Chapter 7 - The retaliation
The Human
The starcruiser was now practically empty; it was the same one we'd arrived on, and most of those Slugs had remained on Earth to learn from the people there. Only a few would be coming with us to PDN. So that meant that the entire ship, designed to carry an army of Slugs, now only contained myself, Phill, Matt, Boy, Carmen, Frank, Rosetta, and about six or seven other Slugs, probably to help with flying the ship or something. In short, it was pretty empty. Although, it did make going to the toilet very easy for me; I almost always had a large section of one of the outer levels entirely to myself.
Thankfully, Matthew had brought a greater variety of food for me this time. Instead of just boring old nutrition bars, I now also got nutrition paste and nutrition formula. Boo-yah. Drinking water was no less uncomfortable, though.
I spent a great deal of my time running around the inner cylinder, jumping up and down in the circular gravity (my cold had only lasted a few days longer - perhaps the sterile environment helped. Who knows?). Which I seemed to spend most of my time doing whenever I was on a Slug ship. The Slugs spent most of the time plotting with each other and Phill (plots which I had nothing to contribute to), and while the other Slugs could speak, it was not yet fluent, so any conversation with them quickly become a lesson for them instead.
So, although I had nothing to contribute, I found myself sitting in on the plots that everybody was conducting. I personally didn't see the point; most of what we had planned out had always gone very wrong from some unforeseen occurrence, but I guess that planning for the event that everything goes according to plan is a good idea.
"So, here's how things are gonna go down", Matt was explaining. "We'll show up in a blaze of glory, and destroy any Cyborg ships that happen to be defending the planet when we do." He turned to the Cyborg. "How many do you reckon will be there, and how many troops on each?"
"There is likely to be a significant amount of ships", Phill replied, "as PDN is one of our most important planets."
"What's another important planet?" I quickly asked.
He looked at me. "We have several planets which are deemed to be of high importance, each of which is heavily defended with ships and orbital weaponry."
"For example?" pressed Frank.
"PD-4901:X is a major Cyborg construction planet."
"Hmm", mused Matthew. "Maybe we'll destroy that next."
"I'd prefer it if you didn't destroy every significant planet that my race occupies", Phill said, but he didn't say it seriously or threateningly or anything like that, so I guess it wasn't too bad.
"And I'd prefer it if you stopped planning such large missions for us before we finish the previous one", added Boy.
"Fine then", said Matthew. "As I was saying, how many Cyborgs do you think will be on each ship, Phill?"
The Cyborg replied, "None."
After a pause, I asked, "Really? Do the ships just float around doing nothing then? Like those fake cameras that trick you into thinking you're being watched?"
"The ships are fully operational", Phill explained. "But there are no Cyborg ground units in them."
"Who flies them, then?" asked Boy.
"They fly themselves. Cyborg ships have their own processes, and therefore their own sentience."
We all paused for a bit to consider this. Which was surprising; you'd think the Slugs would know all of the important stuff about their enemy.
"Are you saying that when we destroyed that ship with the LOC, we actually killed a Cyborg?" I asked.
"Unlikely", he replied. "Only our larger ships, capable of long-distance travel or assigned to permanent defence, have dedicated processes." He turned to Matthew. "Don't you know this?"
"No", replied Matt. "How would we know? Every destroyed Cyborg ship we poke through is just a mass of metal and wiring. We can't differentiate between normal stuff and AI stuff."
"It is not artificial, it is full intelligence", Phill corrected him.
"So every ship around PDN", began Rosetta, "is empty, but is fully self-aware and will attack us on sight?"
"Precisely", the Cyborg answered.
"Well then, all the better for us that we have things that they don't", said Boy.
"Ohhh yeah", said Matthew, delightedly. "Just wait until we fire some of our improved stuff at them. That is, unless they blow them up mid-flight or something. Which they almost certainly will. And we can't get in too close to shoot them, otherwise, we'll get caught in the blast too..."
"Never mind about that", I said quickly, trying not to think about us losing the initial battle which we all just assumed that we would win. "So, we beat those ships outside the planet, and then we get in the scout ship and land on the planet."
"Along with a dozen other scout ships from other starcruisers", added Frank.
"Does the planet have any LOCs?" asked Rosetta.
"Wait, wait", interjected Matt. "Our ones are called LOCs. They can't have the same name! Just call them space-cannons, that'll do." As for me, I didn't even know that the Cyborgs had them. I thought that that was a Slug-only technology.
Phill answered Rosetta's question, "Yes, it does. We will need to destroy them from a sufficient distance to counteract their restricted range before we can send in the scout ships."
"So", went on Boy, "after that, we land on the planet with a huge army of Slugs. We'll defeat any Cyborg ground resistance we find, including the leader of PDN."
"Damn slob, never moving around anywhere", grumbled Matt.
"Say, wouldn't it be better if the Cyborg leaders were ships instead of ground units?" I asked. "Including Rabadootime as well. Why would he be a single unit if he could be an entire ship?"
Phill paused to think about this. "All Cyborg leaders are ground units. It's..." he struggled to think of a word. "Tradition."
"Oh", I answered. Now, that didn't sound like a machine kind of thing at all.
Wishing to continue on with the actual planning, Frank went on, "Fighting our way through the complex, we find a terminal port where Phill can plug in and read as much data as he can." It appeared that someone had explained the new plan to the other Slugs when I wasn't around.
"Can you do that?" asked Carmen. "I thought your network capabilities were destroyed, and Cyborgs communicate through the network."
"This is where our advantage comes in", Phill began to explain. "PD-0034:N is heavily defended from space, but it has minimal resistance on the ground. This is both because it would take a large Slug offence to land on the planet, the existence and location of which we would not know about were it not for me, and because Cyborg units on the planet cannot communicate with each other through the network."
