Gravity wars extinction.., p.31
Gravity Wars: Extinction Orbit,
p.31
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Eury said. “Nobody’s suggesting that. I’ll go with you. We’ll show them the evidence, that we’re essentially the same. We diverged twelve thousand years ago, but so what? We’re not different in any real way. We can have babies with each other. It’s time to unite, to bring peace. You’re the one to do this, Naram Sin.”
He looked at her, at the handheld unit that held the evidence of Triton. At last, he rose to his feet.
“Yes,” Naram Sin said, holding out a hand. “It’s time to end this madness. If the Vims are out there, we must unite in order to get ready for them.”
“Yes,” Eury said, allowing him to help her to her feet. “I’ll show you the way.”
“Lead on,” Naram Sin said, “and I’ll follow.”
-33-
First Lieutenant John Steele sat in the command chair on the bridge of the Enkidu. They had discovered that the ship came from the old homeworld of the Valiants. That struck Steele to the core. This was an alien vessel made on an alien world.
The idea of going to an alien world intrigued him. What would that be like? Imagine crossing the great void. It would take two or three hundred years on a generational vessel. What a monumental achievement.
That got him to thinking about these so-called Vims. They had chased the Valiants from their old star system.
Steele ran a hand along the armrest as he switched topics in his mind. He thought about the battle they had just fought. That had been a close-run thing. If the Valiants hadn’t lost the Lagash early, the fight could have ended much differently.
Steele swiveled in the command chair, thinking about Dawnstar and his kids. It would be good to go home, good to get out of space.
Steele grinned. Garvey was in a mood, proud about his space marine achievement.
That made Steele think about his old man, Colonel Mike Steele. He missed his dad. He wished his dad could have shared this victory with him. He wished he could have told his dad about everything that had happened: coming down the corridors, reaching the bridge, and finding it empty.
His father had done this at Neptune. Steele shook his head. Imagine fighting at Neptune, way out there in the Outer Planets. Man, it seemed so fantastic and wild.
Then it hit Steele. He had always loved reading about Charles XII of Sweden, a berserker, a knight-errant of a king.
Steele had done those things, too. But something about it felt empty. Yes, war was the ultimate test, but it was so damn destructive. Was it time to explore perhaps… head into the unknown, maybe crossing from this star system to another?
Steele laughed and got up.
The ship was under slow acceleration, so there wasn’t weightlessness, but there was light pseudo-gravity.
He heard a strange noise.
Steele looked up. A plate moved on a bulkhead. Something pushed it. The plate detached and slowly fell to the deck. In the duct, staring at him out of it was a huge Valiant.
“Hey,” Steele said.
The other two marines on the bridge looked up and where John was pointing.
None of them wore their space marine armor or a gun. John had a knife, although he didn’t draw it yet.
Like some wild animal, the Valiant unfolded from the opening and landed on his feet. His military shirt looked grimy, but he was a big sucker.
The giant Valiant turned and helped a female—a Valiant woman—out of the duct.
That was strange. So far, the Valiants hadn’t put any women on their warships. Could she be the big one’s wife?
The giant turned.
Steele itched to draw his knife but hesitated.
“I am Marshal Naram Sin,” the Valiant said in heavily accented English. “I am the highest-ranked member of our fleet. This is Sub-Engineer Eury. She has made a startling discovery. It’s time we showed someone in authority on your side. Are you in authority?”
“I’m First Lieutenant John Steele.”
Naram Sin cocked his head. “Steele… I have heard that name before.”
“My dad went to Titan and destroyed the railgun on Iapetus.”
Naram Sin’s eyes widened. “Indeed. And you are here now in command of the Enkidu.”
“Not command. I’m holding it because of force of arms, or Colonel Garvey is. What can I do for you? Are you thinking of attacking us here?”
Naram Sin studied the three humans on the bridge. They were small compared to him. Surely, he could wipe the board with them. Instead, he concentrated on the one named John Steele. There was something different about the youth, some kind of fury or energy in him.
