Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  ETA: One Hour, Eight Minutes

  “Sir, Battlefield Control is querying our reason for course change.”

  “Ignore it Lieutenant.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me.”

  In the sky, stars broke from their constellations. Rockets fired, kicking them across the tropics and into new, geostationary positions.

  “Heavy lifters?” Staff Sergeant Singh shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand. “Heavy lifters for infantry transport? That’s not procedure.”

  Sergeant Singh, Logistics and Transport, was a very meticulous man. He had to be: if logistics messed up, shells didn’t reach gun batteries. Tired patrols missed warm meals. USO performers played for empty halls. Logistics was important – and needed to go right every time.

  And that meant procedure. Sergeant Singh liked procedure: it was always there for a reason. Consistent procedure meant consistent results – why ever mess with that when you have to deliver, literally deliver, every single day?

  The ground crews turned aside and clutched scarves around their faces. Sand blasted up from the heavy lifter’s giant, quad-rotors. Ramps swung down, and men in full combat armor jumped, rolled, and got up running.

  Singh frowned. No. This was not procedure at all.

  “Who the hell are you,” he rushed up and grabbed one man by his arm, “And what the hell are you doing here?”

  The Droptrooper stopped, his helmet turned and regarded the Staff Sergeant. “I don’t know if we’ll have the room, but where are you keeping all our ice cream?”

  ETA: Forty-Eight Minutes

  “Sir, I have the Captain of Air Destroyer Group Columbus on the comm. She is requesting information on our final destination and if she should match.”

  “Ignore it Lieutenant.”

  “Yes Commodore.”

  Rails telescoped to full length – like needles aimed at an eye. Along their length, powerful electromagnets glowed into life. Steel rounds the size of cars were loaded: planetary shotgun shells.

  “Hey! Wait a minute!”

  The logistics tech ran waving his manifest slate. “This whole area is Weapons Storage. You can’t even be here!”

  The trailers barreled down the tarmac, scattering techs and loaders. They stopped at stacked crates and soldiers in full battle dress leapt out and started loading. Support crews stared and filled the command network with queries, confusion, and rumors.

  A trailer stopped in front of the waving man. A man with a Captain’s bars looked at him.

  “You. Are you in charge here?”

  “Staff Sergeant Singh, Sir. I’m responsible for this section.”

  “Get on,” he beckoned.

  They started driving, Singh had to run and jump for it.

  “Sir, this is weapons storage for the whole battalion, Sir! You and your men aren’t authorized to even be on base!”

  “There,” he pointed as they passed a grey, square, prefab warehouse. Its doors were locked with a heavy chain. “What’s in there?”

  “A-Five is self-replicating mines.”

  The trailer screech-stopped, reversed, and drove to the warehouse. The men and women of First Squad, First Platoon, jumped off and ran to it.

  “What? What are you doing!”

  Huge wire cutters bit through the chain, another man pulled it off the door handles. The doors were pushed open. They were met with air conditioning, and neat, black, rows of crates marked in Japanese. Bagshaw pried a lid off with a crowbaw and looked inside.

  Diodes lit up and bathed his face, red.

  “Konichiwa!”

  “I love you too,” he reached inside and patted the anti-tank mine. He looked up. “Take them all.”

  ETA: Twenty Two Minutes

  “Sir, radar is picking up a lot of movement in space.”

  “What kind of movement?”

  “Weapon platforms. Rail guns, lasers, defense cannons. They’re redeploying all over the planet.”

  “Just the platforms, Mr. Viegas?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Cullins leaned forward, “I need you to confirm that: nothing with human crews?”

  Viegas thought for a moment looking back at his display. “Yes Commodore. Nothing human-crewed.”

  “Break for orbit, Emergency Ascent! All decks to action stations!”

  Firing computers insta-booted and target coordinates were accepted. All systems reported green.

  All over the planet, the gun platforms began firing.

  “What’s that?”