"They can't?!" Boy nearly gasped. "This is excellent for us! Why would this be?" Judging by his reaction, I gathered that Cyborgs not being able to communicate was a big advantage on our side.
Phill went on, "The planet receives a massive amount of signals from large antennae placed around the globe. There is therefore a very large amount of radiowaves constantly permeating most of the world. This makes any radio-based communication useless, and possibly interrupting to the vital data stream that is saved to the Archives. Hence, every interface into the stored data is physical, and I should be able to access this."
"Umm, wouldn't that mean that our Slug communicators would also be useless?" I asked.
"Indeed", answered Matthew. "It seems that this pollution works against both of us."
"Not necessarily", said Rosetta. "Remember, we can still talk."
"Some Cyborgs can talk, but it is rudimentary, uncommon and not available to all of us", said Phill. "I find it likely, however, that all Cyborgs on PDN can speak."
"You can?" I asked. "Does it sound like a cool and fluent alien-speech?"
"I doubt it sounds how you are imagining it", he told me. "It consists entirely of a series of pauses and differing volumes of metallic clanging noises." Oh.
"Continuing on", said Boy.
"After we glean all that we can, we get back to the scout ships, then back to the starcruisers, and then we start shooting at the planet."
"Aha!" shouted Matt. "This is where the nukes would be very useful then. See", he looked at Boy accusingly. "I told you they'd come in handy."
"I never said they wouldn't!" the Slug protested.
"You were thinking it, weren't you!" he shouted, although I guessed that he was just kidding around.
"No!" shouted Boy, but he was almost laughing now. "Alright then. After that, assuming that everything goes just how we've planned - "
"Unlikely", interrupted Phill. "I can't think of a single plan I've made that actually worked as I intended it."
"Sigh", said Matthew. "Too many variables, Phill, too many variables..."
Boy continued, "What then? We should probably return to Slugenis to inform the King of our success. And of any casualties and how they died, so Honour and the length of a cycle can be ascertained."
"Probably", said Matthew. "I'd also like to return to Earth at some point. Although all the Slugs we left there will probably be dead by the time we get back, I'd like to see what progress they've made. The Slug King will have sent new ships over by then, so more Slugs could have gone over too, and I guess that the trading would continue without us."
"I guess so", I replied. "Besides, what else is there to do? This entire time, we've either been on or travelling between Earth and Slugenis."
Matt added, "And launching an epic invasion of important Cyborg territory! Our plans have been laid, and we're on our way - all that we need to do now is wait for something to go wrong!"
The Cyborg
As we travelled on the star cruiser towards PD-0034:N, time continued its unrelenting march. I tried to ease my perception of the passage of time, but this only had any effect when I was actively engaged in a task, whether it be discussing with the others our plans for what we predicted would happen and how we would respond, watching Ethan desperately try to keep himself entertained by jumping around the ship, going through one of my many pointless but appreciated conversations with the Human, or idly conversing together as a group.
It was when I wasn't doing any of these activities that I became aware of how time progressed. It didn't make itself known to me, as time is indifferent to anything other than its mission to forge ever onwards; rather, I became more attuned to its presence.
The only indication of the crawl of time that I had access to was the slight changes in the force of gravity aboard the ship. I eventually felt a subtle pull towards the front of the star cruiser; we were beginning to slow down.
In an effort to escape time, a futile attempt but an effort nonetheless, I took to staying with the others' presence as much as possible. Not the 6 normal Slugs that had accompanied us; they brought no comfort to me, even if they could converse fluently enough as to facilitate conversation. I instead sought the 8 people that had changed everything for me; although only 6 were still alive, even one would be enough.
"I'm so bored!", Ethan at one point complained desperately. He, Rosetta and I were sitting together against a wall, which was the back of one of the ramps in the first level outside the main cylinder. "Phil, do something", he commanded.
"Such as?" I inquired, although I had no intention to do whatever it was that he intended to ask me.
"I don't know, do the robot dance or something."
"The only information I have on this 'robot dance' is its name which I heard from a radio", I informed him. "As I know only its name, and not its requirements, I cannot perform it."
Rosetta asked, "Are you saying that if you did know the dance, you would perform it?"
I smiled. "It would take a great amount of persuasion and a much better reason to get me to perform any kind of dance."
"Thank god", said Ethan, relieved. "I was having some disturbing mental images of you doing it. Luckily, it turns out I'll never have to see it."
"It appears so, although you didn't have to thank god for it", commented Rosetta. "He had nothing to do with it."
"It was a saying", replied Ethan. "And you don't know if god had something to do with it. Just cause you don't believe in him, doesn't mean he doesn't exist."
"Just because some deluded Humans believe in it, doesn't mean that it exists either!" exclaimed Rosetta indignantly, indicating that she had dedicated some thought to the matter outside of the present conversation, and required only an opening to express her feelings on the topic. "This entire concept of religion baffles me! How can any intelligent species believe in such a thing? Just because you cannot rationally explain something, it doesn't mean that it cannot be rationally explained."
"It's more than just that", Ethan struggled to say. "I don't really believe in it much myself, but it's a complicated belief..."
"Phil", Rosetta turned to me, obviously expecting me to take her side. "What do you think?"
Ethan gave me an apprehensive look, as he too seemed to expect me to take the logical side.
"What do I think of religion?" I asked to confirm her question.
"Yes", the Slug said. "What do you think of the concept and its purpose?"
What did I think of it? An interesting question, one that deserved a fair amount of my processes to contemplate it.
I considered;
Religion. A decidedly Human concept, which entailed the belief in the existence of an all-powerful being which created everything in the universe, and which inscrutably loves the Human race. This would be an insufficient answer, however; I was not asked for the irrationalities inherent in the notion, but rather what I thought of the concept and its purpose. So what did I think? I dedicated some more processes to examining the issue.
