The planet Uru (Oniboshi IV), forty-five light years from Earth…
"INVADE EARTH?!"
Hearing his daughter's stunned shout, Redet Invader took a deep breath. "Yes, Lum. That's the Central Cabinet Command's decision. And you've been selected to be our champion when we confront the Terrans."
Taking a moment to absorb that, the lovely sixteen year-old green-haired-and-eyed Oni teenager could only gape. "Father, haven't you heard ANYTHING about what Oyuki and her sister have been warning us about Earth?! They've got a huge space fleet right now and they're moving to settle colonies in worlds that the Seifukusu have practically given up! Before long, they'll have almost triple the amount of worlds that we have! Is that really wise?! Do we know of any sort of deals they've made with the Noukiites or the Zephyrites?! The Seifukusu, perhaps?!" Her lips twisted into a frown on mentioning their race's ancient blood-enemies. "What intelligence do we have?!"
Hearing those questions from his child, Invader could only smile with pride. Even if Lum had graduated from galactic middle school a couple years before and was now contemplating entering the military, she had all the right instincts. Then again, given how his natural child was seen by all the various factions of Urusian society, it wasn't so surprising. "Lum, we've got loads of intelligence on the Terrans. AND the Avalonians who are now intermingling with them." He fought the urge to scowl on mentioning that particular bioroid race's name, remembering what a family friend had revealed after the Niphentaxians' so-called "Judgement Day" saw one of their worlds destroyed and their holding a whole RACE as SLAVES was revealed to the galaxy as a whole. "But the Command is ignoring it. As far as they're concerned…"
"You mean the Imperials?" Lum sarcastically asked.
A nod. "As far as they're concerned, we're to go forth and exercise our traditional prerogatives when it comes to Earth. We don't want Earth to fall into an alliance with the Noukiites or the Iprædies. And ESPECIALLY the Seifukusu!" Invader then sighed. "Besides, most of those starships Oyuki and Pukaze have told me about are mostly manned by Avalonian volunteers. And the existence of that fleet is practically unknown to the average Terran. We could be doing them a lot of good by forcing a tag race on them."
Lum blinked, and then she sighed as she stood and walked to one of the living room windows to gaze out onto the grounds surrounding her family home and the Terrible Swamps beyond. "Dad, are you sure this is going to be safe?"
"The computer's already trying to determine who will be the Earth champion," Invader reported. "We should get the result just before we make system-fall. The Kashin is waiting for us right now, so let's get ready to go." He then chuckled as he winked at his child. "Relax. We won't have to put up to idiots like Rei's uncle for the time being; the President made damn sure that I'm in sole command here."
Lum gazed at him, and then she sighed. "Well, there's one good thing…"
A half-hour later, the Union Defence Force Ship Kashin, lead vessel for her class of battlewagon-type space carrier/cruiser, pulled out of her home planet's gravity well and turned in-spin towards Toshitto and the thirty light-year trip through the "Slot" between the territories of the Iprædies Empire and the Imperial Dominion of Noukiios towards the Earth-Neptune system. In her private cabin deep in the great ship's main hull, Lum was reviewing all the latest data updates from monitoring stations placed in the outer areas of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
For the last five years — starting almost immediately after a tragic incident at the Home Base asteroid that had nearly shattered a warm friendship between the Invader family and a famous pair of expat Vosian bounty hunters — the intelligence reports from Earth had driven officers of the Defence Intelligence Directorate into either questioning their own sanity or finding some dark bolt-hole to hide themselves in.
Currently, the "Earth Defence Force" that now existed to protect the third world of Sol was still in an initial build-up stage. Ships of the Force were assigned to national wet-navy control, designated as warships of various navies of the many nations that composed the United Nations as a whole. Only a small fraction of the force was seen as combat-ready and could provoke a terrible danger if someone was stupid enough to attack them. And while the technology being used by the E.D.F. was mostly on-par with what the Urusians could call upon, there were some disturbing elements that would provoke a very ugly surprise if they were sprung on an unsuspecting invader.
Ships fast enough to penetrate the Galactic Barrier…
Ships that used some sort of "slipstream" technology to get them from place to place virtually undetectable by any known means…
Ships laden with space-to-ground missiles armed with antimatter warheads that could obliterate whole cities in a perverse variation of the Terran intercontinental ballistic missile concept used during their Cold War period…
Reading all that, Lum could only shake her head. It was fear that was driving this trip to Earth. Fear of what the Terrans COULD do if they felt it necessary. And given the planet's obvious population and natural resource problems — that tacked onto the presence of over two billion Avalonians intermingling with seven billion Terrans — the need to get people moved to new colonies was understandable. And given that former Seifukusu worlds were now being targeted by Terran colonists for new homes and new land, Lum could only grin in admiration. Forcing the borders of THOSE people back almost a hundred light years in-spin from Earth would make a lot of people on Uru and elsewhere sleep a lot easier at night.
But still…
A knock. "Yo, Lum!"
Lum spun around, and then she grinned. "What are you doing here, Benten?!"
Laughing, a black-haired, brown-eyed Fukunokami teen walked in to embrace her oldest friend. "Your old man called and told me what was going down," Shigaten Benten said. "I drove in just before you pulled out of orbit. So it's Earth this time, huh?"
"Yeah," the Oni said as both girls relaxed around the low coffee table as Lum moved to pour her friend some tea. "It's been years since we've done it THIS way, so it really surprised me when Central Cabinet Command decided to open contact with the Terrans and do it as a tag race. Given how much they're driving into space…"
"Not to mention how much the Avalonians won't trust Urusians because of you bein' Ōgi's so-called 'living goddess' just before Ganzo broke them free," Benten added.
Lum winced; she HATED being reminded about THAT man. "Yeah…"
"They decide yet who's gonna be the one for Earth?"
A shake of the head. "We'll know when we get there."
The Fukunokami nodded as we…
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(Posted Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:21)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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