Was a Massacre

Was a massacre, but they new that would be the case.

Hardest part was to get the approval from this Emergency Committee forged in a hurry after the landing, when the administrative structure of a Scientific Prototype Vessel collapsed under the pressure of catastrophic circumstances. The only ones with some frame to deal with this **** situation where the military, and fortunately there was a decent number of those among the survivors. Despite fact that they where minority among the scientific teams.

In fact, military inter-stellar vessels have inferior life support, and simulated gravity is not a comfort taken for granted. Like it is among civilians. By design, comes with being optimised for combat. It forces a superior investment in cyborg skeletons and other implants on top of those artificial bones. Because of that, military and former military are more likely to survive the impact of a ship fall.

There was over 30 thousand nations involved, and no chain of command between different military agencies cooperating in countless different projects inside the Pelican. But in a basic level, all military training is the same in some core aspects. Does not mean people will agree, but offers a common ground for understanding, in **** situations.

Also, and that was important, military experience make people less likely to panic under stress.

However, there was still the need to sell this idea of punishing the natives to the civilian majority in the Council. No one wanted a civil war, on top of the conflict with external forces.

Those creatures, larger and stronger than normal humans, had being named “orcs” due to their look. Big, bulky, humanoids. Long arms, shapes somewhere in the middle between human and gorilla. They had attacked without provocation, several times, killing or capturing the people from Pelican. Destroying their attempts to build basic irrigation systems and wind turbines.

The military technology available was not much. The Pelican was caring something for test under controlled circumstances, something for the remote hypothesis of encountering some aliens in other Universes, in the couple of hours the ship was supposed to expend outside normal reality. In addition to that, there was of course the arsenal carried by security personal. The Pelican was a Scientific Vessel with a crew of hundreds of millions, experience proves that such large populations need regular police forces. Even when they are composed by highly educated intellectuals, and most do not plan to stay for over half a dozen years.

Inventory taken care of, they had enough to wipe out the continent one and a half times, by conservative estimations. And still keep some ammo for a rainy day. To kill a few hundred orcs each punitive strike, a half dozen times, was nothing particularly special. Should be enough to teach those nasty monkeys with rusty cleavers to keep distance from their community.

Good thing there was no free media in their community. The scenes registered by vigilance drones after each punitive strike were nothing pleasant to watch.

Walking cranes had to be converted into improvised war tanks in order to serve as moving defensive towers, closing most gaps in their perimeter of defence.

They needed more ground than what they could defend with that strategy, if they intended to cultivate enough food to sustain the entire community of survivors. The food supply inside what was left of the Pelican would sustain them for a couple of years, optimistically half a decade. That is half the time usually necessary to start a self-sustaining colony in a terraformed environment. A task done by colonists, who dedicated their lives to that sort of thing. Not by scientists, **** into that role by an accident.

Fortunately, the “Pelican City” had the unique advantage of be on a planet where intelligent life already existed.

If necessary, they could raid the local supply or food and other goods. Impose some sort of taxation on their neighbours. Not the most agreeable idea in abstract, but under **** circumstances the strong will always take what they need to survive. By ****, treats of **** and **** itself. They happened to be the strong ones on this planet. This was their land now.

The locals would need to get used to that fact.

_This last one was different _ pointed Astrid Ham, chief of security since Pelican

_The malfunction in two drones, was a curious accident. We need to send a team to recover them, determine what happened exactly. Fix it. Otherwise, it could develop in something serious._ pointed Tennent Lucienne, acting commander of recently instituted military ground forces.

_Do you suspect sabotage? _ asked a captain.

_We must consider all possibilities.

_Yes, we must! However, that’s not the difference I was referring to.

The discomfort wandered around the table.

_No, you are referring to the civilian casualties. Those are the families of our enemies, chief Ham. We need to **** them out, and fast. I will not say anything even about the fact this women weight as much as a Kodiak bear, and probably smell worse. We killed no human children or woman today, Astrid.

_I know, but…

_And they have killed children in our side. I know, not babies, young adolescents. Still, my job is to look for ways to protect us. Not our enemy.

It was the end of the discussion, and chief Ham regretted having followed the impulse to raise this issue. No one in that room was happy about it, but was a proportional response.

Besides, was not preemptive strike.

When they first met the natives, the Pelican’s population tried to stablish peaceful relations. Hoped for some sort of commerce and diplomacy. The natives answered with **** and ****.

That was not even the most dramatic concern hidden in the silent shadows of that room.

It was something most people there didn’t knew, only the higher ranks. She, herself, Tennent Lucienne, and the engineer chief captain Oslo. Who, as usual, said no word during this meeting.

The reason why the Pelican had fallen in such catastrophic way, and why they had managed to collect so little information about this parallel version of Planet Earth before the fall, was the same. Because of that, they needed to clean a security zone around Pelican City, fast.

When the ship entered this universe, the core computer burned. Any system running sentient AIs started degrading. The Logical Administrators themselves, with their virtual brains, stopped most their kin, and isolated the problem, prioritizing functions in order to slow down the degradation. Before any human had chance to register the situation.

However, even without AIs, the computers continued to ****. Something in this universe affected the internal structure of all processers and nano-synapses of computers. Some cyborgs died from it before the ship touched the atmosphere of New Port Planet.

A large percentage of their weapons depended on computers, some had to be adapted to function without AIs and missiles could be turned into rockets. The vigilance drones, even without AIs, would become useless in five to ten years.