Religion. Obviously, the core premise of religion is false; there is no all-powerful being which favours Humans. I would think that the mere existence of life forms more technologically advanced than them is proof of this fact. However, this seemed a too perfunctory judgement, so I devoted the significant majority of my processes to further contemplation of the issue.
Religion. I'd already established that the stated purpose of the notion was incorrect, but was that really the purpose of religion? Given that this was one of the parameters of the question Rosetta posed, I deemed this a concept worth further investigation.
I doubted that the actual purpose of religion was to get intelligent beings to believe in such a ridiculous idea as a god. No, it is something else, something more than that. The purpose of religion was to get intelligent beings to believe. It didn't matter what it was, or in what form it took; as long as a sufficiently large number of people believed in it, then the purpose of religion has been fulfilled.
Therefore, the Slug Honour system is actually a super-religion, a notion with a 100% belief rate. Every single Slug utterly believes in the same thing - that their death will further the goals of their Empire, and grant them the highest form of Honour. In fact, every single Cyborg believes that the greatest act of their lives is to kill Slugs, or to assist in the killing of Slugs. Is not this total belief an indication of religion?
So, now that I had concluded that the latter part of the question, the purpose of religion, was simply to acquire the mass belief of a single concept, it was time to consider the concept itself. What did I think of it, and of its application?
As I'd already decided, the apparent concept of religion is clearly untrue. However, what of its inherent purpose? It was a system designed to give Humans a common ground to believe in, something that ties them all together. Unlike Slugenis, where populations were concentrated around the planet's poles, the Humans of Earth were quite diverse in the locations of their settlements. Religion, therefore, acts as the binding that links them to one another, despite differences in culture, language, location, and other perceived values.
The religions do not need to actually be the same, as all religions are fundamentally similar. The idea of a greater power is what ties the Humans together; most Humans believe in some for
m of religion, and therefore are connected to all other Humans who do.
The same as Slug Honour, which ensure that all Slugs work towards achieving the goals of their Empire without putting their personal needs first, the same as the Cyborg way of life, which holds the belief that the only reason we are here is to kill Slugs, Human religion is a conception that spans space, cultures, differences, and, most importantly, time.
It aligns everyone, gives them a commonality not otherwise possible, and gives them satisfaction in their lives. Indeed, if our religions didn't exist, the Cyborg and Slug Empires may never have reached their current states; it is only this universal belief that holds us together and keeps our societies focused on their goals.
"Umm, Phil?" asked Ethan. "You okay?"
Quickly, I pulled my consciousness back into the situation I was in. "Rosetta", I began. The Slug looked at me expectantly. I gave her the truth. "The concept and purpose of religion is a necessary thing in Human life. In fact, I do not see them expanding outside of their planet without a firm belief in some form of religion to hold them and their ideals and objectives together."
Rosetta stared at me, her mouth slightly agape - I could not decide if she did this on purpose, or if she was so close to becoming Human that it would soon be difficult to distinguish between the two races.
Likewise, Ethan stared at me. After a long moment of silence, he smiled. "Aha Rosetta! I was right!" I didn't comment on the fact that just because one person agreed with him, that did not make his opinion correct.
Rosetta seemed too flabbergasted that I'd agreed with Ethan to say anything for the moment. She never got the chance to either, because we soon heard a loud, "Oi!"
Turning, I saw Matthew with his head and upper torso sticking out over the ramp leading to the central cylinder. As to why he didn't simply come down the entrance, and refrain from having to support his awkwardly leaning body, I did not consider.
"What's up?" asked Ethan, still cheerful from my support.
"I've been looking for you guys everywhere!" exclaimed Matt. "And by everywhere, I mean that this is the 3rd place I've checked. Anyway, we're just about at PDN now." This confirmed my sensation of the changes in the pull of gravity on board the ship.
Matt continued, "Come on over to the control room, where the rest of us are. We don't want to miss our chance to mindlessly yet significantly stare at that little orange dot, now, do we?"
The Human
"Well well well", said Matthew, after the orange dot had appeared on the main view screen's map. "Look what we have here." He turned around to look at me from his position on his dish. "Oh, that's right, you can't look. Actually, neither can I for that matter, I can only pick up the output from the ship's scans...
"Anyway, the thing that we have here, the thing that I just told you to look at, even though neither of us could, is the planet PDN. Which you were probably expecting, since we've been travelling towards it for quite a while and I just told you that we were here. But that's not the point."
"I don't suppose you're going to stop talking any time soon?" asked Phill.
"Well", the Slug replied, "I wasn't going to until you just interrupted me."
"What does PDN look like?" I asked. I'd never actually seen what Slugenis looked like from a space-view, since these dumb ships had no windows.
"A planet", answered Phill. This didn't surprise me, as he seemed to derive some kind of sick amusement out of answering my questions without actually answering them.
"With an atmosphere", added Carmen, as if that helped my mental image of the world.
"Thanks", I mumbled sarcastically, but no one responded.
"All of the starcruisers are in position", said Boy; like Matthew, he was also sitting in a dish.
"Hah", said Matthew. "They're in position. That was pretty cool."
There was silence for a bit as no one said anything.
"So, now what?" I asked.
"Yea, hold your horses", Matthew told me.
"There are no horses to hold", Boy calmly informed him.
"Well hold them anyway!" he shouted back.
Beside me, I saw Phill shaking his head to himself. I could definitely tell what he was thinking right now - some kind of combination of what do you expect from organics, irrelevance, and not making any logical sense.
"Righty then", said Matt. "I'm telling the other starcruisers to get ready. In another few seconds, the Cyborg ships defending PDN will be aware of us."
"Why can't they see us now?" I asked, and with good reason. "Are we in stealth or something?" If I recalled correctly, both he and Boy had once promised to explain to me how their stealth technology worked, but neither of them had done so. I really needed to start remembering these things.
Rosetta got up and came over to sit in the dish nearest to me and Phill. "We are actually at a great distance from the planet, probably as long as several light-minutes. Therefore, the light and radiation that they will detect to discover our presence has yet to reach them."
