"I'm depressed," Ed said. "I liked my universe."
"Well, get this, Ed," Alan said. "You don't even come from the same original universe as John and I, since you didn't make that first skip when we did. What's more, even the people who did make that same first skip with us aren't in the same universe as us now, since they've since skipped into different universes because they're on different ships—any versions of our old friends that we meet up with will be alternate versions. Of course, they will look and act the same, because except for the occasional electron placement here and there, they are the same. But our originating universes are completely different."
"So you and I are all that's left of our universe," I said.
"It's a pretty good bet that universe continues to exist," Alan said. "But we are almost certainly the only two people from it in this universe."
"I don't know what to think about that," I said.
"Try not to let it worry you too much," Alan said. "From a day-to-day point of view, all this universe hopping doesn't matter. Functionally speaking, everything is pretty much the same no matter what universe you're in."
"So why do we need starships at all?" Ed asked.
"Quite obviously, to get where you're going once you're in your new universe," Alan said.
"No, no," Ed said. "I mean, if you can just pop from one universe to another, why not just do it planet to planet, instead of using spaceships at all? Just skip people directly to a planet surface. It'd save us from getting shot up in space, that's for sure."
"The universe prefers to have skipping done away from large gravity wells, like planets and stars," Alan said. "Particularly when skipping to another universe. You can skip very close to a gravity well, which is why we enter new universes near our destinations, but skipping out is much easier the farther away you are from one, which is why we always travel a bit before we skip. There's actually an exponential relationship that I could show you, but—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I don't have the math," Ed said.
Alan was about to provide a placating response when all of our BrainPals flicked on. The Modesto had just received news of the Coral Massacre. And in whatever universe you were in, it was horrifying stuff.
Coral was the fifth planet humans settled, and the first one that was indisputably better acclimated for humans than even Earth itself. It was geologically stable, with weather systems that spread a temperate growing zone across most of its generous landmasses, and laden with native plant and animal species genetically similar enough to Earth's that they fulfilled human nutritional and esthetic needs. Early on, there was talk of naming the colony Eden, but it was suggested that such a name was karmically tantamount to asking for trouble.
Coral was chosen instead, for the corallike creatures that created gloriously diverse island archipelagos and undersea reefs around the planet's equatorial tropical zone. Human expansion on Coral was uncharacteristically kept to a minimum, and those humans who did live there largely chose to live in a simple, almost pre-industrial way. It was one of the few places in the universe where humans attempted to adapt to the existing ecosystem rather than plow it over and introduce, say, corn and cattle. And it worked; the human presence, small and accommodating, dovetailed into Coral's biosphere and thrived in a modest and controlled way.
It was therefore entirely unprepared for the arrival of the Rraey invasion force, which carried in its numbers a one-to-one ratio of soldiers to colonists. The garrison of CDF troops stationed above and on Coral put up a brief but valiant fight before being overwhelmed; the colonists likewise made the Rraey pay for their attack. In short order, however, the colony was laid waste and the surviving colonists literally butchered, as the Rraey had long ago developed a taste for human meat when they could get it.
One of the snippets broadcast to us via BrainPal was a segment of an intercepted food program, in which one of the Rraey's most famous celebrity chefs discussed the best way to carve up a human for multiple food uses, neck bones being particularly prized for soups and consommés. In addition to sickening us, the video was anecdotal proof that the Coral Massacre was planned in enough detail that they brought along even second-rate Rraey celebrities to take part in the festivities. Clearly, the Rraey were planning to stay.
The Rraey wasted no time toward their primary goal for the invasion. After all the colonists had been killed, the Rraey transported down platforms to begin strip-mining Coral's islands. The Rraey had previously tried to negotiate with the Colonial government to mine the islands; corallike reefs had been extensive on the Rraey homeworld until a combination of industrial pollution and commercial mining had destroyed them. The Colonial government refused permission for mining, both because of Coral's colonists' wishes to keep the planet whole, and because the Rraey's anthropophagous tendencies were well known. No one wanted the Rraey overflying the colonies, looking for unsuspecting humans to turn into jerky.
The Colonial government's failing was in not recognizing what a priority the Rraey had made coral mining—beyond its commerce, there was a religious aspect involved that Colonial diplomats grossly misinterpreted—or the lengths that the Rraey were willing to go to undertake the operation. The Rraey and the Colonial government had mixed it up a few times; relations were never good (how comfortable can you really be with a race that sees you as a nutritious part of a complete breakfast). By and large, however, they kept to their knitting and we to ours. It was only now, as the last of the Rraey's native coral reefs choked toward extinction, that the extent of their desire for Coral's resources came to slug us in the face. Coral was theirs, and we'd have to hit them harder than they had hit us to get it back.
"It's pretty fucking grim," Lieutenant Keyes was telling the squad leaders, "and it's going to be grimmer by the time we get there."
We were in the platoon ready room, cups of coffee growing cold as we accessed page upon page of atrocity reports and surveillance information from the Coral system. What skip drones weren't blasted from the sky by the Rraey reported back a continuing stream of inbound Rraey ships, both for battle and for hauling coral. In less than two days after the Coral Massacre, almost a thousand Rraey ships hovered in the space above the planet, waiting to begin their predation in earnest.
"Here's what we know," Keyes said, and popped up a graphic of the Coral system in our BrainPals. "We estimate that the largest portion of Rraey ship activity in the Coral system is commercial and industrial; from what we know of their ship design, about a quarter of the ships, three hundred or so, have military-grade offensive and defensive capabilities, and many of those are troop transports, with minimal shielding and firepower. But the ones that are battleship class are both larger and tougher than our equivalent ships. We also estimate up to one hundred thousand Rraey forces on the surface, and they've begun to entrench for invasion.
"They're expecting us to fight for Coral, but our best intelligence suggests they expect us to launch an attack in four to six days—the amount of time it will take us to maneuver enough of our big ships into skip position. They know CDF prefers to make overwhelming displays of force, and that is going to take us some time."
"So when are we going to attack?" Alan asked.
"About eleven hours from now," Keyes said. We all shifted uncomfortably in our chairs.
"How can that work, sir?" Ron Jensen asked. "The only ships we'll have available are those that are already at skip distance, or those that will be in the next few hours. How many of those can there be?"