That didn’t mean they would be defenceless. The main reason for concern was not knowing what was affecting their hardware. Magnetic guns need only very basic synapses. They can be dismantled and turned into fire weapons. They had some outdated fire guns for testing, and the explosives worked as well as they used to work in their original universe.

However, now some alloys in parts of the fallen ship had started of show signs of fast degradation. Structures that should in theory last longer than starts, falling apart like sand-castles in a tempest. For no reason they could determine.

The natives needed to learn to fear and respect them, fast. Because was impossible to know for sure how long they had. 25, 50, 75 years, probably. After that, the Pelicans and their descendants could not be able to impose themselves by **** anymore. To ser a status quo favourable to humanity before that was fundamental.

Of course, they already had started studding local materials, teams of engineers were studding the armours and weapons recovered from those “orcs”. Optimistically, they would find ways to solve their problems. Without compromise their way of life, much.

Making NPP just like another human colony, in most aspects. Just one that cannot stablish communication with the rest of civilization.

For now, they needed to reduce the use of computers to a minimum. Leave their databanks rest. The deterioration was proportional to the intensity of use of those systems. Synaptic-Databanks are far more efficient to store information than the older magnetic disks, but the disks resisted better to this unknow agent. Essential information had to be transferred. Discreetly.

To select on top of that the extremely essential information, what they could not afford to lose, and have it printed in ink on paper, was another delicate issue. In civilization they still have some books, made on actual paper, and paper factories to make that possible. Was an industry to satisfy the fine taste of some, despite how unpractical physical books are. Here, they would need to adapt normal 3D printers, use polymers instead of paper made from woods. All that had to be done in a fast and stealth fashion.

Maggrot the Burned of Black-Skull Clan looked the massacre in shock. His people was used to exist in the borders of Cinnabar Throne shadow, as vassals of the upala they were looked upon with hate and envy for wild, free, clans in the south. Sometimes those clans would cross the no-man’s land that separate their territory from the Mushroom Mountains, to raid Maggrot’s people, and other Cinnabar King vassals.

Orc raids capture women and girls, sometimes they capture baby males, sometimes they kill them. They never intentionally kill pregnant women. Even elven armies, who despise orcs by default, only kill the women who stand in their way and refuse to move. Beasts of the forest kill for pleasure, or spread destruction without intention when they are wounded. This was no work of a beast, this was intentional and intelligent ****, in large scale.

The kind of thing that only happens between nations that have hated each other for centuries. Endured endless wars. Signed treats and betrayed their promises so many times that now no action feels proportional anymore.

Maggrot, in the middle of what was left of trade-post, tried to imagine what his people could have done in the remote past, to justify that level of hate. He never had know any stories about those demons from the stars. Had them mistaken his people for some ancient enemy? Was this a message for his suzerain, the Cinnabar King, in the distant throne far away in the north?

Desral, the only adult woman who survived the butchery exercise, was a master arcanist. A shaman specialist is strength her own body and the body of others, with her spirit. The favourite magic of orc people. But she was also competent in the use of offensive spells, and construction of magic weapons. That was how she killed two of their metallic flies, and three of their warriors.

Two of Desral’s children had died in that attack, her companion died six days before, fighting another of those demon warbands by his side. They lost that fight, and lost this one, if this one can be described as a battle. He was at least able to take the shaman’s elder son back to her, so she could kiss his forehead and heal his wounds with her magic.

Now Maggrot needed to decide their next step.

They could walk faster staying this side of the Blood River, east or west they had a clean path but would be exposed to the eyes of demonic flies. Or they could cross the river, on the other side was no-man’s land. Whispering Forest. Less dangerous for them, but their progress would be slower.

Whatever he decided, Maggrot was still the head of 500 thousand orc warriors, all 55 clans in South Province, both sides of Mushroom Mountains in the province.

For a Moon-Elf the destruction of practically all his family would have weakened his credibility. Orcs are not elves. The personal loss would make Maggrot raise even more, in the eyes of his people. The war chief who came back from personal tragedy to share his rage and his strength. Orcs love that image, and Maggrot was fully aware of that.

His blood tears would be shared. Clans would come, from both sides of the Blood River, to show symbolic support. Offer temporary truce until this offence was avenged fully.

However, that was still upala country. The free tribes would not cross the river to fight the star-demons unless they were offered payment and contracted as mercenaries. And that he could not do in its own name.

Once his people was contacted, Maggrot would need to go personally to the South Tower and speak with the upala in charge of South Province. The King’s Mouth in the South.

The upala don’t do much in the south. However, he would need their permission to attack the star-demons with large number of warriors. The elves would likely want to join, take the best part of the loot for themselves, and they always do. The shapeshifters let them, most the time, but not without determine some compensation to honour the orcs.

This time, they would welcome the elves. The star-demons had magic weapons he had never met. Terrible power! His people was enough to win the war, but if they needed to fight alone the cost would be too high. The elves had a larger number of advanced arcanists.

Royal observers would watch as well.

He didn’t wanted to hope that much, but, maybe the Cinnabar King would even send them some help from the top of his tall mountain in the north.

But first, he needed to reunite what was left of his family, and tribe, and lead them to the Green Hearth under Mushroom Mountains. Where the Orkut takes place. Where his people would accumulate forces, answering his convocation.