Target: Earth (Extinction Wars Book 5)

by Vaughn Heppner

  The Police Proconsul shook his head.

  The Prime Minister turned to Briggs.

  The General nodded. “I’m for it. We have to fight.”

  I was gladder than ever I’d backed his silly idea of using subs.

  Diana glanced at Admiral Sparhawk.

  The old man frowned for a time, examining his hands. Finally, he faced the Prime Minster, “Fight,” he said. “We must exterminate the Plutonians before they exterminate us.”

  Diana seemed forlorn.

  “I’m glad we actually have the chance to win it all,” I said. “We’ll soon know how to make a dimensional portal. We know something about the terrain ahead. We know the enemy fleet’s approximate size and that they have the mother of all PDSs there. We have some tricks of our own, with three times the phase suits than before.”

  “Three altogether,” Diana said.

  “Like I said,” I told her, “three times as many.”

  “This is a mad gamble,” Diana said.

  “But it’s the only way that assures human survival over time,” I said.

  “I think you’re right,” Diana said. “Police Proconsul, will you stand by my decision?”

  Spencer paled, slowly rising to his feet. “Prime Minster, I regret to inform you that—”

  From where I sat, I detached my force blade from my hip, clicked it on and locked it into place, and threw hard and fast.

  Before Spencer could finish his traitorous speech, the force blade sizzled into his throat. He catapulted backward, hitting his chair and going down on the rug.

  At the same time, the doors flew open and red-suited security police covered us with their pistols. Spencer had clearly signaled them in some hidden way to make their move.

  A major of the security police noticed the Police Proconsul on the rug. He hurried to him and looked up in alarm—he’d withdrawn the knife and clicked it off so it powered down.

  “He’s dead,” the police major said.

  “On my orders,” Diana said into the shocked silence.

  “Your orders?” the major asked her.

  “Yes,” Diana said. “Please take him away in honor.” She turned to Briggs. “Summon your marines.”

  The General looked at the police major. The major hesitated, always a bad thing to do at a time like that. Then Briggs spoke into his wrist comm.

  The major looked at Diana once more, looked at me and then summoned some security people to carry the dead Police Proconsul outside.

  By that time, armored space marines entered the chamber.

  “You’re right, Creed,” Diana said. “It’s time for us to attack the Plutonians on their home ground.”

  -71-

  Earth Force went into high gear. Clearly, we dreaded another Holgotha-launched assault. Two hell-burners had done dreadful damage to the planet.

  Diana wisely and quietly nixed the submarine idea but went ahead with the torpedo possibility. Thus, torpedo-constructing factories churned around the clock. The battlejumpers took aboard more PDD missiles, torpedoes and graviton cannons where they lacked them.

  I fixed my AI and it gave us the data as Ifness had said it would. Constructing the giant dimensional portal was another matter. For various technical reasons, the workers and welders started construction a little beyond Mars.

  The days ticked away as people worked at a frantic pace.

  Saul grew increasingly anxious for Ifness, but there was little I could do about that yet. We were all working as hard as we could.

  Then, Holgotha reappeared near Earth.

  We’d been waiting for that. Silent drones roared toward the Forerunner artifact, leaving huge tails behind them, making them easily visible.

  To escape from the fast closing drones, Holgotha teleported onto the other side of Earth.

  Now, though, Earth Central was on high alert. An equally hot reception with more waiting drones pressed in hard against the appearing artifact.

  Huge missiles launched from Holgotha. It almost took too long for them to leave, though. Several drone warheads ignited, using aiming rods at the tip of the detonating warhead to direct gamma and x-rays at the artifact.

  One hell-burner exploded in orbital space, spewing radiation and a giant EMP in all directions.

  I was in the GEV, far from the action but straining to see past the momentary whiteout from the hell-burner. Finally, I saw what everyone else must have. Holgotha had teleported to a different location.

