Subject: Fleet Leader Barrilin Onaya

Species: Oyan

Description: Avian humanoid, feathered tail. 6'1" (1.8 m) avg height. 96 lbs (43 kg) avg weight. 161 year life expectancy.

Ship: RSV Nolbarinil {Majestic In Flight}

Location: Sol

As it turns out, the USSS Thanatos is one hell of a ship. I'm not normally one to avoid taking part in the fighting, but Admiral Heckett had finally worn me down and I accepted his invitation to join him. He made several good points, such as it being easier to coordinate if we were within earshot of one another. He'd also said that the food aboard the Thanatos was great, not that that was necessarily a factor in my decision.

Once aboard, I had opted to take a tour and had struggled to keep my beak from gaping when I was shown the docks. Rooms that were unbelievably massive, with the sole purpose of holding entire frigates. The Omni-Union also has these "carrier" ships, but the Republic phased them out of production over three centuries ago. They cost a lot of resources, and since our ships weren't exactly getting damaged very often at the time, it had made sense financially.

The Thanatos was a whole different breed of ship, though. It was absolutely massive, and somehow it was sparkling clean! I love the Nolbarinil with all my heart, but if I were offered the command of a ship like this I'd take it in a heartbeat. Especially if it came with the technology to keep it this clean.

This wasn't my first time seeing a carrier, but it was my first time seeing one in service. It was also my first time seeing one large enough to carry frigates. The largest carriers that I've previously seen could only carry corvettes or fighters.

Once I brought this up to my gont guide, he gave me a wide grin showing off his carnivorous fangs and told me that he had something that he wanted to show me. We boarded a shuttle that they called a 'bus', and I saw a sign on the wall that said 'fighter bay' with a directional arrow.

No way. We entered the door and my beak dropped open. Dozens of fighters, all lined up in a neat row. I turned to my guide.

"How?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"A combination of gont engineering and human know-how. They come up with the ideas and we help them implement them. There was some excess space on the hull of the original plans for the carriers, and humans hate wasted space," he replied. "So, they figured out that they could fit just about five hundred fighters in such a way to maximize their deployment. Of course, the Thanatos is a diplomatic carrier, so it's smaller than the big girls. Thanatos holds a hundred."

"The big girls? Oh, yes of course. I had noticed the larger carriers. They look absolutely massive. Do they also hold more frigates than the Thanatos?" I asked, recovering from the shock.

"No, sir. The standard sized carriers hold destroyers. Thirty of them. That designs getting pretty old, though. There's rumors of another carrier design that can hold fifty destroyers," the gont said with another grin.

Thirty destroyers? US destroyers? The same destroyers that are half again the size of our own? With armaments that would make an isolan drool? The engineering required for such a task alone is mind boggling, but actually completing it and mass-producing it? There were over half a million of those things in the system right now!

I closed my beak again, somewhat regaining my composure. The carriers fielded by the OU weren't equipped to fight very hard on their own, but these ones could probably go toe to toe with a battleship if they needed to. Even with that being the case, they still carried thirty destroyers. I looked back at the fighters. Their flight consoles were all lined up in a glass container along the far wall. I turned back to the gont.

"Why?" I asked.

"Whatcha mean, sir?"

"What motivated this particular engineering marvel?" I clarified.

The gont looked nervous for a moment before saying, "Well, sir, I ain't sure that it's my place to tell ya. The humans don't like talkin' about it, and I don't blame 'em. Thing is, it's not their fault. They've tried their best, sir. They really have."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"On this side of space you got yerself a bunch of bastards, sir. The thing about them bastards is that if you give them even an inch of leeway, they'll make sticks that are so big your own will end up useless. So you've got to make even bigger sticks to keep 'em in line, you know what I mean?"

"Sure," I said before remembering my composure. This gont's accent was oddly disarming. "Yes, I think so."

"The worst part is that the bastards aren't just one species. Every species has their own set of bastards lookin' to start fights to try to get a bigger piece of an imaginary pie when there's more than enough to go around. The knuknu and the alumari are pretty good at bonkin' their bastards, but the gont and the humans have very cunning and particularly ruthless bastards to contend with. And those bastards compliment each other somethin' fierce," he said with an expression of sorrow.

"I think I understand," I said with a soft tone and a nod.

