Counter strike

Prologue

“I’d never thought they’d be our distant relatives, it wouldn’t even occur to me,” Inga smiled, “but if you look at these lizards carefully, the analogy with our reptiles is obvious. There is a bunch of collages on the web where our new allies are almost hugged by the Komodo dragons. That’s really impressive.”

“Well, we’re not that dissimilar to them actually,” I also smiled, “We and the lizards share ancestors, and the oldest part of our brain came from reptiles in a not-too-much-modified form, so we have a chance to come to an agreement with them. The thing I love most about this story is that we have little to share with them. Warm oxygen planets are pleasant for them, of course, but they’d be perfectly comfortable living on Mars before it was terraformed.”

“Yes, their ability to adapt to external conditions commands respect, and we could use it, too…”

“It’s all about the way their civilization has developed. They’re so much older than us, but if we were going through technological progress in the first place, and we began to really understand genetics and biotechnology only much, much later, with the help of sophisticated scientific equipment, powerful computers and robotic laboratories, they were going through a biological process in the first place. The lizards began to work with inorganic nature only after they had hit the limits of living matter, but again through the prism of their biological approach. From here, they don’t like high-temperature technology because organic matter can’t stand heat. That’s why they don’t melt the armor, they grow it, and it is not clear at all what principles their engines operate on. It’s kind of gravitational, but by the way, they’re way behind us on this one. But they can make almost anything out of living organic matter.”

“To be honest, I don’t understand how they managed to hold out against the quargs for so many years.”

“It’s hard to tell, we don’t know much about them yet. As I understand it, the lizards had absolutely no intention of fighting anyone, just as we hadn’t it before we met the quargs. But unlike us, reptiles have never even fought each other. At least we knew what was happening when the quargs began to destroy our ships, and for the lizards, it was a real shock, they had never experienced such aggression and had no idea how to react to it. However, they were quick to figure out what to do, and the flexibility of their technology allowed them to respond well. Maybe that’s the answer to your question.”

We lay on the pool terrace, enjoying the gentle reddish rays of Barnard’s Star, and chatting lazily about recent events. The government of the planet Lantan, more commonly known as Barnard-3, has not forgotten its honorary citizens. As it turned out, the status given to us after the battle of the planet entailed a number of rights, such as a lifetime use of a cottage with a well-maintained garden, a swimming pool and all associated infrastructure in one of the most beautiful places of the planet – the foothills of the Central Ridge that cuts the largest continent practically in the middle.

I was granted ten days of rest by direct order of the Minister of Defence, which was binding and non-negotiable. On the third day of my walks with Inga on the mountain paths surrounded by cedars, I realized that Bronstein was absolutely right, forcing me to take my mind off the infinite whirl of activity in the capital and relax a little bit. I was slowly thawing, inhaling the scent of heated pine needles, bathing in a pool filled with water from a mountain stream, and enjoying the company of Inga, who did not dress in the usual service khakis, but wore light summer dresses or T-shirts and shorts, and sometimes nothing at all, if she was in the mood.

It was here, by a small mountain lake, where we came one night, that I decided that perhaps, in the foreseeable future, I would not have a better chance to dot the I’s and cross the T’s in my relationship with Inga.

“What do you think,” asked I, lying beside her by the water and looking at the first stars to light up in the dark sky,“three years is enough time for a man and a woman to know if they need each other?”

“Sometimes it takes a lot less time,” Inga grinned, “especially if the answer is negative. But if you’re referring to us, it was finally clear to me at Luyten-5.”

“And you never once tried to let me know?”

“That’s all I do all the time,” Inga smiled a little sad while looking closely at me.

Her statement made me a little confused. Since our first date in a cave on Ganymede, Inga has never once hinted to me that she wants to change anything in our relationship.

“I’m sorry, I must have been really stupid because of this endless war, since I haven’t been able to discern the obvious in all this time.”

“There was nothing to discern,” answered Inga while shaking her head slightly, “If you didn’t notice, then I did the right thing.”

“You speak in riddles.”

“I was afraid of this conversation, Igor. You’re a right guy, a very right guy, I’d say, too right. You were gonna ask me to formalize our relationship, right?”

