cats’ that I used during my last statement… I think I got across the idea that to human eyes, their physical appearance strongly resembles that of a familiar family of predators commonly found on human worlds, our propensity for using analogies and how we often have many different words in our language used in reference to the same subject, proper usage of which depends upon context. He requests that in the future, we use the terms ‘Raknii’ or ‘Rak’ when referring to his race, to avoid misunderstandings, due to ambiguity.”

After the annoying light-speed delays, Kalis responded, “Very well, Commander. What is the proper title that we should use while addressing the Raknii officer holding the highest rank in this system?”

“He says his title is ‘Planet-Master,’ Admiral.”

“Thank you, Commander. Please record the following, in response to the planet-master’s earlier question, concerning my terms for NOT slaughtering his people en masse…”

“One moment please, Admiral.”

Kalis waited while they made preparations for the recording of Kalis’ formal terms of surrender. “Comm, make sure you get a recording of this for a transcription of our own.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral!” responded the communications officer.

A few minutes later, Kalis heard: “Recording now, Admiral,” from Commander Goodwin on the planet’s surface.

“Very well,” said Kalis. “The people of the United Stellar Alliance, the independent planet Sextus and the Confederate Stellar Accord demand the following terms of the local Rak authorities, in return for allowing the peaceful surrender of the planet to combined fleet authority, and avoidance of further military operations that surely would result in the extermination of the Raknii people on the planet’s surface: