Remnants: Broken Galaxy Book Five

by Phil Huddleston

  Instinctively, she turned back to the west, away from the ship, putting the seat’s armor plate between her and the radiation. Assessing her options, she glanced off to the northeast. Sure enough, she could see another mushroom cloud ascending into the sky over Los Angeles. Glancing south, she saw another large mushroom cloud over the Mexican coast well south of her.

  That looks like Ensenada. No help there, she thought. That means this is a full-scale attack of some kind. All the major cities will be gone. No chance of Miramar or LAX or anything like that.

  She glanced at her fuel. On one engine, she might make it three hundred miles. If she was lucky. If the wind was with her…

  Well, not going to Mexico. Under these conditions, that’ll be anarchy for sure. I’d rather take my chances in the States, even if all the cities are gone.

  She pulled up her electronic map and did some quick calculations. She wasn’t an expert on radiation, but she thought if she moved quickly, she could thread the needle between San Diego and Los Angeles, and get east of both before the fallout got too bad.

  Then maybe I can get to the Sierra Nevada mountains and find someplace to put it down before I run out of fuel.

  Threading the needle between the mushroom cloud over San Diego and the one over Los Angeles, Zoe flew until she was well east. She could see more mushroom clouds northeast toward Las Vegas, and northwest toward Edwards AFB and Bakersfield.

  No help there.

  She turned north, toward the Sierra Nevada, thinking she might place herself in the middle of all the mushroom clouds surrounding her - and get some shelter from the radiation in a deep mountain valley. An hour later, as she approached Kings Canyon National Park, the F/A-48 was running low on fuel. It was getting dark. She was running out of options.

  She noticed a small cabin off to the side of a high mountain meadow, in an area roughly equidistant from the remnants of the ugly mushroom clouds. Running on fumes, she turned the damaged fighter toward the large meadow near the cabin, put the flaps down, and came in on the aching edge of a stall, the warning horn blaring in her ears. Just before impact, Zoe closed the throttle, shut off the fuel, and crossed herself. She had time for one quick prayer.

  Help me out on this one, Lord.

  Then there was a brutal impact as the jet slammed into the ground. The landing was brutal; fighters were not designed to land in rough mountain meadows. The jet slewed, spun around once, then lifted up on a wing as if it would go over. Finally, it settled back, upright, and slammed into a tree at the end of the meadow.

  Banged, bruised, scraped up, Zoe got disentangled from the cockpit. As night fell, she managed to get her aching body out of the wreck and trudged over to the nearby cabin. No one was there; but she found a little food stored in the cupboard, and a water bag which she filled from a nearby stream.

  The next morning, the radiation sickness came. Zoe lay in the cabin, barely able to move, expecting every day to die.

  Stalingrad System

  Dyson Ring

  As Rachel entered the Council Chamber of the Goblin leadership followed by the rest of the Humans, her feeling of deja vu was overwhelming. It seemed like only a few days ago she had stood in this room, pleading for the lives of humanity. But that had been many months ago.

  Yet it all came back to her in a rush. There were the nine benches for the judges. There were the conference tables, one on each side of the large room. There was the small dock, with a railing on three sides, where she had stood - and where she had argued that humanity was worth saving. Where, in exchange for the planet Venus, the Goblins had agreed to help humanity defend against the Ashkelon.

  Tika directed them to one of the conference tables and had them sit facing the judge’s benches. The group of Humans had just begun to settle into their chairs when the door at the back of the room opened and a Goblin walked in. The Goblin - female, and naked as usual - strode swiftly to the table and sat down directly across from the Humans. There was no preamble. She got to the point quickly.

  “My name is Leader Tagi. I regret to inform you that your planet has been destroyed,” the Goblin said. “The Stree have also attacked Ashkelon, Dekanna, Nidaria, Asdif and Ursa. All are destroyed.”

  The Humans sat in stunned silence. Rachel was the first to recover her voice. She spoke in shock and denial.

  “No. Not destroyed. Attacked, maybe. But not destroyed.”

  Tagi shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could give you better news. But Earth has been nuked back to the stone age. I’d be greatly surprised if there are more than a few thousand people left alive on your planet.”