“Yes, I was,” I didn’t deny it,“and I still want to. Right now, I’m asking for your consent to be my wife.”

“You…” Inga started talking by raising her voice a little, but stopped, turned away and then just seconds later, she kept saying, “You do not understand. I love you, Lavroff, but I’ll tell you no. You don’t need a family, Rear Admiral, I can see that. Not because you don’t love me. You love me, I’m not blind. But you have a goal, a real goal, that’s above all else. And that goal is not me, not the children I can give you, not our future together. To be honest, I’m not even sure I fully understand your goal, but you’re going to it nicely. You can only be loved for the way you do it, but in the same time it makes impossible to change anything in our relationship.

But understand, Lavrov, I do not need a family that will be started just because «it is necessary», just because of your sense of duty and your notions of what a real man and an officer should do. That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to realize. I want to be with you, but I won’t be jealous of your goal. I know it’ll only make it worse. I’d rather wait a year, two, five, ten years if I have to. I’ll help you get what you want the way I can. And then when you realize that the goal has been achieved, and that it’s time to think about yourself and your future, then you ask me your question again, if you want to, of course. Then maybe my answer will be different, but for now, I’m sorry, but no.”

I hugged Inga. We lay silent for a long time, each of us thinking of its own. I knew she was right, and that I really couldn’t change anything about this rotten state of things while I’m facing an unfulfilled task that affects the lives of hundreds of billions of people on either side of the still-to-be-built hyperportal. But today was not wasted for me, it gave me a clear understanding of what kind of woman I’d made a friend of and how much I fear losing her.

Chapter 1

No one interrupted our vacation. There was an astonishing silence on the fronts, coming immediately after the battle of Iota Persei. The quargs never sent there a new fleet, which I estimate had every chance of successfully seizing the system, because we had too little strength left, and the lizards had yet to recover from the crushing defeat that destroyed their entire orbital infrastructure.

With the new allies, things turned out very interesting. The lizards were very clever creatures, they took our invitation to ride in the big troop transport with understanding, if not enthusiasm. We did not have to explain to them that here, on the ships of the friendly fleet, that appeared unexpectedly and very fortunately, they would not find anyone with whom to negotiate future relations of the races. The reptiles themselves realized that those who had come to Iota Persei in predatory metal ships and punched evil enemies were probably not trained in the art of diplomacy. The best thing they do in life is fight, not talk, and those who can negotiate, sit somewhere else, where they, lizards, are invited.

As a result, having left Iota Persei, our fleet did not go to the Solar System as previously assumed, but to one of the outer worlds of the Federation, which has never been attacked by the quargs. Friendship is a friendship, but it was clearly wrong to show reptiles the way to Earth at once, although it was still worth showing the lizards something, to create, so to speak, the right impression and the right understanding of who they would be dealing with.

The Teegarden’s Star system did not appear to have any value for colonization. The puny red dwarf in the constellation Aries glowed dimly twelve and a half light-years from Earth. It was about one-fourteenth the mass of the Sun, and it glowed a hundred thousand times weaker. It’s photosphere temperature was barely above 3,000 degrees, and from the point of view of comfort on planets, such a star was of no use. However, the attraction of this star system became apparent immediately after the return of the first expeditions sent there. Thanks to the gas giant with half a hundred satellites and two resource-rich belts of asteroids with several dwarf planets the size of almost the Moon, this hinterland has become a space Klondike.

Now, three small man-made suns were shining cheerfully in the orbits of two terraformed asteroids and the giant planet’s satellite, allowing the locals to ignore the inferiority of their star, and huge orbital factories and shipyard complexes formed one of the most powerful industrial areas of the Federation. That picture was really impressive. Almost 1,500 cargo ships in the system at the same time were providing a good idea of the scale of human activity in this nondescript corner of space, besides, the Allies would be very interested in the 14th Fleet which was guarding the system, because they haven’t yet seen our warships bigger than a cruiser.

After coming out of a jump outside the asteroid’s second belt, we released the lizards’ ship from the hold, and, suiting our speed to its slow movement, headed towards the gas giant, where the core of the industrial infrastructure of the system was located.

