The General dropped into his command chair and surveyed his screens one last time. The attack fleet has been assembling for the last couple days and looked to finally be in place. “Are we ready to move, Serez?”
“Yes, sir, all ships have reported in and are on go status.”
“Are the time jumpers in place and powered up?”
“Powered up, sir. Waiting for your order, General.”
“All ships proceed to the jump zone, Serez.” Serez passed the order through all the comm channels and the force began to move. The mission had begun.
The General checked the availability of the weapons and defense systems on his screen and was pleased to see even the finicky biostatic backup systems were already fully online. That was something he hadn’t seen in a long time and he chose to take it as a sign of good luck. Even though the systems were secondary and rarely used, they provided the Morta with near invulnerability against any type of electromagnetic attack. He had worried about his distracted approach to this mission causing preparation levels to slip, but his teams had clearly executed well.
The Morta arrived at the jump port at the head of the formation. As the most powerful ship, she would go in first, followed by the Haaks, then the stealth ships. After surveying the space on the other side of the jump port to ensure all was safe, the supply and medical ships would come through. Finally, and only after the attack ships could guarantee security would the second Time Jumper in the fleet pass through the jump port. The second Time Jumper was required to stabilize the port and in many ways was the most important ship in the fleet. Without her, the jump port would be powered only by the first Time Jumper’s matter engines and could easily collapse. If this occurred and the jump port shut down, it could be weeks before it was opened again. The attack fleet would be on their own until that happened and that was a long time to wait in hostile, largely unknown space. Even a Given attack formation with their enormous power would be vulnerable under such conditions.
“The ships are all in position, sir, whenever you are ready.”
“The let us lead, Serez. Let us lead!” the General shouted the Musa battle cry and the Morta began moving to the jump port, the power and hope of generations of Given expressed in a ship of almost immeasurable force. The crew inside her were almost as dangerous as the Morta herself, many who had faced them would say even more so. Lifetimes of training and preparation under the most difficult conditions imaginable were coming to a focus on a planet called the Rising Sun. Few in the universe had faced such a difficult foe and most who met them on the battlefield could not even have imagined the existence of this type of army. The mission had begun and soon they would be knocking on the front door of a world whose version of reality and the universe was about to be irrevocably changed. The remaining ships in the convoy moved through the port uneventfully and regrouped on the other side. It would be a couple of days before the Time Jumper’s space drive engines were powered up enough to reliably maintain the jump port. Until that occurred there could be no risk of contact with the target planet so the final waiting period began. During the wait, the crew members rested and ran through the final plans again and again to ensure there would be no mistakes should an armed invasion become necessary. If there was, it might be their wife or brother that would pay the price and that extra level of concern kept them sharp. Musa service teams were typically a family affair and arose out of the same needs and culture, so intertwined they could not be separated.
Nearly two days exactly after arriving through the jump port, word came in from the Time Jumper that the matter engines were fully powered and the jump port stabilized from both sides. The news traveled quickly though the fleet and once all ships had checked in, the twenty-four hour voyage to the target planet Rising Sun was underway and final preparation for the interaction begun. The main attack group arrived first, settling into deep orbit and waited for the General’s orders. At their current tech level, the inhabitants of the Rising Sun would be unlikely to have discovered their approach but the Given scanned the surface activity and comm traffic to ensure their initial message was properly framed.
“Any evidence they know we are here, Serez?” the General asked.
“Nothing showing up on our radar, sir, or on the probes. It would seem we are clear.”
“Let’s take the Morta down then and deliver the Greeting, we have a Level 2-Beta greeting translated into the main tongues ready to go, I presume?” asked the General.
“Cued up and ready to go on all channels, sir.”
“Let’s go then. Engage approach formation 7F over the main city, X85. Get low, we need to be highly visible for these folks – they are fairly primitive. Full shields and all weapons systems on readiness level 5.”
The Morta and two of the Haaks descended over the capitol of the Rising Son, and after jamming all identified communication frequencies, began playing versions of their speech in all common languages.
