“I asked Anissa to host this meeting because Sedna is our most secure base, and because I think that the time we have all been waiting for has finally arrived.” Jacob said. The others remained silent and looked at him skeptically.
“I know you Jacob, you have always been the most restrained one among us. So tell me, what has changed, what made you risk your stealth ship?” Jennifer Williams asked.
Jacob again looked around the table, and then after a moment of hesitation answered, “Last year my people made contact with Olympus.” Shocked looks meet his words and immediately a chorus of questions erupted, “How? When? Are you sure?…” Jacob raised his hands and the others calmed down. Not all of them were old enough to remember Olympus, only a few of them were born while they still had the life extension technology, but all knew about Olympus. The Resistance was good at keeping records of the past, all of their remaining knowledge and history was kept by them.
“We found an Olympus ship, left hidden in the asteroid belt. Its purpose was to watch Earth and contact us should we ever unite as a species, since we obviously didn’t it remained silent. The sole occupant of the ship is an Ai – an artificial intelligence. The Ai led us to the ship, it only did so because the Resistance was finally united. If we had remained fractured it would have remained silent.” Jacob said.
“That is great Jacob, but a single ship left behind isn’t Olympus.” Oliver Eldritch said.
“No, it is not, but the ship is equipped with faster than light communications, and we have made contact with Olympus leader Tomas Klein.” Jacob said.
Surprise, then elation and hope shone on every face at the table. “Will they help us?” Anissa asked.
Jacob nodded. “Yes. They are far away. More than six hundred light years. I sent them everything we had, all the information we gathered since they left. And I asked them for help. Their response came six months later, they have agreed to help us. They will send a fleet of ten ships, or rather they have already sent it. It will arrive in about a year. The fleet itself will contact us when they pass the halfway point, the communications would be shorter then and will allow us to plan better. They will deal with the Ra’a’zani ships in the system, and it’s up to us to fight on the ground.” Jacob said, he felt it was better to just lay down everything, rather than to feed them information slowly. He knew it was a lot to digest, but he also knew that they had to.
“If they can handle the ships in the system, I’m confident that we can take them on the ground.” Akulov said seriously, “Our biggest obstacle are those ships. The Ra’a’zani are arrogant, and they had conquered us when we were at our weakest, they don’t know what we are capable of. Our biggest problem will be to convince people to rise up.” He said, looking around the table. “They are scared, they all remember what happened the last time we tried to fight. And the majority of them don’t know anything about the past, they can’t imagine that we can fight back and win.”
Jacob nodded. “I agree. We need to convince the people, to make them believe that we will win.”
“Weapons will be a problem. We have very little left.” Eldritch said.
“That won’t be a problem.” Jacob added. “The Olympus ship had fabricators, and we have since then made a few more, I brought a couple here. With them, we will have weapons.”
“The greatest Ra’a’zani weapon is their control. There are barely three thousands of them on Earth, and yet they rule. If even a fraction of our people rose up we would have beaten them by now.” Williams said.
“Yes, but our people are afraid. In a single generation they managed to erase most of our past. Of course we did a lot of the work for them with our war, but our people know only what Ra’a’zani want them to know. They hear about the Resistance and immediately they remember the deaths of more than a billion people. Ra’a’zani made sure that everyone saw what happens when we try to fight. And don’t forget the thralls. Their number is at least six thousand.” Jacob said.
“Not to mention the ships in the orbit. Even if we did defeat them on the ground, their ships would just bomb us into oblivion. They have more than enough of our people in the asteroid belt to suit their needs. Are you sure Olympus can handle them?” Akulov asked.
“Olympus will take care of them, we won’t need to worry about them.” Jacob said.
“Ra’a’zani technology is advanced, how much could have Olympus advanced in sixty years?” Williams asked.
Jacob turned to look at her, “They traveled more than six hundred light-years in sixty years. Even before they left they had fabricating technology and faster than light communications. And their ships will arrive here in a fraction of time it took them to reach their destination. That is a lot faster than what Ra’a’zani are capable of. We must hope that Olympus ships will be able to stand up to the Ra’a’zani.”
“Alright then, I agree. We will plan for a simultaneous attack on all Ra’a’zani positions on the planet.” Anissa said and the others nodded their consent.
Jacob Kelly sat at a table in his quarters looking at the holo of Earth. The rest of the meeting was spent crafting a rough outline of the plan. They had a year to put people in places where they could do most damage. Looking at Earth, he wondered how many people really still lived on the planet. They had rough numbers for the asteroid belt, around ten thousand people, spread out on various mining stations that Ra’a’zani brought with them. But getting the numbers for Earth was much harder. Ra’a’zani controlled the planet from orbit and had only a few key bases on the ground. The Resistance had the numbers from the end of the Great War. But Jacob knew that those were incorrect. They had no way to verify them, the war had isolated people. They had communication only with 20 cities that managed to survive more or less intact, the rest had either been destroyed in the war, or lost power as they became cut off. During the war and after its end those cities quickly became overcrowded as people arrived seeking shelter, food, and power. Some chose to remain outside the cities, forming primitive communities, living off the land. They had no choice, as they had no way of restoring power. The cities weren’t really cities, like they existed before the war, they were more like megazones. Enormous areas that were densely populated.
The last count put the population of the 20 cities at 1 billion, but that number could have been higher, and those living outside of the cities at 3.5 billion, but that was only speculation. The official records put the world population at 4.5 billion at the end of the war, but Jacob knew that those numbers were only very generous estimates. They had records only for official death records from the war, those that died in the fighting and estimates of civilian deaths. They didn’t take into account deaths from starvation or disease. Or crime that ran rampant at the time. The numbers were much smaller. And then it was cut even more by the arrival of the Ra’a’zani. They destroyed 10 of the 20 remaining cities from orbit – those that still had armies – and bombed the others before taking them over with minimal resistance. In the confusion they tracked down and destroyed every piece of military technology and industry they could find. They left those living outside of the cities alone, only killing them if they were in the way. Those communities were not a threat, without technology they reverted to gathering, hunting, and farming. To Ra’a’zani they were nothing.