"Ah", I replied. "Why are we so far off then?"
Phill answered this with, "Did you expect us to charge in shooting and hope for the best?"
"Umm, no", I said sheepishly. Well, it worked out pretty well in movies, didn't it?
"Because that's not a very wise strategy, and would probably result in a lot of us getting killed", Rosetta continued for him. But... Why would the movies lie about such a thing?
"Yeah, OK", I said. Looking up, I saw Matt and Boy sitting silently in their dishes, and knew that they were conferring through the dish network in the ship. "Hey!" I called. "Can you speak out loud so the rest of us know what is going on too?"
"Physical speech is slower than Slug communication", Boy called back.
Ignoring him, Matt started to speak out loud. Take that, Boy. "I'm just about to order the release of our first attack", he said. "Firing... Now."
I waited expectantly for the huge shudder throughout the ship as we launched a salvo of space-torpedoes at the enemy. However, nothing happened just yet, so I contented myself with more waiting. When still nothing happened, I decided to distract myself from the uncertainty of it by waiting just a little more.
Soon, it was getting quite ridiculous. "Did we misfire or something?" I asked.
"Slug and Cyborg ships very rarely misfire", Phill informed me. "Due to the inherent and serious issues and risks with the misfire of a weapon in a spaceship, we have done extensive research to theoretically eliminate this problem."
"Uh, OK then", I went on. "Did we just fire our missiles at them?"
"Yeah", came Matt's voice. "We just launched twelve of them, to be precise, and most of our fleet did likewise. They're sure to cause some good carnage."
"Why didn't I feel anything then?"
Boy answered, "Why should you?"
"Ah", Matthew tried to explain. "In human movies, you see, the firing of weapons is generally considered to be followed by a loud bang and vibration. It's kinda a rule, you see again; the bigger the explosion from firing the weapon, the bigger the gun must be."
"Well, that's a bit stupid", said Boy. "Of course you can fire a deadly weapon without a corresponding noise and vibration."
"A noise is a vibration", added Phill, but no one commented on his comment.
"So you're saying that we just launched a dozen huge missiles, but it had no effect on our ship?" I questioned. This was starting to get confusing. Because nothing about the Slugs had been confusing up until this point.
"Well, they would", said Boy, "except we don't activate their individual thrusters straight from the ship. We just open the hatchways that store them, let them float away from us for a few seconds, and then activate them. Otherwise, their ejections from the ship would upset our course and position."
"I believe that term for that is 'attitude' ", commented Matthew. "And no, not the attitude as in ‘you've got a bad attitude', but the attitude as in ‘otherwise, their ejections from the ship would upset our attitude'.
"
"Thank you for that", Boy told him. He turned back to me. "In some circumstances, however, we would actually like for the missiles to upset our attitude. In these cases, we will fire the missiles directly away from the ship, while inside the ship."
"Due to the whole equal-and-opposite-reaction thingie", I surmised.
"Such a small mass of a missile against the mass of the ship means that the disruption to the ship when utilising is negligible", said Phill. "Therefore, Cyborgs do not use this tactic."
"Meh, perhaps", shrugged Matthew from his dish. "But, if done properly, the force of the thrust firing away from the ship pushes us enough in the opposite direction to do something useful."
"Alright then", I said, getting ready to bring up a slightly more pressing topic. "Did our missiles hit them? And are they firing back?"
"Impatient or what?" asked Matt. "How fast do you think our missiles are?"
Rosetta told me, "I did just tell you that we are several light-minutes away. Our missiles haven't even reached them yet."
"Oh", I said. "Well, that's lame. This is far less exciting than I expected it to be."
"It's about to get more exciting", Boy told us after a few moments. "The missiles are about to reach them... Now. Hopefully we got some hits."
"What, can't you tell?" I asked.
Rosetta sighed. "We are several light-minutes away from the Cyborg ships."
Phill input, "Evidence indicates that simply repeating the same statement does not aid in Ethan's comprehension." Like he can talk, with all of his 'PD-0034:N' answers.
Once again, Boy tried to explain stuff to me. Which was more than anyone else was doing. "Based on our timing, the missiles should have reached the enemy ships by now. But we won't know what has happened until we get the return signal from our scans, which will arrive in a few minutes."
"Ah", I said. Well, this was turning out to be, I'm sure you'd agree, the most un-epic space battle anyone could ever imagine. Although, seeing as how space is big and all, it did kind of make sense.
I turned to Rosetta, since she was closest to me. "You know, I still don't really know how your missiles work."
She started to reply, "Well, it's very complex, so I'll start with their propulsion. They use a combination of ion engines and liquid-fuel combustion, so - "
"Not right now!" Boy interrupted her. Quite rude of him, I thought, until he explained the completely justifiable reason why. "We've just scanned Cyborg missiles heading our way. They'll be here in less than a minute, so get ready to dodge."
"And by dodge", Matt said, "he means we're going to fire a line of thrusters down the ship's side to get out of the way, just like what the Cyborg main ship did to our LOC." He looked at Phill meanly. "Yeah, that's right, we got them too!"
"I never said you didn't", Phill calmly replied. He turned to me. "Make sure your straps are on tight; there is likely to be a great and sudden force pushing you in an unknown direction."
"Gotcha", I said, and then hoped that my straps were on tight. This is because I had absolutely no idea how to tighten them.
"Here we go", Boy said.
"Brace for impact!" yelled Matt. "And may I say that saying that was awesome, even though the plan is to not be impacted at all."
All of the doorways leading to the outer layers of the starcruiser suddenly had large metal doors slide over their openings. Probably in case the outer layers got breached, so we wouldn't all get sucked out into the vacuum of space. Man, I was smart.
As I gritted my teeth, some part of me was pretty certain that things were going to happen very differently than how I expected them to, while another part reflected on how lame and anticlimactic all of this would be if we got shot down and killed by the very first missile.
