43. Atlas Protocol
Atlas Protocol is not intended for inhabited worlds. It is not intended for inhabited systems . It is intended to make those worlds, those systems, inhabited. As interstellar exploration truly kicked off, no longer limited by distance or light-speed, energy became the limiting factor. Vast antimatter generation facilities were built in close orbits around blue giants to feed the human desire to find new homes among the stars. Soon, energy was no longer a restriction either. The limitation became what was in a star system for the humans to work with.
When humans developed easy and fast interstellar travel in the form of the Aurora drive – and even previously while limited to the skip drive – they noticed that while they were finding many rocky worlds around foreign suns, few of those rocks were in the right places to comfortably live upon. Earth was a miracle not for its size or composition, but its presence in the Goldilocks zone.
Gas giants and ice giants were often hosts to hoards of earth or near-earth sized moons. Kuiper belts and even oort clouds often possessed dwarf planets which could have sufficed – man had learned to live in microgravity, light gravity was no obstacle. But too often the rocks were simply too far from their stars to be comfortable.
Until some genius thought ‘What if we figure out how to put those rocks where we want them to be?" And so they did.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Nathan woke up to find Tony still sleeping on top of him. Sighing, he lifted the heavy cat’s paws off of his chest and made his way into the head. A chime from Athena notified him that he had pending messages of various importance as soon as she had detected that he was awake and active.
"How much sleep did I get?" he asked.
"Six point two hours. Adequate for the amount of stress you are under, provided you follow the proper guidelines regarding stimulants for the next thirty-six hours."
"Did anything important happen while I was asleep?"
"Yes. The Aurealians informed us that they are planning to destroy the two inhabited planets in this system, and in every other Hrustian system. And they asked us to stop them."
Nathan, who was relieving his bladder at the time, could only sigh in frustration. "I kind of got that feeling when they targeted them in the ambush. What changed their mind?"
"Cultural data from Stargazer. They have requested that we censor her name, but not her music. The general has stated that the name ‘Stargazer’ is an ominous name to the Aurealians, and that she will face prejudice from the larger Aurealian society because of it. Her music, however, has convinced him that he has no right to end the lives of the Aurealians trapped upon Hrustian worlds. Not even for the purpose of ending the hunts."
"Shit," Nathan cursed. "If they’re backing off, then Horthus has no reason to ask for a ceasefire."
"If they’re backing off," Athena agreed. "Or if it appears that they are backing off, which may not be the case. The battle plans shared by General Notoma indicate that the incoming fleet of TORCH ships, most of which are decoys by the way, have already released missile pods which will arrive in system significantly before they do, with the planets as targets. He has indicated that he has no control over these facts and asks our assistance in preserving the lives of the Aurealians on Horthus Prime. I recommend Emergency Atlas Protocol, as the number of incoming kinetics across two targets will be a significant strain on the Theseus to intercept, and should even one of them get through the results to the civilian population will be devastation."
"Whereas kinetics do no damage if the target isn’t there when they arrive," Nathan mused. "You’re waiting for authorization?"
"Upon my own authorization and that of Lucy and Tony, we have begun preparations. We are moving the aspects of the Theseus into orbit around Horthus Secondus to initiate, while simultaneously generating the required energy reserves. I have not warned the native populations yet, as revealing that the Atlas Protocol exists to either side of the conflict would require your approval."
"If we don’t use it, billions of civilians die. Authorized. I’ll notify Horthus myself, just let me brush my teeth."
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Good morning, Horthus. I hope you slept well. I see you’ve already had breakfast," the Human Captain NathanSawyer’s annoying figure invaded the tactical room unexpectedly as Horthus was studying the system charts. The Nameless who had taken over for his named witnesses all quickly obscured the data. "Don’t bother, our own sensors are better than yours, remember? We know where everything is."
"And yet you were as surprised as us by the enemy’s ambush," Horthus reminded him.
"The Aurealians are your enemies, not mine. Yosca remains neutral. We didn’t see the ambush coming because we weren’t looking for one. We documented it as was our stated mission goal. We did contact the leader of the ambushing forces. They indicated that one of the minimum criteria which must be met prior to a ceasefire is a complete moratorium upon all hunting of members of their species within your domain. They have also informed me that any mediation will require a long-term compromise which prevents any Aurealians from being hunted within your domain for as long as the compromise holds. By providing you this information I have fulfilled my obligations to keep you informed of my efforts to establish a ceasefire between you and your enemy. Is there any condition that you would require before you consider establishing a ceasefire with the invading Aurealians and entering mediation with their leaders?"
"That they stop destroying everything in my system!" Horthus shouted. "The swath of destruction from that ambush represents decades of preparation, lost! I will-"
"That is exactly what a ceasefire is, Horthus ," Nathan interjected, enraging the tyrant. "We talk to your enemies for you and establish criteria by which you both agree to stop shooting each other. However, the fact is, Horthus, that they have you at a disadvantage at the moment. Even with their traditional tactics, they would likely have won based upon their numbers versus yours. With the new tactics they’re displaying, they’ll destroy you and your legacy forever. If I were your advisor, I would be advising you to not only seek a ceasefire, but begin considering terms for surrender. Because they’re winning, Horthus, and unless you can pull a rabbit out of a Nameless’s chest the way you do their hearts, I don’t think you can change that."
Horthus glowered at the human. For a Jurassian he was glowering. To a human he merely looked somewhat surprised. "I am aware of the situation. They will not take the planets. That much will never-"
"We redirected twenty plus kinetic missiles from impacting Horthus Prime and Secondus yesterday, Horthus. They aren’t planning on taking your planets, they’re planning on destroying them. You aren’t fighting a losing battle, you’ve already lost. The only reason you and your citizens still draw breath is because Yosca is attempting to save the lives of the civilians on your planet. Do you have terms for the initiation of a ceasefire with the Aurealian fleets, Horthus, or am I wasting my time talking to you?"
Horthus continued to glower. "This ceasefire. If you establish it, what comes next?"
"Mediation. I and my ship act as a neutral party. I investigate any breeches of the ceasefire and otherwise make attempts to keep the peace while you talk with the Aurealian leaders and come to terms. Their stated minimum goals for any mediation is a long term, permanent ban upon hunting Aurealians within your star system. Is that on the table?"
"You planned this," Horthus accused. "You destroyed my stocking facilities so that I would have no reason not to accept. Without those, I will run out of game within decades anyway. With them I would have fought to the end."
"Those facilities were deemed unnecessary to the defense of your star system or your planet."
"Their capture or destruction was the objective of my enemy," Horthus countered. "By destroying them, you have aided my enemy and broken your neutrality."
"By destroying them I have taken away your enemy’s reason for destroying you, Horthus. More importantly, by destroying your facilities, I have removed the Aurealians justification for destroying the worlds upon which your civilians reside. I maintain that because my actions benefit both sides, the Theseus has maintained its neutrality."
Horthus was silent. Idly, he tapped a finger against the table at which he was sitting, the same as he did when he was playing go against Jon. He saw now that it was indeed a game that he was playing with this human, one that could benefit them both. Just as the human Jon claimed to have benefited by surrendering, could he?
"If I agree to a ceasefire, and discuss an end to all hunting in my domain. Will that be an end to it? Will they simply … leave?"
"Those are discussions to have during mediation, Horthus, not now. Now is when we discuss how to keep your people from being shot at from light hours away. Will you agree to a ceasefire, conditional upon a complete cessation of the hunting of Aurealians during the ceasefire and mediation to follow?"
"If those are the only terms, then I agree," Horthus reluctantly admitted. "But we will not lay down our arms. If we are fired upon, we will return fire."
"At this time I advise you that the ceasefire is not yet in effect and hostilities have not been scheduled to end by either side. At this time I advise you that there is a second Aurealian ambush incoming upon all of your assets in system. These weapons have already been fired and have no recall mechanism with which to terminate the attack. At this time I advise you to begin evasive action with all of your mobile space assets. At this time I advise you that the Theseus will be initiating Atlas Protocol in five hours in order to prevent the destruction of Horthus Prime and Secondus. At this time I advise you that Atlas Protocol will trigger severe tidal effects including colossal tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and building collapses. I advise you to leave your underground bunker and board an aircraft, as you will be safest in the air. I advise you to initiate any emergency broadcast system you have and inform your citizens of the effects of Atlas Protocol as have just been described to you. Tell them to seek shelter in open places far from the ocean or standing structures such as skyscrapers which may collapse."
"Atlas Protocol?" Horthus inquired.
"The incoming ambush is kinetic in nature, Horthus. The speeds involved will be near double the earlier ambush and the number of projectiles a thousand times more. We can redirect some of the missiles moving that fast, but even one getting through and striking either planet would kill the planet. But there’s an easier way to counter a kinetic attack."
"Oh? It seems to me that if they know the planet’s orbit, then we are doomed unless you redirect it as you say you did yesterday."
"That’s exactly it, Horthus. They know the orbits. So we’re going to change the orbits. The easiest way to avoid a kinetic strike is to not be where they think you’ll be when the kinetics get to you. Prepare for Atlas Protocol, Horthus. Gravity anchors will be established in four point five hours."
~~~~~~~~~~~
"They refuse to acknowledge my name, and they would have killed me from the oort cloud like cowards. Killed all of my sisters after we struggled so hard to stay alive. Because they believed that giving us a swift end was kinder than helping us fight. Is this what you are singing?" Stargazer demanded.
"I’m sorry, Stargazer, but that’s an accurate summary. If it makes you feel any better, the cultural information you had Athena send to them before you retired last night changed their minds. They made us aware of another ambush attack which would have been more difficult to counter without the additional time they are giving us to prepare. Unfortunately the attack has already launched, but we should be able to save the planets," Nathan informed her. They were in a tactical room together, the lights dimmed to comfortable levels for both of them while holograms that they could each understand danced about them. Nathan had a cord plugged into his brainjack, but was not in full immersion. It was simply to make issuing orders and conversing with Stargazer at the same time easier.
"But if they had not come to kill us, then you would not be here to save us," Stargazer pointed out.
"That is also correct."
"But to save my sisters below, you must also save my enemies from the same destruction that would rain upon us all. You could simply abduct my sisters as you have abducted me, but you will not because it will ‘not look neutral,’ compared to miraculously moving two planets."
"It’s less miraculous than it sounds. It’s a well established part of terraforming, actually. In Sol, we moved about eight rocky moons into the green zone using Atlas protocol in order to make them livable. It’s kind of funny, because making a diagram of the solar system used to be a simple project for our kids. Not anymore, not with all the Lagrange points and orbital mechanics involved. It’ll be a disaster if we ever lose our technology too, because not all the orbits are perfectly stable and will require maintenance every few centuries to prevent them from degrading.
"That’s actually one of the early reasons we thought that your people and the Jurassians were at war. The conflict zone is has a surprisingly high amount of rocky planets in the inhabitable zone. Some of our early analysis assumed it was a simple war over resources and actually thought that we could solve the problem for you simply by moving some planets around. It’s a shame things are more complicated than that, we could be done with this damned war already if that had been the case."
"You mean if the Jurassians were not farming my people for use in a bloodsport that both you and I find horrific, yet your people will not take the steps necessary to put an end to it, despite your capacity to do so?" Stargazer demanded.
"Yes, Stargazer, I mean that. And it’s not my personal willingness that’s in question, please believe me on that."
"It is not your person I am questioning, Nathan, but your people," Stargazer explained. "You saved me. You are saving my sisters from my own people, and I believe you will save them from the Jurassians. But I do not know what will happen to them once your resources run out, as they will eventually, correct?"
"Even activating Atlas Protocol to move the planets, we’ll have enough antimatter to last for decades of normal operation," Nathan explained. "Assuming we only need to do that once. But if we have to start feeding hundreds of thousands of Aurealians, well, we’ll have a lot of your people going hungry very quickly, unless we can get them asylum with your people, as we’re trying to do with the kips we saved the other day."
"Yes, I believe I understand the problems we face," Stargazer sang. "I wish to explore, and consider the options you have put in front of me. I am uncertain whether I wish to accept your offer and the bindings it places upon me. I do not know how I can be ‘Yosca’ when I am not of earth origin."
"You’ll be a liaison. Not a representative of our organization, but a representative of your species to our organization. Specifically you will be representing the Aurealians living upon the planet below, and not any of the other chorus or government organizations," Nathan explained, as though the explanation was expected to make sense. "But I think it’s a good idea for you to take a walk and consider your options. Talk with Athena, or any of the other crew that you meet, perhaps that will help you come up with your answer. I want your help in helping your people, Stargazer, but I will make no demands of you."
"No, you will simply hold me hostage upon your spacecraft indefinitely."
"I am truly sorry about that, but--"
"I understand the reason you cannot return me. At least you have given me the means to speak with my sisters below. One of my tasks will be to sing to their spears; that is a wonderful gift that is worth my confinement."
"You should warn them about Atlas Protocol. They should be safe inside the hunting grounds, it’ll be the coastal areas and the cities that are hit hardest. But because they’re in safe zones, they may encounter Jurassians who are fleeing and seeking shelter for themselves. The moratorium on hunting remains in place, but I cannot promise that there will not be incidents of violence against your sisters," Nathan pointed out.
"I will sing to them of Atlas and warn them of an incoming swarm of Others who may or may not kill."
~~~~~~~~~~
"All of the sky will light up with green aurora, much brighter than it has in the days past. When the light fades, the moons will be gone. The lights of the satellites will be gone, left on the other side of the planet’s orbit. We will be on the opposite side of the star, half of the year out of position, and safe," came the Elder’s voice from her spear.
The gift of the humans was wonderful. No heavier and with the improved balance over the primitive weapons she had trained with, the ceramic and steel spear contained communication devices built into the haft, allowing them to send and receive transmissions from far away. For the first time, Black Stripes was able to hear the songs of hunting grounds across the planet, to hear the songs of sisters she’d suspected existed, but now knew for certain.
And then there was Stargazer, who’s song of Defiance had given meaning to Black Stripes and her sisters that they had been struggling to find. The Elder taken up into orbit by their unexpected allies, the humans. The Elder who promised strange and wonderful things, who had convinced Stripes and her sisters to abandoned their traditional weapons for the proffered gifts.
A decision which had been vindicated after some very basic tests; the human spears were vastly superior even without the communication devices. While the Others who hunted her kind could still disarm her, they would be unable to destroy her spear, as they could so easily with one made of simple flint and wood.
And with a team of sisters protecting a kip … she looked forward to the next hunt for the first time. She would test out the concepts of the Song of Defiance herself. She would not die meekly, no she would not!
"The Others, or whatever your tribe calls them, may come. Atlas will shake the world and the seas. Volcanoes will erupt, mountains will quake, buildings will fall, and shores will be swept away. The lands we are held hostage within are among the safest to ride out this disaster, and many of the Others will come to hide in them. Some of them will be Others who kill, although their king has forbidden hunting while the battle in the sky continues. Most will be Others who do not kill. I advise you to assume that all Others will kill you if given the chance and be prepared to defend yourselves, your sisters, your kips, and your elders."
"And myself," Black Stripes sang. "For I will not go meekly. For that is what you have taught me, Stargazer."
"Our human allies are mighty, but they are not omnipotent. They are bound from in ways which are difficult for us to understand, even as they try to explain them as clearly as they can. To help us is to invite bloodshed among their own kind, and yet these humans of the Theseus offer their hands to us in aid. They move the very planet we stand on to save us from our own people. Have hope, sisters. They will find a way to overcome the bindings that restrict them, and soon we shall be free, to do as we wish among the stars, as was promised to us once long ago! I denounced our teacher once, but it was the Other’s who used her as a weapon against her. She is blameless, just a tool for learning made by our own people in the distant past. If you harbor ill will towards her, I advise forgiveness. For the humans believe that hatred is a poison which affects your soul, not your enemy. And the teacher, even when we believed she was false, was never our enemy. She simply was. Her lessons were not false; her knowledge was not wrong. It is unusable while we remain trapped by the Others, but if the humans save us? If we are returned to our rightful place among the stars? Then her lessons will change the shape of the galaxy! Remember what you can, sisters, for if we survive the coming storm, it will be invaluable."
Black Stripes frowned at this broadcast. She would have to turn it over in her mind for some time before she could accept it. Stargazer was not her Elder, but the Elder of another hunting grounds, but if her claims were true then she had survived more hunts than any who lived. But all of the hunting grounds shared the hatred of their false-teacher who had given them hope as kips. Hope that had been crushed ruthlessly and brutally.
Two for every ten.
The Others told them that before they started. But sometimes it was more or less within each actual classroom. Twenty-percent was the average, but the Other’s had long practiced ways of maximizing the fear they inflicted upon the kips when it was time to harvest the birthing facilities.
Black Stripes shuddered, remembering how the Other – Jurassian was the human word that Elder Stargazer used occasionally, but Stripes did not harmonize with that yet – had pretended to select her, only to change his mind and murder her sister huddling next to her instead. Sometimes, she could still feel the clotted blood in her fur, despite having washed it out long ago.
"The captain of the human ship has asked that I speak for us. For all of us on the planet where I was born. I am Elder of my Hunting ground, and I have been singing for them to the humans thus far. But I will not go further than that without your consent. I ask you, sisters whom I have never met, shall I sing for you? Shall you put your faith in my songs to our human allies? Shall I denounce those cowards who share our species, who accept defeat without effort, and would take our decision to struggle for existence away from us? I cannot claim this right, will not claim this right, without your consent. The human’s have a process they call ‘election.’ If you wish for my songs to represent you, simply tell the spear of your opinion on the matter. The human computer Athena will tally the results. It need not be unanimous, but if there is too much disharmony I shall set aside this mantle. Simply tell your spear whether or not I may sing for you."
"Stargazer sings for me," Black Stripes sang to her spear without hesitation.
"Thank you, Black Stripes, your vote has been tallied," Athena’s toneless voice sang from the spear. "The results will not be announced until an eighty-percent participation rate has been reached. Current participation is at thirty-eight percent, but it is rising fast. Results should be announced before the initiation of Atlas Protocol."
"Thank you, Athena. Does Elder Stargazer sing anything else for her sisters trapped below?" Black Stripes asked eagerly.
"That was the conclusion of her message. You may replay the Song of Defiance or Lamentation at your leisure, or any other message that you have listened to. She has promised to recite the Song of Memory before her next rest cycle, but has not done so yet. She states that this is a Song containing the names and stories of those veterans and elders whose memories are still honored in her hunting grounds. While she does not expect you to honor their memories as she does, she has stated that the song is to be shared with any Aurealian who wishes to listen."
"I will listen, once she sings. If it is safe when she sings it."
"All of Stargazer’s broadcasts are recorded. Notifications of new broadcasts are sent only when we determine that you are – Black stripes, be aware. Numerous Jurassians are en route to your hunting ground. Preliminary analysis indicate these are Nameless civilians; Others who do not kill. We do know that the moratorium on hunting stand in place, but your safety is not assured. We are taking steps to ensure your safety; this notification is one of our steps to assure your safety. The others are also being notified."
"Thank you, Athena," Stripes sang. "How many are coming?"
"It is hard to say. They are leaving the cities in droves and coming into the wild areas. We cannot predict with certainty how many will seek refuge within the hunting ground, but we estimate that it will be in the hundreds."
"I understand. Will you send a message to my sisters for me?" Black stripes asked, rubbing her finger over the razor sharp spearhead. "Tell them I sang ‘four for every ten.’"
There was silence for a moment.
"They are singing back. ‘Four for every ten.’"
~~~~~~~~~
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"I do not see the point. Why play with magnets? The holographic game is superior."
"Tradition, sort of," Jon Cassonova answered. Horthus sat in his shuttle with him, ironically trusting the human craft to keep him safer than the technology of his own people. Or perhaps he simply believed that Nathan would be reluctant to betray his former mentor. "It’s reassuring to have a physical board, in case I am somewhere without the holographic version. Technically a traditional board would have simple polished stones. I did have several of those, back on the Theseus, but I only had them send the travel version to me on this shuttle."
"You humans are very strange. I still find your claims of this ‘Atlas’ to be absurd."
"And yet here you are, standing in the same room as me for the first time," Jon reminded him.
"We have concluded the analysis of your body and your shuttle," Horthus explained. "As you said, it has nothing that we cannot produce ourselves, and yet the craft is of much finer make than even my personal crafts. They are on par with the transports that we often take from the Aurealians intact through boarding actions. To the point that it is obvious that those are the standards used in construction."
"And your generals do not need your leadership?" Jon inquired.
"If what your ‘captain NathanSawyer’ claims is true, it is better to simply warn them and leave them to fend for themselves until the second ambush has passed," Horthus said, sighing in the human fashion. "If it is not true, then I will look like a fool and they will not listen to me further."
"You are putting your faith in us?"
"I am old, Jon Cassonova. I had thought that I would die defending my system from a Deathsworn lord wishing to take what I had and replace me, not the little things that I hunted for sport in my youth. Or perhaps to a human invader, once you had finally dropped your act of neutrality and bared your true fangs. I thought that only a fool would expect the Aurealians to do any more than shoot from a distance at our shipyards, and then retreat the moment they were pursued, until we inevitably cornered them. As it has always been, so I thought it would always be. In all of my preparations to defend my claims in this universe, I never once imagined that I would be sitting across from a human who surrendered to me while I prepare to surrender to an Aurealian overlord."
"Change is inevitable. Ironically, stability can be a sign of weakness. The longer things stay the same, the more chaos that erupts when entropy finally has its say. Something was bound to happen eventually, Horthus. You may lament that it happened in your lifetime, but your dominance over the Aurealians was never as absolute as either side of the conflict believed. Had they truly resisted instead of taking the Urata, the war might have gone very differently for you."
"So you say. I think I like these magnetic stones. Will the Atlas happen soon?"
"Yes. Thirty minutes. We’ll be over the ocean when it happens, and we’ll be able to see the gravity anchors pulling the sea into the sky. It will be quite beautiful."
"And then your Theseus will turn on its Aurora drive, and suddenly the entire planet will be where it would not otherwise be for half of our yearly cycle."
"That’s how it works, yes," Jon agreed.
"And every human military ship can do this?"
"No. Only Atlas ships, and most Atlas ships belong to civilian corporations dedicated to finding, terraforming, and building new worlds and colonies. That the Theseus has two Atlas engines is … well, we wanted to be prepared for anything, so we came prepared for everything. Fortunately for you."
"I am not yet certain that it would not be better for me, personally, to die when my planet is ripped apart around me by a relativistic kinetic round," Horthus huffed. "But I suppose it is fortunate for the nameless who rely on their service to me for their right to exist."
"You seem remarkably clear to me, Horthus, and I see no bloodstains upon you. Did you try that injection after all?"
"I gave half of it to Seefius first, to ensure it was not poison," Horthus admitted. "She said it was clarity. Clarity without the pleasure of murder, with no ecstasy. But clarity is what I need at the moment. It is a shame that the Nameless will still have to die once I am able to speak with my generals again, simply to assure them that I am thinking clearly."
~~~~~~~~~~
"The Pillars of Atlas," Jon Cassonova said dramatically, motioning out the window to the tower of seawater being pulled into the sky, taller than any previous structure on the planet. "Normally we only use Atlas protocol on iceballs and airless rocks. You’re going to loose a few kilotons from your ocean, and your atmospheric pressure is going to drop a few pascals, but you’ll be able to adapt to that. You live on worlds with less ocean and less atmosphere all over the conflict zone."
Horthus shook his head in amazement at the display. "When do we go faster than light? I am curious to experience the human method of travel. I never thought that I would experience it, let alone with my entire planet."
"We don’t normally use the Aurora drive and Atlas together," Jon admitted. "The kid is making a hell of a judgment call here. Just preparing to use that amount of energy … we’re talking kilotons of antimatter-matter annihilation spent just to get ready. Atlas and Aurora together is an energy hog the sort of which only the Theseus and three other ships in existence can handle. And the Theseus is the only one that can do it twice, back to back."
"You say that as though you disapprove," Horthus commented.
"I disapprove of its necessity, but I was the one who designed the Theseus to begin with. It’s just … I was hoping that we would never actually have to use it on an occupied planet. I was hoping that the Theseus would be mothballed, retired as the Elizabeth was without seeing serious combat. I was hoping that, if we ever used the Theseus’s Atlas Protocols, it would be to build a world from scratch, as the other atlas engines are used. It saddens me that the Aurealians were willing to go so far. And it saddens me that we are to blame for their actions."
"Explain that," Horthus snapped.
"A slip of the tongue," Jon admitted. "A Freudian slip, but a slip, and one you caught. Very well, Horthus. Yosca, the United Earth Origin Council, UEOSC, is neutral in your conflict. However, certain members of various governments have been providing training and education to your enemies. Strictly speaking, they are within their rights to do so provided they provide tactical and training suggestions only. This training began from the survivors of the Elizabeth and continued for nearly fifteen years after that incident, before Yosca put a stop to it when we learned of some of the things that they were planning."
"Such as the destruction of my entire system?"
"That was not confirmed as their intention until just now. The generals leading this system learned their lessons very well, even if they did not understand all of them, and kept most of their plans close to the – within their own minds and inner circles. We knew that they were planning on liberating the worlds of the Hrustius, starting with yours.
"But ‘liberation’ means something very different to a human than it does to an Aurealian, and that’s something that we tend to forget. To them, the Urata is a form of liberation. Freedom from pain and suffering and oppression. The freedom of death. By their logic, they are liberating their children by destroying the worlds upon which they are being farmed like cattle. By killing a few hundred thousand children now, they are saving millions or billions from suffering later. It’s all so … Aurealian. Alien to a human’s sense of morality, and yet perfectly logical. That’s why nobody else saw these ambushes coming, and that’s why I built the Theseus to the specs that I did."
"You planned all of this," Horthus accused. "Everything that has happened was part of your plan, including surrendering to me. Including this ‘slip of the tongue.’ This is like a game of go to you, and I am as outclassed in each category."
"You could murder me now, and there’s little I could do to stop you," Jon pointed out.
Horthus just huffed. "No, I cannot, because I need you and you know it. If I am to have any sort of legacy other than the first system overlord to fall to the Aurealians, then I need a human advisor to teach me how to counter the advice my enemies have gotten from humans."
Jon cocked his head to the side, his expression carefully neutral. "It seems that those injections work even better than I had hoped."
Outside the window, the sky began to change green as aurora began to gather and course through the firmament. Then, suddenly, the moons were gone, and the stars were in a slightly different position. Or rather, the everything else had remained stationary, while the planets had moved one point six and two point six astronomical units, respectively. Moved to the other side of the sun, in their antipodal positions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Atlas Protocol was completed with approximately two hours to spare before the first of the kinetic impacts from the second ambush would have destroyed Horthus prime. Released days earlier, a small missile pod carrying thirty one-ton depleted uranium warheads traveling at nearly zero point four C, aimed with the combined use of whisper and ion drives, hundreds of thousands of carriers like it exploded at nearly the same time, breaking the stealth coating that had obscured them from traditional tracking methods.
The warheads that would have ripped Horthus Prime and Secondus apart continued silently through space on a path that would eventually lead to them drifting eternally in intergalactic space. Eighteen moons of rock, frozen gasses, and collected dust, were utterly destroyed as the kinetic impacts shattered their crusts. Ripped apart, the material they left behind began to drift in orbits around the gas giants, debris that would eventually reform into rings or smaller satellites.
The mines hiding within the Kuiper belt and the orbits of the outer planets were destroyed by the hundreds of thousands. The more mobile forces were largely spared due to the timely warning of Nathan Sawyer and General Notoma, but the iron wall of violence that had been placed between the expected arrival point of the swarm of Aurealian ships and the inner system was completely shattered. Tens of thousands of Deathsworn, Nameless and Named were dead or dying.
Operation Good Samaritan was in full swing, but the humans could only do so much, and many had died in the opening salvo. Among many stations, only those who had thought to don a vacuum suit and leap to their fates had any chance of survival.
The inhabitable planets were completely unaffected; moved as they had been to their antipodal positions in their respective objects. Their moons were shattered, their satellites left behind. They were defenseless, save for the presence of one modular human ship. But they were still alive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many of them, at least.
The tidal forces of the gravity anchors and the moons vanishing from their orbit caused tsunamis and earthquakes throughout the world. Those who had not heeded the warning in time found their cities collapsing around them. The coastlines were shattered and swept away. Volcanoes ejected debris and ash into the atmosphere would eventually kill millions in addition to the millions who died in the opening moments.
And billions were saved.
Horthus sat in the human’s tactical room, so different from his own and yet perfectly compatible so far. He was still aboard Jon’s shuttle, still flying from one disaster to the next to try to get his mind around the scope of the destruction.
And this is what the humans did when they were trying to help , he reminded himself.
He had murdered a Nameless soon after the disaster, mostly out of habit in preparation for the tough decisions that would follow, only to find the experience largely muted. The ecstasy remained, but the rush of clarity that usually followed was muted. Not lacking, but unnecessary, for he had already been thinking clearly.
