Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (12 page)

“That is not
good enough, Captain,” said the Great Admiral to his subordinate.  “Do you
want me to assign another male to this task, and give you duties more suited to
your delicate sensibilities?”

The other male
blanched at the pronouncement.  The Great Admiral knew the Captain would
rather have just about any other duty.  But the veiled threat in what the
Great Admiral had said was that he would be given an assignment that came with
a reduced rank.  And no male would be able to put up with that.

“I will make
sure that the line works to capacity, my Lord,” said the Captain, crossing his
upper arms in salute.  “You can depend on it.”

The Great
Admiral looked over at the nearest of the lines, moving through at a rate that
would process eight thousand bodies in a day, enough to feed a conquest fleet,
with the slow metabolisms of the Cacada, for that day.  The two lines
would process sixteen thousand humans a day, though not all of the aliens were
equal in their amount of protein.  The males were much bigger than the
females on average, and had more protein and less fat.  There were also
the smaller forms of children on that line, and even a couple of infants.

For a moment the
Great Admiral thought about ordering that only adults be harvested, but without
the adults, the children would probably die, and that would waste their
protein.  But if they had to evacuate the system in front of an invasion
by the human Empire, the adults they hadn’t processed would have been wasted in
favor of other bodies that could not provide the same amount of nutrition.

The Great Admiral
led the way down the walk, taking a turn before they got too close to the
cooking chamber, then taking the walkway around it.  On the other side the
bodies came rolling along the track out of the chamber, where they were dropped
by the clamps into the padded trough below.  Here, robots pulled each body
out and carried it to one of the disassembling tables to the side, where a
stationary robot moved quickly to process the body, removing the bones to drop
onto another conveyor, which carried them to a grinder to process the
calcium.  The robot placed protein into a container that held a hundred
kilos.  When the container was full, it closed up automatically, sealing
in the protein in, and dropped through a hatch to a temporary storage chamber. 
When one of the containers was full another slid into place, over and over, as
the Ca’cadasan military machine made sure that its obligate carnivore males
were fed from a species that possessed compatible proteins.

There were
twenty-five processing plants on the planet, with a combined capacity of three
hundred and seventy thousand humans a day.  And over seven hundred million
humans on the planet in their camps.  Which meant that it would take over
five years.  There was no way the humans in the Empire were going to give
them that long, unless his command received major reinforcements.

I want a
meeting with all of the factory administrators scheduled for tomorrow morning
,
he said into his link, making sure his aide received his wishes and could
schedule to his desires.  There had to be another way to process the
humans they had here.  Some field expedient they could use.  And
perhaps a meeting of the minds could come up with one.  Otherwise, it
would be a waste of a biological resource, and according to his religion that
would be sinful.

Chapter Nine

The whole course of human history
may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual -
for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle
between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

M. Scott Peck.

NEW TERRAN REPUBLIC, APRIL 2
^ND
,
1002.

“Are you ready,
Admiral?” asked President Julia Graham of the New Terran Republic.  Her
nation had only been free of partial Ca’cadasan occupation for a little over a
month.  The systems that had been taken were either completely dead, or
total wrecks in which the few survivors were still trying to recover from the
shock of the Caca processing plants.

“We are ready,
Madame President,” replied the reptilian face looking calmly out of the
wormhole com.  She knew the Crakista female as
Admiral
in Charge of the Combined Republic Crakista Joint Fleet.  She did not know
the being's real name.  She had heard it once or twice, but could not
repeat it with her merely human vocal apparatus.

“I wish I could give you more time, Admiral,” she told
the alien female, who had proven a better tactician and strategist than any of
her own flag officers.

“We both know that is not possible, Madame President,”
said the Crakistan Admiral, her face showing no emotion, as was their
nature.  That there was some emotion under that mask the President was
sure.  But as a race they had turned their backs on emotion, and
approached the Universe in a logical manner.  Which did not mean they had
no empathy.  “We both know that every day that passes means more tens,
even hundreds of thousands of humans will be processed as food for the
Ca’cadasans.  And we both know that we cannot just stand by and watch
intelligent beings turned into rations for an enemy.”

Graham thought of the camps she had toured just after
they had liberated the capital system.  Not all of the captives had been
processed.  Tens of millions had been killed by the Cacas as they left the
system, and several hundred thousand had somehow gotten away.  She had
talked with some of those survivors, heard them describe the horrors of the
camps in which they were treated like cattle, harvested as quickly as the Cacas
could move them into their factories and render them into rations.

“You are correct, Admiral.  As always.  I just
wish we had more ships to give you.”

