Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2)

by Darcy Troy Paulin

  “I saw what I saw, Bob. The shockwave expanded through the whole city. We could see it from space, I can't imagine what it must have been like on the ground…”

  “No. You’re wrong…” Bob said dismissively, “I don't believe it…”

  “Bob… it does not matter right now what percentage of the population died. The point is that GE has stepped up their game and we need to as well.”

  “Okay…”

  “Right now, we have limited access to the theater network. We have almost no access at all in the south. They had things with the squids well under control down there.”

  They had never completely embraced peace in the south. With intercity skirmishes being not uncommon, warriors were held in high regard. An entire region of people with rifles under their pillows made for rough and violent day to day life, but it had its advantages. Or it had until GE noticed their resilience and started dropping impactors.

  “The city council, the coordinator, they already said no to that. This might change their minds, but I doubt it,” Bob said.

  “They might listen to you, you’re one of them—”

  “There is no chance they will listen to me. You don't know what’s going on down here Max, but my people have not exactly welcomed the earthlings’ influence. The council is denying that there are even aliens attacking. They're saying it’s a power play by the earthlings. They're saying the earthlings dropped the squids on us. I haven't left my Roughshod since I got here. If they knew I was Tawnee, they'd single me out as a traitor.”

  Max cursed.

  Linda was shaking her head. Presumably at the idiocy of human illogic and mistrust.

  “Listen, Bob,” Max started, then paused to gather his thoughts. “There won't be any more city council if GE decides to drop a rock on Tawnee. If we don't get some real organization going on, then the evacuation is going to fail. All those people are going to die and since you’re down there on the ground, you'll die with them.”

  “What are you saying, Max? What am I supposed to do? I can't convince them. I mean obviously you think I'm a pretty big deal and all, but to the council? The coordinator? I'm nobody.”

  “If you can't convince them then just do it the Bob way. Bash your way in and redirect the network. Do you still have your posse?”

  “Ah… well I had to transfer a few of their AI Cores inside the Roughshod. But they’re all alive if that's what you mean. Nine are still in the field, eight are in full operation,” Bob said, with a tone of defensiveness.

  “Good, then you don't even need to leave the mech. You just need to get them inside and they can transfer access. Once they've done that, each individual theater would need to be reprogrammed to get it back from us without our help. Or so I've been informed.”

  “You’re asking me to actually be a traitor—”

  “No Bob, I'm asking you to save your people. From GE and from their out of touch leadership.”

  “Did you get the Akoronite?”

  “We got it.”

  There was silence from Bob.

  Max thought he knew what Bob was thinking, and he was strangely unsurprised when he got the answer.

  “Alright. I'll do it,” Bob said. “My combat androids say it will be a piece of cake. I think that means they can do it.”

  It suddenly occurred to Max that with a flip of a switch, he could send Bob the footage of Entaarguuishawa's demise. So, he flipped the switch.

  “Maybe if you show them that, you won't have to do things the hard way. How has it gone against the squid?”

  “Rough. We've pretty much dealt with the dumb ones now. But that leaves the shiftier, thinking—” Bob stopped talking suddenly. After a long pause he continued, “You weren't kidding… Toe-no-yats, that's… that's unbelievable.”

  The pretty blue-green globe out the Dee-Dub's canopy grabbed Max's attention. A line of bright light, getting brighter, streaked towards the planet’s surface. Max expanded the image to find exactly what he'd been looking for, and the very thing he'd hoped not to find. An impactor slashed through the atmosphere. Max felt momentary sense of relief when he realized the impactor wasn't headed to his home in the north, but was on its way to yet another southern city. Guilt at such relief followed quickly after as he witnessed the impact, followed by the shockwave that spread out far beyond the perimeter of the city, and a cloud of dust and smoke that rose above the crumpled metropolis.

  “Bob, I have to go. They just hit another city down south. I don't even know which one…” Max said, already plotting a jump. “I'll keep you updated when I can, though it might be through Mega.”