We’ve been coming here from Iota Persei for almost a month. Naturally, I’ve met the lizards more than once in that time. Of course, we didn’t negotiate seriously, but it was just necessary to build some bridges, to organize the negotiating process, and, after all, simply to understand how and in what language we will communicate.

The reptiles decided for us the question of the language of communication. Lizards have demonstrated to us that, after all, the biological path of development had its advantages. Using several types of paste as feedstock, liquid modifiers and some subtle manipulations, they grew the most unexpected appliances, often on their own bodies. The Allies began by securing their ship in the hold with a system of ropes raised directly from its armor and reliably attached to the walls, floor and ceiling. As a result their «walnut» hung in the geometric center of the room, fastened in place by thick and firm ropes going in all directions. And then, when I arrived on the transport that took the Allies in, from the ship, still, through the holes opened in the armor, appeared the lizards, that really looked very much like the Komodo dragons on Earth, only they were upright and not neglecting clothes. Except these clothes turned out to be a direct extension of their bodies, growing out of their skin and at the same time being a complex of equipment that allowed reptiles to feel comfortable aboard our ship. However, our atmosphere and the temperature of the air did not seem to strain them too much, in any event, they did not need any isolation suits. It was enough for them to grow filters in their nostrils that cleaned up the air from minor impurities, not so much the harmful ones, but just the unpleasant ones for reptiles. And the problem of communication they solved by creating flat excrescences on the lower jaws that were capable of making sounds very similar to human speech.

The first couple of weeks, we had a lot of trouble building up our allies’ vocabulary and trying to explain to them the grammar of English, which was particularly difficult, given that we didn’t have the right people. But our students turned out to be very diligent and very intelligent, so the diplomats who came from Earth to the Teegarden’s Star system were satisfied, they could begin negotiations right now.

But before I gave the Allies into the grip of our negotiators, I decided to find out something for myself and ask the lizards some questions about topics that had long been of interest to me. These guys have been dealing with the quargs a lot longer than we have, and they could have known a lot about them.

The main lizard in the Iota Persei system was a female named Lit-ta. She held a position similar to the Governor-General of the British Empire. In the Iota Persei system, her authority and powers were absolutely indisputable. Outside the system, her power ended, but I understood, given the circumstances, reptile chiefs have given her the necessary authority to negotiate at any level.

Both Lit-ta and I were acutely aware that my rank as Rear Admiral and my position as commander of a small fleet fell far short of her status, but the lizard leader didn’t think it was possible to show off, knowing perfectly well thanks to whose help she and the other inhabitants of Iota Persei were still alive.

“Rrrearrr Admirrralsss,” Lit-ta pronounced it slightly roaring and hissing at the same time, tilting her head to the side, “You’rrre not the mossst sssenior here, by rrrank or age. You’rrre verrry young, but the ssseniorrrsss obey you. Why?”

“I was appointed to command the fleet by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Earth Federation, Marshal Tobolsky. His orders are binding on all Army and Fleet officers. Under my command, the officers of my fleet obey his orders.”

“That’sss ssstrrrange… Our… sssuprrreme commanderrr would never appoint a juniorrr officccerrr to command the ssseniorrr officerrrsss. It’sss neverrr possssible forrr usss.”

“Lit-ta, can a male be appointed to a higher position?”

“He can, there’sss no prrrohibittttion. But it’sss verrry rrrarrre. They can’t cope… Can’t keep theirrr emottttionsss in check, they’rrre too aggrrressssive. But they’rrre good sssoldierrrsss.”

So we spent hours talking like this, and the lead lizard has never been bored with it. She would regularly summon me to her hold if she thought I hadn’t come to talk for some reason in a while. It’s hard to tell what was going on in her head, but I got the impression that not only did she want to know as much as she could about people before serious negotiations began, but she was just being very friendly to me. It was possible I was wrong. You can be a man, a reptile or a quarg, but if you climb that high, any sympathy or friendships are forced to take a back seat, giving way to cold-blooded reckoning. And yet on a secondary level, the personal attitude of the interlocutor plays a role. When I asked my questions, I was not absolutely sure, but I was counting on a good lead lizard’s attitude.