But she didn’t have more ships.  She had given the
force all she could spare, after cutting out the task forces she needed to help
get her nation back to work.  She had a fleet to rebuild, which meant that
she needed to rebuild her industry, which meant that she had to delay building
ships while she built the factories and yards she needed to make them.

“We have what we have,” said the Admiral, a hint of a smile
showing on her mostly immobile face.  “According to our simulations, we
should have enough for our part of the mission.”

Graham nodded as she looked over at the holo that showed
the area of operations.  The near side of the Kingdom of New Moscow, with
every known or suspected Caca base or ship concentration blinking among the
star field.  Also on that field was the force the Admiral would lead into
that space on a lighting assault that would push the Cacas toward the center,
and the combined allied fleet that would strike from the Empire.

There were over five thousand ships in that force,
battleships, carriers, battle cruisers, cruisers, destroyers, the auxiliaries
needed to keep those ships supplied.  It should be more than a match for
any force the Cacas had in that space.  It seemed overwhelming, and that
was what worried her the most.

“Very well, Admiral.  Kick those bastards out of
human space for me.”

“That I will, Madame President.  And may our trust
in each other grow, and in the growing lead to a brighter future for both of
our species.”

*     *     *

SECTOR
IV HEADQUARTERS.

“You wished to
talk with me, Great Admiral?” asked Commodore Mary Innocent as she walked into
the prison cum audience chamber.

“I did,
Commodore,” replied the big male, sitting up straight in his seat.  “I
wished to tell you something about us.  Something that might help.”

“Why the change
of heart?” asked the human Intelligence Officer.  “I thought you had said
you would die before you gave us anything of military value.”

“This will not
be of military value.  But it may help our, understanding.”

Innocent
motioned to one of her Marines guards, and the armored woman walked over to a
wall and grabbed a human sized chair that had been placed there for just this
purpose.  Mary took the chair once it was in place and tried to make
herself comfortable.  “I’m all ears, Great Admiral.”

“Then I want to
tell you about my people.  And about how we came to be the way we are.”

“And this will
help us, how?” asked Innocent, almost chomping at the bit to hear what he had
to say, but not wanting to show too much enthusiasm.

“I am hoping it
will help us, in case you win this war.”

“And you think
we will win?” she said with a smile.  “You are always telling us how your
mighty Empire will be too much for us.  Are you having second thoughts?”

“Oh,” said the
male, crossing his lower arms over his chest.  “I still think the odds are
in our favor.  I believe that when our next wave arrives, you will find
that mine was not the most powerful fleet we could raise.”

“And what you
are about to tell me?”

“It may help you
to decide what to do if the time comes where you are in the control chair,”
said the Ca’cadasan, pointing an upper right index finger at the Commodore.

“Then tell me
what you want to say,” she replied, planting an elbow on one knee and placing
her chin in her hand, leaning forward.

“We have always
been carnivores,” said the male, his eyes taking on a distant look.  “And
as such we have never been the most peaceful of species.  Still, we had entered
period of relative peace.  Our planet was enjoying the longest period of
peace and prosperity in our history.  We had solved our environmental
problems, there was plenty of food for all, and we had an abundance of
wilderness to allow our young males to hunt and grow into adulthood.  The
religion that dominates our society was on the rise, and we worshiped the
nature of our world.  We were even on the way into space.  And then…”

“Yes?” said the
Commodore, her mind trying to picture these aggressive aliens as peaceful.

“The aliens
came.  They were like insects, though their skeletons were internal. 
They were a hive mind.  Individually, not that bright.  But as a
collective, as smart as any.  They were obligate herbivores, having no use
for animals.  They had none, the only resource they needed the vegetation
of a living world, which their singular digestive systems could handle in all
the many myriad forms across the Galaxy.  They had eaten their own world
bare, and had moved out in a globular pattern from their home world.  They
entered our system in enormous sublight vessels, the best their technology
could produce, generations ahead of anything we could make.  We could not
pronounce the name for themselves, and simply called them
The Plague.
”

“And you fought
them?”

“Of course we
fought them,” said the male, his eyes glaring.  “It is what we do. 
But they had the technological edge, and the advantage of the orbitals. 
More than we could handle.  They wiped out over ninety-five percent of our
population.  They established themselves on the ground and stripped large
areas bare of vegetation.  When they had filled their ships they left our
system, out to the next target.  They left over half of the beings they
had brought with them here, establishing themselves in the underground cities
they built.  These continued to strip the planet, and it looked like our
story was over.  That was over twenty-five thousand of your years ago.”

