Prologue

“Nihil humanum a me alienum puto, said the Roman poet Terence: ‘Nothing human is alien to me.’ The slogan of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service could have been the reverse: To us, no aliens are human.”

― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

Several technicians monitored holograms in the dimly lighted room of Mars Space Command and Control.

“Sir, please come and look at my hologram,” said the sensor technician urgently, with eyes wide.

“The AI says there are five thousand battleships, tens of thousands of smaller craft, cruisers and below and we can also see thousands upon thousands of cargo ships outside our solar system.”

“Black holes of the nebula! That is a monstrous fleet lieutenant. Hail them and ask them to identify themselves! Let us confirm it is the Destroyer refugees, not an invasion armada,” he turned to the officer peering over his shoulder, “Major, contact Adm. Arsames and forward him the holos!”

“Captain, the planet looks beautiful, contact space command and calm them down, they are likely to panic,” said the leader of the refugee fleet, Adm. Pentasa Nefu.

“They hailed us seconds after we left the transit dimension, Admiral. They dont sound distressed and they knew who we were,” answered the communications officer.

“Outstanding; that means they have had the opportunity to plan ahead.”

“Admiral, they suggested you take a frigate and make your way to Mars and the palace of the Emperor. I have in front of me the list of individuals with whom you will be talking. They can’t be too worried about us if you will meet the Emperor face to face. Two fighters will escort and guide you into the cavern.”

“Send the list to me, please.”

Adm. Nefu looked at the hologram showing the flashing path to the palace. Two fighters were heading towards her flagship. She turned to her assistant then looked at her slate as it pinged.

“Excellent, we are to meet with a small team. My niece Zafa is on the team as is the Emperor and one of the Uzliumbax Queens. That is the way to get things done.”

The sleek white shuttle left the frigate and landed next to the palace. The fighters turned, lifted towards the cavern roof and sped off.

Pentasa followed her chief of security out of the shuttle, briefly looked around the cavern, saw Zafa standing with a group and opened her arms as she strode towards her. She grinned as Zafa ran towards her. They hugged each other tightly. Pentasa lifted Zafa and turned around before letting go.

“Auntie Pentasa, welcome to Mars,” said Zafa smiling and moving backward.

They hugged each other once more. Both of them grinned.

“Zafa, your mother is with us and can’t wait to see you!

“Zafa, you should know the people in my group. Can you introduce us?”

Zafa beamed, turned and indicated. Then as they reached Jason’s group, she introduced her aunt and her aunt’s small party to Jason, Queen Anagalmeshu Kalumtum, known as Angie to her friends and the AI king Thomas. Zafa smiled as she watched her aunt’s reaction to Jason. Pentasa’s eyes widened, she looked at Jason intently and her pupils dilated.

Pentasa turned and looked at Zafa with a flushed face and wide eyes. Zafa winked. Pentasa smiled but lifted her eyebrows. She then turned again to look at Jason intently once again.

Jason smiled at Pentasa.

“Welcome to Mars, Adm. Nefu. Please call me Jason. I am always informal unless at stuffy ceremonies.

“We noticed you brought a small fleet with you, how many people did you bring?” Jason asked.

“Let’s talk as we walk to the meeting room,” he suggested, then showed the way.

Jason turned to lead the group and waited until Pentasa moved to his side while the others followed close behind.

“We brought three and a half billion; of which three and a quarter billion are women and the rest are young males. A million of the males are sixteen and above, but most are under fourteen. The ages of the females follow the distribution in our population. Our leaders separate males from the females in their late teens,” Pentasa answered; loudly enough to be heard by the whole group following them.

Jason stood at the door and waved the group into the small meeting room.

“Pentasa, we have a selection of snacks and drinks for you to try. We will give you a selection. The wait staff will then leave. Please feel free to help yourself - it’s all on the sideboard — if you feel thirsty or hungry during our discussions,” said Jason as servers bustled around them, then left the room. Several guards from each group remained standing around the room.

“I would suggest,” said Angie, “we discuss what we can do to help you settle.”

“Excellent idea,” said Pentasa, “I understand you have several planets that are sparsely populated but have extensive infrastructure, and also several underpopulated and less well-developed planets. We have ten thousand cargo ships waiting outside your solar system with supplies and equipment. We don’t want to be a burden to you. We brought everything we need to settle ourselves, build cities and feed ourselves on one of your lesser developed planets.”

“Pentasa, you have done an unbelievable amount of work in a very short time. How did you acquire so many assets and escape from your planets without alerting the authorities?” Jason asked.

