23. Athena, why wasn't I notified of this
Studying in a tactical room was something of an interactive art form. In some places, it was a competitive sport, with students competing to see who absorbed the most knowledge on an unfamiliar topic – often something like the history of a distant colony – and retain the knowledge for the longest. When Nathan had decided to join the ESF marines, he had stolen thirty gallons of moonshine and sold them in exchange for the use of a tactical room for three years in order to cover what most students in the local cluster learn between ages six and sixteen.
His knowledge had been restricted to that of what was taught in textbooks eight hundred years old, and he had passed the minimum education requirements for the ESF in the ninetieth percentile. He hadn’t known it at the time, but it was this achievement which had first drawn Jon Cassonova’s attention.
Technically, the room he had studied in for between eight to sixteen hours a day for three years was only called a study room, and most universities had them in spades. But most students don’t use them for more than twenty minutes at a time due to disorientation, nausea, and lack of retention of the topic without taking time to rest.
It was not like reading a textbook, or watching a video, or listening to a lecture, but it was a combination of all of those things at once. The room tracked the occupant’s body and eye movement to see which particular hologram they were paying attention at any one time, and then, in the periphery, displayed related information in various formats. Depending upon the occupants attention span, there could be multiple streaming media occurring at the same time which they were expected to be absorbing.
For example, a study of the Napoleonic wars might display recreation of the weaponry at the time, a lecturer explaining a timeline of the conflicts, statistics of the battles’ death rates, the effect of the wars on the history of Europe, and the overall effect on the history of humanity (and, eventually, its friends). At the same time, links to related topics may be displayed in the background. The lecturer on the timeline might expand to go into more detail on particular points, or, if the student was curious as to why the death and casualty rates were so high, they might explore the weaponry and the medical techniques in use at the time further.
Nathan knew that because he had studied the Napoleonic wars in a study room for about three hours. He knew as much about the Napoleonic wars as the American wars previous to the ones designated world wars.
It was not a new way of obtaining information, and it was not seen as the best way of obtaining information. You could study a topic for thirty minutes and answer the questions on a test as well as someone who spent a week using traditional methods. For about an hour. It was great for cramming, or for impressing your friends with trivia, but it was not a replacement for a traditional education.
Unless your brain was wired like Nathan Sawyer’s brain.
Studying in a study room was a competitive sport, and Nathan was good enough at it to not only do it professionally, but to be an Olympian. A champion.
It wasn’t that he was a genius. He wasn’t even particularly smart, or at least he didn’t feel that way. It was just the way that his brain processed and retained information meshed incredibly well with the ‘study room’ method. He processed and retained information in a way that had geneticists interested in his DNA and neurologists interested in his neurology.
Despite the fact that he felt like an idiot most of the time. And sometimes he acted that way too.
And, of course, the ‘study room’ method didn’t work too well with content that was extremely emotionally disturbing, which is why when he had been ‘read in’ to the truth of the Aurealian – Deathsworn conflict, Katherine had been standing by with a basin for him to vomit into.
But he was using it now to play catch up. He needed to know the old man’s plans, the details of what had been put into motion and the contingencies for how to handle whatever came next.
Katherine had been right. The priority at the moment was to locate, rescue, and or protect the Aurealians on Horthus prime. Once the Aurealian armada appeared, then it would be time to reassess, but for the moment the priority was clear. He would just have to trust that the Old Man knew what he was doing, and he would just have to trust his own judgment.
Thinking of the old man, he quickly pulled up the recorded message that had surprised him in the shower.
"Hello Nathan. If you are seeing this, then I have officially resigned my post as captain of the UEOSC ship Theseus, designating you, Nathan Sawyer, as my replacement effective immediately. If we have not discussed my plans for this action previously, then you have my apologies for catching you by surprise. There are a great many things that I would have liked to have told you, to have shared with you, which I fear I will never be able to do so. Some of those things are by design. What you know and when you knew it will be a very important topic at some point in the near future, I am afraid, and I must take into account both your well being, and the interstellar politics which I have dragged you into. The information that you have access to has been carefully monitored and time stamped using forensic methods in order to protect you from any investigation into your conduct which might arise due to the fallout of the Theseus’s mission.
"I pray that does not frighten you. Yes, Nathan, I pray. I do not know if you do or not, we’ve never discussed the topic. I prayed with your mother, have I told you that? She is a lovely woman and is very proud of you. She believes in you, and I believe in you. I was hoping to prepare you more for this duty that I have drawn you into. Perhaps selfishly on my part, although I act on behalf of all mankind. That sounds grandiose when I say it out loud, doesn’t it? Megalomanical, even. But it is true. And I am sorry if I have not prepared you for what might be coming as well as you deserve, as well as I had hoped to prepare you. Events have gotten away from me, and time and time waits for no one.
"You may not understand why you have been put in this position. The simplest answer I can give you is that I cannot tell you that entirely, except that I trust that you will be capable of fulfilling my expectations, that I trust your judgment, I trust in your morality, your dedication to the core mission of the UEOSC, and that I believe in you personally.
"I am no longer your captain or superior. You are to consider all future communication with me to be monitored by belligerent forces and conduct yourself accordingly. Good luck, Captain. Over and Out."
Nathan shook his head. It was the fourth time he had watched the recording, and he still couldn’t understand the old man’s motivation. He was good at one thing , but that didn’t make him superman. Katherine was smarter than him, more educated on a wider variety of topics, and generally more mature.
