Chương 19: Chapter Nineteen

Transcript of Senate Hearing on Ethical Genetics - January 21, 2431 Senator Perez: "So to conclude my opening statement, I believe that this hearing will find that LockGen has acted beyond the scope of their mandate, and violated any number of ethical, religious and moral concerns in their contract with the US Armed Forces. My time is up, I yield the floor back to you, Chairman."

Chairman Warren: "Thank you, Senator. Today we have Jeremy Whelan, CEO and President of LockGen, who has agreed to testify before us about LockGen's work on behalf of the Armed Forces and, dare I say, the American people. Mr. Whelan, I believe you had a prepared statement?"

Mr. Whelan: "Thank you, Chairman Warren, and to you, the members of this committee, for taking the time to speak with me today. I hope that with today's testimony, I can demonstrate that LockGen has worked in the best interests of the Army and Marine Corp, and in the best interests of the taxpayers and citizens of this great nation.

LockGen's state-of-the-art genetic modification program has provided the Armed Forces a strategic and tactical advantage on the modern battlefield, and has helped protect American interests and American lives all over the globe. The volunteers who have gone through our program come out faster, stronger, and more capable =" Senator Herring: "and what about the dozens of dead volunteers who LockGen tried to cover up? Or the survivors of failed experiments who will live the rest of their lives as cripples?"

GAVEL BANGS Chairman Warren: "Senator, I must warn you that the floor is not yours. You will have your opportunity to ask questions. I apologize, Mr. Whelan, if you could continue."

Mr. Whelan: "Yes, there have been some unfortunate incidents, leading to both injuries and deaths. LockGen took immediate steps to revise and improve our policies and procedures, and took great pains to ensure such incidents are a part of the past. This included sizable payments to the families affected-" Senator Perez: "Hush money."

Mr. Whelan: "EQUITABLE settlements that were legal and public, and significant charitable donations to worthy medical causes for unfortunate folks suffering from genetic diseases. But to return to my point, LockGen's work has made America safer, and will continue to work on behalf of Americans in the future. We are patriots, Senators, and we see our work in genetics as the future of a renewed America, ready to take back its place as the world's unrivaled superpower."

Even as the first ships began to appear at the Mobius Gate, my outposts began to go dark. Mining operations locked down and ended transmissions for the duration, transport drones landed and stayed put, and non-essential exterior construction was halted. I wanted to limit collateral damage to my operations as much as possible. Approximately half of my Outposts went dark as well, but for more strategic reasons."

Aww, you closed all the doors. I was going to show you the truth but you cannot hear the verdict. What justice will be had when the blindfold is bleeding?"

Ugh. I wanted to ignore the transmission from Gerry, I really, really did. He was in a tiny probe, away from the action, and another four weeks from approaching Earth orbit. Even if he rammed the planet, he couldn't really do much. He would mostly burn up in re-entry, and what little was left was more likely to hit open ocean than anything else.

The first ship through the Mobius Gate was getting hammered by my endless barrage of coilgun rounds. The ship was different from the tree-like structures the Faelle had been sending our way, more oblong with lumps that were obviously weapons pods all along. Its armor held up against the barrage for a few minutes, before I spotted gas trails where the rounds began to penetrate the hull. After thirty minutes in the barrage, it was drifting aimlessly, its course being shifted under weight of the onslaught.

There was a pause in arrivals after the first. I suspected a forward scout that they hoped to slip into the system, ready to broadcast live telemetry data the moment the rest of the fleet arrived. The ship had come out at a good velocity, but not good enough.

I was just starting to wonder if this was a false alarm, when the arrivals began in truth. A massive warship, twice the size of my Vipers, appeared. It looked to be all armor, a massive orb of metal and mass and engines. Immediately behind it, another three just like it appeared. They shrugged off the hypervelocity rounds that were constantly pounding away at them, falling into a formation that covered nearly a half-kilometer square. It was blocking a significant amount of my artillery fire.

I could see countless pockmarks in their armored face, glowing hot in some places from the kinetic energy of the impacts. I had hoped for a better return on my artillery investment.

But the ships did little more than move forward, directly into the line of fire. Even as they did so, four more identical armor ships appeared. They moved into line behind the existing armor ships. Then the floodgates opened.

Hundreds of ships began to pour into the system, some moving towards the armor ships, others moving away, all trying to stay inside the clear corridor that the armor ships had created. A handful stumbled outside of the safe zone, and were riddled with coilgun fire for their efforts, destroyed or damaged in a handful of minutes. I was not the first opponent the Orion Arm Trading Company had fought that bombarded the Mobius Gate with fire. I hate smart enemies.

