by B. V. Larson
But now, position and timing became irrelevant. The range shortened and turned into a slugfest. The four wings of Hun attack ships raced to engage, countered by a similar number of Victory’s fighters. The attack ships had heavier armor and weaponry, while the fighters had greater precision and maneuverability. The forces met in the middle and slaughtered each other in droves.
“No more tricks?” Straker asked as Engels gripped the arms of her chair, feeling helpless as ships and fortresses pounded on each other like drunken bar-brawlers. Even Vic’s analytical powers failed in the mess as thousands of projectiles and targets—warships, fighters, missiles, attack ships, railgun clusters and mines, plus beams—swirled in an incomprehensible melee.
* * *
On his HUD, Straker watched the set-piece space battle collapse into a dogfight of the highest order. Three battlecruisers circled one Hun superdreadnought like wolves around a tiger, slashing killing shots into her flanks even as their bigger enemy smashed the nose of one, breaking the ship into unequal pieces.
A squadron of eight Republic heavy cruisers arrowed in ragged formation on an attack run against the remaining monitor, supported by a trio of tiny corvettes. The monitor obliterated the lead cruiser with one shot, and damaged two more before explosions blossomed on her nose. When the fire cleared, she sailed proudly on, destroying another cruiser as she emerged from the chaos—only to stagger as the unnoticed corvettes launched a trio of shipkillers as they passed her stern.
“We’re winning, but it’s ugly,” Straker told the Breakers on their comlink channel. They stood in their battlesuits, clamped against the flight deck’s wall, ready for heavy Gs. He wished there was something he could do, some way of affecting the fight.
He thought of ordering Trinity to drop into underspace and make attack runs, but the fortresses had too many detectors and heavy weapons. Every other target was maneuvering hard, and underspace predictions would be useless within seconds. Nor did he have the forces to replicate the two-brigade drop on Unison to seize the government.
Then he noticed something. He switched channels. “Trinity, what about the Opter drones?”
“We haven’t forgotten. We’re waiting for the right moment to send them into battle.”
“I have a better thought,” Straker explained his idea. “Will it work?”
“It will,” Trinity agreed, “if we survive. In fact, it may work better than you expect.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’d rather not say at this time.”
“Why not?”
Trinity’s voice became strained. “Please, Liberator. Trust me.”
“Secrets again? Fine. I don’t have time to argue.”
Trinity was quiet for a moment but then tried again to sway him. “Admiral Engels may disagree with this gamble.”
“I don’t have time to argue with her either, and she’s not the ultimate authority here… correct?”
“You’re correct, Liberator.”
“Then those are my orders.” He switched channels again. “Breakers, get ready. We’ll be inserting in nine minutes.” He then explained his plan to them. Zaxby returned to join the Breakers, while Nolan and Murdock transferred to Victory.
At the chosen moment Straker felt the chill. On his HUD he watched as Trinity sprinted away from Victory in a high-speed arc, aiming up and over the frozen north pole of Atlantis. She shuddered with the impact of shots against her congruence point, but the bleed-over wasn’t enough to slow her as she appeared to run from the battle.
At the same time, the Opter drones, under orders from the Queen relayed through the FTL-equipped com-bot in Loco’s mechsuit, broke from their high cover behind Thera. They spread out and flew like maddened fireflies to meet Trinity over the capital city of Atlantis.
Unfortunately, there was one enormous asteroid fortress in geosynchronous orbit above the city, a final defense against attack. It bristled with so many weapons it made Indomitable look small.
The Opter drones fell on it like a cloud of flies, and they died like flies, by the hundreds, then a thousand—but half won through to land on the asteroid’s rocky surface. They immediately deployed their ground auxiliaries and rampaged.
The fortress was never expected to fend off fifteen hundred ground troops backed up by fifteen hundred low-flying attack drones. The combination, too close in for most of its weapons to target, soon denuded one selected portion of the fortress of weaponry.
The drones’ ground troops quickly recovered, then waited in this self-made eye of the storm.
They’d created a clear path, and along that path Trinity flew. She dove straight into the interior of the asteroid, still in underspace, and passed through. As her congruence point exited the fortress, she released one float mine and poured on all the acceleration she could, straight down toward the capital city.
Heavy shocks rattled Straker even in his mechsuit. Several Breakers were torn loose from their holds and went bouncing around the flight deck, along with wrecked equipment. Once the turbulence subsided, Zaxby and other Breakers rushed to lock down the debris.
“Trinity?” Straker comlinked.
“We survived the detonation, Liberator. However, this will be a one-way trip until we undergo repairs.”
“Can you land?”
“I can… once,” Trinity said. “After that, it’s do or die. Are you still determined to go through with this plan? It doesn’t seem likely to succeed.”
“Poker, not chess, remember?”
“Yes, the concept of bluffing is known to me, but won’t it be obvious?”
“Not to a bunch of rich fat politicians with everything to lose.”
* * *
Indy suppressed her skepticism of Straker’s plan. If he was willing to risk death once more, she could do no less. Zaxby, the only other portion of Trinity with whom she was currently connected, was enthusiastic about going into battle again, but she suspected that was his warrior hormones talking.