“People of Himya, do not be frightened. Please be assured we are not here to hurt you. In fact, the exact opposite is true. We are known as the Given, famous throughout the universe for the protection we provide to over 10,000 planets like yours. Ensuring that all beings on the worlds we watch over are safe from disaster caused by either environmental causes or hostile entities from other worlds is our highest cause and most noble purpose. This may seem surprising or hard to accept as you are unlikely to have encountered or heard of a culture like ours on your homeworld. Your historical experience is likely similar to other citizens of the galaxy in that groups of sentient beings are typically driven to exploit and hurt other groups, to seek subjugation and fortune. Rest assured we do not and have many deeply held reasons for pursuing our path despite the power and technology we possess, reasons we will share with you and carefully explain in the time ahead.”
“We know that you are new to the exploration of the universe and its occupants, so you may be largely unaware of the dangers that exist so very close by. A basic study of your planet has confirmed that asteroid strikes have plagued your past, causing major disruption to life. Evidence of this can be clearly seen in the Puut canyon at the foot of your Mt Parison. If your scientists are not yet aware of the extreme danger these objects represent to the future survival of your people, they soon will be. We will share our knowledge and technology so they can learn for themselves and work to provide warning and protection to you, their people.
“Unfortunately, being aware of these dangers and preventing the massive destruction they can cause are two very different things. The Given can protect Himya from these asteroids now and forever as we have proven technology to identify these dangerous objects and divert or destroy them before they can pose a risk. This technology we will freely share with your planet.
“There are numerous additional dangers of this type that our scientists will be able to educate you about in the months and years ahead as our partnership grows. Any one of them could mean the end of life on your planet if not handled properly. Understanding how to counter these risks yourselves would take enormous time and resources. Any solutions developed would be uncertain. The Given have already devoted vast amounts of time and money to solving these problems and can guarantee the success of our methods, freeing your people to devote themselves to subjects that are most meaningful to them and ensuring a bright future.
“I am very sad to say that there are dangers surrounding you that are even more frightening than the natural phenomena like the asteroids. That danger, I’m afraid, is some of the other inhabitants of our shared universe. Yes, our own brothers and sisters. You undoubtedly and understandably have questioned whether you were the only sentient creatures in the universe as many peoples have before you, but now our presence proves you are not. We are not the only ones. There are others, powerful and deadly and many of them have far less honorable intentions than ours. They would rob and pillage, torture and kill, happily destroying or enslaving your civilization in a matter of days. Your own internal armed conflicts provide only a hint of the depravity that lives in the hearts of some. Should these warlike societies find you, they would quickly and easily overpower you. The technology employed in your defenses are simply not strong enough to provide suitable protection at this stage of your development and the powerful spirit of your people will not be enough to overcome that disadvantage.
“The Given are another matter though. We are the largest, strongest, and most technologically advanced fighting force that has ever existed. But we have no intention of using that power against you, instead we are deeply committed to your protection. If you understood the long trials of servitude in our past, you would know we have no desire to enslave your people or play any significant role in your self-governing. All that we ask in return is a fair contribution to our cause so that other planets like yours might be similarly protected and societies of free beings might thrive throughout the universe. Please take time to consider our offer, but understand that the risk you face is so significant, we must insist that you accept at least some level of protection. It would be suicide not to and would weaken the wall of protection for all behind it. The only path to a safe and secure galaxy free from the danger of our vicious and demented neighbors is to create a strategic barrier of free worlds, and in that, Himya plays a critical role. Please, we entreat you, join us in our noble quest and guarantee a free and prosperous future for your people and for all people. We await your response.”
While the greeting provided to all target planets was basically the same in content, there were important differences in tone based on the culture study of the planet performed by the assessment scientist teams. Depending on the expected response to this type of message, some planets were even negotiated with rather than forced to accept the Given’s offer, though even in that case, the outcome was predetermined. Once a planet was chosen, it would be brought into the fold, even at the cost of significant loss of life for both the Given and the target planet. For more primitive planets like Rising Sun, that cost would likely be steep indeed, especially for them. Societies with their structure and level of advancement typically reacted fearfully and resisted protection with all the power they had. Against the Given war machine, however, that would likely be much too little to do anything other than delay the inevitable for a short time.
The greeting would be continued in a loop for at least a few hours, sometimes longer based on the conditions on the target planet and the calculated likelihood that the goal could be achieved with minimal conflict. After that period of time, the diplomatic team would initiate contact with the identified leaders of the world and attempt to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Should that effort not be successful, the Musa would then take over with much more powerful attempts at persuasion.