He did not regret his actions. The decisions he was about to make would save millions of life, spending one life in comparison was nothing compared to the importance of his leadership. He was the Exalted One. To die at his hands was to be given a reason to exist. To die in his service was to be given a reason to exist.
But how many did he actually have to kill to keep his mind clear? How much of his violence was simply an orgy of self-indulgence? Damn the human and his medicine! And damn his infectious mindsets! If his generals heard his inner monologue now, they would revolt!
But soon, they would revolt anyway. Any that remained after the ambush, at least. For he could see only one way forward that did not lead to more death and destruction.
Under the guidance of Jon Cassonova, he began to draw up terms of a ceasefire. And, in case they were rejected, he also began to work on terms of surrender.
The humans have a saying. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Humans have a lot of funny sayings, Horthus was learning, and many of them were very wise.
~~~~~~~~~
None of the gravity anchors of the Atlas Protocol targeted any of the hunting grounds. This was by design, as any civilian caught too close to the anchor would have been pulled into the stratosphere. Wastelands and oceans were preferred to secure an inhabited planetary body to a spacecraft when adjustments to the planet’s orbit were required. These sites were, in fact, often left intentionally vacant in the event that the terraforming of a planet allowed it to be habitable before its orbit was fully secure.
Normally, all Atlas Protocol maneuvers are planned years or decades in advance. Simple gravitic forces – albeit ones on planetary scales – were used to ‘tugboat’ a planetary mass into the habitable zone. Often two or four planets were established in the same orbit in a star system within the various Lagrange points. Some stars had significantly more, up to sixteen planetary bodies within the green zone, all of them in various stages of terraforming and habitation. Many of them requiring occasional ‘tugs’ to maintain their orbit.
Atlas Protocol was a slow and steady process. The objects moved using Atlas Engines were often considered in unstable orbits for centuries after the process began. It required extensive system mapping and planning. Safety was a key word in every step. Millions of measurements and calculations before the Atlas Engines were even moved into the system, just to make certain that the plan was feasible. It was not a process meant for emergency evasive maneuvers to avoid an incoming swarm of world ending kinetic missiles.
It was also not a process with which the Aurora drive was typically used. While not unprecedented, the danger involved in such an action on a world of billions would require any commander authorizing the maneuver to consider the outcome of their actions in the worst possible light.
Normally that light was that the combined Atlas slash Aurora drive protocols would fail entirely. Zero point zero zero one percent of all Aurora drive transmissions simply ‘disappear.’ An acceptable risk for a few hundred or even a few hundred thousand sapients, but once the numbers began reaching the millions, people began talking about smaller transports.
Because the more mass transported, the higher the risk rose. Nobody knew for certain what the risk was for planetary bodies, because nobody was foolish enough to waste the energy and resources required to establish a success to error ratio.
Nathan had spent less than five minutes to authorize a faster than light Atlas Protocol slash Aurora Drive combination knowing these facts. He had known that if something went wrong with the drive, which had an unestablished error rate for moving such a massive body, then billions would die. Although he had avoided the worst case scenario of an Aurora Drive crash, millions had died as a direct result of his decision and actions. Additionally, because of his use of Atlas Protocol, the Theseus was down to forty-eight percent of its antimatter reaction mass. Meaning, he knew, that he would not be able to do that again if the Aurealians decided to try, try, try again.
But the outcome if he had done nothing would have been the same in terms of lives lost as if he’d had the worst case scenario. So despite the chaos on the planets below, he felt secure in his decision.
And as she plunged her human-crafted spear into the neck of her sixteenth Nameless Other who was seeking refuge in her hunting ground, Black Stripes felt confident in her decision as well.
"Four for every ten," she whispered to herself, and disappeared into the brush. The Others who were not hunters were blind and deaf, and did not know the scents which indicated they might be in danger of an ambush. She and her sisters were slaughtering them by the hundreds. Just as the Aurealians had been slaughtered for centuries, now they returned the bloodshed.
And she felt no remorse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Katherine arrived after the salvo, and just in time for the chunks of the larger moon to slam into the hull of the refugee complex. The debris was not moving at relativistic speed, fortunately, but neither were the debris shields up until three minutes after FTL translation and the damage to the outer hull was extensive. Their safety was never in question, but the guests upon the Theseus’s Aurealian habitation module didn’t necessarily know that.
It took Katherine another twenty minutes to calm them down before she could finally get through to one of the network drones which had been left behind for her.
"Nathan, what the fuck? Want to explain why you blew up a few moons and moved the planets? Because I think that’s a decision that will come under review," she said testily as the connection came through. His holographic head smiled sadly at her. Despite the stress he was under, he was thriving as a commander, she could tell.
"The initial ambush was just to get the Horthians, and us, looking in the wrong direction. The incoming fleet released a salvo that just arrived. Too many kinetics arriving in stealth at undetermined times to be sure of redirecting all of them. I authorized Atlas Protocol and moved the planets into their antipodal positions to save them, the rest of the mess is the outcome of the Aurealian salvo," Nathan answered wearily. "It’s a disaster zone all over the planets down there. The only good news is that Horthus is offering terms for a ceasefire. He’s offered to kill the families of any Horthian who hunts an Aurealian for five generations in either direction, and that his forces will only fire when fired upon. The stealth fleet commander has tentatively agreed to mediation, while the lead ships of the primary fleet will be in position to drop out of stasis soon.