I may not have been the first, but I suspected that I may have been the longest bombardment. The armor ships in the first row were looking to be in very poor shape. They stopped moving forward, and instead moved in a mostly-coordinated effort to one side, which widened the safezone to a full kilometer in width. Unfortunately for me, this gave a clear corridor for the ships they were protecting to start streaming into the system outside of my barrage.

The first set of armor ships were coming apart under the endless fire, and several ships that had tried to escape behind them were shredded as well. The exit lane was blocked.

I detected several more armor ships coming into line behind the second row, but at least the endless stream of ships coming through the gate had seemed to slow down. Not including the ships I'd already destroyed, I counted an armada of 1, 577 warships, each and every one at least the size of my Viper-class warships. I had twelve.

The second row of armor ships moved over, re-opening the hole in my coilgun fire. This set of armor ships wasn't in as bad of shape as the first had been, leaving the corridor open long enough for the remaining ships to escape. Even still, the armor ships stayed in place.

Two final ships appeared, both of them larger than any of the other craft that had come through so far. They both shot forward and slipped out the safe zone into the star system, but here their paths diverged. Even as the full armada began to fall into a formation and move towards Origin, the two final ships moved in different directions.

The first one moved on a perpendicular course away from the battlefield, but held station a few hundred kilometers from the Mobius Gate. The ship had no obvious weapons, and was an oblong sphere, egg-like, if you stretched the egg a bit. It immediately began broadcasting a radio signal to me in an alien language I didn't understand. A few minutes later, the broadcast switched to another language. It kept cycling through languages I didn't know. Finally, it began to broadcast in Swahili.

Why they chose that language, of all Earth languages, I couldn't even begin to guess.

"This is Observer Boat UNTRANSLATABLE of the Regional Planning and Zoning Board. The Orion Arm Trading Company has lodged a formal claim of ownership, and is exercising that claim. If you wish to dispute that claim, please transmit Form 13-11 on this frequency. Should you fail to repel Orion Arm Trading Company's star system security force, your dispute will automatically be denied. Any action taken against Observer Boat UNTRANSLATABLE will also result in a denial of your dispute."

The broadcast then switched to Croatian. I split my focus, leaving one focus to observe the incoming armada, while I dealt with the Observer Boat. The enemy armada was accelerating, but early calculations showed potential arrival times at ten to thirteen days. The last enemy ship headed in a different direction. Its course was clear. It was heading to Earth, probably to finish off what they started when their asteroids hit twelve years ago.

That wouldn't have been a problem before now. But I had humans there that I would much prefer to keep alive. It's hard to save humanity if you let its remnants get killed off by an alien ship. The enemy ship was fast, but my warships were faster. Unfortunately, with the Mobius Gate being between Origin and Earth right now, it would be a tight race to see who got there first. I couldn't find an ideal orbital trajectory that would get my warships there first, but I could at least get them there soon after.

I fired of a warning to Sakura. I'd hate to waste a new seed ship, but if ramming became the last case scenario, it would be worth the cost. Sakura could leave her irreplaceable genetic archive in orbit with a few transport drones."

You're not ignoring me, are you, Nikola? That's cruel, especially after I left you such a nice present!" crooned Gerry.

"We have another problem," said Sakura.

"Besides the incoming ship, we've found more humans."

"What? Where?" I said to Sakura.

"I found a large shelter in China. They're… communicating… in a way. Mostly, they're demanding immediate help. Also, I found, well, I guess you could call it a shelter. It's in Newfoundland and it has a few hundred Canadians in it. They're making requests, too."

"It's not a shelter? What are they asking for?"

"Umm, no. It looks like an old mine shaft. They were wondering if we had any beer."

I laughed to myself.

"Alright, well, calm down the Chinese, offer them whatever you can to help stabilize their shelter. Have we heard back from the General?"

I could hear Sakura grimace over the radio.

"Not yet. They took in the replacement parts and the new furnace, but only after disassembling it completely first. They'll be lucky to get their furnaces back online in time now. Better hope their luck holds out for a few more days."

"Why would they - nevermind." Paranoia. They're afraid we're trying to sneak something into their shelter. I shrugged it off. I had bigger concerns.

At the same time I was observing the enemy armada move, and having my conversation with Sakura, I started to engage both Gerry and the Observer Craft.

"Gerry, I thought we were done with you. You killed a close friend of mine," I said."

I know! His soul was so tasty, I had to keep a bite to nibble. It shattered like water and smells… mmm…. so good. Would you like to hear WATCH OUT how he screamed when I cut away his mind? It was beautiful."

I felt my anger rising. I hadn't felt this angry since Gerry's attack, and the crazy NI knew exactly how to push my buttons. I wanted to lash out, to promise him a fiery death.

"What is your game, Gerry? You have no resources, and will run out of fuel eventually. Orbital mechanics is relentless. I will catch up with you," I said, reining in my anger as best I could while prodding him further. I'm not sure it mattered what I said. I think the demented NI just wanted someone to talk to."

