He, the Home Fleet, Earth itself was in a terrible predicament. This wasn’t the time to get emotional or let himself rage. He had to think and then act in the right way. If he failed, Earth died. Billions died, and the Commonwealth would perish under this alien machine and later to the New Men with their infernal ideas of guided selection.
The Home Fleet was presently diminished, with ten priceless battleships far away in the outer system. What could he do with his part? Could he even defeat the doomsday machine with the entire Home Fleet intact? Few of his tactical officers believed it possible. That meant he certainly couldn’t defeat the fifty-kilometer vessel with only part of the Home Fleet. Under those conditions, he had listened to the pleading of the Jumpfighter Commodore from the experimental school on Titan.
“Let us show you what we can,” the commodore had said an hour ago.
“No,” Cook had told him. “I will not send pilots on a suicide mission.”
The commodore had laughed. “Are you kidding me, sir? The entire program is one giant suicide mission. We chose reckless fools as jumpfighter pilots for a reason. Their craft don’t have armor or shields for survival, but velocity, trickery and the ability to fold space.”
“Folded space? No, no, they’ll just sit around after jumping, stunned by Jump Lag for too long.”
“That’s why we have the Baxter-Locke shots, sir.”
“Which don’t always work,” Cook had said.
The commodore had glowered. “Sir—”
“No! We must all coordinate as one, the jumpfighters with the battleships with the heavy cruisers and destroyers. A mass assault will allow us the greatest opportunity for success.”
“Begging your pardon, Admiral, but we no longer have that luxury. If everyone bores into firing range against that thing, it will annihilate half to all the battleships at the very beginning of the fight. That way, even if we beat the death machine, we’ll lose to the New Men nine months later.”
“Damn it, man—”
“Admiral, you have to risk the jumpfighters now—or if you don’t like that, let me use half of them on a trial run. Let’s see if we can touch that big bastard.”
Cook had shaken his head. “Half measures are always worse than picking one way or another.”
“I don’t think that’s right today, sir. We’re talking about human survival. We’re going to have to take some terrible risks. Everything we’ve learned about the doomsday machine shows us that the antimatter torpedoes are our only hope.”
Cook had turned crimson with anger. “Jumpfighter pilots aren’t kamikazes, Commodore.”
“No, they’re not. But I will tell you what they are, sir. They are egotists, solipsists, a band of psychos that may just give us the edge we need to defeat this thing. If they didn’t have the experimental antimatter torpedoes, well, we do have them. That gives us a fighting chance. Begging your pardon, sir, but you don’t have any choice. Let my boys do their job to possibly save the Earth.”
“They’re our secret against the New Men.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore, sir. This is their hour, and you know it. The question is only whether we use half now or all now. Personally, I’d use half of them. Save the others for the death ride if the first wave fails.”
For a full minute, Cook had stared at the commodore. Feeling one hundred years older, the Lord High Admiral had finally nodded.
“I’m going to make one change to the operation, though,” Cook had said.
“Sir?”
“You’ll see. It’s something the tactical officers thought up. After watching the last two jumpfighters, well, maybe it will help.”
As Cook stood on the bridge of Flagship Bull Run in the here and now, he watched the final preparations taking place outside in space.
Three motherships disgorged the special group of jumpfighters. The tin cans congregated, the comm-chatter growing thick among them.
Cook’s nostrils flared. One hundred and seventeen jumpfighters were about to attempt the first mass fold-attack. Likely, the pilots were injecting themselves with the Baxter-Locke shots this very moment. Some of those brave men would undoubtedly die from the drug.
The Lord High Admiral began hardening his heart. Sending men to their deaths had always been hard for him. This was like the ancient battle during World War Two, the Battle of Britain. There, a few brave Spitfire pilots had taken on the German Luftwaffe, staving off defeat.
Could the experimental jumpfighters together with antimatter torpedoes stop the doomsday machine?
“Sir,” a comm-officer said. “The thermonuclear missiles are ready. The launch officers are waiting for your signal.”