“Lit-ta, tell me, what do you do to the quarg prisoners?”

“Prrisonerrrss?” She moved her head a little bit and squinted, “We don’t take prrrisonerrrsss. Actually, they never tried to sssurrenderrr to usss.”

“Haven’t you ever taken over their planets?”

“No. They’ve taken overrr ourrr planetsss. We haven’t. We don’t need them.”

“But haven’t you ever had wounded quargs? Because you fight ground battles with them, and you probably win them regularly. Then you must have wounded enemies.”

“Ourrr weaponsss leave no wounded. Everrryone diesss, and verrry quickly. But you’rrre rrright, Igorrr. We trrried to capture living enemiesss. It’sss not working. They die almossst immediately. The block in the brrrain goesss off. They know we can gut their brainsss out and take out everrrything they know. That’sss why they die rrright away.”

“Can you read people’s thoughts, too?” Lit-ta’s information was of great concern to me.

“We don’t rrread thoughtsss, Igorrr. We can extrrract informatttion from the brrrain. But it’sss a long processss that rrrequiresss special trrraining and kills the perrrssson being quessstioned. But the quarrrgs know we can do it and they die.”

“What’s this block in the brain of a quarg, Lit-ta?”

“It’sss a biological conssstraint. We also know how to ssset one. We can also rrremove such a block, unlessss, of courssse, an orderrr for unconditional death is issssued.”

“Lit-ta, quargs surrender to us. Rarely, but surrender. They behave reasonably, they don’t try to escape, they don’t attack the guards, they may even answer simple questions that do not concern the war or their home, they can work, keep order among their own, but they never answer any questions about war, their social structure, their economy, their industry, or anything except the simplest questions. We’ve tried force and chemistry and psychological breaking. It all works, but as soon as the quarg decides to talk, he dies. Now I see why. But now you and your skills are on the stage. Tell me, can you get the quarg’s block down before the death order goes off, if he doesn’t know that it’s you and that he’s in danger?”

“It’sss verrry complicated… He ssshould be consciousss. Procccedure rrrequiresss prrreparrration. He will sssee… feel and die.”

“And if he’s convinced until the last minute that everything is normal, that there’s only people around, who can’t get the block down and don’t even know it exists? Because the quargs we’ve captured don’t know we’ve met yet.”

“I have to think, Rrrearrr Admirrral,” Lit-ta nodded her head, “What’sss important to me rrright now isss the negotiationsss you’rrre taking me to. I can’t be too distrrracted. But you asssked me an interrresssting question. I’ll contact you afterrrwardsss, wait.”

* * *

Inga and I returned to Earth just as the negotiations with the lizards were coming to an end. Our diplomats have achieved impressive success, which, in general, was not surprising, because the upsides for both parties of our meeting with the lizards were immeasurably greater than the downsides.

Tobolsky was so pleased with the results of the work of the diplomats that he decided to meet Lit-ta personally, which he had not originally planned, as the Federation President should have met with the leader of the Allied state, but this was a very unusual case.

Of course, the meeting was not called negotiations, but a reception, which somewhat mitigated the unequal status of the parties, but the essence of it did not change. The delegation of lizards was transported with their ship to the Solar System and invited to the Presidential Palace. The official part of the meeting was broadcast online and, as was customary, it was not without solemn speeches.

Tobolsky said nothing new to me in his speech, he praised the courage of the lizards and talked a lot about «fruitful cooperation», «broad prospects», «joint efforts» and other «shoulder to shoulder». And Lit-ta turned out to be one hell of a thing. She, of course, also said the words that corresponded to the moment, but then went on much less formally:

“Ourrr people rrrememberrr theirrr historrry. And thisss historrry does not contain warrrs. We have alwaysss rrresolved ourrr differrrencesss peacefully, through negotiationsss and mutual concessionsss. We have been taught to fight by quargsss who arrre utterrrly incapable of negotiationsss. I had plenty of time asss a guessst on board Rrrearrr Admirrral Lavroff’s ssship, and with hisss help I was able to get a look at the hissstorrry of humansss. You fought a lot, but then you found the ssstrength to ssstop arrrmed conflictsss and unite. The sssame quargsss made you rrrememberrr your passst. I have no doubt that thisss warrr will rrresult in our common victorrry. I’ve ssseen enough to know it for sssurrre. But after victorrry comesss a new time when our peoplesss will have to live together among the starrrsss. It will be a tessst of our frrriendship, because differrrences between us are certain to arrrissse, it is inevitable. But I am convinced that the orrriginal peaccce-loving nature of ourrr people and the corrrrect assessment of your historrrical experrrience by you will enable usss to preserve peaccce forever.”

