Vast

Vast

    Elder Thuum’aaa’tem’s manipulators extended from his body and deactivated the Vaathoom’s spatial warp drive.  The distortion of space surrounding the vessel vanished, and the charged particles it released were carefully directed away from the planets within the system.  The blast was like something from a pulsar, and it would not do for the planets within this system to be destroyed before the Vaathoom could complete its mission.  The black sphere of the warship, a prodigious seven hundred wingspans in diameter, hung in space, returned to sublight speed.

    Thuum felt a tickle beneath his second and third right wings as Vaa’thuu’tem, his newest mate, slid up beneath him.  “Must we lower the drive so far away from the target, Elder?” she asked, the electric pulses of her speech radiating through the searing hydrogen air and through his body.  “It will take nearly half a cycle to reach the planet at our velocity.”

    “You are not used to these speeds, Vaa,” Thuum responded.  “That is how long it will appear to the residents of the planet.  To us, it will be far shorter.  Near the speed of light time is changed.”

    “As you have said.”

    “We also will not travel the entire distance.  This vessel is roughly the size and mass of the planet’s moon.  Should it approach, the ship, the moon and the planet will all be subject to dangerous gravitational forces.”

    “I understand.”

    “Bring up the data on the planet, Vaa.”

    “Yes, Elder.”  Hundreds of symbiotic manipulators leapt from Vaa’s body.  The crablike creatures pressed buttons on the floating control panel, and the planet’s specs appeared on a floating holographic diagram.  An image of the world, represented in the infrared light the Vast’s eyes perceived, floated in the center, orbited by panels of information.  Request data, the projection intoned.

    “Data on dominant civilization,” Thuum ordered.  A large information panel zoomed into focus, colored in ominous hues indicating that this civilization was classed as a high potential threat.  Thuum read the panel.

    Sentient name: Human, Homo sapiens sapiens

   Population: Approx. 7,000,000,000

  Government: Approx. 200 nation-states.  Great discrepancies exist in size, power, wealth, and government.  Organized along cultural lines, often hostile to each other for this reason.

 Anatomy: Central body with four protrusions, two for manipulating and two for locomotion.  Carbon-based chemistry.  Avg. height: 0.3 manipulators.  Avg. mass: 7 x 10-9bulls.

 Life cycle: Varies.  Reach reproductive age at 5500-7300 cycles, approx. 15-20 local orbits.  Adult male mates with single adult female, usually of similar age, and produce 1 offspring per pregnancy, with rare deviations.  Some family structures contain multiple female mates.  Social structure is family-based.  Unlike herd-based species such as Vast, family-based species will fight against impossible odds to defend themselves and family members rather than submit to a superior force.

  Technology: Metal alloy-based.  Primitive computer technology, primitive space technology, kinetic-based weaponry, and fairly powerful nuclear weapons are the most prominent features.

 Other: Extremely violent.  Civilization in existence for est. 6,000-10,000 local orbits.  Estimated casualties due to conflict throughout history are approx. 2 billion.  Estimated casualties for largest conflict are 40-80 million within six local orbits.  All nations contain small groups contained within different social categories and treated poorly, and all nations treat females as subordinate to varying degrees.  Current major conflict is between large “Western” states and small non-state groups called “terrorists.”  Human activity has caused ongoing mass extinction and dangerous change in planetary climate.

    Thuum lashed his tail in agitation.  He had lived a million cycles, easily five times as long as any other Vast aboard the Vaathoom, and he had never seen a species like this.  The inhabitants of most rocky planets were non-sentients posing no threat, but there had been exceptions.  On every occasion, these species had spread rapidly, their technology progressing at extreme speed as they spread across the galaxy.  Inevitably, they came into competition with the Vast, and the abundance of rocky planets gave them a dangerous edge.  The Vast were limited to much rarer planets, massive gas worlds that orbited near their suns, and thus had relatively little room in which to spread.  The last such war had come before Thuum was born, and this race would bring it to them again if left unchecked.  When Thuum had been born, the greatest power on this world had been a state known as the Roman Republic, whose soldiers fought with armor and swords, and now they were venturing into space.  A war would occur well within his lifetime if they continued.  Already they had developed weapons powerful enough to kill Vast; Thuum remembered seeing images of Vast warriors struck with nuclear weapons on other worlds at roughly this level of development.  It was a hideous death, inflicted as much by the freezing and oxidization of the exposed tissue as by the massive wounds themselves.  He would not allow his soldiers to be massacred in the same way.

    “Soldiers,” he broadcast throughout the ship, “we will not go planetside.  The natives possess nuclear weapons in sufficient quantity and quality to annihilate such a force.”  He knew the soldiers would not like his decision - the honor won in battle would win them status and females - but he didn’t care.  Their lives were more valuable than that.  Already, though, he could sense the vibrations generated by a group of soldiers as they flew through the ship’s immense tunnels.

    “What is the meaning of this, Elder?” the largest of them demanded.  “How will we prove ourselves in battle if we are not allowed to fight?”

    “You will prove yourselves in contests against other bulls,” Thoom explained, “as is customary.  It should not be difficult for such as yourselves.”