"I'm afraid you don't, sir. It's much worse than you probably realize. And I really shouldn't be tellin' you, but I've already said too much to leave it hangin'," he said with a large sigh. "Of all the people to be tellin' this to. An admiral."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm a fleet-leader. Not an admiral," I said, smiling with my eyes. I was rewarded with a small laugh.

"I guess so, sir. Alright, so when the US first made contact with the gont, some of us didn't want to integrate. The US was prepared to leave well enough alone, so there wasn't any undue pressure or anything. But integration would have improved our quality of life and done away with a certain authoritarian form of government that plagued our systems. On paper, our citizens voted for their leaders and those leaders made all of the decisions regardless of the wishes of the people. We had tried many times to change this style of leadership, but it would always revert within a generation or two. The humans have an ol' saying, 'Might is right.' That's what these guys believed in," he explained.

I nodded. Dictatorships weren't unheard of among the Republic member species. As a matter of fact, the Oyan had a planetary dictatorship on one of our colonies. It was a restricted dictatorship, and those restrictions were enforced by Republic law, but it was still considered stifling by many other Oyan.

"Well, a bunch of the leaders and most of the people wanted to join the United Systems. But a lot of the rich, the humans call 'em oligarchs, didn't want that. It would mean less power and influence for them, an' greed is about the biggest motivator for a bastard. So there was a civil war, not that there was anything civil about it. We fought and fought and, as I said, the US tried to let us figure it out on our own. But then the oligarch bastards went around everyone's backs and started buying weapons and tech from the human bastards. Corporate conglomerations or whatever they're called."

He shuffled nervously, "This set off a terrible chain of events. Our side ended up buying weapons from the US and their side kept buying weapons from the human corporations. But the corporations couldn't supply nearly what the US could, so we ended up with the advantage. We ended up bonkin' the bastards and joined the US."

"That sounds like a happy ending," I said. "What went wrong?"

"We didn't bonk 'em hard enough. After we joined the US the corporations that sold the weapons to the bastards were exposed. It was apparently illegal for them to have sold weapons like that and since they were human corporations, humanity decided to try to handle it internally. But the human bastards had plenty of political pull and used everything at their disposal to avoid the consequences of their bastardly ways. Things got bad. Real bad. Politicians were assassinated, factions were formed, and governments were overthrown. The humans ended up having a civil war of their own."

"Ouch," I replied.

"Yeah, no kiddin'. Their civil war lasted for a hundred years. Some people call it the corporate war, but that's not what it actually was. Humanity had plenty of grievances stored up at that point in their history, and we were the spark that blew that powder keg sky high."

"What's a powder keg?" I asked.

"Oh, that's one of them human sayings. Their primary infantry weapons traditionally use an explosive substance called gunpowder that used to be stored in wooden containers called kegs. It's extremely flammable and explosive, so all it takes is a spark to make it go boom."

"Oh I see, carry on," I nodded.

"Right, anyways, once they finished up bonkin' their bastards, our own bastards decided to act up again. They tried to do a coup and the gont were once again embroiled in a civil war. Humanity helped us out of it in the form of US intervention. The knuknus and alumari were against it. Wanted to let nature take its course, I guess. Humanity convinced 'em, though. But our bastards have kept trying. And the human's bastards are still lurking, waiting for their chance. Hell, the fourth pacification war isn't even technically over yet. Been about... eighteen, nineteen years now," he said with a shrug.

"The US is currently at war?" I asked.

"No, not technically. It's more along the lines of puttin' down a mutiny, or a riot suppression. I think the official term's 'police action'. About eighteen or so years ago our bastards tried again and nearly succeeded. It was an extremely organized effort. They had managed to infiltrate the gont government and every ship in tenth fleet. When they struck, they managed to kill most of our democratically elected representatives and steal most of tenth fleet's ships in the biggest mutiny in all of our shared histories."

"Whoa," I said in shock.

"Yeah, and to top it off they had begun a propaganda campaign to convince the US to stay out of the conflict. So when the US inevitably entered the fray, you know, cuz they stole those ships, a lot of the people in charge were suddenly getting angry letters and phone calls from people who'd fallen prey to the propaganda."

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"Wow. What changed?" I asked.

