10. Retaliation is a known and expected result of attacking a human
"There is nothing more to do about the Aurealians until they finish breaking and begin maneuvering for final approach," The lead Nameless informed Horthus reverently. "Ships from all over the system are burning to intercept them. Stations are laying mines and launching missile pods on their expected paths to ambush them. It is unfortunate they will not pass by the minor gas giant and the installations there which could have been used to our advantage, but those installations are busy manufacturing munitions for the second stage of the invasion, once they have pushed through our initial defense."
"And it is inevitable that they will reach the inner planets?" Horthus inquired. He was feeling quite relaxed tonight. He regretted killing the unfortunate servant now; she had had soft hands, and her replacement was afraid of him.
"As inevitable as heat death. We do not have enough missile pods, mines, or boarding vessels to destroy all of the ships. Our best estimate is an armada of six to nine hundred ships, mostly of the fast attack cruiser design. It is the largest swarm of Aurealians I have ever heard of."
"What of the Deathsworn? When will they arrive?"
"The nearest fleet we were able to contact via quantum entanglement is fifty five light years away. They are coming, but they will be late. And if the swarm is still here when they arrive, then they will likely be attacking an entrenched enemy, rather than slamming them between hammer and anvil."
Horthus frowned, studying the holographic representative of his domain. It was not to scale – it was impossible for any living being to truly think of space in terms of scale – but it gave him an idea of where his defenses were relative to each other and the incoming swarm. He had mined out his star’s asteroid belt, exploited its oort cloud, and built bases upon the moons of the gas giants in preparation of the possibility of an invasion.
Ironically, he had thought he was preparing for a Deathsworn Lord to challenge his authority, not the Aurealians. The Aurealians were cowards, that was a well established fact. Only committing to a fight when they had overwhelming numbers, fleeing at the first sign that the fight was not going their way. They had been running from the Deathsworn for centuries. Why, now, did they come to his domain?
And at the same time -
"What are the humans doing? Have there been any more computer malfunctions?"
"Some Nameless are reporting that their communication holoemitters are displaying records of their parents mating around the time of their conception. Otherwise there have been no abnormal computer activity that has risen to our attention."
Why the krick would the humans show the Nameless such a thing? This is why he hated humans. They were an enigma, and Horthus hated enigmas.
"Their ship? What is it doing?"
"It separated into twenty seven modules and is in stable orbit around Horthus Prime," the Nameless responsible for monitoring local traffic answered promptly. "They have been complying with our requests for restricted orbits, maintaining the minimum distances from defensive stations we demand and generally cooperating with our requested orbital plans, with a few exceptions in which they and orbital control have worked together to establish a compromise. Aside from the fact that there are so many moving pieces, they are not a bother to local traffic at all."
"Except for the fact that they destroyed one of my platforms," Horthus growled angrily.
"Sir … the platform shot first. Retaliation is a known and expected result of attacking a human vessel," the lead Nameless reminded him.
"I know. What is the progress on fixing the kricking toilets?" he inquired.
"Aboard the damaged station, it has been completed. We are in the process of transferring atmosphere for re-pressurization. Throughout the rest of the system, progress is … mixed. Not all Named commanders accept that such maintenance is necessary. Many of the stations have reported that the project has been completed. Others that the project has not yet been begun. Some reported that the project was completed within moments of receiving orders to begin the project in the first place, impossible since it takes a Nameless technician at least an hour to fix each commode."
"And the other vulnerability we have identified?" Horthus demanded. "Have you figured out how to keep the humans from using our ghosts against us?"
The Nameless in the tactical room exchanged nervous looks before their leader stepped forward. "We have one idea. It will make many Named Ones very unhappy. We are still considering alternatives, but given the gravity of the problem, time is of the essence."
"And what is this solution? Explain."
"We reset the -"
"Highness! Unknown intra-atmosphere vehicle has been observed flying towards the palace. It is not showing up on radar, or ladar visual spectrum only. We suspect it is a human craft."
"What? Show me!" Horthus demanded.
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The tech who had spoken quickly began feeding the recordings of CC hologram recordings into Horthus’s holodeck, replacing the representation of the star system. The craft was fast, flying close to the ground. Too small for occupants. Too small even for a pilot. And it seemed to be deliberately trying to be seen. If it was a weapon, it was already too late to stop it from damaging the city.