  The Dee-Dub folded into close orbit directly above the newly destroyed city. A red blip appeared on the canopy HUD, indicating an unknown ship, presumed hostile. A moment later it was confirmed when the image expanded to reveal a golden chicken egg hovering a few kilometers closer to the city. Max's adrenaline spiked and a battle between fight and flight began in his mind. If he engaged the alien ship, he would be swatted aside. It would be idiotic to attack the thing. But if he didn't stop the ship, more cities would be destroyed, which for at least the time being were still filled with people. And without any information on the enemy ship… Strengths? Weaknesses?

  If Snow was here, she would have already pulled the trigger. Snow though, was a terrible example to follow.

  “Screw it,” Max said. GE had to pay for what they had done to Entaarguuishawa. For what they were doing everywhere. And he did have those freshly minted Roughshod cannons just sitting there.

  “Linda, prepare coordinates,” Max said. “Jump us right up beside those crab-licks.” He grabbed the control stick. His finger caressed the trigger in anticipation.

  The ship jumped immediately. The fold brought it to the side of the alien space Egg, though slightly space-ward. The ship was lined up perfectly as the fold completed. Max pulled the trigger. The twin cannons released twin blasts of energy into empty space. Max cursed the speed of the alien ship, then realized it wasn't the alien that had moved. It was the Dee-Dub that had dashed off so quickly. The Dee-Dub was in orbit around the planet. Somehow, the alien Egg was not. Max rotated the ship and zoomed in on the Egg. He lined up another shot and fired another salvo. This time he hit. The Egg didn't even try to evade the twin blasts, each of which struck their target. There was no visible damage, and only a brief halo of energy surrounding the ship hinted at why. Some sort of shield deflected or absorbed the impacts. Max fired again, a full barrage of pulsed energy blasts. He fired until the capacitors ran dry. Predictably, there was still no damage or change to the Egg. Except now it started moving towards the Dee-Dub, and quickly changed from a receding Egg target to an approaching Egg aggressor.

  Let's get out of here, Max thought.

  The Dee-Dub jumped.

  The Dee-Dub reappeared a few hundred thousand kilometers away, and Linda was already zooming in on the alien Egg. Just in time they saw, the tiny speck of light that was the Dee-Dub as it folded away, and a pair of energy beams from the alien ship pass through the space the Dee-Dub had only just been.

  “Wow,” Max said, “we just saw us.”

  “That was neat!” Linda said.

  “How did you know to do that? That was exactly what I wanted to do. Only I was too slow.”

  “I just did what you told me to do. It was weird though. I didn't know you could send non-verbal commands,” Linda said. “The new dome-chips are much more advanced than they were when we left Earth.”

  “You mean you read my mind?” Max said, amazed and worried. He did not need an auto-broadcast of every thought or idea that popped into his head.

  “No, sir, Captain, sir. It was an order sent by you.”

  Max considered what he was thinking before they jumped. He certainly did want the ship to jump. And he was even thinking that they needed to see what happened. But he hadn't known how to make that happen. “Did I tell you to jump far enough away to look back in time?”

  “That was my idea,” Linda sa
id. “Pretty cool eh?”

  “Very,” Max said. “Any idea how I send you commands like that?”

  “Hmmmm,” Linda said, as though she were mulling it over. “Nothing in the manual… Oh, here's something. There were similar side effects during development. But they had been unable to iron them into features before releasing them to the market. Mmmm, maybe not though. They seem to have been fear-based effects. You weren't afraid though, boss. Were you?”

  “Of course I was,” Max said. “I thought we were screwed.”

  “Huh. When I imagine fear, there's more screaming,” Linda said.

  Max did a double take. Did Linda just say she screams when she's scared? Did Linda just say she gets scared? But she hadn't quite said that, not exactly.

  “Now we need to get back in contact and pass on what we've learned. Dear HQ: Our cannons are useless against the enemy.”

  “Uh-oh, I have news on that front,” Linda said. It was not her happy-go-lucky voice. “Good-news, bad-news, bad-news. Tangential bad-news.”

  Max guessed at one of the bits of bad-news, noting that the red dot representing the Egg was now accelerating towards the Dee-Dub. If the aliens knew the position of the Dee-Dub, it could jump to them at any moment. Max worked the control stick, keeping the Dee-Dub moving in a pattern that he hoped was unpredictable.

