CHAPTER 10 – A TERRIBLE TASK
14:45 (Universal Time)
Friday, May 28, 2320
Command bridge of the KOSTROMA
In polar orbit over Gliese 581c
The mood was downright gloomy on the bridge as the KOSTROMA inserted itself into a high polar orbit around Gliese 581c. Tina was not the only one to be conflicted about their coming task, far from it. The fresh realization that the planet supported a Vorlak population numbering in the billions only added to the crew’s gloom. Tina was in fact contemplating from orbit the lights of a mega-city that was probably the capital of the planet, judging from the centralization of most of the electronic communications of Gliese 581c into that city, when the voice of Spirit came up from a viewing screen of her command chair.
‘’Tina, this is Spirit!’’
‘’Go ahead, Spirit.’’
‘’I wanted to tell you that my Vorlak language translation program is now making rapid progress, thanks to the profusion of video and data channels I can now access since approaching the planet’s orbit. I believe that I will be able to translate with fair to good reliability Vorlak communications within a few hours.’’
‘’That is great news, Spirit! This could help us a lot to understand the mentality of those Vorlaks and would in turn help us predict their future moves.’’
There was a short silence then before Spirit continued, something highly unusual for the artificial intelligence super-computer.
‘’Tina, I know that you and many others are feeling bad about this present phase of your mission and I fully understand how conflicted you are about it. However, even though I dislike violence as much as you do, I believe that this course of action is ultimately the only viable one you could follow.’’
Tina raised an eyebrow at those words: for a super-computer, however intelligent it could be, to pretend to understand human emotions sounded a bit farfetched, even in the case of Spirit, which she held in the greatest of respect.
‘’Spirit, you can’t feel emotions. How could you understand my present emotions?’’
‘’Tina, I may not truly feel emotions, but I certainly can understand their causes and effects.’’
‘’Did you read some books on human psychology in order to claim to understand emotions? Please excuse me if I sound skeptical, but I have a hard time believing that any computer could understand emotions.’’
‘’Tina, I have just read the books, studies and analysis concerning human psychology contained in the ship’s data banks…all of them. Humans may believe that emotions are unpredictable and mostly spontaneous, but in reality they are only the results of a mix of past life experiences, stimulus and sub-conscious thinking, which make persons react in certain ways when faced with certain situations and parameters. In the same vein, I can safely predict that the Vorlaks’ response to our mere presence in this system will not change even if we tried to negotiate with them: their xenophobia and sense of racial superiority is simply too deeply ingrained in them. Those traits are further reinforced by a strong common tendency towards cruelty and aggressiveness that show in their various electronic communications forms.’’
‘’Cruelty? How could you judge that simply from intercepted communications, Spirit?’’
‘’Tina, some of the signals from the surface that I presently monitor are those of video entertainment medias, including what you would call ‘video games’. Guess which such video game is by far the most popular and is played by the most Vorlaks.’’
‘’Uh, fighting games, I suppose.’’
‘’Not really, Tina. What is presently the most popular video game around this planet is a torture game.’’
‘’A torture game?’’ said Tina a bit too loudly, making a few heads turn around her. ‘’What do you mean by that?’’
‘’I suppose that it could be called a ‘horror’ game back on Earth, except that its graphic content is meant to amuse the Vorlaks, not to scare them, if I can judge by the popular responses to the game. In essence, the goal of that video game is to select a particular individual or animal and then compete in finding the most painful way to torture it until it dies.’’
‘’But, that’s sick!’’ could only say Tina, genuinely revolted by such a concept.
‘’It definitely would have people who would play such a game in the Solar System quickly classified as certified psychopaths and get the game in question banned by the authorities. However, here on the third planet, this game has a seal of approval from the government and in fact appears to be quite similar in spirit to the old Roman gladiator games meant to distract the low masses. Oh, by the way, do you know what is now the favorite victim chosen by the gamers using this video game network?’’
‘’Uh, the Hoshis, I suppose.’’
‘’Wrong! You are, Tina!’’
‘’WHAT?’’ exclaimed Tina, stiffening in her chair under a surge of anger. ‘’How could that be? They know nothing about us…or me.’’
‘’Wrong again, Tina: the Vorlaks have your image, the same one I used in our pictographic warnings to them. They apparently extrapolated the general shape of your body from that image and introduced your naked figure as one of the victims gamers could select for this torture game. I will of course refrain from showing you clips from some of those game sessions, as that would be utterly inappropriate.’’