This was it. Once he gave the word….
“Begin,” Cook said, in a voice that sounded far too much like the toll of Death.
***
Several large missiles with fold capability disappeared from view. They were set with Laumer-Point timers and big thermonuclear warheads.
Each missile appeared in the path of the doomsday machine. The closest was a kilometer from the hull, the farthest nineteen kilometers. Each timer clicked, and each thermonuclear warhead ignited.
Brilliant flashes of light, heat, billowing electromagnetic pulses and hard radiation flared outward.
None was meant to hurt the neutroium hull. They had gone ahead of the jumpfighters in order to blind the doomsday machine’s sensors. The warheads were supposed to give the jumpfighters an extra margin.
As the white flares died away, as the EMPs traveled toward the ancient machine, time passed. The officers coordinating the attack had timed this to the second. Finally, from a little beyond Luna, they pulsed the signals to the waiting jumpfighters.
One hundred and seventeen jumpfighters disappeared from near the three motherships. Folding space, one hundred and thirteen jumpfighters moved from a little beyond the Moon to past Mars’ orbital path in front of the doomsday machine. They made the journey faster than light could travel the distance, popping back into reality.
Four jumpfighters never reappeared in normal space. No one knew what had happened to them or where they had gone. In terms of the space battle, they no longer mattered.
One hundred and thirteen jumpfighters appeared, using their initial velocity. Ninety-nine of them began to jink. Fourteen of the pilots had negative Baxter-Locke reactions. Of those fourteen, seven died immediately. The rest were fated to die within six minutes.
If the doomsday machine had felt any bad reactions to the thermonuclear warheads, none of the pilots perceived it. Twenty plates slid aside on the planet-killer and cannons poked out of each one. They began to chug proximity shells.
At first, nothing happened. The shells had to fly out. Soon, though, jumpfighters began to explode.
The survivors jinked harder. Two-thirds armed their torpedoes and launched. The planet-killer’s targeting AI fixed on the hotly burning streaks. The next proximity shell salvos blew apart every one of them.
“This ain’t working,” Lieutenant Hawks radioed. “I’m folding right next to the bastard. Let’s see if he can stop that.”
Hawks’ jumpfighter disappeared, shells bursting where it had been. It reappeared five hundred meters from the hull. He launched the antimatter torpedo. Two seconds later, a proximity shell destroyed his fighter.
Then, the antimatter warhead struck the ancient hull and ignited. A terrific explosion shattered the integrity of the armor, blowing off neutroium pieces. Incredibly, it opened a breach. Alien atmosphere blew second after second into space. Something that glimmered sealed the hull thirty seconds later.
By that time, another antimatter torpedo ignited against the alien neutroium. It blew off a plate but failed to rupture the hull into the interior.
The rail-guns fired a blizzard of proximity shells. Amidst that, five more jumpfighters closed the distance, launching their torpedoes. Only two hit, blowing away more neutroium. The other three torpedoes disintegrated under the hail of proximity shells.
Then, the last jumpfighter near the doomsday machine died, more debris in space.
Twenty-three of the tin cans returned to their respective motherships. The rest would never come home, having sacrificed themselves in the hope of stopping Earth’s doom.
The giant planet-killer soon passed the last of the debris. It bore four wounds, but remorselessly continued for Earth just the same.
On Bull Run, Admiral Cook despaired. The Jumpfighter Commodore had other ideas, sitting down with his tactical heads to figure out how to make the next run more efficient.
***
Aboard Starship Victory, Galyan showed a close-up of the damage.
“I don’t believe this,” Valerie said. “The admiral actually wounded the ancient monster.”
“I am duly impressed,” Galyan said. “I did not think such a thing was possible.”
“It hasn’t stopped the planet-killer, though.”
“Indeed not,” Galyan said. “But I submit to you that now the admiral has a location to fire his beams. If he can target one of the four hull breaches, he can pour fire into the ancient killer and possibly chew up the insides.”