While the greeting continued to play, the General and his command team scanned the planet surface trying to gauge the activity level and intent of the inhabitants.
“What are they up to, Serez, I don’t see much activity on the surface around their military bases?”
“Tough to tell so far sir. Looks like they are moving a lot of heavy equipment of some kind underground, maybe through tunnels. Really heavy equipment. Take a look at your seismic scanners.”
The General glanced at his screens, flipping through some of the readings. “Those must be some big tunnels, are we sure?”
“Not yet sir, but we did see evidence of a large tunnel network near the surface in our in our initial close scans, almost surely created by geothermal processes. We couldn’t get reading on where they went initially and there was no activity so we moved on.”
The General turned to his chief science officer, “Larrz, we need a closer look at those tunnels.”
“Working on it, sir, but we’ll need to get a probe near the surface within range of their scanners and attack ships. It will likely be perceived as a hostile act if we proceed and our diplomat friends are not going to be happy with us.”
“Agreed, do the best you can at predetection levels, it’s only been a few hours. Maybe time is on our side.”
‘That may be wishful thinking, sir.” said Serez ‘These beings have a strong warrior culture and their silence and activity level has me thinking they are not going down without a fight.”
“One can hope, Serez, but I fear you are right. How long until first contact?”
“Mriz hasn’t said yet, but I would think it would be soon. Should I get an update from him?”
“No, not yet, we should probably spend some more time reviewing the battle plans. I think we are going to need to be creative here, these primitive planets are always such a nuisance.”
A couple more hours passed and the General and his staff became increasingly nervous about the lack of visible action on the planet surface. There were signs of civilians trying to get to safety in bunkers and smaller community centers but almost no military movement. No war planes scrambling, troops being organized, or missiles being prepped. The General had never seen anything like it. It was almost as if their army had disappeared. Were they hiding? It didn’t seem likely with their profile. Then what was going on, where were they?
Larrz looked up from his screens, alarmed and said “General, we’re seeing some hot spots on the energy sensors, mostly around the bases of a number of their largest volcanoes – and they are building fast.”
“Are they natural? Is that why everyone has gone underground? Maybe there is some kind of planet-wide eruption building or something?”
“No way to know sir, but whatever is going on down there is throwing off a serious amount of energy. Any update on contact?”
“No official word from Mriz yet, so I would say not.”
“Well we may want consider it soon, sir, these fields are building at out of control rates. I know Rising Sun is a planet with a lot of active volcanos, but this looks like it could be a major, major eruption event. They may need our help.”
The General opened a comm channel to the diplomatic ship “Mriz, we are running out of time here – something big is going down on the surface. What is your contact plan?”
“We are talking to them now, have been for an hour or so. They are resistant but have given no sign yet of inciting armed aggression. They are saying this is a normal geothermal event for their planet. There may be an eruption but they cannot really predict where or when. They are claiming they know how to handle it, there’s no real danger.”
“No real danger to them? Or us?”
“Don’t worry, General, they really don’t seem as dangerous as we thought based on their language to date. All the signs point a relatively quick surrender, though we’ll likely need to prove our superior power at some point.”
“I hope you are, right, Mriz, I really...”
Larrz interrupted, “Sir, you really need to see this. It looks like the volcano right below us is about to erupt, and it’s going to be a big one.”
“Get ready to pull back, Arez. Until we can get a better handle on what’s going on down there I don’t want to take any chances.”
At that moment, the glow around the volcano turned from red to white and an enormous cloud of dust formed in the air. The Haak fighter Blazarian was seemingly struck by a massive blast and her side was immediately engulfed in flames.
“What the hell was that?!”, said the General. “Get Captain Druz on a comm channel immediately and start a damage report.”
“You have a channel, General, go ahead.” said the comm officer.
“Druz, what happened, did they hit you with something or was there some kind of explosion on the ship?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“They hit us General, I don’t know with what, but it took down our left lateral shields and tore a good size hole in our side. That was one shot too - your guns couldn’t even do that. The breach is being sealed now but I’ve got 500 soldiers down, at least.”