The Slug
'Steady', I mumbled to myself. 'Steady as she goes, even though we're not moving much.' I was in control of our side-thrusters, so it was my job to avoid the Cyborg missiles hurtling towards us. A single hit from one of them could disable our ship, as well as kill everyone on board if it punctured deep enough; such was the nature of these battles.
It was generally difficult to time, as well. The only indication we had of the incoming missiles was the reflected radio-waves from our scanners. And because they were quite a distance away, it took time for these radio-waves to reach us, meaning that the projectiles were actually at a different place than where we perceived them to be.
This troublesome problem occurs because, well, space is kind of big. What happens is that our radio-waves had to zoom across the space between our star cruiser and the hostile missiles. Once there, they bounced off them, and received a profile of what they are and their current speed and location. The waves then had to travel all the way back to our ship, and gives us that profile.
Time for the troublesome bit. The hard part was that the radio-waves gave our ship, and thus us, the location and speed of the incoming missiles as at the time when the waves bounced off them. But the poor waves had to travel all the way back to us before giving us that information, and in the time that they'd traveled back, the missiles had moved closer to us, and perhaps altered their speed, too. So we were actually getting a profile of the missiles as they were a few minutes in the past, and so had to compensate for where they might be now. Difficult indeed.
As they got closer and closer, Boy sent me a signal asking whether he should fire our interior weaponry to destroy them before they reached us. I told him not to; we could sure use those later, and there were only three missiles coming towards us. It shouldn't be too hard to dodge, hopefully. It was soon time to act.
It was now soon, and so it was now time to act. Although the ship scanned them as being further off, I knew that the missiles were actually somewhat closer to us, due to the time-lag of our radio-waves. So I acted. Because it was time to act. Because it was soon.
I sent the signal, and the ship instantly responded - well, it wasn't instantly, because my brain signal had to first be converted into an electrical signal, then sent across the ship's vast network of wires, then sent to the actual thrusters, and then those thrusters had to respond... but for my organic brain, it felt pretty damned instant.
The seven thrusters down the ship's flank facing towards the bulk of the three incoming projectiles - there were several of these lines around the curvature of the ship - fired off simultaneously. This blasted our star cruiser violently to the opposite side, easily dodging two of the enemy rockets.
I sent another signal to fire off just one thruster out of the seven this time, the one nearest to where I figured the remaining missile would be. So out of the long line of these thrusters, only one fired. As this was just one thruster firing from the end of a long cylinder-shaped ship, its force sent us pitching and tumbling. Perhaps spinning too. Hopefully Ethan's seatbelt was tight enough.
As our ship was now rolling over, and its exterior was covered with scanners, the incoming scans were pretty hectic. Fortunately, I managed to keep alternating which ones were sending signals and which were receiving in relation to the ship's tumble to keep track of the missiles. All three of them passed us cleanly by. Sweet.
I now precision-fired several thrusters, each blasting at different times and with different forces, to stop the star cruiser's rolling and tumbling, and to face us towards PDN again, relatively stationary.
I leaned back in my dish and let out a breath. There was a short silence, probably caused by everyone thinking about how awesome I am. I bet Phill was contemplating it right now.
'What was that!?' asked Boy, astonished.
'What?' I asked benignly. 'We just dodged the missiles.'
Ethan complained from behind me, 'Yeah, but we went flying all over the place!'
'Did you just use the thrusters to correct our pitching, and stabilise the ship?' asked Phill.
'Well, Carmen sure didn't do it', I joked, grinning at her. She looked somewhat offended that I'd singled her out, probably because she had no control over the ship.
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'That must have required great concentration', commented the Cyborg.
'Not only that', Boy accused me. 'I was getting those radio signals. You were keeping track of one of the missiles while we were rolling all over the place!'
'Meh', I said. 'I guess so. I wasn't really thinking about how hard it would be at the time. I just did it.' I reflected just then that what I'd just done would be impossible for any other Slug to do. Not only had I skilfully controlled each radio-wave sender and receiver on the star cruiser's vast exterior to keep a figurative eye on the third missile I'd almost lost track off, I'd also expertly coordinated each of the ship's thrusters in real-time to correct our dangerous movements. It seemed that I didn't give myself enough credit; I truly was awesome.
'That sounds pretty hard', said Ethan, but his voice said that he didn't really know how hard it was. Or, how hard it would be for another Slug; I barely broke a sweat doing it. And that's because Slugs don't sweat.
'Believe me, Ethan', said Phill in a lowered voice. 'If this whole ship was full of Slugs, they couldn't do what Matthew did right now.'
'Well of course', I added. 'If more than one person tried to do it, it would be too uncoordinated and cumbersome. Only one person can do it and keep a mental image of all that's going on.'
We were all silent for a bit. 'Alright then', said Boy. 'We just received a bounced signal from PDN. It seems that most of our missiles have made contact. Those special Human adjustments we made seemed to have been very effective.'
'Wait, what adjustments?' asked Ethan.
'Well', began Boy, but I quickly interrupted him. I wanted to be the one to tell Ethan about it.
'I could give you a long and complicated explanation of how we optimised the fuel combustion of our missiles, added a second-stage rapid burn for when it approaches the target, including exhausts pointing at several different directions to allow for last-second course corrections, and improved the guidance and control procedures and technology... but I'll just say that we strapped really, really big explosives onto them.'
Ethan paused for a second. 'Are you saying that we just nuked those Cyborg ships?'
'Hah', I said. 'Not quite. The radiation from a nuclear blast wouldn't be very good for us now, would it? We can nuke PDN to smithereens once we don't need to land on the planet anymore. But still, bet they didn't see that one coming.'
Ethan laughed as Boy said, 'The other star cruisers are moving in. It's time for us to go as well.'