“But your story,
it didn’t end.”

“No,” said the Great
Admiral, sitting up even straighter in his chair.  “It didn’t.  The
first of our Emperors, Msse’rrazon, arose, and organized what was left of our
people.  Every male became a warrior.  We attacked the enemy in their
lairs, losing half of the males that were left.  But we overran
them.  We won back our planet, and then worried that they might return in
their ships.  A supreme effort was made to reverse engineer their tech, to
get us onto even footing with them.  Over three centuries we rebuilt our
infrastructure, struggled to restore our ecosystem, including the animals the
invaders had destroyed, the source of our food.  We increased our numbers
as much as we could, until we were as ready as we could be.  And then the
aliens returned.”

“I take it that the
second invasion didn’t go so well for them.”

“No,” said the
male, showing his carnivore’s teeth.  “It did not.  We destroyed
their ships in the outer system, then started to build up our own interstellar
capabilities.  And we went hunting, destroying
The Plague
wherever
we could find them.  Until we had wiped them from the Universe, eventually
finding and destroying their home world, or what was left of it.”

“You, killed off
an entire species?” asked Innocent in horror.  “Genocide?”

“The Galaxy is a
better place for their absence,” said the Great Admiral with a very human head
shake.  “Our religion forbade us from destroying a species like that, but
revenge was hot in our hearts, and the captains on the spot made the decisions
to annihilate the aliens wherever they found them.  But we had taken a
step onto a path we could not retreat from.  We had become a race of
warriors.  No longer would sons be raised to be scientists, engineers,
technicians.  They would all be raised to be warriors, until they were too
old to serve, at which time they would fill those other jobs.”

“And you lost
the flexibility of young minds.”

“Yes, and many
of those minds that would have been of great worth to our people never
developed.”  The Great Admiral looked into the internal distance for a
moment, then back at the human.  “I am considered intelligent among my
people, in the top one percent of males, maybe higher.  I could have been
a scientist, one who helped to advance my people.  But now males with
minds like my own are groomed to become flag officers, to make up for the
deficits of our other males.”

“So you started
on the path to Empire, and found no way to get off?”

“We did. 
We could not trust any of the other alien races we had found, not with the
safety of our own species at stake.  And our military society needed
scientists and technicians, engineers, which we found among the first species
that we conquered.  The more we conquered, the more soldiers we needed, to
keep the new subjects in line.  There was always the fear that any species
that got free of us would seek revenge, and so we could not let any go. 
But we did not destroy species, or the life forms of other evolutionary
paths.  We conquered a hundred species, and only found it necessary to
destroy three of them.”

“And those
three?” asked Innocent, suppressing a surge of anger at the thought that hers
had been intended to become the third such species.

“One was insane,
a genocidal species that killed everything in their path. 
The Plague
. 
We were forced to destroy them.  The other was more accidental than
anything else.  They were a very advanced race that wanted nothing more
than to be left alone, but we couldn’t afford to leave them to their own
devices, not when there was a possibility that they might attack us.”

So you went
after them and they had no choice but to fight back
, thought the Commodore.

“We bombarded
their planet through their defenses, which proved formidable.  In the end,
several of our most powerful weapons made it through at destroyed all of their
population concentrations.  Before we knew it, they were extinct.”

“And us? 
Why did we need to be destroyed?”

“You killed the
heir to the Empire, after your colony had surrendered.”

“And what the
hell was he doing on that planet in the first place?” asked Innocent, not
believing they could have been that nonchalant with the heir to their Empire.

“It is
traditional that the heir to the Empire serves with a conquest fleet.  You
had surrendered, which among my people means that you had given up all thought
of resistance.  So the young male was sent to the surface, to accept the
formal taking of the planet, so he could have the appellation conqueror added
to his name.  But one of your people killed him, and the enraged Emperor
ordered your people destroyed.”

“That’s not how
it works with our people,” said Innocent, sitting up straight and staring at
the Ca’cadasan.  “Just because the authority says something, doesn’t mean
that everyone will just follow orders.  We’re a race of individualists.”

“And we obey the
orders of those above us.  If I had been conscious, every one of our ships
would have either broken off and gotten away, to regroup later, or would have
fought to the finish.  The Admiral who took over was a coward, more
concerned about his own survival than his honor, and ordered the fleet to
surrender so that he might live.  And because of that males who would
never have surrendered did so, to the shame of the Empire.”

“So you didn’t
want to come to this state of being,” said Innocent, still not sure why she was
being told this story.  “But here you are, and we’re locked into a death
struggle with you.  And what do you think telling me this will get you?”