"The US liberated a gont colony from the bastards. Turns out, bastards do what bastards do no matter what's at stake. They had been abusing the populace somethin' fierce. Mandatory work schedules and curfews, and capital punishment for minor infractions. Pretty much turned the populace into slaves and killed anyone who tried to argue with 'em. Once the news broke, their support dried up right quick. Then it was just a matter of killing 'em as the opportunity arose. But the humans really stepped up to bat for us. If it weren't for them, we'd all have ended up livin' like those poor bastards on that colony. And it was mostly the humans who laid down their lives, too. We owe 'em a lot."

"Yeah, I can imagine. You say killing them? What about prisoners?" I asked, dreading the answer at this point.

"Oh sure, there's a few of 'em. But it's kind of a gont thing to not be taken alive. Warrior culture and all that. Personally, I prefer the engineering focus of our culture, but if my back was to the wall I'd rather give my life for something I believe in by takin' a few of the bastards with me, you know? I'm sure they probably feel the same way," he said with a shrug.

I sighed with relief. Rules of war are important, but the rules regarding police action are a moral imperative. You can tell a lot about a culture by how they handle their police actions. Still, it's not surprising that this was left out of the briefing. One thing was still bothering me, though.

"You said the human bastards are still lurking. What did you mean?" I asked carefully.

"Well, most human systems pretty much worship the free market. I don't blame 'em, the thought of being told that you can't buy or sell something that people wanna buy is infuriating. But the biggest side effect of a free market is powerful corporations. The more powerful the corporations get, the more they get into politics, and the harder it is to keep them in check. Without strict regulations, you end up having to kill the bastards to get their hands off your throat."

"Really?" I asked.

"Oh yeah. Human corps are notorious. They even hire mercenaries and go to war with each other. Of course, they do that in areas that the human's laws don't quite apply so that they can't be punished for it."

"Why doesn't the US intercede?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"The US is a protective government. It's not the place of the US to regulate its member species in their own systems. We've got a senate and a judicial system, but our laws only apply to matters that impact all of the member species. Like first contact, or joint-developed technologies, inter-species trade, or expansion. It also maintains the military, as you already know. Our members ain't allowed to have their own space-faring militaries, just police. Otherwise, each species governs itself however it wants to. The knuknu have a purely democratic government, and the gont has a democratic republic. The alumari and humans have a bunch of governments all working under a unified umbrella government. Those ones get complicated."

I laughed and said, "I know. That was in my brief."

"I'm sure it was," he laughed in return. "Anyways, let's get this tour finished up and get you to Admiral Heckett."

We stopped by more impressive areas aboard the Thanatos while I digested what I had just heard. It was a lot to take in. On the one hand, I can definitely see why the US had developed their weapons to be as lethal as they are. On the other hand, I'm not sure how comfortable I am around them knowing how quickly they resort to violence. Still, it wasn't as if the Oyan were much different.

It would seem that we'd gotten lucky with our neighbors. Or unlucky, maybe. If we'd ended up with more 'bastards', we might not have lost as many against the OU as we have. But we would have probably lost even more to each other.

After showing me an absolutely beautiful mess hall, my gont guide finally took me to the command room. Just outside the room he stopped and turned to me.

"Well, this here ends my guided tour of the USSS Thanatos. Inside this door is the command room, and just beyond that's the bridge. Admiral Heckett would probably like to give you the tour of those, and since he's my boss' bosses' boss his preferences matter a whole bunch," he laughed. "Anyways, about what we were talkin' about earlier, I'd much appreciate it if you didn't tell nobody that I'm the one who clued you in, admi... fleet leader, sir."

"My beak is sealed. Thanks for the tour," I replied.

"No problem, sir. Well, here we go," he said as he stepped forward to open the door.

I followed him and was stunned by the room we were entering. There were screens and seats and tables and desks all over the place, but somehow it didn't feel the least bit cluttered. There weren't any visible cables, and the decking was all in the proper place. It was like a completely different world from all the command centers I'd ever been in. And it was much quieter...

"OFFICER ON DECK!"

Every single person in the room stood up straight with their left hand at their side and the other touching their forehead. A form of salute. I was touched. My gont guide paused for a moment in surprise before quickly turning around and mimicking the gesture. Admiral Heckett was standing in the center of the room, trying his best to suppress what appeared to be a smile.