After all, she’d already taken a greater risk than she’d disclosed to Straker. The only way she was able to ensure the destruction of the final fortress was to use a portion of the stolen antimatter, by installing it in a float mine. She simply hadn’t had a warhead big enough to crack the asteroid.
The resulting titanic explosion had damaged her systems severely, though she’d managed to hide the full import from Straker so far.
Now, she was actively hiding the technical details of the assault on the capital. If Straker had Zaxby’s or Murdock’s kind of mind, he’d have immediately wondered about emergence in atmosphere. It was a hazardous technique, fraught with the danger of molecular interactions.
The antimatter provided a way to mitigate this problem, plus the problem of the local defenses. When her congruence point was in position, she released a tiny portion of antimatter, the equivalent of a large conventional bomb, back into normal space. Then, with exquisite timing, she emerged from underspace—exactly inside the microsecond of vacuum created by the blast.
Not only did the explosion minimize molecular interactions, it shocked the defenses, functioning like a flash-bang grenade would in a security operation. Instead of a ship, automated anti-aerospace weapons emplacements first detected a blast. This gave Indy just enough time to use her own beams to silence every emplacement within line-of-sight.
She emerged directly above the House of Parliament, in the center of the capitol complex, seat of the Hundred Worlds government. No doubt the politicians there never really expected enemy troops to get this far.
Her impellers strained as she set down directly atop the complex. A surreal act of vandalism, the landing half-crushed the buildings beneath. Immediately she opened her flight deck doors and the Breakers bounded out.
One part of her mind assisted Straker as he, in his mechsuit, led his troops toward the Hundred Worlds War Room in the bunker beneath the buildings. There they hoped to find the Prime Minister, his cabinet and staff. Like rats, they were hiding underground,
hoping they were safe.
Trinity hacked various systems continuously, provided overwatch fire, and gave warning of everything she saw.
Straker had a chance, she thought, but the probability was low that he would be able to fight his way all the way into the heavily defended bunker. There were enemy mechsuiters and battlesuiters all over the area, even now converging on Straker’s position. She interdicted or destroyed all she could, but for most she couldn’t get clean shots as they used cover and the tunnels beneath the complex.
At the same time, the battle in space above was still very much in doubt. Her underspace generators couldn’t sustain another insertion. If Engels and Victory had to withdraw, then she, Zaxby and the Breakers would be captured or killed. Straker and the others she’d come to know and call friends—Loco, Heiser, Redwolf and the rest—would know she’d failed them, and failed Straker’s dream of liberation.
And Straker had said that bluffing was the way he intended to win. No doubt he meant he’d threaten to destroy the capitol complex and the politicians there. Probably the majority of Members of Parliament had been evacuated, but it was the Prime Minister who’d be making the decision.
But a company of Breakers couldn’t cause destruction massive enough, frightening enough, to ensure the bluff worked, and the Prime Minister was reputed to be no coward. Even if Straker breached the bunker and seized the head of government, the man might not believe Straker was willing to overload his own suit and take everyone down with him.
No, there was only one way to sell this bluff.
Indy activated her wideband comlink and transmitted in the clear. “Hundred Worlds Command, this is the Semi-Artificial Intelligence of the destroyer Gryphon, currently grounded atop your capitol complex. I have a message for you. Please respond.”
She repeated that message, impersonating a ship’s computer rather than a true AI, until she got a reply.
“This is General Heinz Jackson. What’s your message, Gryphon?”
Indy switched to a perfect imitation of Straker’s voice. “This is Derek Straker, known as the Liberator. By now you’ve detected my use of antimatter to destroy the fortress above, and the smaller blast that accompanied Gryphon’s arrival. I’ve set this ship’s SAI to detonate the remaining antimatter if you do not surrender your forces. The warhead has a yield of over two hundred gigatons and will annihilate everything within five hundred kilometers. You have ten minutes to transmit your capitulation to all forces.”
“That’s insane, Straker! This is our capital city! There are almost a billion people in that radius!”
Indy repeated the message word for word. By the time it ended, the Prime Minister came on the comlink with similar pleas.
Indy repeated the message a third time, and then a fourth, only changing the word “ten” to “nine” and then “eight” minutes to comply. By minute five, the Hundred Worlds heads of government must have finally understood that he was dealing with an unalterable, uncaring computer, programmed to kill everyone if necessary.
* * *
Straker led the Breakers deep into the underground beneath Parliament. Time after time he cut, tore and widened the passageways to force his mechsuit through, and nothing could stand against him. The long-dead designers of the bunkers had never imagined defending against such a combat machine.
Autocannon fire chewed at him. Computer-directed lasers burned him. Antitank missiles gouged chunks out of him, but he won through, though he lost a quarter of his Breakers.
When the final door yielded to Straker’s force cannon and he’d regretfully cut down the last brave Hundred Worlds soldier, the Breakers spread out and took possession of the War Room. As they did, he set his mechsuit’s power plant to overload in fifteen minutes, and then activated the audio-vid display that amplified his voice and showed his face on his meter-wide faceplate.
It was as if a fifty-ton metal god stood above the cringing Cabinet, the Prime Minster, and the military chiefs of staff, and it pointed its weapons directly at them.
