The Ascent

Chapter 43

"What?"

Smith took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he gathered his thoughts. "We didn't hear much while we were wandering through the badlands of the Moiarchy, but the Cack media has been going nuts. The major shareholders have all taken vows of honor to personally wipe out the human race and the common holders are all egging them on to do it. Only the crawdads and the non-Cack races of the Moiarchy are urging restraint, but nobody is listening to them. In the entire history of the Moiarchy, only one other species has been sentenced to extinction and they were so genetically xenophobic that they were compelled to kill or be killed."

"But the Earth? Sparta is willing to sacrifice it?"

"Not everyone at Command, but some fear we don't have the forces to help defend Sol and defend Sparta and others are still bitter about the colonial wars."

"Do the Cacks look like they're acting on this extermination plan?"

"Not yet. They're still debating. There is some indication they may be increasing ship production, but nothing like what they're capable." Smith fixed me with a suddenly intense stare, more like the old Smith I remembered. "Ken, if the Moiarchy takes it time and gears up for full production, we don't stand a chance. If this becomes a contest of economic strength we won't even be able to compete."

I sighed. "We're right back where we were in mankind's first encounter with the Cacks and we're going to have to do the same thing. We're going to have to scatter colony ships out among the stars and hope some survive. I doubt we'd even be able to save a tenth of our populations."

"If they really decide to exterminate us, even those may not survive," Smith insisted. "They'll be hunted down across the galaxy." I leaned back in my chair. "Space is a pretty big place. The Moiarchy, even as big as it is, has limited resources. If this becomes some sort of potlatch, some sort of contest of who is willing to sacrifice the most, the more desperate contestant usually wins."

Smith waved away my objections. "With enough forewarning, we might send some colonists off towards the rim. They'd either be forced to spend the rest of their existence in hiding or remaining on the run. Either way, life as a hunted species would be pretty tenuous, lonely and grim."

The conversation died out and we sat for a moment in horrified, contemplative silence. "I take it all this bares on the reason why Sparta hasn't sent jumpships for us?"

"Yes. They're going to need all their jumps ships for either colonizing or ship movements, whichever they decide. At this point, they would prefer we head for the Golden Worlds."

"Lots of habitable worlds there," I said. "One could easily found a number of colony worlds."

"Except that's where they expect the fighting to start."

"So they want us to stop them?" I asked, incredulous.

"The plan—or at least one of them—is to use us to set up a forward base in the Golden Worlds. We establish it and they send us supplies and reinforcements. Unless the Cacks want to go through The Swords territory as we did, they'll have to all go through that first gate into the Golden Worlds. It's our best chance to stop them. If we're forced to fall back, it's far enough away from the Solarian worlds and has enough systems for us to fall back into to try and grind down their attack."

"Sounds desperate."

"As are all the options we have left."

* * *

The funds available in Red Rock didn't hold us long. We held constant planning sessions trying to find ways to earn money and long debates on whether we were going to do the bidding of the Spartan military. The Cack threats were not taken too seriously in the local media which reported them as if they were nothing more than political posturing for the shareholders. It seemed that some of Righteous Ruler's political opponents were trying to take advantage of Shines Like the Sun's attack and were attempting to gather a controlling interest in the Moiarchy. While the Ruler struggled to maintain his grip on power, we struggled to simply gain a consensus of where the fleet would go next.