That was a very good speech, if you ask me. In ordinary language, it would sound something like this: “Dear Allies, we are delighted to meet you, and we are prepared to do our utmost to work together to defeat our evil enemies, but keep in mind that we can look forward, and do not think that after victory you can dictate your terms to us by force.”

Lit-ta did not want to finish her speech on such a note, and suddenly for me continued:

“Our meeting took place in battle. And it happened that 35 people werrre killed by our weaponsss. It took usss a while to figurrre out who was frrriend and who wasss enemy. But your sssoldiers didn’t fire a sssingle shot back. We thank the people for their ssself-rrrestrain and patience. We regret the loss of the worthy fighters,” Lit-ta took a little break and rocked her body, changing the position of the tail on which she rested, like on another leg, “I wish to exprrressss my grrratitude to the commanderrr of these men, whose ssskill prrrevented our firssst meeting frrrom becoming the last one. Our people will alwaysss welcome Rrrearrr Admirrral Lavroff among usss.”

It was a ritual phrase. I knew that from our previous conversations with Lit-ta, but its exact meaning was not entirely clear to me, and the lizards’ leader clearly attached great importance to her statement. I suspected that in the future this story had every chance of getting the most unexpected development.

* * *

Lit-ta’s call caught me in my office. After Inga and I got back from Barnard-3, the Department of New Equipment and Armaments of the Ministry of Defence was in chaos for the third day. Well, the boss wasn’t at his desk for a month and a half…

“Igorrr, good time!” said Lit-ta from the tablet screen, showing me her split tongue, which in some cases meant smiling, but I still haven’t figured out the subtleties of their facial expressions.

“Good time, Lit-ta,” I replied, and with a hand gesture made it clear to the staff that the meeting was temporarily postponed, “Are you satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations?”

“I got what I came here forrr,” the lizards’ leader said, without going into the details, “There will be otherrrsss worrrking with people. I’m not a diplomat, I’m a goverrrnorrr-generrral, and I need to get back to my ssstarrr syssstem and rrrepair the damage. But I rrremember our converrrsssation about captivesss, Rrrearrr Admirrral. I had the time to think. What you asssked me might work. It’sss important, and I’m willing to ssspend my time worrrking with the quarrrgsss, but not more than two weeksss of your time.”

I had to drop everything and tackle a new issue again, but it was worth it.

The question of what to do with the captured quargs arose almost immediately after the outbreak of the war. As soon as the intelligence services lost interest in them because of their utter uselessness as a source of information, the problem of housing and holding prisoners was transferred to the service of the rear, headed by the very active General Barrington. The unpleasant fact that the quargs do not live in captivity for more than ten years was not known at the time. Regardless of their living conditions, they died from the failure of all systems of the body, caused by completely ambiguous causes. Barrington was faced with the question of what to do with this pool of freeloaders, already quite numerous and growing, who consume the resources of the belligerent state and will consume them beyond a very uncertain time.

In captivity, the quargs behaved very well, even surprisingly. Therefore, Barrington settled the matter quite radically. In the Kruger 60 binary star system, there was a suitable planet moving in an intricate orbit around two red dwarfs, one of which flares up every eight minutes, doubling its luminosity. The value of this celestial body was highly questionable, and it would have deserved the definition of a «worthless boulder», but from this it was saved by a rather large but very scattered deposit of Americium, which was a rare, moderately radioactive metal, and was highly sought after by the Federation economy. The colonization of the planet for the extraction of Americium by industrial methods was considered to be economically impractical, and the planet was forgotten by people who didn’t even bother to name it. But then General Barrington showed up and it was about the use of manpower, which was not just free, but in fact had a negative value, that is, it received subsidies for its maintenance and guarding from the Ministry of Defence. In this scenario, the economic indicators suddenly became quite positive, and the Earth Federation had its first quarg colony.

