(BNS Shinokage, Lupas
Sanctuarii Orbit)
I was standing in the secondary command center when Premier
Fukuya and General Akagi arrived. Nodding to the two women, I said, “Welcome,
ladies, to the Shinokage. She may not
be as grand as the Nightforge, but
she is the flagship of the Black Star Navy, and I thought you might want to be
here when we conduct the strikes that will neutralize the Amazonian threat to
Nuevo Edo.”
The Premier smiled, and nodded. “Thank you, Commodore. And
it is fine, I assure you. I might be the Premier, but I have spent enough time
around military installations to know that they are built with functionality
first and comfort somewhere much further down the line. Your ships are the
deadliest things I’ve ever seen, though admittedly until your arrival the only
warships I’d seen were the Amazons.”
Akagi chuckled, and said, “They certainly have made an
impression on the people, I can assure you. When we left to join you on this
expedition, there were already people calling the Black Star ships the ‘Kurai
Tenshi’, or ‘Dark Angels’. Seeing your ships tearing through the ‘Demon’ forces
was akin to a religious experience for some of them, let me tell you.”
I smiled. “Yes, I guess if your enemy is set up as Demons,
and another group comes through like the shadow of death and destroys them,
then those comparisons are easy to draw. That wasn’t the kind of effect I had
initially intended for the Black Stars when I chose their all black appearance,
but it works just the same.”
Fukuya raised an eyebrow. Jokingly, she asked, “Oh, if you
did not intend to become saviors of lost colonies, then what did you build such
a fleet for, in the beginning?”
I chuckled, and said, “Well, my first ship, the Starlight Raven, which you saw when I
landed at the quarry, was something I won from a man in a poker game.
Unfortunately for him, his ability to hold his liquor was about on par as his
ability to keep a person with psychic abilities from reading his mind. When I
took possession of the Raven, I saw
that she’d be perfect for a smuggler ship. When I picked up the Shadowdancer during the Jagloth
incident, I knew I had the beginning of a bounty hunting and anti-piracy fleet.
More than a few pirates got suckered into trying to attack a helpless
freighter, only for an Assassin to strike from the shadows, wiping them out.”
Akagi nodded. “And you discovered that the ships were just
as good in the civil war within the Terran Empire, and expanded into other
types of vessels.”
“Exactly. I’ll admit that the psychological impact of ships
exploding out of nowhere was quite high during the war. I believe the Usurper
forces were calling us the ‘Ghost Fleet’, since all our ships and fighters at
the time were stealth models. And it was one of the discoveries we made during
the Civil War which is going to allow us to end your conflict with the Amazons
without resorting to… unpleasant concepts like genocide.”
Fukuya nodded her head appreciatively. “While I doubt few on
Nuevo Edo would complain much if the planet were scoured of all human life, I
do not believe it would be the best course for our colony in terms of keeping
our souls, for lack of a better term, intact. So, if not genocide, how do you
plan to ‘neutralize’ the Amazons? I doubt you intend to create a perpetual
blockade, correct?”
“Oh goodness, no. Long term blockades are horribly
ineffective in the long run. You spend too much maintaining them, and the
people either adapt or you start getting smugglers. Same as with any occupying
force in history. If the people are against you, and you’re not willing to kill
them until they are cowed, then you cannot hold occupied territory.”
“While we were making final preparations, my forces began a
bombardment of the planet with kinetic strikes, taking out their spaceports and
surface to space capability. Computer simulations say that, left as they are,
it should take them six months to two years for them to regain space
capabilities. Naturally, this is unacceptable for the long-term goals, but
there are limits to what we can do with orbital bombardment unless we wish to
go back to the whole ‘wiping out all life’ concept.”
“Since we’re not going to go killing off the entire
population, we had to find an alternative means of keeping them planetbound and
removing the indoctrination the nanites they’ve been using for generations has
given them. We’ve run preliminary tests on captured Amazons and their pet
males. These tests included before-and-after mental and physical screenings,
and had a limited control group. Unfortunately, the number of prisoners
captured from the enemy vessels was quite small, but computer projections are
promising that this is the best choice for keeping the Amazonians from being a
problem without killing them all.”
Fukuya frowned. “Well, that is not ominous in the slightest,
Commodore. Is it truly necessary to explain what is about to happen in such a
way?”
I nodded to the Premier. “Very well, we shall begin the
operation.” I looked away from the two Edoans, and focused on the screens in
front of me. “Highlight target areas on screen.” Twelve targets on the planet
below lit up. “You are looking at the twelve largest industrial nodes, military
bases, and population centers on the planet. Status of Inferno Squadron?”
Raven spoke up next to me. “Inferno Squadron is ready and
waiting. All bombers have been armed and are prepared for launch. Ghost and
Blue Eagle Squadrons prepared for launch as well.”
“Launch the squadrons, and have them gather in the modified
groups.”
The three squadrons launched from the Smerti and the Return,
and arranged themselves into the new groups, each Dragon bomber flying with an
honor guard of a Raptor and a Thunderbolt.
“Give me fleet-wide.”
“Fleet-wide now open.”
“Ladies, Gentlemen, and Others of the Black Star Fleet, I
salute you. You have stood in the face of the enemy and shown them that no
longer would their barbarous ways be tolerated so long as they were a
spacefaring civilization. But as you all know, this enemy is not one that can
be reasoned with, it is not one that can be brought to the negotiating table.
They have been poisoned by the propaganda and brainwashing of the nanites that
have flooded their civilization for generations.”