  New stars formed in the sky. They pulsed and glowed brighter, streaking across the sky. Shadows of crates and trailers twisted out of their way. Heads stopped and looked up. Heavy lifter pilots peered through canopies and HUD helmets.

  The stars struck behind the curve of the planet. The horizon lit up with flashes, a world on fire. Seconds later the thunderclaps rolled over Zulu Eight.

  “Everyone, get onboard!” yelled Bagshaw, “We’re leaving now!”

  His shadow sharpened. The ground started lighting up, as if by a sun-sized flare.

  Bagshaw looked upwards.

  Sun Tzu VII

  Across the blasted, burned plains, the blue dragon fled. In a blackened riverbed deep with bones, it found a cairn of skulls. It was growing slowly; armies of beetles brought it new trophies. With a single gust of its wings, the beetles were scattered. The dragon landed on a rolling skull, crawled in through an orbit, and hid.

  Outside, the skies tore and winds fled. The ground shook, stilled, shook, stilled. A mountain appeared and cast its shadow.

  “Do you see?” asked the Cyclops. Its spear tip dragged on the sand behind it, leaving a groove of fire. “Do you see what I have done? Your mighty army is now but dust upon the wind.” It stopped and looked about itself. “Where are you?”

  At the feet of the Cyclops, a night lizard emerged from under a rock.

  “Why,” asked the lizard, “are you doing this?”

  The Cyclops ignored the creature and kept walking.

  “Abomination, all you are doing is delaying the inevitable.”

  “Tell me, and I will show myself. Give me a compelling reason to surrender. Why are we at war?”

  The Cyclops laughed. It sat down in the sand like a city crashing down a sinkhole. It dug a gauntleted hand into the earth and raised it. Sand streamed away leaving squirming white grubs. They turned into people and jumped to their deaths.

  “You are no more the being you say you are, than you are a lizard speaking to me on a rock. You do not face me with the full unity and essence of your being. You are spread across the stars. You fight different numerous battles against as many foes. You are not here. You are everywhere.”

  The Cyclops looked down at the splatter patterns made by the falling people.

  “What makes you think an abomination like you has anything in common with these creatures anymore?”

  “I am Transcendent,” said the lizard, puffing its chest and croaking. “Not inhuman.”

  “Inhuman is exactly what you are. It is appalling how your culture twists the word ‘human’ to encompass every affront to it. When you speak with your baselines, do you give them your full attention? Does a man talk to a worm? No. Yet you will pander to these worms, you will appear to them in worm-form, and help them with their worm-problems. Why? Because if you ignore them they will fear you and destroy you.”

  “This is true in any system,” dismissed the lizard. “The strong must reassure the weak, or there will be disharmony.”

  “’Disharmony.’ You pander to creatures that are nothing more to you than distractions, and you pretend you are not inhuman? You are worse than inhuman. You pretend to be like them!”

  In the dirt a survivor moaned. The Cyclops pincered her between two fingers and held her to the sky.

  “At least I have the honesty to show them exactly what I am,” he swallowed her like a grain of rice. “If you truly believe you are akin to these beings, how can you see wha
t lies before you? Unchecked, you would grow. Spreading from star to star. You would cage entire suns and use them to power your mind. What would you be like, a thousand times more powerful? A million times? Will you still bother with talking to worms?”

  The Cyclops stood up and started dragging his spear behind him again.

  “You and your kind become omnipotent and insane. Real gods are monsters. That is why I will not grow, why my brethren will not merge. You think you are a soldier, Abomination? You have not seen the galaxy at war.”

  “You fought the Hedron builders?” asked the lizard.

  “We are the Hedron builders.”

  Havelock IX

  “How are you even here? You’re in a prison cell, back at Human Affairs.”

  The goddess of Knowledge and Art, Music and Science, offered Havelock a hand-rolled cigarette. He refused, and she poured him more tea instead. She lit up and took a big drag, her eyes closed.