"In the meantime we’re doing as much humanitarian work as we can handle. Horthus knows about PMT because we’re transferring his people and resources all over the planets for him. No weapons, of course. People, food, medicine and textiles only, which is kind of a sticking point, but it is what it is. Horthus’s generals all want him to make a stand, but he’s realized that the Aurealians aren’t here to take his worlds from him, they’re here to destroy them . And that the only thing that’s stopping them so far is the Theseus. He want’s a ceasefire, but what he’s really talking about is surrender."
"Which will make him the laughingstock of his people for a thousand years," Katherine predicted.
"Or a visionary. I don’t know what it was that’s changed with the Aurealians, but after centuries of being at a disadvantage in terms of tactics and will to fight, they’re actually showing backbone, Kathy. A willingness to destroy not only factories and refineries and mines, but entire systems. Important systems . And from what the general has told me, Horthus system is just the first of the Hruthius systems they plan on taking out.
"The Aurealians have always had better ships. Now they’re showing that they suddenly have the tactics to use those ships to their advantage for the first time. It’s like they’ve been holding back for all of this time, but somebody finally drew a line in the sand."
"Or perhaps someone took a look at what they and their enemies could do, and told them how to use what they had in the way that would be maximally effective given their respective limitations," Katherine replied grimly.
"Yeah, I mean, there’s nothing that they’re doing that wasn’t theorized by humans back when we had their tech level. You know, for the one-eighty years or so when the skip drive was state-of-the-art FTL. The fact that they’re going full planet cracker has me bothered though, especially considering that they know there are Aurealians down there. Oh, we picked up another stray, by the way. You’ll like her, her name is Stargazer. Pretty sure she’s still mad at me for the whole shooting her thing, but it’s hard to tell with an Aurealian. For me, at least, maybe you can tell the difference."
"I’ve also returned with guests," Katherine informed him. "Three representatives of Neurela’s gov – wait, you shot an Aurealian?"
"Technically, everything worked out for the best. It was only a shock lance, I only stopped her hearts for like ten seconds, and we found out that all of the hunting grounds Aurealians have tracking devices implanted in them which are designed to keep them confined to the grounds and/or kill them if they leave. It was only by frying the device that we were able to safely--"
"You shot an Aurealian? You called them adorable little goat-kitties, and you shot one?"
"Look, there was a Jurassian witness first that I disabled, and I thought that he wasn’t alone. It was just a mis--"
"Oh man, Nathan, you are never going to live this down," she threatened, grinning maliciously at his hologram. "Were you at least somewhat vulnerable at the time? You weren’t wearing Steve, were you?"
"I don’t see what--"
"You were! Oh my stars, I can’t wait to tell your mother that you shot an unarmed alien while wearing a jarhead coffin because you were scared--"
"I was startled, not scared, and she had a spear."
"A spear! One of those flint things they have? Oh man, you are just making things worse for yourself. You could handle that with just your belt’s kinetic deflector, Nathan, and you know it. Flint can’t even cut our uniforms!"
"Well, they don’t have flint spears anymore," Nathan said. "And that’s sort of another problem. We armed them. Not firearms or anything ranged, but spears printed with good steel and ceramics. And now they’re killing thousands of unarmed Horthians with them. Horthians who can’t fight back, either because they’re nameless, or because they’ve heard that doing so will get their entire family killed in retribution."
"Has Horthus said anything about that?" Katherine inquired.
"Not yet."
"I wouldn’t worry about it until he does. In the mean time, it might be a good idea to try to keep the Jurassians out of the hunting grounds, using PMT if necessary."
"That’s exactly the thing though, Katherine. There’s something else we’re just figuring out. Remember when I mentioned that the Aurealians were limited to the hunting grounds by an implant? Turns out that those implants were controlled by geosynchronous satellites. Which are now on the other side of the sun, if they still exist and didn’t get shattered by the volley meant for the planet.
"The Aurealians? They can go wherever they want on the planet. And some of them have already figured that out. We only have two ways to stop them. One is to PMT them wherever we choose, and the other is for Horthus to broadcast a code over the radio which causes their implants to kill them."
"Oh," Katherine said, frowning. "That might be a problem indeed. I’m on my way."
Athena had already kicked the habitation pod’s ion drives into full swing to travel around the star and toward the rest of the Theseus’s new position, an action she had initiate as soon as she had connected with the nearest FTL communication drone and established the location of the rest of the ship. Katherine left her guests behind with apologies and boarded one of the high-speed long-range shuttles to do a fly-by of the star and get to the antipodal position as soon as possible. Her guests would likely be fine now that the power was being directed into the habitation module’s defensive measures.
~~~~~~~~~~~