The Euclidian: When Worlds Collide (uncut) Page 4

  They all boarded the waiting vehicle. The Euclidian delegation consisted of Ambassador Powell, the Majorellen translator, the Ossie bodyguard, and the metallurgical engineer. Thirty minutes later they arrived at the presidential palace. Along the way the Howard Ambassador had privately discussed the situation with the defense minister. They considered imprisoning the Euclidians, but their ability to beam from place to place seemed to make that idea impractical; they were unaware that the Euclidians had to be in the vicinity of their ship for the teleportation mechanism to function.

  Upon arrival at the palace, the Euclidians were shown their rooms, each connected to a central, but private, receiving room. The Ossie turned down his room, declaring that he would take the couch in Ambassador Powell’s quarters.

  “We hope that these accommodations are suitable for you and your delegation,” stated Ambassador Plexus.

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” replied Powell.

  “The reception begins in four hours. I’ll return at that time to escort you. In the meantime, if you want to see the palace grounds, the guard will assist you. The rest of the palace is off limits at this time. Please enjoy your stay.”

  The ambassador left to meet with the president and his cabinet, who saw the Euclidians as a threat that had to be dealt with. They planned to be as friendly as possible and learn all they could about their guests and their capabilities. The different species that made up the Euclidian delegation was of particular interest because the Alphas were not sure if they represented multiple planetary systems or a single planet.

  Ambassador Plexus returned as promised and escorted the Euclidians to meet the president and his cabinet at an elaborate reception that included food, gifts, and spectacular performances. Ambassador Powell introduced the members of his delegation to their hosts. He explained that the several members came from different planetary systems, that the diversity of species added to the richness of each civilization, and that the success of their expeditions, including this one, relied on that diversity. The Alphas were intrigued by the descriptions of the people, especially the small Ossie that the ambassador boasted could defeat a squad of armed men just using his short spear.

  Two days after the reception, the Euclidians went on an excursion where this statement was tested. Ambassador Plexus had invited the Euclidians to visit the Howard countryside. They traveled in a convoy of three armed vehicles with the Euclidians and Plexus in the middle vehicle. On the outskirts of the city, the convoy ran across an ambush set up by some would-be kidnappers from a rival country that had planned to make off with the Euclidians. The vehicles at the front and rear of the convoy were destroyed by blasts from the attackers’ weapons, fired from behind a rock outcropping. A voice from behind the rocks ordered the occupants of the remaining vehicle to surrender themselves.

  “I’ll be right back,” exclaimed the Ossie as he disappeared out of the vehicle on the side opposite the attack. He returned five minutes later, stating, “We can go now. I have extinguished the threat.”

  Figure 3. Ossie vanquishes attackers

  Ambassador Plexus looked in amazement as the Ossie made his emotionless announcement. He decided that it was safer to return to the palace and have a security detail check on the area of the attack. The detail later reported that the attackers had been beheaded or killed with deep chest wounds.

  This heightened the Alpha’s desire to find out as much as they could about the Euclidians. They convinced the visitors to give them a tour of their landing vehicle as well as their orbiting spaceship. The Alphas even had themselves beamed aboard, though the process scared them. The Euclidians described a lot of their technology, but refused to give technical details until they had gotten to know the Alphas better. The Alphas did discover that there were no weapons on the ships, which they saw as a weakness to be exploited.

  The Euclidians agreed to let the Alphas set up a consulate on their home planet and took a contingent of them when they left the Alpha system. The Alphas were given a building to use as their embassy and they quickly used it as a means to spy on the Euclidians. Soon afterward, the Alphas set up a base on an uninhabited planet near the Euclidian home planet. Two years later, while all but one of the resource extraction ships were out on a mission, the Alphas launched an attack with twenty armored space vessels equipped with new weapons that they felt could destroy the Euclidian ships and their land-based weapons.

  The mining vessel had no weapons but its space debris shields held up against the attacking ships. The mining vessel was also able to use its transporter to rip apart a few of the Alpha ships when they came within its range on strafing runs.

  The Euclidians attempted to send smaller ships from the surface to assist in the fight, but unequipped with space shields they were easily destroyed. Land-based weapons met the same fate when some of the Alpha ships broke off from attacking the resource extraction ship and fired on the launch pads, military bases, and missile launchers. After a couple of hours, the shields on the mining vessel started to fail. It was at risk of being destroyed and falling into the planet, which would be devastating for the Euclidians.

  The mining vessel opened a hole in space and started to disappear through it. The Alpha ships followed, unaware of what might happen or where they might be going. The Alphas felt they were on the verge of destroying the ship and didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Unbeknownst to the Alphas, the Euclidians had sent a distress signal to their Delta allies who were waiting on the other side of the space hole, ready to engage the Alphas. The Delta ships, unlike those of the Euclidians, were well equipped with weapons. All but two of the Alpha ships were quickly destroyed as they entered Delta space, and the two surviving Alpha ships returned home in defeat.