“Holy dogs of Syber, pull back immediately and begin repair. Get your people safe and I’ll reassess. General out. Larrz, what have you got on the attack”.
“Still processing the readings sir, but it looks like some kind of geothermal weapon. Somehow they seem to be harnessing the power of volcano. Searching through the database now, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
“So are they preparing to fire again or was that it? And do we know how they aimed that thing. We have probes all over the place and they picked up nothing?”
“That’s what it looks like, sir. As far as we can tell, the energy levels have dropped by 50% at the site that shot came from so they might be done there, but the other sites are still fired up, and there are a lot of them. We are picking up no known radar signatures so we still have no idea how they hit us”
“Any idea what the range on that last shot was?”
“No idea at all and since we don’t know how that weapon was aimed, fired or even what it really was, I respectfully suggest we pull back, sir. Quickly.”
“Agreed, pull back to 5 zeks and let’s figure out where we go from here”. There was no discussion of stopping or aborting the mission, the Given never did that. This was bad but they had been caught off guard before, it was an occupational hazard when you confronted as many new worlds with unknown tech as they did. “Let’s see how they do when there no longer have the element of surprise on their side”. The General was deeply angered and embarrassed by the surprise attack and though Musa culture wouldn’t allow him to say it out loud, he silently committed to making these beings regret their impertinence.
“Mriz has been trying to contact you sir, shall I put him through?” The General looked at his screen and realized his focus on his distress about the attack had caused to miss his diplomatic officer’s comm request. Similar to the way he was feeling before the mission began due to his son’s appointment, he had again been emotionally distracted at a critical juncture. He knew had to stop indulging in the anger, clear his head, and develop a strong plan quickly or this could all end very badly.
“What is it, Mriz?” asked the General “I’m a little busy here.”
“Of course, sir but I have their Commander Arok online. He claims to be the acting head of the military force on the Rising Sun. Would you like to speak to him?”
The General raised his head and looked at Serez for confirmation of the Commander as the senior military leader based on their intelligence. Serez nodded. “Put him through. On the main screen, Serez.”
Commander Arok appeared, his body language relaxed and confident, almost arrogant. “Welcome to our planet, General. As you can now see, I hope, the Hayim are more than capable of defending ourselves, so your generous offer of “protection” is declined. Furthermore, you must immediately begin a full withdrawal of your ships from Hayim space or the next thing you will see is your mighty but wounded warship tumbling through space in a flaming ball of fire. If you leave now, maybe we won’t tell the rest of your “protected” planets that perhaps the supposedly all-powerful Given may not be quite as powerful as they would try to make others believe. The greatest fighting force the universe has ever seen? Maybe that is a title the Hayim will now take for ourselves, though it seems unlikely it was ever truly yours to give. You have one hour to withdraw from our solar system – if you remain after that, your destruction is guaranteed. Consider yourselves warned, we will not contact you again.”
The commander’s face flickered from the screen and the General turned to gaze into the eyes of his senior officers. Never in their lives has they been so openly threatened by a targeted planet. Even if they planned to resist, most had the sense to at least attempt to hide their plans from the Musa. The threat would have been laughable if not for the damage to the Blazarian. With that kind of technical capability, they must have been able to assess the strength of the Musa armada and have some idea of what they were getting themselves into.
“Begin a strategic withdrawal, or at least what looks like one. Until we figure out more about how they are doing this or what they can detect, we need to choose our appearances very carefully. While we pull back, I want all the Haak captains linked in so can develop a plan to make sure they think twice before ever insulting a Musa warrior again.”
As soon as he clicked off his comm unit, the General jumped up and immediately headed to his planning room. Musa were taught to treat all setbacks and conquests with a serene acceptance and long-term view called the Prazan. This promoted unemotional and tactical thinking under all circumstances, including the loss of loved ones and fellow soldiers. There would be time to honor them in the appropriate way after the battle was won. Until then, the focus must remain on the mission. But the General, never a master practitioner of Prazan despite his rank knew he would have trouble maintaining an even mindset in light of the embarrassing attack and the Commander’s maddening speech. He was determined not to let this conflict, as it stood, become part of his legacy as a general. Even if it was not the Musa way, he would find a way to exact his revenge on these backwater lowlifes. He would minimize losses if he could but Arok would taste the fury of a Musa attack force.