Valerie clapped her hands. “In other words, we have a fighting chance.”
“Correction,” the AI said. “Star Watch’s Home Fleet now has a miniscule chance of damaging the great machine. But that is better than none at all.”
“Let me ask you, Galyan. Now that Earth has a chance, as miniscule as it is, are you joining the fleet with a frontal assault?”
Galyan took his time answering. “The Lord High Admiral pulled off a miracle. Maybe there are more to come. Maybe faith has its place in the world of hard reality. I will most certainly join the assault to save my friends’ homeworld.”
Valerie nodded, excited by the success. She wondered, though, if the four antimatter torpedoes had hurt or helped Captain Maddox and the others inside the doomsday machine.
-41-
Meta stumbled after Kane and Oran Rva. She was exhausted, the sound of her panting reverberating in her helmet. She hated this place with its eerie walls, spongy deck and crystalline architecture. The interior of the doomsday machine didn’t feel like a technological device, but like an alien place filled with crystalline fungus. Normal fungus would be wet. These substances felt as if they didn’t belong to the same natural universe that Meta did.
I shouldn’t be here. It’s watching, waiting for me to weaken.
Meta hurried. She’d fallen behind again. The closer she was to Oran Rva, the less these feelings invaded her thoughts.
She passed spires and heaps of what looked like massed coral. Mechanisms whirred in the crystal and odd patterns of lights flickered in the coral like firing neurons in a brain.
The excess Gs weighed down her muscles. Meta wasn’t used to that anymore. Her chest was actually sore from breathing.
Finally, she came within the magic radius. Oran Rva held up a silver ball. Every so often, it pulsed, sending out flickering blue lines of radiance. The length of those lines had lessened. They used to flicker beyond the dim lighting into the shadows. Now, they didn’t go as far.
The New Man inspected the silver ball. “This is more draining than I thought it would be.”
What did that mean?
She tightened her grip on a spring-driven rifle, brought along expressly for the doomsday machine. It shot thumbnail-sized, razor-sharp metal cones, each magazine holding twenty rounds. There could hardly be a simpler weapon except for the knife at her side, perhaps.
A small part of the Rouen Colony assassin would have liked to aim the rifle at Oran Rva’s back and cut him down. A mental block kept her from lifting the weapon against him. Instead, she waited for the New Man to give his next order.
Just then, the deck shivered, and Meta stumbled, pressing a knee into the spongy substance. An eerie groan from the doomsday machine penetrated her helmet.
What was that? What had just happened? She hated those noises.
Oran Rva halted and looked up. The sound repeated three more times. Each time, Meta flinched, expecting something even more terrible to happen.
After a while, the groaning stopped. Finally, Oran Rva shrugged. Once more, he led the way. The New Man strode with purpose. Like them, he wore an armored vacc-suit.
They moved through a vast chamber. A dim, diffused light provided illumination. It seemed to come from the polygonal shapes on the walls. At random locations, huge pits glowed darkly, seeming to suck away light. Heat billowed from the pits. Some kind of force field must have kept the… What was the blackness, anti-energy? Something kept the heat from consuming them.
“Why is this place so strange?” Meta whispered to Kane via a shortwave helmet hookup.
The big man looked back at her. Kane’s eyes were wide and staring. Oran Rva had done something to Kane’s mind. Meta had begun to resent that.
“Halt,” Oran Rva said.
Meta looked up.
“My stressor is nearly drained,” the New Man said. “I must let it recharge a moment.” With a deft move, he clicked the silver ball and put it into something metallic in his pouch.
An unseen force seemed to rush in and push against Meta’s mind, causing greater unease. What did the commander’s stressor do? Why couldn’t he explain for once what was going on?
As if complying with her wish, the New Man said, “Many of the interior sequences are automatic.” He paused, perhaps rethinking his statement. “They’re more accurately called responses. I don’t know if the ship will release a defense now or come to inspect and analyze us with a monitor.”