  We didn’t know it right away, but the artifact teleported near the half constructed dimensional portal way out by Mars.

  Naturally, Earth Force had war-gamed such a move. Waiting battlejumpers opened up with heavy graviton beams. The giant artifact didn’t have a chance to launch any hell-burners. It barely teleported away in time…for good, it turned out.

  “Jennifer has to know we’re coming,” Diana complained the next day in New Denver.

  I shrugged. I was still in my GEV, training with Rollo and N7 in the phase suits. “We do what we can,” I said over the comm.

  “Going to the pocket universe feels like a trap,” Diana said.

  “Jennifer has a lot of cards,” I said. “But in the end, she’s going to have to face our fleet.”

  “We’re going to have to face the Plutonian Home Fleet,” Diana said. “I still don’t understand why she doesn’t just wake up more Plutonians.”

  “Because she lacks enough control devices,” I said as patiently as I could. We’d been over this. “That would be the worst thing for Jennifer. She’d have a mass rebellion on her hands. She’d have to flee with Holgotha while she could.”

  “There’s something else,” Diana said. “It’s been bothering me for some time. If Jennifer is losing, she could just teleport far away into another part of the galaxy to start again.”

  “No plan is perfect,” I said. “You should remember, though, that according to Ifness, teleportation over there is harder than in our space-time continuum. Maybe Holgotha can’t get away as easily as that.”

  “Jennifer could wait ten years to hell-burn Earth in retaliation,” Diana said, apparently having heard nothing I’d said.

  “She’d have to stay hidden for ten years, then.”

  “How are you going to capture her, Creed?”

  “Leave that to me,” I said. “I don’t want to say over a comm, even a secure one.”

  “You have a plan?” Diana asked.

  “Absolutely I do,” I said, which was a lie. I was still thinking night and day, racking my mind for a way to capture Jennifer.

  “I want to believe you,” Diana said.

  “Good choice,” I said, knowing how important morale was in something like this. Others would take heart or not according to Diana’s feelings.

  On the screen, the Amazon Queen nodded moodily before signing off.

  I sped to Mars to inspect the dimensional portal. It didn’t look like much, huge struts floating in empty space. In some manner, though, this was going to help us get into the pocket universe.

  The Orange Tamika dreadnaughts of old had used black holes to transfer us into hyperspace. This portal had nothing like that. There were big power-units at the end of each space strut. Those would be energized through antimatter explosions. According to the chief technician, the units were still unstable. He wanted to ask my AI a few trouble-shooting questions.

  I gave him permission and escorted the lanky Scotsman to the AI. He asked questions I didn’t understand. The AI did, though, and answered each one. Finally, the chief technician thanked him.

  On the way out, he stopped and said, “Could I buy time to ask the AI more questions?”

  “Personal ones?” I asked.

  “Business questions,” he said.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll pay billions,” the chief technician said. “The AI could revolutionize our technology.”

  I nodded noncommittally.

  The man departed, and the work sped up on the dimensional-p
ortal power sources.

  Two and half weeks after the strategy session, the great armada of Earth was almost ready to make a stab into the pocket universe.

  We had too few battlejumpers. That seemed clear. Earth Force had sixty-three of them packed with PDD missiles, torpedoes and 1,432 fighters and bombers. I don’t mean converted jet fighters, although the military people had debated the idea. If gas or an atmosphere of sorts filled the pocket universe, maybe masses of converted jet fighters would work. That was a big if, however. So, all the “planes” were regular space fighters and bombers.

  Given our fleet and the nature of our enemy, we were gambling big time.

  Could three phase suits change the tide of battle? The three of us would attempt to storm the giant PDS while the warships fought each other. Four hundred and twelve assault troopers would be on call in waiting assault boats to help us.

  In some ways, this reminded me of the Jelk Corporation attack against the Lokhar PDS in the Sigma Draconis System. That had been a long time ago, and now we appeared to have come full circle. We’d had a lot more assault troopers in those days, although we hadn’t had any phase suits.

