Part 2

Liz

I leave the bridge when the fleet reaches the traveling speed of twenty-five thousand c. I loath myself at times like this. I murdered twenty million innocents. I ordered them to be slaughtered. They were harmless, they have done nothing wrong, their only sin was that they existed. I'm half running, I can't break down in front of my people. They are as strong as I am, if I show weakness, they'll show it too. Officers are staring after me as I hurry down the corridors. I finally reach my quarters and hit the door opener. It recognizes my fingerprints and lets me in. I have the largest flat of the fleet, more than three hundred square meters of valuable space. When the door closes behind me, I kick off my shoes, and I throw myself down on my bed. I let my tears flow freely. I curse my race, I curse Ricker, and his fucking doctrine, I curse my job, that forces me to do these things, and most of all I curse myself because I'm so good at it.

A whole civilization of intelligent insectoid creatures, communicating with pheromones. They had magnificent structures held together by their spit. A complex caste system. Culture. Art. They had lived. They had loved. And now it's just ashes. A few thousand of them inside a gigantic specimen collector, that's all that remains from a whole race. Oh, they'll be fine under a Dome on either Eden or Paradise, the twin-planets for exterminated races; the irony of the names! Oh, no, we don't throw away anything that could be of further use, we carefully store them, examine them, and experiment on them. After all, it's for humanity's best interest.

Bitterness fills me. I don't know how the others can cope with that sight. A lush green and ocean blue planet turning to black and red in seconds. I know I can't; yet, I couldn't tear my eyes away. I owed them that. All the millions who died because of me.

When did humans become inhuman? In the old times, the twenty-first century, humane meant compassionate, caring, loving. Now human means cold, cruel, and efficient. Back then, they had believed in the brotherhood of sentience, the links connecting all life. They had dreamed of a peaceful universe, some kind of big republic where everyone has the right to live and the freedom to seek happiness and fulfillment in that life.

There is nothing left of those dreams. We are the Human Republic, a tight alliance of thirty inhabited worlds, with three more already being colonized. ET-256 will be the thirty-fourth in another forty years. The republic was formed from three mega-states back in the XXII. century, the Canado-American States, the Euro-African Union, and the Asian Republic. Mars became the second planet, Alpha the third. Then the first contact was made with the Tritons. They were peaceful water-dwellers, and they gladly shared all their technologies, science and culture with us, and most importantly, the coordinates of their four star systems. They were pacifists, sweet, innocent, and wise. They entered space thousands of years before us, but they lacked the motivation to expand or to conquer. The Tritons didn't know the word "ambition." We did. We learned whatever we could. We've even enlisted the Tritons help to build the very warships that destroyed their planets later. They didn't understand the purpose of armed ships, they saw it as an engineering challenge, and they did good job.

Two months later, the Tritons were only a memory. The head of Council was called Ricker in those days. The infamous Ricker-doctrine was composed after the Triton wars. It is basically about the survival of the fittest. It says that humanity must expand without pause, conquering and colonizing all available planets and systems. That if an alien civilization appears, then humanity must pretend friendship until we know it's true power. If it's weaker, then it must be eliminated without mercy after we learned everything from them that could be of use. If it's stronger, then we must build up the fleet until we can attack. No lasting alliance is to be made. No alien is allowed to know the coordinates of a human world. No war is to be started if we aren't sure we'll win. Show no mercy. And finally, never ever endanger humanity's survival. Colony ships must be ready to bolt, if a war begins. If everything fails, all our planets are scorched, we must be able to rebuild again. Even the backup plans must have backup plans.

These are the basics of humanity's foreign affairs. In the last two hundred years, we've never met anyone else who even invented safe matches. Two hundred and fifty five Earth type planets. More than a hundred bustling with life. Twenty times, intelligent life. Another sixty non-Earth type planets with life, five of them sentient. Now all of them are extinct. The planets conquered, sometimes colonized, sometimes awaiting to be colonized. Humanity's growth rate is the only limitation of our expansion, and our population doubles every forty years or so. We live in never imagined luxury; for the first time in human history, there are more material resources at our disposal than we can use. The Council is fighting very hard lest decadency corrupts our society. There are sixty billion humans (or terrans, as it is fashionable nowadays) scattered around the galaxy. Our life expectancy is over two hundred years. Crime is at a nominal level, with poverty and destitution gone, there is no source of it remaining.

Our race has changed too. During the last hundred years, humanity took the next step in evolution. About five percent of the kids born today have minor mental powers. Telepathy, telekinesis and auspex are taught along history and mathematics. We don't yet know our limitations, being a psychologist is one of the hottest jobs in this century. Our fighter pilots all have prescience, it's their only chance against computer-controlled drones. They can see where the enemy will shoot, the computer can't. But the AIs' reaction time is under the millionth of a second, while a human pilot's is only a hundredth. We are slow and blind compared to a computer, but now the development of the fighter drones and the mental training of the pilots, it's a neck and neck race. My money is on the pilots, no drone can measure up to the decision making ability of a human. Kyle definitely agrees with me, though the drones have their own good points too. I can send a drone into certain death, while I would hesitate to do it with a pilot. But someday, I'll have to. The first rule of warfare is that there is no victory without a price. By this definition today wasn't a victory. It was slaughter. Pointless and unnecessary. Why did we do it then? Why did I do it?