He entered the planning room and the four Haak captains were already onscreen, trying their best to hide their agitation. “Druz, it was your ship they hit and your crew, so I’ll let you lead off this discussion. How would you like to respond? Is there anything coming out of the attack data we can use?”
“Well, that is one hell of a powerful gun, or mountain, or whatever it is, but my tech officers are saying they shot us when we were only 5 degrees out of true above the launch site. We’re guessing if they can really aim those things, it’s not by much, or we’d be in pieces by now. So if we can stay out of line of the straight shots, we should have no problem getting to the planet floor and then we can properly introduce ourselves.”
“Agreed, our analysts have reached the same conclusion”, the General responded. “So let’s send a thousand or so fighters to penetrate their big gun defense, land at the spots we’ve highlighted on your screens and give us some recon of the planet floor. Then we’ll send in the transport ships and pick up the original plan where we were before the unfortunate interruption. The Morta will stay at the edge of our force gun range at full shields in case we need the back up and the Cloakers should be on high alert to provide some close in fire power. I’ll bet those cowards have never seen anything like them before. Let’s plan to launch the attack in exactly an hour – that should provide the Commander the answer he was looking for.”
As the Haak crews hurried to prepare their fighters for the counterattack, the inevitable call from Mriz came through. The General rolled his eyes and clicked on the comm channel. He knew what Mriz, always the diplomat, was going to say, at least in general terms. If he tried to talk the General out of landing an attack team on the surface though, he would have to consider blasting the diplomatic ship out of the sky. There was going to be a fight today. “Please go ahead Mriz.”
“I understand your…concern about your soldier’s safety and the desire to resolve the situation quickly, General, but let’s not forget about the goal here. We shall continue to build our strength though the acquisition of this target for our community of member planets. I’m sure you will admit that their technology is intriguing and could be of use to us. Let’s make sure the sacrifice of your men contributes to the greatness of the Given and that they are well sent. We’ll have a lot of additional work to do after this is all over and many lives at risk. In that spirit, and with our minds on Prazan, please keep your response at the appropriate level.”
“Understood, Mriz, we all have the same goal. I don’t expect things will get too ugly down there and our Prazan will not be tested any more than it already has. They’ve shown their cards early, probably too early, but it was their only chance so I suppose the Commander’s strategy made sense. This one is almost over, my friend.”
“I hope so, General. Best wishes to your soldiers. May Voz bless them.”
The words came though that the fighters were ready to counterattack and at exactly fifty minutes after the Commander’s warning, they were launched from the Haak fighters. That would soon be close enough to sending the message with their arrival that the General hoped for. He imagined the Hayim scanning the sky above their world anxious to find confirmation of the Given retreat only to be faced with a swarm of fighters more advanced than any they had ever seen, each one impossible for their guns to hit and capable of nearly destroying a city by itself.
“The fighters are approaching the outer atmosphere, General. They know we are coming as a couple shots have been fired from their mountain guns. Their limited aiming ability seems confirmed, they are not even close.”
“Thank you Larrz, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Let’s hope we are right about the rest of it. Give me mission updates as the planes reach the surface.”
“Approaching now, sir. Some of the feeds from the lead pilots are on your screen. Reports of scattered resistance, low-tech fire power only. Some fixed installations being easily neutralized with Laaz rockets. Scans showing very low numbers of civilians, though. Looks like most have gone underground.”
As time passed and reports of a lightly defended planet surface continued to stream in, the General agreed that the Hayim must have withdrawn to underground fortresses to force the Given to give up or attempt to breach their mountain strongholds at great loss of life.
“Larrz, can we tell what kind of defenses they have around these mountain guns and where all the goddamn people are?
“We’re sending down better sensor equipment now but early reports from surface scans makes it look like they are all clustered deep in the caverns that are part of the mountain formations. We still can’t tell yet if they are natural or made by the Hayim and have no idea how fortified they are. Sure looks like this is where they are going to make their last stand, though.”
“As soon as we have confirmation, start sending down the transport ships. I’m not feeling like I have a lot of patience for these folks. Maybe if we just bust open a few of these caverns, the rest of them will give up.”
“Will do General, we should hear from the teams with the deep-ground sensors shortly.”