  “No,” whispered Gillian. “No, it can’t be!”

  Gillian turned and fell against Mark’s shoulder, sobbing. Rita reached out a hand and held onto Jim’s arm.

  Rachel sat frozen in shock.

  Dan. He was at Dekanna. He was working on Dragon’s repairs.

  My Dan.

  My Dan is gone.

  “I am so sorry,” said Tagi. “We thought we had more time.”

  Jim finally managed to speak. “What do you mean? You knew this was coming? You let this happen?”

  The Goblin turned to him. “We know the Stree hate us with great passion. We knew they would try at some point to eliminate us. But we never thought they would attack our biological allies first. It is a grave mistake in our judgment.”

  “A grave mistake?” Jim yelled. He shot to his feet. “A grave mistake? You failed to warn us about this? You let them attack our planet?”

  The Goblin nodded. “We are at fault in this, and we recognize it. But we cannot change it. We can only move forward from this day.”

  “Move forward?” Jim roared. “Move forward? How do we move forward?”

  Rita stood now, beside Jim, and reached for him. She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into her. Slowly, with coaxing movements and gentle words, she got him to sit down again.

  Everyone sat in stunned silence. After a few seconds, it was Mark who spoke next.

  “We need to get back to Earth.”

  Tagi shook her head. “That would be a mistake. There is nothing there for you but death. A nuclear winter. Radiation. Dead cities. You will not live long if you set foot on that planet.”

  Mark stood up.

  “I don’t care. I’m going.”

  Gillian got up and stood beside him.

  “I’m going too,” she said.

  Rita also stood and nodded at Gillian.

  “I’ll go with you. Let’s go fetch Imogen.” The two turned and left the room.

  Mark Rodgers gave a long stare at the others. Then he followed the two women out of the room.

  The rest of them - all except Rachel - rose and looked at each other. They turned and followed Mark toward the docking bay.

  Rachel sat alone for half a minute.

  Dan. My Dan.

  Then, moving like a robot, she slowly rose to her feet and followed.

  Chapter Six

  Stalingrad System

  Dyson Swarm

  The corvette Armidale boosted hard at 500g for the mass limit, pushing to get back to Earth. Jim, Rachel and Tika were too restless to stay in their cabins. As their speed built, the three sat on the bridge behind Captain Stewart, watching the various structures of the Dyson Swarm pass as they headed out-system.

  Suddenly an alarm sounded. Captain Stewart looked at the holo and saw two large ships coming in from behind.

  Two battlecruisers. Coming right at them. Two huge black battlecruisers.

  Stewart reached up a hand to order Battle Stations, but before he could do so, Tika interjected.

  “Don’t worry, Captain Stewart. Those are our ships. Our Leaders have ordered them to escort us to Earth.”

  Rachel turned and glared at Tika. “When I was here last, you said you no longer had a fleet of warships. You said you didn’t need them anymore.”

  “Maybe we lied,” said Tika quietly.

  Rachel’
s face showed a look of pure anger. “Maybe you lied? There’s no maybe! You lied to me!”

  Tika bowed her head and closed her eyes. “I was ordered to do it, Rachel. I’m sorry.”

  Rachel turned back to the holo, too angry to speak.

  “So…how big is your fleet?” asked Jim. “Although I suppose you won’t tell us that either.”

  Tika continued to look down at the deck. “I cannot give you the details you ask for. But I can tell you that we have been preparing to meet the Stree for two centuries. So it is a large fleet.”

  Jim was so angry, he sprang from his jump seat behind Captain Stewart. “So Paco died for nothing? All those pilots that died getting you to the Tornado? For nothing? Because you didn’t want to commit warships to us?”

  Tika looked up at Jim. “That’s not true, Jim. We took the approach we thought would work best. And it did - think about it, Jim. Think it through. If we had sent a dozen battlecruisers, or even two dozen battlecruisers…how many more would have died before we defeated Zukra? On both sides, yours and ours? Thousands? Tens of thousands?”

  Jim stared at Tika. The venom in his gaze was apparent. Without a word, he stalked off the bridge. Rachel, also shooting arrows at Tika with her eyes, got up from her jump seat and followed Jim.

