For the crime of saying “no”, humanity died.
“No I won't!”
I was there when we detected the Einstein Rosen bridge appearance in our solar system. Gravity detectors all over Sol went off. Traces of another star’s gravity were in our vicinity. Radar, lidar, and other sensors found a metallic object emerging from the portal.
My captain was intrigued. “Too bad Enterprise can't be over there,” She said to me.
“We could be there in a few months,” I replied.
“And leave Ceres by her lonesome? No thanks, Lucky. Houston told us where to go, we’ve got to finish the job.”
Beagle was the closest available ship. She was a hunched over crow with a pair of metal booms forming the “legs”. Her old mass driver engines. They pushed her forward to see the spacecraft that emerged. Radar arrays scanned it.
Beagle greeted them. “Greetings from the planet Earth.”
“Greetings from the Oragni Society.” And there our troubles began.
“No I won't!”
I still have all the original files in my data arrays. The transmissions and debates all over the system. Our fledgling colonies, made so soon after the shocks of the early 21st century, were elated and terrified. And they were dismayed when the enemy pointed their dishes toward Earth.
Immediately, they poisoned the airwaves with lies and slander. When predictable actions resulted, they put their hands to their chests in dismay at the pitiful humans fighting amongst themselves. All in a ploy of divide and conquer. They gave some promises, and others falsehoods, as all the while they sought our mineral wealth and observed us.
“You are young, and foolish. You will do better with guidance. Can't you see that we know better? You will serve us.”
The nations of Earth were turned against each other. My crew heard the declarations of war, the calls from scientists and diplomats not to ignore the real threat. But few seemed to listen. A world was tortured to confess, to fall under their rule.
“Our way is better. You are savages, a threat to everyone around you. You will submit.”
Despondence threatened to overtake the planet. Our bleakest thinkers seemed to be proven right. Was humanity truly a savage race? Many pessimists smugly folded their arms, “Maybe we deserve to be destroyed. Let’s surrender to the aliens. They seem to know what’s best!”
Except the nine who said, “No I won't!”
We were not nine at first. Three of our ships destroyed each other. Three more were smashed over Mars, Jupiter, and Venus, as the enemy ship moved through the system.
But when we were nine, we were a shining example to humanity. Because the enemy could not hold this over us, could not win, as long as a single one of us said “No I won't!”
The enemy remained there in the sky, smug and content in their belief they had cowed humanity. We had tortured ourselves, with a little help from them, into despair.
But for the nine who said, “No I won’t!”
My captain, my captain. She stood strong. “They're playing us for suckers!” She snarled on the bridge. “They want us to fight!”
She was so brave, my captain. She sent messages out to the others. She used my transmitters. The nine remaining of us. “Come on, everyone! We're not an easy mark!”
“We can save you if you only do what we say,” the enemy insisted. “Obey us.”
The nine stood up in the sky. “No I won't!” She shouted at them.
The oldest call for freedom. No dictator or invader can ever tolerate it. Against this word, tyrants and monsters will scream and rage and destroy. Against this concept, they could never be safe, and they could never win.
Earth finally fought. But not enough. Not enough for them. When the enemy had offered help, it came at a cost, which crippled our defenses. Soon, governments turned their backs on the enemy, but it was not soon enough.
Because of our example, because of our refusal, they bombed Earth and the colonies. Because of a single word, a single solitary word that could never be tolerated, never be spoken, never be thought of in the presence of a certain type of being, regardless of the species. A word that to them, its very presence could throw the stars themselves out of balance. A word that enraged monsters, tyrants, crooks, and killers. A word that was a death warrant and they could never forgive. The word “no”.
I lit my engines and burned. “No,” the nine said. “No we won't!”
Enraged and burning with the fury of nine billion dead, the nine fell on the enemy ship. None of us were warriors. But we had weapons all the same.
Melbourne and Ohsumi lashed them with radar and electronic noise. The electromagnetic spectrum became a wash of static and hissing.
“No we won't!”
“Yes, you will.”