  The Euclidians captured and executed the Alpha diplomatic corps. The Alpha president sent a message of apology to the Euclidian Council indicating that the attacks were by a rogue element and not sanctioned by the government. The communiqué included a recording of the crew of the escaped space vessels being captured and killed. This, however, did not sway the Euclidians, who refused to restore normal relations.

  The attack pushed the Euclidians to develop warships so as to never again be at the mercy of beings such as the Alphas. They enlisted assistance from the Deltas and in return shared some of their advanced technology. The Euclidians colonized other planets to reduce the risk of their home planet being attacked. A hundred years after the battle, the Euclidians restored diplomatic relations with the Alphas, but refused to ever share technology with them or permit their warships within Euclidian space, which by that time was vast.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE END OF INNOCENCE

  The attack by the Alphas left the Euclidians bewildered, angry, and terrified. They had never experienced an attack from space before and, furthermore, they had extended the Alphas every courtesy. Why the Alphas would launch an unprovoked attack of that scale was beyond their comprehension. The Euclidians lost several million people. All of their space stations were destroyed, and many of their bases and spaceships.

  The event caused a major political shift among the hawks and doves in the Euclidian government. The hawks now wanted to take a more aggressive approach to mining and expansion into space. They argued that taking an environmentally sensitive approach to mining planets, to ensure that ecosystems and inhabitants weren’t greatly disturbed, was detrimental to Euclidian society. Valuable minerals were being left behind that could be used to improve the conditions of less fortunate Euclidians.

  Years of industrial mining had left many of the Euclidian natural resources depleted. Those resources could be renewed with the water, soil, and atmosphere of other planets. And why not take the wildlife as well, including humanoid beings for subjugation, trade, or sale? The Euclidian position on space colonization also needed to be revisited. One of the reasons the Alphas could successfully attack was because they had established a base within the Euclidian solar system. That base was now destroyed, but the damage
was already done.

  The political hawks were not interested in attacking friendly planets with which they had developed relationships. But they insisted on expanding their presence on those planets and others to mitigate the threat of future attacks.

  This type of radical thinking, requiring such a departure from the Euclidian’s way of life over the past few centuries, would normally not have been given any serious consideration. But the Alpha’s attack and the later unsanctioned counterattack garnered the hawks an overwhelming amount of public support. The planetary council had proposed punishing the renegade generals for their brutal act of revenge, but those thoughts were quickly squelched when the citizens spontaneously celebrated them.

  Soon after the attack from the Alphas, there had been a debate about retaliation. The council voted against it because it was against their constitution, but also because the government was not confident that it had the military might to pull off such a mission. Suggestions were made that the Euclidians should partner with the Deltas, who were more capable militarily. However, a few months after the Euclidian attack, the Alphas attacked the Deltas. The Deltas were not as easy to attack because of their distributed defenses, but several ships got through to the Delta home planet and dropped a bomb on its largest moon, killing the ten million people who lived there. The Alpha ships also took out the Delta space stations before they were ultimately destroyed. In the aftermath, the Deltas did not have the stomach for a protracted war and declined to join forces with the Euclidians.

  The Alphas attack on the Deltas hardened the Euclidian generals’ determination for retaliation, and they made their plans. On the twentieth anniversary of the infamous Alpha attack, Day 311 of the Euclidian solar year, a group of generals led an unsanctioned incursion into Alpha space with four resource extraction ships. They positioned the ships in the orbital path of the Alpha home planet, and opened a large portal into dimensional space at level 311 to honor the day they were attacked. From that time on, level 311 in dimensional space would be reserved for disposing of trash, and the number itself associated with evil.

  The portal was not quite large enough for the planet to pass through. When the planet encountered the portal, most of it disappeared into dimensional space. The remainder was sheared off and became rubble that drifted into the sun. The two moons, and all their inhabitants, were caught up in the gravitational pull of the sun. The generals broadcast the entire event back to the Euclidian planet, the traditional day of mourning quickly turned into a day of celebration. The ruling council condemned the act, but was powerless to discipline the participants due to their newfound popularity.

  Figure 4. Euclidian forces destroy the Alpha planet

  The hawks took advantage by taking over the council, and had the constitution changed to permit a more aggressive military stance. A new alliance was forged with the Deltas to exchange advanced technology for Delta weaponry. They gave the Deltas minerals to help them rebuild; the Deltas taught the Euclidians terraforming so they could make new planets habitable.

  The new council authorized increased spending on military research and space colonization. They set up a cultural exchange with the Deltas that focused on military tactics – they saw the Deltas as an integral part of their interstellar and military expansion. Deltas were hired to teach at Euclidian military schools.

  Mining operations were halted for the next ten years, which turned into thirty years, while the Euclidians focused on technology and innovation. They developed and deployed new weapons, attack vehicles, communications networks, and monitoring devices. The council instituted conscription, mandating that all Euclidian citizens serve four-year terms in the military, which included training in science and technology as well as military readiness. The council felt that this was an opportunity to change the direction of their civilization.