  Captain Stewart had turned in his chair and watched the exchange between the three of them. Now he also glared at Tika, anger evident in his face.

  “I suggest, Tika, that you retire to your cabin and stay there for a while.”

  Tika nodded and rose, departing the bridge. Stewart turned back to the holo. As he watched, the gargantuan Goblin battlecruisers slotted into escorting positions surrounding the Armidale, leaving the corvette looking tiny and vulnerable in the middle of the formation.

  Earth

  Sol System

  Twenty-five days later, seven Humans and two Goblins stood on the bridge of the Armidale, staring at the display in horror.

  Below them, the Earth rotated silently, as it always had. But it was no longer a beautiful blue and white planet. A new reality overwhelmed them, covering them like a black blanket.

  The Humans on the bridge of the corvette could only stare. The horror was too great for them to speak or think. All they could do was stare, and hurt, and cry.

  Rachel especially was devastated. Great, choking sobs racked her body. She sank to her knees on the bridge, unable to continue standing. Ollie, on her left, sank down with her and held her, barely able to hold back his own tears. Rita, on Rachel’s right side, also sank to the floor, holding Rachel’s hand, trying to comfort her in the midst of indescribable grief.

  The dayside of the planet below them was a nearly uniform dark gray, with streaks of white and black shot through it, giving it a cancerous, mottled appearance. Where large cities had been, great fires still burned, leaving a hellish glow beneath the dirty cocoon of devastation. The planet they had known and loved had been transformed into something unrecognizable.

  In a spontaneous group moment, everyone who was still standing also sank to their knees. Jim, Luke, Mark, and Misha knelt on the deck. Tika, behind them, followed suit, emulating the Humans in sympathy.

  Rachel, tears streaming down her face, began to speak. Nobody else on the bridge spoke Gaelic; but all on the bridge recognized the rhythm of the Lord’s Prayer. As Rachel continued reciting from her Irish heritage, her words mixed with Gillian’s muted sobs.

  Ár n-Athair Ár n-Athair atá ar neamh, Go naofar d'ainim, Go dtagfadh do ríocht, Go ndéantar do thoil ar an talamh mar a dhéantar ar neamh. Ár n-arán laethúil tabhair dúinn inniu, agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha mar a mhaithimidne dár bhféichiúna féin. Ach ná lig sinn i gcathú, ach saor sinn ó olc.

  As Rachel completed the prayer, silence covered the bridge. After a minute, Jim Carter rose to his feet. He looked over at Captain Stewart.

  “We have to decide what to do next.”

  Stewart nodded, and rose. “Let’s move to my cabin. XO, you have the conn.”

  The group moved through the back hatch into Stewart’s cabin. They crowded together around the small conference table.

  For some reason - perhaps because he was on duty - Captain Stewart seemed to hold himself together. He began the discussion.

  “We think they detonated around 3,000 nukes, most of them between 25 to 50 megatons,” said Stewart.

  “Why so many?” wondered Jim bitterly.

  “Because they wanted to be sure to eliminate you as a threat,” said Tika.

  “But we were not a threat to them!” wailed Rachel. “Why attack us?”

  “Their ultimate goal is to destroy us Goblins,” said Tika. “Evidently they decided to first destroy our allies, to leave us isolated.”

  “But why you?” asked Rita. “What have the Goblins ever done to the Stree?”

  “We exist,” said Tika bitterly. “That is enough for them. They are a fanatical species, led by a fanatical cult. They hate and fear the concept of a sentient artificial intelligence. They have made war on us twice in the past. Both times, we fended them off. But they keep coming back. And this time, they are stronger than we have ever seen them before.”

  Rachel spoke bitterly. “And you couldn’t tell us about them before? You couldn’t give us a chance to prepare? A chance to survive?”

  “We simply didn’t realize the Stree were ready to come at us again. It’s been more than two hundred years since they last attacked us. We thought we had plenty of time,” Tika replied.

  Mark Rodgers deflected the conversation, trying to avoid another round of anger and confrontation that would lead nowhere.

  “What do the sensors tell us about the surface, Captain?” he interjected.

  Stewart glanced at his tablet.

