Chapter 495: The Last Fleet (1/2)
Never trust a smiling human - Mantid Proverb
Sma'akamo'o sat down on the bench seat that had modified to let him relax comfortably, at the side of Admiral Smith's Ready Room. The Terran Admiral sat on the far side of a table, officers of the Terran Confederate Space Force Navy on the sides of the table. There were three seats empty at the far end of the table, and a holo-emitter put up a spray of see-through glitter in the middle of the table. Representatives from the other Terran Fleets, including the Void Captain and her bodyguard, were sitting, like Sma'akamo'o, at the edge of the room.
At the door stood two shipboard Marines in adaptive camouflage, with protective plating layered on the outside and short, brutal looking submachine guns.
Sma'akamo'o knew it would take Lanaktallan anti-vehicle weaponry to penetrate those thin flimsy looking plates on the cloth uniform, and that the submachine gun carried ammunition that could rip through a Lanaktallan main battle tank's armor.
”Send him in,” Admiral Smith said, her voice tight with stress.
Sma'akamo'o, Su'uprmo'o, and Spy'inmo'o had all been invited to observe the upcoming meeting.
The door opened and a smiling Admiral Huong and two attaches walked in.
”Have a seat, Admiral,” Smith said, highlighting the chairs at the end of the table.
The three Terrans of the Ninth Republic of Earth took their seats.
Huong never stopped smiling.
”Despite my lofty and political rank, I'm a blunt woman, Admiral,” Smith said.
”You know who we are,” Huong smiled. He shrugged, lifting his hands. ”We identified all of you after we made translation.”
”Do you know how you got here?” Smith asked.
Huong tapped the table for a moment. ”Our beacon must have got pulled to this side,” his smile got wider. ”Technically, you attacked us first.”
Admiral Smith nodded. ”Your beacon swapped places with an advanced missile collier pod.”
”Which fired on our ships,” Smith said. He laughed. ”Thankfully, you hit the Coalsack Federation fleet rather than mine.”
”And you translated onto your beacon,” Smith said.
Smith nodded. ”Yes. The battle was going bad for us,” he looked at his aide. ”Wouldn't you say?”
”Bad for everyone,” the other human said. ”We were already trying to make a run for it.”
There was silence for a long moment.
”You were here before,” Smith said.
Huong nodded. ”We looked up the records. We didn't exactly cover ourselves with glory four thousand years ago when we invaded you,” he shook his head. ”That stopped inter-dimensional excursions.”
”You stripped entire systems, nova-sparked suns, caught atmospheres on fire to kill the populations, planet cracked civilian occupied planets to strip mine the wreckage, before we stopped you,” Smith said.
Huong nodded. ”Our universe is slightly less resource rich,” he said. He shook his head. ”The Progenitors left behind almost nothing before destroying each other. We spread out, only to find that races gone for a hundred million years had already strip mined the planets and asteroid belts.”
”You're stuck here,” Smith said.
Huong nodded. ”Our mat-trans system locked up, we're completely locked out, two hours ago.”
Smith leaned forward. ”And I know what your fleet really is.”
Sma'akamo'o noticed how tense all three humans became.
”Your enemies wanted you bad. I know why,” Smith's eyes glowed amber in the light. ”Would you care to be honest or shall I lay it out for our guests?”
Huong's attache on the right shook his head slightly to signal negative to his Admiral. The other attache swallowed and looked away.
”You lied to me,” Smith growled. Her hands clenched on the table. ”I have you outgunned. I'm faster than you, bigger than you, better armored than you, bigger guns than you, and I'm probably personally meaner than you.”
Huong smiled again.
”Tell me the real designation of your fleet,” Smith growled.
In the middle of the table the holo-emitter blinked and showed the ships of the Terran Admiral's fleet.
Huong sat still for a long moment, his smile more like a rictus. Finally he put his hands on the table, palms flat, fingers spread out.
”Dandelion. It's designation is Dandelion Fleet,” he admitted. He sighed and waved at the outside of the ship. ”The planet out there?”
”Yes?” Smith said, her voice tight.
”It's the first planet with a breathable atmosphere that isn't full of howling isotopes or bioweapons,” Huong admitted. He shook his head. ”I'm fifty-two years old. The war started before I was born, and while it's technically over, it's only because there usually isn't anyone to fight.”
”Until the Earth Hegemony and the Coalsack Federation caught up to our fleet,” one of the aides grumbled.
”Those aren't combat troops, are they?” Smith asked.
Huong shrugged. ”They can be. Like anyone else, you can just hand them a rifle and some body armor and send them into battle, same way the three of us were.”
Smith tapped the table. ”I'm not even going to ask your actual rank.”
Huong smiled. ”Lieutenant JG. But it's my fleet, that makes me an Admiral.”
Smith sighed. ”How long have you had that fleet?”
Huong looked at the left hand aide. ”When did we pick up the troop transports?”
”We found them orbiting that dead prison Hellworld eight years ago, around Ilistrait-19,” the aide said.
Smith nodded. ”Your universe is in the middle of watching you kill yourselves.”
Huong nodded.
”What started it?” Smith added.
Huong shrugged. ”Too many big kids on the block? Argument over mining rights? Who knows. It was as century before any of us were born. Nobody alive now was alive back when it started.”
”Nobody was around when the Milky Way Super-Singularity got nova-sparked,” one of the aides said, still looking away.
”Or when the Andromeda Core got nova-sparked,” Huong said. He shook his head. ”We were born into a war that none of us even understood.”
Sma'akamo'o noted how uncomfortable Smith looked.
”So, will you be going guns free on us?” Huong asked. ”Given our history, what happened four thousand years ago, you have the precedent and the reasons.”
Smith stood up slowly, turning and facing the wall.
”One hundred and thirty billion people, sixty two systems, all wiped away and 'harvested' by your invading fleet, from a timeline that the only difference is an almost imperceptible percentage of strength in the gluon attraction,” she said, facing the wall. ”It took us twenty-five years to force you back to your own dimension, your own timeline.”
Huong nodded, still smiling.
”But that was four thousand years ago, and times change,” Smith said slowly. ”You have billions of innocent people in cryo-stasis. Your cargo holds are less than 15% loaded with combat gear.”
She put one hand on the wall. ”The rest is farming and construction machinery and supplies, ovum and sperm, cryo-pods. You stacked a podnaught to the gills with cryo-pods and welded shut the deployment doors.”
Huong just nodded.
”Most of your ship computers are brain dead or senile. Your radiation shielding is almost shot. Half of your ships, the engines are almost scrap and your mat-trans system is starting to fray,” she said.
”And currently is locked up,” Huong said, his voice bleak.
”You can't run. You can't hide. You can't fight,” Smith said. She slowly turned around. ”Four thousand years ago, you attacked without warning, swept down on everything you came across to harvest it, butchered billions of people.”
Huong nodded, still smiling.
Sma'akamo'o tensed. He could feel the tension in the air. It was so thick it made his head ache.
”You have billions of people on board your ships in cryo-stasis,” Smith said. ”We already did a mitosis check, we're genetically compatible with each other.”
Huong looked at his hands. ”No gloves,” he sighed. His smile vanished for a moment. ”Everything I touched I left DNA and cells behind.”
Smith nodded.
”You have animals, farming equipment, but you can't make another jump,” Smith said. ”Half of your ships won't make it.”
Huong nodded.
”You can't fight.”
”No.”
”You can't run.”
”No.”
”But you fought your way this far.”
”Yes.”
”And you won't give up now.”