'Shouldn't we wait a bit?' asked Ethan. 'Fire another volley of missiles or an EMP or something?'
'We don't want to deactivate the very Archives we're trying to access with EMPs', I told him. 'And these missiles aren't cheap! We don't want to waste any.'
'I thought you didn't have any money!' he exclaimed.
It was Rosetta who answered him, 'They're not cheap in terms of the resources needed to construct them.'
'Cyborgs have the same issue', said Phill. 'That's why they considered mining Earth; for the mineral resources to construct weapons, ammunition, ships, and more Cyborgs.'
'Hah', I said. 'We only need biological resources to make more Slugs, which is food that can be regrown.'
'And genetic breeding vats', said Ethan. I sensed him turn to Phill when he said in a low voice, 'Don't get me started.'
'Enough about that', said Frank. 'How soon will we be arriving at PDN?'
'Shortly', replied Boy. He sent me a signal asking me how long it would be in Human minutes. I replied with about ten minutes. 'About ten minutes', he added, as if that was his estimate.
'Ten minutes?' complained Ethan. 'I don't want to sit here for ten minutes!'
'Well then', I turned around and told him rationally, 'why don't you sit there for five minutes, and then sit there for another five minutes?'
He grinned at me, but the moment was lost when Phill said, 'That is still ten minutes.'
The Human
"Yes, I'm aware that five plus five is ten, Phill", said Matthew.
"Then why don't you just say ten?" the Cyborg countered.
"Never you mind, Phill. Never you mind."
Phill turned to me. "That last line didn't make sense either."
"I don't see how you can still be complaining about that", I told him. "Nothing Matt says makes any sense at all, you just have to get used to it."
Our mindless chatter (technically mindful, because it still required the use of our minds) continued on like this for a bit, maybe just under ten minutes. Or maybe I'm just biased to think it was ten minutes because Boy told us it would be ten minutes until we arrive at PDN, and we just now arrived at PDN. Whatever.
"We're here", Boy said.
"Indeed we are", commented Matthew. Luckily, Phill didn't make any remark about him repeating Boy's statement.
"What's going on?" I asked Rosetta, figuring that Matthew and Boy were too busy flying the ship and doing other important stuff.
She answered, gleaning the information from her connection through the spike in her dish, "We are making our way towards the planet, along with all of the other starcruisers. Our scans indicate that nearly every Cyborg ship defending PDN facing us was either destroyed or disabled by our attack, and those that weren't are too scrambled to resist our starcruisers that are right now finishing them. However, there may be more on the far side of the planet."
"You're kidding me?" I asked, astonished. "We killed all of them with a single wave of missiles?"
"Yeah, big-ass human missiles can do that", Matthew told me. So, he was listening to our conversation while piloting the huge spacecraft. Of course. He continued, "You'd be surprised how good you people are at making things that go boom. Not to mention that all of the Cyborg ships on this side of PDN were fairly close together. They all bunched up facing our direction once they realised we were here."
"And that worked to their detriment, because they didn't expect us to have such powerful weapons", I finished. "Did they get any of us?"
Boy answered me this time. "Three starcruisers were destroyed. A fourth was struck through its two outermost layers. They managed to close all of the doors connecting those sections to the rest of the ship in time to save it. Fortunately there were some Slugs in those layers who also perished."
"Yes. Fortunately", said Matthew, putting voice to my thoughts. I mean, three starcruisers plus a bit of one more sounded like a lot of Slugs. I didn't want to know the specific number.
"Those Slugs are not like us", Rosetta sought to console me, guessing my feelings on the matter. "You should feel happy for them." I was going to give some dejected response, until I thought about it. And, now that I thought about it, the whole Honour thing didn't seem too bad, at least in the heat of battle. I mean, saying fortunately some Slugs were killed and being happy for them is better than them dying needlessly and us feeling all depressed over them, isn't it?
"Don't forget all of the Cyborgs that have been killed in this attack", said Phill. "Each one of those ships is a separate Cyborg sentience that is now dead."
"Oh", I said lamely. "Umm. Sorry about that."
"It wasn't you who killed them", he told me. "Regardless, they are the enemy."
"I suppose so", I said back.
There was a short silence before Matthew announced, "OK, here we are. If there are any ships on the other side of the planet, they ought to be coming around right now. Hopefully, they won't, like, shoot at us or anything."
"I would venture to predict that they would shoot at us", said Boy.
Another minute or two passed in silence. "How close are we to PDN now?" I almost whispered.
"Close enough to tickle it", replied Matt. Beside me, I saw Phill open his mouth, pause for a second, and then close it. Good idea.
"Are there any Cyborg space-cannons left?" came Frank's voice from... somewhere.
"Not that we can see", said Boy. "It looks like we got them all on this side of PDN in our initial attack."
"Jeez, we sure wrecked them", I comm
ented. Looking over at Phill, I quickly added, "Of course we had many advantages, what with the element of surprise, there being so many of us, and our newly upgraded weapons. I'm sure that if this was a normal Slug invasion, then the Cyborgs would've put up a much better fight."
The Cyborg looked at me. "The fight is not yet over. We should not assume that we have already won and act carelessly." He looked at me a bit longer. "However, your efforts to improve my perception of my race's aptitude is appreciated." Well, he could have just said 'thank you', but, meh, that would do.
"Finally", exclaimed Matthew suddenly. "We're in range of the planet. That took ages. Well, not really, but it felt like it. OK, fine, it didn't really feel like it." Boy gave him a strange look, and I saw Matt give a wild grin in response. "Anyway", he continued, "it's time for those of us that are going down to the surface to get into the scout ship. Since there's a small amount of us on this starcruiser, we'll only need to use one of them."
No one moved, so after a second he said, "Well, come on then! Chop chop!"
"Phill", I said. "Can you help me?" I wanted to at least see them off without being strung up against a wall.
"Very well", he replied, and began to untie his own harness so that he could free me.
