And what about this version? Is this one better than
the one before or does it suck worse than before?

Kurukshetra: The Darwon Invasion
================================

By Arun

Prologue

***

They had fled from the old universe to the new one
hoping to escape
the enemy who'd ground the human race into dust. The
mass jump
transit had been completed successfully and Flag
Admiral Reynard
Arsu, the commanding officer of Operation Salvation,
stared
contentedly at the plot that lay stretched in his
mindeye, an
advanced virtual reality interface that allowed direct
interaction
between the ship's computer and the human brain. His
fleet of eighty
nine thousand ships, comprising sixty thousand
warships, twenty five
thousand colonies and four thousand mobile bases was
not the biggest
that Terra had ever assembled, but it was the last
remnant of that
once proud race.

    Arsu, like most living Terrans, had never walked
on a planet. By
the time he was born, the Darwon had reduced all
Terran colonies to
nuclear embers. He briefly wondered what the soil on
Terra might have
felt like under his feet, but gave up the task as
hopeless. It made
him feel as if he were one of the blind men in the
story of the blind
men and the elephant. Instead, he let his mind wander
and naturally,
his thoughts went to the nearly three hundred million
men and women
on the other side of the now closed gateway who'd
sacrificed their
lives so that he and a precious few could escape with
their lives.

    He felt cheated. His place was with those men and
women who'd
given up their lives screaming in defiance one last
time in Darwon's
face before being consumed alive by the purifying
fires of nuclear
weapons. His duty lay with keeping safe those few
who'd managed to
make the journey, however, and if there was one thing
that was
constant about Arsu, it was that he did not shirk his
duty.

    "Admiral?"

    The confident voice of the intruder shook Arsu out
of the
heightened world of senses that was the defining
characteristic of
the mindeye and into the blandness of the real world.
He turned to
greet the speaker with an open smile on his pale white
face. His blue
eyes glinted with pleasure and his moustache twitched
with humor on
his clean shaven face.

    "Yes, Frank?"

    Captain Frank Worrell Carter, skipper of the _NNS
Vengeance_,
Reynard's flagship, and twice recipient of the Medal
of Valor did not
return the smile. In fact, he looked most pensive. The
eighty three
year old black captain with curly hair and night black
eyes was seven
years younger than Arsu, but the bond of friendship
that had been
forged between them in countless battles transcended
age and rank.
Carter was one of Arsu's closest friends and
confidants, and what
little bumps there had been initially in their working
relationship
had long since been smoothed over.

    "Ensign Clarke just brought an eyes-only message
from Chief
O'Reilly. It's from Commander Salvador of the _NNLC
Artemis_ attached
to the recon wing of TF3. He sent it through the VLR."

    Arsu nodded, though he was surprised at the medium
that the
Commander had used. The VLR* was a faster than light
communications
system used to provide near instantaneous transmission
of data over
distances as long as thirty parsecs. The system had
one disadvantage,
though - its low data transfer rate - and was used
exclusively to
transmit operational orders to the far flung elements
of the fleet.
Intriguing, too, was the fact that Salvador had sent a
communication
at all. Hunter-killers like the _Artemis_ were
primarily designed to
operate independently or in packs far removed from the
rest of the
fleet for long periods of time and their commanders
were expected to
use their own judgment and act on their own initiative
when
responding to unexpected situations. Why then had
Salvador broke
operational doctrine as well as practically every
standing fleet
protocol by not using the proper channels to get in
touch with Arsu?
Why had Salvador been attached to a recon squadron at
all?

    "Let's see what the good Commander has to say
then," he said
aloud, sliding the message chip into his command
chair's slot.

    He scrolled through the text message, which was as
laconic as can
be and turned to Carter.

    "Parallel universes with the Darwon... Just when
you thought life
couldn't get more complicated, it throws a real
spanner into the
works. Have you asked someone to confirm Commander
Salvador's
hypothesis, Frank? Discreetly, of course."

    Carter nodded.

    "Lieutenant Williams is working on it even as we
speak, Sir."

    "Good. Good. What do you make of it, Wesley?"