‘’Humor me, Spirit!’’ replied Tina, her expression hard.
‘’Very well, Tina, but you will have been warned.’’
The image on Tina’s screen then changed from that of the serene woman’s face portraying Spirit to what appeared clearly to be from a fairly low quality video game. Thankfully, Spirit did not play the soundtrack that came with the video. Still, what Tina watched for half a minute or so was enough to deeply disgust and sicken her.
‘’Okay, Spirit: I have seen enough. I get your point.’’
‘’Then, please consider this point while keeping this video game in mind: what do you think would eventually happen to any Koorivar or Human colony or settlement that we would establish on either Oceana or Hyanesu if we don’t eliminate the threat represented by the Vorlaks? What do you think will happen to the intelligent sea turtles of Oceana or to the other possible sentient marine life forms there if the Vorlaks ever land on Oceana? Pacifism is a nice thing, Tania, but not when it would result in the oppression or even death of masses of innocent people. I believe that the history of Humanity has shown many times already that groups of sheep can’t cohabitate in peace with wolves.’’
That left Tina silent for a long moment as she mentally mulled Spirit’s words. The damning thing is that Spirit’s analysis was correct and was amply supported by known history.
‘’Thank you Spirit for your presentation. You made the goals of our mission clearer to me.’’
‘’Glade to be of help, Tina.’’
Some twenty minutes later, as Tina was still sitting in her command chair, Patricia O’Neil gave a warning from her sensors station.
‘’Tina, we have a large space structure coming into view dead ahead. It looks like some sort of orbital installation.’’
‘’Check it out with our main optical telescope, Patricia. Find out what it is exactly.’’
‘’On it, Tina!’’
Patricia proved true to her word, providing more information a mere twenty seconds later.
‘’That structure is definitely a space yard, and a big one, Tina. I can see at least six ships of various size and design under construction. I would say that this space yard measures a good two kilometers in length and over 800 meters in width and height.’’
‘’That is indeed a significant space installation. Our lasers would take a lot of time to inflict serious damage to it. Renée, load one anti-matter shell in one of our heavy rail guns and fire it at the center of mass of that space yard.’’
‘’Loading one anti-matter shell in Heavy Turret Delta!’’
‘’Captain, we have six small craft departing now from the space yard complex.’’ suddenly warned Amin Jamilian.
‘’Probably interceptors or fighter craft. Renée, hold on to firing our heavy rail gun: we will first use our lasers on those six fighters. Hien, fire 100 megawatt beams at those six craft.’’
‘’Firing lasers now!... Targets destroyed, Captain.’’
‘’Excellent! Renée, you may fire Turret Delta.’’
‘’Aye, Captain! Shell on the way! Impact in 29 seconds.’’
‘’Sensors stations, mask our sensors to prevent damages to them from the flash of the explosion. Unmask them in 45 seconds.’’
Tina then concentrated her attention on their lidar3 picture, which would not be affected for more than a second by the expected anti-matter explosion. At the instant called by Renée d’Argenteuil, the lidar screen was temporarily blinded by a huge explosion. That flash then gave place to a multitude of dots of varying sizes flying off in all directions, as the huge space yard complex was blown apart in chunks of varying size. Some of those chunks flew outward from the planet but most were projected downward, towards the surface. Entering the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere after a couple of minutes, those debris then started burning from the friction with the air of the upper atmosphere, soon becoming balls of flames with smoking trails which were impossible to miss in the sky of Gliese 581c. The smaller chunks completely burned up before they could hit the surface but many of the bigger pieces were still nearly whole and impacted on one of the continents or crashed into an ocean, causing mayhem and destruction on the ground, plus tsunamis at sea. Tina observed those results with a detachment that surprised a few of her bridge crew, starting with Gerald Holmes, who was occupying his customary V.I.P. chair near Tina’s command chair.