Hell, Nathan washed out of the marines before he’d even really earned the right to call himself a marine. Marines, the rank and file at least, committed to five years. Four years training, one year active duty. The trick was that the year of duty was ‘subjective time.’ Time in stasis fields didn’t count, and the ESF could keep you in stasis for up to twenty years total outside of the stasis field. It wasn’t so bad; you got paid for the time you were in stasis, and after you got out you got a ticket to wherever you wanted to go, except for a few hellholes where no sane person would want to live. You could still go to one of them, you just had to get there on your own.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
That was part of the deal when he’d signed up, and he’d known that. Nathan could have dealt with that. What creeped him out, what really gave him the heeby jeebies, was that being in stasis didn’t mean you didn’t get shot at, or that you were in any way safe. The stasis field could be deactivated and would deactivate itself upon a loss of power, but did not protect the occupants, but rather made it impossible for them to react or defend themselves. And for the ESF, it was a normal practice to load a marine into a jarhead coffin, put him in stasis, and then load him onto a ship, send him to a potential conflict zone, and then just leave him in orbit inside a drop pod.
A drop pod, with a recall beacon but no PMS, because PMS could be traced and interfered with by a peer enemy force. Once the conflict was resolved, the ESF would go around and pick up all the drop pods. But the idea of getting left behind, or of being shot down while in orbit while in stasis … there were stories about it happening. Not in the ESF, but they were the kind of stories that get shared between allied forces, and even forces which are not allies but not technically enemies either.
Nathan had seen a list of nine hundred names of men and women it had happened to. And the idea that he might become one of them had ended his career in the marines.
The idea that Jon Cassonova might have planted that list for him to see never crossed his mind.
He focused on his duty. Protecting the Aurealians. He gestured, and the face of the old man went away, while the old man’s plans to locate, protect, rescue, relocate, and generally defend the captive population of the cat-goat like aliens.
Step one was already underway. It had been for some time. Locate and eliminate the cloning facilities used to produce them. Eliminating the cloning facilities was the highest priority for two reasons: one, it prevented the Horthians from simply replacing any losses from human activities by cloning more Aurealians, and two, once the Horthians realized what the humans were doing, they would take steps to interfere, slow down, or stop them from succeeding.
Step two was to locate and defend the Aurealians already alive. That was also somewhat in process, as drones and imaging from the Theseus modules acting as spy-satellites had already located a number of reserves which were known to possess Aurealian populations. The hunting grounds. That much had already been accomplished before operation ‘knock knock.’
The problem was that they were missing a step between the cloning facilities and the Aurealians of the hunting grounds. If the Aurealians had been human children, then the youngest ones that the Theseus was finding with its satellites and drones were ‘tweens.’ The young children, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, they were all absent.
The idea of human children trapped in such a terrible place made Nathan physically ill, and the knowledge that Aurealians were sentient, sapient beings, beings who had mastered FTL and xenoforming … that it was Aurealians trapped and not humans did not comfort him very much.
The question of the missing Aurealians troubled him, but at the moment there was only one thing he could think of to proceed with the overall mission, and that was to check on the units on the ground. He began pulling up feeds from the various drones and satellites, and then contacted Rodentia corps actual.
"Hello there, um, you go by Lewis when talking with humans, right? I know your name translates as a complex concept and not a sound but -"
Nathan cut off as the text translation of Lewis’s frantic dancing sank into his brain. He quickly pushed aside the drone footage and began pulling up footage from Rodentia team’s forces on the ground. He cursed loudly.
"Athena, why wasn’t I notified of this?" he demanded angrily.
"Notified of what, Nathan?"
"That we’ve found the missing Aurealians! Dammit, and the Horthians know it too! Fuck!"
"No notifications were sent to you because none were addressed to you."
"Lewis, how many notifications did you send? He says more than thirty."
"The Rodentia commander is incorrect. He has sent forty-three urgent messages to Captain Jon Cassonova, but Jon-"
"Athena, redirect all incoming messages to former captain Jon Cassonova to acting captain Nathan Sawyer. Athena, notify all armed forces to prepare for active combat. Lethal force authorized to protect Aurealian civilian life. Lethal force against Jurassian civilians authorized if civilians threaten Aurealian civilians with violence. Lewis, I need your help. We’re sending in the guns, and we need to know where they need to go. We’ll start with which of your teams is in the most trouble and work backwards from there."
~~~~~~~~~
"Simon, I need a status update. Lewis says you’ve been a lifesaver for him and his men, but I’m sending in the commandos, heavies, and the drones, and I need to coordinate them with your efforts. Tell me what you need and where you need it," came Nathan’s grating voice.
"Where the hell is Jon? Dammit Nathan, this whole situation is your fucking fault. I was muted because of you, and because I’m a cybersecurity expert all of the usual workarounds for that have been neut--"
"Save it for the after-action, Simon. We don’t have time for our usual bickering, there are lives on the line. Rodentia lives, Aurealian lives, and even Jurassian lives. People are dying , and every second we waste on our personal bullshit could be a life lost."
Simon blinked in surprise. Where the hell had this come from? He wanted to argue, but Nathan was right, it wasn’t the time. Not while lives were on the line.
"Where is Jon? Why isn’t he-"
"Jon is staying behind. For good. We are to consider him an asset of the Horthian government in all future decisions. One of his last acts as captain of the Theseus was to promote me and put me in charge. Now that you’re up to speed, I need a status update. Where do I send the guns, and how do we plan to use them to keep the most people alive. I know you don’t like that word, but I see ‘people’ and ‘sapients’ as fundamentally synonymous."
Simon was quiet for a moment as he considered. "Rat squad Theta is in the most trouble, and they also have the most kids with them. They need backup as soon as possible. I would say a heavy and some commandos at a minimum. They’ve been lucky so far. Oh, and two of the kids have guns and have already killed like five Jurassians."