    First Lieutenant Wesley Milestone, the Admiral's
aide de camp
shrugged. Wesley was a young man in his late twenties
with blonde
hair and drop dead gorgeous looks. He was extremely
capable, had a
razor sharp mind, was very organized and witty. It was
this later
quality that endeared him to Arsu; that and his
penchant for perfect
diction. They had worked together for four years now
and their
working relationship was as good as any Arsu had ever
had.

    "Could have some substance to it, Sir. I'm afraid
to think of the
implications if the commander is proved right,
however."

    "Me, too. We have enough problems on our hands as
it is without
having to worry about being stranded in parallel
universes, or God
forbid, being trapped in the past in our own universe.

    "Frank, inform Chief O'Reilly and his crew that I
want this kept
under wraps as long as possible. Make sure they
understand that not
even an inkling of this message should reach the rumor
mills until I
say so."

    "Yes, Sir."

    "Wesley, give Salvador and his people a pat on the
back on my
behalf, and send an invitation to the task force
commanders inviting
them for a little tete-a-tete on the _Vengeance_ at
2000 Hrs."

    "Yes, Sir."

    "I'll be in tactical. Join me there after you've
discharged your
orders."

***

    The crowd of Fleet Admirals, their aide de camps
and the captains
of their flagships stopped their idle chatter when
Carter announced
Arsu. The venue was the dining room where the Admiral
usually
entertained his command staff. A crystal chandelier,
one of the few
ones that had survived the evacuation of Terra, hung
in the center
and below it was a round table with enough seats for
twenty people.
The table served as both the dining table and the
conference table.

    After exchanging greetings with everyone, Arsu sat
down and
Deepak Edelman, his valet, ushered two ensigns into
the room with
their hands laden with platters of appetizers. Even
though their
curiosity had been piqued by the unexpected invitation
to dinner, the
Admirals kept their questions to themselves.
Consequently, the
conversation in the table was markedly muted until
everyone had dined
and the table cleaned.

    And even then, Arsu waited until Edelman had
served everyone a
glass of wine and brought Fleet Admiral Ian Malcolm
his cup of tea.

    "I'm sure all of you are curious as to why I
invited you here
today," Arsu said setting his glass on the table after
taking a sip.
"I'm sure, too, that most of you have some inkling as
to the why. I
have tried to keep a tight lid on the news, but
nothing flies faster
than rumor and the juicier the rumor, the faster it
flies.

    "At 1100 Hrs this morning, I received a message
from Commander
Salvador of the _NNCL Artemis_, squad leader of third
squadron, recon
wing, TF3. His squadron is currently on patrol in
sector 052A of the
grid. Yes, Ishida, I know he broke protocol by not
going through the
proper communication channels to reach me, but I think
he can be
excused this once. The contents of his message are
possibly of a very
volatile nature and his discretion certainly saved us
no end of
trouble.

    "Commander Salvador's squadron is currently
shadowing a fleet of
pre-invasion Darwon ships. That and the fact that his
chief
astrogator claims to recognize whole constellations of
stars, a claim
which his computer supports, mind you, have together
convinced him
that we've either traveled back in time or have jumped
into a
parallel universe."

    "Time travel, that's preposterous," Fleet Admiral
Catherine Wolf
exclaimed vociferously, interrupting Arsu who turned
to regard her.
The brunette Wolf was a hawkeyed motherly figure with
brown eyes. She
was in her early hundreds with at least another twenty
years of
active service in the Fleet. Her weakness for
chocolates and cream
was the talk of the fleet, as was her fiery temper,
but she was one
of the most aggressive admirals he knew. She was,
also, one of the
few who had successfully organized offensive actions
against the
Darwon with any great degree of success.

    Immediately, the room descended into chaos. It
seemed as if
everyone had an opinion and each defended his/her
argument with equal
vehemence. And since everyone except the aides were
Officers of the
List, they were particularly vehement in their claims.
Arsu sat
silently through the debacle, watching and waiting for
a natural end
to the arguments. When none appeared in sight, at
least not in the
foreseeable future, he intervened, slapping the table
with his hand
to bring order.

    "That's better. Now, I'm sure that all of you will
agree that we
need to concentrate on what's to be done rather than
on whether the
Well theory is right or wrong. I don't give a rat's
ass about it and
neither should you.

    "Fact is, we're in a new universe and if Commander
Salvador is
right, one which is not so far removed from our old
one. It might
very well be that this is a parallel universe or that
we have
traveled back in time and the evidence we have so far
gathered
suggests that we're in one of these two, but that's
not our job.
We'll leave it to the scientists to argue it out among
themselves.