Continuing along its polar orbit as if on a simple excursion, the KOSTROMA engaged in reality in a detailed and focused mapping of the planet, bent on identifying the major industrial, military and government installations on which the Vorlak space effort depended. The only other space installation destroyed by the KOSTROMA during its first polar revolutions was what appeared to be a military orbital terminal, where a number of troopships and cargo ships were docked. That terminal, also of significant size, disappeared in the fifty kilometer-wide fireball of an anti-matter rail gun shell, with few solid chunks left of it to fall down and burn in the planet’s atmosphere. Strangely enough for Gerald Holmes, the furious Vorlak response he was expecting amounted to only a handful of attacks by small craft, attacks which were easily crushed by the KOSTROMA’s batteries. Intrigued, he left his seat and walked to Tina’s command chair, waiting for her not being busy giving orders or receiving information before speaking to her in a low voice.
‘’Tina, I was expecting the Vorlak response to our presence in orbit to be, well, a lot more robust. Instead, it is as if the Vorlaks have run out of ships to defend themselves.’’
‘’Actually, Gerald, I believe that this is exactly what is happening. You have visited Earth many times in the past few years. How would you characterize the space traffic and installations around Earth?’’
‘’Crowded!’’ replied Gerald at once. ‘’There must be hundreds of space terminals and orbital stations around Earth, plus thousands of artificial satellites. The ships going in and out of Earth orbit look at times like old ground cars traffic jams.’’
‘’And what is your impression of the space traffic around this planet?’’
Gerald then understood what Tina was coming at and looked at her with his mouth half opened.
‘’The space around this planet actually looks nearly empty to me. Did I miss some things I should have seen?’’
‘’You missed very little, Gerald, for the simple reason that there is very little to see. Up to now, everything to date indicates to me that the Vorlaks are still in the primary phase of interplanetary space travel. Nearly all their ships, saved for dedicated landing craft, look incapable of atmospheric flight and their light construction and architecture tells me that they had to be built piecemeal in orbit from parts flown from the surface. Also, their ships’ architecture demonstrates that the Vorlaks have no artificial gravity and use centrifugal designs to create a felt gravity on their ships, while their thermonuclear fusion engines are low efficiency, first generation models. My belief is that the Vorlaks gained an interplanetary capability only a century or so ago and have progressed slowly since. Yet, what did they do while they were still barely able to leave their planet’s orbit? They went to their moon, Hyanesu, and immediately attacked the local sentient race, taking it into slavery and even butchering and eating the Hoshis. They even fired on an alien ship without so much as giving it a warning and destroyed one of its shuttles. What do you think that they will do once their space travel capabilities will improve, Gerald?’’
Gerald’s face reflected some discouragement as he answered her.
‘’They will probably continue to play the space bullies, but throughout this whole solar system.’’
‘’Correct! The Vorlaks may think of themselves as a superior race worthy of dominating all other races around them, but in reality they are little more than a bunch of bullies with a two-bit space capability. Furthermore, they also show a strong propensity for cruelty, sadism and xenophobia which would make some of our worst past dictators in Earth’s history look like pikers in comparison. For the sake of the Hoshis on Hyanesu and that of the intelligent sea turtles and whales of Oceana, those bullies must not be allowed to leave their planet and sow death and misery around this system, ever! We are in the process of identifying and locating all the installations and industrial plants the Vorlaks use to develop their space capabilities and we will then destroy these facilities. We will also eliminate their leaders, who bear the most blame for this despicable picture, and I will feel much better once that will be done.’’
Shaken by the determination in her voice, but not finding fault in her logic or reasoning, Gerald walked away from her command chair, then decided to leave the bridge and return to his apartment to get some rest there. He was not too keen anyway to witness what was to come in the next few hours.
A few minutes later, Tina got up from her command chair and spoke to Renée d’Argenteuil, still sitting at one of the weapons stations.
‘’Renée, I am going to rest a bit in my day cabin. You have the bridge. Do not fire again unless attacked or if you encounter more Vorlak space installations or ships in flight. Continue our mapping job and wake me up when it will be completed.’’
‘’Got it, Tina!’’
Tina then walked down the stairs between her platform level and the lowest platform level and entered the rotunda containing the few elevator shafts ending at the level of the bridge complex, along with a small crew coffee lounge and a pair of washrooms. Instead of taking one of the elevators, she walked to one of the doors opening on the rotunda and entered her day cabin, a small, sparsely furnished cabin with a bed reserved for her use when she needed to rest while staying close to her command chair. Locking the door behind her, she went to sit at a small work table supporting a computer terminal and powered the computer, opening a link with Spirit.