  “Average surface temperature is already down by 16 degrees C, a bit more than 28 degrees F below normal. Our AI model predicts the global average temperature will bottom out at 18 degrees C below normal.”

  Stewart looked up. “That’s 32.4 degrees F below normal. Enough to bring on a new ice age. That will kill almost all plant life on the planet, and most of the animal life. There may be a few plants that survive near the equator, but it’s doubtful anything large will make it through.”

  “How about the oceans?” asked Rita.

  “They’ll be devastated too,” said Stewart. “Some plants and marine animals will survive, but probably nothing near the surface. The ozone in the upper atmosphere is destroyed. So once the smoke and ash clouds start to thin out, that lack of ozone will allow UV radiation to flood the planet. Nothing will be able to live near the surface of the oceans. At least, nothing that we know of now.”

  “So no life on land, and little life in the oceans,” said Mark bitterly.

  Tika interjected. “There will be small patches of life that survive. It takes more than this to kill a planet completely. But I doubt there will be many Humans that make it through the bottleneck.”

  “How many?” asked Jim. “How many Humans will survive?”

  Tika looked grim.

  “As many as we can rescue before they die of cold and starvation.”

  Surface of Venus

  Sol System

  With a start, Commander Rauti awoke. His forty caterpillar legs twitched uncontrollably as he lay on his back, trying to orient himself.

  What happened? I was on an inspection tour of the mountain. Then this…

  Slowly his senses started to re-sync. He realized where he was. He had been deep inside the mountain, reviewing the construction of the tunnels that would be used to anchor the space tether. Something catastrophic had happened, knocking him out. His self-repair process had kicked in.

  Checking his basal time clock, he was shocked to realize four weeks had passed. Other sensors told him there was a high radiation level seeping in through the tunnel from outside. It came to him instantly as he put all the facts together.

  The Stree. It has to be the Stree.

  Moving slowly, he rotated his body to sta
nd up on his legs. He looked around the tunnel. It had caved in, leaving only a small space where he had somehow survived. But he could see a glimpse of light through a hole in the pile of rock in front of him. That meant the blockage was thin. He could dig through it.

  There were a dozen other caterpillar bodies lying around - the remnants of his staff. Most of them were crushed under the cave-in. All were dead.

  The Stree. The fucking Stree, Rauti thought. They destroyed my beautiful, beautiful project. I’m going to fucking kill them.

  Earth

  Sol System

  Over the next few days, the Humans at Earth put together a rescue effort. The Armidale took up an orbit over Central America. The Goblin battlecruisers that accompanied them established geosync orbits equidistant from them, allowing coverage of the entire planet. They scanned for anything that looked like a life sign. Shuttle after shuttle of Goblins went to the surface searching for survivors, concentrating their efforts on the areas between blast zones - places where life might have survived.

  Initially, Jim and the rest of the Humans also went down by shuttle to various points where sensors indicated there might be life. With the travel time from Stalingrad, it was now nearly a month after the attack. Survivors were few and far between. But they worked steadily, trying not to give up hope.

  Cocooned in their environmental suits, protected from the radiation and noxious chemicals of the atmosphere, the Humans assisted the Goblins. They found a few survivors in mountainous terrain, tucked away in caves or other enclaves that had protected them from the worst of the blast and radiation - places where water could be had from streams and lakes, where small creatures such as rabbits and mice could be had for food.

  Those they found were brought back to the orbiting ships, decontaminated, fed, and placed into hastily constructed dormitories in the cargo holds of the battlecruisers.

  But after a few days, Jim and Rita realized they needed to change the process, to provide a more Human touch for the rescued survivors.

  “We’re wasting our time going to the surface,” Jim said as they convened in the galley of the Armidale on the fourth day. “The Goblins are ten times as effective as us in finding survivors. We need to let them take that part of the effort. But the stress of being rescued by Goblins is leaving some of the survivors too shell-shocked to communicate - especially if they are rescued by Goblins in non-Human aspects. The children are the worst - I saw some yesterday that were rescued by Goblins in their caterpillar aspects, and those poor kids were still shaking in fear a half-hour later. We should concentrate on welcoming the survivors on the ships, giving them a Human face to see when they come aboard.”