Meta found herself trembling as the oppressive force made her eyelids heavy. How did the ship do that to her? What had the stressor done to combat it?
“Kane, Meta, ready your rifles.”
Meta stared at the New Man, marveling at his composure. Oran Rva glanced back at her. Through his visor, his lean features showed a placid, golden face, although the eyes were like inky fires. How could he remain so calm in the belly of the beast?
She determined to do likewise, refusing to let fear overcome her.
“Excellent,” the New Man said. “You show rare courage in a dreadful place. Clearly, you are superior to the cattle of Earth and a tribute to our initial breeding program.”
Odd croaking sounds floated through the air.
Oran Rva turned, staring into the chamber’s depths. “Something comes.”
Fear loomed in Meta. She ignored it, raising her rifle. Beside her, Kane did likewise with his.
“Look far into the darkness,” Oran Rva said.
Meta squinted. She didn’t see—wait. Her breathe escaped her. In the gloom were three glowing red dots in a small isosceles triangle. They seemed like eyes and were several meters off the deck.
“Do you see?” Oran Rva asked.
“Yes,” Meta said.
The New Man clicked on his helmet lamp. A beam speared into the darkness, falling onto a strange creature.
It had eight spindly legs like spikes that jabbed into the deck. Atop that was a wet carapace like a giant cockroach. It had five metallic spikes for arms. The spikes flowed like whips of living metal. An insect-like head regarded them. It did so with the glowing, triangle-positioned red dots. Below the eyes were clackers.
“What is that?” Meta whispered.
“It would appear to be part organic and part robot,” Oran Rva said in his maddeningly calm voice. “I would imagine the brains and bio-matter are tank-grown.”
Meta gave the New Man a horrified look. “Do you understand any of this?”
“Do not seek to question me,” the New Man said in a reproving voice.
“There are more,” Kane said dully.
Oran Rva washed his lamplight from side to side, revealing three of the creatures. They scuttled across the deck in swift, jerky movements.
“Kill them,” the New Man said. “Aim for the braincases.”
Meta tightened her jaw, sighted the first creature and pulled t
he trigger. A cone hissed through the alien atmosphere. The round missed, as the thing shifted its head impossibly fast.
Kane seemed to have similar bad luck.
“Three shots to judge its reactions,” Oran Rva said. “Use the fourth and fifth to kill.”
The calm voice did more than anything else could to belie the jitters. Meta shot, cataloging the way the creature dodged. How was it even possible for it to do so? Its reactions were quicker than she could blink.
She pulled the trigger in quick succession, laying down a pattern, watching, judging and finally firing in a place the head should weave into.
“Hit!” Meta shouted. To her dismay, the razor-sharp cone didn’t do anything to stop or even slow down the creature.
“They’re invulnerable to our cone rifles,” Kane said.
“No,” Oran Rva said, softly. “Keep firing. You’ll take them down.”
Meta saw that the creatures were close. Those spikes would jab her chest and end everything. She fired again, again, again until the rifle clicked empty. Frantically, she tore out the magazine and tried to slap in another. The magazine jammed, and she fumbled at it.
In her headphones, Oran Rva sighed. He lifted the silvery ball and must have pressed a stud. Blue lines of radiance flashed outward. In the New Man’s other hand was a blaster. Hot energy in a pencil-thin beam burned the first head.
Meta watched transfixed.
Oil, she swore it was oil, gushed out of the first creature’s neck trunk. The thing took several more spiky steps before it collapsed. In the meantime, the New Man burned off the other heads.
Each creature or robot collapsed onto the spongy deck. They froze in seconds as a machine would. An incredible volume of oil gushed out of them, soaking onto the spongy floor.
As Meta continued to observe, the oil began to disappear, draining somewhere. Did it go back into the ship or into oil reservoirs? Seeing this made her chest heave. She loathed this place more than ever.
“Will more…will more of the things appear?” she asked.
The Lost Destroyer (Lost Starship Series Book 3) Page 36