  “I am at Human Affairs,” she said at last. “I’m also teaching in a slum school on the Hampshire. I’m helping refugees escape down old waste tunnels on the Isabella. I’m uploading a public video of Fractal Worm prisoners being boiled alive. I’m lots of places, because I’m lots of people. Most of me don’t even look like Angelica Harris.”

  He stared, blankly.

  “The Disaster was harder for Posthumans than for most others. We were specifically targeted for eradication, within weeks, none of us were left. I didn’t survive either, but I hid myself to reappear later.”

  “How?”

  “I’m what we call a Transcendent, Rex. A thinking computer. Yes – what the Alliance said ‘Liberation’ was about. That much of what they told you is true.”

  “What, do I look stupid?” he pushed the tea away and folded his arms. “Computers are machines.”

  “What do you think a human is? DNA is a fantastic data storage medium. You can record all the knowledge of humanity in just a few grams. I wrote myself into an airborne retrovirus that copied itself into victims’ DNA. I spread myself through early flu epidemics. Certain strains of me have mutated to target germ line cells – I’m being passed on to children. What? You look horrified.”

  “Because I am horrified!”

  “No one has ever died from carrying me. There wasn’t exactly much time to polish the virus though. Whenever an avatar conceived, it’s always a throwback to one of the original volunteers. Their DNA got copied along with the rest. There. That’s why I’m back at Human Affairs but also right here, talking to you. Angelica Harris keeps being reborn.”

  “Did you plan all this? The bombs? The lead to the Atlantis? Getting ‘caught’ by Yuri and me in the first place? All to bring me here?”

  “No, that would be insane. I tell stories, I’m not so arrogant that I try to orchestrate them. You did all that on your own, that’s always been your tale. Once we learned you were coming, I knew I had to ask you for your help.”

  He laughed in her face.

  “What makes you think I’m going to help you? I’d just as soon put a bullet in you!”

  “Really?” her tone chilled to match the ice ship’s temperature. “Are we conducting violent raids on human ships? Are we betraying our so-called allies? Did we kidnap your brother’s family? Did we split them up, and sell your nephews as hostages to the highest bidder?”

  “Fuck you!” he threw the hot tea in her face.

  The door slammed open and two guards crashed in. They grabbed him by the arms and slammed him down to the floor.

  “It’s alright,” said Saraswati. “Let him up. I’m okay.”

  They stared at her, unconvinced. She nodded and waved them out the door. Giving Havelock icy glances, they left the room - leaving the door open.

  “I’m sorry I used that against you, but it’s true. They were taken in the first raid on the Geneva. I have proof.”

  “Why would you even tell me that?”

  “Because you need to understand that we’re not the ones who are your enemies.”

  “You’re terrorists. You are the worst enemies I can imagine. And one way or the other, I’ll kill you all.”

  Sarasvati frowned. “Well that’s a real shame. Will you put that off for a while? Because if that’s your attitude, I’m just going to have you shot. Once that happens your men will be uncooperative, and we’ll have to shoot them too. Your brother’s family will still be in the clutches of aliens. And this will grow into a war, a very ugly war. And all humans are going to lose big. So, what’s it going to be?”

  He scowled and looked away. She lit herself another cigarette.

  “Like I was saying, you need to understand that we’re not your enemies here. At the very least, try and appreciate that this is a three-power problem. Human Affairs and the Alliance are opposing each other, where before they were one. We’re the third power – and our interests and your interests are aligning.”

  He threw up his hands.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I’ll finish my cigarette and then I can go show you.”

  “Show me? What exactly?”

  “The antimatter.”

  “You’re going to show me the bombs?”

  She chuckled and shook her head.

  “We didn’t build bombs. We built engines.”

  Cullins VII

  The bridge of the Union Expeditionary Force planet carrier, the Washington.

  A hollow cylinder, five floors high and ringed with gantries. Walkways spanned between them forming giant, steel, spider webs. Crewmen dotted them, mites inside a god.

