3.5.

Yunono examined the memories of the woman from Earth. While she regretted the torment that she had put the innocent young lady through, she felt no remorse. She would do it again for half of the actionable intelligence that she had gathered.

She knew that much of the military data in the woman’s mind was out of date. They had encountered the Yononoans. The Yonohoans had pledged their support. That alone meant that their military would not remain the pitiful skeleton that it had been when the woman had last been in orbit of her planet.

The Yonohoans would put some meat on that skeleton, and perhaps even give it a mind keen enough to be dangerous.

But it did not change her duty. There was so much in the woman’s memories that was worth harvesting. She had sent the data to the scouts so that they could begin assessing it and formulating their strategies. Now, Yunono simply observed the dream-like holograms that had been pulled out of Sarah’s mind with esoteric technology.

She it was voyeuristic, and a gross invasion of privacy. But it might prove to help her understand the target in some way, and was therefor justified.

She would do what she’d done to Sarah a thousand times without hesitation just for one more piece of the plan to protect the human species.

Part of the problem was that the plan, as High-Command had set it out one hundred thousand years ago, did not account for modern interstellar society being what it was. It relied on the info-nets being fractured and disconnected. Which they were, but they were interconnected enough that the initial plan of silencing the cradle eternally so that none would know of its strategic importance was no longer actionable.

People knew where Earth was, and it was too late to change that.

If they knew where Earth was, then they could calculate where Earth had been . If they knew where Earth had been, say, one hundred and ten thousand years ago, before the spread of humanity through the universe, then they could ignite a Temporal Dissolution Matrix in that spot, causing a rippling chain reaction that would wash through the entire universe.

The people of Earth would have been slaughtered to keep the truth a secret under the initial plan. If the information had come only one year earlier, then Yunono might have followed the plan and destroyed the Earth entirely in the present so that nobody could calculate its vulnerability in the past.

But doing so now would only draw further attention to the planet.

She had to think. She had to plan. She had to develop an alternative method of protecting the Earth.

She needed more information.

With a wave of her hand, she summoned up the commander of the Scouts. A young man, no more than twenty years of age, appeared before her in the form of a hologram.

“You have permission to initiate infiltration of the target,” she said. “The previous scout who highlighted the strategic importance of this planet was captured. Use all stealth and guile to make certain that the same fate does not fall upon you.”

The man saluted with his fist to his heart and vanished.

Yunono returned to her voyeurism.

She was glad the universe had changed since the days when she had been born. It would have been such a shame to destroy such a beautiful planet. She would have done it, but it would have been a shame.

~~~~~~~

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The men and women stood in rows, standing at attention as the alien leader walked by them, accompanied by their own general. Turnball had been surprised at Eolai’s suggestion, but had quickly put together a group of volunteers.

All of the men and women were front-line soldiers. All of them had various degrees of combat experience, and most of them had training in high-threat response tactics. Others had training with heavy weapons, or other forms of dangerous munitions.

Eolai examined the men and women carefully, but in truth he was detached. He had told Turnball to bring him the best soldiers that he could find for this project, but he knew better than anyone that looks were deceiving and that discipline was not the only factor that mattered.

Once he had walked past every person in the field, he doubled back and stood before them all.

“You have been brought here without being told why. You know who I am but not why I have called you here,” Eolai said. “Your world is at war. You may be invaded at any time, and the enemy has previously shown the ruthlessness to attack the planet itself. While you may believe that the orbital Kirata beam was a weapon of mass destruction, the truth is that in the universe the Kirata beam is considered a weapon of mercy, for it destroys but does not kill.”

Eolai allowed his eyes to sweep over the gathered soldiers once more. “Tell me. Do you know what the most dangerous weapon in the universe is?”

His question was met with silence. When a moment passed and nobody answered, he answered his own question.

“It is a human. The most dangerous weapon in the universe is the human being, for we possess the ability to use all other weapons that have existed in this universe and have shown the will to do so at multiple instances. We are dangerous beyond belief. You are dangerous . And you must assume that the enemy is no less dangerous than you are yourself.”

Eolai paused, then turned to the general. “Tell me, general. Do you believe that any of these soldiers could defeat me?”

“I have seen you in combat. No, Eolai. If you are armed and armored, I do not believe that any individual soldier could defeat you, and that it would take a great coordinated effort to bring you down,” Turnball answered.

“Yet I am barely qualified to call myself an infantryman,” Eolai said. “I possess the nanites required, I have been trained, I can use the armor. But compared to a true soldier I am weak.”

“Then it frightens me to think what a true Yonohoan infantryman can do,” General Turnball admitted.

“Good. But I did not bring you out here to brag about the might of my people,” Eolai said. Abruptly, a swarm of dust swept by and engulfed him. It coalesced into a suit of armor, which many of the soldiers were familiar with. It was the same as the infantrymen who had fought the infiltrator had worn.

“If you wish to defend your homeworld from the scouts and infantry of the enemy, then you must become the scouts and the infantry of Earth. Before you commit to this training, allow me to demonstrate what you will be capable of when it concludes.”

With that, he leapt into the air. He hovered fifty meters up, raised his fist, and shot the ground with an impulse weapon that caused an explosion as though a fragmentation grenade had gone off. He flew one hundred meters to the side, then landed. He raised his hands, and another coalescing of nanites formed a shoulder mounted plasma lance. He fired it at a nearby mountain.

It pierced the mountain and continued off into space, lighting up the sky beyond the horizon.

The plasma lance puffed back into smoke and he waved his hand, summoning a smaller rifle. He fired it on automatic down the range and utterly destroyed the targets which were waiting down there. He kept firing for ten minutes, showcasing the weapon’s stamina.

“The armor of the infantryman is the most dangerous weapon short of the man wearing it that is legal to deploy on a planet,” Eolai said, turning back to the group. “If you chose to decline this training, there is no shame. If you proceed, then you should know that there is a chance that you will die. That your body will fail to adjust to the changes. It is slim, but possible that you will put forth more effort for this training than anything else you have undertaken in your life and still fail to succeed.”

He paused, and he waited.

“If you wish to continue with this training, take one step forward.”

The assembled soldiers moved in unison.

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