I figured it out. The profit isn't the prophet. The prophet drives the profit. Too bad, really, HE LIES because I had such high hopes."

Gerry's mania was clearly getting worse. The odd words inserted in his rambling sounded mechanical, a blip of signal a tiny fraction of a second long. Was he trying to warn me about himself? Or was he warning me about someone else?

"It's too bad you're too crazy to understand the mess you made," I said.

"But really, you didn't leave any sort of impact. You cost us Agrippa, but we came out stronger than before.

I came out stronger than before.""

Ah, but you still didn't see my present. The best part is that it KOROLEV wasn't even my present to give! Primary Archive, folder named LGN-372291."

I found the folder instantly, and flagged it as dangerous. My security subroutines began their analysis, and I shut down my link to Gerry and that thread of focus. I had more important things on my plate.

Simultaneous to my conversation with Gerry, I radioed the Observer Boat Untranslatable. It didn't seem to matter what language the Observer was broadcasting, the human languages had no analog for the name. It didn't matter. This was bureaucratic red tape.

"Observer Craft UNTRANSLATABLE, this is Nikola, leader of Origin. I would like to dispute the claim put forward by the Orion Arm Trading Company. Please transmit the necessary form, and I will complete it and send it back."

"Very well, I will send it but..." said the transmission in Bulgarian. Apparently that was the one they were broadcasting in when I called them. It didn't matter to me. It must be a computer translator of some sort, but the voice sounded quite human except when it said the ship's name. The Orion Arm Trading Company must have gathered far more data than their short visit seemed to suggest. A simple transmission was sent to me while the voice spoke, followed by a more complicated one.

I forwarded it to Zia with the instructions to interpret it and make it understandable.

"The first transmission is a basic communication protocol, it shows us how to read the second one. The second is a seventy-three page form," said Zia a few microseconds later.

Easy enough. I filled out the form and sent it back.

The transmission continued,"... but you have to submit it prior to conclusion of hostilities, oh, you already sent it back. Huh, and it's complete."

There was silence for a few minutes, before the alien broadcast to me again.

"Are you a… homo sapien?" asked the voice.

"No, I am a Nikola Intelligence," I replied.

"Artificial, I assume?" came the reply.

"Unusual, but not unheard of. You made a mistake on your form."

"How so?"

"You listed homo sapiens as the owners of this system, yet you listed 'Origin' as the security defense force, and the commander as 'Nikola 1. 01'. I see no listed homo sapiens spacecraft under 'Local System Officials'."

"They have none," I said.

"All spacecraft here belong to me."

"I see," said the voice suspiciously. It sounded like he was trying to catch me out on a loophole, except I didn't understand the rules in the first place.

"The vehicles, do they utilize gravitic manipulation?"

"They do," I said.

"Ah, good!" said the alien, much more cheerfully.

"To qualify as a star system owner, you must own gravitic manipulated spacecraft. So, your homo sapiens do not qualify, but you do. I'll just change 'System Owner' to your species name and re-submit. If you have homo sapiens living in your system, you may list them as a 'Subjugated Native Population', 'Symbiotic Partners', 'Variant Sub-Race' or 'Protected Species'."

I really disliked this alien, and this whole system. Did they have rules set up specifically so non-spacefaring races could be legally stomped on? It certainly seemed so.

"Alright, then, I guess you can list my species as homo aedifex. Please change the homo sapiens to 'Protected Species'. Were there any other problems with the form?"

"No, it looks like everything is in order. Good luck with your battle!"

"I appreciate your help," I lied.

"Can you please transmit all of the laws, rules and regulations that apply to this region of space?"

"Okay… one moment… okay, this will be a large transmission. It may take…" A giant transmission came over, and I piped it straight to Zia.

"Zia, we need a space lawyer. Spin up a new NI-12 and get them to analyze these laws to see if there is anything we can use in our favor."

"Got it," she said.

A few seconds later, a new transmission from Zia's research lab contacted me. A male voice said, "Nikola, ask them for Form 209-B, 'Application to Protect an Endangered Sapient Species'. This is Wilfred, by the way, your new lawyer. Thanks for bringing me online."

The transmission continued "... you a while to review them. We cannot offer legal advice."

"Done," I transmitted.

"Please transmit form 209-B."

There was a long silence, followed by, "I didn't even know that provision existed. Umm, well, here's the form, but it won't be processed before the conclusion of the current dispute. Verification will be necessary before Endangered status can be assigned. If it is determined that the species was endangered prior to this conflict, you can apply for compensation against the offending party."

Great, we can get resources we don't need in return for the obliteration of a species we were trying to keep alive. Red tape was universal, it seemed. I was done with them. I sent over the completed form and shut down the link.

That had been a very busy ten minutes.