To those who haven't read the book - an alien race called the Kangas dusted the human colonial planet of Midgard with a disease that wiped out 99.8 of the population, but left the others superior to the rest of the human species. They faced prejudice, derision, hatred, envy, fear and a whole host of other problems. The survivors didn't age, so they were called Methuselahs, or Thuselahs for short.
Generations later Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna, one of the Thuselahs, went back in time before it happened and made sure it wouldn't. That's the story in 'The Apocalypse Troll.
But this isn't her story. This is the story of her ancestors, and of the lucky 0.2. Of the two million odd humans on Midgard at the time of the attack, there were exactly 5757 survivors.
As Colonel Leonovna says in 'The Apocalypse Troll', the Kangas are very good at biological engineering. But not good enough. Almost, but not quite.
Chapter 1: Did we win the battle?
General Fitzwilliam Dafflemeier looked around at his oh-so-intelligent and very tired team.
"Well," he demanded, "Did we win, in the final analysis, or not?"
He wasn't speaking about the battle. The Second Battle of Midgard was over, and the planet had suffered nothing more than a few light missile strikes in strategic military regions. Certainly not the kind of mass casualties suffered in the Kanga attack on Earth.
Four billion casualties in that one, racked against only a few thousand on the surface and twice that on destroyed or damaged ships. The blockade had very nearly held; only one light ship got through and was destroyed by ground fire.
He was speaking of the intelligence gathering attempted before, during and after the battle.
"Colonel Liu! Did we or did we not crack their naval codes?"
"Yes, sir, we did, but they'll have completely changed the coding system again before they come back."
"Are you sure?"
"I would, sir. They used one system when they attacked Earth, and a completely different one this time. They'll have another system when they come back again. It's only common sense."
"Alright, did they crack ours?"
"I don't think so, sir. I've done my best to analyse their strategy; I don't think they knew what we were saying. They knew we were communicating, but not more."
"I want your full report. I do mean full, Colonel, no more of your withholding titbits of information to look good. I want the full, complete, entire report, evidence and conclusion. Have it on my desk by 0600 tomorrow."
"Yessir," the Colonel said a little glumly and a little sullenly.
"Major Atarisi?"
"Plenty of nav data," she spread her hands. "We've been stripping the information out of the captured computers as fast as we can. Right now the biggest hurdle is translation. That's the bottleneck. But we're recording it all anyway. Some of those hulks are ready to disintegrate at any moment."
"Major Jenobi?"
"We're still matching corpses to serial numbers, but we've got over fifteen hundred missing in space, and we're not sure which fifteen hundred they are. Six had beta-level clearance, nine eta, four delta, one alpha but given we found one of his arms wedged in an airlock I doubt he's still alive. Yes, sir, all their codes have been revoked already, before you ask. We're working as fast as we can, sir, but I doubt we can ever truly be certain the Kangas didn't get a few prisoners."
"Keep working on it. Captain Santiago, your report on our own functioning was quite surprising."
"I don't care much for bullshit, sir," the solidly built dark man laced his fingers together on the conference table. "Quite frankly our performance was abysmal. We couldn't locate key personnel, we couldn't establish security within the department, we couldn't confirm security of communications and that contributed to the loss of the Astoria," which had been the Terran Fleet's largest battleship and a great loss, "And the smaller inefficiencies and incompetencies defy counting. I've made a list of about six hundred already. Oh, and whoever wrote that so-called 'instant identification program' for when we've got personnel entering the building in swarms should be shot for treason. It's nothing of the kind."
"I want a report in full…"
"You'll have it by 1600, sir. I passed it off to my second. I can't work on it while I'm here, and she's better with computers than I am."
"Alright." He glanced at the last person at the table. "And I see you brought a guest."
"Yes sir. General Dafflemeier, this is First Lieutenant Anna Leonovna. She works on surveillance; she was putting together precise engineering scenarios for the new Kanga ship classes. She found something extremely worrying in the visual tapes."
"Extremely?" The general raised his eyebrows. "And I haven't heard about it yet?"
"My superior didn't share my concern, sir. The captain overheard me arguing with him and asked for more information." The lieutenant was perfectly calm and collected. "If I may, sir?" She gestured at the large wall screen.
"Certainly, Lieutenant." The general blinked again as she moved to a computer terminal; modern medical science made people in wheelchairs rare, and people in wheelchairs in the military still rarer. One of her legs was slightly twisted and limp; the other was missing just above the knee. She had an interesting pattern of skin scars down that side of her body as well, visible on hand, face and neck. They didn't look like any combat scars he'd seen.
"Most of the footage of the Kanga light cruiser that slipped past the orbital defences was taken from ground tracking stations," she said. "Early this morning I was given an amateur recording from a visiting meteorology professor. He'd disregarded all the warnings to go climbing in the hills and film cloud formations. He caught it on tape as it was coming in. There's no other visual record of that part of the ship's course; it was all remote sensor telemetry between here," she pulled up a graphics display of Midgard with two red marks, "To here." Midgard's population was almost entirely concentrated in the capital city; there were a few small towns and some outlying military facilities, but the cruiser had missed passing within a line of sight of them.
"What did he catch we missed?" Jenobi asked.
"This is the image - considerably enhanced, of course - he caught as it levelled off and went from mere orbital entry to true flight." An image of a dark ship flitted across the screen, almost out of frame the whole time. The backdrop of clouds was indeed fascinating, but no one was looking.
"I didn't see it myself until I slowed the image down and tried to enhance one of the frames to examine their external communications equipment." She typed in a key to bring up a stored image. "This is a single shot, magnified and enhanced again, of the ship as it augured in."
The same dark clunky shape - with a fine green mist coming out of an open hatch.
