Skulls and Bones

Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivours of the nuclear fire called the war Judgement Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare - the war against the-

"Admiral Halsey?"

He stopped the feed of one of the classics of the 20th century, and found himself drawn back into the minutia of the 25th. A world where, outside his office in Union Central, he could see New York, conspicuously not laid to waste by nuclear fire. A world where the door to his office opened, revealing the perplexed face of Admiral Grayson. A world where Earth might not have been destroyed by a genocidal AI, but was at every risk of suffering such a fate. After centuries of artists predicting the end of the human race at the hands of machines, he might have the privilege of watching it happen.

"Were you listening to something?"

Privilege, Halsey reflected. To hell with it. He smiled at the admiral. "No, not really."

"Not really? So, you were listening to something?"

"Yes. Like I'm listening to the sound of your voice right now."

Maybe privilege had its uses after all. Because while technically he and Grayson held the same rank, he had more sway within the admiralty, and by extension, the Union Council. So yes, having learnt to get only five hours sleep every day for the past week, he could damn well use some of his downtime to watch movies that dealt with robots, time travel, and all that other fun stuff.

Grayson walked over to the window, casting his eyes over the skyline. "You'd hardly know there was a war on," he murmured.

Halsey rubbed his eyes. He knew where this speech was going. Grayson had delivered a variant of it every year when the subject of the krill came up.

"I wonder if they know," the admiral continued. "Walking through the park. Driving their cars. Making brunch in their apartments. I wonder if any of them actually bothered to look up when the kaylon attacked." Grayson looked at Halsey, grimacing like a v'nap. "Do you know what I'm saying, Halsey?"

"More or less."

Grayson's smile became less like a grimace, and more like a grin.

"I also know that if we'd plunged into war with the krill like you've pressed us, we wouldn't have had the allies we did."

"Perhaps. But if the admiralty spent less resources on exploration, and more resources on beefing up our fleet, we wouldn't need the krill. Have you thought of that, admiral?"

Halsey winced. Truth was, he had. Decades from now, if the Union, heck, humanity survived the kaylon, and people studied the Battle of Earth, they'd wonder why so much of the fleet was composed of Exploratory -class vessels. Truth of the matter was, they were there because they travelled faster than the heavier carriers and cruisers. Over the last week, the Union Fleet had been trickling into Sol, as the admiralty took stock of their manpower, firepower, and wondered if it was enough.

He didn't doubt Grayson was wondering the same thing. Question was, why was he here? He knew things had been strained between the two of them over the last year, but surely that wasn't why the admiral had come barging in?

"Anyway," Grayson said. "What's done is done. Question is, what now?"

"I expect we'll find out at twelve-hundred."

"Yes, I know about the meeting," Grayson murmured, his frown making it quite clear what he thought of that. "But before we gather in a nice room over a desk made from milwood, I thought we might have a little..."

"Heart to heart?" Halsey smirked. "Didn't think you had one."

"Oh, I do. It's still beating, believe it or not. More than I could say for some people." He took a seat at Halsey's desk, and glanced at a small glass bowel. "Are those marbles?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Thought they were mints for a second."

You wouldn't be the first one.

Grayson took out a datapad and began typing on it. "Two hours and forty minutes from now the admiralty is going to discuss matters pertaining to life, the universe, the kaylon, the krill, and everything. So since we've had such a good history of working together-"

Halsey snorted.

"...I'd like to run some things by you." He began typing on his pad. "See if I can count on your support."

Or not count on it.

He didn't doubt that the prospect had occurred to Grayson was well. A week ago, the admiral would never have come to him like this. But war made strange bedfellows - as humanity had been reminded of, and the krill were perhaps just discovering.

"First off, the weapons refit," he said. "The moclans retrofitting our entire fleet." Grayson looked up from the pad. "I trust there's no objections?"

Halsey raised an eyebrow. "Why would there be?"

"Well, you've never liked the moclans. You've pushed for sanctions and divestment in more than one petition to the Council."

Halsey frowned. "I can't say I'm fond of tolerating bigotry and repression, no."

"And nor am I. But in the current circumstances, can we afford to take the high ground?"

"No.." Halsey found himself gripping the side of his chair. "I suppose not."

Grayson smiled. "I didn't think so."

I bet you didn't. He glanced out the window of his office. Can't wait to get your hands on those shiny new weapons, eh?