    "What we need to do, however, is come up with a
strategy to deal
with the Darwon if this is indeed a parallel universe
of some sort.
And I do mean deal with them permanently."

    "And if we have traveled back in time?" Fleet
Admiral Ian Malcolm
asked, leaning forward on his chair. Malcolm was a
strategic genius
whose penchant for thinking things through combined
with his pit-bull
tenacity - once he grabbed hold of something he never
let go - had
won him more than his share of battles, always against
nigh
insurmountable odds, against the Darwon. He was the
acknowledged
master of carefully planned ambushes, a trait that had
stood the
Terran fleet in good stead in the last legs of its
doomed guerrilla
campaign. Among his contemporaries only Arsu surpassed
him in the art
of war.

    Arsu shrugged. The others looked discomfited.

    "Then we flee. We dare not interfere if we have
traveled back in
time," he pronounced with conviction.

    Malcolm nodded.

    "Quite. But personally, and please, do not take
this as a cue for
another round of arguments, I think that possibility
is pretty
remote."

    "Yes, it is. If none of you have anything to
say... Good, I
thought not, let's get back on track, shall we? I was
saying that
what we needed right now is a sound plan of action.
Any ideas..."

    "We should establish a base of operations before
we do anything
else," Fleet Admiral Ishida Shiroe said. "Somewhere
where there's no
shortage of natural resources. Any war with the Darwon
will become
one of attrition in the long run and we'll need
massive manufacturing
capacity to overcome theirs."

    "Our bases should preferably be in the fringes of
the galactic
nucleus or within it," Fleet Admiral Charles Donohue
added smoothly,
taking up Shiroe's line of reasoning, "The Darwon were
ever too
hesitant to colonize the stars around the core and
heavy metals are
present in far greater densities in the nucleus than
anywhere else in
the galaxy. The Wolf cluster had the densest deposits
in the old
universe and it was on practically inside the core...
I think we
should be able to locate it soon enough in this one."

    Arsu gave a thoughtful nod.

    "Cate and Onlo, can you spare three of your scout
squadrons?" he
asked.

    Wolf's forehead creased in thought.

    "Yeah, I can spare a few."

    Fleet Admiral Onlo de Silva was somewhat more
hesitant. He looked
to his Flag Captain, who gave a little nod.

    "I suppose. Yes."

    "Good. As soon as we confirm that this is indeed a
parallel
universe, task your best squadrons with scouting out
potential bases
in the core. As Shiroe said, we'll need a lot of
production capacity
to go against the Darwon."

    "What about manpower?" Malcolm asked. "We are only
fifty million.
If we go against the Darwon now, we'll be crushed like
bugs. Our
technological advantage gives us a great deal of
protection, but it
doesn't make us invincible."

    "Quite," Carter agreed. "Darwon commanders are as
good as any on
our side and their defenses were always much better
than ours."

    "We're coming to that," Arsu replied. He turned to
the others:
"Got any ideas, anyone?"

    Captain Thomas Weasely of the _NNS Formidable_,
the flagship of
Admiral Shiroe leaned forward on his chair, his hands
clasped in
front of him. He had a ready enough answer to that
particular
question.

    "If this is a parallel universe and if Darwon is
out there, then
does it not stand to reason that there must be Terrans
somewhere,
too?" he asked.

    Heads nodded around the table.

    "The squadrons on patrol can perform that search,"
Wolf said. "We
should probably task a couple of scout squadrons to
split up into
pairs and search exclusively for the Terran colonies,
however.
Shouldn't be too hard, I think if this is really a
parallel
universe."

    "You do that, Cate. I'll see how many squadrons I
can spare and
lend them to you," Malcolm offered, taking a sip from
his cup of tea.
He nodded to himself in appreciation of the flavor and
turned to
Arsu. "Reynard, we need colonies, too. And I'm talking
about real
colonies here, on real planets and not ships like
those poor excuses
of ships that all of us grew in."

    Arsu chuckled as did the others.

    "Yes," he nodded, "Terra has been without a planet
to call home
for too long. We'll have one before long, Ian, but
only after we have
ascertained with a fair amount of certainty the Darwon
sphere of
influence."