“Peace,” Naram Sin said. “I offer peace between the Titan colony and Earth. We will become allies, readying for the Vims.”
“Peace? You’re coming to us for peace now after we wiped out your fleet?”
“We still have the Titan colony. We can do much damage yet, or we can bring peace to our worlds.”
“Why should we trust you?” Steele asked. “You tried to annihilate life on Earth. That was the act of a savage.”
Eury spoke to Naram Sin in the Valiant tongue. The big guy listened to her, and then stared at John Steele.
“Chief Marshal Assur was the one who wanted your annihilation,” Naram Sin said. “I am not of that school. But before you say more, let me show you something incredible.”
“What’s that?” asked Steele.
Several armored space marines entered the bridge carrying gyroc rifles.
Naram Sin’s heart sank, but Steele turned and held up his hand to them.
“Hold it,” Steele said. “I want to hear what he has to say.”
Now Steele drew his knife out and set it on the commander’s seat. Then he walked up to Naram Sin. Naram Sin towered over him, but Steele stared boldly into the alien’s face.
Naram Sin proceeded to show him the data Eury had collected from the Neptune station computers.
Steele looked at the video of a frozen human in a spacesuit.
“You’re saying that’s a man?” Steele asked.
“Yes,” Naram Sin said. “He’s from 9600 BC by your dating system.”
“The hell you say?” Steele said, almost sounding angry.
“Has that upset you?” Naram Sin asked.
Steele didn’t reply, as he was thinking.
“If you combine this data with the stone star charts found at the bottom of the Persian Gulf—” Naram Sin said.
“Hold it,” Steele said, interrupting. “Did you know that I—? Never mind. You’re saying—what are you saying?”
“That the Valiants originated from the Earth of that era,” Naram Sin said. “That we have come home. That we are cousins in DNA, perhaps brothers, you could say.”
Steele stared at the giant alien. The Valiant claimed he was human. It was true that the Valiant women his father had brought back from Neptune had borne children from Earthmen. Those children were no different from others except being bigger, maybe a little smarter and with a blue tinge to their skin.
Steele continued to stare at Naram Sin, then at Eury.
“All right,” Steele said, “I’ll speak with my superiors about this. I’m not going to try to imprison you either. Go back to where you were. When I get an answer, we’ll speak again. What did you say your name was again?”
“Marshal Naram Sin. I am known as the Chess Master.”
“You mean like our chess?” Steele asked.
“Yes.”
“You aliens play chess?”
“We do. I am the best chess player amongst us.”
“Huh,” Steele said. “If that ain’t a kick in the balls…”
Part of Steele wanted to kill this big sucker because the Valiant seemed dangerous like some monstrous bear. In another sense, Steele felt kinship with the towering brute because he sensed intellect behind that big, blue-tinted forehead.
“I’ll talk to my superiors. You have an intriguing proposal.” After a half second, Steele held out his hand.
Slowly, Naram Sin reached out. The two of them shook hands. And that was the beginning of something completely different.
-Epilogue-
In a sense, that handshake ended the war between the invading Valiants and the humans of Earth. There were dialogues, debates, several skirmishes, and more than one misunderstanding.
Eventually, though, the two sides hammered out a tenuous peace. It was better than the peace Rome and Carthage had forged after the First Punic War. That peace had contained the seeds of the next war, the Second Punic War, when Hannibal Barca almost brought Rome to her knees. It was much better than the peace that had ended World War I. That peace had ground Germany’s collective nose in the dirt and caused the nation to seethe with hopes of vengeance, creating the soil for Adolf Hitler.
Dr. Huber was well-versed in history. He knew that the best kind of peace gave each side something and withheld stuff from each side. That meant no one got everything he wanted. It was a compromise, give and take.