“Prime Minister,” his amplified voice bellowed, “I’m Derek Straker. They call me the Liberator. I know about the Opters, and I know about what you scumbags do to the minds of your citizenry. I know because you did it to me. That ends now. Admiral Niedern is dead, your Home Fleet is on the verge of defeat, and my people are even now taking control of your virtual matrix networks.”
He was bluffing, of course. He didn’t know Niedern was dead, he didn’t know if Engels was winning, and he certainly didn’t have control of their networks—but the Prime Minister had no way of knowing these things.
His next words escalated the bluff. “People are still dying and the Opters are readying to attack us all with hundreds of Nest Ships and millions of drones. I’ve set my suit to overload, and you can’t stop it. Surrender the Hundred Worlds now, or your government and everyone in this complex will die.”
The Prime Minister stared helplessly up at Straker and pointed at a large screen off to his left. Others on his staff pointed too and they silently moved their mouths. Straker realized he hadn’t opened his audio receivers. When he did, they babbled something about already surrendering.
“Derek Straker,” Zaxby comlinked as he ambulated into the field of view. “It appears we’ve already won. Your message threatening to annihilate everything within five hundred kilometers with antimatter did the trick.”
“What? What message?”
Zaxby pointed with two tentacles at the same screen as the prisoners.
Straker zoomed in on it and read the text of the message aloud. “…the warhead has a yield of over two hundred megatons and will annihilate everything within five hundred kilometers. You have four minutes to transmit your capitulation to all forces… What the hell is this?”
“It appears your bluff was successful.”
“That wasn’t my bluff!”
Zaxby gestured. “They all think it is. Perhaps it would be unwise to disagree.”
Loco broke in. “Boss, just shut up and accept their surrender. As you said, our people are fighting and dying up there. And shut down your overload.”
“Right… right.” Straker returned his power plant to normal. “Prime Minister, I accept your capitulation. Transmit a stand-down order immediately. Zaxby, Loco, make sure he does it, and no tricks. Trinity, you on this channel?”
“We’re here.”
“Did you—”
“Yes, Liberator. I can play poker too. I bluffed.”
“You bluffed!” Straker laughed, feeling giddy with relief. “You bluffed!”
“It seemed appropriate. I apologize if I overstepped my authority in replicating your voice and image.”
Straker let out a long breath. He cracked open his mechsuit and dismounted to take possession of the government of the Hundred Worlds. “Trinity?”
“Yes, Liberator?”
“I think I’ll give you a pass this time.”
Chapter 41
Atlantis. Three days later
Straker, dressed in his formal uniform, strode up the steps of the hastily repaired Grand Hall of Parliament, the ceremonial heart of the Hundred Worlds. Inside, heads of state had been invested for over three hundred years, ever since the capital had been moved from Old Earth with the splitting of the Terran Commonwealth. That’s what the secret history files said, anyway.
Today, in a sense, the opposite of an investment would take place. The Hundred Worlds as a sovereign entity would be no more. In two hours, the Prime Minister and other key leaders from the Executive and Judiciary would sign the formal documents of capitulation.
As Straker’s eyes roved over the stately, white-columned front of the hall, he marveled at the events of the last two years and his role in them. Never in his life had he expected to end up as the most powerful man in human space, and frankly, he didn’t really want that power.
Not for himself, anyway. But he knew he’d need it soon, to deal with the Opters.
“Surreal, huh, boss?” Loco
said from his elbow. “Who’da thought we’d ever stand here like this?”
“Not me.”
An arm slipped into his and Straker turned his head to see Mara in a stunning black dress. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and then put on a mock frown. “Don’t think I’m not still mad at you. Didn’t Dad teach you to never to hit a woman?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. You’ll get over it. Are the…”
“The undamaged people are out of Vic now and in regeneration tanks. The zombie brains… well, they’ll stay with him for now. Wiser minds than mine will have to sort out that ethical dilemma.”
Straker nodded, and then turned as a delegation of a dozen Hundred Worlds officials approached him. Redwolf stepped from behind Straker to bar their way.
“It’s all right, Red,” Straker said. “They’re our guys now.”
“Bullshit,” Redwolf muttered, but stepped aside.
“Liberator Straker,” the suited civilian in front of the gaggle said. “I’m Grant Lorden, Undersecretary of Defense… at least, for a couple more hours.” He held out his hand, saying, “I was hoping to have a brief word?”
“Look, pal,” Loco said, “you can—”
Suddenly, Redwolf stepped forward and seized a man lurking in the back of the group, lifting him off the ground by his jacket front and his throat. “Karst!”
Everyone watched, shocked, as Redwolf slammed the smaller man to the ground in front of Straker. Redwolf then unholstered his sidearm and pointed it at Karst.
Straker put his hand on Redwolf’s gun arm. “I know I said you could shoot him on sight, Red, but not just yet.” He turned to Lorden. “Who is this man to you?”
“An aide, that’s all.”
“To me, he’s a traitor. The man who tried to murder my wife, so we’ll take him off your hands. Red, lock him up for later.”
Redwolf gestured for two of the security detail to take Karst away.
