9th July 2012
02:32 GMT
I blink, breath hissing through my teeth.
"Ugh, they're doing a
Batarian.
"
Lantern Gozzi frowns. "
Batar-? Ah. No, the Batarian Hegemony were pursuing their own interests. The Leentniar would be more like the Harvesters from Independence Day, mixed with the
Travellers from Stargate: Atlantis."
I smile outwardly.
"Popular culture has conditioned me to believe that aliens shouldn't understand human pop-culture references. I suppose that power rings bypass that completely.
"
I don't smile inwardly. What do you do when your neighbour is expansionist, xenocidal and highly skilled at cultural manipulation? You pack up and move, because you can't stop them taking your worlds anyway. You make yourself useful, so that they won't feel the need to wipe you out on principle. You isolate yourselves, so that there's no avenue for their manipulation. And you make sure that you're prepared to move again, because the people behind you haven't stopped being expansionist, xenocidal and highly skilled at cultural manipulation.
You stop having contact with other people, and so stop seeing them as people. You can't build long term fixed structures yourself, and so you take them from the things you've unpeopled.
You don't want the Reach warping your culture, and so you do it for them.
"I don't suppose there's any chance that they kept deliberately misleading information on their computer, is there?
"
"Given the level of security and the other layers of more readily accessible false information, it seems unlikely."
Because that means that it's migration time. The raids continue, but now their main fleet is going in to active mode. We don't have particularly good intelligence on them, because the Reach appears to have decided that letting them act as unofficial agent provocateurs is a perfectly viable method. But if they're going active
now…
"Anything in there about
why?
"
"No. That doesn't appear to be how their culture works."
And no survivors amongst the Leentniar. The people who surrendered are local pirate groups they co-opted, in order to increase their plausible deniability. The Leentniar appear to have gone in for some sort of electromagnetic suicide implant, just to make sure that nothing in their brains was readable post-mortem.
Such a waste.
"Nothing about the location of the other raiders, but I suppose they're not our primary concern now.
"
We won't even need to retask a L.E.G.I.O.N. patrol fleet. I firmly intend to force the Leentniar to negotiate. They can turn their fleet around, they can hide…
Or they can stop existing.
"There are no records here of the fleet's current location. It is most likely-."
"They speak of them as if they are already dead, because that makes it less painful.
" She looks at me curiously.
"Terry Pratchett. Not all cultural artefacts travel between parallel universes. They cut off external contacts with the majority of their people, but these people had external contacts. If they rejoined the community then they'd be a vector for cultural infection. Do they get actual commands from headquarters, or just bulletins?
"
"Commands, but they're non-specific. General priorities."
"They unpeople themselves for the greater good. Selfless of them.
"
"Yes." She presses a button and shifts the display to a map of local space. "Based on the standing orders and assuming that the other raider ships are more or less comparable, I would estimate that there are seventy eight groups operating across
this part of the Periphery."
A tiny fragment in three dimensions, until you remember what the scale is.
"Any idea where the main fleet is?
"
A button press, and a number of worlds are highlighted.
"Based on their past behaviour and predicted route, these are their most likely targets.
These are L.E.G.I.O.N. affiliates, while the rest are not."
"Your suggestion?
"
"Leentniar ships are predicted to be weak against Lanterns, but would be utterly devastating if given a clear run at an inhabited world. We can't intercept them as we don't know their location. There
are L.E.G.I.O.N. ships in the area, and they have communications gear that will put them in touch with us the moment an attack happens. You and I can take one of the other worlds each and notify all other N.E.M.O. assets once the attack starts."
"What sort of data did this ship have on local defences?
"
"A reasonable summary."
"Anything to suggest that they have real time in-system monitoring?
"
She
takes a moment to review. "Not with any certainty."
"So do we think that these raiders provide intelligence information?
"
"The computer storage centres on the raider convoy were
annihilated."
"Personal data storage devices?
"
"I didn't see any that were intact. But given the general piracy…" She calls up a manifest. "They
did take personal computers, but there's no evidence that they were studying them in detail. They would be relatively easy to fence."
"Easy to send home for the analysts, too.
"
"Where are you going with this?"
"You and I can hide easier than fleets of ships. If we had a flotilla move away from the world they were defending to go after 'pirates', it might lure the Leentniar military in.
"
"If they knew it had left. I think that depends too much on things we don't know. Unless you
do know them."
"I'm afraid not. And I didn't get a good enough look at their-
" I glance down at the bodies of the bridge crew.
"-mental networks to teleport to their fleet's location reliably.
"
Hm.
"Seventy eight groups, mostly single large ships and their parasites?
"
"That would be my estimation. However, it's just a logical inference based upon the available data, not a true strategic analysis. If some ships have substantially better drives then it could be less. If some are engaging in legitimate work as well then it could be more."
Our rings
shimmer for a moment as a L.E.G.I.O.N. patrol vessel arrives to take our prisoners on board. The ships will be studied and salvaged, but a thorough interrogation of the pirates is more likely to yield useful data in the short term.
"I assume there's no data on how they communicated with their superiors?
" Lantern Gozzi shakes her head.
"Then we'll go for your plan, pending the results of the interrogation. Do you have any preference on the planet?
"
I know, the opening is right there... Do please control yourselves...