  “We are in line of sight to Longissima now. The enemy is heading towards us. And there is a broad signal being transmitted, loudly, from Mega. And the aliens will see that signal. Unless they are blind.”

  Max counted. Good, bad, bad. And tangentially bad. “What does the transmission say?”

  “Your servants await.”

  “The traitors left a beacon? Why hasn't GE seen it before now then?”

  “The Longissima never sees Grailliyn. The alien must have stayed in Grailliyn orbit and out of the signal’s line of transmission till now. But they just crossed that line…to chase after us. They see it now.”

  It was clear from the red dot on the HUD that something had changed. The Egg had adjusted its line of acceleration and was now moving perpendicular to the surface. They were screwed. But the Egg was moving away from the surface of Mega, not towards it. Maybe they had some time to act after all. Then it clicked in Max's mind.

  “Longissima, this is Max.”

  “We read you, Max,” came the response quickly.

  “GE is targeting Longissima,” Max said. “Evacuate now.”

  “Ahhh…” said the voice, “Let me patch in Eva.”

  Precious seconds were tickling away.

  “Eva here—”

  “Eva. Hit the eject button. Now,” Max said. “GE is on the way.”

  “Max?” Eva said, infuriatingly. Every split second wasted would be measured in human lives.

  “Now Eva! The GE ship is heading your way, building up speed with an impactor in tow!”

  And it was now in fact heading back towards Longissima.

  “Awhoogah! Awhoogah!” came the sound of sirens over the comms. “Max, how much time to do we have?” Eva asked.

  “Seconds,” Max said.

  “Twenty-three seconds,” Linda said.

  “Drop everything and get to your ships now!” Eva was shouting. “Twenty-two seconds to impact!”

  Max wracked his brain for something to do. The cannons were useless. Unless? Yes, Useless. They would have no time to atomize the impactor, a simple mass rather than an explosive. Fifteen seconds. He called Snow. But there was no response. Ten Seconds. He cursed every curse he knew and punched his seat. Five seconds. He mindlessly grabbed the control stick for comfort. Two seconds. “Linda!”

  “Great Idea!” Linda said, and the Dee-Dub jumped. They folded a hundred meters above Longissima.

  Max had no time to see anything but the impactor below.

  “Too late,” Linda said, as the Dee-Dub fell towards Longissima. A few seconds passed in an instant. The impactor impacted with command modules of Longissima. The Sleeper Array, that section of the ship consisting almost entirely of sleep pods, just disappeared. The Dee-Dub jumped again a moment before impact.

  They folded into space hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Mega. The thin air they had transported with them thinned further into the vacuum of space, but it was thick enough to impart a shockwave onto the hull of the Dee-Dub. A small 'woomp' was all Max felt as a segment of Longissima they'd inadvertently carried with them was obliterated. A moment later Snow's side of the ship was torn open. They had been too late to stop the impactor before it impacted, but they'd captured a chunk of shrapnel in their escape. Much of Linda's android body was torn free with the side of the ship. The upper half was simply torn free of her harness. Uselessly, and much too late, Max reached out to grab her. He leaned forward to see out the canopy. The white form of her torso spun away from the ship. In pieces. And within her shattered husk, Max thought he saw the faint flicker of her AI core, before it was suddenly blotted out.

  Chapter 32

  “But I'm not even in a computer,” Snow said, in a bad imitation of Terrance's electronic voice.

  If he'd been speaking, he'd have had a point. But soon enough it would become irrelevant. There were no spare android bodies. Terrance/Mindac was destined to reside in her tug jumper, posing as the computer. Which was a pity. Snow would have been happy to have the extra help, ferrying the processed Akoronite from Longissima's hanger bay to the tug jumper's ice dome hanger. But she was done now, having ferried the last load of Ako', and a pocketful of AIs. She'd even installed them into all the tug jumpers’ AI cradles, except one. Only Terrance remained. Snow sauntered to her tug to finish up.