“We have been tasked with protecting our newfound friends,
and with eliminating the long-standing threat of these ‘Amazons’. We are
mighty, but we are too few for a prolonged occupation and campaign of pacification.
We are vicious to our enemies, but we will not become monsters and engage in
the genocide of an entire people. We are firm in our resolve, but we will not
see Amazonia become another Jagloth, burnt to the bedrock so that nothing will
ever live there again.”
“It is not misplaced pity for our enemies that stays us from
that course. Nor are we so coldly calculating that the loss of potential
resources is what keeps us from wiping the planet clean. No, we act as we do
this day because we are not monsters. We will punish our enemy, and ensure that
it shall be a thousand years before they can ever again reach up and touch the
stars, and we shall hope that, when they do, they have changed their ways, for
we know where they are now, and they can no longer rely on staying hidden and
striking from the shadows against an unprepared foe.”
“Commodore Mollen to Inferno Leader. Execute Operation
Sagaris.”
I motioned for Raven to cut the channel, and then turned my
attention to the screen. The assembled fighters broke into twelve groups, each
bomber at the tip of a wedge formation including my two other fighter types. As
one, the twelve flights maneuvered, taking up positions around the globe. As
one, the twelve flights turned, and dove down into the atmosphere, heading for
their twelve targets. As one, twelve bombers released twelve packages, and all
twelve flights broke for the skies again. As one, all twelve packages detonated
over their targets.
There was no explosion, no nuclear fire or shock wave of kinetic
strikes. For a few minutes, it looked as though nothing had happened. For a few
minutes, it looked as though the world below would survive the wrath of the
Black Star Navy unscathed.
And then the first buildings began to fall. Then the first
frenzied communications rang out across the planet, with panicked voiced
calling out, screaming in pain and terror. Sometimes they were silenced with a
roar, as the world collapsed around them. Sometimes they simply went quiet,
with no clue as to what stopped their transmissions.
Soon, the only transmissions were from those outside the
target areas, as they tried desperately to figure out what was going on. As
they tried, and failed, to outrun whatever misfortune had struck down upon them
like the wrath of an angry god.
“By the kamis, what was that?”
I turned to look at Premier Fukuya, and saw that both she
and the General had rather stunned and horrified looks on their faces. Good,
the kind of people who would enjoy seeing things like this weren’t the kind I
wanted to be involved with. There were some horrible necessities that came up
in war sometimes, but that necessity did not make it any less horrible.
“We captured a nanoweapon from an Imperial Research
Laboratory during the Civil War. It had several other names, but my people have
begun calling it Greenwave. The twelve packages that were delivered to the
surface of that world each had twenty kilograms of microscopic nanites,
programmed to seek out and destroy any technology that is more advanced than
the steam engine, using those materials to self-replicate until they cover the
entire globe, wiping out all technology past the age of steam. We call it
Greenwave because, by the time the nanites have finished, the planet will be
primed for a rebirth of natural flora and fauna, restoring it to a more
primordial state.”
Akagi nodded slowly, and said, “The tests you conducted, you
tested this nanoweapon upon the prisoners?”
“Yes. When the nanoweapon was initially used against Earth
at the climax of the Civil War, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, died
as a result of the nanites attacking the implants in their brains or other
parts of their bodies. At that time, it was a choice between killing them or
having them forcibly enslaved by a mad AI intent on galactic conquest. If it
had not been Greenwave, it would have been a different method which would have
stripped Earth of all life, leaving it a lifeless husk.”
“We did not wish to commit genocide, so I ordered testing to
be done, to see what kind of reaction these people would have to the weapon.
They do not have implants, like many people in Known Space do, but their
bodies, including their brains, have been extensively modified by nanites,
which remain in their systems and provide maintenance on their bodies, and are
there to destroy the corpses when they are killed.”
“Since you just used this weapon, I can assume that it did
not kill the prisoners?”
“Of the forty females and five males captured from the enemy
fleet, we lost one male and one female due to nanite self-destruction. Analysis
suggests that their internal nanites detected the intrusion in time to send the
kill codes and cause the body to self-destruct. Most subjects suffered symptoms
from mild discomfort to intense pain, but their nanites did not have time to
destroy them before the nanites were destroyed.”
“Based on mental and physical tests conducted before and
after exposure, we believe that females will suffer a roughly 8.74% drop in
cognitive ability and a 35% reduction in physical prowess over the next six
months as cerebral enhancers and physical maintenance nanites won’t be present
to continue their functions. Males will have no change to their physical
capabilities, but may see as much as a 30-50% increase in their mental
capabilities due to the removal of nanites actively interfering with cerebral
processes. The numbers for the males in particular are in line with the records
for those women who have been rescued from Hundeherstellar owners in the past.”
“However, while the growth in the male’s mental capacity is
encouraging, it should be noted that the men will still be largely uneducated,
and the removal of nanites will have no immediate effect on the long-term
psychological effects of the conditioning and mental rewriting they’ve been through.
Though that conditioning will no longer be reinforced by the nanites, it will
take time to fade enough for men to break conditioning, and they will still be
as uneducated as they were before.”
Fukuya sighed, and said, “It is not instant death, but I
cannot believe that the people on the surface will have an easy time of things
in the coming years.”
I shook my head. “No, they will not. But they will be alive,
and have the chance to become a better society without the forced programming
they had been inflicting on themselves for generations. That is the best
outcome we could have hoped for, in my opinion.”
(Elsewhere)
In a section of space remarkable only for how empty it was,
a small black form sat with its black wings outstretched, taking in everything
that it could about what had just transpired.
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Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X
Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
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