Conquest of Earth (Stellar Conquest Series) by David VanDyke Page A

seemed tough, impervious. “If the Empire itself is under existential threat –”
    Ezekiel continued excitedly, “– then we may be able to get them to do something they’ve never, ever done, despite the efforts EarthFleet made from time to time.”
    “Negotiate,” Spooky finished. “But what’s to keep them from just running away? Meme are effectively immortal in their ships. They can just go nomad. From what you’ve discovered, this new race is a planet-based, machine-using life form just like us. Why won’t the Meme leave us to our fate? What would make them fight?”
    “Hubris, maybe. Or realism,” Charles said. “They aren’t total cowards, else they wouldn’t have an empire. They’ll fight if they think they have the upper hand. And, they might still be intending to run anyway. The eight Destroyers in orbit are eating everything available. Maybe they’re going to bolt as soon as the new enemy shows up.”
    “That’s what I would do,” Spooky said. His eyebrow twitched. “If I were them, I mean. So that’s what you meant when you said Absen’s actions were ill-considered?”
    “Yes. Two Guardians and one more moon laser might have made all the difference. Now, depending on the size of the invasion fleet…who knows?” Charles bounced his fingertips together like the mad scientist he had once personified and pursed his lips, brooding as he slouched in his chair.
    Is it possible to see something more than these walls?” Trissk interjected, pacing at the back of the room. “Some kind of viewscreen?”
    “Of course.” Charles placed his hand on his desk, which was really an extension of the living base they inhabited, and areas of the walls lit with displays depicting various natural scenes – a coral reef vibrant with tropical fish, a green mountain meadow, waves crashing on a seashore. “Better?”
    “Infinitely.” Trissk planted himself in a seat facing the meadow and stared, as if to make himself believe he was within the picture.
    “So again,” Bogrin said, “these beings you call Scourges –”
    “Actually, the Meme call them ‘the Scourge,’ as best we can translate,” Charles replied.
    “Close enough,” Ezekiel said. “They’re big intelligent bugs, right?”
    “It hardly matters what they look like,” said Charles, waving a hand. “The fact is, they have war fleets and they’re conquering Meme territory. What’s more, they possess some kind of rudimentary faster-than-light capability, which makes it lucky we even know about them before they get here.”
    Spooky prompted. “Details?”
    “We don’t have much,” Charles replied. “Only from what little the Meme give to their underling Blends, which in turn we can glean from our intelligence apparatus. The Scourge appear near stars, always close in, closer than the orbit of Mercury, within about twenty million kilometers. In our terms their ships are vast aerospace carriers. They have a dense manufactured metal core like a ship, and on the outside they build a cheap resin latticework that holds their assault ships, kind of like a wasp’s nest. It’s filled with aerospace fighters, gunships, assault craft and marines by the millions. They don’t seem to use capital weapons, but instead they overwhelm their enemies with swarms of fanatical attackers. Then they colonize, eat everything and spread, like bugs.”
    “We have to get word to Absen,” Ezekiel said.
    “I hope he already knows. Our sister will brief him if she survived the assault on Jupiter.”
     

Chapter 16
    Captain Absen gestured to Leslie Denham, who stood before his senior staff at the front of the command conference room. “Tell them what you told me.”
    Leslie’s eyes skipped from face to face, finally resting on Rick Johnstone’s, perhaps the least suspicious. “Sometime in the near future, as soon as two months or as late as several years from now, the Meme believe this system will be attacked by a heretofore unknown race of aliens they