    “Facing a nuclear civilization brings far more prestige!” the indignant soldier shouted.  “We will rise in position if we battle this foe!”

    “No.  You will die, and your genes will be wasted.  Stand down, Division Bull Raam’thaa’rem.”

    “I refuse!” Raam bellowed.  “No rockworlder can possibly be that much of a threat!  They and their weapons are far too small!  You do not wish to spare us, Thuum; you wish to keep us down, so that you may keep your position as Elder!  You plot against us out of fear, and I challenge you!”

    VERY WELL, Thuum rumbled, his speech shifting to an aggressive electromagnetic roar as his body readied for combat, spikes bursting from his head and tail.  The lightning of the words sparked through the clouds of rocky particles floating within the atmosphere.  I CHALLENGE YOU, AND I WILL SHOW YOU YOUR PLACE.  Vaa fled to the far side of the command chamber, twenty wingspans away.  The bulls were easily strong enough to kill her by accident, although they would try to avoid it.  Thuum rose above Raam, shrieking a wordless challenge that ignited the clouds around him with lightning.  Raam charged in, trying to strike with his own spikes, but Thuum’s lightning increased in intensity and slammed him into the chamber’s wall.  Raam generated a magnetic field in an attempt to push himself up, but Thuum’s tail lashed him over and over again, tearing into him until he collapsed and his unconscious body began floating through the zero-gravity environment of the chamber.

    Thuum wondered for a moment how this would appear to the “humans” on the rocky world they were approaching.  He did a quick mental conversion of his own size into their units.  Nine kilometers from wingtip to wingtip, eight kilometers head to tail, thirty million tonnes.  Raam was barely more than a wingspan across - five kilometers - and a bull in mass - ten million tonnes, but he was still immense compared to the specks of oxygen and carbon that called themselves humans.  The brief moments of their battle would be perceived as a natural disaster, a battle of titans that could have laid waste to a small nation.  It was interesting to think about, but in the end it didn’t really matter.  Besides, he had more immediate concerns.  Combat between bulls was for the purpose of acquiring status and mating rights, and thus triggered the overwhelming impulse to mate.  Thinking about anything other than the distinctive heat signatures Vaa was emitting, even for a few thousandths of a cycle, bordered on painful.  

   He rushed over to her and seized her with the claspers on his lower body, disconnecting the moment he was finished.  Vaa, being much smaller, was somewhat disoriented by the whole process, but other than that there was no real emotion to it.  The urge to mate struck bulls like clockwork, except when triggered by a fight, and their mates accepted them.  That was it.  This was not so on Earth, as their scans had discovered.  The decision to mate was conscious there, which could lead to resentment among those that did not mate, irrational means being used to acquire mates, and extreme trauma for those who wished not to mate but had been made to do so anyway. They bred and spread at an incredible rate, preying on themselves and others.

    “What are we going to do, then, if we’re not sending warriors?” Vaa asked.  “Will we make it a colony?”

    “No,” Thuum told her.  “That might be possible if this species was herd-based and willing to submit to superior strength.  These are tribal creatures - creatures that value their group and its ways above all things, even their own lives.  If they are made to submit to us, they will bide their time and rebel.  If we establish trade, they will attack the moment it serves their interests.  No, this species requires another solution.  Computer, are we in range?”

    Yes.  We are a ten-thousandth of a light-cycle away.  The planet’s inhabitants have noticed us and are attempting to signal.  Response?

   “Open fire.”  Hundreds of cannons emerged from the Vaathoom’s forward portion, focused on the planet below, and fired.  The weapons were mass drivers, using magnets to accelerate dense spheres of metal to to one percent of the speed of light.  The projectiles took a hundredth of a cycle - perhaps fifteen minutes, by human measurements - to cross the void, not losing any momentum as they flew on.  Thuum briefly wondered how the humans must feel, trapped on their fragile world, watching extinction closing in and being helpless to stop it, but he quashed it.  You deserve this, he thought.

    On the surface, there was fire and death.  Each impact was like a million nuclear weapons, vaporizing billions of tons of rock and launching billions more into the atmosphere to rain down.  The planet was shaken by earthquakes like it had never seen before, shattering nations and creating waves that literally scraped the clouds.  Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia, the regions of the planet facing the Vaathoom, were destroyed utterly, reduced to masses of magma surrounded by similarly blasted seabed and obscured by vaporized ocean.  The Americas were somewhat less damaged, but the heat scoured them clean of life.  Earth, as it was once known, was a dimly glowing, sterile cinder, the civilization that had taken millennia to build had been erased in seconds, and no one would mourn.  

    Thuum looked at the devastation on the ship’s viewscreens.  Threat eliminated, he thought.  “Send down the harvester drones!” he ordered.  “Strip the planet of every element and compound we can
use, and do the same to the rest of the system.  We’ll build some cities out of the planets after we take the metals back home.”  Perhaps we’ll even drag the fifth planet closer to its star.  It would take time, but eventually it would become habitable.  Finally, this system will be of some use.   Vaa huddled against him, and he felt happy.  We will be safe now.