A few minutes later, I was standing outside the doorway to the scout ship, which was stored through a double doorway at one end of the main cylinder. Two of the unknown Slugs were standing (or, Slug-standing) silently beside me. In fact, I was pretty sure that all of those Slugs could speak good enough to be understood, but I hadn't heard any of them utter a word in ages. It reminded me of when I'd first met the Slugs; it was only Boy who seemed to take on the concept of verbal speech properly.
"Well, goodbye then", I said, somewhat sadly.
Everyone looked back at me through the two doorways, from inside the scout ship they were in. "We'd leave a communicator with you", said Boy, "but we won't be able to communicate through it anyway. So you'll just have to wait for us to return."
"Ethan cannot use a communicator", said Phill. "He is a human."
"Obviously, Phill", complained Matt. "Sheesh. He meant we'd leave it with one of the Slugs, and they would translate for Ethan. Double sheesh."
"Perhaps you should specify that next time", the Cyborg countered.
Matthew opened his mouth to both respond and ruin my emotional farewell scene, when one of the Slugs that would be staying with me, who had sat down on the nearest dish, said loudly, "Attack!"
There was a very short pause before I saw every Slug throw themselves into whichever dish was closest to them; of course, Matt was the fastest.
He looked up at me with a frantic look on his face, but before he could say or do anything, Boy shouted, "Cyborg missiles and space-cannons, coming around from the other side of the planet! There is a lot more ships there than we anticipated."
"All of our starcruisers moving to intercept and attack", said Frank.
"We are the closest starcruiser to the planet, and therefore the greatest threat to the information stored..." began Phill, but he was interrupted by Boy.
"Incoming missiles, space-cannons getting into position to shoot at us!" He turned to Matthew, who hadn't said anything yet. We were both still staring at each other. Boy asked him, "What should we do?" which really highlighted, more than any official rank (or age), who was in charge of our group.
After a split-second, he answered, although he never stopped looking at me. "We can't control the starcruiser from the scout ship; the radiowave interference would be too great, according to Phill. If we get back into the starcruiser, I don't know if we can survive this counter-attack, let alone get away unharmed and come back to attempt another landing."
The Cyborg agreed, saying, "The optimal course therefore is to continue to the planet in this scout ship, allowing our friendly starcruisers to destroy the space-cannons first."
"I don't think so", countered Rosetta, getting up from her dish in the scout ship. "We should get back in the starcruiser, and wait for a safer opening. There are plenty of other Slug ships here. We will easily defeat any Cyborg resistance." She stooped through the opening between the two ships, and entered the starcruiser with me, getting down on a nearby dish.
"We have no idea how many Cyborg ships there are", said Phill. "Nor how many space-cannons. It may be that the far side of the planet was more heavily defended than this side, for an as-yet unknown reason. Of course, there will also be many ships on the ground that will be taking off shortly. In addition, if PD-0034:N was able to get a signal off despite the Archive inflow, the nearest planet in this system, also Cyborg-occupied, will be sending an unknown amount of reinforcements."
"So what you mean", I said, "is that if you don't go down now, we may be too embroiled in the space-battle to try again."
"Precisely", said Frank. "We may not even survive the space battle, as we know nothing about our enemy's numbers and force. I will remain on the scout ship, try to land, and attempt to complete the mission."
"As will I", contributed Carmen.
Two of the unknown Slugs from the scout ship got up and followed Rosetta through to my side; was this because they thought it a wiser course of action, or because they believed that they stood a greater chance of dying if they stayed on the starcruiser? In either case, only two of them now remained in the scout ship.
"Very well", said Rosetta. "I will remain here and try to coordinate with the other ships. We will shoot down as many space-cannons as we can."
"That will be required", input Phill. "The space-cannons have the only ordnance fast enough to outpace our scout ship in close range."
We were all silent for a moment, but too many moments couldn't be spared.
"How long do we have before the Cyborg missiles hit us?" I asked.
"Just over a minute, I'd say", said Boy. "But the starcruiser will need more time than that to get out of the way."
"I'm already preparing defences", Rosetta said. "Hurry and leave. The sooner you do, the safer we will all be. Don't land on PDN straight away; give us some time first to clear the area of threats. Once the space battle is over, I will send other scout ships full of Slugs to assist you."
After a half second's pause, Matthew said tersely, "Ethan. Get in."
Without hesitating, I stooped down to fit through the double hatchway to get into the scout ship. Without a word, Boy took me to a wall to tie me up next to Phill; the Cyborg was already restrained.
"Is this wise?" asked Rosetta through the doors. "You said yourself that it would be dangerous." This she obviously directed towards Matt.
"Perhaps", he replied, tensed. If Slugs could tense. I mean, they didn't even have muscles, didn't they? Matt continued, "But I'd rather have him in danger on the ground, where we can all work to protect him, than in danger on a ship, where one unlucky shot could kill you all."
"Let us go", said Phill. "The flow of time does not allow for a prolonged farewell."
"Well in that case", began Matthew, "farewell Rosetta, at least for now. I sincerely hope I will see you again. Don't forget everything that Earth and the humans have taught you."
"I won't", she replied with significance, but I didn't really get it. Earth taught her lots of things, didn't it? And what did I or Pauline ever teach her?
Rosetta gave a fleeting look in my direction, and I slightly waved my hand and opened my mouth to say goodbye. But before I could, the hatchway that connected the scout ship to the starcruiser closed with a metallic bang, and I felt the ship immediately disconnect from its parent to begin its journey down to the Cyborg planet.
I was sitting near Phill and Boy, tied up where the curved wall met the flat end of the ship. Matthew, Frank and Carmen were seated in dishes on the other side of the screen, while the two random Slugs which didn't do or say much were together in about the middle of the ship, straining against the ship's acceleration.
