interjected, and he
looked about as comfortable as I felt, which was to say not at all.
“No. This was supposed to be a probing attack to see
how they would react. I don’t think I should proceed either, at least,
not until Alnot and the rest of the treaty races give their blessing to
eradicate this menace fully.”
Dral nodded, “Perhaps it would be wiser to wait, and discuss
our endgame. We still have time, and many more hives to find before
planning a full campaign. I withdraw my suggestion for attacking another
hive system.”
Sergei looked livid, and I wondered what his report would
say about me, as all the Earth ships opened up wormholes to take the fleet back
to our arm of the galaxy.
Chapter 16
There was a lot going on. So far, the Reilan were
ignoring the probe in their system, and all attempts to communicate.
Maybe they were too different like the Drenil? At the very least, they seemed
to be peaceful so far.
The worlds in the treaty were discussing what to do about
the Gelnott, again, some of them wanted to quarantine them for being too
aggressive, others were afraid of setting a precedent of quarantining any race
that didn’t agree with them. They wondered if what the Gelnott did was
truly that bad? They hadn’t invaded the Nairan after all, just been
willing to interfere with a pre-FTL civilization.
They were also deciding what to do about that pre-FTL
civilization. Now that the existence of other races and FTL were known to
the Nairan, should we at least talk to them, and explain what we did, and
why? Some worried the race would get paranoid and belligerent when
eventual contact did take place, if they were left to stew over it until they
reached FTL, and others thought they should be completely left alone to remove
the chance of further damage to their society.
Then of course, the big one, the worlds were split on if the
Bugs deserved the same consideration as humanoid lifeforms. They were
warlike and spread out due to instinct, and never stopped. At least that
was the most prevalent theory although still unproven. They wouldn’t
communicate, or share space with other species, so they couldn’t be reasoned
with at all. At least, that was the excuses some of the governments gave
to support the idea of eradication. Genocide was an ugly concept, and I
refused to buy any of the rhetoric.
I did however continue to build platforms. They would
make great guards to keep the Bugs on their planets, and out of space.
But I’d keep out of it if the treaty worlds decided on genocide. Not that
they would need me, they had enough ships to do it without me.
All of that was why it took a few days before I found out
what was in Sergei’s report. The council had just been too busy to talk
to me before then I guess.
The summons came when I was actually designing that test
ship. The creation of the field in a shield configuration was
complicated, but not as hard as I’d been expecting. I’d been trying to
figure out how to build a single field to surround the ship, but I realized I
didn’t need to do it that way, and was being foolish. I could build
several small field emitters that would mesh and slightly overlap, forming one
field that conformed to the shape of the ship. Much like I did with the
anti-mass and EM fields using the rod or ball techniques.
I’d started out with the taxi shuttle size design, and then
removed all the anti-mass and EM field rod coils from the hull. I also
removed the small Ion drive, since it was too weak to push something with that
much mass very fast, and put in a gravity drive instead. I was a little
worried about radiation shielding, but out in the void above the galaxy it
wouldn’t be a serious problem, especially without passengers.
Then I added in the field emitters, much smaller than the
wormhole drive’s single emitter array, but spaced out evenly all around the
ship itself. Lastly, I set up the modified
looked about as comfortable as I felt, which was to say not at all.
“No. This was supposed to be a probing attack to see
how they would react. I don’t think I should proceed either, at least,
not until Alnot and the rest of the treaty races give their blessing to
eradicate this menace fully.”
Dral nodded, “Perhaps it would be wiser to wait, and discuss
our endgame. We still have time, and many more hives to find before
planning a full campaign. I withdraw my suggestion for attacking another
hive system.”
Sergei looked livid, and I wondered what his report would
say about me, as all the Earth ships opened up wormholes to take the fleet back
to our arm of the galaxy.
Chapter 16
There was a lot going on. So far, the Reilan were
ignoring the probe in their system, and all attempts to communicate.
Maybe they were too different like the Drenil? At the very least, they seemed
to be peaceful so far.
The worlds in the treaty were discussing what to do about
the Gelnott, again, some of them wanted to quarantine them for being too
aggressive, others were afraid of setting a precedent of quarantining any race
that didn’t agree with them. They wondered if what the Gelnott did was
truly that bad? They hadn’t invaded the Nairan after all, just been
willing to interfere with a pre-FTL civilization.
They were also deciding what to do about that pre-FTL
civilization. Now that the existence of other races and FTL were known to
the Nairan, should we at least talk to them, and explain what we did, and
why? Some worried the race would get paranoid and belligerent when
eventual contact did take place, if they were left to stew over it until they
reached FTL, and others thought they should be completely left alone to remove
the chance of further damage to their society.
Then of course, the big one, the worlds were split on if the
Bugs deserved the same consideration as humanoid lifeforms. They were
warlike and spread out due to instinct, and never stopped. At least that
was the most prevalent theory although still unproven. They wouldn’t
communicate, or share space with other species, so they couldn’t be reasoned
with at all. At least, that was the excuses some of the governments gave
to support the idea of eradication. Genocide was an ugly concept, and I
refused to buy any of the rhetoric.
I did however continue to build platforms. They would
make great guards to keep the Bugs on their planets, and out of space.
But I’d keep out of it if the treaty worlds decided on genocide. Not that
they would need me, they had enough ships to do it without me.
All of that was why it took a few days before I found out
what was in Sergei’s report. The council had just been too busy to talk
to me before then I guess.
The summons came when I was actually designing that test
ship. The creation of the field in a shield configuration was
complicated, but not as hard as I’d been expecting. I’d been trying to
figure out how to build a single field to surround the ship, but I realized I
didn’t need to do it that way, and was being foolish. I could build
several small field emitters that would mesh and slightly overlap, forming one
field that conformed to the shape of the ship. Much like I did with the
anti-mass and EM fields using the rod or ball techniques.
I’d started out with the taxi shuttle size design, and then
removed all the anti-mass and EM field rod coils from the hull. I also
removed the small Ion drive, since it was too weak to push something with that
much mass very fast, and put in a gravity drive instead. I was a little
worried about radiation shielding, but out in the void above the galaxy it
wouldn’t be a serious problem, especially without passengers.
Then I added in the field emitters, much smaller than the
wormhole drive’s single emitter array, but spaced out evenly all around the
ship itself. Lastly, I set up the modified
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