"Perhaps our insistence on maintaining our internal independence from the Federation has been wrongheaded. Probably, as the Council's note points out, such a view is typical of youthful and barbaric species. If so, then it may be that the time has come to put it aside with the other toys of childhood. I don't say that it will be easy for us to surrender this particular toy, especially in light of how long we've clung to it. Yet we aren't fools, Fleet Commander, however foolish we may sometimes seem. We are proud of our navy and of the men and women who serve in it, yet our entire fleet is completely outclassed by the single squadron which you command. So however difficult we may find it to put away our toys, we cherish no illusions about the Federation's ability to compel us to do so. And as survival is always preferable to the alternative, I have been empowered by the Senate to immediately appoint a committee of delegates to be transported to the Federation's capital, there to meet with the Council or its representatives and began immediate, binding discussions on precisely how our star system and our race may be most expeditiously and smoothly integrated into the Federation."
Someone—it might have been the same officer who'd cursed—inhaled sharply behind Mugabi, but the admiral's own expression didn't even flicker as he heard his President agree to what amounted to the unconditional surrender of humanity. He'd known it was coming. For that matter, every officer on Terra's flag deck must have known it was. It had to be, given the incredible firepower of the thirty-four Federation superdreadnoughts gathered around Lach'heranu's flagship.
The Saernai gazed at the President's image for several seconds, then reached out and touched a small button on the arm of her command chair.
"The recorders are no longer on-line," she informed Dresner in that artificial, maddeningly toneless voice.
"May I ask why not?" the President inquired very carefully.
"Because there is no point in continuing this farce," Lach'heranu said. "It is not possible for your kind to be integrated into the Federation. The very idea is ridiculous and an insult to every other species already part of the Federation, whether they are full members or protected races. Humans are arrogant, contentious, chaotic, willful, barbaric, ungrateful, and stupid. If your kind were permitted to contaminate the Federation, it would pollute and ultimately destroy the greatest and most stable civilization in the history of the entire galaxy. This cannot and will not be permitted."
"So there was never any real intention on your part of attempting to find a negotiated solution," Sarah Dresner said flatly.
"Of course not," Lach'heranu confirmed. "It was simply essential that we demonstrate the extent of our efforts to find some peaceful resolution to the intolerable threat you pose to true civilization."
"Why?" Dresner asked bluntly.
"Because we are the representatives of truly advanced and civilized races," Lach'heranu said with absolutely no sign of irony. "As such, we owe a debt to posterity to make it plain that we had no possible alternative but to proceed to solve the human problem once and for all."
"You mean," Dresner said harshly, "that you need the proper grist for your propaganda mill when you get ready to lie to your other slaves—and to yourselves—about it."
"That observation is typical of human arrogance," Lach'heranu replied. "Only a human could think that your insignificant little star system could possibly be sufficiently important for civilized races to feel any need to lie to anyone about the reasons for your extermination. It is simply important that our archives contain the proof of the propriety of our actions so that our successors upon the Council may draw the proper conclusions and find the proper precedents should such a situation ever again arise, and we have now recorded sufficient material for that purpose."
"In other words enough for you to edit however you need to in order to manufacture the history to justify your actions!"
"Again, that attitude simply underscores your species' unending ability to believe that you are far more important than you are, and so demonstrates the necessity of exercising appropriate control over the archival material relating to this incident. It would be most unfortunate if some future member of the Council should be exposed to the drivel of human `philosophy' and its pathetic insistence upon `self-determination' and so find itself confused into failing to recognize the inevitability of our policy decision. There is no point, however, in drawing this out any further, nor could any truly advanced being justify extending the negotiation process. As a civilized individual, I feel some mild regret for the circumstances which require me to destroy your race, and I propose to demonstrate as much mercy as the situation permits by acting promptly, rather than drawing out the process. It will be much simpler all around if you will simply order your ships to deactivate their shields."
"I think not." Dresner's voice was chipped ice.
"Surely not even you are stupid enough to believe that resistance will have any impact on the final outcome," Lach'heranu said.
"Probably not," the President of humanity told her species' executioner. "But I hope you'll excuse us for trying."
"I have no interest in excusing you for anything," Lach'heranu's piping voice said tonelessly. "I simply require that you die."
"Battle stations!"
It was undoubtedly the most unnecessary order Quentin Mugabi had ever given. The entire Solarian Navy had been at battle stations for the past ten hours, but alarms whooped throughout his warships and the screen which had carried the images of President Dresner and Fleet Commander Lach'heranu switched instantly to its normal designed function.
Mugabi's eyes clung to the repeater plot as the data codes and sidebars the flagship's Combat Information Center projected onto it flickered and changed. Unlike him, Lach'heranu hadn't even bothered to bring her ships fully to battle stations during the negotiations. There'd been no need—not against such insignificant and contemptible opposition. She had taken the precaution of remaining well outside her own attack range of the Terran fleet, much less outside the range of any weapon Mugabi possessed, but she clearly intended to change that. As he watched, her normal-space drives were coming on-line, offensive and defensive systems awoke, and thirty-five superdreadnoughts of the design ONI had code-named the Ogre class, each an ovoid measuring just over nine miles in its long dimension, began to accelerate towards the three hundred pygmies of the human fleet. Any one of those Ogres, Mugabi knew, possessed more firepower than his entire fleet, and they were escorted by over thirty Stiletto-class cruisers.
Humanity's last battle, he thought grimly, was also going to be one of its shortest.
"Execute Alpha One!"
Acknowledgments came back to him, and he felt an indescribable, bittersweet pride in the men and women under his command as his fleet's formation changed. It flowed into the new alignment crisply, quickly... almost as if the humans crewing its ships didn't know that their resistance was absolutely futile.
It was an unorthodox formation: a column of starships, like a huge yet slender spear shaft, headed by two dozen of Mugabi's heaviest capital ships. Those ships blocked the fire of any of their consorts, which ought to have made it totally unacceptable. But Quentin Mugabi had no illusions about his ability to fight anything which might have been called a "battle," and so he'd chosen a disposition oriented towards achieving only one thing. Any conventional formation would have been automatically doomed to destruction without landing a single hit on the enemy, but this one put the bulk of his units into the protective shadow of the battleships leading his column. None of those battleships would survive more than one or two hits, three at the most, from Galactic weapons, but if the rest of the fleet could close quickly enough while they were absorbing their death blows, one or two of their consorts might actually live to get into range of their own weapons and land at least one solid hit of their own.