  “Helmets on. Helmets on.” Eva's calm voice blared in Snow's helmet. “Eject. Eject. nineteen seconds to impact.” Calm wasn't the word. Dead. Her voice carried the weighty certainty of death.

  Snow, running now, closed the gap to her tug. Her mind raced, ordering all their assets in priority. Pilots. She needed the pilots. Only two were in the hanger with her. The rest were on Longissima.

  “Rendezvous outside these two hatches,” Snow said into her radio.

  She highlighted the positions on her HUD, and noted the predicted impact point of the missile impactor. It was centered directly on the command section.

  She passed the rallying positions on. “Thomas, take Keelee and pick up our people on the ice. Wait as long as you can.”

  “On it,” Thomas said. Both he and Margret ran to their tugs.

  “I'll grab the sleep pods,” Snow said, a plan forming on how she would accomplish it. “Margret, shepherd the other tugs to the rendezvous.”

  Two ships folded away from the hanger, Thomas and the AI Keelee. With them went nearly a quarter of a million tons of ice each, and leaving a half sphere one hundred meters in diameter. Snow was knocked from her feet as a blast of air surged past her to fill the void left by the atmosphere and ice which had suddenly disappeared with the tug. Her ears, though protected by her helmet, were nonetheless assaulted by paired thunderclaps. She scrambled to her feet. Seconds ticked by as she ran to her tug, climbed in, and closed the hatch. The rest of the other ships folded away in unison. The resulting storm rocked Snow’s ship, dragging it several meters towards the center of the hanger. There was an alarming sound of creaking ice and Snow worried the dome ceiling might collapse. She ignored it and pressed on with Terrance's installation. More seconds were lost as the cradle slowly opened. She stuffed Terrance in and looked out through the sides of the now very porous hanger bay towards Longissima. The Sleep Pod Array grabbed her attention. Longissima was too long to be transported by a tug jumper. They should have sliced it up before, but it was too late now. A tug folded into view; Margret, Snow guessed. It was aimed at the command section of Longissima. Snow could see that it wouldn't save Longissima, but it was too late to point that out now. A couple seconds later the tug folded away. A familiarly large crater below the command modules appeared, along with a blast of wind that dragged on the small group of evacuees behind her,
and another thunderclap. But Longissima stayed put. Snow knew what she had to do. She ordered Terrance to make the first jump. They appeared in orbit with an iceberg in tow and moved the tug to clear the berg from their jump sphere as quickly as possible. As soon as that was done, they jumped again, reappearing on the ice at the far end of Longissima's Sleep Pod Array. The sky was brightening now as the impactor approached. The two rescue tugs jumped away, further blasting the area with intense but short-lived blizzards, foreshadowing their big brother storm that was about to arrive. The impactor got closer. Snow waited, the timing and controls left to Terrance. Her HUD fought to balance the blinding brightness of the impactor, blocking it out and leaving the view of a surprisingly peaceful pale blue sky in the surrounds. An object appeared just above the impactor. She recognized the Dee-Dub as it fell from the sky. Snow’s mouth dropped open. She tried to comprehend what they were doing there when the impactor struck Longissima. A moment later the command section had been destroyed, freeing the sleep array. Snow's tug jumped away with the sleep array in tow, and the blue sky and bright surface of Mega was again replaced by pitch blackness, spotted with a million billion points of starlight.

  “Max?” Snow shouted into the radio.

  There was no response.

  “Max!” she shouted again.

  “They jumped away shortly before we did,” Terrance said.

  Snow crossed her fingers that it was nothing more than comms issues that explained Max's failure to reply.

  Behind her was a long line of icebergs each formed into some portion of a half sphere. Ice asteroids or moons she supposed was probably a more correct label she thought. None of the other tug jumpers were in the vicinity though. They had all moved on, to the second rendezvous point. The sleep array was moving, having been thrust slowly towards the tug by the partial shockwave that had traveled with them. That and likely some amount of shrapnel and debris from the wreck of the command section. She wondered briefly if everyone had gotten away. She worried for only a moment about the pods at the hot end of the array and what damage might have been caused to them. She pushed the thought away; she could do no more about that than she could to locate Max at this moment.