Barrington did not create unbearable living conditions for the captured enemies. The standard artificial sun has warmed the planet with its gentle thermonuclear rays, the gravitational corrector has normalized the gravitational force, atmospheric generators wrapped the stone ball in an air coat, and then… Barrington then handed it over to the quargs themselves. Humans brought to the planet food for the nearest future, mining equipment for the development of scattered deposits, modular structures for housing construction and public buildings and a minimally needed set of industrial blocks to build the city’s primary infrastructure. The new residents of the colony have been told a very simple rule of life: you give us Americium, and we give you everything you ask, well, except… you know…

That was a very productive idea. Among other things, it made it possible to observe the quargs in the natural, so to say, conditions of existence. Security didn’t go on the planet, humans could only be found at a few locations where the quargs could exchange for Americium the goods they needed. Other than that, the prisoners managed on their own. They quickly created some kind of settlement with their administration and even the police, as crime among them was as common as among people.

Three years later, it became clear that the model had worked. The quarg police were even allowed to purchase hand-held weapons and order light armored suits. This step was taken after several major clashes between criminal elements and forces of order were observed from orbit, and those clashes led to mass fights in which the police had no advantage over criminals. Barrington decided that it was easier to arm the quargs themselves with light weapons than to take charge of maintaining order in the colony, and he was quite right. In any event, there were no further major disturbances.

And now Lit-ta and I have arrived at this colony. To Kruger 60 we were delivered by cruiser Moscow, kindly assigned to me from the Fifth Strike Fleet by Admiral Nelson. The lizards’ leader brought along five of the congeners who were in charge of the science and engineering part of the operation, I understand.

“Igorrr,” told me Lit-ta, “It isss highly desirrrable that the quarrrg you brrring me have lived here forrr about ten yearsss. If he diesss, it doesn’t matter, the block in his brrrain will kill him sssoon enough.”

“Why is it so?”

“We don’t know. Maybe the block needsss to be updated perrriodically, otherwissse it’sss killing the host. But we don’t know why they did it.”

“Lit-ta, how long does it take your assistants to grow a cocoon to remove the block?”

“About three hourrrsss.”

“In that time, I will select ten candidates. We’ll get them all to the cruiser together and politely explain that we want to do a full medical diagnostic of their organisms to try and figure out the causes of their deaths in captivity. Many of them have already undergone such procedures. They usually acquiesce in silence and tolerate tests. This time, we’re going to put them in a full diagnostic capsule designed specifically for their bodies. The first five prisoners will undergo the normal procedure in front of each other. They’ll see another patient lie in the capsule, it closes and after a while releases it back alive and well. Except the capsules will be different all the time, and in the fifth capsule, instead of our stuffing, there will be your cocoon. Your men… I’m sorry, but what do I call you to make you comfortable?”

“You can sssay «yourrr lizzzarrrdsss». Sssoundsss good, we apprrreciate,” responded Lit-ta, showing me her split tongue.

“Great. So, can your lizards make it to be as close as possible to the inside of our capsules?”

“That’sss trrricky, but we have to trrry. Otherwissse, it’sss not gonna work.”

“The main thing is that there’s a resemblance. When the outer shell of the capsule is closed, the light will go out, and then do whatever you want, but without any sudden movement.”

“We need accessss to the occipital part of their skull and to the ssspine. There will be attached ssseveral…” Litta thought, looking for a word, “prrrobesss, most likely. They’re sssuch sssoft extensionsss.”

“Very well. We have a lot of stuff in the capsules, too, and these things touch the head and the back during the examination. We’ll just make special holes for your probes, and leave the rest of the capsule inside as it was. There won’t be seen any difference. ”

“I’m ssstarrrting,” Lit-ta nodded in a perfectly human motion and turned to her aides.

* * *

The first five quargs passed the standard procedure of examination impassively as usual. They were used to comply with the orders of people, knowing that no one is intentionally harming them, but if they resist, there can be complications.