Within an hour, the recon teams had reported back to the Morta with a general layout. There were deep underground chambers and tunnels everywhere, many filled with civilians and more streaming in from cities around the mountain. The chambers and tunnels appeared naturally formed though enhanced by the Hayim to make the passageways more of a connected network.
Transport ships loaded with Kruz attack teams began landing around the mountain fortresses, setting up positions, and releasing their Tribo guard robots at critical junctures around the potential attack paths the Hayim might follow. Highly intelligent and versatile, each Tribo was trained by its owner in the tactics they preferred making them unpredictable and difficult to contain. Looking a little like two guns mounted on a walking tripod, Tribos were an impossibly narrow target to hit and almost indestructible if they somehow were. Tribo technology had been a gift payment from a protected planet and despite the deep Given mistrust of robots had quickly established themselves as an indispensable weapon. After their release, the Tribo quickly spread out around the fortresses creating an almost impenetrable barrier.
Once the Kruz forces were set and the Tribo fully deployed, they awaited the General’s order to attack. The General had been trying to reach the Hayim Commander for a final attempt at parley, but had no luck. He felt sure the Hayim were digging in for a last battle, but knew Mriz’s report would criticize him if he did at least try to negotiate a final surrender. He wondered how long he would have to wait to deflect a negative interpretation of his tactics. It quickly became apparent it would not be long as word from the sensor teams came in that Hayim forces were massing around the many of the exits and an attack was likely imminent. Within fifteen minutes, Hayim forces had blown open the ten-foot-thick stone slabs blocking the doorways and were streaming down the hillsides, directly toward the positions of the Tribo.
Darting around in a seemingly random array of movements honed by the war games they had survived with their Kruz owner, the Tribo cut through the Hayim forces with devastating efficiency and nearly zero losses. The Hayim appeared frightened by the Tribo, never having battled or even seen a robot before and their weapons and tactics were tragically underpowered for an enemy with this level of tech.
The General watched as the Hayim armies were nearly wiped out by the Tribo and was surprised they had no additional weapons that could rival their mountain guns. The battle was turning into an absolute bloodbath, but the Commander was still refusing all comm requests. The Given had more than extracted their revenge for the shot on the Haak fighter but the General was virtually helpless to stop the attack without some sign that the Hayim were ready to surrender. Larrz looked up from his screens “General, the sites where the Kruz are attacking look like they are powering up again. Not sure why they would do that, we don’t have any ships anywhere near range.”
The first thought that jumped into the General’s mind was that they were going to blow up the mountains in a suicide mission. Knowing they had lost, they were intent on taking as many of the Given with them as possible.
“Pull the soldiers back immediately, Serez, I think they may be planning to blow themselves up. We have made our point for now.”
The order went out quickly and as the Kruz began pulling back, smaller beams like the ones that struck the Haak fighter began shooting wildly from the mountaintop at all angles, starting fires and destroying everything in their path. Several Given attack ships were destroyed and the Kruz scrambled for cover.
The lead Kruz officer on the ground opened a channel to the General, “General can you see this? Looks like some version of the mountain gun. They don’t seem to be able to aim it any better than the space version but we are pinned down here and taking damage. Should we try to take the mountain and see if we can stop it?
The General glanced at Larrz for an assessment but the science officer immediately shook his head “The concentration of the beams is much denser as you get closer to the caverns. If they don’t stop this or answer our comm requests so we can negotiate, we are going to need change tactics and bring in our heavy guns. With the power of these weapons, a direct ground attack would be suicide.”
“How are we going to fight a mountain, Larrz? We still don’t really know exactly where the shots are even coming from or what will happen if we fire on those sites. “
“Do we have any choice, General? If we let this go for much longer, we are going to start losing soldiers in bunches. We have dozens pinned down in vulnerable positions according to the locmap.”
“OK, then start beaming a message to the Commander and all channels on a loop, “Commander Arok, this is General Alta of the Given. You are surrounded by overwhelming forces and the indiscriminate use of the weapons housed in your mountains will not save you or even buy you much time. It will not be long before we will be forced to unleash an attack with firepower that exceeds your weapons and can also be accurately targeted in order to protect our soldiers. The consequences for all the Hayim people, soldiers and civilians alike may be grave. It is not too late to negotiate a settlement, the Given are forgiving people and we have no intent to destroy you. Please respond to our comm requests immediately”
“Are the force guns powered up, Larrz?”