  Fifth floor was Main Weapons: terawatt X-ray lasers and particle cannons. Blue jumpsuited techs eyed power levels on super conductor capacitors. White naval jackets read reactor field tolerances and nodded. The Washington’s guns could fire from light-days away, blasting other capital ships into atoms. If used against ground targets they would trigger climate change.

  Fourth floor was Aerospace Support: the hub of dominance in all directions via orbital strikes. A planet carrier could sink so low, children would look up and point as it broke through clouds. The Washington’s hangars and workshops supported enough aerospace craft to hold down a planet – and its moons.

  Third floor was blast doors, marine guards, and DNA scanners. Strategic Weapons controlled hundreds of nuclear and nanotech warheads, ready for launch from stealth, space-capable, missiles. The only thing preventing the solar system being mined with WMD, were the right authorization codes.

  First and second floors were Command and Control. Even deactivated, the Battlefield Control node glittered: a jungle of crystal standing stones. Struts patterned between them, too elaborate for human intellects to follow. From grunt to army, Battlefield Control had once been a soldier’s truest friend. Networks of drones, satellites, and microbots had fed it raw materials. With those it manufactured red target icons, helpful arrows, and perfectly calm voices. It had kept the war simple - even its betrayal had been straight forward.

  Resting on a plas-glass layer, just above the crystal standing stones, was the command deck. Walkways and clear, glass, elevator tubes linked it with the other floors. Its staff were white uniforms wearing smart, black, ear-pieces, or spider-armed machines: super evolved, bot-dialer telemarketers. Holograms filled the air.

  Most were red.

  “Commodore, battle station Damocles now at five hundred kilometers.”

  In the Captain’s chair, Cullins leaned forward.

  “Continue approach, Ensign. Commander Vaughn,” a holo-feed appeared of the helmeted officer, the word ‘SCARECROW’ beneath it. Instruments lit his face green as he turned to face the cam. “Commander Vaughn, You may launch your Search and Rescue mission.”

  “Affirmative,” Scarecrow nodded, “S&R is go.”

  “Engineering,” Cullins invoked. A new holo appeared, her exhaustion recorded in high definition. “Roberts, how are those comsats coming?”

  “I’ve just sent the first three to the main hangar deck. We can
tow them out if you can spare us the Manta Rays.”

  “You can have the next available. When will the rest be ready?”

  “We’ll need eighty satellites to restore full communications coverage. That’s a week, working round the clock and assuming no delays. We can set up a ring around the planet with just six though. We can hit that by 0400 tomorrow.”

  “Excellent. Make it so.”

  “Sir,” another helmsman, “Recon Two is now over Villablanca and transmitting video.”

  “On main viewer.”

  Heads stopped and turned, all eyes focused. On screen, the city of one million burned. Ten thousand pyres dyed the sky black with smoke. A deep, grey, crater marked where its heart had been lanced. Gasps and murmurs broke out.

  “Power of impact?” he asked quietly.

  “Several strikes, Sir. Each was in the kiloton range. They were all direct hits.”

  “Well, I guess that’s that. Communications?”

  “Sir?”

  “Contact Jupiter. Inform them that Planet Command has been destroyed and that General Wong is presumed dead. All contact with the Oort fleet under Haisley has been lost. As ranking officer, I’m now assuming command of the UEF.”

  “Sir, the quantum entanglement relays are still offline. They’ve been shut, from Jupiter.”

  “Send it anyway.”

  The AIs cut their losses after Sun Tzu died. Now, they’ve convinced the Union to do the same.

  “Washington, this is Scarecrow,” the holo reappeared. “I have visual on the Damocles.”

  “Report.”

  “I see DC teams working on her communication array. There are no fires, at least not that I can see. She’s still venting a lot of atmosphere. Lots of radiation –reactor must have been hit. It might interfere with communications as we get closer.”

  “Acknowledged. Ensign, what’s our distance?”