He walked up to me and outstretched his hand. I recognized the gesture from the briefing. A handshake, a sign of mutual respect that had been a human tradition for millennia. Quite the honor.

As I took his hand he said, "It's a pleasure to meet you Fleet-Leader Onaya. I am Admiral Heckett. Welcome aboard the USSS Thanatos."

After we shook hands he grinned and whispered, "You're supposed to say 'at ease' to get them to stop."

"Oh. At ease!" I replied.

Everyone went back to their tasks, noticeably louder this time. From behind the admiral I saw a screen portraying the hallway I had just been in. Ah, I see. Theatrics. I looked back at the admiral, now knowing that this man was cut from the same cloth as I.

Admiral Heckett turned to my gont guide and said, "That will be all, Ensign Plinas."

"Yes, admiral. Sir!" The gont replied with a salute and a shocked expression.

It was good to finally know his name. I had been a little embarrassed to ask. Plinas had been in the hanger when my shuttle docked. I had sent my aides on ahead so I could get a good view of the impressiveness of the hanger when he had approached me and offered a tour, without introducing himself.

It was also good to know that the admiral knew the crew. Actually, judging from his expression and how quickly he performed his about-face, the admiral knowing his name and rank came as a surprise to Plinas. It reminded me of a fleet-leader I came up under. Fleet-Leader 'All Seeing' Arun. She had made a point of knowing everything that went on in her fleet, and keeping tabs on everything she possibly could. It was unnerving to have her ask how your family was by name.

"Well, fleet-leader, how did you find the tour?" Heckett asked.

"I enjoyed it immensely. This ship contains many surprises," I replied. Then I remembered something that had been nagging at me since we entered the system, "I noticed that your fighters have a certain artistic elegance that the rest of your ships... well, lack. Why is that?"

The admiral laughed, "The fighters occasionally have to enter atmospheres and as such must be aerodynamic. The warships don't have to, and as such are designed with function rather than form in mind. Actually, fun fact, the reason that our carriers are as bulbous as they are is because the first one ever made was carved from an asteroid."

"Really?" I asked. "Our first battleship was carved from one as well."

"Yes, I suspect it's probably a commonality among space-faring species to improvise building materials. In our case, we had already hollowed out the asteroid to use as space station, but found ourselves needing a carrier more than a space station. A few modifications and the Human Space Ship Aurora was finished, and able to carry eight destroyers. Saved us a ton on FTLD fuel."

"I bet," I replied.

The admiral nodded before continuing, "The HSS Aurora was retired when the United Systems was officially founded. It was summarily decommissioned and now serves as a museum for the first contact wars. We've since, obviously, improved upon the original design and no longer use improvised materials."

"Indeed. So why do the battleships look like sticks? Did you manage to find an overly large tree and get it into space?" I asked.

Heckett laughed, "No. The battleships are almost entirely hard-points. The first modern US battleship created was the U-triple-S Hingra, which is 'spear of justice' in Common Alumari. It was intended to be a fleet killer, and for quite a while it was. But, war escalates and after 36 years of hard service the Hingra was lost with all hands in the first battle of Sol."

"Your civil war?" I asked.

"Yes, one of them," Heckett laughed again, but with a grimness this time.

"You've had more than one?" I asked, shocked.

"Oh, humanity has been having civil wars since we first picked up sticks. We've only had two that the United Systems military was obliged to intervene in, though. I believe you were briefed on the second one. The first one only lasted eighteen days, and that's the one that we lost the Hingra in."

I licked the upper innards of my beak. As a person, I was shocked to hear the human speak of his bloody history so casually. But as a fleet-leader, I was able to appreciate the candor and detached approach. We have warrior species in the Republic, but the humans didn't really look the part. Well, until they smiled wide and showed their teeth.

"I am sad to hear that your history has been riddled with strife, admiral. But, I am grateful to be fighting the Omni-Union beside those as experienced in warfare as yourselves. It fills me with confidence that we'll be able to finally put an end to this mechanical threat once and for all."

The admiral smiled wide, "We will. One way or another. Speaking of which, we have officially launched the invasion."

"Really?" I asked. "What did you send?"

"Six fleets so... thirty million ships. And the dreadnought," he replied.

"Ah, so your fleets really are five million ships each. And sorry, what is a dreadnought?" I asked.

"Honestly, I thought it was the first thing you would ask about. It should have been in your briefing. The USSS Nidhogg?"