  The big day finally arrived. Earth Force moved en masse toward Mars and the still untested dimensional portal. We’d decided the first test would be the entire fleet making its move. It might be the stupidest thing we’d done, or it could give us a small surprise advantage.

  Yes, Jennifer had to know we were coming. Holgotha had seen the incipient portal. But Jennifer didn’t know the exact day we would come through. We’d been watching for Holgotha to appear in the far distance and had never spotted the artifact trying to spy on us, so that was something.

  The last change concerned the Starkien Fleet. Diana’s worries had grown over time, not lessened. The Prime Minister had become insistent that we should still heavily defend humanity’s homeworld. Thus, the baboons would stay behind to protect Earth. That would mean far fewer ships in the pocket universe, but I agreed that it helped to know that Earth would be here if we succeeded.

  If we failed—

  No, failure wasn’t an option.

  -72-

  The invasion fleet moved serenely past Mars, heading toward the giant struts in space. There was a lot of space between the struts that had been joined in a vast circle.

  I was in the GEV, inside a vast hangar bay in a battlejumper. There were old-style assault boats for my troopers, all five hundred and twenty-two of them. During the last few days, a few more troopers had reported for duty with working second skins.

  Ella commanded our battlejumper, named the Demetrius. Rollo would have taken command, but I needed him as a phase-suit specialist.

  N7, Rollo and I were all inside the GEV. We had no plans to depart unless we did so in the phase suits.

  It was funny, the assault troopers and I were such a tiny part of the entire fleet. We weren’t even enough to call us the spear-tip. We might be the very tiny point of the spear-tip. Yet, if Earth Force were going to win this battle, it would likely be up to us in some fashion.

  How was that for being elite?

  I knew that feeling well as the Galactic Effectuator. Now, it was time to pull out all the stops regarding my trade.

  Admiral Sparhawk commanded the fleet. General Briggs had political authority as granted by the Prime Minister. The police were noticeably absent, as no red-suited security people were anywhere in attendance on the battlejumpers.

  From his flagship, the Admiral gave the order.

  I sat before my main GEV sensor board, watching the proceedings by means of center-galaxy-level tech.

  The antimatter energizers activated. I actually saw them shake. Seconds later, a red glow emanated from them. That glow climbed along the long struts. Soon, all the struts glowed red and shook. The space between the struts started to swirl and change color.

  “Ominous,” N7 said. The android stood behind me, watching over my shoulder.

  “Challenging,” I countered.

  “I have never liked traveling from one dimension to another,” N7 said. “The possibility for trouble intensifies exponentially.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “You cannot mean to state that you are enjoying this.”

  I swiveled around. “Are you kidding me? This is an adventure. This is why we’re alive, to do new things.”

  “I challenge your basic assumption,” N7 said.

  “Save it,” I said, swiveling back to the sensor screen.

  The power units glowed with a deeper red color. They shook more than seemed possible without breaking apart. The struts shook and glowed. The swirling between the struts worsened and the space turned an orange color.

  The first battlejumper of the fleet entered that mass. The others followed. We were doing it.

  Maybe this was a gigantic trick of Jennifer’s devising. Ifness was actually fine and Saul would teleport away, laughing as he went. Earth Force would disappear in some tragic accident, and nothing would stop Jennifer from her awful quest of human extinction.

  And yet, that couldn’t be the case. I was the reason. If the fleet died, I died. And one thing I knew: Jennifer wanted to torment me for as long as she could. That would be Abaddon’s long reach from the grave, against me.

  “I’m going to finish this once and for all,” I muttered.

  “What was that?” N7 asked.

  “I’m going to finish this,” I said. “I’m going to rescue Jennifer from Abaddon’s evil and put a stop to this genocidal romp.”

  “You truly have grandiose dreams, Commander. I have missed your megalomania. It is refreshing in its difference.”