It wasn't just Grayson he was thinking of. The Council had turned a blind eye to Moclus for decades. It wasn't just the treatment of their own citizens, it was their forays into planetary mining, showing as little regard to planetary ecosystems as they had to their homeworld. But then the war with the krill had begun, and the moclans had been willing and able to supply weapons to the Union. It was a state of affairs that the moclans had been happy with, and to Halsey's shame, most of the Union as well. And now, with the kaylon, he had no doubt that more blind eyes would be turned.

Sooner or later, the whole universe would go blind, he reckoned. But until then...

"Second of all, this peace treaty with the krill," Grayson said.

...but until then, he'd do what he could to keep at least one eye open.

"It's a mistake."

"It's also hypothetical," Halsey murmured.

Grayson snorted. "A kaylon attack on Earth was hypothetical until only a week ago. We're well inside the realm of hypotheticals."

Halsey remained silent.

"So, hypothetically, if the Union was to pursue a peace treaty with the krill, and hypothetically, if you were asked to give your opinion on it, and-"

"It's a good idea," Halsey said.

Grayson dropped the pretense. "It isn't."

"Why?"

"Look at history, Halsey. It can give you a thousand reasons why."

"I will. But look at the debris field above Earth, Grayson. I can give you more than a thousand. Nine-thousand, two-hundred and thirty-one, to be exact."

A shadow passed over Grayson's face.

"Do we need more reasons, admiral?"

"Yes. I can. About fifty times that number."

Halsey remained silent.

"We can talk about what the kaylon have done," Grayson murmured. "We can talk about their intent. But I could pick out the body of every Union man and woman who fell to them, put them in a pile, and it wouldn't even come close to how many people the krill have killed."

Halsey couldn't dispute the point.

"And now some bleeding hearts want a peace treaty," Grayson said. "They want to say that none of it mattered. That we forgive them. That's all right and just in the universe again. They want to prevent one war never happened, so we can have scum on our side for another."

Halsey sighed. "Who was it that said that the morality of war cannot be judged solely on the number of dead?"

Grayson stared at him.

"Admiral Maria Xosei, fifteen years after the Union's war with the tzel," Halsey said. "A war that took millions of lives, not thousands."

"Halsey, if you have a point-"

"The krill have taken more lives than the kaylon. How many more lives do the kaylon need to take until we consider them the greater evil?"

Grayson frowned. "This isn't about numbers, Halsey."

"No. It isn't. It's about principle."

"Principle," Grayson scoffed. "Mother fucking principle."

Halsey watched him get to his feet, walking over to the window again.

"You've pressed for sanctions against the moclans for years, but as soon as the kaylon attack, you willingly side with the krill."

Halsey remained silent.

"I know you don't like me Halsey. You think I'm some kind of warmonger who can't see the bigger picture."

"The thought had occurred to me."

"Well I think you're an old man who should have retired years ago, who simply goes wherever the wind is blowing." He paused, before adding, "and I also think you pulled out too early."

"Excuse me?"

"On the Spurance. Damaged beyond repair, was that the word?" Grayson smirked. "Oh so brave, leading your men into the fight, only to pull out when the kaylon slaughtered people around you."

Halsey got to his feet.

"And now, you've let Captain Mercer sally off with the infiltrator," he said. "The same kaylon who infiltrated our fleet is being treated to tea and crumpets."

"Isaac can't eat."

"Isaac!" Grayson exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "God, are we really giving robots names? After what they did?"

"I'm confused - do you hate the kaylon or krill more?"

"I hate them all, Halsey. If the admiralty had followed my advice years ago, we wouldn't be in this position." He walked up to the desk, slamming his palms on it. "But oh no. Halsey's in charge. The man who gives people like Ed Mercer command of a starship, who lets infiltrators stay onboard that ship after compromising it, who watches movies instead of attending war meetings, who lets my daughter..."

He trailed off, and Halsey smiled.

"I mean..."

"Therein lies the rub," Halsey murmured.

Grayson didn't say anything.

"Perhaps there's something else that begins with 'k' that you're worried about?"

Grayson cleared his throat. "I meant what I said."

"Good. So while we're being honest, I think you're an exceptional tactical officer whose service to the Union has exemplified the highest ideals of fleet service."

Grayson looked taken aback.

"But I also think you're ill-suited for the admiralty. Because men like us, Grayson? We're meant to focus on the bigger picture." He picked up a remote and flicked the screen on. "Here. Let me show you." He pressed a button.

...machines.

The image shifted from the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Los Angeles. Of skulls and bones, before a robotic foot stamped atop one of the former. The camera panning up to reveal a skeletal-looking machine, before in turn revealing the wider machine army it was part of.