‘’Spirit, I need your help with something…’’
19:01 (Universal Time)
District canteen, Sector 06
Imperia (capital city of the Shumesh Empire)
Gliese 581c
Gorak needed a strong drink after his shift had ended for the day at one of the administrative complexes in Imperia. Along with a group of seven of his Vorlak coworkers, he thus had gone to one of the district canteens dotting this sector of the capital city and had started to drink ale with them while discussing and watching from time to time the television screen suspended over the bar. That discussion had been done in low, nearly whispered voices and while not saying anything that could have been construed to be against the government: government-paid snitches were everywhere, while surveillance cameras and microphones could be anywhere. Gorak and his coworkers were certainly not subversives or traitors, but many nasty rumors were running around about an alien ship having arrived in the solar system and having attacked Vorlak ships. Even discussing such rumors could attract accusations of disloyalty, in which case the accused could expect to be promptly arrested and interrogated.
Gorak, like the other patrons of the canteen and his coworkers, was making the appearance of listening religiously to the hourly government news bulletin as it played on the screen above the bar, with all conversations having temporarily stopped: watching and listening the government news bulletins and public announcements was mandatory, not a choice, so he pretended to listen with great interest to the platitudes delivered by the female newscaster: at least she was nice looking. To his secret deception but not surprise, the newscaster did not say anything about the rumored alien ship. Gorak was taking a sip of his ale when the image and sound on the television set suddenly became garbled. He was frowning at that, thinking that some idiot at the government news agency was going to be severely punished for such a glitch, when a new image formed up on the TV screen. Gorlak nearly spat out his ale when he saw that the image was that of a spaceship…and not a Vorlak one! One camera shot taken from inside that ship then showed two bipedal alien beings sitting at the controls of the craft and piloting it towards another alien ship visible in the distance in the blackness of space. The first ship, a fairly small one as far as Gorak could judge, was then shown approaching the second ship, which grew progressively on the TV screen. Exclamations ran throughout the canteen when the true size of the second ship, which dwarfed the first one, became evident. Then, a soft voice speaking a fair Vorlak sprinkled with minor mistakes and misspellings came out of the TV set while the first ship was shown flying by the gigantic second ship.
‘’Vorlak people, this is the captain of the KOSTROMA, the larger ship you are now seeing on your screens. Me and my ship came to this solar system with peaceful intentions, in order to find a long lost ship that may have stopped in this system.’’
The image then changed to show the inside of what looked like a large ship’s bridge deck centered on one bipedal alien sitting in a padded chair positioned above a semi-circle of work stations occupied by other aliens. One of the customers of the canteen then shouted out in excitement.
‘’HEY, THAT’S THE SAME ALIEN WITH WHICH I WAS PLAYING WITH IN THE LAST SESSION OF THE PAIN GAMES!’’
That made Gorak raise one of his thick eyebrows: that sort of confirmed to him that this was not some kind of propaganda by the government services. The female voice then spoke again in Vorlak, making all the customers of the canteen fall silent.
‘’While we did not find in this system the ship we were looking for, we found instead your ships on and around your moon, busy enslaving the local sentient race, the Hoshis. We also found that you were butchering the Hoshis for their meat, an act we found most repugnant. When my ship approached your ships to ask them to leave the Hoshis alone, your ships opened fire on us. That forced us to reply and destroy your fleet orbiting around the moon. Then, your government fired a massive salvo of nuclear-tipped missiles at the moon, with the intent to render it uninhabitable and to chase us away. We destroyed every one of those 827 missiles before they could reach the moon and commit what we would have considered as the planned genocide of a whole sentient race which never attacked you. Such an attempted genocide is something that we can’t let go by without a severe punishment for your leaders. We could easily destroy the Vorlak civilization in a matter of hours, but we will give you a last warning and a last chance instead, along with a measured punishment. From this time on, Vorlaks are to stay within the atmosphere of this planet, never to venture into space again. Any derogation to that rule will result in the destruction of the ships involved and in further punishment to your planet. If you try again to harm the Hoshis or other beings living in this system, including by firing long-range missiles or beam weapons, then your world will be sterilized. This will be our only warning. We will now punish the truly guilty ones in this affair: your government and your power-mad emperor. Don’t force us to come back, for your own sake.’’