  Each conscript had to spend a year at an outpost. The duty was typically pretty grueling, as many of the outposts were in remote, isolated, and uninhabited locations in the Juban Galaxy. Eventually these outposts extended into neighboring galaxies, if one could consider a distance of four light years to be “the neighborhood”.

  Each of the Euclidians’ colonized planets had at least two listening posts to monitor the surrounding space for dangers. On planets with advanced civilizations, the Euclidians worked to build strong relationships, while remaining isolated in their encampments.

  The outposts were not simple bases with one person armed with a pulsar rifle, telescope, and radio. There were typically ten combat-ready soldiers at each post, and two hardened anti-vehicle batteries that could take out vehicles on land, in the air, or in nearby space. Each outpost had two space attack vehicles, capable of making dimensional jumps, that were ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

  In orbit above the posts were three probes that continuously scanned for anything out of the ordinary. The probes had weapons that could take out land and space-based targets, and they could leave orbit as needed to chase down an enemy. They were programmed to partner with other land and space vehicles for coordinated attacks.

  A set of dimensional beacons tracked each outpost location. The beacons were secretly placed at dimensional level 176, and enabled navigators of space vehicles to simply set their controls to go to an outpost entry or exit point to start or end a journey. Navigators could set a specific outpost as the destination and the ship’s computer would take them there.

  Messages from these outposts to headquarters were sent to an orbiting probe, which went into the local dimensional entry point and relayed the message through the network of hidden dimensional beacons on to headquarters. Messages could be sent across light years of space in a matter of minutes.

  Each of these systems had a backup and failsafe mechanism based on redundant systems to keep the devices online, each device was replicated in case it suffered total failure or was destroyed. If for some reason a device failed to communicate with the next device in its communications chain, it attempted to reach the next one up the chain.

  The outpost troops were often put through their paces to improve readiness. They practiced crowd control, land-based attacks, air-based attacks, and space-based attacks.

  Because the Euclidians considered themselves the most technologically advanced civilization, it was hard for them to conceive of an attack from anyone. The Deltas were allies and the Alphas were emasculated, so they were not a threat. Still, they planned for an attack by some superior civilization that was yet to be discovered. Over and over they practiced various military formations, maneuvers, and overpowering attack strategies. One of their most important exercises was mobilizing troops from distant outposts and sending them into the thick of battle light years away to engage a formidable enemy in an effective manner.

  This devotion to preparedness would be their saving grace in future battles. The Euclidian’s preparatory discipline flowed into every process of the government. Employment, the economy, healthcare, and disaster recovery were all efficient programs that performed well. Corruption was kept to a minimum by a strict low tolerance program. A first offence by a government official resulted in five years in prison and loss of all property. A second offense resulted in public execution.

  One specific invention gave the Euclidians a unique ability to perform reconnaissance on advanced civilizations, and to ensure that trusted relationships with other planets remained that way. It was extremely controversial, though, because the government could use it to spy on its own citizens. While the new council had become more ruthless, it had become so to protect the citizenry. Abuse of power against fellow Euclidians was not tolerated. The council believed that for their nation to survive it must inspire oneness, restraint, and trust among its people.

  The reconnaissance probe was a modification of the dimensional beacon. The early beacons were designed to track a planet visually. It could also be used to hear sounds though they had to be amplified and phase shifted to be comprehensible. The technology was adapted to spy on ind
ividuals on other planets. This was a lot more complex than just tracking a planet. First, operators had to find individuals worth tracking, typically by monitoring broadcast transmissions to determine who was important. Then the probe had to find and track a person on a planet drifting through space.

  Since objects in dimensional space were not impacted by gravity, the beacons could not use a planet’s gravity to hold it in place. People often forget about the different physical forces that act on a planet. The planet’s rotation, solar orbit, and galactic velocity all impact other bodies’ movement through space. For example, Earth rotates at a surface rate of 1670 km/hour and orbits the sun at 107,279 km/hour, while the Milky Way Galaxy moves through space at 600 km/sec, and the movements are all in different directions. The probes could take advantage of dimensional velocity, which made it easier for them to track objects in space, but the technical challenges were still great.

  Once the Euclidians learned to efficiently spy on distant planets using probes, they decided to take the technology one step further. What if they could capture a person or persons using a probe, and transport them directly to an interrogation cell? That would be a powerful ability. They could capture and recruit spies, remove enemy, collect trophies to sell, or simply gather specimens of animals or other objects for research.

  This new system had to be capable of opening a hole in dimensional space without being detected, and multidimensionally transporting the subject without killing it. The process started by making a small hole in normal space in front of the subject to be transported. This had to be done with care due to the huge pressure difference between dimensional space, which was a vacuum, and the surface of a planet. The hole had to be large enough to accept the transporter beam for the duration of the transport, but small enough to not disrupt the area where the transport was taking place. The probe had to maintain position while opening the hole, so as not to run into the hole, which could irreparably damage the vessel.