A battle played out before them. Humans fighting against machines, plasma fire tearing through the air. Machines that might have seemed fanciful to the people of the 20th century, but by the standards of the 25th, hopelessly antiquated. If people were judging the classics by scientific accuracy, few of them would pass muster. But then, that wasn't the reason why they'd remained in the human cultural zeitgeist, all these centuries later. There was a reason why Shakespeare was still performed, a reason why The Art of War was still studied, and a reason why people could visit the Statue of Liberty and yell about damning people to Hell.

"Quaint," Halsey murmured. "But what's the point of it?"

"A frame of reference."

The narration began to play again. The computer that controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back in time.

"For what?"

Halsey froze the film. "For this."

Another button on the remote was pressed, and the image shifted to something that wouldn't have been that out of place in the nightmares of James Cameron. An underground cavern filled with skulls and bones. Hundreds of thousands of them.

"What the Hell?" Grayson whispered.

Halsey chuckled. "You should consider yourself privileged, admiral. There's only a handful of people who've seen this footage."

"Footage," Grayson spluttered. He turned to Halsey. "From where?"

"From Kaylon."

The image hung in the air before them. The sound had been edited out, so they didn't need to listen to the whimpering of children, or Union officers speculating on the bone count. Halsey had sent too many condolence holos to weeping families over the last week for the former, and as for the latter, he'd read the reports. Even if Grayson hadn't.

"This is footage from Kaylon," he said. "Submitted by officers of the Orville." He walked back to his desk. "By our estimate, there's two-hundred thousand bodies in that cavern alone."

Grayson couldn't take his eyes off the spectacle. "I read the reports...I mean, I knew the kaylon turned against their builders, but..." He looked at Halsey. "How many?"

"In that cavern? I just told you."

"No, I mean, across the planet. How many did they...are there...where they...?"

Halsey sighed, wondering if the chill down his spine was due to the air-con, or something else. "By our estimate, there's caverns like that all over the planet," he said. "So if we take this one as a baseline, cross-reference the size of the cavern with the size of the planet, and assume that they're all equidistant from each other?" He paused, before whispering, "eleven billion."

Grayson stared at him.

"That's roughly the population of Earth, in case you're wondering."

"God damn it Halsey, I know the population of Earth..."

Halsey had no doubt of that. Just as, watching Grayson pace back and forth, he had no doubt that the admiral had seen all he needed to. Or at least, all he wanted.

"Admiral Xosei once said you couldn't gauge the morality of war based on the number of dead," Halsey murmured. "Truth be told, I think she's right. Though looking at this..." He shifted his gaze back to the image. "Apparently, the kaylon rose up against their creators. Apparently, they were slaves. So maybe, morally, they were in the right. But looking at these images..."

"A reminder of what they've done," Grayson murmured. "And a reminder of what they could do."

"Yes." He looked back at Grayson. "Which means I'm willing to stomach the moclans. Which means I'm willing to stomach the krill. Which means I'm going to even stomach Isaac being on the Orville, because God help me, I'm willing to place my faith in a kaylon." He paused, before murmuring, "and why I'm going to stomach working with you, admiral."

A silence lingered between the two men. A silence that was born out of...not trust, Halsey reflected. Maybe not even respect. But perhaps, understanding. Not exactly a shining beacon of human enlightenment, after thousands of years of performing the same acts the kaylon and their creators had, but perhaps, something he could work with. Something they could work with.

"I'll see you at the meeting," Grayson murmured.

Silence broken with his words. Silence broken once again as the door to Halsey's office hissed open and shut. Silence that returned.

Halsey quickly switched the image back to the film. He had too much silence these days. If silence lingered too long, the cries of those aboard the Spurance threatened to come back to him. The shouts and screams of over nine-thousand souls.

As before, the Resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector, to John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.

Halsey frowned as the image closed in on John Connor. Most people who studied the work focused on the question of him sending back his own father to save him. But right now, Halsey wondered about the larger fictional context. Machines had wiped out 3 billion humans in an instant. Somehow, John Connor had to rally the remaining 3 billion. How many of them, he wondered, had he sent off to die before defeating Skynet? How many soldiers had to give their lives for the moment depicted on screen? Thousands? Millions? More?

He shut the movie off, returned to his desk, and rubbed his eyes.

He had a feeling that before this war was over, he might have to send a similar number of people off to die as well.

A/N

So, seeing the Builder corpses beneath Kaylon, have to admit, had some Terminator flashbacks. That, and Cambodia's killing fields, if you want a non-fictional equivalent. Either way, gave me the idea to drabble this up.