“Ready to go when you are sir.”
The General sighed. As angry as he had been before, he took no pleasure in this sort of one-sided destruction. If only the Hayim could see the truth about what they were about to lose, all for no reason other than simple pride. It was all such a waste. They had come across these types of cultures occasionally in the past. Usually fairly primitive and proud, they sacrificed themselves only to end up in the same position or worse they would have been in had they negotiated peace from the beginning. The Given did not lose or change their minds once a planet had been chosen. It was a deep cultural commitment made with religious fervor and agreed to by all kiln in Given society. The peace would be extended and safety for all would be guaranteed. The ignorance of a single planet would not be allowed to jeopardize that. One way or another, no matter what the cost on either side, the chosen planet would be protected.
“Fire a half-power shot at the mountain gun in sector L6 that is causing the most damage to our warships. Maybe that will wake them up a little and make them find their sense. Fire when ready.”
The Morta’s main force gun locked in on the target and fired. The mountainside exploded, raining boulders and debris on the bodies of the fallen Hayim below. The gun had not penetrated the walls of the mountain and the shots from the mountain gun continued to rain down on the landscape. The Kruz soldiers had mostly pulled back by this time but were still in danger of being hit by some of the higher angle blasts. There seemed to be no completely safe area and the comm chatter from wounded and vulnerable soldiers filled the airwaves. The General was quickly losing all patience.
“Any response to the comm requests from the Commander, Larrz? Anything at all from their command centers?
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Another shot, then, this time full power.”
“That could collapse the mountain, sir. We really can’t tell how stable these structures are.”
“I’m aware of that Larrz. We’ve lost enough soldiers today and I don’t think waiting is going to change anything, do you?”
“No sir, I guess it won’t.”
The force gun’s shot hit the mountain, blowing it open and shaking the ground for miles. Massive landslides coursed down the mountain sides, burying the dead Hayim and Kruz alike in a thick blanket of rock. The machinery of the volcano gun could now be seen inside the mountain but the gun was still firing in spite of the damage.
The General looked grimly at the scene below, knowing the next shot would likely cause tens of thousands of deaths. He sighed.
“Again” he said.
The third shot tore through the hole in the mountain and out the other side, stopping the volcano gun almost immediately. Enormous slabs of rocks fell from the collapsing cliffs down onto the chambers below. Soon the mountain was enveloped in dust and could no longer be seen.
“What’s happening down there, Larrz?”
“As we thought, sir, the caverns are destabilizing, there is no way they are strong enough to survive an attack like this. Many collapsed after the second shot, and nearly all are gone now.”
The General shook his head. “Keep broadcasting the message. What’s going on at the other sites?”
“No change, sir. The guns are still firing. We’ve lost a few more soldiers but casualties are minor. Most of the teams are pulled back but some of the shots are still threatening them. Based on the strategy analysis results, none of the Kruz commanders see any ground-based solution that is not going to result in a high death percentage even in the unlikely event they were successful.”
“Why am I not surprised you would say that? Why won’t they just shut those infernal guns off?”
The General continued to be as patient as he could, but still could not contact the Hayim commander. The Morta moved carefully around the planet, avoiding the range of the volcano guns, slowly knocking them out as they went.
After the tenth mountain was destroyed, Larrz lifted his head suddenly. “Sir, we’ve picked up a strong energy signature in a cave far away from the volcano guns. It looks like it could be a command center.”
“Good work, Larrz. Maybe if I go down there and negotiate face to face, we can put an end to this.”
“Do you really think that is wise, sir, given what we’ve seen today?”
“If we keep circling this planet blowing everybody up, there isn’t going to be a whole lot for the Given to claim when this is over. We have to give it a chance. Have the Kruz in the area move in and notify Attack Forces 1 through 10 to get ready to launch to the planet surface.”
As the General rushed to his quarters to prepare his strategy for negotiation and gather his gear, a thought rushed fearfully into his mind. It was one that normally would have filled him with joy but somehow had been forgotten due to the stress of the day. His son was the commander of Attack Force 10.