The image of the alien bridge then disappeared, to be replaced for a few seconds by that of a very confused-looking female Vorlak newscaster. The image then became blank, save for a hastily written message on the screen announcing some ‘technical problems’. As soon as the screen went blank, the crowd in the canteen exploded into exclamations, shouts, comments and questions. However, all that stopped again at once when the noise and vibrations from powerful explosions started to be heard and felt a few seconds later. One of the customers of the canteen who then ran to one of the windows of the local shouted out loud.
‘’THE IMPERIAL PALACE COMPLEX IS UNDER FIRE! THE CENTRAL DOME HAS ALREADY COLLAPSED!’’
Gorak hurried to one of the windows, elbowing his way through the crowd so that he could see by himself what was happening to the imperial palace. What he saw was a heavy deluge of missiles, which were quickly reducing the palace complex into a massive pile of rubble. An intense flash of light in the distance, well outside the city, then forced him to close his eyes for a moment while raising one arm to mask his face. In doing so, he was able to feel the residual heat from the distant blast on his arm, proof of the huge power of the explosion.
‘’By the gods! This came from the direction of the imperial resort complex on the coast.’’
19:40 (Universal Time)
Command bridge of the KOSTROMA
In polar orbit around Gliese 581c
‘’Fire plan completed and all targets destroyed, Tina.’’
‘’Thank you, Renée!’’ replied Tina after a sigh of relief: she definitely disliked war, even though she had just proved again that she was good at it. Gerald Holmes and Shanandar then came to her command chair to shake her hand and congratulate her.
‘’Tina, that idea to give to the Vorlaks a video warning before delivering a limited strike was pure genius. You could have easily turned most of this planet’s continents to waste, but ended using only…what, a dozen anti-matter rail gun shells in total, none of them against population centers?’’
‘’Make it nine anti-matter shells, plus the two shells we fired at the orbital yards and terminal. We vaporized the Emperor’s personal resort retreat-cum fortress, the castle/fortress/military base of five regional governors, one state arsenal and two astroports. If the Vorlaks don’t understand my warning after this, I don’t know what will convince them, Gerald.’’
‘’Tina,’’ said Shanandar, ‘’your response to the Vorlak threat could not possibly have been more restrained, in view of their attempt at committing a mass genocide. We Koorivars are ingrained pacifists, but we can easily understand and accept your actions today.’’
‘’Thank you, my old friend. This helps me a lot in chasing the guilt I still have about using such terrible weapons.’’
‘’And what are you planning to do next about the Vorlaks, Tina? How will we make sure that they don’t try again to fly spaceships in the future, short of us keeping warships around this planet on a permanent basis?’’
Gerald’s question made Tina think of a moment before she answered him.
‘’I think that the simplest solution to that would be to place in orbit around Gliese 581c a number of armed robotic stations which will then watch the planet and the space around it, with orders to automatically destroy any craft, missile or ship which will rise out of the atmosphere. Of course, we will still need to send from time to time patrol ships to this system, to make sure that the Vorlaks are not playing tricks in our back.’’
‘’Hum, a good idea, actually. Building such robotic watch stations should be relatively simple and inexpensive and I am sure that the Spacers League will quickly unblock the necessary funds for their construction. I could travel again in your jump-capable shuttle to return to the Solar System and present this plan to my wife.’’
‘’That could be done, Gerald. I will however need to stay in this system for a few more days and weeks, time to continue repairing the CENTURION. I believe that my KOSTROMA will end having to bring the CENTURION back to Earth and the Avalon Space Yards: the recalibration of the cruiser’s koomak Drive is a very delicate affair that could only be done in a fully equipped space yard. Before departing this system with the CENTURION, though, I believe that my ship’s workshops could produce by themselves at least a couple of robotic orbital watch stations. We could then use some of the missiles stored in the CENTURION to arm those stations.’’
‘’Your onboard workshops could really produce such stations, Tina?’’
Tina smiled in response to Gerald’s question.
‘’My dear Gerald, never underestimate the capabilities of my KOSTROMA. It was built to be self-sufficient in nearly all respects.’’
She then turned to face Shanandar.
‘’My friend, we have here in this system two worlds which could accommodate in nearly perfect conditions Koorivar refugees, with the local race on one of them, Hyanesu, having already stated that it would welcome such refugees. What do you think about that?’’
‘’I think that Hyanesu would indeed be an ideal resettlement location for my people, and so would be Oceana…if the sentient sea turtles eventually respond favorably to our request. We have already a number of prefabricated modules, along with thousands of tons of supply and equipme