"My superior, Commander Arx, insisted it was some kind of venting system. I agreed. The thing is, I don't agree that what they were venting was unwanted chemicals of some kind or engine exhaust. For one thing, that wouldn't be green. I think they dusted us with a biological weapon."
Generations later Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna, one of the Thuselahs, went back in time before it happened and made sure it wouldn't. That's the story in 'The Apocalypse Troll.
But this isn't her story. This is the story of her ancestors, and of the lucky 0.2. Of the two million odd humans on Midgard at the time of the attack, there were exactly 5757 survivors.
As Colonel Leonovna says in 'The Apocalypse Troll', the Kangas are very good at biological engineering. But not good enough. Almost, but not quite.
Chapter 1: Did we win the battle?
General Fitzwilliam Dafflemeier looked around at his oh-so-intelligent and very tired team.
"Well," he demanded, "Did we win, in the final analysis, or not?"
He wasn't speaking about the battle. The Second Battle of Midgard was over, and the planet had suffered nothing more than a few light missile strikes in strategic military regions. Certainly not the kind of mass casualties suffered in the Kanga attack on Earth.
Four billion casualties in that one, racked against only a few thousand on the surface and twice that on destroyed or damaged ships. The blockade had very nearly held; only one light ship got through and was destroyed by ground fire.
He was speaking of the intelligence gathering attempted before, during and after the battle.
"Colonel Liu! Did we or did we not crack their naval codes?"
"Yes, sir, we did, but they'll have completely changed the coding system again before they come back."
"Are you sure?"
"I would, sir. They used one system when they attacked Earth, and a completely different one this time. They'll have another system when they come back again. It's only common sense."
"Alright, did they crack ours?"
"I don't think so, sir. I've done my best to analyse their strategy; I don't think they knew what we were saying. They knew we were communicating, but not more."
"I want your full report. I do mean full, Colonel, no more of your withholding titbits of information to look good. I want the full, complete, entire report, evidence and conclusion. Have it on my desk by 0600 tomorrow."
"Yessir," the Colonel said a little glumly and a little sullenly.
"Major Atarisi?"
"Plenty of nav data," she spread her hands. "We've been stripping the information out of the captured computers as fast as we can. Right now the biggest hurdle is translation. That's the bottleneck. But we're recording it all anyway. Some of those hulks are ready to disintegrate at any moment."
"Major Jenobi?"
"We're still matching corpses to serial numbers, but we've got over fifteen hundred missing in space, and we're not sure which fifteen hundred they are. Six had beta-level clearance, nine eta, four delta, one alpha but given we found one of his arms wedged in an airlock I doubt he's still alive. Yes, sir, all their codes have been revoked already, before you ask. We're working as fast as we can, sir, but I doubt we can ever truly be certain the Kangas didn't get a few prisoners."
"Keep working on it. Captain Santiago, your report on our own functioning was quite surprising."
"I don't care much for bullshit, sir," the solidly built dark man laced his fingers together on the conference table. "Quite frankly our performance was abysmal. We couldn't locate key personnel, we couldn't establish security within the department, we couldn't confirm security of communications and that contributed to the loss of the Astoria," which had been the Terran Fleet's largest battleship and a great loss, "And the smaller inefficiencies and incompetencies defy counting. I've made a list of about six hundred already. Oh, and whoever wrote that so-called 'instant identification program' for when we've got personnel entering the building in swarms should be shot for treason. It's nothing of the kind."
"I want a report in full…"
"You'll have it by 1600, sir. I passed it off to my second. I can't work on it while I'm here, and she's better with computers than I am."
"Alright." He glanced at the last person at the table. "And I see you brought a guest."
"Yes sir. General Dafflemeier, this is First Lieutenant Anna Leonovna. She works on surveillance; she was putting together precise engineering scenarios for the new Kanga ship classes. She found something extremely worrying in the visual tapes."
"Extremely?" The general raised his eyebrows. "And I haven't heard about it yet?"
"My superior didn't share my concern, sir. The captain overheard me arguing with him and asked for more information." The lieutenant was perfectly calm and collected. "If I may, sir?" She gestured at the large wall screen.
"Certainly, Lieutenant." The general blinked again as she moved to a computer terminal; modern medical science made people in wheelchairs rare, and people in wheelchairs in the military still rarer. One of her legs was slightly twisted and limp; the other was missing just above the knee. She had an interesting pattern of skin scars down that side of her body as well, visible on hand, face and neck. They didn't look like any combat scars he'd seen.
"Most of the footage of the Kanga light cruiser that slipped past the orbital defences was taken from ground tracking stations," she said. "Early this morning I was given an amateur recording from a visiting meteorology professor. He'd disregarded all the warnings to go climbing in the hills and film cloud formations. He caught it on tape as it was coming in. There's no other visual record of that part of the ship's course; it was all remote sensor telemetry between here," she pulled up a graphics display of Midgard with two red marks, "To here." Midgard's population was almost entirely concentrated in the capital city; there were a few small towns and some outlying military facilities, but the cruiser had missed passing within a line of sight of them.
"What did he catch we missed?" Jenobi asked.
"This is the image - considerably enhanced, of course - he caught as it levelled off and went from mere orbital entry to true flight." An image of a dark ship flitted across the screen, almost out of frame the whole time. The backdrop of clouds was indeed fascinating, but no one was looking.
"I didn't see it myself until I slowed the image down and tried to enhance one of the frames to examine their external communications equipment." She typed in a key to bring up a stored image. "This is a single shot, magnified and enhanced again, of the ship as it augured in."
The same dark clunky shape - with a fine green mist coming out of an open hatch.
"My superior, Commander Arx, insisted it was some kind of venting system. I agreed. The thing is, I don't agree that what they were venting was unwanted chemicals of some kind or engine exhaust. For one thing, that wouldn't be green. I think they dusted us with a biological weapon."