  “You’re welcome,” I muttered, wondering if N7 should go somewhere else for a while.

  The swirling colors encompassed more of the fleet. It was our turn now as Ella ordered the Demetrius to follow the others.

  N7 cocked his head. “Do you hear that?”

  “You can hear noise from the portal?”

  “I think I do.”

  “What’s it sound like?” I asked.

  “An ethereal whine,” the android said. “It is almost beautiful. It has harmony and…”

  “And what?” I asked.

  N7 said nothing.

  I turned around. The android had frozen like a statue. What could have caused that? For a second, I wondered again if this was another of Jennifer’s secret plots.

  Then I heard a heavenly sound. It was ethereal, and eerie all at once. Sound could not travel in space, so how was this happening? It must have something to do with the dimensional portal. The sound increased. I had to force myself to breathe because I listened enraptured to the sound.

  Suddenly, it seemed as if a thousand violins joined in with an awful Charlie Daniels’ screech. Don’t get me wrong. I liked Charlie Daniels CDs. But there was one about Georgia that had a special sound.

  I clapped my hands over my ears, but it didn’t make any difference. The sound grew. I opened my mouth to help ease the pain in my ears. The sound became a bedlam of scratchy, devilish noises as if we’d opened a gateway into Hell.

  Maybe we had.

  Abruptly, the noise ceased. I looked at the screen. It was blood red with swirling black colors. The swirls went faster and faster and suddenly, everything seemed to tear open. Streaks of bright light lengthened and there was a terrible sense of movement. It seemed as if our ship hurtled through time and space across a vast gulf of nonexistence or other nebulous realms. I made gobbling sounds. The speed increased, and we hurtled through places, realms, realities that stunned my senses. Had we not calibrated the dimensional portal correctly? I had an awful sensation of falling into the depths of an evil abyss.

  And then—

  I felt as if I was caught in a terrible time loop that would repeat over and over again. Someone had to stop this. Someone—

  I felt like a kid on the greatest roller-coaster ride ever invented. We sped along in the car, and we stopped on a dime with bone-jarring suddenness.


  My head went forward, cracking against the console. That hurt like the dickens. I rubbed my forehead and squeezed my eyes closed.

  Wait a minute.

  I opened my eyes, and I couldn’t believe it…

  -73-

  We’d made it—we’d reached somewhere, anyway, that wasn’t our space-time continuum. A great murky “sea” of gases spread out in all directions. A diffuse light glowed strongest in one direction.

  That must have been where the pocket universe’s star shined.

  The gases were mainly purplish with orange streaks drifting like fog. It was like a Halloween universe.

  What a truly dreadful feeling. We were in a place utterly new to humans.

  Battlejumper captains began passing shortwave messages to each other. Like a hesitant school of tuna, we turned away from the brightest area and moved toward the darker region.

  That had a sinister feeling all its own.

  I shook my head and flexed my fingers, starting to run analyses of the outer gas. It was five percent helium, thirty-four percent hydrogen and one percent water vapor, ammonia, nitrogen and other gases. The other sixty percent was an alien gas with unknown properties. Was it flammable in some way? Did it dampen certain explosions? We didn’t know.

  More than ever, I believed the old conquering First Ones have given the defeated, “sleeping” Plutonians their own kind of realm. The First Ones had shown mercy for reasons I could not fathom. Why cause the enemy to sleep for centuries, maybe even for eons, in their own home-style realm?

  It made no sense.

  I shrugged, remembering N7.

  I swiveled around. N7 blinked slowly as if coming out of deep freeze.

  “You feel okay?” I asked.

  The android looked at me. “I feel…strange,” he said.

  “We’re here.”

  “I see that on the screen.”

  “Any…comments?” I asked.

  “Give me time.”

  I turned back to the screen and listened to comm chatter.

  The fleet assumed traveling formation, sending out small probes, testing how far they could send transmissions.