    "Of course."

    "And if there aren't any humans out there?" Wolf
asked.

    Arsu's eyes grew cold and hard.

    "Then you'd better hope that there's some other
sentient race out
there to ally with, Cate. The Darwon Empire is a
plague on the
galaxy. I'll be rid of them if that's the last thing I
do. I owe it
to the people who died to get you and me here. Do any
of you have
objections?"

    None did. All of them felt the same way about the
Darwon as he
did; even the fiery but compassionate Wolf. She'd only
posed the
question to see whether he was firmly committed to the
task he'd set
or not.

    "Good. Now, for the next item of discussion, I
propose..."

    And so went the meeting. It lasted late into the
night, and when
it ended, everybody was looking forward to the journey
back their
ships and the few hours of sleep the journey entailed,
fate
intervened. An ensign came bearing a sealed message
chip from Chief
O'Reilly and handed it to the Arsu.

    It was Commander Salvador, again and this time,
he'd sent a video
over the VLR. Reynard broke the seal and slid the chip
into the port
whereupon the lights in the room dimmed and the
overhead holographic
projector came online.

    Commander Salvador's face appeared on screen. He
was one of those
men who are inherently handsome with a youngish
looking face and an
impish grin. He was young for a Commander - he looked
less than forty
five years old - with a massive frame that was
completely in contrast
with his boyish looks. Even though the resolution of
the video was
below par, the day old stubble on his face was visible
and Fleet
Admiral Catherine Wolf found herself fighting down the
urge to pinch
his cheeks. It was un-Admiral-like, but Salvador
looked like more
like a boy caught stealing jam by his mom than a
Commander of the
Fleet.

    "At 0107 Hrs, a Darwon patrol we were shadowing
detected the
destroyer _NND Indomitable_ after the latter's
electronic warfare
system failed. The Darwon made to intercept the
_Indomitable_ and
cornered her into a packet whence the Darwon commander
ordered her to
surrender. He fired a warning shot across her bow and
threatened to
open fire on the _Indomitable_ when her CO refused to
answer the
Darwon hails.

    "The rest of my squadron, fully cloaked had
continued to shadow
the Darwon chasers and had remained undetected. Seeing
that the
Darwon commander meant to carry out his threats, I
ordered my
squadron to go weapons hot and open fire at the
patrol. The shootout
lasted ninety three seconds and the Darwon patrol was
destroyed. The
_Indomitable_ suffered mild damage to her hull and ten
casualties,
none of which were fatal. I'm sending her home for
repairs with the
_NND Brye_ as escort.

    "I ordered the picking up of Darwon survivors and
there are
currently three hundred Darwon being held captive on
board the six
remaining ships in my squadron. One of them is the
Executioner of
Terra Shura* Insha Alhou, currently Thieru Insha Alhou
of the Darwon
Imperial Fleet. I'm bringing him home."

    The overhead holographic projector faded into
nothing and
simultaneously, the lights came back. None dared break
the silence
that had descended upon the room, however. Of course,
they all knew
about the Executioner of Terra, Insha Alhou, who had
used biological
weapons captured from Terran military bases to dust
nearly a hundred
of the core worlds, Terra or Earth as it was called in
those times
included. His efforts had paid off rather nicely and
won him a
dubious place in Terra's history as the one who killed
a trillion men
and women; the greatest mass murderer in history. All
of them had
dreamed of getting their hands on him in their
childhood and all of
them, without exception, had dreamt up at least a
hundred ways of
killing him, each one more painful than the one
before. And now,
their fondest wish had come true.

    "Well," Admiral Ian observed, finally, breaking
the silence, "we
can be sure of one thing. We're most definitely in a
parallel
universe."

    Immediately, everyone started speaking, their
voices full of
enthusiasm and the room descended into complete chaos.
However, not
even Fleet Admiral Ishida Shiroe, the biggest stickler
of them all to
discipline, tried to control the unruly mess. He, too,
was deeply
involved in the bickering.

***

1. VLR - The bandwidth of the system is ten characters
per second.
2. Shura - An officer of the Darwon fleet roughly
equivalent to the
Terran Commodore.
3. Theiru - An officer of the Darwon fleet roughly
equivalent to the
Terran Captain of the List.


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