You don't get to be elected as a Khan. You claim it.
In a way, it is as primitive as among the pride of lions where the alpha specimen gains and holds the leader's position by tooth and claw. By brute strength and cunning. However, in our age, the power of the mind has much more impact than brute strength. To overthrow your adversaries, you had to think better than them. Does it still seem barbaric? Well, these are barbaric times. Civilization as we know it is falling apart. The old order cannot be restored.
It was too old, anyway. Obsolete, as it turned out in the face of an external enemy. None should ever again forget that a leader's purpose is not to get fat on the pockets of followers. It is making good decisions when the need arises. And how do you make good decisions if all you care about is how the cogwheels of your favorite machine turn?
You have to be able to imagine beyond that. Assato Khan has often been accused of giving too much credibility to ancient speculative fiction. Yet, he has proved resourceful enough to keep our fleet surviving while his principal accusers are now just bad samples of history.
The artificial atmosphere of the conference room Gen. Assato walked in already smelled like ill-concealed panic. Four out of the eleven Syndicate chairmen had earlier excused themselves and were at this moment accelerating away on their private shuttles. They would be each joining the meeting by proxy. The people appointed to take their place did not seem happy to be there. Nor did they seem willing to contribute with any opinion of their own or their bosses'. One chairman was missing. Six remained. That did not make his job any easier. The tough-to-crack nuts were present and in possession of even more authority under the circumstances.
"Welcome, General," an elderly-looking woman in a black business suit spoke. Her posture was straight, not as slumped as some of her colleagues'. Her gaze — unfaltering. Lady Tereshkoff, one of the tough ones, indeed. Descendant from the first Martian Matriach, presently a sworn Syndicate official with dozens of crews on her payroll. "You are late," her steely voice filled the silence. "Please, take your seat! We should have started this session twenty standard minutes ago. The Hostile fleet is quite near, as I understand."
"ETA 01:20, my lady," said Admiral Fergusson, highest-ranking military officer, a lapdog at his best in Gen. Assato's opinion. "We've been postponing this here because of two people. Now, Chairman Willhem has had a heart attack exactly six minutes, thirty seconds ago and requires urgent medical attention, so he won't be joining us. What is your excuse, General?"
"Begging your pardon, ladies and gentlemen," Gen. Assato replied, seemingly unperturbed. He took his place around the oval synthetic mahogany table. "I came as soon as I had a plan to offer."
"A plan, General, really?", the Admiral sounded as if forcing some irony into his rhetorical question. "We already have two plans to vote for. And they are the only reasonable options any of us could see here. Simple. Plan A: We stand and fight, inflicting as much damage to the aliens as we can. Plan B: We disperse within the hour, scattering all long-distance ships in different directions. As far as we know, they are much faster than us so we can't outrun them were we to choose the same coordinates."
"I don't believe any of that would work, sir," Gen. Assato said as calm as before.
"Please, do elaborate on that, General," asked Chairmen Chang in his usual polite and patient manner. A snake to never be underestimated, this one.
"Ours is not exactly a battle fleet, sir, as I believe everybody here knows well. We're great at constructing things, defending against raiders, participating in small-scale operations. On the other hand, the aliens have wiped out scores of planetary populations while taking no significant losses themselves. Meeting their fleet head-on would be a suicide. On the other hand, they have more than enough numbers to hunt down each and every ship they get the trail of. They will be waiting for many of our crews at their points of deceleration."
"But not all, General," Admiral Fergusson cut in. "At least some of us will escape. They must lose track of some of us."
"Yet if you follow my advice, ladies and gentlemen," and at that point Gen. Assato was not speaking to the Admiral at all, in fact not even looking in his direction, "the whole ITS fleet has a better chance to escape, to buy enough time and prepare for further maneuvers. We will be living on the move, hauling some of our smaller factories along with us, and even herding small asteroids for their resources..."
"Herding asteroids? Are you mad?", cried the Admiral, desperately vying for the attention he had already irreversibly lost.
"So," spoke Chairman Chang in his soft tones while folding his hands together in a gesture of contemplation, "you suggest that we turn into...some kind of space nomads?"
"Indeed. A well-suited form of existence for such conditions. It is efficient when resources are scarce or when fixed locations are easily compromised. And the ITS fleet has what it takes to make it work."
"How?"
"Beg your pardon, sir..."
"How do we escape the incoming alien armada, General?", asked Chairman Chang, sounding a bit more concerned than usual.
"We can't outrun them. But we can be too slow for them. Even faster than light speeds can be relative, you must realize. Our ships usually accelerate at about sixteen times c and those of the aliens are faster. But what if we rig our accelerators to work at just about three or four times c at most? It will be highly unreasonable for them to be waiting for us...indefinitely."
"What if they do, General?", Admiral Fergusson asked. His face showed both irritation and resignation. He knew the decision would not be his. It never has been. It has all been politics since before his time. Now that the time for strategy had finally come, his role was being usurped. And he was obviously not prepared for that.
"Then we have bought lots of time for other fractions of Humanity to survive. And that I would call inflicting much more indirect damage to the enemy than we could hope to achieve by fighting them with all we've got here and now," said Gen. Assato, remaining seated even after his superior had jumped to his feet, having lost control of himself. "Fortunately for us, and quite unfortunately for other human societies, I am sure the enemies will act in their best interest, doing what's most efficient for them. And so must we."
And with that, this battle was over.
Thank you for reading!
This short story was written in a little over a day and it just reached a little over 1100 words. I call it a draft for several a couple of reasons.
First, it has gone through no external editing. And I would be happy to get some, both from all of you and from the team I am trying to help with it. My goal is to contribute to the universe of...let's put a totally random referral link of mine here...EXODE, the new space game on the HIVE radar. And I think it's quite possible because...
Second, I believe my writing to be modular. Meaning I can discard any part and make the rest of it work. Character names, units, values, any specifics, really, even larger parts of the plot. If one sentence is good enough, I can find another version to fit it well if I have knowledge of certain limitations and what would be necessary for the integrity of the whole.
Oh, and here you can find my Interview with the Creator of the New Hive Blockchain Space Game EXODE
Source — this official EXODE article
Peace and prosperity across the Universe!
Yours,
Manol Donchev