I've run out of tears. Mourning the dead won't bring them back.

I'm feeling even more miserable than I usually do. I can wallow in self-pity, but pain won't ease my conscience. I think I'm going to take some sleeping pills and in the morning... Well, I won't feel any better in the morning, but the pain will be dulled somewhat. Another thing to have nightmares about. One more reeking wound on my conscience. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who has any.

Maria

I've finished my shift. I work as an exobiologist; studying defeated alien life forms. While the fleets are moving, I'll never run out of work. We were watching those bee-creatures in the specimen collectors. Their environment has to be carefully controlled, if we want them to survive till they reach Eden. Too little or too much UV light, a tiny change in the atmosphere, everything can be deadly. We aren't acquainted with their biology, but hopefully they have everything they need in the one-kilometer wide earth-chunk each collector carries. Because if they don't, we can't go back for another round.

Liz will have another breakdown. That's the only reason I leave my lab now, she needs me. After the fleet took off a year ago,I instantly moved in with her. As one of the scientific personnel (my official rank is Lieutenant, not that it matters) I'd be entitled to my own ten square meters cabin, but now I have the greater half of three hundred square meters as a courtesy of my best friend. Plus I can get as many free lunches as I want, provided I share some details about her.

Honestly, this fleet is crazy with her. She is deified by the crew. Half the fighter jocks are in love with her. And that means two thousand muscular, manly males! Not that she is interested in anyone, she is the epitome of the untouchable commander. If I wouldn't know better from personal experience, I'd even believe the rumor that she moved in together with her lesbian lover. Not that anyone would dare to voice this opinion on Destiny; he'd be torn apart before he could finish the sentence.

I know she is the best admiral. She can beat any of the others, and half the times even two of them at the same time. That's the only reason she still has control of the Fourth. She is well known for her eccentricities. She nearly never wears her uniform, she shares her living space with someone else, she regularly asks the crew's opinion on questions concerning them... The only reason the Council hasn't replaced her yet is that Destiny has the highest moral of the whole navy and our people are the most efficient at any task. So while she produces results, they turn a blind eye. If they only knew that their most precious Admiral is their greatest enemy!

Liz is a moralist and a dreamer. That's the reason she is probably crying her eyes out right now. Every time she has to wipe out a planet, she swears bloody oaths that she'll change the system. I don't know if she is right. I mean look at the Tritons. A hyper-advanced, eudaimonistic society, and where it led them? One race thrives, one dies out. Whose strategy was better? But on the other hand, I don't have the blood of millions on my hand. Don't get attached to the specimen under examination. That's the rule that keeps you sane while you are working with intelligent life forms. Probably you are no better than they are, they just had tough luck, and they ended up on the wrong side of the bars. Most of the time I pity them; I have the freedom to do so, they are already defeated. But she gets attached even before she knows them. And that's a dangerous attitude at someone whose job is to exterminate them without mercy. Poor Liz.

The crew knows that something is not all right with their commander. That she feels bad about it. She is truly the heart of the Fourth. If something troubles her, it troubles the whole fleet, most of all Destiny. I've been hearing talks about right and wrong, questioning Ricker, the Council, and our own actions. They are way too sensitive to her mood, and the way they admire her... She had won their hearts long ago, and she has far more power over them than she realizes.

Reaching our quarters, I open the door and step in. It's furnished with real wood and soft springy carpets are covering the metal floor. Two bedrooms, an enormous living room, a diner, a study, a kitchen, a small private gym, and the best bathroom of the fleet. There is a door encoded to her genetic material, even I can't enter it. In crisis, Destiny can be controlled from there. I know she is at home, I nearly fell over in her shoes. I check the living room and the kitchen, then I knock on the door of her bedroom. No answer. I turn the doorknob and step in. She is sleeping on her side of her double bed. As far as I know no one else has ever slept in it, but she only uses one half, the other is meticulously made. Compare it to my bedroom! She has her "street clothes" on, she hasn't even bothered to turn off her com. I do it for her and I tuck her in. Just as I thought, she has cried herself to sleep. Her blouse is of course ruined by her tears; it was her best article of clothing. I don't know why everyone has a crush on her. I mean she looks decent enough in good lighting, but she is not a top model or anything. She never bothers with make-up, and she wears only her most comfortable clothes. Some mornings I practically have to forbid her to go to the bridge in sweat pants! I use the word morning out of habit of course; there are no days or nights here, but our daily sleeps are synchronized, so we can have at least breakfast and dinner together. However, our usual time to go to bed is three hours away, and I'm not sleepy at all. I'm thrilled instead by the new specimens. But I can't leave her alone now. She can wake up at any time, and she'll need a friend when she does..