Earth clearly had the advantage now. The Valiant colony had dismantled its generational vessel to build enough mass for one decisive blow. That blow had failed, and now Earth could likely rebuild more quickly. They also had more space vessels right now.
Naram Sin acted as the ambassador for the Titan colony.
The peace treaty said that the Valiants could keep everything they had built in the Saturn system. They would have to remove what they had in and around Neptune, though.
Earth had the right to everything else. Each side could build military vessels, but they needed to tell the other what they were building.
The Valiant women taken to Earth by Colonel Mike Steele could go to the Titan colony if they wished. Their husbands and children could go with them. Three single Valiant women decided to return, but none of the married couples or their children did.
Dr. Huber and Naram Sin worked out a trade deal. Each side could send trade ships to the other. Both Huber and Naram Sin made sure their side began constructing vessels for just that purpose.
Valiants could move to Earth if approved by both governments.
Earth was far from one unitary state. Petty planned to try for that, but there was a lot of chaos and fighting down on planet Earth. There were many men and women holding onto power who had no intention of letting go.
Marshal Naram Sin did become Chief Marshal Naram Sin and the new ruler of the Titan colony. He married Eury, and she proved critically important to him.
Petty lasted another three years before an assassin slit his throat. She did it during a sex romp in his office. It turned out that the assassin’s mother had been a bodyguard for former Director Livia Drusus.
Huber ran the orbital stations after that. The little genius never sought full political power on Earth. It wasn’t in his nature. Instead, he facilitated matters between humanity and the Valiants of Saturn.
Colonel Garvey rose in rank, serving a crafty corporate leader who managed to unite most of Asia with the Pacific Islands, including Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.
During the next few years, Earth merged into three unequal political entities. All had ties with the orbital stations. The major wars seemed to be over, as a new era of space exploration and colonization began.
John Steele, Dawnstar, and the kids left for the new Mars colony. Steele and Dawnstar wanted to be part of the future, and they felt humanity’s future lay in the stars, beginning with the rest of the solar system.
The rest of the people… well, most lived for a time until they died. Many had kids, and their family names continued.
As for the truly alien Vims invading the solar system—that didn’t happen in the next few years. Did it happen at all? Yes, but that is a tale for another day.
The End
From the Author: Thanks Reader! I hope you’ve enjoyed EXTINCTION ORBIT, the fourth book in the GRAVITY WARS Series. If you liked the book and want to read more, please click to put up some stars to support the series. Or write a review to let me know what you would like to see next.
More SF Books by Vaughn Heppner
GRAVITY WARS SERIES:
#1 Interstellar Assault
#2 Saturn Protocol
#3 Nova Strike
#4 Extinction Orbit
LOST STARSHIP SERIES:
The Lost Starship
The Lost Command
The Lost Destroyer
The Lost Colony
The Lost Patrol
The Lost Planet
The Lost Earth
The Lost Artifact
The Lost Star Gate
The Lost Supernova
The Lost Swarm
The Lost Intelligence
The Lost Tech
The Lost Secret
The Lost Barrier
The Lost Nebula
The Lost Relic
The Lost Task Force
The Lost Clone
The Lost Portal
The Lost Cyborg
THE A.I. SERIES:
A.I. Destroyer
The A.I. Gene
A.I. Assault
A.I. Battle Station
A.I. Battle Fleet
A.I. Void Ship
A.I. Rescue
A.I. Armada
THE TRAVELER SERIES:
Galactic Marine
Sleeper Ship
The Zero Stone
The Institute
Neanderthal Planet
The Science of Mu
THE SOLDIER SERIES:
The X-Ship
Escape Vector
Final Odyssey
INVADERS SERIES:
Invaders
The Chronowarp
The Antaran
Dreadnought Ocelot
Earth Gate
EXTINCTION WARS SERIES:
Assault Troopers
Planet Strike
Star Viking
Fortress Earth
Target: Earth
Vaughn Heppner, Gravity Wars: Extinction Orbit