Looking around at all of us, I thought it rather remarkable that - apart from the Slugs that wer
en't in our group - we could each sit with whomever we wished and we'd all get along. A bit different than a crazy Slug with barely one loyal friend, that loyal friend and a bunch of Slugs who didn't really want to be there and would rather be dead, a strange human who didn't have any idea of what was going on (granted, not much had changed there), and a mysteriously frustrating Cyborg who was neither liked nor trusted by anyone but the crazy Slug and the strange human. Alright then, it was quite a lot different. Although, Phill did still have a frustration streak to him.
"Here we go", I said out loud, struggling against the strong force of gravity away from the ship's direction of movement.
"It's time to strike back at the Cyborgs for their assault on Earth", added Frank.
There was a slight pause, before Carmen said quietly and tentatively, "Do you think that there are any other Cyborgs like Phill? Because if there are... perhaps we shouldn't be killing them." This last part was spoken very hesitantly, as if some part of her thought that perhaps she shouldn't be suggesting this.
It was Frank who responded, but he seemed to struggle with it. "I don't believe that there are any Cyborgs like Phill right now", he began. "But, perhaps there are some that could become like him. If... if all Cyborgs could become like him, then perhaps there'd be no need for the war."
"What would you all do then?" I asked softly, but loud enough for everyone to hear me. "And how would any Slugs satisfy their desire for Honour if you were not at war?" I was no expert, but it seemed to me that if a war that had been waged for something like twelve thousand years (if I recalled correctly) were to stop, there would be some drastic changes to how things worked.
"They wouldn't be able to", said Matthew firmly. "With how our Slug culture has evolved, we need this war. It's been in our blood and veins so long that our entire empire would crumble without it."
The fact that Phill didn't comment on Matt's reference to Slugs having blood and veins indicated the level of thought he was dedicating to his next comment. "Regardless", the Cyborg began, "it would be extremely difficult to get other Cyborgs to think like me. We are too engrossed in the purpose of our existence to see past our unfounded hatred of Slugs and of our fathomless war. This must be rectified before any peace can be attained."
"A peace", retorted Matthew, "which would, as I just said, destroy the Slug empire." He scratched his head, which made no sense because he shouldn't be getting itchy. "Anyway, now's not the time to discuss this. I'm getting some very scrambled signals from Rosetta's starcruiser, so I can only just make out where its generally coming from. At least she's still alive in there - well, she was alive at the time she sent them. Unfortunately, I can barely make any sense of them, so we've no idea when the coast will be clear to land on PDN.
"The information screen on scout ships are very limited, and our scan technology is far less accurate than that of an interstellar ship or a starcruiser. And even if it wasn't, with the huge amount of radiowave pollution around, I can barely make out any distinctive shape with the planet as the backdrop. In other words, I've no idea when we should land on the planet." He paused. "Oh, wait, those were similar words I used before."
"If we land too early, there may be space-cannons left to shoot at us", started Boy.
"And if we wait too long, we may be shot by a Cyborg missile", I concluded. "So, in short, we just don't know."
"We should wait a bit longer, then start to slowly move towards the planet", Frank suggested. "Rosetta will see us getting ready to land and know that she needs to have all of the space-cannons cleared."
"Will she see us moving in?" Boy asked to the group. "There is a great amount of radiation emanating from the planet."
"Emanating?" Matt asked him. "Really?"
"The use of the word was correct", said Phill. No one said anything about that.
"How did we scan the initial Cyborg missile attack, and the counter attack, if we couldn't scan anything?" I asked.
Boy answered me. "At first, we were actively looking for the known radiowave profiles of Cyborg missiles, since we knew they would launch a volley at us", he explained. "Plus, we were at a distance from the planet, and so we could differentiate the much closer and rapidly moving missiles from the background radiation from the planet.
"When the extra missiles and space-cannons began to revolve around PDN towards us, we were quite near the outer bounds of the planet. We could easily scan these objects coming at us from a sharp angle from which a much smaller amount of radiation was coming, compared to the large amount passing to and from the face of the planet itself.
"But now, we are between PDN and the starcruisers, and both of us are quite near the world. So it would be much harder for them to distinguish us, where we are, where we are going, and at what speed we are going."
"So", I summarised, "in short, we have no idea whether or not they have any idea."
"That seems to be the case in most of our endeavours", commented Carmen. "Trying to determine things which we cannot be sure of."
"And yet, we have no choice", said Matt. "We have to land on PDN, soon. I don't want to get shot down out here in space. That would just suck."
"I wonder how the space battle is going", I mused. "Do you think we're winning?"
"I imagine so", said Boy. "Hopefully, the Slugs are restricting the use of their nuclear weapons to avoid damaging us."
"Hopefully indeed", Phill input. "I would conjecture that being killed by Slug friendly-fire would suck much more."
"Hah", said Matthew. "I agree. So, alright then, I'm going in. Let's move."
The gravity in the ship changed once again, and kept subtly changing as the ship performed some highly complex and super-cool space-acrobatics that I would never get to see. Great.
It kept this up for some time, until I felt a slight shaking of the walls I was braced on. Either a massive death-dealing missile just skirted past us, or we were entering PDN's atmosphere. I hoped it was the latter, although the former would make a pretty good story to tell. Except I couldn't be sure that that's what actually happened. And assuming that we survived. And made it back.
After another few minutes, the rocking and bumping was steadily getting more pronounced, so I knew now that we were well and truly in the globe's atmosphere.
"And so begins the retaliation!" I shouted to get over the sound of the vibrations.
"You mean", shouted back Carmen, "our retaliation for Earth."
"Which is occurring just after their retaliation for our attacking PDN", added Boy.
Matt contributed, "And we attacked PDN in retaliation for them attacking Earth!"
"Please stop!" called out Phill. "I don't want to have to die while listening to this!"
As I grinned to myself, I heard Matthew give a hearty laugh. That was the last thing I heard from my friends until we landed on PD-0034:N.