But if it was from the humans … the humans claimed that they would never attack first. Not a weapon, perhaps? A message, or even a gift? Horthus would give much to have a stealth craft as hard to detect as the one he was seeing in the holodeck. Especially an autonomous one; autonomous weaponry was hard to develop, and even the Aurealians were able to quickly learn and counter their programmed responses. But autonomous human weaponry?
And then the humans appeared on the street beneath it – out of thin air! And everything went to krick.
~~~~~~~~~
The Rodentia were so ingrained with human society, and that of the other uplifts, that all major structures are built specifically with Rodentia maintenance crews in mind. Every power station on every colony had a habitation module built to house anywhere from dozens to hundreds of rats in comfort. Crawl spaces and access tunnels scaled to allow them easy passage to critical areas were ubiquitous in structures of importance. Few space craft operated without a dozen Rodentia crawling around inside, making certain that its critical systems were operating within their specifications.
It was strange for Pleasant Scent and his squad that their target structure was not designed to allow them easy access. That is not to say that they had trouble gaining entry; there are few structures which can keep out a determined Rodentia crew, and they were determined. The humans had told them that this was important, and although they did not understand – or care – why it was important, they believed that the humans would not lie to them about such things.
But there were no clearly marked access panels, no signs marked with radiation levels or other hazards that the humans put about to warn their rodent allies of the hazards of exploration. Not that radiation or exposed live wires or any other danger would keep out a determined explorer, but an informed explorer was more likely to return to their family, determined or not.
Fortunately, the gear that Pleasant Scent and his squad wore was designed to help them detect exactly that sort of risk. They scurried from the west side of the building up to the roof using the vine-like growth that covered much of the alien structure, and gained access to interior through the air vents. Air vents were always the domain of the Rodentia, alien architecture or not.
Using their equipment, their natural exploration instincts, and the air circulation structure, Pleasant Scent and his allies quickly mapped the interior of the structure. It was not difficult, their equipment was able to sense through the thin material of the air ventilation passages, and they quickly had a working three-dimension module of the target facility. It took them only a few hours to complete their mission.
Except that when the squad gathered to congratulate themselves on a job well done, their holoemitters clicked to life as Athena sent them a mission update. The poor quality dancing rats were doing a marionette’s impression of speaking, while the map of the alien structure was zoomed in and divided to show areas Athena had designated to be important.
Symbols for ‘investigate further’ and, much more disturbingly, ‘sabotage’ began to appear. The Rodentia spent so much time making certain that things worked well that sabotage was almost blasphemous to their conscience. But the humans said this was important. Along with the update was a recall notice, the amount of time Athena believed the squad had to complete its new objectives before they were required to return to the Theseus.
Once Athena’s update began to repeat, Pleasant Scent turned to his squad leader.
"What do we do the humans want us to break this thing that we do not even understand? We are Rodentia corps, we do not break things we fix things and help humans fix things and keep them working forever!" he danced.
"Did they not tell you that this was a military operation, Pleasant Scent from another room? The human military breaks things, they break a lot of things and break them in many different ways. When the human military uses the Rodentia to break things, it is because they want to break things in a very special way that they cannot break them with weapons like mass drivers and explosives," the squad leader explained.
Pleasant Scent felt somewhat embarrassed, he knew that much of course. But he had thought this was simply a reconnaissance mission, a belief he now understood was somewhat foolish. Their gear had a two-way quantum entanglement connection with Athena that was updating her data banks in real time. Why would Athena not utilize that connection to update them in the same manner?
They had hours and hours before the mission recall time was up, so the squad of uplifted rats got to work with their updated objectives. They began with the nearest ‘investigate,’ then moved on in a logical pattern to accomplish as many of their objectives as possible in the allotted time frame.
The pattern was logical to a Rodentia mind, at least.
They quickly investigated eighteen of the rooms designated for investigation, committed thirty two acts of sabotage, and the results of their investigation triggered instructions for another twelve sabotage targets, eight of which they accomplished.
As the recall time was running down and the squad was preparing to return to the exit point, they came to a large room designated for investigation. And that was when all hell broke loose.