Commanding Officer’s Office
Earth Station
Sol System
Admiral Candice Elliot sat behind her polished oak desk reading the latest reports. She leaned back with her boots kicked up onto the authentic desk. Unlike most objects that looked wooden, the Admiral’s desk was real Terran oak, grown, chopped down and made on Earth. Even though the planet was around three hundred thousand kilometers away, Confed judged shipping such items to the Earth-Luna L1 point to be a waste of resources. Perhaps they were right, but Candice would never admit it. One of the perks of her rank was the pay.
Commanding Earth’s orbital defenses was a far cry from flying fighters from a carrier’s deck. Today, she reviewed reports made by sensor drones. AI was next to useless in combat, but proved to work well for duties that required lots of patience. Combat drones were too stupid to know allied Kilrathi from the enemy ones. Even image recognition missiles could be fooled by the target jettisoning part of its body. She had more than one IR missile go awry after her locked target fired a missile. Now for observation and reporting, artificial intelligence was sufficiently so. Intelligent that is.
She yawned as she read that drones detected two freighters in from Ella Station via the Talos jump point. Both ships, and their escorting corvette, jumped in on time. A passenger liner from the Sirius System was behind schedule by three minutes. Some admirals were real big into crossing the T and dotting the I. Candice cracked the whip when it came to the T, but was not concerned about the I. A later liner certainly fell under the jurisdiction of the I. Probably just an imperfect in the ship’s jump drive.
Ever since the High Command revived the idea of striking at Kilrathi infrastructure, and attack on Earth seemed less and less likely. Though the Kilrathi were kicked out of the Enigma Sector, the fact that Confed lost half its fleet in the process still left Earth in danger. The past year, with these new and expendable escort carriers, Confed began to strike deep once again. She wondered why they gave up the habit twenty years ago. The raid on Trk’Pahn destroyed that Pride’s shipyards back in 2647. Had the strategy continued, the war might have been won by now. Instead, the raid was deemed too costly, and failed to destabilize the Council of Eight, so Confed went back to battling the Kilrathi warships after they were complete.
She glanced away from the report to her desk top. It was clean and orderly, with just a few framed pictures sitting atop it. Unlike many desk jockeys, hers were those of squadrons she flown with and not families. Candice never had time for family and regretted not settling down to this date. She considered all her children never born to be just more casualties of this bloody war. After so many billions were lost, what were a few unborn? Moreover, she was married to the Navy and too old to bother looking for anyone else. Perhaps she could clone herself one day, and perhaps that new her would follow a better life’s path.
Her mental wandering was shattered by a beep at her door. With a sigh, she returned to the here and now. “Yes? What is it?”
The door slid open, revealing one of the station’s communication officers. Johann Maynard was a native to Earth Station; his family lived here for several generations. He was a young ensign, with his whole life still ahead of him. Perhaps he would even live to see the Kilrathi defeated. Ten years ago, she would have doubted it, but not now, not in 2668.
Maynard entered the spacious office and saluted. “High level communication from New Delhi, ma’am.” He said, handing her a smart paper.
Candice took the wafer thin plastic, as thin as a piece of wood paper, and scrolled down the text. So like the government to send text instead of holograms. Whatever committee cooked this up probably could not decide who should be the voice. Strange though, most messages would have come through Confed HQ in Damascus. Why politicians would be sending messages direct---
Candice looked up at Maynard. “Ensign, if this is a joke; it’s not a funny one.” The young man was not known for practical jokes, but she would not put it past somebody in communications.
Maynard shook his head, and stared at the Admiral with a grim expression. “No ma’am, it is one hundred percent authentic.”
That only made Candice fume. After years of fighting, Confed found a tactic that worked. Some Admirals had their doubts, but what she just read was evidence enough. “Those bonehead!” She slammed the smart paper down on the desk, and activated the comm unit built into it. An oak panel slid away, revealing a small holographic tank. “Dismissed Ensign,” she said, turning her attention to the comm. She tapped in the number and waited.
A middle-aged woman appeared in the tank. “Admiral Bainbridge’s office, may I ask who is calling.”
Candice calmed herself. “Admiral Elliot, Earth Station. I would like to speak with the Admiral.”
“One moment,” the secretary’s face vanished, to be replaced by Confed HQ’s emblem. Candice frowned at being put on hold. Only a handful of personnel in Confed outranked her. Needless to say, she was used to being the one putting others on hold.
She did not have to wait long until Bainbridge’s ages and weathered face appeared. “Ah, Candice, and what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
Candice held up the smart paper. “What is the meaning of this?”
Bainbridge frowned at her demanding demeanor. “I take it you heard the news.”
Candice nodded. “That I did. After years of fighting for our lives, we finally found the Cats’ weakness, and what does the government do? It accepts a cease-fire from the Kilrathi. A cease-fire!” As far as Candice knew the Cats only had a literal translation of the term. They certainly lacked the concept. Many Cats would kill themselves to deprive their enemy of a compete victory. To surrender would be a weakness, and to propose a cease-fire would make the Kilrah Pride vulnerable to its enemies at home. “It’s a trick.”
Bainbridge nodded. “Probably. Candice, I fought this with President. From what Intel could tell, the Cats’ whole infrastructure is about six months away from collapse. If we could just continue the war for that much longer, we could break the Imperial Pride. We don’t even need to win outright. We just need to weaken them enough for another Pride to move against them. We push them into civil war, and the Kilrathi would tear themselves apart for us.”
Candice had to wait a second for his words to catch up with her. With all the technology in the galaxy, messages between Earth and Earth Station still had a couple second round trip. Stupid speed of light; it was enough to drive her nuts. “And did they give you a reason why they could not stomach waging a thirty-four year long war for another six months?”
A pause then came a knowing look from the ancient Admiral. Bainbridge was an old man when the war started. By all logic, the stress of it should have killed him several times by now. “Sure, they ran their mouths for minutes on end, but I can summarize it in one word: reelection.”
Candice groaned at the word. Why could the politicians not look beyond their own reelection campaigns, and step back to see the big picture—such as the survival of humanity. Who was it who once said ‘fire them all and let God sort them out’? Too bad voters did not practice that philosophy at every election. “Afraid the war will still be going by then?”
Her question was intended as a snide commentary on the Senate, but Bainbridge took it more literally. “That they are. Each of the Senators wants to go back to the voters and show them peace. Face it Candice, the people are as sick of the war as the soldiers who fight it. Parents are sick of sending their children off to get killed, and children are sick of losing their fathers and mothers in a war without end. I’m sick of this war too. Crickey, I was supposed to retire more than thirty years ago. Now, it looks like I’ll get to live a couple of years of leisure before I kick the bucket.”
Candice allowed herself a slight smile. “Wayne, we both know it’s a trick.”
Bainbridge shrugged. “One can hope otherwise. I know we’ll be fighting them again in the not-too distant future. If Thrakhath were on the throne right now, he’d probably fight the war to the last Kilrathi.”
Candice did not want to contemplate that. The Kilrathi Emperor already lived far longer than most Kilrathi. His death could not be that far off. Once he keeled over, there would be a mad Cat on the throne. Too bad the Tarawa did not drop a few bombs on Kilrah. Taking out the heir would have been worth the cost of the escort carrier. Perhaps if this ceasefire is for real, some disgruntled Kilrathi nobles would deal with him.
“Our commanders won’t like this any more than me,” Candice told him.
Bainbridge nodded gravely. “I know, but they’re soldiers. They’ll follow orders. I just hope some hothead doesn’t ignore them, otherwise I’ll have to rake them across the coals for doing what they’ve been trained to do.”