“That is an excellent question, Jason! This did not happen overnight. This plan has been many hundreds-of-years in evolution. The women intended to split from the men a long time ago. Our planning group could not decide where to go where we could be safe until our intelligence services discovered that the Emperor had returned, and we knew Zafa’s people were happy. We had our intelligence people within your fleet Zafa. They returned and debriefed us about the Emperor.

“The Gazronnaas attacks delayed us leaving,” said Pentasa, “but it also provided us with useful opportunities we could not resist.”

“What do you mean?” Angie asked.

“We mobilized our forces to defend our people against the Gazronnaas. The Gazronnaas didn’t surprise us. Our scouts were watching them and their activities in Bekta Delta and Mespa 49. The war effort delayed us, but it freed us up to gain easy access to all the resources we required without having to use force. Like the Uzliumbax we have thousands of planets we use as storage facilities in case of war. Security in those facilities is tight, but as soon as the threat of war occurs, we can create ‘legitimate demands’ on resources. The equipment is excellent and also includes temporary accommodation, mining equipment and supplies, manufacturing equipment and facilities, and even shipbuilding mobile bases. We commissioned all the warships and military cargo fleets we needed, assembled our people and left,” said Pentasa. “It is quite a haul.”

“Our planners did not expect so many of you could escape and you would bring so much,” said Angie. “We planned to disperse your people throughout the population of the broader Empire. One of our concerns was many young male spies amongst you and we did not want to have too many religious fanatics in one place.”

“Can you please explain to me a little of what your concern is with the young males?” Pentasa asked. Her eyes narrowed, and she stretched her shoulders uncomfortably and grimaced.

Jason looked at Pentasa and smiled.

“Pentasa, I have a long and uncomfortable relationship with religious fanatics. I don’t want to import a new set of problems into the Empire. We are only now settling the problems we had with crime and corruption amongst the Uzliumbax.

“I haven’t had a wonderful experience in my encounters with Destroyer males. We captured and interrogated many Destroyer men who held fanatical beliefs. My home planet suffers constant wars based on religious beliefs. The most recent troublesome religion was close to the religion of the Destroyer men. I am not enthusiastic about importing a big problem. I hoped to disperse the young men around the Empire. We would’ve then seen what approaches work for them and what approaches do not,” said Jason.

“We share much less concern than you do. Very few men in Destroyer society are fanatical believers in the religion. The leaders use the religion for their own purposes, but only a few of the youths and younger men share the intensity of their beliefs. We left the fanatics behind,” Pentasa explained. “Those you met on the ships were some of the worst of the worst!”

“Many of us had brain implants, used to keep us under control, do you face a similar problem?” Zafa asked her aunt.

Pentasa sighed. “Yes, many of the younger women in senior positions have such devices. The older women in critical positions such as myself refused to have such devices inserted unless the senior men did the same. They never approached us again. I must admit it is a significant concern. Our doctors are working on methods to remove such devices,” said Pentasa.

Zafa smiled. “We can remove all such devices. We would like to send all of your people through our medical pods as part of our security measures. The medical pods here are ahead of our health systems and we will also be able to upgrade all of your pods in the not-too-distant future.”

“What do you mean as a security measure?” Pentasa asked. “I am not sure I like the implications of your suggestion.”

“Perhaps I can address your concern,” said Jason smiling. “The Destroyers gave the Uzliumbax a mild metabolic poison for years before they went into stasis. The Destroyers also corrupted Uzliumbax society before they entered stasis. While the people were in stasis, they poisoned our intellectuals and some kings and queens. The medical pods can repair all the damage done due to the slow metabolic poison, but we used the opportunity to find both criminals and spies. Our intelligence services found and removed many members of criminal networks while we awakened our population. If people want to join the empire they must go through a medical pod for health and security reasons. I want to keep criminals and spies out. All of our member civilizations are doing the same,” continued Jason.

Pentasa sighed. “I must admit, I hate you knowing everything that is in our heads.”

“Pentasa, we do not use this as a fishing expedition. We are not interested in your secrets, thoughts, and memories. You are welcome to look at what we do and how we do it.

“I will show you my history later and you will see I had it done when the Collective transferred my consciousness after an assassin poisoned me. We are only interested in your spies and criminals and your embedded devices. We found a few spies amongst Zafa’s people. It was far fewer than I would’ve expected. We are not expecting anything more of the Destroyer women and men than we expected of our people.” Jason sat back in his chair. “I think it is time for us to have something more substantial to eat. I will lead the way to our canteen.”