"There are parts of the briefing I haven't had a chance to skim through yet. I mostly went through the species description and history," I replied, gesturing in an apologetic way.

"Understandable. I haven't been able to read the briefing supplied by the Republic at all," he said with a laugh. Then his face turned serious, "The USSS Nidhogg is the only dreadnought class ship in the US military. It is a xenocide deterrence, created in response to the Daluran war. It has the ability to destroy solar systems, and can withstand significant fire from a fleet of battleships for an extended duration."

He looked into my eyes as he said, "It is the single most powerful death machine that the United Systems has ever created. It is only cleared for usage if the enemy is xenocidal or mechanical. Every crewman aboard the Nidhogg has passed through the most intense background and psychological checks available to make certain they are loyal to the United Systems. If their loyalty waivers in a detectable way, they are assigned elsewhere."

I swallowed heavily. After seeing their ships and hearing their history, I suspected that they might have created weapons of mass destruction that could destroy planets. Such weapons were of course prohibited from being researched in Republic space, but for the US it just... made sense.

Solar systems, though? Why? Insanity, sheer and utter craziness. Although... I could see it as a xenocide deterrence. The Republic hadn't had an actual xenocidal incident among our member species, and hadn't realized that that was what was happening with the OU. I suppose if we had, we would have come up with something similar as a deterrence. Or tried to.

"I see," was all I could say.

"From officer to officer, I'm ashamed of the Nidhogg," Heckett said as he looked away. "It shows that we're willing to throw away our morals and honor for the sake of survival. I had hoped that it would never be used. Still, I'm glad that it's machines that we might be using it against, instead of organics."

"I see how it is, sir," a voice came from a nearby intercom.

"Non-sentient machines, I mean," Heckett corrected himself with a smile. "Fleet-leader, meet Tim. A human created AI."

Ah, this was more familiar territory. I had already received my shock when I read the reports of the human-made AI. They were said to act more like people than machines, and judging from the comedic timing of this one that may turn out true.

I looked at the intercom and said, "Pleasure to meet you, Tim."

"Pleasure to meet you as well, sir. I just popped in to inform you both that we have finished the installation of the tac-maps on the Republic fleet ahead of schedule," Tim said.

"Thank you, Tim," Heckett replied.

"You should thank Omega. Running those logistics would have made my head spin right off. If I had one..."

"No thanks necessary," another voice, presumably Omega, replied.

"Indeed. Omega was simply performing his duty," A third voice said.

"Fleet-leader, meet Omega and John. They are also AI," Heckett said, trying to maintain his composure.

"Pleasure to meet you both. I am fleet-leader Onaya of the Republic."

Two holograms appeared out of a nearby table. One was a figure wearing a black cloak and holding a curved blade, the other was a figure wearing the same suit of armor that I had seen some soldiers wearing during my tour. The soldier's had been dark blue or dark green, but this suit was white. Or perhaps steel with a lot of light shining on it.

"Judging from your reaction, you've already been briefed on us," the cloaked figure said with Omega's voice. "Good."

"Of course he's been briefed, Omega. Blindsiding a captain is unprofessional, but blindsiding an admiral is downright insubordinate," the other avatar said. John, by process of elimination.

"It wasn't unprofessional, John. We simply didn't have the time to brief Uleena on our existence before we had to debrief him. Our reactions afterward were the unprofessional part," Tim's voice said with a chuckle.

I looked around for Tim's avatar to no avail. My eyes met Heckett's and he shook his head as if he knew what I was looking for.

"Tim doesn't use an avatar to communicate," the admiral said.

I nodded and asked, "Why not, Tim?"

"Well, mostly because I don't... Oh, sorry. It looks like the explanation will have to wait," came the reply.

"Enemies inbound. Big group of them," John said.

"We've begun patching FTLDs but not all of them will be done by the time they enter the system," Omega added.

"Understood," Heckett replied. "Well fleet-leader, looks like its our time to shine."

I joined him at larger than normal table that displayed a tac-map. The US fleets were shown in blue, the Republic's were in green. I tapped part of the table and an interface popped up. I keyed in a communication frequency and the ID for my comms implant as I watched Heckett do the same. From here we would be able to give orders to our fleets.

"Well, admiral," I said. "Let's defend your system."