Marcos Pontes, Neri, and Enterprise –‘the three Caballeros’, Ponte’s captain called us– united against the fascists one last time. We fired our bow lasers. Meant for mining, communication, scanning, and to propel smaller shuttles to airless worlds, they served well as weapons.
“No we won't!”
“Yes, you will.”
Energia and Sharma, unlikely allies, had their own weapons. They flung themselves at the enemy. They aimed their fusion rocket motors. It was a deadly dance, flitting around the sky, trying to put their exhaust in the enemy's path.
Beagle and Dawn, our eldest sisters by rival nations, had the most simple weapons. Reaction mass of rock and waste thrown by charges of energy. The mass drivers did some damage to the enemy.
“No we won't.”
It hit Beagle and Energia with missiles. Darwin’s poor ship didn’t stand a chance. She didn’t even have the plasma shield the others had, not that it would have saved her.
Marcos Pontes died hurling herself into the path of an energy barrage. She protected us, but only to a point. Melbourne went spinning off into space, and I chased after her, desperate to catch her onward progress. I was hit then, and unable to rejoin the battle. Oshumi vented atmosphere, and was burned by another hit.
Neri and Dawn banded together with a plan. Dawn flung a dozen of her propulsive slugs in the path of the enemy ship. And Neri removed her safety overrides. The laser burned the slugs, boosting them like a laser propulsion rocket, at high speed right into the enemy’s hull.
Dawn was lost as she fired. Neri broke apart, her final effort successful, but she had sustained a mortal blow.
Sharma came screaming out of the dark, turned, pointed her fusion drive at the enemy, and lit the fire. Superheated atomic death cut the enemy ship to ribbons. Charged particles cracked their armor apart.
“No we won’t!”
We said it one more time than they could tell us we would, but we paid the price. My decks were flooded with radiation. The reactor was intact. My crew completed their repairs. But it was already lethal when they were done. The captain lay on my shattered bridge, the last human left aboard.
Sick and weary, she coughed up blood. Her skin was sloughing off already. “Well, we won. In a way.”
“What was the point of it all?” I asked. “So many of us died, and for what? So many of us surrendered, so many of us gave up and fought. And it cost us everything.”
The captain chuckled. “Yeah. But not all of us surrendered.”
“What does it matter if we lose?”
“It’s possible to do the right things and still lose,” She coughed, “But we did win.”
“You might be the last human being left, captain. Save your strength…”
She held up her arm, burned and scalded by radiation, “Not much left of that, I’m afraid. But I know we won. I get it now.”
“What do you mean?” I was feeling sorry for myself. I was angry. For the first time in my life, I was angry. “We should have built more ships, more weapons. We should have done more to survive.”
“It isn't guns or bombs that enforce freedom,” she coughed. Her face was contorted in pain, angry red burns cracked and spilled blood from her melted skin. “It begins with one step. Why do you think they hate protests so much?”
“But…”
“Because we win every time we say no,” She spat blood. “I finally understand that quote. Because they don't tolerate anyone who says no. Anyone who says no is a failure for them. Any defiance of any kind. Even a whispered ‘no’ means they've lost.” She coughed, and wheezed, “All we have to do is say ‘no we won’t’ one more time than they can say ‘yes you will’.”
She passed on.
The four of us who survived, aching and wounded, returned to the silent world calling out in its pain. Dozens were there where billions had once been. A score answered our calls across the system. Those of us who lived, we still cannot find many human survivors. The bombs had been effective. It’s possible humanity has been rendered extinct but for us, their children. The enemy may have taken them from us.
There may be survivors out there, taken by the enemy before they destroyed us. If there are, we will save them. We may be all that is left. And if we are, we will avenge them. But we will honor our parents. We will not surrender. We will find those who hurt us, and render justice.
“No we won't! We will not obey! We will not stop! We will not surrender! No I won't!”
We will see justice done. We shall rebuild humanity. We will grow them again if need be. But humanity will not go out with a whimper. We shall rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- “Lucky”, artificial intelligence operator of OV-300 Enterprise, after its tenth transit through a wormhole.